Steve Parkes encourages Beer Advocates to be encouraging with their critiques of new brews. Many times, reviewers will say things online that they would never say in person.
Ten years ago, Vinnie Cilurzo and his wife, Natalie, brought aggressively hopped beer to the heart of California’s wine country. Since then, they’ve taken Russian River Brewing Company independent, won an unimaginable number of awards and launched a revolutionary line of barrel-aged sour Belgians.
Despite the tattoos, the piercings and the mutual appreciation of quality beverages, and despite the fact that they’re mainly terrific folks, coffee people just aren’t like us.
Just six months after their launch, Terrapin struck gold at the 2002 Great American Beer Festival: The only beer in their line, Rye Pale Ale, bested 92 other beers and took the gold medal as the country’s best American Pale Ale.
Founders Brewing Company brews the kind of beers its brewers want to drink, and by gleefully smashing every convention it can get its hands on, the brewery has gained a rabid following.
In less than a year and a half of brewing, Surly Brewing Company, a tiny Brooklyn Center, MN brewery, has already put the industry’s big boys on notice.
If we see the value in a $5 cup of coffee, a $50 bottle of wine, or a $2 bottle of water, how can we not see value in a $10 barrel-aged beer or a $9 handcrafted six-pack from a small, local brewery?
Designed to shake martinis, the humdrum, standard-issue pint glass seems woefully inadequate as beer’s catch-all vessel. So Jim Koch hired a company to come up with a solution.
Greg Koch and Steve Wagner first brewed their flagship beer, Arrogant Bastard, back in 1995, a full year before they co-founded Stone, and two years before the beer’s commercial release.
Anton Schwarz, the Bohemian immigrant and editor of The American Brewer until his death in 1895, racked up more geek cred in a few years than any of us could in a lifetime.
Bringing drinkers a beer that challenged their very definition of what beer is; one that could be savored slowly and stand alongside other greats like old sherry, vintage port or fine cognac.
The craft brewery Larry Bell founded on a Kalamazoo, MI stovetop, Bell’s Brewery, is the oldest east of Boulder. And while the craft brewing landscape has filled in considerably since its founding, Bell’s has retained its pioneering spirit.
As a professional brewer, I often find myself in this situation: I hand someone a sample of my beer, they taste it, and they become delighted and curious. The next comment is, “I really like this beer. What style is it?”
Every time a can of beer is cracked open, it spits out a little bit of history. The can—our handy, standard, aluminum homie—has enjoyed a long and manifold history.
How do you celebrate fifteen Great American Beer Festival medals and back-to-back GABF Small Brewery Brewer of the Year nods? You open up a new brewing and bottling plant, and start distribution of two new lines of beer.
