This morning I received an e-mail newsletter from Natalie MacLean, a wine writer whose work I like enough that I subscribed to the newsletter (and have a link to her site under wine sites to read).
This time I got a silly diatribe about beer and wine that invited comment. It read like one of those […]

New research into Britain’s drinking habits finds “Beer is the drink of style and sophistication.”
We might as well get the grain-of-salt stuff out of the way first. This research was commissioned by the British Guild of Beer Writers, who have good reason to suggest that newspapers run more stories about beer. And Pete Brown, author […]

The things you learn reading the Wine Enthusiast Online: Sommelier Marnie Old and Dogfish Head Brewery founder Sam Calagione are writing a book called He Said Beer, She Said Wine. It’s due in the spring of 2008.
Calagione (pictured here in plaid; that’s Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing with him, not Old - and that’s […]

One of the categories here is Beer & Wine. That’s not Beer versus Wine.
Jennifer Jordan would seem to disagree. She has written a stupid, and offensive to many, piece titled “Climbing the Liquor Ladder: Going from Beer to Wine.” What’s amazing is how many beer drinkers joined the conversation (which is what blogs are about).
Jay […]

Do you feel this way about your beer?
The New York Times (free registration) has a story today about Park B. Smith, one of the world’s great wine collectors. His cellar covers 8,000 square feet and holds more than 65,000 bottles (half of them magnums). It has a full kitchen, bath and living room.
This question […]

Stephen Beaumont takes the Globe and Mail for its lack of, well, tasting notes in its “tasting notes.” He’s put off by the lack of meaningful descriptors.
That Beer Tastes Like What?, he asks at World of Beer. Cutting to the chase: “It would be helpful if on occasion the words printed had at least a […]

Gee, I wish I’d thought of this idea.
The February issue of Food & Wine magazine has an article telling you how to “Become a Wine Expert in 28 Days.”
Stephen Beaumont saw this and did the math:
Just for fun, I added up the month’s wine costs and found that, not including the Sonoma wine-country weekend […]

And so it has been written many times: Beer drinkers don’t spit.
As opposed to wine tasters.
Michael Steinberger of Slate provides a primer on “How to spit with the wine pros” that should make you happy to be a beer drinker.
There’s more to it than you might think, and maybe want to know, but this is […]

The International Herald Tribune writes Some beers really do get better with age.
Nasser Eftekhari, owner of Beer Mania in Brussels, makes a good point: “Beer isn’t better after a few years, but different.”
Sometimes it is better, which is why we mess around with cellaring beer. (See the previous post and be sure to read Stephen […]

Don’t you think the discovery of truly vintage beers at Burton-on-Trent - one of the world’s most famous brewing centers - is a bit more exciting than when some Califronia hikes found a few 50-year-old cans of Coors?
Here’s how beer authority Mark Dorber described what he tasted of the UK beers:
“It’s amazing that beers […]