Over the past eight years the setup of this column hasn’t changed much: Why beer? Why brewing? Why do you do what you do? But the common theme, from Oregon to Kansas to the Carolinas, is the way that a passion for beer builds and rolls forward on its own momentum.
Adventurous brewers are now setting their sights on a relatively unexplored aging vessel: the tequila barrel. Will they be a short-lived novelty, a reaction to the bourbon derivatives crowding the market, or are tequila barrel-aged beers what’s next in wood?
In a 2008 Last Call column Tomme Arthur condemned eBay’s alcohol sales policy, which prohibits private sales of all alcohol—except beer. Efforts by Arthur have resulted in eBay removing several beers from auction, but not all of them.
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.
The label design for Track #2 was created for the brewery’s series of beers inspired by rock anthems. The label started with Tomme Arthur’s idea to depict “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Guns N’ Roses, but morphed into Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”
Allagash’s Rob Tod recalls visiting spontaneous Belgian breweries with a group of American brewers, and wondering whether their techniques could be imported to the US.
While the packing and aging of beer in wooden barrels isn’t a new concept, the past decade or so has witnessed a growing trend in brewers experimenting with oak-aging every beer style under the sun.
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.
