Taking a break from the TV and all the fitba, I was out and about this week doing a bit of visiting and looking for ice cream. Fields of grain. Sunny skies. I heard Indigo Buntings on separate country roads. Had me a mango sugar cone, thanks for asking. And no brain melting heat like the reports from elsewhere. Mr Protz took an keen interest in my dirt digging skills the other day, too. Know your strengths. Still, the World Cup is on and we can’t avoid it. As I type Canada is down 2-1 to the Swiss, previously only know for other things. [Will they be commiserating all night at The Duke?] This in The Athletic is my favourite World Cup headline so far, though my own effort deserves honourable mention. I have to thank Pellicle for the Fantasy Premier League pool that I’ve been playing for three seasons now. It’s certainly helped me recognize so many players in these games.
“But what about the beer news, Al?” I hear you say. Fine. First up, Lars has been at it again, making the scientific studies available to mere English majors like me:
Most people have probably heard that Indians in the Andes are divided between those who malt the maize for chicha, and those who chew it, letting enzymes in their saliva make the sugar. An interesting new paper has some surprising results that are relevant. They’ve looked at the human gene AMY1, which makes the amylase enzyme that breaks down starch. The more copies you have, it’s thought, the more enzymes in your saliva… Andean Indians have more amylase enzymes in their saliva than most human populations. Is that why they chose chewing as their saccharification method, and stuck to it until today? Because it works better for them? It seems to have been rare elsewhere, so that would make sense.
One thing that I note is that chewing and saliva are two separare functions. Could it be that chewing generates more saliva? Or is the crushing function itself beneficial to the enzyme’s effectiveness. I have visions of a spittoon collection system at some point becoming a social circle. [Ed.: …”aaannnnnd… that’s it for saliva based journalism for this week.”]
There was drier but still much well deserved excitement over the news on the next book by Andreas Krennmair on Bavarian White Beer. Me, I am as or more impressed with this announcement they made on Bluesky:
When Alan posted this snippet of a colorised drawing of the old Schneider taproom/beer hall in Munich, I loved the idea so much I turned it into a sticker design and got 500 of them printed.
“Cork Head!” forever! Speaking of new books, Eoghan highlighted recent books on Belgian beer:
I tell you what, Belgian beer (writing) is not doing much to beat the charge that it’s a closed-shop old boys club for retired journalists and people say they drank with Michael Jackson like they’re the guys who “shook Sinatra’s hand”. Anyway, if you’re in the market for a recently-published book about Belgian beer, get Tim Skelton’s Good Beer Guide or Sofie Vanrafelghem’s monumental book about the Belgian cafe (or Breandan’s about hidden beers). Because at least they are good, well-written and do something new…
Skelton’s for sale here, Vanrafelghem’s is here and Breandan’s is here. Notes? Notes!
Note #1: celebrity gets news coverage for situation affecting millions.
Note #2: Katie’s dream beach vacation.
Note #3: “Punctuation counts!” say Alan, Alistair, Alice, Alfred and…
Note #4: Twenty-six pints.
Unlike you, I have been replaced on a municipal alcohol policy working group for having an opinion on alcohol. But even saying that, I find the reaction to this news out of Bristol a bit odd:
The Bristol and district branch of Camra has hosted its annual festival in City Hall for many years. It cancelled the event last year after the council contracted out the management of some of its venues to a corporate events company, which brought in a large rise in the hiring costs. When an update on the catering contract was given to councillors this week, Mack told the strategy and resources policy committee that hosting a beer and cider festival at a discounted price for Camra could fall foul of the council’s rules on promoting alcohol.
It’s not that they are banning the event. It’s not that they are charging a high fee for the event. It’s just the recognition that having a discount for the clinky drinky event might actually conflict with another existing policy on alcohol promotion. Fortunately for us, we have the “no bonusing” rule which means it’s the promotion of commercial business below market cost that would be the basis for objection. Question: why give what is effectively a trade show a discount?
Pellicle‘s feature this week is a portrait by Paddy Gardiner of McMullen AK Mild, an ale with the ability to attract fulsome descrption:
“It is unique. I’ve never come across another beer that tastes like that,” he says. Les emphasises its nutty aromas, which arise from the blend of Halcyon pale, crystal, and chocolate malts. What really entices me are the slightly less earthy, more ephemeral flavours that develop in the glass as the pint diminishes. Red berry yeast esters mingle with oily citrus and dry grass notes from the Whitbread Golding hops, culminating in a comforting impression of summer pudding, blood orange marmalade, and dry autumn leaves. The initial mousse of carbonation, which first refreshed the parched palate, dwindles over time so that the last few sips leave an oily slick of gently astringent bitterness.
And Knut has been Düsseldorffing which may or may not lead you to want to dorf the Düssel yourselves based on his handy feet on the ground advice:
The standard beers are quite similar, and don’t expect much in the way of special brews. They are happy to sell Uerige Sticke and Doppelsticke to any bottle wholesaler, but they are only to be found in the brewpub at certain times of the year. I even had to drink the Sticke out of a bottle on the sidewalk some years ago, as it was only sold as take-out. The waiters are impeccably dressed, but service can be bordering on the unfriendly in case you ask for something not on today’s menu. But that’s part of the mythology.
Not ever one to be left behind, Martin is on the road too and finds himself on the far side of the Black Sea in Armenia where, it would appear, the toes sweat and no one sleeps:
… if I had to describe a country in one word it would be COFFEE. On every corner, a machine taking your 100 dram coin, often with Hi-Vis maintenance staff on hand, and once you work out how to tell the machine YOU DON’T WANT SUGAR you can have a quality (hot and chewy) espresso for twenty pence (20p). OK, a cappucino is 50p, but what fool orders a cappucino from a machine? I’ve never seen so much strong coffee drunk, long into the evening. That 100 dram espresso is as much a human right as the 1 euro equivalent in Naples. Except it’s just gone up to 150 drams in the newer machines in the city centre. The main difference between Yereven and the rest of Armenia is 10p on an espresso.
Also off and away from home, Alister reported being disturbed when he was recently at the Westminster Arms in London by an influx of… Americans:
It was during my second pint that a group of Americans made their way down to the basement, and proceeded to make me almost despair that real ale will ever be anything other than a niche in the US, so embedded is the collective ignorance of cask ale in the popular consciousness. Yeah, sorry folks, we writers can blather on as much as we want about places doing real ale, but it’s not getting outside of our bubble. One of the group approached the bar and ordered a Spitfire, but a lady sat in the booth they had plonked in yelled across the bar to “make sure you get the Spitfire lager, not the cask, the cask is warm”.
To be fair to the group he also heard them say “don’t tell the pastor we are in a pub drinking beer” which means they are hell-bound hypocrites and falsifiers clearly within Satan’s grip.
Here’s an idea: ban booze in the hottest stretches of summer:
Sweltering temperatures have prompted “red alert” warnings for heat in France. Throughout Europe, heat-related fatalities are growing, train services are being disrupted, and events are being canceled. During France’s annual Music Day, the French government actually banned alcohol consumption in “red alert” zones, according to media reports. The rationale was that limiting booze would free up emergency services for the most vulnerable members of the community.
Is that realistic? As you think on that, here’s a couple of recollections about the hayday of beer blogging. In their weekend footnotes on Patreon, Boak and Bailey noted that a certain bit of reading was:
…a blog post responding to an article. This feels like a wonderful reminder of 2008 when this kind of thing used to happen all the time. Beer blogging was fuelled by responses to other people’s posts, which often felt like conversation starters rather than broadcast media. Ray also observed something similar this week in his area of interest, horror films and fiction.
Some blame Bluesky: “…seems that BlueSky isn’t, you know, as exciting for beer discourse as Twitter was.” Me, I blame the broader decades-worth of the “irrational exuberence” culture that paralleled the rise and fall of craft myself. But now when all the trade’s wants and needs are reduced to “happy stories!” and statistics as creative writing which get shamelessly leveraged to distract from the near 20% contraction in US craft beer production (and therefore consumption) since 2019, well, it’s become all a bit… what… truthy. Harder to have a chat in that sort of context. Yet we still read this sort of thing:
Whether it’s the elevated interest in flavor, rotation based on different moments and needs, the ability to express oneself through their beverage choice, or limiting drinking occasions to experiences that include friends or family, craft beer’s value proposition actually holds up quite well. Craft just needs to shed some baggage to bridge the gap between the original craft beer fans who remain engaged, and those newer consumers whose priorities may look a lot different.
Now that‘s a bit of a word salad. Experts, eh? Perhaps relatedly, not sure there’s a lot to comment upon in the breaking news in VinePair that TV ads by US beer companies ain’t what they used to be. Jeff‘s thoughts are more to the point. And it’s not all that unexpected seeing as, you know, TV ain’t what it used to be… and advertising ain’t what it used to be. With this World Cup, the key point is well illustrated:
The decision makers for the beleaguered brewing industry may feel like the moment calls for fiscally conservative marketing — and politically conservative, too, in ABI’s case. But just like in soccer itself, there’s risk in playing it too safe on the marketing front. For example, one of the most viral stories of the tournament so far is the sheer decimation of Boston’s beer reserves at the hands of Scotland’s fearsomely thirsty “Tartan Army.” It’s a funny story, at ABI’s expense: “The Scottish fans just drank the place dry, and all they had [left] was Bud Light,” one eyewitness told the local news.
Let’s be honest. Other than avoiding that crap, the indifferent fitba fan is just going for the alcohol. Like all those Coca-Cola ads at Christmas, the particular brand of beer doesn’t have anything to leverage from the bigger transient story.* But FIFA needs it’s money so exclusivity alone becomes the commodity, the illusion acting as distraction from the real, the bowels of the beloved being mined for gold.**
There. I need to get out in to the garden and start digging again. As I do please take time to check out Boak and Bailey posting on Saturday and adding to their fabulously entertaining footnotes week after week at Patreon. And do look out for more of Stan’s new “One Link, One Paragraph” format. Then hunt out something in someone’s archives! Leave oblique comments on someone’s post from 2009!! Listen to a few of Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on certain 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 self-governing totes autonomous website featuring The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword remains on pause but there is reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer and All About Beer is still offering a range of podcasts – and there’s also Mike Seay’s The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast! And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube as well as the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast.
*Compare to the “No Lays No Game” ads which are reasonably entertaining while executing a clear and topical appropriation.
**Finally, my favorite Milton passage gets included.