This story on Beer Pilgrimages for All About Beer’s travel issue (Vol. 31, Iss. 5, 2010) tackles not just some venerable and historic breweries at the top of a solid Beer Bucket List, but the places to go once you’ve naturally checked those off. Places such as McSorley’s in NYC, the National Brewery Museum (in Potosi, WI, donchya know), and the fields (barley and hops) in which our beer grows across the Northwest.
Follow the Music, my second Beer Traveler column (Vol. 31, Iss. 4, 2010) pairs my 3 faves: beer, travel, and music by exploring some of the coolest musicfests in beer towns such as Telluride (CO), Chicago, NYC, and Quebec City.
This beach-themed Beer Traveler was my first submission taking over this long-running column and as such represented a dual honor. It’s fair to say beer + travel were already front-of-mind for me. Now if only I could rack up enough miles to fly front-of-plane. Served up for this theme: Orange County (CA), Virginia Beach (VA), Honolulu (HI), and Tampa/St. Petersburg (FL).
Gray Market/White Whale wasn’t just a fun story to write for All About Beer (Vol. 31, Iss. 2, 2010), I got to expense three beers at the top of my own personal Wants list! Livin’ and drinkin’ the dream. The story about the pursuit of so-called “white whales” also opens with the line I’m happy to say amused editor Julie Johnson to pieces: Call me BeerMail.
A Beer a Day is the first book review I did for All About Beer (Vol. 30, Iss. 6, 2009). As a nascent beer author, reviewing the work of fellow beer author Jeff Evans felt pretty post-modern. Evans later thanked me for my, uh, honesty.
Dedicated Drinkers and Their Drive to Document (a.k.a. “The Ticker story,” Vol. 30, Iss. 4, 2009) is about the most prolific RateBeerians and BeerAdvocates and begins with this suitable quote from Simon Pegg (who, the best of my knowledge, is not a beer ticker). “Geek is just another word for enthusiastic… We keep loving stuff and remain unembarrassed by our enthusiasm.”
Kids in the Brewhouse is the first story I wrote for this magazine in 2008 (Vol. 30, Iss. 2, 2009) about the second generation of craft brewers. Not the men and women who opened the second-wave of craft breweries, mind you, but the first wave’s founders’ kids.
Brian Yaeger: Beer Writer 