Month: December 2024

The countdown is on! I already feel like Ed Grimley and it’s only the fifth of the month. I am too excited. That rotten cold I had is finally in the past and now I am seeing holiday things everywhere, like in the red and green scene at one pub’s outdoor washroom posted by Beer Nouveau. How cheery. Retired Martin* also included an exposé on the outside gents in one post this week:

No, I don’t know what “To the huts” means, either.

Speaking of cheer, are you having an office party?  The Times says they are in mortal danger from, frankly, sensible updates to the law. I say that as a lawyer given I have never been to such madly lavish and deeply souced Christmas parties as those put on by private law firms. But that was decades ago. Here is what is going on now:

Employers that are found to have failed to do so could face claims for unlimited compensation at tribunals. Lawyers are advising that financial services businesses in the City of London — renowned for alcohol-fuelled Christmas parties — “should be particularly mindful of the new rules”… Updated guidance published in September by the Equality and Human Rights Commission emphasised that workplaces must take an active approach to assessing risk. That translates to an obligation to identify any action to clamp down on possible sexual harassment and the requirement for regular reviews of systems.

This lines up with what is… or rather isn’t… happening in New Jersey whether because of cell phones and social media, workplace harassment, remote working arrangements or lower interest in excessive drinking. Did you know some offices bizarrely arrange for staff to buy holiday party gifts for ownership? And perhaps not oddly, given Russia’s foolishly and murderously self-inflicted economic collapse, but holiday office parties are being cancelled there too. Apparently, there are after effects of this sort of thing well beyond the office:

A new low-alcohol beer has been launched by a train operator in a bid to tackle the number of passengers having drunk accidents during the festive period. The Safety Thirst beer, at 0.5% alcohol, will be stocked onboard Avanti West Coast services, which run on the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Scotland. The company said the pale ale will create a “more enjoyable travel experience” and help passengers “drink responsibly”. 

The Tand doesn’t need no stinkin’ office parties for his jolly holidays. Because he found his perfect beer:

…I probably don’t score beers as much as I ought to, but I regularly do. I am probably quite a strict scorer, given that I judge beer in competitions and also that over the years, I know what its what.  So, that’s a long winded way of saying, until now, I have never given a five. So let’s get to the point. It had to happen and last Friday, in an infrequent visit to our local Wetherspoons, I gave a beer a five. What was it I hear you scream? Well, perhaps not surprisingly given the quality of the brewer and the beer, it was Thornbridge Jaipur. Why a five? Well, this was perfectly brewed, clear and untainted with no off flavours, at a perfect temperature and was bursting with condition. The body and mouthfeel were perfect. The glass was spotless. In my mind I went over everything. Could it be improved in a normal pub environment? Not as far as I could tell. It was, simply, faultless.

Boom! What’s the news from the ag markets? Oh… as we have heard out of Oregon, the hops news coming out of Germany is not good:

Declining beer consumption worldwide is hurting German hops growers, who face lower prices and possible farm closures amid a dip in demand for the bitter crop. A strong hops harvest in 2024 means that Germany has regained the crown as the world’s top producer of hops, but prices have slid. According to the German Hop Industry Association, 2024 is the 11th year in a row in which more hops were produced than required.

And, speaking of not boom,  Canada’s barley supplies appear to be very close to a 25 year low:

With the 700,000-metric-ton (mt) projection being only slightly higher than 542,800 mt remaining after the devastating drought of 2021, there is little room for error…. Given the drought stress experienced and the lowering of yield estimates by provincial counterparts, it is widely anticipated that final production estimates from Statistics Canada will be lower on Dec. 5. The problem is, even a 3% cut in production would take 228,000 mt off the ending stocks (all else equal), leaving them below the 2021-22 level.

In addition to drought, prices and planted acreage of barley were both down in 2024, too. If you want to obsess over this on a regular basis, check out the tables and charts of the Canadian Grain Commission’s weekly stats.  And that’s all the malt news this week… NO IT ISN’T!! The Maltsters Association of Great Britain also issued an update on the 2024 numbers:

The UK malting barley harvest is now complete and the overall picture is one of reasonable quality and good supply. Winter malting barley can be summarised as variable with predominantly low nitrogen crops and grain retention levels similar to 2023. Winter barley yields are recorded at 10-15% less than the 5-year average. Conversely, the spring barley harvest in the UK has seen low nitrogen crops throughout all regions with good retention levels and yields described as better than average.

I’ve been described as better than average, too.  A step up from that but facing similar climate and market pressures, traditional sake makers in Japan are heartened by UNESCO intangible cultural heritage designation for their brewing techniques:

“It’s still quite warm, even though it’s almost December. The price of rice is high and the harvest is poor, which has made sake-brewing (this year) very challenging”… The centuries-old method of making sake is unique for its three-step preparation, or “San-Dan-Jikomi”, of allowing multiple fermentation processes to progress simultaneously in a single container… While sake has lost ground as a regular drink, Maesako said it remains impossible to separate from Japanese culture. “We have sake at celebrations, at New Year’s, and also on sad occasions, like funerals,” he said. “The culture of Japanese sake is the culture of Japan itself.” The brewing technique is expected to be formally endorsed at a UNESCO committee session in Paraguay this week.

More on San-Dan-Jikomi AKA Sandan Jikomi here. Reuters posted a photo essay on the process in addition to the story quoted from above.

Panic!! PANIC!!! They are running out of Guinness:

You know things are going to hell when folk use “proactively” in a press release. Always the actively pro, I think it’s fair to say that The Beer Nut has not always enjoyed the Canadian craft beers that have passed his way. It was good, then, to read how a couple of brewers from my old home in Nova Scotia didn’t disappoint even if one offering didn’t necessarily thrill either:

This is solidly made and workmanlike, but don’t expect fireworks. While I’m not saying that breweries running since 1997 have a particular safe-and-steady way of making their beer, this IPA suggests that there might be something to the theory. It’s not an exciting beer, but I’d say it’s a dependable one.

Boak and Bailey followed up on the recent news of a number of cask brands being discontinued with a consideration of how many brands had existed. Turns out not all that long given a number of constantly moving factors:

When we think of cask ale brands that have been around longer than that a few contenders spring to mind. Hook Norton Old Hooky dates back only to 1977. Adnams Broadside was launched in 1972. Fuller’s London Pride came to the market in 1959. And Marston’s Pedigree was introduced in 1952. You might make an argument for Bass which is not only still available but also having something of a resurgence in popularity. But it’s also, really, just the name of a defunct brewery. And that famous ‘first trademark’ was actually for ‘Bass & Co’s Pale Ale’, which is not what’s on the pump clips today.

Years ago, I noodled around looking up when the first branding attached itself to brewing, when the dissassociation of what is on the label from what is in the glass began. I can’t find the links but if you spend a little time over at Ron’s, you pick up quickly that beers up to a certain point in the middle 1800s were identified as gradations of a brewery’s output like this, not the individually animated distinct personalities in themselves we know as brands. Walk back through time. Trademarks get legislative protection in the UK starting in the 1860s. In the US, we see in the 1820s that beer being shipped out of the local market gets named with adjectives like “cream” added to impress buyers with the superior qualities of the product. A generation before in New York City of the 1790s you see beers sold by style and city of origin much like you would have seen in Britain 120 years before that.  That all being the case, if you think you’ll miss the brand now maybe buy the t-shirt. You’ll probably be able to find a similar drink all the same. As the same B+B wrote in their footnotes:

Perhaps it’s studying beer history that does it – you get used to the idea that beers and brands come and go as tastes change. And if we ran a smaller brewery such as Butcombe or Cheddar Ales, we’d be rubbing our hands in glee, because this would seem to leave a gap in the market for beers which are trad, but not boring. Perhaps we’re being naive, though.

BREAKING!  I had no idea that you had to “stamp” a beer sold in a bar in Quebec. Soon it will be over:

According to the microbreweries, the obligation to affix stamps to their cans and glass bottles is both unnecessary and time-consuming… Since 1971, the law has required a duty stamp to be affixed to all beer sold in restaurants and bars. The original aim was to prevent smuggling and tax evasion. Some microbreweries have recently been visited by police officers who have come to check that the labelling on the stamps complies with the law. Microbreweries that contravene the current law face fines of between $500 and $7,500. The minister was at pains to reassure, saying that a fined business could be forgiven.

BREAKING! I have no idea who these people are:

But how did a ‘celebrity’ couple come to take over this regionally-renowned boutique bar? For that, you’d have to go right back to when it first opened, in 2016. “Katy kept saying she wanted to move somewhere in the countryside but where you can also get a gin and tonic,” Adam says. “So I said: ‘That’s Knutsford.’ I spent so long persuading her to move here. Eventually she agreed and the day we moved in was the day this place opened.”

For VinePair and without any reference to Knutsford, Kate Bernot has unpacked the potential damage Trump’s proposed tariffs will do to the clinky drinky markets in a welcome greater level of detail than we too often see:

The global supply chain means that U.S. companies are heavily reliant on imported materials. For the beverage industry, aluminum is the most significant. Canada exports 75 percent of its aluminum production to the U.S., and domestic production here simply can’t replace that volume. It would take years, Uhrich says, to even begin construction on new aluminum plants, let alone to supply what U.S. alcohol companies need. Beer is obviously the most vulnerable to rising aluminum costs: Two-thirds of U.S. beer is packaged in cans. There’s simply no way, Uhrich says, that further tariffs wouldn’t drive up the cost of domestic beer as a result of costlier materials.

Canadian malt in Canadian cans – US craft! Finally, for the double in The Times, Pete Brown gave a primer on some of the newbie questions that folk who don’t know much about beer are going to ask. It’s an interesting use of the space but the paper must be concerned that there are reader lacking superficial understandings of beer such as this:

Every single menu and every single recipe in the history of humanity is based on one simple truth: some flavours go together better on the palate than others. It would be absurd to think that beer is somehow an exception to this. Beer actually has a broader range of flavour than wine. The caramelisation in a pint of bitter goes perfectly with roast beef. A Belgian-style wheat beer works well with anything you might squeeze some lemon juice over. And stout with a gooey chocolate dessert is so good, so simple, that it’s almost cheating. Just remember to pair light with light and strong with strong, that there’s no right or wrong and that it’s supposed to be fun.

Well, I suppose Christmas is the time for merry chestnuts. At least it’s better than sucking up to your commissioning editor!

That’s it! It’s been a busy week in the real world and that is where I live. Until next Thursday, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (never ever) odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down.  Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too.  All About Beer has podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube.  The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that but only had the one post. Such is life.

*Check out his walk aroung Rye too.