Wait, did you hear that
Oh this is sure stirring up some ghosts for me
She said “There’s one thing you’ve got to learn
Is not to be afraid of it.”
I said “No, I like it, I like it, it’s good.”
She said “You like it now
But you’ll learn to love it later.”
  - Robbie Robertson, Somewhere Down The Crazy [...]

Sometimes we are our own context, meaning what you bring to a glass of beer influences what you take from it.
Rick Lyke writes about a 7-year-old bottle of Schlenkerla Urbock, his daily drink Monday, that opened with a big smoked ham nose. A fellow taster from Wisconsin taster said it was like smoked sturgeon.
Drinkers in [...]

The current (February 15 & 22) of The New Yorker magazine includes an article by Malcom Gladwell called “Drinking Games” that tackles a bit of drinking and culture. Unfortunately it’s not one the magazine chose to make free online, but you can read the abstract here.
Hey, it’s The New Yorker and Gladwell, so ideas all [...]

Polish homebrewers established the Polish homebrewers’ association (Polskie Stowarzyszenie Piwowarow Domowych) last week and made this wonderful video (with subtitles).
Thanks to I might have a glass of beer for spotting this.

Exhibit A
Porter City Tavern in Raleigh will now serve only North Carolina beers on tap (tip of the hat to Geistbear).
Exhibit B
Artisinal Imports current newsletter makes a case for diversity. In case the link quits working or you don’t want to take the time, a few highlights:
“In Minneapolis there has been a lemming-like migration toward [...]

This is my contribution to Session #36: Cask-conditioned ale that involves actual drinking of beer. Host Tom Cizauskas has the recap (plus plenty himself). I also wrote a little about cask ale in U.S. 15 or so years ago and posted an additional story (from 1997) in The Library.
This seems like a good Valentine’s Day [...]

It’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting down to write my contribution to The Session #36: Cask-Conditioned Ale. I’m running behind because I just spent the last hour or so reading all the contributions host Tom Cizauskas solicited. Really wonderful and worth your time.
I particularly like Steve Hamburg’s recollections from the early, then later, days of [...]

Not long after Dan Carey of New Glarus Brewing returned from a trip to Germany in 1997 during which he was able to buy a beautiful copper clad brewing system because consolidation squeezed some breweries out of business he made an interesting observation.
He suggested that perhaps the United States was simply ahead of the curve [...]

Robin Goldstein, already adept at raising a ruckus in the wine world, has turned his attention to beer.
The Amazon.com description of The Beer Trials, due in April, promises: “With brutally honest ratings and reviews of the 250 most popular beers in the world – both in bottle and on draft – The Beer Trials will [...]

Jean-Marie Rock began brewing beer professionally in 1972. For the last 25 years he’s been in charge of the Orval Trappist monastery brewery. He understands brewing cred. Celebrity? Another matter.
He’s been to Kansas City twice recently. Posing for pictures, signing empty beer bottles, he found out quickly he wasn’t in Belgium any more.
“The biggest change [...]