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People are feeling so good about the economy, they are celebrating by having a little wine with dinner. It seems there has been a boost in liquor sales at restaurants and bars and it’s all due to the economic recovery, speculates to a new study.

Having just come through the deepest U.S. recession since World War II, more Americans are drinking. Beer, wine, and spirits sales in restaurants, bars and other licensed locations increased 4.9 percent in 2011, according to a study by restaurant research firm Technomic. In dollars, this equals $93.7 billion in sales last year. And there are more drinks to go around.  Beer imports into the U.S. also increased 6.5 percent this year, writes The Huffington Post.

Even in hard times Americans tend to continue to enjoy alcoholic beverages. But they tend to enjoy them at home. While alcohol sales fell in restaurants and bars, liquor sales at stores and supermarkets increased 1.2 percent, found a report by consumer research firm Mintel. CNNMoney data shows that in 2010, when unemployment grew to be as large as 9.6 percent, alcohol sales jumped 9 percent.

Drinks, anyone?

A couple weeks ago when we asked if some of you would buy a girly beer, you said you would rather just have the real thing. Well in honor of this weekend, StyleBlazer compiled a list of scrumptious beers for your SuperBowl party.

Check them out at StyleBlazer.com.

It’s been nine years since Ludacris dropped his highly successful third album, “Chicken N Beer,” but the legacy lives on. At least it will, in the form of a restaurant inside Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The Jasmine Brand peeped Luda’s tweets last night as he broke the news on his new business venture:

“I’m taking my restaurateur footprint into the busiest airport in the WORLD! Hartsfield-Jackson ATL International! Chicken & Beer coming soon!

“WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THE BUSIEST AIRPORT ON THE PLANET!! THIS IS HISTORY!! #chickenandbeer”

The restaurant will be located in Concourse D and is scheduled to open sometime this year. The name may sound a little offputting but this opportunity could represent serious dollars for Christopher Bridges who’s turning himself into quite the entrepreneur.

Would you stop in for a little chicken and beer during your next layover?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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Ask someone to imagine a brewmaster and the image that may come to mind is a barrel-chested fellow in overalls, maybe even lederhosen. Brewing is currently seen as a male field, but it wasn’t always this way. What’s believed to be the world’s oldest written recipe is for beer, and it celebrates a female brewmaster. Four-thousand-year-old Mesopotamian clay tablets describe the brewing process in a hymn to Ninkasi, the Sumerian goddess of beer. From ancient Sumeria through medieval Europe, women ruled the kettles. Beer can be described as liquid bread, so there was nothing unusual about women using their baking ingredients to brew in home kitchens. It wasn’t until entrepreneurial women began to sell their beer that men really moved in, restricting the creation and sale of beer to powerful male-only guilds.
The consequences of that takeover flow all the way to the pale, tasteless corporate beer of post-prohibition America. The watery beer was brewed by men and sold to them with help from decades of sexist advertising employing tired gender stereotypes and armies of bikini models. But corporate brewers’ best days are behind them, with sales are in decline. The growth is in the craft-beer sector, the smaller, independent brewers who make up only 7 percent of the American market but are growing at a rate of around 10 percent every year. And many brewmasters driving craft beer’s emergence are women. They’re taking a pass on the rigid corporate structures of the large brewers and finding, or creating, opportunities in the freewheeling world of craft beer, where they don’t have to work for companies that spend billons on demeaning ads.

Garrett Oliver didn’t grow up aiming to become one of the country’s premier brewmasters, but his palate and appreciation for beer naturally guided him towards his current career. So, what exactly is a brewmaster? Well, he is the master of the brew -the one who oversees production, ensures quality of the beer, and concocts new recipes.  Oliver has leveraged his years of experience and also published the book The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food. TAP talked to Oliver about his career and being one of the few African-American brewmasters in the country.

(CNN) — CNN takes a look at the beer battle brewing on the continent. Nigeria is already one of the top markets for Guinness. Now major breweries like Heineken and Diageo are making a play in South Africa, going head-to-head with powerhouse SABMiller on its home turf. Even Vanilla Ice has been employed as part of the campaigns. Who will win?