Drinking Culture – Page 5 – A Good Beer Blog

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 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 Fascinating If Not Captivating Beery News Notes For November’s Start

November. Yippee, November! No one ever said that. Maybe if you were born on the first of November. Or in New Zealand. A New Zealander born on the first of November might be feeling they hit the jackpot, come to think of it. DSL might, too. Speaking of which, the Austrian Beer Party is saying yippee or whatever it is you say thereabouts. Still at 10% in the polls, down from 13% a month ago but no joke:

An upstart satirical party whose flagship policies include an unconditional beer allowance for every citizen and municipal lager fountains has come out of nowhere to win fourth place in national opinion polls. Founded in 2015 by a charismatic punk rock singer, the Beer Party was until very recently a fringe phenomenon in Austrian politics, scraping only 0.1 per cent of the vote at the last parliamentary election in 2019.

What else is up? I need to make this snappy. Things to do. Naps to have. Hmm…. Crisp Malting issued its 2022 Harvest Report which contains some startling observations about the climate:

It was the sixth driest summer on record and the driest since 1995, with just 62% of the usual summer rainfall. Additionally, we also saw more sun than usual at 115% of the 1991-2020 average. As a result of all this weather, it was the earliest barley harvest ever – some fields were cut on June 29^th – and by July 19^th, 70% of the UK winter barley harvest was cut. In the 50s and 60s, this would have been a month later, in August. Harvest in Scotland closed out earlier than usual also, another demonstration of the impact climate is having on our agricultural calendar.

Jings. Word is by 2042, the harvest will take place in 2041 a full twelve weeks before the time of planting. Canada is also having a bumper crop – and seeing higher prices for the wrong reason.

And I’ve come across something I am not sure I’ve seen as much as I thought I might – a review of the Good Beer Guide from Phil Mellows of British Beer Breaks who attended the book launch:

The strength of the Good Beer Guide, and what makes it different from, and in many ways better than, competing guides, is that the people picking the entries are so close to the ground. They know exactly what’s going on with the pub, because they drink in there week in, week out. This is also a weakness. A pub can fall out of favour with these individuals for all kinds of reasons that may be obscure to the occasional visitor. And there must be, it seems to me, a growing pressure on the decision-making resulting from the limit imposed on the number of entries allocated to each county or region.

Economics abounds. Muskoka buys Rally. Bench Brewing and Henderson sorta maybe merging. And Jeff has it right – Ommegang has lost its way. Another sign of the times? Lost Abbey is cutting back:

The Lost Abbey’s co-founder and managing partner Tomme Arthur says the scale-down is an acknowledgment of vastly different market conditions than those of the brewery’s sales heyday seven years ago… Arthur says he hopes that reducing costs, particularly on rent and property taxes, will mean the brewery can maintain its staff of roughly 35 employees. “You can’t get small enough quick enough if you’re trying to protect the flank,” he says.

I’m worried. Not about beer. There will always be beer. I am worried about my problem with Twitter. If we lose Twitter there’s bound to be a new problem for me that will replace my problem with Twitter. I’m having a look at Mastodon but who’s over there? 100% of everyone voted to not “Quit the Twit” in my scientific study. And what will I do without it, without for example good folk going all pointy finger over a history of lambic which is an accusation of all other histories of lambic? I quite like “jeremiads full of invective“… although he’s misspelled jeroboam, hasn’t he. Sad.

Sadder? A thieving beer guzzling monkey in India!

Matty C has also asked a question of verbiage. Specifically the use of Helles:

I’m talking about ‘Helles’, and how it’s become the latest in a stream of buzzwords the lager machine has sacrificed to maintain its youth and vim. But why this particular terminology, and how did it take hold? How accurate are modern brewers’ renditions of this classic Bavarian style? And does what a beer is called really matter, if people are enjoying great lager as a result?

I like my words to mean what they mean and not mean what they don’t mean. Otherwise it can lead to things. Ron found himself lead to things and in a bit of a pickle out and about on the Brazilian beer tourism scene again:

Last full day in Brazil. A bit weird. An election and the clocks changed. Plus everything in the centre of Florianopolis is shut…. It’s going crazy outside. People clearly think Lula has won. I hope that’s fireworks and not gunfire.

I trust it all worked out. Speaking of travel and a bit more sedate sort bit of travel, B+B took us to Cologne, Germany this week and laid down a new law:

We decided on a rule: you need a minimum of three beers per pub on a Kölsch crawl. The first one will taste weird because it isn’t the same as the last you were drinking. You gulp that one down. Get the city scum out of your throat. The second, as you acclimatise, allows you to pick up distinct aromas and flavours. How is it different? Why is it different? The third allows you to appreciate what’s in front of you in its own right, and decide whether you want to turn this into a real session. Or walk on. Because you’re never far from another.

In brewing history this week, Gary highlighted the upcoming 2022 Chicago Brewseum Beer Summit and, elsewhere, @AfricanArchives wrote about a moment in history that I had not heard about – The Battle of Bamber Bridge which saw US soldiers fighting each other in England in 1943… and the local English publicans taking a side:

In 1943 Black American soldiers faced off with white American Military police during World War 2 on British soil. Black American soldiers had to fight their own white American soldiers, while in England, where they were fighting the world war. …when the American Military police found out that their own black soldiers were drinking at the same pubs as white people, they went in to arrest them. The people in the town got mad about that treatment and decided to then turn their pubs into “BLACKS ONLY DRINKING PUBS”

Finally, a less inspiring story came to light just when the blog post was going to the presses. Ben Johnson posted an excellent exposé on one Ontario brewery facing little public condemnation after allegations of sexual harassment:

It is unfortunate then that, when the City of Kitchener recently opened up their Requests for Proposals (RFP) process to find a “non-premier brewery partner” to serve beer at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium Complex and Kitchener Golf Courses, they awarded the contract to Four Fathers Brewing Company in Cambridge. Unfortunate, of course, because in 2018 Four Fathers founder and University of Guelph Professor John Kissick actually was charged with two counts of assault and one count of assault with a weapon. Those charges were ultimately dropped in 2020 when Kissick entered into a peace bond with the party who brought forward the charges, but to craft beer drinkers and any feeling humans who watched video of the (alleged) assault (myself among them) the incident likely left a bad taste in their mouth.

There. Nothings like ending on a crummy note. For better news, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey hopefully now again mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – and 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 (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 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!

These Are The Brief But Tersely To The Point Beery News Notes For This Week

Mid-October. It is still pretty nice out there. Maples bursting with bright orange leaves around the neighbourhood. Still no frost in the forecast right up to the last days before November. It’s nutty. I have been more ant than grasshopper nonetheless and busily squirreling away preserved crops one way or another. Last night I was seen preserving ginger root in Sauternes. I have more to prepare and may do a batch soaked and submerged with bourbon. Not sure I would try this with beer… unless an imperial stout over 10% was nearby. That might be quite the tasty treat.

Back to the island, Boak and Bailey published a very impressionistic bit of writing about the experience of returning to hunting out beer in Germany after more than a decade. I say impressionistic primarily on the basis of the first word in the title of the bit is “impressions” so you can consider me a believer. And an exercise in an alternative approach it is very refreshing:*

A proper dodgy station, like all proper cities have, its plaza reeking of urine and scattered with beer bottles. Old hands rummaging in its bins, searching for treasure. Have fun in our city, the gateway says – have a drink or two, by all means – but don’t let it take you. Under the ring road, through the old city wall, and into a party on the move. Is it the last night of the year for a T-shirt, or the first for scarves and gloves? Wegbiers there and here. Döners here and there. Cream-coloured taxis nosing through crowds forced out into the street from hot bars with hot red lights.

Elsewhere, Jenny P posted some interesting images this week of South African Chibuku, a sorghum beer made by SABMiller and its competitors which are sold in cartons – some of which have rather direct if not graphic health warnings. We used to get A+W root beer in those containers. When I were a lad…

Lars posted a response to the thoughts of Martyn on the use of beer as the alternative to toxic water in the medieval period. As it is impossible to prove a negative, I lean away from arguments which include statements such as “I suggest that is impossible” and so I find Lars has the slightly more compelling argument:

Sweden and Denmark are further to the south, and a completely different story. In both countries the norm was to brew new beer every time the barrel was empty. Beer literally was the everyday drink against thirst to the point that in Denmark the most common name for the weaker beer was “dagligøl” (daily beer), while in Sweden beer was just known as “dricka” (drink) or “svagdricka” (weak drink). It’s difficult for people today to accept this as fact, but nevertheless people really did drink beer all day every day (where they could). Here’s a quote from a Danish farmer describing his own upbringing: “People drank a lot of beer, and only beer. Nobody would think of drinking water or milk.”

I would point out a couple of things that also guide me. Martyn bases his argument on reliable stats related to English grain production from 1275 to 1324 and holds that:

…to supply every adult in the country with three and a half pints of ale a day, the minimum to keep hydrated if you are not drinking water, would have required 83 per cent of the country’s entire grain production to be used for brewing.

This is a rational observation. But it fails to take into account that the less noticed lives of poor and country folk would have found their alcohol through fermentables which were (i) not those recorded for national stats and (ii) likely included or even relied on plants other than wheat, rye, barley and oats. We see, for example, plenty of past references to pea and bean malt. Consider this from the very Martyn himself in 2012. Consider also a brewer in my fair city just 207 years ago seeking a supply of peas. If these are added to the national supply, that 83 percent may drop, maybe even by double digits… say to 66% hypothetically. Also, he argues that “if the average is only one pint a day, that accounts for only 19% of total grain production.” But what else is it supposed grain production would go to in them there days other than bread and ale? Add to that Lars’ argument that we should not forget the poor simply died young as they were destitute. Perhaps destitute of ale. And perhaps exactly because they were destitute of ale. All in all, the jury should still be out on this one.

Back to the present, Jeff concludes his thoughts on a trip to Norway, so praised by clever people like me last week, with more excellent observations but perhaps a few affirmations which may be a wee but perhaps understandable mistake. See if you can see it… hint:

When I started learning about beer more than four decades ago, I made a common American mistake. I assumed brewing traditions and beer styles were permanent and fixed. Finding a small farmhouse brewery in the verdant fields of Wallonia was akin to discovering a new species of otter. You understood it could evolve and probably did, over the decades and centuries, but like otters this process was so slow you couldn’t observe it happening in real time. (This is why the early style descriptions were so rigidly prescriptive.) But once you actually met the brewers making traditional styles, you were reminded that they were people, creative and smart. The idea that they didn’t have the skill and curiosity to experiment was laughable. The preservation of tradition came from a deeper, spookier place.

News from Smithville:

A downtown property owner is taking issue with the City of Smithville’s Beer Ordinance. Todd Cantrell, who owns a building at 119 West Market Street, said the ordinance, as it stands does not permit him to be granted a city beer permit because the location is within 400 feet of a church. The problem, according to Cantrell, is that the city has granted beer permits to others in the past which are in violation of the existing beer ordinance including as it relates to places of public gatherings. City Attorney Vester Parsley said he is unaware of any illegally issued permits under the existing beer ordinance, which has been on the books since 2004.

And Finns are drinking less beer:

…sales of beer containing alcohol fell by 3.6 million litres, or 4 percent, compared to the same quarter last year… Cider sales also fell during the summer months, by 0.4 million litres or 7.4 percent, while sales of long drinks rose by 0.3 million litres or 1.6 percent. Federation CEO described the drop in beer sales as “dramatic,” noting that sales during July to September fell by 70 million litres compared to 10 years ago.

Finns just want to be healthier. Is that so wrong?

Bad idea. Don’t care. Don’t like it. Like calling seagulls an important part of the french fry industry.

Good idea. Pete asked on Twitter what people want from beer writing… which is sort of the question I answer here for myself (and perhaps some of you) every week. A wider range of answers, some of which are exactly the opposite of what I look for. Which is good as there is no one answer. I like Boak and Bailey’s list but even that one is partial – in that it is all positive. Me, I’m just happy reading something that doesn’t strike me as geared primarily towards pleasing the one who wrote the cheque… or perhaps not deterring the one who will write the next cheque.**

Finally and on a very different scale, the other week I mentioned generally speaking how “discussion of any troubles in beer culture or the trade never turn to considering how alcohol soaked the whole thing is” and received an odd snippy response that people were about people writing about craft beer and individual alcoholism, including at GBH. I clarified the difference between that and this, in case it needed clarifying. Interesting then that there is now a podcast at GBH confirming both in the text and in the interview audio that these posts are not to be taken as “a critique on the beer industry itself“… which is also really odd. Is connecting reasonably common alcoholism to the craft industry’s troubles – like sexism and other bigotries as well as questionable HR standards – something of an untouchable subject?***

There. Not to much heavy this week. Smithville? City Attorney Vester Parsley?? Really??? As I get a grip, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey hopefully now again mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a quieter schedule these days – and 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 (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) 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 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 subtext of an obvious sort being what when it is too regularly done it is tedious. We all can name names.
**See for example the very next paragraph!
***But it may have been “don’t worry, be happy and drink up!” week at GBH, so there is that. One must after all have an understanding of the bread and the butter and which side is which.

Your Inordinately Cheery Beery News Notes For These Days Of The First Frosts

Beer snake! Never seen one from that point of view before. Thanks to beer and baseball specialist Shana for the perspective from the bleachers at one of the last Cubs games of the year. Like my Red Sox, they sorta similarly sucked this season. Reminds me of, what… the first forty years of my life? Ah, the good old days. Anyway, one must be positive. You know, I wrote that header up there before I wrote anything this week. Why? Because there seems to be a lot of bad news out there. Bad in the world and fairly bad in the beery bit of that world. So, as always, I shall try to be the voice of optimism, of good cheer and positivity. I tell myself this again… as I start out…

First up, let’s check the shipping news. Despite what the keen beer trade statisticians who are good and making numbers bendy say, apparently there is a global slowdown coming so fast and hard that trans-Oceanic shipping lines are cutting back:

Ocean carriers are canceling dozens of sailings on the world’s busiest routes during what is normally their peak season, the latest sign of the economic whiplash hitting companies as inflation weighs on global trade and consumer spending. The October cancellations are a sharp reversal from just a few months ago, when scarce shipping space pushed freight rates higher and carriers’ profits to record levels.

What’s this got to do with beer? Export and imports. Except for big buyers like Ontario’s LCBO, most good beer likely does not ship by the full container load. But it still could be good news for the small and local even if not so good for the forces of international craft. So… less beer may be moving on the high seas. We see the same thing happening across the bar. Not so good. The export geared breweries of Britain may have a lead on this lesson, learning the hard way due to Brexit… though to be fair those with a local market focus also seem to be suffering. Jings. Tough days. Soon it will all be about nods, winks and word of mouth if you want to find the good stuff.

Never one to be glum… or even fixed in one spot for very long, The Beer Nut went on a holly joliday and reported back from the BXLBeerFest in Brussels which offered beers sort of in the round, reminding me of the Tardis’s console:

I made arrangements to attend last year. That didn’t work out but tickets rolled over and so there I was, if not quite front at least fairly centre, on the last weekend in August 2022. Sixty invited breweries occupied eight circular pods, each pouring four or more beers at a time. The selection was carefully chosen from Belgium, Europe and North America, with an emphasis on the wild side of fermentation, like saying “we invented lambic, show me what you can do”.

Circular pods! How futuristic! I hope they wore garish wide-lapelled purple, green and/or yellow corduroy suits, too. And played the best of Seals and Crofts on a loop. But that’s just me. Bright. Cheery. Elsewhere, Alistair wrote about dreich this week and (other than knowing you have no idea how to pronounce it because I can) I liked this bit:

Saturday in central Virginia was dreich, gey dreich, as the remnants of Hurricane Ian drifted up the Shenandoah Valley. It was a day for comfort clothes, pots of tea, and whatever mindless shite the kids wanted to watch on the idiot box – I am starting to worry about their love of screens, but that’s not the point of my post. I pondered lighting the first fire of the season, but the wind was whipping along at 20mph and I have an in built fear of a chimney fire. Into this revelry of gloom came a text message from Jason at Devils Backbone…

Speaking of dreich, I see that Jeff has reported on fifth anniversary that relic of 2017, the “independent” seal offered by the US Brewers Association to its membership. For me, it was an extension of 2012’s “crafty” botch that sought to rally beer buyers around the BA’s central “one ring to rule them all” branding approach to selling craft beer in the US.* While (i) these sorts of things may have given comfort to big national craft and, conversely, (ii) the more recent explosion of small and local breweries fundamentally altered the discussion, I was most surprised by this tidbit in the article indicating how they may have missed the boat – they don’t ask the only people that matter:

Beer in general has been lagging, but craft beer is no longer the bright segment in a declining category. In recent quarters, only imports seem to be bucking the trend—while craft tracks with other domestic categories. And customers themselves? It’s hard to say. The Brewers Association hasn’t done any recent polling on the question—or made it public, anyway.

Note: if there was good news from consumers, polling results would have been made public. Verdict: dud.

And I don’t know what to make of the news that the very large object identifying as BrewDog won a court case. From the BBC News report I see that the defendant “failed to respond to the court” which seems to indicate that a Statement of Defence (as we would call it in Ontario) was not filed. Which, if that is the case, leads to a default judgement which effectively does not represent a ruling on the merits. That being said, I am somewhat concerned that all the sins of craft have merged into this one matter, as it is (i) being a big mean brewery, and (ii) one that is for the most part elsewhere. The resulting response seems to be dumping all errors on this single example, accepting without any serious question the deftly played PR sidestep and perhaps even wiping the balance of craft’s record clean – perhaps comforting and perhaps even re-numbing ourselves to the more widely spread problem still all around us. Moving on craft? **

Which is the opposite of what Beth Demmons does in her Prohibitchin’ series*** – which this month features Omolola Olateju of Black Girls Drink who makes this excellent point:

“The complications of getting these alcohol-related licenses, LOLOLOL!” she laughs, cynically but genuinely. “I really do wonder about the gatekeeping. Right now in the drinks industry, there are financial barriers and resource barriers — it’s really painful.” One change she believes would help alleviate said barriers would be more BIPOC people getting involved at the legislative level to identify and correct problem areas. “I’d be really curious — and I make some positive assumptions — around how that would change the industry,” she says. “That to me is the next equity front: people in ‘the system.’”

Speaking of the system… note: not Pete’s best photo… that is Pete, right? And grey? Really. Talk about yer dreich! No… not Pete… no, the logo’s background!!****

The reporting on reporting is real this week as Stan chose two stories about wine could well apply to beer: (i) one about the way that the story behind a drink made the drink more appealing and even more valuable to the buyer and (ii) the second …

…another instance where the word “wine” could be replaced with “beer” in two instances. “The wine industry itself is much to blame with its history of pretentiousness, and its absurd rituals and vocabulary that convey the message that one must be a connoisseur before one can enjoy wine.”

I mention this as the two seem to be two side of the same coin to my mind: the myth making as obstacle making and the gatekeeping of the faux connoisseur… as obstacle making! Strip those away and what do you have? You know… other than a world without bevvy’s consulto-judge-journalist class?***** Well, what you would have is reality like… bowling and beer – in Walsall!

We met up with Dan Gilbert and Coxy and explained why we had had left The Lion only for Dan to exclaim that he loves UB40. Which made me laugh. We headed to The Wharf Bar. There was karaoke. I was urged to have a go and despite it being free as opposed to the £20 in the bowling alley I wasn’t feeling it. There wasn’t many people in and I like a good sized baying audience when I perform.

Before you get all caught up in that moment and go off to just do anything anywhere enraptured by the prospect of beer and bowling – BEWARE! Via CookieNet!, we have learned about the most violent pub in Britain along with its, err, customer conduct standards:

He is said to have required an operation to stop the bleeding, with the wound he survived snagging an artery, with police noting customers were “served alcohol by the bar staff” despite it “being evident someone is seriously injured”. At the time of the incident, police also said that management knew “the risks of its customer base yet chooses to ignore this”.

Yikes! Finally, a white lab coated eggheads have taken credit for all that you love in beer:

Belgian investigators have improved the flavor of contemporary beer by identifying and engineering a gene that is responsible for much of the flavor of beer and some other alcoholic drinks. The research appears in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. For centuries, beer was brewed in open, horizontal vats. But in the 1970s, the industry switched to using large, closed vessels, which are much easier to fill, empty, and clean, enabling brewing of larger volumes and reducing costs. However, these modern methods produced inferior quality beer, due to insufficient flavor production.

Modern! Bad. Bad modern… but… craft is modern… is craft bad? Is that what science is saying? Hmmm. As you ponder that, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the OCBG Podcast which is on a quieter schedule these days – and 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 (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) 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 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.

*You will recall that Flying Dog quit the BA over this sort of thing at the time.
**Well, more you than me. I am still off the gluten (happily) so leaning on a little wine or a drop of cider if I need a hit – though I did a test with a can of Guinness. My histamines slept though the whole pint.
***The award winning series!
****Yes, there is… though to be fair… he may well have been suffering from the IPA yips!
*****Because who the hell wants to be an expert in things that have no perceived value?? No, best to stick to the plan.

A Slightly Less Puffed Up Edition Of Your Thursday Beery News Notes

Here I am. Still on vacation but at least at home making dinners rather than forking out for them. Let’s be clear. I am not a cheap date when out and about but at the same time I do have my limits. Big city fun can hit that after a few days so nice to be back in the backyard for week two. Well, once the rain lets up. Gotta say, though, Montreal is my favorite big city even though I am maritally prohibited from rooting or the Habs. Drove past the front gate of the original and still operating Molson brewery established in 1786 when I got a bit lost in traffic coming into the downtown. Quite the edifice.

Speaking of working, on Wednesday Gary posted an image of a 1938 Quebec beer delivery truck out in winter. Looks like a display as those boxes look empty and stacked way too high. I cropped this image out of the right hand corner. I love the guy’s look. Button suspenders over a tucked in sweater, high lace leather boots, fedora and tie. And look at the window in the background. Signs – perhaps in neon – for Brasserie Frontenac, Boswell Cream Porter as well as Dow Old Stock Ale. These brands were all related to provincial firms that merged in 1909, the amalgamation which inspired a young E.P. Taylor two decades later to start off on his global merger mania. The truck and many of the boxes are also labeled with Dow’s Black Horse Ale. Cream Porter was still a thing when I lived in the Ottawa Valley in the mid-1990s under the Champlain brand made by Molson and in fact and early beer review on this here site was for Labatt Porter. Now there is a style that needs revival.

What else is going on? A few more ripples caused by the long piece in Pellicle on the state of IPA today are worth noting. JJB himself wrote positively of the explanation and agreed with how the code of IPA (as opposed to the definition) is effective for Stonch as a publican:

I can tell you that consumers with only a cursory knowledge of beer know what IPA means to them, and moreover that concept tends to be very similar across the board. When someone asks for an IPA, I know which taps to point them to.

Matt himself was unhappy with his thoughts being “torn apart in a @BeerAdvocate thread…” but that is a bit of an unfair statement as it was also praised there. His tension is reasonable.* There is a dismissal of old school thread writing but it is always good to remember that many there (folk who have no interest in blogging or certainly no interest in the dead end world of semi-pro beer writing) who know a hell of a lot about beer even though there are, yes, many oafs. For example, I entirely agree with this from someone on the site for fifteen years:

Once breweries realized that some of us were well and truly over the murkbombs, they started relabeling, or at least redescribing. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been shying away from any packaged beer called IPA unless I’m already familiar with it.

And also this from a seventeen year BA veteran:

It appears to me that the craft beer industry is viewing IPA = money and given this consideration I suspect that we will continue to see more and more beer brands with this labeling. They may be brands that can fit within one (or more?) of the categories that Matthew Curtis listed in his article or maybe they will be some brand-new name (e.g., New England style Wheat IPA) that some person just willy-nilly comes up with to make money.

Exactly. See, along with avoiding humour and any actual grasp of much of history, good beer culture has a very hard time with debate. It’s apparently uncomfortable for those trained on the short course who then have decided that they know what needs to be known, like a teen watching a movie with their parents when a dirty bit come on No, in craft beer culture it is a fundamental principal that you have to all sing from the same hymnal because it is all… great! That is why it generates no serious academic discourse – or even researched to and fro anymore. “Expert” is sorta of a participation award. Can you even call doing something “taking a course” if it fails to generate any deliverables that aren’t just repetition by rote? No, to discuss and disagree is rude. And that is one main reason why general good beer culture isn’t taken seriously.

Related perhaps, Ron summed up a trip to the USA and his observations on the beer scene this way:

I’m just back from the US. Wasn’t that impressed with the beer selection. Mostly: IPA, Sludge IPA, Sour Shit, Sour Shit with fruit, Sludge IPA with shit, Sludge IPA with fruit and shit, Pilsner.

Boak and Bailey unsettled me with a related consideration following up on a post from Jeff on the idea of session a few weeks back:

Jeff Alworth is right – most people (quite wisely) haven’t let themselves get bogged down in precisely what these terms mean. They just know that a brewery choosing to use a relatively more obscure word to describe its product is saying “You’re no rube, you know the lingo, welcome to the club.” As Matt points out, though, these terms are suffering the same fate as ‘craft beer’, becoming applied so widely, to products of such varying character, that consumers are beginning to distrust them. When you’ve decided you tend to like beers labelled IPA, and habitually order IPA, there’s only so many times you can be served something that doesn’t fit your mental model without getting irritated.

I am not sure what “quite wisely” is meant to suggest here. Basically, there isn’t much light between what is being said about the meaningless of craft beer’s terminology as code and Ron’s observations about how shit IPA has become due to the breakdown of meaning. Meaning it is no longer even code. You have to take a cartoon character approach to still suggest there is any integrity in all this. Which is what is being done, of course.

My thoughts? What’s the level below lowest common denominator? IPA might as well be “eBeer” or “iBeer” now. The meaninglessness has hit max and all it serves to do it shout “drink me, fool!” which is why I focus on the adjective and not the noun EEEPAH. And avoid anything like a flogged flavour wheel in favour of the theater of the mouth.** Fortunately, as we know, things have three names. In this case, there will be the name on the can or tap handle, the name the brewer uses and the name the beer knows itself by.

Which is perhaps why the lager boom is so attractive. It retains far more stylistic integrity that the botch US craft has made of the IPA everything concept. Paste magazine has gone so far as to say this is the best thing in the good beer world these days:

That’s the biggest thing that has changed, in the last few years—i.e., the pandemic era—ease of access to good craft lagers has increased exponentially, and breweries have seemingly gotten much better at making them! Even breweries not particularly known for lager are now frequently producing excellent examples, and I’ve seen a notable number of breweries also rebrand themselves to revolve more tightly around lager as a central philosophy.

One more thing. Stan picked up a thread from the IPA story, an actual fact about a yeast strain and unpacked it to explain how beers branded as Steam Beer do or at least did actually display a unique trait even though Steam Beer has little unique to do with steam:

In 1911, while conducting tests as part of another project at the University of California, T. Brailsford Robinson discovered just how different steam beer yeast acquired from California Brewing in San Francisco was from lager strains. “The yeast of the steam beer has accommodated itself to these conditions (warmer fermentation and the clarifier) to such an extent that it can no longer be employed for the preparation of lager beer, while lager-beer yeast may without difficulty be used for the manufacture of steam beer,” he wrote.

Neato. Also neato? Old lost Halifax Nova Scotia bars. Also neato? A Doctor Who based brewery. Less neato? The fall of certain people in the brewing trade that I know little about. Never been that much into the individual as a cornerstone to all of this, now that I think of it. Not neato? Possible signs of the market crashing.

For 22 years, Neal Stewart worked in sales and marketing for breweries like Pabst, Flying Dog, Mark Anthony Brands, Dogfish Head and Deschutes Brewery. He is leaving beer behind and left with some very powerful parting thoughts:

I had plenty of time to reflect on my time in the beer biz and quite honestly, it was a painful process. I discovered two things. First, my self-identity was wrapped far too tightly with my profession. My primary identity was my job. I wasn’t “Neal, the husband” or “Uncle Neal.” I was “Neal, the beer guy” or “Neal, the (insert one of the 47 breweries I’ve worked for) guy.” I was enamored with that identity and my ego needed it. Second, I really think I was addicted to stress. I’ve done some research and although “stress addiction” is not a clinical term, it is known that stress causes the brain to release cortisol and dopamine… When my life suddenly changed from 70 hours a week of non-stop calls, meetings and thinking about the business, to silence, I didn’t know how to react.

Wow. If that is you, get out. What ever it is you do. And one more thing. I hadn’t expected that this beer would be as good as it turned out to be. Glutenburg Pale Ale out of Quebec. A bit of a rarer find in the Ontario LCBO but out there if you check the inventory. Made without barley but perfectly tasty as a base beer in one’s life. Which is what it might become. Through an odd sequence of absolutely low level medical matters it turns out that I may have a degree of gluten intolerance. See, I had to have a small four stitch operation on my right eyelid, which led to an observation about how my left eye sat, which led to a couple of CT scans in nearby quieter county town hospitals which led to an ENT guy sticking a camera into my sinuses, which led to connecting the dots to a very high wisdom tooth, which led to a removal operation, which led to me having a very tiny bit of my skull removed as a door for the wisdom tooth operation. All of which left me breathing better… unless I ate bread. Hmm. Bread made me puff up a bit. All over. Unpleasantly so on rare occasions. And feel like I had hay fever. Stuffed. So I dropped bread. Clearer head. Breathing better. Had a beer. All came back. Uh oh. So I bought this beer. Didn’t come back. Hmm. I had put the feeling when having a beer down to water bulking up or general alcohol reaction but it appears to be a third aspect of the beer – the gluten. Going to keep up the experiment for a bit. All of which I mention as ungraphically as I can as a recommendation to try it yourself for a week perhaps. See, being puffed is not good. Tiny important passages restrict. Blood pressure rises. Things not ticking along optimally. Leads to other things… more serious things.

There. The beery zeitgeist for another week has been summarized! Want more? Well, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and perhaps now from Stan once in a while on a Monday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays or Wednesdays – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to podcast heaven… gone to the podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) 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.) 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 wound up after ten years.

*I would not want to fail to mention Beth‘s similar sentiment: “I don’t have enough money to enter work for awards I don’t have enough money to fund my own press trips I don’t have enough money to buy a hundred samples to try I don’t have enough money for all the subscriptions or memberships How do writers do it? Actual question…” I may play a grump on social media but I am utterly sympathetic to the plight of the beer writer coming to the realization that for all the money in beer there is little money in beer.
**Make your own copy of the chart if you like. It’s also free and actually useful.

The Beery News Notes For The Thursday Before My Actual Vacation

Vacation? Haven’t had one of those since… 2019? Actually going places and looking at things? Don’t know how I will manage. Mr. Protz wrote* about one way to go places and look at things in Belgium, a tram that runs 42 miles and stops something like 68 times at or near watering holes. Much excitement in the ensuing comments. People want to be on that for sure. But… does it come along with a separate… err… washroom car? Pour le pissoire en volant? Annnnnddd… I might have thought the paint job on the tram might have been a little more exciting given the grey ground, grey sky, grey building setting. But you know me and my commitment to that colourful palate of life’s joys.

First up, Pellicle published another great story by David Jesudason. It’s the sort of piece I wondered for years about, though I was wondering why I never saw them. It’s a portrait of a possibly perfect pub, the Southampton Arms in Kentish Town, London:

This is the only real quandary you face when you visit the Southampton Arms—where to sit and who to sit among. The welcome is warm, inviting, and inclusive. The beer itself meets the most agreed-upon definition of ‘craft’—entirely independent, hand-picked, and varied in style, but not quality. The surroundings are uniquely comfortable for a busy London pub—a rare mix of classic hardwood floors and wood panelling, with a communal seating arrangement that fosters conversation between old and young, rich and poor.

The photos by Lily Waite are gorgeous, laden with the interior’s deep browns and rich creams as well as the bright pop of flowers and the glowing beer. They describe a casual, even worn in pub with a relaxed garden for a backyard escape. It looks like homey, the sort of place I would love to visit. Except I am not traveling to England. I will have to console myself with other wonders. Somewhat related, Old Mudge shared some thoughts this week about the general idea of updating of pubs and whether they are always warranted:

Was there any evidence that the previous layout of the Armoury imposed significant extra costs or held back its trading performance? Very often, pub refurbishments seem to be embarked on simply out of a sense of wishing to smarten things up and move with the times rather than any kind of rational cost-benefit analysis. And, as I have remarked before, once the initial surge of interest has subsided, refurbishment often becomes like a drug where you have to keep increasing the dose to get the same effect. The current zeitgeist is very much against the old, quirky and well-worn, but hopefully one day we will return to a time where these qualities are once again seen as desirable in pubs.

At an earlier point in the overall bevvy process, Barry M (the estate manager of all my German land investments) had a piece published this week about a variety of cider making methods in his adopted home:

Unlike the apple varieties typically used to make the majority of English and French ciders, German cidermakers have traditionally favoured what are generally termed dessert or culinary apple varieties with little to no tannin content. Think of the types of apples used in the Eastern Counties of England. Looking through German books on apple varieties, anything with elevated acid levels tends to be put under the Mostapfel category, deemed most suitable for making Most. And indeed, they do make very good cider, with well-made ciders showing a freshness and fruitiness that marks out this German variant of our favourite drink.

And interesting news out of Maine where Brienne Allan is opening a new brewery with a well-defined focus:

Allan, head brewer, was preparing the inaugural batch of beer for Sacred Profane’s opening mid-August as the only lager-exclusive brewery in Maine. Sacred Profane will basically offer two beers, both lagers: one pale, one dark. And Allan fully intends to make them better than anyone else does. To this end, Allan and her fiance Michael Fava, Sacred Profane’s operations manager and a former brewer at Oxbow Brewing Co. in Newcastle, take great pains during the brewing process. They triple decoct, concentrating the wort three times at three different temperatures to develop deep, complexly layered flavor in the lagers.

Conversely to the wonderful spaces, in the aftermath of the #GBBF, some spoke up about the unpleasant aspects of the event including Emmie Harrison-West who wrote a well considered bit entitled “Everyday sexism at beer festivals: a thread” including this very yik observation:

Touching: at bars, men touch and hold your waist to get past you. They wouldn’t dare do this to their male friends though, would they? Strangers would touch my arm, my hands, pull me in for bear hugs where their arms wrap around my body.

Good to see at least that the organizers issued an apology for failing to uphold any sort of standards for bad behaviours. Note: Stan also pointed out that the “Brewer of the Future” as selected at the #GBBF is 59 years old. The only thing weirder was that the competition was for the best home brewer. Maybe “RetroBrew84” might have been a better prize title!

Jordan wrote a rebuttal about a piece on tech and beer that had me scratching my head (see the very foot of the last footnote last week) but Jordon thought about it from another angle – how dependent whatever craft has morphed into is driven by the internet:

For me the frustration is that it seems not to grasp that beer itself is a technological construct. In order for it to exist we need to create all of the ingredients, and all of the ingredients chosen to make an individual beer must be chosen by someone. There is always an intelligence behind the design of a beer because the constituent parts do not make themselves readily available. Beer doesn’t exist in the wild. What this means is that any technology that conveys information is going to fundamentally alter the intelligence of the designer of the beer.

And this week Jeff reviewed the concepts of what could be lumped together under the umbrella of the “Limited Transmission of Craft Culture” when he posted about the fact that no one know what “session” is supposed to mean:

The conversation led to low-ABV beers and how to deal with those, which inevitably led Torch and Crown’s Chris McClellan to comment on the best strength for session IPAs. Ah, session IPAs. This led us away from numbers and into language, and this we can file under “things Jeff knows.” And I know regular beer drinkers have no idea what “session” means.

Lots of good discussion followed which led to confirmations that the lack of understanding is a US matter not shared in other lands and, as Gary pointed out, quite seasoned beer fans “have little interest though in technics and terminology.” There is (in my learn-ed estimation) good reason for this: (i) this information is irrelevant to the actual pleasure, (ii) not standardized and so too often sounds like Mr Boring going on and on making it dubious information; plus (iii) it’s too often made up anyway making it not actual information. These are, after all, these times. It also illustrates the fundamental failure of some beer writing – that it is not so much informative than something like rhetoric. The conversation spun off in all directions leading to this summation on my part:

That’s because beer geeks in the US are disconnected from both the vast majority of US beer drinkers as well as vernacular beer culture in other countries. Hence the third artificial lexicon. Unfortunately most beer writers are beer geeks.

A constant observation that I really haven’t beaten you over the head with is this: the audience for so much of the beer writing I sift through every week is written for (i) other beer writers and (i) other folk tied to the trade. Not the general beer drinking public like that piece up there in Pellicle. No, for too much of it there is an aspect of deep affirmation to it all, goal oriented writing – not unlike reading the histories of the now departed US pop historian David McCullough who seemed oblivious, for example, to the fact that a huge portion of the residents of the 13 colonies in 1775 wanted nothing to do with the revolution. Details. Details…

Finally, I’m not sure what to make of this. At all. Web 1.0 meets setting up a potential liable case? This approach is hardly conciliatory. Is the goal getting lost? What was the goal again?

That’s enough for now. Next week, we will be reporting from the road. On special assignment. Until then 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 mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays or Wednesdays – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well. And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) 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 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. 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.) 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 wound up after ten years.

*OK, a couple of weeks after The Times mentioned it.

The First Thursday Beery News Notes For Summertime

I took the week off. Things to do. That toilet flap with the itsy-bitsy trickily drip? Replaced. Raised bed cover? Mended. Hedge? Trimmed. Whipper?Snipped. So I am a bit tight for time. Good thing, then, that the beer world went dead this week as far as news goes. Me, I might go over to the USA on Friday but might just go to the west end of Ottawa instead… border still have rules you know. Maybe nip over to a dep and an SAQ in Quebec, too. I’ll let you know if I did next week. Please stay calm in the interim. Please. If I was going south over the big river this week, I could hit the Thursday night “Beers, Bikes and Barges” talk in Albany, NY where Craig is talking.

Join the Historic Albany Foundation, Discover Albany, the Albany Ale Project, and the Erie Canal Museum for this hourlong cycling tour through Albany looking at the city’s Erie Canal and brewing history. See sites like the location of the enormous John Taylor and Sons Brewery and Lock #1 on the Old Erie. The ride begins and ends at C.H. Evans Brewing Company, where you will be treated to a beer as part of your ride as well as a brief history of the brewery itself.

That sounds like a lot of fun. Though they misspelled enooooooormous. Because it really is that big. H_GE and a zillion U’s in between. Big. And that’s only the remaining part of the facility. There is even a stream running right under the building still. That’s the sort of thing you get to see when Mr. Gravina hauls you all over town saying “LOOK AT THAT!!!” 37 times a minute.

Stan released his latest Hop Queries bulletin by Telex… err… email subscription and, as always, has the substantive news that the kids all are filling the streets demanding.

Hop acreage strung for harvest in the three northwestern states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington declined this year for the first time since 2012. Given what happened to world beer consumption beginning in March of 2020, that shouldn’t be a surprise. There’s an overall surplus of hops, in various forms, to be worked off. Fact is, farmers only reduced acreage 2%, planting 59,896 acres, which is 1,255 more acres than they harvested in 2020 . . . and 30,213 more than 10 years ago.

So… is it Crisis, What Crisis? or These Be Yon End Times! Dunno. I tend to pay more attention to my reassuring blood test numbers than freaky hop acreage stats. Other news? Apparently BrewDog didn’t share it’s private business planning with the world a few years back – just like every other private business didn’t:

Brewdog’s CEO James Watt was involved in preliminary discussions about a potential sale of part of the firm to rivals Heineken, the BBC has learned. Leaked emails from 2018 reveal he told Heineken he was “open to being more pragmatic in our views on independence”. He previously criticised craft brewers for “selling out” to bigger companies. Brewdog said the BBC’s reporting had demonstrated “vindictive scrutiny and malicious criticism” of the beer firm.

Why would this be something anyone would think would be made public? I was thinking how BrewDog has basically replaced all of macro industrial beer as the “bad guy of beer” – some of which – maybe much of which – is probably deserved… but the weird thing is how they have seemed for a whole to soak up all the attention for the past few months – and perhaps letting other bad actors off the hook.* So, it was some relief to see that GBH has shifted focus to another toxic situation well worthy of attention:

A current Tired Hands employee says Broillet has effectively resumed his role as CEO and is at the brewery’s facilities six days a week. A former brewer who left the company this spring as a result of Broillet’s presence at the brewery confirmed that the founder has been working at Tired Hands’ property for months. “The public wasn’t made aware of that at all. He just kind of snuck in and [employees] really don’t want him around,” the former employee says.

Conversely – at least in the heroic outcome department – Martin himself shared another bit of research no doubt uncovered in the preparation of his upcoming book on stout with the tale of how Guinness administered under medical care got one particular gent out of a rather challenging personal situation:

On Sunday June 18 1815 at around 6pm in the evening, at the height of the Battle of Waterloo, ten miles south of Brussels, a 33-year-old captain in the 7th (Queen’s Own) Regiment of Hussars named William Verner, born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, was hit in the head by a French bullet — one of 47,000 casualties that day.

Fabulous. Far less corpse ridden, Ray wrote an excellent piece for their B+B Patreon subscribers on his father’s approach to pubs:

He also taught me everything I needed to know about pubs and drinking, when I started (a bit late) in my early twenties. I remember sitting with him in the Railwayman’s Club in Bridgwater while he explained that I was drinking too slowly to be sociable: “Bloody hell, son – like this! Chug, chug, chug…” Third of a pint goes. “Chat, chat, chat. Chug, chug, chug.” Next third disappears. “Chat, chat, chat, then finish it…” Final third down the hatch. “Then get the next round in.” I think of him, I guess, as the ultimate Pub Man.

My old man was a church minister… but he was late to the ways of the cloth and shared hints of a similar youth in industrial Scotland. A short poured pint would “have gone back in the bartenders face when I was a lad.” Tales of great uncle with head butting skills. Hence my familiarity, no doubt, with this sort of grim news from the Old Country:

…alcohol-related hospital stays were nearly eight times higher among the most deprived Scots. Minimum unit pricing was introduced to curb excessive alcohol consumption and related harms, including death, crime and unemployment. But a separate PHS report published earlier this month found “no clear evidence” the policy had reduced consumption amongst the most harmful drinkers.

Bad news continues. Good beer is at risk of collapse, according to one correspondent from the antipodes:

Joseph Wood started making beer in a shed in New Plymouth more than a decade ago. Now he’s a master brewer, and the beers he makes at Liberty Brewing north of Auckland are some of the most awarded in the country. But he’s never seen anything like the past 12 months. “It’s a miracle we’ve managed to keep stock on the shelves. People moan about the price of beer – they’ve been lucky to get it at all.”

Is it that bad? Let’s watch and see if the brewery closings speed up. I give them a summer grace period. We’ll know by October. And, speaking of the neg, there was a interesting anti-craft comment of note over at NHS Martin’s post about his visit to the Ring O’Bells:

I can barely recall* a time when I’ve resorted to the can fridge for a beer in a pub, I’m so utterly mistrustful of the fancy can lottery, which in pubs is often the repository for the wackiest sweet and sour high abv fruity-sweet hell-beers that I’ve never heard of. Also, is it just me that regards drinking what is in effect the takeaway/off license option in an on-licensed premises, somehow like eating a takeaway in a restaurant, kinda not the point. And finally, why is it that what’s probably the only acceptable use of a specialist drinks fridge, for bottles/cans of good dry ciders, is as rare as speckled hen teeth…

Lordy. An unhappy man in beer? Never hoyd of it! Well, neither did the person making the comment as he was actually quite happy in a good pub with a pint of plain beer. But… it does speak to division in a way that I get – and worth tucking away should a new sort of craft collapse actually be underway. As to the fancy can lottery, just this week I got tricked** into trying a Cold IPA*** in a fun can which, if true to Nu-Styl Rools, means an unbalanced blast of hot Minwax furniture polish to the mouth with thin traces of malt. Similar themes were afoot in this YouTube bit Eoghan Walsh noted shared of Irish people trying craft beer. Hint: they aren’t signing up anytime soon. Not a growth sector. Thinking of investing your time or money further in craft? Please tell us why in the comments.

There. Thought it would be shorter. Sure didn’t take that long to write. Last week? I poured over that one over and over for days. No one gave a crap. As they shouldn’t. 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.

*Time for another reminder of the “Sex For Sam!” project that still gets that pass.
**Tricked, I tell ya!!
***I name no names.

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.

These Are The Beery News Notes For The Week Of Jubilee Madness

It is here! Jubilee!!* There shall be bunting. Confession time: I like the Queen herself. I like the structure that the Crown in Canada give the law that I practice. And… that’s pretty much it. Others are less enamored thanbeven that. So… we recognize that Her Maj does like a drink and a pub yet we do recognize that the whole rah-rah Union flag bunting and the children of Oswald Mosley’s nasty jingoism has tainted the whole flaggy wavey aspect… along with the colonial record… and… rampant and growing inequality… and well… Boris… but HRH like a drink and a pub! In commemoration of the Platinum Joobe, I participated in one of the few ways the government in Canada provided and got a few pins. Pins! What Canadian child doesn’t long for their very own lapel pin celebrating HRH? And in mad cap celebration, one will be gifted to the maker of the cleverest comment left below this post or on social media responding to this post on an appropriately related theme. Remember – cleverest.

First, I missed this a few weeks back, a post from Ashley Newall with a number of forms of branding from Bradings brewery of Ottawa, the first step on our blessed patron E.P. Taylor’s rise to fame. Of particular note is the photo of the Bradings Man by Yousuf Karsh and how similar it is to one of EPT’s assets, the branding for Cincinnati Cream Beer discussed in the bigger scheme of cream beer six years back.

Two writers took the helpful step this week of tweeting guidance on stories located in obscure journals. First, a Lily Waite bio in Waitrose Magazine (as illustrated) and, second, ATJ in Brewing & Beverage Industries Business saved here on the perils facing brewing industry in these uncertain times. Brewery closures, investment failures and hegemony from big craft. Times are hard at all corners of the trade, especially given the UK’s situation. It was all foretold of course, if only by the obvious patterns set out in brewing industry history. Consider this letter from Carling to Molson in the 1930s. Beer competes. Beer colludes. The small and weak fail. Spend your pennies wisely.

Not sure the monks were all that wise with the pennies as Jeff explores, here quoting from reporter John W Miller** of the publication America: the Jesuit Review:

“…it is very modern, with automated machines that require only a handful of workers. Everything is top-of-the-line. Bottling lines come from Italy, brewing gear from Germany…” In order to service the debt and fund the monastery, the business plan called for the monks to build to annual production of 10,000 barrels a year… Miller helpfully reports that they had annual revenues of $1.5 million, which is pretty good if you’re not servicing a lot of debt.

In Boak and Bailey’s newsletter for May there was a comment made which, unlike everything they have ever ever written, had me shaking my head. It’s this passage in a good discussion about when to stop blogging:

Another natural full stop on a blogging project might be when you ‘make it’ as a writer and sell your first commercial piece. That’s not why everyone gets into blogging but we’ve certainly seen quite a few people make that transaction, with the blog as a stepping stone.

Perhaps what is meant is that this is the reason folk themselves think to stop blogging about beer – which I agree with – but it is not an actual reason to stop writing for the public without pay on a website you control. Why write to make someone else money? Seems weird. Let’s be honest. You have not made it or (too often) you have not made much of anything. So much of what I have to sift through to put together this weekly review is boring derivative and/or feeble writing for pay. Very generously I would say half of what is most interesting is writing shared freely.*** Very generous half. Hunt out that other good stuff along with me. And write.

Lew on blind tasting:

We taste 5 spirits (blind picked by my daughter from 20 whiskies, rums, barrel-aged gins, calvados) in colored @GlencairnGlass & fearlessly guess all but one wrong.

Lew: “I’m dead sure we’re stupid…” Gold!

Not really related at all, BBC Four apparently ran a replay of Abigail’s Party last evening. You can see the entire miserable drunken thing here. A great trip back into “not nostalgia” for anyone convinced the past was a better place.

Perhaps it’s just an unfortunate camera angle but only in Montreal could someone out-Scandinavia the Scandinavians when it comes to stark and grey:

The space, designed by Ethan’s wife, interior designer Annika Krausz, has soaring ceilings, a firehall door with daytime light streaming through, and heated floors for the winter. Two immense earth-toned paintings by Annika’s father, renowned artist Peter Krausz, and a huge red light fixture above the semi-circular bar further enhance the space.

Another sighting of a brewery sending 100% of proceeds and not just profits as part of supporting the Ukraine cause. Good.

Debates of the week: (i) In the US, can you cool warm beer that was previously cold and (ii) are UK rough pubs a real thing?**** Expertise abounds with, as per, many contradictory positions taken.

Conversely, for years I wondered why beer writing did not focus more on particularly fabulous pubs… then I realized that there would be a chill from the many of those not mentioned,***** one of the great drivers in beer writing topic selection. Robot says “must raise all ships must raise all ships.” Happy then are we to see in Pellicle an honest to goodness warming tribute to a great singular pub, The State Bar of Glasgow:

The State Bar isn’t particularly trendy or arrogant, it’s a humble affair with an unassuming frontage. Possessing an Edwardian horseshoe bar upstairs—an ideal spot for watching football, doubly so as the bar is strictly non-partisan, (a rare blessing in Glasgow). Head downstairs and you’ll find yourself in what feels like the cosy library of a well-to-do Victorian household, complete with dusty books to read, well-worn leather chairs and a crackling fireplace. You can find all the essentials here; house wines and spirits, Tennent’s, Guinness, Cider & McEwans 80-/, or “wee heavy” as it’s known by the locals, and a stage for the bar’s weekly comedy or acoustic nights.

Nice. Now on to cheery international beery news time. Price hikes of 6% to 10 % expected in Japan. In India, beer drinkers may also be facing beer price hikes in addition to the local rationing mentioned last week. South American brewers are seeing “early signs of demand destruction” while a beer contamination scandal in Brazil (in which coolant and wort mixed during the brewing process leading to deaths) has reached the courts. Brewing for a rare medical disorder charity in New Zealand.

Finally, GBH seemingly did the right thing – though in the wrong order – and got some actual advice about writing risky bits about BrewDog and British court processes now republished, though there is the odd suggestion that others can rely on the legal opinion received. Beware! Now… it will be interesting to see if a legal paperwork of some sort now follows. As I have often said, just getting a legal opinion doesn’t stop a plaintiff from taking steps. I trust all involved got independent legal advice, too, just in case assurances had been given.

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.: but not 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…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. Things come. Things go.

*I expect scenes not unlike those in The Return of the Archons to play out. In tribute, an old pal used to shout “Festival!” in bars as he smoked three cigarettes at a time. That sort of thing.
**Quoting heavily yet still slightly slagging the author he relies upon as it relates to a side issue: “… but he’s not an industry writer and doesn’t realize…” No need of that… I clearly like to project a less saucy approach!
***If you have any doubts, read Boak and Bailey‘s archives… then go on to Jeff at Beervana… or Jordan‘s site or… or… or…
****Of course they are. The playgrounds of racist, sexist and every other sort of beery bigotry… oh, and violent, too. But most labeled as such are not.
*****And perhaps also the tourist association funders who ensure junkets are (i) paid for and (ii) non-selective. I mean, sure, a rising tide raises all boats but who doesn’t want to control the tides???