Munich

Now Available in Arizona: Upright Seven

Beer: Seven Brewery: Upright Brewing Co. Style: Saison ABV: 8 percent Not sure if you guys have noticed, but craft beer is going all Manifest Destiny right now. With the likes of New Belgium, Oskar Blues, and Green Flash breaking ground on East Coast facilities, big brands are going nationwide. Ev ... More >>

Grand Canyon Hop Bomber IPA: Get Flavor-Bombed

Beer: Hop Bomber India Pale Ale Brewery: Grand Canyon Brewing Co. Style: American IPA ABV: 7.5 percent One of my major complaints about Arizona's breweries is that they seem afraid to innovate. For all the different breweries in the state, the consumer still has very few Belgian ales to choose fro ... More >>

SanTan Rail Slide

Beer: Rail Slide Imperial Spiced Ale Brewery: SanTan Brewing Co. Style: English Strong Ale ABV: 7.1 percent The problem with seasonals is that they're just that -- seasonal. Here for a short time, then gone for another year, your cravings be damned. Feeling like a Pumpkin Porter in the springtime ... More >>

So How Does Munich's Oktoberfest Stack Up Against Tempe's?

Lucky Megan Dobransky! Our Chow Bella contributor managed to make it to two Okoberfest celebrations -- in both Munich and Tempe. She's here to compare and contrast. Oktoberfest has been a beer drinker's mecca for centuries. The name alone conjures up images of massive beers so heavy you need two h ... More >>

Gordon Biersch Märzen

Beer: Gordon Biersch Märzen Brewery: Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Style: Märzen/Oktoberfest ABV: 5.8 percent It was a cool fall day more than 200 years ago, and the Germans were partying. It had just been announced that Crown Prince Ludwig, who would later become King Ludwig I, was to be mar ... More >>

Schneider Aventinus Weizenbock

Beer: Aventinus Weizenbock Brewery: Schneider & Sohn Style: Weizenbock ABV: 8.2 percent See also: Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale With new breweries popping up almost every day to create unique new brews, craft beer is currently experiencing a renaissance in America. All this excitement over beer ma ... More >>

Payton Curry Dishes on the Maricopa County Health Department and His Vision for Brat Haus

This is part two of my interview with Payton Curry, chef and co-owner of the soon-to-open Brat Haus in Scottsdale. Read part one of the interview with Payton Curry here. Favorite thing to eat growing up: Grandma's lefse, freshly churned butter and sugar in the raw. Lefse is a Norwegian flatbread ... More >>

Hops Stop

Five Beers and Their Musical Pairings

​As Munich's 17-day slosh-a-palooza wrapped up yesterday, it left us feeling a little empty. We didn't celebrate Oktoberfest the proper way -- by getting shithoused in lederhosen and violently gesturing toward the breasts of a beer wench with a full mug of god's greatest nectar, all while listenin ... More >>

Princess Beatrice's Hat on a Cupcake

http://www.facebook.com/cupcakesmuenchen​We never thought we'd say this, but some things really do look better on a cupcake. Like Princess Beatrice's royal mistake of a wedding hat. While seamstresses were sewing knock-off wedding dresses over the last day, Wir Machen, a bakery in Munich, Germany, ... More >>

Brewed For Battle: Doppelbock

Claire LawtonAventinus, Salvator, Celebrator, and Liberator.​At what point does one elevate from merely drinking beer to being a full-on beer snob? Answer: when you feel compelled to tell other people what to drink. And the inevitable result of this peculiar ailment is the beer argument. In t ... More >>

10 Beer Labels You Won't Want to Peel Off

We know the saying, "don't judge a book by its cover", but what about beer? What if you had to choose 10 beers based solely on the artwork that covered the glass bottle each came in? The ten beers below would be on the top of our list if we to cast aside silly things like beer style or alcohol ... More >>

Brewed For Battle: Oktoberfest

Jonathan McNamaraAvery Brewing Co.'s The Kaiser (left) and Victory Festbier. ​At what point does one elevate from merely drinking beer to being a full-on beer snob? Answer: when you feel compelled to tell other people what to drink. And the inevitable result of this peculiar ailment is the bee ... More >>

Oktoberfest in Phoenix -- Mark Your Calendar

​This year marks the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest, and the kegs were tapped this weekend to kick off the world's largest beer festival in Munich. If you can't join the millions of people from all over the world that descend on the Bavarian town every year, don't worry: Grab your stein and ... More >>

Secret Supper Club Finally Hits Phoenix

​By-invite-only, underground dinner parties have been all the rage in Los Angeles, Portland, New York, you name it. It's been one of the biggest trends of the year, but strangely hasn't hit the Valley until now. Better late than never, I say. A few different people in town have talked ... More >>

Bootie Call

Mash-up legends visit the PHX

Bootie

Fugitive Pieces sucks the poetry and life out of its source material

Noah Baumbach’s Margot at the Wedding will make you laugh to keep from crying

Our Community Under Siege

Where do we turn when law enforcement threatens citizens like a grim force of nature?

Ordinary Rendition

Not torture, but as conventional as they come. We're (water) bored. (Sorry.)

Geekology 101

Judd Apatow explains himself

Royale Flush

The Bond franchise takes a gamble on a new guy, and comes up aces

Bring On the Backlash

Stirring up hype and spiting the haters

Beauty at Buchenwald

Tube Boobs

A little close to home

Tragedy Re-Revisited

Rehashing a tale we've heard before

Busted!

Artsy breasts raise money for cancer research

Electro Ass

The electroclash trend can't go away fast enough

Survival Musik

The work of Jewish composers in Germany barely survived the Nazi regime. A Scottsdale orchestra is breathing new life into those compositions.

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Bunker Mentality

Blind Spot offers a long close-up with one of Hitler's intimates

Various Artists

Africa Raps: Senegal, Mali, and the Gambia (Trikont)

Eclectic Avenue

From Snoop Dogg to Doug Sahm, Austin's Gourds revel in making magic out of every sound imaginable

Garageland

Do What You Want (Foodchain)

Sonny Outlook

Sonny Vincent, still on the road less traveled

Triumph of the Underdogs

For 25 years, Bug Music has protected the rights of songwriters. In the process, they've gotten Willie Dixon's songs back from Led Zeppelin and transformed Iggy Pop into a TV-commercial composer.

Foreign Correspondence

More letters from the battlefield: A Phoenix soldier witnesses the destruction of Europe in 1945

Disco Infernal

Rhino's new collection proves that you have no hope of getting disco in a box without leaving something out

Calendar for the week

Do the Ride Thing

Spike Lee's Bus is back on track

Hope You Die Before We Get Old

The reunited Who and Sex Pistols cheat death one more time

The Joy of Sacks

Slow Strokes

Once dominant, U.S. swimmers have fallen back in the Olympic pack. And some observers are questioning whether Gary Hall Jr., the world-class sprinter from Paradise Valley, has the work ethic to find gold in Atlanta.

Herbs of Love

Pills made from a Peruvian vine known as Cat's Claw are all the rage among Latino health buffs

Rocky Rogue

PRINGLES äBER ALLES

BARKLEY FACES THE DOWNHILL AHEAD

SOMETHING TO INFURIATE EVERYONE

COSMIC EVENTS

UOFA TELESCOPES PRODUCE STANGE PROTESTS AND WEIRED OFFICIAL REACTIONS