A couple of years ago Boston Beer founder Jim Koch was talking about innovative beers. “. . .(A) product has to be truly superior and good on its own,” he said, later adding, “We’re not trying to make a pet rock of beer, but new styles that are cherished 100 years from now.” He made [...]

Jay Brooks has made his pick for our third round of Friday beer blogging. The theme is “Mysterious Misunderstood Mild.” He picked it to coincide with CAMRA’s May promotion, Mild Month, writing: “Saturday the 5th will also be National Mild Day on the other side of the pond. For those of us here in the [...]

There’s little doubt that the Traquair House brewery has to qualify as a good home. It’s located in Scotland’s oldest inhabited castle and celebrating its 900th anniversary this year. It truly is a home brewery. The original brewery operated in the 18th century, producing beer for the house and estate workers. It sat idle from [...]

(This is my contribution to our monthly Session. Alan McLeod will be recapping them all.) One Sunday last May, Ted Rice lifted a glass of beer homebrewed in the spirit of a Belgian dubbel. “That’s the aroma I’m looking for,” he said, putting it to his nose. This was literally one of the first batches [...]

Following up on Stephen Beaumont’s lament on “me too” pubs. John Foyston (Warning: reading a blog about the Portland, Ore., beer scene may leave you severely depressed unless you live in Portland) reports that long beer journalist- publican-brewer Jim Parker and brewer Lorren Lancaster are opening a new brewpub called the Green Dragon Ale House [...]

Salt sommelier? Water sommelier? These job descriptions make beer sommelier seem like less of a stretch, don’t you think? The Los Angeles Times has a story about how the food business is booming, “and with it, there’s a boom in jobs you’ve never heard of.” Consider the specialty Christina Perozzi has carved out for herself. [...]

Speaking of building a better beer culture . . . Stephen Beaumont rails against “Me, too” beer lists. Close your eyes and think of the bar at your local faux Irish pub and I bet you’ll see the same beers: Guinness, Harp, Kilkenny, Alexander Keith’s, Carlsberg, Stella… (Here I refer to the standard Canadian selection. [...]

Catching up after 10 days offline (and often off the grid), I see that Eric Asimov of the New York Times devoted his column Wednesday to Overcoming a Frat Party Reputation (free registration), an even-handed look at modern day beer culture. He framed the story by venturing to Boston to share beers with Todd and [...]