Long before hops were first cultivated for brewing a millennium ago, beers were either unflavored or infused with a mélange of herbs, roots, blossoms and spices. Popular through the Middle Ages in Europe, these botanicals often served the same antiseptic purpose as hops later would, but were also used for their medicinal or healing properties.... View Article
(Press Release) FORT COLLINS, CO—With the groundbreaking of the Asheville, N.C. facility just a few short months away, New Belgium Brewing is celebrating the second Mothership coming to life by teaming up with Asheville’s own artisan maltster, Riverbend Malt House. The two collaborated on New Belgium’s latest Hop Kitchen release, RyePA. The India Pale Ale,... View Article
Seasonal brews are in no short supply these days, but often we forget that seasonal brewing was once done out of necessity, framed by a limited period of agreeable conditions, and future consideration of sustenance. The style we know today as saison is a reminder of these bygone practices. French for “season,” saison was brewed... View Article
The first thing one notices when surveying the vast landscape of beer is how much it is all the same. Like a great sandy desert, vast swaths of it have a numbing sameness. Well over 90 percent of modern beer is brewed from the same handful of ingredients, to about the same strength, with more... View Article
Great beer in France? Long renowned for its fine cuisine and its wine industry, France is today recalling its past as a great brewing nation.
Long before American Beer Month began in July, Kalamazoo Brewing Co. founder Larry Bell began evangelizing. “The most dynamic beer culture in the world is here. There is more going on with brewing in America than anywhere else,” he said. A style “may come from somewhere else, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a true... View Article
