Beer Advocate Magazine worth a look?

Just got a random email from Beer Advocate Magazine advertising 12 month subscriptions for $16.99. I've never seen a copy of it myself and I'm just curious if its worth the subscription and what the content is like. Are we talking about a BYO style brewing mag or more of a "beer as a gourmet food stuff" style mag?

Either way, I suppose its tough to go wrong when you're getting 12 months of beer porn delivered to you for only $17.

http://beeradvocate.com/mag/

It's more of the latter. I think they have a token homebrewing-related article every issue, but the focus of the magazine is more about "appreciating" craft beer.

I just let my subscription lapse. Decent but predictable. Always an article bitching about something (the word craft, gastropubs, real ale, etc) then too many recipes to take up space......plus these guys are based in Boston (massholes ) so the articles and advertising are ~75% East Coast.

Also might want to look into "Draft" Magazine. It focus more on the craft beer industry, it's every other month (6 issues) for $12 or so a year I believe.

Speaking of magazines ... what is the best discounted price for BYO?

I had it for a year and let it lapse. As already stated it's about appreciating the craft beer world. You can get a lot of the info from the magazines on their website. I prefer the regional Brewing News.

ultravista said:

Speaking of magazines ... what is the best discounted price for BYO?

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Find someone with a buy one get one and split it. I think I paid $14 for my year.

B

My buddy gets it so he gives me his past issues. I look at it like Vogue for beer, 99% ads.
Not bad to page through but I sure wouldn't pay for it.

I let my subscription lapse. Being in California I wasn't very interested in the Boston beer scene...

BA mag sucks, don't waste your money. I prefer BYO to BA anyday. I think Zymurgy is prob the best magazine for your $$$.

BA is truly earning of the name EAC. Not at all worth the price, even if it was free.

Well hell, I wish I would have seen this thread before I bought my subscription. Oh well $15 for 12 issues isn't bad. I just got my 1st one and it was ok. I was most excited about the insert for HalfTimeBeverage.com where they sell all kinds of good brews that I can't get in MO. But they had a few good articles. I'd have to say I really enjoy the BYO magazines though. Lots to read, as opposed to BA, which I pretty much read in 10min.

Anybody know of a diff online store like HalfTime, that may have more selection or better prices?

Also what is the Zymurgy magazine all about?

Thanks for the info everyone. I'll be drinking my $17 instead of giving it to them.

I would second draft if you wanted a "beer/lifestyle" mag. As far as homebrewing goes, it's Zymurgy then BYO for me.

chapa said:

Also what is the Zymurgy magazine all about?

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Zymurgy is the official magazine of the AHA. It comes out bimonthly and I could be mistaken, but I think the only way to get them is to be an AHA member.

CreekBrewery said:

My buddy gets it so he gives me his past issues. I look at it like Vogue for beer, 99% ads.
Not bad to page through but I sure wouldn't pay for it.

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+1

I just received my last issue today. It was pretty cool when it first came out on the nice glossy paper, but then they switched to the cheap newspaper crap and I was sad. I don't care what your content is, magazines were made to be on shiny paper and look nice. Now you have a magazine full of ads that look like garbage.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/psa-1-yr-sub-draft-9-99-a-214368/

draft for 9.99

I subscribe to BA. It's not that great, fairly predictable but I really enjoy Sean Paxton's Cuisine à la Bière column, so I feel it's worth my $1.50 or whatever a month.

I really wish they hadn't changed paper formats though... it used to be on a nice quality glossy paper, far better than any other beer magazine. But then they switched to a cheaper paper around Feb 2009, blaming the economy... they've had a few botched printing jobs and the pictures don't look very good anymore because of the reduced printing quality, very blurry and distorted. It's really a shame, but I think they did it so they could give out free copies to bars and breweries such to help encourage new subscribers who come across copies.