The vast majority of craft brewers make forgiving, warm-fermenting ales. But new lager-focused breweries are taking a two-tracked approach to changing that, making fresh versions of the German classics and pushing American lagers into new territory with pumpkins, coffee, rye malt and candi sugar.
As the founding brewmaster of Full Sail Brewing, and the founder and longtime head of Wyeast Laboratories, David Logsdon carries a huge footprint in the craft industry, especially in the Pacific Northwest. But he made a conscious effort to keep his latest venture, Logsdon Farmhouse Ales, at a modest scale.
Drone to drop beer to concertgoers; Alabama passes bill legalizing homebrewing; Modern Times Brewing sets Kickstarter record; more breweries switch up containers; and Oregon votes to designate brewer’s yeast “Official State Microbe.”
Bend, Ore., is something of a beer drinker’s paradise. It is home to over a dozen breweries, and with one brewery for every 9,111 people, it’s also the city with the most breweries per capita. One of the staples of the Bend brewing scene is . The production brewery opened in 2006 under the name
Aside from the gargantuan outdoors space, which is perfect for Portland’s temperate climate and encourages barflies to bring in their own food, APEX has pinball machines, walls lined with beer labels, and relatively inexpensive, interesting drafts on impeccably clean lines.
Nonprofit pub to open in Oregon; two more defunct beer brands revived; Pabst launches interactive marketing campaign to promote Rainier Brewery; Lost Abbey crashes Lost Abbey tasting party; super PAC to foster change by funding happy hours.
Bend’s beer scene has built up around its marquee name. A city of only 75,000, it now boasts 10 breweries and some of the better beer bars and bottle shops on the West Coast.
Tasting panels are trained by smelling the chemical aroma standards responsible for each flavor—as beer geeks know, banana flavor is isoamyl acetate and butter is diacetyl—in decreasing dilutions. They taste the isolated chemicals added to polyethylene glycol until small amounts can be detected.
It’s difficult to quantify the effect breweries have on their neighborhoods. But there’s no doubt that breweries are a part of the positive feedback loop that leads to neighborhood development.
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.
Both bottle carrier designs allow you to walk into your favorite bottle shop, brewery or tap house with a sturdy, reusable holder, so you can bring your beers home or to any event in classic style and without worrying about them dropping out of flimsy cardboard cartons.
Alex Ganum places Upright Brewing Company in the Belgian/French farmhouse vein, in the sense that the brewery is cranking out beers that can stand on their own, without getting hung up on style.
Switching from the once-ubiquitous brown bottles to cans may have been novel nine years ago, but today, it’s just one way craft brewers are reexamining their relationship with the container industry in hopes of shaving costs and putting better beer on the shelves.
The price of gas is soaring, and the warmer weather is encouraging you to get more exercise. Geoffrey Franklin was inspired by two of his favorite things—bikes and beers—to create three items that help the biking beer aficionado get from point A to point B.
In addition to their bittering, flavor, and aroma properties, hops help stabilize beer foam, kill unwanted bacteria, and, according to some studies, impart body-boosting antioxidants. Future breeds might bring an entire revolution to the brewing industry.
CDA must be something more than a simple IPA that happens to be black, and must be brewed with the Northwest’s distinctively aromatic hops, including Amarillo, Centennial, Chinook and, yes, Cascade.
Since King opened the doors to Amnesia with his wife, Kristina, in 2004, the 1,700-barrel-per-year facility, located in an old ornamental iron shop, has been treating Portland beer lovers to King’s unique vision and approach to beer.
Dave Fleming, head brewer at Portland’s New Old Lompoc Brewery, commands respect in a town full of respected brewers. He does it by combining an openness to new flavors with a simple, straightforward brewing ethos.
HUB’s owner and brewmaster, Christian Ettinger, is a bike enthusiast, so it’s easy to see how the concept of a cargo bike designed to not only haul but dispense kegs was born.
Alan Sprints has been the creative force behind Hair of the Dog for 16 years now. For most of that time, he’s also been the brewery’s only grunt laborer.
Oskar Blues crafts one very tall boy; Portland to treat water, possibly at expense of beer taste; Starbucks considers serving beer and wine; and thieves pull off $70,000 beer heist.
The city is home to well over two dozen breweries and brewpubs, and scores of good beer bars. It’s got more breweries than any one city in the world, and its citizens drink more, per capita, than anybody.
Across the country and across the ocean, several specialty cheesemakers and world-class breweries have teamed up to use beer as an ingredient in their finished fromage.
