Joe Sixpack

Joe Sixpack drinks beer and writes about it for a living in America's Best Beer-Drinking City. Yes, it is a dream come true and, no, he is not currently in need of an assistant. He's won a bunch of journalism awards and was named America's top beer columnist in 2002 and 2006. He is the author of the upcoming Joe Sixpack's Beer Reporter Notebook (Camino Books) and he hosts a Web site at www.JoeSixpack.net.

Email Joe at joesixpack@phillynews.com

Joe Sixpack: Beer cocktails: Could it be?

Posted 11/06/2009

WHETHER it's the result of genetic imprinting or intelligent design, instinct compels me to avoid - at all costs - the menace known as beer cocktails. I'm inflexible on this: Mixing beer and anything else in a glass is physically risky and probably morally wrong.

Breweries use thousands upon thousands of gallons to clean kettles, kegs and other equipment. Even more is used to irrigate farmland to raise the grain needed for malt. (shutterstock)

Joe Sixpack: Brewers go with the flow on water conservation

Posted 10/30/2009

DON'T LOOK NOW, but the world's supply of fresh water is running out. Which means, to put this in terms beer drinkers can appreciate, that yellow stuff in the bottle you're holding is an endangered species.

Joe Sixpack: Phillies have Yanks to thank for Ballantine sign - 10/28/2009: by Joe Sixpack

WHATEVER YOU think about the hated New York Yankees, you can thank them for one of the most fortunate transactions in Philadelphia baseball history. And, no, I'm not talking about taking Bobby Abreu off our hands.
Joe Sixpack: Club's brew no last resort, but could be a first - 10/23/2009: BY COUNTRY-club standards, the new brewery on the grounds of the Shawnee Inn & Golf Resort on the eastern edge of the Poconos is practically unheard of.
Joe Sixpack: Beer weeks are bursting all over, featuring the best of the brews - 10/16/2009: BALTIMORE - UNTIL the other night, the last time I saw former baseball great Boog Powell with a beer, it was 20 years ago, and he was on TV arguing over Miller Lite's timeless question: tastes great or less filling?
Joe Sixpack: Craft brewers offer a taste of history - 10/09/2009: WHAT'S OLD is brew again. From heather to pomegranate, unusual ingredients that were common in beer 1,000 years ago are making their way back into the modern brew kettle, thanks to a quirky new wave of experimentation by small brewers.
Joe Sixpack: What was brewing at the Great American Beer Festival - 10/02/2009: EVEN IF you could taste and swallow a one-ounce sampler every minute, it would take a day and a half of nonstop sipping to try every one of the more than 2,000 beers poured at September's annual Great American Beer Festival in Denver.
Joe Sixpack: A better grasp of beer through chemistry - 09/25/2009: CHEMISTRY - perhaps the most-feared course in the college curriculum - has taken on an approachably sudsy look this semester at West Chester University.
Joe Sixpack: Munich's Oktoberfest scene - 09/18/2009: DURING OKTOBERFEST, which begins tomorrow in Munich, it's all about the beer . . . and the glass you drink it from.
Joe Sixpack: The Stupid Drink, defined - 09/11/2009: IT'S BACK-TO-SCHOOL time, which means it's time for another installment of Joe Sixpack's Freshman Guide to College Beer-Drinking. I'm going to assume most of you have already completed course work in Intro to Keg-Stands and Basics of ID Forgery. So we'll skip directly to what I hope will become not only a lifelong lesson, but a hip, new term at urban
Joe Sixpack: Searching far and wide for an IPA - 09/04/2009: GOD LOVE the eccentric Brit. Inventors, tinkers, explorers, writers and just plain dreamers: These Monty Pythonesque characters may be loons, but they sure do spice up the rest of our dreary lives.
Joe Sixpack: Small hops farms are springing up all over America - 08/28/2009: NOTHING on the planet smells like freshly picked hops. The small flower cones grow on vines (or, more accurately, bines, like string beans), and their sticky, oily resins provide the essential bitterness that balances the sweetness of malt. Without hops, beer would taste like something you might drink through a straw. When you are 14.