Beer Talk

Beer Makes Everything Better

Lager vs. Ale

International Beer Day is right around the corner and you’re trying to convince your non-beer drinking spouse/friend/warden to partake in what is now becoming the most beloved day of universal celebration.  “I don’t like beer”, they may say without a hint of shame or embarrassment.  Balderdash.  They just haven’t experienced the wonders of a well crafted beer and just need a little guidance. Let’s make it easy.

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7 Moments of Beer Wisdom

With just 7 days left until International Beer Day 2013 (Friday August 2nd!), we thought we’d help you prepare with 7 moments of Beer Wisdom. So crack open a cold one, open your mind, and prepare to be swept away in a few moments of beerthink.

#1 You can feel it in your heart

#2 Better safe than sorry

#3 Powered by Science!

#4 Who wouldn’t crave beer in the desert?

#5 The best people know all three

#6 Ancient Greek philosophers knew what was up

#7 Even Jack’s in on the action

Bonus: For your local bar

If you’re not sure if your local bar is celebrating Beer Day, we’ve made a 1-page ‘What is IBD?’ intro that explains it for them.

Just print it out, ask your bartender what they’re doing for Beer Day, and if they don’t know, backflip out of your chair* and shout “AHA! I have just the thing!” and hand them the printout. Most bartenders will be so impressed by your dexterity and gung-ho attitude that they’ll definitely celebrate, making you an IBD hero (we knew you had it in you).

Note: All backflips performed at your own risk, because backflips are hard.

Congrats to our photo contest winners!

Wow…the number of amazing photos we received for our photo contest this year was staggering! You all celebrated like nobody’s business, and now we have the photos to prove it!

It was extremely hard to choose the winners, and if we had more funds (we’re looking at you, beer companies…) we’d give you all prizes. Didn’t win? You can still get your very own International Beer Day shirt (in ladies and guys cuts) at our store.

Without further adieu, the winners!

1st Place: We (including the dog)
we heart IBD

2nd Place: Celebracion Con Los Amigos
Celebracion Con Los Amigos

3rd Place: B&Q boozers
B&Q boozers

Winners, you’ll be receiving your prizes in the mail as soon as we can get them to you! To everyone who entered and celebrated IBD: thank you. You’re our heroes.

International Beer Day 2011: A Smashing Success

With international beer day 2012 right around the corner, we thought it might be nice to take a stroll down memory lane to see how IBD 2011 turned out.  Admittedly the night itself is a little bit hazy — a whirlwind of good beers, fine friends, and escapades better left to the imagination — but that’s but that’s looking at International Beer Day on the personal level.

Let’s take a couple steps back, let’s zoom out and see just how much yeast was in the air that fateful day.

The clock struck midnight in New Zealand, August 5th 2011, marking the first moment where it was International Beer Day anywhere the world.  A cascade of celebrations were poised to begin on every inhabited continent.  All told, 278 known International Beer Day events were planned, across 138 cities and 23 countries. There would be celebrations in India, in Argentina, in Bangalore and in Belgium, and in countless other places we’d never expected to reach that year.

Looking our map of celebrations, we stood satisfied: it wasn’t the whole world, but it was a damn fine start.  I remember the wind being unseasonably crisp that night as I wandered around my neighborhood, pondering just how far International Beer Day had come in a few short years, how fast and far the idea had spread.  I drifted off to sleep that night pondering the celebration to come.

The next morning found a huge number of emails waiting for us, but one  stood out among the rest.  A friend who was living abroad in England had sent a message consisting of a single sentence: “You’re trending in London.”  We shot over to Twitter and sure enough, the words we’re there, sitting in their little “trending” box. But my friend was wrong, International Beer Day wasn’t trending in London. It was trending worldwide.

While I’d slept, the rallying call to unite in celebration of beer had sounded the world around.  Our plans to respond to every person tweeting about International Beer Day flew out the window, as a new tweets poured out every second.  In all the excitement, it took us a full hour to notice IBD was also trending globally Portuguese, as Brazil was unleashing their own love for beer on Dia Internacional da Cerveja.

Time Magazine tweets about International Beer Day

We were speechless, we were at a loss, we were ecstatic!  Our celebrations were taking place all over the world as media coverage began to roll in:  International Beer Day was toasted by MSNBC, The New Yorker, Fox News, Mashable, TechCrunch, TIME Magazine, FunnyOrDie, and hundreds of other outlets all over the world.  Visitors swarmed the International Beer Day website, learning how to celebrate and finding their local celebrations.  Tweets were joined by Facebook shares and numbered in the hundreds of thousands!   

The world was abuzz with Beerlove, and we couldn’t have been more thrilled.  But the best part, the best part by far, was watching the way people came together in celebration, the way the love of beer crossed boundaries of nationality, gender, and creed.  All in all, International Beer Day 2011 was a smashing success, and we’re looking forward to bringing it to you even bigger and badder this year.

Yours in Beer,
~Jesse & Evan

Universal Languages, Love, Music, Beer
It’s National Beer Day! (April 7th, USA)

It has just come to our attention that this Saturday, April 7th 2012, will be National Beer Day in the United States.

National Beer Day is a holiday based on a more traditional celebration by the name of New Beer’s Eve, commemorating one of the first major steps towards ending prohibition in the 1930s.

national beer day

It played out like this:  The year is 1933 and the United States has been in a state of prohibition since 1920. That’s 13 long, dry years with no booze of any kind.  But all that was about to change as President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Cullen–Harrison Act into law, stating that on April 7th, 1933 it would once again become legal to sell beer with an alcohol content of less than 3.2% by weight.

Now that may sound like a watery beer nowadays, but after 13 hard years of prohibition the American public was overjoyed! On the evening of April 6th, thousands upon thousands of excited Americans lined up outside the country’s bars and breweries, waiting for midnight when they would once again know the sweet taste of beer. When midnight struck, citizens around the country erupted into beer-fueled celebration, earning the night the enduring title New Beer’s Eve.

Fast forward to modern day, and the celebration of this event has expanded into the day of April 7th itself in addition to the evening of April 6th, taking on the name National Beer Day.

We here at International Beer Day HQ fully intend to spend this Thursday in celebration, reveling in the deliciousness that is beer.  So if you’ve got the time and a love for beer, take some time to honor this historic day in history when our people got their beer back, by knocking back a cold one. Even if you live outside the US, we’re pretty sure you’re still invited to partake.

Happy National Beer Day everyone!

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ABOUT IBD

International Beer Day is a global celebration of beer, taking place in pubs, breweries, and backyards all over the world. It’s a day for beer lovers everywhere to raise a toast to our brewers and bartenders and rejoice in the greatness of beer!

Did you know?
  • Everything tastes better with beer
  • International Beer Day takes place annually on the first Friday in August
  • First celebrated in August 2008
  • Celebrated in over 200 cities globally
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