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What’s up, beer geek! This is The Beer Scholar 6-Pack weekly newsletter, a short clean email featuring 6 bulleted links with brief descriptions for each.

Howdy beer geek! I finally got the invite to judge the Great American Beer Festival this year! Been waiting for that invite for many many years! If any of you will be in Denver for GABF, I'll see you there. I'm also judging the North American Guild of Beer Writers awards again, which is a real honor considering how badass the writers and submissions are.

Beer of the Week: It hasn't been a big week for beer drinking, but I enjoyed two nice Oregon pilsners. Ex Novo's Perle Haggard is a German style pils made with minty herbaceous Perle hops and Buoy Pilsner made in more of a Czech style with mildly peppery Saaz hops. Both are solid summer crushers, I may grab a sixer of one of them to take camping at Mt. Hood this weekend. 

As always, here are 6 dope links for your Friday 6 Pack. Enjoy.

TBS 6-Pack

TROPICAL STOUT IS BACK, BABY!

With Growing Industry Enthusiasm, the Historical Tropical Stout Is Earning the Recognition It Deserves by Courtney Iseman for VinePair. I love Tropical Stouts and have collab'ed on a couple with pro breweries over the years. My fave was one I did with cask-ale-focused Freewheel Brewing in Redwood City called Hogo Jamaican Stout (we also did a special wood & rum version with Appleton rum soaked wood chips). The BJCP overall impression entry is: “A very dark, sweet, fruity, moderately strong stout with smooth, roasty flavors, yet no burnt harshness.” These are very nice beers that deserve to be on more tap lists!

NORTHERN MEXICO IS NOW TOO DRY TO BREW IN

‘We won’t produce beer in the north—that’s over’: Mexico’s president sounds the alarm over drought and climate change by Max De Haldevang & Andrea Navarro for Fortune. Grupo Modelo (owned by ABI) and Heineken have facilities in “drought-plagued” Northern Mexico. Constellation Brands wanted to open one there, too, but permits were recently denied by the Mexican gov’t. “Mexico provided 76% of all the beer imported by the US last year.” Perhaps a shortage of Corona is what it will take to make deniers come around on climate change…their houses burning up all over rural areas of the western US doesn’t seem to be doing it, so who knows.  

WHO’S THE NEXT BIG HOP? 

We Asked 14 Brewers: What Will Be the Next Big Hop? by Niko Krommydas for VinePair. A few heavy hitters submitted blurbs for this piece, including my buddy Phil Emerson of Almanac, Matt Brynildson of Firestone Walker, Scott Shirley of Lawson’s Finest Liquids, and Stjepan Pavich of Other Half. Some of the more interesting hops they name drop are Nectaron, HBC 1019, Vista (which I’ve written about before), HS17701, HBC 586, Pacific Sunrise, and Lotus. I’ll be keeping an eye out for these. 

WANT A BREWERY? IT’S A BUYERS MARKET…

US breweries are for sale—but who’s buying? by Kate Bernot for BrewsNews out of Australia. Brewery owners (and frankly everyone in the service industry) have been absolutely beat down over the last few years. Some breweries had banner years during Covid, but most had ~3 years of Covid-related struggles. With profitability still down, many are facing rising costs, aluminum can shortages, high energy prices, debt payments, aging ownership, and labor shortages…many are throwing in the towel and listing their breweries for sale. The heady double digit growth of what was, just a few years ago, an immature industry, is donezo. I’ve said a lot about where the industry is going and I stick by my thought — the product is (mostly) great, so the future is bright despite the leveling out of the beer game growth. 

YOU’RE A GEEK FOR ARTISANAL BEER & COFFEE, WHY NOT CHOCOLATE? 

Cacao, Brewing, and the Price of Nostalgia — Toward a Better Future for Chocolate Beer by David Nilsen for Good Beer Hunting. This is a great piece about artisanal chocolate making and beer by the most expert beer & chocolate writer out there, David Nilsen. It has always struck me as interesting that geeks of all stripes pick their foci to be geeky about but often leave other (fairly similar) things unexplored. Nilsen has been all over the bean-to-bar and chocolate-in-beer stuff for several years and his Bean To Barstool podcast is fantastic. Just putting it out there in case you’re interested in branching out in your geeky interests!

THE SANDMAN 

The Sandman on Netflix (Trailer on YouTube). Niel Gaiman’s Sandman comics blew up in the early 1990s and were beloved by goths, weirdos who wore black, and lovers of mythology. It’s finally made it to the screen and it’s very very good. Morpheus, the king of dreams and stories, hangs out with his sister, Death, battles his other sisters, Desire and Despair, and attempts to recapture a Nightmare that has escaped the dreaming plane and entered our plane of existence. It’s all very fun, you should check it out. Oh, and also American Gods was one of the best shows to ever be on TV, so check that out, too. 

Have a lovely weekend, y'all!

Chris