IS THIS REALLY WHAT IT'S COME TO? Having spent most of my working life in advertising, I know only too well that marketing is often about dreaming up some gimmick that will get people’s attention. Now you don’t need to get their attention for long; maybe just long enough to get noticed—or if you’re really lucky, long enough to make a buck or two. So it was with a bare smile that I noticed the recent introduction...

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            When you’re writing about beer, you feel it’s only fair to let people know a little bit about your background and tastes, so they can put your commentary into a context that makes sense. With that in mind, I thought I might share some thoughts about the worst and the best beers I have enjoyed up to this point—which includes about forty years of beer drinking.            ...

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The previous post brings me to one of the most useless phenomenons I have come across: the beer review podcast. I can think of few things more uninteresting and offensive to a person who is thirsty than to hear two guys sitting in the kitchen or the garage talking about the beer they happen to be drinking. I’ve done a lot of searches on iTunes and Podcasts and Stitcher to see what’s available, and while there are a few good...

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When we first put together this site, we needed to decide what kind of topics we wanted to cover and discuss on our posts. Commentary on whatever is happening (or not happening) in the beer world seemed the obvious choice; for myself, being slightly older, occasionally grumpy, clearly opinionated and naturally suspicious of  “craft beer hype” – this made for a perfect fit. I also do not find that every new brewery opening...

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I’m certainly not the first and I know I won’t be the last to talk about “jumping the shark” as far as craft brewing in America is concerned. Last year, there were numerous posts about it when the Hanson’s beer-making project became public. People have talked about it with the growth of beer-drinking among middle-aged women. They discussed it when someone realized Abita was now available in 46 states (and that’s a problem?)...

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