A Major Ingredient of Great Beer is Knowledge
By Rick Lyke
Published January 2011, Volume 31, Number 6
It takes a great deal of talent and energy to brew great beer. It also takes a unique set of ingredients to create today’s craft lagers and ales. Some of these raw materials can be spelled out in recipes—hops, malt and yeast—while others, like the knowledge to build a killer beer list and train bar wait staff, are just as vital to our enjoyment of great beer. Read More…
Guiding your way through Craft Beer
By Rick Lyke
Published January 2011, Volume 31, Number 6
Beer is sold on draught, in bottles and in cans. It is also sold in books, magazines, at tastings and training sessions. At the core of the craft beer movement is beer and the people who brew it—and both have stories to tell. Effectively telling the story behind beer is essential to building the craft beer community, generating fans and ensuring the success of the liquid itself. Read More…
By Rick Lyke
Published January 2011, Volume 31, Number 6
You can argue about the exact start of the craft brewing movement. Some will say it was the day in 1965 when Fritz Maytag acquired the Anchor Brewery in San Francisco. Many claim it was 1977, when Jack McAuliffe established America’s first modern microbrewery, New Albion Brewery in California’s Sonoma County. Others believe it has to be in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed the bill that exempted small amounts of homebrewed beer from excise taxes, bringing thousands into the hobby and creating a training ground for hundreds of future professional brewers. Then there are people who argue these were just precursors to the real start of the craft brewing movement in the 1980s, when brewers like Sierra Nevada, Boston Beer and Redhook Ale started selling beer. Read More…
On the Road for Hops and Malt
By Rick Lyke
Published January 2011, Volume 31, Number 6
When most people think of traveling for beer they usually imagine heading to the local pub for a couple of pints or perhaps taking the trip of a lifetime to visit breweries in Belgium. But for others, traveling for beer is a daily way of life.
Read More...
Entering the Craft Beer World in the New Millennium
By Julie Johnson
Published November 2009, Volume 30, Number 5
American craft brewers are a famously congenial bunch. Even as they compete for your beer money, they help one another out, they step in to lend equipment and ingredients to one another, they trouble shoot for each other, and they happily enjoy one another’s beers. Occupying what is still a small corner of the U.S. beer market―about five percent by volume―what they have in common is far more important than what separates them. Read More…
From the beer community
By
Published May 2009, Volume 30, Number 2
It was my own father who first exposed me to beer. At an early age, there was an after-dinner tradition of story time, where my father would tell my brothers and sister tales from his youth growing up in Philadelphia.
Read More...
