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The Session #43: The New Brew Kids

I am taking a step away from the type of article that you normally read from me to participate in something that has become somewhat of a beer writer’s tradition; The Session. The Session is a group writing project that was conceived by Stan Hieronymus of Appellation Beer. This is an opportunity for beer writers/bloggers [...]

A Change of Seasons

All of the typical signs are evident that summer is coming to an end and that fall is almost upon us; school began in most local districts this last week, the Champlain Valley Fair starts its 10-day run today and the summer green of the Vermont hillsides are slowly showing a hint of that blaze of color that will be dominant in a month or so.

Harpoon Fights Hunger in Vermont

Last Saturday it was my very great pleasure to be a volunteer at the 9th Annual Harpoon Point to Point ride to benefit the Vermont Foodbank. This bicycle riding event, a collaborative effort by the Vermont Foodbank, the Harpoon Brewery, and The Point Radio Network, was established to raise awareness and funds for the Vermont Foodbank and its efforts to end hunger in Vermont. The 2009 event raised about $98,000 and was the Foodbank’s largest single fund raising effort for that year. This year the fund raising goal for this event is $150,000.

A Beer Industry Checkup

It has been a while since I took a more than cursory glance at the beer industry as a whole. What with the economy raising cane in most parts of the world for the last 24 months or so, I was a little afraid of what I might find. Even with some signs of a [...]

Harpoon BBQ Championships of New England

Each July for the last 10 years some of New England’s best barbequers and grillers have descended upon tiny Windsor, VT for the New England Championships of BBQ, which is hosted on the grounds of the Harpoon Brewery. This New England Barbecue Society supervised event is attended by thousands of hungry BBQ fans all hoping to get a taste of some of the best BBQ this side of Kansas City and, of course, to sample some of Harpoon’s great beers.

The Vermont Brewers Festival

Last weekend was the 18th annual Vermont Brewer’s Festival (VBF) in Burlington, Vermont. I had not taken this event in for a couple of years, so I was really looking forward to visiting with some of the new breweries that were to be there this year and to see if they had made any changes [...]

The Taste of Beer

Extra! Extra! Not everyone likes beer! While that is hardly news to any of us and sounds exceedingly silly to the average craft beer aficionado, it is clearly the case for many non-beer drinkers and the majority referenced dislike is the “taste” of the beer. I have even found that the so called “macro” beer [...]

Outside the Beer – Bottles

For years my father maintained a eclectic collection of beer bottles and other beer-related paraphernalia. He worked at the Sterling brewery in Evansville, IN during college and this set the stage for a near lifetime of collecting bottles and other odd “beer stuff” that struck his fancy. Pieces of this collection of his were sometimes [...]

Celebrating Independence Day

Its hard to believe that we are half way through the summer already. The 4th of July is generally the height of the summer weather we have here during Vermont’s short summer. Before long the nights will begin to cool down and we will start back into our long winter weather cycle. The weather so [...]

ACBF 2010 – My Final Thoughts

Thanks to the benevolence of the folks at Beer Advocate, I was fortunate to be able to attend all three sessions of this year’s American Craft Beer Fest held at the Seaport World Trade center in Boston. This is, in my opinion, a perfect setting for this event. This large conference center sits right on [...]