Some DC based hipsters want to know why America doesn’t have good pubs like in London. It turns out, they’re everywhere.

A Southern Baptist Democratic president hated by conservatives is largely responsible for the rise of the American craft brew industry.

I would highly recommend the following essay by Oscar Casares from the Austin Chronicle:  Holiday of Cinco de Mayo is minor event in Mexico.  If anything, it underscores how Cinco de Mayo is probably a bigger deal in the United States than it is in Mexico (although granted, it is more in terms of eating [...]

Consumerist’s Chris Morran asks, “Are You Ready For Beer With 32% Alcohol Content?” Well, it’s a wee bit early in the day. But, philosophically speaking, I am! He points us to “Super-High-Alcohol Beer Heads to the U.S.,” the sort of helpful article that, if  Time published them more often,  it wouldn’t be in danger of going [...]

An interest group sent me an email to elicit my help in letting readers know that it’s Alcohol Awareness Month. Which reminds me: It’s time for another beer.

Senator Jim Webb says it’s time to drop General Order No. 1, which bans alcohol consumption, gambling, and pornography in hostile fire zones. In part, the order is out of sensitivity to “host-nation” culture. But it’s also a major safety issue. Alcohol, firearms and heavy machinery don’t mix, and the Department of Defense doesn’t want [...]

The gang at Esquire asked Mehmet Oz (aka “Dr. Oz”) a dozen questions about health. The only really interesting exchange: You’re marooned on a desert island and you can choose only three foods to have. What are they? Broccoli, walnuts, and beer. Broccoli has a chemical in it called an indole, which helps the liver [...]

Professor Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant James Crowley apparently enjoyed their beer summit with the president so much that they’ve decided to have another round.  Minus the president. In a setting a tad less formal, with no president or national press on hand, the Harvard professor and the Cambridge cop at the heart of last [...]

Mark Liebowitz had a piece for NYT over the weekend titled “Man’s World at White House? No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say.” At first blush, it reads like some feminists are genuinely concerned about a male-dominated culture in the West Wing. After awhile, however, one begins to suspect it’s a PR exercise to make President [...]

If you haven’t been reading MANzine this week, here’s what you’ve missed: Can a Real Man Drive a Minivan? (James Joyner) – Despite what the advertisements may tell you, manhood has little to do with what kind of cigarettes you smoke, what car you drive, or how white your shirts could be. Emergency Flank Steak [...]

What you’ve missed the past week if you’re not reading Manzine: Features: Mad About Mad Men (James Joyner) – “Mad Men” is the hottest show on TV, having somehow captured the zeitgeist with its meticulous portrayal of early 1960s Manhattan. Guide to Homebrewing Beer (Tim F) – Brewing your own beer is pretty easy. Here [...]

While not that big a deal, this would seem to take the “appearance of impropriety” thing a mite far: Four of the most powerful business leaders in America arrived at the White House one day last month for lunch with President Barack Obama, sitting down in his private dining room just steps from the Oval [...]

Conor Friedersdorf rightfully notes that Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley should be having their beer at a local Cambridge pub rather than at the White House.   Bowing to the inevitable, however, ABC News moves on to the weighty issue of what beer will be served. Crowley told the president he was more partial to [...]

Steven Taylor passes along a (somewhat old) scientific report that may spur a health movement: Researchers at Granada University in Spain have come across a discovery that will undoubtedly please athletes and sports enthusiasts – a pint of beer post-workout or match is better at rehydrating the human body than water. Professor Manuel Garzon, a [...]

USA Today reports on a proposal circulating in the Senate Finance Committee to fund health care through sin taxes on booze. Beer taxes would go up by 48 cents a six-pack, wine taxes would rise by 49 cents per bottle, and the tax on hard liquor would increase by 40 cents per fifth. Proceeds from [...]

Glenn Reynolds links a Popular Mechanics story on “How Barefoot Runners are Shaping the Shoe Industry.” My initial guess was “Buying fewer shoes?” It’s a wee bit more interesting than that.  Apparently, a Rick Roeber recently ran the Boston Marathon shoeless. And a number of people—ultramarathoners, biomechanics experts and doctors included—think that’s probably the best [...]

In separate posts, Tyler Cowen wonders why Heinz ketchup and Miller beer remain so much more popular in their home towns of Pittsburgh and Chicago* than elsewhere in the country and whether it’s a good sign if cops frequent a particular restaurant. As to the first, he offers two competing alternatives:  “Do area consumers develop [...]

Reacting to a Rachel Lewis feature touting Barack Obama as a man-about-town in Washington, attending ball games and plays and dining out, Ann Althouse wonders, “Should the president be working harder?” Glenn Reynolds quips, “I think he should take as much time off as he wants.”  Heh. Indeed. Aside from that, though, it’s an absurd [...]

The attempt by California to tax sweet malt liquors as spirits in order to extract higher tax revenues under the guise of protecting minors from themselves isn’t working out so well. Substance-abuse foes cheered last year when state officials cracked down on sweet, sometimes fizzy, intoxicating drinks such as Mike’s Hard Lemonade that — save [...]

Hilary Bok is rather bent out of shape at a Washington Whispers poll which asks “If you had a choice of four daycare centers run separately by Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, which would you choose for your kids?” She suggests some alternative poll questions: If you needed some yard work [...]

When Glenn Reynolds linked the Sam Adams Alliance Contest, I clicked hoping it had something to do with craft beers. I was disappointed. At least it doesn’t involve Joe the Plumber.

Thomas Barnett took his son to Soldier Field to watch last night’s game between the Bears and his beloved Packers. Not surprisingly, his team lost a close one. He was, however, surprised about the atmosphere: the two spent the night being verbally abused by drunken buffoons who questioned their sexuality and threatened them with physical [...]

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 he’s [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The Kanga Rued the Day Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

The Most Likely To… Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

The Misogynists Anonymous Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

The rule of thumb for American politics in the media appears to be classifying politicians as being on the “beer-track” or “wine-track”, or, in the alternative Hillary Clinton formation, “Starbucks vs. Dunkin’ Donuts”. In other words, if you prefer wine over beer or Starbucks over Dunkin’ Donuts, then you are an “elitist”, and if not, [...]

Libby Spencer, commenting on a hypothetical tipping experience I made up to illustrate a point, observes that, “Having both worked on the serving end and been entertained by the wealthy at fancy dinners in my lifetime, it’s been my experience that the wealthier patrons are often the most demanding and the worst tippers of the [...]

So I’m just now getting around to following “bittergate”–the blogospheric furor that has erupted from Barack Obama’s sociological observation that people vote on cultural issues because they don’t trust the government on economic issues. (My colleague James has covered this matter here and here.) For further reference, here is the particular portion of the speech [...]

Blackfive’s Uncle Jimbo has what purports to be an advanced text of the “opening statement Gen. Petraeus will make tomorrow to Congress.” [UPDATE: It turns out that I've been had and this is just a wishful thinking piece on the part of Jimbo.] As to the progress report itself, he is naturally touting the success [...]

The 2008 presidential election will come down to beer drinkers vs. wine drinkers, if a silly new poll is to be believed. Beer drinkers appear more likely to vote for Sen. John McCain in November, while those who enjoy wine say they’re more likely to vote Democratic in the fall. Among registered voters who prefer [...]

Geraldine Ferraro has generated an amazing amount of controversy with her remarks that, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.” And, no, it wasn’t for her improper use of the subjunctive but rather because it’s “racist.” I’d ignored the controversy until now because, well, it’s Geraldine Ferraro. (About whom, [...]

Seattle Post-Intelligencer managing editor David McCumber “chose not to run the New York Times story on John McCain” in his paper even though it subscribes to the New York Times News Service. He explains: To me, the story had serious flaws. It did not convincingly make the case that McCain either had an affair with [...]

The Unfogged gang has three posts in as many days about a wildly popular new blog about which I was previously unaware called Stuff White People Like. It’s the kind of blog only white people could like: a blog about white people written by white people for other white people that makes fun of white [...]

I’m not sure what to make of the NYT feature “Friends Say Drugs Played Only Bit Part for Obama.” In more than three dozen interviews, friends, classmates and mentors from his high school and Occidental recalled Mr. Obama as being grounded, motivated and poised, someone who did not appear to be grappling with any drug [...]

While ethanol and other biofuels have long been touted as a means of reducing greenhouse gas levels, it turns out that they have precisely the opposite effect because of some unintended consequences. Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels [...]

Sarah Laitner has an interesting piece in today’s Financial Times about the Balkanization of Belgium. Belgium, divided between Flanders, its wealthy Dutch-speaking north, and francophone Wallonia in the south, has chugged along without a new federal government for a record 165 days. Since elections in June, the bickering parties in a centre-right would-be coalition have [...]

YahooNews apparently thought the better of their headline “Report: Abstinence not curbing teen sex,” which is rather like saying “Eating not curbing hunger,” and replaced it with the more logically consistent “.” We pretty much already knew that, but here’s the gist of the story: Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown [...]

Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . . and now also Saturday Traffic Jam for those who wish to link. Rodney is conversing with Carlton the Doorman. Wizbang is headed to Texafornia. Bullwinklette has an interview with Rosie O’Donnell Wyatt Earp just can’t get the part in his hair right. Right Pundits is all puckered up. Public [...]

Stephen Colbert is running for president. Stephen Colbert has announced his candidacy for president on “The Colbert Report,” tossing his satirical hat into the ring of an already crowded race. “I shall seek the office of the president of the United States,” Colbert said Tuesday on his Comedy Central show as red, white and blue [...]

No, not the one-gloved one, the late beer and scotch-drinking Michael Jackson. We are talking about The Beerhunter here. As a fitting wake for the top writer of malted beverages, on Sunday September 30, at 9PM EST (OK, the USA is still on Daylight Savings, so maybe add or subtract one, or drink a beer [...]

The Wet Your Whistleblower Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.