If you’d like to see what my head looks like on a platter, you might try to reconstruct1 the happenings on Twitter last week when I naively noted: “Sorry, but it seems strange to call an unconfirmed rumor one of the ‘Top 5 beer stories’” of the year’” along with this link. Because this was [...]

Quick. Name three brands that have driven national awareness of craft1 beer. Given that Boston Beer Co., Sierra Nevada Brewing and New Belgium Brewing emerged as the Craft Big Three credit must go to Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and New Belgium Fat Tire. But these aren’t the brands leading growth for [...]

RIP, Beermapping Project Great American Beer Festival Fantasy Draught. Jonathan Surratt has come to his senses and let the crazy-to-administrate beast ride into the sunset after four fun-filled years. But a new game has arrived to fill the void, the FBAG 2011 Brewery Pick’em Contest. So put down that beer judging glass, Jay Brooks, and [...]

OK, it makes a nice headline: “8 beers Americans no longer drink.” Problem is the first example is Budweiser. Yes, sales shrunk 30 percent in five years, and that amounts to 7 million barrels (at 31 gallons a barrel) lost. But A-B InBev still sold 18 million barrels of Bud. So it’s not like nobody [...]

Sales of IPA (known as India Pale Ale in some parts, but quite often simply called I-P-A) in the United States surpassed those of Pale Ale for the first time this year, according Symphony IRI. The data is primarily for packaged goods sold in supermarkets, convenience stores and big box stores but there’s no reason [...]

It’s been several years since Russian River Brewing co-founder Vinnie Cilurzo introduced the notion of “Lupulin Shift” and, in fact, he was talking about graduating from very hoppy beers to still hoppier ones. I thought of this today as I was catching up on my reading, in this case an interview with Ken Grossman of [...]

The folks at Wikio sent me their latest beer blogging rankings to preview for you, so this seems like a good time to throw together a bunch of stuff about beer blogging and tweeting before getting back to beer and topics more aligned with the alleged mission here. First, Wikio.* I’ve included the previous month’s [...]

Some people will actually tell you they hate New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale. It’s complicated, and I really just want to pass along a few numbers, so I’ll simply says it seems silly to me, but it’s their energy. Fact is that as New Belgium drives deeper into the East Coast this year it [...]

The Big Four of Big Beer worldwide — Anheuser-Busch InBev, SABMiller, Carlsberg and Heineken — sell 50 percent of the beer. As recently as the 1990s they had only a 20 share. But here’s the really interesting number, which Benj Steinman of Craft Beers News/BMI provided during the craft brewery conference: They earn 77 percent [...]

Jay tagged me, but I must — as in all things — blame Alan. The background: Dave Turley tagged Jay Brooks in the “7 Things You May Not Know About Me” meme. He bit. Now I’m supposed to tell you seven things you don’t know about me and then tag fifteen other people. Well, so [...]