Free Republic

The can comeback, led by brands like Ska Brewing, Oskar Blues and New Belgium, has opened up a 360-degree canvas for label designers typically restricted to the few stickers on a beer bottle. Thrillest has (with the help of CraftCans.com guru and Canned! author Russ Phillips) created a handy gallery of its picks for the "10 coolest-looking beer cans in America." And while I was glad to see a few of my personal favorites on the list (including my friends and neighbors at Good People Brewing in Birmingham, Alabama), I feel like they left off a few brews that are...

IT WAS ELIOT NESS and the Untouchables, as played by the Keystone Kops. More than a dozen armed State Police officers conducted simultaneous raids last week on three popular Philadelphia bars known for their wide beer selections. The cops confiscated hundreds of bottles of expensive ales and lagers, now in State Police custody at an undisclosed location. The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board -...

This summer, how would you like to lean back in your lawn chair and toss back a brew made from what may be the world’s oldest recipe for beer? Called Chateau Jiahu, this blend of rice, honey and fruit was intoxicating Chinese villagers 9,000 years ago—long before grape wine had its start in Mesopotamia. University of Pennsylvania molecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern first described the beverage in 2005 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences based on chemical traces from pottery in the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Northern China. Soon after, McGovern called on Sam Calagione at the...

For DIY brewers, Prohibition lasted until 1978. But once unleashed, they revolutionized the industry. For connoisseurs of Budweiser, the 1970s were a pale golden age. In every supermarket across the land, the King of Beers maintained its status as the grocery world’s most superfluous monarch, reigning over just a handful of domestic taste-alikes and one or two upstart imports. The American public had decided it liked its beer cheap, bland, and less filling, and the industry—which, after decades of consolidation, consisted of a mere 44 breweries in 1979—was happy to oblige. Consumers with a thirst for something tastier, or at...

John at least looks like he's drank beer before. Teresa has poured herself a nice glass of foam. Even the bottle is foamy. The original caption reads: Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, taste beers from brewmaster Kristopher Kalav, right, in Monroe, Wis.