Beer seems to have received a bad rap this past century of its long and rich history.  Perhaps this is due to the unholy stigma affixed to it from such movements as fundamentalism and the prohibition, or perhaps due to the fact that when it comes to medicinal qualities associated with alcohol, red wine takes the cake.  Thus the inundation of light and low carb beers as lesser evils in the American marketing system. But nutrition scientists (and we all know scientists know everything) have weighed the indisputable evidence of beer ingredients and have discovered that beer is, in fact, good for one's health.  A recent study shows that drinking beer in moderation (two 12 ounce brews a day for adult males) is quite beneficial.  In fact, craft beers--those beers that this blog specializes in--are the most medicinal of all.  So please, for your own good, subscribe to this blog! From a recent Forbes article, here are eight reasons you ought to drink up: Beer prevents heart disease.   Drinking beer regularly can decrease your chances of heart disease by 35%. Beer prevents blood clots that lead to stroke. Beer lowers blood pressure. Beer increases insulin sensitivity, leaving one less prone to type 2 diabetes. Beer actually ...

Merry Christmas indeed!  I really enjoyed drinking this Corsendonk beer, and here is my review of it. Visual: This beer was a very deep reddish-brown with a good, long head retention.  It looked a lot like a normal Belgian brown ale in the glass. There was a lot going on in the aroma of the beer.  I found that it was very pleasing to sit and sniff.  The first aroma that I noticed was an almost candyish note (I couldn't put my finger on the specific candy that it reminded me of).  It almost had hints of maple syrup on the nose.  I don't know if anyone else caught it, but I smelled what was almost a touch of a soapy aroma.  Overall the beer had the smell of fruits.  Being that it was 8.5%, there was a winish quality to the odor of the beer, along with hints of alcohol.  In terms of the fruit aroma, I pinned it down as dried apricots.  There was almost a touch of apricot tea in the aroma.  The apricot tea aroma translated into the taste of the beer.  Since the beer was finely carbonated, it was full and bubbly in the mouth.  Roasted grains started jumping out about halfway through a ...

When I first came up with the idea for this blog, I hoped it would bring people together under one common denominator...beer.  Right off the bat, after we shared our earliest beer memories, someone mentioned how nice it was to share the personal experience of beer drinking, so tonight, I'll get a little personal, once again. If you've stumbled across the "About" page here on the blog, you've picked up that I have four kids.  I love these four kids, but the lack of babysitters (free babysitters) results in my wife and I only going out on "date nights" just 3 or 4 times a year.  So when we get to indulge in these fanciful occasions, they mean a good deal.  This past Saturday night we found a free babysitter (thanks dad!) and hit the town. First we stopped by Dale's.  Dale's is a little burger joint that's been pumping out inflation resistant quality burgers for twenty years.  While the beer selection isn't outstanding, the cheap burgers and small town atmosphere is a worthy substitute.  San and I washed down a couple fabulous bacon cheeseburgers with fries with a pitcher of Blue Moon. We paid our bill and walked across the main street of ...

Well, I've racked my brain to come up with this one, but here is my first beer memory.  At age eleven or twelve I was with some friends whose dad worked at a junkyard.  I can still remember the smell of oil and scorched leather seats.  Periodically, all of us would be down there together.  We would ride our bikes about 3 miles in the summer heat to get to our cherished hang-out.  On one particular occasion, when the adults were nowhere present, we commandeered an opportunity to furtively slink away with a Bud Light.  Even more than the taste of the beer (which I liked), the excitement and risks involved with getting my first taste of beer was an absolute thrill.  Since that time, I have quaffed veritable lakes of malt products, but there seems to be an element of that first experience in all of my beer drinking exploites.  My palate and preferences for beers have undoubtedly developed and expanded (since then, I have often shunned and castigated Bud Light), even tasting beers reminiscent of that strange oil and leather fragrance.  Yet, the thrill of being able to sneak away to a quiet place and enjoy a can, bottle, or draught is still an elating adventure.  I'm not ...

We here at Thank Heaven for Beer found it most fitting to utilize the first (and most often least read) post to reflect on that day in which drops of beer graced our palette for the first time.For me, this monumental day took place 25 years ago at the ripe old age of 3 years old. Distinctly, I recall my father and his cousin sitting at the kitchen table after having spent hours working on the dilapidated porch of the old house.  Sitting there on that hot summer day in the non-air conditioned house as beads of condensation coalesced into drops that made there way onto the faux wooden table, my father and his cousin convinced my mother to give me a sip. As the liquid hit my tongue the unique flavor caught me by surprise.  My face must have contorted as my father and his cousin burst into laughter.  The beer of choice that day?  A cheap beer.  A blue collar, working man's beer.  An American beer (no longer).  Budweiser.  While it would be twelve years before I sipped another Budweiser, the 130 year old recipe was indelibly burned into the  cortex of my brain. Unlike most self-professed connoisseurs of our ...