"breweries" news and stories

A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly bars across the country.

The San Diego area has so many great breweries -- AleSmith, Green Flash, Port, just to pull a few off a list in alphabetical order -- that it certainly needs its fair share of great beer bars to showcase the local SoCal talent. They've got the goods. Perennial powerhouse Hamilton's Tavern always keeps a mighty draft list. Significant start-ups like Toronado's recent San Diego location offers tons of taps. Even Stone Brewery gets in on the action, featuring not only their own brews but favorites from around California and beyond.

Today, however, O'Brien's Pub gets the nod for a trend worth supporting: draft beer archives! Not only do they offer up their own "On Tap" link via their website, but patrons can also view a complete list of every brew they've ever had on draft ... or at least for the past few years. "It's everything we've ever posted on the website," says owner Tom Nickel, "but the site only dates back to 2007." Still, two years of beers is the kind of comprehensive compiling that What's On Tap nerds can get behind!

After the jump, a reprint of the most current draft list off their website.

Look no further than Beer Suggest, a new website that - well, isn't it obvious?

The site is a work in progress, with its simple design and rudimentary tools (it only went live about a week ago). So far, the site boasts over 4,000 beer listings and over 1000 breweries. There are also beer-centered events, and reviews of various brews.

Think you can walk the walk when it comes to beer? Register for an account, and feel free to review and rate beers. Check here for the current Top 10 lists of rated and reviewed beers, including the Shiner Bock and the Gonzo Imperial Porter.

The site is slow to load, so be patient. But with a few tweaks and a few more ratings, it could develop into a seriously helpful tool for beer lovers.

Small microbreweries in Texas are lobbying to sell beer directly to the public to open up an entirely new sales area for the industry. Presently, the Texas A & B code only lets microbreweries sell to distributors and retailers. This puts Texas craft breweries at a disadvantage to those in other states where sales directly to customers are allowed.

To improve this, Saint Arnold Brewing Co. in Houston, TX is presenting a proposition to change the current beverage code. This proposal is supported by all five Texas microbreweries, which have joined together to recruit a sponsor to put it before the Legislature in the form of a bill. Brock Wagner, founder of Saint Arnold Brewing says that as many as 14 Texas microbreweries have gone out of business for various reasons since craft breweries first opened in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.

This proposal follows strongly on the heels of the strongly supported 2003 Proposition 11, which changed the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission code to allow state wineries to directly sell limited quantities of wine. The founder of Rahr & Sons, Fritz Rahr, thinks that Texas voters would again support such a change in the beverage law. He says, "It's time Texas craft brewers are offered the same customer-friendly advantages that Texas wineries already have."

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Sales of organic beer grew just as fast as sales of organic coffee in 2005-40 percent-according to a recent Associated Press article about organic breweries. Peak Organic Brewing Co. in Burlington, Mass. and Butte Creek Brewing Co. in Chico, Calif. are among the organic breweries mentioned in the piece. Anheuser-Busch is even testing out organic brews, the AP says. Consumers have already shown a willingness to shell out extra for boutique beers, so the price of organic brews shouldn't seem that unusual. For those of you still looking for a trustworthy name, Samuel Smith makes an organic lager and an organic ale.

Brewers in Europe may soon have to provide complete lists off ingredients on their beer bottles, according to a recent BBC News story. The European Commission hopes to have reworked many labeling standards, including those for alcoholic beverages, by the end of the year. While this might not be a big deal to breweries in Germany, where beer can legally only contain water, hops (right), yeast and malted barley or wheat, plenty of other breweries use chemicals that, while safe, may sound less than appealing to consumers. Propylene glycol alginate, for example, is a chemical derived from algae, used to maintain a thicker head on a beer. Personally, I'd be glad to know a little more about what else is in my beer. I'm sure others would too.