Month: January 2009

The Birth of Japan’s Third-Category Beer Explained

Wow. Just imagine the thrill I felt this evening when I came across a summary of the history and taxation based reason for Japan’s dai-san biiru or third–category beer, as you know a minor fascination of mine. Thrill along with me to the genesis of the substance caused – as we see all too often – as a response to taxation regimes which create both hardship and opportunity:

In 1994, Suntory began marketing beer-like happoshu with malt content of 65 per cent, while Sapporo developed happoshu containing less than 25 per cent malt. Each attracted lower tax rates, and hence could be sold much more cheaply than real beer. From 1996, however, the government responded by hiking the tax rates for both types of happoshu. In 2003, it also raised tax on happoshu with 25-50 per cent malt content. However, its tax and that of happoshu with less than 25 per cent malt remained less than that on high-malt happoshu or real beer. In 2004, Sapporo and Suntory responded with a zero-malt dai-san biiru, which incurred an even lower tax, and hence retail price, than any happoshu.

Previously I believe I have called third-category beer happoshu. I have failed you. I have failed the honour of beer blogging. I am but a grasshopper the ways of Japanese beer categorization. We also continue to await a brave reviewer who has documented the way of dai-san biiru. Life is so rich, when you think of it.

Not “Seven Things” – Instead the CBC and Nortel

I just lost the seven things about me post that I was tagged with doing after a power flicker at 6:45 am which was 95% done so I am not going to recreate it as I am too bummed out about the whole thing. It was tender and evocative. Challenging yet funny. I can never recreate that this morning. I will have to think up a whole new list and get back to you.

Meanwhile, why do I have the same reaction to the news that Nortel now wants a bail out and that no one much is signing up for the CBC’s “new fun game show” about being Canada’s next Prime Minister. As far as I am aware, Nortel has been moving towards its own demise for the best part of a decade. And, I think at least as far as my listenership and watchership goes, the same applies to the CBC. As evidence, I provide you with one one hand the story “Nortel Restatement To Slash 2003 Earnings” and on the other Sounds Like Canada. Both were untouchable monoliths for most of my life whose actual machinations of operations were beyond the ken of most Canadians. As a result, I think any bail out for Nortel needs to be tied to a reorganization of the CBC’s broadcast line up. My demands include:

  • creation of a compelling continuing dramatic series about an urban WASP male,
  • broadcast of a English language continuing sitcom based on and making fun of yet making a compelling and accurate case for the views of a family Quebecois separatist family,
  • making a public apology for the failure of CBC to broadcast Montreal Expos games and an admission that this failure directly led to the Expos leaving town and the country, and
  • making another admission that the extended run of the Air Farce was due to nepotism, blackmail or something that could possibly explain what the heck that was about.

Without meeting my demands, no money for Nortel.

None

Hail To The New Sponsor – Scotland’s BrewDog!

771It was an intense stretch of negotiations. I begged. They were repulsed. I whined. Then…they pitied and came on board. We of A Good Beer Blog are always thrilled when a new sponsor signs up and we like to explore all sorts of ways to get along all in the cause of what might be thought of an alternative take on craft lagers and ales. The fine folk at BrewDog cover a few bases – they make incredibly good and innovative beer while meeting a sensitivity to the emotional needs of a North American bound fan of the Greenock Morton. It’s good to be in such a relationship. I’m all a giggle at the idea of them joining people like the hoteliers of Prague and, of course, the good good people at Ontario Craft Brewers. I think we’ll float the ad in the tops stories for a while. See how that works. Click on it and you will no longer even be here.

And this is part of a big plan we call the big plan. We are always looking for these sorts of new pals. It’s kind of like a support group for this one beer fan with a writing problem who finds himself bearing the full weight of a jurisdiction with monopolistic beer practices of limited variety, overly taxed price structures and friends who ask “can I have another one of those?”. Proceeds go to beer travel by car and beer acquisition by hand picked selection at some of the nicest stores in Quebec and the US north-east. That’s right: cash = stash. Simple math. And we dicker and we try to figure out a bazillion ways for you to join in whether by an ad or a sample or just by that Google ad cheque in the mail. Why? Because we love what you the beer hound, beer maker, beer writer, beer vendor and beer bar owner do. All proceeds include the tax man’s share (at least five ways if I was to think about it) and acquisitions go in part to the local beer nerds I am cultivating…though in larger part to me. Gotta be honest.

Do you have what it takes to sponsor or otherwise the support the program of good works we are undertaking at A Good Beer Blog? I bet you do. I do.

He Had Learned Not To Pay Attention

I suppose you want to have your leader struck with an unfailing confidence but there are bits of yesterday’s final press conference by outgoing President Bush that do make you wonder about the man:

Mr. Bush said he was not certain why he had become so divisive. “I don’t know why they get angry,” he replied to a question about those who disagreed with his policies so vehemently that it became personal. “I don’t know why they get hostile.” He added that he had learned not to pay attention. “I don’t see how I can get back home in Texas and look in the mirror and be proud of what I see, if I allowed the loud voices, the loud critics to prevent me from doing what I thought was necessary to protect this country,” Mr. Bush said.

That is a lot of “I don’t know”. Here is the full transcript, see if you can count how many there are. I don’t know myself what to make of the man but in the end he is done and others will see if they can pick up both the threads and the pieces. Defenders will always say there has not been a second attach on US soil as a response to any criticism of the Bush administration but is that the answer to any fault? It is pretty clear now that the enemy lacked the capacity to make a repeat of the events of 9/11 or had a different focus. In a way, the war in Iraq could be seen to have caused that by creating an off-shore setting, either a quagmire or a playing field depending on your point of view. Once Iraq is settled and the US removes its troops (unless North Korea is mirrored) does this shift the focus again? Like the exiting President says, I don’t know.

There are unfortunate sentences that will be repeated like “not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment.” He didn’t really mean that. I think this was an interesting passage that did show what he was about:

I believe this — the phrase “burdens of the office” is overstated. You know, it’s kind of like, why me? Oh, the burdens, you know. Why did the financial collapse have to happen on my watch? It’s just — it’s pathetic, isn’t it, self-pity. And I don’t believe that President-Elect Obama will be full of self-pity. He will find — you know, your — the people that don’t like you, the critics, they’re pretty predictable. Sometimes the biggest disappointments will come from your so-called friends.

He has been both a character and a man with character even if it isn’t always your brand of character. I’ve been wondering about the role his post 9/11 statement about going out and spending had on creating the personal credit crisis. People did spend. And spend and spend and spend with not enough regard for their ability to pay for the spending. They seem connected to me but I don’t know if Mr Bush would connect those dots. I just don’t know.

None

Porter 2006, Burton Bridge Brewery, Burton-Upon-Trent

Time. For the most part beer’s enemy is time, specially for a beer with only 4.5%. But in 2000, as I’ve mentioned a few times, I clearly remember having a Burton Bridge Porter that was overwhelmingly bitter and pleasantly foul due no doubt to its utter mishandling and disregard. Some time ago I resolved to recreate the effect through the powers of experiment and stuck away two bottles for aging. Tonight, I pop the older of the two, this one carrying a best before date of December 2006 to see what is what.

Findings? The bottle pops with a merry pffftt! and gives off a little of the aroma of an East India sherry. The cream head quickly dissipates to a floating froth. In the mouth, the beer is more watery than a fresh bottle but pleasant enough though sadly not soured. There is a Orval quality to the bittering hops, lacy and lavender-ish, with some residual milk chocolate but none of the roasti-toastiness.

Verdict? Pretty much an entire waste of the effort which went into this experiment except for the fact that it really cost me nothing in terms of time, money or energy. It is somewhat impressive that it was so stable as to be more than drinkable. I am, however, not that impressed with stability as a general thing.

Twitter Hacked – Who Cares?

I am using Twitter more and more. I am enjoying the ability to quip, to note, to park an idea. It is a veritable hotbed of fifth-rate wags like me. But there is trouble afoot as the BBC reports:

Micro-blogging site Twitter has admitted that some of its most high profile bloggers have been targeted by hackers. It announced that 33 accounts had been hacked, including those belonging to president elect Barack Obama and singer Britney Spears. It follows a phishing scam on the site which encouraged users to click on a fake Twitter homepage.

Tragic. Imagine the world thinking that a quip by Britney Spears (or rather a junior assistant in her PR firm) was actually not a quip by Britney Spears!!! Hackers are so bad. They might figure out a way to make the background behind the home page of Britney Spears look like the background behind the home page of someone else. Fantastically disasterous. Temple walls coming shattering down clacklily about one’s ears.

The success of Twitter is in its fundamental unimportance. How else can you explain it’s ascendency over Facebook, that millstone of webby obligation relatively speaking? Twitter is what it promises. Nuttin. Hack away.

None

Great Summing Up Of The Shadowy Portman Group

The news last week of the shadowy Portman Group‘s abandonment of its efforts to “remove interestingness caused by the more clever smaller competition”¹ from beer shelves of Britain at least in relation to one beer, Orkney’s Skull Splitter, is neatly summarized by Roy Beers in The Publican today, including this telling passage:

It mattered nothing to the Portman Group that (“Mr, to you”) Skull Splitter – nickname for Thorfinn Hausacluif – was historically the 7th Viking jarl of Orkney; or that he has as much right to have a beer named after him as, say, Harald Godwinson or Hereward the Wake. Or William the Bastard. It didn’t signify, either, that the typical Skull Splitter drinker is over 35, possibly a member of CAMRA, and has exceedingly good taste in the matter of high quality strong beer. Of the sort you can savour by a great log fire. Exactly why it has taken the Portman Group so many years to discover this potentially havoc-wreaking brand is a mystery, but perhaps what’s most encouraging about the story is the overwhelming support for the brewery and its beer, with prominent politicians joining the clamour for Skull Splitter’s survival.

I would also add this: why did it take the shadowy Portman group that many years to discover Britain has a Viking history. I am an immigrant’s kid over here in Canada and I – by my name and the village of my mother’s birth – was well aware that Skull Splitter was a reference to the actual Viking history of the actual people in the actual land. That is the thing about your self-appointed betters – if they were actually your betters, you wouldn’t need the self-appointment because they would carry the authority that comes with making good sense.

¹Not quite the actual charge laid in the case.

 

 

The Very First Friday Bullets For The New Year

This surely is the unnamed holiday. The shadow twin of Boxing Day, the orphaned Friday stuck between that holiday with a hangover and a weekend. I will suit up and make my way to work but will there be work to meet me there? There likely will be an emptiness, desks without jockeys, voice mail alerts flashing at no one until Monday’s return to the new term, the start of the second season.

  • Actual Doctor Who News Update: the next Doctor will be announced tomorrow. Will he be a she?
  • Update: Skull Splitter saved. More here.
  • New Year’s Day was as idle as idle could be. Ever notice how idle and ideal are so closely related? Hmm? Have you? I didn’t even watch a bowl game, which surprises me a bit. But I did roast a prime rib roast better than I have ever roasted one before. Thanks heavens for the pre-Christmas beef price collapse at the A+P.
  • Congratulations to the twins.
  • The New Years blizzard in PEI received the attention of bloggers with video cams.
  • Ben is quite content with both 2008 and the prospects for 2009. I suppose I have to agree: the family expands, kids are arguably above average, the holiday tours indicated a fairly contented clan. Some will complain but they, we must recall, were asked not to stay on.
  • What is to come? I expect again I will not be wise with my taxes even if I will spend hours getting better at Wii. I expect Iggy to coat tail what is happening to the south and benefit from the increase in confidence that will exist at the end of the year with or without yet another Federal election. I grew out my beard. Will it last? Such suspense.
  • The corner has been turned in the baseball year with the season to come now the topic rather than the one that has just passed. I like the idea of Derek Lowe playing for the Mets but I have no idea where Manny is going to land.
  • Predictions? Resolutions? What could they be? Pledging to be smarter and healthier? Promising to myself that I will eat wild game and buy cut flowers once a week? Ensuring I have an ear to the new bands despite all of new music being chronologically dislocated for me for almost a decade? Play more penny whistle. That’s it!

It is quiet in the house as it should be. The road outside is silent as I trust I will find the office. The day without a name.

None