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Jim Dykstra's picture

Starr Hill Announces New Brewmaster

After joining Starr Hill Brewery in 2011 and working his way up the ranks, Robbie O’ Cain has been promoted to brewmaster. O’Cain replaces Starr Hill founder and original brewmaster Mark Thompson. After 23 years at the helm of the venerable Virginia brewery, Thompson will continue as a consultant/advistor. Here is the release from Starr Hill, located in Crozet, Virginia:

Pint Break's picture

Guanabara Imperial Stout

What would Keanu Reeves do in the midst of a nationwide freeze? He’d probably hightail it to a more tropical clime, driving at least 50 miles per hour.

Today I’m unplugging from the matrix with Brazilian brewer Cervejaria Colorado’s “Guanabara”, an imperial stout brewed with black rapadura cane sugar. It’s pretty groovy, brah.

Pint Break's picture

Endeavour Double IPA

In commiseration with those snowed under in Boston and other locations in the Northeast, I decided to find a good pairing for a piping hot bowl of New England Clam Chowder.

I settled on a “Southwest Coast” Double IPA from St. Arnold of Houston. It’s a very inviting beer – a Texas two step between toasty, sweet malt and effervescent hops (Columbus, Simcoe and Centennial). Plus, the not-so-bitter hops revived and refreshed the palate after each spoonful of this potato-based chowder.

Feeling much warmer, thanks, and the cabin fever is ebbing now…

-- Jonathan Ingram

Pint Break's picture

Hop, Drop 'n Roll IPA

As I sit down to write this, my inaugural Pint Break, two things occur to me: 1) What a terrific beer this is, and 2)… It’s so cold! I know our East Coast neighbors in New England would love to have only thin wisps of snow on the ground that dissipate swiftly, but we southerners aren’t used to a wind chill of 1°!

The Beer Connoisseur® magazine & online

Welcome to The Beer Connoisseur® magazine & online. It's time to discover the world of beer!

Editorial Dept.'s picture

Fall 2014, Issue 16

Fall 2014, Issue 16

Fall 2014, Issue 16

There’s something about the fall season and beer.

In this issue, the intrepid Martin Thibault gets yet another inside story, this time on the brewing traditions of Norway. Not for the faint of heart, there’s a “troll road,” some blood and eye of pig in addition to revelations about the age-old formulas now held by the descendents of Norsemen. (For those who want to try making Vossabrygg at home, thanks to Martin the kveik yeast is soon to be available at the National Collection of Yeast Cultures under listing 3995.)

Another of our writers who has a knack for the beer culture is Seth Levy. He’s well grounded in the ways of craggy and wild Maine, where Allagash Brewing Company and founder Rob Tod have made a home in what has become a perfect fit for making great beer.  Seth, too, has a tale to tell along the lines of The Courage to Find Out in this rendition of the Innovators Series.

Our issue rolls on with a story about rum-influenced Yankee Swap. It’s steeped in the history of barrels and written by longtime contributor Ben Keene – who we congratulate on his move to the editing realm at a fellow beer publication. There’s a primer on how to do Oktoberfest at home, plus our other well known departments, which in this issue take readers to places like the Tasty Weasel and the World Cup in Brazil, not to mention Beervana.

Editorial Dept.'s picture

Summer 2014, Issue 15

Summer 2014, Issue 15

Summer 2014, Issue 15

Our Summer Issue continues to put people, places and events into sharp focus. The Innovators Series for this issue profiles David lossman, who has helped make the sometimes outlandish Abita Brewing Company ofe of craft's big success stories. Courtesy of the Traveling Connoisseur, we are taking readers to London to find some of the best real ale pubs while seeing he sights in ou one-of-a-kind Tube Crawl. And, we've gone in-house (well, into the backyard) to reinvent the pot luck party with a craft twist.

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Traveling without internet? Download the PDF HERE.


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Nicholas Hall's picture

Craft Launch Gets a ‘Go’ As Houston Beer Festivals Boom

Craft Launch Gets a ‘Go’ As Houston Beer Festivals Boom

Texas Craft Beer

For a state so mythologized as a bastion of the wide open West, including silver screen gunfights fueled by whiskey and beer in saloons, there’s been an odd relationship between Texas state laws and alcohol.

In recent years, the tide has been turning, due to loosening regulations and increased access to quality beers from other craft conscious states and countries. If the awareness of craft in Texas has been accelerated by festivals, Houston has become that movement’s epicenter.

An explosion of new breweries in Space City has helped fan the flames, with upstarts like Buffalo Bayou Brewing Company (named for the waterway that served as the lifeblood of Houston’s early shipping industry) and 8th Wonder Brewery (a tribute to Houston’s Astrodome) adding some local flair.

With beers available like Summer’s Wit, brewed with hibiscus flowers by Buffalo Bayou, and a Vietnamese coffee porter called Rocket Fuel from 8thWonder, Houstonians are taking full advantage of new drinking opportunities, which started with the establishment of St. Arnold Brewing Company in 1994. Beer drinkers have been lending their support to local brews and imports, in bars and restaurants across the state, and now in an ever-increasing number of festivals designed to show Texans a good time in a big way.

Presented roughly in order of size, longevity and proximity to Houston, those who live in Space City are lucky enough to consider these ten festivals local.

Ben Keene's picture

The Cannibal

The Cannibal

The Cannibal Beer and Butcher

...overcast with a chilling wind foreshadowing the approach of winter. I wanted something warming, something beguiling. An escapist drink. As I walked through Murray Hill on Manhattan’s East Side, a Belgian brown ale sounded good. 

Consulting the crumpled piece of paper I’d hastily scribbled an address on that morning, I stopped on a leafy residential block. Above my head, four words were printed in black on a brick red awning: The Cannibal Beer & Butcher.

Once inside, I met Christian Pappanicholas,  the owner.  “I knew the guy who lived here,” he said as we took seats at a picnic table in the quiet backyard patio. “He used to let us roast pigs out here.”

Dressed casually in blue jeans, a gray cashmere sweater, and a wool flat cap, Pappanicholas is a nose-to-tail evangelist when it comes to his charcuterie. He speaks assuredly, more like a man confident that success would come than someone simply hoping to find it eventually. Which made perfect sense. We were only two doors down from Resto, a Belgian-themed dining establishment that marked his transition from manager to restauranteur. When it opened in 2007, Resto received rave reviews from New York Magazine, the London Times, Food & Wine, and The New York Times. He had won over critics on his first try.

So when he launched The Cannibal—named after the legendary Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx—he was granted the degree of gastronomic freedom that tends to follow accomplishment.

Carolyn Smagalski's picture

The Influence of Whiskey and Wood

The Influence of Whiskey and Wood

Dougal Gunn Sharp Innis and Gunn

Although not the first to use oak to impart flavors to beer, a practice that goes back to at least the 19th Century, Innis & Gunn became the first to inspire a line of oak-matured beers that have subsequently become a modern style across the beer landscape.

In the early part of the 20th century, Scottish men commonly drank “half-and-half,” a mix of half beer and half whiskey. Back then, cheap whisky was a nasty drink that could set a roiling fire in the throat, but adulterating it with malty sweetness tempered the heat with palatable results. 

Those old-men traditions may have disappeared, but the lingering desire to create a whisky with ale character was pursued by Scottish distillers. Many tried to create the right formula, but time and again met with defeat.

Shortly after the start of the new millennium, to fulfill the quest of an ale-finished whiskey William Grant & Sons looked to the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh, a newly resurgent brewer. 

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