Drinks • Wines • Spirits

Reading a Wine Label: Spin the Bottle to See What’s Inside

Walk into a fine wine shop, and you feel like you’ve just stepped into an art museum. Creating wine labels certainly keeps the graphic artists … →

Cellaring Beer: Why and How to Store Beer in a Cellar

The German word “lagern” means to store or stock. Despite the current craft beer boom and the proliferation of domestic ales, lager beer styles such … →

National Bohemian Beer - an American Adjunct Lager from Baltimore

American Adjunct Lager: The People’s Choice

In many ways, beer from the United States is defined by its contradictions or, at the very least, by radically opposing points of view. Most … →

Looking for a Good German Wine? Skip the Liebfraumilch!

Let’s just get this wine monkey off Germany’s back right away: Liebfraumilch is far and away its leading export. Great Britain, the US, and the … →

The Art and Science of Malting Barley

Unlike wheat, barley is hard to grind into flour, but malted — that is, dried, crushed and steeped in water — barley constitutes the base … →

Bargain or Boutique? A Look at Quality vs Value in Boxed Wines

Boxed wines, bag-in-box wine, Tetra pack wines-all were frowned upon until quite recently. Wine shipped in plastic bags was stigmatized, as much for the packaging … →