The Big Boys: Can’t-Miss Websites
Here are four major beer-centric websites that we visit virtually every day. These sites are one-stop shops where you can find the most updated information on almost everything you need to know about beer.
BEER ADVOCATE: www.beeradvocate.com
Founded in 1996, this portal is one big daddy in the beer world, with over 10,000 active members participating in beer-centric forums and groups as well as hundreds of thousands of user-generated beer reviews. Also to be found are reviews of beer bars, events, and beer tutorials. Founded by brothers Jason and Todd Alström, who live by the credo “Respect Beer,” this site is an invaluable resource for beer novices and experts alike.
RATEBEER . COM: www.ratebeer.com
Since 2000, this amazing site has become one of the most visited beer sites on the Internet. It boasts over a million beer reviews, listing tens of thousands of different beers. Maintained by volunteers, this site’s mission is to “provide independent, unbiased, consumer-driven information about beer and breweries and to enhance the image and worldwide appreciation of beer.”
BROOKSTON BEER BULLETIN: www.brookstonbeerbulletin.com
Jay Brooks, the former general manager of the renowned beer newspaper Celebrator Beer News, started this beer website to “support the craft beer industry and do whatever he can to help promote the culture of better beer.” This massively comprehensive site focuses on West Coast craft breweries and keeps an eye on the big breweries. In addition, there are some really great original articles because Jay’s always got something interesting to say.
THE BREWERS ASSOCIATION: www.beertown.org
The Brewers Association’s mission is to “promote and protect small and independent American brewers, their craft beers and the community of brewing enthusiasts.” But you don’t have to be a member of any association to use this website as a great resource. Features beer news, events, homebrewing, and beer-writing gems from the association’s president, Charlie Papazian.
The Little People: Beer Bloggers
Want to find the best beer to get your girlfriend if jasmine is her favorite flower? Need to find out where in Indianapolis you can find Three Floyds Dark Lord? Want to find out what that newly opened gastropub is all about? These are all questions that can be answered by an often underrated contingency. These are the people on the streets, in the bars, and sometimes on the floor, who know their shit and who are giving their blood, sweat, and tears, mostly for free, to bring you the most current beer news. These are the beer bloggers! (Insert sound of roaring crowd.)
BEER FOR CHICKS: www.beerforchicks.com
This is where it all started for us. Seeing that there was a definite lack but want of beer knowledge among her fellow home girls, Christina started this website as a female-friendly place where women could come for some good beer news, knowledge, and reviews, and a little social networking. BTW, it’s not just for chicks; her membership is 50/50 men and women.
BEER AND NOSH : www.beerandnosh.com
This San Francisco site is evidence that the foodie world is finally embracing the beauty of beer. A modern take, with beautiful pictures and recipes exploring “the endless possibilities of beer and food together.”
HAIL THE ALE : www.hailtheale.com
For when you want some beer news but there’s not a lot of time. This site has nice, punchy beer reviews, news, and humor.
CONFESSIONS OF A BEER GEEK: www.confessionsofabeergeek .com
“Spreading the gospel of craft beery goodness, converting one bitter beer face at a time,” written by Eli “The Mad Beer Man” Shayotovich.
HAIR OF THE DOG DAVE: www.beerjobs.org and www.beergeek.la
Want a beer job? Want to find out what’s happening with beer in La La Land? Check out David Stickel’s websites and get the latest on the California beer scene.
HOT KNIVES: www.urbanhonking.com/hotknives
Alex Brown and Evan George are rad. Both are former line cooks. One is a cheesemonger and one is a writer. They bring the avant garde to beer (including beer and music pairings). They believe in “cheap groceries, cooking with high alcohol content beer and free leisure.” Oh, and they hate “weak sauces.”
HOOSIER BEER GEEK : http://hoosierbeergeek.blogspot.com
Touted as “Indiana’s Favorite Website Ever,” Hoosier Beer Geek is actually a collaborative group that calls themselves the “Knights of the Beer Roundtable” and is chock-full of interviews, reviews, news, and school. Go Hoosiers!
Anything Else You Wanna Know? Specialty Websites
In addition to the all-encompassing beer-centric websites are some specialty gems that can really help if you need to know how to pronounce gueuze, or you need the newest, craziest recipe for beer-braised duck, or you just want to sit back and watch a good show about beer.
THE BEER MAPPING PROJECT: www.beermapping.com
Want to know exactly where you are and exactly how far away you are from your next good beer? Check out this site. Punch in your location and you’ll know.
THE BEER COOK : www.beercook.com
Lucy Saunders, the prolific beer writer and author of The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing and Cooking with Craft Beer writes this great site full of cooking-with-beer recipes, and beer and food reviews.
BEER TAP TV : www.beertaptv.com
Tired of all this reading? Beer Tap TV is a cable channel on the web that focuses solely on the best beverage on earth, with several entertaining and educational shows. “Taste Buds” is our favorite. Erik and Dusty rule.
THE BEER GEEK : www.thebeergeek.com
The couple that drinks beer together and travels together, and travels to drink beer together, stays together. Check out Chris and Meredith’s adventures and live vicariously while they “see the world one pint at a time.”
GUIDE TO BELGIAN BEER PRONUNCIATION GUIDE: http://belgianstyle.com/mmguide/pronounce/speak.html
Do you have absolutely no idea how to pronounce Westvleteren, St. Feuillien, or even worse Corsendonck? Go to this site, where you can hear an audible track of these tricky beer names. The site is a little bit rustic, but you won’t sound like an ass when you order one of these tricky beers. Hooray.
Subscribe and Delight: Beer Magazines
Some say that the printed word is dead, but we have to say that there’s nothing like opening your mailbox and finding the latest edition of your favorite beer magazine, ripe with new beer reviews, information about beer from around the country, and the hippest beer trends and styles. There are some great ones out there, and here are our favorite beeriodicals:
ALL ABOUT BEER : www.allaboutbeer.com
Now in its 30th year, this is the foremost magazine on contemporary beer culture. This magazine is for the serious beer drinker. It contains solid information on topics ranging from the culture, history, and variety of beers to marketing traditions, home brewing, storing, innovations, travel, entertaining, and beer politics that could affect your beer-drinking pleasure. It publishes six times a year, with two bonus issues each year.
BEER ADVOCATE: www.beeradvocate.com
Both the monthly magazine and the website are a staple for most craft beer lovers. With sections like “Style Profile,” “Cuisine à la Bière,” and “Ask the Beer Geek,” it approaches beer in a fresh and modern way. Each issue of the magazine also offers reviews of new beers, perfect for building a wish list, and features the beer spots of a different city. With contributions by well-respected beer writers from all over the country, this magazine covers all aspects of beer and brewing, including features of specific breweries, with the history of the owners and brewers and the beers they offer.
CELEBRATOR BEER NEWS: www.celebrator.com
Touted as “America’s Premier Brewspaper,” this bimonthly is one of the most beloved craft beer papers among beer-geeks. This periodical has great national news, but it’s also worth checking out for the great regional beer news that’s sometimes hard to get. It has a great online version with up
coming beer events, blog links, columns, and a “CBN Evening Brews” Internet show!
DRAFT : www.draftmagazine.com
Based out of Arizona, this is a well-crafted magazine whose cover often features a celebrity beer lover. This bimonthly is very accessible and approaches beer in a way that even the novice can enjoy. Draft is also not confined to just the craft brews. This magazine is spreading the word to anyone who will listen. They also have a pretty sweet website presence.
IMBIBE: www.imbibemagazine.com
This bimonthly magazine isn’t all about beer. Imbibe includes all drinks, from coffee to spring water, from wine to tea. But when this magazine turns its focus to our beloved beverage, it does it right. Calling itself “the magazine of liquid culture,” it gets deep when it comes to drinks. More than just merely scratching the surface, this magazine embraces the “history, ingredients, preparation, artistry and consumption” of all drinks. This glossy publication includes recipes, great pictures, travel, profiles, and reviews celebrating the world in a glass.
The Stacks: Books to Have at Home
In writing this book, we realized that we could write an entire book on almost every subject that we hit upon. Thankfully there are many books out there that cover a wide range of beer topics. Some are written specifically for the avid homebrewing technician, the beer traveler, the Belgian beer enthusiast, and yes, the “dummies.” Whatever the focus, you can probably find it. We wrote The Naked Pint to be accessible to all beer fans and to provide a base of knowledge to get your feet wet and from which to jump into the big adult pool of beer. You could just read our book, start tasting different beer styles, keep updated on our website, and live a fantastic life with beer. Here are some books that we recommend. This is not a comprehensive library by any means, but if you want to delve a little deeper, these books helped us cultivate our beer love:
Calagione, Sam, and Marnie Old. He Said Beer; She Said Wine. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2008. Have a friend who is a wine snob and refuses to listen to you about beer? This book is a fun look at the similarities and differences between the two drinks. Marnie Old, a knowledgeable and sophisticated wine sommelier, and Sam Calagione, the rock star of beer and owner of Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales, square off and go head to head on pairings for a variety of foods, flavors, and recipes for pairing dinners. A great read if you need to go toe-to-toe with a “non-beer drinker” and defend the best beverage in the world!
Deweer, Hilde. All Belgian Beers. Oostkamp, Belgium: Stichting Kunstboek, 2008. Fellow beer chick Deweer has painstakingly put together this 1,568-page volume with great care and precision, highlighting each beer on two pages with a picture, a flavor description, beer style, fermentation style, brewery, ingredients, ABV, color, appearance, serving tips, serving temperature, and other pertinent information.
Jackson, Michael. Ultimate Beer. New York: DK Publishing, 1998. Written by the late Jackson (moment of silence), the greatest beer writer of all time. The New York Times said, “Ultimate Beer is chock full of almost life size color photographs of beers from around the world, and text that is equally cosmopolitan.... His descriptions are so vivid... he seems to enjoy cooking as much as he does drinking. Instead of joining him at the pub, maybe you’d rather follow him home around supper time.”
Ogle, Maureen. Ambitious Brew. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006. This is a fun romp and a very interesting read about the history of beer in America starting from the mid-1800s to the present. She talks about Prohibition, the industrialization of beer, the big breweries, and the craft beer revolution. This book was an eye-opener for us and helped us see where the misconceptions about beer started and how to move past them.
Oliver, Garret. The Brewmasters Table. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. This book is a must-read for any beer enthusiast. Not only does it cover every style in amazing detail but it talks about food pairing and the theories and history behind those pairings. It will open your eyes to the possibility of mixing fine dining with beer, which, as you know, is our mission.
Saunders, Lucy. The Best of American Beer and Food. Boulder, CO: Brewers Publications, 2007. Written by an English literature major, this book talks about food and beer pairing as well as specializing in cooking with craft and artisanal beers. The explanation of how beer can enhance your enjoyment of food, often much better than wine can, makes this book great. And can you really go wrong with recipes like shallot and stout-glazed steak with cumin-pepper onions? And we haven’t even mentioned the Barley wine banana split. Forget about it.
Skilnik, Bob. Does My Butt Look Big in This Beer? Plainfield, IL: Gam brinus Media, 2008. We must admit, as women beer experts, we get asked about the nutritional and caloric content of beer on a daily basis. You can’t find it on a beer label, but you can find it in this book, which lists the alcohol content, carbohydrates, calories, and Weight Watchers’ points for more than 2,000 beers. This self-published book is a much-needed treasure. Thanks for keeping our butts in check, Bob.
BEER-TASTING NOTES
BEER-TASTING NOTES
BEER-TASTING NOTES
BEER-TASTING NOTES
BEER-TASTING NOTES
Index
Abbey Ales
Abbey-style Ales
ABG. See American Brewer’s Guild
ABV. See alcohol by volume
Abyss, The
Accarrino, Matt
Australian Suzuki with Beer-Braised Mussels, Leeks, Trumpet Royale Mushrooms, and Chorizo recipe by
National Beer Wholesalers Association’s “Real Women Drink Beer” Dinner menu by
Acetobacter, off-flavors and
Achel 8º Brune
Achel Brewery
adjuncts
examples of
flavor and
for homebrewing
mouthfeel and
in stout
Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen
Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Urbock
aging
of Barleywine
in barrels
Lambics
of porter
styles that benefit from
of Trappist Ales
Alaskan Amber
Alaskan Smoked Porter alcohol
balance and
bottle conditioning and
calories and
fermentation and
hops and
malt and
mouthfeel and
alcohol by volume (ABV)
in Altbier
in amber ales
in American Stouts
in Baltic Porter
in Barleywine
in barrel-aging
beer aging and
in Berliner Weisse
in Bière de Champagne
in Biére de Garde
in bitters
in Bock beers
in Brown Porter
in Dopplebocks
in Double IPAs
in Dubbels
in Flanders Red Ale
in Foreign Extra Stout
in Gueuze
in Kölsch
in Kristallklar
in mild ales
mouthfeel and
in Munich Dunkel Lagers
in nut brown ales
overview in
in Quadrupels
in red ales
in Robust Porter
in Russian Imperial Stout
in Saison
in smoked beer
in steam beer
in stout
in Tripels
in Witbier
ale. See also specific styles
in Britain
lager vs.
Alesmith Speedway Stout
Allagash Brewing Company
Allagash Curieux
flourless chocolate cake with
Allagash White
all-grain mash
all one style theme, for beer tasting parties
Altbier
Amarillo hops
amber ales
Sunset Boulevard Amber Ale
American all-malt lager
American Brewer’s Guild (ABG), CBA of
American IPAs
American Pilsner
American Stouts
American Strong Ales
American Wheat Beer
American Wild Ale (AWA)
Anchor Porter
Anchor Steam
“angel’s share,”
Angel’s Share, The
Anheuser-Busch
Anvil Ale ESB
Arctic Devil
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