Looking back at my first post, here, I've come a long way in terms of knowledge of what's out there.
My favorite beer websites that I find myself adding page counts to often are as follows:
1) Good Beer Hunting
Simply the best blog out there in terms of journalism. The imagery is wonderful and I know that these guys have done their research worldwide to represent on their blog the best in beer. Among the myriad of increasing numbers of craft breweries in the United States, if I read about a brewery on Good Beer Hunting, I know it is a brewery worth checking out. There are 'Stories' (highlighting a brewery or story about a brewery/brewer/beer), 'Sightlines' (articles about the legal going-ons in the brewery world, aka takeovers, craft vs macro, etc...), 'B-roll" (snippets inspired by trips all over the country), and 'Podcasts' (interviews with brewers and the like) to keep you drooling for more. I especially like the 'Read.Look.Drink' stories where different writers highlight an interesting article, something visual they find enticing and a solid beer they are currently enjoying. Head there now!
2) Beer Street Journal
I'm not sure any website keeps up with beer releases as well as Beer Street Journal. Want to hear about all those amazing beers that will release all over the country that you cannot get access to? Limited editions, plans to can, full retail releases--it's all here! The site is sort of broken down into three sections on the main page: 'News' (releases of notice), 'Don't Miss This' (the highlights of the pack), and 'Headlines' (brewery related news). There is also a way to sort by 'Coming Soon', 'New Beers' (future releases), and 'Seasonal Returns'. You can also enjoy all the bottle and can artwork as you peruse.
3) Paste Drink
Gotta give Paste huge credit for creating an amazing buzz over their Blind Taste Tests of various styles, released almost monthly for about the past year and a half or so now. They started with 116 IPAs in April of 2015 and crowned The Brew Kettle's White Rajah IPA, then a year later they saw a field of 247 IPAs beat out by none other than Auburn, NY's, Prison City Pub & Brewery Mass Riot IPA. There have been plenty of other styles blind tested along the way as well as tasting notes galore about seasonal releases, 'Features' and my personal favorite 'Lists'.
4) YCH Hops
I just like going to the 'Hop Varieties' section of the combined Yakima Chief and Hopunion LLC website to see the variety of hops and what tasting notes they provide for different varieties to see if my nose can pick up any new smells accurately and my taste buds are properly trained. I seldom succeed, but it's still fun to pretend!
5) My Beer Cellar
Fun website to visit. This is the Craigslist of cellared beer and old rare bottle collectors. Go and see how much a bottle of 2014 Three Floyds Bourbon Barrel Aged Dark Lord with Vanilla Beans sold for ($465!). There's people on this site that will sell of entire collections of cellared beer for thousands of dollars!
6) Beer Flavor Wheel
My go-to Beer Flavor/Aroma identifier. It's fun to just look through the descriptions and see if they spark an idea while tasting.
7) Beer Geeks
On Ora TV, all episodes online for free streaming. Produced by the same producer as did Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Each episode highlights a brewery, makes a beer, tastes beer, cooks with beer and pairs food with beer. Definitely worth watching.
8) Untappd
If you're not one for the app or your mobile device's battery is dead, head to their regular website where you can input brews you've had, search by style a conclusive list of every beer every made EVER. EVER. And it connects to your device so you can see all the beer check-ins you've ever had as well. Wish list, badges, real time check-ins. Some prefer to not get all Geeky, but I'm at the other end of that spectrum for sure.
9) Two Brews
This was fun while it lasted, some guys in VT and then OH and VT when one of them moved away had a tasting podcast. Just ordinary guys trying to better understand the beers they were consuming. Since I love Vermont beer, this hit the spot for me.
10) Belgian Smaak
A blog site I recently discovered about Belgian beer and chocolate and haven't made a regular go at reading yet, but the immense variety of Belgian beers and breweries intrigues me to learn about some brews from the other side of the pond.
Enjoy some awesome beer reading!
Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label websites. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Friday, October 3, 2014
He Said and the Search for AJ's Beer Warehouse
1) He Said (Belgian Tripel) - This is brewed with Galangal and Tarragon. Galangal is Thai ginger variety. I was really surprised by these ingredients in a Belgian beer, but they worked together beautifully. The tarragon I usually think is sour, but not in this. There was a subtle sweetness about this beer. It had a fantastic pumpkin aroma, especially in the olfactory, it was creamy, marshmellowy, the malty pumpkin hit your palate later, it's color was light golden amber and presented delicate legs. I really enjoyed this. 8.2% ABV, see more specifics here.
2) He Said (Baltic Porter) - This was brewed with Vietnamese cinnamon and caraway seeds. The Vietnamese cinnamon or Saigon cinnamon supposedly has more pronounced aromatic qualities, is used in making Pho and stuck out in my mind. This actually reminded me somewhat of a Doppelbock, with its smoky pork flavor, definite cinnamon, spice, slight sweetness (less than the Belgian Tripel), thick foamy head, roasty with some chocolate?, slightly warming and deep brown color. 8.2% ABV, see more specifics here.
Another beer I'll add to this list I tried yesterday was Three Head's Brewing Bromigo: Smoke Maple Amber Ale. This had serious pork notes, almost too intense in the sense that I had a hard time focusing on anything else. There was an underlying sweetness from the maple, it was a gorgeous clear dark Amber with reddish hue, off-white head, spicy, peppery with a hop end that brought balance to the smokiness. 7% ABV. More here.
My favorite of the night: He Said (Belgian Tripel). Very well done on this one.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Some Websites Related to Beer
I've been doing a pretty substantial amount of searching for websites related to beer lately. I've been looking for places to learn more at a quicker rate about brewing and beer in general. Some of my favorites so far include (in no particular order):
1) American Homebrewers Association (http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/)
...yeah this should have been a no brainer, but it took me a while to find this one, and I don't think I did until I was searching for beer magazine subscriptions and found their quarterly, Zymurgy. They also have a really simple visual learning to brew guide that takes you from novice to advanced brewing with all grain. Recipes abound as well. I think I already found my next homebrew on this site.
2) Craft Beer & Brewing (http://www.beerandbrewing.com/)
...a solid website with great articles and resources, also home to a magazine by the same name. They have online courses that you can take (for a price $) which I'm reluctant to do because I do not if it will be worth the $ when I can find a lot of information in other ways.
3) Mike's Brew Review (http://mikesbrewreview.com/)
...a site mostly dedicated to home brewing, which includes write-ups about first time homebrewers and their recipes, challenges and tips learned. The best article about how to use a hydrometer is available here along with other visual aids. There are also interviews with brewmasters from respected breweries and reviews of brews and pubs. Downside? It hasn't been updated since 2011...worth a look through though.
4) Bear Flavored (http://www.bear-flavored.com/)
...great articles, reviews of popular brews, recipes of homebrews and one man's quest to eat only fermented food and beverages for an entire year! Really impressed by this site.
5) The Brewing Network (http://thebrewingnetwork.com/)
...admittedly I haven't checked this out much yet, but there are radio broadcasts and different shows that cover the world of beer.
6) The Brew Site (http://www.thebrewsite.com/)
...blog style website, like most of the others, reviews and articles about breweries and other beer related stuff.
7) Inside Beer (http://www.insidebeer.com/)
...has a beer of the month archive with reviews and tasting notes and beer news. A UK site by Jeff Evans, who has had over 30 years of experience writing about beer.
8) Hop Union (http://hopunion.com/)
...this has a great resource about hops and selecting hops for specific flavors, which work well together and how to pair hops. I'll definitely be using this website when choosing hops in the future. There's also a link to alphanalyticstesting.com where you can send a beer sample from your beer to get alpha analysis and IBU levels.
9) Mike Beer (http://www.mikebeer.net/default.htm)
...this guy has been homebrewing since 2005 and has a list of all the beers he's ever made. There's resources and articles that are really interesting to peruse about brewing with extract, grains and both.
10) Tasty Brew (http://tastybrew.com/index.html)
...another great resource with articles dedicated to specific topics. There is even a recipes and a recipe calculator for making your own homebrews.
11) Brewtoad (https://www.brewtoad.com/)
...lots of recipes, user created submissions and tips (you can add your own), with brew logs and a subscription available to the site that in my opinion does not look to be worth it.
12) Brewtarget (http://www.brewtarget.org/)
...this has a free software program for brewing your own beer and calculating recipes. I've downloaded it and checked it out a bit and it looks pretty cool.
Just for clarification, I've not included any magazines or tv shows, even though they have websites, because these kind of go with a different topic (magazines and tv shows, respectively).
Check some of these out and tell me what you think!
1) American Homebrewers Association (http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/)
...yeah this should have been a no brainer, but it took me a while to find this one, and I don't think I did until I was searching for beer magazine subscriptions and found their quarterly, Zymurgy. They also have a really simple visual learning to brew guide that takes you from novice to advanced brewing with all grain. Recipes abound as well. I think I already found my next homebrew on this site.
2) Craft Beer & Brewing (http://www.beerandbrewing.com/)
...a solid website with great articles and resources, also home to a magazine by the same name. They have online courses that you can take (for a price $) which I'm reluctant to do because I do not if it will be worth the $ when I can find a lot of information in other ways.
3) Mike's Brew Review (http://mikesbrewreview.com/)
...a site mostly dedicated to home brewing, which includes write-ups about first time homebrewers and their recipes, challenges and tips learned. The best article about how to use a hydrometer is available here along with other visual aids. There are also interviews with brewmasters from respected breweries and reviews of brews and pubs. Downside? It hasn't been updated since 2011...worth a look through though.
4) Bear Flavored (http://www.bear-flavored.com/)
...great articles, reviews of popular brews, recipes of homebrews and one man's quest to eat only fermented food and beverages for an entire year! Really impressed by this site.
5) The Brewing Network (http://thebrewingnetwork.com/)
...admittedly I haven't checked this out much yet, but there are radio broadcasts and different shows that cover the world of beer.
6) The Brew Site (http://www.thebrewsite.com/)
...blog style website, like most of the others, reviews and articles about breweries and other beer related stuff.
7) Inside Beer (http://www.insidebeer.com/)
...has a beer of the month archive with reviews and tasting notes and beer news. A UK site by Jeff Evans, who has had over 30 years of experience writing about beer.
8) Hop Union (http://hopunion.com/)
...this has a great resource about hops and selecting hops for specific flavors, which work well together and how to pair hops. I'll definitely be using this website when choosing hops in the future. There's also a link to alphanalyticstesting.com where you can send a beer sample from your beer to get alpha analysis and IBU levels.
9) Mike Beer (http://www.mikebeer.net/default.htm)
...this guy has been homebrewing since 2005 and has a list of all the beers he's ever made. There's resources and articles that are really interesting to peruse about brewing with extract, grains and both.
10) Tasty Brew (http://tastybrew.com/index.html)
...another great resource with articles dedicated to specific topics. There is even a recipes and a recipe calculator for making your own homebrews.
11) Brewtoad (https://www.brewtoad.com/)
...lots of recipes, user created submissions and tips (you can add your own), with brew logs and a subscription available to the site that in my opinion does not look to be worth it.
12) Brewtarget (http://www.brewtarget.org/)
...this has a free software program for brewing your own beer and calculating recipes. I've downloaded it and checked it out a bit and it looks pretty cool.
Just for clarification, I've not included any magazines or tv shows, even though they have websites, because these kind of go with a different topic (magazines and tv shows, respectively).
Check some of these out and tell me what you think!
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