Coming March 15 (free! and open to the public!): the first Breakside/Beervana Fireside Chat. We will be joined by Heater Allen’s Lisa Allen, Jack Hendler from Jack’s Abby, and Ashleigh Carter from Bierstadt—plus possibly one more special guest. The discussion: how popular is craft lager, really? Click through for details.
Read MoreThe start of the Covid pandemic turns three today. It has affected beer in large and small ways that would have been, absent a disruption as profound as a pandemic, unthinkable three years ago.
Read MoreAnheuser-Busch has been in the news lately. In one of those “how it started/how it’s going” posts, I check in with the world’s largest malt beverage company.
Read MoreJust six months since it launched, Living Häus is making some of Portland’s best beer. In this post, I talk to Mat Sandoval and Conrad Andrus to see what makes it tick.
Read MoreSome clever breweries look back when they’re seeking to move forward, recognizing that history may contain a hidden gem that, dusted off and repurposed, might delight a modern audience. Here’s a technique that’s ripe for experimentation.
Read MorePortland’s all-women showcase, SheBrew, is back for an eighth year. But even if you live far from the Rose City, there’s a reason to tune into what this represents.
Read MoreComing March 15 (free! and open to the public!): the first Breakside/Beervana Fireside Chat. We will be joined by Heater Allen’s Lisa Allen, Jack Hendler from Jack’s Abby, and Ashleigh Carter from Bierstadt—plus possibly one more special guest. The discussion: how popular is craft lager, really? Click through for details.
Read MoreWhy are some fests dying or dead, while the Festival of Dark Arts was the hottest ticket around? A week after the event, I look at what makes a successful fest—and how others might use it as a blueprint for success.
Read MoreA report on yesterday’s surprise storm over Portland, and the lovely time we had amid the swirling tempest.
Read MoreToday I wrap up AI week with a consideration of the nightmare scenarios—as well as the lesser examples that might be just as bad. What happens, for example, when a distributor replaces its sales team with AI?
Read MoreUsers can plug the name of living artists into AI generators to get art that looks like Banksy or Jeff Koons or Em Sauter. But should they?
Read MoreWe kick off AI week with an update. A year ago I first explored AI, but the advances since then are startling. In this post, I discuss the ways it can research a beer style for a new release, name your beer, write a press release for it, and create a label. But the real advantage is the way it will make the creative work we already do a lot faster.
Read MoreDid you know there were two Kona Breweries? Both make Big Wave and Longboard Lager. Both have the same evocative island art and the same motto (“liquid aloha”). Yet the original one on the Big Island is now independent and has nothing to do with the stuff made on the mainland.
Read MoreToday we hear from Alesong's Brian Coombs, who spoke to me about the brewery's experiments with wild fruit inoculations. It's a rare practice I wrote about in Craft Beer and Brewing.
Read MoreHistorically, hops have been divided by category—”bitter” versus “aroma” was the classic dichotomy. Because of the massive changes in beer and hop breeding, German researchers are suggesting expanding that group to four categories. But are categories really necessary?
Read MoreA blogger may rest, but the news never does. Several big and small stories developed while I sat on a beach, and here’s my omnibus post of catch-up hot takes. Get ‘em while they’re fresh!
Read MoreChocolate, like beer, goes through a spontaneous fermentation. In my recent visit to Hawaii, I had a chance to see and smell the process in action—and later taste the results. If you know where to look, you can taste fermentation’s effects in chocolate. Here’s a primer.
Read MoreThere’s an old saw that goes like this: while you can hide faults in many beer styles, pilsners are hard because they expose every flaw. In one very narrow sense this may be accurate, but it leaves much to be desired as a general thesis.
Read MoreI’m not a beer geek. I am a beer nerd—there’s a difference.
Read MoreAs our beer journey unfolds, our sense of flavor changes. That can cause our memories to drift as well. Fortunately, we can turn to “calibration” beers to remind us what the past was actually like.
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