Every year should bring some memorable travel into every life. It can be as grand as reaching a distant mountaintop or visiting a country 10,000 miles away. It can be as small and quiet as reading a local newspaper in a distant coffee shop while the rain pours outside.

I'm a firm believer that there is no such thing as a "right" or "wrong" time to drink a particular beer. Sometimes you want a barrel-aged stout in the middle of July. Sometimes you want a crisp wit beer in January. It's all OK.

BOYNE FALLS, Mich. — Perhaps we Midwesterners were not meant to ski. Consider what we've been given: flat terrain, oppressively gray winter skies, subzero windchills and fickle helpings of a ski weekend's most crucial ingredient.

Breweries are opening at a frantic clip in Chicago, but none has quite the story behind it as Baderbrau — and that story will come full circle with the opening of a 25,000-square-foot brewery in the South Loop in 2015.

If you ask 100 Chicago residents to name the first Chicago brewery that comes to mind, my guess is that the responses would be the following:

Before a recent trip to New Mexico, I did what people do before a trip: I reserved a rental car. In this case, it was an economy-class car from Budget for $282. It seemed a reasonable cost for 11 days in the desert.

I've finally found a reason to pity the people of Hawaii during winter: They'll never fully appreciate a spa experience.

What it is: A white India pale ale from Geneva-based Penrose Brewing, a brewery launched this year by two former Goose Island employees. Penrose sticks almost entirely to what it calls Belgian-inspired ales — meaning the presence of highly-distinctive Belgian yeast — and Desirous is...