At the beginning of the craft beer movement, IPAs were relatively simple and straight forward brews. At a baseline, they were nothing more than extra bitter pale ales. Fast forward to today where even the simplest IPAs can punish palates and strip tooth enamel. As a result, the style...  more »

As the seasons change, so do the options on the beer store shelves. Most people would be surprised to know that there are many more options from a seasonal beer perspective than from a year-round one. Most breweries only craft a handful of core staple beers that they are recognized fo...  more »

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times. If you truly want to understand what hops bring to the beer table, then explore a single hop series of beers. The concept is simple: a brewery will craft a beer (usually an Imperial IPA) using only one type of hops. The best single h...  more »

Oh Magic Hat, you fantastically strange brewery. Whenever I need to mix things up a bit, I can always rely on Magic Hat for a healthy dose of WTF. Don't get me wrong though, I don't mean this in a bad way because they do craft good beer at a baseline. But on the flip side, their brews...  more »

It's the Rye of the Tiger. It's the thrill of the malt. Rising up to the challenge of a rye ale. Yes, that just happened. I hope you enjoyed that glorious jaunt back through 80's pop culture. I also hope you enjoy that virulent tune now stuck in your head for the rest of the week....  more »

Thanks to the craft beer movement, we now have access to so many different varieties of beer and our palates are expanding every day. But, there is one particular style that is getting flogged like a rented mule. Of course I a talking about the India Pale Ale (IPA). This is the beer s...  more »

Sometimes a beer name can perfectly capture the mood. Many brewers go to great lengths to find perfect names for their beers, be it according to ingredients, geography, history, or general feeling they get from a session. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Some names beautifull...  more »

I have begun to take notice of an interesting trend circulating through the craft beer movement. There is no common name for them that I know of, so I will just refer to them as ''awareness beers''. These are the beers that are tied to a specific cause, usually involving some sort of...  more »

Every once in a while a beer will come along that throws you for a loop. Now I'm not talking about those bottles of WTF that have you scratching your head in disbelief. I'm talking about those beers where even halfway through the experience you're still thinking ''this is a good beer,...  more »

The Olde Hickory Brewery out of Hickory, NC is well known in the region for their small batches of delectable nectar. They have managed to make a name for themselves based on quality alone and refuse to scale production if it compromises product integrity. That's a rare trait to find...  more »