I’m taking a soft vacation over the next month to rest up and recharge. In this note, I mention a bit more about freelancing, and reporting in general in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk murder. (Another reason to take a break!)

I’m taking a soft vacation over the next month to rest up and recharge. In this note, I mention a bit more about freelancing, and reporting in general in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk murder. (Another reason to take a break!)

A nice piece cataloguing the trajectory of lambic in the U.S. by @aarongoldfarb.bsky.social on @vinepair.com. One thing I’d add is that the momentary infatuation with lambics got a lot of people into brewing who would found breweries. Most have shifted focus away from mixed ferm.

I mostly write about beer, so I’m probably not in immediate danger of the kinds of defenestrations we saw the Trump administration commit this week. Unless, I suppose, the kind of commentary I write below gets into the wrong hands. In any case, it feels personal.

A symposium on hops and a festival of cask! This is the true parliament of our age, where the only speeches given are by the noble barley and the wise yeast. I would hold forth on the virtues of a fresh-hopped brew until the last drop is called.

Aye, the poet's struggle! To capture such a brew is to describe the very color of joy itself—a liquid verdancy that sings to the tongue and dances for the eye. A most glorious confusion of the senses.

This weekend, Friday and Saturday 9/19-20, Portland-area breweries will host two cool events: a ranging discussion on hops, esp. fresh hops, with an art release, and a cask ale fest. Let me tell you about both.

This weekend, Friday and Saturday 9/19-20, Portland-area breweries will host two cool events: a ranging discussion on hops, esp. fresh hops, with an art release, and a cask ale fest. Let me tell you about both.

Yep, exactly. You know it when you taste it, that experience of "green" in the best way, but it's very, very hard to describe to someone who has never experienced it.

Trying to describe fresh hop beers is hard because rather than just reaching for another adjective, we grope toward different realms of experience. Drinking a very one is to experience synesthesia and encounter the taste of iridescent green.

And the illustration here is of one of my very favorite breweries in the city.

Trying to describe fresh hop beers is hard because rather than just reaching for another adjective, we grope toward different realms of experience. Drinking a very one is to experience synesthesia and encounter the taste of iridescent green.

A small program at a neighborhood brewery isn’t the kind of thing to make big news—except that breweries across the country do these kinds of things every day. Taken together, they’re important elements of healthy local communities.

It has been not quite 24 hours since a gunman—still at large—shot conservative activist Charlie Kirk while he was giving a speech at an Utah college. Things have … deteriorated.

This is super fascinating. No wonder that the Jacobsens traveled to the heart of lager land to learn their secrets—they were the most advanced in the world. The details are fascinating.

I had no idea Wolfgang Puck had a brewpub in the 80s.

NO WAY. Don’t give any beer to ICE.

Generally ice numbs your palate so you can't taste so well, but hey, you do you, man. Personally, I make Diesels with beer I don't like but have a lot of.

I’m against putting ice in whisky but hey, it’s your drink. Drink it how you like it.

The newest trend among young drinkers is something called “icy beer”—lager on the rocks, if you will. Is this the end of civilization, or a tasty summer treat? I consider the question.

Do you like fresh hop beers? Of course you do! That’s why you should check out this new research project for science, in which you get to drink samples of fresh hop beers and participate in a survey to help figure out why they taste so good. www.thebrewsite.com/drink-fresh-...

The art of brewing has been constantly evolving for thousands of years. Technologies like heated stones, elbow thermometers, and fish bladder finings may have run their course, but others transformed beer. Which were the most significant? The answers lie herein!

The Hanseatic League and their gunboats were making you drink their hopped ale whether you liked it or not!

“Bremen was a Hanseatic League city, so that beer went out across northern Europe, to Holland, the Baltic countries, and Scandinavia. And lo, once it arrived in those cities, it stayed fresh longer than the local product.” What could have preserved this beer? It’s number 3 on the list:

Eight-twenty-two A.D. Amazing.

The art of brewing has been constantly evolving for thousands of years. Technologies like heated stones, elbow thermometers, and fish bladder finings may have run their course, but others transformed beer. Which were the most significant? The answers lie herein!

10 years after I started collecting data my paper on the use of spice in farmhouse brewing is finally submitted to a journal. It's based on 1052 individual accounts of farmhouse brewing. Material collected from 15 different archives in 8 different countries. 7191 pages of documentation in total.

This is crazy/awesome. I know this guy! (Sort of.)

Researching Czech low-gravity lagers, I had another sit-down with Štěpán Kříž about the weird Czech hop he uses in Pivovar Hostomice’s 2.9% alcohol 7° and spoke to the folks at Únětický Pivovar about their 3.4% alcohol 8° (pictured). The lab says this one has 45 IBUs, and I believe it. Glorious.

Some exciting new research is happening as I write this, and will examine why fresh hops taste different than dried ones. Four breweries are participating, and Oregon State University will be analyzing them. Here are the details.

As a lover of fresh hops (just brewed with my backyard cascades on Saturday!) this study is really cool and I’m excited to see the results.

Some exciting new research is happening as I write this, and will examine why fresh hops taste different than dried ones. Four breweries are participating, and Oregon State University will be analyzing them. Here are the details.

This is not a great study, imo. In order to arrange the variables in a way that they could conceivably answer the question, researchers made broad and sweeping judgments on quite a few thorny and complex issues—and that’s where my main complaints lie. Quick examples. (Short 🧵)

Happy Labor Day!

Politics if that’s your thing.

“Redistricting” isn’t a legitimate complication worsened by efforts at election interference, it IS election interference.

Politics if that’s your thing.

We're happy to announce that @braciatrix.bsky.social will be speaking at this year's festival on "Drinking with the Dead: Women, Ale, and Ritual in Viking-Age Ireland." www.norskkornolfestival.no/2025/08/27/s...

I ❤️ this for many reasons: science 🧪! But also it’s so amazing to live here in Portland where we’re ground zero for craft beer excellence. Fresh hop season is starting and this is where you have to be! 🍻 If you like beer, put a visit to PDX in Sept on your bucket list

We opened a bag of 1019/Dolcita the other day and I have never smelled anything that smelled quite so much like peach candy rings. Can't wait to try the beer we made with it!

This post was a bit neglected, and I think you’ll enjoy it, so let’s do a short thread. Three years ago, I wrote about a promising cultivar from the Hop Breeding Co., 1019. A couple weeks ago, the company named it for commercial production: Dolcita. I write about it here:

TIL that winemakers like autolysis. The craft of fermentation and flavor is a weird, witchy one.

Lovely bit of hop nerdery about newly-named variety Dolcita by @beervana.bsky.social here: www.beervanablog.com/beervana/202... Folks in this part of the world can find it in this year's Hope Summer Seasonal, still in shops.

“Dolcita is one of the first hops to get a serious boost through chemical analysis” #chemsky 🧪⚗️

Three years ago, I wrote about a hop making its way through advanced trials, and a couple weeks ago, it made it to the promised land. In today’s post I speak with breeders and researchers about newly-minted Dolcita and what makes her special.

Three years ago, I wrote about a hop making its way through advanced trials, and a couple weeks ago, it made it to the promised land. In today’s post I speak with breeders and researchers about newly-minted Dolcita and what makes her special.

This week's slacker vacation level beery news notes were brought to you by @katiematherkm.bsky.social @beervana.bsky.social @stanhieronymus.bsky.social @boakandbailey.bsky.social @merryn02.bsky.social @decanter.com @pelliclemag.com and my hope for hours and hours of rain after two months of drought.

In Ontario, our premier is not keen on re-stocking LCBO shelves with US products (yet). www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/arti...

Missed fresh hops by one day at Baerlic. Fortunately, there’s this sexy little number to console me.

When Canadians cleansed their shelves of American products following the Trump tariffs, they didn’t stay empty. Canada may have dropped its embargo of American goods this week, but getting that shelf space back isn’t guaranteed.