beernesday

Got a beer lover or two on your gift list? Lucky you! They're so easy to shop for! But if you're stumped, here are some ideas: Best Default Gifts for Beer Lovers : Gift packs from breweries! Most local breweries have swag and gift certificates available. Some also have gift packs – such as: Central City’s Thor’s Hammer Barley Wine Gift Pack, a combo-pack that includes a 2014 bottle-conditioned Thor’s Hammer, which won Gold at this year’s 2016 BC Beer Awards, and a 2014 Bourbon barrel-aged Thor’s Hammer, which won Bronze. Four Winds has a gift pack of Pomona and Pequeno Cabo, with 2 branded crystal Spiegelau beer tulips (to drink them out of, natch) and gift cards, all in a beautiful wooden box.  $75.  Please grab one of these for me! Strange Fellows has a gift pack of a bottle of Krampus, and a glass to drink it from. Moody Ales has a build your own gift pack – with prices ranging from $25 to $110, you start with a gift card and then add in additional swag. ...

my notes from yesterday's beer column on cbc radio's on the coast with stephen quinn: So you know you like craft beer. Now what? I think learning more about craft beer should be the second thing on everybody's craft beer to do list... right behind drinking more of it! I was at a tasting room the other evening and the folks beside me were very enthusiastic about their craft beers. It appeared they were on a bit of a brewery crawl, which I very much salute, and were trying to find the words to describe the different beers and how they felt about them. Now I'm not going to go all beer snob on you and say that they were using the wrong words to describe the beers, because there aren't wrong words to describe any experience. Sure, they could have used words like "mouthfeel" and "lacing on the glass" and other bits of beer lingo, but that's not what struck me most about these beer appreciators. No, what made me keep listening was th...

this week's link love is all about ab-inbev buying 10 barrel brewing wall street journal beervana beer advocate the jax beer guy yahoo finance brewbound washington beer blog bend bulletin the portland mercury portland business journal and related story from may me, i think that it's a shame when craft breweries sell themselves to duopolies like ab-inbev sure it's a good move for the owners to sell to the big guys but it rarely means the beer will remain the same artisinal product look at goose island that was supposed to be brewed small scale and only change its distribution after being taken over by ab-inbev but i haven't been totally impressed by their beer that came my way recently (the ipa that i had in vegas as it was the closest to craft choice at the bellagio) so colour me annoyed at 10 barrel for taking away one of my favourite ipas, the apocalypse (which is currently a 96 on ratebeer.com )

happy labour day! a nice little primer on hops 17 issues sober people have to deal with (click on it, there are cats!!) beer advocate's history of american beer heineken can't compete with craft beer (which probably comes as no surprise to beer geeks) the top 10 craft beers in mexico warning - this one's in spanish, so depending on your ability to hablar, you may just want to look at the photos in the slideshow!

my notes from last night's on the coast beer column: the perfect pour: there really is a right way to pour beer!   first of all, the basics. drink out of a glass, not a bottle or a can and make sure the glass is clean - hand-washing and air drying are recommended (hand-washing to avoid soap or food residue from the dishwasher - also keeps any branding on the glass fresh longer - and air drying so you don't get lint or grease from a dishtowel in the glass) the quick answer to why drinking out of a glass is better than a bottle or a can is that you get to appreciate the appearance of the beer as well as the flavour and aromas. also handy is the ability to control the amount of settled yeast sediment from a bottle-conditioned beer that ends up in your mouth - some styles of beer are all about including the yeast (like a hefeweisen), if you pour from the bottle into the glass you'll mix the yeast in nicely. if you don't like yeast, or are drinking a style...

oh oh! controversy in the craft beer world! a beer advocate thread on over-rated breweries gets some knickers in a twist "hawksbeerfan" out of new york started it all with this post: What brewery out there gets too much hype for what they bring to the table? My money goes to Dogfish Head. Their IPAs are solid but most of their "big" beers really aren't anything special and some are downright bad. sam calagione responds: It's pretty depressing to frequently visit this site and see the most negative threads among the most popular. This didn't happen much ten years ago when craft beer had something like a 3 percent market share. Flash forward to today, and true indie craft beer now has a still-tiny but growing marketshare of just over 5 percent. Yet so many folks that post here still spend their time knocking down breweries that dare to grow. It's like that old joke: "Nobody eats at that restaurant anymore, it's too crowded.” Except t...

beer advocate wants you to go to the american craft beer festival! no really, they do! you yes, you! Interested in exploring beer brewed in the United States? Join us June 3 & 4 at the Seaport World Trade Center Boston (Massachusetts) for the largest celebration of American beer on the east coast, featuring over 100 American brewers and over 400 beers! http://beeradvocate.com/acbf/ And the line-up of brewers is looking most impressive. Here's the current list (80 w/ ~30 more to go!): http://beeradvocate.com/acbf/beer Tickets: http://beeradvocate.com/acbf/tickets Tell your friends. ACBF is part of Boston Beer Week (May 27-June 5). Cheers, and hope to see you at ACBF! Respect Beer. Jason & Todd (Alström Bros) Founders,   http://beeradvocate.com -- Got Twitter? Follow us @   http://twitter.com/BeerAdvocate Got Facebook? "Like" our page:   http://facebook.com/BeerAdvocate --

"the main reason we wanted to do it that way is i feel like i'm making [the beer] by hand.  it's craftmanship - it's my art, how i make the beer," said damien malfara, old forge's founder and brewer. "for better or worse, whether you like it or not, this is how i'm making it... same thing goes for the rest of our place - for better or for worse, that's what our bar looks like, because somebody made it.  that was his creativity - that was his passion." damien malfara old forge brewing company founder and brewer quoted by sean lewis beer advocate #44

"craft beer means different things to different people.  to some, it means high doses of alcohol and copious amounts of hops.  to others, it is typified by well-made, low-alcohol beer served out of a cask.  it is dark, it is light, it is hoppy, it is sour.  the one thing it is not, is mass produced." sean lewis beer advocate #44

brewing with rye, the grain pliny the elder said was "unpleasant to the stomach" "Judging from BeerAdvocate's online reviews and other sources, it appears that at least 500 different beers made with rye have hit American tap handles in just the past decade.  Often, the grain is used to tive a new twist to a classic style... This dabbling has been going on for about 20 years, and not surprisingly, it led to the creation of a singular style known as American Rye beer.  Brewed as either an ale or a lager, the style is much like American Wheat beer, in which the flavor of the grain adds a subtle complexity to barley malt.  Often, it is highly kilned to provide both color and a distinctive, sometimes off-putting, nutty flavor." Don Russell Beer Advocate #44

pintley.com got a pretty good review in beeradvocate #44 , so i thought i'd check the website out ("Bottom line:  Pintley is a fun and informative website that promises to offer fresh insight, and it will surely grow along with its community.  There is even a Pintley iPhone application in the works.  But be warned - while Pintley seems magical in its ability to determine what beers you will enjoy, it's also very good at eating up many hours of your time!"  Lisa Morrison - Beer Advocate #44) i gotta say, its a fabulous idea, but i'm less than impressed with the site. the blog hasn't been updated since june 25th there are very few local breweries represented on the site and even though i rated every belgian beer in the initial list as "hated it", they still included several belgians in my list of 145 beers they were convinced i would love perhaps i just need to rate more beers and it will start to get the actual picture of my likes i will try i...

according to beer advocate, these are the 25 best beers on planet earth at this time:     Score / WR Reviews 1 Trappist Westvleteren 12 Quadrupel (Quad)  / 10.20% ABV Brouwerij Westvleteren (Sint-Sixtusabdij van Westvleteren) A+  / 4.55 966 2 Pliny The Elder American Double / Imperial IPA  / 8.00% ABV Russian River Brewing Company A+  / 4.51 1668 3 Pliny The Younger American Double / Imperial IPA  / 11.00% ABV Russian River Brewing Company A+  / 4.49 493 4 The Abyss American Double / Imperial Stout  / 11.00% ABV Deschutes Brewery A+  / 4.47 911 5 Founders KBS (Kentucky Breakfast Stout) American Double / Imperial Stout  / 11.20% ABV Founders Brewing Company A+  / 4.46 1336 6 Trappistes Rochefort 10 Quadrupel (Quad)  / 11.30% ABV Brasserie de Rochefort (Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy) A  / 4.41 1691 7 Trappist Westvleteren 8 Dubbel  / 8.00% ABV Brouwerij Westvleteren (Sint-Sixtusabdij van West...