About Appellation Beer

January 2024

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change a man
Hell, it takes a lot to try
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die

– From “Maybe It’s Time” by Jason Isbell

Does it matter where a particular beer, any beer, is brewed?

I first asked that question here in November of 2005. “Brew Like a Monk” was fresh off the presses and I spent a certain amount of time explaining that Trappist was not a style of beer, but an appellation, referring to where monastery beers were brewed. Visiting them had left me wondering about questions related in my mind, such as how a particular beer is brewed, where the ingredients are from, why history matters and, before this gets too long, just about everything covered in the first chapter of “Brewing Local.”

As the archives here suggest, this blog has wandered off course more than once during the years that followed. It still seems like New Beer Rules was an OK idea, but many of the other posts look pretty dumb in the rear view mirror.

I’m not sure there has been a time in the last 17 years that we agreed on what a blog is or should be. Over the years posts have included plenty of links, or not. Linking remains one of the things the internet does both well and horribly. I’ve written short pundit-like posts that were little more than extended tweets. When Boak & Bailey asked for longform for longform posts I usually obliged. And, of course, there was The Session.

The look as also changed over the years, from basic to decorated, back to basic.

I expect the thoughts posted will follow the same minimalist path. Links, but not too many. Not long, but not tweets. The focus remains on how beer got to be what it is, what it can be, and its role in our lives.

But I’ll also wander off course from time to time. That much I’ve figured out.

So thanks for stopping by.

– Stan Hieronymus