For today’s Advent selection I’m considering cider, and for a festive option we’re travelling to England to visit Lilley’s Cider, which offers a variety of holiday-themed ciders that you can browse in its online Christmas Shop. In particular, I’ve picked the company’s Santa Cider to feature today, of which Lilley’s … Continue reading
It’s December 1, and that means it’s the first day of the annual tradition for the blog that first ran in 2005—the Beer Advent Calendar! As a virtual Advent calendar, every day through December 24 I’ll feature a different holiday beer from a wide variety of breweries. To start things … Continue reading
My latest article for The Bulletin, published this week, features a profile of Cold Snap, a pastry stout from Bevel Craft Brewing inspired by Mexican hot chocolate. The basic ingredients for hot cocoa consist of cocoa powder, sugar and milk, and it is typically quite sweet. Mexican hot chocolate, on … Continue reading
Earlier this month Double Mountain Brewery released its latest specialty/seasonal beer, Sweet Nothings, billed as a Blonde Coffee Stout. The brewery worked with 10-Speed Coffee Roasters and Ranger Chocolate (a collaborator on Chocolate Stout of the past few years), and sent me a bottle of the new beer to review. … Continue reading
Big news for Bend’s GoodLife Brewing this week, as the company announced that it is expanding into Nevada, with both a statewide distribution deal and a partnership to open a new GoodLife location in Henderson (outside of Las Vegas). The company is taking over the location of Street Burger, rebranding … Continue reading
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! In my latest print article, which came out before the holiday, I revisited an article I wrote seven years ago on beer and food pairings for the holiday. While these new-and-improved suggestions were nominally for Thanksgiving, they apply equally to your Christmas and … Continue reading
Portland’s Hopworks Brewery always has a fun lineup of seasonal beer specialties, and this year the brewery sent me its fall selection: the tequila barrel-aged version of Rindless Watermelon Gose, the returning Great Gourds of Fire Pumpkin Ale, and of course Fresh Hop Abominable, the fresh Centennial-hopped version of its Abominable … Continue reading
For this year’s fresh hop beer season, Double Mountain Brewery teamed up with nearby neighbor Solera Brewery to release Iowa Bar Fight, a fresh hop IPA brewed with fresh Strata hops from Crosby Hops. It was one of three bottled fresh hop selections from Double Mountain this year (another two … Continue reading
This year, Deschutes Brewery’s Reserve Series Flanders-style Oud Bruin (sour brown ale), The Dissident, turns 15. To commemorate the milestone, the brewery returned to the beer’s recipe roots and brewed the 2023 edition with cherries, something it hadn’t done since 2019. First appearing in 2008, The Dissident represented a huge … Continue reading
My latest article for The Bulletin is on pumpkin beer, one of my all-time favorite categories! I profile three Central Oregon pumpkin (or pumpkin spice, in the case of one of them) ales, as well as delving briefly into the history behind the gourd. Pumpkin beer as we know it … Continue reading