Brief? I am on the road as you read this. At a Holiday Inn out by the airport if you have to know. Just a brief trip but that is going to mean a brief update. Why? Why??? Stop screaming that word into your pillow. It will be OK. Why do we know it will be OK? Because… as The Beer Nut has proven by hitting another milestone as he enters his third decade of beer blogging. Meaning we can never stop. Never. Ever. Another thing that never stops is the cycle of life that marks the work from planting seed to harvest time and, again, to planting again. Just to make you beer. As my near neighbours, the farmers and brewers at MacKinnon Brothers, showed when they shared this photo and these thoughts below on FB:
First planting of the year—no-till malting barley into soybean stubble. We’re testing new aftermarket firming and closing wheels on 6 of the 32 rows to see if they improve seed placement over the factory setup.
Martin, sitting in a pub enjoying a pint of Bass, has no doubt thought of that sort of thing from time to time but this week he raised another excellent question on the tension between the campaign to get UNESCO recognition for cask and the campaign to get CAMRA members to stick to “indie” beer:
I watched as a succession of unapologetic young folk arrived at the bar, went “ooh” and pointed at the red triangle. Yes, a national is finally putting a bit of money behind Bass, though frankly only pints this good will keep the pumps flowing and make sure it stays on the bar. Not everyone is delighted by this enthusiasm for Bass, whether because of ideology… CAMRA’s Conference instructed the NE to “ensure that all relevant CAMRA publications and communications pledge preferential support to beer producers and suppliers that are independent of the influence of the multinational brewers, and to make the case persistently for this stance.”
So, is the UNESCO campaign “Bass Inclusive” (BI) but the CAMRA one is Bass exclusionary” (BE) ? A report in The Guardian, while setting out what I had thought would be pretty well known information, adds a twist:
In its annual independent beer report, parts of which have been shared with the Guardian, the trade body for British indie brewers said tough conditions were exacerbated by difficulty selling to local pubs… Siba members told a survey that 60% of the pubs within 40 miles were inaccessible to them, choking off potential sources of revenue and reducing choice for consumers thirsty for more interesting options at the bar. They blamed conditions imposed by large breweries and some pub chains, including financial agreements that impose conditions on what beers pubs can sell.
So if Bass is brewed by a large multinational and it is engaging in practices which are detrimental to small brewers who, among other things, brew fine cask ales… is the UNESCO designation application going to be BI or BE? WIll it carve out those fine cask ales which are made by the faceless nasties of international capitalism? Asking for a friend.
Speaking of machines, Boak and Bailey continue on their travels and have considered the role of well choreographed hospitality:
In the past week, we found ourselves in two such machines in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Both drew us in with beautiful, historic buildings and the promise of decent mainstream beer… We really wanted to see inside the building, though, and also really wanted to drink a decent lager in vaguely trad surroundings, so we made our booking and braced ourselves. On arrival, we were intercepted by a member of staff whose only job was to assign people to free tables and escort them to their seats. She wasn’t exactly cheerful, but she was certainly efficient. She handed us off to a waitress controlling a section of about 10 or 15 tables who was just as friendly as she needed to be to avoid making us feel totally unwelcome. When we took a little too long to decide what to drink she got, perhaps, a touch impatient. But, like in the beer halls of Cologne, or The Dog & Bell in Deptford, once you accept that you’re not there to make friends with the staff, this brusqueness becomes part of the offer.
You know, I have played such a role in this life from time to time. As an usher, a waiter and to be honest a lawyer. I’ve said “right this way” as I led then to their seat, a table or… umm… the dock. Yes, standardized impersonal presentation in hospitality are efficient and reliable yet also impersonal and distant. You are being served but, in turn, so is the operation in a reciprocal sense. And sometimes even mentioning your past experience can open up a bit of conversation – but in other situations, you know, it can be taken as an insult. Govern yourselves accordingly. They don’t really care about the time you too failed to put in that order.
Speaking of touchy situations… would you drink out of a skull… have you?
Of course nobody wants to end up as a wine cup, but it must be a consolation to know that some very distinguished historical figures lived on in the drinks cabinet. One outstanding example was the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I, who ruled in Constantinople from 802 to 811. After the emperor was ambushed by the Bulgars in a mountain pass and slaughtered alongside his army, his head was delivered to the splendidly named Bulgar khan, Krum the Fearsome. According to a Byzantine chronicler, Krum “hung it on a pole so as to exhibit it to the tribes that came before him and to dishonour us. After that, he laid bare the skull, riveted it on the outside with silver and, in his pride, made the chieftains of the Slavs drink from it.”
The article in question being from The Times and the facts that led to the question being newsworthy cause Dr. Alice Roberts to comment “I can’t believe this isn’t a spoof article. It seems to be supporting a very questionable approach to human remains.” The facts in questions being some Oxford dons doing it based on an ancient tradition going back to … err… 1946.
The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) shares export figures annually. For several years, Michael Kravitz of the Diving for Pearls blog published an excellent analysis of this data, predicting in 2017: “If volume sales don’t increase [significantly], then we’re going to start seeing A TON of well-aged malt whisky within 5 years. If this continues further, there is going to be an embarrassment of oversupply in 10 years. Even if industry-wide production is cut in half in 2017, it would be too late to stop The Loch.”
Similarly perhaps, good play-by-play from CBC by Dave Infante, highlighting the potentially irrational exuberence in the pep rally:
Matt Gacioch of the Brewers Association notes that U.S. craft brewing’s -4% volume drop in 2024 was the largest since the trade org started tracking that metric. “Consumers feel much worse than they’re acting.” Even as sentiment tanks, people are still spending on-trend for now. Doesn’t explain why they’re spending less on craft beer, but hey, listen, silver linings!
There was a similar theme in the Beer Insider Insights newsletter this week:
… in 2012-2013, households led by folks under 30 spent more like 1.1% of their disposable income on alcohol. That dropped to 0.74% a decade later, about 1/3 less. Households run by younger folks will generally have less income, disposable or otherwise, Bourcard reminds. But the fact that Gen Z is already spending less on alcohol could stick around. Then too, the most cited reasons of “health and vanity” are “greatly overblown,” in his view.
I love how “greatly overblown” gets something of the rimshot treatment after those sorts of stats. Silver linings! More serious in terms of the inquiry, David Jesudason wrote this week about a puzzle:
Dennis Morris took a series of photos of life in Southall in the 1970s after apparently driving past the West London suburb on the way to a Bob Marley gig. This one was sent to me by a friend visiting an exhibition of his in Paris. I’ve asked people if this is the legendary Glassy Junction… but none can confirm. All I know is this is a Sikh pub landlord photographed in Southall in 1976. So if anyone has any idea what pub this is or the name of the man pictured, please get in touch!
I don’t know anything about that. Do you? No? Well, did you know, if you are not sufficiently disappointed in the beer in front of you, that there’s an app for that?
…a new experimental measurement tool, created by scientists assessing the concentration of DMS in beer through “smartphone-based colorimetry” uses a “paper-based analytical device (PAD)” which was made using an “immobilising a chromogenic reagent phase consisting of alkaline nitroprusside in a gelatin hydrogel”. Breweries and beer judges analyse the DMS content of products to ensure consistent flavour quality and consumer satisfaction.
Lordy. I am loving this “off-flavour” studies revival. Remember last week? That was excellent. Feels all 2012. Is that unkind? You know what’ll perk this conversation up? Rice malt, that’s what:
The rice malt can also reduce crop-growing acreage needs by half or more, because the research shows it produces more grain per acre than barley, while having an equivalent or greater sugar extract potential… The study, which is derived from the University of Arkansas, also identified how malting has the potential to decrease time and energy costs and make using rice more feasible for more small-scale craft brewers — especially when creating gluten-free beers. Since rice is cultivated globally, the analysis highlighted how it also has the benefit of serving as a viable malting grain for tropical and subtropical countries that would otherwise need to rely on barley imports for brewing.
You know… I wonder about the arsenic. Any mention of the arsenic? Not sure. Hmm… and that’s it. Not much this week. It’ll get bettter. Next week for sure. Let me check my calendar. No, away briefly again. Until then, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday (…as long as all their holiday fun doesn’t get in the way…) and Stan (….who is also going on his own holiday break so may not be there…) each and every Monday. Then listen to a few of the now rarely refreshed Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And maybe The British Food History Podcast. Maybe? 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? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer featuring visits to places like… Michigan! All About Beer has given space to some trade possy podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast with an episode just last month!. And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. Check out the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good but, hmm, they’ve also gone quiet this year. The rest of these are largely dead. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. As has We Are Beer People. The Share looked to be back with a revival but now its gone quiet. And the Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. VinePair packed in Taplines as well. All dead and gone. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. Nope – that ended a year ago. 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. Such is beer podcasting and newlettering!