Widmer Brothers Rob and Kurt celebrate their 25th anniversary in business on Thursday. If you are going to be in Portland (Oregon, but you knew that, right?) that means you can stop by their Gasthaus and drink $1.50 pints. If you’re not there are still plenty of reasons to raise your glass in their direction. [...]

Got to keep this short. I can tell you the Harry S Truman presidential library is outstanding, that I’m looking forward to learning all about Boulevard Brewing’s many wheat beers tomorrow morning, and that after that we’ll head off for Norman, Oklahoma, in a dead sprint. Because Wednesday we’re touring the National Weather Center. Cool, [...]

I hope this isn’t a mistake. The debate about whether “extreme beers” are good, bad or something between has been rehashed enough here and elsewhere. And when Pete Brown asked for reader input and suggested he might use those comments in a story he caught a certain amount of grief in the beer blogosphere. But [...]

Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken? Please leave your answer as a comment. Given recent comments, not just here but from Alan and others, I thought a picture of beer “on sale” might be interesting. You’ll have to decide if you consider $1.50 a deal for a half-liter of [...]

I think this and this are related. Bravado is seldom becoming. If you prefer to know more before you click the second is a brilliant post from Ron Pattinson about brewing innovation. (For the record, I don’t think innovation necessarily trumps tradition.) Meanwhile . . . please, please don’t feel the need to go vote [...]

It seems that beer is no casual acquaintance of people who read this blog. So were I to conduct a poll — say how much money you send on beer — the results likely wouldn’t necessarily reflect the buying habits of the “average” beer drinker or even the casual “craft beer” drinker. So it’s interesting [...]

A bit of culture shock for Daria on Saturday. We stopped at Parti-Pak Discount Liquors in Indianapolis, mostly to see what sort of beers make their way into Indiana and what they cost. Heard a guy behind the counter say they stocked 2,100 beers and that is easy to believe. Rather complete lines of plenty [...]

While others were watching their brackets get busted in overtime Friday evening I was reading “Six Thousand Year of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History.” Why? Because a book about brewing with wheat should include the role wheat has played in various cultures where people drink beer. It’s not exactly light reading, so maybe I [...]

At the end of the Preface to “Tasting Beer,” right before you head to Page One, there’s a picture of a glass of beer with a command: “Don’t even consider starting this book without a beer in hand.” Since you have the book in the other hand you probably aren’t going to ask yourself if, [...]

As promised yesterday, some things to think about when we are talking local. You won’t see the word beer, but that doesn’t mean the lessons aren’t relevant. First, this comes from a conversation back in Sitka, Alaska, last summer. A local (of course) and I began talking in a locally owned coffee shop and finished [...]