beervana

A couple weeks ago, we learned that Portland’s Breakside would be buying a winery and opening two new taprooms, increasing their growing empire to eight locations. But it was their new membership, the Breakside Collective, that caught my eye.

Let’s say the cost of aluminum cans rises to the equivalent of five cents a pint. Does the brewer simply raise prices five cents a pint and pass this cost along? Brewer and onetime economist Van Havig has the answer. 

Why aren’t Americans drinking beer? Maybe because they’re too busy sucking down water, sparkling water, sports drinks, energy drinks, “natural beverage,” and real and artificial juices.

Last week, a new nonprofit announced the inductees into the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame. They will be familiar to anyone who reads this site, and left me feeling ambivalent. In overlooking less-heralded names, the Hall missed the opportunity to reshape the narrative of American brewing.

Herein lies one of the more interesting ironies of our times: there is a distinctive New England school of IPA. It is characterized by strength, sweetness, lack of bitterness, and high residual sugar. But maybe the haze is negotiable.

Herein lies one of the more interesting ironies of our times: there is a distinctive New England school of IPA. It is characterized by strength, sweetness, lack of bitterness, and high residual sugar. But maybe the haze is negotiable.

I was recently sipping a cask Bachelor Bitter at Deschutes Brewery and I started reflecting on its excellence and influence. I hope it becomes one of those grand old breweries future generations enjoy and celebrate. 

I am compiling a database of breweries in Oregon for a website that will launch soon. It needs to be up-to-date and comprehensive, which means I’ve been poring through websites and social media accounts to find out which breweries still exist. The result? A lot fewer than I expected.

This Saturday is the annual Baltic Porter Day, a celebration that has spread from its roots in Poland all the way to Oregon, and Threshold Brewing will be hosting a fest for the style. Since it’s become a major beer in Poland, it seemed time to do a big ‘ol post about Baltic porters.

A rivalry is developing in the world of fresh hop beer. Proponent of one team believe the best character comes from use on the cold side, others on the hot side. It's time to get to the bottom of the debate.

I’ve been an infrequent user of Midjourney, an AI image generator. Yesterday writer Eoghan Walsh kicked off a discussion about whether this is a good thing, and nearly everyone agreed it’s not. The discussion definitely shifted my own thinking.

2024 was a year of mixed signals and confusing trends. In this year-end post, I review the major themes, positive, negative, and just weird. And then I finish with a flourish of almost certainly bad predictions!

Today we travel to a time where cars sail overhead and money has lost all meaning as we luxuriate in worlds of leisure. And beer? The year is 2050, and if you want to know what beer looks like, click on through.

One of the most interesting historical figures in all of brewing history is Antoine Joseph Santerre, a Parisian brewer in the latter decades of the 18th century. He came from a line of brewers, married a brewer’s daughter, and bought a brewery with his brother. He is far more famous for his politics, however.