AB-InBev and MillerCoors want a piece of the apple cider pie; CAMRA Vancouver FUSS-ing over standardized pours; Belgium celebrates Trappist breweries; Oglala Sioux tribe suing brewers, wholesalers, retailers; and Virginia, Mississippi attempting to pass brew-friendly laws.
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.
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.
As we move into 2011, we promise to put the “advocate” in BeerAdvocate by continuing to explore new and better ways to support, promote and defend good beer.
The reluctant or inexperienced traveler may need an excuse to enable them to overcome fear of the unfamiliar. As craft beer lovers, the lure of a famous beer festival might do it. Better yet, why not consider an obscure one?
Similar to the origins of IPA, Saisons were and are highly hopped. Add the existence of wild yeast in the process and the result is a finished beer that is quite bitter and tart.
Bars should select a half dozen different glass styles, each with the qualities necessary to present their beers in the best lights, thus encouraging sales with the corresponding head-turns and matching the expectations of their customers for honest pints, tulips and snifters.
As Belgium’s capital region, the Brussels area is awash in the nation’s unique beer styles, from the Oud Bruins of Flanders to the bounties of Belgium’s far-flung abbeys.
Adding stuff to a nearly completed and rather shabby beer is a dangerous pastime that brand Belgian cannot afford. And neither can any other craft beer culture that wishes to be taken seriously.
For a country that has never possessed much of a discernible brewing heritage, America has taken a leading role in exporting its nascent beer culture around the world.
One problem with global and personal expansion is that each is based on an optimistic set of assumptions that perpetual growth is both realistic and beneficial.
Antwerp boasts one of the world’s highest number of pubs per capita. There’s no legal closing time. And the breweries of Belgium’s countryside know something about rewarding thirst.
Steven Pauwels left Belgium for Missouri nine years ago, bringing craftsmanship, tradition, and a relentless drive to experiment. Here’s how Boulevard became the Midwest’s largest independent brewer—and its most eclectic.
Next to Germany and England, no country has had a bigger impact on the American craft beer scene than Belgium. And now with the emergence of Belgian IPAs, at long last, America is returning the favor.
Witbier goes back 500 years, to a period when beer was made with wheat and typically balanced not by hops but by a blend of herbs and spices known as gruit.
Sourness—or more precisely, tartness—is the defining trait of American Wild Ale. Essentially, it’s beer gone bad, contaminated by the very stray microorganisms that Louis Pasteur discovered were mucking up perfectly good beer 130 years ago.
For us regular folk, cooking with beer has always been fair game. A few cans of Bud may serve as a delicious, industry-standard sauce for simmering fresh mussels; and any ale can lend a comforting, yeasty tang to a sturdy loaf of beer bread.