It’s all about the execution

The executor’s song It was 10 a.m. on a Friday morning and the boardwalk mostly was empty, save for the exercises (bikers, joggers, etc.) and Adam Davis, the head brewer at Backshore Brewing Company. Inside the brewery, Davis was just finishing up his morning. He’d popped by to get some work done early and was […]

Eastern Shore Brewers are building a better beer community

Tipping is not a city in China. It also isn’t exclusively a way to reward excellent service. One of the lesser-used variants of the word suggests when something goes mainstream in a big way. Craft beer, if it hasn’t “tipped” already, certainly is in the midst of doing so among the general public. As few […]

Where’s the beer?

Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Jim Lutz, who runs Fordham/Old Dominion in Dover. Jim inherited a number of problems after the two beer companies merged (*shameless plug alert* which will mostly be enumerated in my forthcoming book on beer in Delaware), but one of them is common still among many of the […]

The Keymaster, not the Gatekeeper

Donnie Jackson offers a beer

Setting aside the cultural, epicurean and economic benefits the craft beer revolution might just herald a larger social good: the extinction of the dead-eyed bartender. Bartending always took an amount of skill, but it increasingly takes engagement. This is pretty true behind any normal bar, but behind the bar at a craft brewery, it is […]

Burley Oak builds a house

That taverns were the heart of the American Revolution, hell, of most revolutions, feels like it’s common knowledge, but why taverns as opposed to private homes or churches is something that escapes people. The fact is, it had very little to do with alcohol. In early America, especially in rural areas, there was a tavern […]

Quick Hit: A festival in pictures

Beer is a draw Just because it doesn’t have a brewery or and real strong desire to have a massive beer festival that competes with the other massive beer festivals doesn’t mean that Laurel has to watch the economic boost attached to the craft beer culture pass it by. Four years ago the chamber of […]

There’s no place like home

That taverns were the heart of the American Revolution, hell, of most revolutions, feels like it’s common knowledge, but why taverns as opposed to private homes or churches is something that escapes people. The fact is, it had very little to do with alcohol. In early America, especially in rural areas, there was a tavern […]

Being undeniable on 45th Street

The restaurant that is Assawoman Bay Brewing Company was under construction when I visited this spring. It was disorienting and made me grateful for the weird beer reporter position I’ve been in for the last few years. I’m privileged to see a lot of breweries mid-construction or conversion, to taste beers that might eventually get […]

Assawoman Bay Brewing ups its game

The restaurant that is Assawoman Bay Brewing Company was under construction when I visited this spring. It was disorienting and made me grateful for the weird beer reporter position I’ve been in for the last few years. I’m privileged to see a lot of breweries mid-construction or conversion, to taste beers that might eventually get […]

Who are the (craft beer) people in your neighborhood?

Part three of a three parter on the cambridge beer festival Listen, I like old people more than most people my age. It’s not merely a “respect for my elders” attitude, although that’s part of it, but there’s something beyond reproach about older folks. There’s a kind of attitude that projects the confidence of experience […]

A craft brewer destination

Part two of a three-parter about (or at least inspired by) the Cambridge Craft Beer Festival Click here for part one. It wasn’t outrageously hot at the Cambridge Beer Festival, but there was a taste in the air of how hot it was going to be by the time summer hit full on. The usual […]

Cambridge Craft Beer Festival is a big draw

It wasn’t outrageously hot at the Cambridge Beer Festival, but there was a taste in the air of how hot it was going to be by the time summer hit full on. The usual suspects were there, Chris and the guys from RaR, Toby from 3rd Wave and Justin from Burley Oak (Justin attends so […]