We can’t believe we are 5 this year with our Holiday Spectacular! As always, we have so many of our friends from the year stop by with some of their astounding whales to share for the good cheer of the yuletide! Joining us is a murderer’s row of guests including Jon, Connor, Matt, Thomas, Greg, Dave, Jake, Tim, Nikko, Beth, Marlise, and Wil, plus longtime listeners and contributors Brian and Scott! We had a very special appearance by Hoda! And of course, the two who were there at the beginning, Aubrey and Joe!

We offer up just a wee bit of news this week before the festivities! Forbes reports that passage of the new tax bill brings lower levies to brewers.Then we have (just for Tony) NY Upstate’s exciting spoiler reveal that the next Ommegang/Game of Thrones beer is an epic barleywine!

We so love hearing from you! Please send in feedback and beer suggestions by calling us at (919) 502-0280, Tweeting us, following our Instagram or friending us on Untappd, posting on and liking our Facebook page, or emailing us! And please rate & review us in iTunes or Stitcher if you haven’t done so!

And a very Happy Festivus to all our friends!

It’s almost time for our Holiday Spectacular, and while we are getting ready for the festivities we share some spectacular treats from Foothills, Ballast Point, and Lagunitas! They are the Foothills People’s Moravian Porter, Ballast Point High West Victory at Sea, and Lagunitas Willetized Coffee Stout!

Good cheer and good news in the beer world abound this week, beginning with The Boston Globe and the exciting announcement that Sam Adams is the new official beer of the Red Sox! Next up some econ via The Cheat Sheet who show us an historical look at the price of beer, followed by Vice and the sad news that a Beyoncé-inspired beer is no more. We close with KDKA Pittsburgh toasting scientists who have figured out how to turn beer into petrol and Food & Wine visiting a craft beer-focused axe-throwing bar!

We have your responses to last week’s #caskquiz which asked ”do you know any craft cideries near you and if so who are they?” This week we want to know ”would you go (or have you gone) to an axe throwing bar?”

We so love hearing from you! Please send in feedback and beer suggestions by calling us at (919) 502-0280, Tweeting us, following our Instagram or friending us on Untappd, posting on and liking our Facebook page, or emailing us! And please rate & review us in iTunes or Stitcher if you haven’t done so!

It’s been way too long since we went a-cidering, so this week we are very lucky to have Andrew Blake and Aaron Lanctot from Blake’s Hard Ciders in town! We chat with the lads about the explosion in the number of craft cideries, the latest news from their cidery in Armada, MI, and we get to sample both Archimedes and Snapdragon!

Before we get the cider, we have your news starting with Westword’s wry and deceptively titled opinion piece craft beer is dead — your favorite delicious style killed it! Next up, AdWeek (via Frank C!) shares that (no really, this is funny) Bud Light sent a hilarious cease-and-desist scroll to the makers of ‘Dilly Dilly’ Ale, followed by Forbes asking can a South Korean craft beer crack the U.S. market? and then The Motley Fool offering advice on how to invest in the beer industry. In honor of our guests we have NPR revealing that craft hard cider is on a roll and we wind down with CNet (courtesy of @SFringer!) transporting us to a Star Trek-themed Captain's Holiday beer!

We have your responses to last week’s #caskquiz which asked”what beer-related emoji would you like to see?” This week we ask ”do you know any craft cideries near you and if so who are they?”

We so love hearing from you! Please send in feedback and beer suggestions by calling us at (919) 502-0280, Tweeting us , following our Instagram or friending us on Untappd, posting on and liking our Facebook page, or emailing us! And please rate & review us in iTunes or Stitcher if you haven’t done so!

You demanded it, and now he’s back in his triumphal return: beer writer Bryan D. Roth! Bryan relates his latest adventures in beer and real life and how they sometimes intersect. Plus he samples some super brews with us: Full Sail 8 Pound Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Alpha Hop Society Barrel-Aged Sour Brown Ale, and Wicked Weed Barrel-Aged Milk and Cookies!

The news keeps on coming, and it begins this week with The Washington Post showing us that more bars are booting corporate beer from their taps and doubling down on craft. Next we have The Denver Post introducing an organization that wants the craft beer community to do more than just drink responsibly, followed by another instance of MegaMergerMania via The Denver Business Journal reporting that a Spanish beer maker is buying 30% of Colorado's Avery Brewing. We close with Food & Wine singing the praises of the news that  The Flaming Lips and Dogfish Head are collaborating on a beer, and Gizmodo revealing that  Google has decided that Android users deserve full beers!

We have your responses to last week’s #caskquiz which asked “who your dream brewing collaborators would be and what style of beer would they make?” This week we ask ”what beer-related emoji would you like to see?”

We so love hearing from you! Please send in feedback and beer suggestions by calling us at (919) 502-0280, Tweeting us, following our Instagram or friending us on Untappd, posting on and liking our Facebook page, or emailing us! And please rate & review us in iTunes or Stitcher if you haven’t done so!