The Thursday Beery News Notes For Your “Summer’s One Third Over” Warning

Carlsberg said it had not received “any official information from the Russian authorities regarding the presidential decree of the consequences for Baltika Breweries”. The Danish brewer also said it had completed an “extensive process” to separate the Russian unit from the rest of the company. Last month, the company signed an agreement to sell Baltika Breweries but had not yet completed the deal. “Following the presidential decree, the prospects for this sales process are now highly uncertain,” it added.

Ruh-roh. And in the most recent edition of London Beer City, Will Hawkes shared these interesting observations on the state of beer in and amongst the restaurant trade in London:

What is clear is that beer in restaurants has settled into a post-craft rut over the past half-decade, pre- and post-Covid. Restaurants, in the main, want just three beers: lager (the house option), pale ale and one more. The paler and crisper the better. Bottles are preferred, although 330ml cans work – but not 440ml, as Biercraft discovered when Pressure Drop moved to that format, and demand from restaurants plummeted.

Remember those beer dinners and those experts in pairing? What are they experts in now? Speaking of the unreal, Ron vented about one of the fibs of the brewing trade today, the debasedment of IPA as a term:

If there’s a beer style that pisses me of, it’s English IPA. Because it only has the most tenuous connection to any beers brewed in the UK bearing the name. In reality, it’s a recerse-engineerd American IPA, with tweaks to make it English. Basically, reducing the hopping or using English hops. And not based on IPAs brewed in the UK at all. 1.050º to 1.075º, 5% to 7.5% ABV, is what the BJCP guidelines say the strength should be. How many examples do I have that fit those parameters? Not one, either bottled or draught. Though the classic one, Red Triangle/White Shield, is missing. Though, at 1052º, even that only just scrapes in. What do the three draught beers called IPA have in common? Bugger all.

It is true. Needy US craft has poached so much of the terminology in its scrambling to pretend the whole ftuit sauced makey-uppy has some connection to brewing traditions. Who is to blame? Who suffers when business decisions backfire? Other than Ron, I mean. Back to a greater reality-based reality, British railroading news from Martin this week:

I can tell you now that drinking beer (or coffee) before boarding ANY train in 2023 is a very bad idea, as the tw*t who was reluctant to let folk sit on an empty chair housing his coat (tw*t) found when he attempted to get to the loo as we crawled past Burton at about 7mph. What is up with trains these days ? They’re all either cancelled or late or squeeze you in like sardines. Sardines who have paid for the privilege.

And in all that unhappiness we add the news that Katie (and Tom) Mather’s hugely optimistic project Corto is closing due to bigger realities than they could have imagined facing:

It has grown into a community hub, where local artists could showcase their work and regular live music nights and events would take place. The couple say they are “extremely proud” to have realised their vison to open their “ideal bar. But in a heartbreaking statement on social media, they say “times have never been harder” than over the past six months of “increasing costs and shrinking turnover”. “We knew the bar was never going to make us rich, but that wasn’t the point,” the statement added. “People have less money now and we understand this. Sadly, we won’t be the only people in this position….”

Glad, then, to have been able to support them in a small way at a trans-Atlantic distance with my now even more cherished cool t-shirt and warm wooly hat. A happier if less serious reality was discussed in The Growler this week, the question of foam and the LUKR faucet:

If we dissect the faucet body, we can observe that it is formed by a nozzle, a mesh, and a longer faucet, making this part effortless to disassemble and clean. The body has an additional part before the shank that will regulate beer flow, called a kompensator. Finally, the handle acquires another dimension because it is tuneable and has a side-pull one with 180-degree freedom of movement. This feature frees the Tapster to control the amount of beer being poured, triggering the ability to try new flavours and textures in foam serving.

Yum. Even if the adjectival cheese is a bit ripe. Speaking of ripe, The Beer Nut had an unhappy experience lately and shared his feelings:

… it’s not a good lager at all, leaning too far in to the rustic farmhouse thing, except without the charm. Were it a home brew I’d be suggesting its maker do something about fermentation temperature before attempting anything else similar. Since it’s not I’ll just say thanks but no thanks.

Note: I didn’t know it was possible to out-newbie the newbie guides but someone found a way. Buy in a good store. Got it. Here’s an actual news flash… beer is going out of style in some stores in Canada:

A trip to a grocery store in Toronto for your favourite wine or beer could leave you empty-handed. That’s because a handful of grocers in the city have quietly stopped selling alcohol due to rising levels of theft and razor-thin margins. “It’s really becoming unmanageable and getting out of hand. And so some grocers have taken the decision to remove these products from their shelves,” Retail Council of Canada spokesperson Michelle Wasylyshen told CTV News Toronto.

That’s sort of amazing if you ask me. Never thought that it was a matter of the wrong location for the market. And, you know, I wish there was an urban winemaker like this in my town who could come and deal with the mess of my tiny vineyard to add to their vats. This week’s Pellicle article by Paddy Gardiner features someone doing something like that but not much like that in London:

I think we never want to be 100% English, but we’d like to do more and more. That said, my argument around the sustainability side of bringing fruit in is that we only use road transport and ferries, we don’t use any air freight. We only bring in fresh bunches of grapes in reusable crates. The only impact carbon footprint-wise is the journey from the vineyard. The truth is that any wine that you buy from outside of the UK will have travelled that journey, but usually in a heavy glass bottle, and often rerouted around various storage facilities and distributors. If you eat or drink anything you haven’t grown yourself, then it has to have travelled. Then it’s about minimising impact, which [for us] looks like reusable crates and only using road transport.