This is great. We have an absolutely gridlocked national political scene according to the polls and that, for a Canadian, is a wonderful thing. We love minority in our national federation of a parliamentary monarchy system. Best is there is a good chance that the highest vote won’t equal the most seats, given 105% of Albertans vote Tory. Probably the guy tapping the keg last week in Kitchener (at the world’s second largest Oktoberfest) gets the nod as PM.* The Leader of HM’s Loyal Opposition just looks too much like a 12 year old in his bigger cousin’s suit to pull it off. Which is fine. Which makes minorities great. Things get done. Deals get made. Progress happens. I know in the US folks are all like “wuzza third Party?” and in the UK folk are all like “making deals based on compromise?” but here in the Great White North we know what works. And that is working.
First, an acknowledgment and a bit of a bummer. I read this note this week at Stan’s place:
For 6 years I assembled links to good reading about beer and other things fermented, posting them here on Mondays, often with a bit of commentary. That ended in with the arrival of October in 2019. Of course, the archives (in monday links during 2018 and 2019, musing before) remain, and at the bottom of every post there is a list of sites that have new links every week. You may also look at my Twitter feed on the right to see what I’ve been reading.
It would be telling half a story if I were to tell you that Stan is my favorite beer writer, the only person I will call a “beer expert” given the depth and breadth of his comprehensive knowledge. He has always had the time for my dumb questions and has even taken the time to tell me to go to straight to hell… now… exactly when I needed it. I will be sad to not read his thoughts at the beginning of every work week but I have noticed an uptick in his own blog writing activity otherwise so maybe he will focus on more posts. A welcome thought. As is the news that there will be a Lew v.2.
If there was a next gen candidate to follow in Stan’s footsteps, Evan Rail might be it. Late last week, just after the round up hit the presses, he posted an article at GBH. (And without the obligatory 27 “GBH” references embedded in the text, too! He must know how to negotiate a contact.) The article is about hops and, more specifically, a trip he took to the Hop Research Center in Hüll, Germany to learn more about their breeding program:
Breeding itself is a delicate process. Commercial hop plants are generally all female, with female flowers. To create new crosses, male hop plants—which usually but don’t always have male flowers—are also bred. But, in the middle of a commercially important hop region like the Hallertau, how do you raise male hop plants, when just a pinch of their pollen can create unwanted hybrids on the surrounding farms, potentially ruining the crop?
Me? I probably would prefer the unofficial version of the history of CAMRA, which is what the “biography of the organization” is actually called.**
We would like this perspective to come from someone who is not perceived as having a close association with CAMRA. The brief is for a c.50,000 word authorised biography of CAMRA, to be researched and written in 2020, with the text due at the end of the year, ready for publication in March 2021 in time for the Campaign’s birthday celebrations. Exact outline, terms and fees to be negotiated.
Nothing like a book where the subject matter gets to negotiate the outline. Also from the UK and in line with such thoughts on the improbabilities of the world we live in, a stark truth from an English brewer on the perfect pint pour:
A proper family/regional head brewer would know that the perfect amount of foam is that which allows the publican to sell 105% of the beer from each cask.
Next, Martyn has continued in his Martyn-like habit of posting long excellent blog posts with another long excellent blog post on corporate misinformation about a certain Sri Lankan brewery’s history:***
Mind, even at five errors in four sentences, that’s not the worst pile of nonsense on the internet about what is now the Lion Brewery, famous today for an award-winning strong stout that is one of the last links with British colonial brewing in Southern Asia. The Lion Brewery’s own website is full of rubbish (and bizarre random capitalisation) as well…
Odd news out of Oregon where one brewery has been vandalized twice in recent weeks… by the same person:
Police contacted Albin in the area and arrested her for first-degree criminal mischief. However, Albin was released from the jail just three days later. She returned to the brewery around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. That’s when she allegedly threw rocks and liquor bottles into the windows and doors of the restaurant, and made Molotov cocktails that were found thrown around the inside of the brewery. The entire incident was captured on surveillance video…
Speaking of Molotov cocktails, I now have less of an issue with paper-based beer containers:
Carlsberg announced the launch of two prototypes of the new bottle at the C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. The newer, eco-friendly versions are made from sustainably sourced wood fibres and are fully recyclable. The concept of a paper-based bottle may sound strange at first, as you wonder how the structure would stand firm, holding liquid safely inside.
…but the technology probably would be put to better use in the jams and jellies trade. Which I assume is about 1,297 times bigger than beer. Isn’t it? I need to check out Insta-jam or whatever that corner of the social media boglands are called.
There. A bit of a quieter week, I suppose. And not particularly wide in the selection of voices. I did hunt around, honest. Let me know what I am missing. Still, plenty of good reading for a week filled with many bigger matters. Some things beer can’t fix. Expect a further Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then check out the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look for mid-week notes from The Fizz as well.
*Fact: Canadian politicians must love beer.
**Illiteracy is an alarming problem, as we know, in the industrial scribbling circle but this is inordinately odd.
***And one I love as their foreign export stout makes it regularly to Ontario.
Thanks for the kind words, Alan. I do plan to post a bit more, although not the silly/high amounts of the aughts. Those were the days, weren’t they? Comments. I remember comments.
But for the record, I am not a beer expert. But I know where to find them.
Well, if I have misdiagnosed you as a beer expert I certainly have earned another reason for not being one myself!
Comments were great. Some of the best unpacking of ideas are sitting there still. Social media has never held a match to the bright light of a good screaming well informed blog comments thread.