From plant-based brewpubs serving Pliny the Elder to award-winning cask ales and Bavarian biertubes, a 30-mile stretch of San Mateo County along Highway 101 has quietly become the Bay Area's most underrated craft beer destination.
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From the hearth-centered practices of the Ainu to the cassava brewing charms of the Makushi, tattooing and fermentation share a profound kinship as technologies of transformation that inscribe identity, honor ancestors, and sustain communities across cultures.
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How do breweries find balance in an always evolving industry, where trends come and go and drinkers show both loyalty and adventurousness?
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Jack McAuliffe, founder of New Albion Brewing, turned a homebrewer’s dream into America’s first modern craft brewery, inspiring generations with his resourcefulness and bold vision.
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The NSW-based brewery continues to expand it national footprint with the opening of its newly fitted Richmond venue on 11 July. 
The brewery's latest venture offers a produce-led dining experience on the waterfront at Manly Wharf. Craft sake brewers are bridging the gap between beer and sake by creating hybrid products, drawing in curious craft drinkers with innovative, approachable takes on traditional Japanese brewing.
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The Hop Harvest Fest is returning to the Inner West Ale Trail from 11-17 April with 11 breweries releasing exclusive new beers to their tap rooms. A brewery can write an airtight recipe, source top-shelf raw materials, and brew a flawless beer, but all those efforts are for naught if a draught system is dirty.
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Deeds Brewing to close its east Melbourne taproom and kitchen for the final time this Saturday, 22 March. American breweries are embracing Czech pouring traditions to elevate foam quality, flavor, and the overall craft beer experience.
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With many breweries facing a slow January, the Brewers Association in the United States is encouraging people to support their local breweries. Communal singing groups unite people through casual, joyful experiences blending beer and song, fostering connection and rediscovery in community spaces.
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One of the classic styles, and one of the most fabulous beers steeped in history, Kölsch is often underrated and overlooked. 
The former Brews News editor will share insights from more than a decade in beer media at a session on 15 October at Melbourne’s Local Taphouse. The Chair has become the shaker pint of taproom furniture: ubiquitous, affordable, stackable, easy to clean, and largely unloved.
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After nine years as a craft beer hub for WA, Dutch Trading Co. is closing, with the owners planning to transform the venue into something new. 
Capital Brewing Co has announced that it has bought one of Australia’s most renowned cider brands, Batlow Cider. These movers and shakers are not only brewing top-notch beer, but are also making game-changing steps toward a craft beer industry that welcomes all.
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Outer Range Brewing Co. is renowned for its IPAs and outdoor spirit. It was no surprise when its founders decided to open another brewery—but choosing to do it in the French Alps made quite the impression.
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The longer I brew mixed-fermentation beers, the more I appreciate just how important the hopping rate is. Controlling lactic acid production by inhibiting lactobacillus is hops' most well-appreciated function in sour beers. Hop compounds become more effective at inhibiting Lactobacillus as the pH drops, creating a natural "limit" on their lactic acid production. What it took me a long time to appreciate was how much hop compounds (beyond IBUs) lead to a greater expression of what I think of as classic Brett "funk."
When Scott and I began the mixed-fermentation program in 2018-2019, generally our issue was beers not souring enough. I started pulling levers (lower hopping rates, higher mash temps, less attenuative primary strains etc.) By 2020-2021, we were having excessive acid production... Most non-fruited beers were dropping to a firmly-acidic 3.1-3.3 pH, while fruited beers were often difficult to drink in quantity at 3.0-3.1 pH with some dipping to "obnoxiously acidic" high-2s.
Fruit contributes simple sugars, which Lactobacillus love, and at the same time dilute the hop compounds in the beer. This can cause a precipitous pH drop. With so much beer already in barrels, my first maneuver was to begin dosing alpha acids into the beer along with fruit when there was already enough acid. We started with reduced iso-alpha-acids (e.g. tetralone/hexalone), but have moved onto Hopsteiner Alpha Extract 20% since it doesn't add perceived bitterness. About .1-.2 g per gallon stops acid production for our bacteria. These products don't significantly change the flavor or add additional aromatic complexity. As a side benefit, they enhance head retention. A small dry hop at this stage would be another option if you wanted stop acidification and add hop aromatics.
At this point we started upping the aged hop rate, or aiming for higher IBU targets when using fresh hops (~15-20 IBUs). At the same time (~2021) Scott and Ken (our head brewer) wanted to try barrel-aging more aromatically hoppy beers... I was resistant. I love hoppy-sour beers, I did a whole talk about them at the 2016 National Homebrewers Conference. Generally my approach had been to make sure the hops go into the beer as close to serving as possible (e.g., dry hop a barrel-aged sour after aging, brew a quick-turn hoppy Brett saison, add a whirlpool addition after kettle souring). I'd tasted too many barrel-soured IPAs and pale ales from great breweries that smelled like "old hoppy beer." That said, Ken and Scott convinced me! At our scale it is a relatively low risk to divert a few barrels of pale ale to see what happens.
We're already "aggressive" with our measures against oxygen pick-up (purging barrels with carbon dioxide before filling, purging the barrel-tool between each fill, purging the bottles before filling etc.), but when we fill barrels with pale ale wort we pull out all the tricks. Most importantly, we selected barrels that could be refilled without rinsing, leaving several gallons of "house culture" at the bottom of each. Our goal was to start the secondary fermentation as quickly as possible to protect the delicate hop compounds. I was amazed how good the resulting beer tasted!
What has really intrigued me is that the hoppier bases have almost universally produced finished beers I'd describe as more Brett-forward (earthy, funky, fruity, horse blanket). What I don't know is why! In American Sour Beers I cited research that Brett can free glycosides in hops, so that could explain the fruity. Maybe hops are just inhibiting Lactobacillus, giving the Brett a healthier environment (in lambics Brett tends to thrive before Pediococcus dramatically lowers the pH). Maybe I'm just being fooled and higher hopping rates (aged or fresh) are adding key compounds that I associate with the "funk" in a Cantillon, Orval (and many of my favorite American mixed-ferms)! These days our typical hopping rate is .5 lbs/bbl of aged hops at the start of the boil, and .5 lbs/bbl or fresh low alpha-acid hops in the whirlpool.
Barrels of Rings is one of the bottles included with the first shipment of the Sapwood Cellars Shipping Club. It started as Rings of Light, brewed summer 2022, racked into barrels after primary fermentation, but before dry hopping. After 10 months of aging, we transfer directly from the two wine barrels into our blending tank (purged with 5.5 pounds of our selected Citra Cryo already in there). We agitated/roused and allowed to settle for a couple days, dropping the hops. Then we primed with sugar and rehydrated wine yeast (as we do for most of our barrel-aged sours) and partially carbonated the beer. As with the barrel fill, we're relying on CO2 purging of the bottles and the rapid refermentation to scavenge oxygen and preserve hop aromatics.
Recipe: Barrels of Rings
OG: 1.063
65% Briess Brewer's 2-row
14% Great Western Malted White Wheat
13% Grain Millers Flaked Oats
8% Best Chit Malt
IBUs: 40
.5 lbs/bbl Meridian @ Whirlpool (212F)
1 lb/bbl New York Cascade @ Whirlpool (180F)
Bravo Salvo Hop Extract @ Whirlpool (180F)
Fermentation with Omega Cosmic Punch (the barrel sheet below is incorrect)
FG (Primary) 1.022
Brewed 8/5/22. Barrels filled 8/11/22
Barrel #6: Fifth-fill Chambourcin red wine barrel that previously held our original barrel-aged pale ale, Measure Twice. That barrel was started with dregs from our collab with Free Will (Erma Extra), but along the way it was filled with bases that had dregs in primary from various American saisons (Casey and Holy Mountain).
Barrel #125: Second-fill Chardonnay white wine barrel that previously held a cider fermented with the Bootleg Biology Biology Mad Fermentationist Saison (plus we added the dregs from a stellar bottle of Barrique Wet Hop Reserve after filling).
6/21/23 116 gallons of beer from the two barrels transferred onto 5.5 pounds of 2022 Citra Cryo. 1.5 oz/gallon.
Carbonated to 2.05 vol, reyeasted with Premier Cuvee (rehydrated on a stir-plate with StartUp Nutrient), primed with enough glucose to add 1.1 vol of CO2 (~3.1 vol total in bottle).
Final pH: 3.65
Final Gravity 1.009
7.1% ABV.
Tasting Notes: Barrels of Rings
(My personal notes from a few months ago)
Smell - Nice blend of citrus (orange) and earthy-Bretty-funk. Still really fresh, no oxidative or old-hop aromatics. Really varied nose with a little pine sap, hay, and melon. Another hoppy base that got funkier than most of our bases.
Appearance - Big dense white head, good retention. Light haze, very pale yellow. Attractive.
Taste - Light lemony tartness, but not sour-sour. Very saison-y. Some bitterness, but it doesn’t clash with the light bitterness.
Mouthfeel - A touch of astringency. Great sptrizy carbonation. Medium-light body.
Drinkability - Really nice. The bitterness does give it a different impression than a classic low-bitterness sour base. More saison-like.
Changes for Next Time - Really good, not much to change on this one. Gin barrels would be fun.
When visiting Epochal Barrel Fermented Ales in Scotland last year I was blown-away by how by how good (owner/brewer) Gareth Young's wild ales were aged on whole hops in the barrels for the entire secondary fermentation. I really enjoyed the first beer we did with it, Violet You're Turning Violet (Mosaic in the barrel, finished with a blend of wild and cultivated blueberries). It seems like a good option especially if you want variety in the hop intensity of a base, e.g., start with a more moderate hopped base and add hops to some barrels for blending options.
The brewery is pursuing financial restructuring as a result of its current circumstances. Brandon Hernández combed the desert and laid out a stellar septet of breweries to visit in Las Vegas.
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The worlds of beer and chicken have been aligned for ages, but it wasn’t until 2021 that chimaek, a Korean portmanteau for fried chicken and light beers, was welcomed into the Oxford English Dictionary.
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In addition to music venues, bodacious barbecue, and epic tacos, this booming metropolis is The Lone Star State’s leading locale for incredible craft beer.
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Matso’s Sunshine Coast boasts a capacity of 700 guests, serving core and limited-release Matso’s products brewed fresh on-site.
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Many of the qualities that make beer so deeply enjoyable and dear to us can be traced directly to an unsung role: the cellar person.
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Many breweries are adding on a whole new aspect of the business: a coffee roastery or shop sharing the same space as house-made beers.
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In honor of Veterans Day, we’re highlighting a few veteran-owned breweries from across the United States.
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