After Samuel Adams’ Utopias and the 31% Schorschbräu, the folks at BrewDog beat them both last fall when they came out with Tactical Nuclear Penguin, at 32%. Then Schorschbräu answered back with a 40% version. In February, BrewDog launched Sink the Bismark, again over-taking their German rivals with the 41% hop bomb. Schorschbräu has now created [...]

Tuesday’s ad is for Amstel beer, before they added the “light.” It’s from 1961 and also has KLM Airlines as a part of the ad, perhaps a partnership ad. It would appear they were trying to position Amstel as a high-end premium beer. Share and Enjoy:

I have nothing against wine, I drink it fairly often and am an unabashed cross drinker. But this is still a little odd, to me. The Outside Lands two-day music festival that will take place in Golden Gate Park in mid-August appears to be wine only. And that’s despite having Heineken as one of the [...]

The Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer has an interesting article, Brewers Have High Hopes For N.C. Hops, about farmers in the state, centered in the mountains around Asheville, experimenting with planting hops. Hoping to build on the craft-brewing and local food movements, N.C. State University researchers in Raleigh and a handful of farmers in the [...]

“The inaugural Short Pour Film Festival on the subject of beer, which was announced last August, was judged last weekend. The films will debut at the Monterey Beer Festival on June 5th, 2010, from 12:30pm to 5pm.” The Winning Film, along with the entire One Hour & Twenty Minute Program, will be shown in the [...]

Monday’s ad is from Részvény Serfözöde, a Budapest, Hungary brewery. The illustration was done by Paul Foldes. I’m not entirely sure when it was done. I chose it because today is Memorial Day, and the idea depicted that beer could end a war is an attractive one. I believe the scene’s supposed to be during [...]

Today’s work of art is by one the most famous artists to ever paint: Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens “was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical [...]

Today is Adam Avery’s 44th birthday. Adam, of course, founded his eponymous brewery, Avery Brewing, in Boulder, Colorado. Since 1993, Adam’s been making some increasingly hoppy and big, challenging beers that are also quote wonderful, too. Join me in wishing Adam a very happy birthday. At a Collaboration Beer Dinner with Bruce Paton, center, pitting Adam [...]

Today is the 32nd — can that be right? — birthday of Ben Love. Ben is the head brewer at Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Oregon, having previously brewed at Pelican Pub & Brewery and Adler Brau in Wisconsin. Ben’s a great brewer, a good friend, an active board member of the Oregon Brewers Guild [...]

Our 20th Guinness poster by John Gilroy features the iconic toucan, who’s just opened his bottle of Guinness with his impressive beak. The tagline reads “Opening Time is Guinness Time.” Share and Enjoy:

A couple of years ago, someone did a map of the U.S. using a beer label from each state, which I posted in Labeling the States. A world travel website, Pure Travel, has done their own version but with a world map and labels for each country. Apparently there are 80 different labels represented. You [...]

Today is the 50th birthday of Tony Magee. Tony is the founder and owner of Lagunitas Brewing. We first met in the mid-1990s when I visited the old brewery, before they moved to their present location, and have been good friends ever since. With his twisted, iconoclastic vision, Tony’s built an amazing empire by never [...]

Boston Beer Co. recently announced their new IPA, Latitude 38, previously available only in a variety pack, would be going solo in its own six-pack beginning this fall. With that decision, nine out of the ten biggest craft breweries will now have an India Pale Ale as a year-round beer. Only the Spoetzl Brewery in Texas [...]

Friday’s ad is another one for Schlitz, from 1955. The slogan is “Your Thirst Can ‘Feel’ the Difference!” at the top and on the bottom of the ad it’s “If you like beer you’ll love Schlitz.” I love the happy looking man in the gray flannel suit holding the very colorful six-pack of 16 oz. [...]

With merger mania and big business dealings heating up lately — with Pabst, ABI’s British Brands & China investments — I almost forgot about Foster’s. But the Foster’s Group said Tuesday that it’s splitting up the divisions of the company and is looking for a buyer for the brewing portion. Business Week is [...]

The English version of the Chinese newspaper, The People’s Daily, had an interesting article about international breweries investing heavily in the world’s biggest beer market: China. Entitled, Big Brewers Fermenting Deals in Southwest, it details, for example, how MolsonCoors has “recently spent $40 million to buy a 51 percent stake in a new joint [...]

Matt Sweeny, from Fatty Matty Brewing, a homebrewing and craft beer website, announced yesterday that he’s started a small hop farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, named Simple Earth Hops. From the press release: Simple Earth Hops is a new 1/4 acre hopyard located at Greenspirit Farm CSA in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. The hopyard was founded with the idea of [...]

According to the Canadian National Post (sent in by an alert reader — thanks Brian S.), the LCBO — the Liquor Control Board of Ontario — has banned the Christmas beer Samichlaus, from Schloss Eggenberg. Here’s the reason, if you can even call it that. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has decided the beer’s [...]

Thursday’s ad is for Schlitz, I think from the late 1950s. The slogan, “Move up to quality — Move up to Schlitz!” Is it just me or is that hand the reason they now use hand models? And check out the swanky cuff link of a fish the guy is wearing. Share and Enjoy:

Jim Koch, the founder of Boston Beer Co., known primarily for their Samuel Adams beers, is celebrating his 61st birthday today. Jim was instrumental, of course, in spreading the word about craft beer, especially in the early days when Samuel Adams was often the first one to be available in many pockets of the country. [...]