Ale Street News Online

Oompah Oompah!! Can you here it? It’s playing all across Bavaria, because its Oktoberfest time.

The holiday season is only a few short weeks away, but the festive air is already being breathed. Brewers across the country and the world have groomed some of their finest beers for enjoyment during this time of year.

There I was, lounging in front of my room at the Parkview Motel, just across the street from My Old Kentucky Home State Park. Really, it’s called that. I was taking a rest from all the strenuous bourbon consumption at this year’s Kentucky Bourbon Festival: Heaven Hill’s Bourbon, Cigars & Jazz event the night before, heavy sampling poolside with the guys from Binny’s (a Chicago booze superstore that does a lot of special store bottlings — we’d been tasting the latest barrel samples) and Drew Kulsveen from Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, who’d brought some limited edition stuff from home.

When last I left you, I had mentioned how I had recently picked up a disk by the group OYAB at a restaurant in Canada owned by Unibroue Brewery. Imagine yourself walking through olde Quebec City at night. Let’s just say 175 years ago. I suspect these would be the sounds you would hear coming from some back alley way tavern, or in the back of a comfortable cafe.

Want to be an innovator? Craft brewing isn’t the place to do it anymore. The frontier has left us behind, the trails have almost all been blazed.

On the First Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, Cruzan Estate Diamond Rum. Cruzan is finally breaking out of the cheap rum image it had for Virgin Island vacationers.

The only Trappist Abbey brewery located outside Belgium is called Koningshoeven, located near Tilburg in the Netherlands. It is often referred to as La Trappe, and the beers are labeled under that name in Europe. In the U.S., the beers are labeled as Koningshoeven.

The Baiuvarii were a fierce tribe. When the Roman Empire began to fade the Germanic tribes beat the soldiers south out of Regensburg. In the Gothic craze of the second millennium church building became a craze. Monasteries sprouted and began brewing beer.

Brugge and Brussels are awash in cafes serving the great brews of "The Beer Country", Belgium. That many of the world’s most renowned specialty beer cafes are located in these cities should be no great surprise to beer lovers, given the incredibly rich beer culture that exists there.

Although Ale Street News has visited Belgium each of the past five years, as well as a couple of times before that, the annual tour always seems to unearth new beer treasures.

We can get one thing straight right off the bat: Nobody comes to Bangkok for the beer.

Not that the beer in Thailand is necessarily unimpressive, or at least not all of it, but let’s just say that variety is not exactly the forte of Thai breweries.