I spent more than a month on the road, passing through several regions in the US, including stops at something like 44 breweries. Here are some notes on what I found in common in the US, and how regions differed.
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Writers and brewers have identified most of the useful frameworks we use to understand beer. An important one, often hinted at but never fully explored, is national tradition. It’s never been more important to understand, though—especially now amid the birth of the American tradition.
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The 20-stop national Beer Bible book tour begins on Sept 23, and we’ve planned events every beer fan will enjoy. Have a look at the schedule and save the date.
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We now accept the fairly rigid classification of beer styles offered by groups like the GABF and Cicerone program. Where did they come from, and who decided how they should be organized? The short answer is Michael Jackson, but the longer answer is more intriguing.
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Molson Coors announced it was ceasing production of a bunch of minor brands it owned, including one that hurts Oregonians’ hearts: Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve. It was a beer that helped make the city Beervana, but also a remnant of a dying era.
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In the latest article in the Sightglass Series, I’ve spoken to a number of women in the beer industry to highlight how their creative expressions have changed the way we make, market, write about, and of course, drink beer. It’s a process entirely of addition, and we are all the beneficiaries of their work.
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Every beer contains a whiff of history. Traditional Berliner weisse, which went extinct in the mid-aughts before enjoying a revival years later, contains more than a whiff. Yesterday, at Portland’s Zoiglhaus brewery, I sampled both the ghost and its reincarnation.
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In the final post of Teri Fahrendorf’s remarkable career, we hear how she created the Pink Boots Society, the nonprofit that has given thousands of women support and connections in their professional lives.
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In the second of three posts about pioneering brewer Teri Fahrendorf’s remarkable career, we hear how it was to enter the brewing world in the late 1980s, and how she built Steelhead into a regional chain.
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With her sterling career as a professional brewer and groundbreaking work in bringing women into the industry through the Pink Boots Society, no American has had a greater impact on brewing than Teri Fahrendorf. Here’s part one of her oral history.
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In the last two weeks we have learned about the crisis of sexism in beer. Today I repost one of four pieces on the subject from 2014. The stories are at turns illuminating, painful, and harrowing, and with each story reveal what it's like to be a woman working in the beer industry.
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A brave woman in Massachusetts exposed an enormous amount of sexual misconduct in the industry last week, including accusations of a high profile OR/WA brewery. That plus a personal note.
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One of the more remarkable stories in the beer world is the incredibly long process of developing a viable commercial hop variety, and the long odds any single seed has of becoming a winner. In the first of the Sightglass articles, we examine HBC 1019 to see how it all works.
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Oregon legislators have introduced a new beer tax that would make the state’s beer the most-taxed in the country—at a level nearly twice as high as the next state, and more than ten times the national median. Worse, the rhetoric suggests an explicit goal is to cripple Oregon breweries.
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Mass market lagers aren’t, let’s be honest, especially interesting beers. They are often made by giant corporations in equally giant plants. That doesn’t mean they don’t have their moments.
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The sense about craft beer right now, with assaults from a global pandemic and hard seltzer, is often morose. In purely financial terms, beer seems to be sputtering. But as a cultural force, it has never been stronger.
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On February 5, 2021, Portland Brewing will close its doors for the last time. The brewery’s closure marks the end of that scrappy, DIY era of craft brewing. And while it’s sad, a review of what Portland Brewing accomplished also reveals what a success its 35-year run was.
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Each year I do a wrap-up of the photos that characterized my year. In 2020, beer was less a focus than any year of my lifetime.
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December 2020 is turning out to be a bleak affair. Take a break from the news and enjoy something that offers a bit of warmth and hope.
Read MoreThe Covid pandemic has forced breweries to change the beers they brew, how they market and sell those beers, and how customers find them. How will these changes affect beer long-term in a post-Covid world?
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