Twenty-Five Beers for 2024
Beers I Like A few weeks back I wrote about the cultural dynamics that influence our taste, while also giving an account of what has shaped my own tastes in beer. I followed up with an exploration of the kinds of beers I …
Intellectual Ferment of a Different Kind
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Beers I Like, and Why
Accounting for My Tastes in Beer It’s axiomatic that we drink what we like. But what shapes our tastes? And how do we account for our tastes in beer? In the first part of these reflections, I considered taste on a general level before …
Accounting for My Tastes in Beer
In between evenings of losing myself in my annual “big book” (Don Quixote this year), I’ve been reading Terry Theise’s What Makes Wine Worth Drinking: In Praise of the Sublime. Theise makes a compelling case that people who write about wine or who sell …
Freiburg, Beer on the Edge of the Black Forest
It had been ages since I’d been to Freiburg. Good wine was the order of the day back when an old friend studied law here in the 1990s. But now I was back to pay more attention to Freiburg’s beer scene before venturing into the …
Among Giants: Beer Hiking in Saxon Switzerland
Prelude I was up at daybreak and on the trail early for this, one of the most fascinating and challenging beer hikes I’ve ever done. I’d arrived in Bad Schandau from Dresden the previous afternoon, spending the rest of that short but sunny November …
Rothaus: Beer and Hiking in the Black Forest Heights
The rush of cool mountain air was bracing as I stepped off the train on the banks of the Schluchsee. A short bus ride later and I’d be in front of an old beer wagon laden with barrels, the coral-coloured Rothaus brewery rising up in …
The Augustiner Bräustuben: From Barn to Beerhall
The scent of hops wafting through the air. The cookie dough fragrance of mashing grain. These are the first telltale signs as you make your way from Munich’s main train station a short walk away that you’re getting close to the Augustiner Bräustuben on …
Belgian Beer Café Vignettes: Pelikaan, Antwerp
Antwerp offers some of the best beer cafes in the country for beer travelers willing to venture beyond the well-worn path between Brussels and Bruges. Cosmopolitan yet compact, Antwerp is the kind of place where you don’t have to walk far to find an excuse …
Beer Gardens in Baden-Württemberg, Germany’s Southwest
~Freiburg, Tübingen, Stuttgart, Ulm~ Baden-Württemberg is a panoply of delightful beer experiences. Just across the Danube from Bavaria, Ulm is one of Germany’s more underrated beer destinations. The university town of Tübingen, where Goethe once studied, makes for an ideal beer stop en …
Cologne and Its Kölsch: A Rough-and-Ready Guide
Cologne is famous for its majestic Gothic cathedral known locally as the Dom, a massive edifice that took over six centuries to complete. It’s the symbol of Cologne and the most-visited landmark in Germany. There’s even a beer named after it: Dom Kölsch. You …