-
Beer review: Westbrook Mexican Cake
Recently a dear friend treated us to a bottle of Westbrook Brewing’s Mexican Cake Imperial Stout, which has gained Whale status for a lot of beer nerds. A thick and sticky 10.5% ABV Imperial stout aged on cocoa nibs, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, and fresh habanero peppers…what could possibly go wrong? Serving it too cold…
-
An unexpected pairing
After you’ve been doing food and beer pairings for a while, your brain makes connections at random moments. You’ll find yourself eating a cookie and thinking “Hmm, I wonder what this would be like with…” and then checking your beer stash. That’s what happened to me recently. The smell of gingerbread cookies and molasses hung…
-
Book review: The Complete Beer Course
The Complete Beer Course by Joshua M Bernstein has an ambitious target: “Boot camp for beer geeks: from novice to expert in twelve tasting classes”. I felt a lot of skepticism at this claim. I have read many other books with similar aims and have usually been let down in a morass of half truths…
-
Local craft beer quality
With “quality” applied to something as subjective as beer, you have to be very careful how you define it. Are sales enough? Some would point to the mass brands as evidence that popularity does not equal quality. What about consistency? More consistency is better, sure. But the most consistent brands are, again, the mass brands.…
-
Oktoberfest beers
Those of you who are married probably think you had a pretty nifty wedding day. Now imagine you had a wedding reception that was still famous over 2 centuries later… that’s Oktoberfest! It all started in 1810 when Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria married Princess Theresa of Saxony. Their wedding reception set such a gold…
-
Drinking locally in Scotland
It’s all well and good saying that you always drink locally when you are at home, but what about when you are away on vacation? It’s really not difficult now that there is ready access to the internet pretty much wherever you are. It’s especially easy in a lot of European cities, like Edinburgh, which…
-
What is “session beer”?
The subject of session beer is hotting up in the USA, so I am providing this handy guide to people on both sides of the Pond as to why “session beer” is critical to define. But before we go any further… Note for U.S. beer nerds British Session Beers pack an awesome punch of flavor…
-
The end of the Golden Era of National Craft beer
I am laying out a bold thesis here: that we are at the end of the golden age of national craft beer brands. I’m not saying that we will never again see the likes of Anchor et al, but that we will see their likes much more rarely going forward. National craft beer brands are,…
-
Calories in beer
With the recent announcement from the regulating authorities that brewers may, if they wish, provide calorie information, how will that affect craft breweries when consumers see the calorie count? These figures are calculated by Beersmith, and are subject to natural variations in ingredients, but let’s take a look at a standard 12 oz serving, shall…
-
Magic City Brewfest – a celebration of craft beer
The annual Magic City Brewfest is fast approaching, featuring more Alabama breweries than ever before – 15 at last count. Just look at all the local brews (marked with *) on the beer list! And just today, the Alabama Brewers’ Guild welcomed two more breweries into their fold, bringing us up to 21 breweries in…