Staff & Contributors

Jim Lundstrom

Content By This Contributor:

Making a Pig of Myself, Again

Jim Lundstrom

Here is the kind of beer story I love to hear: When Stevens Point Brewery decided the next release for its Whole Hog big beer series would be a coffee stout, they wanted to make sure it stood out from the seemingly ceaseless wave of specialty craft

An Ultra Experience

Jim Lundstrom

Yum! It comes on softer than most hop-forward American pale ales, which I’ll bet is the oat component.

Piloting a German Beer

Jim Lundstrom

Plenty of people fall in love with a particular beer, but not many fall in love so hard that they decide to become beer distributors.

Cacti and Cacao

Jim Lundstrom

It’s got a tart little bite that spreads to what must be the big Texas flavor of prickly pear, and then everything settles down to beer.

Canned Fruit

Jim Lundstrom

I love a good fruit beer, so was excited when I recently found three varieties new to me in single cans.

Victory for Kirsch Gose

Jim Lundstrom

I have always been a fan of cherry beers – or, at least, well-made cherry beers, and there are many excellent versions ranging from light to dark styles.

Oaky and Brainless

Jim Lundstrom

Looking for a beer to celebrate with a homemade Mexican meal on Cinco de Mayo, I passed on the Dos Equis and margarita in a bottle, and the Mexican lager aged in tequila barrels.

Big is Good!

Jim Lundstrom

Rooting through the fridge, I find a treasure in its uncharted depths – a 2014 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barley-wine Style Ale. I had forgotten all about it. What a pleasant surprise!

Liquid Sunshine

Jim Lundstrom

Asked again to name my favorite beer, I had to pull out the pat answer to any leaky old question, “Depends.”

CanYou Fly?

Jim Lundstrom

My first sip of the eagerly anticipated Wee Heavy Scotch-Style Ale from Alesmith was a disappointment, not on their part, but on my own.

An Artfully Simple Beer

Jim Lundstrom

It is said to rival Maris Otter, the traditional English ale malt base. Mosaic hops came on the scene in 2012, according to the variety manual of the Hops Growers of America.

Some Still Like It Hot

Jim Lundstrom

The big red bottle is a hoot. It comes with a triangular warning: Don’t shake. The first sip was like being sucked into a time warp. Suddenly it’s 1991 again and I’m drinking my own chile-infused holiday brew

Give me a beer!

Jim Lundstrom

If you like to drink grapefruit juice

Bock Talk

Jim Lundstrom

With winter dragging on, I felt like giving spring a kickstart with the traditional harbinger of spring – bock.

Two Big and Happy Brews

Jim Lundstrom

If you are looking for a special celebratory beer, you need look no further than the Bourbon County line.

Bottoms Up to a Questionable Saint

Jim Lundstrom

I don’t dig holidays. They just interrupt the work schedule. But if I had to pick a favorite holiday I guess it would be Guy Fawkes Day. As John Lennon once sang, “Remember the 5th of November.”

There’s a Crueller in My Beer!

Jim Lundstrom

As your brain tries to comprehend what is going on in your mouth, you read the label and confirm that, yes, those are lemons and marshmallows pushing your palate buttons

Get Frambozened!

Jim Lundstrom

Frambozen is from the fine folks at New Belgium Brewing of Fort Collins, Colorado. They pair a malty brown ale base with juice from Pacific Northwest raspberries

Choklat, good!

Jim Lundstrom

Hey, live free or die!

Let’s Get Muddy

Jim Lundstrom

The most dangerous brewing mishap involved a batch of root beer that I was brewing for my kids. I just didn’t believe the ridiculously small amount of sugar called for in the recipe to give the root beer its carbonation, so I doubled the amount

Christmas Cheer

Jim Lundstrom

The Courage Brewery, founded in 1787, bounced around between many owners since 1970 when a British tobacco company bought it.

A Truly Luscious Beer

Jim Lundstrom

It pours deep black with a thick, brown head. The aroma is berries.

Nectar of the Gods in a Can

Jim Lundstrom

There is a warning on the side of the can: “Charged nitro widget may cause unchilled cans to overflow.”

The Unicorn of Beers?

Jim Lundstrom

My first impression of this week’s beer was that I had taken a big swig of a liquid, alcohol-infused Oreo cookie, and, I should add, that was a very pleasant experience indeed.

How About a Little Chocolate in Your Beer?

Jim Lundstrom

It has character and body that is absent from other gluten-free beers I’ve tried. It has a beautiful and resilient head that clings to the glass to the very bottom.

America’s good food movement

Jim Lundstrom

These two interests began to find each other and to create an alternative way of thinking about food. Today, more than 16,500 organic farmers produce everything from wheat to meat, and organic sales top nearly $35 billion a year.

A Curmudgeon Possibly Named Gaspar

Jim Lundstrom

This one had been catching my eye for a while, and on the evening of a recent mid-November day that never got warmer than 20 degrees

A Lusty Pumpkin Wheat and Volcanic Stout

Jim Lundstrom

This beer called to me for weeks before I finally broke down and bought a sixer. It just seemed a little too forward for my tastes – Pumpkin Pie Lust? Really?

Easy Come, Easy Gose

Jim Lundstrom

So, when you discover a new style of beer, as I recently did with Gose, a salty, coriander-spiced sour beer, ya gotta try all you can get your hands on

A Capital Experience

Jim Lundstrom

Lucky for all of us, I caught myself before starting this piece with something to the effect of, I remember back in the good old days…

A Must-Have IPA

Jim Lundstrom

Dogfish Head Sixty-One, a “continually hopped India Pale Ale brewed with Syrah grape must.” Hmm, that doesn’t sound right, does it? Grape must? Must be one of those wino terms.

A Fall Trio

Jim Lundstrom

Another beautiful rainy, gray day – perfect for some fall beers. I just happened to have a trio of them in the fridge, and one in particular called out to me.

Dark and Stormy Stouts

Jim Lundstrom

It was a dark and stormy night, a perfect time for a couple of dark and stormy stouts.

Another Salty Beer

Jim Lundstrom

A week after that discovery, I’m at my other local wall of beer and see the word “Gose” pop out from a purple-colored can.

The Kaiser Creeps Me Out

Jim Lundstrom

The Kaiser, a 9.5 percent Imperial Oktoberfest, part of the “Dictator Series” from Avery Brewing Co. of Boulder, Colo., is big and fruity, kind of like Kaiser Wilhelm himself.

Salt and Apples

Jim Lundstrom

Brewed with malted wheat and barley, the slight sourness comes from lactic bacteria. Germans drink Gose in tall, cylindrical glasses and sometimes add raspberry or woodruff syrup, as is also done with the sour beer Berliner Weiss.

Liquid Music from Big Pink

Jim Lundstrom

At first I ignored the pink bottle’s weird siren call, but I think it was the Papa Lazarou association that allowed the creepy little voodoo doll to seep into my brain until one day I just had to have a bottle

How About Some Cherries in Your Stout?

Jim Lundstrom

Yummy chocolate tones of the stout become undertones here as the stinging Maynard Ferguson-like high notes from the Door County cherries take the lead. I love that effect.

Black Gold

Jim Lundstrom

Being a homebrewer, I was already well aware of Sprecher and especially of its delicious Black Bavarian Lager.

Brasserie du Bocq’s Blanche de Namur

Jim Lundstrom

The weirdest thing happened upon my first taste of this beer. I found myself invoking Lawrence Welk (you can look him up, kids), saying out loud with each sip, “Wunnerful! Wunnerful!”

The Ryes Have It

Jim Lundstrom

It seemed sharp and without much depth of character, which is unusual for a rye.

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