The Beer Connoisseur

1 week ago | beerconnoisseur.com | Brett Cortelletti

Rauchbier, or smoked beer, is a historic style of beer that is brewed with malts roasted in a wood-fired kiln. The smoke from the burning wood seeps into the malts, and the beer brewed with it maintains a distinct, smoky aroma and flavor. The style itself is strongly associated with Bamberg, Germany, where rauchbier has been brewed for centuries. Most notably, there is Schlenkerla Rauchbier, the oldest and largest brewery that produces rauchbier.

1 week ago | beerconnoisseur.com | Mary Beth Skylis

“I won’t drink a Guinness outside of Ireland,” one of my Denver-based bartending friends told me one afternoon. “It’s just too bitter,” she exclaimed. My friend was expressing a common sentiment about the popular stout. She was convinced that the beer lost its freshness as soon as it traveled abroad. Beyond that, there’s a theory among serious Guinness lovers that claims some Irish bars have better Guinness pours than others.

1 week ago | beerconnoisseur.com | Heide Brandes

The sun was setting over the Okavango Delta, painting the sky in shades of amber and gold, when a family of elephants emerged from the tall grass at the edge of our small island camp. I froze, a drink suspended halfway to my lips, as the matriarch led her clan toward the water. A baby elephant, no higher than my waist and sheltered between two adults, swung its tiny trunk in perfect mimicry of its elders. “Don’t move,” whispered our guide Shoos. “They know we’re here.

1 week ago | beerconnoisseur.com | Chris Guest

Howdy folks, and welcome back to another issue of The Beer Connoisseur magazine. In our Early Summer 2025, Issue 78, we’ve got a number of scintillating stories for you; so, without further ado, let’s dive right in. First up, it’s a travel story from new contributor Heide Brandes about Botswana’s Okavango Craft Brewery. This brewery has made efforts to make its beer brewing practices safe for elephants. Just what does that mean?

1 week ago | beerconnoisseur.com | Martyn Cornell

You have read the claim, I am sure, in a book or magazine article: the Hymn to Ninkasi, a 4,000-year-old poem from ancient Mesopotamia (more or less modern Iraq), written on clay tablets in the ancient writing method known as cuneiform, in the ancient and long-vanished language called Sumerian, contains “the oldest beer recipe in history.” The poem, dedicated to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer, is claimed to contain a description of “the detailed brewing process” that “modern...