In this week’s episode we take a look at IPA exhaustion. It’s the phrase we just made up to get at the realization that most of the beers we have to choose between are a variation on an IPA. IPAs, AIPAs, WCIPAs NEIPAs there doesn’t seem to be an end to the variations people are willing to make to be able to continue brewing some sort of IPA.

Seriously, god bless them.

IPA Exhaustion

Tired of Drinking IPA? Then Try One of These New IPAs

No matter if you call it “West Coast,” “Black,” “Belgian,” “Double,” “Imperial,” “White,” “Session” or just plain-old “India Pale Ale,” sales of all kinds of IPA beer have exploded over the last 15 years. And seemingly a new type of IPA seems to pop up every four to six months.

For the first time in a long time, I got a sense of why people feel like they have to write “IPAs Are Over” type stories. I was at a local brewery recently and, as normal, they had 15 or so beers on and only three of them weren’t IPAs or sours. For people who like to go to breweries, you would think the lack of choice was boing. I thought it was and then still ordered two of them.

There was a temptation to write a story about why the IPA obsession is hurting craft beer but there’s no point; primarily because it isn’t. Maybe I’m suffering from IPA exhaustion this week and you’ll have it next week. We never all will be bored with them at the same time, though. When it comes to making beer, though, it is worth lamenting the transition from brewers making beers that they thought were interesting to beers they think beer drinkers will like.

 

Craft Beer Tourism

How Beer Tourism is Changing the Jersey Shore Experience

It’s hard to be an independent brewer at the Jersey Shore. “I can open five taprooms in Pennsylvania without a liquor license. That would be unthinkable in New Jersey,” a craft brewer once said to me about the restrictive laws in the Garden State.

Although we advocate for and enjoy craft beer, its affect on tourism likely is negligible at best. People love to go to breweries when they travel, and some even make them the center of their travel plans, but beer rarely is the sole reason for a trip.  What is interesting is that, particularly in the part of rural America I visit, a brewery or a restaurant does make a difference when it comes to which antique-shop-driven town I visit.

One of our columnists actually wrote about a destination brewery he enjoys visiting and how the confluence of retail, craft beer and restaurants can turn a casual beer run into a day-cation.

A prehistoric thirst for craft beer

A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports suggests beer brewing practices existed in the Eastern Mediterranean over five millennia before the earliest known evidence, discovered in northern China. In an archaeological collaboration project between Stanford University in the United States, and University of Haifa, Israel, archeologists analyzed three stone mortars from a 13,000-year old Natufian burial cave site in Israel.

It seems as if every time we think we’ve discovered the oldest beer, there is more to be had. It makes perfect sense,

This is really a pretty exciting time to be involved with craft beer. Innovation always has been a part of the culture but now that innovators have had a little success it’s easier for other people to take chances. But for old hands and newcomers alike, the fact that we’re all craft beer revolutionaries is what keeps craft beer moving forward.

It isn’t just that we like trying new things, as if we treasure novelty for its own sake. It’s more that we’re not afraid to have a bad beer experience, which is a rare thing in and of itself. The reason chains are successful isn’t because they’re good, but rather because they’re predictable. We know what we’re going to get when we go to Chili’s.

This is so much the case that better independent restaurants struggle unless they’re in well-to-do areas. People care enough about craft beer, though, that it is a very, very rare dive bar that doesn’t at least have Sam Adams or Dogfish Head on draft.

In this episode we talk about how those chance-takers continue to change craft beer and how we hope to see them continue to do it going forward.

And it’s something we’re all participating in. For example, the prevalence of Oktoberfests that feature local ales is really a very American thing and only has been made possible by craft beer enthusiasts not only attending, but being public about how much they appreciate these events. They travel and bring sleepier towns to life when

The Rise of Stovepipe canes

‘Stovepipe’ Cans Are Here Because Craft Beer Wants to Party

In June, Anchor Brewing launched its flagship Steam Beer in cans for the first time in its 122-year history. Its vessel of choice? Tall and handsome 19.2-ounce cans, also known as “stovepipe” cans. “We wanted a single-serve option, and we saw a lot of other breweries moving into the 19.2,” Scott Ungermann, Anchor Brewing brewmaster, told VinePair.

It’s always great to see craft beer no only hitting back, but also appealing to the singles-drinkers out there. There are a million good reasons for choosing these single-serves. The most obvious one is that they’re going to be really useful at events like concerts, etc. For lots of people, though, the appeal is a little more plain: having access to these beers means that liquor stories will start giving up Budweiser space to craft beer space. It’s already happening in stores by me.

If there’s any downside at all it’s that this really just favors the “big” craft brewers. Littler guys have to stick to pints, but there’s no reason we can’t start seeing pint singles. In a world where I can buy a stovepipe of 60 Minute IPA for $3, I wouldn’t mind paying as much for a single pint of local beer. Breaking up four-pack pints and selling them as singles is something that is just going to make sense in the long run.

It also will give smaller brewers another outlet to get people to try their beers.

Getting Ready for Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest Really Is Just a State of Mind

We’ve been over this before, but American Oktoberfest is a lot different from German Oktoberfest, and that’s a great thing.  In Germany they celebrate their beer culture which is just different than ours, particularly on the micro level.

Any U.S. town with more than 5,000 residents  feels like it has to have an Oktoberfest celebration and, in an effort to reduce overlap, they try and have it when other nearby towns aren’t having one as well. The result is that you can go to a fall beer celebration in America pretty much any weekend between Sept. 1 and Nov. 10 or so.

Also,

For now, the short version is that craft beer is a made up designation, much like, “King of Beers” is a fiction. But fact and fiction don’t matter when it comest to advertising and Budweiser has successfully co-opted the “craft” moniker and most beer writers are happy to help them. In this episode, we take a look at the numbers and attitude behind Budweiser’s rise to the top of the craft beer market.

People Can’t Stop Calling Bud ‘Craft’ Beer

Anheuser-Busch on its way to becoming king of craft beer too

A decade ago, Anheuser-Busch made no beer that could legitimately be called “craft.” The nation’s largest beer company dabbled at the edges of the burgeoning craft beer movement, but its backbone remained the brands to which craft beer was largely a reaction – Bud and Bud Light, Natural Light and Michelob Ultra, and whatever odd innovations might tempt a new generation of consumers, be it Lime-a-Rita (a hit) or Tequiza (a miss).

There is a lot to unpack in both the headline and the notion of independent craft beer and craft-y beer. Of particular interest this week is the “news” that Budweiser is on its way to making more money selling craft-y beer than Sam Adams. In this episode we get into the difficulties in not only the numbers presented (they left out all the beer that was sold in taprooms, opting to just take package store and grocery store number) but also our part as craft beer drinkers.

Craft Beer Prices May be Topping Out

Craft Breweries Defy Convention By Beginning To Drop Prices

Founders Brewing is no stranger to the disruption business. The Michigan company not only pioneered the 15-pack of craft cans but was the first to perfect the now-ubiquitous session IPA style and release it on a national scale.

Keeping a handle on craft beer prices always is going to be an issue, but making it a little easier for people to buy and share standard beers only makes sense. There’s nothing wrong with paying for quality, and we all have done that, but the fact that breweries are at least getting a little price-conscious is something worth  noticing.

 

Independent Beer Shoots Back

BA Unveils ‘That’s Independence You’re Tasting’

Malt tastes sweet and hops taste bitter, but what does independence taste like? The Brewers Association (BA), publishers of CraftBeer.com, asks beer lovers to consider that question in its most recent effort to differentiate beer brewed by true craft brewers and the acquired brands of the world’s largest beer companies.

Although we didn’t get to talk about this story in the episode (we ran out of time) it’s an important accompaniment to the first story about Bud as a craft beer. The brewer’s association is doing its best to educate, but whether people want to be educated is a whole other story.

HomeBrew FAQ:

Home Brew Stores Explain Eight Common Brewing Mistakes – NewToBrew

Who knows what issues and problems that home brewers face better than home brew supply stores. I’ve interviewed four reputable stores for their advice on the biggest mistake that new brewers make. By learning about common issues, hopefully we can avoid some basic mistakes others make.

Getting the right flavors out of your beer means using the right yeas...

The main thing that wine beer and pumpkin ales have in common is that neither of them are IPAs. Although they’re the dominant style, writing about beer doesn’t have to be all about the IPAs all the time. Neither does talking about it.

In this episode Doug and Tony get into other beer trends that, while they may be seen as alternatives to IPAs actually are just normal beers that normal people drink. There can be trends that aren’t all about the IPAs that are coming out or have been out. Of course, one of trends under discussion is pumpkin ales, which does have it’s own spotlight this time of the year (for some extra insight, there’s a different podcast that talks about how Dogfish Head deals with Punkin’ among other things).

Still, there is so much to get excited about besides you-know-whats…

Getting Excited About Non-IPA Beer Stories

Wine-Beer Is the Hybrid Drink You Should Know About Now

The beverage marries grape and grain to create a unique drinking experience that boasts all of the juicy, mouthwatering qualities of wine, plus the refreshment of a cold beer. But the process of making wine-beer (or beer-wine, depending on who you ask) isn’t as simple as the name suggests.

In between boring stories about how craft beer is over and why infighting is a problem we get lots of great stories about innovation and alternate takes on beer beyond tinkering with IPAs. The biggest appeal of what they’re calling “Beer Wine” is all of those thing. It highlights the non-IPAs, it talks about how breweries are finding new ways to attract different drinkers and it gives insight into the world of making beers for everyone to drink.

Pumpkin Beer Here to Stay

This Is the Year to Stop Railing Against Pumpkin Beers

Are we ready to stop talking about pumpkin beers yet? No? Fine. It is probably one of the oldest most popular American beer styles and has become (oddly) a lightening rod for people who want to start complaining about the Christmas Creep but have the intellectual honesty to recognize that they’ll have to wait for October to do that. This is kind of a warmup for them.

TL;DL? This Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen

PintPass App gives cash for answers on craft breweries | News & Observer

If you’re a craft-beer fan, there’s a chance you’re among those who have signed up for early access to an app that actually pays you to visit breweries. The app, PintPass, goes into pre-release in the middle of this month, 60 days ahead of a full-blown public launch on Oct.

 

TL;DL stands for “Too Long; Didn’t Listen” in case you haven’t heard the show yet but wanted to take a gander at the stories. Neither Tony nor Doug could imagine how this could be a good idea. The plan seems to be to have people get a couple bucks for rating breweries live. The longer-term plan is to get breweries to finance an army of semi-professional beer snobs to critique their beers live.

What possibly can go wrong?

 

This week’s show was IPA focused given that it was recorded on National IPA Day. Shawn and Tony discussed some good approaches to IPAs for homebrewers, including doing SMASH (Single Malt And Single Hop) beers to find your way around some of your favorite hops to find out just what they can do.

National IPA Day is probably the best of the holidays fabricated completely from whole cloth, but it certainly isn’t the only one. Also, it’s hard to care too much about being “tricked” into having an extra beer. Also, also, it was a billion degrees today and what the hell else are you going to drink?

Even when it isn’t National IPA Day, though this dominant style got that way for a reason. We talk a lot about beer flavored beers and the way our perceptions have changed, particularly when it comes to IPAs and what counts as a serious craft beer.

Milkshake IPAs? Brut IPAs?

Apparently, in addition to milkshake IPAs, there also are Brut IPAs in our future. We talk about the characteristics of each on the show, and also about how this supports the larger thesis that IPAs aren’t really in a position to be overthrown anytime soon. It’s kind of the jumping off point for beer.

Malt (and Hop) Shoppe: The Scoop on Milkshake IPAs | CraftBeer.com

Just when you think the IPA obsession has reached its plateau, the milkshake IPA adds another dimension to perhaps the broadest and popular beer style out there. With no set definition of what a milkshake IPA actually is, I’ll define the style as an IPA that introduces lactose into the brewing process, often with the addition of a fruit of some sort.

The Next IPA? There’s no such thing

August 2 is National IPA Day which means people who actually care about IPAs have an excuse to have more than they normally do (as can the rest of us). To be honest, if it wasn’t so hot, I would have had fewer than six pints, but August 2 was brutal. I also had an amber, though #FightThePower.

The discussion about whether IPAs ever can be overthrown by a “new” style is the beer writing equivalent of the June “Hurricane Season” story and the February “Chocolate Is Healthy” story. It’s the kind of thing publishers and readers love but it doesn’t change from year to year. IPA is the lense through which we see beer now. That is really unlikely to change.

The reason there’s no “next IPA” is because so many new and interesting takes on beer are just applied to IPA.

At this point, ask “What is the next bread?” https://t.co/B9Uvg6pyFW

— stateofthebeer (@stateofthebeer) August 2, 2018

Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop – What’s the Next IPA?

It’s a question that has turned into a near-annual exercise for brewers and beer enthusiast prognosticators alike: What’s the next India Pale Ale? For years, takes hot and cold have provided plenty of opinion and insight, scattered across the internet from Reddit to the Brewers Association’s we

 

Pretzel Necklaces? Amateur!

The bring your own snack culture  at beer festivals is alive and well, but as you’re planning out your fall beer tour, consider better (or at least different) snack alternatives to kee...

This week we both question and validate tradition from multiple points of view, including the rise of beer towns and Saisons, though not at the same time or even in the same place. Since time immemorial, people have made beer for their neighbors.

It’s a cornerstone of civilization and it is something to which we’re increasingly returning. Town planners accommodate beer while some new brewers open up with just the plan of making beer for their friends.

In addition to covering the different aspects of brewing for your neighbors, we also take a look at a story about brewing for your farmhands, which might have been a calculation.

In addition to covering some FAQs on winemaking, we talk about whether brewing gluten free beer at home is even practical.

Gluten Free Home Brews

First off, if you can’t have gluten, I truly am sorry for your troubles. Also, of you’re a fan of Ghostfish Brewing I’m sure they make awesome beers. In this week’s sho we talk about brewing your own gluten free beer and come to the conclusion that, unless you’re super-committed to the idea, you may be better off with wine or cider.

That said, “Drink what you like and be happy!”

Ask Me Homebrew

Over the last few weeks, I’ve received a number of questions over Instagram’s latest “Questions” feature on Instagram Story. I thought I’d share it with all of you, all in one page in case you missed them: How is gluten-free brewing different from brewing conventional? Gluten-free brewing is actually the same process as conventional brewing.

A Town with Beer in Mind

What if you were building a community from scratch in the middle of nowhere? Or even not quite in the middle of nowhere, but in a space large enough to accommodate a city of 36,000 souls or so? How high on your list would a brewery be? Increasingly it’s something people consider, but remember that it also is something that people have been doing since they started having cities.

As I pointed out in both Eastern Shore Beer and Delaware Beer

Grist Brewing to Join Sterling Ranch Development | Brewbound.com

DENVER – Sterling Ranch, a master-planned community located in northwest Douglas County just south of Downtown Denver, is pleased to announce two new Colorado-based businesses coming to the community – the Grist Brewing Company and Atlas Coffee. The two companies will soon provide their craft-made products in the community’s first commercial building, the Sterling Center, opening this Fall.

A New Take on an Old Style

Recently I happened upon this story that claims to be an alternate history of Saisons. The TLDR is that by the time they were called Saisons as a style, the probably were very, very different from the farmhouse ales of the middle ages. Still, we all love telling the apochraphal story of Saisons because it is more fun. Plus, there’s a universe where both the traditional and the re-discovered history of the Saison are kind of true, so that’s what I’m going with in the future.

What was a 19th century saison really like?

Lately, I’ve taken on a daunting task: to seek out the history of all the different beer styles of Belgium. When did they first appear, what were they like throughout the years,

There’s more to being a responsible beer snob than just not burning down the PBR plant. You have to find better ways of communicating what you live about craft beer and learn to pick your battles and to be a friend to everyone when it comes to beer. At this point, you’re probably saying that here at BWS we don’t have access to a dictionary wherein the word snob is defined. Close. We’ve never really embraced “snob” as a useful positive descriptor, and don’t even get us started on “geek.”

Unfortunately, both words are these kind of amorphous descriptors people have attached themselves to and there’s no point fighting. So, if you must describe yourself as a beer snob, at least try and be a responsible beer snob. In this week’s show, we talk about some of the cultural aspects of craft beer that could use friendly communal support.

The Beer Glass Matters Less Than You Think

Stories about why glasses are good or bad for beer are common and a little bit hackneyed, but we keep reading them so people keep writing them. I’ll probably write one or two myself this year. As we discuss in the show, very, very few people could take the Pepsi Challenge with whether or not a glass is appropriate for a beer. Once way to be a responsible beer snob is to grant the point, especially since there’s a larger one. Shaker pints are too small.

Beer glasses should be 20 ounces. That is, a pint plus a little room for the head, which can and does make a difference in the way a beer tastes. The thing is, that isn’t about the bartender, it is about the drinker. For a lot of people, paying for a pint of beer means that they want 16 ounces of liquid, not 14 ounces of liquid and some foam.

That said, a 12 ounce beer fits in a straight “shaker” glass pretty nicely.

Here’s Why You Actually Shouldn’t Serve Your Beer In A Pint Glass

As anti-snobs, we’ll be the first to tell you that there’s no need to purchase ultra-specific glassware in order to enjoy a drink. For instance, as long as you have a good set of wine glasses, you don’t have to buy Bordeaux glasses and white wine glasses (though if you want to, go for it!).

Better than a Beer Festival?

In last week’s show we spoke about how beer festivals have kind of run amok. This might be an appropriate solution: pop up taprooms. They’re like beer gardens that breweries in larger cities are setting up in places that don’t normally have anything at all. It helps one imagine a world of food trucks and temporary tap rooms and dining in the local park.

Boston’s Pop-Up Taproom Trend Continues as Night Shift Secures 2 Outdoor Spaces | Brewbound.com

A growing number of Boston-area beer companies have turned to pop-up beer gardens in an effort to engage consumers during the summer months. Despite an array of outdoor options for drinkers to grab a beer on a hot summer day, Boston-area craft brewery Night Shift still sees opportunity to expose local consumers to its brands.

 

Let’s talk about flavors, not styles

Bringing people who generally don’t like or care about craft beer into the mix can be a challenge when you’re a jerk about it. And, if we’re honest, we all have been someplace between a little jerky and completely insufferable when we’re trying to talk about beers we love. But (and this is a great tip for servers as well as normal people) what if you just talk about food flavors and suggest a beer style that way?

There are so many ways to talk about beer,

It’s no secret that we’re a fan of the brew pub and feel like it really is the medium of the future. It is hard to imagine that most non-chain restaurants will add or be built with a brewery element going forward. Recently, though craft beer bars and brew pubs have been bumping up against one another.

Navigating the craft beer world is only as complex as you want it to be, but some people want to make it very complex. Sometimes I am one of those people, but not this time, I don’t think. This week’s show focuses on the massive transformation we’ve seen in just the last five years of the growth of the craft beer industry. Now that it has become a permanent part of public life, craft beer is starting to bump up against itself and the other industries it affects, particularly restaurants and, to a lesser but still important degree, tourism.

Craft Beer Bars and Brew Pubs Are Becoming Uneasy Bedfellows

If you have a brewery and you’re opening up a brew pub, is it rude to do one next to one of your biggest customers? I feel like it might be. Increasingly breweries are taking distributors and morons who hold public office out of the game by just opening restaurants. It’s not an ideal way to start a brewery, but it’s a fantastic way to grow one. the difficulty is, when craft beer bars and brew pubs develop less cooperative attitudes than they would have if just two restaurants were competing in the same neighborhood.

The trouble is, in Philly (and other places as well) the relocated breweries are bumping up against some of the craft beer bars that have been boosters for such a long time.

 

When breweries grow, do bars lose business? – Philly Beer World

Nearly 20 years ago, McGillin’s Olde Ale House stopped pouring Guinness Stout because the brewery’s parent company had a corporate relationship with a restaurant that was opening a few blocks away in Center City. Most of the publicity surrounding the boycott focused on the unnatural spectacle of an Irish bar declining to sell Ireland’s signature …

 

Beware Bad Beer Festivals

This is a fun story about things to look out for when it comes to beer festivals. For my part, I could live and die and never go to another one.  For me, beer festivals have ceased being about discovering new beer and more an alcoholic alternative to a bake sale. Almost all of the points that follow are worth noting, and I’ll add another one: Go Small.  Beer festivals with 40 or 50 breweries feel overdone to me.

Frankly, the best beer festivals in my mind are the ones held at a brewery, like when they do a bunch of new beers, or beers along a specific theme or even have a partnership or a special release they’re promoting.

How To Spot A Bad Beer Fest – CraftBeerTime.com

As number of craft brewers across the country has grown, so have the number of beer fests. These events offer an awesome opportunity to try countless samples from tons of brewers in one place. But how do you know which ones to check out and which to skip?

Beer Bars That Get It Right

I usually stay away from stories like this because they tend to be whiney and snobbish. This one isn’t. A lot of these suggestions are right on the nose, including the request to dial back the IPA-to-Non-IPA ration and also to offer half-pints, which are a thing in England (or at least we when I researched this),.

5 beer-menu rules I wish all bars would follow

Between my job and my social life, I spend a good chunk of time drinking beer in ba...

This week, Doug and tony talk taprooms, fruit beers, and how to evaluate trends in craft beer.

Here’s Why Distributors Are Panicking

People really, really like the feel of taprooms, even when they’re old, rundown factories. Actually, especially when they’re old, rundown factories. The thing is, distributors hate them. Apparently, they hate any beer transaction that they don’t get a taste of, even when they have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Why we drink in factories, I mean tasting rooms – Philly Beer World

How in the name of civilized boozing did drinking in a factory become a thing? Bare brick walls and wet cement floors. A ceiling of metal rafters. Glaring industrial klieg lamps illuminating a maze of PVC pipes, electrical conduits and snaking ductwork. A bar made of unsanded two-by-fours that wouldn’t get a passing grade at the local vo-tech.

Don’t Hate the Trends

This is a take on the tail-wagging-the-dog aspect of trends and how being on top of them effects a person’s perception of the brewery’s quality.  Like, if you want to be known as the “best” brewery in the area, you have to make trendy beer well. It’s a well-taken point. For my part, I’d like to see more attention on the journeymen breweries.

Think of it like this: you don’t know the “best” guitarist’s name. You might know some of the top famous guitarists, but most of them would point to a guy name Joe Smith who has been a session musician for 50 years or something.

For me, best doesn’t make a lot of sense when you’re talking about breweries. I think more in terms of, what did they promise and what did they deliver?

The Best Craft Breweries Always Make The Trendiest Beer – CraftBeerTime.com

I’ve been drinking craft beer for over a decade. In that time there’s been a ton of change in the industry. One thing that has remained constant, the best breweries always have the trendiest beer.

Homebrew FAQ

As always, we talk about prevailing homebrew trends as well. Since it’s summertime we talk abut fruiting beers, storing fruit for fall ciders and making fruit wines. I’m not a huge fan of fruit beers in broad terms, but they’re always fun to try. Also, making shandies and blending beer is something about which it is hard to be wrong.

In this week’s Beer with Strangers Podcast, Doug and Tony talk about how to find the right recipe for your all grain brew, a boneheaded move by Newcastle, pairing beer and cigars, a new malt approach and the price of a pint worldwide.

While Proximity Malt, a company in Colorado and Delaware, works with local famers to get more crops planted and harvested, there are people in universities developing new malt barleys that can be grown for brewing or for food in different regions of the country.

Tasting Video and Show Preview

Naming Conventions and Selling Out

I feel like this is an older story that escaped my notice, but the folks at Newcastle apparently tried to get their beer locked in for a regional distinction with the EU. Newcastle Ale is made only in Newcastle. They succeeded in a massive coup and then… they moved. And then they got bought by Heineken. It’s a classic “careful what you wish for” story.

The Beer That Had to Unprotect Itself

If you’re drinking champagne, by law, it came from Champagne region of France. Historically, that’s been the rule; if it’s not from there, the celebratory beverage in your flute may be a reasonable facsimile for the bubbly white wine, but it’s not technically “champagne.”

Anything Can Be Paired with Beer

As a fan of cigars, I can’t believe it took me this long to start thinking about pairing them with beer. My process is relatively simple, I smoke a cigar and think about how it tastes from beginning to end, and then I choose a beer I think will either complement or counterpoint it well. In this week’s post, I chose a counterpoint, Undertow by Key Brewing Company in Dundalk (a section of Baltimore, Md. as I’ve come to understand it).  If you’re interested, you can sign up to get the menu in advance of the weekly #SOTBSmoke.

Pairing Key Brewing’s Undertow Gose with a PDR Cosecha Especial

New Malt and Better Barley

The U.S. still imports a lot of malt and grain from Europe, but as craft beer continues to be a strong economic sector, it just makes more sense to develop homegrown barley for homegrown beer.

Washington State University breeds new barley varieties for regional brewers, growers

Crunchy kernels of barley tumble from Joel Williamson’s hands as he scoops them up, offering a taste. “This is a first: The inaugural batch of Lyon malt,” says Williamson, head maltster at Spokane-based craft malting company LINC Malt. “This is really good,” replies customer Heath Barnes, popping a few grains into his mouth.

The Price of a Pint, Worldwide

Do you think $12 per pint is a little high? You obviously don’t do much drinking in Dubai. Beer is an international drink, but it isn’t priced that way. Sometimes it’s because of kooky religious laws, like the ones in Dubai and Oklahoma, sometimes it’s the rarity, and sometimes it has to to with the real estate below you when you’re drinking.

Mapping the Price of Beer Around the World

Whether you’re sipping a pint of kölsch in Germany or drinking a Heineken at a hotel bar in Hong Kong, there are a number of factors that can influence how much your beverage will cost.