I’m hopping back aboard The Maine Brew Bus for an afternoon book tour during Portland Beer Week.

We will start at Old Port Spirits and Cigars on Commercial Street in Portland and head out on a very unique author's book tour.

The bus will bring us to four local breweries for public book signing opportunities. Guests aboard the bus will receive special tours and tastes at each brewery, as well as the time with Josh on the bus and at each stop.

On the tour, each guest will receive a signed copy of Drink Better Beer, a $25 value.

Please note that tour venues and details may change without notice due to unforeseen circumstances.

Pick-Up/Drop Off Location
Old Port Spirits and Cigars, 79 Commercial Street, Portland, ME 04101
*Please arrive 15 minutes ahead of time to allow for a timely departure.*

Food
Vegetarian hand pie from Union Kitchen

Stops
Bissell Brothers
Bunker Brewing Co.
Brewery Extrava
Rising Tide Brewing Company

Price
$85/person, includes a signed copy of the just-released book.

Tickets: Grab them here!

Hello! It's been a minute, hasn't it? I've been a wee bit busy writing stories and, well, writing another book. Another book? Indeed! I spent much of the last year writing Drink Better Beer, my attempt to help folks make sense of our dizzying modern beer world by interviewing more than 150 people, creating a book-length guide to beer today. It's fun! And I used puns.

To celebrate—and lo, after writing another book I could stand to celebrate—we're throwing a special kind of book-launch party.

WHAT: Let's Get Wild! The Drink Better Beer Release Party and Wild East Debut
WHEN: Tuesday, September 17, 7pm–10pm
WHERE: Wild East Brewing, 623 Sackett Street (between Third and Fourth Avenues), Gowanus, Brooklyn
TICKETS: $35 for a book (a $25 value!) and drinks; $25 for drinks alone. Tickets go on sale Thursday, August 15, at 12 p.m.

The release will double as a first look at Wild East Brewing, a brand-new Brooklyn brewery set to debut this fall. The brewery, run by the trio of Lindsay Steen, Tyler March and Brett Taylor (a homebrew-tour veteran), embody many of the principles that I discuss in Drink Better Beer: embracing the taproom model and using, well, wild yeast to differentiate itself.

Tonight, you'll be among the first people to sample Wild East's beers—expect a Czech-style pilsner, mixed-fermentation saison, fruited Berliner weisse, farmhouse blonde and a New England IPA—in their brand-new 7,000-square-foot brewery and taproom, outfitted with several towering oak foudres that'll be the heart of the brewery's wood-aging program. (The brewery is set to open this fall.)

As for me, I'll be signing copies of my book, saying many words, drinking beer, saying even more words and swearing that, man, I can't imagine writing another book anytime soon.

Moreover, we'll have beers from fellow Gowanus brewery Strong Rope, as well as a first taste of the gins from Halftone Spirits—a new distillery also set to open in Gowanus.

Beers, books, cocktails! What could be better? Well, the folks from Groundlings Pizza Co. will be on site selling their so-dang-good Neapolitan-style pizzas.

This might be the best September 17, 2019, of your life.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! This weekend, I’m partnering with Brooklyn’s @threesbrewing for our fourth edition of Can Jam, featuring some of the country’s most cultish canned beer. As always, the fun starts at noon, the event is free to attend and cans will just be $6 apiece. We’re not releasing the full list till later this week, but rest assured we’ll have rarities galore. Also: do I dare bring another beer bong? Only one way to find out!