Month: October 2022

The Tired Old Thursday Beery News Notes For The End of October

Tired and old? Not the notes! Just me. The municipal election was Tuesday and it was a long day at the coal face, pick and shovel in hand. My sixth election for work. I love it as I get to practice a very specific sort of thing that only applies one evening every four years. Like being good at Leap Year law. Well, at least good enough. I also crossed over to the nearby US of A this week for the first time in years. Didn’t buy any beer given how crummy the exchange rate is and how high the duties – but I did get a couple of boxes of Cracklin’ Oat Bran, one of the cereals our Canadian federal government denies us. The US port of entry at the bridge 35 miles or so from here has been rebuilt and looks like something out of Star Wars… or Red Dwarf maybe. It’s actually really an interesting bit of architectural design. Imposing. As it should be.

What else is going on?  Well, Jordan was in town last week – but I was tied to the desk and couldn’t make the twenty-three minute walk to Spearhead (led by Josh, himself a municipal candidate!) to watch the brewery’s rather ultra set up produce an ESB for an excellent charitable cause. The brewery is very good about offering support like that also producing a light lager for CJAI, the community radio station whose monthly minutes I take as secretary of the board.* Jordan shared a bit about the experience:

…we’ve got Maris Otter, a little Dark Crystal, and some Black Patent Malt for colour correction. We’ve got Challenger, Fuggles, and East Kent Goldings which should give it some verisimilitude… The brewing system at Spearhead is so advanced that there are not a huge number of pictures you can effectively take of the brew day. I have raked out enough mash tubs on camera over the years and I always feel I look a little silly doing it. I also felt silly posing next to the console with my finger over the transfer button so I made Jacob do it. I feel like I look a little silly most of the time.

For Punch, Courtney Iseman wrote an interesting piece on simmering backlash against the vague concept of IPA. I was particularly pleased to see it reached back and made the case for continuity even if it suffers from the amnesia that beer writer interviewing beer writer summations like this also offer:

IPA’s true history remains buried in England, and is all but unknown in the United States. From a 19th-century influx of German immigrants to post-Prohibition consolidation of American beer under just a few behemoth brands pumping out yellow, fizzy water, the United States was a longtime lager land. Peter Ballantine & Sons Brewing Co. made one of the country’s few IPAs from the late 1800s until 1971, which inspired Fritz Maytag to make, four years later, Anchor Brewing Co.’s Liberty Ale, a dry-hopped pale ale that motivated more U.S. brewers to follow suit.

Craig described the history of American IPA dating back to the early 1800s in 2013 – and at least 1852 in Canada – but at least that part of the chain from Ballantine to today has been acknowledged.
Speaking of improving the track of actual brewing history, the comments last week illustrated the need to be diligent. That responsibility led me to one particularly unique factor to include in considerations, suggested in 1933 by the British scientific journal Nature, a stick to medically measure how pervasive ale was in the medieval era:

The medieval publican had a bad reputation for fraud and dishonesty, while the tavern was often regarded as a place of ill-repute. Alcoholism during the Middle Ages in England, as elsewhere, resembled in many ways the alcoholism of classical antiquity…  Legislation dealing with drunkenness or control of the liquor trade was practically unknown in the ancient world, whereas taxation of drink, reduction in the hours of sale and the number of taverns and other restrictions were introduced in the Middle Ages. The absence of syphilis in both ages was noteworthy in view of the fact that alcohol was such a frequent incentive to exposure to infection and was liable to aggravate the disease when once it was acquired.

One more historical question – did this cleric actually first bottle a beer?

Pellicle sent out an update to subscribing supporters like me and the message is clear – the plan to have a self-sufficient quality beer writing without compromising dependence is possible:

…at the time of writing this we are at 296, which is the highest number of Patreon supporters we’ve ever had. We hope you feel your support is worthwhile, and if its not, please consider my inbox always open. We understand that circumstances change, and things aren’t simple for many of us at the moment, including ourselves. I want to ensure that the way we run Pellicle is transparent, and you can see where your donation goes… While we maintain our ethos is to celebrate the joy inherent within our favourite drinks cultures, we also believe that these spaces can only be truly joyful if they can be enjoyed by everyone. We’ll continue publishing articles in this vein in the future for this reason. 

The recent piece by Emmie Harrison-West on the failure of UK craft to support a call to end sexism is proof enough of that intention. Compare assurances elsewhere that a “critique on the beer industry itself” is best avoided. I also liked this week’s article on the folly of wine tourism and suggest they apply equally to beer tourism which, as one wag recently put it, is a euphemism for getting drunk in a city where no one knows you. If you think of it, that second Pellicle article as well as the one in Punch above also align a bit with the image to the right, a brewery advert aimed at a French colonial soldier in Algeria spotted on Twitter this week. Click for deets.

Stan in his newsletter Hopping Mad… The Hoptician… err… Hop Queries included an extended bit on that thing I know nothing about called first wort hopping:

In 1995, the German brewing magazine Brauwelt reported on the “rediscovery of first wort hopping,” documenting that many German breweries implemented first wort hopping 100 years before. It is a technique where hops are added to the first runnings of wort from the lauter tun. This exposes hop material to wort at lower temperatures and an elevated pH for an extended period of time. Advocates for FWH claim it produces a beer with improved bitterness qualities that can be described as “smooth” and “harmonious.”

Sounds a bit like myself, smooth and harmonious.

Glynn Davis wrote about how interviewing one restauranteur who went alcohol free led to considerations of the overall value proposition:

Rather like Hussain has found at the Blue Naan, the adoption of non-alcoholic and low-alcoholic drinks is not going to help attract customers (quite the opposite could be the case, in fact), nor are they going to be some big money spinner for hospitality businesses. But that’s not to say they don’t have a place in helping companies achieve other aims that might be more focused on health, wellness and faith, rather than just being about hard cash.

One last thing? Was craft beer culture ever cool other than to the people with the buzz at the expensive beer bar? Or was the relatively dead air on social media after the results were released more the case?

Hmm… something to think about. As you do, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey hopefully now again mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast. The  OCBG Podcast is on a quieter schedule these days – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) Check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run… no, it is back and here is the link!

*I like to play both sides in radio land.

These Are The Brief But Tersely To The Point Beery News Notes For This Week

Mid-October. It is still pretty nice out there. Maples bursting with bright orange leaves around the neighbourhood. Still no frost in the forecast right up to the last days before November. It’s nutty. I have been more ant than grasshopper nonetheless and busily squirreling away preserved crops one way or another. Last night I was seen preserving ginger root in Sauternes. I have more to prepare and may do a batch soaked and submerged with bourbon. Not sure I would try this with beer… unless an imperial stout over 10% was nearby. That might be quite the tasty treat.

Back to the island, Boak and Bailey published a very impressionistic bit of writing about the experience of returning to hunting out beer in Germany after more than a decade. I say impressionistic primarily on the basis of the first word in the title of the bit is “impressions” so you can consider me a believer. And an exercise in an alternative approach it is very refreshing:*

A proper dodgy station, like all proper cities have, its plaza reeking of urine and scattered with beer bottles. Old hands rummaging in its bins, searching for treasure. Have fun in our city, the gateway says – have a drink or two, by all means – but don’t let it take you. Under the ring road, through the old city wall, and into a party on the move. Is it the last night of the year for a T-shirt, or the first for scarves and gloves? Wegbiers there and here. Döners here and there. Cream-coloured taxis nosing through crowds forced out into the street from hot bars with hot red lights.

Elsewhere, Jenny P posted some interesting images this week of South African Chibuku, a sorghum beer made by SABMiller and its competitors which are sold in cartons – some of which have rather direct if not graphic health warnings. We used to get A+W root beer in those containers. When I were a lad…

Lars posted a response to the thoughts of Martyn on the use of beer as the alternative to toxic water in the medieval period. As it is impossible to prove a negative, I lean away from arguments which include statements such as “I suggest that is impossible” and so I find Lars has the slightly more compelling argument:

Sweden and Denmark are further to the south, and a completely different story. In both countries the norm was to brew new beer every time the barrel was empty. Beer literally was the everyday drink against thirst to the point that in Denmark the most common name for the weaker beer was “dagligøl” (daily beer), while in Sweden beer was just known as “dricka” (drink) or “svagdricka” (weak drink). It’s difficult for people today to accept this as fact, but nevertheless people really did drink beer all day every day (where they could). Here’s a quote from a Danish farmer describing his own upbringing: “People drank a lot of beer, and only beer. Nobody would think of drinking water or milk.”

I would point out a couple of things that also guide me. Martyn bases his argument on reliable stats related to English grain production from 1275 to 1324 and holds that:

…to supply every adult in the country with three and a half  pints of ale a day, the minimum to keep hydrated if you are not drinking water, would have required 83 per cent of the country’s entire grain production to be used for brewing.

This is a rational observation. But it fails to take into account that the less noticed lives of poor and country folk would have found their alcohol through fermentables which were (i) not those recorded for national stats and (ii) likely included or even relied on plants other than wheat, rye, barley and oats. We see, for example, plenty of past references to pea and bean malt. Consider this from the very Martyn himself in 2012. Consider also a brewer in my fair city just 207 years ago seeking a supply of peas.  If these are added to the national supply, that 83 percent may drop, maybe even by double digits… say to 66% hypothetically. Also, he argues that “if the average is only one pint a day, that accounts for only 19% of total grain production.” But what else is it supposed grain production would go to in them there days other than bread and ale? Add to that Lars’ argument that we should not forget the poor simply died young as they were destitute. Perhaps destitute of ale. And perhaps exactly because they were destitute of ale. All in all, the jury should still be out on this one.

Back to the present, Jeff concludes his thoughts on a trip to Norway, so praised by clever people like me last week, with more excellent observations but perhaps a few affirmations which may be a wee but perhaps understandable mistake. See if you can see it… hint:

When I started learning about beer more than four decades ago, I made a common American mistake. I assumed brewing traditions and beer styles were permanent and fixed. Finding a small farmhouse brewery in the verdant fields of Wallonia was akin to discovering a new species of otter. You understood it could evolve and probably did, over the decades and centuries, but like otters this process was so slow you couldn’t observe it happening in real time. (This is why the early style descriptions were so rigidly prescriptive.) But once you actually met the brewers making traditional styles, you were reminded that they were people, creative and smart. The idea that they didn’t have the skill and curiosity to experiment was laughable. The preservation of tradition came from a deeper, spookier place.

News from Smithville:

A downtown property owner is taking issue with the City of Smithville’s Beer Ordinance. Todd Cantrell, who owns a building at 119 West Market Street, said the ordinance, as it stands does not permit him to be granted a city beer permit because the location is within 400 feet of a church. The problem, according to Cantrell, is that the city has granted beer permits to others in the past which are in violation of the existing beer ordinance including as it relates to places of public gatherings. City Attorney Vester Parsley said he is unaware of any illegally issued permits under the existing beer ordinance, which has been on the books since 2004.

And Finns are drinking less beer:

…sales of beer containing alcohol fell by 3.6 million litres, or 4 percent, compared to the same quarter last year… Cider sales also fell during the summer months, by 0.4 million litres or 7.4 percent, while sales of long drinks rose by 0.3 million litres or 1.6 percent. Federation CEO described the drop in beer sales as “dramatic,” noting that sales during July to September fell by 70 million litres compared to 10 years ago.

Finns just want to be healthier. Is that so wrong?

Bad idea. Don’t care. Don’t like it. Like calling seagulls an important part of the french fry industry.

Good idea. Pete asked on Twitter what people want from beer writing… which is sort of the question I answer here for myself (and perhaps some of you) every week. A wider range of answers, some of which are exactly the opposite of what I look for. Which is good as there is no one answer. I like Boak and Bailey’s list but even that one is partial – in that it is all positive. Me, I’m just happy reading something that doesn’t strike me as geared primarily towards pleasing the one who wrote the cheque… or perhaps not deterring the one who will write the next cheque.**

Finally and on a very different scale, the other week I mentioned generally speaking how “discussion of any troubles in beer culture or the trade never turn to considering how alcohol soaked the whole thing is” and received an odd snippy response that people were about people writing about craft beer and individual alcoholism,  including at GBH. I clarified the difference between that and this, in case it needed clarifying. Interesting then that there is now a podcast at GBH confirming both in the text and in the interview audio that these posts are not to be taken as “a critique on the beer industry itself“… which is also really odd. Is connecting reasonably common alcoholism to the craft industry’s troubles – like sexism and other bigotries as well as questionable HR standards – something of an untouchable subject?***

There. Not to much heavy this week.  Smithville? City Attorney Vester Parsley?? Really??? As I get a grip, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey hopefully now again mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast. The  OCBG Podcast is on a quieter schedule these days – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) Check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run… no, it is back and here is the link!

*The subtext of an obvious sort being what when it is too regularly done it is tedious. We all can name names.
**See for example the very next paragraph!
***But it may have been “don’t worry, be happy and drink up!” week at GBH, so there is that. One must after all have an understanding of the bread and the butter and which side is which.

Your Frighteningly Well Researched Beery News Notes For Mid-October 2022

Wow. I even scared myself a little just putting this together this week. So much effort. So little point. And all the stuff on the cutting room floor. Whew. What’s that? Yes, summer has lingered, thanks for asking. The frosts have only brushed the yard as it turns out. The garden is still going on with plenty to still harvest. Still time for more cardoon mush. You know, you really aren’t a chef/gardener/drinks biz personality until you’ve made your own cardoon mush. And I’ve yet to even eat one of my first crop of salsify. Yet there is it, right by the front door.

Before we get going, an update on the comments I made last week about my hopes and dreams for a futuresque dreamscape of smooth brightly coloured plastics and chrome at BXLBeerFest in Brussels, The Beer Nut reporting. In his update he shared the scene, a bit of which is to your right, my left. Pallets. Wooden pallets held together with wire or tape or something. Really? Craft really needs to get into the modern world, that’s what I say. The world of plastics and chrome.

First up, Eoghan posted some serious thoughts about the point of all his beer writing efforts:

Do I want to continue writing about Brussels and beer? Is it still interesting for me? More importantly, is it still interesting for you? If I stop what I’ve been doing these past five years, what comes after? Do I stop altogether? Or do I try something different? But if I try something different and I fail, and fail utterly, then what? What happens then? Would I want to continue to write?  These might seem like mundane questions, a fixation on something – a blog – that ultimately has little intrinsic value. But that would be to do down the time and the energy I’ve put into my writing in the last five years, and I’ve done myself down enough in the past.

Lots have people have moved on so that is no shame in itself. Just see how many of the beery podcasts, newsletters and blogs listed below are dead or dying. But the idea that writing about a fixation has little intrinsic value needs serious quashing. It’s only in the writing that the fixation becomes of value. Exploring the weird thing that triggers the imagination is always worthwhile. This is the problem with the British Guild of Beer Writers and NAGBW shift from talking about “writing” to the thinly smug language of “reporting” and “journalism” over the last few years. Not only does it smack of needy niche (and also pretendy-ism… yes, I said it) it misses the fundamental point that most of this is obsession, not reportage. Write!

The UK’s Telegraph had a rather positive report on the best new low-beers and no-alc… which also led me to the concept of “Sober October” which seem to be a cheater pants copy of Dryuary:

I started Sober October four weeks early, for weight loss reasons after seeing my holiday snaps. I was doing quite well, but while watching TV I found that my right hand kept reaching over to the side-table where the beer should be. The ingrained habit of taking a swig of something cold and hoppy was proving impossible to break. So I let the hand have the beer it wanted – just without the alcohol. My hand couldn’t tell the difference and, surprisingly, my tastebuds couldn’t either.

I am still in the “I can’t be bothered paying that much for fancy soda pop” school but your mileage may differ.  Lots of solid recommendations for British readers.

Seems ‘Spoons may have weathered economic crisis just in time for the next economic crisis:

… the battered JD Wetherspoon share price already had so many dismal expectations priced in that the results themselves were a reminder of the business potential. After all, the company made an operating profit and generated free cash flow. After exceptional items, it also recorded a profit. I think the operating profit and free cash flow are a welcome sign that the business is rebuilding. It has faced and continues to experience considerable challenges, from energy inflation to staff availability. The fact it has turned an operating profit provides a foundation for improved results in future…

Speaking of the economic pressure on the pub, Pete Brown wrote a bit romantically for CNN’s American audience on the subject.

The folks behind the GABF might need that sort of explanation about British beer styles as apparently this year they balled a heck of a lot into one awards category, according to Alistair:

When GABF has a category called “English Mild or Bitter” it suddenly makes sense why Mild and Bitter don’t have a following in the US. Even the trade organization doesn’t give enough of a shit to understand that mild and bitter are wildly different beers… Also, with medals handed out for ESB as a separate category the grouping could easily have been “Bitter” and “Mild/Brown Ale”. There is little logic from a style perspective for lumping mild and non-extra special bitter together.

Seems rather muddied to me. Stan wrote about about seeing the awards from a seat at the ceremony and was more optimistic. As per usual and as is good. (Folk need to keep off my turf.*) Relatedly, here’s the winner of “The Most Craft Industry Style Observation Upon The Awarding of Craft Industry Awards” award… of all time… well, at least for this week:

Winning at GABF is a testament to the breweries who medal. It’s a huge honor and should be celebrated. At the same time, not winning at GABF is no way diminishes a brewery that entered. Ultimately it’s a crapshoot and a bunch of world class beers will be overlooked.

Emmie Harrison-West raises an interesting question about another far more serious aspect of fests in her very detailed article, one that’s really worthy of the space: “Have beer festivals become a hotbed for crimes against women?” 

For over 14 years, Harriet, who lives in Newcastle Upon Tyne, has been attending beer festivals. She says that this derogatory, sexist behaviour towards women and their bodies ‘has been “normal” culture’ for as long as she’s been attending them… reporting such instances of sexism and sexual harrassment at beer festivals was difficult, or that a process simply didn’t exist. That such behaviour and crimes against women had been ‘normalised’ to the extent that women simply accepted it, ignored it, and ‘didn’t make a big deal.’ 

It is good that this discussion is framed as a discussion of crime. Anything less is also a form of normalization.** The article also talks about concrete responses like London police’ Ask For Angela program and The Coven who advocate for women’s safety at events and attend as wellness officers launching the initiative at the Leeds International Beer Festival in September 2021.

Elsewhere, Ron has written about travel again with a focus my favorite character in beer pop culture… his wife Delores:

After bringing back her wine, I tell Dolores: “There’s one big advantage this place has: self-service drinks. None of that “singles only” for me here. It’s trebles all round.” “Don’t go crazy, Ronald.”*** “When have I ever?” “Hmmpfh” She makes that funny noise which somehow manages to convey contempt, pity, incredulity, scorn and a tiny hint of amusement.

And speaking of travel, Jeff gathered up his nickels and bought a ticket to Norway for KviekFest22!**** Now, I am not one of those who usually will comment upon a drive-by bit of beer writing by a stranger in a strange land but – I have to tell you Jeff did one of the most cleverest things I ever did see… he turned a beer porn photo op into a anthropological guide to making farmhouse ale – with photographs and “fig. 1” style descriptions and everything, like this:

As the water heats, the brewer prepares the mash tun. In the actual event, we used a more sophisticated steel tun with a metal strainer, but typically Stig would use a plastic tun (in the old days they were wooden) he’d prepare with a filter log and juniper boughs. (Even with the steel mash tun, he packed it with juniper.)

1. The log has a trough in the bottom and holes throughout.
2. Stig places the open end next to the faucet and then,
3 and 4., he packs juniper boughs around the log for finer filtration.

I love that the guys name was Stig.***** That photo up there? That’s the log. (More like a junk of wood to me. Logs big. But who am I to take away from the spotlight of this excellent piece of information sharing that means more to anyone and everyone than anything journalissimo submitted for crude pay?)

Speaking of being away, there was a lovely bit of exploration shared by Kieran Haslett-Moore about the times to be had in New Zealand:

I breakfast at a vibrant bakery that also does café service. A dome of scrambled eggs, sausage patty, confit mushrooms and glazed ham all spiked with Szechuan crispy chilli oil. A family dressed like it’s 1983 walk along Lower Stuart Street. They are animatedly discussing the city’s wifi service. They head into one of the city’s ‘Scottish shops’ .

Finally, a lovely piece of long writing at the BBC about Nathalie Quatrehomme and her family line of Parisian cheesemongers:

“We make lovely Maroilles washed in beer,” she said. “And we do lovely Langres in Champagne.” And aging isn’t the only way the siblings add a touch of personality to their cheeses. “In addition to being agers, we transform cheeses,” explained Nathalie, evoking a handful of offerings familiar to regulars of Parisian fromageries: Brie with truffle; Camembert dunked in Calvados and rolled in breadcrumbs. Others in the shop, however, are unique creations. Fourme d’Ambert is stuffed with a sweet fig and walnut paste to counterbalance the funk of the blue. A Camembert mendiant (beggar) is covered in jam, nuts, dried fruit and a touch of dark chocolate.

Yum. I must be hungry. Must go eat cheese. As I do, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the  OCBG Podcast which is on a quieter schedule these days – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) Check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run.

*Funny joke. Ha ha. Not saying anything else.
**Seems to be a common saying in the household.
***Which is why I found the Mikkeller “reconciliation” thing so weird, dissuading people with claims from the law.
****No, you’re right – but it SHOULD be the name!!
*****“Presenter: Another man who had his head nailed to the floor was Stig O’ Tracy.“

Your Inordinately Cheery Beery News Notes For These Days Of The First Frosts

Beer snake! Never seen one from that point of view before. Thanks to beer and baseball specialist Shana for the perspective from the bleachers at one of the last Cubs games of the year. Like my Red Sox, they sorta similarly sucked this season. Reminds me of, what… the first forty years of my life? Ah, the good old days. Anyway, one must be positive. You know, I wrote that header up there before I wrote anything this week. Why? Because there seems to be a lot of bad news out there. Bad in the world and fairly bad in the beery bit of that world. So, as always, I shall try to be the voice of optimism, of good cheer and positivity. I tell myself this again… as I start out…

First up, let’s check the shipping news. Despite what the keen beer trade statisticians who are good and making numbers bendy say, apparently there is a global slowdown coming so fast and hard that trans-Oceanic shipping lines are cutting back:

Ocean carriers are canceling dozens of sailings on the world’s busiest routes during what is normally their peak season, the latest sign of the economic whiplash hitting companies as inflation weighs on global trade and consumer spending. The October cancellations are a sharp reversal from just a few months ago, when scarce shipping space pushed freight rates higher and carriers’ profits to record levels. 

What’s this got to do with beer? Export and imports. Except for big buyers like Ontario’s LCBO, most good beer likely does not ship by the full container load. But it still could be good news for the small and local even if not so good for the forces of international craft.  So… less beer may be moving on the high seas. We see the same thing happening across the bar. Not so good. The export geared breweries of Britain may have a lead on this lesson, learning the hard way due to Brexit… though to be fair those with a local market focus also seem to be suffering. Jings. Tough days. Soon it will all be about nods, winks and word of mouth if you want to find the good stuff.

Never one to be glum… or even fixed in one spot for very long, The Beer Nut went on a holly joliday and reported back from the BXLBeerFest in Brussels which offered beers sort of in the round, reminding me of the Tardis’s console:

I made arrangements to attend last year. That didn’t work out but tickets rolled over and so there I was, if not quite front at least fairly centre, on the last weekend in August 2022.  Sixty invited breweries occupied eight circular pods, each pouring four or more beers at a time. The selection was carefully chosen from Belgium, Europe and North America, with an emphasis on the wild side of fermentation, like saying “we invented lambic, show me what you can do”.

Circular pods! How futuristic! I hope they wore garish wide-lapelled purple, green and/or yellow corduroy suits, too. And played the best of Seals and Crofts on a loop. But that’s just me. Bright. Cheery. Elsewhere, Alistair wrote about dreich this week and (other than knowing you have no idea how to pronounce it because I can) I liked this bit:

Saturday in central Virginia was dreich, gey dreich, as the remnants of Hurricane Ian drifted up the Shenandoah Valley. It was a day for comfort clothes, pots of tea, and whatever mindless shite the kids wanted to watch on the idiot box – I am starting to worry about their love of screens, but that’s not the point of my post. I pondered lighting the first fire of the season, but the wind was whipping along at 20mph and I have an in built fear of a chimney fire. Into this revelry of gloom came a text message from Jason at Devils Backbone…

Speaking of dreich, I see that Jeff has reported on fifth anniversary that relic of 2017, the “independent” seal offered by the US Brewers Association to its membership. For me, it was an extension of 2012’s “crafty” botch that sought to rally beer buyers around the BA’s central “one ring to rule them all” branding approach to selling craft beer in the US.* While (i) these sorts of things may have given comfort to big national craft and, conversely, (ii) the more recent explosion of small and local breweries  fundamentally altered the discussion, I was most surprised by this tidbit in the article indicating how they may have missed the boat – they don’t ask the only people that matter:

Beer in general has been lagging, but craft beer is no longer the bright segment in a declining category. In recent quarters, only imports seem to be bucking the trend—while craft tracks with other domestic categories. And customers themselves? It’s hard to say. The Brewers Association hasn’t done any recent polling on the question—or made it public, anyway.

Note: if there was good news from consumers, polling results would have been made public. Verdict: dud.

And I don’t know what to make of the news that the very large object identifying as BrewDog won a court case. From the BBC News report I see that the defendant “failed to respond to the court” which seems to indicate that a Statement of Defence (as we would call it in Ontario) was not filed. Which, if that is the case, leads to a default judgement which effectively does not represent a ruling on the merits. That being said, I am somewhat concerned that all the sins of craft have merged into this one matter, as it is (i) being a big mean brewery, and (ii) one that is for the most part elsewhere. The resulting response seems to be dumping all errors on this single example, accepting without any serious question the deftly played PR sidestep and perhaps even wiping the balance of craft’s record clean – perhaps comforting and  perhaps even re-numbing ourselves to the more widely spread problem still all around us. Moving on craft? **

Which is the opposite of what Beth Demmons does in her Prohibitchin’ series*** – which this month features Omolola Olateju of Black Girls Drink who makes this excellent point:

“The complications of getting these alcohol-related licenses, LOLOLOL!” she laughs, cynically but genuinely. “I really do wonder about the gatekeeping. Right now in the drinks industry, there are financial barriers and resource barriers — it’s really painful.” One change she believes would help alleviate said barriers would be more BIPOC people getting involved at the legislative level to identify and correct problem areas. “I’d be really curious — and I make some positive assumptions — around how that would change the industry,” she says. “That to me is the next equity front: people in ‘the system.’”

Speaking of the system… note: not Pete’s best photo… that is Pete, right? And grey? Really. Talk about yer dreich! No… not Pete… no, the logo’s background!!****

The reporting on reporting is real this week as Stan chose two stories about wine could well apply to beer: (i) one about the way that the story behind a drink made the drink more appealing and even more valuable to the buyer and (ii) the second …

…another instance where the word “wine” could be replaced with “beer” in two instances. “The wine industry itself is much to blame with its history of pretentiousness, and its absurd rituals and vocabulary that convey the message that one must be a connoisseur before one can enjoy wine.”

I mention this as the two seem to be two side of the same coin to my mind: the myth making  as obstacle making and the gatekeeping of the faux connoisseur… as obstacle making! Strip those away and what do you have?  You know… other than a world without bevvy’s consulto-judge-journalist class?***** Well, what you would have is reality like… bowling and beer – in Walsall!

We met up with Dan Gilbert and Coxy and explained why we had had left The Lion only for Dan to exclaim that he loves UB40. Which made me laugh. We headed to The Wharf Bar. There was karaoke. I was urged to have a go and despite it being free as opposed to the £20 in the bowling alley I wasn’t feeling it. There wasn’t many people in and I like a good sized baying audience when I perform. 

Before you get all caught up in that moment and go off to just do anything anywhere enraptured by the prospect of beer and bowling – BEWARE! Via CookieNet!, we have learned about the most violent pub in Britain along with its, err, customer conduct standards:

He is said to have required an operation to stop the bleeding, with the wound he survived snagging an artery, with police noting customers were “served alcohol by the bar staff” despite it “being evident someone is seriously injured”. At the time of the incident, police also said that management knew “the risks of its customer base yet chooses to ignore this”.

Yikes!  Finally, a white lab coated eggheads have taken credit for all that you love in beer:

Belgian investigators have improved the flavor of contemporary beer by identifying and engineering a gene that is responsible for much of the flavor of beer and some other alcoholic drinks. The research appears in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. For centuries, beer was brewed in open, horizontal vats. But in the 1970s, the industry switched to using large, closed vessels, which are much easier to fill, empty, and clean, enabling brewing of larger volumes and reducing costs. However, these modern methods produced inferior quality beer, due to insufficient flavor production.

Modern! Bad. Bad modern… but… craft is modern… is craft bad? Is that what science is saying? Hmmm. As you ponder that, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the  OCBG Podcast which is on a quieter schedule these days – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run.

*You will recall that Flying Dog quit the BA over this sort of thing at the time.
**Well, more you than me. I am still off the gluten (happily) so leaning on a little wine or a drop of cider if I need a hit – though I did a test with a can of Guinness. My histamines slept though the whole pint.
***The award winning series!
****Yes, there is… though to be fair… he may well have been suffering from the IPA yips!
*****Because who the hell wants to be an expert in things that have no perceived value?? No, best to stick to the plan.