Month: August 2018

The Very Last Thursday Beer News For August 2018

So how did your summer go? Mine was fine, thanks, even if I did have to work a lot. Finally got a real week off and I have been lazing about. Might go our to a favorite posted late last week on Twitter, Jasper Johns, “Ale Cans,” 1964. I like it. I have been just sitting here looking at things I like between stretches of doing things I like. Which is pretty good for a holiday.

More beer health news. Nice to see that “minimal risk of harm” has replaced the silly J-Curve as a reasonably expression of the limited impact that moderate alcohol consumption has won out. Here is a good analysis of the study. The semi-paid semi-amateur trade spin doctors may still be out in force but the general rule is still minimal harm from minimal consumption… statistically. The always relevant question, as Jeff pointed out recently, is how minimal is your consumption… really.

I liked Andy’s tweet as it tied in with issues related to value and supply:

Going into a liquor store these days to buy beer is like stumbling into an episode of the Walking Dead. Zombie beer brands just sitting warm and dead on store shelves waiting to attack the unsuspecting consumer.

Layer on that the fun folk at The Sun had asking normal folk about some heavily priced UK craft brands:  (i) “I work in a bar and have tried a lot of beers – and this one, from Evil Twin Brewing, is awful. I wouldn’t even pay a pound for it, let alone 12. On the tin it says it tastes of honey but I think it tastes more like sewage“; yet (ii) “I like a dark beer and this is pretty good from Evil Twin Brewing. We drink a lot of dark beer where I come from. In the background you can taste a burnt biscuity, caramel flavour which is nice.” The semi-paid semi-amateur trade spin doctors were again out in force defending… something… but I thought they were reasonable “person on the street” comments.

Then – get this – comes the news… nay, admission that the main brewery participating in the Back to the Future style buck-a-beer government program is losing money on the process. The biggest retailers has already backed out after mere days according to BlogTO (via Crystal.) What I think Andy, The Sun and this article are all noting is how little understood the value of beer is. I might suggest that it is because there is alcohol in beer and its price serves the intended of the consumer in given contexts but that would be opinionated of me.

Speaking of opinion, Josh Noel in the Chicago Tribute explored how US craft is expressing its opinion(s) of the current US Federal government:

In the Trump era, more than a few Chicago bar and brewery owners have worn their left-leaning politics on their sleeves. With an openness unseen in most corners of the hospitality industry, bars and breweries have openly worked on behalf of immigrant rights, gay and lesbian equality, transgender rights and even that third rail of politics, abortion.

Nice to learn from a link in that article, too, that Jim Koch‘s support of the President led to a boycott in his appropriated state of choice:

“Marketers really haven’t had to deal with something like this for 50 years — since the Vietnam War,” said Robert Passikoff, president of the New York consulting firm Brand Keys. “There is no win on this thing. There’s only dealing with it,” he added. “Now, everything is political.” Koch and Boston Beer have faced a backlash on social media driven by figures such as Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone , who pledged in a Twitter post to “never drink Sam Adam’s beer again!” In the physical world, a Jamaica Plain teenager and his father hung a spray-painted sign within sight of the company’s Boston brewery reading, “SHAME! SAM ADAMS [heart] TRUMP SHAME!”

Now, no need to just do a Koch pile-on when we have BrewDog. I don’t need to actually link to their latest failed marketing strategy (which I have a certain familiarity with being myself an early marketing strategy) but I would like to link to Carla Jean who unpacked their sexist and racist junk.

And Stan‘s last weekly update contains an excellent extended extract on the means by which Henry King (who served as president of the United States Brewers Association from 1961 to 1983) made sure the industry as a whole did not take a wrong step in marketing or brewing – he acted in the best interests of the trade and consumers:

“We beat the federal government by seven weeks. We reported the cobalt problem, we were out of it and no longer had production seven weeks before the Food and Drug Administration even got their act together on it.” He acted decisively not just because it was good for the beer industry, but because it was right. When the nitrosamine proved to be a carcinogen in the 1970s, King again moved swiftly. 

Hero of beer!

There. Another week done, another month done and another summer almost done. Damn good thing I am immortal or I’d be getting all anxtity over this passing o’time stuff. B+B has more news on Saturday as always but I was going to also remind you that Stan will be back Monday… but he won’t!  I was thinking of moving this summary of the news back a day or two. I will see how that goes…

Your Beery News For A Holiday Thursday With Plenty Of Jingoism Stats And Other Fibs

There. Vacation. That’s better. Not vacating. Stay-cating. Hopefully play-catin’ but there are chores that have been deferred. Weed-cation. A trippy jaunt to the hardware store to check out bathroom faucet repair options. Others in beer have been thinking about a bigger world of beer this week, far bigger than any I expect to see. I’ll be lucky to see the back lawn with all the work I’ve left myself. Let’s see what’s being said.

First, a sad loss of someone who made sure folk got out and about for all the best reasons. Jeff posted an excellent remembrance of Chris “Podge” Pollard, the beerman who did as much as anyone to teach Brits about Belgian beer in the best way possible – by getting them in country, on the ground and through the front door:

His guidebooks were wonderfully well-researched and a great insight into the cities he chose. Most of all, he was just a good lad.

Ed posted some interesting thoughts on the far more generic use of national descriptors for beer styles when confronted by friends from outside the beer bubble:

I had to explain that in the world of beer the name of a country is often used as a flavour descriptor, not a statement about where the beer is made. “American” means made with citrussy hops, “Belgian” with phenolic yeast, and in the case of “New Zealand” it’s the hop flavour again. It hadn’t occurred to me until I saw their confusion that this might be considered slightly odd. 

I suppose I am more of a regionalist than a nationalist when it comes to these things. Not that they are meaningless but, as The Tand shows, the hallmark of a sort of beer can be quite local. I suppose the point is we need to remember these things are code.

You know, statistical triumphalism is a bit odd but the source is fairly normal summary stuff:

Domestic beer used to make up 87.7% of total consumption in the US, and it fell to 67.6% in 2017. Foreign and craft beers together made up just 12.3% of US consumption in 2000, and has now increased to 32.4%. US consumers are trending away from abundantly available domestic brews and are reaching for foreign imports instead. Instead of Budweiser, Heineken and Coors, people are choosing Corona, Modelo and Dos Equis. 

It’s interesting from the point of view that in the 1980s microbrewing was not always so welcoming and even antagonistic to imports. In a December 20, 1987 article in the Syracuse Herald American, we read:

Kirin has “all the flavor of a European import, without the bite,” Palmer said. But F.X. Matt II, who heads the F.X. Matt Brewing Co. in Utica, calls Kirin “bland and undistinguished. When you’re as big as Kirin, you’re interested in making a beer that offends no one and is bland,” Matt said.

In a June 1987 article in the Syracuse Post-Standard, Kevin Townsend of the still operating Buffalo Brew Pub was interviewed and put it this way:

Townsell’s Buffalo Brew Pub is one of about two dozen tiny brewery pubs in the country, most of which are on the West Coast. But as the demand for quality beer grows, the number of brew pubs is increasing. “`One hundred years ago, we had breweries in every city and town, with local delivery,” said Bud Lang, editor of Anaheim, Calif.-based All About Beer magazine. “Now we have a few huge breweries and 18 wheelers delivering beer nationwide.” Townsell’s 1,500-gallon monthly production makes his the only brewery in a region that was once the nation’s fourth-largest beer producer. Between 1811 and 1972, 350 breweries opened, operated and closed around Buffalo. “Beer lovers, home brewers, any first-generation Europeans are attracted because what we say we’re going to offer is a fine, quality, full-bodied product, which is similar to an English or a German product than it is to any American mass-produced beer,” Townsell said.

Like nationalism, pointing at stats misses the point. Is your beer delivered by 18 wheeler? A lot of craft is now. Is it bland and undistinguished? The vast bulk of beer being made ticks that box. Whether it comes from across the nation, from another country or in the neighbourhood – isn’t it only about if you like the stuff in your glass? Wasn’t that the point of micro and then craft? Frankly, the statement “instead of Budweiser, Heineken and Coors, people are choosing Corona” is about as mind-numbingly pointless as they come. And, of course, being the fanboy of “elsewhere” or “craft” for that matter usually means you are not noticing the realities, even the ugly.

Thoughts from Canadian wine writer David Lawrason might be related:

The more educated we become however the more we want different flavours, styles, places, stories and grapes. And this is what the next generation is bringing to the discussion and eventually, I think, to the marketplace.  We longer term (senior) writers may tend to pigeon-hole the next gen of natural and orange wine advocates as hipsters making political and personal statements, but in fact – as in anything – there are those who genuinely care and those who have jumped on the band wagon. Many people do thirst after meaning in wine. They are bored with replication and homogeny and are searching for difference and authenticity.

What are people searching for anyway. The Beer Nut linked to a story that reminds us that, for most, the world is not all that different from 1987. In the particular, the Irish don’t care much for anything but a “normal” pint glass:

The 20-ounce serving remains “the barometer for value”, he says. “What’s the price of a pint? It’s how people equate it. The beer culture that we’ve tried to establish … when you’ve a 10-percent beer you’re not going to charge people €14 for a pint of it. Generally, the cost of Irish beers isn’t an issue, said Conwell. “Most of them would be reasonably priced. Foreign imports are usually the ones that hit you in the pocket, hence the smaller serving size.”

Hmm… more problematic foreign stuff. I better leave it there and go have a coffee… from Central America. At least it’s fair trade and rain forest  grown. Because that’s what the label says, right. Hmm… And while you are scratching your head along with me, don’t forget that B+B has more news on Saturday just like Stan does each Monday.

 

Even On A Thursday In Mid-August You Need Your Beer News

That’s the photo of the week. The storage room at Fuller’s as tweeted by Brewers Journal magazine… or journal, I suppose. There is plenty of beauty to go around in good beer if you remember to have a look. Jordan found a slice of it when jet lagged in an London pub:

“How the hell are you, Frank,” says the first of the day’s regulars. “Old and weary,” says Frank, limping slightly towards the cask engine as that ritual badinage continues.

No, you can look up “badinage” for yourself.

Less wonderfully, J.Surratt discovered something about a brewery owner being like Jesus and the offending Twitter presence soon was deleted, the website now password protected.  Perhap’s it’s being reworked as “The Hobo Of Craft” with heavy appropriation of Red Skelton’s lovable clown character,  Dodo Delwyn. 

Brewers! Answer Jeff’s survey. While you are at it, send in your entries to the annual NAGBW awards.

Lars made the front page. I made the front page in Albany once. Craig needed a quote that wasn’t from him so he just sent an email to the paper saying it was from me. Works for me. I have the greatest coauthors. A pal in NY State government phoned to ask me how the hell I got a quote on the front page of the paper of record. I giggled.

Stan beat me to the “craft beer ham slice” photo taken at a UK Tesco grocery store but it bears some discussion. This may either be a sign of successful infiltration of the brand or, you know, a sign of the end times. I am in the latter camp but to be fair if you need every product in your fridge, pantry and bathroom cabinet to have the words “craft beer” on the label, this one is for you. If, on the other hand, you understand the need to protect your brand, moderately priced sandwich meat might not be your best friend. Does anyone buy that margarine with cold pressed olive oil?

Your fabulous brewing history post of the week came from Martyn… again. The joppen/joppen debate has reared its ugly head and I have an inking that the answer is to be found in the vaults and archives of the Hanseatic League, the swellest league of them all. Consider this:

Turns out Pryssing is actually the old Danish/Swedish/Norwegian name for Prussia, which in the modern languages is Preussen, the same as it is in German. Ping! On comes a lightbulb. The old English name for Prussia was Spruce – Chaucer called the country “Sprewse”, and it was still being called “Spruce-land or Prussia” as late as 1697. The “Spruce beer”, beer from Prussia, that appears in an English poem in 1500 and was on sale in London in 1664 is clearly the same drink as Pryssing. (The “spruce tree”, first mentioned in 1670 by John Evelyn, was so called because it was the fir from Spruce.)

My ticking thought is not that the spruce came from Prussia but Prussia was the inheritor of Hansa and that shipping empire brought in spruce and other lumber from deeper into the east, from the Baltic States and Russia, shipping them as early as the 1200s into England and other seaside Euro-nations. The mariners of Hansa were heavily involved, according to Unger, for bringing hoppy beer west.

Constellation brands: lays off craft division sales force and then invests $5,000,000,000 in Canadian dope sales. Somehow this all places rec drugs in a bit of contexts.

Ben pointed out that self-promoter and formerly craft brewery focused now gas station alcopop manufacturer, Mr. Koch, has sidled up to Donald Trump. I can’t think of a less Boston thing to do in 2018. Maybe wearing a Yankees hat – but even that is not this bad. My thought? What do you expect from the man who believes dry yeast mixed with yogurt keeps you from getting drunk and who gave us “Sex for Sam“?

This is the worst one yet from the GBH blog. The formula of (i) pre-determined conclusion and (ii) quotes from lots of people benefiting from the pre-determined conclusion is familiar. No, in this time of tiny brewers and local malt and hops the norm of questioning authenticity and sourcing is not “quaint” and this might as well come from planet Mars:

“These gypsy brewers have no roots, the argument goes. They are hardly brewers. They are marketing companies. They don’t make anything, whereas ‘true’ craft brewers do. These arguments place gypsy brewers outside of the craft beer industry and into the nebulous service sector.” Ironically enough, as with so many things in 2018, none of this seems to matter anymore.

Where do they get this stuff? Sweet rhetorically passive aggressive improper application of “irony” too.

This was posted later today than the usual 5:53 am Thursday pre-set. I am happily working on a project that is worth about 1347 years of my annual income and someone has to write the deal! Me. So, I wrote most of this at a highway side hotel near an engineering firm that I am working with. Very fun stuff. Rebar. Really top quality rebar. Might as well be Lego and Tonka toys. Is that a bad attitude for a lawyer?

With that, I leave you for another week. Remember to check out B+B on Saturday and Stan on Monday. The beer news never sleeps.

Your Thursday Beer Newsy Notes For Six Weeks From Autumn

I miss corduroys. Don’t you? Eight months a year they are your best pal. One day a year they feel like your lower half is actually a roast chicken in a plastic bag baking in a 450F oven. I haven’t seen a leaf turn yet but the grapes out front are starting to ripen into show purple. The barley was ripened in the fields when I visited MacKinnon Brothers Brewing on Monday. I haven’t fully captured above how literally golden the fresh cut stalks were – pretty much beer-coloured.* There were a few big beer stories this week but none more important than a good barley crop coming in. Some are not so lucky.

Jeff created a lovely portrait of a small shaded corner. Boak and Bailey found a similar scene from 60 years ago. If there is one thing I like as much as the surprise hue of cut barley it’s scenes like these of actual people and how they enjoy their beer.

Here in Ontario, the big news is how the new Provincial government has launched a “buck-a-beer” initiative – including by lowering the minimum price to, you got it, one dollar. The response has not been a warm one from craft brewers and commentators. Great Lakes Beer spoke to CBC Radio while others were interviewed on TV news broadcasts. Jordan took some time before his UK-Euro vacation to set the tone, explaining how the policy change makes little business sense. Crystal pointed out how one brewery, Dominion City, is responding by donating a dollar from every sale to immigration agencies. Other efforts from the charitable to sarcastic response are underway. I’m sure this one is going to build towards the promised release of the new cheap beer for Labour Day. Question: wouldn’t that beer have to have been in production before the policy announcement?

I don’t recall ever craving no-lo alcohol beer other than to cut beer down to 2.5% or so by pouring half and half. Dad liked it as it was a way to get around his diabetes medications. Not sure the new wave of tasty water would fit any particular one of my needs but that is me.

Beer fests. I found the idea of not taking photos of drunk people a bit weird. Why not other than it’s tawdry. Fest organizers and the drinkers put themselves in positions of risk voluntarily. A few images might load social media with something opposing that other weirder idea promoted by the industry – people not drinking craft beer to get drunk. In other fest news, Ben asked if folk were willing to spend $120 for a three hour drinking session. Not a chance, I said. And James B. reported on the continued sexist crap at the GBBF. So… drunken, expensive and being stuck in the same room as sexist pigs. Not exactly my kind of fun. And it’s all a shame when I think of someone like the Tandyman behind the scenes, working to ensure these sorts of things don’t go on.

I really enjoyed this perspective from BeerAdvocate on wholesale beer buying in the US craft market. Thirty years ago I was a wholesale produce trader for a bit and the story rings true, especially the need to respond to demand rather than try to set trends at the supply side of the equation. Consider this:

“The guy at the shop asks, ‘Where are you opening?’ I tell him and he says, ‘Oh, you’re going to be selling gospel music.’ I was an alternative, metal, New Wave kind of guy. I thought, ‘I’ll never sell gospel music!’ I opened my fledgling store with no money and three or four of the first 10 people in the door asked for gospel music. Guess how long it took before I started selling gospel music?” That experience stuck with Singmaster. “You set something up, but then you follow what the customers do if you’re smart,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what I like or what you like… it only matters what the customers [do].”

When I express my unhappiness with the concept of beer “curation” go back and read that passage.

Ed gave us this bit of fabulousness: “Not everyone like lambic…”

That’s it for this week. No need to link to the usual bland beer travel puff, beer pairing puff or puff-packed beer style announcements. A shorter summary of the news as you would expect from early mid-August but still enough real news to keep it interesting. Don’t forget to tune in to the internets for Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan on Mondays.

*Really? No, I had no idea. Thanks so much for the feedback!

Photo Album: Three Wineries And Four Breweries

The day started early and I bombed past MacKinnon Brothers – the farmstead brewery in Bath, Ontario – to see if the barley was coming in. No one seemed to be around so I headed along. Probably got themselves all out into the fields at 4:45 am or something as city folk like me snored.

Following a route I took in April 2015, I grabbed the Glenora Ferry and headed past Picton into wine country. As the law demands no one sells before 11 am, I used the time getting miles behind me. Off the Schoharie Road, I headed down a familiar gravel road and  grabbed local Chardonnay at Closson Chase and Gewürztraminer at Lacey Estates. I chatted with owners Liz and Kimball Lacey about the challenges of the heat that had pounded the region as well as the lack of rain. Their main fields sit on a hill back of the Closson Road. He said it was about 37C out there before taking the humidity into account

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that, I headed south to find Karlo Estates where we discussed the poor season of 2017 and how some wineries were having a difficult go. At this local level, it is the realities of farming plus the lack of tax advantages others enjoy that make or break a year. Rieslings made with grapes from Devil’s Wishbone back from near the ferry as well as a rose were stashed as I headed off.

 

 

 

 

555 Brewing Co. is at the west end of Picton’s downtown strip. It has one of the most attractive patios that I have seen attached to a brewery, out front. Lots of families were having lunch as I grabbed some beers, mentally noting to spend more than six minutes in the place.

 

 

 

 

At the northeast end of Picton, I grabbed a six of cream ale at Prince Eddy’s Brewing Co. which was just setting up for the day. The BBQ smelled very good but I had miles to go before I could rest in the shade of my own backyard, given the humidex was pushing 40C. Again, my six minutes on site were not nearly enough. But I was shopping and driving today.

About 5 km to the north of Picton, Parsons Brewing sits back from the road at a curve on County Road 49. There were beehives beyond the parking area. Chatted for a bit with co-owner Chris Parsons as he ran a very busy bottle shop. We swapped Japan related Warren Cromartie anecdotes. I grabbed some beers. In the dining area and out on the lawns, families were having lunch as kids played.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having filled the cooler and then some, I turned east again through Napanee and on to MacKinnon again to the north of Bath. Driving south on County Road 7, I crossed over the railway tracks and came upon their red combine harvester taking in the barley. The fresh cut stalks shone gold. Dan at the bottle shop told me it wasn’t a field of malting barley but they had 50 acres of the beery stuff out there waiting to come in. The brewery is part of a family seed grain operation. You remember Dan, right? The brewing gent who stabbed Craig Gravina for historical purposes back in 2015.  I had a sample of Dan’s new wheat ale. Lovely stuff. Here are a number of tiny moves of combining the barley: one, two, three and four.

A Pennyworth Of Beer For Each Pallbearer From The Departed, Mother Wells

Mother Wells. Her death was important enough to be noted in the New York Gazette of 28 May 1767.  The story of her mot famous conviction and branding was recorded in 1873’s A History of Enfield in the County of Middlesex…* in this way:

Above a century ago a very mysterious affair happened in that part of Enfield known as the Wash, which caused great excitement in the country. The circumstances are here briefly stated: Elizabeth Canning, a servant girl, had been on a visit to her uncle, and on  her return in the evening was attacked, in Moorfields, by two men, who robbed her, and gave her a blow which made her insensible; they aftenwards dragged her along the high road until they came to the house of one Mother Wells, at Enfield-wash, where, she said, one Mary Squires, an ugly old gypsy, confined her in a room after being shut up there twenty-eight days, and fed upon nothing but bread and water, she at length effected her escape. On arriving in London she told her tale to two gentlemen, with whom she had lived as servant ; she made a deposition before a magistrate…

Enfield is now a borough in northern end of Greater London within which there is a sections called Enfield Highway or Enfield Wash.  Wikipedia tells us “Mother Well’s house was opposite the Sun and Woolpack public house, formerly the Sun and Punchbowl.” The Sun and Woolpack is still there. Canning’s walk home after escaping would have been ten miles long. The allegations became a popular scandal but apparently her evidence was not given consistently, charges flew back and forth and the “story which divided the country into two parties, called the Egyptians** and the Canningites.” Mobs gathered, outrages occurred and even the Lord Mayor had his windows broken. All of which is very interesting but I am actually more interested in the idea of Mother Wells and her house of infamy for both “highway gentlemen and highway ladies” – what or rather who were highway ladies?

Canning, initially the supposed victim, was herself tried for perjury due to the confusion of here evidence and the record of the case at the Old Bailey from 24th April 1754 gives a number of tidbits about the house of Susannah “Mother” Wells. According to testimony, it had:

– a main room or parlour on the street level
– a kitchen
– several smaller rooms upstairs with rough furniture and windows
– a hay-loft, work shop or long room with hay also on the upper level
– a shed or “penthouse” attached with a sloping roof

And the Hereford stage went past the rough house as she viewed it through gaps in the planks covering the window. The route to Herefordshire through Enfield is now the A1010.*** There are a few more details of the building in the records of the 21st February 1753 trial of Wells who, along with Mary Squires, were held jointly responsible for the detention and robbery. One of the witnesses is a lodger. The kitchen is described as to the right of the main door and it was below the room in which she was held. Canning herself stated: “there was another room in which I heard a noise at nights…” The door to the room she was detained in had a quarter inch crack you could look through. There were only four or five steps upstairs and the second story window was only eight to ten feet off the ground. So, it is a tumbledown low sitting public or common rooming house.

For their efforts, Squires was sentenced to death while Mother Wells was branded and imprisoned Newgate for six months. The tale, however, turns and Canning is herself charged for making up much of the story. Her evidence of the layout of the highway-person’s and itinerant lodger den of infamy never seems to be quite accepted even though it is described by a number of folk in the evidence before court. It appears to be a sort of informal boarding house if you were of the sort of public that likely would not get much welcome at the Sun and Punchbowl across the road.

The magistrate taking the evidence in the first instance and gets it wrong? Novelist Henry Fielding. The Mayor who takes up the case of unattractive falsely accused highway-folk? Noted “humanitarian and freeman of the Brewers’ Company named Sir Crisp Gascoyne (1700-61).” [I knew this would get back to beer sooner or later.] Gascoyne held a lengthy inquiry into what would normally be an unnoticed matter, one which included 119 witnesses and gained attention of the relatively young press. An airtight alibi was established for Squires and the now branded Wells – and the final outcome proved to be a milestone on the path towards consideration of the merit of the case over the status of the parties.

So, was this the mid-1700s version of a speakeasy? A den of thieves? Or just a poor person’s boarding house. I don’t know. It’s clear that the owner’s notoriety continued for sometime as not only was her death and the parade of pallbearers to every pub in Enfield reported in 1767 but the story was repeated in newspapers in the 1820s and again in the 1850s. A tale of justice being served for the lowly. Those beers at every pub along the route for the pallbearers? One last “up yours” from the little-loved, falsely branded hard case in the casket? Probably.

*A history of Enfield in the County of Middlesex; including its royal and ancient manors, the chase, and the Duchy of Lancaster, with notices of its worthies, and its natural history, etc.; also an account of the church and charities, and a history of the New River; the church history by George H. Hodson, and the general history by Edward Ford…
**I wrote a paper of the English law as it related to the Romani while I was in law school. “Gypsy” is short for Egyptian. Apparently the Romani people arrived in England in Tudor ties ad were assumed to be from Egypt. They were subject to many specific discriminatory restrictions until the reform laws of the mid-1800s.
***The same route was the setting for the comic poem from 1782 by William Cowper,  “The Diverting History of John Gilpin Shewing how he went Farther than he intended, and came safe Home again” meaning Canning was held in a dwelling along a main route.

 

It Is August So Make The Best Of What Is Left Guided By These Tidbits Of Thursday Beer News

Remember?

These Thursday news headlines are getting longer. I wonder what Stan would say about my lack of control. I write that because last Monday’s musings from Stan were so well managed. Made me think about how plunking down this weekly post speaks as much or more to my interesting in writing as my interest in beer. Writing demands writing. So, after reading Stan, I immediately looked to see how many links I had stored away so far in the week for this report and – to my horror – it appears I had been having a good weekend. Nothing had been tucked away to be noted so far. Jings! Bet it won’t show.

How did my week go otherwise? Thanks for asking. I did go to a new pub in another town by the waterfront the other day. It was very pleasant with the cooling wind coming in the window with the view. The beer was a house branded short pour that was also in a cheater pint but my waiter forgot to bill m for my partner’s drink so it all worked out. Sweet.

Dad joke.

Beer sales are up in Germany. Revenues are up in the UK, too, but perhaps not volume. Trumps tariffs are forcing US beer makers to raise prices and “America’s long love affair with beer is on the rocks“!

According to the Beer Institute, a trade group, drinkers chose beer just 49.7 per cent of the time last year, down from 60.8 per cent in the mid-90s. Among 21- to 27-year-olds, the decline has been sharper. Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, Budweiser’s owner, found that in 2016, just 43 per cent of alcohol consumed by young drinkers was beer. In 2006, it was 65 per cent. Per-capita beer consumption in the U.S. fell to 73.4 litres last year, from 80.2 in 2010 and 83.2 litres in 2000, according to IWSR, a drinks market research firm. Germany, by comparison, consumed 103 litres a person last year.

My kid says it is all about calories in her crowd, so gin or vodka with soda is what they buy. Gin’s big. Makes sense. When folk find out I know something about beer, the look I get is either (i) weirdo or (ii) of course, you fat lump. Both of which are sorta correct so I don’t really mind. Can’t hurt my feelings. No sirree.

Could it be that grain was first malted for purposes other than brewing beer? Merryn has linked to that story.  Interestingly, I heard somewhere – likely NPR – over the weekend that there is a theory (working the theory cocktail circuit) that farming was started to encourage bees because early humans liked honey and bees like plants. Tough luck for that whole “beer created civilization” stuff. It never made sense anyway.

2011 was the peak year for wine blogs. I’d put beer blogs a bit earlier. Lew is one human-sized ball of regret over how things turned out. I remember the glory days. Glory… days…. OK, fine. No one cares. Actually, there are plenty of bloggers but they call themselves on-line journalists. Link every second paragraph to the writings of others while coming to conclusions others had pretty much already figured out? Blog.

Michael Tonsmeire has again updated his fabulous chart of larger brewery ownership connections. Just to be clear, ownership is just one of the ways other outside interests can exert control over a business. Loan agreements are just as restricting but, as private transactions, harder to spot. All those firms in the pure “independent” center of the chart? Just as likely to have a taint that some puritanical nerd sect will have an issue with. But no one cares about that either.

Speaking of law. Beer law story #1.  Beer law story #2. Taking sides in these matters is a bit weird. It’s like folk think they are smarter than the common law. Note: beer not special… standard rules expected to be applied. And these things have happened before. Don’t hear about anyone going all torches and pitch forks against Sam Adams, which is again on the decline. Folk should figure out where to apply their “I’m upset” resources.

New York craft breweries, as Don C. reports, have put together a TV show for public broadcasters. Note:

The series cost about $500,000 to produce, said executive producer and director Justin Maine of MagicWig. The state’s Empire State Development office contributed 80 percent — about $400,000. The project started when the ESD office began looking for ways to promote the state’s growing craft beer industry.

So… more like a state funded advertorial. But its about beer so that’s OK. Don also tells the story of NNY coming to CNY. I enjoyed the original Sackets location in my VBB days.

August. Here’s an August “man bites dog” news story if ever I saw one – someone’s pee is reminding him of beer.

Finally, Europe’s blistering summer might well have seriously damaged the barley crop:

The price of European malting barley, which is used to ferment the brew as well as provide flavour and colour to beer, has surged by two-thirds since the middle of May to a five-year high of €230 per tonne. Scandinavia, the Baltics, Germany and France are among the regions that produce the ingredient, whose production in some regions has dropped by as much as 50 per cent and is “dire”, according to Scott Casey of consultancy RMI Analytics. “In some places the crops are just dying,” he added.

Drag. That actually matters. My yellow zucchini seems to be dying, too. Not that a global industry depends on my yellow zucchini crop. Happens every year. Some sort of virus. Droopy and starting to rot on the blossom end. They look so hopeful in June when they pop out of the ground but by August its a scene out of a C-grade horror movie out in the garden. I should get out my Airfix men and make a flick about how Rommel was really defeated with the assistance of huge yicky plants from Mars.

That’s it for now. Another quality update for your Thursday. Yes! You are welcome. Remember: Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan next Monday.  Bet their zucchini plants are just fine.