Czech – Page 2 – A Good Beer Blog

The Thursday Beery News Notes For Your “Summer’s One Third Over” Warning

Whether calculated by the two summer months of July and August or the astrological summer from solstice to equinox, today pretty marks the ending of the first third. This is your two-thirds of summer warning. WEEEEEEEET!!! Remember, you can still plant seeds in patio pots or right into the ground as you will eat vegetables in September, too. A great time to pick up stuff on discount, too, in prep for garden 2024. And it’s still all good foreplay for a good cold beer, believe me. Or a G+T… if you have the tonic. Hauling seed packets around is tiring thirsty work. Lordy.

What else is going on? Russian proved the value of the loyalty Carlsberg offered this week. As careful readers will recall, last February I broke the news… reported… err, repeated the story that the Danish brewery was seeking ways to re-enter the Russian market despite the issue of its ongoing genocidal invasion of the Ukraine. This week?

Carlsberg said it had not received “any official information from the Russian authorities regarding the presidential decree of the consequences for Baltika Breweries”. The Danish brewer also said it had completed an “extensive process” to separate the Russian unit from the rest of the company. Last month, the company signed an agreement to sell Baltika Breweries but had not yet completed the deal. “Following the presidential decree, the prospects for this sales process are now highly uncertain,” it added.

Ruh-roh. And in the most recent edition of London Beer City, Will Hawkes shared these interesting observations on the state of beer in and amongst the restaurant trade in London:

What is clear is that beer in restaurants has settled into a post-craft rut over the past half-decade, pre- and post-Covid. Restaurants, in the main, want just three beers: lager (the house option), pale ale and one more. The paler and crisper the better. Bottles are preferred, although 330ml cans work – but not 440ml, as Biercraft discovered when Pressure Drop moved to that format, and demand from restaurants plummeted.

Remember those beer dinners and those experts in pairing? What are they experts in now? Speaking of the unreal, Ron vented about one of the fibs of the brewing trade today, the debasedment of IPA as a term:

If there’s a beer style that pisses me of, it’s English IPA. Because it only has the most tenuous connection to any beers brewed in the UK bearing the name. In reality, it’s a recerse-engineerd American IPA, with tweaks to make it English. Basically, reducing the hopping or using English hops. And not based on IPAs brewed in the UK at all. 1.050º to 1.075º, 5% to 7.5% ABV, is what the BJCP guidelines say the strength should be. How many examples do I have that fit those parameters? Not one, either bottled or draught. Though the classic one, Red Triangle/White Shield, is missing. Though, at 1052º, even that only just scrapes in. What do the three draught beers called IPA have in common? Bugger all.

It is true. Needy US craft has poached so much of the terminology in its scrambling to pretend the whole ftuit sauced makey-uppy has some connection to brewing traditions. Who is to blame? Who suffers when business decisions backfire? Other than Ron, I mean. Back to a greater reality-based reality, British railroading news from Martin this week:

I can tell you now that drinking beer (or coffee) before boarding ANY train in 2023 is a very bad idea, as the tw*t who was reluctant to let folk sit on an empty chair housing his coat (tw*t) found when he attempted to get to the loo as we crawled past Burton at about 7mph. What is up with trains these days ? They’re all either cancelled or late or squeeze you in like sardines. Sardines who have paid for the privilege.

And in all that unhappiness we add the news that Katie (and Tom) Mather’s hugely optimistic project Corto is closing due to bigger realities than they could have imagined facing:

It has grown into a community hub, where local artists could showcase their work and regular live music nights and events would take place. The couple say they are “extremely proud” to have realised their vison to open their “ideal bar. But in a heartbreaking statement on social media, they say “times have never been harder” than over the past six months of “increasing costs and shrinking turnover”. “We knew the bar was never going to make us rich, but that wasn’t the point,” the statement added. “People have less money now and we understand this. Sadly, we won’t be the only people in this position….”

Glad, then, to have been able to support them in a small way at a trans-Atlantic distance with my now even more cherished cool t-shirt and warm wooly hat. A happier if less serious reality was discussed in The Growler this week, the question of foam and the LUKR faucet:

If we dissect the faucet body, we can observe that it is formed by a nozzle, a mesh, and a longer faucet, making this part effortless to disassemble and clean. The body has an additional part before the shank that will regulate beer flow, called a kompensator. Finally, the handle acquires another dimension because it is tuneable and has a side-pull one with 180-degree freedom of movement. This feature frees the Tapster to control the amount of beer being poured, triggering the ability to try new flavours and textures in foam serving.

Yum. Even if the adjectival cheese is a bit ripe. Speaking of ripe, The Beer Nut had an unhappy experience lately and shared his feelings:

… it’s not a good lager at all, leaning too far in to the rustic farmhouse thing, except without the charm. Were it a home brew I’d be suggesting its maker do something about fermentation temperature before attempting anything else similar. Since it’s not I’ll just say thanks but no thanks.

Note: I didn’t know it was possible to out-newbie the newbie guides but someone found a way. Buy in a good store. Got it. Here’s an actual news flash… beer is going out of style in some stores in Canada:

A trip to a grocery store in Toronto for your favourite wine or beer could leave you empty-handed. That’s because a handful of grocers in the city have quietly stopped selling alcohol due to rising levels of theft and razor-thin margins. “It’s really becoming unmanageable and getting out of hand. And so some grocers have taken the decision to remove these products from their shelves,” Retail Council of Canada spokesperson Michelle Wasylyshen told CTV News Toronto.

That’s sort of amazing if you ask me. Never thought that it was a matter of the wrong location for the market. And, you know, I wish there was an urban winemaker like this in my town who could come and deal with the mess of my tiny vineyard to add to their vats. This week’s Pellicle article by Paddy Gardiner features someone doing something like that but not much like that in London:

I think we never want to be 100% English, but we’d like to do more and more. That said, my argument around the sustainability side of bringing fruit in is that we only use road transport and ferries, we don’t use any air freight. We only bring in fresh bunches of grapes in reusable crates. The only impact carbon footprint-wise is the journey from the vineyard. The truth is that any wine that you buy from outside of the UK will have travelled that journey, but usually in a heavy glass bottle, and often rerouted around various storage facilities and distributors. If you eat or drink anything you haven’t grown yourself, then it has to have travelled. Then it’s about minimising impact, which [for us] looks like reusable crates and only using road transport.

Speaking of wine journalism, the slow death of The Montreal Gazette sees the conclusion of the 16 year run of Bill Zacharkiw‘s wine column, one that he celebrated with the republication on a favourite column – the pairing of wine and… ketchup:

I do know that after years of eating the stuff, ketchup is problematic for wine. It is both sweet and vinegary, and can have a decidedly herbal, earthy edge. Its powerful flavour tends to dominate whatever you are eating or drinking… What was a bit shocking was how many of the wines actually tasted bad with ketchup. I have done dozens of food- and wine-pairing trials and rarely have I seen good wines turn absolutely undrinkable when paired with something. Well, this is what happened.

Boom! And, speaking of which, Stan dropped the mic on the Anchor closing that sucked a lot of the fresh air out of the room:

…you’ve probably read enough already (including the stories I would link to), so I will simply point to one about the property the brewer is sitting on.

Gary also shared his thoughts which I’m largely in agreement with:

In the end Anchor mattered because it made beer people wanted – not because it gave expression to American myth, or was a counter-culture hero. Maytag, scion of the famous washing machine family, especially was never that. Yes, Anchor resonated for years as the little brewery that could. It played off that image for a long time, but image and reality are different things.

Yup. It’s been a little wicked watching folk get things wrong* about the brewery in their respective obituaries and elegies, laced with what is really a form of commercial propaganda. It was not actually the oldest craft brewery. It did not revive porter in the US. And it was propped up by significant Maytag money in the first decade. And, as the press release says, “…there’s still a chance another buyer might emerge during the liquidations process…” which is now in place. As I say, it’s good to let the fresh air in and get all this out to set the record straight.**

Finally and somewhat related to the airing of things, Boak and Bailey asked an odd but perhaps timely question this past week. And The Tand Himself gave the culturally appropriate Scottish*** “how’s yer bowels?” obsessed answer. [Ed.: …shivvers…]

There. Once again, that’s it! There’s a lot of different forms of negativity around this week. These are those times it seems. As per, you can check out the many ways to connect even including at my new cool Threads presence @agoodbeerblog. Have you checked out Threads? They appear to achieved to make social media offer less and less. Brilliant but I never got IG either. Don’t forget theose voices on Mastodon, the newer ones noted in bold:

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters to stay on top of things – including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan at his spot on those Mondays! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on many Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now more occassional but always wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast. There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube soon celebrating a decade of vids. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

*I’ve never seen so many slappy-backy semi-starving semi-pro newsletter jockeys in the small citation circle eagerly rushing to get a bit of brewing industry news so wrong as was seen this week. I have no idea what this even means: “…So many craft breweries exist because of Anchor“… given, you know, how no one followed the business model. At all. Interestingly, GBH never mentioned the whole affair, preferring to “break” the news about, what, the hard kombucha market? How long will it be before “beer” quietly slips out of that organ’s name as it wanders away?
**You know, if another failing brewery instead of Anchor had been bought by a silver spooner, another that sold 600 barrels p.a. of soured beer in the mid-1960s, no one really would have noticed Anchor slip away under back then with all the others that died off in that wave of industry rationalizations. But if you tell the younger folk that these days and, well…
***ma peeps so…

The “It’s Canada Day Down Canada Way” Edition Of The Beery News Notes

It’s that special time of year, the middle of the year, when those two guy up there often reappear. It’s Canada Day week. I can’t be sure when they first appeared on this here blog but nine years ago I said it was nine years before that. Back then I was writing political posts on the now merged blog Gen X at 40* and I had a whole schtick in 2005 about a future where the Maritime Provinces of Canada was working towards breaking away to be an independent nation based on graft and hydrofoil ferry services. The identity of these two gents is lost to time or at least just lost to my mind so if it is you say hello! And remember… for all your Canadian beer news read Canadian Beer News!!

Top beer news of the week from the land of canoes and maple syrup? Toronto municipal bureaucracy!

The proposed pilot, which will be considered by the Economic and Community Development Committee on July 6, comes after city council directed staff to create a pilot program last month to allow residents to drink in select public parks this summer. If approved, recommendations will go to city council July 19. The program would run from Aug. 2 until Oct. 9 and allow people aged 19 and older to drink alcohol in 20 city-owned parks in neighbourhoods where local councillors chose to opt in. Toronto councillors had the option to opt out of the program entirely, making parks in their area off-limits when it comes to drinking in public.

You know, we are not so much prudish in Canada as waiting for our grade four teacher to come back into the class to tell us what to do next. Consider the approach of our Commonwealth sibling Australia in this regard on a similar issue:

No worries about spectators getting a beer at the stadium when Australia hosts the 2032 Olympics. “We’ll serve a beer because we can,” Brisbane organizing committee president Andrew Liveris said Wednesday when asked about an alcohol prohibition for ordinary fans at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In Commonwealth HQ, Boak and Bailey published** a magnificient piece of work entitled “Henekey’s Long Bar and the birth of the pub chain” – effectively an addendum to their excellent 2017 book 20th Century Pub. The story neatly begins are the beginning:

The building was probably built in the 17th century, although a plaque on the site claims there was a pub there from 1430. It was originally called The Queen’s Head Tavern or, in later years, The Queen’s Head Coffeehouse (“Frequented by professional gentlemen”). Under Henekey it came to be known as The Gray’s Inn Wine Establishment. After Henekey died in 1838, at the age of 55, the wine importing business carried on under his name. There were, however, no Henekeys involved in its running and his son, George Henekey Jr, actually set up a rival business right across the road.

PRESSES PAUSED!!!: puzzling Pompeii painting portraying possible pizza published!!

Mark LaFaro wrote quite a good but heavy piece for GBH*** this week on the topic that I had hoped I would see in October 2022, a discussion of the craft beer and drinks trade and the dangers of alcoholism:

Our experiences are not uncommon. Examples like this made it clear from the start of my career there was an ongoing pressure to try to “fit in” culturally in the alcohol industry, which meant honing a coveted skill of being able to drink heavily but still function. So, I drank. Hard. I got extraordinarily good at skirting that line between being a party animal and a professional. As my career and reputation grew, so did my alcohol tolerance.

While we are at it, Afro.Beer.Chick shared her thoughts on the progress of DEI initiatives in craft beer this week at exhibits A, B, C, D, E and…

History corner time. Here to the left (my right) is a lovely bit of brewery record, a rough estimate of profit for 1896 for Rose’s Old Brewery at Malton, England. Click and have a look. Over 100% profit on the sale of XX ales at their tied houses. Approaching 150% profit on XXXX ales. Reminds me of when I bought Sam Adams shares back around 2001 to get their annual financial disclosures. Stunning profitability in beer during good times if it is done sensibly.

Now I know what goes into a new sort of Mexican lager to make them extra special:

Mexican entrepreneurs are using crickets to supplement barley in beer… La Grilla beer is being tested out in small batches in Querétaro by a local craft brewery and a company that makes gluten-free and bread products using insects. The creators wanted to prove that insects can become part of our diet even in drinks while maintaining taste…

I saw Chris Dyson’s blog pass by my newsfeed and liked this piece about Ilkley of Wharfedale in Yorkshire especially for the great level of detail:

Not far down was Bar T’at, a modern bar run by Market Town Taverns. Here there was a good range of beers on cask and keg and the welcoming, effusive lady behind the bar immediately approached to ask me what I would like. From the available cask, I went for a pint of Kirkstall Three Swords, which I have found is always a good bellwether pint when in somewhere new. The bar, which you enter via a mini flight of stairs, is split in two, with the bar itself to the right as you go in from the road, with an adjoining room with seating, which is where I went. There is an additional room below, whilst outside is an area with several tables alongside the car park of a shopping centre. The beer was pretty good, a decent NBSS 3, but I had spotted a beer from Bini Brew Co on the board, so once the Three Swords was no more, I ordered a half of their 4.3% hazy pale Under the Manhole Cover from the keg list. Now I was interested because…

There is more. Speaking of more, Stan unpacked an aspect of the ripples passing through the US craft malting trade after Skagit Valley Malt closed its doors (as mentioned hereabouts last week and discussed in detail here, here and here) and shared one maltster’s sensible caution:

What I have come to terms with is that the financing play for expansion has to jive with malt house aspirations, not the other way around. Letting the needs and requirements of the financing terms influence our goals or take undue risks is simply too reckless for me. In short, unwise ego-driven aspirations need to be replaced with modest, incremental growth strategies utilizing myriad funding options all at the same time (private capital, bank, community rounds, government program funding, and organic). It takes forever because in funding an agriculture-based business you immediately go from an ocean of financing options to a hot tub of very hard to find slow-money-minded investment partners. While customer demand is there, trying to service all of it immediately doesn’t necessarily make financial sense.

Speaking on the processes of brewing, Ed of the excellently named Ed’s Beer Spot is/was in Plzeň at the Plzeňský Prazdroj from whence he reported the following:

Next we went to see the filters. They have a kieselguhr candle filter and two 72 module cross flow filters which filter 600hl/hr of high gravity beer down to 0.45 micrometres. The filter modules are changed after 400 CIPs. Pentair is paid a fee for them by hl filtered. The cross flow filters are better quality than the kieselguhr filter but cost more.

Frankly, I think he just makes this stuff up.

Neat bit of writing this week by ATJ on his Substack site ATJbeerpubs:

Beyond, the view looked out onto lush green fields, cows the colour of dark caramel moving ever so slowly as if in a bovine trance, while behind me voices chorused from tables, and a noisy cock blackbird dashed across my nearer vision and fixed itself on a branch in a luxuriantly leafed tree. I wondered if this is a view that Dave ‘Woody’ Woodward saw when he sat he, for obviously this was a favourite spot of his for on the wooden bench his name and 1943-2006 was engraved alongside the words ‘He loved to sit on this bench’.****

And there was a lovely bit of lighter writing by Martin Flynn at Pellicle this week on the more… err… physically active part of pub life, the crawl, which includes this keen observation:

Personally, I believe crawls are best served in winter. That rush of warmth on entering a pub hits even stronger when it replaces the cheek-tingling air of a December evening. There’s also something lovely about meeting friends in the day, then emerging from your latest stop to see dusk has cloaked the rooftops and the streetlights have started their shift. That visible change bolsters the sense of setting aside time for people you care about: since you met up, nobody’s glanced at the clock.

Ah, the romance of being an international beer judge: stuck on a train station platform unable to get to the event, cold boxed pizza for dinner if you do get yourself there!

Finally, not much to say about the mutiny not mutiny in Russia last weekend except that I saw this totally clickable image from early Saturday morning from Rostov which now captures the whole thing for me. A bleary guy in sandles looking like he’s out for his first coffee, standing mere feet away from a soldier, both probably thinking WTF. Note: sandles guy is not actually at the front which is just a handful of kilometers away. Note as well: the one Russian with the gun is trying to establish a fairer more effective system for running the war against Ukraine but he is next to a guy doing very well by the fact that the soldiers at the front are mainly conscripted from the non-Russian parts of the Russian Federation.

One last thing! Thanks to reader jordan b. who liked this personal favourite of mine from last week:

There was something strangely pleasing about the juxtaposition of “bag of cans” and “all-you-can-puke prosecco”.

There. That’s it! I’m all over the place this week. Smoke’s back but just for a day or so they say. Which means I am not – after I type these last few words- going to attempt to throw my back out this Wednesday evening to make a tomato plant happy. I’ve a long weekend coming up for that. Strains by 10:45 am guaranteed. As for beer news, it’s now back to you all as always. Talk amongst yourselves. Write something. Something for me to read. And then write about. And also as per, you can check out the many ways to connect including these voices on Mastodon, the newer ones noted in bold:

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters to stay on top of things – including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan at his spot on those Mondays! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on many Fridays. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now more occassional but always wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast. There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube soon celebrating a decade of vids. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!*****

*all preserved at the Wayback Machine for your reading pleasure.
**And they gave up a nice Saturday for you ungrateful folk!!!
***Slightly undermined for the regular weak kneed editorial function of making sure it’s clear that not everyone in website HQ is entirely comfortable with the actual story or an actual quote: “…John Carruthers, director of communications at Revolution, highlights that the company has policies in place to protect the health and safety of employees. “Beer is a social beverage and naturally a lot of fun can come out of that,” he says, “and that’s why one of our highest priorities is making sure our team has fun in a responsible manner…” ” What is the point of adding that?
****Channelling a bit of the old Thomas Grey if you ask me… which you didn’t…
*****And finally the list of the departed newsletters and podcasts or those in purgatory. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

A Doubtful Dubious Display Is What You Get With This Week’s Beery News Notes

Tra-laa! How many first posts in May have I “tra-laa-ed” at you? It is because I have no imagination? NO! It’s because it’s from the musical Camelot which earned 110% of it’s reputation to Canada’s greatest gift to world culture, Mr. Robert Goulet!!! Surely the handsomest man of the 20th century. And a clinker of a drink or two, as illustrated. What’s that got to do with beer? WHHHAAAATTTT??? Have you lost your marbles? First, he had a TV show called Blue Light which is obviously the inspiration for Blue Light. AND he did TV ads for Molson Canadian which was owned then (and are again) by the owners of the Montreal Canadiens at the time. Who were right in the middle of proving themselves as the greatest hockey team of all time. Tra. La.

First up this week, happy news as those purveyors of interesting stories, Pellicle, hit its fourth anniversary which by my fingers and toes makes it 20% of this here AGBB‘s longevity. There is a party this very evening or, if you are western hemispheric, this afternoon. You know, at work there is a portrait (like these) of Michael Flannagan, our fair city’s municipal clerk who was in office from the 1840s to the 1890s. If I retire in five years as might be normal I will have made it to what I call the half-Flannagan. In 12 years, Pellicle will half-Flannagan me. Happy news.

And by way of proving the point of their prominence, Pellicle posted a piece (Ed.: STOP IT!!!) on The Five Points Brewing Company, Hackney Downs railway arch, London and its dedication to the craft of cask – with some particularly proper beer pR0n photography (Ed.: STOP!!!!):

“Cask beer is the very definition of craft beer,” Ed says. “Some people can think of cask beer as something different from craft… that it’s boring, brown, British bitter, and craft beer is all about New World hops, and intense flavour experiences, and carbonation. But craft beer is actually about provenance and quality and artisanal approaches to manufacturing,” he adds. “And it’s not just about the manufacturing process, it’s the dispense process. It’s a living, breathing product that continues to condition in the cellar, and that is an art form in itself.”

Me, I can get into that idea of “provenance” way ahead of claims to terrior.

In the police blotter update, I am not sure if this new federal amending statute applies to this here place and whether soon I can expect to be in handcuffs, taken away based in part by your petitions. I am probably sure it will go unnoticed by the law just as the rest of society ignores it… but it is interesting interesting to note that the summary of the amendments to be found at section 2(3) of Chap 8, First Session, Forty-fourth Parliament, 70-71 Elizabeth II – 1 Charles III, 2021-2022-2023 (aka Bill C-11):

…specify that the Act does not apply in respect of programs uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service, unless the programs are prescribed by regulation…

Interesting that they use the phrase “social media service” which may or may not inclue WordPress. And what is a blog if not a soap opera which is indubitably a program. We await the regs.

Boak and Bailey wrote a lovely and well reasearched piece on the lost pubs of Bristol by way of a bit of a tour:

Next, let’s turn left onto Mary-le-Port Street. Except it’s not there any more, so we can’t, really, but we can cut through the park to look at the ruins of St Mary-le-Port Church hidden behind the brutalist Lloyds Bank and modernist Norwich Union building. Then follow the path that tracks the old street pattern towards the site of The Raven. C.F. Deming, author of Old Inns of Bristol, published in 1943, reckoned The Raven dated back to the 17th century and was “mentioned in 1643”.

The article immediately reminded me of the time, gosh, ten years ago when Craig and I went a wandering in Albany NY, looking for evidence of the 1600s town and found the King’s Arms tavern intersection where the American Revolution started locally and where, interestingly, my fair city of Kingston, Ontario was in a very real way born:

But that, oddly, is not my point in posting that picture. Do you see how the street distinctly turns to the left? That turn expresses something a hundred years older than the King’s Arms, the southern design of the palisades of the original settlement. You can see it in this map from 1770 but, more particularly, you can see it in the 1695 map Craig posted to describe the community in the 1600s Dutch era.

Three or four eras in one small corner of Albany: 2013 when the photo was taken, the late 1800s buildings, the revolutionary-era tavern intersectiton and the curve of the 1600 pallisades. Lesson: everybody take B+B’s advice, get outside and look around you! It’s remarkable to see what isn’t quite not there.

Not for any particular reason other than it is a very nice portrait of some very nice beer people having a nice bit bit of beer. The source. The setting.

Jordan by way of IG (the app which I personally hope Bill C-11 SHUTS DOWN) has declared a winner!

There have been lager brewers in Ontario. O’Keefe, Reinhardt, Carling, Labatt. I walk past Toronto’s first lager brewer, John Walz, several times a week in Mount Pleasant Cemetary. I spent so much time looking at fire insurance maps that I researched corrugated iton. I spent so much time reading documents that I needed a nap. I wrote histories. With the help of @wornoldhat, we reviewed all the beer in the province twice. I’ve seen the vast majority of the beer that exists in the modern era of brewing. I checked with people I respect about it, including @beaumontdrinks. I legitimately think that Godspeed’s Pitch Lined Sklepnik is the best lager style beer that had ever existed in Ontario. First to Last. It is SIX DOLLARS A PINT on Sundays.

I love the non-pitched home delivered Sklepnik so have no reason to disagree. And I would not limit that to Ontario. And… I bought a mixed case with some in it because I see that it’s in cans and available for delivery right now. Big sale on Tmavý Ležák 12º. Just saying…

Nineteen years ago, I included Black Sheep Ale in a list of well loved English pale ales that I could find in my eastern Ontario nothern NY ecosystem. Well, this week the brewery went into administration, a step short of bankruptcy:

The Black Sheep Brewery has announced that it intends to appoint administrators to protect the interests of its creditors after the business was hit by a “perfect storm” caused by the pandemic and rising costs. A spokesman for Black Sheep, which is based in Masham, North Yorkshire, stressed that the business is trading as normal and there have been no job losses to date. It employs around 50 staff.

Fingers crossed. Malt still being delivered. And remember you can see Black Sheep as it was in 1997 in this broadcast of the Two Fat Ladies, those foundational thinkers in relation to my life with food and drink.

Beth Demmons has another great edition of Prohibitchin’ out, this time on NA winery Null Wines‘ co-founders Catherine Diao and Dorothy Munholland in which a very good argument is made, one that might move a skeptic like me:

The vast majority of people buying non-alcoholic beverages also drink alcohol, suggesting that NA alternatives are simply an extension of choice rather than trying to act as strict replacements to their boozy counterparts. Dorothy and Catherine say giving consumers more high-quality options was the driving force of launching their business rather than chasing a trend. “One of our internal guideposts for ourselves is ‘Don’t add more crap to the world,’” says Catherine.

Skeptic? Well, when the shadowy Portman Group is jumping on the bandwagon you have to wonder. By the way, look right. What a weird photo to illustrate NA bevvying in the news article. In any other context in any other decade, that image is pure code for being stoned out of one’s cranium. Very mixed message, PG. Very mixed indeed. Can’t be having that. You best be having a word with the Evening Standard.

Question: consider this from Mr.B:

I am repeatedly amazed by the speed with which respected and accomplished chefs will attach their names to suspect beers, ciders, coolers, and seltzers, while at the same time touting the quality of ingredients in their dishes. #MoneyTalks

Aside from the bald accusation of the role of money (something as common enough in beer), if no one has convinced most restaurants high and low from having a serious beer list, well, is this not something that advocates for treating beer more seriously have to take some responsibility for? Let’s be honest – if folks actually wanted it by now folk would have it by now.

Somewhat relatedly… seven years out forecasting. When everything matters does anything matter #3928? As scheduled:

WHY IT MATTERS: The growing strength of Modelo’s cheladas and aguas frescas point to a likely second act for a beer brand that, if current trends continue, is set to unseat Bud Light as the U.S.’s top-selling beer (by dollars) by 2030.

Less cheerily, at the end of last week just after hitting the publish button over here at AGBB HQ, Ruvani de Silva posted a very detailed, well researched and extended piece on the experience of being subject to online trolling as part of the bro culture side of craft beer world (which I have to admit for me isn’t limited to males as I have been on the receiving end from women, too.) But I immediately took to it as it made me think of the causes of craft’s bro culture.

Societal bigotry, yes, but also vestiges of X-Treme? Maybe tribal claims to one community, expertise with a leadership class fed by great white male hagiographies of semi-phony founders?.

I should have added booze obvs. But what do I mean by expertise? Perhaps this sort of smug self-affirmed but highly dubious expertise as opposed to this sort of largely self-driven expertise that makes no claims to extrapolation or even… you know… social status or higher moral ground*! David Jesudason’s thoughts were this:

Thoughtful piece. It mentions some abuse I got. I reported it but the police did nowt. Luckily I’ve done lots of work on resilience and it isn’t a trigger tbh. But some of the other types of trolling I do find difficult including subtweeting criticism cos I hate being ignored…

What else is going on? Not unrelatedly, this past Monday Stan commented on Jeff’s comments on Bud Lite’s maker’s woes following learning they were utterly unprepared and botched the response to their hiring of a trans woman Dylan Mulvaney for an ad campaign. The comment of Jeff’s that Stan considered began with this: “…years ago, I argued that it’s bad business for companies to take political positions. That was correct then, but it’s not anymore.” Note: Jeff made that earlier statement in October 2016 just before the US election when he wrote about Yuengling endorsing Donald Trump. He said it was a bad move. With total respect, I don’t really agree partially as democracy needs robust debate but also because I’m also not sure the two situations are even comparables as that would depend on the badness of the business move being the measure. Still, put it this way if I am wrong: at this point are we sure who is worse, the makers of Yuengling or Bud Lite?

Stan then broadened the question on how it reflects on the whole brewing trade and, again with total respect, drew in something which I have never actually found to be all that true:

Small breweries that some call “craft” have benefited by what is unspoken; that they are the good guys. Recently, they’ve been asked to prove it. Many have. The rest? We’ll see what happens.

The good guys? Really? How good is craft? Certainly doubts are raise by initiatives like the early and short lived co-opting of outrage against the war in Ukraine, the perhaps slightly deeper response with some to the Black is Beautiful initiatives even if not all the money ended up in the pockets pledged – not to mention, as Stan mentioned two weeks ago, the dimming of interest in DEI. (And not to mention… the continuation of bigoted operations like Founders… dots connected.)** Yup, it seems like its all just news cycle compassion so much of the time with craft.* Which builds on the question. Who is worse: the makers of Yuengling, the makers of Bud Lite or the appropriators of craft?

There’s another thing, a more important thing. I don’t believe that the existence of human rights even depends on political power or even the majority of folks’ conviction – and certainly not the stance of commercial operations like a brewery. Human rights are fundamental – a foundational fundamental good, not something politically sourced even if their denial by bastards in power is. Human rights speak to the simple inherent dignity of being a human in all its forms of subjective experience. The dignity shines through any denial and is always worth the fight. I hate to break it to you – but sooner or later we all will have one or more human characteristics which will annoy or even generate hatred by somebody. Don’t believe me? Wait for age. No, we can’t cherry pick which human rights are the winners. It’s all or none. Bandwaggoning the news cycle like craft isn’t any sort of conviction in support of human rights any more than leaving it to any stripe of politicans is. These are really appropriations of goodness. So show me a brewery that welcomes all, that straight up supports human dignity with action and little fanfare and I am there.*** Are there are all that many? Dunno but I do spend my money where there is a chance that they just might be worth my support. I suggest you do the same. It can have an effect. And if these my previous few hundreds of perhaps wandering words don’t convince you, think of what Brian Alberts wrote with just a handful:

Don’t just stick to beer, stick to just beer.****

Why? It matters. This actually matters.

That’s enough from me. You want more? As per, you can check out the many ways to connect including these voices on Mastodon:

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters to stay on top of things – including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan at his spot on those Mondays! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on many Fridays. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now more occassional but always wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast. There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!*****

*Yes, a double footnote… but why always place craft beer on the rosy glowing end of the good-bad spectrum with, you know, Donald Trump at the other Satanic end. Isn’t this obviously self-serving, all this praise from within craft beer for craft beer? (Looka me! I’m part of a community!! ) And another thing… what the heck has craft beer ever actually done to stake its claim to a higher moral position? Do you think of your favorite shoe stores that way, your coffee shops, your cheddar and gin makers or neighbourhood bakers? Actually, I do know bakers who ensure their surplus gets to the homeless day after day so, yes, props to those bakers.
**Can you believe this shit: “When Dillard reported the incidents to management, she alleges that she received drastically reduced hours as retaliation or was ignored. The complaint also states she worked as a part-time manager for nearly a year without moving up, while white managers were promoted within months. The complaint also details alleged instances of sexual harassment from a fellow worker. When Dillard complained about the behavior, she says she was ignored. But once a white employee complained about the same behavior from the same worker, the offending worker was fired. Things were so bad that a white manager also resigned because of the ongoing racial discrimination against Dillard.” H/T to The Polk.
***Could you get a wheelchair in the taproom bathroom? Does the sort of language used on the brewing floor align with the branding?
****Cleverly succinct. Reminds me of a Billy Bragg quip from a concert maybe 35 years ago: “Remember: it’s not ‘how high are you?’ – it’s ‘hi how are you?'”
*****And finally the list of the departed newsletters and podcasts or those in purgatory. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

The Thursday Beery News Notes For A Few Big Numbers

OK, I turned 60 on Tuesday. I am in my seventh decade. Just like that. Snap. Me, I am not that shocked and appauled by the prospect of time’s sands slipping so easily though my shaking fingers – but I also face the reality that I… began blogging twenty years ago this week, too. On a generic platform that within weeks included beer writing and around a year later split off into a bespoke beer blog. What an absolute waste of a lifetime! Seriously, think of all the languages I could speak, the instruments I could play if I had not taken to publicly scribbling back on 25 April 2003. That being said, I didn’t exactly become a polygolt before I hit 40 and it’s been a lot of fun… and look at all the stuff down there I read just this week… so…

First up, Gary has been on fire (to be clear – not actually aflame) recently with a servies of posts about beer in Egypt pre-WW2 followed by posts about wartime brewing in Tripoli, Libya. Great-aunt Madge was a frontline nurse in the Eighth Army so I was raised on this timeline with Airfix soldiers clad in shorts and ammo belts:

The OEA brewery was located in central Tripoli, near the sea. On Facebook a contributor, familiar with modern Tripoli, pinned the location on a map, near Dahra district. He adds other interesting information of a past and present nature, including that the brewery no longer stands. In any case, the Malta enterprise known today as Simonds Farsons Cisk was running OEA not long after it fell into British hands. It continued to do so until 1948, according to Thomas’ second discussion. In that year, he states, OEA was returned to its Italian owners, who are not named.

Less farthy-backy, Ron’s been writing about life in his 1970s, including this week about his early days of homebrewing which mirror mine in the 1980s:

After a while, we got hold of a five gallon cider barrel. Off-licences often used to sell draught cider back in those days, served from such a small plastic barrel. It made life much easier, doing away with all that bottling mess. Though you needed to drink the beer fairly quickly. A week to ten days was about the longest it would last. I can remember having a barrel of Mild my brother brought up to Leeds towards the end of my first year at university. The very hot summer of 1976. We sat drinking glasses of iced Mild on the balcony of my student flat in North Hill Court.

Note: craft‘s meaninglessness reaches new depths.

Cookie guided me to the story of one familiar face on Canadian TV in the 1970s and ’80s, our own perhaps second best snooker champ after Cliff Thorburn, ‘Big Bill’ Werbeniuk:

During his hay day, Werbeniuk would consume upwards of 40 pints of beer a day, with him often having six pints before every game and limited himself to just one pint per frame. Werbeniuk’s incredible super human ability to handle the beers was due to him suffering from hypoglycemia, a condition that means the body is able to burn off alcohol and sugar extremely quickly, allowing him to drink places dry daily. The Canadian’s drinking was actually encouraged by doctors, due to Werbeniuk suffering from a familial benign essential tumour.

I recall from the time, as reported in his 2003 obit, “that his prodigious drinking was the only way he could stop an arm tremor that hampered his play.” A perfect foil to the dapper Thorburn and likely a reason I took up the game for such a long time… pre-kids… you know.

Lisa Grimm’s Weirdo Guide to Dublin Pubs continues this week with consideration of the former pub known as JW Sweetmans, now reborn as the new pub known as JR Mahon’s:

With the return of cask last weekend – and with a pre-planned event there anyway – it was a perfect opportunity to check out the changes. The pub occupies the same enormous spot on the Liffey, with multiple floors and masses of dark wood, but it has been beautifully renovated and considerably brightened up – the stained glass on the ground floor gives some much-needed colour, and while the warmth of the wood remains, things certainly seem lighter and much more airy than in the previous incarnation. There are still many – possibly more – little snugs, nooks and crannies, but the flow is much better overall, with all four floors of space having a bit of their own character.

I had always thought grapes for wine were a sort of forever thing but it appears that they are only as old as the post-last-ice-age era and are formed to be what they are today in large part by hunter gatherer selection:

Grapevine has a long history as one of the world’s oldest crops. Wine, made from grapes, was among the earliest products to be traded globally, playing a key role in the exchange of cultures, ideas, and religions. At the end of the Ice Age, grapevine originated from the European wild vine. Today, only a few relic populations of this wild vine still exist, one of which can be found on the Ketsch peninsula along the Rhine river, between the cities of Karlsruhe and Mannheim.

Speaking of basic ingredients, Jordan was on a jaunt recently, one funded by a Ministry of Agriculture. When I lived in PEI, my local MP called himself the “Minster of Aggykulchur” so I am fond of these sorts of things. This particular MoA is in Czechia and was hosting a number of the glad to be invited to look at piles of malting barley:

For a hundred and fifty years, in a cellar in Benešov, a man with a rake has trodden up and back, up and back along carefully ordered rows of germinating barley nearly six inches deep. The slick slate floor mimics earth the kernels would find themselves in had the grasses been left to go to seed. The maltster pulls the rake with a practised motion long committed to muscle memory, stepping backwards while pulling with his upper back and triceps, rowing through the barley and leaving a patterned wake at three foot intervals.

To be fair, not a man. A series of men, we trust. Also to be fair, Jordan pre-discloses and then discloses in the best fashion and also shared at one moment via DM that across the taproom table “Joe Stange five or six pints in speaks of you as a free floating conscience” over my junkety requests thing which is a good thing to know. Especially when it’s a meaningful learning experience as opposed to being in the buffet lineup at another identi-fest. Releatedly, check out the CB&B podcast about top service standards in one Prague beer bar.

Conversely, there was recently a piece about a store that’s a real piece of Maine’s beer history which I was looking forward to being familiar with the area as a Nova Scotian but which I was quite quickly saddened by… being familiar with the area. See, Novare Res Bier Café in Portland was not at all the first craft beer bar in the state. I know because in 2008 I wrote about going there when it was new. Not even the first Belgian beer bar. That’s Ebenezer’s Pub. The Great Lost Bear is my candidate for oldest good beer bar, opening in 1979. We are also told that in the 1980s and 90s the breweries of Maine “were clustered around the urban center of Portland to the southeast” even though north aka downeast, at the shore just 48 miles from Bangor there were at least Bar Harbor Brewing, Maine Coast Brewing Co. and Atlantic Brewing in Baa HaaBaa. Most oddly, we are told “the Arline Road” connects Bangor to the bordertown of Calais. That’s the well-referenced Airline Route which I drove many times, called that because (before it was upgraded) you rode along on many hill crests with drop offs that felt like you might flip off into the clouds. I mention all this to point out how poor fact checking, a plague in beer writing, sadly places the value of an entire piece in doubt.

Note: complaining about this to the left but not this is, what, a bit calculated? Both are just harmless if utterly bland boosterism.

You know, I could post the same one observation about NHS Martin every week: excellent photography, understated insightful comment. Like this piece on a suprisingly lively pub in what I now understand to be the less than attractive town of Maidenhead:

It was a wonderful pub. Outside, children organised a fundraiser for Brain Research, inside the telly was ignored by professional drinkers and lovely staff called you “darling” and you could almost forget you were in Maidenhead at all… I don’t know exactly why, but the joy was infectious, and I’m going to resist mentioning Maidenhead’s red light area, grim underpasses and terrifying multi-storey on this occasion.

And I really enjoyed this BBC piece on small liquor shop drinking places in parts of Japan called kaku-uchi that may date back to the 1600s:

While kaku-uchi have evolved since then – for example, the choice of drinks has widened, with some serving cocktails and others specialising in beer or wine – they’ve stayed true to their proletarian origins. Everyone mixes on an even footing and, often, fluid seating or standing arrangements mean that all customers gather around the same table or counter – making it disarmingly easy to strike up a conversation. Simple snacks are available, with typical fare including canned and dried goods, pickles and oden, or Japanese hotpot.

So, and finally for this week, last week I made a comment about something Boak and Bailey wrote (my point: I would worry if beer was my only hobby) and found their response in… a funny place. As the scramble to find the next Twitter accellerates, the have (in addition to FB and IG as well as Mastedon and Patreon) Substack and its new notes. All very decentralized. So over there… and I am not sure the link would even works so bear with me… This was said:

In a quick, rather heartfelt blog post, we reflected on the positive role beer plays in our lives, and why it shouldn’t feel like a chore or obligation. Alan used the word ‘prop’ here, with concern, suggesting (if we read it right) that beer shouldn’t be anybody’s main hobby. We’d disagree with that because… it’s none of our business. Let beer be as important as it needs to be, as long as you’re happy and healthy.

I am of course fine with other people having other views… except for that idea that “it’s none of our business.” I mention this not to disagree or be disagreeable but to point out how much of beer writing is actually about making observations on the business of others. In the same newsletter, for example, B+B extended comment is made on how one navigates pub culture best by understanding that a “sense of community is created through exclusion” in many spaces. Frankly, I avoid boozehalls full of alkies one a very similar basis that I would avoid those full of racist memorobilia and junior goosesteppers. I judge both as forms of human degradation, distinct but, yes, sometimes overlapping.* I would also speak up frankly to a friend who was going off the path in either respect. Because I make it my business.

So, yes, my point was it is important to extend that sort of advice as a writer to anyone who might be reading, that it is good to check in with yourself about priorities and to remember that a singular fixation with booze is not generally a milestone on the path of well-being. Which is part of why I get such a kick from Mr. Newman‘s other interests. Or Jeff’s pilgramages. Or Ron’s Brazilian breakfast buffets. And if I am are going to speak publicly about the many jollies of the clink and the drink, I would be, what, insincere or even a bit false not to mention (let alone explore) the downsides, too, ** lest we end up as passion parrots. Balance please. Get that goldfish. As Stan wrote on Monday:

Each week there are stories that reinforce the myth that there is a halo ’round the craft beer moon.*** And there are stories that scream bullshit. There are more of the former, maybe because they are more fun to write. In my youth I worked at a newspaper where the publisher said, honest to goodness, that if we wrote something bad about a person we should find an occasion to write something good about them within the next year. Some sort of balanced ledger. It’s not my goal to find less pleasant stories to balance the feel good ones, but some weeks that is pretty easy.

All of which also leads to the further diversificatiton of conduits in our efforts to hunt out both the pleasant and the unpleasant truths. As Twitter slowly crumbles, there are more and more lifeboats to find all the interesting voices. It the thing to do is that we all add emailed newslatters and add Substack Notes and also Patreon and, additionally, consider (as I have) making Mastodon all yours. All again in addition to Facebook and Instagram. What else?

I’m still most pleased by Mastodon. I’ve built up 825 followers there over a few months which is nice as they are responsive but I really like the feature that I can follow a hashtage as easily as following a person. Here’s your newbie cheat sheet:

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters to stay on top of things – including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and now definitely from Stan at his spot on those Mondays! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason every Friday. Once a month, WIll Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. Ben has revived his podcast, Beer and Badword. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too even if it’s a bit trade… and by “a bit” I think mean not really just a bit. There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!****

*Now, to be clear, there are degrees of dependency from just being a beer dullard though to self-harm… and, yes, I the one who once faced the consequences of saying out loud to a EDI gathering that there were two sorts of racist. What I meant was there were (i) the ill-informed who could be eduated on the one hand and, (ii) on the other the intentional Nazi shithead… but facing a room of really pissed off Indigenous leadership led by one chief who said “OK, you are going to have to *#$&ing unpack that one, kid… and do so slowly and carefully” reminds me still that one needs to take care in exprerssing certain things.
**I am also reminded of the lesson in wilful blindness or at least abiding stupidity amongst beer trade friendly/dependent/sychophant beer writers when, years ago, sent out feelers years ago about why craft beer was not taking on anti-drunk driving as a cause and received this from a now little heard from voice: “As much as I am against careless driving caused by drinking, smoking, the application of eye make-up, over-tiredness, cell phone conversations or the accidental spilling of tomato sauce off the veal parmigiana sandwich being scarfered whilst at the wheel…” Classic.
***Stan provided this link to his “halo round the moon” reference.
****And finally the list of the departed newsletters and podcasts or those in purgatory. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

The Middlie-March Endie-O’Winter Thursday Beery News Notes

Well, that wasn’t too bad of a winter, was it. Was it? A time for reflection and relaxation. And winning prizes apparently. This was posted on the Facebook page for my near neighbours MacKinnon Brother’s Brewing who explained how their farm and brewery operation took the gold cup… or the blue ribbon… or red the sticker:

First place in the Malt Barley category at the Ottawa Valley farm show! The farming side of the operation, Miller Seed Farm, grows certified seed on 1300 acres. There is a high amount of diversity, with a crop rotation including wheat, oats, barley (feed and malting), soybeans, and corn.

Give you great level of confidence when your brewer is also the farmer. You know, it’s been a good week for photos. Perhaps a bit of an album as a keepsake is in order. Here are a few of the ones that caught my eye:

From left to right, that’s The Beer Nut on the road looking at the wooden vats at Boon, the packing line at Crisp Maltings where its “100% grown, malted and packaged in Scotland. 90% of our farms are within 50 miles” as well as The Old Wellington in Manchester, England established in 1552 on the move in 1971:

…raised on timber pillars and a stone base, our historic building was lifted and moved down the road to where you see it today! Crazy stuff.

You know, I never know what to think about the taxation issue. Folk need to fund the services we uses after all – as examples of its absence show, like in place where the word “austerity” is thrown about as code for taking the burden off all of those who can best afford it. That being said, this pending increase in Canadian federal excise tax does, however, seem to be a levy which has an unequal effect:

The 6.3-per-cent increase is the biggest that Christine Comeau, executive director of the Canadian Craft Brewers Association, has seen, she said. The group wants Ottawa to reconsider the way the tax is levied. The national body said Canada is home to more than 1,100 craft breweries that account for more than 21,000 jobs. The association said the vast majority of those breweries are less than five years old, and most are not yet profitable.

Now, the article states that excise duties are also imposed on spirits, wine, tobacco, cannabis and vaping products suggesting it is just sin related but forms of such national levies are also imposed on insurance premiums, automotive air conditioners and, my favourite, luxuries. By the way, the UK seems to have issued an inter-galectic scale offset.

What else has been going on? Now that you are up on your Canadian federal excise categories… well, The Beer Nut found a way to discuss an Abbey NEIPA this week:

Like any right-thinking drinker of Belgian beer, I consider Troubadour Magma to be one of the greats, taking strong influence from powerhouse American IPA and giving it just a little bit of a classy Belgian twist. I’m not the only one who thinks so highly of it, as evidenced by the brewery’s insistence on releasing brand extensions. So far, only the Brettanomyces-spiked one has been worthy of the name, in my estimation, but here’s another one to try: the inevitable Magma NEIPA.

Spoiler: he likes. [I still think “yikes!” myself but that’s just me.]

Ron is in Brazil… again. Or he’s back from Brazil… again. And sharing his breakfasts. But more importantly, he guided me to this excellent article on koelships by Marta Holley-Paquette of the Beer of SMOD:

A growing list of American and now British craft breweries have since installed these relics. But to properly understand the cooler, we need to go back in time to when they were a logical part of a typical brewhouse. Then we will follow them into traditional breweries who still use them, and perhaps even discover why they went away. In the early days of industrial brewing, the post boil, pre-fermentation period must have been agonizingly long. Cooling down from the boil (100C) to fermentation temperatures in the teens likely required an overnight stand. Not ideal when you’re dealing with a fragile liquid such as unfermented wort. It’s the perfect place for all sorts of microscopic nasties to make their new home, fouling the flavor and longer-term stability of your beer.

Speaking of the supply chain… no, we weren’t… but we are now… it’s not the main topic of conversation but the movement of cash can be as problematic is the reciprocal goods, as Lucy Britner reported in Drinks Retailing:

When the pandemic hit, the pair pivoted to online beer sales and a subscription club. The founders were featured in many news articles in summer 2022, heralding their “£10 million beer company”. But relationships with the trade have soured, as several brewers raised concerns over unpaid bills. Yeastie Boys founder Stu McKinlay said his business is owed around £17,000 from a £27,000 order going back to 2021. “Their last order from us was in late 2021, previous to which they’d purchased a couple of times and cleared all their debts,” he told Drinks Retailing. “They ordered £27,000 worth of stock and took many months of hassling them – plus a letter of demand – to make any payment on that. They only paid £5,000 and then disappeared again.”

Jeff reported on another effect of the pandemic – changed drinking habits:

Those shifts have had profound effects on our cities. Downtowns, once hubs for office work, emptied out and many never really refilled. That meant workers quit pouring into commercial districts, so restaurants and dry cleaners and shops started closing. And pubs… Entire activities we once enjoyed are withering. We don’t go out to movies anymore; we stream content on our devices. We don’t go to concerts as much anymore; we stream music on our phones. And, highly relevant to the beer world, we just don’t go out to drink as much anymore.

Beer flavoured popsicles? Why bother? Speaking of which, it is a sad state of affairs when Craft Beer & Brewing has to explain something that I assumed was learned at the first week of brewers’ school – you can make flavours in beer without chucking in those E-Z gallons of syrup:

Fruit was one of the first things that craft beer used to differentiate itself from mass-market beer. (Remember the ubiquity of fruited wheat beers in the late ’90s and early ’00s?) Yet it remains something of a mysterious ingredient for many brewers. Lost in much of the debate, however—about extracts versus real fruit, puréed versus macerated versus whole, adding fruit in the boil versus the fermentor, and so on—is this question: Do you actually need that fruit in the first place? Now, I’m not passive-aggressively suggesting that you shouldn’t brew with fruit. Nor am I suggesting that you should avoid real fruit and start hitting the chemical extracts.

So… I am. I am suggesting that. Just for the record, don’t we all agree that you should be able to brew a beer well without adjuncts before you use adjuncts if you are going to, you know, take pride in your product? And umm… see that loss of interest in craft beer over the last while? Guess why. Bed? Pooped in.

Err… isn’t “Manifest Destinty“** one of those slogans that should be, you know, ditched because of its racist colonial implucations? Speaking of which, is there any less appealing form of beer story than the semi-annual “ten people I know pull ten breweries you will never hear of again out of their arses” story? Comes in St. Patrick’s Day editions, too. Maybe it’s the haunt spoiler construct. Or maybe the recirculated Proust analogy laced post… maybe…

Alistair at Fuggled found time to wander towards the Rio Grande… I think… and sent a dispatch from Texas where he found his Czech-xas bliss:

I have to admit that I was thrown off by the bartender asking me if I wanted the beer “crispy or sweet”, but she was talking about the style of pour that I wanted, hladinka or šnyt. As you can see I agree with Karel Čapek that a šnyt is “at least something more than nothing”, and so had a classic hladinka. Pilz pours a lovely light golden, is as clear as a bell, and that wet creamy foam just kind of sat there, at least until I slurped a good deal of it off. Up to this point, the only Pilz I had had was canned, but fresh at source on tap is basically as good as beer gets.

I have been gathering in more of the good stuff, including the newest entry to the list of listenables and good reads down below, Will Hawkes’ London Beer City, where this month we read:

I sit by the window and stare towards Peckham Rye itself. This is a great London view: red buses and people of all backgrounds, movement and life and colour. A man on rollerblades, tugged by a staffie, races past on his way up Rye Lane. Inside, the swearing man admonishes his friend: “Fucking ‘ell Jude, that was 40 years ago!”40 years ago, Only Fools and Horses was in its pomp – and this pub was called The Morning Star. It existed under that name for more than a century, featuring in Muriel Spark’s Ballad of Peckham Rye, before it became The Nag’s Head perhaps 20 years ago, according to this account. It was named after the pub in Only Fools and Horses, a whimsical evocation of the perfect working-class South London pub.

And Ben Johnson‘s podcast is back, by the way. Very focused on the Ontario scene. Even the southwestern Ontario scene. But his stress dream about service jobs decades ago are a good topic this week.

There. Done. Consider Mastodon. Here’s your newbie cheat sheet:

Anyone else? And check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and maybe from Stan at his spot on those Mondays but, you know, he writes bits and bobs when he can… like this! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason every Friday. Once a month, WIll Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too even if it’s a bit trade. There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!*

*In case you don’t know, it’s pretty much the North American version of Lebensraum.
**And finally the list of the departed newsletters and podcasts or those in purgatory. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Ben has had his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

The Beery News Notes For The False Promise Of An Early Thaw

Thaws. They deceive in February. Being unwise, I have started seeds. Thaws also jack the walkway tiles and bricks outside, too. Spent lunch Wednesday discovering the front step tiles are stuck on with stuff that’s now the consistency of chocolate pudding. So things are getting loose, a bit cracked and sorta smashed. But not quite as badly as these late 1600s and early 1700s manganese mottled tankards from Ireland posted on the internets this week. From Newmarket in Dublin we are told. Others have showed up in the colonies, in Maryland and at Harvard Yard. Lovely things. But most won’t hold beer.

Mid-morning Update: Jordan decided to post an homage to Toronto’s Godspeed and its pitch-lined Sklepnik project – posted at 2 am Thursday morning I would add, well past the time this weekly normally goes to press. But it is not worth waiting around another seven days to bring it to your attention:

Every piece is as important as every other piece. Not everything that Godspeed has done has been a triumph, and the situation has been challenging. It was the potential that excited people, and the pitch-lined Sklepnik represents years of earnest effort, not just in the brewhouse, but interpersonally. A month spent learning from people who have spent their entire careers on a single style, and whose trust creates possibility. Functionally speaking, the odds against its existence are such that it is construable as a miracle, and that’s before the first sip. The only way you can get here is trial and error. There’s no ironic posture as a brewer. It’s not a hobby. The secret ingredient is your life.

Also lovely. Now, back to our normal broadcasting…

Unlike our man in The Netherlands (when he’s not in transit.) And, while we are speaking of lovely, Ron, who, yes, often holds a beer, has posted an image of a 1930s ad for Barclay Perkins lager along with his discussion of their 1941 brewing techniques:

Good news for me, as it gives me a chance to preview (use a recipe I’ve already written) a recipe from “Blitzkrieg!”. Though for any of the four options I could have found a recipe in the book. For a book about UK brewing in WW II, it has quite a lot of Lager recipes. 37 in all. Though there are well over 500 recipes in total. Not that huge a percentage, really. Lucky old Dark Lager has seen its gravity increase by 0.5º compared with the previous year.

Elsewhere and also with increasing gravity, the continuing concerns that Guinness has or has not slipped under the radar and ended up in first place somehow in the UK diet… continue. A call for anecdotal evidence was sent out by B to the B and a summary was posted earlier this week. There was a whole lotta comfort out there as far as I could tell. My thoughts?

Had one two weeks ago in an unfamiliar pub in Toronto. Old reliable friend, tasty with most pub food, creamy savoury with the tang and the roast – and not an alcohol bomb. Might have one or two a year.

It’s all good. Sure it’s made by a faceless international conglomerate. But so is vestigially produced Fat Tire – both the new phony and old – and at least Guinness doesn’t buddy up with Myanmar‘s murderous dictators! And at least it’s actually something not made on the same equipment as automotive window washer fluid. By the way… I don’t understand. Aren’t hard soda and boozy seltzers the same thing? I suppose it doen’t help that I don’t give a crap about this… crap. But I have no idea. Thankfully.

Note: not one craft buzzword bingo square was left undaubed in the making of this story.

Beth Demmon released another issue of Probitchin’, this month featuring the work and career path of Jacque Irizarry:

Her interest in art coalesced during college, after she realized how many years of (expensive) education it would take to become a lawyer. After switching her track from becoming an early childhood education art teacher to visual art, she dabbled in photography and painting before graduating with an art degree. With student loans looming, she worked in customer service before landing her current full-time position handling the graphics and design for a company involved in online education, where she’s been for eight years.

Beth’s newsletter is one of my favorites in the beer world. There is a lot to be said for good writing that avoids the unending wanderings and isn’t hip cool and 45 potty mouth serving as cover for cap in hand recycled PR. Mucho looking forward to Beth’s upcoming book on cider.

Speaking of newsletters… they are all the cool kids talk about these days… Kate Mather fabulously unleashed at The Gulp about unleashing at the pub!

Tom and Phil left for their teas, and we made a move too. On the way home I waved my arms like the two-pint revolutionary I am, telling my Tom how important it is to have common spaces for people to freely share ideas, to congregate—and the more that these places, like pubs, are restricted, taken away, closed down; the more the hospitality industry is left to wheeze on without support, the more suspicious I get.

That is what we like to see: two-pint revolutionaries waving their arms. And, speaking of revolutionary, the future continues to be defined in Japan:

… convenience stores can start selling alcohol and tobacco through self-check-out immediately, as long as they’re set up for compliance with the corresponding required regulations. Under Japanese law, a person must be at least 20 years old in order to purchase alcohol or tobacco. In order to confirm the buyer’s age, convenience stores that want to sell such products through self-check-out will have to equip their registers with a device that can scan either the purchaser’s driver’s license or My Number Card, a government-issued ID card that’s not yet mandatory and which the Japanese government is eager to accelerate the adoption of.

Ending a sentence with a preposition is also cooler in the future. And, doing a chronological 180, Nigel altered me to another good piece at the always excellent site A London Inheritance, this time about a street called XX Place:

To try and find some history on XX Place I carried out an online search on the Tower Hamlets Archives, and armed with a couple of reference numbers visited the archives on a Saturday morning… My first source at the archives was a small booklet published in 2001 by Ron Osborne titled XX Place. The booklet provided a description of XX Place. It was built in 1842 for locally employed workers. It was only a short street of 10 small terrace houses running along one side of the street. It was about 10 feet wide and the majority of those living in the street were employed at the nearby Charringtons Brewery.

Interesting observations on the three grades of Oregon hops in 1910 – fancy choice and prime. Seventy five years earlier there also seemed to be a three tier grading system in New York state’s hop trade but named with a bit less of the marketing spin. In 1835 there was just first sort, second sort and third sort hops. Which suggests sorting. And a certain order. Choice? Fancy? Who knew what they meant! Fancy sounds all a bit “My Little Pony” in a way. By the pricing I can only presume that in 1910 “prime” was not actually… prime. But I suppose thems that knew at the time were in the know back then.

I missed this excellent observation by Ren Navarro on the nature of plans to bolster human rights in brewery work places:

While heady political questions are essentially baked into mutual aid work, a more immediate focus of all such groups remains meeting the needs of people who’ve been left out by existing power structures. For Navarro, industry-sponsored programs designed to address inequities are too often structured from the top down, and create barriers for applicants who really need the help. Applications that require resumes and essays, for example, require time and computer access and reliable internet.

And Pellicle has a good piece this week about cider makers Lydia Crimp and Tom Tibbits of Herefordshire’s Artistraw Cider. You know, I usually don’t go for producer bios with beer but somehow the more immediately agricultural nature of cider makes for a more interesting read:

Observing that some apples lend themselves better to certain seasons, they reckon the bright acidity of dessert fruit works well with the freshness of Spring in Beltane—which boasts the Yarlington Mill, Reinette D’Obray, Chisel Jersey, Browns, and Kingston Black cider apple varieties. Whereas Knotted Kernel (with a dash of Kingston Black, Lambrook Pippin and Foxwhelp) has “cherry brandy” notes conjuring up images of roaring fires for their wintry, Hallowe’en release, Samhain (pronounced SAH-win.) Lammas marks the end of Summer and boasts Dabinett, Browns, Yarlington Mill, and a little Strawberry Norman. Imbolc is all about renewal and promise, with Major, Bisquet, Brown Snout, Chisel Jersey, and Ellis Bitter.

Why, I had a bit of the old Kingston Black myself just the other month.

Aaaaannnd… the coal fired generators at Beervana are back on line now that Jeff is back from holidays and he’s shared a tale of fruit coating yeast of a most natural sort:

The riper [the fruit] is, you’re getting ferments that are starting right away. That’s what the yeast and bacteria like. That’s when the birds start to eat it, and that’s when the insects come out and all these things. Nature is showing us these fruits are in their optimum time right when they’re ripe. The more time the fruit spends on the bush or the tree as its ripening, the more organisms are going to be there.

Hmmm… and finally… nice to see that Carlsberg has got its geopolitical ethics so completely all in order:

Danish brewer Carlsberg… warned on Tuesday that a possible slowdown of beer consumption in Europe because of increased prices could dent profit growth this year. The world’s third-biggest brewer also said it is buying out its partner in India and is seeking an option with the buyer of its Russian business to re-enter that market at some point in future.

Dastards. As the Danish military helps arm the Ukraine, Carlsberg makes plans for appeasement.

That’s it! Now… what to do… with these lists… They are getting to be almost 600 words each week and I am not sure how useful they are. Still… they do slowly mark the shift in the discussion. Podcasts dying, newsletters in flux, Mastodon perhaps peaked… As we think on that… hmmm… and song this week? What would I play if this were a movie and these were the scrolling credits? Could it be this?* Yup. That’ll do…

You need to check out Mastodon. It’s so nice. You need to take the time and have the patience as regular posting attracts the audience as per usual. While you are at it, check for more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan spot on Mondays. And, yes, also gather ye all the podcasts and newsletters. Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. See also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast but it might be on a month off (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very much less) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: still giving it a few more weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has had 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 was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run… no, it is back and here is the link! The Fingers Podcast has fully packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly.

*The setting is real.

The “Whoooot! Yes!! It’s February!!!” Thursday Beery New Notes

I have traditionally hated February. OK, fine – sure – by “traditionally” I don’t mean that we have special hatin’ on February outfits in my culture and we don’t gather outside in large circles holding hands dancing to hatin’ February folksongs and hatey hymns. Maybe they do that in Manitoba – but not here! No, February for me means sofa, blankets and getting weepy when the days are longer but the thermometer is plunging. Out the dining room window we are watching a neighbour’s eaves trough slowly rip away from the house under the weight of the ice. Not much you can do until spring about that one. Why do I tell you this? Because it sucks. And I am not alone in this. But then you read about how a fairly late early modern looking pub facade in Wakefield, England was removed and a Tudor building was found and you think… neato.

Anyway, what is going on in the world of beer? Beer beer news. Ikea has beer. Who know? Do you have to open the bottle with a little hex wrench?* What else? Feather bowling! I had no idea that such a thing existed but apparently feather bowling is a Belgian pub game… in Detroit:

The game originally was a Belgian pastime akin to horseshoes and Bocci. These games have many similarities amongst them. Though little is known about the exact origin of the game, it is probable that the resemblance of the balls to wheels of cheese is no mistake. The Cadieux Cafe is proud to be the only home of Feather Bowling in the United States. The game is rarely played in Belgium, and visitors from the old country are often astonished to see the game preserved as it is here.

It looks like bowls on a gutter. Dryland wickedly warped curling. Here’s a video. Speaking of videos, Alistair wrote about watching the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube, something I discovered myself just a few months ago. As usual, drawing from that episode on the micropubs of Thanet** and the lastest from B+B, he took a bit of time to gather his resulting thoughts:

One episode has stuck with me in particular since my little marathon, and that is the one about micropubs in Thanet… I love the concept of the micropub, as it allows easier entry into the world of selling booze as well as allowing the business to be more of an expression of the owner as it is unbound by the conventions of “the pub”. Since watching the video, and reading Boak and Bailey’s fantastic post in BeerAdvocate about their local… Just last week, on our drive to do the weekly shop, Mrs V asked me if I would like to open a micropub, and I had to admit that I had been investigating some of the legalities in Virginia around boozer retailing.

Now, that is the power of amateur video productions available for free on the internets. Gets the brain going. Hey! – is stout really making a comeback? That might be the Protzean point of view:

On Friday it was announced Guinness Stout is the UK’s biggest selling beer, overtaking Carling Lager. UK Stout market now worth £1bn a year. In the small brewing sector, Anspach Hobday Porter is now their biggest seller. Tomorrow Brewdog are launching a Stout “to take on Guinness”

Or… is it all a trap?!? Questions have been posted about the influence leveraged to attain this lofty status. (You know, I once rated higher than Guinness… ah, those were the days…) And ATJ wrote an interesting piece about a grimmer sort of moment in a pub in Aberdeen, Scotland:

Maybe I have that sort of face that attracts certain people, but the slapping man then sat next to me and said something which I could only catch was that his daughter had died. I said I was sorry and then he asked if he could have a drink from my beer. ‘No mate,’ I laughed and he slapped his fist against his hand and I could not understand his words. He was aggressive but for some reason I didn’t feel too threatened, feeling that it was all show.

Am I the only one who thinks the whole “mindful drinking” as a euphemism for low or no alcohol drinks thing is a bit dumb? A bit arrogant even? I mean, when I have a really swell Pouilly-Fuissé I’m being pretty mindful. Paying a lot of attention to what’s in the glass and in my head. NPR covered the story when the superior set met recently:

One of the hottest tickets in Washington, D.C., last weekend was to a festival that was all about drinking and having fun — without being fueled by alcohol. The sold-out Mindful Drinking Fest was emphatically zero proof, but it offered plenty of proof that the movement to drink less alcohol is booming. And with an explosion of new choices, it’s also delicious. From a ginger old fashioned to espresso martinis and spritzes, hop water to pink rosé, the rich complexity of today’s alcohol-free drinks was on full display.

@JJB aka Stonch’s recent trip to Czechia has been immortalized*** in a series of photos and short vids on Twitter that tell the story of the local scene, certainly in a plain archival sense, better than I’ve ever seen in any travel article or beer book, right down to the 40 watt lightbulb look of some places. That is his picture of an Obora 12 ‘Ježibaba’ at Pult. Not beer pr0n. A picture of a beer. Speaking of the Czech Republic… they now have a pro-NATO cask toting new President.

GBH has taken a break from its unattainable fantasy tourism puffs and published an interesting article on the challenges posed by the revitalization of a favorite brewery of mine, Great Lakes Brewing (of Lake Erie, not the Great Lakes of Lake Ontario):

“10 years ago if you had asked me to tell you what I thought craft beer would be like in 2022, I would have taken a guess,” says Hunger, who’s tasked with figuring out how to brew new products on a large scale after a quarter decade of brewing classic styles. “Now if you asked me to tell you what I think it will be like two years from now, I wouldn’t even attempt that. It’s actually a lot of fun. You get to really flex your skills and use different techniques.”

A bit of legal history I’ve missed due to lazy lawyering. You know what happens – you tend to read the appeals cases like the ruling in R. v. Carling Export Brewing and Malting Company, 1931 CanLII 373 (UK JCPC) or even The King v. Carling Export Brewing & Malting Co. Ltd., 1930 CanLII 46 (SCC) looking for the final result… but never check out the fuller statement of facts like in this case about the taxation of beer brewed in Canada but smuggled into the USA during that nation’s Prohibition era. So I never noticed what was described in The King v. Carling Export Brewing and Malting Co., Ltd., 1928 CanLII 758 (CA EXC) at

…the evidence clearly discloses that these goods were actually placed on board vessels for foreign destination, after due clearance from the Customs. The boats came in, reported inward to the Canadian Customs, reported outward, and they obtained their clearance after the goods on board had been duly verified by the Customs officer. Corroborating this exportation to the United States we have the evidence establishing that Rice Beer or Lager— which constituted the largest proportion of the exportation —is very little used in Canada and that it is the preferred beverage in the United States. Moreover, also by way of corroboration a large quantity of Carling’s special, bottles and kegs were returned empty to Canada through the Customs, and upon which a duty was duly paid. The identification of the kegs is ascertained by the special bungs marked with specific cut figures for that purpose. One witness stated that after seeing some boats clear from the Canadian shore with the goods, he saw them being unloaded on the American shore. Another witness testified he saw the Carling beer in the road-houses in the American towns.

Look at that: 1920s Canadian Federal Customs officials were checking the boats going out to verify their cargo then checked the cargo of the ships coming back loaded with empties. Why? Credits for the beer not consumed in Canada! No need to impose business inhibiting punitive social engineering excise tax on beer bought by Americans! You know, there’s a Canadian children’s TV drama just waiting to be built on that story arc.

And then we have the obituary for Sir Samuel Whitbread in The Times this week that claimed he was a farmer first more than the corporate executive who oversaw the family move away from the booze making trade… but the details given are a bit at odds with that:

He presided over a radical reshaping, prompted by government decree and changing public tastes, that took Whitbread into the international hotel and restaurant business — Beefeater and TGI Fridays — and out of beer production after 250 years. Sam Whitbread sold the group’s spirits business, including Long John and Laphroaig whisky and the coincidentally named Beefeater gin. Under an ambitious chief executive, Peter Jarvis, they diversified into David Lloyd Leisure, Marriott Hotels, Pizza Hut and Thresher off-licences. They soon had more UK outlets than McDonald’s.

Hardly the cow shit on the rubber boots sorta lad I’d call a farmer. I feel particularly well advised on this sort of point of view as I am working my way through 1969’s Akenfield: Portiait of an English Village by the also very recently departed Ronald Blythe, in many respects a grim portrait of almost modern English rural life from the 1860s to the 1960s. The book includes this recollection at page 59 as part of the statement given by a farmer, John Grout, of brewing his farm’s traditional beer at harvest in around the start of the First World War:

You took five or six pails of water in a copper. Then you took one pail of boiling water and one pail of cold water and added them together in a tub big enough to hold 18 gallons. You added a bushel of malt to the water in the tub. Then you added boiling water from the copper until there was 18 gallons in all in the tub. Cover up and keep warm and leave standing for at least 7 hours, though the longer the better. When it has stood, fill the copper 3 parts full from the tub, boil for an hour and add a half pound of hops. Then empty into a second tub. Repeat with the rest. All the beer should now be in one tub and covered with a sack and allowed to cool. But before this, take a little of the warm beer in a basin, add two ounces of yeast and let it stand for the night. Add this to the main tub in the morning and cask the beer. You can drink it after a week. And it won’t be anything like you can taste in the Crown, either…

Each man at harvest was entitled to 17 pints through each day’s work. Resulting results of the brewing unpacked here. Lovely. When harvest was done, all involved stood out in the fields and shouted, then waited to hear those in the neighbouring villages shouting back in reply.

That’s it. Now gather ’round the kiddies as we are on to the indices of Mastodon, podcasts and newsletters. Note: Newsletters. CBC published an archived news post about how newsletters began as letters that brought you news. So is what you are reading really that? Let’s just have a think, shall we? Hmmm… and what song this week as we do? What would I play if this were a movie and these were the scrolling credits? Could it be this? Yup. That’s it…

Go have a look yourself. I am up to 750 followers myself. Time and patience and regular posting attracts the audience as per usual. While you are at it, check for more from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan back at his spot on Mondays.

And now the podcasts and… newsletters… First, check to see if there is the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. See also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast but it might be on a month off (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very much less) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: still giving it a few more weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has had 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 was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run… no, it is back and here is the link! The Fingers Podcast has fully packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly.

*Now that’s what I call funny!
**“Class? Class?!? CLAAAAAAASS!!! Now… do remember why Thanet is important in beer history?”
***Well, as immortalized as a picture on a slowly decaying web app will ever be.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week Of Blue Monday

How long is Christmas? Until Candlemas? It’s should be long enough to deal with Blue Monday. In fact, for me Blue Monday should be in February. Why? Leftover Christmas liqueurs! There are still leftover Christmas liqueurs in the cabinet. Sure, it’s a dribble of Cointreau and some sort of nut cream thing but it’s still the holidays in some vestigial sense until that goes. Another way to beat the blues is to be not blue except in terms of your toes and your nose. Get out and see that blue sky. Jeff took a great walk to a brewery near Prague this week and shared some of the countryside, one image of which is right there:

Prague tip: a hike from Prague castle to the satellite town of Únětice is only about 13km, really varied and ends at my favourite Czech brewery. Regular buses go back to the city and you could even summon up an Uber, so you’re not stranded at the end...

Speaking of wandering around Prague, remember when people like Evan wrote short stories around beer? Remember Beer Haiku Daily? Well, Beergeek is writing like its 2012 and getting creative, like this:*

If beer replaced water, swimming would be a very different experience. For one thing, the buoyancy of beer might be different from that of water, so it could be more or less difficult to swim depending on the specific gravity of the beer. Additionally, beer is not as clear as water, so visibility while swimming might be reduced.

Speaking of out and about, Paste mag has published an interesting article about the drinking laws of Japan:

… the idea of “public consumption” in Japan goes even further than you’re probably imagining. Drinking in public transportation, for example, is also legal—booze is sold on the famed shinkansen system of high-speed rail, and it’s not illegal to swig from a hip flask on the train, or even a public bus. Perhaps most astoundingly, though, drinking on modes of private transportation such as cars is also legal for everyone but the driver. That’s right: You can be cruising down the highway with an open bottle of whiskey being passed back and forth between all the passengers, and that is legal under Japanese law.

Much to the contrary, Old Mudgie has shared thoughts about the loss of the love of and/or need for alcohol which he has witnessed over recent decades:

As something becomes less fashionable, people are more likely to prefer to do it in private than in public, which is bad news for the pub trade. According to the statistics produced by the British Beer & Pub Association, in the twenty years from 1998 to 2018 (which is as far as they go), total beer consumption fell by 22.8%, but on-trade consumption almost exactly halved. The trail of pubs now demolished or converted to alternative use is all too obvious. Some will argue that the Anteater Tap is still doing great business, while ignoring the fact that the Sir Garnet Wolseley across the road, which was ten times the size, has been replaced by flats. Even within a declining market, it is still possible to be successful, but that doesn’t make the wider narrative any less true.

Note: Oz hops ave.

Katie Mather has made the case for on-trade non-consuption of at least alcohol in here new piece for Pellicle on the pleasures of a lime and lemonade pub crawl:

When we decided to go on a lime and lemonade crawl, the idea started off as a plan to meet for food. Oversaturated by alcohol and the coming winter, we decided to make Mondays a strict no-alcohol day—the most obvious switch for a bar setting is one with food instead of drinks. But neither of us wanted food. We wanted the comfort of a pub, the atmosphere of a communal sitting room. We didn’t want to be wowed by flavours or waited on. We just wanted somewhere to belong. It’s easy to forget that you’re just as welcome in a pub as a non-drinker. Somehow it feels awkward; unusual. But, if you want to sit in a cosy corner and play cards, you go right ahead.

Note: infographics suck… suck. And is the use of isinglass really all that surprising? An odd criticism. I am still thinking of what it means to be critical in a closed or sorta closed circle like good beer and saw this interesting similar discussion of the issues which bear upon criticism of Indigenous arts written by Drew Hayden Taylor:

…while we don’t know every single Indigenous person in the country, we may know someone who knows someone who knows someone. They aren’t an anonymous, blank population. Knowing this can be difficult. As Glen Sumi, theatre critic at large, told me, “there’s also the possibility of being too close to the community you’re writing about — especially if you’ve worked with or are going to be working with some of the artists you’ll be reviewing.” True. I remember reading a quote from some famous novelist who said something to the effect of “I never felt freer as a writer than when my parents died.” Now picture that sense with a whole nation watching you. It can be somewhat problematic.

I would add one key distinction is that there is no community with good beer in the same sense even if there may be communities or at least circles. There is perhaps a sense of this in Eoghan‘s thoughts this week as well as something else:

…beer reviewing is subjective, and there are noses out there better able – thanks to training, genetics, or both – to catch what I missed. And that, beyond the intellectual vanity and the sensory chaos, is why I think I dislike decoding beers: I am uncomfortable with this ambiguity. I trust my eyes, dodgy as they are, and the neural pathways they follow. I don’t trust the messages coming from my olfactory system and the detours they take into memory and recall. Despite all this, there is a reason I became a beer writer and not an art critic (well, there are many). Because good and all as Velázquez’s royal portrait or Picasso’s colourful interpretation might be, on a terrace on a sunny day in Brussels, a 17th century oil on canvas just doesn’t hit the same way as a cold glass of Zinnebir.

At least it’s a beer made in Belgium and not the disassembly of a long dumbed down clone of something Belgian. Telling that the Fat Tire chat has very little to do with the beer, just the sideshow of the brand being scotch taped on a can with something other than Fat Tire in it. Best comment so far?

Alright. Can we all agree that (1) nobody’s had a Fat Tire in years; and (2) nobody’s allowed to talk about New Fat Tire anymore unless it’s about what’s in the fucking can and you include a poorly taken picture of it in a glass. It’s what we do.

There. That’s quite a bit. Well, a middling sort of week. And now on to the index of others. Really, indices. Again I ask… what song should play if this were a movie and you were there scrolling though the slowly building upon a randomized list of beer writing resources on Mastodon** followed by the podcasts ‘n’ stuff? This? Yes, that’s it – an exploration of exploration… over 50 years ago… yikes…***

Go have a look. And also check for more as the year picks up from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan back at his spot on Mondays. It’s no longer the holidays. So, look around and check to see if there is the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it there again! See also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast but it might be on a month off (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. 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. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus 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 was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run… no, it is back and here is the link! The Fingers Podcast has packed it in citing lack of success.

*Stan has admonished me in the mildest manner for not pointing out the use of artificial “intelligence” in this matter. I have commented in reply thusly...
**(again… inspired by Boak and Bailey… not stolen… not!)
***compare to 45 years later with the great Geddy Lee, grinning like a schoolboy at the 3:15 min bass break, sitting in for the dear departed Chris Squire at the RRHF induction.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For Summer 2022’s Second Third

The trouble with writing something on a weekly basis is you notice that another week has passed. This is why I don’t shave every day. Looking at the same mug in the same mirror at the same time each and every morning? No thanks. You notice too much. Like that one third of this summer is already done. And the last three weeks don’t even count. Panic! Panic!!! Max is having none of it. He is squeezing every moment out of the good weather – and has found a new cocktail to go along with it. I say cocktail but it seems to be booze free: “The coffee is hot. Then they mix it with tonic and ice, add the lime and you get a glass of refreshing goodness.” I will have to try that.

Heatwave. Euro heatwave. Best place to be? In an old pub painted white on the outside with thick insulating walls and a hearty aircon system? Worst place to be? In the car when the prosecco blows. Or working in a brewery for that matter, as one witness confesses. Fact: 3.6 times more people in the UK think drinking beer is a proper way to beat the heatwave than eating iceberg lettuces. Plural. That’s what the graph says – floating, a little alienated even, just there above this Bloomberg story. Looks like Tesco’s estimate for sales this past week:

…there’s pressure on retailers too, though more to keep the nation in supply of its summer quenchers. Supermarket chain Tesco Plc expects to sell more than 9 million ice creams and lollies in the coming week, a record. The supermarket also expects to sell 9 million bottles and cans of beer and 50,000 bottles of Pimms, the classic British summer gin-based fruit drink… Peas, lettuce and apples are particularly susceptible, he said, and crops can’t be shielded. “It’s not catastrophic — it happens,” said Ward. “Extreme heat is uncomfortable for people and plants.”

Either way, bad week to be a lettuce: get eaten or burn. Perhaps making matters worse for the the green crunchies, it appears that some lab coated type people are telling some other not lab coated people to lay off the sauce when being slowly roasted during a heatwave:

“Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it encourages the kidneys to lose extra fluid. That is why you tend to go to the toilet to urinate (pee) much more when you drink alcohol. Alcohol also makes you sweat more. The combination of sweating more in the heat, and going to the toilet more, means you lose more fluid than you take in and become dehydrated unless you replace that lost fluid by drinking water.” Official guidance also urges people to avoid caffeine during the hot weather for the same reason.

WHAAAAATTT!!! Hot cuppa tea is the best thing on a hot day. That’s what Grannie always said. Never mentioned lettuce either, come to think of it. And they call themselves scientists.* Thankfully, the New York Post found a couple of people perhaps partially of the lab coated variety to root for beer as the mercury climbs:

…in the midst of an international heat wave, one physician on Twitter claimed beer can help with hydration. Academic Ellie Mackin Roberts sparked a now-viral debate when she recently tweeted 10 steps to help beat the heat. Tip No. 9 read: “If you are dehydrated (and an adult, and able to do so) drink a half a pint of beer (inc. alcohol free!) and then move straight onto water (or a sports drink or cordial if you don’t like water).” Followers of Roberts, an expert in ancient Greek history, quickly responded, questioning how beer could ever be helpful in trying to avoid dehydration. However, Dr. Stuart Galloway, of the University of Stirling told Femail that the beverage contains electrolytes, sugar and salt, which helps the body retain fluid, rather than it going straight through.

Gary added an interesting but also labcoatless and lettuceless post on the conditions in pubs in Halifax, England in 1932 and how the local establishments managed another heatwave ninety years ago:

“The public do not realise the trouble we have to go to, to keep our beer cool,” one licensed victualler said. “When you have a rock cellar as we possess, the business is bad enough, but publicans that do not possess this advantage have a busy time trying to cool their beer. Some of the best bitter beers require nursing if our customers are to be satisfied in these hot days,” he continued, “and even with advantages regarding cellarage I have to keep a succession of wet sacks over my casks to keep them cool.” In one restaurant sacks, thoroughly dampened, are placed over the casks of beer, and from time to time a system of sprayers pours ice-cold water over them.

That’s the spirit – and at least they were not resorting to putting crap in the lager and calling it innovation! Honourable mention and a big “thanks for coming out” for at least shitting on the 2009 video “I am a craft brewer” even if it took them thirteen years to admit how stupid it was. All very “wad some Power the giftie gie us“… Dave! Some are still unaware.

This week in beer writing mildly troubling angst: dashes.

Health update: booze bad. Relatedly, in Jerard Fagerberg’s disappointingly brief but excellent interview (within an important health confessional of sorts) former beer writer Norm Miller shares some thoughts on his 2018 decision to back away from drinking:

During his tenure, Miller became synonymous with the Massachusetts beer scene. But by 2018, Miller was drinking too much. As an obese man in his 40s, he needed a holistic lifestyle change. He never felt physically addicted, he says, but the pressures of being in the beer media were indeed getting to him. “I didn’t consider myself an alcoholic, I just drank because I felt like I should keep up with everything,” he says. “It was a combination of trying to keep up with everything and sincerely liking to try different things. It was a bad combination. I decided to step away, because my health was more important than a weekly column.”

PS: Norm‘s normal now… nearly. I applaud the raising of the ill effects of booze but it is sad to see it hidden in the lower shelf of GBH well behind all the regular dubious claims to fame for booze.

Canadian craft Faxe weekly update.

Note: there are upsides to the heat or at least a moderate amount of it. The barley crop in Ireland is loving it, according to grower and not well dead poet, John Dunne: “…grain fill looks really good. You can’t beat sunshine to put weight in grain.” And, did you know, that actual grains make interesting flavours that can be expressed though a resulting booze-laden beverage? No, really. Apparently adding buckets of jam is not required according to this heads up from Curmudgeon Ale Works citing an article in Modern Farmer:

“There were a few older, open-pollinated varieties that really didn’t taste very good. But then there were a few that were absolutely stunning. And what fascinated us was that all of the hybrids kind of tasted the same.” Time and time again, the flavor of the heritage and heirloom grains outperformed the hybrid rye varieties—but that doesn’t mean hybrids don’t have their place. Swanson still grows hybrid grains, such as the popular AC Hazlet, because they “are incredibly robust in the field,” he says. “They give beautiful standards, they yield astronomical amounts.

Pay attention, brewers. And an addendum to last week’s comment about medieval alcohol making:

Later this week blackcurrants are going to make wine too… farmers will convert anything to alcohol, it’s our superpower…

In addition to all its issues, craft beer also has a labour problem, according to this excellent and detailed article by Julie Rhodes:

Think about it this way, if the 1990s were like the kindergarten stage of the overall craft beer industry journey, full of wide-eyed enthusiasm and experiential learning moments, the 2020s are proving to be like middle school – full of angst, infinite possibilities, and pivotal decision-making that will determine the long-term future of the industry. We will have to wait to see if the cool kids can mature enough to make equitable and mutually beneficial decisions that will carry this industry beyond the awkward stage, but many are hopefully optimistic.

AKA the era of the spotty faced gits. I like it.

And finally a question: why bother with B.O.B.s** (or W.O.B.s for that matter) set in places you will never see and drinks you will never have? Among the usual questions about veracity in drinks writing, don’t these reach a further level of abstraction from reality, so far that they might as well be entirely made up? A sort of social science fan fiction?

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.: with a good discretion of the purchase of Amsterdam’s recent buyout by Danes this week at about the midpoint but avoid around the 24th minute if you don’t care for sputum) 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 wound up now after ten years.

*Other points of view have been circulating.
**Beer Owner Bios, that sort of subset of puffery that is as close to press release reporting as there is… well, except for when that’s all it actually is…

The Mid-June 2022 Edition of Thursday Beery News Notes

Finally. I am now convinced we may not get snow again… probably… the crops are a’risin’ and they are getting noticed and even harvested by strangers new to the neighbourhood. I even sharpened the manual mower and dug up the now dead fig tree’s root. In fact, I was reminded just last Saturday how much better beer was than having a fat guy at 59 heart attack when, laying on the lawn sweaty and staring at that damn fig root once cut from the planet which gave it life, I chose to have a beer rather than a heart attack. Good call. Meantime, I got on the Dall-E app thingie to see what all the cool kids are up to. Apparently the AI for the app likes its beer writers fat, white and male. I don’t dare show you the other three panels. Still… quite extraordinarily perceptive.

First up, I love this image from the Mi’gmaw academic Robbie Richardson of Princeton – and his caption: “There was a two man band doing a mix of Pink Floyd and Louis Armstrong covers.” Fabulous. He was in a London working man’s pub and captured the spirit of the scene in this shot as well as a second photo. Note: not yet included in the listed, upgraded or relisted by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England.

Speaking of pubs, there is pub ticking and there is speculative pub ticking that requires you to tick a pub just in case only to find out that the pub was not worth the tick! But in the tick that was not ticky there are also gems, like this beer right here, a Dulse Stout. I like the sound of that. But I grew up near the Bay of Fundy.

Evan demonstrated a deft use of social media on Wednesday with his multi-tweet, multi-media argument on the relationship between Czech culture and a state owned Czech brewery. Read it. It’s better than 87% of the paid beer writing this week. Here, let me start you off:

I keep seeing Czechs ask “Why shouldn’t we privatize Budvar?” aka “Why should the Czech Budweiser brewery remain under state ownership?” A few quick thoughts on the pros and cons.

A bit further out there, we have either apparently run out of gimmicks or have achieved master level gimmick:

A Scots brewery has joined forces with a company of professional musicians in a bid to discover whether playing piano to fermenting beer affects the taste… Sean Logan, a member of the company, is playing a wide selection of his music to two batches of new beer now in the fermentation tanks at Bellfield’s brew house. The two new beers – Resonancy IPA and Resonancy Pilsner- have been brewed specially for Pianodrome’s summer-long ‘Resonancy’ at their new, upcycled piano amphitheatre at the Old Royal High School.

And, never the gimmick, I missed this a month ago about the last Fred Fest coming and going:

This weekend marks the final Fred Fest, a rare beer charity event created to honor the birthday of legendary Portland beer journalist Fred Eckhardt. Later this summer venue host Hair of the Dog Brewing is closing, and this will be one of the last occasions to celebrate both owner Alan Sprints and Fred Eckhardt’s invaluable contributions to the industry in-person.

Boak and Bailey had somewhat positive experiences at three ‘Spoons and were pleasantly confused:

It was busy but peaceful with mostly older drinkers chatting in groups as diffuse sunlight warmed them through big windows. Ruddles was, again, surprisingly, delightful, this time at £1.49. Adnams’s Ghost Ship (£2.10) was good, too – a reminder of what a great beer this can be, full of citrus zest. The tables were spotless and polished and the in-house mag sat there looking harmless, with a cover feature about Curry Club rather than, say, DOES TRUTH MATTER?

But what about goes into what is in the glass? A study is being undertaken by my old alma mater, Dalhousie, in combination with two local breweries, 2 Crows and Propeller. They are looking to see if they can solve an old issue with how malt is made:

Historically, malting involved soaking barley in water, laying it out on the floor to germinate, and then drying it. This is a process called floor malting. Today, pneumatic malting is automated with large maltsters spreading the barley out on a perforated floor and blowing air through that floor to precisely control temperature and humidity before drying the malt. Two concerns about floor malted barley have been hindering the growth of craft malting: the potential for higher levels of a flavour-altering compound called Dimethyl Sulphide (DMS), and a condition called premature yeast flocculation…

Big picture, brewing industry economic challenges continue. Belgian brewers face bottle shortages:

Companies like the historic Huyghe brewery in Flanders, for example, are starting to run out of bottles. The lifeline, for now, is the accumulated stocks of bottles that were purchased from a supplier company in Russia. These days, supply has been interrupted and finding alternative suppliers with the capacity to respond in Europe is anything but easy due to the strong concentration that has occurred in the industry in recent years.

Similar stories out of the UK and Germany. Plus not enough C02. Plus drought. Plus the hot sauce is disappearing. (Glad I have backup.) In Hawaii and in Asia, the brewing basics are not as easy to get your hands on:

All food prices are going through the roof in Singapore. “It’s getting harder and harder for us to get any supplies at all,” Jesemann said. Hops and malt, delivered by ship from Germany, are also becoming hard to come by. The pandemic and the Russian war have made everything more complicated.

Now… there was an interesting set of three separate posts this week which added up to a bit of an interesting conundrum or at least signs of change. Worth unpacking. First, to set the scene, Jeff used all his fingers and toes and came to the correct conclusion that there are a lot of beer brands out there:

I was doing that same back-of-the-envelope math recently, and things have changed just a smidge. American breweries are within spitting distance of making a million individual beers. Maybe they already do. Three changes account for this. (1) The US has seen a more than fivefold increase in breweries since 2010, to around 9,500. (2) The number of beers each brewery makes has skyrocketed. Partly that’s a function of a changing market that rewards churn. But partly it’s a result of the fact that (3) almost all those breweries have taprooms, and a a lot have multiple taprooms. People are in turn drawn to those retail sites to sample new beers and buy four-packs they can’t get at the store.

I totally agree. We could also do a similar calculation of local bakery cookies, squares and other doodads. As things localize and multiply – as the dream of big national craft continues to fade – we have a splendidly mindboggling range of options… as long as you can be everywhere all the time. Which you can’t. Which leads me to Robin and Jordan writing in conversation as they do monthly for Good Food Revolution. This month they discuss the fragmentation of style over the same timeline that Jeff discusses his numerical ker’splosion:

J: It’s not just flavour, either. As part of the instruction at George Brown, I’m explaining to people about the Lovibond Company. They were stained glass manufacturers who came up with a standard colour spectrum for beer. Sort of pale straw down to deep brown, but in gentle gradation. One of the students asked, “So what happens when beer is suddenly pink?”

R: I do take your point. While styles have changed so much throughout the centuries, things do seem to be going pretty alarmingly fast in terms of flavour development, with everything but the kitchen sink being put into a beer. Sometimes the beer is even aged in a kitchen sink for that flavour.

It’s an interesting discussion – but, with respect, it does move a titch to the reactionary. In the sense that it depends on chestnuts like Garrett Oliver on wine (no, wines have a massive range of flavours) and dear old Michael Jackson (whose declaration of style as periodic table flopped way before the beer went pink.) But it serves as a great X axis to Jeff’s Y.* Facing this shock of the new… well, newish… we (rejecting the 1880s Michelson and Morley approach) should not worry about preserving a conceptual status quo. In the million brand universe the idea that beers can “rise up above all of the nonsense” like hit songs may not recognize that (i) the hits were rarely the most interesting songs** and (ii) there are far too many beers now for it to mean anything when a tiny foil Sunday School gold star gets awarded. It is simply no longer meaningful. That centre no longer holds.

Which leads us to Ben Johnson who has rejoined the land of the beer writer and posted his first post since last he posted in over a year and a half, reminding us all to disclaim the freebie:

It’s pretty basic marketing. For the cost of beer and shipping, you can put your product into the hands of people who are happy to share news and images of that product with your target audience. Beer writers and influencers get beer, they write about it and photograph it, and then share their work with their beer-loving followers; and the brewery, at least in theory, sells more of that beer.

This, too, is now a bit of a read guard action. Not because people don’t let folk know when a freebie is being discussed. We see disclaimers all over the place now – and that is great. Problem got solved. But the new problem is… it’s also sorta useless. And sorta 2018. Think about it. What beer drinker is now so weak of will that they are influenced? Wanted to be subjected to marketing? Second, many of the more interesting breweries just do not send freebie samples just like they don’t submit beers to award competitions. They know their base and have no need of the TikyToky marketplace of ideas. Third, too many freebie opinions boiled down to generic praise. Worse, fingerwaggery may ensue. Me, I can buy the beer.*** I can take the risk with a few bucks that I might not like something once in a while. Frankly, I am much more likely to be attracted by a skillful brewery that also displays a bit of good humour and jokes with itself. I am also much more interested, like Mr. Lemon, in what is a short walk away.

All of which adds up to something. And its something very different from even just pre-pandemic. The pre-pan. There is now just too much in beer to be aware of all that much about all the beer. It has been foretold, of course. Over seven years ago it was clear that it was impossible to be a “beer expert” but we are also well past even that. With the explosion of brands and styles and influencers (not to mention the seemingly hundreds of beer award competitions – now including a prize for iconic supermarkets? FFS. Really?? Have things gotten that tight for the award fee gatherers?) the confusion isn’t fading, it’s now a bazillion times worse. Or maybe better. Is all that variety actually all that bad ?

What can the poor beer writer do? No problem. Keep it specific. Look for the details. Experience what is actually there and now what you’re told should be there. And maybe write about it. That’s what I say. By this I mean if you are someone with the knowledge of what is good right there in your local area write about it… or write about what London Cooper was or… what is interesting about trademark law as it affects brewing or… or even what Ron has been eating… well, then you have half a chance to still be interesting and informative or even just funny. Write – even if its probably not all actually journalism. Writing is good. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating. Write. It’s hopeful thing. The hope that we acknowledge the rich niches which have replaced outdated umbrellas and overarches and authority figures. THIS JUST IN: no one need read Michael Jackson ever again except for archival purposes.

Perhaps connectedly, Stephanie Grant thought about something like it and wrote an interesting piece at her space “The Share” comparing craft beer now to the downsides of dating, including the fork in the road at phase 3 :

This is the part of the relationship where you start questioning things. Should I stay or should I go? It’s a hard question when beer has become part of my identity. What happens when it’s not? I left my job at the brewery. I started freelancing full-time. Initially, I dreamt of writing for breweries, but I started questioning that. Did I even want to work in the industry anymore? During this stage, my beer fridge went mostly untouched. It had been months since I posted about beer and even longer since I purchased a six pack. Meanwhile, my cocktail bar GREW.

Did she ditch the dud at phase 4? You will have to go read.

The rut is real – and, let’s be honest, maybe its because just as we have this unwieldy explosion of beer brands and alleged styles, we also have a limited range of beer writing themes.**** So much writing has not caught up with the scene from the consumer’s seat. Why listen to drinkers when you can talk at brewery owners? Yet… I think the last few years’ worth of new writing on social justice through the lens of beer is invigorating and, like the niche and the local, points to the way. Focused as it is on their personal experience, it is a step forward exactly because it’s written by people who actually do “think about press freedoms or the politics of their readers” and then think about their experience in beer overall. These writers have had to work to be heard. And beer doesn’t traditionally have much time for the bad news. Commissioning editors get the yips about bad news but these writers now sometimes write uncomfortable personal things. Discomforting interesting things – unlike what that DALL·E mini app would have us believe as illustrated above. It is also interesting that it is occurring just as established news services also shine a brighter light on the little ways of brewing. Again, I speak of hope. This is excellent. And it bodes well for a better future.

What’s it all add up to? In the million brand world, just don’t be a follower. Be the subject of the story of your own experience. We simply don’t have any use for the good old days when craft beer was the defined as the domain of the heroic great white male, whether brewer or writer. A past when perhaps, to channel Mr. Ahmir Thompson, we have been burdened by the achievers who kept down creatives. Someone should let the DALL·E mini app up there know we may be done with that. If we are lucky. It’s a needed change – because it was not all good and fun, whatever you were told.*****

There. Another long variation on a theme. But that’s what the beery news notes is for! Reading the writing. And 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.: back again this week) 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… 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.

*Another interesting X and Y graph would be where one axis represented the collapse of stylistic and branding certainty and the other axis represented the increase in card carrying Cicerones.
**Have you ever seen “Pina Colada Song” aka “Escape” lip sinc-ed vids? Big hit. In its fifth decade of existence. Shitty.
***This is my favorite line when a brewer offers me samples, that I am not one of that sort of writer. Brewery owner then laughs. Then I laugh. It’s a nice bonding time. Then I pay and go.
****They include: (i) social justice through the lens of beer, (ii) comforting praise for the rural brewery preferably founded by career changers… perhaps before they change back, (iii) beer writers interviewing beer writers and other circles of praise, (iv) possy spin over what arrived for free this week (yet… who could deny him this time?) and (v) affirmations of the abiding beer fibs through time like there is nothing to worry about the marketplace, temperance bad, puritans really bad, j-curve good ’cause beer is health food! (I often think of whether Gary Bredbenner so well remembered by Lew at the time now 13 years ago was affected by this… and Norm Miller as well.) Not to mention the crap that isn’t even beer. Fibs and lies, I say. Money in this case is the root of all evil, isn’t it… yet so is its absence.
*****Which is to say we are well past the day a decade ago when Melissa Cole could say that “brewing industry is not only booming and forward-thinking, it is also fabulously friendly” while James Watt was calling someone out by saying “…if we wanted advice from you, it would be about how to simultaneously patronise women and bastardize beer…” Quite the reversal! But it is a meaningful reversal of sorts as brewing is not and has not been a friendly place even if there are friendly faces to be found. And it’s good for us all to have grown up even if it means you leave behind those things of interest in youth.