Play Along with the 2019 Super Bowl Bingo Boards

It’s time once again for PorchDrinking’s 2019 Super Bowl Bingo Cards for Super Bowl 53. In addition to the entertainment of seeing who can inhale the most combinations of cheese dips in one sitting, we’ve created bingo boards for your party-goers’ enjoyment. Each square should be crossed off as they occur. And sure, since this is PorchDrinking, take a drink each time you cross off a square.

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Event Recap | Maple Bacon Coffee Porter Festival 2019

Starting off the year by attending a beer festival is the best way for any beer enthusiast to set themselves up for success. The idea of unlimited beer sampling from a stellar brewery, along with over 50 local and regional breweries is heavenly. Add that with a solid time with friends enjoying food and music and you have the Maple Bacon Coffee Porter Festival at Funky Buddha Brewery.

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Brewery Locks Arms with Denver Teachers During Strike

Denver’s teachers voted last week to strike after negotiations between Denver Public Schools (DPS) and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) fell though. At the center of the strike is a disagreement over teacher’s pay, including a pay-for-performance system called ProComp. During negotiations, DPS offered teachers a 10% pay raise and offered some concessions on ProComp. DCTA rejected the offer, seeking a 12.5% increase in pay and the streamlining or elimination of several ProComp incentives. Read More

5 Questions with New Belgium’s R&D Brewer, Ross Koenigs

Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing Company has been around for a long time (more than 25 years) and its beer portfolio has changed and adapted as the craft beer market grew up. While their excellent sour beer program and iconic Fat Tire Amber Ale remain staples of their lineup, New Belgium has made some interesting shifts in their IPA portfolio over the past few years to appeal to a younger, more adventurous and IPA-crazed beer drinking demographic. New Belgium retired their Ranger IPA in 2017 but the ethos of that brand now lives on in their popular Voodoo Ranger IPA lineup.

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2019 Craft Beer Predictions | The Changing Face of Beer

If you’re looking back at 2018 as if you were Biggie in 1994 and saying to yourself, “it was all a dream” (or nightmare), wake up! NEIPAs, Milkshake IPAs, Milk Stouts, and Massively Fruited Sours/ IPAs aren’t going anywhere. In 2018 we witnessed not only The Brewer’s Association recognizing the Juicy or Hazy IPA as an official style, but we saw exploding fruit bombs, more breweries expanding their taprooms (Reformation Brewery, Lickinghole Brewery) and more diverse beer festivals, like the Fresh Fest in Pittsburgh, Beers With(out) Beards in NYC, and the Dames and Dregs Beer Festival in Atlanta just to name a few.

However as you probably deciphered from the title, this article isn’t about what happened last year, but it’s predicting the craft beer trends for 2019.

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The Comprehensive 2019 Beer Release Calendar Roundup

For the past five years, we have composed a national roundup of brand and beer release calendars from our nation’s breweries.  To gain a sense of the astounding diversity of beer produced by the more than 7,000 breweries operating today, and to help get you excited about what is to come in 2019, we present to you the 2019 Beer Release Calendar roundup.

We will continually update this page as soon as we receive information (many breweries are still in the final stages of finalizing their calendars). If your brewery isn’t listed and you’d like to share your release calendar, please reach out to us via [email protected] and we’d love to add you to the list!

Special thanks to our friends at OnTap Credit Union, who have been crafting banking solutions for breweries, brewery employees and beer lovers for the past 64 years in Golden and Arvada. Their support in underwriting PorchDrinking allows us to continue to research and present in-depth pieces like the the 2019 Beer Release Calendar Roundup.

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Will Travel For Beer | One Man’s Quest to Visit 100 Breweries Every Year

Do you plan your travel around beer? I do. In fact, I visited 100 breweries last year, and I plan on doing that every year.

In the past, when possible, I’ve always tried to include at least a few local brewery stops while on vacation. Four years ago I made a list of all the breweries I visited that year. Without knowing or even planning, I visited 99 different spots. The following years, I started to track more diligently, with the arbitrary goal of hitting 100 each year–that’s a lot of local beer. To be a little more precise, that’s 8.33 different spots each month, which may sound very do-able until you have a few hectic months and you hit zero new breweries.

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Ultimate 6er | National Pie Day Beer + Pie Pairings

January 23rd marks National Pie Day. For us beer lovers, it’s just another chance to create a fun pairing between food and delicious craft beer! For me, the idea came about after having visited WeldWerks for the first time. At the time, I’d make weekly trips up to the Boulder Farmer’s Market. There was one stand in particular that I’d make a guaranteed stop at, and that is My Mom’s Pies; they make some of the best pies I’ve tasted my entire life. One day, it hit me as I was enjoying WeldWerks’ Brambleberry Sour: why not enjoy a nice pie for dessert alongside a delicious beer? So, the experiments began. Here are a few pairings that stood out to me:

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2019 Ultimate Colorado Beer Events Calendar

The state of Colorado currently holds the distinction as the state with 3rd most breweries in the country as well as the 5th most breweries per capita. Statistics aside, the Centennial State has quickly grown to become one of the best states for craft beer propelled by friendly legislation, a great foundation for industry growth established by legacy brands, and a population that’s literally thirsty for new brands and innovative approaches to a centuries-old craft.

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Matt Brynildson, Adam Avery, and Cory King on Big Beers 2019

It’s one of the draws of the annual Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines Festival: Bold-faced names in craft brewing routinely make the trip, pouring their beer and chatting up fans. … Read More

An Extended Summer: The Gose’s Evolution into a Year-Long Staple

It’s the dead of winter and I’m not drinking a burly, barrel-aged stout – or even an IPA. Instead, I’ve cracked open a can of Creature Comforts’ Tritonia Gose. Was I envisioning a beach on some far off island? Or a sweltering summer sun? Nope, I just wanted something light and flavorful that wasn’t a lager and wouldn’t weigh me down like some of the heavier stouts and barleywines I’ve had on winter night’s past; and I’m not alone in this sentiment.

Much like the rise of spiked seltzer, the lighter styles of beer, namely session sours such as gose ale, are experiencing a bit of a renaissance this days as folks are beginning to choose tart and tangy beers for their ability to bridge the gap between calorie-conscious and flavor-packed. IPAs aren’t going away – to the contrary even. However, many breweries have begun to appreciate the gose’s spot in giving their beer lineup a bit of balance along with a burst of new flavors. For more insight into the growing popularity of the style over the past few years, I asked several breweries making some of the best gose-style ales in the nation to get their thoughts.

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Ask the Experts | How to Properly Return a Beer

If you’ve drank enough beer, you’ve probably found yourself in this situation. It’s an unfortunate experience that leads to apprehensiveness among patrons and bar owners: how do you handle the conversation when there is something clearly off with your beer? With January being the biggest month for gift returns, I thought it might make sense to take a look at how and why patrons should return a beer to their bartender or bottle shop manager. It’s not a cheery subject, but common sense from both sides can lead to a positive outcome that betters the drinking experience of the patron and the drinking relationship between the patron and beer purveyor. To help provide a full perspective on the issue, I asked craft beer bar owners and craft brewers alike to gather their insight. Here is what they said.

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Hear from the Experts: National Brewers Reflect on 2018 Year in Beer

Just like that, another year has come to close. And with this new year comes an excuse to reflect on the last twelve months. It’s a time to celebrate what we’ve learned, experienced and (at least in our case) drank, and a reason to set goals and resolutions for how we want the next year to be even better than the last.

Here at PorchDrinking, our first order of business for 2019 was to use the arrival of the new year to reach out to some of the best and brightest in craft beer. We wanted to get these pioneers’ take on 2018, and gauge their thoughts on how they see craft continuing to evolve as we begin our new journey around the sun.   Read More

PorchDrinking’s Best in Beer 2018 | Mountain Region

It was another monster year for beer in Colorado. And while it would be nearly impossible to break down the best beers from 2018, we looked back on some of … Read More

PorchDrinking’s Best in Beer 2018 | The Southwest Region

The southwest region may be one of the most overlooked in terms of craft beer notoriety. One reason is that much of the beer produced in this region doesn’t get … Read More

2019 Big Beers Belgians & Barleywines Pour List Once Again Brings Heat

Throughout my years of visiting breweries, attending beer festivals and covering the industry, one thing has become abundantly clear, Coloradoans are spoiled when it comes to beer. This assertion is … Read More

PorchDrinking’s Best in Beer 2018 | Pacific Region

2018 has been quite a year for California! Our Pacific team has been all over this lovely state to cover beer festivals, brewery openings, special releases and much more. We … Read More

Here’s Where to Find Founders Brewing CBS & KBS in Colorado

When we first broke the news back in August that Founders Brewing would finally be arriving in Colorado for distribution, the immediate flood of questions we fielded from readers centered … Read More

Costa Rica Will Host the Second Annual International Beer Cup Exclusively for Independent Craft Breweries

At the beginning of the new year, San José – Costa Rica will host the second annual international beer cup, exclusively for independent craft breweries from January 14 to 19, 2019.

This Cup is the first of its kind that is limited exclusively to independent commercial brewers. Over 600 entries will be judged by 38 judges, including certified BJCP judges, Cicerones and internationally renowned professional brewers from top independent breweries from around the world, including Peter Lengyel, Jennifer Talley, Barrett Tillman, Peter Bouckaert and Ehren Schmidt, to name a few.

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BrewDog’s DogHouse Craft Beer Hotel is Disneyland for Drinkers

Craft beer is always best enjoyed locally, straight from the brewery taproom. But if you can drink at the source, why not sleep at the source, too?

While Columbus, Ohio, has seen a craft beer renaissance in recent years, it has never reached the status of a beer destination that Portland, Oregon, or Asheville, North Carolina, have achieved. That quickly changed once BrewDog’s co-founder James Watt stepped foot in the heart of the Buckeye State. Impressed with the midwestern city’s hospitality, he and his BrewDog team set out to build the world’s first craft beer hotel, raising funds through a crowdfunding website. It didn’t take long before they had more money than they knew what to do with, and the rest is history.

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