It’s a Happy New Year from the three of us at the bar this week! We ring in 2017 with some beers from Allagash, Boon, Starpoint, and Foothills that were hidden in Tony & Jenn’s secret stashes! These treats include a 2012 Allagash Interlude, a 2013 Boon Kriek Mariage Parfait, a 2014 Starpoint Whiskeytown, and the amazing 2016 Foothills Simcoe Double IPA Hop of the Month!

New news for 2017 as we begin with Thrillist not Rickrolling by announcing that Rick Astley is launching his own beer, followed by Forbes revealing how your DNA can predict your beer preferences, then The Independent UK goes hunting for foraged beer. Next we have Daily Meal in Denver with brewers who have created a ‘Pussy Riot’ Beer for Inauguration Day, SmartAsset listing the best cities for beer drinkers – 2016 Edition, Business Insider is providing everything you need to know about beer, in one chart, and we close with Mashable showing us Australia's oldest living prime minister who really knows how to chug a beer!

For last week’s #caskquiz which we are continuing this week we want to know what predictions you have for beer in 2017!

We love hearing from you! Please send in feedback and beer suggestions by calling us at (919) 502-0280, Tweeting us @talescask, following our Instagram or friending on Untappd @talesfromthecask, posting on and liking our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TalesFromTheCask or emailing written or audio messages to talesfromthecask@gmail.com! And please rate & review us in iTunes or Stitcher if you haven’t done so!

We survived another Holiday Spectacular, and it took us a week to clean the bar! To celebrate, we have some whales we have been holding from Anchor, Trinity, and Sam Adams! We start with a 2001 (that’s right, 2001!) Magnum of Anchor Christmas Ale, followed by Trinity Hopped Toddy, and then we go deep with the astounding 2011 Sam Adams Utopias!

You would think the news would slow down for the holidays. Nope! We start with The Chicago Tribune reporting that A-B InBev’s Goose Island is going global with pubs and brewhouses in 6 countries (and Philly), followed by The Wall Street Journal listening for  Anglican church bells ringing in beer o’clock, and Forbes telling you how to get a career in beer. Next we have Popular Mechanics showing how any food can be turned into beer, and then Paste has two for us, both the best beer and booze trends of 2016 and a tasting of 3 whiskeys distilled from craft beers, and we close with Thrillist delivering us a craft beer nerd getting owned by a legendary brewer.

For last week’s #caskquiz we wanted to know your favorite historically-themed beer and this week we are asking what your fave beer-related thing was from 2016!

We love hearing from you! Please send in feedback and beer suggestions by calling us at (919) 502-0280, Tweeting us @talescask, following our Instagram or friending on Untappd @talesfromthecask, posting on and liking our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TalesFromTheCask or emailing written or audio messages to talesfromthecask@gmail.com! And please rate & review us in iTunes or Stitcher if you haven’t done so!

We are getting ready for our Festivus/Chrismukkah spectacular next week, so we have been decking the halls, trimming the tree, and relaxing with great brews from New Sarum, Sierra Nevada, and Wicked Weed + Jester King! The terrific brews are New Sarum Session IPA, Sierra Nevada Trip to the Woods Bière de Garde, and the Wicked Weed/Jester King Collaboration Red Atrial Barrel Aged Sour with Raspberries!

You know we loves us some history, and this week our friends from New Sarum Brewing in Salisbury NC combine it with terrific beers! Our friends Edward Moscardini, brother Gian Moscardini, and their brewmaster Andy Maben join us at the bar to talk about their brewery, discuss the relation of the two Salisburys, and taste some awesome beers with us! Our lineup includes Hurley Park Blood Orange Wheat, Old Stone House IPA and the fourth quarter seasonal Horchata Milk Stout!

Can you believe it’s been almost a year since we visited Tim Reichert at Fainting Goat Brewing? Neither can we! They just celebrated their one-year anniversary so we head down to join the fun! Tim gives us the latest news from Fuquay-Varina, and we share a terrific sampler of Butthead Brown Ale, Dark Hoof Dunkelweizen, Brewquay Double IPA, and Red Ale with Serrano Habanero and Cacao Nibs!

Thanksgiving is all about traditions, and ours is having our foodie friend Kristen Baughman share awesome Thanksgiving and beer pairings! Kristen discusses her return to the Triangle and her terrific new venture, Tabletop Media Group! Then we get down to business with our pairings, featuring:

We are thankful for the news, well, some of it anyway! First up is the sad news via The New York Times that a Canadian brewery is cutting a retiree perk of free beer for life, followed by The Burlington Free Press featuring Jeff Baker's Thanksgiving beer picks, and then Fortune reporting that the maker of Corona is seeing its stock tumble after Trump’s victory. Next up via our friend Marvin Bahr is a story from Food and Wine revealing that Rodenbach is bringing its oldest and newest beers to America, then VinePair provides us a pair:  a study finding that a beer a day is good for your heart plus a primer on the difference between making beer, wine & spirits, and we wind up with ZDNET’s piece on researchers who claim a quantum computing breakthrough, and explain it using beer!

We score bigtime with the ultimate beer-food pairings this week - we have cheeses from France along with our craftbeers! Joining us are Charles Duke, the Director of the French Dairy Board of the Americas and his friends from some terrific French cheese producers: Dan Akhmetshin from Lactalis, Mathieu Quirin from Isigny Ste Mere, and Charlotte Rousseau from Savencia Fromage and Dairy! We talk about the great cheeses from France that are available in the US and get to pair many of them with outstanding craftbeers!

Coronado Snowy Plover with Le Chatelain Brie

Sierra Nevada Estate President with Sea Salt Butter

AleSmith Private Stock with Madrigal

Bear Republic Double Aught with Mimolette

Trinity One Ear with Brie d’Isigny

La Bonte Pear with Isigny Ste-Mère Butter

Blake’s Flannel Mouth with Île-de-France Brie

Olde Ruby Lager with Saint André Triple Crème

Rodenbach Grand Cru with Saint Agur Bleu

With the election so close, we kind of wish we were somewhere else til the ads stop, like say India, so we go all-IPA this week! We have awesome beers including Lawson’s Finest Liquids Super Session #2 IPA, Wicked Weed Metatropics Brett IPA, and two from Trinity: Passion Swing American Fruited IPA and Passion Red Swingline American Fruited IPA! Plus, Tony and Jenn take the Delorean to Winston-Salem, NC to chat with folks at the NC Craft Brewers’ Conference!

What a great time this week - it’s our first-ever costume party with Wil Cooper from Coronado Brewing! We are dressed up as our favorite hops, and Wil joins the fun - you will have to listen or check out our homepage or Facebook to find out which ones we are! Wil also brings along some special treats only available in San Diego at the Coronado brewpub: High Fideli-Tea Belgian Wit, Waste the Days IPA, Belgian Dark Strong, Rush of Hops IPA,  Snowy Plover Winter IPA, and Stupid Stout Imperial Stout!

Chip has to step out for a moment and Sasha and Mark Gibb, owners of Greensboro-based brewery Gibb’s Hundred stop by to talk to Jenn and Tony.  We learn the history behind the brewery and congratulate them on their recent GABF medal wins!   We are excited to sample the gold medal winning The Guilty Party ESB, and they also bring recent silver medal winner Medley of Moods Wheat.  Rounding out the samples is the taproom favorite Blind Man’s Holiday Greensboro Pale Ale.  

The craft beer news is all over the place this week! We begin with Marketwatch’s provocative opinion that New York cares more about craft beer than Portland, followed by The New York Times’ Monday Briefing featuring some beer history, then NBC reveals that coffee and beer win the Twitter food fight. Next up Treehugger shows us engineers in Colorado tapping beer for energy storage, then Adweek shows us a brewer who made the world's most expensive potato chips , CNBC profiles mad scientist brewers stirring up weird beers and we close with Eater reporting that a beer museum is coming to Pittsburgh!

Last week for the #caskquiz we asked “do you add any flavorings to your beer and if so what?” and for the next 2 weeks we want to see your Halloween/Samhain costume!

We love hearing from you! Please send in feedback and beer suggestions by calling us at (919) 502-0280, Tweeting us @talescask, following our Instagram or friending on Untappd @talesfromthecask, posting on and liking our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TalesFromTheCask or emailing written or audio messages to talesfromthecask@gmail.com! And please rate & review us in iTunes or Stitcher if you haven’t done so!