Commentist Beer Barrel: Heineken

Heineken is an amoral mercantile outfit that appropriated the Red Star. Still, please: put down your pitchforks and torches, because I like their beer. Per Wikipedia: Heineken Lager Beer (Dutch: Heineken Pilsener)—wait. Is Heineken a Pilsener or lager? The bottle says “lager”, which settles the issue. At least for me, because I’m not

Commentist Beer Barrel: Skål!

Denmark got a big Olympic win today, overcoming France for the gold medal in handball. I thought about burying the lede on this, in case any Commentists log onto the site while desperately avoiding Olympic handball spoilers, but... look, I just didn't think that was very likely, y'know? I'll apologize

Commentist Beer Barrel: Breakfast of Champions

You can probably use your fingers to count the genuinely distinctive beer styles invented here in the United States, even if you're Jim Abbott. American brewers have shown a terrific facility for re-invention, for better (American IPAs!) and worse (the "great pilsner taste" of Miller Lite!). New ideas are fewer and farther

Kommenter Beer Barrel: Calling All Hops

I remember very clearly, seven years or so ago, a time when the cutting edge of IPA brewing methods seemed to involve cramming as many hop cones as you could into a boiler of wort. Later, breweries would become bored with merely filling the boilers to overflowing with hops, and started cramming the hop