Hey it’s Wednesday and that means it’s Rumor Mill Time….World leaders were beer-binging in Sochi last week. We’ll be bringing you everything we know so far on this international throwdown. Plus we’ve some updates from Ninkasi and Sierra Nevada Brewing. So fasten your seat belts everybody because….THIS WEEK’S RUMOR MILL IS ON!

Another Reason to Defect (Sochi, Russia) – A photographer for CBS tweeted out a picture on Monday with intriguing international implications. It appears that those crafty Canadians have invented a special beer refrigerator that only opens with a Canadian passport, and we have to ask “Why them and not us – is America no longer leading?”

Ninkasi’s Camping Out with the Sierra Nevada Crew (Chico, CA/ Eugene, OR) – Ninkasi’s Jamie Floyd has reportedly gone beer-camping with the boys from Chico and will be participating in Sierra Nevada’s  Beer Camp Across America variety 12-pack. This year’s Beer Camp Variety Pack will feature collaborations between Ken Grossman’s crew and 12 of the country’s most innovative breweries, and we’ll be hyping the journey as it develops. And since we’re totally in the tank for Ninkasi Brewing, we might as well begin with their contribution – a Coffee Milk Stout that sounds awesome -but I guess we’ll all have to wait.

We Asked Him Not to Do This, But He Did It Anyway (Chicago, IL) – Our Chicagoland correspondent, Kevin Bastion (aka Pour Man), stirred up a hornet’s nest yesterday when he published a rant on rating craft beers. Check out BEER RATINGS AND BEST BEER LISTS ARE TOTAL BULLSHIT (weigh in if you want) – and you’ll see why our Editor-In-Chief wants to jump off a ledge today.

New Belgium Airways (Dallas, TX) – Southwest has joined Frontier and Alaska Airlines and is now offering at least one craft beer on its flights. According to Cafe Society, the “Dallas-based carrier now sells New Belgium’sFat Tire on all 683 Southwest and AirTran planes in its fleet.”

Will Work For Beer (United Kingdom) – We were recently tipped to a graph that ran in The Economist a while back, and it shows how long you need to work in different countries in order to afford a beer. The data was compiled by the bank UBS, so we’re thinking this chart might be somewhat trustworthy. Bottom Line – you don’t want to work in India!

Putin and Dutch King Power-Pound Beer Together (Sochi, Russia) – Okay, maybe they weren’t drinking a ton, but Russian President Vladimir Putin and The King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, did reportedly grab a beer together at the Dutch Pavilion in Sochi last week. And we’re pretty sure they weren’t drinking Pliny the Younger.

Got something we should know? News or events coming up that you want us to Hype? How about Industry tips you want us to leak anonymously?

THEN E-MAIL US NOW AT:  info@americancraftbeer.com and let us do your dirty work for you!