Category: 1970 to the ’90s

The Blursday Beery News Notes, Your Only Certainty in October 2020

Records. I have been known to hate records. But up there? That’s my undergrad bar in the fall of 1985 by best guess-timate. The image popped up on the ’80s alumni FB page by a classmate. I’m not in the picture but I can name half of those who are in there. Packed. Happy. I’ve been trying to sift clues to gleaned within the photo and the others that accompanied it. LL Bean boots were a thing. And I think a beer was $1.10 during Happy Hour according to the posted price list. We only had 200 in residence at the place and most of the marriages amongst we wee Blue Devils started off during Friday Happy Hour. We even had a song. OK, I did. You just sang It’s Happy Hour Time! over and over to “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay” which was easy to remember. Duh. Two thirds of my life ago. Note: McEwans Strong. Apparently an 8% treacle based syrup. Had too much of that too often. Ephemera. But very important for some reason.

From within a similar ballpark, ATJ shared an image from just eight years later, the agenda for a conference on the state of IPA in 1994:

Rooting about in the attic where there are hundreds of books, magazines and beer pix and press releases going back to the 1990s I came upon this @Britbeerwriters agenda for their IPA conference – a little bit of history perhaps? Only drunk beer then, beer writing was 2 years away.

Much comment ensued. And more images of the detritus of that day have been located. I was quite interested in who spoke, including four PhDs… or podiatrists… plus Jackson and Protz and Oliver. Heavens. Beats the hell out of a Zoom-cast with influencers.

And last Friday, I listened to Andy Crouch’s interview on BeerEdge with Dr. Theresa McCulla, curator of brewing history at the National Museum of American History. I really liked it. Good production quality for one thing. No umms. No scoffs or chortles.  In terms of substance, I mentioned this:

Having written and researched 1600-1830 brewing history, I’m not sure I fully agree with that given the wide range and the depth of the US records that are available. But they are ephemera, from shocking slave sale notices to banal self praising poetry about brewerys owners… My main takeaway from your excellent discussion was the hope that the same primary transitory records are preserved along with objects. Email data bases and boxes of invoices are as interesting as oral histories from decades after the fact – and perhaps a wee bit more factual.

Which is exactly the point of scrap of paper ATJ found. Just a scrap of paper. And the photos. Not a spoon. I don’t get the spoon thing at all, frankly. There is a difference between symbols and records. Records matter more. So brewers, get those early emails and photocopies onto a disk or a stick or some other thingie and get it to some archive somewhere.

In other news, the shut down hours inspectors are out in England. The comments section in last week‘s noted post at The Pub Curmudgeon offered up this observation on one aspect of the new… rather, latest rules:

It’s table service only. This will be a real pain with only one member of staff, and we can’t afford to have two on at once. If there is anyone with Coronavirus, table service will help spread it through cross contamination. Instead of people coming to the bar – where we have a screen – one at a time then going back to their table, I will be going from table to table constantly taking orders, ferrying drinks and taking payments. Those pubs who have put in ingenious one way systems with collection points and screens because that’s what their risk assessment concluded was safest will have to re-think and implement a new system. In two days.

Conversely, The Sun newspaper-like object has found the one workaround at a highway stop:

…it is classed as providing an essential service because it provides food and drink to motorway drivers. The exemption means the pub — the only one at a services in the country — is not bound by the curfew and can serve between 10pm and 5am. But it is open only until 11pm — although that is still an hour longer than other boozers. Nobody from the Extra Motorway Services group was available for comment last night.

Also about wandering the roads, Boak and Bailey reached back into the letters of a Romantic poet and found out he was “Samuel Taylor Coleridge, beer geek and pub crawler“:

In Llangynog, Wales, in July 1794, he had lunch at the village inn, enjoying ‘hashed mutton, cucumber, bread and cheese and beer, and had two pots of ale – the sum total of the expense being sixteen pence for both of us!’ Note the distinction between beer and ale, there. In 1801, he briefly became obsessed with the idea of making productive use of acorns…

Time passed, and nineteen years later I found myself once again changing trains in Cambridge. I still had my notes from last time, too. Finally I was standing in front of the Free Press. Expecting to be disappointed, I took a deep breath and opened the door. I was not disappointed.

In beer writing critique, Ed posted like it was 2008 when he posted a post about someone else’s post:

…at the end, to sound a little crass, I couldn’t help but think so what? Beer might be described as hyperreal or a simulacra but if I’ve got a pint in my hand why should I care? Postmodernism might by sceptical towards reason but my reason tells me to be sceptical towards postmodernism. 

I thought the post was entertaining, a bit of a romp. My only other comment was similar but hopefully positive: “What isn’t simulacra in craft culture?” Perhaps somewhat related, another beer blog – Look At Brew out of Sussex, England – has declared that it’s time to stop:

I’ve been blogging as Look at Brew on and off for the past eight years or so, mostly focusing on the UK beer scene, a scene which has become an incredible beast. Sometimes that beast is something I want to be around, research and interact with, other times it’s something which I don’t recognise. It has changed beyond what I thought it would in such an incredibly short time.

Many have come and gone. Beer writing has always been a tough gig. Start with limited resources, search hard for a point and/or status – then wash it all down with a lacing or lashings of a generally socially mood altering drug which comes with its own gaps in understanding of the long term consequences. Then add the criticism. Hard on the head if we are looking at our writing as the end of a discussion rather than the beginning. And like many weeks, logging this stuff week after week seems even pointless sometimes…

But that, I think, misses the point. The logging creates an aggregation that displays a pattern. Last Saturday I woke up in the middle of the night and I was thinking about Blursday. Here we are. On the one hand we’ve made it six months in – with about another six until we know what is up with the vaccine roll out.  On the other, it is a Blursday. Day after day of the same. If you are as lucky as me. The boring same is pretty good. Other have not been… what… as immune. The million plus dead worldwide. The millions more now ill without any understanding of the long term consequences. And even millions more hammered economically. Makes beer blogging seem insignificant.

And you know all that already. Because we are all in this Blursday together. Sure – it’s like everyone has the same haircut… or all jam came in one flavour. So, like you I am having a difficult time determining if beer has gotten extra boring or if it is just that a receding tide lowers all boats or if my get up and go got up and went. But then I realize that it’s just Blursday and that better things are coming. Imagine the fun of vaccine day. It’s going to be a happy happy hour. I am almost… perhaps… excited by the idea of looking back at all this, all these weekly news notes posts, once Roaring Twenties V.2.0 starts up in 2021. Which is why I guess I write this. To create a record.

With that glimpse of possible cheer in the late short term, early mid-range… that is it! Enjoy yourself while you are in the pink… and remember there’s  Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (where Jordan shits on the decline of Fullers rep in Ontario but then celebrates the likely return by other means) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword (where this week a bigger bum to behold on a brand is discussed. And remember BeerEdge, too.

 

The Days May Grow Short When You Reach September, Frank, But There’s Still Time For Beery New Notes

The summer has raced by. We only have a bit of lingering warmish things left. Then false summer comes, followed by the now doubly  questionable Indian summer, then lastly a few surprisingly cool rather than cold days. Harvest is coming in. Season of mellow fruitfullness and all that entails. For the ladies to the right it included rather nice dresses. I saw this image on the Twitter feed of The Georgian Lords but have no idea where it is from. I suppose it indicates all hands on a day where there were deck as it’s hardly The Gleaners of months later on in the cycle. But, perhaps surprisingly, not unlike The Harvesters of 1565.

First up and as an excellent introduction for an effort which seeks to separate from chaff from the grain, Stan wrote about an article about wine writers and junkets and other seductions. Like the author, the excellent Jamie Goode, he uses the word “satire” but, as is usually the case with satire, it is framed as such to make a point about a truth:

Good reading from an author who writes, “Personally, I’d rather drink beer than suffer these dull, dishonest, trick-about wines.” Not sure what alternative he’d suggest for dull, dishonest, tricked-about beer.

Is it the beer that is dishonest? In some cases, yes but not always.  Anyway, excellent thoughts as we seek out the good as well as… the Goode in what’s out there to read this week. A reasonable contrasty comparison is this article that Matt noticed by Alicia Kennedy which in part covered similar ground with less of a satirical veneer and more of a personal reflection:

When I was 31 and used my passport again, it was to go to Spain on a trip paid for by a winemaker. The next month, it was a two-week trip to Italy with family that completely drained my meager savings (until I moved to Puerto Rico, this was the longest I’d ever been out of New York), and the next, it was to Scotland for whisky tasting. From 2017 through my move in 2019, I traveled somewhere pretty much every month. These professional opportunities (some personal), about which the ethics were and are always dubious, suddenly began appearing in my inbox at just the right time: after my brother passed away at the end of 2016 and I needed not to wallow, not to continue having panic attacks. 

Staying at home, Martyn triggered a lot of arge and the barge when he himself wrote triggered about changes to the small brewery taxation laws of England and Wales.* It’s all the same to me in that I think reasonably healthy taxation of beer and other strong drinks is a perfectly normal thing to do but decide for yourself:

Much of the outrage seems to come from exaggerated claims of how many and how much brewers will be adversely affected by the proposed reforms, and allegations that the changes will mean large brewers gaining at the expense of small brewers, though the group that led the call for a change in SBR, the Small Brewers Duty Reform Coalition, includes a fair number of brewers making less than 5,000 hectolitres a year among its 60-plus members.

Plus, and I presume some brewers read this so I appreciate it’s not what everyone wants to hear, the idea that the outrage is “manufactured” is not necessarily an accusation. It’s a reality that the discourse is bent and pushed and pulled for any number of reasons and interests. This is one of them.

According to the NME, 99 metal bands have signed up for a ’99 Bottles Of Beer’ charity cover:

The idea for the cover was put together by The Boozehoundz, the moniker of Scour members Derek Engemann and John Jarvis alongside Robin Mazen of Gruesome. It sees 99 musicians all singing a single line of the song, amounting to a mammoth 23-minute song.

All of which is entirely excellent.

Speaking of music, the earlier Matt in my life on these information superhighways linked to an excellent remembrance of being a teen at raves in Preston 30 years ago:

There was an abundance of places to go out to in Preston in the early 90s. The country was in recession but everyone was partying hard. Friday was rave night at Lord Byrons and Saturday was indie/dance. After a grim experience at a club in town when I was 16, Saturday nights at Byrons became part of my life. Most Saturday nights from the beginning to the end of 1991 we were there, drinking cider and black, dancing to our favourite music and forging friendships that would continue for three decades and more.

Reads as true as a witness statement in a criminal proceeding.

Andreas K. wrote about Carinthian Steinbier this week, an Austrian beer that disappeared over 100 years ago, and in doing so gave us a great intro into the world of hot rocks in cauldrons:

Carinthian Steinbier is interesting because it survived for a fairly long time, until 1917 to be exact, despite repeated attempts to completely supplant it with what was called “kettle brewing”, i.e. brewing involving metal kettles. During other research, I recently stumbled upon a 1962 article that is probably the most detailed description of Carinthian Steinbier tradition that I’ve found so far.

“Things You Gotta Try” on NPR’s Splendid Table included dipping Oreos in red wine. Oatmeal Walnut cookies in Imperial Stout anyone?

I have to admit, I have no interest in hard seltzer or hard soda or hard kombuchca and even little interest in most beer writing about cider but I do appreciate Beth’s argument that at least for the business of brewing, non-beer may be one of the ways forward:

They’re not the only San Diego brewery to fully embrace the seltzer craze. Mikkeller’s own line of hard seltzers—dubbed “Sally’s Seltzer” as a nod to one half of their iconic character duo Henry and Sally—launched in January 2020 in response to craft consumers’ changing demographic. “It’s a perfect change of pace for any type of drinker—and a cool opportunity for us to connect with a wide demographic,” explains founder/CEO Mikkel Borg Bjergsø. “It also fits with our desire to be inclusive and reach as many people as possible.”

Let’s be honest. They are end-times beverages, just the same coolers which have been with us for almost thirty years and just gak by another name. As relevant to an interest in good beer as the brand of bubble gum stuck under a pub’s table top. Mr. B. noted the latest abomination: “India pale hard seltzer.” FFS.

Finally, it was with great sadness that I heard the news about the death of Jack Curtin, dean of Philadelphia’s beer writing scene. He was a great supporter of this beer blog from day one and someone with whom I shared an interesting email relationship even if we never met. One of his greatest skills was ripping into his pal Lew Bryson, who I know will mark the loss deeply.

Enjoy the rest of your summer days. As you do, check in with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (where Jordan shits on church ladies and is dead wrong about coconut macaroons) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And BeerEdge, too.

 

 

 

*Never sure when these things apply to the whole or the part.

Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week The Patios Reopened

A better week. Not a perfect week in any sense but a better week. Here in Ontario, more coming back to life. As of this Friday, where I live I can get a haircut, go to a church that is 30% full and hang out with ten people at a time. Things are moving forward. One key issue: should pubs still have a proper level of grot as they reopen? Hmm… And when Her Majesty the Queen told us “we will meet again” did she imagine it would be on asphalt in a parking lot?

Furthermore on the hereabouts, on Monday the AGCO announced the expansion for outdoor service on Monday, effective in most of Ontario this Friday. Toronto and the surrounding areas as still considered too much at risk and will open at a later date. The rules for creating a bigger outdoor area are interesting:

1. The physical extension of the premises is adjacent to the premises to which the licence to sell liquor applies;
2. The municipality in which the premises is situated has indicated it does not object to an extension;
3. The licensee is able to demonstrate sufficient control over the physical extension of the premises;
4. There is no condition on the liquor sales licence prohibiting a patio; and,
5. The capacity of any new patio, or extended patio space where the licensee has an existing licensed patio, does not exceed 1.11 square metres per person.

Even more interesting, those who meet the above criteria are not required to apply to the AGCO or pay a fee to temporarily extend their patio or add a temporary new licensed patio and they are not required to submit any documentation to the AGCO to demonstrate compliance with the above criteria.  We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Elsewhere, Boak and Bailey have celebrated another step towards liberation with the takeaway service at their local micropub being now a going concern:

…the reopening of The Drapers is definitely next level, game-changing stuff. Not necessarily because every single beer is utterly brilliant, but because [w]e suddenly have access to a range of cask beers, not just one at a time; [w]e don’t have to decide a week in advance what we want to drink, and we (probably) don’t need to worry about running out between deliveries[; and T]he range that’s been on offer so far includes things we would not have been able to get hold of easily. It also includes new-to-us beers that we wouldn’t have wanted to risk buying in bulk, on spec.*

Stonch tweeted about one of the pains in the neck he has to deal with as he moves to reopening:

The shysters trying to cash in hospitality operators’ anxiety about re-opening at the moment are something else. Steady trickle into the inbox offering weird, unscientific and unnecessary products and services in the name of “COVID-19 secure”. Fuck off, spivs.

The timing and rules for reopening in Britain remain murky at best but Mr. Protz celebrated one  wonderful milestone, the return to brewing cask at Timothy Taylor’s:

We are incredibly chuffed to announce that today is the first day since lockdown that we have produced CASK!! Thank you so much to every single one of you for your support through this incredibly difficult period! Slowly but surely, we are getting there!

Katie wrote an excellent bit on the lockdown’s effect on small brewers… when they weren’t brewing including preserving, returning to home towns and this:

For the synth-aware, Adrian’s current kit (at the time of writing this) was his Eurorack, AKAI Pad controller, Yamaha mixer and Roland Boutiques SH-01, TR-09 and TB-03. If you fancy hearing his creations in action, find him on twitter at @wishbonebrewery.

Catching up elsewhere, Gary has been busy and I particularly liked this piece of his on a 1935 conference which added helpfully to the question of 1800s adjectives in North American beer labeling:

Rindelhardt stated that cream ale and lively ale, which he considered synonymous, were devised in the mid-1800s to compete with lager. He said they were ale barrelled before fermentation had completed to build up carbonation in the trade casks, or krausened in those casks, and sent out. In contrast, sparkling ale and present use ale – again synonymous – might also be krausened, and later force-carbonated, but were a flat stored ale blended with lager krausen. This form, provided the lager krausen was handled correctly, still offered an ale character but in a fizzy, chilled way as lager would offer.

“Cream ale”  and “cream beer” are of special interest as careful readers will recall. Check out his thoughts on the revival of Molson Golden, which I can only pronounce as if I were from Moncton, New Brunswick.

Speaking of history, I was reading through Canadian artist Tom Thompson’s diaries of the summer he disappeared over a century ago and was struck by this:

June 7, 1917: I had a hell of a hangover this morning. The whisky we had yesterday hit me hard but at least I didn’t go blind. That happened numerous times after the Temperance Act went into effect and people started making their own alcohol  Sometimes the alcohol wasn’t right and people would go blind drinking it.

Note that he did not say prohibition and indicated activities not akin to prohibition. Never really right to use the US term and apply it to the Canadian context.

Closer to the present, Jeff wrote about the great Bert Grant (and I added my two pieces in the cheap seats of Twitter replies), Canada’s true gift to craft beer:

The West Coast was divided into segments, and the cities of Portland and Seattle followed a parallel but separate track. The breweries there had their own founders and in one is a historical lacuna that explains a great deal about the influences that guided hoppy ales in the Pacific Northwest. That forgotten figure is Bert Grant, who left the hops business to start his own brewery in 1982 and whose first beers created an instant appetite, decades ahead of the rest of the country, for hoppy ales.

Read all three pieces as you only understand 1982 if you understand 1944.

Jordan celebrated a milestone, hitting a decade in the beer soaked life.  What did he learn? “Soylent Green is people!!!” No… let’s check that… no, beer is people:

If you wanted to play around with ingredients, you’d be a home brewer. A professional brewer, by default, brews for someone else. One assumes that a professional brewer does that because they enjoy it. One assumes that they make a product they believe in to the best of their ability and share it with the world. One assumes they are mindful of all the collective effort that goes into that.

Speaking of home brewers, in 1973 the BBC sent the fabulous Fyfe Robertson in search of the perfect pint made in an English basement. Have I posted this before? If I have it’s worth a second look. Speaking of Auntie Beeb, Merryn linked to a BBC 4 story on bere barley in Orkney.

One last thing. I have seen a few calls from part time editors feeling adrift who are encouraging vulnerable beer writers to turn to them in exchange for the usual pittance and a scraping of your voice in exchange for theirs. Do not be fooled! This is the time for you to be you:

Beer writers! What have you wanted to cover that might not appeal to a mainstream site? An underreported subject that merits a quick dive? An aspect of beer culture that deserves a closer look? Get a blog!

[What is a “quick dive” anyway?]

There. A better week. Keep writing and reading and keeping up with the chin uppitry. Check in with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. Thanks for stopping by while not leaving the house. Except now you can leave your house a bit more. Do it!

*Edited only to make things as I wish they were.

The Thursday Beer News Update For A Week When My Mind Was Elsewhere

On Tuesday, I had a great joke all prepared for my proctologist, analogizing with him or her over the election results. But… well, at least in the end, we seem to have had a good result. In both senses. Not much time for me to focus on the beer industry, however, which makes this week’s beer update as much news to me as to you. Let’s see what’s been going on.

First, speaking of biological science, Stan sent out his regular hops newsletter this week and, as exemplified by the photo up at the top, decided to provide some photos from the Hop Research Center in Hüll, Germany that Evan recently wrote about, as mentioned in last week’s news update. Up there, that’s a picture of some of the Center’s germ plasm collection of long-held varieties. Want more? You will have to pay Stan for back issues of his newsletter now if you want to see the images but haven’t subscribed already.*

The biggest story has to be the member of management at Founders giving testimony in a disposition that he did not know if someone who was… well, let’s see see how the story was covered:

A transcript of the exchange between Founders’ Detroit general manager Dominic Ryan and Evans’ attorney, Jack Schulz, shows Schulz shifting from shocked to incredulous and perhaps a bit angry as Ryan claims he had no idea Evans is Black. Instead of just answering the question and moving on, Ryan digs in deeper and deeper, repeatedly asking for clarification when Schulz asks questions like “Are you aware Tracy is Black?” At one point, Ryan even claims that he doesn’t know if former President Barack Obama, Kwame Kilpatrick, or Michael Jordan are African-American, because he has “never met them.”

The Beer Law Center tweeted: “This is stupid. The “if I didn’t say it, you can’t prove it” strategy – quite simply – sucks. The law, justice, trials, and courts, just don’t work that way. Shame on Founders.” As a practicing lawyer a quarter century into his career, I can’t disagree. The person diving the testimony did themselves no favours. Plenty of rightly offended folk now rejecting the brewery like Beery Ed: “if you still drink founders , you suck.” Which is true.

Boak and Bailey proposed a scoring system this week to determine if a British pub is in fact a pub.

Monty Python’s Terry Jones was on the BBC in 1984 and discussed both dental hygiene in medieval Britain and his brewing. Wogan preferred keg to cask. Jones, having a multi-faceted shirt malfunction announced: “real beer can only be made on a small scale.” Heed ye all!

Lisa Grimm has had a timely article published in Serious Eats about the haunted history of the Lemp family of brewers out of St. Louis:

Today’s beer history installment is something of a micro-level view of my previous column on German-American brewers—but this one has a Halloween twist. The story of the rise and fall of the Lemps, once one of America’s most powerful brewing families, reads like something out of gothic fiction; and, as would be entirely appropriate for that genre, some say that they’ve never left. The story begins familiarly enough…

A great technical article on barley came my way entitled “Characterising resilience and resource-use efficiency traits from Scots Bere and additional landraces for development of stress tolerant barley” I believe from @merryndineley. Now I have to go and look again at the standard for “landrace” when it comes to barley as I’ve seen husbandry in the 1600s but when we are talking bere we are talking about something much older than that as the abstract suggests:

Potential sources of viable resilience and resource-use efficiency traits are landraces local to areas of marginal land, such as the Scots Bere from the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Bere barley is a deeply historically rooted landrace of barley that has been grown on predominately marginal land for the last half millennia. The landrace yields well in these conditions. The project aim was to assess and genetically characterise traits associated with enhanced resistance/tolerance, and to identify contributing genomic regions.

Speaking of great technical articles, I was blessed with a copy of an article on the history of Fuggles hops by the perennially referenced Martyn which, this time, appeared in Technical Quarterly published by Master Brewers Association:

The Fuggle hop is one of the most important varieties on the planet, not only in its own right as a contributor to the flavor of classic English beers for more than a century but also for the genes it has given to almost three dozen other hops… It is surprising, therefore, that until this year there was considerable mystery over the parentage of the Fuggle—it seemed to be unrelated to any other English hop type, with a hop oil profile much closer to the German landrace variety Tettnanger—and a fair amount of doubt and confusion over exactly who developed the hop and when it was first commercially available. Now, however, research in England and the Czech Republic has convincingly answered all the questions…

Nice article in Pellicle on the realities of the beer scene in Iceland:

We had moved up to the bar at Kaldi, and the low-hanging bulbs made the copper bar top and our bartender’s shaved head shine in the dim light. I had just ordered the Borg Garún Icelandic Stout Nr. 19, an 11.5% behemoth. If you haven’t heard, beer and food are pretty expensive Iceland. Pints of basic craft styles were $12-$15 (£9-£12) everywhere, and the higher in alcohol pours were $20-$30 (£15-£23).

Even at those prices, beats the hell out of an vaguely described essay on (what Canadians properly spell as) bologna.  Sums something up.

Katie tweeting on junkets triggered that a discussion wasn’t the usual monocrop of defensiveness.

There was a discussion on Facebook on the early days of the British Guild of Beer Writers awards dinners with some entertaining recollections. Martyn** recalled a night 22 years ago:

The earliest awards dinner menu I have is from 1997 – ham cured in Newcastle Brown Ale (!), accompanied by figs steeped in Old Peculier, breast of guinea fowl braised in Fraoch heather ale, pears in porter and cheese served with McEwans Champion Beer. Dinner sponsored by Tesco …

Ah, the romance… Related perhaps is this thread about traditional brewing in today’s alcopop world.

That’s it? Yup. For further links, check out the Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then bend an ear towards the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look for mid-week notes from The Fizz as well.

*I don’t make the rules. Stan does.
**Again with the Martyn!!!

The 36 Hours From Vacation Edition Of Your Thursday Beer Notes

Have I mentioned I am going on vacation? Not really doing much but not doing much is exactly what I want to do. Napping. Snoozing. The whole rang of middle aged man stuff. Mowing will be in there, too. Snacking in Montreal defo. Perhaps a trip to a nearby brewery will be in order. Hmm. Haven’t taken two weeks off in a row for a few years given obligations and stuff. This could be interesting. But enough about me. On with the week in beer news!

First off, Boak and Bailey posted a long and interesting piece on the beer scene in Leeds, England from the 1970s to now. I particularly like their choice to rely on chronologically ordered quotes from locals:

What follows is based on emails and interviews, some dating as far back as 2013 (John Gyngell and Christian Townsley), others from the past month or so, with light editing for sense and clarity. We’ve also used a quote from Richard Coldwell’s blog because we get the impression he wouldn’t want the mere fact that he sadly died in July stop him contributing on a subject about which he was so passionate.

Excellent stuff. And, in case you did not know The Hammer has a beer scene, too. Scene mapping is a good thing. Good baseline data to return to down the road.

Garrett Oliver on the present state of popular meaninglessness:

We can complain all we want, but it was craft brewers and our “advocates” who gave away the store. WE declared that “craft beer is dead”, WE gave away the power of nomenclature for quick success (what is “IPA”? Anyone? Anyone?). It’s a bit late now to complain, is it not?

Speaking of which: “Loving this alcohol-free breakfast-blend NEIPA”!?!?!?

Happily, not everything is a sham. I can only repeat what I wrote Wednesday morning immediately after reading Matt‘s piece on Harvey’s Best. “There are supposed deep dives and then, to use a phrase more common ten or more years ago, there is beer pr0n. This love letter is a bit beyond even that. Fabulous.” This is the paragraph that got me over my de rigueur ennui:

Walking past the kettle and into the adjacent room you are met with several stainless steel open fermentation vessels on either side of a thin corridor. It is here that the wildness inherent within Harvey’s beers has nowhere to hide. So potent is the aroma produced by its proprietary strain of yeast—almost strawberry-like—it soaks into every crevice and pore. Waves of off-white foam—known as krausen, produced by the yeast during fermentation—cap several of the tanks. Others lie vacant, with those recently emptied marked by what looks like an immovable dark brown crust around the edge of the vessel. To this day, standing in that room is one of the most intense sensory experiences I can remember. 

Yowza!

In other yowzly news, while we are all in favour of meaningful anti-bigotry efforts in the beer trade and greater society, this action by SIBA is quite remarkable:

We have reason to believe the individual behind this anonymous blog may work in our industry. The blog in question has been reported to the police.

The bigoted comments in question were apparently in response to the latest issues of the SIBA Journal on diversity. Here is more on that issue of the Journal which is likely all you need to know… unless you are with the police. Heather Knibbs adds some excellent connected context in a blog post about how not only SIBA but the GBBF have been taking more serious steps towards inclusion this year – then tells us why it is important to her:

In case it wasn’t clear, I am a woman. So for supporting this decision I will inevitably be labelled a femi-nazi or a liberal snowflake [a.k.a the world’s new favourite slur for anyone who refuses to humour your outdated opinions]. I think it’s a great decision that will hopefully lead to less women feeling intimidated by pubs. I wrote a piece in March about the progress being made within the brewing industry to be more inclusive of women, to which GBBF’s organiser Catherine Tonry contributed. Indeed progress has been made but from the feedback I’ve seen to this decision by the festival, the road to the finish line is as long as ever…

The job is not done, notes Laura of @Morrighani.

Speaking of love letters, Alistair wrote one from home to home about his (and my) people’s favourite beer, Tennents Lager:

Four mouthfuls in and the pint was gone, a fresh one on its way, then another, and another as we settled into the buzz and banter of the bar. At some point a pair of young girls came in, one with ID and one without, dolled up for a night on the town and pre-gaming before heading into Inverness. The gathered older folks, which Mrs V and I have accepted we are now part of, shared looks of recognition of days gone by, while the barman gave the IDless girl short shrift, and soon they were gone, while hands reached out for pints and the drinking continued.

In this week’s OCBG podcast, Robin and Jordan had a good personal discussion about mental health and alcohol, about how pervasive anxiety and depression are in the trade. It’s not an easy topic but it is a real issue.  The health of beer writers has always been something not talked about and, with respect, it does not take a dramatic trauma to trigger it. The tensions that arise for anyone seeking success in the limited world of beer writing careers can itself be a self-damaging cause. Be safe out there. And, yes, drink less. Spit.

Also in the UK, the Samuel Smith chain of pubs has apparently added a “no phones” policy to the “no swearing” policy which was noteworthy enough for noting in July 2017. An alleged copy of a notice in one pub is to the right. Wag-master Mudge observed:

As you know, I’m a big supporter of Sam’s, but the phone ban is a ban too far. They now have a big sign explaining it applies to everything including texting and web browsing. I was tempted to ask whether I could take a photo of it with my phone…

Turning around 180 degrees in terms of the transactional, wine writer Jamie Goode has commented on an interesting question in these recent times of exploding variety:

There has been a lot of chat on twitter about a food blogger who had a bad experience in a restaurant in Manchester. He began by ordering a bottle of Tondonia Blanco (a stunning, but distinctive white Rioja that I and most of my right-thinking friends adore), and then rejecting it because it wasn’t to his tastes. You can imagine the fall out.

He states that the only reason to reject a bottle of wine that is offered is faultiness which should be accepted, when raised by the customer, without opposition. Things gone off should be something you can refuse. But what if the thing that has gone off is the planning and execution rather than the cork? My habit is to not necessarily return a beer, say, but just not finishing but paying while ordering another giving me the right to say “man, did that one suck!” opening up a theoretical discussion not focused on the specific commercial context for the bartender.

Speaking of wine, wine has apparently passed beer as the UK’s most popular drink, according to a very wobbly survey.*

The large veg hobby has struck Mr Driscoll, brewer of Thornbridge.

Evan Rail has shared an interesting Radio Prague story on the discovery of a renaissance Czech brewery:

In medieval times in the Czech lands, only burghers officially had the right to brew beer, right up until the Treaty of Saint Wenceslas in 1517, which repealed the monopoly, and the nobility got into the game. But it was not until 1576 that Krištof Popel of Lobkovic installed a brewery at Kost Castle, in the new palace bearing his name that he had built alongside the original fortifications. Radek Novák says the excavation uncovered some vats in which beer was brewed, along with a kiln and foundations made of the sandstone abundant in the Bohemian Paradise region. 

…and then he made a date with Mr. Fuggled himself to visit it.

Speaking of visiting, Stan has alerted me to the fact that Lars has added more dates to the kveik tour. I am not pleased. I already bought the Toronto ticket. I am half way between Toronto and Montreal and faaaarrr prefer Montreal. For the hotel rates alone. Plus the food. Plus it’s Montreal! But the Red Sox are in Toronto on the same night as the night on my ticket. Oh well. I may never meet Lars.

Enough!!!  Over 1500 words. No dog days these.  Expect more news on your internets soon. Boak and Bailey will be at the presses on Saturday and Stan should apply pressure to the big red “publish” button on Mondays. The OCBG Podcast should be there, too, for you audiophiles again on Tuesday! Me? Next week? I perhaps I will report back from Montreal. Who knows?

*Sorry for linking to The Sun.

The Mid-July Thursday Beer News You Need

Mid-July! It’s lovely. Warm. Tropical even. We are actually getting the edgy remnants of Hurricane Barry into the Great Lakes basis so it’s all a bit thick out there.  Raspberries picked by my own sausage-like digits. And the fire flies are at their peak. I let the garden go a bit and they seem to love it. 100+ flashes a minute in one corner of the garden. Beer has its role, too. I even had one last night, mid-week. At a Denny’s.* A Bud Light. The weirdest thing was being handed a ice cold bottle and an ice cold glass. Entirely hit the spot. Mid-week, mid-month, mid-summer, mid-year, mid-aged.

What is going on? Well, Josh Noel, who admitted to needing something to wash out his mouth after writing about hard seltzer, has written a helpful article for the Chicago Tribune on dark lagers:

And that gets to the genius of dark lager. They’re beers that typically have a modest amount of alcohol — about 5 percent or so — but are long on aroma and taste. Flavors usually include a mild to deep roast character and can veer into chocolate, char or coffeelike terrain thanks to the roasted malt that gives the beer its dark hue. But unlike most of the porters and stouts they resemble, dark lagers tend to finish dry. The best dark lagers make for stealthily ideal summer beers: interesting layers of flavor, but refreshing. The color, which can range from deep amber to impenetrably black, winds up playing a visual trick.

We have an excellent local black lager, Blacklist from The Napanee Beer Company, so I am particularly grateful for this addition to the discussion.

Note: “bee boles were used before the development of modern hives to provide shelter to the skep…”

As we have been noticing over the last few weeks, beer writing and commentary seems to have divided into (i) “it is so dull and boring right now” for one reason or another** and (ii) HOLIDAY!!! So it was good to see some interesting travel being discussed by a couple of Brits abroad. Nate posted a top ten list of things to do in a city I have lived near – Gdansk, Poland – and gave ten top tips for visiting the old Hanseatic port including hitting up a museum about the Solidarity movement and this:

Shoot Some Guns – Maybe a controversial one, but I’d always wanted to shoot some guns since we can’t do it in the UK and I stumbled across a shooting range whilst doing some research. DSTeamStrzelnica was a great experience where we got to shoot four guns (A Glock 17, a revolver, AK-47 and another rifle) and it only cost us £18 each to shoot a full clip of each gun. It was a really fun experience!

Retired Martin has been in NYC and left us a photo essay with commentary:

How joyous to see a “Sorry, no samples” sign, by the way. 16 ounces (80% of a pint) is practically a sampler anyway.  I reckon the Five Boroughs Hazy IPA served in a plastic glass will have cost me £8 by the time taxes and Lloyds Bank conversion charge are added on.  Still cheaper than Port Street. “Tastes like Brew Dog” says Mrs RM.  It tasted like Hazy Jane. On to the High Line, the one place in New York where you can avoid craft beer and tipping…

Saskatchewan’s Pile O’ Bones Brewing Co. is getting a bit of heat for its name – folk saying its disrespectful to the local indigenous community – but according to this Cree language place name resource site, the location of what is now Regina was called “oskana kâ-asastêki” which meant “where the bones are piled.”

Beervana had a interesting guest blog post this week written by Ben Parsons is the co-founder/brewer, along with Rik Hall, of Portland Oregon’s Baerlic Brewing which unpacked the benefits in the US for craft brewers to self distribute their beers:

I would posit that if and when a brewery business does get into some troubled water—albeit from market conditions, saturation, losing chain grocery, etc—not owning their own distribution rights could easily be the last nail in the coffin. And although distributors are a very necessary part of the industry, their foothold on this particular part of the conversation is risky business and needs modernization so that it better fits with the current state of the industry.

Folk chatting about early brewing methods is always interesting. Who knew that bands in the pottery meant the line to fill with boiling water before topping up with cold before adding in the mash was so obvious?

At the Corrigall Farm, Orkney, large tubs that have marked lines inside, usually about one third to a half way up. Custodian told us (years ago, hope I have the details right) that you put in boiling water to the mark, then top up with cold and it’s the correct temperature.

Pilsner as the anti-NEIPA? Maybe.

This is an interesting piece, a remembrance of 16 of B.C.’s now shut early micro- and even some more recent craft era breweries. And it contains this interesting bit of history:

Horseshoe Bay Brewery was the first microbrewery in Canada when it was opened in 1982 by John Mitchell and Frank Appleton to produce beer for the nearby Troller Pub and became Ground Zero for the craft beer revolution. Mitchell and Appleton soon moved on to Spinnakers, and Horseshoe Bay briefly closed in 1985 before reopening and produced beer well into the 1990s, before closing for good in 1999. The original brewhouse, made from converted dairy equipment, is still in use today at Crannog Ales in Sorrento.

Now, that would be a real Canadian beer nerd’s pilgrimage: “honey, I am off to see the original brewhouse, made from dairy equipment!” It’s halfway between Kamloops and Sicamous, if you are planning the trip yourself.

That’s it! Have a great week as Q2 turns into Q3. I will be lounging myself. Well, dapper by day then lounging through evening. Such is the life of the office worker. Check out the beer news from Boak and Bailey on Saturday and maybe on Monday we will have a sighting of the inter-continental Stan now that he is back from Brazil.

*You can mock me after you’ve tried the burger. I was surprised, too.
**hard seltzer, everyone’s already been bought out, even glitter beer is so last year…

The Thursday Beer News For The Best Week Ever!

What a week. A good week, right? As weeks go, I suppose. If you are into the whole “week” thing. This is the week that we learned Aaron Rodgers can’t chug a beer. That is pretty big news, right? His team of choice, the Bucks lost. Canada said hoo and then said ray. Now… maybe we get our national butts kicked by Golden State.

Just in time for this past week’s European Parliamentary elections, Ed decided to go all nationalist and rate a few sovereign brewing traditions:

…let’s face it, the beer in some countries is better and the four First Class Beer Countries have great beer cultures too. I have carried out extensive research into them and have just come back from a study tour of Germany which confirmed my findings, so for those of you who are still unclear on this matter here’s the ranking…

Aside from the stunning lack of objectivity and the narrow research tools applied to an alarmingly thin data set, I like it! Of course, each of his named top four nations of beer have many horrendous examples of garbage brew and, of course, many other nations have fabulous beers and, of course, his four choices actually have dubious claims to being actual singular nations as opposed to nineteen century splinters or, worse, aggregations of pre-Victorian political convenience but… I like it!!!

A study of Lars studying Kveik. Larsology. Larsologically speaking, quite likeable.

One of the odder bits of news this week was finding out that the Morning Advertiser, the UK brewing trade newspaper, takes money from brewers to take the brewers data, create an advertorial and then hires freelancers to  write it up – then publishes it under the sub-header “in association with” the brewer. No word on how much money changed hands for the the advertorial services. Bizarre? Perhaps.

Scone => rhymes with dawn! Exactly.

Martyn chose this week to write a large number of excellently placed words on malting and maltings:

What I wasn’t expecting on the joint Brewery History Society/Guild of Beer Writers trip to Crisp’s maltings in Great Ryburgh in Norfolk was to be allowed inside the kiln, where the malt, once it has germinated enough, is dried off. These pyramidal structures, often topped with cowls that turn with the prevailing wind, are again familiar to anyone who has ever visited Ware in Hertfordshire, once the greatest malting town in the country, or Burton upon Trent, where multitudes of breweries had their own maltings.

I have no idea what he was talking about as if I am not inside a malting kiln within seven minutes of being on site I feel utterly… ripped… off. Otherwise, some extremely violent news about how Maris Otter is kept from becoming Maris Notter.

More self-consciously uncomfortable and leery than straight sexist but I’ll take alternate views on that any time all day long. Note: the past is a foreign land.

For this week’s headline in beer IP law, Josh Noel reported in the Chicago Trib on an odd clash between one big and one small brewer on the use of a name. Unfortunately, you have to swim a bit through the story to get to the only actual point in law:

…without a federal trademark, Palfreyman said, No-Li’s recourse may be limited, at least in Chicago. It could conceivably have common law rights to the name in places where the beer is already sold, he said. That means Goose Island may have established rights to the name in Chicago. But Ahsmann said he wouldn’t oppose No-Li from expanding distribution here.

This news based on the leak of the week is a bit disconcerting… in a way – but I must note I thought it was odd that a local disaster in a time of many local disasters was the one chosen for this initiative:

Over 1,400 brewers around the country signed up to make the beer in their own taprooms—nearly a quarter of all the breweries in the United States. But more than half of those brewers have yet to send any money raised from the beer to Sierra Nevada… The brewer, however, says it has been in contact with many of the brewers and, while the numbers are “concerning,” it expects them to honor their commitment. They just need more time.

And it was a big week in beer news around our house as the I shared on Twitter the other day. Helping with the canning by day two. Kegging lessons started on day three. Good gang, good work and an actual trade if the long hours are put in. Jordan put it best: “Finally after all these years, a conflict of interest“!

Otherwise, it’s been a little quiet on the beer news front this week. Is that why Stan flies somewhere exotic every once in a while? To hide from these uncomfortable pauses where folk have nothing to talk about but beer can wrappers and… well… that’s about it. Please check out Boak and Bailey this Saturday… but that guy Stan? I am betting he calls in sick again this this Monday. Again.

The Victoria Day Week 2019 Thursday News In Beer

Victoria Day. Is that done only in Canada? Probably. Well, we spent it in Ottawa with the fam and the friends of the fam and it ended up with me paying for it all. Warning to parents of young children: they grow up and they can’t afford their own needs. Anyway, we had fun and in two spots, Brothers as well as the hotel bar  I enjoyed the local Dominion City’s Town & Country  Blonde Ale. And I can confirm that Irene’s is still one of my homes, the honeyed wood even richer 15 years later.

You can now lose hours and hours and hours to the excellent interviews of folk from the recent history of the British brewing trade care of brewingstories.org.uk.

Stan wasn’t really contradicting Jeff and Jeff really wasn’t saying it as any sort of main point but this is an important observation:

I agree, but would another clause. These brewers do have a vision for what they want to create, but they also have enough of an ego to think that they are making beer that will appeal to an audience broad enough to support a thriving business. They may not want to print money, but many like ending up on something of a stage and more look forward to feeling money in their pockets.

Show me a brewery that is not based on the profit making model and I will show you an impending failure.  Everything else has to be built upon that foundation one way or another if it is going to be sustained: capitalist or socialist, private or public. But pretty much anything can be built upon that model.

Beer in corner stores is coming to my province. I like it.

I was really taken by this answer wine writer Oz Clarke gave on why you need to keep an old copper coin in your wallet if you are in the habit of being in places where you are presented with dodgy red wine from time to time.  Now, while I have happily avoided any interest in taking an “off flavours” class (aka misery mongery) I am now interested to see if the copper coin works with any poorly made beers – and apparently I should be focusing on lagers. Any particular candidates for experimentation?

I had no idea there were jazz bagpipers. I approve.

I was quite pleased with the news in this brief article on the beer coming out of Grimbergen Abbey, a brewing monks’ collective that sold their branding in the 1950s. Sounds like it’s reasonably actually actual:

“We had the books with the old recipes, but nobody could read them,” Stautemas said. “It was all in old Latin and old Dutch. So we brought in volunteers. We’ve spent hours leafing through the books and have discovered ingredient lists for beers brewed in previous centuries, the hops used, the types of barrels and bottles, and even a list of the actual beers produced centuries ago… Stautemas, who lives with 11 other monks at the abbey, said: “What we really learned was that the monks then kept on innovating. They changed their recipe every 10 years.”

I like that last bit. Instability is at the heart of brewing. But TBN may well be right: ultimately, it’s really just big-brewery PR.

In this week’s stolen IP news, an Alberta brewery has been allowed by the trademark holder, the municipal government, to use up the last of its stock labeled “Fort Calgary“:

On Wednesday, city officials met with Elite Brewing and Bow River Brewing to discuss the cease-and-desist order over the use of the name, which is trademarked by the city. According to a memo that went to councillors from administration, the city has agreed to allow the brewery to retain the name until the beer is sold out “in the spirit of co-operation.” If any beer is left on July 30, when it’s projected the beer will be sold out, it must be stripped of the name. 

What is it with craft brewers and purloined intellectual property ? Do small bakeries steal the brand names of others? Do weavers and potters? Nope. This story is a bit different as there seems to have been a discussion and a resulting understanding that then was not fully understood.

Here is an interesting stat:

Prince Edward Islanders spend less money on alcoholic beverages than anyone else in Canada, according to a recent report by Statistics Canada. The report found Islanders spend $614.70 per capita on liquor. The national average was $756.90.

Apparently, folk in Newfoundland and Labrador spend $1,029.20 each a year for the national leadership. But note that this is not average sales per unit, just gross sales. And prices in Newfoundland, I suspect, are way higher per unit. But that’s not the interesting thing. The interesting thing was when I lived in PEI from 1998 to 2003 I had pretty much unlimited access through my neighbours to an excellent moonshine vodka called, in its finest form, Augustine. They also still had speakeasies. Everybody and his dog also home brewed. So the stats may mean less than the little they appear to mean.

Neato: six 5,000 year old yeast strains extracted from brewing related pottery in Israel.

Finally, this is weird. Apparently the deadbeat brewery left an unhappy employee in charge of the social media account:

After nearly 30 years Ironworks has come to a shameful end. Yesterday @ 3pm, five armed police officers and a tax enforcement official seized the brewery and changed the locks, and ushered the employees out.

The news is not good: $15,409 in taxes and fees. A pretty modest amount but then add on that no employees have been “paid in the last several months, as well as he stopped paying their payroll taxes over the last year” and you have a sense that there was much going wrong here. H/T Robin.

Well, another week goes by. A bit of a slow one. Such is life. Lessons? Pay your bills. Name your beer a name no one else owns. Simple! Check out Boak and Bailey this Saturday but be warned that Stan on hiatus this Monday. He does that. Hiatuses. Hieronymustic Hiatuses. It’ll be OK.

Perhaps A Very Short Version Of Thursday Beer News.

I say “very short” up there as I never know where these things are going. I am like a one man Brexit in that sense. Suffice it to say, mustering the time and content for this post differs from week to week but, unlike Brexit perhaps, is always the source of joyous surprise.  I couldn’t imagine anything could be more screwed up than 1970s Canadian constitutional conferences – shown live on TV all day in my youth. But Brexit is it! I know some of you are actually living under this nutty-nutso situation so I will not go on. Excecpt to wonder what a backstop really means to @thebeernut.

So what is up in reality land? First, Geoff Latham has an interesting question: what does this record from a brewing session that occurred in September 1848 mean? It appears to show someone dabbling in early hipsterism, employing unholy techniques when it comes to hops. Click on that thumbnail. Can you read the text and help with the mystery?*

Interesting. Second, now Stan has a question:

I think I’ve only asked a variation on that question one other time — in this case the more open ended, “What is the most important hop ever?” — and Jason Perrault of Select Botanicals and Perrault Farms said to give him a little time to think about it. I haven’t pressed him on it since, but now might be time.

My answer – and I am sticking to it – is the one in the beer on the ships that had the cannons of the Hanseatic League 1300 to 1500. Likely proto-Saaz.

Home brew for three pence a pint! What year would that have been? That was my own Burco dream back in the middle of the 1980s. Speaking of the 1980s, great news of  Mendocino Brewing Company, care of a Tom tip. An early micro brewing icon is being revived:

Though the beer is not being produced inside the cavernous, 65,000 square-foot facility, Krauss and his team have high hopes about the future, to the delight of local beer drinkers and fans of the legendary brews. “Red Tail Ale and Eye of the Hawk are back,” smiles Krauss. The beers have recently been revived by the brand’s original brew master, Don Barkley, and can currently be purchased on tap at a few inland Mendo locations: in Ukiah at Crush, Cultivo and the Sports Attic; in Hopland at Campovida; and once again, where it all began, at the Hopland Tap, where the ales were originally served more than three decades ago.

Right on. Moving on, we find some odd responses to the idea of more craft beer going into the UK supermarket chain Tesco. Apparently, the Tand is still the clearest thinking person in beer culture:

This should surprise nobody. Breweries are businesses and while keeping it cosily in the bubble is nice for fans, it don’t pay the milkman. Big beer and big business want a share and they know how to go about it. Expect much more of similar.

The odd thing for me is the twin ideas that (i) for some reason we beer writers are supposed to be boosters for a bigger market slice for the  brewers that self-identify as preferable and yet (ii) we want to keep those precious brewers human scale as if this all is some sort of personal relationship. Note: never has this occurred in all of human history.

Similarly, Paste magazine has listed some of the contract beers they sell under house names – and then unpacks who is actually making them like this entry for Mission Street Pale Ale:

Attributed to Steinhause Brewing in CA, this pale ale actually comes from California’s own Firestone Walker, who also makes a handful of other Mission St. styles like blonde and black ales as well as a hefeweizen. They’re also behind Trader Joe’s Fat Weasel Ale, Jumping Cow Amber, Frugal Joe’s Ordinary Beer, and the Gila Monster Amber Lager.

I had heard years ago that Unibroue up here in Canada made all their Belgian ales. Makes sense. Why sell bad beer in your store when you can rebrand good stuff? And why be a brewer competing with chain branded beer when you can brew it yourself? Everyone wins.

Speaking of beer on the move, Josh Rubin has a great story in The Toronto Star on the ambitious expansion of one Ontario brewery into the Big Apple including one non-traditional and interesting comment from a craft brewer:

Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, was puzzled but welcomes the new arrival. “It seems like an awfully strange move, but then again, we’d probably happily open in Paris or Tokyo, so maybe it’s the same for everyone these days,” said Oliver. “If they make great beer, people will come. And I can walk there from my house. Brooklyn once brewed 15 per cent of all the beer in the United States, so I’m sure that one more brewery/taproom will be just fine,” Oliver said.

Clever people. I hope they make a go of it. Sadly, elsewhere apparently stupid is still a part of craft beer culture:

“We understand it is a bit risqué, but it’s in good humor, comical, and consensual.  We have received good feedback from when we have showed this to many” said Brady.

Jeff obviously was not part of that early feedback loop. Really, I hope you don’t bother looking at the underlying story. Morons. Particularly swell that they are ‘splainin’ sorts who unilaterally assert something is consensual.

Finally in far happier branding news, big craft brewer Stone has lost its motion for a preliminary injunction in that trademark infringement case against cheery micro macro Miller. I say happy because the court has confirmed that the case between Stone and Miller over beer brands is all about money and not some sort of special status. I say happy, too, because it places Dr. Johnson squarely back in the midst of it all, as we observe again with him the unassailable truth that brewing offers and perhaps even inflicts the curse of “the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice” upon those who are not careful, who over reach.  Brendan has more in his Wednesday afternoon tweet-fest of the court’s ruling.

Well, that’s it. Not as short as I had thought – and not even all that pointless! More good news than sad. Not a bad week. The dirty snow has already faded to the lump here an there on the north side of things. Desperate for more? You know the drill: Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday. See ya next week, unless that real job of mine gets in the way. Think I am out at meetings on Tuesday and on the road Wednesday night. Uh oh.

*Ooops… forgot I hate any use of “mystery” as it relates to beer and drinking culture.

In Like A Lamb And Out With A Better Sense Of The Money Makers

In the article “A Glass of Handmade” published in the November 1987 issue of The Atlantic magazine, William Least Heat Moon along with a character called The Venerable explored the then early micro brewing scene in the USA. It’s one of the original sources of my interest in good beer, dense with keen observation and quotes from players now in their fourth decade past the interviews. One, Buffalo Bill’s Brewpub owner Bill Owens,  was quite clear about his business model:

Owens brews six barrels every Monday, about three hundred barrels a year. “For a hundred and thirty dollars’ worth of ingredients I can make a twenty-five-hundred-dollar profit. A glass of lager – that’s all I brew now – costs seven cents. I sell it for a dollar and a half. Compare my profit on a bottle of commercial beer – forty cents.”

Making money. Along with brewing history, it’s one of the more interesting aspects of good beer but one rarely discussed these days by beer writers. In my conversations with small brewery owners, it’s something I often bring up much to their amusement. I remember the look on Ron‘s face a few years back when I started asking one upstate New York small brewery owner how much this bag of malt cost, how much he made of that keg. I don’t get it. I got answers. Yet no one seems to go there. You can think of as many reasons for that as I can but it’s annoying that such an obvious critical element of the trade is set aside or even hidden behind suggestions that there isn’t any money in making good beer.

For such a successful, now well established industry, well, that sure would be weird. I get it – and there are a couple of folk dabbling with macro-economic observations but getting particular brewers to unpack what they are up to, what the situation they are facing is more immediate. So, inspired by #FlagshipFebruary, I thought it would be good to explore my interest in the green, the black and the red and look to see who is out there doing the same thing. The balance scale and the small scale. Micro brewing micro-economics.

This month, I have a few interviews lined up and might see if anyone else is interested in having a look see wherever they are. #MoneyMakerMarch. Sure, it maybe started as a joke. But then it ended up making me think. And made me remember one of the things I was first interested in when it came to good beer, that seven cent per glass cost. Let’s see if anything comparable to that sort of gross revenue before taxes and other expenses is in anyway still possibly true. These days I take apart the price of multi-million dollar projects for a living.  Let’s see if I can apply any of that experience to come up with anything unexpectedly interesting.