Category: Belgium

The Death Defying Mid-July 2022 Thursday Beery News Notes

That’s a bit of a bold claim. Death defying. But, having checked the stats, I am 98% sure that no one has died as a direct* result** of reading the weekly beery news notes. I also can confirm that no one has been harmed by reading Taste, the recent memoir by Stanley Tucci.*** It is mainly about his life with food. I finished reading it just yesterday. If you need any assistance in identifying what I am talking about, that is actually the book’s cover just there to the right.  No, really. Taste about his life with food and people, too, and makes for good light reading except when life was not light when it is actually a bit better. Recommended – especially as he includes recipes. So it is a 87% memoir and 13% cookbook… or recipe book. Which is good. I thought when finishing it… I have never read a book about beer that is remotely similar. I wonder why.

Enough about me… and Stanley.  First up, some history. Martyn has opened up a very interesting discussion on the question of medieval England and whether they actually didn’t drink the water – something I also doubt – by excellently questioning society’s capacity to replace it with ale:

The population of England in 1300 was approximately 4.25 million. If we leave out those too young to drink ale, that equals about 3.5m “adults”. The recommended liquid intake is 3.5 pints a day. So if they are only drinking ale, those adults are going to require a little under 560 million gallons of ale a year, minimum – and much of their time would be spent doing hard labour under a hot sun, when the requirement for liquid might be as high as ten pints a day…

Now, I am not going to get all linky and suggest that the initial conclusion drawn is incorrect (as I suspect it might be) but I would like to add a few assumptions into the mix which might also make it not entirely correct. While Martyn has quite rightly deducted kids from the calculation, I would suggest a few other points. First, there is no need to suppose that there was equal distribution between men and women, between rich and poor and between town and country.  Male labourers in rich country estates may well have consumed more than their share.  Second – and I think this is even a bit more important – access to more fermentables than statistically captured malted grains would have been common, especially in the countryside. Plus remember the wine trade. Third, I am not sure what is meant by “ale” in that it could be 1% or 10% alcohol. If it is too thin… what else makes up the necessary caloric load for life? That’s key. Water won’t do that. Fourth, Unger**** states that the requirement per person in the English Navy in 1535 (yes, 200 years later) was 4.6 litres a day. Was there an agricultural explosion during those two centuries that could support a change in diet? Fifth, our pal from 1378 Piers rated water the lowest of all drinks but did indicated that sloth was to be avoided or “ye shul eten barly breed and of the broke drynke…” I know that Martyn would agree that this sort of more granular review would be required to finalize the answer – but I do agree that there is no evidence that medieval people did not drink water to be found in the statistics that they drank a lot of ale.

Note: Cookie advises don’t get Humphed.

And I missed this last week, Lew Bryson on stouts and porters as used and then abused by the micro and craft beer movements in their turn:

Both types were throwbacks to much older Anglo-Irish beers, and as is often the case, the beers that were brewed in the 1980s were, by and large, guesses at what the older beers were like… [I]f porter and stout were the two sources of the river of dark beer that would grow to capture the palate of beer geeks and the Yummy Beer Drinkers (YBDs, that’s my name for the people who want diabeetus dessert in a glass)… Porter’s melody got drowned out. Despite slam-hopping it (“robust” porter), throwback-lagering it (Baltic porter), sweet-tweaking it (coconut and vanilla porter), and bomb-boosting it (the inevitable imperial porter), porter got smacked aside by imperial stout, and never recovered.

Speaking of porter, could this Goldthorpe whisky be associated with the long lost malting barley strain Battledore? Could my dream of a hordeum zeocritum porter come true?

Pellicle published a very interesting bit of reading about the first bottling by a small scale scavenging side project run by English film maker, Thomas Broadhead – Dimpsey Cider. It is written by Hannah Crosbie, who clearly identifies as a wine writer  – which gives us passages that are less, you know, about the squishy chumminess of things than many a beer writers might jot on about … like in this:

“It’s a miracle it was actually a drinkable product,” Thomas admits. “We left those barrels until February, we finally tasted and were like, ‘oh, this is actually tasting quite good!’ Only then did I order the bottles and commission the artist for the label.” And so, Dimpsey’s first cuvée, Unprecedented Times, was born. Notes of caramel apples, citrus and smoke from the barrels envelop a vibrant pétillance. Around 470 bottles were made, and those that weren’t smashed by ParcelForce found their way to London’s aesthetic-led drink spots: Bar Crispin, Gipsy Hill Brewery and—the restaurant where I first came across it—Top Cuvée.

There’s a lot of good in there. The writer was attracted to the drink first as a consumer. And, while there is a bit of bio in the piece, it is not beating us over the head. I do also like that the question of balancing time for this side project is a topic that runs through the article. There are some deft touches in there, leaving the question of Broadhead’s life choices just hanging a bit. Will there even be a second batch?

Breaking: there are at least two approaches to handling information. Reminds me of that 1976 homebrewing club.

My spam filters snagged something called BeerBoard this week and I noticed it was enticing me to hand over my personal contact information to gain more on that fast breaking news that “Volume and Rate of Sale are down double digits, while Percentage of Taps Pouring also dipped.” Wow. I am shocked. Not really. These days of jostling bleggy blogs for the shy – aka newsletters – seeking (cap in hand) to let us know the same four things that all the other newsletters and social media links (and sometimes actual new outlets) are saying, well, they lead me to one conclusion. I don’t exactly need another newsletter to tell me there’s a downturn. We all know things are tanking when the BA uses the magic words “mixed bag“! The arse is out of it, as we say.  Boak and Bailey picked up on the endsy timesy theme asked an interesting question this week about the UK public’s response to the uptick in pub prices during a time of general inflation:

In the context of supply chain issues, rampaging inflation and staff shortages, let alone the long-term structural problems caused by the pubco model, how much control do most really have over the price of a pint? That’s not to say, of course, that some people don’t do quite well running pubs. We find ourselves thinking of a businessman who owned several pubs in Cornwall and would turn up for inspection in a huge Range Rover with personalised plates, gold cufflinks flashing. It’s perhaps no wonder his customers got the impression that running a pub might be a nice earner and occasionally grumbled about the price of a pint.

My thought was not that it was about getting ripped off so much as customers voting with their reduced buying power to make sure this end met that other end. (This is not a club and I don’t really associate beer with self in the sense that it is an end needing meeting.) Plus I am still not ready to move back to the idea of hanging out in bars – not with, what, the seventh wave upon us? For this? These things are going to take a bit more than naïve possy cartooning and #LetsBeerPositive to get over. Or maybe it just goes the way of that weird but brief big band revival of the late 1990s. Remember that? Me neither. Again, no time to invest in craft beer folks.

In a happier time and place, Gary Gilman has let loose a social media blitz of his trip to France, tweeting up a storm while handing the keys to his blog to his better half – including this fabulous photo of a market fish stall in Calais. What manner of beast is that in the foreground? I am thinking monkfish but who knows. Well, the guy in the sweater with all the stripes does, I suppose.

Speaking of which,***** I am not sure I can fully, heartily, entirely… hesitantly… marginally… agree with Jeff in this particular application of what looks like the great white male theory:

Stone also helped convert Americans to hops (though they had a lot more company than they once admitted). It was, ironically, that strong association to hops that ultimately led to the awkward phase—though Stone also had quite a run as an established, successful brewery. When the haze displaced bitterness, Stone had a hard time adapting its brand.  

I think one needs to include the words Berlin and Keystone in any eulogy of the Stone that was. For me, repeated poor business decisions might have been central to the… awkwardness of that business ending poorly. Plenty of good regional and national breweries followed other paths.  Sometimes I wonder if that sort of quieter success is considered less interesting. Because…

Congratulations to Eoghan Walsh on the successful completion of his series “A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects” and the accompanying book launch, finishing up sorta where it began:

In December 2021, Brussels Beer Project publicly announced what was both the worst kept secret and the most unexpected recent development in Brussels beer: they had started brewing Lambic. They did so in a quintessentially Brussels Beer Project manner – by wheeling one of their coolships onto the Grand Place and parking within a couple of metres of the Brouwershuis, the centuries-long seat of brewing power in Brussels. 

This whole project is a great illustration of the power of properly handled personal websites combined with a clever social media presence.

Finally: beer awards. Q: if this is the ultimate… which is the penultimate?  And which is the antepenultimate? Shouldn’t this be clearer? One would want to know when and where one is wasting one’s time.

There. That’s enough. It must be! For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: ??? ) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now winding up after ten years.

*made you look.
**made you look again.
***I have now read 32 books in 2022 which is part of my personal productivity project for the year. Along with a number of things like being over ten months in to intermittent fasting which made the Tucci book a risk – but one worth taking. A fair few have been this sort of celebrity bio, some of which lean on happy times and avoids much of the bad times. Not something that I might have taken up before too often – though I highly recommend Alex Trebek’s if only for the news that he swore like a stevedore like any good northern Ontario lad should. Greg Allman, George Clinton, Stanley Tucci, Mel Brooks, Dave Grohl might serve as a handy scale against which one might measure these things. Allman being the most revealing of life’s grimmer side and Grohl the least. Note that Tucci is in the middle. But there is a gap to his left and a fair distance to Clinton. Clinton is only to the right of Allman because he seemed to cope better with many of the same demons – or perhaps just because he is still alive at 80 despite much whereas Allman ended his days at 69 in large part due to his addictions in youth. 
****A History of Brewing in Holland 900-1900: Economy, Technology and the State by UBC professor Richard W. Unger, published in 2001 at page 88. He also shows at page 90 that per person consumption in the Netherlands from 1372 to 1500 averaged between 210 and 320 litres a year based on total population.
*****See? Fishy. Ha ha. Funny joke.

Your Mid-April 2022 Thursday Beery New Notes

And how’s the wax-flavoured chocolate hangover going?  No tiny kids left around here so it has been a modest affair compared no doubt to others. Life moves forward. Still playing out the pandemic habits. The local news has not been great as the squiggly line up there shows. The sixth wave. Is it passing? Don’t know. So we are in the basement, now watching Moon Knight and, really, have no idea what is going on. Something about sand. Still, around here the snow this week only lasted hours.  And the radish seed is in the ground and the raspberry canes are starting to show their first green as buds open. Things are happening. Yes, the clothes dryer even died but I actually found and immediately bought a replacement that will be delivered today or perhaps tomorrow. Our one small supply chain victory. Not like the dishwasher. We ordered it after the last one died. It’s been months. The some day one day dishwasher, in whole or in parts, is floating somewhere offshore deep in a ship’s hold. Floating out there upon Pacific Ocean waves.

Beer? You stopped by for beer news? Let me see. Where did I put that folder. Here it is… first stop is in legal land. Brendan P shared that the modest personalities behind Stone have filed court documents rejecting the jury award of 25% of the original claim, seeking another $168 million based on the very questionable claim that the Keystone…

…rebrand caused a fundamental change in the trajectory of Stone’s business from which it has not recovered today and will likely never recover.

Really? I just don’t believe it. It would be nice if there was a separate trial of these assertions, given Stone’s self-inflictions and failures to move to the next level what with debacles like the Berlin brewery and never quite earning that grade A level of consumer respect that others second wave brewers have achieved in the marketplace. It would be good to have these facets of their commercial history carefully reviewed by the courts to see what trends and trip ups were really to blame.

One thing is for sure. Out there is the really real world, it’s not been a great year for craft beer generally – even if, given the real news, one may want to put that in perspective. As CNN reported:

For many of the nation’s small and independent brewers, this year will prove to be a true test of their staying power. Early data for 2022 shows that brewery closures are on the rise and some sales have been spotty… The pandemic and its ongoing effects, as well as the war in Ukraine, continue to drag down smaller brewers, who are battling climbing costs, rising rents, and seemingly interminable supply chain challenges… “2022 is going to be a make-or-break year for many breweries…” 

Now, while that may be true, it is always important to respect the chronology. Just as prohibition didn’t start the rationalization and reduction of players in the US brewery industry (a phenomenon started with the introduction of English modernization investments in the 1880-90s)  so too we have to remember and respect that craft brewing was starting to slow prior to the pandemic. 20% by 2020 never happened and even the numbers that are reported are propped up vastly by the Boston Beer fib and the muddling it up with comparisons to things which just aren’t beer. What do you reckon actual small brewery actually traditionally brewed actual beer represents in the market these days?  2%? 3%?

What does this wobbly market perhaps produce? Well, perhaps complaints about the complaints about a price of a pint. And perhaps even complaints about questions about the authority of beer writing. Relatedly, while we all wallow in myth, I am not sure I am buying the complaint in 2010 that overpricing of Cantillon was due to reselling, especially given I was buying  half bottles of their stuff in CNY for $7.50, $8.50 (pervy premium?) and even $9.00 USD around 2007-08 which was well above their cohort. Sure it was a prime example of being “shelted” but the brewery needs to take responsibility for part of their own no doubt quite profitable aggrandizement. Bottom line of all this? The training wheels have come off sometime ago and it’s shifted to a buyer’s market now. I* have choice and I know how to use it. Caveat braciator.

So be clever. Get the basics right. Pete Brown posted a very helpful guide to filling out a form – which may sound like a backhanded compliment but it’s not. Apparently the beer world is rife with folk who can’t manage to figure out how to submit the  beer to the right category in the contest as well as folk who can’t figure out how to structure categories in the contest. Here’s his help:

One year, we had an entry that was all about a piece of experiential marketing at a beer event. It was an installation I’d visited personally, and when we came to discuss it, I waxed lyrical about how brilliant it had been, how original and immersive it was, how professionally it had been executed, describing all the little details that made it truly special. The rest of the judges looked at me blankly, and when I finished, one of them said gently, “Yes, Pete, but none of that is on the entry form.”

And do right. David Jesudason has written an excellent piece for Pellicle about the obstacles faced by the beer fan with mobility challenges:

These include being ignored when ordering, or having his personal assistant asked by the bartender what he wants to drink. Not being able to use disabled toilets as they’re being used as a store cupboard. Not being able to attend eating areas or events as they’re located in inaccessible rooms. Or travelling to London from Essex only to be told at a pub that it’s “too busy” for him to enter. And it’s not just the establishments that can ruin his drinking experience. Other drinkers ignore him when there’s no table free that’s at the right height (a high table is useless for someone in a wheelchair) and his personal assistants can be verbally abused if he appears to be drunk—or is drunk, it’s his preference, after all.

Back to the economy. It’s still nipping at our heels. How bad are things getting out there? One English news outlet has suggested the answer is “bad“:

One of the oldest British traditions is meeting your friends at the pub for a nice cold drink. But all this could change soon as news suggests that the cost of a pint of beer could soon set you back £7… BlackCountryLive readers have expressed their fears the price hike could see many beloved pubs disappear from our streets. Phil said: “No pub would survive that.” The sentiment was echoed by Mick who wrote: “Not bothered but it’s the pub owners I feel for.” Brenden added: “It will destroy the local pub.”

I don’t know about these sorts of forecasts. I just don’t believe them either. Hasn’t beer and beer culture survived through adaptation? There have been plenty of dead ends along the way, century after century. Not all brewing industry trends have been wise. Stone is proof enough of that playing out in the US craft scene. Remember Pete’s Wicked Ale? Why wouldn’t today be the same? Yet… notice that Heineken sales are up in Europe over 11% in 2022 “with beer sales in bars and restaurants almost tripling.” Nutty. Beer survives. Things will adapt, especially as long as there are these sorts of places to enjoy… even if not exactly for the reason advertised:

Bass mirrors, Bass glasses, a beer range centred on everything but Bass. A pint of Plain, or was it the Usual ? I don’t care, and with half a dozen blokes seated along the bar discussing Ted Deighton I couldn’t read any of the pump clips even if I did. How do people score beers on What Pub when they can’t read the pumps. I’m not complaining, not more than usual, I just want to see lively pubs full again. The Angel isn’t an obvious “ale pub”, most here were on lager, but at £3.30 a pint the cask sells well enough.

I’m not complaining either. Beer will go on. The dryer will come. I know it in my heart. But will the dishwasher? Will the dishwasher?

There. That’s enough for this week. For more, checking 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. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*Speaking as the Global Every- person Beer Buyer as per.

Here We Are! February!! A New Month Of Beery News Notes!!!

Last week I was doom scrolling about the Ukraine. Earlier this week, it was about Ottawa.* Now it’s just about the blizzard. Today? Well, if my last name was “Event” I could have named a kid “Snow” and enlisted them in the army to remind me of today: Major Snow Event. Nasty stuff all over eastern North America. Good thing I have my internets to keep me warm. Just look at that up there. Bet that didn’t spend useless days blaring its horn to protest nothing and everything. Sweet. From Brewing Heritage, it’s a…

…handsome steam lorry was built in 1916 by Alley & MacLellen Ltd. of Glasgow, and first registered in February 1917.

Neato. Well, what is going on? Dry January is over. That’s something. The Times of London reported (probs paywalled) that…

A record number of Britons have given up meat, dairy and alcohol for January, with demand for vegan foods and non-alcoholic drinks rocketing over the month, according to data from Britain’s biggest supermarket.

An interesting story, actually. Virtue is in… for a few weeks at least. And the British of Britain** are buying things like “Nozeco Spumante, alcohol-free fizzy wine” (sales up over 200%) and “Gordons 0.0%, a no-alcohol gin”! Yikes. Alcohol-free gin sounds like gin-free gin to me. But I own a juniper tree so I can just suck on a few berries for free if I am desperate. Why pay 20 pounds a litre for flavoured water? Holy moly! NA brewers are missing out on a good payday.

Very conversely, this is great news as we walk away from another lockdown. I can now relive the glory of my beery life fifteen years ago and head to a new beer store in Syracuse, NY just two hours to my south:

The store occupies 9,500 square feet, split primarily into two large rooms. On Monday, Singh’s inventory list showed more than 14,000 “items,” such as 4-packs, 6-packs or cases. And there’s still unused space to fill… “They’re definitely making an effort to provide a wide selection,” Hagner posted recently to the Syracuse Craft Beer Enthusiasts Facebook page. “There’s lots of local stuff, some timely national releases (my first sighting of Hopslam), the biggest SN (Sierra Nevada) assortment I’ve seen. … Personally I was pleased with the import/German section as well as traditional stuff that’s often hard to find.”

Elsewhere, the old is also new again in London where Guinness is creating a new destination brewery with some very good  timing:

Guinness sales in Great Britain have grown by over 30 per cent in the last six months and one in every 10 pints sold in London is now a Guinness. The new site, to be called Guinness at Old Brewer’s Yard, will include: A microbrewery producing limited edition beers and offering tours with Guinness beer specialists; event spaces and central covered courtyard; a Guinness store selling rare items, and a open-fire kitchen, restaurant and 360 degrees glass rooftop space.

I can’t link to every one of the excellent posts in Eoghan’s most excellent series A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects can I? I will, however, for this week’s story connecting Belgian colonial brewing in the Congo with the fight for freedom in the late 1950s:

Brasseries du Congo, or Bracongo, were known for the slender green bottles of their Polar brand. In September 1957 Bracongo hired a former postal worker recently-released from prison following an embezzlement conviction to help sell them. Patrice Lumumba not only grew Polar’s business in the capital, he also used his salesman skills and his client network to advocate for Congolese independence. 

Look at this. We all suffer from the unending spam from the glassmakers of each and every nation. Here, however, we see the reality of fancy glassware according to The Times Of New York:

Most wine drinkers, admittedly, will neither want nor need such rarefied glasses. Many casual drinkers are happy these days to use inexpensive goblets or even stemless glasses, which I would not seek out, though I am happy enough on occasion to drink wine from a tumbler.

Speaking of which, Jancis on Boris… who is clearly a tumbler man:

For months, while millions of ordinary people were deprived of a convivial after-work drink with friends, the staff at 10 Downing Street partied on. It could seem, not least because of the late-night dashes to the supermarket, that the aim was chiefly to drink as much as possible. Connoisseurship appears to have played little part. I feel thoroughly ashamed of how this must look to the rest of the world. Downing Street behaviour looks like binge drinking. 

Bingy Boris. A notch or two more sophisticated is Gary who noticed his modernist Montreal in 1950s promotional material created for the Dow brewery by Albert Edward Cloutier (1902-1965):

The use of pastels in commercial art was a trend internationally at the time, as, say, some European beer posters show, or those dreamy pink, blue and yellow posters advertising holidays on the Riviera. Cloutier rendered a Platonic picture of 1950s Montreal, one rather removed, as I suppose for any city, from the reality in street and district, whether rich, poor or otherwise for that matter. (We were entre les deux chaises). When I think back, it is his Montreal I will remember, family apart.

And Jim Koch thinks cider is a sort of beer. “Fluids I make profit from” appear to be beer to Jim Koch.

Finally, know your medieval English plowing practices. There’s a good explanation of how it worked – and still works in some localities in BBC’s 2010 series The Story of England. Also learn how Piers the Plowman was worth writing about in 1378 as he is the technical wiz of his day even if he shuns the “best brown ale” unlike those young whippersnappers.

That’s it for now. A quieter maybe saner week in beer land. For more 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 irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too (… back this week!) 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 I hope is  revived soon…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*“Organizer“!!!
**“Scottish“!!!

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For When July Is Closer Than May

I will be positive. I will try to be positive. That’s what I say to myself. Every week. I will try. I do try. But it is trying, isn’t it. Not even sure it is all that interesting.  Far better being interesting than being positive. That’s why #ThinkingAboutDrinking >>> #BeerPositive.  Not schmarmy.  No need of that. Nope. I will try to be interesting. I will be interesting. I will. I will try.

As a start, it was interesting to see in The Telegraph the vision above of Canadian PM Justin Trudeau looking like Castro and Zappa’s love child while drinking a pint of ale as HRH The Queen had her back turned and Chuck looked pained but also comfortably numbed by the gin. By way of my review, an excellent G7 moment captured. Canadian politicians must love beer.

Elsewhere, there are few people writing about beer these days as interesting as Dr. Christina Wade of Braciatrix who wrote this week about a topic near and dear to my heart – beery references on cuneiform tablets within the records of Sumerian society:

Administration was a key part of these organizations. According to Peter Damerow, beer was not a simple agricultural product but, ‘belonged to the products subjected to the centralised economy of Sumerian states’. Indeed, he stated that the consumption and production of beer were separate entities and beer held this positon even after the decline of Sumerian culture. 

I say near and dear as I wrote of a similar thing in 2017, shared that info and had a merry chat with the good doctor.

Sticking with history, Martyn also wrote an extremely interesting piece this week drawing information out of the William Helliwell* diaries of the 1830s (much discussed in Lost Breweries of Toronto) that Jordan shared – and then contextualizing the info into London’s porter scene of that time:

William seems to have seized every chance to look round breweries on his journey: he visited two in Rochester, New York state and two more in nearby Albany on his way to New York to catch a ship to England, where he arrived in mid-June after a six-week journey from Canada. In London he had an introduction to Timothy Thorne, owner of the Westminster Brewery on Horseferry Road, from Thorne’s son Charles, whom William knew in York. The brewery, which made ale and porter, had been founded by Timothy Thorne in 1826. 

Leonard Lispenard of NYC took a similar trip in 1783 and trained under his cousins the Barclays. Did he keep a diary? Hmm…

Even more recent history was discussed by Boak and Bailey as they wrote about the demise in the later 1980s of a traditional pub in London’s Docklands, victim perhaps of a misplaced application of the new Duran Duran laced lifestyle:

We came across this small story of the loss of a specific pub through ‘Eastenders’, an episode of the ITV weekly documentary series World In Action available via BritBox. Jess being a Londoner, and Ray being a hopeless nostalgist, we often find ourselves watching this kind of thing and there’s invariably a pub somewhere among the grainy footage.

Never a good look for a writer to look for an expert to confirm a premise after the article’s been approved. Far more interesting was Max’s walk to Litoměřice:

I needed to have my computer serviced, which meant that I would have to do without it for a couple of days, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to do much else than fuck all at home. The thing had been acting up for some time already – some issue with the hard drive – and I’d decided to wait until I finished with a couple of big projects I was working on, always hoping it wouldn’t give up on me. It didn’t, and the timing could not have been any better. With the covid restrictions on all the fun stuff mostly lifted, and the weather finally nice, now I had the perfect excuse to take a couple of much needed days off to partake in one of my favourite activities: getting a train or a bus somewhere to go on a long walk in nature, with a brewery as destination. 

Sadly but interestingly so, the car crash within the wider sexism in craft car crash that is the Brewdog story keeps on giving and it is always wonderful when a beery bit of news gets the attention of someone in journalism** like this excellent balanced opinion piece by Camilla Long in The Sunday Times:

Will anyone now work for Brewdog? Thirty years ago the answer would probably have been a grudging yes. For people over 40, a cut-throat, stressful working environment — or as Brewdog’s founder put it, “a fast-paced culture” — is still closely associated with good results… But if you are under 40, the idea of working for somewhere that isn’t calm and friendly is horrifying. Young people simply won’t work for places that don’t offer good vibes. In America, where companies these days can’t hire people fast enough, hotels are offering free holidays and stays to attract good staff. Jobs are competing for people, rather than the other way round.

People still looking for a better placement within the beer industry don’t get that direct in their writing. As usual, Matty C comes closest but still hedged the best with the unfortunate use of “snafus” and describing Brewdog’s investors as “wolfish” even though it was the owners of Brewdog who took the cash. As noted these hesitancies jar the reader, leave doubts. Charlotte Cook in Beer 52 also added to the story with her personal experiences as relatively early BrewDog staff:

The inability to read the room also astounded me, women are finally speaking up for the horrible treatment they have endured in the craft beer industry. The lack of an apology from James, or any assurance of the steps being taken to improve things, suggests to me that BrewDog has not yet understood the moment of change we are going through. 

Who? indeed, would work there? Or buy the beer. Not even me and I used to take from them when they were wee needy advertising sponsors of this blog. Relatedly, Jemma Wilson succinctly shared her suspicions as to the Cicerone sexism situation. Gotta love an an independent investigation report that states “…Cicerone will be more responsive…” That’s not an investigative finding or even a recommendation.

Finally, Eoghan Walsh published the story of how and why Brussels’ grand new beer museum came to be:

Krishan Maudgal has worked in Belgian beer for over a decade, for the likes of Alken Maes and its well-known Abbey brand Affligem. In 2021 Maudgal was appointed to Gatz’s old position as director of the Belgian Brewers Federation, and he’s worked for the brewers on the museum concept almost from the beginning, helping to shape what the project will be – and what it won’t. “It’s not a showroom for only the international major brewers of our country,” Maudgal says. “It’s to promote the Belgian way of living. Eating, drinking, beer and food.”

There. All positively interesting. 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.

*Helliwell would likely have called himself “British” or “English” but unlikely “Canadian” as there was no unified Canada of the British sort at the time. Canada then was still the name for French Canadians given they had lived in what they called Canada since the early 1600s. There was an Upper Canada which Helliwell did live in. In Nova Scotia, Ontarians are still called Upper Canadians even though the jurisdiction ceased to exist in 1841. This is all unpacked here to another degree or so…
**meaning having qualifications which do not include being on a first name basis with the subject of the beery news story.  H/T to the Tand.

 

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.

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.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For The Second Third of The Tenth Twelfth

It’s hard coming up with new headlines every week, isn’t it. Look at that up there. It hardly makes any sense at all. And it’s getting a bit hard coming up with light entertaining content about beer to share. It’s usually all about something other than beer or like beer or nearly about beer. Like the best thing I saw this week – the tweet accompanied by the image to the left, captioned:

Toddlers in the 1970s looked like pensioners waiting for happy hour in a working men’s club.

This week, let’s look at stories about beer. Beery stories. You bet. Not about something related to beer or something just associated with beer. Hey, Jordan wrote something about beer… or actually drew it. He has created a map and a spreadsheet of all the current breweries and contract beer companies (firms which by beer from actual brewers, including on contract) on Ontario. It’s on his site and over to the right under the dropdown thingie. There. Help him by sending corrections… err, updates. Everyone likes that.

That’s about beer, right? Sure… well, maybe. Is this about beer? Ron wrote about UK cask during WW2 – not cask ale, just the wood in the casks:

In normal times British brewers would never have used American oak as it imparted too much flavour to the beer it contained. Unlike today, brewers wanted to avoid any trace of oak in their beer. Its presence was seen as a fault. But, with the supply of Memel oak dried up, brewers had little choice. When supplies of American oak in turn began to evaporate, brewers had to turn to a more local source.

OK, may be not but it was about something touching beer. Stan! Stan writes about beer like he did last week. He wrote again and got published again – this time about hop creep… which is not actually about the loud loser at the end of the bar in the crafty tavern:

“Hop Creep” isn’t the name of a beer-themed horror movie—just a real, ongoing mystery that brewers and hop scientists are still sorting out. Oregon State University’s Tom Shellhammer, one of the country’s top brewing scientists, says that his earliest moments of being introduced to the phenomenon were about five years ago, although he didn’t realize it at the time. “I was giving a talk at the 2015 Craft Brewers Conference, and somebody in the Q & A asked, ‘Hey, do you see people getting diacetyl when they dry hop?’ I was like, ‘No.’” Diacetyl is one result of hop creep. Beer with more alcohol than a brewery intended—which brewers call “out of spec”—is another, as are bottles or cans with dangerously high levels of carbonation.

Hops! Hops are in beer. And, in his return to London pubs and the blogging of same, the Tand put the beer into the Tand:

…there was a mission to accomplish. A visit to a Sam’s pub to establish London prices following the recent price increase. We chose the John Snow… a nice little boozer and trade was steady on this Wednesday afternoon.  I had the stout, which needed the gas changing, while E had a half of Pure Brewed. The price list was snapped when the barman wasn’t looking and duly posted to a certain Curmudgeon. Prices are on the wickedly high side and now by no means a bargain. It does make you wonder how they’ll compete on this basis.  One other thing. The notices forbidding this and that, which are found all over Northern Sam’s pubs, are conspicuous by their absence. I know. I checked everywhere. Double standards from Mr Smith it seems.

Hardly anything about the excellent Pellicle post this week by Helen Jerome on a cidery in Devon was about beer, but it did start with expected traditional character profile on the person behind the operation in question, deviating only by finding someone who was not first an unhappy accountant:

Spool back to late 2015, and Polly decided she’d had enough of sitting in an office. She needed a fresh challenge. Growing up in Devon, she gained a foundation in science with A-levels in chemistry, physics and biology; taken a module with Master of Wine Susan McCraith while doing a degree in Equine Business; studied Sustainable Agriculture at postgraduate level, then completed an EU-funded ‘slow food’ study tour in Tuscany. She’d never really been into cider though… 

Speaking of science and even a bit about beer, Ed wrote about the scourge of taking the free case of beer and how that ethical flaw of his gnaws at his very soul – except there was a twist:

As every beer blogger knows getting free beer is the easiest thing in the world. Though breweries might grizzle about it, threaten them with a bad review and they’re sending you a case of beer as fast as their little legs can carry it. But despite this due to my insatiable greed I immediately said yes when offered a Hobgoblin beer and bugs snack pack.

Speaking of which, BBC News itself ran an excellent piece on social median influencers – aka what used to be called blegging – and the associated cap in hand:

Like many businesses during Covid-19, Reshmi has seen a change in her customers’ behaviour. Although many people cut back on unnecessary purchases, her bakery was busy as people carried on ordering her celebration cakes. Yet she also noticed influencers were asking for more freebies too. It’s something she has done in the past – looking at the influencer and their posts, who follows them, how they engage with their audience, but says it didn’t work for her. “We have never had a sale off someone [saying] they saw our cake on someone’s post or profile, it’s always been through word of mouth, from paying customers.”

This is interesting. Even if cake is not beer. I have heard many a chortler and scribe announce that “it’s not like anyone could think I have compromised myself by the free samples” but it’s not something you can really say for yourself. And it never plays out that way. Best to pay your way. Folk notice and note. Unless there are edible bugs involved.

Related, the question of free food in pubs. Discuss.

Suzy Aldridge posted something of a goodbye to all that in response to a BrewDog franchise opening up in her English city of Lincoln:

Now I’m out. It’s surreal. I’m looking in from the outside and seeing the struggles in the industry, seeing how friends are marching on. I almost feel left behind, lost, but also that I’ve escaped. I’ve sidestepped into a new career path by pure luck. It’s not something I love like beer but it’s interesting, it pays the bills and, unlike hospitality, the rug won’t be swept from under my feet, then shoved back, then removed again. I’m comfortable, even as I drink some of the very last bottles of Lincolnshire Brewing Co that are in my fridge. 

Eoghan Walsh posted a new podcast at Brussels Beer City featuring an interview with Jean Van Roy of Brussels brewery Brasserie Cantillon. He wisely avoided raising my accusations of 2006 but, still, had a good beery chat:

On a scorching hot early September day on the eve of brewing season for Cantillon, we met at a bar influential not only for the city but also for him, and his family brewery. We talk lambic evangelisation in a country that still doesn’t really get it, his youthful escapades drinking crap beer with friends, how is approach to brewing has changed thanks to his relationships with winemakers and chefs, and how the brewery’s corridors ring hollow and lonely in the absence of American, Italian and other foreign accents.

Elsewhere, you know there is nothing going on in beer in some corners if the discussion turns to flat flavoured water with vodka added.

Speaking of beer and corners, in this week’s edition of That Sorta Happened in Beer History, Mudge the Elder asked this question and got answers:

It’s before my time, but does anyone remember (or have talked to those who do) whether waiter service was commonplace in pubs across the UK in the 50s and 60s, or was it primarily a Northern thing?

A whole new world was revealed to mine eyes.  Someone identifying themselves only as “[Bx2-B=R]” stated:

Primarily northern, my Lancastrian mum says, and common enough there that she didn’t find it weird; down south, mostly seems to have been an inter-war fad in big new pubs and died out with WWII. [Ray]

Talk of bell pushes, tipping and waiters in burgundy jackets with “silver” trays ensued.  Sit down before you start through the thread.

Beer crime of a newer sort happened over in Michigan, as noted by the worst beer blogger ever:

…there was no money on the premise, and luckily no vandalism, but the intruders were there for more than a half an hour. “They ended up pouring nine beers,” he said. “It’s not somebody having a quick beer and leaving.” One of the men called someone and then soon, a bunch of kids entered the premises, running around and looking through the brewery’s merchandise. Luckily, the kids seemed to only have pop, not alcohol…

Another sort of loss is happening in bars like this out of Winnipeg that I don’t think I’ve seen reported in this way before even though it is very 2020:

It’s enough to make a brewski aficionado weep while sudsy hops are poured down the sink. An enormous amount of beer is going to waste in Winnipeg thanks to some bars and pubs being forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic. Other establishments operating at reduced capacity are also having to dump hundreds of gallons down the drain…

I love the first sentence. If you hate sudsy and brewski, then you at least have to admire the proper use of aficionado.

Anyway, finally and speaking of which… perhaps… no, not really… there were comments made after the announcement of the NAGBJ awards… what’s that?… oh, it’s back to a “w”… BAGNW… is that it? Anyway, my comments were limited to “Third?!?!” and “Third?!?!” given I was mystified at certain outcomes. But I used to judge these things as part of panels, too, and I know that there are limits and these limits are realities. As I have noted before, these quibbles mainly hover around process and in particular nominations being from the authors and/or publishers. It would be easy enough to just send all members ballots rather than the filtering function of judging panels. They are also limited in audience as many folk don’t need or care about awards, especially once an “award-winning” adjective is already allocated to the bio.* Yet:

I just want people to know it’s totally normal, okay, and valid to wish for recognition and acknowledgement of a job well done. I don’t write about the things I write about because I NEED those things, but darn if it doesn’t feel good when it happens.

Boom! As with all the medals, I presume it is a stepping stone for the aspiring – which is good and normal and to be encouraged. And a small reward in a field without much recognition.

But, unlike during the years of my own experience, concerns and even unfair slags were raised about it all being too GBH focused or even bad back scratchy.  In homage to 1830s British Parliamentary politics, lobbying continues for the establishment and the reformers. While many entries or entrants have appeared on that bloggy space’s webby pages… well, what is wrong with that?  Especially as other outlets have been disappearing for years? Small pond. That’s where we swim. I do say that while acknowledging (having sifted through it all week after week now for years) I think there is a sort of beer trade writing of a sort not only is a bit samey and a bit goal oriented or even formulaic (the last paragraph often seems written first, as it were) but still a sort which may attract praise within a circle of co-aspirants. Well? So what!?! Why be a grump in all things? It’s just, yes, light entertainment – and we have to remember that much beer writing is actually very good, including, yes, even at GBH.** Perhaps not as much as they would say… but, in the end, Beth did entirely the proper thing and set the record straight in vivid technicolour. Go Team Beth.***

That’s a lot. I’m done. As always, remember there’s more out there. Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (this week Jordan touts discount ham!!!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

*No one cares about being “awards-winning” do they?
**Let’s stick with very good, shall we. Superlatives are so… not superlative. Plus, I’m a Pellicle sort of person. 
***See the “*” here.

Your Thursday Newsy Notes For The End Of July In Beerland

After last week’s mess of unified theory of a something or other, it would be nice to find some chat that is (i) about beer and (ii) not about other things. You know, those bits of the trivial dribble that attracted me to scribbling about beer in the first place. It’s not just that good beer got into sectarian schisms, then politics, then laced with the pandemic – it’s that it all got so real. Don’t get me wrong, the real is good and important. But sometimes I like to wallow in, the vital but unimportant things in life. Like that really sad BBQ pack, above, that my pal Brian saw at a Maritime Canadian grocery store this week. Pointless… yet strangely compelling.

As a means to hopefully show what I mean, consider this wonderful bit by Katie in Pellicle on the place of burger vans in her life:

This is where I draw the line between burger vans and food trucks. For me, food trucks bring me images of gourmet falafel wraps, jackfruit tacos, outrageous fried chicken and homemade sauces. They’re run by chefs and dreamers on enthusiasm and aspiration, passion and excitement. I enjoy them, but they are a different beast. A burger van might also be a grill on wheels, but that’s where the comparisons stop. A burger van is a means to an end. The owners are chipper, but brisk and efficient. The sauces are bulk-bought and sharp with vinegar and citric acid.

Lovely writing about what is basically… well, is “…what my mum would call “a waste of money.” I have especially enjoyed following her family’s obsession with Superbike, something which really does not exist in my imaginary North America, something British which I only know through staring at 1930s racing championship programs on offer at eBay.

Beer reviews. That is pretty old school straight forward beer blogging, right? Well, Alistair over at Fuggled has renewed his blogging activity and shared his thoughts on one old friend, London Pride:

There are times when I drink this that I really understand why American brewers and drinkers have such a hard time grasping the fact bitter should be, well, bitter. It’s not that it is terribly sweet, though the mouthfeel feels a little like undissolved jelly cubes, it’s that the hops are nudged out by the famous Fuller’s yeast character, as well as not being the same kind of citrus as folks are used to here. So many breweries here use very clean top fermenting yeasts that the character of the beer is so different, and I wonder if American breweries under hop the tyle as a result?

And when the conscientious beer blogger is not writing reviews, she or he should be discussing pubs like the Tand himself did this week when he wrote about one of his “…favourite pubs in the UK, the Coalbrookdale Inn in, well Coalbrookdale…” and included this fabulous paragraph:

After a few minutes – the pub has a more or less square bar – the landlord shouted “Phone call for Peter”.  We all ignored this. Now to explain to my younger reader, back in those days – pre mobile phone – it wasn’t at all unusual to call a pub and ask to speak to “whoever” if he is in.  Now nobody knew we were there we thought and therefore the call out in a busy pub could not possibly be for any of us and could be safely ignored. We carried on supping. Having got no response, the barman returned to the phone, presumably to relate the lack of success to the caller.  A few seconds later he appeared in front of us. “Any of you lads Peter Alexander?” quoth our hero. I stammered “Me” while we all looked on in astonishment. “Phone call for you” he said.

Do you like brewing history? Good news for all! The UK’s National Brewery Centre’s archives have gone online:

Two years ago a project began to produce a digital catalogue and this is what launches today. At a cost of £50,000, it was funded by generous grants from the likes of the Consolidated Charity of Burton on Trent, Staffordshire Community Foundation, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and the Brewers’ Research Education Fund, additional funds were raised from corporate and individual donors as well as via a crowdfunding campaign. The archive system was designed and built by Shrewsbury-based digital heritage consultants Orangeleaf Systems, whose other projects include The Parliamentary Archives and the Royal Mail Archives.

More fabulousness!

Lars opened up a small can of worms in a very small pantry when he asked “What counts as a farmhouse ale?” in an actual blog post:

The most common question I get in interviews is “what do you consider to be a farmhouse ale?” and since the answer is a little involved I decided to write it up more fully. There is a fairly clear-cut definition, but it takes a little explaining.

I think the only issue is that Lars has to have one footnote to the first paragraph that reads “*supra, Lars” given he is both the reporter and the compiler of the information in the topic. I don’t necessarily agree with the idea that there is a thing called “farmhouse ales” which is an umbrella noun under which all styles fall. But I do like it as a process description that is identifying similar practices playing out in sheds and kitchens in disconnected locations. As a function of what the life of a farmhouse includes.  As Lars notes in his piece:

In the 18th and the 19th Centuries, you had plenty of farming treatises being published. In most if not all of them you have a chapter on brewing.

Brewing as a farming function as much as managing the manure pile or tilling the fields. Note: the wonderful Girardin grows its own grain and has done so for generations… but it may not be brewing farmhouse ale.

Perhaps less monumental that van burgers or les bieres des shed, is the story told by B+B of pubs collecting pennies for charity in post-war Britain:

Looking through old brewery in-house magazines from the 1950s and 60s, one recurring image is inescapable: a monstrous pile of pennies on a bar, in the process of being toppled by a celebrity.

Jeff wrote about losing his blog’s sponsorship to Covid (sorta like I did in the aftermath of the market crash of 2008) which is a very brave admission and not really fabulous at all:

The first question was whether I should even continue with the site. Most writers don’t maintain blogs. They would rather put their effort into procuring and writing paid gigs. It was kind of crazy that I hadn’t monetized the site at all for its first decade, and I realized I couldn’t put the hours of work into it for free anymore. Either ditch it or—sorry for the crass jargon—monetize it. I decided to try the latter before resorting to the former, and considered how to do so in the way that would minimize my conflict of interest while maximizing revenue.

Keep the blog. Writing gigs may make money but the writing is Dullsville.

And lastly, Stan went into the woods this week and he sure got a big surprise.

Enough unreality for you? Fine. OK…. here are the top real news items for the week:

1. JJB took a side on the small brewers’ tax credit reforms in England and Wales. Matt is angry over the same thing.

2. Jeff has split off his political writing from his beer blog to share what he is seeing on the front lines of the fight in the US’s pro-democracy movement in his hometown.

3. Alcohol use, especially heavy use, weakens the immune system and thus reduces the ability to cope with infectious diseases.

4. And today would be a great day to arrest those who killed Breonna Taylor.

Don’t forget it is real out there.  The cool sip of a mild legal intoxicant that is wearing down your internal organs prematurely should not distract you too much from the real. Beer isn’t real.*

There. Done. Some great pro-am and am beer writing for the week. A bit of a side show but, still, worthy in itself. For more, check in with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword.

*The latest blurt from Stone should be enough proof of that.

The Two-Thirds Into Spring 2020 Edition Of Thursday Beery News Notes

I am having trouble with time. I thought it would drag but it’s racing for me. I thought it was maybe May 9th when I woke up. 11:45 am comes at an alarming pace each day. Things are opening up here. Tennis but no football. Playing catch as long as no one get tagged out at home. It’s sensible as we have done a good job locking the damn bug down… but then what. Society is temporarily reorganizing to maximize activity safely. I want to get a beer at a patio but so far it’s still my own patio in my own backyard. Just grateful that this isn’t happening in any November I’ve known.

As excellently illustrated above by Yves Harman, Reuters reported that the Mons of the Saint-Sixtus abbey are up and at’em:

The Saint-Sixtus abbey, home to 19 monks, launched an online sale on Thursday evening of 6,000 crates, with pick-ups starting Friday. Exceptionally, customers can buy three crates. Normally it is just two. Customers can come as usual by car, but are told not to leave their vehicles while queuing until they pass a newly installed traffic light before the pick-up point. There, a lay worker in mask and gloves passes their 24-bottle crates through a small gap in a plastic screen. 

Good for them. I am not obsessive about the stuff but nice to see money flowing. Beer Ritz is opening, too, and Buckfast is back – buct Cookie wants more. You know, it’ll be interesting in the post-mortem if we learn that Covid-19 can actually be transmitted though small gaps in plastic screens.

Matthew has gotten his game going, too, as illustrated by this post on how beer bloggers are coping with Covid-19. I must be losing my touch as all the targets are not obvious to me (but interesting to see Tandyman disappointed in being left out):

Any kind of pub-type experience is at least ten weeks away at this point, so at best we’re not even halfway through this yet.  But if you, dear reader, think that you are suffering, imagine the travails of those most affected by this ordeal – the pub and beer bloggers of the UK.  As this particular blog is among those that are most well-regarded and connected, we at Seeing The Lizards have asked a select group of other bloggers on how they’re coping while cut off from their usual stimuli.  And, importantly, how much they’re drinking as a result.

Dr. J. J.-B. tweeted some excellent thoughts about her role in the overall construct of social justice advocacy within craft brewing and lessons learned from both Covid-19 and her carpentry skills:

Keynote speaking, workshops, and intensive on-site consulting are simply not tools that we can rely upon in a post-COVID world. And those tools had severe limitations that I am enthusiastically addressing over these weeks of physical distancing.

Good. She has shared hints of this before and I have to admit I am pleased. I have had at times a role in advocating for indigenous rights among legal circles as well as the importance of records related privacy rights and the public speaking role can seem to trigger a easy nod from the audience rather than a revivalist’s commitment. I am rooting for her. Fight!

Gary has posted a very good discussion on California Steam Beer which I like most of all because it aligns with my own thoughts on the matter while going into more detail:

The one area I do not necessarily agree with these authorities, contemporary as they are, is their assignment of steam beer as solely bottom-fermented. Clearly they state this, indeed Wahl & Henius state that lager yeast is a special type of bottom yeast. Kummerlander simply states that steam beer yeast is “a bottom-fermenting yeast”, but that’s clear enough. Buchner ditto. I find the area much less clear. To scientists and technical brewers after about 1900, classification was increasingly important, as of course today. Between 1850 and 1900 when steam beer was in ascendancy in California and still often made in rude conditions, e.g., without mechanical cooling of wort, such distinctions would have been less important.

It also serves as a good companion to Jeff’s post on Anchor Steam of a few weeks ago. It is settled. “Steam” was just useful techno-branding.

Speaking of early 1900s brewing, Ron posted an interesting piece on German WWI brewing constraints:

I’ve seen UK brewing records where ther’s (sic) the odd much stronger version brewed, which is then blended with weaker beers post-fermentation. The point being to get healthy yeast to be pitched into later brews. And that was when worts were in the 1020ºs, considerably higher than the 3º Plato (1012º) they had been forced down to in Germany.

And in more brewerio-historique news, Martyn has made a plea for today’s brewers to record what is happening during this pandemic for the future Rons out there:

…even though brewers have plenty and more to do just to try to survive right now, I have a request, as a historian: when this IS all over, or even before, if you have a moment, please, take time to record what you did, what you’re doing, to survive, what strategies you adopted, what changes you made, from organising home deliveries to turning your beer into hand-sanitizer. Because in ten, 20, 50 years’ time, people will be looking back at this and saying: “Wow – what must it have been like to have lived through that, to have tried to run a company, keep it going, while all that was going on?” And you can let them know.

Katie is taking sensible breaks.

For the double and as part of the Twitter discussion on the utility and limits of style as a construct, Ron has posted a challenge to identify which late 1930s British ales were branded at IPAs:

To emphasise the difficulty, nay, impossibility of splitting apart UK Pale Ale and IPA in the 20th century, I thought up a little game. It’s called spot the IPA. The table is of various beer brewed in 1938 and 1939. Some were called as Pale Ale and some were called IPA. Can you tell which is which? The IBU value is my calculation, based on the recipe. Got gospel, but at least a general indication of the bitterness level.

I am of the “style = branding” school of grump but many other well stated views are in the thread which may have started back here with Jeff (double) on May 10th… (who cites Ron which may make for a treble.)

And, if you squint, you can read Beth‘s contribution to Craft Beer & Brewing mag on the situation in Oakland. Excellent.

That’s it for now. Might have a couple of beer after work tomorrow. Now that the blood pressure is back down. Gotta watch out for bad habits in these times of stress. Keep writing and reading and keeping up with the chin uppitry. Check in with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. Thanks for stopping by while not leaving the house.

 

 

These Are Ye Beere News For Yon Thursdayish This Month From Yuletide

And I suppose the lead up to US Thanksgiving. I am not in the US and, honestly, does it feel a bit late for a harvest fest. The parsley is under snow now around these parts. But the Grey Cup is on this Sunday so that’s good. Hamilton versus Winnipeg.  Oskeeweewee Oskkeewahwah! Say that out loud a lot this weekend – wherever you are. And whether it’s Canada’s autumnal glory* or turkeytime down south, do take care. I didn’t… by which I mean I forgot to note whose tweet I grabbed this lovely common sense public health poster from last Friday. D’uh. [I lie. It was Martyn.]

I was complaining (again)** about the lack of interesting beer writing last week and immediately I was hammered by some fine examples. Consider this realistic vision of Brussels from Eoghan Walsh at Brussels Beer City:

Brussels stinks. It really stinks. Some days it smells glorious, of skewered rotisserie chickens dripping their paprika-stained grease onto the footpath or of the sweet scent of mashed-in grain that marks a new lambic season. On other days it is repellent – the amoniac fug of warming piss rising from pavements heralding summer’s arrival, or the damp choking fumes of the city’s unending winter congestion. 

Lovely stuff. In another hemisphere, Jordan St. John painted another sort of truthful picture of the start of affairs off the Mimico station platform a few stops to the west of downtown Toronto:

…I get the sense that 18 beers would be a lot to maintain. Some of these beers are re-using constituent elements and are not unlike each other. Take the Steampunk Saison, my notes verbatim: “Quite Sweet, Graham Cracker malt character, a little golden raisin or apricot jam character here. Low carbonation for a Saison. Mild notes of spicy orange peel amidst that.” It struck me as closer to Fuller’s ESB with the yeast switched out than a classic Saison. The Belgian style Tripel struck me as a larger version of the same beer. Still stone fruit and graham cracker, but with the intensity dialled up, reaching towards peach nectar. Checking in with the brewmaster, Adam Cherry, he confirmed that the ingredient builds were similar.

It’s a lovely portrait of the sort of locally successful, regionally recognized but also somewhat ordinary brewery that unfortunately rarely gets noted in the rush for the next amaze-balls moment. My immediate response was that Jordan had deftly displayed how to be both fairly critical and warmly encouraged – and encouraging – simultaneously. Exactly the best sort of analysis that, like Eoghan’s olfactory piece, places you by the writer’s side senses engaged.

An excellent and not unrelated discussion took place this week between Beth D and Crystal L as well as others on the role of judging and judges. I took my usual coward’s stance but went back to consider both the challenges of seeking and independent voice while wanting to be recognized as a peer. I’m grateful that they shared their thoughts.

Elsewhere, humility not being their strong suit, I am not surprised by the puffery. But would you really pay for the ever-loving cattle branded “two sides to every story” approach? Real money? Me neither. No doubt in response to the other subscriber offering mentioned a few weeks ago. God love ’em.

2020 is coming. Are your ready? I’m not. But I might feel better if I was heading to the Alcohol and Drugs History Society’s meeting on Friday, January 3rd and 4th, 2020 at the New York Hilton, Concourse Level.  I’d want to be there if only for the presentation by Stephen N. Sanfilippo, of the Maine Maritime Academy, of his paper “It’s My Own Damn Fault; or Is It?” Alcohol and the Assignment of Blame in Mid-19th-Century Maritime Songs and Poems. Being a lad raised by the sea in Nova Scotia, the only place cooler than Maine, I eat this stuff up:

Many nineteenth century seamen’s songs praise consumption of alcohol. Naval victory ballads often end with a toast by the victors, and sometimes include the sharing of liquor with the vanquished. Jack-Back-in-Port ditties also sing the praise of alcohol. This paper will give only passing attention to such songs. Instead, attention will be given to those seamen’s songs, and temperance reformers’ poems, in which alcohol consumption leads to disaster. Such songs and poems always involve the placing of blame. This placement is often not what might be expected, and is frequently complex and illusive.

In their monthly newsletter, Boak and Bailey sought to calm the waters of beer’s social media effect on those caught in its grasp:

Twitter in general can be frustrating, of course, but the conversation around beer is so much better now for us than it was a few years ago when the volume of trolls and bullies felt overwhelming at times. But this is a genuine request: if you think Beer Twitter is particularly terrible, if it really gets you down, can you drop us a line to explain why? Maybe there’s something we’re missing, and maybe there’s something we could do to help.

I think I agree. My behaviour has particularly improved. Far less bastardliness going around these days. At least amongst the scribblers as not all sorts of bad behaviour in beer is gone as Matt let me know of the crime and punishment of a figure in the UK’s craft beer scene.

The founder of a Norwich brewery who duped a businessman into paying £30,000 for equipment he never owned showed a “cavalier” approach to business, a court has heard.  Patrick Fisher, 39, has been jailed after he pleaded guilty to two fraud charges, including one which saw him submit false invoices. Fisher, of School Avenue, Thorpe St Andrew, who was previously a director of Norwich’s Redwell Brewery, admitted one count of fraud by making a false representation to Russell Evans between January 1, 2015, and January 31, 2017, when he claimed to own brewing equipment, when he did not.

That seems to be a bit unfair to Cavaliers, doesn’t it. No, he showed a criminal approach to business. Nice sort of old school larcenous heart to the court case, however.  Very Greene v. Cole, circa 1680-ish.

You might think the same thing is going on with the news about New Belgium being sold into the Kirin universe.  Yawn, I thought. So four years ago. And  the workers got a big payout, right? But then I read this one Facebook from a (former?) employee:

…please don’t lose your “dangerously unbridled in my passion for craft beer” I still have mine. That is the saddest part of this, I feel like everything I was taught, believed and shared at NBB was a fucking lie. I still love this industry and am proud to be working with new, small independent and innovative breweries everyday! It’s not OK to tap out! We need to remain CRAFT to the core. Watch your growth, listen to your employees and don’t chase trends continue to be a trendsetter. The industry needs you stay strong!!

Hmm… has that ship sailed? Maybe. Anyway, that is the week that was. For further beery links, your weekend starts with the Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then turn the dial on the wireless to the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look to see if there was a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter. It’s usually got even more linky goodness.

*Not unrelated to my own glory days… because they pass you by… glory days…
**Even Jeff noticed with concern.