Beer in the End Times – Page 10

The Day After St. Paddy’s Day Beery News Notes

There, at least that’s over. That’s him there to the right, apparently ordering two. You know, this may have been the St. Patrick’s Day that I’ve always wanted. Quiet. By force of law. Even last year, during the first week of something being quite wrong, there were college idiots half smashed on a Tuesday loitering around the downtown square, wearing green things made of plastic. Amateurs. Appropriating plastic coated amateurs. In 2017, I asked why craft beer hated the day. I don’t think that is the same now but it’s mainly because craft beer has ceased to exist in the same sense four years on. Not much taking a unified stand against anything these days. Not much of a soap box to stand on anymore so much as being an object of the inquiries.

Breaking: craft beer loves generic globalist multi-internationalism.

In days of yore brewing news, Martyn has undertaken the work I’ve been begging him to undertake for at least a decade: exploring the 1898-1899 Canadian Inspectorate of Foods and Drugs study on stouts and porters:

…the average strength of the Canadian porters was 5.73 per cent abv, nearly 20 per cent less than the average stout strength. The two beers had almost identical average apparent attenuation, at 81.4 per cent for the porters, and 81.5 per cent for the stouts. Other analyses show big differences, however. The average percentage of maltose in the finished beer was 0.594 per cent for the porters, and 0.747 per cent for the stouts. The average percentage of solids in the finished beers was 4.99 per cent for porters and 5.6 per cent for the stouts…

Whammo! Kablammo!! Now you can all shut your pie holes about it and face facts. “What about McDonagh & Shea porter out of Winnipeg, Manitoba brewed to 8.8 per cent abv?” you say? Shut up. Get out.

Speaking of relatively recent history, sad news of a pub closing trade in Burton England was tweet-paired with this fabulous image of a 1962 price list for brewers and pub chain operators, Mitchells and Butlers. A great opportunity to identify grannie’s top drinks as well as the relative price of things. Fact: Dubonnet is not vermouth.

And in even more recent recent history, this picture of Eugene Levy and John Candy as the Shmenge Brothers of SCTV fame in the 1984 Kitchener Octoberfest parade posted this week by the University of Waterloo Library is as cheery as it gets. Careful fans will recall how pivotal the same parade is in the plot of the 1983 film Strange Brew, staring fellow SCTV alumni Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis. That’s an actual production vehicle, by the way – a Messerschmitt Kabinenroller.

Thing you couldn’t do in 2019. Going back into past restaurant reviews and finding evidence of unidentified covid-19 symptoms being the unwitting basis for complaint.

Not quiet sure what to make of this supply chain news out of Australia, whether it means Asahi are switching their malt purchases to be more local or just that it is now going to be tracked as local:

The new supply chain means that local barley will be used to brew Australian beers like Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught for the first time in decades. Asahi, which developed the new direct sourcing program after it purchased Carlton & United last year, will now buy more than 70,000 tonnes of malted barley direct from farmers in Victoria and southern NSW to be used at its Yatala and Abbotsford breweries. Growers in northern NSW are expected to join the scheme before this year’s harvest while the first beers brewed under the program will be rolled out in April.

This one program appears to include 7.6% of Australian malt production so what ever it is it is significant.

Not unrelatedly, though he will fully disagree and it pains me when he does, Stan captured one of the best examples of craft beer nonsense that I’ve ever seen:

Breweries have terroir as well. But instead of revolving around a patch of land, ours are centered on a group of people. We operate our business on a human scale and with a human face.

Remember when people used to say stuff like that? Many copyright law suits later and the firings of all the women in the craft beer bar and… and… and… Speaking of which in a sort of contrapuntal way, diversity in brewing and the craft beer trade continues to be a big discussion circling about the topics of both inclusion and actual identify as this article in Foodism Toronto discusses:

Sandhu has a beer on his menu dedicated to his grandfather, Chanan, which includes Indian coriander as one of its ingredients. “I actually do see a high percentage of Indian customers ordering the beer that’s named after my grandfather,” Sandhu says. “I think these populations feel safe and they feel comfortable at our brewery. We don’t just see them coming in just once, but they become regulars.”

Unlike the samey “I miss the pub” teary tales or the quite uncomfortable “beer has been the only thing that gives my life meaning” confessionals, Mr. G. Oliver has looked to the future and sees hope as well as these three interesting trends:

What use is a “share bottle” you can’t share? It’ll be interesting to see if the stemming of the pandemic brings the 750 back at all. I think people are doubling down on case sales; we haven’t wanted to make any more trips to retail than necessary. People are also buying fewer expensive specialty beers. I also think that the pandemic is helping fuel the rise of the non-alcoholic category. A lot of people are now home for lunch every day. What are you going to drink with your sandwich for lunch? NA beers can provide a perfect answer, and there’s nobody watching you “drink a beer” at lunch in your kitchen. NA is getting normalized faster than it would have otherwise.

By the way… does anyone know how you are supposed to find a story on GBH? What a hot mess of a front page.

Stonch, well known pub lad and operator of Britain’s longest-running beer blog, praised CAMRA on its 50th anniversary this week for, yes, achieving its goals:

Yes, there’s been a growth in excellent keg, and that has perhaps pushed cask ale out of the limelight in many beer-focused bars. Yes, the immediate after-effects of the pandemic will produce challenging conditions for cask-centric brewers. CAMRA has plenty to be keeping busy with, and without doubt can remain relevant and vital if it so chooses. Speaking as a publican, I can say with confidence that there is no way that a significant part of today’s pub-going public would be happy to visit a pub that didn’t offer reasonably well-kept cask conditioned ale. That commercial reality will preserve this particular part of Britain’s heritage for years to come.

And from the other side of the bar as well as knees under the organizational table, the Tand praised CAMRA on its 50th anniversary this week for, yes, achieving its goals:

I’m a relative newcomer, my tenure in the Campaign being a mere 40 years, but happily my anniversary as a member coincides, more or less, with the fiftieth year of our venerable organisation. Like many, I’m looking forward to Laura Hadland’s book outlining CAMRA’s rich history and to reading the tales of those who have made this epic campaigning journey, both with and before me. Of course, while the organisation is to be congratulated, it is also an excuse for members to raise a glass to themselves, whether they are grey in beard and sandal or – like some of us – still youthful and inspired. Young or old, we are all the Campaign for Real Ale, and we can justifiably bask in our own reflected glory, even if just for a day.

For an alternative view, consider the Viz magazine perspective.

Best actual brewing thing I have seen this week? This:

OH MY GOSH – sooo excited!! Today’s the day we’re brewing our 1st 2021 Vintage Ale @FullersBrewery and I got the honour of mashing it in! Thanks @FullersGuy!

Me, I’d make my own now… but they employed a cunning strategy and reversed the image so we will never know how the beer was made. One thing is for sure. There aren’t any ambering hops in there.

There. Saturday is spring. Yes, the second spring of a pandemic but still spring. So while you turn the soil and plant the seed, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too.

These Are The Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week Of Melting

The week of melting is a great week. It occurs usually two weeks before the week of everything smells like dog poop. The week in between is called the week of maybe it won’t happen this year. One lad was thinking how nice it would be if something didn’t happen, as illustrated to the right. Max shared the image and voted it top entry for the Hogmanay Xmas Yuletide Kwanza Photo Contest 2021. It is a study of humankind’s folly… or true role of beer… or something… whatever it is we are advised by someone presented that balance was in fact recovered.

Much doings to report upon this week. First, Stan wrote about something I have never had the slightest interest in – beer recommend / review / rate apps. If you are spending any time at all on them, you need a goldfish in your life. Something real. But Stan persists, as they say. And he delved a bit into the phenomenon to point out one app which actually had detail:

Next Glass 1.0, circa 2015, was something different. It was one of several drink recommendation apps that came and went about that time. Some got tagged as the “Pandora for beer.” For First Glass, that made sense because it took a scientific approach similar to Pandora when collecting data… [F]eature-based systems begin by measuring specific attributes of songs (or beers). Pandora created the Music Genome Project and employs musicians to catalog key elements of every song in its database. Next Glass mapped the chemical makeup of individual beers, forgoing any effort to quantify a beer based on its descriptive characteristics.

All of which means there are graphs. Graphical displays of information. Why did it fail? Beer failed it: “…the company was never going to be able to collect mass spec information on the thousands of new beers released every week…” A.K.A. T.M.I.

Victim of Maths has tweeted an interest set of… graphs! Graphs on the effect of the pandemic on alcohol consumption patters in different nations. The form of graph itself is very helpful. But look how consumption goes up in the US while dropping in terms of the tavern trade. Who benefitted from that? White Claw? Local actual craft brewers delivering to home? Interesting stuff.

Much talk on alewives and witches again which I think is up there with the role of Sumerian goddess of beer, Ninkasi, in medieval Norse brewing. There seems to be a drive to switch one story of exclusivity with another an then make it universal rather than particular. Dr. Christina Wade made this very good point in relation to this topics and one which is useful in any other historical studies which I present as a merged mega-tweet:

That is a really important avenue of research. And, in which case, we must get hyper-specific. Brewing in the Middle Ages could be a high-status, non-liminal, position for women. If we take the example of late medieval and early modern England, which is what these sorts of articles seem to be meaning, we can see that women who brewed were vilified. And men absolutely did accuse and lie about things to ruin women’s brewing businesses. We have primary sources for that in England. But as to whether this took the form of witch accusations the data is lacking. This may be because the populations who brewed and who were accused of witchcraft overlap. That is to say, single/widowed/poor women. That said, married women also brewed with great regularity. So it’s largely speculative.

This raises an interesting question. Why and should we participate in the continuation of myth telling? Even as myth correction. On the one hand it is organic and bolsters identity often in a healthy way. I myself am quite pleased to be generically connected to the faerie folk and advise all of you to watch your step accordingly. This, however, is quite distinct from the role I play from time to time of amateur historian – even when I get paid for that part of my research and writing. Nothing is as shockingly and clarifyingly accurate as a primary source. You can’t get around that sort of thing. You must face it. So how does one do both in an area of our collective culture as laden with fib and story telling as beer and brewing?

Never a happy event. A founder leaves a brewery.

Wee Beefy, one who has written of the horrors of the experimental craft alcopops that are too prevalent these days, has discovered a new love in an very unexpected form:

Last year or before, Maltgarden Browari came along. I had already tried a few of their excellent stouts, along with stumbling through opening their ridiculous wax capped can, and then bought a can of Tzatziki pastry sour with Pink Guava, Mango and cucumber… I drank the whole can in about ten minutes. It was ludicrously easy drinking – but also featured a distinctive but perhaps created tzatziki flavour along with the excellence of the pastry elements. It tasted very strongly of the cucumber and as I admit, the tzatziki I imagined but impressively the other flavours blended in so well together! I used it as a palate cleanser…

Me, I am physically revolted by that description but celebrate the freedom.

One weighs carefully whether one mentions BrewDog anymore given they are (i) now an international brewery with few links to micro or craft and (ii) they are adherents to a form of serial stupid that is beyond all reckoning – but… but… this one is up there with Sam Adam’s 2002 “Sex for Sam” promotion that led to charges, humiliation and (in a less than round about way than you might imagine) the Brewers Association as we know it. Trade Unionist Kmflett neatly summarized the seemingly sordid scene:

A post noted that Brewdog Indianapolis had sacked female and LBTQ employees on International Women’s Day apparently looking for a change in culture at the bar, possibly to a white male workforce. The CEO of Brewdog USA tweeted that of course Brewdog don’t discriminate while the London based head of Brewdog bars globally tweeted that he was investigating. On the one hand he was aware of an issue on the Indianapolis bar. On the other hand people are not sacked on the basis of gender or sexuality and if anyone had done that they’d be off too.

Lordy. There’s the statement from those let go. To date, no response from Mr. Jim Watt via Twitter except to point out how carbon neutral they are trying to be in addition, apparently, to be anti-discrimination neutral. It’s sad. I just checked my emails and there I was care of Stonch giving James himself advice in exchanges for photo contest prizes. It was all about how to run a blog about his wee brewery… and there it is now… crushing hopes and dreams.

Finally, you will note every week I list below any number of podcasts related to good beer. This week I tweeted a question which got mucho response:

Honestly, how much time a week do you have for listening to beer podcasts? 27 minutes? Three and a half hours? I think of this when I encounter the 68th new podcast this year that’s over an hour long, not much edited and 7-11% filled with umms, errs and insider giggling.

I mean it quite seriously as a question about the medium. How many could you keep up with. I myself uses the FF technique in which I take a 35 minute podcast and reduce it to 5 by clicking and hunting for the actual bit of most interest to me. For all the “beer editors” out there who seem to be getting chump change for taking away the new writers voice in exchange for the dull tried and true, it would be good if there was a similar thing for podcasts, a central hub of some sort, a single global beer podcast editorial committee who could take these rambles and turn them into an actual magazine of the air of some sort. Some folk who could say “no” and who could also say “yes, this!” Listeners await.

Soon it will be spring. That makes for happy. For more happy, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too.

Now It’s March And These Are The Thursday Beery News Notes

Well, it’s March. Finally. From the last crop out of the garden until now I wait every year for the return to the best nine months of the year after the unreal times that are December followed by the garbage months of January and February. No, it is always all about March with me. March, March, March. And… it’s been -16C outside in the mornings. Perhaps I missed anyone mentioning it… but Canada sorta sucks sometimes. Speaking of sucks, I love Retired Martin’s photo essay on Sheffield’s Queens Hotel as shared above. I know the feeling. What else is out there? Let’s see.

In more local news, Forbes magazine has an article on breweries led by women in Africa – including one in Rwanda with an eastern Ontario twist:

Josephine Uwase and Deb Leatt number among them as brewer and chef, respectively, at Rwanda’s Kweza Craft Brewery. Like Nxusani-Mawela, they have gotten their share of coverage, in part because Kweza is Rwanda’s first brewpub; in part because Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company in Ottawa has very publicly supported Kweza with fundraising and consultation…

Less locally, for my favourite “craft in outrage!” story of the week we go to the waters off Argentina:

The owners of the three breweries in Mar del Plata, which had teamed up with a diving school for what they described as a first-of-its-kind months long experiment in deep-water beer making, were left mystified, and heartbroken, upon discovering on Tuesday that the barrels were gone. “I started crying,” said Carlos Brelles, who runs the Thalassa Diving School in Mar del Plata, a coastal city five miles from the sunken ship. “Three or four people without morals destroyed the work of so many people who put in so much effort.”

Heist! The breweries are going to try the idea again. Speaking of unfortunate situations, I have not idea why this was published other than as a submission to a dull interview contest:

5. Did you think it was going to be your most popular beer or did that take you by surprise?

I do not feel that any of our beers have a greater popularity than others. So many are good on their own merits.

Very confused I also was when I thought I was agreeing about his observations on the odd use of the term “badass” and got the thumbs up while he, Mr. B., got another sort of response. All part of the seeing and speaking of things that are otherwise unspoken.

To my east, we learn through error. It’s a principle that Lars illustrated this week as he tweeted out his Kvass making skills:

First mistake. Too much bread, and wheat bread apparently soaks up more water. So from 5l of water I’m left with 1l extract from the bread…

To my less east, I liked this profile of Gloucestershire cider and perry maker Kevin Minchew published in Pellicle this week and not only for the lack of a polished romanticized backstory:

In his own words he was living “hand to mouth,” the traditional farm labourer’s way—working hard, eating simply and drinking the product of the land from his own hands. But he recognised this couldn’t go on forever, so the traditional cidermaking life is having to take a back seat while he focuses on the day job…

To the west, Josh Noel had a great article in the Chicago Tribune this week on facing the conflicts while working in hospitality in these days of Covid:

Bondi hasn’t been out to eat in nearly a year. He doesn’t think it’s safe. So why do his customers go out? Why do they sit there, indoors, masks off, in the midst of a pandemic? He regularly serves people who appear to be congregating outside each other’s pods or bubbles — such as a group of six women who had brunch at Jerry’s one recent weekend. “It’s hard not to have contempt for that, at least from my point of view,” he said. “But I’m a professional and I try to treat everyone as well as I can.”

Down south, Alistair has posted his thoughts on the semi-silly distinction between brown and robust porters according to an ancient BJCP dartboard:

When you look at the 2008 BJCP guidelines for Porter, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the difference between brown and robust was largely based on the side of the Pond your drink came from.

It’s part of his efforts to drink his way into enlightenment upon the meaning of the word in the American context.

Everywhere, there has been lots of slightly worried considerations of purpose or status or something in the beer scribbling world. After all these years of reading, I still see that the best finds the general in the specific, if not the human condition then at least the illustration of a principle or common experience. But everything is not the best. Some is the work of the keen newbie. Some the hobbyist seeking distraction. But that is OK, too. That’s pretty much me. I was thinking about this when I pulled the January 18th issue of The New Yorker and read the article “Is It Really Too Late to Learn New Skills?” by Margaret Talbot and got stuck on this passage:

Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill, the authors of a 2019 study on perfectionism among American, British, and Canadian college students, have written that “increasingly, young people hold irrational ideals for themselves, ideals that manifest in unrealistic expectations for academic and professional achievement, how they should look, and what they should own,” and are worried that others will judge them harshly for their perceived failings.

Better have a chat with my kids. That’s a bit weird but would explain a lot.

Interesting merger and acquisitions news out of India as Molson Coors is selling big time but not in the way that they might have hoped:

Singapore-headquartered Inbrew Holdings Pte Ltd has acquired NortAmerican lager producer Molson Coors’ beer business in India. London based non-resident Indian (NRI) businessman Ravi Deol owns Inbrew Holdings Pte Ltd through privately held Ahead Global Holdings. Molson Coors India Private Limited (MCIPL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Coors Brewing USA with popular beer brands in India.

And finally, some common sense out of Japan as Kirin finally ditches that joint venture with the military dictatorship that controls Burma:

Brewing giant Kirin said on Friday that it is ending a six-year-old joint venture with a holding company in Myanmar that is linked to the country’s military. The army this week seized power in a coup, detaining the country’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and numerous other top government figures. Kirin is “deeply concerned by the recent actions of the military in Myanmar,” the company said in a statement, adding that it had “no option but to terminate” the partnership.

No option, eh? Does this mean New Belgium is OK again? Dunno. Probably not.

There. A whirl around the world this week. For more, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more withe the Beer Ladies Podcast, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The February Blahs 2021

The blahs. I have never liked February all that much but in this year of the plague I’ve actually come to appreciate it. The the lengthening days compare well to what’s been out the window for the previous couple of months. So there. But there is a blah nonetheless. Not much vibrancy in the world of beer writing. That’s what I am talking about. It’s all a bit due to other themes both worthy and banal being layered over, sure, but even with that… there is blah.

Not as blah as that image up there of a pub lovingly taken and posted by ATJ. I love it because it is so horrible. It could be called The Blah Pub unless it was 1994 when it would be Pub Blah. The image of the scary lad drinking painted on the façade in the upper right is particularly horrible. Who thought that would help? Anyway, it reminds us all that ugly is not necessarily all about the ugly. Therefore… I start this week in an effort to disprove my own blahlological observations with a study of “blah / not blah.”

Not blah? Perhaps this tweet, as it is at least taking a stance:

Beer should be like wine. Only named after the region or the hops used. Styles are just made up.

Except beer isn’t really regional and hops only define certain sorts of beer. So.. a bit blah but assertion saves it somewhat. And “style” sucks, we all know that now.

Elsewhere, Rob MacKay, Creative Director at Glasgow’s Drygate Brewing Co., created and shared what he calls Beer Care Instructions:

“…a handy set of standardised icons, which can be applied to beer in the same way that the global standards for laundry care are…”

I like this a lot and it is definitely not blah as it is both thoughtful and somewhat cheerily useless. Yet serves as an alternative construct to all the failures laying about our ankles. One that I see is missing is “tastes like beer and not a fruit salad that’s been left out in the sunlight.” Still, very not blah.

History. Not blah is the news out of Egypt that a 5,000 year old mass production brewing facility has been uncovered, as the BBC reports:

The brewery consisted of eight large areas, each 20m (65ft) long and each containing about 40 earthenware pots arranged in two rows, according to the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziry.

Seven years ago, I posted about a visit to the Royal Ontario Museum where I saw an original display showing brewing in Ancient Egypt. Perhaps this group of people represented one of these eight areas or even just a portion of it. Nope. Not that. A household brewery in Thebes. Never mind. Update: the site has been known for over a century. Q: if Hornsey knew that Egypt was fuelled by beer consumed throughout society, how is a 22,000 litre facility a surprise? At a max a gallon a day consumption, this facility supplies 6,000 people.

Revisiting that tiny part of my mind we discussed the other week, the bit that recalls that Anchor changed its branding, it’s interesting to see that that the brewery’s union is not happy and made it clear-ish on their Instagram account. And while “…many of us are not thrilled…” isn’t exactly a lyric from a Woody Guthrie song still makes the point. More not blah than blah. But overall, still a bit blah.

Further afield, Kenya is considering banning the quart, the preferred measure of youth and Cape Breton barroom brawls of the mid-1960s:

“We believe this is an outrageous, retrogressive proposal that has no place in our developing economy today and we are opposed to the proposals in the Bill,” Gordon Mutugi, ABAK chairman, said. The association argues the elimination of the option to sell alcohol packed in smaller packages would force those who cannot affordable quality alcoholic beverages sold in larger packaging to seek illicit and unhealthy alternatives. These include the purchase of alcohol in bulk and sharing it into smaller containers or consuming contraband alcohol from neighbouring countries.

Garth fears change. You know, that seems all a bit real. It’s been almost a year since me myself I saw actual real. Hmm… And I am not sure that I want to suggest Jeff shared a blah – but revisiting “craft” has been done by too many:

Craft brewing didn’t start becoming a real player for another decade—thirty years after its birth. And even then, it was making slow inroads into the fuller market. Only by the mid-teens had it achieved real substance, with 12% market share—though more important to an industry, it was earning more than one in five dollars of revenue.

Sure it’s just a label, a brand as much as Anchor’s only was… is… But, see, we are aware of these things but really the order is: (i) micro brewing (1980-2007ish), (ii) craft (2007-2015ish) and (iii) post-craft chaos (2015-now.) It is not analytically satisfying to backdate an era or delay its passing. Sure, I don’t really mind it as a unsubtle umbrella term, I suppose. But “craft” has been dead now coming on six years. Actual punk rock comes and goes in less time. It’s time to figure out what is going on now. What is it?

Relatedly, Toronto’s… err… Canada’s other national newspaper, the National Post also attempted to explain craft beer in the post craft chaos era including a description of the work of Lex Konnelly, a PhD candidate in the University of Toronto’s Department of Linguistics:

Beer has shifted from a working-class beverage to elite commodity, Konnelly explains in their paper recently published in the academic journal Language Communication. By speaking the language of so-called beer snobs, brutoglossia (“craft beer talk”) can perpetuate inequalities. Taste is far from arbitrary. It’s wrapped up in social status, which is in turn influenced by other categories such as gender and racial identity. Language is one of the ways people define the in-group and out-group.

Oh dear. What to make of it all? Comparing today’s clever lowest common denominator alcopops to an “elite commodity”?* Oh dear, oh dear. Then, similarly but far less so, “Flagship February” is hanging on but has shifted into a more general thing, another blog under a bushel like all those other blogs pushed out on the unsuspecting, feigning under any other name but blog. Yet… and yet… Stan sets aside any resulting potential for blah with his profile of a place called Halfway Crooks he posted on the FF blog:

Before Halfway Crooks Beer even opened their taproom in July 2019, they sold through their first run of hats with the words “LAGER LAGER LAGER LAGER” serving as a billboard. However, it would have been a mistake for beer drinkers walking around Atlanta proudly showing off this new hat to think this would be a lager-dominant brewery.

And, for the double,** Stan also gave us his thoughts on the effect of the US West Coast fires of 2020 on the hop crop:

…this is bad news for farmers affected because it reduces the value of some of their crop. But brewers should be aware that tainted hops could make their way into the supply chain. As one grower told me, “Here’s hoping we don’t see a rush of rauchbier’s coming into the market.” Unlike many people, I like rauchbiers, but I’m not looking forward to being surprised by a juicy IPA that tastes like licking an ash tray. (“Licking an ashtray” being a phrase used to describe wines made with smoke-tainted grapes.)

Blah beer but not a blah story. Not at all. And for maximum not-blah we have a post from Rye’s own pubman in hiding, Stonch sharing his fabulous style:

I drank a can of strong-as-fuck beer a couple of weeks ago, tweeted about it, and promised to review it here. One person has since asked me why I didn’t. In the face of such overwhelming demand, I must deliver. I can’t be bothered to match the pithy and succinct style I’d developed when this semi-dormant website was in its pomp, so you’ll have to plough through some verbose bullshit.

Finally – and as if just to prove they are not merely Egyptologists- the BBC tells us the latest calamitous news of the UK pub trade according to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA):

The BBPA said trading restrictions and lockdowns knocked sales by 56% – worth £7.8bn – last year. In the first lockdown in the second quarter of the year, beer sales plummeted by 96%, it said. Even during the summer, which saw the Eat Out to Help Out scheme and a temporary VAT cut on food and soft drinks, pub beer sales fell 27%.

Wow. Not blah. Yikes. Except things were locked. So it might be more odd that it was not 100%. Who was that 4%. We all now pray to Dr. Fauci and the gods of global distribution systems. Eleven months and in we know its closer to the end than the beginning. We know.

Do it! And while you are, for more good reading, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Jordan flips out over beer cocktails this week!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (featuring another one of his irregular 1970s-esque TV dramedy season finale. Finaleissimmo!!!) And remember BeerEdge, too.

*The elite are actually drinking pre-mixed Clamato out of cans.
**Say “pour le double!!” like you are Charles de Gaulle speaking to Quebec in the 1960s!

Blink And You May Miss The Mid-February Edition Of These Beery News Notes

I was thinking this week about an undergrad pal who used to say that February went by like a bat out of hell. Our small college of those days – just 400 students, half that in residence – has been making news for sad reasons this week so I have been thinking about those days a bit. But it is mid-February now and that means weeks from March and just as justice will have its day so shall the first coming warmth of spring. I am a bit all a giggle about it this year, frankly. I waaaay over invested in reusable row covers. Going to dig up have the lawn. Yup.

Sweetest bit of writing of the week has to go to Matt as he placed himself in the lineup at Pellicle and wrote about Dann Paquette and Martha Simpson-Holley of The Brewery of St. Mars. Many a love letter I sent to those two when they were on this side of the Atlantic brewing at Pretty Things. I send Matt my 2010 review of Jack D’or in response to Matt’s call for research materials. It provided him with background but I didn’t get quoted in the foreground. Oh… well… Anyway, the story is well worth your time:

Dann’s drawing of Jack D’Or, which depicts the “golden barleycorn”—as Martha’s poem describes him—bathing in a mash tun, adorns the label of a deliciously crisp, bold, yet balanced saison-style beer of the same name. It would eventually obtain something of a cult status among beer-loving Bostonites, New Englanders and others lucky enough to find it on tap, or get their hands on a bottle.

Oh. There I am. One of the lucky others. Thought for the day. A lovely summation of that which is the influencer:

She reminded me most of MPs I’d interviewed — the imperviousness to humiliation, the tolerance of rejection that let them go up to the public again and again.

Not unrelated. Bad day in your early Renaissance? Someone was having one when this image was painted. H/T. Speaking of bad days, Ron has been posting interesting thoughts about why British beer became more boring in the 1980s and has been dipping into his own stream of consciousness as he does. This is his best sort of writing:

I’m just back from a walk. Unless it’s pissing down, I always go for a walk around noon. A good time to think, while I’m strolling around my little patch of Amsterdam. Not just think, but start writing in my head. Phrases or even whole sentences. I can shuffle the words around before committing them to metaphorical paper. (That’s an example of a sentence I mentally wrote.) But let’s not stray from the point. I was pondering why and when UK beers became blander. A few things became clear. Oh, what I’m referring to is mostly cask-conditioned Bitter and occasionally cask Mild.

Writing. The waste of a good walk. Why is it so? And while we are at it, consider the lot of the freelancer, too.

Speaking of whom, Kate Bernot has popped up with an excellent article on the issue facing breweries in these times of supply chain problems – bottles or cans or back to bottles. It’s in a restricted medium uncomfortably self-identifying as Beer & (Craft) Brewing so I am constrained from telling you more. I think I had a free subscription offered last time I complained so it’s really all my fault. Who suffers? You do. Sad.

A book on Celis. Might have to get that.

Elsewhere in time, Casket Beer has provided us with some extra thoughts in great detail on the creation of another container, the Nonik glass and its genesis in the US soda fountain trade of a century ago:

Hugo Pick, of Albert Pick & Company, created the nonik, receiving its first patent in 1913 (some advertisements around the time also indicate a 1912 patent). Pick & Co. was a well-established service industry company based out of Chicago. They also owned and operated a chain of hotels. The Nonik Glassware Corporation was a licensee, and, according to the Crockery and Glass Journal, sole distributor of nonik glasses to the “jobbing trade”. They advertised widely, emphasizing a glass design that was 38-percent stronger than other glasses, and eliminated breakage and nicking by 40-percent, or 50-percent, depending on which ad you read.

Sticking with mid-20th century beer history, Gary G has examined the iconic Genesee Cream Ale of western New York:

To my mind Cream Ale has always been a quasi-American lager. Genesee Beer, according to the 1977 account, used as adjunct, “powder-fine and oil-free corn grits”, the proportion not specified. Genesee Beer only is mentioned in that section, not the Cream Ale, but I’d think the Cream Ale used the same adjunct. The rationale advanced for the corn is “starch to increase its ratio over proteins”, and this made the beer “lighter in colour, smoother in taste, and more pleasing to the palate”.

I mention this in particular due to the cream ale / cream beer connections that I wrote about a few years back. There is a thread here… but what?

Jordan has also posted in some detail, in his case the state of the Ontario beer market mid- to late-pandemic. There is a bit of futurism in there which will have to play out to see if it is correct. I am more of a “what is now is not the future” person myself but I am totally on board with the short term nature of the bottle shop hereabouts:

What we’re dealing with here is a loophole that looks to be open on a permanent basis, and as happens with loopholes, people are pushing the concept as far as it can go as quickly as they can push it. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell the people who get in touch: It would be a mistake to assume that these changes as they stand are permanent. They’re making it up as they go and it will likely continue towards liberalization. Opening a bottle shop at this point might be fun, but I’m not sure it’s going to work out long term.

Once the big money that has sat gathering at the sidelines moves back in, what is a state of flux will have settled and we will see where the real coins land. I am rooting for beer-mobiles – like bookmobiles meeting an ice cream van!

And Ren Navarro received an interesting honour of a bio in the Toronto Star this week. Nicely done.

Pete Brown reports that total UK beer sales are down +14% 2019 to 2020. One the one hand, bad. On the other, no too bad for the first pandemic in a century to his the nation. One solution for that might have been on the UK Tory government’s mind when they organized Brexit so so carefully – if one Brit retailer is correct:

Well looks like our importing of Belgian Beer is over. Software needed to “talk” to HMRC is not cost effective. Nearly £550 a year – Unless anyone knows of a different route #Brexit

Finally, in this week’s police blotter we highlight… or rather get into a bit of detail about a new matter which is moving towards the courts with a very local flavour. Iconic Canadian band The Tragically Hip have brought a lawsuit against one Toronto-based branch of the InBev / AmBev / ThingieBev conglomerate called Mill Street Brewing for poaching their intellectual property, as the CBC reports:

The Tragically Hip are suing a Toronto brewery for alleged trademark infringement in the promotion of its 100th Meridian lager. The legendary Canadian band has filed a suit in Federal Court against Mill Street Brewery, a subsidiary of Labatt, which is owned by Belgian multinational brewer AB InBev. The Tragically Hip allege in legal documents that Mill Street has tried to “pass off on the fame, goodwill and reputation” of the band. “Many of you are probably under the impression that we are associated with Mill Street’s 100th Meridian beer — we are not,” the band said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. At The Hundredth Meridian was a hit single on the Hip’s 1992 album Fully Completely. Its title refers to the line of longitude that marks the beginnings of the Great Plains.

The reaction has been swift and folk are eager to pounce. [Update: here is Josh Hayter of Spearhead on FB Thursday morning:

…they are using someone else’s intellectual property to sell their beer. They have been implying for years that the band supports their beer. If you think for one second if the positions were reversed, (someone using any AB product to promote anything they were doing) AB would not have an ARMY of lawyers up their backside in a second you are sadly mistaken…]

I have to admit a slight conflict as the band and its late singer originated here in my hometown and, while I never met one of the members, my late folks knew Gord Downie’s folks. Such is the town. That being said, I was personally and professionally quite surprised and even astonished that there had not been a licensing arrangement when the beer was created. Exactly no one in Canada knows that the “100th Meridian” is anything but a tune by the Hip. Crafty people even make crafts about the connection here in town. A huge hit. As the Winnipeg Free Press (the paper of record in that fair city) noted in 2011: “…the band slammed into the unforgettable riff to the 100th Meridian..”

“Unforgettable…” In his podcast, Ben mentions this week that there were failed negotiations before the lawsuit but that now Mill Street is in for a “world of hurt.” And he is right. This is dumb and was well known. And the marketplace confusion is clear. In 2014, the Calgary Herald (the paper of record in that fair city) wrote of the release of the then new beer and always unexciting beer:

To steal a line from Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip, 100th Meridian Organic Amber Lager from Mill St. Brewery is where the great plain begins. (That’s a bit harsh, but I couldn’t resist the joke.) Seriously, though: the concept here is laudable — make a beer with barley from Canada’s breadbasket, the Prairies — but it falls short in the execution…

In 2015, The Tomato food and drink blog stated in a column written by Peter Bailey:

…Call it a classic Canadian compromise, Alberta barley married with Ontario water, with a name that calls to mind a great Tragically Hip song (“At the hundredth meridian / Where the Great Plains begin.”)…

In 2016, Simcoe.com recommended including the beer in any Hip themed party:

“…offer up Mill Street Brewery’s 100th Meridian Amber Lager and some of the band’s own Fully Completely and Ahead By a Century wine from Stoney Ridge Estate…”

And in 2017, one beer blogger wrote: “I have no idea if the beer is paying honour to the band or not, but here in Canada it’s great marketing.” Yesterday, Jordan shared his recollection from the beer release party in 2014 that the brewmaster at the time claimed he had not heard of the song. Stunning – if only to indicate that they had their head in the sand and did not one bit of intellectual property investigation before the beer got named. Lesson: pay attention to reality, brewery owners. Make sure you are aware of what is going on in culture and the law.

That’s it. Watch your nose. Don’t step out of line. Pay your bills. And for more good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

A False Thaw In February And Your Thursday Beery News Notes

Fine. January is done and more jabs are getting jabbed out and about on this planet. A better situation than at any time in the last year. That’s good. Just weeks to go until spring. Like you, with these few warmer days I am planning the veggie garden and have my row covers ready to go. To help with those considerations, I have a new beer coming this week. Beer is like buying from eBay these days. I get an email saying I might want to consider this new beer from Matron. And I do. And I buy it along with something called Bobo, too. I live the Bo and Bo. It will all be on the front step Friday. So exciting. I shall watch like a child watching the stockings hanging by the fireplace on Christmas Eve.

First up this week, Black History Month has begin with a celebration of Theodore Mack, owner along with “a group of investors under the United Black Enterprises banner” who bought People’s brewery in 1970 and then only hired black employees. Fight the power. More here, here and here. And speaking of the calendar, more backlash against those in brewing trade PR who’ve been attacking folk opting out of the dipsomania-laced crowdsourcing so that the brewers who fund that PR have enough money in the kitty:

I’d also like it noted how unsupportive and honestly sometimes just straight-up gross some people are about others’ sobriety. Placing blame if businesses fail, mocking Dry January. It’s hard as fuck to not drink and you people suck.

Unconnectedly, ATJ posted a image from a 1922 book which again supports my long held understanding that no Belgian in their right mind drank unsweetened lambic before the unknowing but self-flagellating English language beer writer tours began in the 1970s. Likely something of a local lads’ gag, no doubt, watching them suck back the vinegar, then outdoing each other to heap praise.

Speaking of mid-20th century stuff but too late for the presses last week was Martyn’s take on the new labels on the beers from the relatively venerable US brewer, Anchor:

The design of the “classic” Steam Beer label is a crowded mess, the name of the beer only the second most prominent part of the label, at best, with some kind of odd parchment effect in the background making it look as if the colours failed to fix properly on the printing plates. The Porter label is better, being simpler and more direct, but still with distracting clusters of barley and hops that detract from the impact.

Fibby fake heritage, as Martyn points out, is a bit of a bore. I don’t care greatly either way as branding is one of the least interesting areas of the good beer world.

One other late excellent word was that of Kate B. on the scandal at Boulevard which, yes, includes the GBH standard cut and paste from the work of others but a more daring, hardnosed and personal conclusion than that website is usually known for:

As a reporter, I struggle with my duty to ask questions of survivors. It’s a journalistic necessity, but it runs the risk of retraumatizing a person. My need to verify facts is counter to survivors’ need to be believed, to have their abuse validated. Even asking them to repeat the who, what, when, where of their experiences runs the risk of doing psychic damage. Trying to identify the why of it all—if there even is one—feels ethically impossible, and potentially harmful. That’s because people who have experienced abuse are often made to feel it’s their fault or that they are misreading the facts, often termed “gaslighting.”

Speaking of which in a way, in another way I am not sure I can agree with this from my personal hero Dr.J.:

“A lot of people ask me, ‘How did it get this way in craft beer?’ Craft beer isn’t special—craft beer is a microcosm in the U.S. If there are inequities and disparities in craft beer, it’s because it’s serving as a mirror for the country at large,” Jackson-Beckham said. But she remains hopeful about the future of the industry.

My question relates to craft beer as microcosm. It isn’t. It is overly represented by a white, male, clubby tribe with access to money and wading in alcohol. Sort of like the Masons in plaid shirts. While the statement above was made well before the Boulevard scandal broke, it is clear that many knew much for yoinks but turned a blind eye, according to impressively investigative work by the actual professional journalists of The Kansas City Star:

Boulevard employees recalled widely-known stories of harassment, particularly from a few high-ranking employees. Even when the women they victimized reported them, they remained in power. Even McDonald, who came back last week to lead the company in its time of crisis, acknowledged hearing reports in the past but not acting on them… The founder, now 67, acknowledged serious failings. But he didn’t want to believe his brewery had a systemic cultural problem. And he views the accusations against Boulevard employees as “isolated issues.”

Right. One also can only assume that this situation was well known to some of the beer trade writers among us but was not worth the trouble to report upon.

In another area of the craft-not-craft industrial zone, we read:

…james watt taking domestic flights between London & Aberdeen and being irked by his international ones being cancelled in the middle of a pandemic, all while running a supposedly climate conscious business lol. can’t make this shit up…

Also over there, the Beer Nut linked us to a story on the potential for the party being over for Irish folk coming back from the UK:

The EU is considering stopping Irish holidaymakers loading up on cheaper alcohol and cigarettes when they travel to other countries – with new rules that would also affect trips to Northern Ireland. Ireland is one of the most expensive places in the EU to buy alcohol and cigarettes, due to high excise duties. In a public consultation launched yesterday, the EU suggested holidaymakers should pay excise duties at home rates rather than where they buy products.

I asked many questions and tried to compare to the US-Canadian border which sits at a very long 2-wood from my house, just over the horizon. Not sure I was fully successful in informing myself.

Brendan P. has pointed out, as illustrated to the left, the latest dumb legal move by one of the least appealing of the legacy micros out there. Apparently they now own all the rights to “bastard” too. I’ll let Austin Powers know. It’s sad that whatever goodwill they had as a quality gas station retail shelf supplier has been trashed in the cause of their protection of a common word and the most utterly tired brandings in beer. Keystone. Sawstone. Didn’t even notice they sued something called Hollystone. FFS. Is there any constituency left rooting for Stone in these matters? Is there any way these court cases lead to growth or is it just part of a rear guard strategy after the disaster in Berlin? Like those who would diss Dry January, there is a whole sector of the brewing trade that seems to live in a disconnected delusion about what the customer base actually thinks.

And finally another paper-based beer mag disappears after a irregularly schedule life and less than a year after an industry veteran was brought in. A tough row to hoe. Viva blogs! Viva!!!

That’s it. Now, for good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For A Somewhat Ugly Week In Beer

I almost took this week off. It’s been a very busy stretch at work. It’s good busy, mind you. Takes the mind off the pandemic, the near death experience suffered by American democracy and winter and… and… and… Other than that, I did see both the nearest and seventh farthest planets from the Sun last weekend. That was cool. And, see, I noticed the winter brown goldfinches at the feeder just starting to show their yellow feathers at their shoulders. Spring is coming. Oh, and I had a beer or some beer or something at some point. This is still a beer blog, right?

Hmm… what’s in the news? Horrible breweries apparently. First, the end times seem to have struck once again in the semi-beer fruity gak. You a betting reader? Seriously, when is it going to die off? The exploding gak. Jeff started it. And the we end up here. Really. Just look to the right at the warning one horrible brewery had to issue and consider how horrible the warning issued by the horrible brewery actually is. Actually, I know nothing about the horrible brewery except it is happy, first, putting out a horrible fruit gak beer and, then, a horrible warning about the horrible fruit gak beer. Hide the exploding can in your garbage, they say. Hide the exploding can in your garbage? That’s the advice? Did they check with the local solid waste dept? So they must be horrible. Right? Right. I hope they are not but they might well be. Watch your step. You, too.

If that was not enough,* Vinepair started the ball rolling with the story of another horrible idea, the $90 six pack. It’s a dumb idea which has nothing to do with the beer and everything to do with the $90 despite the spin:

After talking to Gislason, however, I don’t think he deserves derision for Hanabi Lager. Though he’s got grand ambitions, and a funny way of revealing them, his ego is in check. You will probably roll your eyes a few more times as you read this story, sure, but who knows? Gislason might very well be taking lager to a place it’s never been before. “The vast majority of beer consumed in the world is lager, albeit an ‘industrial-commodity’ version that’s relatively simple and homogeneous in flavor,” says Gislason. “Recognizing that high-quality lager brewing was underrepresented in the craft brewing world, that became our brewing R&D focus about 10 years ago.”

Sucker juice. A sad tale based on a false premise. Jeff perhaps was unnecessarily detailed in his criticism, giving the discussion a little too much oxygen. It’s not about disrespect as much as not giving a shit. These things arise from time to time and either die off or end up in the business acquisition they were actually initially set up to serve. Best response? This:

Fuck these guys, we do the same thing for $12 a four pack.

Speaking of horrible brewers, the big story of the week would be the situation at Boulevard Brewing, which was first described in a Reddit post:

I left Boulevard Brewing Company in March 2020 because of harassment I received because I was pregnant. My boss stood me and another female employee up in the lab, in front of another coworker, and demanded to know if we were pregnant. When we refused to answer, he told the other woman “the only way you could be pregnant is by your cat”, then continued to ask me. I reported this to HR, but it started a cycle of reporting his behavior to HR and then being punished (by him) for going to HR.

Nutzo. If denigrating and potentially illegal employment standards could be wrapped up in the word “nutzo”… which it might or might not. It’s sorta sweet – in no way that makes any sense on this planet – that the brewery issued a statement that says it was all fine… a joke maybe… but not real… look over here… shadow puppets… AND then, on Wednesday, they repented or at least reflected and started living in reality. THEN, late Wednesday, folk identifying as employees posted an alternate version of reality, of multiple executive firings. Wow. Need to keep an eye on this one.

So much for beer people are good people. Some are. Some aren’t. Speaking of which, beer people writing about other beer people is usually dull as dishwater… or worse, less interesting than exploding fruity gak or a $90 six pack or sexist piggy stuff. But in this case the bio bit on Chalonda White, aka Afro Beer Chick, is good. Very good. I should work one like that, too, but on me. If I was that good. But I am not as interesting. And not committed to important things like Chalonda is. I could learn a thing or two. Grow up a bit.

Enough!. Let’s look elsewhere. Brexit’s effect on the UK wine trade is petty shocking as described by one wine merchant:

I now hope, if the wind is blowing in the right direction, to start seeing stock from early February. My orders with producers were placed as far back as December. So from what was a 7-10 days turn around has become a 5-6 week turn around. Another of those Brexit dividends. 14/22…

Just last week, we discussed* the effects of Brexit on the UK import market. This seems to indicate it is going to be ugly.

Note: it’s never a good idea to use social media to self doom scroll after you get an article published. Blaming headline writers, the readers… anyone with a different view is a bit weird. If it isn’t explained in the story… is it a good story?

One of Canada’s beer blogs that likes to pretend it isn’t a blog has posted a good piece with four people involved in the beer trade talking about the pivot and the way forward:

At Matron we’ve learned to adapt to the rapidly changing market: we’ve leaned into online sales and home delivery. In fact, we predict that to make up for the shortfall in bar and restaurant sales, breweries will need to sell up to half of their beer online this winter to survive. On the flipside, you, the craft beer drinker, have gained incredible access to the majority of Ontario breweries, whether it be shopping directly from the brewery’s website, or supporting one of the many independent bottle shops that have sprung up.

I am rooting for them all. Matron is one of my near neighbours… in the Canadian sense, an hour’s drive away.

And Matt C wrote about Czech v. German in Ferment 52 and has found a number of solid witnesses to give testimony as to their preference. I approve of the following point most heartily:

But one bone I must pick is with those who replied to my poll by stating they don’t like Czech beer because of the diacetyl (an off flavour that makes your beer taste like butter.) And I understand Czech beers often have a rich, butterscotch flavour, but it’s not like the hot buttered popcorn character that makes you want to tip a pint of naff cask down the drain. “People who say things like that are the type who talk without knowing what they’re talking about,” Evan says, bluntly. “But yeah, there is diacetyl in Czech beer sometimes. There’s diacetyl in German beer sometimes, too.”

The diacetyl police are amongst the most tedious of beer fans. As far as I am concerned it all comes from (i) nutritionalism*** and (ii) need-to-take-a-stand-ism and (iii) the unfortunate proliferation of off-flavour seminars rather than on-flavour seminars.

There. Unfortunately, more seriously nasty stuff going on than good. But some good and we have the eternal glow of the deep and abiding hope for more good. To continue your quest for actually good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

*Which is good for me because, in case you haven’t noticed I like to write a weekly post about all the things I read about so that you can read that in addition to all the things I read about.
**You did have a roundtable discussion by Zoom meeting afterwards, right?
***See Michael Pollen, yes, but see also a sort of fraidy-cat approach to things and the deference to the people who, utterly hypocritically, ended up giving you strawberry milkshake sour fruit candy beer crap. Have a Yorkshire bitter from an actual open square fermenter. Enjoy the slight buttery goodness.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For That Week Some Got To Exhale

What a relief. Never more to worry about the man to the right. It has been said many times that we should never trust someone who does not take a drink. How much more so the man who does not know how to take a drink? I only raise the events of Wednesday in the context of one of the better callings out I have seen in a while – the response to BrewDog suggesting an airport in Scotland be named “Joe Biden International” being an image of BrewDog beers being on the menu at one of Trump’s Scottish golf resorts. Follow the money.

First up now that that is out of the way, Eoghan Walsh elbowed in and held the top seat at Pellicle this week with his story of a cidery amongst the future freezer lambs:

“Nobody in New Zealand drinks cider,” says Alex Peckham, sitting alongside his wife Caroline on their farmhouse’s veranda, his face turned towards the distant snow-freckled mountains of Kahurangi National Park. “And we’d like it to stay that way.” It’s not the proselytising mission statement you’d expect from the co-founder of one of New Zealand’s most renowned cideries.

Speaking of nobody drinking, Andy Crouch in Beer Edge addressed a matter which was raised here a week or two ago – the animosity towards Dry January – and did so (unlike the man above) with an even hand:

…the public shaming of Dry January participants that now flows at the beginning of every year is often smug, self-assured, and off base. Telling people that taking a break from beer is “stupid” or to “keep it to yourself, feel good about yourself, and let the rest of us be” is entirely unhelpful in a culture that should be encouraged to periodically reexamine its approach to alcohol. Conversely, joking about extended periods of refraining from alcohol consumption as “sober curiosity” or worse yet “detox” belies a potentially questionable relationship with alcohol…

Shaming. Been around a long time. I presume there is a bigoted implication to the use of frogs or toads in this editorial cartoon on the 1870s to the left. One would not use the word “frog” in Canada in this way without fearing a cross-check to the neck for the foreseeable future. But were German lager lovers toads generally to the US nativists of the time or is the warty imagery cartoon specific?

Things not as they are. In stylistic news historical-wise, Martyn posted an excerpt from his upcoming book on stouts and porters arguing that Baltic Porters are not really Baltic at all:

In Poland, however, many (not all) brewers developed their own twist on DBS. The expression Baltic Porter only dates from the 1990s (and there is some doubt as to who invented the term), but it has come to mean a strong black beer brewed with a typical porter/stout grain bill, at the same time using bottom-fermenting yeasts, a style specifically developed in Poland, and personally I don’t believe it should be used for any beer that doesn’t fit that description.

History of another sort was made this week as a Trappist brewery found it had run out of actual Trappists as Jeff summarized the facts as known:

Eoghan Walsh noted on Twitter that “The last monks left at the end of 2020, meaning Achel fails to fulfill 1 of the criteria for Trappist designation (being brewed under supervision of monks). Westmalle were supervising, but that wasn’t enough for the ITA board.” Yet he added, hopefully: “Was talking to someone else about Achel only recently, and this was not on the radar. I share [Joe Stange’s] sanguinuity that it will eventually be sorted out. This report says they can still call themselves Trappist, given they follow the other edicts, but let’s see.”

Nice to see another reason for things collapsing. Across the channel, the trend continues as the big Post-Brexit crisis news appears to be distinguishing itself from mid-pandemic news as it relates to the effect on the UK pub:

The importer of the German beer I sell has also reported major difficulties and increased costs due to new procedures/requirements caused by Brexit. Lots of beers are going to be more expensive when the pubs re-open.

Note 1: Will this era be the lead in to a time of better quality through the filtering of the marketplace? Stonch v. Protz debate the issues. Only one has had the jab, by the way.

Who to believe? While we are at it, the idea of “qualifications” is always a bit dodgy when the come to the self-certified almost as much as the accredited peer reviewed accreditation invites expertise extrapolation? What can one do? That being said, this is an interesting bit on not accepting being told to shut up:

Like many people I have spent the past few years in a roaring, frothing rage at the incompetence and mendacity of the charmless, greasy-palmed hucksters who have somehow blagged their way into governing us. Occasionally, by which I mean most days, I have expressed this rage via a scalpel-sharp, profound and witty political tweet. Weirdly, not everybody is as impressed by these contributions as I am. Indeed, at least one person usually replies: “Stick to tweeting about food, Rayner.”

Note 2: in Tring there is “…a carving of a monkey holding a bottle of wine and reading a book…

In matters of actual expertise, Stan published another excellent edition of Hop Queries who reported on the response to a bit of readership outreach he had engaged with, the sort of thing that one likes to see:

I was pleasantly surprised by the response. The information helps me decide what to include each month. I feel a little bit guilty about not replying to each of you individually, but then there wouldn’t be time to assemble this newsletter. In case you are curious, the majority of those who responded are brewers, and the majority of brewers are homebrewers. A number grow hops or are otherwise in the hops or brewing trade – and I was a bit surprised by how many brewers or homebrewers who answered are also backyard hop farmers.

Note 3: this week’s best cinematic reference to beer – a smoothie beer in the movie Total Recall from 1990. Any other week, that image would be up there instead of the Orange Blob. Note: that is just three years before the same actor played a heartier role in the beer world.

Also pastly, once upon a time I had posts under the title Pub Games which were mainly English pub games. So I was really pleased that Mark S gave the nod to a post at the well named blog “Shove it, Chuck it, Toss it…” on Leicester Skittles Tables:

I’ve been asked on a number of occasions since I started this blog for the dimensions of the various Skittles Tables featured. Whilst many of these tables are still common enough and regularly come up for sale locally or online, good examples are not cheap to buy, and in some cases the enquiry has come from overseas where building your own table is the only realistic option. I’ve answered these queries personally in the past, but I thought it was high time I created a more permanent and accessible record, starting with my own example of a Leicester Skittles Table.

Finally, is it only me or are beer writers being a bit more open on their dependence on Twitter and other social media sources for their research. Consider this, this and this. I don’t mind except it appear concurrent with a theme that Twitter is useless. Best thing since email, that’s what I say…

There. Soon be February. Prepare ye for Valentine’s Day posts from the perhaps doubly desperate. Meantime, for more actually good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

Your Middle Of January 2021 Beery News Notes For A Thursday

And what a Thursday! The last of Donald Trump’s pre-incarceration period!!! Days to go… unless he drops the big one and we all fry. That would be typical, wouldn’t it. As soon as you think you are getting rid of a fifth-rate loser like Donnie T, he drops the big one and we all fry. I shall miss things. As in all things, sure, but in particular the sort of unsmarmy positive stuff that slips through all the smarmy positive stuff about good beer, like that image above from The Wicking Man as well as his accompanying message:

I’m sure many have had difficult times in lockdown and like me have been lifted by good people on Twitter. Many thanks to my #pubtwitter friends. Your tweets and blogs have made me smile and I look forward to the days when we can share our pub trips again.

The Tand wrote a bummer of a post about the perils Welsh icon Brains Brewery faces in these uncertain times:

So what has happened? In short, Covid-19 has happened. Wales has been particularly hard hit by restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic causing “significant financial pressure” to Brains. The company had already concentrated business on a core number of around 160 pubs with the remaining 40 or so being closed or sold off in March 2020. Clearly this wasn’t enough to stave off problems, as this was followed by an announcement before Christmas that rival pub chain Marston’s was to take over on 25-year lease, 156 Brains pubs in a bid to save 1,300 jobs. The deal includes a supply agreement to continue the availability of Brains brands in the pubs, which will be leased to Marston’s at an annual rent of £5.5 million. Brain’s managed houses will also be run by Marston’s.

And similarly Jeff wrote about the death of Portland Brewing Company, an early participant in that area’s scene, offering us basically an obituary written by an old friend:

On the Friday afternoon of January 8th, Portland Brewing put out a short note announcing that, after a 35-year run, they were winding down all operations. It was a strangely subdued note given the brewery’s historical significance. One of the founding quartet of Portland breweries that started putting out beer between late 1984 and 1986, it played a substantial role in laying the foundation that would place beer at the center of the city’s identity by the early 1990s.

Going back further, Jeremy Irons as Wooster advertising a sherry of a sort in the 1970s. Fabulous.

Canadian author Anne Theriault spotted an important moment in 18th century English brewing culture the other day:

Because I am twelve years old, I wish to read more about the 18th century Farting Club in Cripplegate, where members “meet once a Week to poyson the Neighbourhood, and with their Noisy Crepitations attempt to outfart one another.” Truly the past is a foreign etc…

Careful readers will recall that Cripplegate was one of the great brewing areas of London for hundreds of years. Theriault linked to her source, Geri Walton, who had shared further detail including this:

To determine a winner, stewards acted as judges and new stewards were chosen quarterly. The stewards also resolved any disputes that arose “between the Buttocks of the odoriferous Assembly.”[7] Furthermore, to ensure the competitors did not cheat, in a nearby room a bespectacled Alms-woman sat. This elderly woman’s job was to check the underwear of participants: If “any member was suspected of Brewers Miscarriage, he was presently sent in to be examined by the Matron, who after searching his Breeches, and narrowly inspecting the hind Lappet of his Shirt … made her Report accordingly.”[8]

The fact that there were 21 footnotes below the story is in itself wonderful.

Along the same lines and following up on their 2011 false claim of inventing the beer photo contest, US brewery Founders found time to commit a form of hari kari this past week. Perhaps it was the photoshopped image of their flag as the Battle of Congress last week but their lost their social media marbles by banning everyone on the planet who mentioned them – well, who mentioned their lack of interest in living in the 21st (and perhaps even the 2oth) century. It got so fun that folk like me baited them just to get blocked on Twitter but then all that happened was this:

Funny thing. That blocking strategy rolled out by Founders this weekend? Search for their Twitter handle as any prospective new customer might and you find this long list of folk very unhappy with you. Meaning @foundersbrewing decided to trash their brand

It’s true. This is how that works. Someone woke up and stopped all the blocking by Tuesday. Dumbasses.

Continuing from last week, Mark Solomon has posted again on his new blog, this time about his project Indigenous Brew Day:

I do worry about my alcohol consumption, I would be lying if I told you I don’t think often about addiction regularly. I do believe I have a healthy relationship with alcohol but I am aware that can change quickly. Although there are many Indigenous peoples who are struggling with addiction, there are many that have a healthy relationship with alcohol. I want to tell that story, and turn around the misconceptions about Indigenous people and alcohol. Indigenous Brew Day is a great start in changing misconceptions.

ATJ wrote about missing pubs behind a paywall so I never got to read it.

The Beer Nut shared thoughts on one of his nation’s character flaws when it comes to good beer:

This beer deserves to sell in quantity but I fear that the mainstream stout drinkers are too set in their ways to switch, while the craft-curious have too much choice of other beers in more fashionable styles with arty labels to bother with this oulfellas’ stout which isn’t even in a can. The difficulty in getting Irish people to drink stouts is our beer scene’s principal national tragedy. And if you agree with me to any extent about that, make sure you get yourself some of this.

Further odd division was fomented by those who would control who should speak and what should be spoken when it comes to Dry January… oddly called Dry Feb here in Canada. “Keep it to yourself” v “if you’re doing Dry Jan and you’re sharing your experience keep it up” and see also this yet this but also this. I expect you can figure out where I sit on the question.

Kate Bernot has noted that the SCOTUS has declined to hear the case in Lebamoff v. Whitmer, a court case about widening interstate alcohol shipping laws. “Certiorari Denied!” is all they said. So no actual ruling with interesting chat to read unlike the similarly framed case before Canada’s top court in 2018. SCOTUSblog has framed the issues in the case this way:

Whether a state liquor law that allows in-state retailers to ship wine directly to consumers, but prohibits out-of-state retailers from doing so, is invalid under the nondiscrimination principle of the commerce clause or is a valid exercise of the state’s 21st amendment authority to regulate the sale of alcoholic beverages within its borders.

And finally, in other semi-regulatory news, it appears the US Brewers Association may be facing challenging times, too, as they have announced a temporary free membership offer:

Not a member but want to join? To ensure no breweries are missing updates due to financial barriers, we’re offering nonmember breweries a temporary membership free of charge. Reach out to our membership team if you’re interested.

Jings. Well, that is that for now. Enjoy the reassertion of US democracy over the next week. As you do, for more good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. 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 also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

The Hogmanay Beery News Notes Special For Last Blursday 2020

Good riddance to 2020. That’s it. No hum. No haw. It sucked and soon it’ll be over. Next year hopefully will suck less. But, still, at least three good beery things happened to me in this year of the plague which are worth noting:

i. In October, Boak and Bailey invited me to a Zoom chat that lasted a couple of hours. We had a great old chat, from gossip to interesting thoughts on researching and writing brewing history.

ii. Since mid-March, we’ve been enjoying home delivery of beer mainly from Matron of nearby Bloomfield Ontario. We’ve likely had six or eight different beers from them and have gained a great sense of their liquid aesthetic through exercising a bit of focus. Forthright and Bobo are two standouts for me but Yeasayer has not left the house in ten months.

iii. Lars Marius Garshol published Historical Brewing Techniques, by far the best beer book of 2020. One of the few, sure, but the years of dedication to the pursuit of farmhouse brewing in Scandinavia and eastern Europe is one of the greatest bits of effort in the cause of good beer over the last decade.

There. That’s good. A bit slim. But pretty good. Well, for me. Where shall we start for you, the rest of human existence? The pandemic? Sure. Fine. OK. In Maine, CJL herself has shone a light on some very poor behavior by one brewery while also illustrating how useful Twitter can be if you know how to use it:

Sunday River Brewing Company has been operating without masks and safety in the name of “freedom” and picking fights with the state to become martyrs for the industry, and raising funds alongside for “legal defense”… The restaurant/brewery has been cited MANY times now for non-compliance with mask orders. Undercover people from the state have documented lack of mask wearing over months, so the state recently said, “hey, your license is set to renew in December… and we’re not renewing it.”

Elsewhere? Summaries. First, across the Atlantic, I Might Have A Glass of Beer posted his Golden Pint 2020 awards from Glasgow, Scotland and shared many thoughts about how the great pivot sometimes made life with beer more interesting in 2020. And found a few more good things about the last year. Example:

A fascinating phenomenon was the redefinition of “beer garden” in 2020. As a partisan of Bavarian beer culture, I am often disappointed by what is offered under this name in the UK, with not a chestnut tree, a stoneware mug or a radish in sight. Yet this year the label became even looser, and over the summer it seemed that merely a row of white plastic chairs on the pavement outside a pub was enough to be a “beer garden”. Nonetheless even this was a definite improvement for some pubs and it’s to be hoped that this trend will continue after all this is over.

And The Beer Nut started on the pandemic fatigue fatigue with his own Golden Pints 2020 from non-northern Ireland which included this welcome remembrance in one category’s name:

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: @RuariOToole
It was very much the year for weird and grim humour, and Ruari’s Twitter provided plenty of it. Much appreciated, my man. Dudes rock!

See also Ben Viveur. See also Quare Swally. See also New School Beer. See also Craft Beer Scribe. Et ceterah… et ceterah… but not Anthony Hopkins. He’s been dry since 1975. Who knew?

Another positive sign was reported by the Protz – with a keen eyed lawyer as key to the action:

….she hoped for a better life in 2016 when it sold the Roscoe to Hawthorn Leisure, the pub-owning division of New River Retail. It wasn’t to be. Hawthorn refused her MRO – Market Rent Only – in order to buy her own beers, on the grounds the company owned fewer than 500 pubs and was outside the terms of the Pubs Code. Carol’s lawyer found that Hawthorn, after buying a package of pubs from Marstons, owned more than 700 pubs and was covered by the code. Hawthorn responded by saying they would take the pub into management in 2021 when Carol’s lease expired.

Hah! Contrarily, here in Ontario, Drunk Polkaroo* wrote about his five greatest disappointments in 2020… other than, you know, 2020 as a whole:

Drink tap water. Warm tap water. And you might get more out of it than shame and sadness. I drink ’em so you don’t have to…Molson Ultra is a 3.0% Light Lager and well, it is light on everything a beer should be. I’ve had light lagers, a lot of them in fact recently and this is not that. Not even that bubbly, leaves a dry, salt like chemical finish after hinting of hops and barley. Blah, but I had to know, didn’t I.

Writing from Washington, DC, the Beerbrarian summed up his year enjoying both music and beer. He noted:

In 2019 I kind of gave up on IPAs. I don’t really know why, it just shook out that way. Well, they’re back, including two stellar double IPAs, normally the bane of my existence. Go figure. Which style declined at IPAs’ expense? Saison. I saw significantly fewer cans of that style around, which is a bummer. From March 13th to the end of the year I had three draft beers. Three! On the plus side, everyone put everything in cans, because they had to.

Three. That’s more that none as one would find now in South Africa – and not supported by the SA Beer Association:

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a televised address that cabinet had decided to move the country to level 3 restrictions from level 1. This would include the total banning of alcohol sales, widespread cancelling of events, and making the wearing of masks in public a legal requirement.

And Boak and Bailey gifted us an end of the year post on Toby Jugs:

What is a Toby jug? It’s a colourful pottery vessel, usually depicting a seated man in embroidered coat and tricorn hat holding a mug of beer and a pipe – decorative rather than useful. More than that, though – Toby jugs are a symbol, a marker, of a Proper Pub. Like other forms of greebling, they add depth, detail and hint at antiquity. They’re also a sort of summoning totem: this jovial, hollow-legged fellow is exactly the kind of customer we want.

Fabulous. We have a Winston Churchill Toby Jug somewhere, circa 1945.

Also ending the year, a couple of navel gazing conversations here and here. First, triggered by the death of that odd thing called October, there was plenty of points of view but this from Matt is the best of the lot:

It’s owners, Condé Naste, will, like all mainstream publishers no doubt avoid further investment in beer coverage in the same vein in the future. This is devastating. As a publisher of an independent beer-focused magazine, things are fucking tough. Readerships are small.

Well, a web-zine. Magazines are found in corner smoke shops and news stands. I know because I buy one at a place like that. It’s about telescopes. Readership definitely is small for beer writing and so being a web-zine is clever. As are patronage subscriptions with little but no return but the continuation of the ‘zine. Second and perhaps in awareness of the endy times for the unsupported beer periodical, this was posed:

Been thinking of @Ben_T_Johnson tweet encouraging peeps to blog more…. anyone interested in a blog about Indigenous home brewer trying to go pro lessons on the way comments about equity diversity and inclusion along the way…. Thoughts?

Many thoughts followed but the key to me was if you want substance, write it yourself. If you don’t want substance, just go all influencer and play with photos on Instagram. If you want money and audience, find another topic. Seriously. Few readers are into thinking about good beer. I could send you dozens of email addresses, addresses of those who had a dream of beer writing that failed. But if you want to enjoy writing about beer, just write about beer – and yes an Indigenous home brewer could well be interesting new voice. With more new content. Not a lot of actual new content out there. Just write. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But just to saw that same log one more time – remember (as I shared in thread #1):

Beer writing is primarily for (1) fellow beer writers, then (2) industry folk then (3) a section of the beer drinking public with not only an interest in beer but interest in someone else’s thoughts. An oddly shaped marketplace of ideas without much symbiotic adjacency

Finally (and least of all) but not unrelated, an example (even if an ugly one), a bit of a non-story got tiny new legs when Harry Schuhmacher perhaps unwisely responded a week after the fact to that odd story in GBH** that looked much more like a hatchet job, a whack to the knees of a fellow struggling competitor than anything approaching actual news. What percentage pf America shares Harry’s (mainly incorrect) view? 30%? 40%? Yet – an interesting accusation that GBH played selective with the quotes. Never saw that coming. Ultimately, sad for all concerned. Unsavory. Reputation is all you have. Don’t waste it.***

Update!:**** Just as the publication October spirals into the black hole somewhat of its own making, Robin had her excellent defense of Twitter published:

Gripes aside, it’s important to remember that Beer Twitter has its uses. In Waite’s case, and in the case of many online subcultures, it can help elevate the voices of someone from a marginalized community even making them a role model within a typically homogenized culture dominated by straight white cis men. Or it could be a place where you can see the professionals of the beer industry shed their two-dimensional enthusiast veneer, bonding over non-beer things and finding comfort, kinship, and solidarity during a time when we need it most.

The thoughts shared mirror much of my own even if I am not a professional of the beer industry. The value of throwing a half baked idea on the table to be beaten up or just being silly is not to be ignored. Great read.

There. Tonight 2020 will be gone. Viva 2021. Viva! Viva!!! And remember throughout 2021 that for more good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday 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 and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Go! Merry Christmas all you all. See you on New Year’s Eve.

*Sober Polkaroo.
**To go along with their odd story on Hong Kong with the strange effort to find a pro-aspect and the other one with the slightly cringy treatment of a business associate accused of racist behavior.
***The legal meaning of “waste” is meant – not just misspend but destroy.
****A mess punctuationally speaking, I admit.