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 [...]

I really shouldn’t admit how fascinating I find most of the numbers Ron Pattinson assembles. The particular series that has me on the edge of my seat right now are the posts like these: assessing beer quality and Barclay Perkins Porter and Stout quality in the 1920′s. These provide some hint if quality was a [...]

I was first exposed to the concept of Lupulin Threshold Shift* when Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing and Matt Brynildson of Firestone Walker collaborated on an online presentation, about hops of course, for Brewers Association members. I’ve since seen it on Russian River apparel and heard real live human beings use the words “Lupulin [...]

Seattle deserves to be in any discussion about the nation’s best beer drinking cities, but we’re not going there again. Our recent brief stay in the region wasn’t about beer — in stark contrast, for instance, to 1995 when we visited dozens of places while working on the “The Beer Lovers Guide,” sometimes feeling frantic [...]

Peek behind the curtain and you’ll see Terminal Gravity Brewing in Northeast Oregon is bursting at its micro-seems, but you aren’t required to look. The pleasure here is, well, right here. Every seat inside the pub-restaurant was taken within half an hour after it opened Saturday, although that only amounted to about two score customers. [...]

A few links to get you to Happy Hour. – The first is to my own post about Flying Dog Kerberos, because it’s a tripel and those are the sorts of beers Brew Like a Monk is about. Flying Dog recently shipped bloggers a package with the new beer plus others in the Canis Major [...]

Doesn’t look the message to wait until July of 1969 is going to be a problem . . . The time has come to open the 1968 bottle of Thomas Hardy’s Ale. Daria gave me this bottle for Christmas more than six years ago, and the immediate question was what to do with it. It’s [...]

To jump start your brain this morning: Two beer posts and a wine link that provoked one of the posts. Stephen Beaumont on Great Beer vs. Popular Beer. The number one beer in the United States, for example, is Bud Light, a pale lager with, frankly, some complexity of character, but a flavour profile so [...]

Let’s start with what the brewer has to say: Matt Brophy of Flying Dog Ales talks about the intent behind the seasonal Garde Dog, as well as the way it tastes to him. Please notice that near the end he says, “We put our own spin on it.” Not to duck Christopher’s call for less [...]

So would you pair Palo Santo Marron (shortened to Palo Santo for the rest of this post), the latest release from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, with popcorn? Probably not, but it is tempting simply because the beer comes with a movie. Dogfish Head has enclosed “Take Time” with the first 10,000 four-packs of Palo Santo [...]