Your Worst Nightmare
I probably shouldn’t speak for you, but this is certainly my worst nightmare. I tweeted this yesterday, but thought it still deserving of a snarky comment again today. Somewhere near Manchester, England is the Alcohol-Free Shop, a store dedicated to all things non-alcoholic. They carry non-alcoholic beer, wine, cider, ready-made cocktails and celebration drinks. They [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
ABI To Buy Modelo This Year
Grupo Modelo is the largest beer company in Mexico, and their most popular beer, of course, is Corona. For many years, Anheuser-Busch has owned a non-controlling 50% share of the company, but after the InBev merger they own 50.2% but only 49.3% voting. And I think they’ve been coveting control for a long, long time [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
PLCB Conducts Second Raid On Distributor
Pennsylvania’s beer scene appears on the brink of martial law, with the state police last night raiding one of the distributors who carries some of the beer confiscated earlier this week, such as Duvel. Don Russell has posted to his Beer Radar blog what is known so far, and promises to have a fuller account [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Beer In Ads #61: Mr. Magoo For Stag Beer
Tuesday’s ad is for Stag Beer, whose original name was “Kaiser Beer” until 1907. In an effort to avoid growing anti-German sentiment, Star Brewing held a contest to pick a new name. A winner was chosen today in 1907, and the beer was renamed “Stag Beer.” It proved a very popular name. The ad below [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
UK Creates New Ministry For Pubs
How cool is this. The UK government has just created a new Ministry — similar to our cabinet positions — The Ministry for Pubs. Wentworth MP John Healey was named the firs Minister, and he had the following to say about his appointment.
“Pubs are often at the heart of community life. And they are important [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Beer In Ads #60: Schlitz El Toro Bravo
Monday’s ad is for Schlitz Malt Liquor. I don’t ever remember the can looking so, well, stylish so I have to guess this is from the 60s? The pull-top is another clue, of course, as Schlitz introduced what they called the “pop-top” in 1963. Plus the stylized art looks rather bachelor pad circa mid-60s, too. [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Beer Waterfall
In a scene straight out of a deranged adult version of Willy Wonka, the beer waterfall on the belated birthday card below arrived in my mailbox today.
The card was primarily the work of my friends Ray and Cornelia, both Beer Drinkers of the Year in separate years. But they took it along with them to [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Craft Beer Numbers Up Again For 2009
The Brewers Association released the 2009 numbers for craft beer today, and I’m happy to report it’s good news again. While mainstream beer recently reported their largest negative sales period since the 1950s, craft beer in 2009 was up 7.2% by volume and 10.3% by dollars over the previous year. According to the press release, [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Philly’s Beer Police State
If this doesn’t make you shudder, you’ve got eisbock running through your veins. It appears the Volstead Act is alive and well in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. According to an account of Pennsylvania’s Beer Storm Troopers entitled Troopers Raid Popular Bars for Unlicensed Beers, by Don Russell, with Bob Warner, earlier today in the Philadelphia [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Beer In Art #68: Henry Singleton’s Ale-House Door
Today’s work of art was originally painted around 1790, when the English pub was a very different animal. It was created by Henry Singleton, a British artist who lived from 1766-1839. This painting, The Ale-House Door, is an oil on canvas painting roughly 10 x 12 inches, and the original can be found at the [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Guinness Ad #8: Opening Time Is Knight Time
The eitgth Guinness poster by John Gilroy is of a Knight in shining armor trying to figure out how to drink through his helmet. The tagline is “Opening Time is Guinness Time,” but it looks more like Knight Time to me.
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Categories: Beer Blogs
Boycott UPS For Refusing To Ship Beer
Wow, this is one of those seriously WTF stories (thanks to Lisa Morrison for tweeting it). The Idaho Statesman has a disturbing little story entitled UPS, FedEx Side With Wine in Beer Battle by their beer columnist, Patrick Orr. To work yourself up into the proper lather, I recommend reading the whole column first.
But essentially, [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
A Beer With The Last Good Kiss
Because I write for a living, I take it seriously and am always trying to be a better writer. For that reason, I subscribe to several twitter feeds that offer suggestions and advice for writers. One recently linked to an interesting list, the 100 Best First Lines of Novels. Number one, of course, is “Call [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Beer In Ads #59: Whitbread’s Here’s Health
Friday’s ad is for Whitbread beer, since that’s who I was writing about for this month’s Session post today. This one is from 1930 and fittingly features a boat on the water. “Ashore or Afloat WHITBREAD’S PALE ALE is the best Summer beverage.” The art has the same idealized look as the series that U.S. [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Session #37: Drinking The Good Stuff
Our 37th Session is hosted by The Ferm and Sir Ron’s theme is The Display Shelf: When to Drink the Good Stuff, a dilemma many of us face. We’ve all accumulated “numerous bottles of beers that [were] subsequently cellared and designated as ‘to be opened on a special occasion.’ [The] dilemma, however, is matching an [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Beer In Ads #58: Ruppert People Have A Thirst For Living
Thursday’s ad is for Ruppert Beer, because today is the birthday of Jacob Ruppert, Sr., father of his more famous son Junior or Jake, who founded the famous New York brewery in 1867. Ruppert’s most famous brand was Knickerbocker, a Dutch name that eventually became a term for New Yorker (and where the basketball “Knicks” [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Toxic Paint Discovered At Old Rainier Brewery
While the good news is the building may be able to be saved, the bad news is that the iconic Rainier Brewery building in Seattle, Washington is teeming with toxic PCBs from the paint. Here’s the story below, from KING 5 television.
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Categories: Beer Blogs
Beer Birthday: Tonya Cornett
Today is Tonya Cornett’s 41st birthday. Tonya is the brewmaster of Bend Brewing in Oregon, Bend’s 2nd largest brewery. I’ve only met Tonya a couple of times, but she’s a great brewer and, of course, being born 1 day and ten years after me makes her a terrific human being, too. Join me in wishing [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Literature and the English Pub
If you’re a fan of great English literature and its relationship to the traditional pub, you may enjoy this program from BBC 4. It was first broadcast March 1 and will be available to listen to on the BBC’s archive until this Saturday, March 6. Here’s the description of it from the website:
From Falstaff at [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs
Beer Birthday: J (Yes, Embarrasing Myself This Time)
Today is my 51st birthday, and I’ve been overwhelmed by an embarrassment of riches from well-wishers sending me notes via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook. Thanks to one and all. Since it’s usually me posting embarrassing photos of my friends and colleagues, last year I posted a bunch encompassing my first 50 years on a page [...]
Categories: Beer Blogs








