Will Hawkes visits the Brooklyn Brewery in New York, at brewery at the epicentre of innovation in the USA.
The mobster was angry. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he squeaked impatiently, Joe Pesci-style, as he sat in the warehouse of the as yet unfinished Brooklyn Brewery.
“We’ve had enough of this bullshit. We’re here for one thing: J-O-B-S, jobs. You built this brewery without us. The first brewery in Brooklyn in...
By Will Hawkes
from Issue 18 published on 19/06/2008
Rodrigo Amaral visits the Eisenbahn Brewery, a craft brewery on a mission to change Brazilian beer culture
Your typical beer aficionado in Brazil will teach you that there are only two kinds of beer: “stupidly” cold, and hot. If you happen to take a Brazilian drinker to an English pub and order him or her an honest bitter at room temperature, they won’t hide their displeasure: of course the landlord is n...
By Rodrigo Amaral
from Issue 17 published on 30/04/2008
Nigel Huddleston visits Zatec, a brewery dedicated to reviving the Czech brewing tradition.
There are scars down the copper kettles in the brewhouse at the Czech Republic’s Zatec brewery. The lines mark where the kettles were welded back together at the end of the Second World War, having been chopped up and stored in a nearby cellar to stop the metal falling into German hands and being re...
By Nigel Huddleston
from Issue 16 published on 25/01/2008
Jeff Evans visits the Weltenburger brewery in Germany; the oldest Abbey brewery in the world (without the monks).
The Danube is a wide and lazy river. As the pleasure boat chugs calmly upstream it sends a light, rippling wash over stony little beaches on either side. Apart from the splashing of the occasional canoeist, there’s nothing else to disturb the languid, olive-green water as it meanders its way through...
By Jeff Evans
from Issue 15 published on 01/12/2007
The Bavarian town of Bamberg is packed full of breweries to delight the beer adventurer. Roger Protz went for a look-see
If you are searching for beer paradise, there’s no need to wait until you fall off your bar stool – just head for Bamberg. This small city of 70,000 people in Franconia, upper Bavaria, has 11 breweries and a vast collection of inns and taverns in which to enjoy their brews.
The beers include fascin...
By Roger Protz
from Issue 13 published on 03/08/2007
Coopers Brewery in South Australia is making some damn good beer above and beyond thirst quenching lagers more commonly found in bars down under. Will Hawkes reports
Australian beer does not enjoy the best of reputations outside of its home country. Regarded as bland and gassy, it is has become the brunt of jokes (most of which are too rude to repeat here) even as a number of brands, most notably Foster’s in the United Kingdom, have sold enormously well.
Despit...
By Will Hawkes
from Issue 11 published on 23/03/2007
Budweiser Budvar's Czech brewery is a monument to good brewing practice. Dominic Roskrow reports
We’re standing in the grandiose and pristine marbled reception area of the Budweiser Budvar brewery sipping tentatively at the first lager of the day. Back in London it is just 9.15am.
We know this because above us there are a series of clocks telling us the hour across the world. It’s almost as if...
By Dominic Roskrow
from Issue 10 published on 26/01/2007
The Belgian town of Beersel is blessed with not one but two traditional lambic breweries. Roger Protz visited them
It’s a long, steep clamber up from the railway station at Beersel to the small town with its moated castle, built early in the 14th century by the Duke of Brabant to aid the defence of Brussels. When you reach the centre of Beersel you can refresh yourself with beers that form a style – lambic and g...
By Roger Protz
from Issue 8 published on 27/09/2006
There is more to beer than bubbles and alcohol, as Alastair Gilmour discovered when he headed to Switzerland for a beer massage...
The water in the whirlpool bath is hot; there’s a metre of snow outside; you’re completely naked, but you’re perfectly relaxed and utterly content, so what is the Swiss spa masseuse about to do with her huge pitcher of organic beer?
She’s going to pour it all over you and turn on the jet stream flo...
By Alastair Gilmour
from Issue 7 published on 28/07/2006
Pilsner Urquell is among the greatest Czech beers and it helped define a category. Adrian Tierney-Jones visited it
The historic brewing centre of Pilsen is hardly Burton-on-Trent. While the home of IPA and Bass still shows off its bleached industrial roots, the place where pilsner lager was born remains a relatively unspoilt city, with a wealth of buildings dating back to the middle ages plus some fine bars and ...
By Adrian Tierney-Jones
from Issue 6 published on 18/05/2006
Dutch Trappist brewery Koningshoeven has been accepted back in to the Trappist fold after a long-standing ‘excommunication.’ Roger Protz found out what happened
Healing a family rift is hard at the best of times, but it’s devilish difficult when the family in question is the brotherhood of Trappist monks.
Trappists – if you’ll pardon the pun – tend to keep their traps shut and meetings that involved the seven monastic breweries in Belgium and the Netherlan...
By Roger Protz
from Issue 5 published on 24/03/2006
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. At Colorado brewers The New Belgium Beer Company they ’re looking to Europe with a big smile on their faces. Ben McFarland reports
Any beer lovers heading north out of downtown Denver need to keep the faith. The power of big and brash American beer is omnipresent and, stuck in a sweaty hire car, the lure of refreshment is almost too much to bear.
As I desperately try to untangle the unfathomable one-way system to find the Inte...
By Ben McFarland
from Issue 5 published on 24/03/2006
One day Kim Jong Il decided to buy a brewery. Sam Chambers heads to Pyongyang in search of what was once a famous old name in British brewing
At 30,000 ft the first taste is not promising. In fact, it is so bad that the Canadian sitting next door to me winces on slugging back the first North Korean beer of his life and grimaces, “That’s bad, that’s awful.” But then this is Pyongyang Beer, not what I am after, with its nasty chemical taste...
By Sam Chambers
from Issue 5 published on 24/03/2006
Ben McFarland visits the Sierra Nevada brewery in California and explains why its Chco time
Chico is a town that rarely gets its knickers in a twist. To say Chico is laid back is like saying San Francisco, a four hour drive away, is a little hilly and just a bit camp.
A small yet sprawling Californian-college town, Chico is where students party hard and the elderly retire harder; where th...
By Ben McFarland
from Issue 4 published on 27/01/2006
An international alliance is creating a world class wheat beer in the Ukraine. Roger Protz visited the brewery that is making waves across the globe
The Ukraine has gone from orange to white in a year.
First, the Orange Revolution swept the old regime from power and ushered in a pro-Western government. Now a privatised brewing industry is widening choice for drinkers and the most surprising development is locally brewed German-style ‘white’ or ...
By Roger Protz
from Issue 4 published on 27/01/2006
Portland, Oregon, is a beer mecca and one of its key players is the Rogue Brewery. Ben McFarland visited it
Undulating, drizzly and a little bit funky, Portland, Oregon, is unlike any other town in America.
It may not have the endless hours of sunshine that brighten-up other cities on America’s West Coast nor the wellknown recognition of Seattle, its nearby neighbour to the north, but Portland is so laid...
By Ben McFarland
from Issue 3 published on 12/01/2006
La Brasserie de Bercloux is a small French brewery punching well above its weight. Alistair Gilmour reports
You know where you are with the sound of keg on concrete and the echo of mallet on bung.
The mind opens its ‘brewery, beer, pub’ homepage, clicks through the menu, then invites the other senses to join the company.
But when the thermometer is rising through the high 20s, a welcome breeze rustles a...
By Alastair Gilmour
from Issue 2 published on 16/11/2005
Belgium’s Cantillon Brewery makes stunning beer using 6,000 year old technology. It’s an acquired taste worth acquiring says Andy Burnyeat
Mice?!!” As my order at a Brussels bar was repeated by the gentleman standing next to me, I thought I had met the real Arthur Dent.
My fellow customer seemed just as dumbfounded by the concept of ordering mice in a bar as was Hitchhikers Guide hero Arthur when Slartibartfast casually informed him t...
By Andrew Burnyeat
from Issue 1 published on 26/08/2005
