Intellectual Ferment of a Different Kind
Meeting the people who make your beer.
Guiding Lights A few years back I wrote a series that began with a post called Accounting for My Tastes in Beer and ended with a list of twenty-five beers that had caught my attention over the previous year. Last year I did something …
How cool is this? A few weeks back, the good folks at Big Friendly, one of my absolute favourite Oklahoma breweries, emailed me with a pleasant surprise. They’d be releasing a Märzen in early November, the first one they’ve ever brewed. And not just …
~Munich Beyond Oktoberfest~ The very sound of the word Munich is enough to conjure up fond memories for fans of German beer, memories of languid afternoons in beer gardens, of joyous and occasionally raucous beer festivals, of winter evenings in beerhalls drinking warming …
~The Proverbial So Many Beers, So Little Time~ It’s travel season. Which means you might be looking for some good beers to add to your list. Remember that Fifty Beers for 2025 list I put together earlier this year? Well, there’s more. I …
The Town Garmisch and Partenkirchen were separate towns before they joined together on the eve of the 1936 Winter Olympics. Partenkirchen, which found itself along the Roman trade route that ran from Venice to Augsburg, was long the more prosperous of the two towns. …
My Kind of Beer Around this time last year I penned a series that began with an account of my tastes in beer, followed by an exploration of the kinds of beers I like. The series ended with a list of twenty-five beers that …
When Päffgen opened its doors in 1883, it was just one of over a hundred small breweries in Cologne. Wars and consolidation exacted their toll on the other small breweries, but Päffgen soldiered on. Today, it one of the last small Hausbrauereien (“inhouse breweries”) …
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: You can never have too much Munich in your life. But what about those times you really do need a break from the big city? Maybe some meadows dotted with cows, Alpine scenery, …
We climbed the hill in the direction of the monastery as dark clouds began amassing. The storm broke loose with a crash of thunder and a biblical fury just as we reached the heavy doors. Inside, the heat melted away as we descended the …
A Visit Long Overdue The stars finally aligned with bus schedules, opening times, weather, and my schedule for a trip out to the illustrious Brauerei Zehendner, brewers of the highly regarded Mönchsambacher Lagerbier. I arrived an hour early, so I turned the outing into …