Crystal Lake Brewing | Beach Blonde

ABV 5.3 % | IBU: 18

Summer isn’t over yet. There’s still time. There’s still time for cook-outs, boating the lake or river, bonfires, s’mores and a backyard game of bags. With my first child coming hard down the pike and store shelves already bloated with Oktoberfests and pumpkin beers, I keep telling myself there’s still time to tick-off the activities on my summer must-do list. So perhaps that’s in part why I’m completely enamored with an easy drinking, well-rounded, and totally crushable beer from Crystal Lake Brewing. Read More

Ultimate 6er | 2016 Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Variety Pack

Take a look at the brewing notes and ingredients for this year’s Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Variety Pack and you’ll see what is perhaps the heart and soul of American craft beer. Read More

Brewery Showcase | Front Street Brewery

What does it mean to nurture an established craft beer brand into a new era? In such a rapidly expanding and evolving industry as American craft beer with 4,000 breweries … Read More

Iron Spike Brewing Company | Locomotive Lager

ABV: 6%

For a brewing landscape as diverse as American craft beer, there appears to be only two camps which breweries occupy when it comes to location: remote, rustic, farmhouse-style outfits steeped in terrior, or urban and suburban operations in refurbished warehouses or corrugated steel garages hidden amongst industrial parks.

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Event Preview | Microbrew Mile Makes Quad Cities Thirsty

Take a look around the craft beer world today and you’ll find a pairing almost as common as a big IPA and juicy pub burger; beer and running. The connection seems incongruous given the usual clientele for craft beer–the “neckbearded,” the slightly paunchy, those predisposed to excess–but you can’t deny the sheer number of beer mile events and or beer-related distance running races that have begun to pop-up in cities across the country.

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Brewery Showcase | Pig Minds Brewing Company

It’s all about the liquid.

That may seem like an oversimplification, but as the American craft beer landscape becomes ever more infused with concerns of Big Beer – mergers, acquisitions, … Read More

Ultimate 6er | Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Photo Courtesy of CNN.

There are some television shows, for whatever reason, I only watch while enjoying a beer or two. It’s as if the quality of the program is somehow diminished if I’m not cradling one of my favorite brewery-branded snifters, nursing a beer for the entirety of the episode, really drinking in the experience – pardon the pun. Call it tradition. Call it habit. Call it whatever you want, but there’s just some intrinsic link between the two – an association that immediately transports me to a happy place few other combinations have the power to do.

Sure, ask those closest to me, my wife or good friends, and they’ll tell you Anthony Bourdain is my spirit guide, and his CNN travel show Parts Unknown, now in its seventh season, is just the program I eluded to in the opening passage. When I sit down to stream the newest episode, a beer is almost always in-hand. Read More

Event Recap | Quad Cities Beer Fest Nails Local Charm

If there’s one problem with your average craft beer festival, it’s how the organizers shoot for the moon and often miss even the nearest star. The festival grounds are too expansive – too spread out or there are too many breweries in attendance. The lines are long, the music is too loud, there aren’t enough rinse stations – the list of gripes or miscues goes on.

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Event Preview | Quad Cities Craft Beer Fest

For craft beer drinkers, the arrival of summer means one thing: beer festival season.

It seems no matter where you go across the country on any given weekend, in … Read More

Metropolitan Brewing | Magnetron

ABV: 5.6% | IBU: 30

There are some cities that capture your imagination without reason or rationale, and never to let go. These towns have an energy, a pulse, a vibe, an unmistakable heartbeat. They pull you in. They become a part of you. 

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