Cider and Perry – Page 4 – A Good Beer Blog

Your Very Own Mid-April 2021 Beery News Notes For A Thursday

What a difference a week makes. My birthday is coming up. My 18th bloggaversary is coming up. My jab appointment is coming up. The radishes are well up. Speaking of the 18th bloggaversary, I was thrilled to realize that quite early on I had witnessed and captured forever perhaps the first bit of beer blogging snark or at least shade back in 2003. Nothing like being a part of history. Oddly, someone just offered me $300 for that original URL “genx40.com” under which the beer blogging started. I can’t imagine what for.

Pubs are open in England for outdoor service and apparently everyone I follow is a vitamin D deficient dipsomaniac. Except Matt. He was anxious. And Boak and Bailey hovered. Me, even after I get the jab it’s going to be a while before I am settled enough to race towards a crowd. Retired Martin, as always, provided a great photo essay of his experience, a portion of one of which is captured above. I love capturing of the moment, the hipster hat in shades next to the guy at the left taking a seat. Two years from now the set up will look like something from a sci-fi movie.

Speaking of things not affected by the pandemic, what is not to love about this chart provided by BA Bart indicating what is needed to be remembered if you hang your emotional well being on the peg of craft beer. It shows the percentage of actual craft (not baloney craft) sales as a percentage for the years 2019, 2020 and into 2021. The percentage is stable. You see it dips in the summer when normal people buy more normal beer. And rises when they slow down. Nice. Pundits can cease their concerns otherwise.

In the greatest city in the world, Montreal, people are falling in love with the local lager scene:

Richer says lagers “appeal to a lot of different people” — everyone from “Monsieur et madame Tout-le-monde,” who might normally be fans of Molson or Labatt, to beer geeks who are looking for something simple, but well-crafted, and with lots of variety. To be clear, this isn’t a trend created by the pandemic — just accelerated by it. Across Quebec, hopheads still rush out to the latest can releases at breweries like Messorem Bracitorium, Brasserie du Bas-Canada, and Sir John, which specialize in full-on, double-dry-hopped hazy IPAs. But even those breweries are making lagers.

Perry. One of my heroes in the drinks writing world is Jancis Robinson and this week she offered her website a space to let us know about a rare perry:

Flakey Bark is a marvel of a drink. Broad, bold, structural, it carries on its breath a muscular depth of pear skin, peach pit, earthy bacon rind and wet slate. Its tannins in youth are formidable – so much so that eating the fruit raw is said to skin the roof of your mouth. It is built for food-pairing, offers extraordinary versatility in that respect, and with age it unfurls into layers of riper, fleshier fruit. A treasure – a delicious one. And one bad storm could wipe it entirely from existence, because there are only six mature Flakey Bark trees left in the world.

Nutso. Absolutely nuts. Speaking of which: brewery gets grocery store deal, brewery told off apparently by morons.

I set out a slightly different understanding of the agreement which binds Ontario’s In and Out Store, aka The Beer Store, compared to some skuttlebutt observations being made. Our own expert beer business reporter Josh Rubin knows more about the situation than anyone else and has set out the deets in The Toronto Star. Very unlikely (aka impossible) that the team leading the big brewers who own TBS into the 2015 Master Framework Agreement that gave us grocery store beer did not see the writing on the wall for the system’s long term prospects. The ten year deal gave them the time to transition.

Or maybe an agreement to terminate. The talks leading to 2015 weren’t exactly public but getting ten years to transition otherwise stranded capital assets into operational loss offsets is a pretty civilized way to wind up EP Taylor’s brilliant idea as it became obsolete… it ends up being free to the 3 owner/breweries’ own pockets and fairly organized as it gives them time to sell the properties applying the funds meaningfully. Not unlike how the Federal gov’t has done it since Chretien. Securing the pension plan will be the big question.

That last point is key. The question of the land and buildings in the inventory of assets is not an issue. Otherwise useless assets offset operational losses. That’s part of the solution. That’s having a spot to put down the hot pan from the oven. The pension, however, is potentially problematic unless it is vested and capitalized. If so, all in all it was a brilliant plan.

Looks like Flying Dog,* the sort of brewery folk thought much about before the second Obama administration, has lifted the IP from BeerKulture, the diversity collabs they were working with:

Hi, @FlyingDog! Did you folks really have a meeting with @beerkulture to work on a collab, walk away from it, and then release Kulture King? That’s disgraceful, dilutes @beerkulture’s brand, and undermines the work they do to make beer better.

Two odd last things. Folks for over a decade have suggested that there is an issue with the reality of the Great White Male narrative in craft beer. Good reason. It’s a false construct. This is not news. Why did you think it was? Also, the idea that WBB invented criticism of craft beer? Maybe if you were nine years old in 2014. Please. A very fine voice but pretty much common until folk stopped caring much about craft beer in 2015. Grow up. Buy my book. Please.

I really still can’t tell you anything about Project X but it is exciting and charming and… interesting. More laters. Meantime, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (who marked their 100th episode with gratitude for all) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

*A proud sponsor of many of A Good Beer Blog’s Christmas Photo Contests of 2005 to 2016… or so…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There. A whirl around the world this week. For more, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more withe the Beer Ladies Podcast, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

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.

As Summer Soon Turns To Autumn Take Comfort In These Beer News Notes For Thursday

Hmm. Nothing of, like, a common theme out there this past week, was there? There was some great apple pressing porn to watch, for sure. That stuff is great. And my near neighbours at MacKinnon have been bringing in their hops crop, as illustrated. Fabulous. But there’s also the pending end of summer and, with it, the end of the best chance pubs and brewers had to store a few nuts away for the coming cold. Something for the stretch until Christmas. Old Mudgie painted a bleak picture of what was to come in the UK for pubs and brewers. And a beer shop shut in Oakland… its obit just above the one for the creepy knife store shutting. And a brewery in Kitchener, Ontario is now up for sale. Polk told me so. 2021 is going to be the year of cheap surplus brewing kit. Not a cheery theme.

But that’s in the future, not in the now. Let’s check in there… err.. here. This week, let’s start over at the ever popular History Corner. Come along. Robsterowski of “I Might Have a Glass of Beer” shared it thoughts about an anti-steam brewing tirade posted in the 23 March 1862 edition of Allgemeine Bayrische Hopfen-Zeitung and even provided a handy translation:

The steam-powered breweries increase constantly in number and it seems they shall quite soon squeeze out the other breweries, or force them into imitating them. As in so many other [trades], the machine seems to make manual labour almost redundant in the brewery. The question must be asked: which beer is preferable, that produced by steam or by hand? Experienced beer conners prefer the latter.

This goes to the idea that steam beer began simply as a next step industrial brewed beer – but I do love the idea of “factory beer” as the great evil. Because it’s all factory beer, now… right? Interesting that values which were frowned upon in 1862 include steel, lightness and speed. It’s a bit late of a date, I would have thought, for such a broad fear of modernity. Speaking of a similar thing, Jeff tweeted about Belgian Biere de Cabaret from 1851 including this contemporary comment:

“Has a very sweet and pleasant taste, creamy, and something honeyish that is highly sought after by aficionados.” An amber-golden color, unusual for the time. It has always intrigued me, not least because of the name.

Something? Factory beer is never “something” beer. Boom, it’s there. Always or never. That’s it. Plus I like aficionados… Knut talked about that term back in 2008 but had a better one… though I would not have expected the Spanish word to be in 1851 beer commentary from Belgium… but then again it was once called the Spanish Netherlands before it was the Austrian Netherlands. Is that it?

Now, I do like the idea of #SoberOctober (even though I would have just called it #SoberTober)… except… I have never associated October with wild eye binge drinking. No big holiday, no big bowl sports game. No woo. No hoo. Which I suppose means I don’t like it. Hmm. Except it might be building on a self-fulfilling wish. No crazy reason to overdo it. So no one did! Hey, nothing changes but victory proclaimed!!

This is even weirder than #TotesSobeTobe. It was in fact with a heavy heart that I read the post with this bit of odd triumphalism:

It’s important to remember that there was no useful IRI data in 2017 that told @SierraNevada that they should make Hazy Little Thing. It took instincts, guts, and maintaining a pulse on the industry’s long tail. Doing so gave them a one year head start on their competition.

Kinda mainly wrong, no? I say wrong based on this end of year 2017 blog post (ie a primary source contemporary with subject matter) that recorded reality at that moment:

You know, much is being written on the murk with many names. Kinderbier. London murk. NEIPA. Gak from the primary. Milkshake. It’s gotten so bad in fact that even Boston Beer is releasing one, a sure sign that a trend is past it. Some call it a game changer, never minding that any use of that term practically guarantees something isn’t.

I blame belief systems. Needing to associate yourself with things. Do you associate yourself with such things? I wouldn’t mention it except that it seems to be, you know, a thing.

Hop. Not a belief. Fact. Here’s some slightly disorganized hop news. As if Brophy was really also on the other line… In other hop news – Arkansas. Boom! Who knew?

Next up? Awards. Folk were talking about awards this week. Are they just for the needy? Canadian needy awards are the worst given how needy Canadians are. Are they really too much about the fee and other money aspects? Really? I can’t believe you thought that. For me, it’s never going to get to the point that nominations come from someone other than the candidate… which is my minimum standard for a competition being of any interest. But is it also problematic due to systemic bias?

Imagine what your work would look like if you weren’t gunning for someone to tell you you’re the best, that you’ve beat your peers out this year. If you’re not chasing this particular carrot, shaping your work (even unconsciously) toward what usually gets these accolades, what do you do? Who can you be? The world might be bullshit, but maybe we can be free from the false narratives and stale aesthetics perpetuated by awards, at the very least.

Yikes! But, certainly, when the same group of individuals own the contest, select the judges, set the rules, act as judges, report on the event, receive a payment or two and then spend the rest of the year being palsy-walsy with the next slate of fee-paying candidates, well, it is all a bit too weird, isn’t it . Too small a circle to be taken seriously. Which might be a good point – why aren’t they just really for fun?! Which is what model railroading is all about! Sorry, not model railroading… craft beer… yes, that’s it.

Speaking of model railroaders, a couple of late breaking “old guy shakes hand at sky” stories came in Wednesday. First was the troglodyte at Stone* yammering about something revolving about himself. You can go read it on your own time. But second was that weird article by ATJ advocating for less information. In particular, hiding the truth about calories in beer. (Perhaps it’s the wine press bullies.) Now, this is especially odd as the information is readily available. That didn’t stop the one Chicken Little’s solo becoming a duet:

Since calorie counts are meaningless to 99.99999% of drinkers, it’s mere virtue-signalling to call for their introduction, and an expensive pain in the butt for small brewers to have to supply for all the one-off beers they are likely to produce.

Whachamahuh? See, eleven years ago Bob Skilnik explained how easy it is to calculate the calories in beer. Here’s the story. Here’s a calculator. Basically, it’s 250 calories to a 20 oz UK pint of 5% beer. Or 1/8th of your daily dietary requirement. Or 200 calories to a 20 oz UK pint of 4% beer. 1/10th of your daily dietary requirement. Standard. No research needed – but add a few more calories for any increase in heft. So it’s funny folk want to hide that simple truth. But the funniest thing is idea that calorie counts are meaningless to all but a few beer drinkers. Below is a handy comparison of trends for the term “beer calories” compared to “beer history” as search terms. Now, I am not one to suggest one might want to examine one’s own life choices but if the dead end is where you are looking to find a niche of little interest, the study of beer history is clearly it.

Just another line I rode down from 2004 to now…

Finally, back to today and to reality… and as she has in the past, Beth has been very open again on her income from beer writing for the purpose of telling other freelancers to roll with the flow:

I just broke $12K for the entirety of 2020, which (despite being around 1/3 of my original 2020 income goal) is pretty damn impressive considering I’ve had zero childcare outlets for my ASD-diagnosed 3 year old since March.

I point this out to also note that if someone is going out of their way to be both painfully truthful about themselves while being encouraging to others, well, I expect that I can trust their word on other things.

Well, that’s summer 2020 going out with a load of complainers, complaints and the compliant. And me. I’m so great. Looking forward to Autumn 2020? Me too! As you do that, remember there’s Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (where Jordan shits on… no one!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword (and this week rants about why beer awards are stupid.) . And BeerEdge, too.

*Wailing away at his social media presence pointlessly for at least eleven years!

Your Thursday Beery News Updates For Mid-November

The last of birthdays, anniversaries and public holidays over the last four weeks has finally passed. And it has snowed. Wednesday was as sharp as deepest January at -16C even if it was +8C last Saturday. Five weeks before the solstice. So, I am buried in wool blankets at home this week, covered as soon as I get through the door, hugging the wood burning internet server looking for answers. Which is where I found the image above, from 1979 when Rocky II came out. It’s from Piccadilly Square in London. Notice the sign for Wards Irish House, mentioned by Boak and Bailey in 2014. Another report, two years later describes the entertainments:

Wards Irish House. Used to drink there in the ’70’s. Great Guiness with shamrock carved in the head. Once watched a group of people torturing a rat to death on their table top. Great seedy memories!

Conversely, Retired Martin has had a happier experience in his unending pub travels, especially with his visit to The Old Ship Inn in Perth, Scotland which he has shared in a lovely photo essay:

“How are ya ?” says the lovely Landlady. “Thirsty I bet“. Little things make a pub. It was Jarl, of course, a cool, foamy gem of a beer…

Perhaps somewhere in the middle, Boris Johnson has apparently failed to keep his word, this time related to staying out of the pub until Brexit is sorted:

…the prime minister had claimed he would not drink until Brexit is sorted – with the first phase of the UK’s withdrawal set for January 31. But he failed to show restraint and maintain his “do or dry” pledge after pulling a pint in a Wolverhampton pub… Asked if he would taste the beer, he replied: “I’m not allowed to drink until Brexit is done.” He added “I’ll whet my whistle” before indulging in a sip.

Beth Demmon also told a tale this week – but one with more integrity – about Michelle McGrath, executive director of the United States Association of Cider Makers:

…she hobnobbed with agricultural producers, including a small cluster of organic orchardists operating in the mineral-rich Columbia River Gorge in the rural north of Oregon. They were looking for ways to diversify their income streams, and cider was “just taking off,” according to McGrath. This was the future, she realized. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and have the right passion.”

Speaking of the right place at the right time and have the right passion, the rumours are true! Prague: A Pisshead’s Pub Guide – 3rd Edition is being written! And if you give to Max he might stop hitting me up for spare cash.

The Simpsons on beer and also on beer.

There has been a small somewhat odd protest in England related to Paul:

…bring back Paul! Paul worked at #Beavertown Brewery until he was sacked without reason and without warning. Paul is a well-respected member of staff who always supported his workmates! Reinstate Paul!

Katie is on the case, as usual. She has asked if anyone at all can tell her more about the sacking of a team member named Paul Shaw. Oddly, no deets yet.

In perhaps bigger news, Josh Noel gave the heads up on the swallowing up of the Craft Brew Alliance by Anheuser-Busch. AB now acquires full control of craft brands like Kona, Redhook, Widmer, Omission, Square Mile Cider, Wynwood, Cisco, Appalachian Mountain – making it the largest craft beer company in the United States. Nutty. Diana Barr in the Puget Sound Business Journal explained how this is the end of a process that started some time ago:

Anheuser-Busch InBev owns 31.2 percent of Craft Brew Alliance and agreed to pay $16.50 per share in cash for the remaining shares, the companies said Monday. The deal — which Reuters valued at $321 million — is slated to close next year, pending approval by regulators and a majority of CBA shareholders not affiliated with A-B, officials said. Most of CBA’s brands… already are distributed through A-B’s independent wholesaler network.

MarketWatch argued that what looked like a premium price might actually have been a bit of a steal given recent stock price fluctuation. Jeff provides a brief boatload of background:

Originally called Craft Brands Alliance, it began in 2008 as a loose partnership with Seattle’s Redhook, which like Widmer had sold a minority stake to Anheuser-Busch, to combine sales and marketing operations. In 2008, it became a single company (called Craft Brewers Alliance) headquartered in Portland. The two companies were of a similar size at that point, but Widmer Brothers soon eclipsed Redhook. CBA had been contract-brewing Kona beer for the mainland since 2001. In 2010 the company acquired Kona outright. It owned a portion of Goose Island and sold it to ABI in 2011. In 2012 it launched a gluten-free brand and in 2013 a cider brand. More recently it began acquiring smaller breweries.

Perhaps as an antidote, a tale of restoration in the form of one last post on a pub in England – and a splendid one from Boak and Bailey who recently revisited The Fellowship Inn at Bellingham, south east London:

It was designed in glorious mock-Tudor style by Barclay Perkins’ in-house architect F.G.Newnham. On the opening day in 1924, Barclay Perkins reported that over a thousand meals were served. Again, check 20th Century Pub for more contemporary accounts of the life and colour of this and other big interwar estate pubs. When we visited in 2016, a small part of the pub was still trading, though most of it was empty and and terrible disrepair…

In happy news, the British Guild of Beer Writers:

…has shortlisted 28 writers, journalists and bloggers in its Annual Awards. The winners in 11 categories as well as the overall Beer Writer of the Year and Brewer of the Year will be unveiled at the Guild’s Annual Awards presentation and dinner on 3 December. Judges read, viewed and listened to some 150 entries which included books, newspaper and magazine articles, both printed and online, as well as blogs, radio broadcasts, films and podcasts.

I was unaware of the three nominees for Guild Award for Best Citizen Beer Communicator but see one writes mainly in Russian and another has a very shouty vid channel. Hmm… are they EU or just British citizens? Frankly, I find the total entry pools of 150 a bit sad comment but there we are. While someone will send out the attack dogs for merely mentioning, as both the BGBW and the NAGBW have placed themselves into the fairly generic good newsy trade journalesqueism niche – aka “beer and brewing industry coverage” – pretty squarely with this years award structure it might be time for a broader garage band level revival of creative and consumer focused writing. But that’s me. Remembering.

Gary takes up the challenge in a pre-facto sort of way and wrote my kind of post – history, beer and law from 1887:

Here’s what happened. A public house in Brick Lane, London was shown to have mixed two beers. One from Barclay’s was – my calculation from gravity numbers in the case – 5.7% abv, the other, a “small beer” from a dealer, only 2.4% abv… The mixing statute prohibited adulterating or diluting “beer” or adding anything to it except finings. The key issue was, did Crofts dilute beer by mixing a weaker beer with a stronger? The magistrate held yes; the appeal judges agreed, although not without some difficulty in the case of one judge.

It’s a start.

UPDATE #1: want a model of how to write about a business from a impassioned consumer’s perspective, look no further than these HATS IN CHIGAGO!!

UPDATE #2: I’ve discovered a new interest: alt forms of beer competition. This week – the curling bonspiel model:

Judging reform: (1) entries only nominated by others, (2) judging by panels with multiple tastings over time, (3) regional play downs leading to multiple progressive winnowing, (4) independent accredited controls. Allows more participation without one shot beers no one can buy.

There… enough for now. I have to go hibernate, to sob quietly for the summer of 2019 that I could pretend was just, you know, taking a break… until now. For further beery links, check out the Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then tune your dial to the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look to see if there was a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well.

The Thursday Beer News For A Week Of Fests, Awards, Junkets And Other Melancholy Things

So, if I was going to write about all the interesting things I read this week, I need to first acknowledge all the uninteresting things I read this week but then not write about those things so that I can focus on writing about all the interesting things. [Thanks, folk who are keeping good beer stuff so dull!] Now, one of the most interesting things I read this week were the labels by the apples in this image from Instagram and Twitter posted by RV Nurseries of Yorkshire. These are apples from cider varieties all pre-dating the year 1800… which itself is a date that is now 219 years ago. That is very interesting. Very very interesting. Sets a standard this week for interestingness, doesn’t it.

Speaking of apples, Nicci Peet’s extremely interesting interview with one Roger Wilkins, the owner of Wilkins Cider in Somerset was posted by one of the better sort of blogs that calls it self a periodical… no, publication… no, journal. It’s a bit of a trip back into the 1700s in the sense that the production is extremely spare and the cider-making dates back to the 1500s and the farmer appears to be an high-functioning alcoholic:

I’ve drunk cider ever since I were 5 years old, and course I drunk it all me life. Then when I left school, well, before I left school I used to help me Grandfather cos he was crippled with arthritis, he had bad hips. He died when I was 21, I’ll be 72 this year. So then I learned it all off of him right up until he died, then I just carried it on the same. But like I said, there’s not many places you can get proper cider today. You’ll never get a headache or hangover with this because there’s no [additives] in it.

Well, except the saccharine in the sweet cider. And we wonder where Strongbow came from? Very interesting, indeed.

Also very interesting is the week Katie of @shineybiscuit (as illustrated, right) has been having working in a vineyard in the Mosel valley in Germany. Did you work in a vineyard in the Mosel this week? Me neither. I am in fact riddled with jealous to the point I hardly know how to type. She is not only learning about the Mosel but also Riesling grapes and the wine making techniques of Rudi. Holy Mo-lee. Very very interesting. She will write about it all in a story soon, too, which will also be very interesting.

Perhaps not quite as interesting but still rather interesting is the fact that in 1968 Lionel Tutt won the World Beer Drinking Championship by downing 17 pints in an hour as well as the fact that you can watch a video of it now, 51 years later, and notice that he got rather loaded.

Stan wrote an interesting post about language about beer, correcting the recent allegation that these sorts of things (i) start with M. Jackson and (ii) are dependent on M. Jackson but then confirming how they were grabbed, shaped and then released again by M. Jackson. I love how he also corroborated my observations that said M. Jackson developed his thoughts on the unified structure of beer after his initial writings, an observation I shared yoinks ago – just look!

Avery wrote, “There is a move in MJ’s writing from an amateur understanding (in the true sense of the word, the amateur as a lover of something), to an adoption and, crucially, a demonstration of understanding of technical terms, to a move toward describing beers purely in sensory terms.”

It’s wonderfully being so totally vindicated. One quibble – “geek” is venerable and probably misapplied. Speaking not of which, Matt published a story one something called MASH (which is different from the other now semi-former MASH) about the problem with beer events today:

I feel that, presently, venue operators and producers see events as a necessity as opposed to an opportunity. They’re an easy-ish way of putting bums on seats and beer in glasses in an increasingly difficult market, with a consumer that has a limited amount of disposable income. I don’t see how this will reach outside of our insular beer community. This is where work needs to be done to ensure that events have value, so that the community can continue to flourish and grow.

While I have nothing to do with the “let’s grow the trade!!” aspect of beer writing I do like Matt’s candor about such things.

Speaking of degrees of exactitude, Jordan wrote a very interesting blog post about stats, demographics and macro economic trends that really surprised me in the sense that for fifteen years folks holding out to be beer economists have never written anything as useful. Cut to the core question:

The good news is that there is a generation behind them! Somehow we keep making people! Let’s look at the pyramid chart again and think about Generation Z, which is the post-Millennial generation. Mmm. Oh dear. That 1990’s drop in volume from the beer litres per capita chart? That corresponded with the Boomer – Gen X shift. Both of those groups are still much larger proportionally than Generation Z. I don’t think per capita consumption is going back up anytime soon.

Lars provided us with the photo of the week, an art installation entitled “Kvass tank. Yoshkar-Ola, Mari Republic, Russia. 2017.” I particularly love the way the image confirms that concrete provides no drainage while capturing the moment the girl in the black dress was getting a poorer photo of the same scene from the backside of the really angy looking kvass seller. Check out the high res version of you disagree. Please bring exact change.

Fabulous. A revelation even. I don’t even know where the Mari Republic is! Kray. Not unlike the next story. Except for the lack of resemblance stuff. The Stonch blog lit up in activity this week with a defense of Coconut IPAs. Let me ruin the ending for you:

Danse des Coco certainly doesn’t let the side down. I drank three 500ml cans just to be sure. Like the Italian beer I’d drank a fortnight earlier, it was nice and strong (6.9% abv). Again, this showed me that coconut can really work in brewing. The fruit was more pungent in this example, and the overall package heavier and more bitter, but once more I was drinking a great beer. I used to be sniffy about brewing with adjuncts. I’ve learned not to be. Quite simply, I think craft beer is getting better: the brewers are more experienced, the standard expected by consumers is higher. For those of us who’ve expressed legitimate scepticism in the past, it’s worth overcoming old prejudices and embracing new styles.

Coconut IPA!?! I can’t imagine the pleasures it held. But that’s because I was not there.

Finally, Matt* (again and perhaps unlike others) offered a moderately clear understanding of all those who paid his way to get on a bus in the Czech Republic (unlike those elsewhere paying their own way) on a Pyongyang-style guided and structured tour of repeat offender breweries with a load of other writers – all the while all of whom were missing entirely the fact that one of the land’s most venerable breweries on the tour was days away from financial and legal collapse. Experts! Note: Beth Demmon goes all in on transparency. Wow.

Well, that was better than expected. Just to review. Fest? Boring. Awards?* Well, what a surprise! Junkets? Only thing different is the seats they were assigned on the bus. So… wait for further Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then check out Stan on Monday. Audiophiles are ranting about the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays, too. See you next week for more logging of the beery web. Laters!

*For the double! And as noted was about to occur last week…
**That’s me in the white shirt…

Platinum Pints 2010-15: Best Beer Book Writer

e are half a decade into… the decade. The twenty-tens. Time to reflect and to reflect on a longer time span than the annual keek. Have their been arcs to trace? Have past achievements been already lost? That’s what the Platinum Pint awards are for. To think about what we have received to this point and where we stand as a result.

As I might have foreshadowed, the winner of the award for the best writer of books 2010-15 is Pete Brown. During that span, his three books Hops and Glory, Shakespeare’s Local and World’s Best Ciders: Taste, Tradition, and Terroir have stood as the standard for inventive, daring, interesting and well-written drinks related texts. They also represent an era which may well be over. This past year was dry. We have to be honest. It was such a dip in beer book diversity that when I mentioned this, Stan tweeted about a book about making home brew very quickly. I love Stan’s sense of humour.

Pete entered the decade riding a high. His third book Hops and Glory had been out for half a year. In December 2009, he won the British Guild of Beer Writers’ Award for Best Writer 2009. I had my eye on Pete. I reviewed his first book Man walks into a Pub in 2003 when most beer communicators were still in elementary school. I interviewed him in 2006 when his followup Three Sheets to the Wind came out. They were good but gave a sense that there was more to come that was better. One thing they did establish was that an insider could write as an insider and also that one could travel the world exploring beer without being a junket parrot. Better still, his books were being published by a proper generalist publisher, Macmillan.

When Hops and Glory came out, I was blown away. I reviewed it over a number of posts. What immediately struck me was the daring. The guy was actually doing something, exploring. And he was doing it in a pretty weird way. His plan was to take a cask of IPA from Britain to India by ship to retrace the origins of the beer. Fabulous. And he failed. Or at least the cask did (spoilers… literally… and I suppose too late for me to mention… oh, well…) But by not actually achieving the physical outcome he imagined he rightly claimed a greater good. He describes the British Empire, shipping routes and shipping methods as well as Georgian culture. He took beer, lifted above itself as subject matter, then drew us a picture of how the beer fits into its own broader history while illustrating the foibles of human existence – and did so effectively as I described:

Anyway, the point is that for 237 to 306, Brown takes us into his internal experience – into the doldrums of the sailing ship and then into the small heart of darkness that is the international shipping trade today – by seemingly forgetting to slip back into the history. It’s a good technique. It weighs a bit, wears a bit. But it still takes us along as if to say “it’s alright, Al, no need for you to ever go on a container ship from Brazil to India all alone for five weeks… I’ve done it… don’t bother.” Thanks Pete. I won’t. It’s off my to do list.

The book set the standard for those that followed. Beer books now needed to be filled with humour, invention and place the theme in context. His next book Shakespeare’s Local ran with all that while staying in one spot – the George Inn of Southwark. With a history going back hundreds of years farther back than India Pale Ale, the opportunity was ripe. He dove deeper again into his topic. I pointed out that the history was detailed, that it would be useful to know who Simon de Montfort was and maybe why Englishmen became more mobile in the 1400s bolstering inns like the George. The fact was we were being presented with beer as a subject worth something other than an introductory nod. I found this inspiring. I had dreams of much the same for the research Craig and I were undertaking with the Albany Ale Project even if not necessarily is the same medium. Pete’s books inspired the idea that there was more to know and more to discuss. I was left with the desire for more at the end of Shakespeare’s Local. More illustrations, a greater library of such histories. In response, I’ve published two histories chasing his example and, since then, have undertaken much more research that I intend to continue in the years to come. The past is, after all, good beer’s future.

The very next year, Pete came out with a new book and took a 90 degree turn with World’s Best Cider. Well, not really a turn as he announced in 2010 that cider and perry were officially on his radar. But when he published this book, he did a very interesting thing – he killed off all hope that anyone would write another as well. It is such a complete text for the first comprehensive global guide that none would be needed until the industry grew to a next level. And that opportunity appears to be off the cards given that the mass market for cider has, to put it kindly, leveled off. Again, I found the effect was somewhat shocking:

The next thing I thought was “oh, my… cider porn.” Never encountered cider porn before but, then again, never met an atlas of cider before either. Which is what this is. Think of all those beer books with the same “what beer is section,” the longer “all sorts of beer section categorized one way or another section” and the “food and beer” section. Then take away the beer, cut the food section and add fermented apple juice. That is what this is. Except… there isn’t another. Is there?

There isn’t. As Jeff uniquely and entirely graciously acknowledged yesterday. And there hasn’t been a set of three books by one author in good beer that have touched these three not only in the decade but, as far as I am concerned, in my experience. Not that they are comprehensive. That is the point. Each in their own way take a small part of the whole and drill down excellently. As a set, they illustrate how wonderfully drinks writing sits in the broader cultural context. These books gave us the impression that like good beer was on a roll.

It was not to be. The downside of the example these books of Pete Brown set is that, sadly, publishers have decided there is no market for such books and, if we are honest, sales likely drive that opinion. So we are left with the lower orders of the publishable and sales worthy, the style guides and pairing companions. Good for the authors, one supposes. But hardly something to look forward to repeating in the years to come. And Pete is self-publishing his next, his seventh book, What Are You Drinking? That is where we are mid-decade.

There you have it. The first Platinum Pints 2010-15 announced goes to Pete Brown as Best Beer Book Writer of the half decade. Next? Who knows. Maybe best experience. Whatever that means.

Are We Approaching Peak Hard Cider?

The All About Beer column by John Holl posted today begins “[h]ard cider continues to climb in popularity and now the largest producer in the country, Angry Orchard, has its own place to welcome customers….” This is odd because of the following news as reported by The Motley Fool a few weeks ago:

Similar to last quarter, Boston Beer’s founding chairman, Jim Koch, opted to be the bearer of bad news: “Our total company depletion trends of 6% in the third quarter of 2015 matched our year to date trends, but represent a slowing from our expectations, primarily as a result of weakness in our Samuel Adams brand due to increased competition and a slowing in the cider category”… Boston Beer CEO Martin Roper elaborated: “During the third quarter, we […] saw a slowing of the cider category, but believe Angry Orchard maintained its share even as competitors continue to enter or increase investment. We remain positive about the long term cider category potential, but short term growth is less certain. We are planning continued investments in advertising, promotional and selling expenses, as well as in innovation, commensurate with the opportunities and the increased competition that we see.”

I’ve heard a bit about cider in the lead up to American Thanksgiving like this piece on NPR’s Science Friday that focuses on Albany’s Nine Pin Cider. Like the All About Beer column, however, there was nothing indicating that the market for hard cider is softening in the way that Boston Beer has admitted. While most stories last year were all about the boom in cider, The Motley Fool saw clouds on the horizon as early as in May of 2014. That concern continues:

Total U.S. cider sales were down 3.4 percent in the 13 weeks ended Nov. 7, and the rate of decline accelerated to about 7 percent over the past four weeks, according to Nielsen. Four and five years ago, the rate of growth was in the heady triple-digits. Even a year back, the pace of growth was nearly 50 percent. “It’s been getting a lot of attention, because of all the huge growth rates in the past three to five years,” said Danelle Kosmal, vice president of the beverage alcohol practice at Nielsen. “It’s obviously difficult to sustain those triple-digit growth rates.”

So is it a case as I tweeted earlier today just that, “basically, Sam Adams bought a pretendy farm to suggest their cider-like product isn’t industrial” or is it worse? Is the farm one form of “the new packaging and advertising expenses taken on in the second half of 2015” in an effort to retain sales in a shrinking cider market? We get no guidance from the All About Beer column other than the oblique observation that the “vast majority of the company’s main brands will be produced at the Boston Beer facility in Ohio, with the focus of the new location being experimentation and small-batch only recipes.” As Jeff found in June 2014, getting a straight answer about Angry Orchard can be difficult. But at least he asked the questions. If the market for cider continues to shrink, it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for the farm to be re-purposed or even sold off.

Bayonne Outside Cider Off Newfoundland In 1520

I had lost this book. I found it again yesterday. The precursors of Jacques Cartier, 1497-1534: a collection of documents relating to the early history of the Dominion of Canada. Notice that it is a book published under the authority of the Canadian Federal Minister of Agriculture published by the Government Printing Bureau in Ottawa in 1911. We really used to know how to do government right.

Attentive readers will recall last March’s post in which I speculated on who might actually have been the first brewer in New France. A year earlier I wrote about the masses of beer transported along with the English Arctic iron ore mining mission led by Martin Frobisher in the 1570s. This is half a century earlier and might at least exemplify the earliest sort of alcohol use in North America – cider. Newfoundland is an obvious candidate. I suspect West Country fishermen drying cod for the summer caught on the Grand Banks were brewing at their coastal camps in the late 1500s. In the early 1600s they were clearly using beer and aqua vitae. So, its pretty much obvious that the earliest crews were enjoying strong drink in their earliest voyages as this record from 1520 shows:

To My Lord the Lieutenant of My Lord the Mayor, Sheriffs and Notable Council of Bayonne:

Messrs. Michael de Segure and Matthew de Biran make humble petition, setting forth that they have decided, at God’s pleasure, to send their vessel as far as Newfoundland to fish, and they need a large quantity of provisions, and among other things the number and quantity of forty butts of cider, of the best that can be found. And this being so, that the said de Segure has an orchard on his farm at St. Stephen, which is worked at his expense and from this he has a certain amount of cider; and also the said de Biran has certain debts at Seinhanx, for which he is willing to take payment in cider. In consideration of this, the said petitioners beg, supplicate and ask that you will be pleased to grant them permission, by special favour and without prejudice to the regulations of the said city, to load on board the said vessel forty butts of outside cider, part from the farm of the said de Segure and the surplus from Seinhanx, for the provision and victualling of the said vessel ; and you will be doing well.

Signed : M. de Biran.

The present request having been read and considered here in council, it has been ordered that the said petitioners, after they have taken oath before My Lord the Lieutenant, shall be allowed and permitted to load cider in their said vessel for the provisioning of the same, half the amount necessary thereto being grown in the city, and the other half being that belonging to the said petitioners. And this by special favour, in consideration of the voyage the said vessel is to make, and without prejudice to the regulations of the city making mention of wines and ciders, and to other restrictions and edict of the king, our lord, relating to the ports, loading and unloading. And should they be found doing the contrary, they will incur a fine of one hundred livres tournois, to be applied to the affairs of the city.

Given in council, 6 March, 1520.

Bayonne is a port town on the Atlantic coast just north of the French-Spanish border. You seem to be able to get cider and cod fish tapas there still. Early relations on the Canadian coast appear to have been friendly, Mi’kmaq chiefs joining them on the return trip over wintering in Europe on occasion. Crews from Bayonne had been sailing long distances for centuries before this request for cider was made. The Grand Banks cod fishery continued for decades after, well before settlement attempts. Strong drink would have accompanied them throughout the centuries. We even had a fish war with Spain in the 1990s. That image up there? It’s actually from 178 years after M. de Segure and M. de Biran set out with their 40 butt in the hold – according to the Government of Canada website where I found it. Hey. We still do this stuff through government action.

So… what is outside cider? I have no idea.

Your Friday Night Beer Blog Reading Highlights

It’s a distracted time. The game between Toronto and Boston is interfering with the game between Toronto and Boston. The first thunderstorm of the spring is moving through giving parched seedlings out in the garden as heavier duties of life nibble at the back of the mind. Yet, it is a warm Friday evening. The kids are out. The smells of that season we Canadians call “not winter” float in through the one open window as the first large drops pat pat pat on the bags of compost waiting to be settled into their plots on the next dry day. As good a time as any to see what’s going on out there on the internets.

→ In two weeks or so, I have a chance to hit the one orchard estate perry maker I know of in Ontario. Which makes me utterly jealous of Pete Brown. A folk music, cheese and perry/cider fest. Pleasures unimaginable.

→ Please just leave Bieber alone. In Canada, he is now a grown up… sorta.

→ Jeff makes some very good points on the impending reaction from big beer should what’s been considered (for about five years now and still maybe a few more to go) as craft beer not eat itself or, who knows, actually gain a significant market share… as in something approaching 20%. Me, I am quite comfortable knowing that big brewers will quite happily flood the market if need be with cheap and excellent beers inseparable from those offered by the current profitable puritans of craft marketing. I do like his idea that the approach is to add more flavour to lagers but I think this is but one prong of attack. Watch your flank, big craft.

→ Boak and Bailey started early and didn’t have to deal with the thug.

→ Stan then Craig reacted to a xenophobic article on how US craft brewers woujld teach Germany a thing or two by being boring and hoppy and achieving <1% marketshare. No consideration on the role of Mosel in the overall equation. Much hand wringing over ugly American interventions but, believe me, far better than dealing with the ugly side of Canadians.

There. The hockey is 1-0 in favour of my team at 8:23 pm while the baseball is the same score for… my team. JINKS! Better quit while I am ahead.