The craft beer industry — like much of America — is facing a reckoning on two levels right now: A pandemic ended more than a decade of growth well short of the industry’s goal to become 20% of the national beer market by 2020 and a racial justice movement highlighted craft brewing’s dominant white male […]
GABF
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How terroir influences the flavors in hops, told through a tasty Colorado beer experiment
This fall, a robust hop harvest in Colorado left David Lin at Comrade Brewing with a dilemma. Two Western Slope farms approached him with hops fresh from the bine for the Denver brewery’s award-winning Superdamp IPA. The beer — known as a wet hop or fresh hop — arrives once a year at harvest time […]
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Known for its whimsy, the craft beer world is newly focused on the basics: making good beer
If this week’s Great American Beer Festival — with its 800 breweries and 4,000 beers pouring — is a snapshot of the nation’s current craft beer industry, it’s a muddled image. A confluence of market forces is leading brewers to chase new trends and take risks that diminish the focus on quality and consistency that […]
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A guide to GABF 2019: What’s new, insider tips, and the can’t-miss breweries and events
It’s hard to describe the Great American Beer Festival to the uninitiated. It’s the Super Bowl of beer. It’s hop heaven. It’s a beer carnival. And so much more. Even as it faces more competition for attention — and slower ticket sales — GABF remains a zenith in the craft-beer world and a testament to […]