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…
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…
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 scepticism at this claim. I have read many other books…
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?…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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’…