The State of the Beer

In this week's Beer with Strangers podcast , Doug Griffith of Xtreme Brewing in Laurel and I discussed the recurring news story that craft beer is running out of names . Among the concerns is that it makes it harder for new brewers to break in and it prevents smaller brewers from having big breakout beers. Craft beers allegedly have kooky names because they are the product of one brewery making many, many beers. It makes sense, at some level, to have weird names for beers. Brewers like to be distinctive, to set themselves apart. And people who like craft beer get a kick out of kooky names.  Raging Bitch made national news when there was a fight over whether it was an obscene name. Beyond that, as shelves get more crowded with bottles and cans, and as breweries continue to try and push the envelope with tastes and flavors, brewers want a name that is as distinctive as their beers. Plus, in absence of any other knowledge or review, lots of beer drinkers simply judge the beer book ...

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...

Jimmy Sharp measures his grain into the mill one recent Saturday at Xtreme Brewing The first time I went to Xtreme Brewing, in Millsboro, Del., I was hooked on the homebrew culture. I am not a homebrewer, but, rather, have always described my self as a hobby collector. I love to learn about other people's hobbies, what drew them to their passion and why they pursue it so ardently (or, when they don't, why they no longer do). The culture surrounding a hobby is often more fascinating than the hobby itself. The subculture of inclusivity intrigued me more than any other part of the hobby, except for the beer of course. Hobbies can encourage factionalism by encouraging esoteric cliques defined in opposition to one another. Tribalism often is what makes hobbies sustainable and, for me, worth watching. What is hobby-ier than talking to passionate people who are willing to go to war over details an outsider barely can distinguish. For the homebrewer, however, the distinction is o...

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 ...