Bemidji Brewing earns silver at Great American Beer Festival

Portland, Oregon, now has 58 breweries, as well as a robust framework of guided tour services, publications and even beer-themed bed and breakfasts to cater to craft beer tourists.

Craft beer has quickly become a juggernaut in the world of tourism. Using the traditional four vessel brewing process, the Company often takes extra steps like dry-hopping, barrel-aging and a secondary fermentation known as krausening. “The industry also provided more than 424,000 jobs, with more than 115,000 jobs directly at breweries and brewpubs, including serving staff at brewpubs”. It’s a trend that has exploded and eventually found its way to Shreveport in October 2013 with Great Raft Brewing, the first to call this area home.

The CBA says that 75% of Americans over the age of 21 live within 10 miles of a local brewery. Popular website Thrillist.com recently named Great Raft Brewing the best brewery in Louisiana, becoming the latest in a long list of national publications to applaud that brewery. Veterans, such as The Lost Abbey, Stone, Pizza Port, Karl Strauss, Green Flash, and Ballast Point all won medals (as they tend to do each and every year) and a few medium-sized operations, such as New English and Societe made notable splashes by winning golds in the Coffee Beer (Zumbar) and Session IPA (The Coachman) categories respectively.

Turning Stone Casino Resort is bringing a little touch of Munich to Central New York, just for a day.

“If people haven’t been exposed to different flavour profiles and tastes, they just don’t know what’s out there other than light, American-style lagers”, said Treavor. But with its new “policy bulletin”, it pulls a Wizard of Oz, saying to Georgia breweries,”pay no attention to the rules we promulgated back in June, these are the rules now”. While they appreciated the creative brew, most of the people I chatted with said they wouldn’t be able to drink a full pint of this meaty concoction.

The next in line to plant roots is Flying Heart Brewing in Bossier City, established at the end of past year.

All of this celebration was happening alongside a big moment for the American beer industry: the announcement that the number of breweries in the U.S.is approaching its historical peak of 4,131, reached in 1873.

Avery Brewing Co. pours out sample beers at GABF.

If you’ve been waiting to read about the bologna beer – yes, you read it right, bologna beer – here we go! Classes will focus both on foundational elements of beer making, including brewing equipment and ingredients, and the science behind it – microbiology, fermentation and chemistry.

Like the other breweries have done, Red River also wants to be a destination for tourists.

Martin said most breweries would move from one distributor to another only under “pretty extreme dire circumstances”. Three in Monroe, a couple of more opening up in Lafayette. It features more than 100 beers from 55 breweries, plus German food like Bratwurst, Wiener Schnitzel and Sauerbraten, and “authentic” German Oktoberfest music from The Krazy Fireman.

“Sometimes I am shocked at the customers who are such huge supporters”, said Zutz. Whether returning from a rustic cabin, or after a sweaty workout, sometimes the best relaxation is cracking open a cold one inside a steamy tub.

Opponents say the bill (H 245) would allow brewers to break a contract with a distributor at any time and for any reason.