Good Beer Festival candids and snapshots

We had a blast covering the Good Beer Festival this year and can't wait to see you all again next year. Feel free to download and share the photos, if you'd like to give us a shoutout when you do, that would be cool and fair. GBF blogs to follow.

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Give the Gift of Brewing

I do a weekly podcast about homebrewing. It's my hobby. I'm not on anyone's payroll, but, because people are looking for gifts this season, we did a show about getting people started in homebrewing that I thought was worth promoting. So I apologize in advance if I sound a little pitchy. I blog a bit about the brewing industry, but think about the brewing culture way more often. Brewing is one of those endeavors where, once you get hooked, you just wanna brew beer and help people who aren't brewing cultivate the interest. I love talking to homebrewers about what they do and (believe me) they love talking about it. This week's guest didn't show, so instead, Doug at Xtreme Brewing and I talked about what it took to get someone into beer. Sometimes, taking a class helps. Doug gives free brewing classes occasionally and lots of people go to a couple before making the plunge. But, more often than not, a person will come in, pick up a starter kit, and get to brewin

Into the past

Castle Haven Photo courtesy of the Choptank River Heritage Center I went to college as a 30-year-old and, as I made for the graduation finish line, my first marriage came apart. If I ever write that story it will read like the lamest version of the poor man's Fear and Loathing. Come to think of it, Fear and Loathing in Delmar would be an awesome title. Doing primary source, original research was a graduation requirement, so I combined my appreciation for a good tavern with the fact that I had to write about something. While researching taverns in colonial Maryland I discovered that there was such a place a Castle Haven. More than a decade later, that paper became the first chapter in my first book, and the second installment in my blog about writing the book. This is the story of our attempt to breach Castle Haven in search of photos.

Beer makes great copy

Sure. Like you don't have a beer writing hat. When I was a reporter, and then when I was an editor, publishers would give me a hard time if I wrote too many brewery stories. I understood where they were coming from, but there were (and still are) few small-town business stories as compelling. The story about small batch breweries has always been a double-trend story. Opening and hiring people was bucking the employment and economic development trend of the time (2008-2012). Plus, there was the larger, new micro-brew revolution trend. Beyond the fact that the story was compelling was the fact that it included beer. No one believes spending an hour or so at the brewery counts as taking one for the team. It's funny but at the time I never considered how widespread that phenomenon was. I wrote for a small paper in a small town. There were millions of guys like me, educated but barely employable in any other industry. We were all gravitating toward the local beer story,

The State of the Beer

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