The Beer Connoisseur received an unsolicited mention on Bill Maher's HBO comedy show Real Time with Bill Maher. The segment, titled "New Rules," aired as part of his September 16, 2011 show.

Courtesy of Real Time with Bill Maher, 9/16/11

I’ll bet that you have been tempted to gamble at some point in your life and since you are reading this article, you care a bit about quality brews. With this being the case, it would make perfect sense that beer and rolling the dice go hand in hand like a glass of Innis & Gunn with a Cohiba cigar. Well, unfortunately, practically every casino that I have visited has not taken advantage of this ideal marriage—at least regarding decent craft beer.

While it’s common practice for attractive servers to work the floors toting free standard cocktails using spirits from the well, the “beer” presented in disposable cups is watery enough to make Neptune blush. Better yet, the selection of beers that I could pay for is equally frustrating, with no more than five or so to choose from and the majority having “Light” following the brand name. What’s the deal?

Well since I plan on hitting the road and trying my luck where I can, I did a little research on a few casinos that actually respect the craft beer movement. The findings were pretty positive.

If a beer-inspired genealogist ever traced a craft brewers’ family tree, Rogue Ales’s brewer, John Maier, would certainly be one of the patriarchs. And an unlikely one at that.

Soft-spoken and even a bit reclusive – although quite affable – Maier doesn’t strut with the swagger that some “rock-star” brewers possess, and he seems to purposefully steer clear of the limelight that he richly deserves. Not only is he one of the most award-winning craft brewers in the world, he also has influenced many brewers across the country, who learned under his guidance at Rogue and took their educations elsewhere as they embarked on their own careers. Take, for instance, Flying Dog’s head brewer, Bob Malone; Amnesia Brewing’s owner, Kevin King, and its brewer, Chris Spollen; Full Sail’s head brewer, Barney Brennan; C Street Brewing’s owner, Doug Draper, and the list goes on and on.

Like most craft beer pioneers, though, Maier didn’t start out with aspirations to be a brewer, although he did, at a rather early age, intrinsically know that he wanted to live in Oregon. Born in Riverside, Calif., in 1955, his family moved to the suburbs outside of Portland when he was around 7. They spent most of Maier’s childhood in the Portland area, although his parents moved back to California when he was in high school.

If you look at a map of the wine, beer and spirits belts, you’ll see that Italy is almost exclusively designated as a wine country, with only a small region in the north, bordering on Switzerland and Austria, that gains admittance to the beer belt. Relying on this long-held model as a basis to plan your next beer-themed vacation, you might make the mistake of missing Italy altogether – and it would be a grave mistake, because there has been something of a whirlwind revolution happening there.

The global reach of that revolution is partially signaled by the recent opening of a branch of Eataly in New York City, the mammoth food hall imported by the restaurateurs Mario Batali and Joe and Lidia Bastianich that has been much heralded as the arrival of gourmet Italian food in New York. Of course, great Italian food has been in New York for over a century now, so the real news for beer lovers is the brewpub that is part of Eataly NY. Its opening not only has the potential to bring craft beer (Italian, American, or wherever) to a new audience, but it also stamps Italy firmly on the beer map. The boot full of beer is no longer just a novelty glass – it’s also a metaphor for the burgeoning quality beer movement in Italy.

Stepping unaware into the dining room of Thomas Keller’s flagship restaurant in Yountville, California, one would never guess the intimate six-table space occupies a former steam laundry. The room’s interior, from the kiva-style fireplace to the fresh flowers atop each table, is more evocative of a cozy living room. But it is here, under soft lighting and the watchful eye of an exactingly efficient staff, that foodies of the highest order come from far and wide to sup on morsels from a kitchen regarded by many as the most forward-thinking in the country. This is the French Laundry, where food is art and dinner is a theatrical tour de force.

Of all the American brewers out there, Jim Koch is perhaps the most recognizable. TV viewers have come to expect him on the screen as soon as they hear the first guitar licks of George Thorogood and the Destroyers' classic, “Who Do You Love?” 

Those commercials – showing Koch strolling hop farms in Germany, employees smiling and drinking a beer on a Friday afternoon, or brewers talking about the creation of a new brew – have helped consumers connect with Samuel Adams, the flagship line of beers produced by the Boston Beer Company. And it has been accomplished without the very gimmicks that Koch rails against when talking about the big brewers. No slapstick humor, no barely bikini-clad girls or talking animals. Just beer and the people who make it. 

Koch (pronounced “cook”), the famed founder of the Boston Beer Co., is credited with shepherding the brewery from a small operation that started in his kitchen and saw him walking from bar to bar with bottles in his briefcase to the largest American craft brewery, now making nearly 2 million barrels of beer annually. Spend some time in craft brewing circles these days and you’re likely to hear a lot of chatter about that number. Brewers, beer drinkers and even folks in Washington, D.C., want to know if when Boston Beer reaches that production milestone, will it still be considered craft?

To the uninitiated, it might not be easy to spot Brouwer’s Café. Its presence in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle is only marked over the front door with a metal Leo Belgicus, the lion depicted on Belgium’s coat of arms. But that sign is just about all that is subtle about Brouwer’s Café.

Take one step inside the dark entryway and you are transported to Brussels; there is even a replica of the landmark Manneken Pis fountain (Dutch for “little man urinating”) to greet you as you enter. A few more steps inside and the space opens up, with a bar that runs nearly the length of the room on the far wall, cozy booths on the other side, a second bar devoted to single malt Scotches in the back and tables scattered throughout. A staircase near the Scotch bar takes you up to a second level loft, with extra table seating. Skylights fill the room with natural light, giving it an airy atmosphere, even on a drizzly Seattle day.

The owners, Matt Bonney and Matt Vandenberghe, met while working at the local Maritime Pacific Brewing Company. A dozen years ago, their first business venture together was the well-respected beer store, Bottleworks, situated not far from Brouwer’s Café, which opened in 2005.

When asked to describe the essence of Britain, a stodgy English statesman replied recently, “tea and biscuits.” Many members of Britain’s Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) responded immediately with a resounding cry of “balderdash!” Compared to cask-conditioned “real ale,” which originated in the British Isles before pagan times, tea is a relatively recent import. What could be more quintessentially British than an authentic English ale in a personable, comfortable English pub?

In stark contrast to soulless, fizzy, kegged beers that almost took over England in the 1970’s, traditional real ale (a.k.a. cask ale or cask-conditioned ale) springs from the profoundly English tradition of racking young, unfiltered beer with yeast, hints of residual sugar and finings into sealed metal or wooden casks. A typical English pub stocks 10.8-gallon casks called “firkins” that are filled with ale served by gravity spout or hand pump. Real ale travels from brewery to glass without pasteurization or the addition of artificial carbon dioxide gas, and the beer evolves in interesting ways over a day or two of serving, due to interaction with air in the cask.

There are two large cities on the western shore of Lake Michigan that formed my previous impression of Wisconsin. One has a famous NFL team whose fans wear yellow triangular hats, and the other one is as important to the history of American brewing as the chapter containing World War II would be to any history book. There is, however, another Wisconsin that beckons less than two hours from that historic shoreline.

My drive started south of Chicago that day last summer. After donating a hubcap to the Illinois Tollway, I exited the fast lane of urban sprawl and downshifted to a more relaxing journey. The towns give way to farmland very quickly near the state line. Each farm reflects the family that owns it, and there is a degree of care apparent in the maintenance of the buildings and equipment as well as the stewardship of the animals and crops. The grass is extremely green on this June day and the cows are casually grazing randomly across the countryside. There is still the fresh smell of spring in air, and I roll down a window to enjoy it.

Fergal Murray, Brewmaster for Guinness, has been with the brewery for 26 years now, but he began his time at the St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin as a research chemist. Now he’s the face of the 250-plus-year-old brewery, whose black nectar is currently produced in 44 countries around the globe. With the title of head brewmaster and brand ambassador, he stays busy preaching the gospel of Guinness, which – it goes without saying – undoubtedly reigns as the world’s most ubiquitous high-quality beer.

“If Arthur Guinness was around today he probably would be doing what I’m doing, out there speaking about what he’s produced and how he produces across different markets around the world,” Murray said in an interview earlier this week at the Fado Irish Pub in Buckhead. He’s been busy lately traveling the world in celebration of the brewery’s milestone anniversary, which was marked by a limited-edition brew, released only in America, Australia and Singapore, that employs carbonation rather than the usual nitrogen to add more effervescence to the iconic beer.