AT THE END of the bar, with a frosty glass of beer in hand, few of us ever look beyond the frothy head of suds.
We sit around, trade lies and gulp pitchers with rarely a thought about where our favorite adult beverage fits into the grand scheme of things. It’s a time to relax, not worry. So we rarely … Read the rest
GOOD LORD, it’s Christmastime already. Hope Santa brings me a new bottle opener!
Every year the holiday comes faster. I say this not because I still haven’t paid off my credit card, but because I still haven’t polished off last season’s holiday brews.
If I look around enough in my basement, I’m sure I’ll find a few from the 1900s!… Read the rest
WITH ALL due respect for tailgaters who routinely forget to load up on beer before the big weekend game, let me tell you why the move to legalize Sunday sales at Pennsylvania beer distributors is a bad idea.
And, no, it’s not because I think you’re a bunch of lazy asses who shudda planned ahead.
The bill making its way … Read the rest
Under the guise of “modernizing” state beer laws, Harrisburg lobbyists engaged in some old-fashioned legislative greasing this week.
They came up with an amendment in the Sunday-beer-sales bill that would give British booze giant Diageo Guinness, Johnny Walker, Smirnoff) a huge cash windfall while denying the same savings to the state’s small brewers.
The amendment rewrites Pennsylvania’s arcane liquor law … Read the rest
THIS TIME of the year, the buzz really kicks in, and I’m not just talking about the high octane in cold-weather beers.
The buzz is the excitement, the impatient talk that circulates among beer freaks over an assortment of highly desired, once-a-year, craft-brewed specialties. Though breweries release specialties throughout the year, the pace picks up during the holidays, when winter … Read the rest
IT’S TAKEN me two full weeks to clear the cranium since the annual Great American Beer Festival, in Denver. The notes in my suds-soaked notebook attest to only one thing:
Too much beer and not enough hands.
The lasting image came during a post-festival showdown between East and West Coast brewers at a downtown beer bar. There, we were treated … Read the rest
LONDON PRIDE is a world-class English ale, and I don’t mean one of those solemn, introspective tomes that goes down like a dose of Thackeray without Cliff Notes.
This is a pale ale the way Brits make pale ales. Smooth, lightly bittered, perfectly balanced – not hopped out the wazoo like those Cascades-addled pales from the West Coast.
Best of … Read the rest
A COUPLE OF Philly beer guys are now members of one of Europe’s oldest trade guilds.
At least that’s what bar owner Tom Peters and beer distributor Eddie Friedland assume happened earlier this month during much pomp and circumstance on Brussels’ Grand Place.
The whole event was in French and Flemish – not these homeboys’ first languages. There were hours … Read the rest
I HAVE NO sympathy for beer drinkers fretting about the end of summer.
Sure, now that the softball season is over and the lawn is mown, you’re crying because you don’t have an automatic excuse for draining half a case of ice-cold lager. But if you haven’t had your fill of summer brew by now, you just haven’t been trying.… Read the rest
I REALLY WANTED to like the Miller Lite.
I truly wanted to sip the glass of fizzy yellow suds and declare, “I love this stuff!”
It would have been a complete betrayal of my beer-drinking principles, my long-held conviction that light beer is for people who don’t like the taste of beer. But under the circumstances . . .
The … Read the rest