Beer Report

Sam Adams was one of the very first American beers I liked. I had thought that American beer was all Macro beers, and despaired of finding anything like the local brews I'd enjoyed in Britain. Until I tried a Sam Adams at a Boston restaurant. Samuel Adams beers were born in 1984 when Jim Koch, the fifth-generation, first born son to follow in his family's brewing footsteps, brewed a batch of beer in his kitchen using the original family recipe for Louis Koch Lager. Koch's ancestor, Louis Koch, brewed and sold Louis Koch Lager in 1860 in St. Louis, Missouri until Prohibition, and when Prohibition was repealed, until the early 1950s.

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Rolling Rock is a beer that, while I've had it on tap, mostly at pizza joints, I've never had in the bottle—and this is a beer that's reputation was in part based on its bottle. Rolling Rock Extra Pale American Lager began life as a small local brewery in Latrobe, a small town in Western Pennsylvania. The Tito brothers opened up their brewery in 1939. One of their decisions, somewhat atypical at the time, was to bottle their beer in a green bottle with all the labeling done in white paint. It became a local favorite, very quickly, and remained popular for years.

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This is the first New Belgium beer I ever tried, and their flagship brew. New Belgium's Fat Tire is one of those beers that's reliably good, though I'm still hoping to try it on tap. When founding Brewmaster Jeff Lebesch began New Belgium, he was inspired by a bike trip through Belgium to create Belgian style ales, and Fat Tire, named after the bike he rode, was one of his first two brews. Jeff expected his second brew, the Abbey Ale would be the "Big" ale in terms of making his mark, but it's Fat Tire that's become one of the most widely recognized craft brews in America—in no small part due to the fabulous label art showing a Fat Tire cruisingbike, deftly created by watercolorist Ann Fitch.

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Georgetown Beer is very much a local brewery, and a true micro brewery with their beer only available at the brewery in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood, or in select bars and restaurants in Washington and Idaho. Right now, they produce three beers all year round, Chopper's Red Ale, Roger's Pilsner (named after one of the two brewery co-founders) and Manny's Pale Ale, named after the other of the brewery's two co-founders. They've been known to produce seasonal or occasional brews, as well as a few custom brews for particular restaurants.

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