December 2022 – A Good Beer Blog

The Very Last Thursdays Beer News Of 2022 Plus The Year’s Best Beer Writing… According To Me

So. The snows did come. And the winds really blew. We were between municipalities with declared states of emergency from the 23rd to the 26th. That’s the view out the front of nearby Matron Fine Beer, announcing on FB that they were shut on Boxing Day. The 900 km two day round trip was not taken. We stayed in.

According to me? Isn’t that what all this all is all about? Over the now near twenty years of doing this, I have only had one question: why? It’s a hobby, I suppose. And maybe a bit of a diary. But, looking back, it’s also an archive. A searchable database that’s become a bit of an encyclopedia. Maybe. As I may have mentioned, I dove back into reading quite seriously this year. I’m on my fiftieth book . Unfortunately, ruining my pace, I’ve been reading it for a month that fiftieth book. Cultural Amnesia by Clive James. It’s an excellent 850 page set of 120 bios of the greatest or most compelling writers or most murderous political figures selected – and to a certain degree cross referenced – by James to explain where we all were as of 2008 when the book was published.

Bear with my side track. Please. It’s turned into a bit of a one household dinner party week and I’ve been dipping in and out of here and the book. See, the book is effectively an encyclopedia of criticism, written by a great critic effectively criticizing modernity. It’s oddly organized. Alphabetical. Not in terms of the chronological order of those in the bios. Good to obey the chronology. And not ordered in terms of the progress of thought or even the order that James encountered those thoughts. Each bio from A to Z has a sketch of the life, an aphorism by the subject and then a critical examination of the thought. I am struck over and over by my own stupidity in light of all these thoughts. Never heard of more than half of the people included in the 120, let alone their century defining aphorisms. But it has given me a bit of heart, you know, related to the importance of careful critical reading – even when the care is taken with reading about the tiny odd corner of society filled by the beer trade… something that isn’t really quite at the same level as James’ concern, you know, when compared with the question of humanity’s serial genocidal tendencies.

So… is this place all an unintentional oddly organized niche encyclopedia? Perhaps a compendium. Or a gazetteer. Could be. A diary of thoughts. Can’t really say. Not done yet.

The Last Weekly News Notes

As you think about all that, there were a few note worthy things happening in the world of beer over the quiet holiday week. First, Ron held his annual Christmas Day Drinkalongathon which, given the six hour time difference, was not going to happen in my house:

I’m starting with the traditional bacon sarnie and fino sherry. I usually go on about the saltiness of the whatsit complementing the brinyness of the whatsit. But today I’m just enjoying stuffing some greasy meat into my gob, whilst slowly easing my body into the boozy assault that is to follow. Yum…

Other odd forms of praising Christ’s birth were noted. Getting dressed up and drunk on Boxing Day is a thing in Wigan according to the UK’s Daily News which published a photo essay with scenes like this:

People stumbled home and had a rest against buildings and on pavements after a big night out at the Boxing Day annual fancy dress night in Wigan. A couple of traffic cones made sure a woman was okay as she sat on a pavement, a man wearing a dress – Freddie Mercury style – was shouted at and pushed away outside the Popworld nightclub by another woman. Several grabbed a takeaway to soak up the booze as they awaited taxis.

And the far more sedate Tand himself has written up a recent visit to Northern Ireland and spotted an interesting fact about his first pint:

Our choice? Well, Guinness of course – you have to for your first at least don’t you, and this was a fine example of what I regard as a pretty unimpressive beer. I had learned before I went there that the gas mix in Ireland – presumably including the North too – is a 75/25 nitrogen to CO2, whereas in GB it is 70/30, making for a less creamy and smooth pint than in Ireland.

More western hemispherically, Josh Noel noted the continued odd economics of Goose Island Bourbon Stout and its shift to the discount shelf in the same year of issue, tweeting:

The more I think about it, the simpler it all seems — it’s just way overpriced. All of it.

Yup.****

Conversely, we still have these sorts of PR plugs that everything is A-OK despite the brewer closures:

“It used to be that the kind of the craft, or the weird, let’s call it, beers were just for fringe, like people who maybe that identified themselves as being different,” said Christine Comeau, executive director of the Canadian Craft Brewers Association. “But now we’re seeing that craft beer, it’s appeal has gone beyond just kind of the fringe drinkers way more into the mainstream. I think that the brewers themselves are making beer that’s really approachable, I think consumers are recognizing they enjoy the variety of tastes and flavours and the experience of it.” Comeau said over 1,100 craft breweries operate in Canada, and that number is continually growing.

Not sure how much – if any – of that is fully true. But we could say that about so much, couldn’t we. About so much.

Best of 2022

Let’s get to this. Right away. Errr.. first, some context. As I sat down at the very outset, to begin compiling this my list of the best in beer writing for 2022, the Argentine and then the French national anthems played on my TV. Full of anxiety and a bit excited, I wondering if I should have a drink at 10 AM on a Sunday to steady the nerves. Why? Not because of the World Cup Final that’s playing in the background. No, it’s because Boak and Bailey have just published their own insanely detailed 2022 best in beer writing blog post. Holy frig. The effort. I quickly realized that there was no point of replicating the work they have put in. Any efforts I make will be half assed in comparison. I knew this so immediately mainly for one reason – because I am always half assed in comparison.

Still… I will not be totally deterred by excellence in others. It’s not my way. As you know. Mirroring B+B, I will say that I too drew from a wide range of sources this year, the quality of which differs. I am a reasonably generous patron of Pellicle which, for me, really stands alone in terms of quality and focus.*** It’s the NPR of beer writing. Other sources still are out there competing and providing genuine surprises, sources like the few remaining newspaper columns and articles, the business tied publications like Ferment and the Good Beer Hunting (now more and more a travelogue borg) along with the fading phenomenon of podcasts, the obstinately stalwart blogs, not to mention the more resilient of those newer things the hybrid “blog meets pen-pals” that some folk still call newsletters.* Each are in their own way goal oriented, whether commercial or just aspirational. Folk jockeying and seeking their wee thin slice. As they should. Each also has their own editorial slant that affects what’s covered – or, more importantly, what they won’t dare or just couldn’t be bothered to touch (given those goals I mentioned – not to mention the guiding hand of travel association funding.) But, knowing all that, it all still forms a pretty vibrant if messy scene that seldom fails to offer a good selection of reading week after week. We should all be grateful for that.

Fine. Let’s get to it. What’s the winner? Let me perhaps first further preface my extended preamble with this one caveat: I also can’t see myself studying stats per author as B² did even if a number of top year-long writing efforts clearly stand out. It’s me, not you. Or them. Is it them? Yes, it’s them. One problem I face when putting them all together is that I don’t necessarily limit my references to articles. I equally mention conversational points made by folk like Lars, Martyn and Ruvani received by DMs, emails and in social media as much as I cite longer posts like those of Ron and of Gary – who has gone to a new level in 2022. The epigram is as valid as the essay but you sure can lose track. It gets a bit messy. And, looking back, how would I even search the stuff given, as I have to admit by way of example, I seem to have about sixteen nicknames for Matthew… Matty C… The Mattimeister 3000.** Plus, you get side tracked about people. Frankly I find myself fretting over the state of JD-TBN‘s liver and Delores’s patience with every notification of another post. That all being said, counting my fingers and toes, I can confirm that both NHS Martin and Beth Demmon had 12 full standalone pieces mentioned here in this place over 2022. By comparison, Eoghan had only six mentions – but all from his fabulous, his epic perhaps even heroic series A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects which started in mid-2021 and carried over through the first half of 2022. Each of those mentioned above (and, sure, others) in their own way are tied for most attention grabbing beer writer of the year… well, hons ments.

So the best thing in beer writing this year… quite specifically? I think I was pretty clear back in November when I wrote about David Jesudason’s “Please Don’t Take Me Home — How Black Country Desi Pub Culture Made Football More Diverse” in Pellicle, stammering and stumbling my thoughts:

… calmness in the moment. There are none of the burdens² ³ ⁴ … in this piece like all the best sort of writing there is also a person and a moment. The scene being seen. I’d be at this pub regularly… if it was in my town… and if Canada has the same sort of pub life… which it doesn’t.

You can click through for those footnotes. No need to repeat the dreary comparisons. Everything fails a bit in comparison. Just have a look at his essay itself. Simple and generous. Proud and objective. Lovely. One thing I suspect is going on here is that David Jesudason came to beer as an already established good writer, having credits including at the BBC and The Guardian. Beer, being a fairly low value topic in terms of both substance and reward, doesn’t usually attract the more established version of the good writer – even if it’s been a strong training ground. I expect the addition of social justice issues and authors to the curriculum over the last few years has probably made helpful space for interesting views – especially when that spot is not appropriated by the non-marginalized.***** Even with this shade, welcoming more skilled writers and their writing is great, the best shaking up what is otherwise a pretty fixed format.

Finally, best new thing in beer writing generally? Wait for it. Mastodon. Yup. I was thinking about it earlier this week when Maureen Ogle was lamenting the death of her #BeerTwitter community. I replied…

…the values are different. Were you writing when the RSBS feed was discontinued? Maybe 350 beer sites updated daily and you got a notice by email. Its death caused a reordering. New readers. If Twitter is now dying, is another new reordering is happening? Here, you get followers with content. But many beer writers actually stopped writing some time ago too. And new voices have already moved in on the turf. Is a big shift on?

My conclusion… wait for it! Have faith. Just as the death of craft doesn’t mean the death of beer, so too the death of Twitter is not the death of thought… err… and anyway – didn’t that happen with the creation of Twitter? You have to be patient. Mastodon works differently. More carom billiards than 8 ball, more rugby than darts. Hashtags are more important than retweets… aka boosts. Big hint? Follow #BeerWriting and include #BeerWriting in every post. Folks gather. Don’t believe me? Follow #Birding. Happy to help. Questions in the comments will be answered. Fine, maybe this is really a 2023 forecast. Only you can decide if that is or isn’t the case.

One more best? Godspeed Brewing out of Toronto. I bought many a case for home delivery this year. Their Tmavý Ležák 12º is fabulous. For me, now figuring out what being somewhat gluten intolerant means, that’s a bit more praise than I had expected to be able to give.

Finally, the Festival of Beer Links

Think of these as the movie credits. Continuing a now week-long tradition, Boak and Bailey added a new feature to their weekly post recently which I am slowly building upon, too – a shared list of beer writing resources on Mastodon:

Try those folk as, again, we might not have a weekly weekend update this week from Boak and Bailey as we usually see mostly every Saturday and perhaps also not one from Stan at his spot on Mondays. It’s still the holidays. So, look around and check to see if there is the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it was there last week! See 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 the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and 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 the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus 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 wrote that and just before the first half of the final game (Argentina up 2-0 at 44:19) realized what I hadn’t included – books! Remember beer books? I wonder if I will mention one I really like this year… let’s see… (later… nope…)
**OK, that’s actually a new one.
***…even if it still published a few wowsers like the stunningly revisionist reference to the genocide in NNY against the Haudenosaunee.
****Remember when people thought “sucker juice” was a dumb mean thing to say? That was great.
***** … and where a bit oddly forced given the history, just fleeting or (worst) leveraged by the crass coat-tailing personal promoters with sticky fingers…

The Jing-Jing-Jingliest Thursday Beery News Notes Of All!!

Here we are. Christmas Eve… Eve… Eve… because the 25th is Sunday and that screws everything up. The kid still goes to school tomorrow, which is insane. I am sorta off but not off as there isn’t much happening now a week after even the staff Christmas parties are over. And… there’s a HAMMER OF THOR snowstorm coming tomorrow. All good. I’m Christmassy and that is all that counts. Fam’s all here, pressies bought and the tree is lit! I thought I would pull back the curtain and give you a sense of the life at my house at the holidays. KIDDING!!! That’s not my house, that’s “The Chess Players” by Gustav Wintzel of Norway from 1886. Look at that beer! Gotta be a litre glass right there plus the colour is key to the entire painting, establishing the triangle with the contents of that shelf… probably a mantelpiece with the firebox hidden by those rugs. Lovely.

Right off the top, how is this for a graph from the Victim of Math? Click on it for more detail. It’s the Health Survey for England’s data showing how young people there are abandoning drinking – and have been on a steady trend of going clean at an amazing rate of change. It looks like in 2017 less than 25% of women 16 to 24 well over 40%. The lads are less less inclined but seem to have gone from about 17% dry to 34% so over the last ten years. Don’t know what that bodes other than it bodes something.

Speaking of boding, Jordan wrote the third in his St. Johnian* Effort in the “boding not too welling in Ontario” series this week, the conclusion of which I will ruin knowing it is not the end… not even the beginning of the end… but more like the end of the beginning:

Let’s see if we can recap: Beer is a luxury good by default, and its cost has outpaced wage growth. As established earlier, we’re dealing with the smallest cohort of people turning 19 in living memory, a cohort smaller than any other group younger than 65. Per capita consumption is going down year over year, presumably due to multiple issues including health and lifestyle choices, but also because of decreased relevance due to affordability. Additionally, this is in the face of greater availability in terms of retail purchase locations in the province’s post-prohibition history.

Add callow youth ditching drinking to that list… Perhaps related, an interesting article in The Times on James May and his pub and the lessons he has learned about the marketplace:

Pubs, for obvious reasons, proliferated in the Victorian era, especially in towns and cities, where they were effectively the communal part of working people’s homes. We know that Ebenezer Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol, “took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern”. But pubs don’t need to fulfil this role any more. They are entirely places where we go of our own volition, rather than out of necessity, and they need to acknowledge this. Note how it’s dreary pubs that subscribe to the old thinking, with their mediocre food, crappy karzis and limited drinks lists, that close down. Good pubs, the ones that have readjusted, are doing fine, and we don’t need as many of them as we once did.

What’s that? “Cheer! Give us cheer!!!” you say, gentle readers. Quite so. the ever excellent Evan Rail shared some wonderful Yuletide info about mulled things and spiced things as well as the celebration of wassail:

While the orchard wassail is closely tied to Twelfth Night on Jan. 5 or 6, hardcore traditionalists will celebrate wassail according to Twelfth Night on the Julian calendar, which was used in England until 1752. By that measure, the proper date for an orchard wassail would be Jan. 16 or 17 on today’s calendar. For the sake of convenience, many wassail events are simply scheduled on January weekends. In the village of Hartley Wintney in Hampshire, England, the annual wassail is set to take place on Friday, Jan. 13, with a torchlight procession that starts at the village pub, the Waggon and Horses, where publican Kaesy Steele will be serving a traditional mulled cider.

Do we still care who owns the brewery? I mean, I was sorta making fun of this idea back in 2015… seven years ago tomorrow. Pete Brown updated the dance card and quite rightly treated craft and not craft as all the same thing:

Many leading craft brands have now been acquired by the giants. That’s just how it is. Now – the ownership structure of the beer industry may be of no interest to you. If you’re already drinking mainstream lagers from global giants and you just occasionally fancy something hoppier, that’s up to you. I won’t judge. However, if one of your motivations for drinking craft beer – or just as importantly, cask/real ale – is that you want to support small, independent businesses, it’s not always obvious whether or not the brand in front of you is the real deal.

Nice. Just remember that ownership is only half the story. Obligations in law like debt and shareholder agreements have as much or more influence over a business’s independence. Folk that promote their independence suddenly find, upon a downturn, that they are quite dependent. Consider the Case of Mr. Musk.

Now… in history making history, Ron pushed the early edge of brewing records and published in 1805 pale stout recipe.

Here’s proof that Stout didn’t always imply a dark beer. An example of the pale malt analogue of Brown Stout. It’s a type of beer which must have died out early in the 19th century as this is the only example I have. I’ve no idea why it disappeared but it may be connected with Porter brewers moving to brewing only dark beers. The grist couldn’t be simpler: 100% Hertfordshire pale malt. There’s really nothing more to say.

And Liam found a reference to India Pale Ale dated 1824 (proceeded by “West”) and set off a bit of speculation as to its meaning and implications. I would only add that Vassar in the 1830s referred to one of his ales as “South” as illustrated to the left – but I am quite sure he did not create something called Southern Ale. Just as “style” is useless before it is defined and defined again by Jackson in the 1980s, the further you go back from that, the less meaning categories have. Ideas can’t flow backwards. I suspect that the predecessors to IPA, both eastern and western classes, were the English strong ales named after cities like Taunton and Dorchester and Derby, both evolving and branded according to given marketplace expectations.

It’s that time of the year. No, not just for Ron’s DrinkAlongAThon. The time for lists!! Best wines and Golden Pints. Here are the ten most read stories on Pellicle. Here’s Lisa’s. Alistair of Fuggles has been putting together his “best of” lists including best pales and best oranges to browns. I like the organizational decision he’s made, abandoning illusion for the actual. I suppose he could have gone with viscosity instead of colour. Perhaps in 2023! Jeff of Beervana has gone in another direction and provided us with his favourite photos for 2022. And the Beer Crunchers have jumped ahead with their US craft beer forecast for next year with some refreshing honesty:

Some brewery owners realized that the bigger they got, the more HR became part of the job, when they just wanted to focus on the beer itself. Other brewery owners turned out to be assholes and represented the HR-risk themself. Regardless of the reason, a significant number of breweries are for sale or have been sold in the past year. Some are of great value and truly worth every penny. Others are worth zero, or worse. Expect to see more interesting sales, depressing closures, and everything in between. You won’t be able to keep up and the action already underway.

Note: I had no idea this sort of thing was done:

In February 1961 Guinness paid the London brewer Watney Combe Reid £28,000 to discontinue Reid’s Stout. This was to secure the position of Guinness’s new nitro-keg product – it was clearly worried the Red Barrel keg beer brewer’s stout could be a rival to keg draught Guinness

Finally, Boak and Bailey added a new feature to their weekly which I am going to copy… literally cut and paste… then slowly build upon, too – a shared list of beer writing resources on Mastodon:

Please let me know when you see more to add to the list. I’ll be back next week with my own “best of” post. Not sure if it will be on Thursday or Friday. There’s a long drive between now and then. And bird feeders to fill. Naps, too. May even need to check the lake temperature to see what’s what. You might not have a weekly update from Boak and Bailey as we usually see mostly every Saturday and also also perhaps not from Stan at his spot on Mondays. Still, check and see if there is the weekly and highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it was there last week! See 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 the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and 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 the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus 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!

*Funner if you pronounce it properly – “SinJinnyIn“!

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!! It’s The Ten Days To Christmas Beery News Notes Post!!!

I can’t figure out if being pressed for time will make these notes this week brief or lengthy. The line “I didn’t have time to write a short letter” which is linked to Mark Twain mostly… but in my mind to Jonathon Swift… but in reality to 1600s French mathematician Blaise Pascal… comes to mind. See, not only is it Yuletide with all the running around, I had to finish my bridge. One of the reasons the old beer blog and especially historical research leading to more on the old beer blog quieted a bit has been my part secondment to a big bridge project. Well, it opened to the public Tuesday as Fine Balance Brewing of our fair city’s east end celebrated on Facebook with the image above hoping to see a stream of west enders now heading their way. On time. On budget. Huge fun project. Happy to be the guy who wrote the contract and negotiated the deal.

Enough about me… first up, Christmas has beer RUINED for some in Gloucestershire:

Motorists faced delays on a motorway after boxes containing sweets and beer kegs were spilt over the carriageway. Two lanes of the M5 in Gloucestershire were closed after the spillage which also included books. The problem was reported at 06:30 GMT on Friday and lanes 1 and 2 southbound were closed between junction 13 at Stroud and junction 14 at Thornbury.

And things are tightening in other ways, of course, but I won’t add my list to the lists of disappearing craft breweries as B² did last Sat. And even though I expect it would upset one of those passive aggressive reductionist kitten craft mascots who demand that no one expresses opinions… I have to say this is one of the more interesting observations on how bad the situation is situation from John Porter:

The problem, as we both know from Publican Industry Report days, is that new breweries and pubcos arrive in a flurry of PR and excitement, and tend to disappear quietly to avoid unpaid bills and disgruntled investors. Like you, I suspect there’s always a lot of double counting.

Jordan is crunching the numbers in Ontario and the news is also not that good here for the beer industry. Ontarians are getting older on average and newcomers may not all be all that interested in beer. Beer volumes sold have hit the lowest point in 73 years. He uses words like “eerily” and “painstakingly” and “hanging” and “I’m forced to manually” and “irresponsible” and “robust” which seems all very… err… physical… but the point is not only made but well proven. The arse is out of it all.

The badness reaches out in all directions as these things go sideways. At what point should drinkers rally around with a bit of focus to save the best? And when is it an end or a new beginning?

Real ale fans were saddened to hear of the forthcoming closure of Manchester’s Beer Nouveau… Though Steve Dunkley’s popular tap is no more, the story is not yet over under the railway arch at 75 North Western Street. The space is being taken over by Katie Sutton, the new owner of Temperance Street Brewery. Renamed the Temperance Street Brewery & Tap, the venue will initially open Fridays and Saturdays. Katie works full-time in the NHS, so she is being supported by Matt Gibson of Temperance Street Cider. Both the brewery and the cidery already operate out of the premises and extensive work is not needed.

Speaking of the NHS, Martin once again has shown why private reportage of thing beery are so helpful, this time with a photo essay from his trip to Cologne focusing on Gaststätte Lommerzheim aka Lommi’s. Linger over the images like the one right there. Not all samey pretty beer porn like we see so often. And a brief tale of prowess:

More customers under 30 than over 50, and Mrs RM the only non-bloke, but she outdrank them all. 3 in 20 minutes and we were gone, after admiring the tree outside the Gents (so not quite the Combermere). Honestly, it was perfect, like your favourite Sam Smitha if it wasn’t run with lunatic rules.

It is interesting to see how quickly the discounting of bulk brewery owned Bourbon County is happening this year:

… stumbled upon the below this afternoon. Can confidently say I never expected the reserves and prop to be on the shelf 16 days after Black Friday. Happily took a barelywine and prop and went on my way.

Also interesting to note that one long standing ad placement with Sound Opinions, a US public radio music program out of Chicago, has been dropped. The email read:

We recently learned that we’re losing a significant portion of our funding in 2023. Our long relationship with our major sponsor, Goose Island, has ended due to the shaky economy. We have other revenue sources: a generous grant from the Goldschmidt Foundation, small ad buys, and individual donations from dedicated listeners like you. But it’s not enough to keep the show running at full speed.

If you like music, listen and give. It’s dandy and via Patreon there are a number of bonus features.

The Japanese marketplace appears to have recently hit a particular point of inflection beer-wise-ly:

Beer and quasi-beer sales fell 8 pct from a year before in Japan in November, still reeling from October price hikes, estimates from Kirin Brewery Co. and others showed Monday. Asahi Breweries Ltd. reported a 7 pct drop in the value of its sales, while Kirin logged an 8 pct fall in volume and Sapporo Breweries Ltd. a 7 pct decline. Brewers incurred marked drops in sales of canned products, mainly for household consumption.

Jeff wrote the first “best of list” that wasn’t an unrealistic, purely sample based thing submitted months ago to a mag for the editors to churn upon. He also led up front with excellent context:

Obviously, no one can try all new beers in a year. As all sample groups are, this is highly individual. And, since I do most of my drinking in Oregon, it’s got a lot of Oregon beer. It’s also not exhaustive. I recall a wonderful pFriem Canadian Lager I enjoyed at the brewery, a delicious gueuze from Tilquin I enjoyed at a beer festival in Oslo, a cracking good festbier at Heater Allen, and more. Furthermore, if you think I avoid hoppy ales, behold: this list is lousy with ‘em! I love all beer styles, and it seems like 2022 was a good one for hops.

And Pellicle posted a profile of Glasgow brewers Epochal, sometime past subject within these here weekly notes:

Epochal specialises in barrel-aged pale ales, table beers, Scotch ales, porters and stouts—the latter two having a rich history in Glasgow. The beers undergo an extended dry hop for the duration of their secondary ageing. The mature beer is then bottle-conditioned with a small portion of one-day-old fresh beer, a process employed by one of Scotland’s top 19th-century brewers, the Glasgow-born James Steel. The entire process takes anywhere from three months to a year, resulting in beers you can ponder over, or drink for pure pleasure, depending on your mood.

Is GBH becoming a travel vignette site?

Finally, wrongest quote about the history of beer passed my eyes this week:

For most of the time, intoxication was not the main purpose and could only be achieved to a limited extent, if at all, given that beer had a low alcohol content for most of human history.

See, to make weak beer you either need to first make strong wort or you have to waste resources to boil way too much watery wort. It’s how it works. If you don’t believe me, ask Babylon. Please do better. If only at this Yuletide.

That’s it! Next week, the best reading of 2022 will be mentioned here as well as perhaps also in the updates from Boak and Bailey we see mostly every Saturday and also also perhaps from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly and highly recommented Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s coming back soon. See 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 the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and 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 the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus 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 Pensive Beery News Notes For That Dull Gap Between US Thanksgiving And Christmas

Are US holidays the most liquor laced of all? Not sure. But they sure are the most extended. I get the sense that nowadays* they just go on and on, one meeting the next at some sort of transition overlap. We seem to have all been in the HallowThanksChristEve zone for a while now and there are still weeks to go. Good thing I’m Canadian as we up here track time by following the sports calendar and the grain growing season cycles. Speaking of holidays, someone is not getting a bonus. Joe Stange shared an image of the aftermath of a disaster in Belgium. Look at that Westmalle, laughing at the Orval.

So what is going on out there? I liked this observation from The Beer Nut which could be applied to any number of things:

The best feature is the booze, delivering as it does a pleasant warming fuzziness, perfect for a miserable evening in mid-November. Overall, it’s fine, but not exactly high end, to my palate anyway.

And I came across a new mag worth checking out, Beer & Weed, out of area code 207 – aka the Great State of Maine aka the Canada of the USA. My favourite American second cousin in law Mike has an article in the December issue as does Carla Jean who offers some ideas for giving which go beyond the usual. Like taking a pal on a beer tour – or making an apple pie after soaking the apples in beer. I like that, a twist on mulled ale… or pastry stout. Think about that. Mmm…

Next – aside from my secret wondering whether it’s all an elaborate façade broadcast from a hidden Nordic mountain lair based on fantastic IT resources, access to private wealth and wicked sense of disruptive if extremely niche humour – Lars has once again produced an excellent thought provoking and well researched essay, this time pushing the history of hops back in northern Europe by more than a century or two, relying in large part on the unreliability of records:**

This, however, is the history you get from written documents, but hop usage began at a time when brewing was mostly something people did at home, for their own household, and almost none of what they did was ever recorded in writing. So we must expect that nearly all of the early history of hops has gone undocumented, and therefore we must turn to other sources of information to cast light on the early history of hops.

Personal note: this is exactly what my first beer experience in the late 70s were like. I’m a bit verklempt.***

I liked this very narrow study of Gary’s this week, a three piece article on something called Tipper Ale, a beer that relied on salt just as 1830s Albany Ale did. Except it wasn’t chucked into the barrel:

The key to the palate was use in brewing, or some use, of “brackish” water. The brewery was at a crossing, originally a drawbridge, over River Ouse near its mouth with the English Channel. Hence the seawater story is plausible, given location and typography. I cited various sources to this effect and there were others I didn’t, as all concur in result. One of the last sources, in 1941, was the most interesting I thought as it stated both regular and sea water was used.

One of my favourite discussions in the comments has to be the time back in 2008 when yeast scientists including a Dr Dunn and a Dr Sherlock took offense at being called “eggheads” and then embraced it. Well, the eggheads of yeast science were at it again this week with release of the news building on their work to explain… something:

It has been known for some time that S. pastorianus is a hybrid of two parents, one of which is S. cerevisiae (de Barros Lopes et al. 2002, Dunn and Sherlock 2008). However, the second parent, Saccharomyces eubayanus, was not isolated until 2011, from the Patagonian Andes in South America (Libkind et al. 2011)…. Regardless of when the hybridization(s) between S. cerevisiae and S. eubayanus occurred, they are likely to have occurred in Europe, and possibly in Bavaria. It is, therefore, surprising that no European isolates of S. eubayanus have been described… Here, we describe the discovery of the first European isolates of S. eubayanus. They were isolated from a university campus in Dublin, Ireland.

Excellent. And hardly any Irish inside jokes followed at all.

Andy Crouch marked the passing in early December of a New England brewing original, his pal Ray McNeill of Brattleboro, Vermont whose cantankerous nature was summed up neatly:

Ray was also legendary for his dislike of homebrewers. During one extended rant, he told me, “I don’t care what anybody says, there’s a big difference between making beer a few times a year in your garage and reading thousands of pages of technical literature and then making thousands of beers. Beer is a weird thing. It doesn’t come with a scorecard. If you’re a golfer and you shoot 112, you know that you suck. But if you’re a homebrewer and you make a third-rate beer, you probably think it’s great. A lot of homebrewers think they’re a lot better than they really are.” With Ray, you just never knew what you were going to get. And the same could always be said for his beer. The beer at McNeill’s was legendary: it would either be among the best you’d ever tasted or the worst. Consistency was not something anyone expected from McNeill’s and that was oddly part of the place’s charm.

Beth Demmons issued another great edition of Prohibitchin’ with the focus on Amie Ward and her project to make drinking establishment safer places:

“We [employees behind the bar] are in a very unique position because we are everywhere all at the same time. We hear everything, we see everything, we’re touching tables… we are in a perfect position to become those bystanders that really help change that landscape.” With this eye-opening knowledge and experience, Amie realized many other people weren’t able to manage health, stress, or sharing the responsibility of community safety in the same ways she had been able to hone over the years. “I saw my peers not taking care of themselves [and] really developing poor habits that were not going to suit them for the long haul,” she says. “That’s how I came up with the idea for The Healthtender: melding those two worlds together of wellness and hospitality.”

Turning to the end times, I used to post various noodly noddlings under the heading “This Is How Craft Will Kill Itself” from time to time and, in these fading days, it’s interesting to see how some predictions came to pass and how other factors I couldn’t have imagined contributed to the fall. For example, lack of differentiation posing as critical differentiation is a fatal flaw, as illustrated by this article:

“It’s a pretty neat thing when you go to a place that has a lot of beer selection. You’ll notice a huge variety of beer labels, and it is something that craft beer people look to,” said Scot Yarnell, brewer and owner of the downtown Earnest Brew Works location at 25 S. St. Clair St., Toledo. “They want a unique beer, flavor wise, and they also want a beer that has a unique look to it.”

There’s of course nothing unique about the look of what’s on the beer shelves these days any more than the identi-craft beer in the cans. Fadism gave birth to herd mentality homogeneity. Like gaudy late 1990s web design, there is a certain sort of vomiting bubble gum machine tone to the confusingly cartoony look that signals the trade friendly “blinders on” approach is engaged. But how does this help encourage the consumer – especially when mixed in with the continuing trade narrative’s reliance on tales based on amnesia, flat out untruths and revisionist bullshit mixed with earnest finger wagging over supposed myths that serves the residual wisdom of haut craft culture?**** Even those seeking the solace of knowledge in an honest off-flavour course offers an affirmation in the negative, as Jordan was good enough to admit:

Framed the off flavour training for next week’s class as “Well, you’re never going to be able to turn that switch off, so next week I’m going to ruin fully a quarter of the beer you’ll ever drink….”

Downer. No wonder the value proposition has gone all a’wobbly now in the face of these broader harder times. And no wonder things are as down, as Pete Brown shared in The Times. It’s a good read… but I am not sure I can agree with the proposed treatment as it looks like more of the same:

Refocusing on the aspects of “craft” that big corporations will always struggle to replicate could be key. “Local, independent craft breweries do far more than just make great beer,” said Richard Naisby, acting chairman of the Society of Independent Brewers. “They embed themselves in local communities, create jobs, and add value to the local economies they call home.”

Maybe. Could be. If you get rid of the phony and the baloney – and the kiddie cartoon profiteering prophets – and I also suppose if these fine locals have each paid their suppliers and the folk losing their jobs. Might be nice if enough of them just found a way to make great beer at a good price, frankly. Time to start talking about recession proofing, brewers. That might take a bit of change.

Speaking of which, an interesting and somewhat related call to arms crossed my eye in the course of me legal readings this week:

The Cannabis Council of Canada (C3) has called on the federal government to provide “immediate financial relief” for the legal cannabis industry and end the “stigmatization” of legal cannabis that allegedly limits progress on the key public health aims of legalization… According to C3, while the current framework has been “a financial success” for governments and provincial monopoly distributors who apply mark-ups, it has also been “a bloodbath” for investors of all sizes within Health Canada’s licensed producers and processors framework.

Hmm… dunno. Pretty sure I don’t want my tax dollars saving the less than half decade bubble economy of the Canadian grass trade. Think about it. Could it maybe just be that both craft and dope have to face the fact that there is no market for every investor who believed in a dream of easy cash from selling swanky new forms of intoxicants in each and every neighourhood? Is that what they mean by they “add value to the local economies they call home“?

I leave you there. That enough for now… you’ve had enough… take a break… when you’ve done that, 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 and highly recommented Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s coming back soon. See 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 the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and 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 the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus 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!

*Excellent usage, no?
**See from the archives “One Brewery and the Problem with Records” from 2015.
***h/t Cookie.
****Oxymoron.

The First And Rather Excitable Beery News Notes Of Yuletide 2022

Finally… nothing like seeing the end of November. My least favourite month. I used to always dread it. Days gloomily shortening. School papers needing to be put properly in hand. Time now to look forward, to the holidays. To life with family and friends, gathering inside. While not directly Christmassy, Max posted two images of insidey painting, each of which illustrate the excellence of non-brewing records to inform us about brewing history. In the first, “Vesnická Hospoda”, a 1863 painting by Czech artist Quido Mánes we have a tavern scene with a discussion being held by all ages. The beer glows. And not unlike today in a way… just the sort of thing that I was looking for in the 2006-15 beer blog Yuletide, Kwanzaa, Hogmanay, Christmas and Hanukkah photo contest. I sifted through hundreds of entries every year looking for a glow just like that to ensure all the pressies were directed to all the wee beer nerds’s stockings. Many of the entries are still saved at the Wayback Machine.

In the world of beer culture politics, British beer home delivery service Beer 52 had to issue a statement concerning some flack it had received over a poor PR decision that received some heat. Click on the image to the right to have a look. This is one of the odder but very consistent themes I’ve seen over the years that perhaps distinguishes UK craft from others – the need to not be too nasty to the competition. At a certain point, craft beer shops and craft beer home delivery service are hunting for the same shillings and guineas lodged in the purses of the nation. But, on the other hand, it is nice to be nice.

The British Beer Writers Guild were also in a manner of speaking required to issue its own statement of sorts, as the Guild’s top judging dog explained the almost Byzantine judging process in response to the howls which usually follow this sort of thing. I’d post a quote from the explanation but it does go on and one. Great transparency. No, I will share two bits:

This year the awards were judged by me, a publican from York, a committee member of the British Institute of Innkeeping, a magazine editor, a brewer, a beer importer, two freelance journalists (an unusually high number) a book publisher, and a cheesemonger. Hardly beer writers slapping each other’s backs… We usually have 13-14 categories, and this year there were a total of 190 different entries. That’s far too much for any one judge to read, so judges are paired up and given a few categories each.

Did you know I used to receive a few abusive responses for the photo contest? No? Did I care? Not much. My only recommendation was that this explanation of the process might have been shared prior to outset but, you know, what can you do? It is an unfortunate situation and in large part based on honest deep disappointment as much as gratuitous slag* – but Martyn has been checking the stats and decided that this year’s British Beer Writer of the Year Jonny Garrett is now the most successful contestant in the award’s last ten years. So that’s something. Oh, and madman Gary crossed the Atlantic to sit in on the awards and enjoyed himself very much.

There, that’s enough of that statement making stuff. Care of Mudgie, we learn of Bernard Bland, 92, of Grimsby:

When Bernard Bland made his first trip to the Nunsthorpe Tavern in 1954, a pint set him back eight shillings and 10 pence – or the equivalent of 45p. Yet despite the rising cost of a pint, Bernard is still going to his beloved Grimsby boozer 68 years later. In fact, the 92-year-old has been going there every day for seven decades – only missing his daily session when the pub closed during lockdown.

Not as regular in his pubbing habits – but who could be – this week Cookie wrote about his relationship to the pub at one of the sadder moments in life, the passing of a parent:

But life adjusts and new normals and patterns emerge. A worry for my father in living alone after 45 years of marriage led to spending much more time with my father to assist in his living, eat a meal or two a week with him, shop and administer things. Run 2 houses and lives in a way. Not a burden in any way, but a rekindling of a friendship that in its way has defined me more than any other. Thus, I ended up on a saunter around the pubs of Reddish. In truth I rarely pop in pubs these days, a couple on a Saturday afternoon in Wetherspoons being more or less it when a quiet couple of hours is needed. People don’t talk to you in Wetherspoons. You can just sink a pint.

Eric Asimov wrote an interesting piece in the NYT on the nature of a “wine bar” – which is also something I have thought about in relation to identifying as a “beer bar” as opposed to a bar:

Are they all wine bars? Or is the term so vague as to be meaningless? It might depend on whom you ask… Good wine bars are informal neighborhood gathering places rather than destinations, with occasional exceptions, like when a wine list is so deep that it draws in the trophy- and rare-bottle hunters. But mostly, they are places to drop in near one’s home. They might take some reservations, but they always have room for walk-ins. Wine bars mostly cater to young people. At almost every place I visited, I was by far the oldest patron there.

Don Cazentre wrote about something I had not thought about before – relative stats on which US community out drinks the others on bars at US Thanksgiving, something his hometown of Syracuse, NY has excelled at before:

The night before Thanksgiving, sometimes called Drinksgiving, is typically one of the busiest evenings for bars across the country. And the Syracuse area is often one of the leaders. That held true again this year, as the Syracuse market once again stood out, according to data from BeerBoard, an Armory Square-based company that manages and collects stats and information from draft beer accounts nationwide.

Do they also use gallon-sized tankards there like in the British Iron Age? The Tand himself has written on the subject of a smaller sort of vessel, Sam Smith’s proprietor, Humphrey Smith and the question of how steady his hand is upon the tiller:

…all is not well. I was told, recently, that no fewer than 120 Sam Smith’s pubs are closed through lack of people to run them. (You can often find them listed in trade adverts for managers) This is an astonishing number given that all of them are managed houses, and while they attract a smallish salary, not much above minimum wage, but they do have heating, lighting and rent thrown in on top. This is not an entirely unattractive package in these dodgy times, so why is there a problem in finding the right people to run them?

Jeff added thoughts from afar including the bluntly stated “no one drinks English ales anymore” which is hard to deny… except for the fact that they do.

Stan’s Hop Queries newsletter for November 2022 has landed on my driveway in a neat plastic wrapper and he has noted the end of the line for one particular strain:

CLS Farms has eliminated Medusa, the neomexicanus-only hop that introduced American brewers to a botanical variety of Humulus lupulus that produces unique aromas in beer, from its portfolio. Plants were “grubbed out” after the 2022 harvest. Before you ask, the future still looks fine for Zappa, a daughter of Medusa, being grown on six farms in five states. “It is time to focus on Zappa and let Medusa go,” CLS co-owner Eric Desmarais wrote via email. Quite simply, Medusa didn’t measure up agronomically. “(Medusa) doesn’t have the yield to be able to be super viable moving forward in a higher inflationary world, and a much more competitive hop variety landscape,” Desmarais wrote.

Bit of World Cup news even with the ban – the soak was on in Qatar and “bars overestimated surge pricing”:

Beer prices in Qatar could fall after some bars “overestimated what they can get away with” charging during the World Cup, according to a fans’ group. Supporters visiting the Gulf state say they have faced prices of up to £15 for a pint during the tournament, although many have found it cheaper and venues have offered deals.

The gouge is one elsewhere too with some UK pubs offering lower alc% beers at higher prices in the New Year.

And, finally, a Mastodon update. Now up to 573 followers after the blog was linked to one of those likely list compilers. Incuration, that’s what I call it. Seems I am incurable. Shocking. Still, I am looking more there than with the Twit. It’s happening. Please join us all at @agoodbeerblog@mstdn.social.

That’s it for this week and that month. As we move into December, 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 and highly recommented Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s coming back soon. See 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 the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and 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 the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus 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!

*My only peep this year was that the apparently official award night photos were not wonderful at all. Unlike this one which was great. Which is good – as I used to be a right pain in the arse about these things. Transparency is everything in these matters.