Welcome To The 2020s Edition Of Beery News Notes

I think I lost about three days over the last week. I mean I didn’t notice them slip by at all. It wasn’t any happy haze of a drunken hour or anything. Just the slow drip drip drip of the chocolate assortment boxes being passed around the rooms filled with cousins-in-law, nephews and the pets of others. I was practically temperate all weeks as a matter of fact. Thanks to Katie, I watched the first season of the Detectorists  on DVD – which earned me the stink-eye from our eldest for, again, not having Netflicks.  [See, I didn’t even know it is spelled “Netflix”!]  So, needless to say, I have no real news updates to share.

First up, the blogger known as Wee Beefy had a bit of a sharing post on Boxing Day:

…regular and more astute readers may be aware that since my stroke and more so since my recent brain injury, memories, whatever they are, have not been very high up on my agenda. Longer term readers may also note that throughout the nearly ten year history of my blog, accurate memories of liquids consumed and other aspects of crapulence have thus far regularly escaped me, or at the very least, presented themselves in my memory through a dizzying, contorted haze. So last night, when it took me an hour to find and recall the name of Yorkshiremen the grumbleweeds (not a pub), I was prompted to write.

I’ve actually wondered to myself what, after 17 years of this sort of writing hobby,  might happen were I to have a similar change of life. I assume I would not keep writing. Good to see someone not making that mistake.  I will be reading to see what I can learn.

Jeff at Beervana posted a great scrapbook… album… post… of the favourites among his beery photos.

And to the visual accompaniment of The Beer Nut* on New Year’s Eve, Stephen Beaumont himself concurrently tweeted an excellent and pointed set of wishes for 2020 including:

6) That more breweries operating tap rooms realize that in so doing they are in the hospitality game, and start creating spaces in keeping with that understanding. Also, treating their customers with respect and appreciation. 6/11…

8) That fining and filtration stop being viewed as sins. Yes, hazy works, cloudy works, but there is also nothing wrong with a brilliantly clear beer. 8/11

Switching vices, this is an interesting take from the Beeb on the lack of change that cannibals (aka dope)  becoming legal had on Canadian society:

There were early signs of trouble. When cannabis became legal on 17 October 2018, there wasn’t enough supply to meet the demand. Long lines and backlogs of online orders plagued consumers. Producers weren’t sure what strains would be most popular where, and kinks in the distribution chain were still being ironed out… Where there was once a shortage, now producers have too much product, in part because of the lack of retail. 

The story goes on to say that while we Canucks bought 11,707 kilograms in Sept 2019, about 165,000 kilograms of finished and unfinished products was ready for sale. Frankly, I know of no one who picked up the habit and hear of plenty who still buy off the illegal unregulated market at a much lower price.

On the one hand, I suppose this is entirely good news for Evan and the other authors… but on the other I am not sure why it is news. A gratuitous gift just seems odd. So I trust per word rates will also go up for 2020.

And speaking of curated community, Beth has noted an important limitation on “curation” of “community” – two concepts I have never had much time for: everyone and everything should not be welcome just because sales increase, numbers increase or popularity increases. Things can be bad, especially around alcohol.

You will be happy to know that craft beer is booming in Saskatchewan:

…the major trends right now are hazy New England IPA-style beers, and fruit and sour beers. The hazy beers “are generally very juicy in flavour and they offer a big citrus flavour,” Gasson said. The fruit and sour beers range from very tart to having almost no tartness depending on the style. Gasson thinks those trends will continue, but he also sees more traditional IPAs — that may appeal to a broader audience — making a comeback.

This illustrates the paper-doll moment that good beer is in now. Swap out Saskatchewan for Alabama or Aberdeen and the same sameness applies. Some call it a golden era. It’s conformity. Perhaps even self-censorship.

Contrast that with Gary Gilman who has again added again to our collective substantive experience of beer history with a post on the unrelated brewing Reinhardts of Ontario and Quebec 170 years ago in a series of three posts, including this from the last:

On August 31, 1889, a box ad for the brewery, about 2″x 2″, appeared in Toronto’s The Globe & Mail (institutional access or paywall). The brewery was called Berlin Brewery, with a statement that “E.V. Reinhardt, Prop.”, was “manufacturer of the celebrated Berlin lager” on Queen Street. The ad was in a group of ads from town merchants that accompanied a multi-page feature on Berlin life and industry. Seemingly the business was on a good footing at this time. One imagines that the Toronto Reinhardts were not thrilled to read this over breakfast in their home city. True, it was small beer in relation to them, but as an outpost of an older, well-established Montreal brewery, they probably experienced disquiet over it, apart from seeing “their” name used by someone else.

Elsewhere this week, The Beer Nut* has published his Golden Pint Awards for 2019. This is a thing started by those who have since drifted away into more successful modes of human existence but, along with some really clever wit in the comments section, it’s nice to see a bit of Windows XP era nostalgia being clung onto:

This month makes it ten years since Mark Dredge and Andy Mogg suggested categories that beer bloggers might like to use for an annual run-down of the best in beer. I’ve stuck with it steadfastly since, even if I do change my criteria for the winners each year, and sometimes during the process of writing that year’s entry. It’s not meant to be taken seriously or considered meaningful, is what I’m saying.

[Edit: an earlier entry by Boak and Bailey should be noted, too, as should be the fact they have not posted for two weeks. PANIC!!!!]

Stan‘s latest Hop News by Email! (aka “the HNBE”) newsletter came out this week  and it was a great addition to the beer news chit chattery, including:

Attendees filled out provided evaluation sheets, giving beers a score of 0-5 in seven categories (floral, spicy/herbal, woody/resin/pine, citrus, vegetal/onion/garlic, red fruits, tropical fruit). This certainly was not scientific. The sheets were intended to enhance the experience for attendees more than provide peer reviewable feedback. This was not a trained panel, there was no calibration and it would be silly to present you with a cumulative radar chart for each of the beers. So I won’t. Instead, a couple of overall observations:

Now, based on the above I am not going to make any large observations about my thinking this was all a bit…err… detectorist** but I will leave you to the more fundamental questions of why it is that (i) men like hobbies and (ii) all hobbies eventually bear a strong resemblance to other hobbies.

Note: I drove from the 1780s to the 1840s bit of Ontario on our holiday drive in a Ford Transit mini-bus, passing the Fryfogle Tavern each way. Alarmingly lovely, I always look behind it as we drive by to get a glimpse of where Tiger Dunlop drank in a leanto in the 1820s. Up there at the top is an image actually tweeted alongside the note “John Severn, Brewery, Yonge St., northeast corner Church St.” indicating perhaps that it may well have been painted by Tom Thompson. Which would be lovely.  It was actually apparently painted by Frederic Victor Poole, however. Which is still lovely. Two bits on Ontario’s pre-temperance existence in one paragraph. Beat that, 2020 guess-timate articles.

I must admit to not having much interest in the people who will make the news in beer in 2020 given, as science of yore has explained clearly, they are always about people identified as such in 2019 or earlier. My prediction? 2020 will clearly be best known for the Pellicle-GBH mid-year Asian land wars. We already have a sense of who the loser may… err, will be. And we’ll have plenty more of the really great pro beer writing. That’s always guaranteed.

Somewhat similarly, I can’t think of a better example of underwhelming fact finding than this article in Forbes which seemingly relies exclusively on old big craft brewery owners or executives posing as a “cross-section” assessing how we got to the current market as “beer experts” – a term without meaning in itself – here used to suggest that somehow they are not just players with a possibly fading interest.  Consider this:

…according to Schuhmacher, all of that capex spending could become a problem in the years to come. “The next decade will reveal a tremendous amount of excess brewing capacity, which will drive closures, consolidation, and lower pricing,” he said.

As we know,*** this actually was the tale of 2018 which accelerated in to 2019. We are well down this path. In my own town we are three breweries down compared to a year ago. A healthy retraction. But, again, remembering presented as forecasting. Who saw tree hug leftie New Belgium selling to the pals of the right wing military dictatorship? Now that would have been forecasting!

Should grocery stores selling beer have designated beer aisles as opposed to loss leader end placements? Recovering alcoholics might prefer it:

…it’s “inappropriate” to be displaying alcoholic beverages in grocery aisles alongside basic food items, including products that are marketed to children. “Alcohol is not a normal commodity. It makes you intoxicated. It’s a psychoactive substance. It’s a Group 1 carcinogen. So, from the point of view of a child seeing alcohol in a grocery store, it normalizes a substance which is not the same as the other products that are in that grocery store.”

Hmm… that actually seems reasonable.

So, there… another year and another decade.  It is now The Twenties.  The decade near at the end of which I get a pension.  There’s a cheery thought. As you contemplate that, don’t forget to check in with Boak and Bailey’s on Saturdays, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too.

*JOHN!!! HIS NAME IS JOHN AND HE IS A HUMAN BEING!!!!
**For the next three weeks I shall so compare all things in life’s rich pageant.
***Come for the news, stay for the gratuitous slag!