There's late to the party, and then there's so late to the ball that Cinderella has already turned back into a scullery wench. Case in point: West Lakeview Liquors, ranked the nation's ninth-best beer store by ratebeer.com and the only Chicago retailer to crack the top 20, celebrated its 20th anniversary this year on the corner of Addison and Leavitt Streets—but I only found it last week. Fortunately, some wrongs can be righted. Get this Cinderella a beer...

While Chicago confronted what sounds like a hailstorm of biblical proportions last week, Texas, where I had road tripped, was busy sandwiching the half-hearted tropical storm Edouard with raging, relentless, stick-to-the-car-seat heat. What better way to wash down rain and rampant sweat than with more moisture, in the form of cold beer? If you're ever in the Texas Hill Country—that incongruous swath of elevation that rides the Lone Star State's belly like a giant belt buckle—find yourself a bottle of...

If the name Pierre Celis doesn't ring a bell, maybe his hometown will: Hoegaarden, Belgium—as in the birthplace of the beer that continues to collect trophies from here to eternity, including Best Belgian-Style White at this year's World Beer Cup. (Hoegaarden, by the way, is now brewed by InBev, the company that just bought Anheuser-Busch. Pay attention. There will be a quiz.)...

Frat boys across the nation, rejoice! The rest of us (spoiler alert): Meh. Behold, Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer. Any resemblance to ABBA or Meryl Streep is purely coincidental.

Thanks to devout garage brewers Tom and Athena Seefurth of suburban Campton Township, we now know the answer to that age-old 3 a.m. question: What would happen if we mated pizza and beer? Hint: Some pairings make better friends than lovers. The beer, now brewed by Sprecher in Wisconsin, earns points for originality (yes, that is basil, garlic, oregano, and tomato you smell...