The State of the Beer

Setting aside the 8 or 10 people who remember when beer from cans had an off flavor, the rise of craft beer in a can is probably the next bump in the craft beer market . Cans are cheaper to buy and cheaper to ship, and they hold flavor better. It is quite possible they hold flavor longer, but it's not an experiment I'm willing to try as it means arbitrarily leaving beer un-drunk. Over the last few years, the beer in a can market has grown significantly. The Genius of Mobile Canning I spoke with Augie Carton of Carton Brewing, who had canning as a major part of his original business plan. He said when he called a company to arrange to buy a canner, they directed him to one of their newest customers, a guy with a regional canning truck. Rather than have to invest in a very, very expensive and technical piece of equipment, Carton was able to contract with a company who would come out as needed, pump beer into the truck and roll filled cans out of it and into the brewery's...

Young women have really only stopped brewing for the last 200 years or so. Homebrewing news stories (most recently, " Not Every Homebrewer Has a Beard ")  increasingly emphasize the fact that women are brewing, which is funny because it highlights a generational, rather than a gender gap. Stereotypically, the oldsters who assign trend stories in newspapers truly are locked into a perception of gender roles that has only barely been true for the last 200(ish) years, especially when it comes to beer. Women brewed until industrialization made it too profitable a potential business for men to ignore. They ladies returned to homebrewing throughout Prohibition, making beer (and liquor and wine) at home to keep the family wet. The real newsflash is, stories about women crossing gender lines are more about establishment bias than about the real world.  Women 'Discover' Brewing Expertise is about knowledge and passion.  It's not so much that women continue to ...