Author: Tim Webb

While many of the world’s interesting beers are imported to the US, most are not. And those that do arrive can be in a condition bearing little relation to their true nature. Better understanding comes from visiting them at home.

I just don’t get it with the almost hysterical popularity of the Westvleteren Brewery’s strongest beer, Westvleteren 12.

Beer didn’t always take a back seat to wine. In the 19th century, British brewers were powerful people. The ales that made us famous, such as Porter, Strong Stout and India Pale Ale, ruled export markets every bit as much as Britannia ruled the waves.

Despite the economic woes, 2012 is going to see large increases in export sales of small-scale craft beers from producers in Australasia, South America and the European “new wave,” as well as from North America.

The National Brewing Awards are so named because they are awarded without the need to enter any competition, to nations in recognition of what they have done for beer brewing during the year in question. There is no ceremony and no official presentation.

Good beer, it seems, is in the pink. So what better time to look at what craft brewers are doing wrong? For its amazing range of tastes, styles, strengths and colors, so much of American craft beer seems to taste naïve, unworldly and lacking in complexity

The Germans have discovered the nanobrewery. These nanobreweries consist of a tiny kit, typically operating in a cellar, kitchen or shed, in which beer is made in tiny runs of as little as 50 liters a go, for commercial sale.

The problem is the British fixation, enshrined in CAMRA’s policy, on the notion that for a beer to be “good,” it must contain live yeast.

Which types of beer will appeal to the average drinker once the mass palate has outgrown wet air?

The focus of our book will be top-quality craft brewing, and if global brewers have stopped making those, well, they’re just foolish. We would produce an atlas for explorers. It has surprised me just how much I have learned.

Bad Language Back in 1972, the oddly named Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale decided it preferred the word “real” to describe its preferred forms of ale. To this day, UK media still use the word “real” to distinguish the authentic and elite from the mass produced and fake. A few years later, the Belgians

Between March and June 2011, Belgium will acquire three new breweries. There is nothing odd in that. What is unusual is that these three Belgian firms already enjoy established reputations for excellence; in two cases, to the extreme.

Modern Prague is not a bad experience. On the contrary, it is many times better than it used to be. But I am glad that I was young when I was, and saw different worlds from the one that has become familiar.

At times of rapid change, people crave rules. For many British beer drinkers, it is a definition of good beer devised in innocence a few decades ago, when we worshipped yeast.

The point of the craft beer revolution was to reestablish the reputation of beer as a quality drink, not to show how clever we can all be. The beers that will achieve that aim will be achieved by beers that are well made, not simply different.

Some of the world’s largest brewery companies appear relaxed about their falling sales in established markets because of increasing sales in emerging ones. The trifling fact that even big brands are showing signs of implosion is an inconvenient truth, best left unmentioned. It is just “fluctuations.”

How can craft brewers survive the global recession? Ask the Japanese. During its economic boom in the 1980s, the Japanese were huge consumers of single-malt whiskies and fine wines. Hand-made beers are starting to enjoy a similar cache, but without the exorbitant price tag.

Next to an impressive range of regular and experimental brews with double-figure alcohol percentages, sit bottles of competent but plain Blonde, Amber and White ales for the unadventurous locals.

The race to become the first person ever to try, record, describe and rate 20,000 different beers is heating up.

There is no correct way to make beer, and we should not get prissy when others do it differently from us. Nor should we be annoyed when they carry on making a few types better than ours because they have had more practice.

The 30-year struggle that created today’s beer nirvana was driven by writers and publishers, not by brewers.

Tim Webb reflects on his beer-cycle journey that was abruptly cut short.

Tim Webb sets off on his cycling journey across the UK.

A series of public relations blunders in their Belgian operations in recent years has led to the kind of poll ratings that make politicians choke.