Diary: The Craft Brewers Conference was in Indy, but I feared a relapse

Many months ago it dawned on me that the Craft Brewers Conference & BrewExpo America event would be in Indianapolis this year. It officially concluded...

40 Years of Sidebars: Baltimore and a few wee drams in spring (1996)

My first visit to Baltimore, Maryland in March of 1996 didn't slot handily into the "40 Years in Beer" narrative, and so it has...

A writing update: the beer book is underway (also, other projects)

I've been unable to disengage entirely from the Reyes wholesale beverage conglomerate ("Monarch" in archaic Indiana beer dialect) and still receive an e-mail each...

40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 76: A boy can dream – about...

Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 75: My shoes are filled with Volga mud (1999). This installment was terribly hard to write. Kindly...

40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 75: My shoes are filled with Volga...

Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 74: Down a rabbit hole, deep into the Belgian beer paradise (1998). Insofar as ordinary Americans know to...

Archie’s axiom — or, beer’s ephemeral pass-through nature

Saturday evening we attended a performance of Urinetown: The Musical at Derby Dinner Playhouse in Clarksville, which is celebrating 50 years in existence; long...

40 Years of Sidebars: “The Budweiser Menace,” Fred Eckhardt’s 1997 column

Fred Eckhardt (1926-2015) was a homebrewer and writer, and is considered the dean of American beer writing. In February of 2025, Eckhardt was among...

40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 74: Down a rabbit hole, deep into...

Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 73: All 42 pages of the 1999 Rich O’s beer list. Situated just outside of the city...

“One Night with the Publican” beer tastings to be revived at Harbor & Hops...

An opportunity has arisen to revive something that was lost somewhere along the way, and this makes me happy. Before explaining the impending comeback, the...

February update: 40 Years in Beer, Baylors in the Balkans, and a forthcoming book...

Regular readers know that my "day job" is at Food & Dining Magazine, where responsibilities have expanded over the years from writing a quarterly...

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Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 3: Growing up in Greece with Henry Miller

Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 2: Crawling across the borderline into Luxembourg. Long before leaving home, I took care to equip myself with an American Express...

Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 2: Crawling across the borderline into Luxembourg

Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 1: Three months that shook my world. Madonna's “Borderline” reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June 1984. It...

40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 78: We just had to get to...

Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 77: A “tight” 1998 European summer (San Fermin & the French Alps). The whole point of convening in...