All in Beer History

Falling Into La Trappe: The Lowdown on Trappist Beer and Abbey Ales

Justin Jackson
Beer History

Belgian beer is certainly special, with many of their traditional brands and styles being truly unique in terms of their flavor, ingredients and production methods. Most Belgians will argue that they have the best beer in the world and while I won’t be supporting that argument in this post I will agree that they have some amazing beers that simply must be on everyone’s list of beers to try. At the mention of Trappist beer one may conjure images of old, grey, balding monks in robes, stirring wooden paddles in cauldrons and happily downing hefty glasses of ale like Friar Tuck. In this post I would like to give an introduction to Trappist beer in terms of its history, rules, brands, and how they are different from other “abbey ales”.

5 Ways That Beer Explains the World - from Beeronomics

5 Ways That Beer Explains the World - from Beeronomics

Justin Jackson
Beer Books, Beer History

Beeronomics hit the shelves in 2017 and offers fifteen chapters of beer stories laced with economic principles that have shaped the world today.  This book has loads of interesting history of beer told through the eyes of economists who have delved a little deeper to reveal some of the economic drivers for everything from how hopped-beer came into popularity to the real reasoning behind the German Beer Purity Law.  In this blog post I will highlight some of the stories from the book that I found most interesting.

Seven Useless Facts I Learned from "Portland Beer: Crafting the Road to Beervana".

Seven Useless Facts I Learned from "Portland Beer: Crafting the Road to Beervana".

Justin Jackson
Brewerism, Beer Books, Beer History

As a brewer, I’m always interested in learning more of the science behind brewing and fermentation. As a beer enthusiast, however, I always love a good history lesson about beer and brewing. American Palate has published a series of historical books on beer and as I have traveled I have come across a few of the titles to supplement my, often dry, beer science knowledge with the more colorful story of beer around the world.

Having recently visited Portland, aka “Beervana”, and other parts of Oregon on a summer family road trip, I came across Portland Beer: Crafting the Road to Beervana at the locally famous Powell’s Bookstore. Needless to say I was happy to avoid another technical brewing text to go for a more enjoyable read to give me more of a background on this city that has come to be recognized as one of the hubs for craft beer in America.

In this post I wanted to filter out a handful of historical facts that I found interesting.