Everyone knows America's Oldest Brewery is D.G. Yuengling & Son (and daughters) of Pottsville, PA (and Tampa, FL) This family owned brewery was established as the "Eagle Brewery" in 1829 by a German immigrant named David Gottlob Jüngling. After the original brewery burned down in 1831 it was relocated to its current location. It was built into a mountain with caves dug into the side, a common practice to preserve beer and to achieve the cool temperatures required to make lager before refrigeration. Yuengling spent most of its history as a small regional brewery and only began to attract national attention years after the launch of Yuengling Traditional Lager in 1987, which went on to become the flagship product of the company and now accounts for 80% of Yuengling's production. On the strength of that growth, and with other brewers being bought out by or outsourcing production to foreign companies, Yuengling has now passed The Boston Beer Company to claim the title of America's largest brewing company as well. In this globalized beer era where giants war for market share, products from America's new largest brewer are only available in 14 states.
posted by furiousxgeorge on Jan 17, 2012 - 113 comments

Think making beer at home is legal? Depends where your home is.

In 1978, US President Carter signed H.R. 1337, which, among other things, provided an exemption from excise taxes on up to 100 gallons of homemade wine and beer annually. It was still up to the individual states to decide whether or not to allow their citizens to brew.

33 years later, homebrewing is a very popular hobby, legal almost all states.

Except Mississippi and Alabama. [more inside]
posted by Marky on Jun 13, 2011 - 70 comments

"When we started Windy City, it was a means to an end, because there wasn't a distributor in Chicago that wanted to touch craft beer," Mr. Ebel says. "We went around to bars and they said, 'Great beer. How many free cases can you give me?' We just had to walk out of those accounts, set a price, and stick to it. And nobody asks us that anymore." Pay-to-play contreversy in the Chicago beer scene, with appearances from a who's who of Midwest beermeisters: Tracy Hurst of Metropolitan Brewing Co., Deb Carey of New Glarus Brewing Co., the Ebel Brothers of Two Brothers Brewing Co., and Josh Hall of Goose Island Brewing Company
posted by d1rge on Nov 22, 2010 - 30 comments

Beer Calculus is a freely available homebrewing recipe generator, which allows you to easily create, save and share your own beer recipe(s). The calculator includes hundreds of malt, hop and yeast varieties, adjuncts and other ingredients, different mash processes, and fermentation and storage variables, and can toggle between US and metric units. Also, if you associate your recipe with a BJCP-recognized style, the calculator will give you guidance regarding your recipe's adherence to the style's guidelines. Homebrewers, have at it!
posted by cog_nate on Dec 4, 2009 - 26 comments

Lone Star Beer. Immortalized in song, it bills itself as the National Beer of Texas. Once brewed in what is now known as the historic San Antonio Pearl Brewery, it's still brewed in Texas, though Texas anti-hipsters will be chagrined to know that Lone Star's latest owner (since 1999) is Milwaukee-based Pabst. Still, it's the cheapest beer in Texas, and the bottles have an extra perk: a rebus^{not this guy} on the inside of the cap. (A good bartender or waitperson'll bring you that with yer longneck^{not this one}.) This guy has collected nearly all (he's missing TWO!) of the 400+ puzzles and their answers. Metafilter, it's beer-fifteen.
posted by fiercecupcake on Feb 27, 2009 - 62 comments

"Try Legal Weed" is the slogan printed on bottle caps made by Weed, California brewer Mount Shasta Brewing Company's latest microbrewed lager. The ATF has ordered the brewer not to use the caps, as they may "mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage." [more inside]
posted by whir on May 29, 2008 - 44 comments

Chocolate and the Beer of the Ancients. New archaeological evidence suggests that primitive beer brewers were the first to discover the goodness of chocolate.
posted by amyms on Nov 20, 2007 - 21 comments

Pumpkin Beer : Showing the rest of the world that there's nothing Americans can't turn into alcohol:

"If barley be wanting to make into malt,
We must be content and think it no fault,
For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips,
Of pumpkins, and parsnips, and walnut-tree chips."

But why stop at using pumpkin as an ingredient? Let cog_nate show you how to use it as brewing equipment. (via Projects)
posted by Greg Nog on Oct 19, 2007 - 40 comments

The Bender Brewer Project. Inspired by an episode of Futurama in which boozy robot Bender is used to brew beer, Star Wars ASCII animator Simon Janson decided to build his own Bender to use to brew his own beer. Among the many careful details that went into this project was to actually build the robot's brain out of a 6502 processor, as specified in the show, and to build a remote detonator to operate his brain.
posted by Astro Zombie on Aug 12, 2007 - 24 comments

"How to Save a Beer Style" by Michael Jackson (no, not that Michael Jackson). It seems that there are one or two, including the 10 Easiest to brew yourself. There are several styles of Belgian beers alone. In the U.S. we can thank Alan Cranston and Jimmy Carter for decriminalizing homebrewing in 1978. For those requiring an education there's Beer 101. Cheers!
posted by spock on Mar 23, 2006 - 18 comments

HOLY GRAIL FOUND AT LAST. In Yorkshire, amongst sheep. Tastes pretty good.
posted by Shane on May 10, 2004 - 11 comments

MillerTime.com is a site run by the Miller family of San Carlos, CA since 1995. The site serves as a place for projects and code built and maintained by the family. They run their own non-profit group to help schools use technology, but their domain name, which they aren't interesting in selling has run afoul of Phillip J. Morris aka Miller Brewing Company, and is being shut down. They've filed suit against being labelled cybersquatters, but the domain is getting taken offline as we speak.
posted by mathowie on May 10, 2002 - 29 comments

Do you love beer? Do you really love beer? What’s your favorite beer? Have you ever made your own beer? The 168th Oktoberfest starts Saturday in Munich Germany. Six million visitors = six million liters of delicious, nutritious beer. I wish I were there instead of here.
posted by UncleFes on Sep 20, 2001 - 139 comments

Fosters Beer's new site and ad campaign is a ripoff/parody of another certain beer ad campaign. What's with the small country pride? Tired of the Americanization of the world? Or just the (American) corporatization of the globe?
posted by mathowie on Sep 14, 2000 - 20 comments

The Shmaltz Brewing Company out of San Francisco is the brewer of He'brew, the Chosen Beer. Be sure to try the Sammy Davis, Jr., which is a cocktail of Guinness floating atop He'brew Genesis Ale. L'Chaim!
posted by tdecius on Oct 10, 1999 - 0 comments