Looking around the net, I came accross this post from some guy in Colorado (I oddly find lost of beer posts from people in Colorado…maybe they’re all drunk there?). In it, he says that Twitter reduced the need to go to a pub to socialize. Something about the economic downturn forcing people to drink at home.
Dear Pub Owners: PLEASE lower the price of beer. Something needs to be done to protect the sanctity of getting smashed in a bar! If there is no one around you physically, you are still drinking alone. Web friends don’t count.
Dear Poor People: Sell your …read more

I was going to – and will – write a bit about the incredible ribs I made using Kraft’s Bull’s Eye Guinness Barbecue sauce, but first, an aside.
I love Wikipedia, but there’s actually an entry for this product in Wikipedia. Does that mean they have an employee whose job it is to create Wikipedia entries on every product ever made by Kraft? Or is someone really so enamored of a product whose claim to fame is having once been offered at Burger King that they feel the need to put it on Wikipedia?
The internet is a strange and wondrous place.

In case you’re looking for another reason to go organic when it comes to beer, consider this: additives in beers are not strictly regulated in all countries.
And when I say additives, I mean, oh, say, carcinogens.
The Chinese beer industry, one of the top beer producing countries in the world, was found to include formaldehyde in 95% of beers brewed in the country as recently as 1995. Yep, formaldehyde.

As I’ve mentioned, the story of Pennsylvania’s frontier (and that of much of the rest of the United States) is inextricably entwined with that of beer. Almost every town, camp, or outpost had some sort of plan for the provision of beer, much as they did for any other of life’s necessities.
We found an interesting example of this in a so-called “ghost town” in Pennsylvania’s Oil Country, a town once known by the unfortunate moniker of Pithole. Much of Pennsylvania’s history involves “firsts” which are later taken over in a big way somewhere else. Oil is no different, and shortly …read more

As travelers interested in brewing and the history of beer, we’re fortunate to see all of the new and exciting breweries springing up across the country. It’s a pretty good time for beer and brewing, as long as you’re brewing the good stuff, and it’s a really good time to be drinking.
Unfortunately, traveling also reminds the beer drinker that there has been a constant ebb and flow of small and medium sized breweries throughout the US, as technologies changed and demand shifted. I’ve already already posted on the demise of the DuBois Brewery some years ago, just as local brewing …read more

As a woman, I’m always surprised that more women don’t drink beer. It’s not unusual for me to be the only beer drinker in the crowd. Case in point: over the weekend, I was in the minority as a woman at an Irish bar drinking pints of black and tan in the midst of girlfriends throwing back cocktails.
Of the 10.7 billion pints of beer sold in the UK annually, only 13% are drunk by women. This inequity is finally being addressed by Coors UK with a new business division codenamed “Eve.” The company is …read more

As some of you may have guessed, I like beer. In fact, I love beer. And beer is a beverage often associated with summer.
Unfortunately, summer is the one time of year I have difficulty picking a beer. I know, I know, there are beers which are well suited to warm weather just as there are beers which are suited to cooler weather, and I’ve talked about those earlier this week. On a day with strong sunshine and temperatures in the 90s, I find picking a beer to be rather difficult. In fact, last weekend we were at a backyard barbecue …read more

You may have noticed that a lot of photos on this site come from Wikipedia. Now, Wikipedia is a great resource, and I’m happy to have it, but I thought it was time to start providing some of our own photos.
To that end, check out the brewha-ha flickr site. It’s clearly a work in progress, since it includes whatever beer-based photos I could scrounge off of my hard drive (sadly, much of my beer photography is on print film). Check back often for new and, hopefully, interesting photos reflecting the history and culture of beer.
image from me

As promised, here’s a list of my favorite imported summer beers. Since they are mostly lagers, it also shouldn’t be surprising that many of them are from Germany.
1. Augustiner Edelstoff (The best of the Munich lagers)
2. Spaten Helles (a good Munich lager which is more readily available in the US)
3. Gaffel Kölsch (it’s an ale, but a wonderful summer beer)
4. Erlanger Weißbier (hard to choose between this and Schneider, or Weihenstefan for that matter)
5. Pilsner Urquell (not what it was, but still a great beer)

I sometimes won’t drink a beer in the summer, which I’ll elaborate on later. That said, often I will, so now I’ll give you a list of beers to check out if you’ve decided to have a few. Since I’ve been aiming to be more energy efficient in my beer choices, I’ll give a list of domestics today and a list of imports later this week. Not surprisingly, both lists are heavy on lager beers, and my US beer list is somewhat local as well.
1. Tröegs DreamWeaver Wheat Beer (a tasty Bavarian-style wheat)
2. Victory Lager (a good, solid beer)
3. Tröegs …read more