Chimay Blue…Heavenly.

I must admit, often times I pick up the newspaper or turn on CNN strictly out of a sense of duty to erudition.  Besides the fact the objective journalism never ceases to take a back seat to sensationalism, everything is just so negative…bad news sells.  So as I begrudgingly relaxed with a copy of The [...]

Talking about Belgian Ale is a somewhat daunting task. Beer in Belgium is creative and variegated. I’ve already mentioned a couple of the types of Belgian Ales, which included Lambics and Trappist Ales. These are only two among many other styles. In many cases, different regions developed very different approaches. As a result, there will [...]

This week we are drinking a couple of Trappist Ales (we just posted on this very subject).  Since we are interested in people being able to participate in the process of drinking the beers that we post, we are picking a Trappist Ale that most people are able to get.  The Chimay Red, White, and [...]

No matter where in the world I have found myself, whether it be the cities in which I’ve lived or the countries to which I have traveled, I always seem to stumble upon large pockets of individuals with a festering loathing for their locale of residence.  Even now I wincingly recall a young man, whom [...]

Here is how we are coming to our conclusions when it comes to giving stars to beers. Balance- By balance we mean the interplay between various aspects of the beer. When we assign stars to this part of the beer, we are asking these kinds of questions: Are the hops balanced out by the malts? [...]

What is a Trappist Ale? What is an Abbey Ale? Are they different things? Trappist Ale: Trappist is made by one of 6 breweries in Belgium or 1 in the Netherlands. No one else makes a Trappist Ale that can be termed as such. This style of beer must be made in one of 7 [...]

I had seen this beer so many times and never really thought too much about getting it.  One day the bottle of beer just stuck out to me.  Has this ever happened to you?  You’ve just sort of ignored a beer for no real reason?  I guess we can find out if you should keep [...]

Planned obsolescence. If you are not familiar with the term, you should be.  The concept was developed in the mid 1920′s at the height of the boom of mass production.  Mass production depends on consumerism for profit.  Small niche (“ma and pa”) type businesses depend on inevitable product decay and repairability.  The tycoons of the [...]

Considerable approbation is deserved when a brewery manages to achieve high levels of excellence with each beer they produce.  Plenty of breweries nail one particular style, but the menagerie of beers they create is lacking.  While the examples are abundant, this a beer review, not a brewery review.  The point is, Dogfish Head invariably produces [...]