Every week, we get news about Bud Light’s latest performance, and every week it gets worse. The brand is in freefall, and according to most commenters, all because of a boycott by conservatives. But these numbers can’t all be from one boycott. What’s really going on?
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The discovery of a new Maryland hop led me on a trail of discovery to the office of Dr. Nahla Bassil, at the National Clonal Germplasm Repository. What I discovered was incredibly fascinating, and went far beyond the scope of a single wild hop.
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Following the hailstorm of criticism that fell on the recent Craft Brewers Conference, I reached out to organizers at the Brewers Association for answers to some of the critiques.
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Hazy IPAs are known for their gentle, sweet tropicality, while West Coast IPAs feature savory, garlic-to-pine notes. In Portland, some breweries have decided to blend the two together. Amazingly, it works.
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I may be an outlier here, but as a rule of thumb, I personally would never green-light a collab with any packaged meats product.
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After an encounter with a single-hop Talus beer, I have a better sense what this newish American hop tastes like, and I am in love. It’s tropical, but less mango and more mangosteen. In this post, I unpack its unusual but somehow familiar flavors.
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The origins for the way John Kimmich makes hoppy ales were many, and as far away as San Diego and Portland. Yet when he canned Heady Topper, “everybody thought that I just blinked my eyes one night and made this beer.” His thoughts on hops and where his offspring have taken IPAs.
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Two breweries joined a small wave opening in Portland in the past year, and even in a very crowded market they bring something eaters and drinkers won’t find elsewhere.
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There’s nothing wrong with beer styles per se, but they have become so codified and calcified they’re as much a straightjacket as a tool for understanding. We won’t and shouldn’t abandon beer styles entirely, but it’s time to develop a new language.
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Less than a year ago, three Washington state breweries filed a lawsuit against Oregon to allow them to self-distribute into the state. Suits like this can take five or more years to work their way through the system, but not this one—Oregon folded like a cheap suit.
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