Category: Beer Writing

The December Is Almost Here Edition Of The Beery News Notes

And… that was November. or it will be soon. From mowing the lawn to frozen ground in a mere 30 days. World Series to free agency. Stout sales go from “?” to “!” It’s good like that, November. Knows it’s place. The saddest month. Not cold enough to be bracing and clear like January. Look, I’ve already started to move on. Christmas pressies have been bought. Just have to see if they arrive before January. What else might arrive by then? A Christmas photo contest entry pro photographer Peter B. Collins in 2011 might give you some idea.

Now then… first up, a nice bit of work from Retired Martin this week, a photo essay on Whitelock’s in Leeds interspersed with witty tidbits:

All tables taken, but obviously I’d brought the fine weather with me oop north and you don’t get much better outside seating than this, watching life amble by and end up in the loos for the Turks Head, wondering where you are.

Note: I am pro-deposit for reservations.

Not to overload you with pub observations, Life After Football shared some thoughts on one funny gaffer in “Pickled in Branston“:

The Gaffer had a glint in his eye and when I said, “Can I have a pint of Bass?” He replied with “No you can’t – it’s all mine!” Clearly, a man after my own heart and with four other people in there at about 12.05 he has a base of local punters happy to roll in on a Monday. “I’ll get you that pint young man,” he said and when I said I’d not been called that very often, quick as a flash he replied “I’ve been known to lie!”

Har-har… har… And Boak and Bailey asked a couple of good questions this week, one in their newsletter but first, in a variation on the theme, this about memories of past pubs perfect:

We’ve been struck down by nostalgia lately and find ourselves yearning for a particular experience of the pub. Maybe it’s birthdays. Maybe it’s the emotional impact of the two weirdest years we’ve ever lived through. Or perhaps it was just that excellent pint of Young’s Special at The Railway in Fishponds in Bristol.

They were again a bit nostalgic in the monthly newsletter, this time for beer blogging days.

…in the UK at least, the growth in professional (ish) outlets has sucked up a lot of content that would previously have been on blogs. That’s great news for writers – they get paid! They get proper photography and illustrations to accompany their piece! And it gets promoted properly, too. A few years ago, everyone was fretting about the death of beer media, meaning print magazines. But we wanted that and blogs, not one or the other, right?

Well, no. Print writing can be narrow and often by commission. My take? It may not be so much about the death of blogs as the ascent of a duller sort of paid writing. Don’t get me wrong. Some is great but commissioning editors with creditors set parameters.* People with just an interest have gotten to project themselves as people with authority without the decades of Stan‘s experience or the miles Jeff puts in. Others writers – sometimes the better ones – got jobs, moved on or just ran out of imaginative takes on a limited niche topic.  

Yes, that is where we are. It happens. And when things are slow like they have been in 2021, we tend to move backwards hoping we are staying in place.  This year of almost entirely updated next editions is almost over but not until we have, tah-da, the personalized beer flavour wheel. Beer flavour wheels have been around for decades. I am not sure why I need someone else’s different beer flavour wheel. Never bothered with one yet. But beer flavour wheels have been around for decades so someone must have. Schmelzle‘s dates from 2009. Dr. Morten Meilgaard seems to invented them in the 1970s. I asked a related question a decade ago and still have no idea what the answer is.

Speaking of flogging, this year’s version of the GIBC advertorial in the Chicago Tribune has led to some astounding information, not least of which is this:

The “reserve” package is the one the beer nerds want — 9 Bourbon County beers, including the most limited brands aged in the fancy barrels, for $259.99.

Bizarre. Takes some convincing folk that these prices (and I suppose the advice itself) aren’t suspect – if not grand larceny.

And speaking of the more than a bit weird, the US magazine Esquire published a short opinion piece that led to a long list of complaints:

The first half of a beer is why we drink beer. The second half is an afterthought at best, backwash at worst. If you were to watch all the beer commercials from the beginning of time, you’d hear the words cold and refreshing over and over and over. That’s because marketing people aren’t that creative, and also because that’s what sells beer. No one drinks beer for the tepid second half….

Comments included: (i) No one in their right mind would say this about another foodstuff. “Feel free to toss that second half of cold pizza in the garbage…”; (ii) “You know you can order smaller pours if you want beer to stay cold the whole time?”; and (iii) “Like she had to meet a word count quota before she left for Holiday break.” Esquire has apparently claimed that this is a stab at satire which, if it is true, suggests that it is not actual good satire.

PS: never heard of him either. But it appears the status you are desperately wanting to achieve is so incoherent that it requires outside intervention. And tricks.**

That’s a bit of negativity right there. For a bit right up there. What caused that? Nostalgia? Getting away from the pubs? We need to get grounded. Beth Demmon takes us to the hear and now with the first in a series on the state of the water supply in Southern California where the ground is dry and how the San Diego brewing scene may be facing change:

In such a water-thirsty region, it’s imperative for beverage companies like AleSmith to maximize their materials through sustainability initiatives. Cronin says AleSmith is on a two-year track to become Pure Water compliant through the city of San Diego, which aims to provide one-third of the city’s water supply locally by 2035 by purifying recycled water. Considering that Cronin estimates AleSmith rinses 7,000 – 10,000 gallons of wastewater into the municipal system every day, that’s millions of gallons available for reuse.

I brushed against this topic in 2015 in my superficial way but this is seven levels better. Excellent described detailed research. Additionally and also in the present and the positive, Jordan wrote about himself and what he is doing in beer these days – and this time it all makes utter sense:

I would guess that I probably try somewhere between 500-1000 beers every year, not counting repetition. Beyond a certain point, professionally speaking, beer is content. It’s informational. My fridge is more than half full of obligational beverages that people have sent for review and which might end up on instagram or in an article. I probably won’t finish more than about half of any of them, because the point isn’t drinking them; the point is knowing about them. Beer contains calories, as the new pair of jeans remind me.

Good advice. And look! More good advice. Three ingredient cocktails. Sensible simple tasty booze. That’s positive.

What next? History? History is good. Edd the BHB on 1910 Nottinghamshire ales, the Warwicks & Richardsons range. Did they still sing the song 120 years later? More history? Graham Dineley posed the question of beer stone and prehistoric pottery and found fatal flaws in the research to date:

Many scholarly academic beer “experts” have never actually made beer, and so have no experience or expertise. Brewing beer is a particularly experiential process, where the subtleties and nuances are necessary and essential for the full understanding. Many of these “experts” confuse beerstone with calcium oxalate. 

Finally but not happily, this tweet got my attention from Ren:

The irony of being written out of beer history by women hoping to change beer history…

Reality again. I do wish folk would get out of the way. I was also disheartened this week to see another part of Black experience filtered (again) by GBH through the inclusion of the hand of someone from outside. This is a bit of the opposite of my recent experience with the Beer Culture Summit 2021 produced by the Chicago Brewseum. Hand over the keyboard and get out of the way. No amount of time or miles can replace the unfiltered voice of one who has been there and has something to say.

That’s it. A tough one for good pics this week. A bit of a hard row to hoe if we are looking for the captivating in beer writing. Every week can’t be thrilling. I suppose, that’s the way it goes. Still, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Or is that dead now?) There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. (That’s a bit now and then now.) And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (which he may revive some day…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*Very tempted to go all Ogden Nash and spell it “paramitors.”!
**If your studies include flash cards and tricks… maybe you are not actually studying something at all.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For Remembrance Day 2021

Today is Remembrance Day, a fairly significant thing here in Canada which is largely apolitical even now well past a century after the end of WW1. The image to the right is a photo I took in 2005 at the naval memorial downtown. We’ve had a naval presence here in town since 1673.  And here’s a bit of what I wrote in 2014 about the day on Facebook:

…There are no politics with our vets. More than hockey and donuts, we all actually love our square do-gooder Dudley Do-right military and RCMP. I am lucky to be in a congregation at 51 years of age with a man* who commanded CFB Greenwood near Kingston in NS where I lived when I was 9 years old – and who attended the church where Dad was a minister. We remembered today that when I was a kid and he was in his 40s that all the vets were WW1 and there was even likely a Boer War soldier in the pews…

We government workers in Ontario have the day off but it isn’t a general holiday like it was when I grew up in Nova Scotia. Schools and shops are open. Feels weird.  Vets will be at Legions again this year after being shut in 2020. Drinking beer. I’ll donate a few coins into the little cardboard box and, once again, buy maybe the 7th poppy of 2021 – they seem to disappear within four hours after putting one on.

Elsewhere, Mudgie took a trip into the city centre of Manchester and posted a bit of a travel piece on a certain sort of pub. I was taken by this photo to the right, the absolute dream seat, right there in a wee nook in the tiny Circus Tavern. Fabulous:

It has two small cosy rooms with bench seating. The one at the front always seems to have a vault character and is frequented by the regulars, while the one to the rear is more of a snug. I managed to take a snap of the seating opposite in the brief interlude between it being occupied by groups of customers. Understandably, the Circus didn’t reopen until social distancing restrictions were lifted in July, and anyone concerned about getting too close to others would do well to avoid it. 

Note: another photo of the Circus Tavern with people added won the top prize in our 2012 Yuletide Beery Photo contest.

The other week I was correctly corrected about the lack of a certain beer fest holding a meeting in person – so giddy was I to realize that an update on another and rather gentle in person event was posted by The Beer Nut this week. The live action photo at the end is helpful for scale:

From Zwolle, we set off further westwards on Saturday morning for Gramsbergen, a small town about 3km from the border with Germany. G-berg, as nobody calls it, is home to the Mommeriete brewery, set in a rustic canalside inn, all oak beams and porcelain fireplaces. We missed getting to see it as its normal cosy self since they were gearing up for a beer festival: one organised to celebrate 20 years of the Dutch beer consumers’ organisation PINT, onto which was tacked the official 30th birthday bash for EBCU. It was a modest affair, beginning in the the afternoon and finishing at 7pm, and only three guest breweries were in attendance.

Note: cheese cutting diagrams.

Beer experts don’t really exist like wine experts do. Well, a very few of the former might while a few more of the latter do. If you don’t believe me and still think your website generated certification means anything like expert, consider the career path of Kevin Zraly including this:

That any American restaurant would have a cellarmaster or a sommelier was a rare thing in those days. In 1978, Frank J. Prial, the wine columnist for The Times, wrote an article about the virtual disappearance of the sommelier in restaurants, citing Mr. Zraly as one of a very few good young ones in New York, “the knowledgeable type, not the wine hustler…”

I followed this link to his courses at Wine.com. Look! No phony academic rhetoric, no layers of prerequisite that would shame a Scientologist. Just accessible authoritative information at a plain price and presented directly and on the level. Why can’t beer do that?** We need to consider the relationship between access to information along with inclusion and levelling and the commonality of those who opposed them.

Resulting question: why do wine educators start with the premise that wine is not as complex as we consumers have been told while beer educators seem to start with the premise that beer is more complex than we have been told?**

Much to the contrary, I spent bits of last Sunday watching presentations from the Beer Culture Summit 2021 produced by the Chicago Brewseum. I found the structure refreshing as there was none of the Masonic mystery gatekeeping guild approach to information that is a hallmark of what passes for too many claims expertise in good beer culture. The difference? The focus on professional and personal experience as a pathway to leveling and inclusion. Call it cred. The presenters had cred. I particularly liked “Under-Attenuated: Women, Beer History Studies and Representation” session: Dr. Christina Wade, Tiah Edmunson-Morton, and Atinuke “Tinu” Akintola Diver on their careers researching brewing history. And not only because of Dr. Wade’s defense of the value of blogging brewing history – depth, accessibility, primary citations and immediacy both in terms of time and audience** even if Stan is still standing there at the graveside.  In a time when we see bland generalities devoid of citation but plenty of errors*** win awards for best beer history, it was a call for quality within a call for, you got it, levelling.

Best tweet with beer and meat.

Crop-wise, we saw the 150th anniversary of the first sale of Fuggles this week, as Martyn reminded us:

Today, November 8, marks 150 years  since the Fuggle hop first went on sale, in a field in Paddock Wood, Kent, after Richard Fuggle and his brothers Jack and Harry had spent ten years propagating the variety until they had enough, 100,000 sets, to sell commercially.

Wonderful. And we are also seeing a second crop of the heritage barley variety bere in Scotland this year. Isn’t nature wonderful! More on bere here and here.

Taking a break on his book tour, Jeff wrote excellently about what he has seen in America’s downtowns in late 2021:

Most of my adult lifetime downtowns have been shiny, clean, and fun. They’ve always been a bit artificial, but we social beings flowed into these hubs to see shows, get a meal, buy something nice, and mostly, to feel the exciting hum of other people doing the same thing. Now downtowns are listless and depressing, and many of the businesses are boarded up or on long-term hiatus. There’s less and less reason to visit them.. When cities become nothing more than storefronts for the rich, they teeter on a narrow balance point. Did Covid just disrupt that balance?

Possibly the winner for Generic Praise-Laced Brewery Owner Bio Template of 2021.  B.O.B.s are the best. But this one has the header “A World-Class Pairing” which really takes it over the top.

More B.O.B. as a Euro male led publication hires Euro male writer to speak to a Euro male bar owner about diversity in the beer scene in BC’s Okanagan. I’d have more trust in the editorial call if the statement “…only a couple of people in the BIPOC community that even lived here when I was growing up…” was fact checked. While there is a reference to a Indigenous family business, here’s the map of Indigenous communities (aka the “i” in BIPOC) for BC. The communities of the Syilx Okanagan Nation are right there in the south centre. The Central Okanagan Local Immigration Partnership Council formed in 1983 seems pretty active, too. Question: why do writers of B.O.B.s never check in with customers or staff to find out if the claims are correct? The subject in this case could be fabulous… but we don’t know.

Beer prices are going up. Beer prices are going down.

Finally, I was sad to see a dismissive response to my comments about Pellicle’s decision to run and highlight a childish cartoon image about an actual ambush of soldiers where many died. Part of a story that is still recalled hurtfully in my region which touches on both my actual job and my brewing history research. It’s also an entirely unnecessary image and adds nothing to the story. At best, it is just a failed analogy. In an era when we are trying to drive out misrepresentation, appropriation and negativity from the good beer discussion, this sort of hyperbolic grasping for aggrandizing analogies is more than unfortunate. Do better.

Oh… and somebody sold their brewery.  Good beer. Nothing much will change.

There’s plenty to chew on. To complain about. For more, check out the updates from that same Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan now on a regular basis again every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword which may revive some day.  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*This is he
**We appreciate that folk have ambitions but actual earned and experienced knowledge is always more helpful than insta-recognition by those editors with creditors. BTW, EWCs are not levellers. BTWx2: what even is a “certified pro“?
***1500s Flemish farmers? 

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For A… For A… I Dunno…

You can get in a rut about things can’t you. These headers for example. It’s just a thing. But a thing almost in a rut. Is craft beer in a rut? I dunno. It didn’t do anything new and stupid this week, did it? It is, however, like a thing that could find itself in a rut, isn’t it.  Makes people say odd things… like: “…not me, not my part of the thing… my thing is really a separate thing…” When things are actually fairly bad, people still take time to say that sort of thing. Because this thing is not like that thing. Not my thing. Can’t be. Never.

First up, the views shared by Alistair at Fuggles on home brewing around little kids ring true for me as I packed in my questionable home brewing hobby completely once we were well and truly surrounded by rut rats :

This weekend was the twins 4th birthday and with time speeding by at a fair old clip, it feels difficult to justify taking 8 hours, give or take, to brew an all grain batch of homebrew. While there is no shortage of decent beer to be had in the central Virginia region, either locally produced or from further afield, there are still times when I just want to drink something I have brewed myself. Enter pre-prepared malt extract.

Speaking perhaps of my home brewing, I found this piece on on imposter syndrome as suffered by women in the drinks trade interesting but I was particularly interested as I have known many men who admit to suffering from the experience as well, especially in law:

Imposter syndrome, according to the American Psychological Association, is a psychological phenomenon wherein you doubt your own skills, abilities, and inherent worth, no matter how much you achieve or accomplish. For many, it’s an inner voice that whispers, “you’re not good enough, you don’t know anything, and one day, everyone is going to find out… storytelling has the power to combat imposter syndrome; however, it will take a proactive effort to tell stories that go beyond the bylines, brewers, and old-boy’s networks that have dominated both breweries and beer journalism.”

Come to think of it, a lot of what sucks about craft beer sucks about law. Stress. Alcohol. Irrational expectations. But not the 50 kg sacks of grain. Even in my early 40s when folks wanted me in on a brewery I knew there was no way I could hack hauling around 50 kg sacks of grain. I wasn’t ever going to go there once I grew used to the seeming reassurance of the hard tight black shoes.

Next up? Just last week I wrote:

Thing never said in beer: “…and certainly thanks to all those who nominated the winners…” Oh… 

And this very week I am pleased to read:

Oh wow, this is huge. A massive thank you to whoever nominated me and a huge congratulations to all the other incredibly talented people on this list!

Which is great. More of this, please. And congratulations Charlotte Cook aka @ilikeotters along this the others who were nominated by even further others who, as nominees in the Best Brewer of Britain category, likely can in fact haul around 50 kg sacks of malt, nae doddle.

How to quit in style. Fabulous.

Careful readers out there will recall that I have a particular thing for the role of alcohol in early victualing of ships‘ holds. This week VinePair shared what dear old Ferdie Magellan was packing:

Documents from Magellan’s expedition cite a hefty 203 butts (barrels) and 417 wineskins — from the Jerez wineries in southwest Spain’s Andalusia region — made it onboard. Today, this amounts to nearly 243,000 liters of booze. Magellan and his crew must have really needed the extra liquid luck on the expedition, seeing as the cost of wine and other provisions amounted to 1,585,551 maravedis. Taking inflation and conversions into account, Magellan brought about $475,665 worth of booze on board. Researcher and crew member Navarrete noted in Document No. XVII that this number accounted for 20 percent of all costs on board.

Speaking of the ancient of days, Garrett Oliver himself guided me to this story in The Harvard Gazette about the scale of brewing in ancient Egypt:

Thanks to his recent excavation of a brewery in the ancient Egyptian city of Abydos, the senior research scholar at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts may get his wish, and soon. But the excavation revealed far more than a way to reconstruct an ancient recipe for suds. The industrial-scale production — on par with today’s best microbreweries — offers direct evidence of the kind of power wielded by Egyptian kings.

I would have thought sustaining an empire for thousands of years might have been evidence enough of the power of Egypt but… you know… I am not a guy who went to Haaaa-vaaaard. Where they call beer suds!*

Evan Rail on hard seltzers: “I thought most of them were gross. A few were harmless but boring. Several were close to nauseating.” Exactly.

Gary Gillman (aka Gee-Gee… OK, not) went off on an interesting wander around what is/was and what is/was not the North American hop known as Neomexicanus care of a part called part one (including below) and part (…wait for it…) two:

…the sources mentioned seem to reserve “neomexicanus” for the Rocky Mountain, American-origin hop while “Manitoba” or “Canadian” describes another hop from North America. While classification as such for regional examples of North American wild hops is beyond my scope here, it might be noted that location – terroir, if you will – plays an important role for all hop attributes, even relatively locally as Stephens explains in her article.

I just don’t believe in #RauchBeerMonth.

Throughout the Commonwealth we hear comments about the news that Vanity Fair has reported: HRH The Sovereign Herself has got to cut back:

According to two sources close to the monarch, doctors have advised the Queen to forgo alcohol except for special occasions to ensure she is as healthy as possible for her busy autumn schedule and ahead of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations next June. “The Queen has been told to give up her evening drink which is usually a martini,” says a family friend. “It’s not really a big deal for her, she is not a big drinker but it seems a trifle unfair that at this stage in her life she’s having to give up one of very few pleasures.”

I dunno. Ninety-five? That’s when I start smoking menthol ciggies regularly. I’ve beaten the odds by then. No filters either. Something else is killing me by then.

Daniel Craig‘s choice of bars makes perfect sense:

“I’ve been going to gay bars for as long as I can remember,” the 53-year-old actor told Bruce Bozzi on the “Lunch with Bruce” podcast. “One of the reasons (is) because I don’t get into fights in gay bars that often. … The aggressive dick swinging in hetero bars, I just got very sick of it as a kid because it’s like I don’t want to end up being in a punch-up. And I did. That would happen quite a lot.”

Nice. Still, can’t go a week without reminding you all of how craft has failed once again, with some pointing out how BrewDog seeking to redefine arsehole ridden work environment with the phrase “high-performance culture” which guides one’s mind to the article on imposter syndrome up there… and perhaps thoughts on who exactly is the imposter in these cases?  The burdened worker or the poser jet set whiner?

I can’t even imagine how horrible having a fruit lambic with eggs benedict might be.**

In the category of “discussions of places I will never go” I came across this fantastic example of a buried lede in this quotey piece on a Cornish rarity, Spingo,  in Pellicle by Lily Waite:

“Spingo is the definition of a cult beer. It stands outside the ‘scene’ and, like [local annual festival] Flora Day, is about Helston doing its own thing,” says Jessica. “They bring out a new beer every twenty years or so and that’s it. The locals seem happy with Middle and, from our observations, seem to regard Flora Daze as a dangerous innovation. You haven’t really experienced Spingo until you’ve had a pint at 8am on Flora Day, dispensed from a hosepipe into a plastic glass. Magic.”

Speaking of Jessica, she and Ray visited Kirkstall Brewery in Leeds and provided a first hand report. The story illustrates how superior the web based beer writing can be if only that it is current.  Like radio reporting on a sports event, it’s fresh and immediate even if a snapshot of a weekend trip I wasn’t on and can’t realistically replicate. By contrast, the piece on Stingo above refers to a visit in June. Why the backlog? Why wait for Waite? Worse, of course, is when you have to read through something that comes out of a physical printing press.  Stale and via mail. Viva hands on laptops! Vivi!!

Viva indeed. For more check out the updates from that same Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan now on a regular basis again every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. 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, and The Moon Under Water.

*I love knowing that someone’s ass is burning by someone else calling beer “suds” because it totally disrespects their mild addiction cloaked as a hobby.
**Not to mention which fruit was lambicized before the eggs benedict was held hostage.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The End Of Q3 2021

Do you ever find yourself on a Wednesday evening and realizing you didn’t note a lot beery news in a week? No? Me neither. No way. What’s been going on? I can tell you for sure. Because I have been attentive. Saw stuff like this:  Curtis walked into a 2005/2010 central New York beer store cosplay event this week. That was something. And I cracked a new databased to dig through for new 1700s New York brewery information as part of the work on Empire Beer. Just typing “Lispenard” gave me, like you, a rush as well as a renewed sense of purpose. I found a reference that pushed the brewing career of Mr. Leadbetter back one whole year. And Craig found Albany beer for sale in Boston in the 1730s. Inter-colonial beer shipments almost 300 years ago. Neato. Oh – and I didn’t drink beer in a graveyard. So there.

First up, I had no idea about France… keeping in mind the first thing that comes to mind with much beer industry writing is the question “is that really true?”:

It may be famous for its wine, but France is also the country with the largest number of breweries in Europe. This is how French beer changed its image from a “man’s drink” to a refined beverage worthy of an apéro… The number of microbreweries here has exploded over the past decade. The country went from having 442 active breweries in 2011, to 2,300 today, meaning no country in Europe has more breweries than France, according to the trade union Brasseurs de France. 

Next, an update on the Umqombothi situation. You will recall that in June a man took the prize for making the best Umqombothi, right? Well, now the traditional South African beer faces regulation:

With the newly-amended Liquor Products Act that came into effect last Friday, there are now strict production requirements that traditional beer merchants will have to abide by in order to stay on the right side of the law. Thembisile Ndlovu has made a name for herself as the queen of brewing umqombothi the natural way it was done by grandmothers back in the villages. The 36-year-old from Zondi in Soweto, who is owner of All Rounder Theme events that organises themed parties and provides catering, said the new law regulating the making of umqombothi would not affect her business.

Odd seeing Pellicle win second place in a “best blog” award this week. From Beer 52 which fulls wells knows what Pellicle is. It’s not that it got an award or came second. It’s that it recognized that the drinks website was a blog. There is an interesting comment hidden in the explanation of the award:

…Pellicle has stuck to a founding principle that I recall finding quite radical at the time: kindness. Next to the toxic dumping ground of rivalry and acrimony that is Beer Twitter, Pellicle has been unremittingly positive in choosing what to cover and how to cover it.

I don’t disagree but I also find it weird that the fairly barren wasteland for any beer discussion on Twitter is set up as the comparator. Having made a hobby of reading this stuff every week, beer Twitter died off a long time ago. May still be general jerk Twitter, sure. And both GHB Sightlines and Dave Infante’s  Fingers have recently seen the need to put up a paywall to make ends meet. Is “beer blog” the last phrase standing? Maybe so – if that is what Pellicle is. Speaking of which, they published an excellent piece by Will Hawkes on  hops growing in England:

Crucially, the hop gardens sit on rich, fertile Brickearth soil, windblown loam and silt, deposited during the Ice Age. The Thames Estuary is just three miles away, and the hops, which grow on a gentle east-facing slope, are frequently buffeted by wind. This proximity to the sea is part of what makes East Kent Goldings what they are, although John regards it as a mixed blessing. “They can end up a bit bashed and brown,” he says. “The German hops are always pristine! They must get no wind there.”

Speaking of which, Stan’s Hop Queries blog by email showed up this week including observations on the Colorado hop market:

MillerCoors (now MolsonCoors) subsidized Colorado’s mini-hop boom in the teens, paying much more for Colorado grown hops than the brewery would have for the same varieties from the Northwest. They were, and are, used in the Colorado Native line of beers. That includes seven year-round brands and four seasonals that are brewed with 100% Colorado-grown ingredients. However, a few years ago MolsonCoors cut back its hop contracts to “right-size” inventory. Many farmers weren’t ready to compete.

Stan also noted that the Ales Through the Ages beer history conference has gone Zoomy and yet, even after scrapping the junket side, has also ditched all of the original speakers. Did ticket sales bomb for what many thought, as I observed last April, could have been called “Males on Ales Through the Ages”?

And Andy Crouch guided me to an article in Wine Enthusiast on the tepid performative solidarity craft beer is displaying in response to bigotries in the craft beer trade:

“… I keep getting messages and emails and calls, and people just stopping by the brewery, every day, just being like either this person apologized to me, or this person was fired, or the company just did this for everybody, and just letting me know all these really positive changes that people are actually sticking to and doing what they say. “It is heartwarming to know that it actually is helping people and creating lasting change.” To bring these issues to light in the customer sphere, in July, Allan announced a collaboration beer called Brave Noise. Its aim is to promote a safe and discrimination-free beer industry. At press time, fewer than 100 breweries had committed to the project.

Craft fibs category ticked. Back in England but still about forms of ticking, Mudgie guided me to the post at Real Ale, Real Music about an excellent pub crawl in Preston:

I retraced my route, passing dozens of takeways, a few restaurants, vape shops, beauty salons, and the odd pub as Saturday evening came to life. I had decided I would visit one more place before getting the train home. It was back across town, back to Fishergate, where down the side street by Barclays Bank was the Winckley Street Ale House, another recommendation from earlier in the day. There were tables outside, as there were at other spots on a pleasant side street, and as I walked in I joined a queue to the bar. It moved slowly, but finally it was my turn.

Reality. I believe what I read in that story more than I believe that France has more breweries than any other country in Europe. Or that much of craft cares. Facts! That’s what we need.

That’s it. For more check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan now apparently a regular again every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast (this week… VIKINGS!!!), at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. 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, and The Moon Under Water.

These Notes Are Beery And Newsy So It Could Well Be Thursday

If these comments come off as rushed and last minute, there is a reason. Long busy week – even as it looks like it might well end soon enough this being Thursday. And I’m bummed out by the Red Sox choking. And… much bigger a bummer… even though there are upcoming weeks off, there is the good old delta just a’rushing in, trying to block my way to the rooftop patio bar with the apps menu. Or just wanting to go to a game like Stan wanted to …. and just have a beer bat‘s worth. Now, I wake in the night with visions of carefully reserved hotels rooms, where I want to go for the first break in two years… finding myself again blocked by travel restrictions. Boo.

First off, just a few months after it was argued that beer guilds could not should not be considered to have a role in responding to the bad behaviours of some of their members, the New York City Brewers Guild gave one the boot:

“We are aware of the recent allegations against Gage Siegel of Non Sequitur Beer Project. These allegations directly contradict the core values and mission of the New York City Brewers Guild,” the guild wrote on Instagram last week. “In order to ensure a safe space for our guests, members and community at large, the guild has revoked the membership of Non Sequitur Beer Project; and they will not be participating in any upcoming guild sponsored events, meetings or collaborations.”

Good. And speaking of which, I know I post a lot of links to Martin’s posts about beer ticking and UK pubs but they really are fabulous what with a bit of wit and a bit of photos, both from unusual angles. But this is one of his best and it has nothing to do with the drink:

Enough pictures of beer. Let’s do a curry. As always, let Glaswegian legend Curry Heute be your guide. His website is to Chicken Dhansak what BRAPA is to John Smiths Smooth. But he’s little positive to say about Sheffield, and to be honest there do seem to be far more Chinese than Indian/Bangladeshi options in town. Curry Heute’s pick is Apna Style, just south of Bramall Lane, which seemed to justify a return visit.

Conversely, the jerk of the week award may well go to British Columbia’s Minister of Agriculture, Ben Stewart who tweeted:

Business owners across BC are struggling to stay open as Gov’t programs don’t encourage workers to seek employment. This is wrong!

How does this connect to a boozed up blog? He also runs a winery that has taken government subsidization and sells pretty pricey plonk while hunting down low pay labour. Nice.

Relatedly, Kate B. wrote a good piece on a similar situation for CB&B entitled “Help Wanted: Breweries Rethink Employment to Adjust to Staff Shortages” with this intro:

Portland, Oregon’s Von Ebert Brewing estimates it has thrown thousands of dollars behind employee recruitment this summer. The brewery has given away merchandise at job fairs, promoted its job postings on websites such as Indeed and Facebook, and offered $500 signing bonuses after 90 days of employment. The return on that investment hasn’t been good. “It’s moving the needle almost zero,” says Dom Iaderaia, Von Ebert’s director of food and beverage.

What to do when people want to do what they want? The follow up tweeting leaned a bit to the “raise the red banner high!” side with a number pointing out craft breweries avoiding unionization is part of the question.

We had a good long Lars post this week that ends with the unusual statement “I want to make it very clear that this is not my work. I’m just repeating what’s in the paper.” Which is good and all fine as the post is an explanation of a very science-y bit of science related to particular properties of kveik.  Just look at this:

The seven octagons are genes. Let’s start with the upper four: the yellow ones turn glucose into trehalose inside the cell, and the orange ones are regulatory genes that control when trehalose is produced. The kveik strains have changes in all four of these genes, but particularly in the regulatory ones. That’s very likely the reason they make more trehalose.

I know, me too! I have no idea what it is all about but it is neato for sure. And if you like trehalose, check out Stan on the thiols.

Somewhat conversely or perhaps similarly, Jenny P. wrote this:

The quest for “authenticity” in beer has always been something that has bothered me—for one, most of its history has been captured by white men, through a European lens. Who are the critics who get to say a beer (or cuisine) is authentic? It’s a limited scope.

…and then this:

I think it’s more than that—authentic is never objective. Authentic has always been decreed. Who made the decision which tradition or method was authentic?

…then this:

I think there’s a very big difference when talking about Tradition vs Authentic.

It’s very similar to the heritage v. history thing. I think. Does the man known as The Driver have it right? Perhaps. I know who has it wrong – the maker of shit. Speaking of shit, a Halifax NS brewery is offering folk a whole $1 coin (and that’s Canadian) for a social media post:

…you have to pick up one of the five eligible brews at your local liquor store. Then you have to post a photo or video on Instagram of the beer with @goodrobotbrew and #sponsored or #ad in the caption. After that, Good Robot will slide into your DMs to confirm your email and then e-transfer you $1 for each post.

What a stupid idea. Unless they aim to destroy the local market for beer influencers.  Then it’s dumb and stupid.

This week on GBH: a middling post about hops in Italy accompanied but some really weird blobby art. Much better at Pellicle: “…The Inherent Whiteness of British Beer Writing“!

When I wrote this piece on racism craft brewers face in the beer industry I was surprised that such a bold investigative report requiring a lot of time, guidance and investment was given the green light, considering it was the first story that I had approached Pellicle with. But why am I one of the lone minority voices who write about beer compared to other sectors, like food, which sees far more writing from people from diverse backgrounds?

One interesting suggestion in response: overhaul writing award categories “which currently favour print media and target influencers and bloggers.” Where have I heard that before!?!? But the real truth is shared by Pete Brown: “I’m chronically in debt…” There is no moolah in any of this.  Does that make the hardscrabble harder? Less welcoming?

Hmm… let’s leave it there. Lots to think about. For more and maybe even something else, get ye into yon 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 a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow 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, and The Moon Under Water.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For Summer’s Sprint

Here we are. The second month of summer. Soon it will be halfway through summer. Spring takes its time. Lingers. Summer is a sprint. To keep pace, I ran a couple of breakneck polls on Twitter asking you good folks about the biggest lies told by craft beer. Hard to narrow it down after writing this weekly column for so long. One immediate finding from the first poll was that the “craft is 99% asshole free” lie is a lie of general application. Whether it’s the bad boss, the sexist and the racist on staff at the bar, the beer writer spreading health myths or assigning blame for beer can hand grenades to the consumer… the general rule has wide application. So I ran it again with that option removed. We’ll see. Tune in for continuing coverage at 11.

Out there in the world beyond my own mind’s wanderings, Andy Crouch posted a really interesting audio interview at Beer Edge with actual reporter Norm Miller this week. Their chat starts seven minutes in but it is well worth the wait. Andy and Norm discuss things like their respective court room experiences – but the real angle on the story is their views of the unhealthy relationship with beer seen too often in the craft beer scene:

Norm wrote that he was giving up beer writing because he needed to stop drinking. He talked about the impact his tasting was having on both his physical and mental health. It was a bold and honest piece of writing and should be required reading for everyone in the beer industry. Spend anytime at a beer event or industry get together and it quickly becomes obvious that some and perhaps many in the beer business have an unhealthy relationship with the product they sell. Whether it’s overconsumption, drinking and driving, or forgiving behavior that would otherwise be unforgivable but for the presence of alcohol, it’s the third rail of the American beer business, one that few dare to touch.

Well, one of the third rails along with observed sexist behaviours, observed bigoted behaviours, the actual financial status of breweries,* the pervasive packaging of canned craft hand grenades….

Less ominously, here’s a lovely and witty visit to the Welsh town of Builth Wells presented by a very busy Martin which includes a portrait of the Greyhound Hotel. Less Welsh by far and over in the cyberverse, on Sunday, Ron and Mitch Steel and a few other guys are talking on your computer screen about IPA. Govern yourselves accordingly.

Looking into recent brewing history, Ray and Jess of the B and the other B wrote extensively about Harp Lager with lots of quotes and imagery  and then get some great comments providing further detail.

The brewhouse was fitted with a Steinecker Hydro-Automatic system which meant that “from a control console… the whole brewing operation is controlled by one man, from the selection and transfer of the grain to the pumping of the finished wort to the wort receiver”. The formal opening ceremony took place on 28 June 1963 with an inaugural brew started by the Queen’s cousin, Lord Mountbatten – a sign that this was a big deal.

I will never think of the phrase “Steinecker Hydro-Automatic system” the same way again. By they way, did I ever mention that my grandfather had a heated chat with Lord Mountbatten – right after he had told Lord Louis’s Admiral to go fuck himself? During of a naval engagement in WW2. Probably told you already…

Across the Irish Sea, Marble Beer Ltd., seemingly sensing that BrewDog was getting all the attention in the “how not to respond well to crisis” contest, came out with one of the best semi “sorry not sorry” admissions seen in a long time:

…we believe we owe it to not only our team but also our loyal customers and drinkers to set out how we are going to build and nurture a positive, inclusive and fair Marble community now, and in the future. However, before we continue we feel it’s only fair to our previous management that we first state that some of the allegations made on line were outright falsehoods, but that does not mean we do not wholeheartedly accept that the company fell far short at times…

Wow. There are a lot of moving parts in there. Cookie gave the heads up and a fair commentary, too. Unnecessary and not a wholesome part of any apology.

In industrial packaging news, once again another week sees another complaint about incompetent packaging errors in the drinks trade. Not quite the beer can hand grenade situation (as seen above) but the expensive bottle of cider that empties half of itself before you have a sip as reported upon by CiderReviewAdam:

There are too many ciders, particularly but not exclusively, pét nat ciders that are frankly explosive. This was marketed as high end and sold at, for cider, a premium price. It should not be losing half of itself on opening… The average consumer’s tolerance for this sort of thing is a lot shorter than mine is, and this sort of incident, happening with the regularity it does, comes across as amateurish.

Note: amateur is not the opposite of professional in this context. This is not amateurish. It is incompetent professionalism. As are beer can hand grenades. Unless you are you just pretending you are a journalist, tell this story.

My patronage recipient, Matt, linked to a story of his posted a few weeks ago at the Ferment 52 blog on the question of whether beer can be too fresh:

… I decided to speak to brewers about it. And while some denied it was something they had experienced, others said they found it to be a common phenomenon, and referred to it as can, or bottle shock. The idea being that the very process of packaging and shipping beer can cause its flavours to destabilise—albeit temporarily—and that giving them time to properly rest before serving is what’s required for maximum enjoyment. Some even took this view further, admitting that their beer didn’t taste quite how they wanted until several weeks after it’s packaged.

This reminds me of good wine having to sit for a day after travelling as well as coming in and out of point on a 6 to 12 month cycle. But it’s really also pointing out that very fresh beer is a different thing. Also good but different.

Over there in the wine world, the winner of the inaugural Crap Tasting Note of the Year awards has been announced:

From the very opening, with the rhyme of ‘bright’ and ‘light’ to the pointless alliteration of ‘excited effervescence’ (have you ever seen a lethargic effervescence?)  it’s clear that we are dealing with tasting gibberish of the very highest order. Yet the writer sustains it throughout. There’s more garbage in 97 words here than some writers manage in notes three times that size. There’s unnecessarily archaic language (‘writ’), more alliteration (vigour of the vintage), and garbled imagery. Why would a soloist be monochrome, for Chrissake? What does it even mean? And why have you mixed up sound and colour? 

Less honestly wholesome yet somewhat indistinguishable is one of the more embarrassing examples of the blog-for-pay** GBH self-promotion was published this week but it was not in GBH. Looks like Washington Post journalist Julia Bainbridge was pestered by emails from the cheap seats and gave them some space at her personal blog… oh, it’s a newsletter. Things we learn include: (i) “…we (the media) need to be clearer about the numbers and what they really mean…” (ii) “…Beers brewed with fruit have had a crazy last couple of years, and Bryan is like the only reporter I have seen cover this…” and (iii) “…American psyche for food and beverage is unique in the world…” Grab easily available stats, repackage the obvious as insight and – Voila! – expertise. Amazeballs.

I think that’s enough for now. Have to go gaze at the Twitter polls for another few hours. Hey, don’t forget to check out those 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 a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow 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, and The Moon Under Water.

*Remember when seeming adults presenting as seasoned beer writers but dependent on continued access to craft brewery owners insisted over and over that there was no money in brewing craft beer? That was great.
**“It’s a magazine… it’s a real grown up magazine… it is!!! I just have three other jobs to maintain access to my sources…“

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For Mid-July

Beer season. This right here. This week. This is the week in all the beer ads. Mid-July. No “Back to School” sale ads on the TV yet and no freak snow storm hits Manitoba” news items of the Weather Network. Right here. Right now. The moment of beer. Perfect. I spent a similar perfect summer night, the night before last, stuck at the site of that weird weekend seven years ago with Ron Pattinson and hairy Jordan, when I stayed at an airport hotel full of wedding parties to save a buck. Well, I had to see my middle kid off on a plane so it only made sense to stay at the same place, right? No. Odd seeing the formerly jammed hotel essentially devoid of people. And devoid of services like food. I also had a work meeting from 5:30 to 10:45 in the evening by Zoom which was also odd to do in a hotel room. I don’t know how any of that relates to my new favourite web thing, pictures of dogs people have rescued that are really coyotes but there you go.

OK. Enough! Let’s get right to the good beer reading. There was a most thoughtful article on saison published by Joe Stange in Beer and Brewing. It provides great insight as to the methodology he recommends for formulating a beer.  Like this passage about grain options:

Chucking in different grains is fully in the spirit of saison. Keep it intentional: Know what malted or unmalted grains are going to do to your flavor and body, and choose them based on the profile you want. Wheat and spelt can bring softness and nutty, lemony notes, for example. Rye tends to bring peppery notes along with a certain smoothness. Or keep it clean and bright—Saison Dupont, after all, is brewed with 100 percent pilsner malt. 

Know. Great word choice. Best line: “I’ve never had a saison that was more drinkable because of spices, but I’ve had many that would’ve been more drinkable without them.”

Top tier side interest from Katie Mather – Speedway!

I was delighted to find Shove it, Chuck it, Toss it… a blog about English pub games, a topic near to my heart and largely distant from my experience. Consider this detailed description of The Princess Royal in Taunton, Somerset including facts facts facts like this:

With social distancing rules in place for another couple of weeks at least, pubs of all sizes are having to be very careful and creative around the potential for crowding, particularly during large sporting events like the EUROs. Some of the more traditional West Country pubs are better equipped than most to deal with these issues thanks to their (currently mothballed) Skittle Alleys. The Princess Royal is one such pub, with a substantial Twin Skittle Alley/Function Room that’s currently being put to good use as an overspill to the main bar when things get a bit too busy.

Staying in Britain* I spotted this excellent observation on the state of cask ale from El Mudgeo:

You might well think that, if cask beer is struggling, there is already an organisation ideally placed to champion and promote it, and indeed incorporates it in its name. However, over the years, CAMRA’s objectives have multiplied and become more diffuse, and cask beer itself doesn’t seem to feature very high on its list of priorities. No doubt many members will say that Marston’s beers wouldn’t be much loss anyway, while happily sipping on a keg mango sour in the craft bar. It is a touch hypocritical to claim that you are campaigning for real ale while at the same time dismissing most of it as not really worth drinking.

Excellent continuation of the story of a walk from Max:

The place I wanted to go to was about 7 km away, but the walk promised to be mostly under the sun and I just couldn’t be arsed. Fortunately, there’ s a train leaving regularly from the town’s main station that would take me (almost) there in a few minutes – it was a no-brainer. But what to do with the time I would save? Pivoing, of course; I remembered Minipivovar Labuť still had a few beers I wanted to try.

Excellent continuation of the story of Charleston:

Mr. Sammy Backman has been a family friend since I was three years old. A significant part of my upbringing took place on James Island at Backman’s Seafood, a family-owned dock and seafood market that’s been around since the late 1950s. In my life, I’ve never referred to him as anything other than “Mr. Sammy.” “Back then, Black folks didn’t own any boats. It was hard for us to get loans,” Mr. Sammy says. “My mother once paid off a $100,000 loan, only to have the bank ask for collateral when she later asked for a $10,000 loan.”

Excellent story elaboration via Twitter from Dr. Christina Wade:

We also have an Old Babylonian text from Ur, which is basically one giant insult, which among phrases like ‘’You are the one who disappears from work” and ‘you raise an afflicted hand in order to eat food’.

The Tand wrote of “the Beer Police” which is nice if only because it reminds us that folk are getting back to normal and fretting over nothings:

It is funny how tables have turned, but didn’t CAMRA with its erstwhile disapproval of keg beer, used to get the same Beer Police allegations thrown at them? For the record CAMRA is all about choice with an emphasis on cask ale. In line with that, my drinking last Thursday, with its overwhelming predominance of cask, fully complied with this. “Take that Beer Police.” The Beer Police have also been having a pop at us Bass drinkers. Liking Bass is harmless, doesn’t mean approval of Molson Coors and there are bigger beery fish to fry, so lay off.

Speaking of Ron, he discovered that Canada was in fact part of the British Empire in both the spirit and letter of the law this week:

Have you spotted my current theme yet? Obviously, it’s Canada. Only joking. IPA…  Away from the topic of this post: Canadian IPA in the late 19th century. I’d forgotten that I had these. It was only when I started going through my analyses of IPAs that I spotted them. That’s the problem with having so much information. You can’t remember all of it. What strikes me is the similarity to domestic UK IPA. (Only because I was looking at those yesterday could I remember.). The Canadian versions average out a little stronger, by 3º in gravity and 0.34% ABV. While the rate of attenuation was a little lower, but still very high.  Still, a striking similarity between the two sets, despite being brewed 50 years apart.

And finally, more “BrewDog sucks” news at VinePair which is really getting so common is it even really news anymore?

Posts on the shareholders-only, company-run BrewDog EFP forum, reviewed by VinePair, suggest that the brewer has at times struggled to deliver on the perks it has promised its punks. A November 2020 thread has become a 2,000-posts-and-counting clearinghouse for equity punks’ grievances, ranging from long-delayed deliveries and reduced “lifetime” discounts, to poor communication from the company in which they’ve invested. “By the way still no EFP beer after waiting nearly 2 years,” posted a frustrated punk. “For a beer company that makes beer, wastes beer, pours away beer, makes more beer … is it really too much to send said beer to it’s [sic] shareholders as promised?”

Yes, it is too much. Because that was not the point of giving them money.

Contrary-wise to all the foregoing, have you noticed the over use and misuse of “nuance” in beer chit-chattery? It seems to be getting worse.  Tends to ultimately mean “my point is not being well made” as far as I can tell. In this moment, the second and third level writers** (none of which are mentioned above) seem to be jockeying*** a bit like the first level ones did not long after Michael Jackson died. That was more subtle. Folk suddenly added “top beer writer” to their web bios. Within days. “Top not dead beer writer” was more like it. Anyway – and as with “leading” – I think “nuance” is a marker of some sort. But what? Jockeying for the small cheques docile compliance offers? And how does it relate to finding yourself washing a coyote in your bathtub?**** I only mention it as I have to wade through the stuff each week.

That’s all for this week. For more, don’t forget to check out those 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 a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow 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, and The Moon Under Water.

*Unlike that trophy…
**The finest of the regularly wrong, much more so than that boogieman “the media“!
***It’s all a bit of a status v. merit struggle, like the 1790s tensions between the Washingtonians and the Jeffersonians. Whiggery depended on the mutual acceptance of status regardless of merit whereas libertarian might is right principle was all about the cacophony of the aggregate ends justifying the means. Whigs give us the small intense circle of praise seal mitten cartoons from Ackbar planet and the textual equivalent. Whigs praise each other as important. That makes them important, too. See? But who can really be trusted? None. Who is an expert? Nobody. In a small pond with too many fish for the available oxygen, things get rough. These aren’t those early days by that small lake at William’s Coopers Town.
****Other than, you know, the seeming requirement to be fundamentally wrong about obvious things.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes Welcoming The Second Third Of June 2021

I keep telling myself it will be a short update this week because not much happened but then (i) something happens and/or (ii) I get into my notes and I see that more happened than I thought. That’s the way of the world, folks. Speaking of which, robsterowski guided my eye to the jokey image to the right which is a helpful guide to the clans of beer writers today. Or is it? Sad commentary, that’s what it is. But what do you expect when there’s seltzer scriveners about?

But this is the way it is going for beer these days, not just those writing about beer. It’s all so uninteresting all of a sudden – which, if you think about it, is somewhat interesting.  Consider this extraordinary open letter to BrewDog published by Punks with Purpose. There are over 100 named and anonymous co-signers who say they are former BrewDog employees making extremely pointed accusations about the workplace environment:

Put bluntly, the single biggest shared experience of former staff is a residual feeling of fear. Fear to speak out about the atmosphere we were immersed in, and fear of repercussions even after we have left.

What an extraordinary statement about something as banal as a brewing outfit.  Who needs to impose a culture of fear to make beer? Update: James, corporate head of the brewery, attempted a response and made it pretty much worse.

You could as easily ask who needs to be a sexist pig to make but but Ruvani de Silva of Craft Beer Amethyst came across another craft brewery with bigotry based branding. WTAF indeed.  I used to write posts with titles like “This Is How US Craft Beer Will Kill Itself” on the silly independent beer campaign on 2012 or 2014’s “Yet Another Way Craft Will Kill Itself?” in which we considered the beginnings of craft as gimmick, the foundations of today’s bewildering non-beer beer market. Interesting to see that it may well be the capitalist pigs who kill of craft through simply being found out. Who told you otherwise?

It does seem to be all collapsing slowly, doesn’t it. Former darling NC craft brewery destination of the ticking traveling set and the tourism associations providing the related funding, the venerable Weeping Radish which was established in 1986, has gone up for sale:

North Carolina’s oldest microbrewery, which originally opened its doors in Manteo next to the Christmas Shop, is now located 35 miles north on a 25-acre farm at 6810 Caratoke Highway in Grandy in Currituck County. The sale includes the building, land and the entire business, according to a listing. The asking price is $2.6 million.

No questions about the sale are being answered. That’s a great way to stoke up a market for your properties, isn’t it.

Perhaps (taking in all the above) whistling past the graveyard, Jeff takes on a very apolitical question in this a very political time – the question of the middle market in craft beer:

In many ways, there is no single beer market. I stopped in at Culmination last night and found a brewery thrumming with activity. I had three beers: an expensive hazy, a rum-barrel Baltic (or Polish) Porter, and a Grodziskie. Not a one of those beers could ever enter the middle market. The people at the brewery weren’t there for “normal” beers, either. They wanted a unique local experience. In this sense, craft breweries are like restaurants.

Many questioned the fundamental premise but, me, I think of this as a just happy illusion. Once, I remember a middle aged, middle class radio host saying his favorite thing to do on a summer afternoon was lay upon a lawn chair, have a beer and daydream of former girlfriends. And not for any spicy reason. Just that they never asked in his dreamy mood for him to do any chores. Worrying about the middle class of the beer market is like that these days. We avoid troubles. We have a nap. The actual answer is the middle class of beer sits there before you there on grocery store shelves and in gas station  coolers. There is always something moderately interesting at a modest price, isn’t there. Brands may come and go but there’s always something.

Beer has always found a way to make it easy. Further back in time (when things were perhaps similar to today during the Gilded Age of the Capitalist Pig), we learn (as an image posted by Lost Lagers tells us) of 1890 global lager brewing capacity – which is interesting and especially compared to some of the numbers floating around Albany Ale, including Taylor’s Ale brewery in the 1880s having a capacity of 250,000 barrels, at a point in time well past its own heyday. (Note in the comments under that second link, the first time I came into contact with Craig, my partner in crime of over a decade now. Heavens!) Scale.

And certainly relatedly, I had a very good set of chats with Edd Mather this week of the Old Beers and Brewing blog. I was happy to share with him the 1811ish and 1830s era brewing books from Vassar in New York’s Hudson Valley and he immediately went to work unpacking the notes to provide instruction how to clone Vassar’s  single ale as brewed on the 13th of August 1833. Excellent stuff.

Another way beer has found a way to find its way was spotted in Afghanistan this week according to The Times of India:

Defence Ministry spokeswoman Christina Routsi said on Monday that a recent decision by the German commander in Afghanistan to ban the consumption of alcohol for security reasons had resulted in a pileup of beer, wine and mixed drinks at Camp Marmal in Mazar-e-Sharif. German soldiers are usually entitled to two cans of beer or equivalent per day. Routsi said the military had found a civilian contractor who will take the alcohol back out of the country ahead of the German troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan as the NATO mission in the country ends in the coming months.

Note: Calamity Jane drinking at a saloon at Gilt Edge Montana in 1897. Perhaps related, happy to get a Halley Marlor update. You will recall her three months ago brewing this year’s Vintage Ale at Fullers. Now she has started in a new position with  Siren Craft Brew. Good luck! Avoid the fear.

Finally, I like this statement which I read this week in relation to some of the horrible news coming out in Canada but it seems to be fairly universal:

Gatekeeping is the way of the white man. Whether it be knowledge, resources, queerness or culture it’s rooted in the colonial and capital imperialistic fallacies of scarcity. That there is a somehow a limited resource and we should obstruct others and assert control and access.

I keep wondering who it was that for so long told us craft was special and how it was related to this sort of gatekeeping. This week, I also heard the acronym WEIRD for the first time: western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic which also goes a long way and has likely been around a long time and known by others – at least before since I entered my bubble. This is also jangling about my head in relation to brewing… don’t know how but it is.

There. I hope beer gets back to being about beer once day. Meantime, don’t forget to check out those 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 a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow 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. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

Your Beery News Notes For The Middle Of May 2021

Here we are. Fed up with the pandemic. Fed up with hobbies, as illustrated above. I even had to cover the damn tomatoes again this week as we approach mid-May just to be sure. But sunshine, warmth and all things good are promised from here on out… you bet… so I am looking forward these days. Speaking of hobbies, I even have a second beer related project, one in addition to Project X. Let’s call it Project Y, shall we? Project X has a longer arc for sure but Project Y is cheery, quite positive. You know how these things are.

And, well, for Project Y as part of my due diligence I had to go hunting for a particular beer book, a particular history of a particular patch of the Earth.  And I was struck by something as I dug through my shelves – how many creative and interesting beer books came out from about 2008 to about 2017 or so. That was the Golden Era, wasn’t it. I was buying a book once a month back then. When things were not about craft selling to big beer or then about craft adulterating the beer with fruity adjuncts… or non-beers like seltzers and sodas. Could you imagine writing a style guide to seltzers? A few people are dripping tears upon the keyboard even as they read those words… because that is what they are doing.

Anyway, not me. I have Projects X and Y to keep me smug and warm as this lockdown continues. Speaking of which, is this true?

Seltzers were the inevitable end. Throughout history people have always desired beer that tastes less like beer. The death of gruit. The death of smoke beer. The death of highly roasted beers. And now, the death of beer.

There seems to be a lot of seltzer based anxiety in the beer writing world as much as the beer brewing world. What to write about when there is nothing to discuss? Add alcohol, flavouring and carbonation to water. Bingo! Same story over and over.

Interestingly and instead of books, some beer writers appear to be engaging in a relatively recent sort of paid web event. Pete Brown is running book club events on his back catalogue where you can join in the discussion for a fee. One of the most successful books of the Golden Era, his 2009 book Hops and Glory,  was the topic last night.  And Gary Gilmore is appearing at a conference this very afternoon, speaking on the topic of Margaret Simpson: Pioneer Publican-Brewer in Upper Canada. A paper will follow. And Pellicle is holding a second anniversary beer bash where, at least in the UK, you can buy a selected six pack and drink along. I might pop in, if only at the end of that one given it is still at the end of the work day my time.  I highly recommend jumping on these sorts of things as with any luck, like apparently interesting beer books themselves, they will also be a thing of the past once the vaccines are all in arms and the world moves on to its next norm.

What else is going on? Well, an apology to Martin who left a comment on last weeks post that I didn’t get around to noticing needed approval for three days. Such are the consequences and resulting administrative burden from the flotsam, jetsam and other forms of abuse that usually appear in the comments. But chit chat is always welcome so, again, sorry for the delay.

Liam at BeerFoodTravel has posted a second discussion about the history of hops in Ireland, this week covering the 1800s in a detailed calendar entry style like this:

1835 – Under the headline ‘Irish Hops’ a Belfast newspaper states that The Commission of Revenue Inquiry recommended that Irish grown hops should pay a similar rate of duty as those grown in England. (There are also mentions of duties on ‘Irish hops’ in 1843, 1845 and 1846 in various parliamentary records.) Once again this would indicate that hops were possibly still being grown somewhere on the island and in enough quantities to warrant discussion in parliament.

In other hop news, an email that gave me pause came into the spam filters this week from the otherwise reputable firm Yakima Chief Hops:

In 2017, YCH launched a line of innovative hop products known as Cryo Hops® using a cryogenic hop-processing technology that separates whole cones into two components—concentrated lupulin and bract. These concentrated lupulin pellets provide brewers with maximum aroma impact while reducing the negative effects experienced with brewing hoppy beers. The Cryo Hops® brand has since been recognized on beer labels worldwide.  YCH has combined this novel process with cutting-edge hop lab analysis techniques to create Cryo Pop™ Original Blend, formerly known as trial blend TRI 2304CR.

Really? See, I just want Fuggles. I want a bucket worth of Fuggles pitched into a hot bubbling malty wort out of which comes something called ale. I don’t want the “TM” or the “R” all that much either.  How pleasing it was, then to read the announcement of nearish-byish Aston Brewery’s new mascot, Fermie.  The logo was too small for my preferred slogan “Consume me very soon or time will ravage me!!!”

In the UK, trade interests have no doubt rallied effectively to block the right to know what goes into your body should this initiative to list calories in beer get come to pass:

Public Health Minister Jo Churchill has told colleagues she wishes to launch a 12-week consultation on the plans. They would force any business with 250 or more people to publish the calorie information about drinks – meaning the change in the law would hit most major pub chains. Churchill points to the fact that 7-8% of drinkers’ calorie intake come from booze, with lower socio-economic households and those already overweight benefiting the most from the policy. But last night critics slammed the plans as “madness” saying they would be a hammer blow to an already struggling part of the economy.

Not quite clear on the scope of her jurisdiction. And apparently neither was Minister Churchill as the whole thing was scrapped within minutes… days… well, a few weeks for sure.  A fair bit further along the continuum of health and booze, a grim bit of good story telling popped up on BBC Scotland this week, the story of a violent addict who got past it.

Related? Are we really to believe that we are all supposed to not notice the information quality provided by influencers but we are all supposed to sneer a bit a bloggers? I might have to revisit the hierarchies of content control but it is becoming clear that one of the hallmarks of expertise more and more is not actually publishing anything. All a bit topsy turvy.

Related? Nice bit of beer porn out of France this week from GBH. The text is characteristically precious GBH-style likely state funded tourism PR mixed with an NBC Olympics level coverage sweet heartwarming personal story but, well, there’s a lot of nice imagery in there.*

Note: “Historic England believe that only 10 to 15% of identifiable maltings survive.”

Is that it? Barrel bottom scraped? A bit of a quiet week. Keep hunting. And I’ll learn again about all the good stuff that I missed on Saturday. And, speaking of which, please don’t forget to 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 a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow 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. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

*I had to preserve this response from Tom C. on FB: “Made me laugh so hard, I almost scalded myself with the single-farm free-trade coffee that I was sipping in the waning darkness of the early dawn, after having been so heartily accosted by my dog, ravenous for his morning gruel, that I relented and fed him, putting off for the moment my Thursday-morning ritual of dallying over Alan’s beery news roundup. And, then my day began.“

A Few Beery News Notes For Early May As I Ail Rather That Ale

This may be a brief one as I find myself on Wednesday off work sick from something with nothing to do with a virus. Food allergies. Love. It. I blame the Hungarian salami provisionally. The deli had none of the German stuff I normally buy.  I know you will join me in shaking my fist at the sky from a doubled over position as you marvel at the enhanced level of excitement the ailments of the middle age offer to the modern beer blogging reader.

Still, I expect you have other things to do as those do in the picture of the week, posted on Twitter by Will Hawkes. My first reaction was “OH MY GOD!!!” as we have been in total lockdown for most of 2021 around these parts.  Even though Boak and Bailey are out on the crawls these days, I am no where near heading out into a crowd even though I have had my first AZ jab for half a month now. Still, it does look pleasant. Looks like the scene is near Kings Cross Station at Stoney Street. This would be more likely the scene I’d find myself in. Also in Britain this week:

i. a UK Member of Parliament told a beer joke this week.
ii. a beer rating service on CEFAX, the 1970s and ’80s TV based internet service of sorts, was remembered, too.

Update #1: according to Tom in the comments, apparently May is Mild Month so once again by June 99% of beer drinkers will say to themselves “what’s that mild stuff?”*

Update #2: Good to see our local Stone City Ales managed a local crisis in supply so well. See, they planned for a normalish patio springtime and then faced a renewed lockdown so they had waaaayyy too much beer. Their solution worked according to my email inbox:

Since we started our 25% off sale last week, we have been overwhelmed by your support, and we are so grateful. We just wanted to let you know the sale ends tonight at midnight, so if you would like to take advantage of this opportunity (for the first time, or again) just be sure to order online today, and simply choose a future delivery date. We don’t want to sit on fresh beers, and we had brewed lots thinking our patios may be open. Alas, we are take-out window and delivery only, so every sale really helps.  We are so proud of these beers we have out right now. Don’t miss out. To all of the health care workers and essential workers out there — WE SEE YOU, and deeply appreciate what you do for us all. 

The Beer Nut had a busy week with three posts and eleven beer reviews. Best of the lot appears to be the stemwear worthy beers of Land & Labour but no such joy for a sad faux choco-orange imperial stout from the obscurely named brewery, Wander Beyond:

On the flavour, oranges are conspicuous by their absence. It goes big on the chocolate, which doesn’t sit well with the assertive carbonation. The sweetness, bitterness and savoury side are all what you’d get from dark chocolate or cocoa powder, and there’s only the faintest hint of Jaffa Cake orangeiness on the finish. I’m down on gimmicks in beer generally; poorly rendered gimmicks like this are unforgivable.

When cooking cicadas, beer is optional.

Ron has done a series of posts on AK beer during WWII.

Someone mentioned recently that they thought AK died out between the wars. That’s not really true. AK was given a good old kick in the bollocks by WW I. Many found their demise in the war’s brutal gravity cuts. Others, though fatally weakened, soldiered on. Another war was the last thing they needed. Kicking off the war at a little over 1030º, there wasn’t far they could go once a new round of gravity cuts began to bite.

Posts on the grists, sugars and hops in AK brewing followed. Then he provided a brew it yourself recipe for an AK from 1945. Rather completist of him.

Gary is doing us all a great service with his continuing series of posts on pre-WW II Jewish-owned East European breweries. This week he wrote about the Teitel Brewery of Ostrow Mazowiecka, to the north east of Warsaw and the site of the murder of hundreds of Jews in 1939. Some good research supports the piece:

I located a print ad for the brewery in the National Archives of Israel. It appeared in the June 1, 1928 Trybuna Akademicka, a Jewish-themed, Polish-language newspaper in Warsaw. I wrote earlier that at least two other Polish breweries with Jewish ownership, the Pupko and Papiermeister breweries, placed ads in the paper in the same period.

By comparison with the above, please note elsewhere that it’s not a blog, its a “premier beverage research firm“! Such cringy puff.

Oktoberfest went and got itself cancelled again. Way. To. Go. To the north-west, another sort of doom is on the way as hard seltzers are boing brought to Belgium via AB-InBev-etc-etc. The Brussels Times tries to explain:

To begin with, the name ‘hard seltzer’ is aggressive enough. On the drinks’ British website, meanwhile, the company states, “It’s like alcoholic sparkling water, because that’s exactly what it is,” and “Don’t overthink it”. “We want to be a company that brings all people together, not just beer people,” said Elise Dickinson, marketing manager for hard seltzers at AB InBev. “Hard seltzers are an integral part of that. The demand for the drinks is also starting to increase in Europe. AB InBev is well-placed to help retailers enter this booming market.”

It really is an accusing finger at the craft beer trade that such a vacuous product is kicking it in the marketplace. Could a food product be less skilled? Still, gives a reason to pay freelancers in need. Canadians are less interested as we know how to pour vodka into club soda at 20% of the price.

Conversely, Asahi is investing in no-alcohol beer as opposed to no-beer alcohol:

“Non-alcohol is a good all-around product,” Atsushi Katsuki, Asahi’s chief executive since March, said in an interview. “It helps to resolve social issues, it connects us with new users and it leads to our profitability.” Low and non-alcohol beer sales have benefited as people spent more on drinks to be consumed at home during lockdowns, suiting Asahi’s broader strategy of focusing on higher-margin “premium” beverages.

As with seltzers, the big money is in offering less.

Odd that the previous Game of Thrones beer isn’t referenced. Is this even a story? GoT has become the My Little Pony of beer brandings. Looking forward to Game of Thrones sugary breakfast corn pops.

Retired Martin has been pumping out the blog posts and, in this piece on a trip to a place called Flatt Top in England, posts what has to be the single most honestly unattractive photo of a British pub that I have ever seen. Click on that thumbnail if you dare.

There. Back off to bed for me. While I’m there shivering under the covers, 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. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow 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. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

*Ha Ha. Funny joke, right? No, really. Joking.