Hey it's Friday and as it's the first weekend of 2014, we know you want to keep things fun. Well good, because we're all about it! From the nation's coolest beer festivals to movies, music, and cutting-edge TV - we've got your back big-time. Plus we've got a serious Weekend Beer Pick that you'll want to get your hands on.

So welcome to our awesome Weekend Picks...

Christmas is over, New Year's Day is in the rearview, and you probably don't have another work day off until May. Like many people, this is the time of the year when we begin to think: what's next? This is why we here at ACB look toward sports to get us through the doldrums of January. And what starts in January? The NFL mother-flippin' playoffs, son.

The west coast of Florida has been arguably THE destination for Florida brewery road trips. With dozens of breweries in 20 square miles, it makes it easy to plan some awesome weekends.

But if you have a couple days to spare, a full tank of gas, a good GPS system, and a sense of adventure, the south east coast is an awesome and off-the-beaten-path option for a picture-perfect brewery road trip.

So many beers, So little time...Newbies is your essential map to the "best of the best" and the hottest new craft beers rolling out each week, and this week, we're all about the seasonals ... From Avery's New World Porter to the massiveness of The Maharaja, we've got all kinds of new releases you're going to want to chase down.

So welcome to another edition of Newbies--your ultimate guide to great new craft beers!  

It's time to dust off that exercise equipment, buy a juicer, pull out your organizer, and download the latest version of Quicken so you can work on your 2014 New Year's resolutions... at least for a few months before you get back to your "normal" self. According to Forbes, only 8% of people actually achieve their resolutions, so how about making some that you can keep in 2014? If you make them about craft beer, then we can guarantee you'll have no problem reaching your goals by 1/1/15, and ACB has five suggestions that will help make 2014 the beeriest year ever!

Welcome to 2014...We hope you all had a blast last night. But if you (like so many of us) had too much fun - and you're paying for it now - we're here to help.

If you're smart, you no longer go there - but I'd wager that there's no one reading this who's never felt the wrath of a real hangover. A real hangover is not just feeling tired or feeling a little off. A real hangover is brutal - a real hangover is depressing - a real hangover sucks. But with some planning, real hangovers can be avoided or at least lessened and we've got some suggestions.

You might get the impression that we, the beer gurus of ACB, understand all there is to know about beer, yet we're still learning just like you. It's this thirst for knowledge that drives us to dig deeper into the stories behind the beer we drink, thus protecting you from the embarrassment of not knowing exactly what it is you've decided to put in your mouth.

So welcome to the latest in our ongoing series (drum roll please...) "What the Hell is a Wassail?"

When I moved to New England a few years ago, I was sad to leave my favorite craft breweries of the Southeast behind, worried that my palate would be forever homesick. Today, I find myself equally anguished trying to narrow down a very long list of my favorite New England brews to a list of just three. After great deliberation and a couple Heady Toppers, here are three beers that helped make me and my taste buds feel right at home this year.

We blame the industry for this... It used to be that when we wrapped up our Weekend Picks on Friday, we could coast through the weekend. There was little need to check in for updates - things were pretty much done. But clearly all that's changed. So here's some of what's happened in the world of craft beer while you were off enjoying yourselves.

I had a lot of good craft beer in 2013. A lot. Maybe more than you. But probably not, to be honest. But I did move from Los Angeles to Seattle halfway through the year, which certainly upped my average beer consumption compared to years past. So how do you possibly choose just three to highlight out of so many incredible brews? If you're me, you choose three that came out of nowhere and smacked you upside the head with that first glorious taste. I just love it when a beer surprises me, and each of these three had something truly unexpected to offer that captured my imagination.