Beer Gift Ideas: Etsy Style

Looking for a gift for the beer geek on your list? Skip the beer baskets this year and build your own beer gift with these beer gift ideas from Etsy.com. Sure, it's a unique beer gift idea, but the one of a kind quality makes it that much better. Check our this treasury, filled with ideas, hopefully giving you some inspiration!

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Portland Event - Holiday Ale Festival

This Wednesday, November 28th, marks the start of the 17th annual Ale Festival in Portland, Oregon. This beer festival is in the heart of Portland's downtown area, at Pioneer Courthouse Square (perfect for taking public transportation).

The Ale Festival begins at noon on Wednesday (anybody want to blow work off early with me?), and runs through Sunday, December 2nd (make sure you check out the Sunday Beer Brunch - best beer brunch ever!). One thing that's awesome about it - you get FREE admission everyday once you pay for the wristband. In other words, drop by everyday, and taste the new and limited releases by some of your favorite brewers, including: Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg, North Coast Brewing, Hair of the Dog Brewing, Deschutes, and Bear Rupublic Brewing Co., just to name a few.

Come on out and support your local community of Brewers. While doing so, you are also supporting the Children's Cancer Association, which the Holiday Ale Festival is a proud supporter. For more information about this Portland beer event, you can download the Holiday Ale Festival brochure:

Prost!

These beer links are all business!

In the News!
BeerSci: What's The Connection Between Hops And Marijuana? (popsci.com)
Science, alcohol, and pot!

Robots and Beer! (Original found here)

The Genius of Starting a Company Without Outside Capital (New York Times)
Contract brewing and crowd sourcing are proving to be legitimate outlets for up and coming breweries.

The GrOpener opens your beer with one hand, keeping the other free for … (Denver Westword)
Can't wait till I get mine.

Tin Man Brewery out to change the thinking about beer--and robots (Evansville Courier & Press)
Everytime I think of robots I think of this.

Who’s Afraid of the Fiscal Cliff? Media Companies, and with Good Reason (Ad Age)
The downside is politicians on both sides of the aisle will probably be in favor to raise taxes on alcohol.

Review: Frothy ‘Bitter Brew’ covers Busch Empire (USA Today)
I think I found one of my reads for the holiday season!

Simpson: Don’t threaten American breweries: drink locally (University Daily Kansan)
The sentiment is great but the logic is flawed. Undergrads have no understanding of context and system thinking.

Beer chief: French tax will hit all European brewers (EurActiv.com)
In more tax news be glad you are not a beer drinker in France.

Beer Wars: Craft Brewers Are Using This Strategy to Compete (Wall St. Cheat Sheet)
Size matters and it is a strategy craft brewers are using to their advantage. Meanwhile...

Big Beer dresses up in craft brewers’ clothing (CNN Money)
...the big boys are doing this. If you read one article out of these then read this one.

Revolutionizing the beer culture in America (Buffalo News)
Jim Koch makes a lot of good points.

Genetically-Modified Beer: Is It Evil? (Broward-Palm Beach New Times)
Depends if it chaotic, lawful, or neutral evil, once we know that we can better prepare.

In Site News!
While the Mother Earth Brewing interview was supposed to be up last week I'm in the process of moving my household so things have been put on hold. Fear not though, it will be up starting tomorrow. Later this week we will have a review of ciders and expect a Thanksgiving post on Thursday.

One year later...

Jolly Good Fellows has reached its first birthday and for awhile I toyed with the idea of a big, convoluted post to celebrate the occasion but I think I would rather just say thank you.

Thank you to Sarah, Brian, Dan, Jeremy, Rudy, and Craig for being part of this, contributing, and providing counsel when I needed it. You are all awesome beyond measure.

Now this is a birthday cake!
(Original here)

Thank you to everyone who has read an article, commented, shared us with their friends, listened to us, provided advise, took the time to speak with us, welcomed us into their brewery, allowed us to attend your festivals and events, smiled for photographs, and shared a pint or two with us. Without your support we wouldn't have made it this far. 

We have come along way in a year and have told some good stories, but there is still much work to be done and many more excellent beers and beer stories to discover.  Jolly Good Fellows is just the type of site to find them!

Thank you and may you be privileged to drink excellent beer!

Skye