Remains of the day, or thoughts that probably aren’t worth a post of their own: – What’s going on with the agricultural ingredients for our beers, barley and hops. This is worth its own lengthy post, but until there’s time for that consider these links. We are talking concerns about quality and certainly higher prices [...]

Back for a second time, Samuel Adams Hallertau Imperial Pilsner remains a beautiful — if big at 8.8% abv and 110 IBU — tribute to the Hallertau Mittelfrueh hop. Or Mittlefrüher as it is spelled in the Halltetauer region of Bavaria. Lew Bryson already provoked a long enough discussion about calling it imperial pilsner, inspiring [...]

No excuses. Be somewhere Sept. 30 to toast the life and work of Michael Jackson. Make a donation to the National Parkinson Foundation. The Beer Hunter website has all the information. If your local pub doesn’t have plans, doesn’t know about it then get involved and get a pub involved. The site has posters, information [...]

Monday I wrote about the new Cicerone Certification Program designed to better educate people selling and serving beer. But what about beer drinkers? Mostly notably all those novice beer drinkers headed off for a higher education that often includes a fair amount of learning about of beer? (OK, I’ll not be totally naive and think [...]

Can he walk the walk? He certainly can talk the talk. Listen to this from Matt Allyn, brewer of the Voodoo Brewery in Meadville, Pa., in a story from Bob Batz of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “I never want to feel compelled to make more beer than I can personally touch.” And . . . “We [...]

A tasting note you couldn’t make up: “It’s a sweet lager, with a warm citrus flavor reminiscent of an India pale ale, but without an ale’s added gravity.” And this tells me what? Taken from a story about Half Acre Beer in Chicago. The headline refers to it as a “local brew” but it is [...]

Fall is in the air. The mornings are crisper, roll down your window as you pass the Fruit Basket on Fourth Street and you can smell green chiles roasting, RVs are already parked around Balloon Fiesta Park . . . and the Men’s Journal fourth annual guide to “The World’s Best Beers” is out. All [...]

Captain Hops of Beer Haiku Daily has made the call for Session #8 and it’s “Beer and Food.” No, you don’t have to include a haiku. And, yes, just yesterday I commented this beer and food thing was gaining traction. I am looking for posts about pairing beer with food or using beer as an [...]

Is this beer and food thing gaining a little momentum or is it my imagination? – Otter Creek Brewing will continue to host its weekly local cheese and beer pairings each Friday through October as part of the brewery’s “Local foods meet Local Brews” events. The free beer and cheese pairings, which include eight different [...]

Yesterday’s beer word of the day was lactobacillus (as in those gross beer lines in Milwaukee). Today’s is Cicerone. And the two are related. I was going to wait a few weeks before writing about the Cicerone Certification Program Ray Daniels is launching. But in the wake of the Milwaukee story, and comments that followed [...]