We hope our 2024 GABF beer guide will help provide some direction as you happily roam the aisles. Be sure to send us your favorites on social media.

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The post Sip the Best: Our 8 Must-Try Beers at GABF 2024 first appeared on All About Beer.

This year, the festival will reduce the number of sessions from four to three, with the notoriously raucous Saturday session going away. The Brewers Association (BA) also redesigned the layout and experience of America’s most attended beer festival to better suit a new generation of drinkers. 

“We know the format, whether regional, alphabetical, or now by experience area, is always one of the festival’s most highly debated topics,” says Ann Obenchain, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Brewers Association, organizers of the Great American Beer Festival. 

After decades of organizing the event by region and other similar staid manners, the BA decided to radically shift its approach to the nation’s largest beer event. “To execute the new experience area idea, we had to abandon the traditional ordering from the past,” says Obenchain. “We hope that attendees will share our excitement in this new layout and discover new beverages and vendors.”

While many long-time Great American Beer Festival attendees and brewers may bristle at the changes, the festival was probably long overdue for some changes. Once a must-attend event whose tickets sold out shortly after going on-sale, recent years have seen emptier aisles and far fewer attendees. The festival’s regional approach revealed some of its challenges. Long dominated by Colorado and California breweries, other regions were less well-attended, with some, such as New England, so tiny as to barely cover any ground. 

The pandemic and demographic changes only exacerbated an existing identity crisis. Once among the most popular weekend activities for adults, beer festivals have experienced diminished attendance in the past decade. Festivals grew expensive and tired, with little innovation to meet changing demographics and the aging of their audiences. Many large festivals have opted not to return. For those events looking to continue, trotting out the same old business model was no longer optional. 

Great American Glow Up: GABF’s New Look

The Great American Beer Festival is ready to shed its rigid craft beer enthusiasm and usher in a new era of fun. According to the BA, the new GABF experience involves a series of “diverse and immersive experiences designed to transport you to different worlds, each offering a unique blend of themed decor, specialized brews, engaging activities, and vibrant entertainment.” Gone are the boring regional sections of the past, replaced by new sets of festival experiences, “a series of unforgettable journeys, each promising its own set of delights and discoveries,” according to the BA. 

Attendees at the 2024 festival will experience six distinct areas. They include “Prost!,” a German inspired biergarten featuring decor paying homage to Oktoberfest, live polka bands playing traditional Bavarian music, and a stein-holding contest. “Score!” is a sports-themed area that will host Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling and Mechanical Bull Riding. “Fright” is a Halloween-themed area welcoming costumed festival attendees. “Blast Off” offers “liquid innovations and on-trend flavors from international and domestic breweries,” according to the BA. This includes the United Nations taproom, which hosts classic beers from around the globe. 

“The brewers self-selected their locations,” says Obenchain. “We’re looking forward to seeing how they engage with the new themes and the customers. We’ve already seen a few photos of props some brewers are bringing- it’s going to be fun!”

It’s easy to be skeptical or to decry these innovations as a desperate attempt to maintain relevance in a time of dwindling consumer interest and beer festival attendance. And you’d be correct. You could understandably expect the Prost! Experience to be a sanctuary for lager lovers, filled with pilsners, marzens, and festbiers. And while you’ll likely see folks decked out in lederhosen and dirndls, you can also drink a Key Lime Pie cream ale, a nearly-9% ABV blueberry waffle pastry stout, and a pina colada milkshake IPA in the section, and that’s only from the first brewery listed in the section. The celebration in the Prost! experience of all things German also comically includes the Lost Abbey and Russian River (maybe STS Pils qualifies).

But also, what do you expect? Should the BA and other festival sponsors simply pack up their taps and crack a Big Sipz Purple Punch wine cocktail. To the BA’s credit, it’s attempting to iterate, to push the bounds of beer festivals, to lean into catering to those seeking a fun night out. 

Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But standing still is no longer an option. Craft beer sales have stagnated if not retreated in recent years due to a wide variety of factors. It’s time to try something new.

The fest also continues opportunities for attendees to meaningfully interact with brewers. The Meet the Brewer experience area at the Great American Beer Festival offers an interactive space where fest goers talk with brewers from around the country, allowing them to “appreciate the artistry and passion that goes into every pint, offering a chance to learn, taste, and engage like never before,” according to the BA.

“The experience area idea was generated from feedback from brewers, attendees, and our event committee, as well as the desire to evolve to continuously meet the ever-changing customer preferences,” says Obenchain. “Events and festivals, in general, are becoming more experiential and providing multi-layer offerings to the wildly varied preferences of the now four distinct generational groups (legal drinking age Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers).”

Obenchain and the BA also acknowledge that the core group of craft beer fans continues to age and it’s incumbent on the association to evolve with the times. “Our largest purchaser group is between the ages of 21-34, and the vast majority of purchasers under 44,” says Obenchain. “We mindfully kept long-time attendees and beer fan favorites like Meet the Brewer, Heavy Medal, but also wanted to provide more entertainment options for the younger demographics who might be looking for other things to do, see, taste, and enjoy.”

See you in Denver

I’m excited to attend the festival this year, to reconnect with the American craft beer industry in its single largest and most influential event, and to see how the changes work out. It’s ok to remember that beer is supposed to be fun and this year’s fest seems geared towards reminding folks of that. 

“As always, we value attendee feedback and will be listening and learning for ways to evolve GABF for years to come,” says Obenchain.

The post Big Changes at Great American Beer Festival 2024: What Beer Lovers Need to Know first appeared on All About Beer.

There’s something to be said for solo day-drinking. And yes, there is a difference between drinking for pleasure and the drinking I do for work. That’s why day-drinking feels like a luxury. It’s an escape from the ordinary.

There’s also a difference between day-drinking at a bar with friends and opening a few beers during daylight hours while quarantined at home (even if you do pull up a chair on the patio). A bar is a social destination where you can still be alone. Proper day-drinking can’t be about boredom, or we’d do it too often. It shouldn’t have a regularly scheduled time either. It should be spontaneous, and therefore indulgent.

The most important thing to know about day-drinking is when to walk out of the bar and back into the sunshine. Find the right moment and burn off a few calories. But perhaps keep that free-spirit thing going and take a left instead of your usual right. Explore. Inspired by a few drinks and the break in your routine, do something that’s new, that feels like playing hooky.

Amid the very real hardships happening around the world, and the very real concerns related to the aftermath of the first several COVID-19 waves, my mind has been wandering more and more to walking through the front door to head to a pub with the sun still high and bright.

Here, then, are my ingredients for the perfect day-drinking experience:

1. Picking the right bar is important. You don’t want a place that’s too dark where the regulars are firmly affixed to their stools; day-in and day-out guys who seem to have a loop of Springsteen “what could have been” songs playing in their heads. You want a bar that’s cozy, but lets the daylight in. One that’s often packed at happy hour but is sparse during the afternoon. 
2. You want a knowledgeable and attentive bartender who fills your glass but otherwise leaves you alone with your thoughts. 
3. Music is key to this experience. But try to avoid the top 40. You want songs that take you back in time, or that expand your horizons forward. While you’re there, listen to the lyrics. There’s no need to sing along. Listen to the inflection of tone, how the words string together. Appreciate the artistry, not just its toe-tapping quality. 
4. Keep your phone in your pocket. Bring a book or a magazine. Feel the pages in your hand and absorb someone else’s words. Look up often and take in the scene. 
5. Leave before it gets sad. It’s great to feel indulgent, but gluttonous is less fun. That’s why drinking at home during the pandemic was never as satisfying as some had thought early on. There’s little reason to stop and nowhere else to go.

A few hours spent outside of a normal routine is good for the soul. It can recharge the internal batteries, bring on some calm, and might even offer a fresh perspective. And it’s all accomplished before most people have clocked out of work for the day.

A version of this essay first appeared on Reporter’s Notebook, the blog administered by the North American Guild of Beer Writers.

The post Embracing the Indulgence of Day Drinking first appeared on All About Beer.

It was a lot more pleasant than carrying her around on my back–and fortunately, she didn’t have to carry me. 

My daughter, Sierra Hieronymus attended two GABFs as an infant/toddler in 1997 and 1998. She was in utero in 1996, when my job at the festival was to stand behind a table and hand out free copies of All About Beer Magazine. I remember then-publisher Daniel Bradford coming up to me and saying, “You don’t look that bad!” Since I was about two months away from giving birth, he expected more enormity. 

She was one of the very few, if not the only, child at GABF during those years, and probably one of the very few who ever attended. The rule then was, as Brewers Association economist Bart Watson put it, “No feet on the ground.” So if your child was old enough to walk, then they were too old for the fest.

From a safety standpoint, it made perfect sense, and today, there’s a straight 21 and over policy.  

GABF Then and Now

Stan Hieronymus and I attended our first GABF pre-Sierra, in 1993, when there were 208 breweries. While he has attended nearly all of them since then, my last was in 2010, when 408 breweries attended. It has been 10 years since then (jumping the pandemic-so-no-festival crevasse), and the festival looked quite similar to 2010’s, with about 500 breweries.

Silent disco and the special food event were around in 2010, but the awards were still being announced in the hall. And back then, the women standing in line for the restroom would laugh, because it was that rare event where the men’s restroom line outpaced the women’s.

But gender parity is starting to show, and the women’s line is now easily as long as the men’s. And one thing that has never changed is the din, or the shouts and howls when a glass breaks–though several times this year we saw a glass fall but not break, resulting in hearty cheers.

Looking through the list of 1993 GABF winners, it’s nice that some of them (or their offshoots) medaled this year, such as Sierra Nevada, Coopersmith’s, Boston Beer, Sudwerk, and Deschutes.

Seeing the Festival with Fresh Eyes

Sierra approached the festival like the young adult she is. She used the GABF app to keep track of what she was drinking, and during the awards she texted a friend back in Seattle when any of the locals won.

“The awards ceremony was maybe the most exciting thing for me,” she says. “It was fun seeing breweries I recognized and finding out about breweries in the PNW (Pacific Northwest) I haven’t gotten to yet.“ 

I, on the other hand, was happy to see veteran breweries like Topeka, Kansas’ Blind Tiger Brewery and Restaurant, which has been around since 1995, and Left Hand Brewing Company, which started in 1994, take Brewery of the Year honors in their size categories.

Left Hand was the 50th brewery Sierra visited, right before the 1997 GABF, and that was the last time Left Hand founder Eric Wallace had seen her before we congratulated him Saturday afternoon. 

Sierra arrived at this year’s fest with a bit of celebrity. Stan has talked about her occasionally (well, more than occasionally), and she has been featured in some of our writings, so quite a few brewers had heard of her over the years but never met her.

Others had met her when she was younger and couldn’t believe how much she had grown. We stopped by the table of Ska Brewing, whose staff once mailed back her coloring book when she left it at the Durango taproom, and had the Checkered Future IPA and Oktoberfest.  

Growing up, Sierra didn’t like carbonation, so no soda for her. Somewhere along the line, that changed. We figured that she wouldn’t be underage drinking during high school, but … you can guess how that went.

And today, being our daughter, she talks about which beers are widely distributed, points out when a beer isn’t true to style, is too sweet, etc.

In fact, it’s her turn to weigh in on the festival, while I finish this beer. 

A Daughter’s Perspective

In the years since turning 21, and particularly in the last year of serving at a cocktail-focused restaurant, I’ve become interested in observing how people drink and what they’re drinking. IPAs, pale ales, and sours have noticeably grown in popularity even in the brief time I’ve been drinking.

The most entered categories in the competition were American Style and Juicy/Hazy IPAs. As a hazy IPA and sour fan, it’s nice to see breweries producing a lot of those styles–even if it’s cajoled by popular demand. 

Though construction at the convention center this year may have limited the number of breweries pouring at the festival, I wouldn’t know the difference.

I tried at least 70 beers from more than 50 breweries across the two sessions we attended. Since trying my first smoked beers a few years back, I’ve been a fiend for finding every smoked beer possible and made that my mission at the festival.

My mom had her own inadvertent quest, trying Oktoberfests and peach beers for a time, and waiting in line for a “whale”’–Sierra Nevada’s E.H. Walker Barrel-Aged Bigfoot, which was only distributed in an online sale.

She reports it was well worth the wait.

(Note from Daria: We did not actually name Sierra after Sierra Nevada, although when I suggested the name, Stan did say, “When she’s learning to walk, we can call her Bigfoot and they’ll send us free beer.” But I think he was kidding.)

While we didn’t participate in any of the non-beer drinking activities other than the photo booth, it was fun to walk by the Silent Disco and see people crowded in like it was a club, dancing to music only they could hear. Some very … confident karaoke singers serenaded the crowd with ’80s songs, too. 

Would I go back? Am I my parent’s daughter?

It’s My Round is a regular feature on All About Beer featuring personal essays relating to beer experiences and journeys. Learn more or inquire about submissions by emailing Info@allaboutbeer.com

The post A Mother-Daughter Duo Return to GABF first appeared on All About Beer.

The English pub is much romanticised, even mythologised, which must leave some visitors disappointed when they encounter the real thing. Having been brought up in and around pubs our whole lives, reading them and negotiating them is a matter of instinct for us, but here we have tried to put the subconscious knowledge into words.

First, let’s look at two extremes: the tourist trap, and the death trap. The former looks like a pub, calls itself a pub, and might even occupy a building that was once a pub (or inn, or tavern) for centuries. Inside, however, you will find something not much better than the Rose & Crown Dining Room at Disney World. The décor will be tasteless bordering on kitsch, there won’t be many locals drinking there and the beer is unlikely to be anything special. You will end up paying over the odds for substandard food and drink consumed in a joyless, plastic setting.

The latter are more usually referred to as “rough pubs,” but not to their face of course. These days, you’re unlikely to find one of these unless you’re a very adventurous traveller because many have been demolished or converted, while the more substantial buildings have been given corporate makeovers—not tacky or exploitative, merely inoffensive. But if you wander into side streets, the outer suburbs, or into the shade of concrete tower blocks, you might still come across the kind of pub where it is possible for an innocent abroad to get into trouble. There aren’t many exterior clues other than a general state of disrepair, although with experience you develop a kind of sixth sense based on the state of the curtains or some subtle hint implied in the signage.

The good news is that if you make the wrong call and find yourself in a pub where you oughtn’t be, it will usually be made clear to you, as long as you are reasonably fluent in the language of passive-aggression. It might, for example, take a long time to get served, if the person behind the bar acknowledges you at all. You might get asked point blank if you are a police officer, which happens to us not infrequently—something about our flat feet, perhaps. Or the regulars might start a loud, pointed conversation about strangers, or foreigners, or people wearing whatever colour hat you happen to be wearing. We once walked into a pub only to be greeted by five men in soccer shirts, one of whom simply pointed and said: “No, no—turn round and walk out. Now.” We did so. Sometimes, though, the tests are more subtle: change from five pounds when you paid with a ten-pound note, for example, or an ostensibly jovial comment to which there is definitely an impossible-to-guess wrong answer.

The problem is that many of the very best pubs, and the most charming, don’t look or feel superficially much different to rough pubs. Unpretentious is perhaps the best word. The pub’s seating will be well-worn, possibly even ripped or stained here and there. If there are carpets, they will have a subtle scent of stale beer, but there are more likely to be well-trodden floorboards. Don’t expect elaborate bathroom facilities, either—just be relieved if there is a lock on the door and a bar of soap on the basin.

Really rough pubs will usually offer no food beyond packets of crisps. Posher, more sterile pubs will have full menus, pushed hard, and may even have the nerve to put out cutlery and placemats. The unpretentious pub, those in our sweet spot, will often have the perfect compromise: pork pies (cold), beef pies (hot), Scotch eggs, Cornish pasties, pickled eggs, or basic bread rolls in plastic wrap. Hearty, often delicious, but functional, these snacks—which are definitely not “meals”—tend to be served with nothing more decorative than a dollop of mustard on the side of the plate.

Even in these warmer, less scary pubs it is possible to commit faux pas. Being too loud in a quiet pub, for example, will earn you dirty looks—one of the most potent weapons in the British passive-aggressive arsenal. Though it’s unlikely anyone will ever say it out loud, you’re also expected to rent your space by consuming a certain amount of drinks: ordering a half pint of bitter and two glasses of tap water for a party of three, then nursing them for more than an hour, is bad form. And arriving in a large group is also likely to irritate regulars. Pubs are set up for parties of two, four, perhaps six, even eight at a push, but turn up in a group of 15, each member of which is paying for his or her own drink with a credit card—we’ve seen this happen—and you’ll feel the atmosphere chill.

On the flipside, it doesn’t take much to ingratiate into the life of an English pub. A brief greeting and a nod of recognition to anyone sitting at the bar won’t do any harm. A clear, unambiguous order—”A pint of London Pride, please”—is generally welcome. Having the right money, or something close, often goes down well, too. (Definitely don’t try to pay with a £50 note under any circumstances.) When you’re done, bringing your empty glass back to the bar is a good idea. Lots of English people don’t even do this anymore, preferring to sit among their glasses until harassed staff get round to sweeping the bar for “empties,” but it’s a simple act of politeness that goes a long way. If your round includes a pint of Guinness, which takes longer to pour, it’s a mark of a pub pro to ask for that before other drinks.

Tipping isn’t usual in “proper pubs,” but there’s sometimes a jar on the bar, or a charity collection box. If you really want to make friends, though, because you’re planning to spend the evening, or come back the next night, you can say, “And one for yourself?” The person behind the bar will either decline or say something like, “Oh, that’s very kind—is a half of lager alright?” They might actually drink a half-pint of lager but will probably put the money on the back bar “for later.” There’s a small risk they’ll exploit your kindness—”Oh, thank you sir. Double of the 18-year single malt OK?” It’s up to you to decide if you think it’s worth the risk.

Unlike Germany, there aren’t usually seats reserved for regulars, although we sometimes like to check if we’re in a strange pub: “Ahem … if we sit here, are we stealing someone’s usual spot?” Again, it shows that we know our place, as outsiders. In many parts of the U.K., sitting on a stool at the bar shows that you’re keen to engage in conversation while taking a table generally suggests that you’d like to be left alone.

The point is, in the end, you won’t really get to experience the pub if you take the easy route to the obvious pub on the main drag. Be brave and remember the bark is usually worse than the bite.

Proper Pubs

The Bull & Bladder, AKA the Vine
Dudley, West Midlands

The taphouse for cult brewery Batham’s, this pub is all muted warm wood, corners and gossip in thick local accents. Enjoy a pint of mild with a crusty roll overflowing with cheddar cheese and stingingly raw white onion.

Star Inn
Crowlas, Cornwall

If you head to Land’s End and Poldark country, stop here on the way. It’s a village pub and well-used, with slate floors designed to withstand farmers’ boots and the residue of Atlantic gales. There’s no food at all beyond pork scratchings and chocolate bars but it does have superb, good value ales brewed on site, fuelling a lively but civilised atmosphere.

The Merchant’s Arms
Hotwells, Bristol

We moved to Bristol in the summer of 2017 and have become fascinated by this pub, which feels like a relic of 50 years ago. It’s small, brown and out of the way, frequented mostly by middle-aged bitter drinkers with one eye on whichever sporting event is being shown on the TV.

Royal Oak
Borough, London

Our favourite pub in London, close enough to the centre for convenience but far enough away to feel like part of the real London where people really live. (For now, at least.) It is weathered without being grubby and the service, in true London fashion, can be brusque, but a pint of Harvey’s Sussex Best and a salt beef sandwich is a hard combo to beat.

The Grey Horse
Central Manchester

This centrally located pub in one of Britain’s greatest cities ought to be a tourist trap, except Manchester doesn’t really go in for that kind of thing. A tiny, one-room pub, it has a vague psychic partition—sit at the back and murmur to your significant, or stand at the front and joke with your pals. You’ll find cask ales from Hyde’s along with pork pies and plentiful people-watching.

Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey have been blogging at boakandbailey.com since 2007. They were named 2014 beer writers of the year by the British Guild of Beer Writers. Their most recent book is 20th Century Pub.They live in Bristol in the west of England.

The post Decoding the English Pub first appeared on All About Beer.

I don’t mean “near beer”—beer that has an extremely low alcohol content. I mean beer you can’t actually drink because it doesn’t exist: Squinty Pete’s Backwash Brew, Tree Frog Beer and less absurdly named brands such as Escorpión (featured in “Casa de mi Padre”) and Skull Island (featured on “Dexter”). Though fake brews are frustrating in the sense that you can’t drink them—usually—they are a quirky, surprisingly prolific corner of the beer world that reflects trends in beer culture. Just as fictional characters reflect real folks, fictional beers have a lot to say about real brews—especially the many beers produced by comedies.

Duff Beer is, without question, the Cadillac of fictional beers, in fame if not quality: It’s been a staple of never-ending comedy “The Simpsons” since season one. Duff isn’t just a spoof of beers like Bud: It’s spawned other brews such as Duff Light, Duff Dark, Raspberry Duff, Henry K. Duff’s Private Reserve, and Tartar Control Duff. It even has competitors such as Fudd, Blitz and Strolling Rock. As the ultimate male boob—complete with a crayon in his brain—Homer Simpson and Duff go together like beer and barrels.

“The Simpsons” sister show “Futurama” was able to take beer spoofs in different directions, expanding the range of satirical targets. Science and beer nerds can appreciate names such as Benderbrau Cold-Fusion Steam Beer, Olde Fortran Malt Liquor, and St. Pauli Exclusion Principle Girl Beer. Still, there’s a certain stupid charm in Pabst Blue Robot, one of the beers beloved by booze-guzzling robot Bender, who is of course named for a bout of excessive drinking. “Futurama” was a quick, dense show with a high jokes-per-minute ratio, and fake beers sent that ratio higher.

Whether Matt Groening is involved or not, comedies have been particularly conducive to fake beer. Archie Bunker swilled Best Quality beer on “All in the Family,” while his loutish successor Al Bundy enjoyed Girlie Girl beer on “Married With Children.” On cult classic “News Radio,” narcissist Bill McNeal, played by comedy legend Phil Hartman, did some commercials for Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor that showed, to put it mildly, his cultural insensitivity. One of the most memorable fake beers has to be Samuel Jackson Beer, a Dave Chappelle spoof of Samuel Adams and the actor known for lines such as “Yes, they deserved to die, and I hope they burn in hell.”

While drama, books and graphic novels also produce fake brews, they tend to blend into the scenery. That’s the purpose of beers and other fake products produced by Independent Studio Services, which makes Heisler Gold Ale (which has been seen on “New Girl” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) and Jekyll Island Beer (which has been swilled on “Burn Notice,” “Dexter,” “House of Payne,” “Lost,” “Melissa & Joey,” “Prison Break” and “The Rules of Attraction”). On “Lost,” Dharma Initiative Beer (which later became a real beer, a la Duff) is one of many products of this mysterious organization. One of the more creatively named beers in a drama was homebrewed by DEA agent Hank Schrader on “Breaking Bad”: Schraderbräu.

How many fake beers are there? No one knows for sure, but Jay Brooks, beer writer and syndicated columnist, has created the largest list of fictional beers in existence, which you can find at his blog, Brookston Beer Bulletin. Brooks says the list is “an ongoing thing,” and he recently added Moose Beer, which is used in reference to an advertising account in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Edible Woman. Brooks began collecting fictional beers after seeing an online list that was lacking. As the saying goes, if you want something done right, you have to spend a lot of time on the internet. Brooks describes himself as “pretty obsessed with lists generally” and has a tendency to look at other lists and say, “That can’t be it.”

So why do TV shows, comic books, movies and other types of fiction make up beers, aside from avoiding the appearance of product placement? Why not just have characters swill a Schlitz or sip a Bourbon County Brand Stout?

Frank Lesser, a humorist and writer for shows such as “The Colbert Report,” says fake beers are “a subtle way to create your own fictional world without being too distracting. There are enough obscure microbrews and defunct mass-market beers (like Falstaff, the greatest-named beer of all time) that a ‘fake beer’ doesn’t jump out at the viewer and ruin the suspension of disbelief. You just watch and think, ‘Oh, I guess that’s a regional favorite.’ ”

But such beers aren’t always unobtrusive, especially to educated beer drinkers. Brooks has a feeling All About Beer Magazine readers may relate to: due to his extensive knowledge of real beers, seeing a fake beer can take Brooks out of the story: “To me, they’re a little jarring.” In a perfect world, Brooks says, fictional characters would drink the actual beers of wherever they live.

Collecting fake beers may sound like a tempting hobby, but there are hazards. Such list-making can be hard on a family. Brooks says he often drives his kids “nuts,” because they’ll be watching a cartoon, and Brooks says, “Wait, there’s a beer there!”

The post The Creative World of Fake Beers first appeared on All About Beer.

Something was missing when the Baltimore Orioles opened their season against the Toronto Blue Jays. Not the players, of course, or the fans, but something that was once equally as much a part of watching this baseball team: National Bohemian beer.

The iconic Baltimore lager is no longer sold at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Since April last season, when it was removed from sale following the Orioles’ first home stand, fans have had to go elsewhere for their fix.

“There was a lot of blowback before the baseball season even started,” says Brad Klipner, who runs BeerInBaltimore.com. He broke the story that Natty Boh was off the menu at Camden Yards for 2016, before the club gave it a short-lived reprieve. “They gave in a little bit; they served Natty Boh in cans in one little corner of the stadium [at the start of the season], and then it completely disappeared and it was gone for the season.”

The end of this relationship (if that’s what it is; Natty Boh has made an Orioles comeback before, in 2011) is worth commemorating. Drinkers have access to a bewildering variety of beer now, inside and outside sports stadiums; in contrast, a world where everyone drinks the same beer seems, well, old-fashioned. But in Baltimore and other blue-collar cities around the world, down-to-earth beers like National Bohemian were once a big part of local identity, and they developed a close connection to that other conduit of civic pride: sports teams.

Few cities, though, have a relationship like Baltimore and National Bohemian. Natty Boh was the first beer Klipner drank, given to him by his grandfather at the age of 10. “It was a rite of passage for a Baltimore resident,” the 40-year-old says. “Not the most responsible thing, though, and it didn’t leave a great taste in my mouth!”

National Bohemian’s relationship with the Orioles dates back to the 1960s, when businessman Jerold Hoffberger controlled both. That was a good time for the Orioles, with World Series triumphs in 1966 and 1970, and Hoffberger used the success to promote Natty Boh, making it the club’s official beer. It didn’t last. Hoffberger sold The National Brewing Co. in the seventies, and the city-center brewery closed. In 1996, it was bought by Stroh and then Pabst, and it’s been brewed outside Maryland ever since.

Nonetheless, there’s been a resurgence in its popularity of late. The beer’s one-eyed mascot, Mr. Boh, has winked at the city from its perch on Brewers Hill since 2004, a promotion involving Oriole-orange-colored Natty Boh tallboy cans proved hugely popular. “When they came out with the orange can, gameday Boh consumption took off,” says Tom Leonard, manager of Pickles Pub, a bar opposite the stadium. And merchandise featuring Mr. Boh is everywhere. “People like the gear,” says Mark Brown, who runs the fan website CamdenChat.com. “They’ll wear the Mr. Bo shirts to the Yard.”

This relationship is not entirely unique. Clubs in St. Louis have enjoyed a similarly close relationship with Anheuser-Busch. Abroad, in Newcastle, England, Newcastle Breweries and the football club Newcastle United were once joined at the hip. The brewery was next to the football ground and it sponsored the club’s shirts during the 1980s and 1990s—but brewing moved out of town, to Yorkshire, after Heineken took control in 2008.

That marked the end of the closeness, although some fans reacted positively last year when rumors emerged that the club’s shirts may again be sponsored by Brown Ale. Symbolically, Newcastle United’s beloved former manager, Sir Bobby Robson, pushed the button for the ceremonial demolition of the bottling plant opposite the club’s ground, St. James’ Park.

A much closer relationship exists between St. Pauli, a football club in Hamburg, Germany, and Astra, a local beer brand. Astra is the club’s official beer, drunk inside and outside the ground, especially at fans’ pub, The Jolly Roger, yards from the club’s stadium. “Astra is our biggest seller,” says Stephan Delius, who has managed the pub for 14 years. “I’d say that 40 to 50 percent of all drinks sold is Astra. It’s more beer than all the other ones put together. It’s especially big on match days.”

The beer was brewed in the neighborhood for many decades, but it was after that brewery closed that the relationship blossomed. In 2001, Astra took over as the club’s shirt sponsor when the previous sponsor pulled out mid-season, and in 2003 the brand threw its weight behind a campaign to rescue the close-to-bankruptcy St. Pauli. The club regularly features in Astra’s advertising campaigns.

Astra has been owned by Carlsberg since 2004, but fans don’t care—because the Danish giants bought it from Holstein, the beer of bitter crosstown rivals Hamburger SV. “When Holstein took over [in 1998] some people didn’t like that because Holsten stood for the other club,” says Delius, 42. “That was like losing to the bad guys. When it was taken over by Carlsberg, it was like they lost to someone bigger!”

Astra will soon be produced in a new plant, still in Hamburg but out “close to the autobahn,” as Delius puts it. It’s likely to remain the bottle of choice for St. Pauli fans. “We used to have draught 10 or 15 years ago but we don’t any more because everyone wants bottle,” says Delius. “Astra is drunk by the bottle—that’s how it is. Nothing special about it. It’s a working-class Hamburg thing.”

In Baltimore, meanwhile, Orioles fans can drown their sorrows with a variety of beers, including offerings from Heavy Seas Beer, Union Craft Brewing and Flying Dog Brewery (which serves cask ale at its stadium booth on Fridays). “I don’t know why Natty Boh was kicked out, but I’m sure it had to do with money,” says Klipner. “It’ll take time to heal, but the local craft beer selection is pretty solid.”

And will any of those craft beers ever have the same significance as National Bohemian? In a world of choice, it seems unlikely. “You see craft beers getting bigger, and the largest ones are getting into stadiums—but there’s not much of a connection compared to National Bohemian,” Klipner says. “But as a craft beer geek I’m not complaining!”

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Breweries are changing their organizations, facilities and business models to focus on the revenue opportunities offered by brewery visitors. Wineries have long generated a large portion of their total revenue (and the majority of their profits) from on-site sales. These on-site sales start with casual samples, but most places offer far more elaborate selections: guided tastings of various kinds or food and wine pairings from simple appetizers to full-on meals. And then there is the sale of wine to go: Who hasn’t left a winery with anything from a bottle to a whole case of your favorite?

Finally—for wineries—there are the follow-on sales: wine-of-the-month clubs and so forth. We aren’t seeing much of this last step from breweries yet, but I suspect it will become more and more common as the three-tier barriers continue to erode. At one time, brewers viewed hosting visitors as an important part of their marketing: If consumers had a memorable visit, they’d be more likely to buy their beer out in the market.

The new model flips this upside down: The beer that gets shipped for distribution is less about making money and more about attracting visitors to the brewery itself, since that is where the money will be made.

Then what about special events? It has long been common for people to want to get married at a winery, but until recently such things were nearly unheard of for brewery spaces. Now, brewery weddings are becoming increasingly common, as are many other life events.

In short: The local brewery has become for most of America what the winery has long been in California at places like Napa and Sonoma.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a special section on the future of beer, which appears in the March 2017 issue of All About Beer Magazine.

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Despite a few extra pieces of hardware strapped to the outside, little about the tractor-trailer barreling down Interstate 25 in Colorado on a mostly sunny morning last October would draw attention. Well, except for the statement along the trailer: Proudly brewed. Self-driven.

Budweiser partnered with Otto, a transportation company owned by Uber, to deliver a trailer of lager from its brewery in Fort Collins to the city of Colorado Springs, a distance of about 135 miles. For the majority of the trip, a computer kept the truck moving on the road. The vision of self-driving vehicles has long been the stuff of dreams.

For James Sembrot, who leads Anheuser-Busch InBev’s logistic strategy group, it’s a reality that can happen in our lifetime. It’s a technology that not only benefits beer, but also all shippers. “We travel 450 million miles each year delivering product from breweries to our wholesalers,” Sembrot says. “We are one of the largest shippers, so this makes sense.” He cites reduced driver fatigue, meaning fewer accidents. There will still be a need for a human inside trucks. This technology is best for long stretches of highway where there are few variables on the road to contend with. A human in the driver seat will be needed for navigating cities and populated areas and, of course, to deliver the beer. Well, at least for now. 

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a special section on the future of beer, which appears in the March 2017 issue of All About Beer Magazine.

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As uncertain as the future seems to be these days, at least we can look forward to our bars getting smarter. The days of flagging down a bartender or server when you’re ready for your next pint may one day come to an end if Smart Cube technology ever catches on.

The Smart Cube is an ice-cube-shaped device that sits in a drink and uses Bluetooth technology to communicate with a tablet app in real time to let the staff know when your glass is almost empty. It does so with the help of sensors embedded in the cube that measure liquid levels. Bacardi Limited piloted the technology for its Martini vermouth brand, but its application can extend well beyond cocktails. And, since it’s made with food-safe resin, it wouldn’t alter the taste of a beer (or water it down, since it’s not an actual ice cube).

And speaking of more intelligent drinking, another innovation whose relative simplicity will enable it to catch on a lot faster than the Smart Cube is the Glassify Smart Glass, a drinking vessel with an embedded NFC (near field communication) chip that’s readable with a smartphone’s QR code app. A swipe of the phone unlocks personalized drink promotions and loyalty coupons.

Technology doesn’t always have a function that’s directly related to a commercial transaction. Bars are dens of recreation, after all, and sometimes the goal of a high-tech innovation can be all about personal enjoyment. A company called RichTech has developed custom bar and communal table tops that feature various moving images—could be anything from flowers, snowflakes and clouds to more abstract designs—projected right on to their surfaces. But they’re not just passive diversions; the images are fully interactive. Drinkers can manipulate them with their fingertips.

The true bar of the future, however, won’t be an earthbound one. Once commercial spaceflight becomes a thing—and an affordable one at that—extraplanetary vessels will include fully stocked bars (people are going to need to calm their nerves when they leave earth’s atmosphere). But don’t expect beer to be there. Carbonated beverages are a no-no in zero gravity. There’s no burping in space, as the gas just sits in the stomach and merges with the solids to become an unpleasant, blobby mass. (Though this could be an opportunity for bubble-free brews like Sam Adams Utopias).

Drinking noncarbonated beverages is hard enough in zero g; liquid won’t stay in the glass and would just float everywhere. The marketers of Ballantine’s blended Scotch whisky commissioned the Open Space Agency to create a glass that’s compatible with sipping in space. Its base includes an embedded magnet that helps keep everything in one place. The final frontier, indeed! 

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a special section on the future of beer, which appears in the March 2017 issue of All About Beer Magazine.

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