If you thought pumpkin beers were polarizing, there’s a new king of love-or-hate on the market: the hazy, juicy, New England-style IPA (NEIPA). For more than a decade, this IPA variant was relatively unknown outside of beer-geek circles. A handful of breweries in the Northeast – Vermont and Massachusetts in particular [...]
In Bellingham this year, winter came early– really early. Fall was short and sweet, like the festbiers and autumn ales that came with it. Now that we are nearing a daily temperature of 30 degrees, it's time to enter a new season and embrace a new style. Perhaps the broadest category [...]
Bale Breaker Brewing just announced plans to collaborate with four different breweries this hop harvest season. “Brewers from across the country are planning trips to the hop fields of Yakima Valley for our upcoming harvest,” says Jessica Hawkins, Bale Breaker’s marketing manager. "It's the perfect time to brew with some of [...]
By far, the India Pale Ale is the most popular style of craft beer, and I don’t see its status changing anytime soon. Every so often, another critic claims this hop-craze “trend” will fade, and that it will be replaced by the rising popularity of light lagers or the surge of saisons, [...]
Decades ago, beer lovers began gravitating toward full-flavored craft beers (“micro” beers back then) while abandoning the likes of Miller, Coors, and Budweiser. The vapid light lagers that dominated the market at the time were essentially industrial products made with adjuncts (see the definitions at the end of this article) with [...]
With this last round of snowstorms behind us, I think we could all use a tropical escape. But if that’s not possible, the next best thing just might be some tropical drinks, and I’m not talking sugary cocktails with tiny umbrellas. In recent times, I’ve noticed a surge of “tropical IPAs” [...]
Welcome back beer advocates, associates, achievers and admirers. It has been a little bit since I've posted a beer review, I have been traveling and haven't gotten to sit and write about many of the beers sampled. I wanted to take this in a different direction and post a review of [...]
Welcome back again beer lovers, sippers, fanatics, dabblers, and dynamos. This past weekend saw one of six Beer Camp festivals come to Seattle. Complete with 100+ breweries from across the country, hundreds of beers. Good times were had. The culmination of this has been made available to nearly everyone through the [...]
Irish red ale, or simply red ale, is a top-fermented beer with an amber, red or copper hue, moderate strength (typically 4-6% ABV), a malt-forward profile, and a relatively low or moderate amount of hop character along with a low hop bitterness (typically in the 15- to 30-IBU range). Some versions [...]
No beer is more romantic or more connected to Mother Nature than Lambics and spontaneously fermented ales. These unique beers are defined by geography, techniques, ingredients and local microorganisms. Lambic is spontaneously fermented beer from Brussels and the Pajottenland region (also Payottenland) / Senne Valley (also Zenne) of Belgium. Lambic is more of [...]
Gose is a German-style sour wheat beer that originated in the Middle Ages. Since 1740, it has been associated with Leipzig, Germany, but the style originated in Goslar, Germany, which is adjacent to the Gose River. At one time, Gose was a very popular beer, but it fell out of favor [...]
Saison, which means season in French, is among the most varied and wide-ranging styles of beer. Interpretations vary greatly from simple to complex, and from light (in color and strength) to dark and strong. Historically, saisons can be traced back to the nineteenth century, when they were made in small farmhouse breweries [...]
The imperial stout, also known as Russian imperial stout, is the granddaddy of stouts. Typically, these intensely flavored beers are mahogany-brown to inky black (SRM 35+), very strong (7-12+% ABV), heavily hopped (50-100 IBUs), full bodied, and very complex. Common flavors and aromas include dark chocolate/cocoa, caramel/toffee, coffee/espresso, and dark fruits [...]
