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...

40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 73: All 42 pages of the 1999...

Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 72: Mitch Steele attends a F.O.S.S.I.L.S. meeting (1998). I cannot recall the specific impetus for creating the...

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A rainy writing morning; time again for “Venetian Vespers”

And might I add, a perfect day for letting my mind wander. As I write, it is raining, and ponderings about Venice usually come equipped...

Diary: As for me, I’m sorry you made it so damn hard, and I...

"I'm sorry that things got hard." That's like saying "I'm sorry it rained," when neither of us have any say over the weather. "Sorry" in...

What’s done is done, and new adventures await

Just when I conclude that things can't get more surreal, along comes 2026. It has been draining, but we squeezed in an excursion to...