

I've spent the past few weeks ranting about beer lists and beer lines, so its time to catch up on some brew news items from around the world.



* First up is the news that Lord Hobo Brewing -- owned by the former owner of the Dirty Truth and Moan and Dove Daniel Lanigan -- has entered into an agreement with Cavalier Distributing to expand its footprint into Florida.



Lord Hobo, the Woburn-based brewery that just celebrated its second anniversary, grew 415 percent in 2016 and plans to roll out the new venture into the Sunshine State in the coming days.



* In nationwide news, Michigan's Short's Brewing Co. will sell nearly 20 percent of its equity stake to Lagunitas, which, of course, is owned by Heineken. The craft beer market is getting crazier by the week: This means a small craft brewer is now partly controlled by a large craft brewer that is owned by a mega international brewing concern. Heineken bought 50 percent on Lagunitas in 2015,and gobbled up the remaining shares this spring.



Short's is making the move to help it make better strategic decisions in the market, according to a story on MLive.com.



* We've all heard of a beer gut, but what about a beer that's good for your gut? Well,

according to U.S. News & World Report, researchers in Singapore have created up a beer with probiotic bacteria that can allegedly improve your gut health and boost your immune system.



Researcher Alcine Chan worked with with a recipe of malt, alcohol, hops and a strain of probiotic bacteria to come up with the brew.

Since hops can kill probiotics, she said in the story, she had to find a way for the probiotics not to be affected.



Chan created the beer recipe as a project for the senior year at the National University of Singapore. The brew is said to taste slightly sweet and has just 3.5 percent alcohol content.



While Chan said she is hopeful that beer's popularity will make this new brew popular, my guess is that most drinkers aren't that concerned with probiotics. Unless the beer is really tasty, I can't see it being a huge hit. But we won't know for a while anyway, as until the recipe is patented, the beer won't be available.



* Last but not least, Food & Wine recently featured a story about the Raleigh Beer Garden in North Carolina, which can have up to 402 beers on tap.

One entire floor -- 144 taps -- is dedicated to North Carolina brews alone.



While the article claims that staff is trained aggressively and includes a beer manager whose job it is to monitor it all closely, I'm not sure how the place can keep all the beers fresh. But maybe Tar Heel beer business is that good.







