Wake and Wander

The State of American Craft Beer: Then, Now, and Tomorrow

Increased competition within craft beer, attacks from Big Beer, “startup brewers” looking to cash in on the boom: these are the hurdles facing craft beer as the first and second waves of brewers phase out and new generations take over. How will craft beer respond, and where are we headed as a nation of drinkers?…

Steve Hindy: Brooklyn Brewery Founder, Mob Archnemesis

It’s 1996, and the New York Daily News runs an article about how a brand-new brewery under construction in Brooklyn will be the neighborhood’s first to open in 20 years. The next day, two limousines pull up outside the brewery’s construction site. The doors swing open, and out come two young men whose chests resemble…

Nerdy Meets Gnarly: Beers With Jim Koch of Sam Adams

I spin the beer glass by its stem with my right hand and then take a sip. It’s the Great American Beer Festival gold-medal-winning Tetravis we’re drinking on this sunny afternoon, just a little past 2 p.m. at MJ O’Connor’s Irish Pub in Boston’s Seaport District. The beer is Jim Koch’s own creation — a…

Proving Time Travel Possible While Trekking Through Myanmar

Somewhere in a lab, scientists are working hard, bending space and time, trying to unlock the secrets of the universe. They’re talking about parallel universes, where the same life is playing out simultaneously many times with many different outcomes. They’re also wondering whether it’s possible to manipulate these universes, perhaps even swim upstream in a…

In the Stockyards of Fort Worth, the West Survives

I was in the cattle pen learning how to throw a lasso, keeping my thumb down and helicoptering it above my head — when I told my instructor, Dave, how impressed I was with the Stockyards, Fort Worth’s neighborhood of cattle pens, brick roads, bull rings, saloons, boot makers and a honky tonk that has…

Two Week Southeast Asia Trip Centers Around Myanmar

The temples of Bagan. Photo by Worak. If I ever need a reminder about how quickly time flies, all I have to do is visit my own website. I sat down today to write a post, and realized I hadn’t done so since November 23rd. Jesus. That could have been yesterday for all I remember….

From Papua New Guinea to Colombia, Santa Fe, and Japan

I am crossing paths with society tonight, and just wanted to let you know that I’m still alive and well here in Papua New Guinea. I have not yet been raped, murdered, or robbed, and in fact, am absolutely on cloud nine right now after these past two days. I am quite literally investigating the…

Visiting Hawaii’s Golden Cage: The Leper Colony on Molokai

What I’m about to tell you might be hard to believe: The photo you see above is of a prison. Not a view from a prison, but a prison in itself. I’m sure you’re confused. Let me explain. In 1865, King Kamehameha V and the Hawaii Board of Health created the “Act to Prevent the…

Photos: Epic Campsites From Around the Hawaiian Islands

I’ve spent the past two weeks on Hawaii, traveling between five different islands and working on a variety of stories. I took my first ever trips to Molokai and Lanai, revisited Maui and Oahu, and conquered the Kalalau Trail on Kauai, one of the world’s toughest island hikes (despite starting and ending at sea level,…

What It Feels Like to Cycle One of America’s Highest Roads

Drivers with Colorado license plates whiz by me without a second thought, but those from Florida, Texas, Quebec, and Louisiana pump their brakes and turn their necks as they slowly pass. I can hear the hum of the engines as they climb the steep grade of Trail Ridge Road, yet I refuse to make eye…

A Backstage Look at the Rainforest World Music Festival

The coast turns the corner where the South China Sea is calm, the low tide more than tripling the size of the beach and revealing the smooth stones that dot the shore. The sun had come all the way up now, the sky changing from purple to light blue, and I could see the tree-covered…

Capturing the Beehive Buzz that Swarms Through Hanoi

I’ve been a busy boy since my last update, having recently spent a week in Costa Rica and then biking across Northern Colorado last week from Fort Collins through Grand County to Steamboat Springs. It was told to me the other day that this site doesn’t accurately reflect the work and travel I am doing,…