What Makes Beer A Porter?

Like stouts, porters tend to be thought of as dark, strong beers that are perfect for a cold winter night. But, like stouts again, porters can vary pretty drastically from brewery to brewery. If you haven’t noticed already, porters are extremely similar to stouts, making them hard to classify. In fact, even Guinness’ renown Extra … Read more

What Makes a Beer a Saison?

When it comes to cooling down with a refreshing beer during the hot summer months, typically pale ales, hefeweizens and IPAs come to mind. But more recently, saisons have made a huge rise in popularity in the States. The light flavor, bold taste and reasonable ABV of Belgium’s saisons have made it climb up the … Read more

What is a Doppelbock?

So you’ve been wandering the liquor store’s beer aisles looking at all the fancy labels and wondering why so many breweries are obsessed with goats. Well, it’s not so much that they love a good can-eater, it’s that they’ve created a visual pun for the German style lager, bock. I’ll get to that story in … Read more

What Makes a Beer a Hefeweizen?

There’s nothing that reflects autumn like the smooth wheaty, banana and clovey flavors of this popular beer. Hefeweizen is made up of a lot of wheat, giving it its classic refreshing taste. But what differentiates a hefeweizen from other wheat beers, like Belgian witbier and dunkelweizen? Let’s take a step back to hefeweizen history, and … Read more

What Makes Beer a Stout?

When most people think of stouts, they think of creamy, strong and dark beers. Usually, a Guinness comes to mind. Yet, though many types of stout do have these attributes, there are different varieties that don’t have any of them. In fact, Guinness doesn’t even have a high alcohol content. It’s the same as Bud … Read more

What Does ABV and IBU Mean?

Though enjoying a quality craft beer is simple enough to do, brewing it to perfection is quite another story. It can take years of effort and lots of batches of beer to create a delicious brew. The more you understand about the beer you’re drinking, the more you can fully appreciate it in all of … Read more

Japanese Rice Beer – An Introduction

Rice has been used to make alcohol for many, many years. Sake, the Japanese rice wine, is the type of alcohol usually associated with the grain, but rice can also be used in beer. In the West beer made with rice is generally looked down upon as it’s mainly used in cheap lagers like Budweiser … Read more

How to Taste Beer

To fully appreciate all a beer has to offer sometimes you need to do a little more than just drink it. Today we’re going to go over the five steps you should take to get the most out of your beer. 1. LOOK After pouring your beer into the proper glass, observe the color and … Read more

What is Session Beer?

If you’ve been around the craft beer scene long enough, chances are you’ve heard someone use the phrase “session beer.” What exactly does this curious term mean? Today we take a quick look at the term and explain its meaning. A “session beer” is a beer low in alcohol which can be consumed in large … Read more