Mark C. AustinHophead wasn't the only one thirsty for beer at Bonnaroo last weekend. Hophead spent a four-day weekend at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. The music, comedy, people-watching and general chaos of the thing made for an outstanding trip. But one of the highlights was the accompanying "Broo-er's Festival," a biergarten featuring some 20 brewers ranging from tiny local outfits to Anheuser-Busch. As it turned out, two personal favorites from the bash are
Why in the world would anyone leave San Diego to visit Dallas in late June? Well, if you're Stone Brewing Co. head brewer Mitch Steele, leading a beer dinner at Dallas' best bar and the restaurant with the best bar food is enticement enough. The Libertine Bar (2101 Greenville Ave.) will be the host of a five-course beer dinner starting at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Cumin grilled scallops, shrimp ceviche, beef osso buco and more will be paired with Stone's Ruination IPA, Arrogant Bastard, Imperial Russian
As it is now officially Rocktober, Oktoberfest beers are replacing summer brews on store aisles, bar coolers and tap walls. Apparently, though, not all brewers have the traditional Oktoberfest German Marzen-style amber lager in mind for this month. New Belgium, best known for Fat Tire, has introduced a new golden ale, Hoptober, which bears little resemblance to the malty lagers that typify the Oktoberfest style. It's a refreshing--literally and figuratively--change of pace for the season. In
Fort Worth's Paul Hightower may make his living as a technical writer, copywriter and indexer, but one of the great passions in his life is beer. On his Dallas Craft Beer Examiner blog, he is a relentless and well-informed cheerleader for the best beers available in North Texas, whether they're brewed locally or abroad. Writing a guide to Texas brewers would seem an obvious choice for a textbook author with such an extensive knowledge of the subject. As it turned out, though, his friend and f
Jesse HugheyMichelob Bavarian WheatLast week, Pyramid's Haywire Hefeweizen proved a tad, shall we say, underwhelming. This week seemed a perfect opportunity to try a couple of macro-brewed attempts at craft-brew styles, just to put things in perspective. After all, if a relatively small outfit like Pyramid can't get the wheat-beer style right, surely a lowest-common-denominator, masses-pleasing corporate behemoth like Anheuser-Busch couldn't do a better job, could it? And then there's this ne
