Extreme Beer

[caption id="attachment_28211" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Gordon Biersch Somerfest pints"][/caption] Burkhard Bilger explores the rise of craft beers for The New Yorker. “When you’re trying to create new brewing techniques and beer styles, you have to have a certain recklessness,” Jim Koch, whose Boston Beer Company brews Samuel Adams, and who coined the term “extreme beer,” told me. “Sam has that. He’s fearless, but ...

Why The Campaign is So Negative

David Broder gets both candidates to agree that the campaign has gotten more bitter than they'd like and is intigued by John McCain's suggestion, "I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings." The early blogospheric response to this has come mostly from Obama supporters who, not surprisingly,  ...

Anheuser-Busch Sold for $50 Billion

Anheuser-Busch agreed to sell to Belgium's InBev last night, demonstrating that all the howls about American pride were mere haggling over price.   All it took was raising the offer to $70 per share from $65 per share -- "a 27 percent premium over Anheuser's record-high stock price in October 2002" -- and giving a Busch a seat on ...

No Beer, No Civilization (Updated)

George Will has been at the top of the pundit game for so long that you'd think he'd have joined a sizable number of his peers in seemingly dusting off one of their stock columns every week. Not so. Will's latest installment is on the virtues of beer. "The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization ...

Happy 232nd Birthday, America

Happy Independence Day! I don't know about my OTB colleagues but I'll be taking the rest of the day off, honoring the sacrifices made by the Founders by sitting around watching television, grilling and consuming meat products, and drinking beer with family and friends. Some things to keep you occupied until my return: "Putting The Country First" - John McCain's essay for Parade ...

Appalachian Election?

Steve Tuttle takes to the pages of Newsweek to proclaim the ascendency of Appalachia as the decider of the next president. "Hick." "Hillbilly." "Redneck." "Inbred." "Cracker." "Ridge Runner." I heard and self-effacingly used them all when I left the mountains of Appalachia to attend college in the great metropolis of Williamsburg, Va., in the '80s. I was mercilessly ribbed as a ...

McCains Pay Back Taxes on Aunt’s Condo

The latest mini-scandal in Campaign 2008 is that the McCains have apparently not done a good job keeping track of their finances.   HuffPo has gotten 1420 Diggs at this writing with a story headlined "McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years, Newsweek Reports." It promises "a highly embarrassing report."  Newsweek has delivered with "Mrs. McCain, San Diego County ...

Anheuser-Busch $46 Billion Belgian Buyout Bid

InBev, a Belgian firm, has offered to buy Anheuser-Busch for $46 billion. Anheuser-Busch Cos., the nation's biggest brewery, received a $46 billion buyout offer Wednesday from a Belgian brewer that might be too good to refuse. The maker of Budweiser beer disclosed late Wednesday that InBev SA, whose brands include Beck's and Stella Artois, delivered an unsolicited all-cash bid of $65 a ...

Summer Drink List

James Poulous and Rod Dreher weigh in with their recommended adult libations for the summertime. Not surprisingly, since these things are mostly a matter of personal taste, there's significant disagreement in the lists. Poulous touts the wonders of Red Stripe, Jamaica's national beer, while Dreher advises readers to eschew brew altogether and stick to wheat beers if they can not. ...

Caption Contest Winners

The Kanga Rued the Day Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over. (AFP/File/Anoek de Groot) ✰ THE WINNERS ✰ First: charles austin - Now we know why they had to tie the kangaroo down, sport. Second: radio free fred - Ain't Nothin' Like A Bag Of Nuts With A Cold Drink Third: Elmo - eBay ... shop victoriously HONORABLE MENTION Gollum - Short of ...