There was a time when Belgian-style beers were widely brewed in America, but these days the yeast-forward, elegant beers of Belgium seem to be relegated to a small niche of the American market. You can still find Trappist ales in better beer stores, but try searching for American-brewed interpretations of those styles is a challenging exercise. America’s own Trappist Brewery, Spencer, ceased brewing operations last year and long-time stalwart Ommegang now makes everything from hazy IPAs to chocolate peanut butter stouts, while closer to home Rockmill Brewing is in foreclosure. In this episode ..read more

Nick Dekker has been writing about food, travel, and occasionally beer, for nearly two decades. His blog site, Breakfast with Nick, is a wealth of knowledge and the definitive guide to the best breakfast spots in Central Ohio. He is also a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, home of Founders Brewing, so it comes as no surprise that he is a huge fan of breakfast stouts. In this rare morning recording session, Nick joins us as we explore the intersection of breakfast and beer. Armed with a box of Buckeye Donuts, breakfast stouts from Michigan (Founders) and nearly Michigan (Toledo’s Maumee Bay), a ..read more

Pizza and beer is the perfect pairing. Both beer and the crust are products of yeast fermentation. The crisp bitterness of the beer cuts through the fattiness of the cheese. The herbal and spicy hop notes pair nicely with the Italian herbs in the sauce, and the spritzy carbonation scrubs it all away, resetting your palate for the next slice. In the world of pizzas, Columbus-style pizza is arguably the perfect pie to pair with a beer. It’s thin crispy crust, edge-to-edge toppings, and smallish square slices, were conceived specifically to go with beer. To explore this match made in heaven, our ..read more

No one has written more extensively and authoritatively on craft beer in the Buckeye state than Rick Armon. A journalist by trade, Rick has published two books on the beers of Ohio – Ohio Breweries in 2011 and 50 Must Try Beers of Ohio in 2017 – in addition to his influential Ohio Beer Blog that covered Ohio beer and breweries throughout the teens. We couldn’t think of a better guest for our 50th episode, so Mark and I made a pilgrimage to Akron where Rick was kind enough to sit down with us and talk about the past, present and future of Ohio beer. In this conversation we look back at the earl ..read more

Nothing can be more British than enjoying a glass of creamy cask ale, dispensed from a beer engine, in a cozy wood paneled pub, but good luck finding that experience once you leave the British Isles. Here in Central Ohio finding a traditional cask ale is as rare as finding a hen’s tooth, and this episode is our way of suggesting that maybe it doesn’t need to be so difficult. After reviewing some basic definitions and terminology surrounding cask ale, we look at the subject from two very different perspectives. In the first half, Barley’s brewmaster Angelo Signorino tells us about his experienc ..read more

It’s a clear, crisp mid-December afternoon. I’m driving from Columbus to Athens with my wife Laurinda and our friends Ralph and Lucy Wolfe. We’re on our way to a special event being held this evening at Little Fish Brewing Company. They’ve opened a limited number of spaces for people to observe the first stage of brewing of a spontaneously fermented beer. Not many breweries attempt to brew beer using this old-world approach, and for good reason. It’s an unpredictable, slow way of making beer, but when it all comes together the final product is a unique expression of the brewers skill and the t ..read more

This is the time of year when people roll out their best of the year lists. Here in Columbus, the online magazine Columbus Underground does top 10 lists of many types, including breweries. As it usually does this year’s list sparked some debates amongst us and our beer loving friends, which ultimately led us to put together our own list. Our friend, homebrewer extraordinaire, and general man about town Bill Koeppen, joins us as we put our necks out and share our list with the public. While you may or may not agree with our choices, hopefully this episode will be useful for anyone looking to ex ..read more

Every year breweries roll out special beers for the holiday season. Here in Ohio the dominant style of Christmas beer is the spiced winter warmer, as epitomized by classics that date back to the mid-90s like Great Lakes Christmas Ale and Barley’s Christmas Ale. While I enjoy a good winter warmer at this time of the year, my favorite holiday beers tend to come from Belgium.  In the most recent episode of the All Things Beer podcast, we profiled four classic Belgian Christmas Ales – Chimay Grande Reserve (first introduced as a holiday seasonal in 1948, now available year round), Delirium No ..read more

I can still remember my first encounter with a Trappist Ale, a bottle of Chimay Grande Reserve back in the early 1990s. It was probably my first Belgian-brewed beer as well, and the expressive yeast character, strength, and prickly carbonation were unlike anything I’d tasted before.  I later learned that this beer was brewed at a Trappist monastery, and with a little searching one could find other Trappist Ales in the wild. At one point in the aughts there were six Trappist breweries located in Belgium – Achel, Chimay, Rochefort, Westmalle, Orval, and Westvleteren – and a seventh, La Trap ..read more

Whether you call them Scotch Ales or Wee Heavies, who can resist the charms of one of Scotland’s best exports. These silky smooth, decadent ales are the more potent siblings of the Scottish Ales we reviewed in the last episode. Brian Kimmel, a veteran of several hikes across the Scottish Highlands, joins of for an audio tour of Caledonia. We start in the south at the venerable Traquair House Brewery, stop off in Edinburgh for a glass of McEwan’s dangerously drinkable Scotch Ale, before working our way northward through the highlands to the Orkneys for a wee nip of the iconic Skull Splitter. We ..read more