On July 9 Luke Nicholas put two casks of Armageddon IPA on a New Zealand ferry, sending them on a journey that would last six weeks, 126 trips back and forth across the Cook Strait. Colin Mallon, manager of Wellington specialist beer bar The Malthouse, and Nicholas, owner and brewer of Epic Beer, hit upon [...]

Niche within a niche within a niche. Fantasy Great American Beer Festival “team.” So I’ll be brief. Through the generosity of Jonathan Surratt, the genius behind The Beer Mapping Project, we once again get the Beer Mapping Fantasy Draught. I tied for third in 2007, missed last year (we were in Switzerland). I sure was [...]

Are you going to be at the Great American Beer Festival next week? If so please stop by the GABF Bookstore on Thursday (6:30-7:30 p.m.) or Friday (6:30-7 p.m.) and say hello. If you are carrying around a copy of Brew Like a Monk, or for that matter Frank Applegate of Santa Fe, I’ll be [...]

Tom Cizauskas does a fair amount of rehashing in ongoing discussion of “what’s craft beer?” that I’m promising myself I won’t get involved in today, but at the very end manages to put into words one of those hard to verbalize youknowitwhenyouseeit things. It’s the joy of the beer itself (and the joy of brewing [...]

BetterBeerBlog has the roundup for Session #31: “Best Summer Beer” and Girl Like Beer announced the topic of No. 32 (Oct. 2): Eastern Beers. I would like you to pick your favorite beer made east form your hometown but east enough that it is already in a different country. It can be from the closest [...]

I’m writing about Stone Vertical Epic Ale 09.09.09 because the brewery sent me a bottle. That doesn’t mean I’ll blog about the next beer that shows up at my doorstep, or even that we’ll drink it. (At 8.9% abv and in a 22-ounce bottle this is definitely a “we” beer.) If it were just kind [...]

There’s talk on the street, it’s there to Remind you, it doesn’t really matter which side you’re on. You’re walking away and they’re talking behind you They will never forget you ’til somebody new comes along Where you been lately? There’s a new kid in town Everybody loves him, don’t they? Now he’s holding her, [...]

A fine job in the Philadelphia City Paper of explaining why bars raised the price of Chimay White. Blame the weak dollar, among other things. Although the story is very well done, it contains one line that gets repeated too often: “the Trappist monks who oversee Chimay do not produce and sell beer for profit.” [...]

Where did the summer go? Another Session tomorrow (Friday) and the theme is “summer beers.” Peter Estanial, of the Better Beer Blog, plays host and has the details. With the summer coming to a close, what was your favorite beer of the summer? It doesn’t even have to be from this summer. Is it a [...]

Your fun beer fact of the day: Data indicate that only 6 percent of U.S. beer drinkers consume both Budweiser and Bud Light. (From Sports Business Journal via Lager Heads.)