Disc-O Fever | How Craft Beer Got Hooked on Disc Golf

I strode up to the cement landing pad, gripping a flat plastic circle in my hand. I surveyed the landscape, spying my gray target in the distance. Brimming with confidence, I took a deep breath, stepped back, and charged. Swinging my body to the left and pivoting forward in a semicircle, I arced like a shot putter, releasing my disc into the air. Up and up, it sailed past brush, birds, and blue sky. An adrenaline rush filled my lungs as I watched my disc sail straight…into the branches of a tree.  

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival

The inaugural Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival will take place Friday-Saturday, November 22-23 in the small town of Rushville, Indiana. This is a really unique event in the world of craft chocolate. Most of our festivals are in big cities on the coasts—New York, Seattle, San Francisco—but craft chocolate is all about cacao, the farms where it’s grown, and the farmers and farm workers who grow it, so where better to hold a celebration of chocolate than a farming community in America’s heartland?

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Firestone Walker’s 805 Brand Launches 8ZERO5 as its First N/A Beer

The inability to embrace change typically results in extinction, and the craft beverage community’s recent embrace of nonalcoholic options signals the industry’s maturation and ability to evolve amid rapidly changing taste preferences.

Among those diving head first into the N/A movement is Firestone Walker Brewing Company’s 805 brand, which recently launched 8ZERO5, the brand’s first nonalcoholic Blonde Ale. As one of the industry’s most dominant lifestyle beer brands, it felt only natural to embrace recent shifts toward low- and nonalcoholic options. 

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American Craft Beer Hall of Fame Announces Inaugural Class of Nominees

Ruth, DiMaggio, Aaron, Jordan, Jabbar, Johnson, Bird, Rice, Brown, Payton… these names have all been enshrined in history not just among their respective sports, but in the public zeitgeist, and soon names like Papazian, Maytag, Grossman, Jordan, and Calagione may join them.

Earlier this year long-time beer writer, beer judge, and beer educator, Marty Nachel sought to recognize and memorialize the people who made the American craft beer industry what it is today by launching the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame.

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Recapping the Highlights from 2024 Denver Rare Beer Tasting

The 15th running of Denver’s Rare Beer Festival saw one major change–the venue. Previously hosted at the McNichols Civic Center Building and before that, Wynkoop Brewing, election year-related scheduling conflicts at McNichols meant that Rare Beers needed a new home. Given that many visitors and brewers in town for GABF already make a yearly pilgrimage to Bierstadt Lagerhaus between convention shifts, the new venue was a natural fit.

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Table by New Image Brewing

Food at a brewery is often an afterthought. People go there for the beer being brewed, says common thinking, and then need something to eat – some type of nourishment should be offered. While this beer-first mentality makes sense for a business whose primary income is from beer, there exists the possibility to do things differently, giving a brewery’s food its moment to shine. Brandon Capps, founder of New Image Brewing, sought to redefine the taproom experience by transforming New Image’s Olde Town Arvada, Colorado location into Table, an approachable farm to table restaurant whose focus is all on the food and its quality ingredients. Brandon has “always been frustrated at why great food and great beer almost never seem to arrive side by side,” and he’s seeking to fix that flaw.

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Celebrating Three Years with Duneyrr Fermenta

After originally brewing at the brewery incubator, Pilot Project, in Chicago, Duneyrr Fermenta opened its doors in the South Loop. We spoke with their owner, Tyler Davis, about how Duneyrr started, what is up next for them, and about their upcoming three year anniversary!

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Wayfinder Beer Crowned the Krispy King

For the third year in a row, Barrels and Bottles Brewery in Golden, Colorado, hosted the Krispy King Lager Competition in advance of the Great American Beer Festival. This year — for the first time — they crowned a Krispy Queen. Read More

Odell Brewing | Lincolns Lager

It’s no surprise that craft beer is expensive. Perhaps it has always been this way, especially compared to macro beer. The strain of high price points to consumers is more acutely felt these days. To be sure, prices are high at every point in the supply chain, from raw materials to reliable labor to taproom space, and breweries themselves are struggling to balance all of these factors while still providing quality product at a palatable cost. It is because of all these elements that it is all-too-refreshing to find a good and affordable beer—or any drink for that matter. That is where Lincolns Denver steps into the picture, offering all drinks for only $5 cash. 

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2024 GABF Awards Results | Full Breakdown of GABF Winners

The 2024 Great American Beer Festival stormed back in a big way from an attendee standpoint, as we noted earlier in our day one recap, in large part due to its experiential tweaks for festival-goers and the competition yielded impressive results as well.

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Colorado Breweries Who Won Big at the 2024 GABF Competition

Colorado breweries boasted another impressive showing at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival. This year, Colorado breweries took home 38 medals with 34 different brewery locations celebrating awards, nearly matching the impressive outing of 40 medals coming from the Centennial State. An additional three medals were awarded to a pair of Colorado cideries, in Haykin Family Cider (Aurora, CO) and Snow Capped Cider (Austin, CO), the first time cideries were awarded medals at the competition with support from the American Cider Association.

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2024 Great American Beer Fest Night One Recap | Standouts & Hidden Gems

What a difference a year can make.

By 9 p.m. of last year’s Thursday night opening session, I had navigated most of the festival floor and left feeling underwhelmed, confused, and a bit dejected. After covering the biggest and best beer festival in the country for 11 years, the 2023 Great American Beer Festival, to put it politely, felt a bit stale.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Coffee, Cacao, Cocktails & Curiosity with Charlene Cabioch

While the bean in Bean to Barstool primarily refers to cacao for chocolate, and the barstool to craft beer, we have also covered craft coffee and spirits on this podcast periodically, and we’re looking at doing that more often going forward. Today’s guest brings both of those worlds together, giving new meaning to the name Bean to Barstool. Charlene Cabioch is a barista and mixologist from France who has a deep knowledge of both specialties, and has professional awards to prove it. She was a winner at the Aeropress World Championship in 2019, and the Coffee in Good Spirits Championship for coffee-infused cocktails in 2021 and 2023.

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2024 GABF Guided Routes | Fruit-Forward, N/A Beers & Ciders to Try at GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is finally back! With the insane multitude of beers being served on the festival floor, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. So PorchDrinking is once again here to help you navigate that lineup and help with planning your route at the fest. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through every beer pouring at this year’s fest to curate a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.
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2024 GABF Guided Routes | Best Barrel-Aged & High ABV Beers to Try at GABF

The Great American Beer Festival is finally back! With the insane multitude of beers being served on the festival floor, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. So PorchDrinking is once again here to help you navigate that lineup and help with planning your route at the fest. As part of that research, we’ve sifted through every beer pouring at this year’s fest to curate a series of themed routes to help you plan for your GABF based on various styles and flavors.

Earlier this week we featured the best Non-Alcoholic beers at the fest, and this morning we featured lower ABV Lagers, but now we turn up the octane to Barrel-Aged & high ABV beers. This year’s most prolific barrel-aged producers at the festival include 3 Floyds, Firestone Walker, Fremont, Maplewood, More Brewing, Modern Times, Pure Project, Revolution, River North Brewery, and WeldWerks to name a few.
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A Year in Michigan Beer | 52 Brews for All Seasons

Michigan is known as the “Great Beer State” for good reason. With over 400 breweries spread through two peninsulae, there’s no shortage of Michigan beer to try. You could spend an entire year drinking your way through the state and still not see all there is to offer. 

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