We have some work to do.

The Guide is saddened to hear of the passing of beer writer Des de Moor. He was generous in sharing his extensive knowledge of the London beer scene and it was always a pleasure to cross paths and compare notes. RIP Des, the next beer is for you 🍻

Here’s a great article explaining the new Rahr malt that sounds perfect for craft Pilsners and much more.

Over the past year, pFriem Family Brewers and Rahr Malting have been working on a pilsner malt specifically suited for a brewery making full-flavored lagers and lean IPAs. It could serve as a model for craft breweries and maltsters going forward.

Over the past year, pFriem Family Brewers and Rahr Malting have been working on a pilsner malt specifically suited for a brewery making full-flavored lagers and lean IPAs. It could serve as a model for craft breweries and maltsters going forward.

Follow-up to my “No One’s Apolitical Now” post. Here we have what appears to be the truly boneheaded brewery owner of Wonderland Brewery in CO. (I say this because he says “I am not a smart person” and “I have bad judgment” and his actions confirm it.) A short 🧵 expanding on this issue.

This is a hilarious article. (An excellent, well-written one.) If you thought the wine industry was full of itself, you don’t know the half of it. Via @slate.

Breweries, take note

Probably no worse than Untappd

Very few people in beer travel the same circles as those caught up in the Epstein files, but I did plug in some big names (Koch, Busch, Coors, Grossman) just to see. Nada. Has anyone else looked? @dinfontay.com? You have the cynical mind for this kind of thing. (Congratulatory.)

Adding this to my theory that dating apps forever changed the art of going out.

Recent research and analysis reveals the way young adults are using AI to avoid scary social encounters. What effect is this going to have on pubs?

"AI may screw up pubs and beer, but pubs and beer may, conversely, interrupt this process of AI-fueled social incapacity. If we can get these poor young people into a pub and put a beer and another person in front of them"

Recent research and analysis reveals the way young adults are using AI to avoid scary social encounters. What effect is this going to have on pubs?

Follow up. I had to run a (noncommerival) errand yesterday at 4:450m and the streets, which would normally be choked with cars, were mostly empty. Things really picked up after work and it seemed like people did a daytime strike and then went out for beers. We did! Cask pils Living Haus.

This is awesome. Abram is a wonderful human and this is a shaft of light in the darkness.

Today, grassroots organizers have called for a national strike in the US, asking businesses to close, and people to stay home from school or work. Breweries are using the event to speak out, with surprising force and transparency.

Today, grassroots organizers have called for a national strike in the US, asking businesses to close, and people to stay home from school or work. Breweries are using the event to speak out, with surprising force and transparency.

This is more politics, but not (intentionally) ideological. More a think piece.

The Beervana Blog is about to turn 20. The thing about retrospectives is you never remember anything. So, wise hive mind, what are the watershed changes/developments in beer over the last two decades?

I’m not sure Breakside thought through this whole thing. I’m no director of marketing, but I wonder if some of these phrases might be considered risky to a beverage brand’s reputation. (I love Breakside, but I’m not sure about this one.)

Brewery acquisitions rarely warrant celebration. But the news that Schneider, the famous Bavarian weissbier brewery, had acquired a nearby monastery with a thousand-year brewing lineage, was certainly one of them.

Brewery acquisitions rarely warrant celebration. But the news that Schneider, the famous Bavarian weissbier brewery, had acquired a nearby monastery with a thousand-year brewing lineage, was certainly one of them.

I just received an “embargoed”* press release from a brewery I won’t name (you don’t drink their beer) bragging about having sold 10m cans in 18 months. Which is 30k barrels. ______ * Wehave to have an agreement before you can demand embargoes, but I don’t care enough to break it.

Columbia Distributing, the Northwest’s largest distributor, announced it has acquired Portland’s Point Blank, a distributor founded in 2003 to serve the metro area’s craft breweries.

Columbia Distributing, the Northwest’s largest distributor, announced it has acquired Portland’s Point Blank, a distributor founded in 2003 to serve the metro area’s craft breweries.

Things are different this morning in the United States: “Chris Madel said that he was ending his Republican campaign for governor of Minnesota. ‘I cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.’”

I'm listening to music as I walk Rosie on this sunny Sunday morning. I know what's happening in MN and the country, and yet my experience right now is relaxed and joyful. It's a weird, contradictory feeling, and I feel slightly guilty. This is where we've come, feeling guilty about positive emotion.

This one is a lot more about media than politics, though politics are definitely the backdrop.

The weeks when you’re not sure what day it is have given way to the days when you check the calendar four times only to be learn again that it isn’t tomorrow yet. Eat some cheese. It’s going to be OK. Someday soon enough it won’t be around about now.

I will say the dog likes the sun.

A new pattern seems to be developing in which weeks in January are cloudless in Western Oregon. I may be the only person for whom all this winter sun creates Seasonal Affective Disorder or reverse-SAD or something. Anyway, the piercing low-horizon sun makes me want to punch someone.

Feels like I wrote this an eon ago, and it’s finally online (not that it’s time-sensitive). My “Style School” column on mixed-ferm saisons.

Beer isn’t doing great, but at least it’s doing better than whiskey. “Other well-funded upstarts have shuttered entirely, like includes Kentucky’s Garrard, an operation once estimated to cost $250 million to build, including a 50,000-square-foot distillery and 24 planned warehouses.”

The Michael James Jackson Foundation recently awarded scholarships to seven working brewers and distillers. Two of them are brewing in Oregon, and here’s their stories.

The Michael James Jackson Foundation recently awarded scholarships to seven working brewers and distillers. Two of them are brewing in Oregon, and here’s their stories.

The lesson of the civil rights movement isn’t that goodness always wins out. It’s that for goodness to win out, people must be prepared for a very long, hard fight.

When I turned 40, my beard starting going gray and I didn’t want to look 60 so I shaved it. It’s very gray, but I am now almost 60 (58 yesterday), so back it comes. It’s okay to look your age.

Celebrating Baltic porter day! Some bangers on from @pfriembeer.bsky.social, @beervana.bsky.social, Chuckanut, Threshold, Bierstadt, Bagby, & Oak Union! Cheers! #beersky #bskybeer #portlandbeer #craftbeer #balticporter #balticporterday

Weirdest beer glass? I’m taking nominations.

Some exciting announcements and updates as the new year begins, including a new podcast, a free webinar, and an important milestone.

I completely forgot another one, which I’ve just added as an update—a presentation at CBC this year.

Some exciting announcements and updates as the new year begins, including a new podcast, a free webinar, and an important milestone.

I love a good broadside, but this piece feels a bit unfair—and I’m not sure *it* does anything to advance matters, either. But snark is easy and fun to write, so.

Props to this dude soaking up the sun in the middle of an empty Broadway Bridge today (it's closed to car users due to a construction project). ☀️

Jan 14: “We carried that mood out with us into the black night, empty of traffic and movement. Relationships pivot on key moments, and ours did that night, nudged by… those pints of stout. We floated through the still streets back to campus, quiet as spies, carrying between us a new secret.”

Increasingly, Belgian breweries are moving to cans—at least for the beers they export to the US. But this simple package change seems to have had a fairly major impact on the beer. This is an old-timey, think-out-loud rumination on the development.

Increasingly, Belgian breweries are moving to cans—at least for the beers they export to the US. But this simple package change seems to have had a fairly major impact on the beer. This is an old-timey, think-out-loud rumination on the development.

ICYMI “No one at Guinness predicted that a bunch of young drinkers, TikTok apps in hand, would spark a sensation around drinking their beer. But if you had asked which kind of brewery would be the one to benefit from this phenomenon, it would have been one like Guinness.”

As the beer industry hits a rough patch, one brand stands apart as a huge success story, with healthy sales and its own social media craze. How do Guinness do it?