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Winter Beers ae Back Again

It’s the first of November, and that means two things. One, you sold your last bottle of Oktoberfest yesterday; hope you didn’t overstock, and two, it’s now winter beer season, and all the breweries are going to be selling you theirs. But before you buy into the turbo-charged, spice-burning action,...
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Working With Barbiere

Valerio Barbieri. He has not been on the cover of The Wine Spectator, nor even in the fine print. Robert M. Parker, Jr. has not anointed him the rising star of the wine firmament. No importer has bragged that such-and-such an estate is now “working with Valerio Barbieri”. Yet Barbieri...
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North American Whiskies

When addressing the topic of domestic American whiskies in years gone by, there were many separate distinctions to make. First, there were the numerous staple blends, then rye whiskies, then a bourbon category, then a separate Tennessee whiskey section. And always, in the background, were those massively-distributed volume products from...
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Tennessee Whiskey

 It takes a lot to be Straight Bourbon Whiskey. There are rules about what grains can and must go into the mash, rules about how strong it can be coming off the still, how strong it has to be going in the barrel, how strong it has to be to...
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Drinking Patterns and Heart Attacks

People picture science differently. For some, it’s a Gothic laboratory and Victor Frankenstein shrieking, “It’s alive!” For others, it’s a quiet and understated, sterile, well-lighted, modern and nondescript workplace. For still others, science is epidemiology, the statistical study of what affects the health of populations. What science really is amounts...
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Bitten by the Grape

“My passion for wine started in my 2Os,” says Mantra Restaurant’s Sommelier David Singer, who is barely in his 3Os today. While working as a server in Toronto and attending college, he always wanted more information about the wine he was serving. Singer says that his five questions led to...
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Tempranillo

True, Spain is also home to two other important quality red wine grapes, Garnacha and Monastrell, but these two varieties are qualitatively more successful respectively in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Bandol appellations of France. Spain’s best known red wine appellation, Rioja, first brought Tempranillo to the attention of the world outside...
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G.A.B.F.

1454 Different American Beers Served to more than 28,000 Beer Lovers Can Only Be The Great American Beer Festival Celebrating its twenty-third year as America’s predominant beer event, the Great American Beer Festival (GABF) rolled into Denver on the last weekend in September. Promoting itself as the “Napa Valley of...
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Beyond The Pale Ale

Got customers who’re jaded? Who wants something really different, and doesn’t mean lambic or Baltic porter, . . . been there, drunk that? Help is on the way. Get those geek some beers that will make them go “Huh?” Beers from the Outer Limits. Beers from Beyond the Pale. Beyond...
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