YOU’VE HEARD of lawn-mower beers, those light, refreshing gulpers you pound after traipsing behind a Toro in the hot sun.
But what about snowblower beer? What do you drink after plowing your car out of a drift?
Midway through the worst winter in Philadelphia history, I’ve given this question a lot of thought and have come to the conclusion that … Read the rest
WANT TO know what beer tasted like in the olden days, when men were men and brewers were wizards?
Pete Slosberg, the guy who founded Pete’s Wicked Ales, says that when he conducts beer tastings, he tries “to get people away from the notion that when Robin Hood and his merry men were drinking in Sherwood Forest, they were drinking … Read the rest
IN 1852, the British government dispatched Royal Navy Cmdr. Edward Belcher and a fleet of five ships to the Canadian Arctic to search for the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin. They came up empty, and four of Belcher’s ships – including the H.M.S. Resolute – were abandoned in the ice.
Years later, the Resolute was discovered adrift, salvaged, returned … Read the rest
THE BEER in front of me was dark and strong . . . and totally illegal in America.
It was an ice bock, an old style that – thanks to one of those puzzling quirks in alcohol law – cannot be brewed in America and sold as beer.
I won’t mention the brewer who made it because he could face … Read the rest
MEGABREWERIES churn out millions of barrels of beer every year. Microbreweries make thousands. So what do you call a company that brews just 100 or so barrels of beer each year?
A nanobrewery.
A couple of dozen have cropped up across the country in the past two years, operating quietly out of basements, garages and even storage units. They brew … Read the rest
YOU’VE GOTTA love the scientific mind, circa 1877:
An author identified in the French Journal d’ Hygiene as A. Chevallier opined that, if beer is good for you, and milk is good for you, then beer made with milk instead of water has to be even better. His imagined concoction, La Biere de Lait, would combine the restorative qualities of … Read the rest
THIS TIME OF the year, everybody does a Top 10 List. But I consume beer by the sixpack, so that’s what you’re getting today: The 6 Beers That Defined the Decade.
These aren’t necessarily my favorites. (Heck, I can’t even pick my favorite from last night. ) But they are beers that set the pace in the American beer scene … Read the rest