Oops, I missed the anniversary on this by a bit. It was thirty years ago on June 12 that New York Times wine writer Frank Prial penned a full-length and very complimentary feature on Jack McAuliffe and his New Albion brewery. You have to pay to download a pdf version of the article, but it’s [...]

People who are predisposed to spend $95 to attend a beer and food festival say “high quality” is their main priority when purchasing beer, as opposed to low price or brand recognition.
Is this news?
Here are excerpts from the Brewers Association press release:

On Saturday, May 30, over 1,900 attendees enjoyed craft beer and food pairings from [...]

A really interesting discussion between Mario at Brewed For Thought and Pete from BetterBeerBlog about paying $43 for the Mayfield Iconoclast beers at Whole Foods. (I think, I hope, this is the price of a 750ml bottle.) Go read it all.
I’m too distracted to jump into this other than to suggest . . .
Chatter [...]

This is my contribution to The Session: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, hosted by Lew Bryson. Check out his blog for links to other posts and the recap.
Last night we sampled a variety of smoked meat at Cooper’s Old Time Pit Barbecue in Llano, Texas. What makes barbecue different in Llano is that pitmasters [...]

Got to keep this short. I can tell you the Harry S Truman presidential library is outstanding, that I’m looking forward to learning all about Boulevard Brewing’s many wheat beers tomorrow morning, and that after that we’ll head off for Norman, Oklahoma, in a dead sprint. Because Wednesday we’re touring the National Weather Center. Cool, [...]

Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
Given recent comments, not just here but from Alan and others, I thought a picture of beer “on sale” might be interesting. You’ll have to decide if you consider $1.50 a deal for a half-liter of “mixed beer.”
That’s [...]

It seems that beer is no casual acquaintance of people who read this blog. So were I to conduct a poll — say how much money you send on beer — the results likely wouldn’t necessarily reflect the buying habits of the “average” beer drinker or even the casual “craft beer” drinker.
So it’s interesting to [...]

A bit of culture shock for Daria on Saturday.
We stopped at Parti-Pak Discount Liquors in Indianapolis, mostly to see what sort of beers make their way into Indiana and what they cost. Heard a guy behind the counter say they stocked 2,100 beers and that is easy to believe. Rather complete lines of plenty of [...]

When I read stories about beer and when I talk to brewers and brewery types I have I have this little list of personal hot button topics. (It’s me; you may not care.)
One is what’s local about beer and does it matter? Another is the danger that beer could become an elitist drink ala [...]

A canary in a coal mine?
Jeff Alworth has been trying to figure out how the recession is influencing craft beer sales. My gut feeling is that he’s on to something.
Look, I’m not predicting that a bunch of craft breweries are going to go out of business, but stories like this one, “Craft brew sales [...]