Gnarly Barley Brew Festival 2013

Kicking off its fifth annual installment, The Gnarly Barley Brew Fest is a fun, family oriented event located at The Ranch (aka The Budweiser Event Center) in Loveland, CO. Coupled with a fair and carnival, it’s a good time for the whole family. That’s not to say there isn’t an abundance of delicious beer to be had.

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Ale Asylum Madtown Nutbrown

5.5% ABV

Hop on board the crazy train with a yummy Madtown Nutbrown from Ale Asylum. (See what I did there? Hop? Ha ha ha! I slay me!) Ale Asylum is one … Read More

GABF sells out in record time- Here’s how the BA can improve the process to bring access to more.

The Great American Beer Festival sold out this year in a record 23 minutes. If you were lucky enough to get tickets, then congratulations – you are holding a golden … Read More

Changes Coming to 2014 GABF Brewery Registration

Last night BeerPulse published this excerpt that was posted by the Brewers Association Event Director, Nancy Johnson in the Brewers Association forum. The excerpt explains that the what went into getting breweries off the 2013 GABF wait list as well as what will change in 2014.

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Awesomesauce Double Helping- Cooking Comically and Thug Kitchen

While I LOVE most typical food blogs (really, what else is Pinterest for, besides clicking on a recipe and then falling down a rabbit hole in the internet and reading about every fatteningly delicious looking dish that blogger has ever made?) they can tend to get a little cookie cutter (“Hi, I’m Jennifer/Sally/Sandy, a stay-at-home mother of two ADORABLE munchkins, and I love to cook!”) That’s why I find both of the below food blogs so entertaining- they’re SO not in that mold.  (Fair warning, there is some, uh, *salty* language to follow…) Read More

Hoppy IPA Day from PD!

Our staff wanted to wish everyone a very Hoppy IPA Day by sharing their favorite IPAs in a special edition of the roundtable discussion.  Feel free to share your favorites in the comments section below.

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2013 Great American Beer Festival Breweries Breakdown

After several weeks of sifting through duplicate entries and moving breweries off the waiting list, the Brewers Association announced last night their full list of 2013 Great American Beer Festival breweries who will be attending the festival.

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Beervana: Pitchfork Music Festival

Note: Pitchfork Music Festival was held in Chicago, IL the weekend of July 19-21, 2013

I’m going to get in my “old man” rocking chair for a moment, so please … Read More

Jackalope Brewing

“Put out good beer; everybody likes you,” Bailey Spaulding, co-owner of Jackalope Brewing, told me as we pick at the pieces of some saran-wrapped cheese from The Bloomy Rind.

It’s a sentiment Spaulding and friend/co-owner, Robyn Virball, both felt once they opened their doors in Nashville back in 2010. And, it’s true; who’s going to hate on two smiling girls pouring you freshly brewed craft beer? Read More

Goose Island Migration Week

I’ve always said taste trumps all. But that creed can become a bit muddled when it comes to the distinction between craft and macro. Don’t get me wrong, while many purists are staunchly against the macro companies, like Anheuser-Busch InBev and Miller-Coors, including any brands they own, I’m not specifically in that camp. While there are still issues of beer bullying, distribution and marketing wars, when it comes to the actual product, I believe any form of beer, even “crafty” beer, can serve as a gateway to true craft beer. Which brings us to Goose Island Migration Week.

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#FreeTreeHouse – Let my people brew!

“’Cause he knows that it’s me they’ve been coming to see/To forget about neighbors for awhile” sang Dean Rohan, one of the four owners of Tree House Brewing Co, while … Read More

Why the Phillies Won’t Trade Cliff Lee

I guess most important to preserving any credibility I have is to acknowledge my Philadelphia bias and all the territory that comes with it….i.e. Washington should have never sat Strausburg … Read More

Q&A with Mad Fox Brewing

Bill Madden has set much of the pace of the craft brewing scene in the Virginia-DC-Maryland region for the past few years. As the CEO and the executive brewer for … Read More

Awesomesauce- Internet Comments

We’ve all been there- right before making dinner, you hop on your laptop to do a quick check of Facebook and your email, and six hours later you look up with a glazed expression on your face and absolutely no idea where the last quarter of your day went.  Read More

Roundtable Discussion: Locally-Made Gateway Craft Beers

In this week’s roundtable discussion, the staff here at PorchDrinking discuss their favorite local gateway craft beers. Here are some local craft beer options for that friend who still drinks Milwaukee’s Best:

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The A(i)les of Being a Craft Beer Lover in College

How about this scene:  You swing open the back door to a house that leads into a dark basement.  A cloud of body heat, and body sweat greets you at the door.  Each step taken down the stairs (that surely don’t meet building code) enters you into another level of this nimbus dense, wet heat cluster.  Finally on the basement floor you immediately identify the source—a hundred sweat dripping college kids standing shoulder-to-shoulder yelling to one another over the boom of the music.   As thirteen dollar handles of vodka are being passed over your head you scale across the side of the basement to make your way around the crowd.  There are solo cups filled with last weekend’s beer that were placed and forgotten on the shelves beside you.  And is that something growing in the beer?   Hard to see, but you can sure smell a festering sourness woft out of the cup.  Buddy, that ain’t no lambic.  Human traffic is backed up at an unchilled keg.  Pour yourself a cup.  Oh great, a nice head to this one.  The whole cup is foam but it quickly dissipates into a lukewarm puddle.  Take a gulp.  Gotta’ love Natural Light.  Then take a look over to the beer pong table.  There’s a guy, ping-pong ball in one hand, snifter glass of Dogfish Head 90 Minute in the other.  That’s me.   I love craft beer and I’m in college.  That guy is me.

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Corkscrews Wine Storage of Denver | A Beer Cellar Home Away From Home

1845 W 12th Ave, Denver, CO 80204

Although they may not have “and Beer” in their moniker, they have been appropriated with that name by yours truly.

We all know much like wine, beer has the ability to age, evolve and develop complex new aromas and flavors. Think that Dogfish Head Olde School Barleywine is a loaded treat right now? Try it in 10 years, when it has smoothed out into a melodious elixir commendable only by a snifter. Time, along with yeast and bacteria, can polish a beer’s rough edges and unlock its full potential—or, given a few months too many, create a liquid best sent down the drain. I found the perfect place to help me prevent most drain pours and it is right down the street from my employer. Enter Corkscrews Wine “and Beer” Storage of Denver and how they are changing the face of craft beer and long term storage.

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Awesomesauce- Songza

If you’re anything like me, your music listening habits are somewhat…unique…

Basically, there are very few times in my life when I have a particular song or artist in mind that I HAVE to listen to at that particular moment.  More often than not, what I want to listen to is based on vague feelings or snippets in time (which might explain why I have an iTunes playlist labeled “Cool Fall Days” and another labeled “High School Girls”.)  Read More

PorchDrinking 1 Year Anniversary Party Recap

This past Saturday we celebrated our 1 year anniversary with a good old fashioned bottle share. What resulted was one of the greatest collections of beer I’ve ever been around … Read More

Colorado Brewer’s Festival 2013

Every summer for the past 24 years, over 10,000 visitors have travelled up north to The Centennial State’s beer-loving haven: Fort Collins.  The City and its Downtown Business Association, renowned for their love of craft beer, has put on one of the greatest gatherings of brewers in the country known as the Colorado Brewer’s Festival 2013. This weekend-long event showcases a plethora of some of Colorado’s finest, from the tiny nano-breweries like Boulder’s Asher or Loveland’s Verboten, up to the near-macros such as Fort Collins’ own New Belgium and Golden’s Blue Moon.

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