I don’t expect haze to leave IPAs anytime soon—but increasingly, the term “hazy IPA” has started to seem, well, hazier.
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Cloudburst’s hoppy ales are at once familiar yet distinctive. They shimmer with hop particulates, but don’t look hazy, exactly. They feature saturated juicy flavors, appreciable (but far from violent) bitterness, and a spectacular quenching dryness that make them dangerously drinkable.
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Now that Widmer and Redhook are dying brands in a large portfolio owned by a three-continent megabrewery, the connection to Portland fades into history.
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Using simple language is probably more important now than ever, because craft beer is mainstream. To compete with the seltzers, light beers, and Mexican lagers that appear next to them on shelves and menus, beers need to have clear descriptions. When they don’t, casual drinkers will reach for beverages they understand.
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Dry-hopping is king, especially for fresh-hop beers. Or is it? Bend Brewing’s Zach Beckwith has thoughts.
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A few Friday morning thoughts from the heart of the apocalypse.
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I often reference a particular, specific note fresh hops create. But at a recent tasting, I began to think it’s more complex than that.
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With a virus making workplaces potential sites of infection, this isn’t a great time to be a working person. For those of you who make, deliver, and serve the beer I drink, many thanks.
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People have been talking about “independence” in the beer industry for decades. A recent push by the Brewers Association to make this case seems to be gaining traction. One would therefore assume member breweries are happy. So why aren’t they?
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It is almost September, which means fresh-hop season is upon us. But as with everything Covid touches, there are a few changes in 2020.
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Oktoberfests, a daring person might argue, are the finest of all lagers, so rich and yet so balanced. Even a timid one must agree they’re the most underrated. So let us now delight in their annual return.
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The OLCC released numbers for the first half of 2020. Here’s what they tell us about the effect of COVID-19 on the industry so far.
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Who are you? The results from a recent reader survey reveal all.
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When the pandemic hit, breweries had to scramble. They needed to figure out questions like furloughs, federal relief, and home delivery, and they turned to their local brewers guilds. I wanted to see where things stand now, five months into the crisis, so I spoke to a group of guild heads.
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I need your help! It’s time to do another reader survey to learn a bit more about who you are and how I can better cater to your interests. Please take this seven-question, two-minute survey and make this a better site.
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Time travel is a timeless subject of pub chat. How many wonderful discussions have begun with the words, If you could travel back in time…?” I encourage you to continue—but please, get the rules of quantum behavior straight first.
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For breweries hanging by their fingernails, what are the ramifications in knowing we haven’t even hit the halfway point on the COVID pandemic—and that the economy, barring an unlikely intervention by Congress, is likely to get worse before it gets better?
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It’s a clumsy shape, droopy and inelegant. There’s something of a melted-candle quality to it.
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At the height of a beer style’s popularity, it’s difficult to imagine it ever falling from favor. We know from history that no matter how popular they are, most styles eventually fade. Even now, time is busy tarnishing our ardor for once-loved beers.
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A lot of breweries make weissbiers, and some are served worldwide. Yet if we go looking for the classic example, the ur-weiss of the modern era, all roads lead to Kelheim.
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