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 »

Given that Dogfish Head Craft Brewery touts its line of singular beers as "off-centered ales for off-centered people," you naturally expect its owner, the 39-year-old Sam Calagione, will be a similarly eccentric character. But he's as down to earth as his beers are out of this world.

After earning an English degree from Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania in 1992, Calagione moved to Manhattan to take writing courses at Columbia with an eye toward joining its master of fine arts program. Instead, he discovered craft beer. He fell hard, becoming a home brewer almost overnight.  read more »

By Angelo De Ieso II On a recent trip to Southern California, I had the great privilege to sample some great beers in the San Diego area--Port/Lost Abbey, Stone, AleSmith, Ballast Point, and Coronado to name a few. Green Flash Brewing in Vista, California was one of the best, producing some palate-jolting brands that have been garnering acclaim all over the world of late. The company's West Coast IPA has become an industry standard and has placed the San Diego style IPA on the map. Winning several awards while finding new and exciting uses for the precious hop, Green Flash head brewer Chuck Silva showed me around the brewery and let me taste some amazing beers. He also was so kind as to shed some light on himself, the brewery, and the whole hop craze. If you are ever in the area, make sure to stop by the brewery and taste some of their wonderful offerings.  read more »

By Angelo De Ieso II Oregons easternmost brewery is Beer Valley Brewing Company located just west of the Idaho border in the small town of Ontario . Head brewer Pete Ricks developed his model for Beer Valley while living and brewing in the Southwestern United States. His design grew out of his work as a Southwest correspondent for Celebrator Beer News and his partnership with Santa Fe Brewing in New Mexico. A self-proclaimed extreme brewer, Ricks brewed his first four batches of a mammoth imperial stout called Black Stout at Santa Fe. The eleven-percent brew began with distribution in New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California before making its way to Oregon. Employing eight different malt varieties and four different hops while boasting over 100 IBU, the brew remains abysmally dark and recklessly bitter. Most people dont like dark beer, and most people dont like really bitter beer says Ricks. What I intended to do with that beer was make it the darkest, bitterest beer you could pretty much buy everywhere. When Ricks made the move to Oregon in the summer of 2007, he had a relatively wide distribution base already in tact. He sought the input of former Stone Brewing brewmaster Lee Chase. (Chase) helped me in Ontario when we were first planning and formulating Black Flag explains Ricks. He looked at my recipe for Black Flag and said Are you sure you want to put that much hops in your beer?  read more »

Wow, there sure are a lot of bloggers participating in The Session... I think my prediction about The Session (and beer blogging in general) taking off this year is on-target.

You've likely already read my Session contribution... so, here are all the rest. In order to be fair, I've tried to list the links in the order that I received them, or first came across them in the blogs if I didn't receive an email.  read more »

By Elaine Cushman Carroll, Globe Correspondent May 11, 2008  read more »

Great interview from TheFullPint.com and within the interview Stone's Steve Wagner reveals the new Stone 12th Anniversary beer "Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout". Cheers, Frank TheFullPint.com is proud to bring you a one on one interview with Steve Wagner, Brewmaster & President of Stone Brewing Company. Stone Brewing Co was founded in 1996, and started in San Marcos, CA. Stone is famous for larger than life brews, painted on labels, and their gargoyle mascot. Behind these great icons is Steve Wager, Greg Koch and the entire Stone Team.  read more »

By John Cloud/San Diego (Time.com)

...And we're speaking about beer and cheese. In the past days, the singular and hedonistic pairing of these two staples has announced itself in my life time and again; I imagine I'm stating the apparent to many of you, however, the readiness and propensity for such pleasure and complexity from such an unpretentious pairing has gripped me and simply will not loosen. Pity for you... Unexpectedly, Tuscany and California met in my mouth just a few days ago. I hadn't planned the match. In fact, far from being a culinary architect, I felt afterwards as though whatever muses sang to cheesemongers and beer stewards had let loose an odd note which, by some circumstance, rang to a pitch discernible by one idiot savant, namely myself!  read more »

My old friends and I have an annual tradition. Once a year we get together to celebrate the opening of trout season. What started out as a mind bending day trip has gradually morphed into a four day holiday. When we were in High School (over 25 years ago), we used to load into my '72 International Scout and my friends '78 Bronco, hitting the road at 3am to make it for the opening "drop the line" 7am whistle. We would travel 2-3 hours just to fish. Actually, I think we drank more beer than we fished. We would crack our first can of beer at 6am, drinking in the cold morning air waiting for 7am to come. We'd fish for a few hours and then hit the beers, eventually heading home. Always with a designated driver and our parents were never the wiser.

Over the years we got older and the routine changed. We'd still head to our spot in the wee hours of the morning getting there two hours before fishing time, start drinking and then fish and then drink some more. But now because we were older we needed after fishing entertainment. That's when the "shaker joints" came into play. After a morning of fishing and drinking we would head for the Adult Entertainment venues. Nothing worse than a bunch of drunk college students in a strip bar. I am glad we grew out of that phase of our fishing trips or should I say lived through it.  read more »