I don’t really understand how facebook works, but apparently users have been using a facebook application called beer wars to rate and promote their favorite beers. The beer wars people describe it as follows:
In case you don’t already know, Beer Wars is a cool new Facebook app that allows you to nominate:
- the beer you’re drinking at the moment and
- your top three all-time favourites
Then, look on as word spreads, and thousands…..millions of other beer drinkers the world over go into battle.
View beer preference statistics as they unfold. Find out which are the top listed beers among your friends, your …read more

Last weekend I managed to finally make it to the new incarnation of the Dock Street brewpub, which is pretty pathetic considering I had planned to go when they first opened. For those who don’t know, Dock Street was a Philadelphia-based pioneer of micro-brewed beers back in the 80s, at one point vying with Sam Adams for tops in the market.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I expected a slightly too slick and slightly too large brewpub along the lines of a Triumph or the former Dock Street locations in Center City Philadelphia. This one has a much …read more

As a beer lover, I’ve often considered brewing my own beer. The possibilities seem endless – brown ales, pale ales, stouts, fancy Belgian-style beers – all for a little effort and at a significantly lower cost than the same number of cases of beer. That, and I’d truly understand and know my beers.
Then I looked a little closer, at a whole lot of cleaning, lugging pots and bottles around, more cleaning, stirring and mixing, more cleaning, some sterilizing for good measure. You get the idea. It was the thought of sterilizing a whole bunch of bottles that finally persuaded …read more

A few weeks ago I had a delightful lunch with my wife at the Belgian Café, a delightful new Belgian bar in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia (kind of a Monk’s north, for those who know the popular Belgian bar in Center City Philadelphia. When Monk’s moved in to the former 16th Street Bar and Grill I was pleased by the new pub while mourning the old. The same applies here – the Belgian Café replaces the recently closed Tavern on Green, a great funky bar with a good selection of both wines and beers.
But I digress. I may talk …read more

In case you missed it, yesterday’s post was my attempt at finding the appropriate beers to match a wonderful menu put together by Tracey of foodie obsessed. Those who prefer wine will find a their pairings on Farley’s post at Behind the Vines.
In researching and considering my choices for yesterday’s post, I found a number of good articles on pairing beer with food, so I thought I’d share some of those with you today:
Here’s Beer Advocate’s take on Christmas dinner beers
NPR had an article on pairing food and beer generally
Suite101, which I’d never heard of before, has a different approach …read more

Ok, this is going to be the last gift post of the year, since if you don’t finish your Christmas shopping today you need to get off the computer and get to the store. Let’s face it, after today no one’s going to deliver anything you order in time for Christmas anyway, so it’s bricks and morter for anything you’ve got left.
The good news is that there’s one weekend to go before Christmas, so why not combine gift buying with a visit to your favorite microbrewery for some swag? For those of us around Philadelphia, that means the really cool …read more

   
It’s coming up on that time of year, and I’m here to help with a list of gifts for the beer geek in your life. Now, it’s not really that hard to come up with gift ideas for your malt beverage-drinking friends, and I’ve already suggested a few possible gifts (glasses and the “lagerhead” come to mind). Over the course of the next month, however, I’ll suggest a bunch more, so if you love beer or someone who does you’ll need to stop in frequently! 
My first suggestion is one which beer lovers will look at with some scepticism, but bear with me …read more

So, I haven’t written about our decorating style because, well, decorating is not one of my priorities in life. There is one decorating decision we made some time ago which I both enjoy and regret, and which is actually relevant to this blog.
You see, long ago when we first bought our house we decided to decorate the backsplash in the kitchen with beer bottle labels. That was almost ten years ago and, many cases of beer later, the backsplash was completely covered with a joyous assemblage of beer labels. The funny thing is that it’s also covered with memories, …read more

It’s been a rough ride for Colorado thus far in the World Series, so I thought I’d give them another chance by comparing the strength of beers from Colorado with those of Massachusetts (much of which, let’s face it, is a suburb of Boston anyway). Now, both states have a lot of good brewpubs, but for those of us sitting elsewhere, that’s not very useful right now, is it? So, here goes.
Looking at the Colorado brewer’s guild list of breweries, I see a few that I recognize and two that I’ve quite enjoyed. One is Left Hand, which I’ve already …read more

\r\n\r\nI\’ve mentioned it here and here, but I have always enjoyed Augustiner\’s beers. For those of you who have spent any time in Munich, you\’ll know that Augustiner is not nearly as well represented across the city as Paulaner, Löwenbräu and Spaten, but when you get the chance to order one, do (preferably an Edelstoff, don\’t ask, just order it). Like most Munich beers, the traditional Augustiner is a Munich Helles, so it\’s neither overly hoppy nor heavily malted, but it\’s a crisp, refreshing and eminently drinkable beer.\r\n\r\nSo it was that I ended up at one of the Augustiner tents …read more