Is American beer any good? TheStar.com - living - Is American beer any good? The idea of weak American suds is being laid to rest by the boom in indie ales, stouts and pilsners Buffalo's Premier Gourmet has become a magnet for Canadian beer lovers by stocking around 1,000 beers, half of them brewed in the U.S. Where does the best beer come from?  read more »

Mike, Gina, and the Electric Boogaloo Crew descended upon Greenwood's Oaken Barrel for day three of our latest excuse to drink - Indiana Beer week.

Tonight's beer of honor was none other than Oaken Barrel's Berliner Weise - a sour beer that allows you, the customer, in on the fun by giving you a choice of syrups to add to the beer.

This is certainly an odd choice of beer to brew - only two commercially known version of the beer are available, and the process of brewing this particular style can be hazardous to a brewery's equipment. "Skull and Crossbones!" were the words used by assistant brewer Andrew Castner.

So why brew the style? The choice was inspired by head brewer Mark Havens' trip to Europe. After discussing the style, the two brewers headed to Shallos to give the available examples a whirl. Oaken Barrel is trying to introduce small batch beers throughout the year, in an effort to liven up their reputation. I'd say this is an excellent example of that effort.  read more »

In honor of Indiana Beer week, we continued our week-long adventure in beer at Spencer's Stadium Tavern, with New Albanian's Community Dark.

For the second night in a row, it was almost the beer review that wasn't - when arriving at Spencer's, the advertised beer was nowhere to be found. Luckily, we've got a friend in bartender Dustin, who - once realizing we we're rolling with a ten-deep posse - quickly cleaned his lines and moved the New Albanian brew to one of the seven taps.

About those taps: NA Community Dark, two Three Floyds, BBC one-batch Dank IPA, Wabash Gangster Pale (better on tap), Oaken Barrel Superfly... and Old Style. A very nice and very Indiana-heavy selection - just the sort of thing we like to see on Indiana Beer week.  read more »

Beer #1: Broad Ripple Brew Pub for Replic Ale - 80 Shilling Scottish

I don't know who these people at our table are, but I suspect they'll play a heavy role in our future
Since it is Indiana Beer week, and we're Hoosier Beer Geeks, it only makes sense that we spend the week exploring Indiana beer.

Although the originally scheduled program called for Broad Ripple Brew Pub to be carrying Lafayette's Tippecanoe Common on tap, something went wrong along the way. Luckily the brewpub is also currently carrying the 80 Shilling Scottish - this year's Brewfest Replic Ale. This recipe, put together by Dave and Clay at Ram, is 5.7% ABV, creamy, and.... creamy. A bitter but mild english sort of hop finish rolls out. Nice, but not much going on here - in both the beer and the crowd at the brewpub. Everyone's hanging out on the porch, but we're inside. I guess it's Monday.  read more »

The Miss USA pageant has always been the basic cable version of the iconic Miss America pageant, but after the "make under" that the latter received this year, the trash and flash of Miss USA is so totally welcome. Case in point: The pageant just started and there are so many sequins all over the place. Let's get ready for two hours of camp.

10:58 Miss Texas it is! My birthday is coming up. Maybe she can plan the party? I'd like to request someone to make balloon animals. Except instead of animals, I'd like x-rated balloons, like boners and stuff. I'm going to sleep!

10:56 This has been pretty boring. I guess I did miss a big part of the show when I was vomiting though.  read more »

NUVO's Rita Kohn, who shares our love of craft beer, has posted the transcript of the first annual Indiana Craft Beer Roundtable, which took place last month at the state fairgrounds. There's also video of the event here. The Roundtable was a panel discussion among Indiana's craft beer pioneers and leaders.  read more »

Meeting Provisions

Wednesday night, as Nate has already noted, the jokingly self-dubbed executive board of the Homebrew Club got together to figure out what exactly we were going to talk about at our next meeting. Nate's summary describes the evening well.

...there was some nice spicy sausage, Gruyere and Havarti cheese, then some St. Andre triple cream and a Spanish bleu (forgot the name) wrapped in grape leaf. Some apples and pears provided a sweet touch - and the hot appetizer for the evening was pieces of pheasant (courtesy of Eli) and pepperocini (sp?) peppers wrapped in bacon.

 read more »

Meet Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal! He's the frontrunner to be the running mate to the presidential candidate closest to death, so it will surely please you to know that, in his brief 36-year life, he has endured many difficult things, including the presence of SATAN HIMSELF. Well, it was either Satan, or a melodramatic college junior whose desire to fuck him made him worry he was gay or something. But we're going to go with Satan, since he's running for vice president, and what better proof that the Devil Remains At Large than the current holder of the vice presidency?  read more »