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The Thursday Beery News Notes For May Two-Four 2022!

May two-four. Back again. I explained it back in 2014 when I included the photo to your right (my left) of Bob and Doug McKenzie who were Canada’s #1 export forty years ago and whose 1983 movie, Strange Brew, is the last cultural statement about beer before microbrewing struck in earnest. Even though the movie isn’t set on the Victoria Day holiday in the second half of May, you can see many aspects of our drunken mildly retro-pro-monarchist celebrations replayed in Canadian homes as well as at campsites and cottages throughout the land this weekend as people feign gardening and practice inebriation. And it’s a big year for our top dog, our numero uno, our favourite anti-Nazi. Speaking of which… you know what broke? That cap thing on my whippersnipper that keeps the weedwhacker’s string coil in place. How the hell does that break? Spool went flying and the lawn’s all half haggy still. Didn’t so much break as ‘sploded. Now I have to hunt down a replacement lawn trimmer line cap or I have to buy a whole new thing-a-ma-jig. Pray for me.

Now… to the beer news. First up, a set of photos posted by the Glasladies Beer Society of a recent Glasgow beer fest set up in what looks like a somewhat permanent outdoor space. Being who I am, a child of children of the Clyde, the event looks like a mass gathering of aunties and uncles and masses of cousins. The use of steel container boxes is interesting as a relatively cheap but cheery but secure set up. Looks like it was held at the Glasgow Beer Works in the Queenslie Industrial Estate. This may be a common site for some of you but sometimes that’s still remarkable.

Next, Ron wrote a piece he titled “The Future of Mild” which serves as an interesting counterpoint to the fan friendly writings on the style mentioned two weeks ago. Ron provides an interesting set of thoughts about Mild itself and how styles may or may not make a comeback:

I’d love to go to Cross Green and drink 10 pints of Tetley’s Mild again. But it isn’t going to happen. The world has moved on. Beer styles come and go. And almost never return. I’ll just cherish the memories of a time that’s gone forever. Like a Porter drinker in the 1940s. The same fate, incidentally, awaits Pilsner and IPA. All styles have their day.

The fate of Mild has been formed he suggest as “it’s harder to throw all sorts of random shit into a Dark Mild.” That would seem to be where we are at. The post also lead to an interesting considered discussion on the nature of revivals. Jeff wrote:

…I wonder if a style that was once quite popular ever came back as a major style, perhaps not as popular as it was during its heyday, but with significant production. It’s probably happened, but I suspect it’s very, very rare. Once fashions change, styles sunset.

TBN reminded us of the classic example of style revival – Hoegaarden. I expect this is as much framed by the word “style” and its imposition limiting structure but the entire micro (1980-2003)) and craft eras (2003-2016) were based on revival of lost beers. Hoppy malt rich ales were descendants of earlier strong ales like Ballantine IPA and Dominion White Label as much as they were clones of imports. So… revivals common enough in the days when brewing was not so wound up with novelty and amnesia. We always have to remember how quickly we forget. As recent at 2011, SNPA’s place in the pantheon was still somewhat speculative. Now, of course, it was always the source of all things including those that came before it – thanks to the nation’s PR professionals!

Speaking of perhaps one revival or perhaps homage that has not lasted, one bit of news that I was a bit surprised to learn about this week was how St. Joseph’s Abbey of Spencer, Massachusetts is no longer brewing its beer. This was all the news in 2015 and I reviewed their first beer as you can read here. The monks announced:

After more than a year of consultation and reflection, the monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey have come to the sad conclusion that brewing is not a viable industry for us and that it is time to close the Spencer Brewery. We want to thank all our customers for their support and encouragement over the years. Our beer will be available in our regular retail outlets, while supplies last. Please keep us in your prayers.

Jordan thought it a particularly worrying development based on their low labour expenses. Greg reported that the equipment was already listed for sale before the announcement. I gratuitously added the 2015ish image up there from the celler’s stash for Stan. Pretty sure the bottle has move about six inches in seven years.

Des generated a wonderful cascade of comments related to cellered casks with this big barrelled beery buttery – including these cautionary ones:

Not being funny, but going on that photo, “immaculate” is a strong word. Serviceable, cleaner than many, maybe. And as I’m sure has been pointed out, a 36 (massing the best part of 200kg) is a H&S nightmare. You romantic.

Note: please don’t send out bleggy emails saying “ I don’t have limitless cash on hand to subsidize this project, but it’s reality nonetheless. I need at least [XXX number of] paid subscribers…” Listen to the wind… the marketplace of ideas is speaking… write for joy or get a job to support your hobby interest in booze.

Boak and Bailey elaborated something at their Patreon widget-a-thing that was evident in their (lovely and highly recommended) account of Ray’s out for hike and stopping at rural pubs with pals:

…at least part of the joy we took in drinking it on this occasion must be down to having “earned it”. The same goes for that first beer of the weekend, after a tough week at work. Or, as many people have observed, almost any mediocre lager you drink on holiday. How do you compensate for this effect? Well, you don’t, unless you’re a Top International Beer Judge. Instead, you report the context when you give notes on a specific instance of drinking a specific beer. And you make judgements about the overall quality of a beer based on mutliple encounters in multiple contexts. A beer that tastes good every time you bump into it is probably a good beer, full stop.

I wonder if we have become so enthralled with these beer judging events for hobbyists that we miss the obvious – that those beers actually do taste good in those contexts. And that judging contexts make beer taste bad. Because they are geared to ensure failure. Because that is what institutionalizing human experience does, makes you distrust and then outsource your own experience of life. Stop feeling bad because someone who has a certificate for passing the equivalent of a grade 11 history class says so.* Not to suggest TBN is not correct when he explains “Beer is weird. You’re lucky to have me here, putting things straight.” It is. We are.

Handy example: print off and cut into separate burger and beer images. Throw all in air and match the beer with the nearest burger. Equally valid. Every. Time.

Rolling Stone put out a story about beer prices this week under their “Culture Council” tab, not something I have notice from them in all my years at the coal face. The author, Kevin Weeks of Anderson Valley Brewing (who actually follows me on Twitter so I feel extra bad for not noticing before), argues interestingly that any increased costs faced by brewers are likely not going to justify the level of price increases that consumers are going to see on the shelf from the big brewers so…

For the smaller craft breweries facing this dynamic, this is an excellent opportunity to differentiate their brands by both managing pricing and clearly conveying priorities to the consumer. The most obvious tactic is to hold price (or implement only slight increases) to create an opportunity to increase market share through a comparable pricing advantage over the larger brewers that are grasping for margin.

And this passed by my eye this week, “It always rains on Monday” by Ian Garstka. More of his work can be found on IG. Prints available from the artist.

Perhaps relatedly at least atmospherically, Gary posted about “Birmingham Beer Detectives, 1937” who in plain clothes were sent out to protect the interests of the beer-drinking public and augment lab testing quality controls:

It seems therefore, at least for a time, a two-track beer-tasting inspection system existed, city and industry, to control beer quality in pubs. Perhaps the whole thing, at city level, collapsed with the Second World War – bigger fish to fry, if you will, but this remains to be known. Certainly at industry level, tasting onsite continued into the postwar era. A number of press reports, one pertaining to Ansells in 1949, attest only too graphically, a conviction of an inspector for drunk driving.

There’s a BBC historical drama script right there for the taking. I can smell the damp tweed and ashtrays now.

Note: “Finnish brewery release new beer celebrating Finland joining NATO“!

Note also: “TikTok star says Wetherspoons ‘scammed’ him out of £2,000 of food and drink.” Star!

Finally and falling under Stan’s reminder “no one cares what you think, Alan” I upset Maureen a bit a tiny bit (which I never like to do) when I commented about this article on Hogarth’s Gin Lane and Beer Street as I mentioned it amounted to was a bit of a sneeky apology for mass drunken frenzy. My observation was quite specific so I should explain so that all you all can correct me. The first half of the article is fairly straight forward GBH-style with loads of quotes from other sources framing the well understood topic. But then it goes in an odd direction mid-essay with the statement that those “in positions of power in England sought to create an all-around negative image of gin.” According to the article’s own previous paragraphs rightly describing the generally understood hellscape unleashed by gin at the time, I was left wondering if it could also be said that people in power now are perhaps creating an all-around negative image of the Covid-19 virus. My wonderment didn’t last. I found this key angle within the article odd. Odder still the suggestion that the works of Hogarth were for an elite:

Because of the timing, “Gin Lane” and “Beer Street” are often viewed as a work of moral propaganda, and some have speculated they were commissioned by the government to help reach gin’s working-class imbibers. Tonkovich points out this is not the case, however, because that working-class target couldn’t have easily accessed these prints. “These prints would not have been affordable for the working class,” she says. “They might have seen them in a tavern or through a window, but they couldn’t buy prints, so who is the audience for these? People of the press and the merchant class.”

The thing is… I just don’t think that is correct. Because I don’t think that is how mass communications and specifically those on virtue and vice worked at the time. If you look about at English political pamphleteering in the 1600s and 1700s, you see a wide-spread, robust and even salacious debate within a highly literate population. Vibrant grassrootism. You also see in the first bits of the 1700s, the development of the First Great Awakening and proto-Methodists sermonizing to many millions.** Consider, too, 1751’s Essay on the Characteristicks and the “frenzy” of gin. Ideas related to a proper and healthy society were flying about. These and other Hogarth pieces fit into that scene. And, as the Royal Academy explains, fit into it in a very specific and intentional way given Hogarth’s process:

Hogarth aimed the prints at the popular, rather than fine art market, stating in his prospectus for the prints that: ‘As the Subjects of those Prints are calculated to reform some reigning Vices peculiar to the lower Class of People in hopes to render them of more extensive Use, the Author has published them in the cheapest Manner possible’. As a result the line in these prints is thicker and less sophisticated than in other prints engraved by Hogarth, both to enable the printing of more impressions without significant loss of quality, and to approach the characteristic style of popular prints.***

We are assured, via the hive, that the two prints were in wide circulation and that Hogarth’s works were even used for moral instruction by schoolmasters. So if they are not luxury items but rather something of a targeted public service announcement to those at risk, the paragraphs that follow seem strained, racing through the Victorians and US Prohibition then on to us today with a suggestion of the elites guiding government overstep. And, on the rebound, inappropriately sewing doubts as to Hogarth’s good faith intentions under the guise of some sort of shadowy social engineering as opposed to improving public health. Had gin been slandered? Seems all a bit goal oriented.****

There. More fodder for a good general public debate. Away you go! And for more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but no longer from Stan every Monday as he’s on another extended leave of absence. Plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*If you are unaware of this phenomenon, I recommend the works of Ivan Illych to you, starting with 1973’s Tools for Conviviality.
**and they themselves mocked in return.
***See also “The marketing techniques of William Hogarth (1697-1764), artist and engraver” by Mark McNally at page 170 “The conscious decision to set the price of prints according to the theme and the intended audience was further demonstrated with the distinctively didactic Gin Lane, Beer Street and the Four Stages of Cruelty which were advertised twice in the widely read London Evening Post on 19 and 26 February 1751 priced at one shilling each being ‘done in the cheapest manner possible in hopes to render them of more extensive use’ with an alternative set priced at 1/6d being done ‘in a better manner for the curious’. Despite the relative lack of sustained advertising for these key prints, which formed the basis of Hogarth’s campaign with his friend and magistrate Henry Fielding to draw attention to the moral decline of the lower classes, they became as popular as many of his more heavily publicised prints. This was perhaps due to the fact that they were primarily meant as social commentary and evidence of the need for reform rather than for commercial interest…” and also especially at footnote 123: “Hogarth noted with satisfaction in how ‘some masters gave their apprentices sets of the prints as Christmas gifts’ and that ‘he had even heard of a sermon preached on the prints’.”
****PS: a word about disagreement. If we are going to take beer writing seriously at all, we need to get used to the idea that a reader may either (i) disagree with aspects of what they read (as I have above with backing supporting research) or (ii) call out poor writing (which I have not done above.) One of the saddest things in good beer culture is the “hooray for everything!” mantra and, its cousin, the abusive response for those who who don’t buy in to the hooray. Let’s be honest – rooting for booze is weird. I blame too much booze and good folk struggling for not enough money as the commissioning organs do just fine. In this case, my comment to Maureen attracted the less than attractive, the dropped turd. Let’s be honest. I get negative comments and labels all the time and have for a couple of decades from publications high and low,***** sometimes from people I can’t imaging deserving one’s full respect. One scribbler who has my respect once even told me “hear that – that’s all the beer writers in Toronto mocking you” to which I responded “who gives a fuck about beer writers in Toronto?” We don’t worry about such things, especially now that the beer writers in Toronto either either have moved on now and are mowing the lawn somewhere in the suburbs, arguing with themselves. None of which relates to the article above that, in small part, I disagreed with. It is a well enough written if skimmy summary with a mild expression of the standard beer writer political slant on public health (“…nanny state! …neo-prohibitionists!! …folk putting my income at risk but mentioning health!!!“) but, no Maureen, it is not an example of something that did not exist before. The wheel that was invented long ago still turns round and round. Which is good. Because it gets thoughts going and leaves conversations enriched. Which is why I do this every week – to think about what is being written. If you aren’t doing that, why do you bother?
*****Funny ha-ha joke…no really… just kidding… footnote to a footnote, too! Very light and amusing, right?

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The First Of May

OK, the lawn has been mowed. Even though we had frosts three times in the last week. That is a milestone. As is the Craft Brewers Conference for 2022. I like the logo. No reference to #CBC2022. Actually looks like it was used by the Minnesota Beer Distributors’ Convention back in 1974. Right down to the bottle rather than, you know, a can. So… some people are getting back together. To get a bag or two of fruit sauce. Even we were out last night at a favourite place and hardly anyone had a mask on. Yikes. Our local numbers have moved from worst ever to less than worst ever so people must have forgotten or given up. Fingers crossed! That’s where we are. Fingers being crossed.

The big news is in beer periodicals… as it is periodically. Is there a comeback being made with the news that All About Beer has been revived to some extent by Beer Edge collaborators Andy Crouch and John Hall:

When we founded Beer Edge in 2019, we drew on our experiences with All About Beer and the role it had in developing our own education and careers to help define the vision for our new company. Meanwhile, All About Beer’s bankruptcy concluded and the company and magazine closed for good. Bradford and Johnson later regained control of the brand itself and the content archive. And in early 2022, they agreed to sell these individual assets to us.

I will be interested in hearing about the business model. Andy, a public service lawyer in the real world, is acting as publisher with John reviving his role as editor, a position last held in 2017. After learning that GBH is essentially subsidized by non-publication public and private revenues (and subject to the inexplicable* withdrawal of cash, too) I thought a bit about the other ways of making an entirely niche topic at least break even. Pellicle, for example, on its third anniversary has announced a sustainability goal based on subscribing patrons with a noble goal: “your subscription lets you ensure that people who can’t afford it can still access our features, free of charge“. I am among the subscribers as Pellicle often offers writing you don’t see anywhere else. The main remaining old school periodical is Craft Beer & Brewing run these days by Joe Stange appears to be run as a for profit business with generous old school subscription rates with various tiers no doubt providing quite a range of valuable benefits. I don’t subscribe as I find the articles, however excellent, to be often aimed towards the supply side, rather than me and my consumer demands. What is the proposition now from All About Beer?

The other big news in the brewing world in 2022 is really the resurgence of big beer. Or rather BIG BEER. As illustrated this week by the fabulous news from Molson Coors:

Molson Coors Beverage Co. says its profits soared in the first quarter for its largest quarterly sales growth in more than a decade. The Colorado and Montreal-based company, which reports in U.S. dollars, says it earned US$151.5 million or 70 cents per diluted share, up from US$84.1 million or 39 cents per share a year earlier. Underlying net income excluding one-time items was US$63.8 million or 29 cents per share, compared with US$1.6 million or one cent per share in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Revenues for the three months ended March 31 were US$2.2 billion, up nearly 17 per cent from US$1.9 billion, primarily as a result of strong growth outside of North America amid fewer on-premise restrictions in Europe.

So much for the end times that all the experts spoke of. Like seltzers taking over. We do, however, still seem to have a slight bitterness in the mouth. Speaking of macro-lag, The Tand shared an image of what I think is a very attractive beer label, Cerveza Victoria lager from Malaga Spain. Utterly unhip with its middle aged guy in a suit wiping the sweat off his bald head, the use of white in his shirt, the hankie, the table and the background sends the image of pounding heat. I like the straw hat, too. Lovely design.

Less wonderful are the stories David Jesudason shared of his disheartening discriminatory experiences in the bigoted wine world for Glug:

One of the worst racist nicknames I endured was repeatedly said when I worked at a bar during my university days from 1999 to 2003. It was my job to carry the bottles of wine from the cellar and the manager of this West London establishment – Keith – would reward my efforts by calling me Gunga Din. For those not familiar with the Rudyard Kipling poem (and I’ve got a feeling that my racial abuser only knew the title) it’s about an Indian water carrier so expendable that after being killed helping the British Army his life is summed up by the jokey line: ‘You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.’ Although it’s a highly offensive term, it’s actually fitting as I was as dispensable as Kipling’s Hindu hero and if I’d complained I would’ve been ushered out of the door.

Just to be clear, the need for the efforts of Crafted for All and Beer Diversity at #CBC2022 give me no greater hope for the experience in the beer world.

Also at #CBC2022, rolling out craft’s long stale mantras of “we” and “winning” and “wars” is so utterly bizarre. And to my mind, the group think enforced at these gatherings has led to things like hazy IPAs being effectively gateway drinks for seltzers. Dumbing down leading to loyalty leachate. And shit like this:

… beers brewed with marshmallows. This once niche ingredient has actually become a trendy adjunct, but will it stick? …the marshmallow beer trend is like a Peep in the microwave: it is on the rise! Just last year, the number of beers containing marshmallows available through Tavour increased 31% over the year prior… these brewers started using mallows in small doses in select Stouts… fans of the brewery loved it and continue to love it. Tavour recently featured one such Drekker, a dessert-inspired smoothie Sour –– Chonk Mango & Marshmallow. It sold out in less than 48 hours.

I feel dirty just mentioning that. Sharing another sort of thing I don’t want to experience, Ed told a tale of mixing beer and rock climbing this week as he retro-ticked:

On the last night of our trip as the pints went down we were planning what to do in the morning before we went home. We were tempted by the fizzy keg climb Double Diamond (HVS 5b) on the impressive Flying Buttress. I was also tempted to pour more beer down my neck, it was the last night after all. When it started raining heavily I agreed to lead the climb before heading back to the bar, confident it would be far too wet to climb in the the next day. So when I was greeting with blazing sunshine when in my hungover state I peered out of me tent in the morning I was not filled with joy.

By contrast, Jordan has done the far more sensible thing and taken up writing about beer more often. I say this with the greatest of pleasure as for a certain set it can seem that one of the qualifications for being a beer writer, when not hiding in podcast oblivion,** is not actually writing all that much about beer. Not Jordan! His immediate focus? Actually reviewing beers that show up in the mail and being a bit honest about the process:

I didn’t read the label. Although I try to do right by everyone, sometimes, there’s so many samples that I’m profligate. Sometimes I’ll try things and they aren’t worth mentioning; I’d just hurt the sales. Sometimes, I’ll really enjoy something but I won’t find a place for it. With Hoppy Pollinator, I just didn’t want you to know about it on the off chance you’d prevent me getting more of it next year.

I liked this article by Will Hawkes about the current trend of Dark Mild in England’s Black Country, a theme I’ve seen nosed around periodically over the years. Twenty years ago and more, Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild was a but of a lantern in the dark to the home brewing set. I say I liked it but more so after I did a bit of text analysis on the 3,800 piece to establish what I was reading given, you know, it was filed under the word “critical“… something of an unlikelihood. I thought to do this primarily as the article makes no mention of the sorts of background to Mild that one would find in, say, a piece by Ron Pattinson… like his 2011 bit in the BeerAdvocate “A Short History of Mild.” So… 42% of the article is made up of quotes from folk in the trade. Three historical records are cited and the rest is mainly pleasant physical observations or input from or about four breweries making these Dark Milds: Yates, Bathams, Fixed Wheel and Box Car. What do we call this sort of writing? If it was in the newspaper, a lifestyle piece on a regional scene?

Matt mentions another aspect of reality:

News of another brewery closure. They are dropping like flies at the moment. My thoughts with all the affected staff.

That was raised in relation to Exe Valley Brewery shutting down. In operation since 1984, the current owners only held the reins since 2020. They join another brewery well into its fourth decade, Wood’s Brewery in Shropshire, along with many others. Normal churn or end times? Hard to know but hard times for the owners and staff.

On the up beat, Beth Demmon continues her series of profiles at Prohibitchin’, her blog receivable by email, with this week’s article on Lauren Hughes, head brewer at Pittsburgh’s Necromancer Brewing and how they are seeking to make change:

Strategic hires at Necromancer Brewing, ensuring long-term support of said hires through consistent mentorship, and plenty of community-facing events that signal safety and support for marginalized people. “Having people enjoy beer in a place where they feel welcome and being able to give back to the community so much, that means a lot to me,” says Lauren.

Finally, I am not sure I would call a beer experience “Schubert-like in its symphonic harmony” given he completed only six of his thirteen symphonies and one of those is named Tragic.

There. For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday except last Monday and next Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*Actually, quite explicable.
**Let’s be honest. They take up too much footprint in your audience’s available time, you can’t cite an idea within them for a quote, the attract no comments of consequence and they contain no means to link to something they reference. You may as well as be sending postcards to the handful of folk who listen. And writing “umm” for every seventh word.

Your Beery News Notes For The Easter Long Weekend

Four days off at Easter in mid-April is quite sensible. March is too dodgy with the threat of snow. This weekend promises, on average, at least one day of decent half-assed yard work with tasty drinks. Spring is here and soon the lands will be dry. Events too are coming soon. The annual revival is on at nearby Church-Key on May the 7th. Things are happening. I like this event three weeks later at nearer nearby MacKinnon Brothers – and I really like this poster which is a play on their Crosscut brand of ale. Doing things outside. Sprong has spreenged!

First, after the weekly news went to press last week I read an obit from The Times which was worth noting. It was for a young policeman man, Flight Lieutenant Douglas Coxell, who, by just 24, became one of Britain’s most accomplished bomber pilots serving both on D-Day and at Arnhem. This is a great line:

A jovial man, Coxell brewed his own beer and was known by his RAF colleagues as “the Soak of Peterborough”

This second beer related recollection in the obit is also worth noting:

Coxell had been mentioned in dispatches for his daring sorties in Norway, but his greatest feeling of achievement in the war came in early 1945 when he and his brother Peter joined their father and his fellow First World War veterans at the snug bar of the White Hart pub in the Cambridgeshire village of Old Fletton. “It was the proudest moment of his life to present two commissioned air force officers, one flying Spitfires with the 2nd Tactical Air Force in northern Europe and one flying Halifax modified bombers on supply drops to the Norwegian Resistance,” Coxell recalled with tears in his eyes. Much drink was taken.

I am a regular reader of Retired Martin‘s posts from the road as you all know but this week he pulled back the curtain on the exciting exotic life of a pub ticker:

… it’s actually quicker to get from Waterbeach to Guyana than Gunton, home of my next tick, a first newbie in more than two (2) weeks. Gunton has a station, right next to the Suffield Arms, which is convenient as the road is closed due to it being inconvenient to close it that week. The GBG reckons it’s in Thorpe Market (this year, watch it move to Southrepps in 2023). Work that one out. I’ve marked two other GBG entries either side of the Suffield. They’re all called “odd name Arms“; I was TORMENTED by the the fear I’d go in the wrong Arms, particularly as they’re all the sort of rustic gastropub that exist entirely for holidaymakers from Overstrand.

Legal notes this week include Brendan P sharing how Stone is being sued for pinching the trademark of another brewery. I’d be suing for around 50 mill. In other asset lightening news – this time related to your wallet – John Hall encountered a new form of gouge. Being asked to pay more for the sort of tap the beer is poured from. The rip is on at Dogfish Head. Shocking. Not shocking. Also, Guinness settled a 2015 claim related to the Irishness of beer not brewed in Ireland resulting in a rather modest settlement:

The outer packaging of six- and 12-packs of Guinness Extra Stout sold in stores between 2011 and 2015, McCullough’s suit alleged, led consumers to believe that the beer was brewed at the historic St. James Gate brewery in Dublin, Ireland. It was, in fact, being brewed in New Brunswick, Canada — something that was noted in small print on the side of each bottle… Those who filed a claim before a deadline last year will receive 50 cents for each six or 12-pack of Guinness Extra Stout purchased between 2011 and 2015, up to a total of $10 without proof of purchase, or up to $20, if a claimant can provide proof of purchase.

The Mudge has reported that England has joined the rest of us in the 21st century and now requires calorie to be listed by all but the smallest restaurants and pubs:

It probably won’t make much difference to obesity, but then the entire government anti-obesity strategy is misconceived anyway. And of course calories are only one figure in the overall mix of nutrition. But what it will do is to give consumers the facts to make informed decisions – it is treating them as adults. It is hard to believe now that, going back forty years, the strength of alcoholic drinks was never declared. When CAMRA first published figures of original gravity – which is a rough approximation to alcoholic strength – in the 1970s, there was an outcry from the brewers, but it is now accepted is routine. I would expect that, in twenty years’ time, we will look back with surprise that calorie figures were ever not stated.

On a related note, I came across one Canadian brewer doing what every pro beer scripto-consult-p/t dishwasher-expert said was impossible: a beer can with a nutritional info label. From a can of Rally Golden Ale made in Thornbury, Ontario. Nice. Treating people as adults.

This is an interesting graph posted ten weeks ago by Dr. McCulla. I am not so much interested in the graph as the footnotes. Utterly unreliable guesstimates. It is so odd that the US still has no grasp on its own brewing history before the mid-1800s.

Ron has, as mentioned, be involved with some extended travel and (finally!) has rid himself of the burden of beer writing to get down to a more essential topic in a two–parter, the eggy breakfasts on Cartagena, Columbia:

As with many restaurants we visited early doors, it was deserted. Almost. One table was occupied by a group of men. One of whom was so load, that he literally made me jump. And hurt my ears. While being right over the other side of the room. And me having my back towards him. I was so glad when they fucked off and I could eat my breakfast in peace. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I was delighted to see fried eggs on the menu. But worried they’d come hard fried again. That would be such a downer. I tried to make clear I wanted the yolks runny when I ordered. “Huevos fritos. Liquido, por favor.” See how fluent I am in Spanish. Almost like a native. At least the waitress understood, as two beautifully fried eggs arrive a little later. I’m so happy. Even though they’re served with nothing other than toast.

This was a helpful lesson. An article on a return to the what has been called the toughest pub in Britain, Walthamstow’s Tavern on the Hill (described as featuring scary customers, random acts of violence and grim facilities) has discovered a very different scene:

I find an impressive 5-star food hygiene rating sticker on the door (something even some popular upmarket chains can’t claim to have); a friendly Scottish barman in a bright pink shirt; and a large collection of impeccably-tended houseplants. A quick scan of the pub’s Twitter reveals it has changed hands, seemingly not long after the YouTube video was shared… and it’s new look couldn’t be more different from its old one. It’s a Tuesday lunchtime and the atmosphere inside is calm and communal. A few locals sit chatting near the bar. The bartender is giving one of the older customers advice about his National Insurance, while other customers are having an amicable debate about the latest Downing Street scandal.

I even read a beer book this week. I am on a bit of a book reading spree, having organized myself a bit, now on my 19th book of the year. The 18th book was 2010’s The Search for God and Guinness by Stephen Mansfield. A good and reasonably quick read, it’s more a book on the family than the brewery and focuses on their Christian and otherwise ethical good works over the centuries. There is also a helpful bibliography. Here is an interview with the author from the time of publication from a faith-based point of view. It reminds us of how subject to mannerism beer writing is, how formulaic. While a bit of a hagiography it is at least an attempt to discuss the haigo and not the more common happy clappy booze trade PR.

Finally, a new form of beer: illegality and political crisis beer.

For more, checking out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For The First Of April

Here we are. Real spring. No more frozen nights on the forecast. Brussels sprout seeds are in some soil. The cardoons are up. Cardoons? Yup, cardoons. Four foot tall edible thistles, a Victorian veg. Harry Dobson would be proud. Still rather insulated from the exterior world by my convalescent state but I am assured things are progressing as they should. It was April Fool’s Day last Friday. Best beery April Fools? This is my candidate. Silly but also somewhat restrained. What people might have actually asked about having once in a while, as a joke… as a… what… treat? A good brand making fun of itself. That’s a good thing, making fun. Like this! Fun!

Now, enough of that. Time to get serious. First up, care of Merryn, we learn that the BBC has reported on a Roman brewing site found in England, with speculation that it was actually only a malting with suggestions of a rather complex brewing industry:

Archaeologists have identified evidence of 2,000-year-old beer production at a site of a road improvement scheme. The remains of a Roman malting oven and charred spelt grains were found during digging in Bedfordshire, as part of the proposed work on the A428 between the Black Cat roundabout and Caxton Gibbet. Experts have analysed the grains and said they suggested people who lived there were involved in making beer…”As large quantities of grains are only allowed to germinate when the aim is to produce malt – the first step in the brewing process – this strongly suggests the people living at the settlement were involved in beer production,” a Mola spokesperson said.

Some serious neato going on there. Also neato? A map! This is an interesting info graphic. Who asks this question? I suppose health professionals. Utah makes sense but look at the dividing line between West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The Florida panhandle and Alabama. Why? I have not idea. I am Canadian.

Pellicle posted one of the best articles it has ever had its hands on this week, a tale of tall ales titled “I Want To See Mountains Again — The Banked Beers of Teesside, North East England” by Reece Hugill:

Half-full glasses are pulled from the bar-back fridge, topped up feverishly from the hand-pull. Placed in front of me are two ridiculous looking pints of ruby-red cask beer. Foam cartoonishly mounded a full four inches higher than the brim of the glass. Wobbling and bubbling, alpine peaks and whips of pure white…

…The pints of Bass at the Sun Inn are magic. It’s a beer I usually don’t even like, but when banked, the beer seems to change a tiny bit. The fluffy head brings out a little more bitterness, the body is mellowed into something less vaguely malty and brown, into something soft and clean, like, perhaps, an unusual dunkel lager…

Excellent. You could do this with an Olands Ex back in college but it was a matter of pouring the bottle yourself.

Lars posted a really good thread about Christmas “sugar beer” for children in Norway including this fabulous if fairly frightening fact:

This newspaper article is quite illustrative. Headline: “The favourite beer of the kids.” They use 3kg sugar for 20l + 1/2 cup of malt extract. If you ferment it out fully that’s 8% ABV. No wonder “the kids prefer this to any soft drink.” Prob not 100% fermented, but still.

Question: is this a new technique? Holding some of the dry malt in a dry aromatic barrel?

In the increasingly vibrant world of beer related litigation, we have (care of Mike Kanach, Esq.) learned on one Mr. Parshall “who does business as Sports Beer Brewing Co. that is operated through a website” – court said this about his business:

Parshall is required to transfer to the university all Internet domain names containing a portion or derivative of Penn State’s marks. He also is to transfer sportsbeerbrewing.com so it ceases operation. The injunction prevents Parshall from engaging in any conduct that would cause consumers to erroneously believe his goods and services are authorized, licensed or affiliated with Penn State.

That is just weird. Took a university’s IP and put it on a beer can. In 2017 he did the same thing with Purdue and another judge did pretty much the same thing. Self-represented. Weird.

Not as weird, Stone now seeks a permanent injunction despite the Keystone brand lords announcing a remake after five years. With any luck they’ll find a new way to jerk Stone around. And mid-weird, the little and large tale of BrewDog and the not quite hired consultant* continues and even made The Times of London. This passage neatly captures the two aspects which have confused me:

Allan Leighton, BrewDog’s chairman and the former boss of Asda, has accused Hand & Heart of “amplifying attacks” on its management team and has declined to take part in a proposed reconciliation programme. In a letter to Kate Bailey, Hand & Heart’s managing director, Leighton said he was concerned about a platform that had been set up for BrewDog workers, claiming it was “encouraging participants to submit malicious content . . . The unavoidable impression is that of H&H charging the company to extinguish a fire it is fuelling itself.”

On the other hand, BrewDog apparently continued to shoot itself in the foot without the assistance of others, rolling out a quote from the consultant that they did actually hire… only for that consultant to point out they never said any such thing. Weird.

This was a fabulous find as posted on Twitter by Mr. S. Smith, a mint 1960s form to fill out and pass over the counter at a Brewers Retail store in Ontario. A buck twenty eight for a dink pack. Until 1969, you had to give your name and an address to get your beer. Presumably you filled out the last line by hand if you were buying quarts. Crain Business Systems must have made a killing on this contract seeing as this was the only way in Canada’s biggest province to buy beer outside of a sit down establishment.

Finally but fabulously, Beth published her latest edition of Prohibitchin’ (sign up here) and featuring (i) Ashley Johnson and Jasmine Mason bringing cider to Philadelphia along with first (i) this bit of local slang they had adopted in their business’s name – The Cider Jawns:

“Jawn” /jôn/: Philadelphia slang that’s used as an all-purpose substitute for literally anything—a singular or plural person, place, thing, or event that can’t be specifically described…

Jasmine and Ashley are having the time of their jawns. Or is it the jawn of their lives? …“We looked around and a lot of the attendees were women, but there weren’t a lot of women of color as vendors,” explains Jasmine. Ashley agrees, noting that while there wasn’t much diversity in vendors, there were plenty of Black women and other women of color enjoying themselves as attendees. The discrepancy spurred them to action. “We were inspired to take something we enjoyed and bring representation of women of color to the hard cider and brewing industries,” says Ashley. They launched their Cider Jawns Instagram shortly after to “share our cider journey and take our community along for the ride,” she says.

There. Blame all the errors on the meds. For more, checking out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*Example: I don’t have a clue what this means. Or this.

The Last Beery News Notes And My Golden Pints For 2021

Well, it’s been a bit of a napping sort of time, these last few days. Not much going on. Can find enough to cut and paste enough together to come up with enough beery news notes? Between an increased lockdown and the general Yuletide slowdown, it’s been very quiet. And New Year’s Eve is tomorrow. What to do? What to do? Research canapés and hors d’oeuvres of course! I’ve started my prep and even recommended a resource as shown to your right (Ed.: to my left), a copy of which you can download for free here. Scotch Woodcock is looking interesting. Scrambled eggs with a little anchovy on tiny toast. Yum.

Is there any beery news or other beer writing to report upon? Jeff Alworth wrote one of the most detailed and slightly obsessed year in review posts which is, one the one hand, clearly a bunch of links to stuff he had thought about and written about throughout the year but, on the other hand, obviously a fabulous summary of all the stuff he had thought about and written about throughout the year! Summary of his summary?

It was a transitional year, but also one that never got out of second gear. Things went back to a kind of new normal, but nobody has been very happy about what that looks like.

Yup. But at least he got to do a US National Grand Tour and updated many fine thoughts and observations as a result. Good stuff.*

Also, Gary Gillman* posted the inordinately and perhaps unnecessarily formally titled “Index to Gary Gillman’s Writing on Porter and Stout” which is a fabulous resource. I would say Gary has had his best year of beer writing. His research on Jewish Breweries of Eastern Europe before the Nazis is one of the most remarkable things I have ever read under the guise of beer writing. Just look at his fabulous post “Hops of Galicia, Beer of Lopatyn” published in mid-November and then look at the twenty or more posts he has written in the weeks between then and now. Blogs dead? Nope, you just fell asleep.

And it is wonderful that Katie‘s piece on the modest dinner roll… bun… bap… was the #1 read piece on Pellicle this year. It’s probably the reason I started supporting them on Patreon. It’s the sort of quality writing that keeps me supporting them. Hope she put the old plates of meat up on the old pouf.

In more newsy news, apparently during these summer months in Australia, drinking beer too quickly is a bad thing:

It used to be a famous sight of the Australian cricket summer – former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke skolling a beer during the New Year’s Test at the SCG. But if the late Hawke skolled a beer at the MCG during the recent third Ashes Test, he would have been among many fans to have been ejected from the venue for drinking their alcoholic beverage too quickly. During the three days of Australia’s thrashing of England at the famous Melbourne stadium, countless cricket fans were booted out for skolling their beers.

There. Your beer word for the week: skolling.

Note: the new 2021 BJCP Style Guidelines are out. The beer I am having right now is excellent and breaks the rules. Table Saison by Meuse is only 3%. No one cares. And that $2.43 is a nutty price.

And without further ado… well, perhaps a bit of fanfare… I give you…

My Golden Pints For 2021

Favourite new Ontario beer: I thought this was going to be easy after I tweeted this earlier in the month:

Holy crap! Why has no one screamed at me about Sklepník from @Godspeedbrewery? This is one of the best beers I have ever had. Constrained, bread crust malt, herbal, even creamy. Wow. And “sklep” means shop in Polish so that’s totes cool. Shop beer.

Definitely Skelpnik… but then I had my first Meuse 8 yesterday. So it is a tie. I have not been on side with Jordan’s longstanding claim that this is a golden age for good beer. It is, however, now clearly a golden age for beer in Ontario.

Favourite Old Beery Friend: Peculiar Strong Ale by Granite Brewing. I’ve written about my youthful 1980s in Nova Scotia before, in 2008 for the 15th edition of The Session and again in 2017 when I wrote about a dusty business case study of the Halifax bar scene. for I am not going to be one of those dinkledorfs who will pretend to be able to tell you it does nor does not taste the same but it is very nice to be able to pour a beer that was poured for you around 35 years ago at the time when, in addition to some fine regional breweries and a raft of imports, the Canadian microbrewing scene was taking off.

Best Pub Experience: none.

Best Song About Beer: “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg. This song is an NPR favourite but what hasn’t been pointed out quite clearly enough is that it is really a song about beer… or at least what goes on that chaise longue:

Hey you, in the front row
Are you coming backstage after the show?
Because I’ve got a chaise longue in my dressing room
And a pack of warm beer that we can consume

Beer song. 100%. Also the best song of 2021 if anyone is asking…

Worst Continuing Trend That Could Just Die: bland samey cartoons with a vaguely positive spin but an underlying tisk of one sort or another – oh and blobby graphics accompanying digital beer ‘zines.

Best Book about Beer: none… bad year for beer books… though if I had access to more modern British Beer I would likely be happy to recommend Modern British Beer by Matthew Curtis* as a useful guide to my options. This illustrates the ups and downs of more localized beer markets – aka more normal beer markets.

Best New Voice: Probably just new to me. David Jesudason in Pellicle with “Desi Style — The History and Significance of England’s Anglo-Asian Pubs” and “On Bat and Trap, and Finding A Sense of Place in Rural England” both articles gave me a window into place and time. I have also obsessed over Bat and Trap coming on 15 years.

Best Trend in Beer: home delivery continues to be wonderful. Right in front of me as I type these words is a door in my basement to a cold room. There are portions of boxes of beer in there from Matron, Godspeed, Meuse, Leftfield and Stone City for present drinking and gift giving to the neighbours. All brought to my house. Half the time for no shipping if you know when and what to order. Fabulous.

Best Beer Blogger: one stands above all year after year – John Duffy of The Beer Nut. Why? Constantly top quality writing by an encyclopedic and independent bon vivant, all offered with both sharp wit and a healthy slice of what I can only call humility. He will maybe laugh at me putting it that way but there is sort of decency and humanity that comes through… even when tearing a strip of something. He truly likes the brewing world and those who work in it. Rarely drops a name but highlights what they offer us all. If anyone sets the tone, it’s your lad, John. Drunk Tand agrees.

Best Imported Beer: The LCBO, our government store, brought in bottles of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord this fall and I like it. I have had it on tap when visiting the fam and I like it just fine in the bottle, too.

Biggest Waste Of Effort: either making or writing about pickle beer.

Best Beer Project: I know that Boak and Bailey awarded this their “Blogger of the Year” award but I think that is too narrow, perhaps a mislabeling. A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects by Eoghan Walsh is one of the best projects anyone who thinks at all seriously about beer has tackled in years. It is a book being writing before your eyes on a weekly basis. It is a draft of a TV script for a documentary shown on Belgian TV in 2026.

A final note. Many folk have given up on awarding this year’s beer best awards as part of their general abandonment of good writing about beer. What is up? It does seem like a point of pride with some beer writers that they don’t actually write all that much any more. As Stan got me thinking about this when he wrote his thoughts this week:

I realized as the lists started to roll out in recent weeks that I miss Bryan Roth’s annual effort to add objectivity to subjective choices. I’m too lazy to do something similar, but I did start saving lists a while back with the idea of posting them here in one giant listicle of listicles. Then I came to my senses.

And what is too often written is spun, formulaic or, worse, apologists. “The Five Best Beer Bars in Sarnia.” Lists of beer related presents at holiday time. 40 word beer reviews for throwaway advertising fliers posing as weekly community newspapers. Short, scripted lines for their 37 seconds on TV explaining this beer or that, those 37 seconds before the host laughs unkindly and moves on. It’s sad that this has happened – and frankly a bit embarrassing in a lot of cases – but I figure it’s better to find something else to do like write trade PR if you have nothing much actually interesting to say. Happily there are other far brighter lights to follow and more new voices showing up regularly. I am happy to help you find it… if that is what I am doing on this site.

Oh – and by the way – one more thing… I have created another thing. A Patreon site. Not necessarily to make any money so much as to create a micro site to experiment with. Honestly, I will probably use any money raised to give to others via Patreon. The micro site is getting populated with content as you read this. Well, right around now. Yesterday for sure. I think you can find the Patreon page here. I tried to make it as cheap as I could but $1 a month is not recommended so I went with $3 USD, $4 CND. One price. All in. Stop by or don’t. I won’t judge you. Maureen** is clearly on board.

There. Welcome 2022 and to Hell with you, 2021! Even though it gave us the vaccine roll out and proved once again that humanity can pull its boots up and get things done if it puts its mind to it. OK, 2021 wasn’t so bad. Remember 2020? Now, that one sucked. While you think on that and plan your Friday evening snacks, please please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (except when they check out like they have for the last two weeks) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Or is that dead now?) There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. (That’s a bit now and then now.) And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (which he may revive some day…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*We have never met and neither of us owes the other money.
**TO my horror, when cleaning up and getting masses of paper files out the door and to a professional shredder, I realized I owe Maureen a modest sum for a project I dreamed up years ago that went absolutely nowhere. I found the envelope she sent her cheque in. Post marked Iowa. I am embarrassed. I need to make amends.

The Very First Thursday Beery News Notes For The Second Half Of November 2021

I like this image above. It is a bit of an edit off a photo from Great Lakes Brewery off the north shore of Lake Ontario (as opposed to the one to the south of Lake Erie). Depth of field hit very nicely. Gran’s hand towels being put to good use. And clean lines every day. Best practice. Speaking of which, let’s see what else is worth noting in another week in the life of good beer and related stuff, shall we?

First off, Katie Mather wrote a very interesting piece of these times about a trip to sip natural wines in Paris which was as much about herself:

I ended up at Notre Dame every day I was in Paris. The resilient aura of a burnt-out cathedral was something I hadn’t been prepared for. I stared, making excuses to pass by, marvelling at the Medieval-like wooden supports bolstering the flying buttresses just like when they were new, wrong-footed by the stained glass rose window I had first seen in a Disney film, now blackened with soot. A dark emblem of survival—or perhaps a reminder of how close it has been to ruin, of being rescued, and still being rescued, and maintaining that iconic but now fragile facade. I was unwell, and I found a hand to grasp in the sight of this building. It seemed as tired as I was, of holding itself up, of being under so much of its own weight.

I am a bit interested in natural wine as I’ve known for a long time that I’m fairly sensitive to sulphite-based preservatives. This has been brought a bit into focus in the last few months as I am working on an intermittent diet that sees me weeding certain things out of my diet. Turns out I also have a problem with wheat and barley. Like a glass of red wine, good crusty bread triggers a histamine reaction. As does… beer. Weeping eyes. Inflammation. Drag. But manageable.

UPDATE: ghost tips over beer!

In his blog by email, Dave Infante took a very grim lesson from the Bell’s Brewery sale:

Remember early last decade? Selling out was anathema, and the U.S. craft brewing “movement” looked unstoppable. Now it’s starting to look insolvent. Sales are slowing; reports of workplace discrimination are up; a generation of new drinkers are reaching for hard seltzer and canned cocktails to power the party. In a 10 mere years, craft brewing’s rock-ribbed corporate antagonism has given way to self-imposed purity tests and fading relevance. In the same time, its product has morphed from zeitgeist-y leader to cheugy afterthought. Craft beer remains a product with a value proposition. But make no mistake: a dark night of the soul has fallen on its anti-commodity, independence-over-everything cultural dogma.

He’s probably right. Craft sucks. Right? Or is it “craft – doesn’t suck!” Can’t remember. Never mind – just remember who was calling craft “cheugy” back in May. The cool kids, that’s who.

Gary Gillman has been doing a fabulous job exploring eastern European brewing history with a focus on the role of Jewish culture. This week he wrote about hops:

Hop-growing in the former Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia was an established but relatively small-scale business up to World War I. Prior to 1850 one source, Penny Cyclopedia (1838), states “a few hops” were grown, a cottage industry at best. By 1879 hop-growing is on a more solid footing. The Journal of the Society of Arts was particularly approving of quality, stating at their best Galician hops could hardly be distinguished from classic Bohemian Saaz.

Speaking of things easterly, here’s your Belarus update: still finding myself filling the hours at home rather than sprinting out into the local upsurge in the delta, I came across a video blogger who rides the rails of eastern Europe looking for former Soviet things to talk about. In this episode, it’s about five beers from five cities in Belarus. Half seem to be gak. It is an interesting way to turn to Jeff’s thoughts (which we may have discussed before) about nationalism being the way to understand beer:

In the 44 years since Michael Jackson wrote The World Guide to Beer, people have become much more sophisticated in the way they understand and describe our favorite malty substance. The subject is incredibly complex, and over that span we have collected, classified, taxonomized, and shared information, refining what we know along the way. This effort has produced a shared (if disputed and endlessly debated) vocabulary and conceptual framework for discussing beer. For the most part, people have identified and developed the big concepts and we now focus on refining them. I was therefore surprised to discover a huge dynamic in beer that hasn’t gotten the classification/codification treatment: national tradition…

There is a lot in there to disagree with – that the subject is incredibly complex or that big concepts have been identified. Or that people have become more much more sophisticated. Consider this on that last point. But it is a reasonable additional way to look at a subject mired for a few decades in one fixed conceit – style. It is reasonable to have a number of ways to look at one thing to cross reference and improve understanding. But it is hampered by words like nation and culture that are greasy and malleable. Nations shift and cultures morph. Consider the political and cultural constructs just in Gary’s post above. And the concepts are prone to being coopted. Me, I am more of a globalist technology and trade story arc person myself. But that is another way of looking at things in addition to style and national tradition, isn’t it. No good comes of the unified theory approach except perhaps in physics. Maybe.

I raise all this by way of background as this week, Stan wasn’t entirely on board with the nationalist construct or at least the rendering of it that made the era of craft special. He wrote thusly by way of counter example:

Last week, during the virtual portion of the Master Brewers Conference, Greg Casey discussed “The Inspiring Histories & Legacies of American Lager Beer.” Casey, who worked for several of America’s largest brewing corporations before retiring in 2013, is writing a trilogy of books that focus on the period between the 1840s and 1940s. He points out that America gave the world “ice cold beer here!” Americans learned about brewing adjunct lagers from the Germans, but made them their own. They perfected chill proofing, allowing beers to be served crystal clear even when cold, changing the look of beer and the culture of drinking beer.

See, this is why we have all those facets of a topic. Like history. See, America did not give the world adjunct beer after receiving them from the Germans. The Germans handed it around themselves as part of their global mercantile and military empire from before the First World War. For example, Germany took over the “port city of Qingdao in north-eastern China in 1898, and ruled over it until 1914” and established Tsingtao beer. See also Argentina. As Boak and Bailey explained in Gambrinus Waltz, they also brought it to Britain. In Japan, a German trained Norwegian (who did admittedly touch down in the USA) founded what is now Kirin. In a bit of a twist, in the 1920s rice-based adjunct beer took off in Canada, to sent it the other way sending it south into the US black market during American prohibition.* Americans then took it with them where they went and often stayed. All of which leads me to think that while nationalism may not be the right unified theory, the paths of nations and the interacting influences upon them may as important as the history of technological advances if we are to understand why beer is what it is.

Speaking of beery culture, the local version got weird this week. I have to admit, I used to drop in at the place a few years back as it was handy to my ride home from work in the family car. Small pitcher of basic adjunct lager and a basket of onion rings was my order.

In a more sensible context, retiredmartin prodded me to read this post from the blog Prop Up The Bar which I liked for a number of reasons but especially the man on the street view:

As I arrived the gaffer was on the phone making a very angry call, his mood not improved by muggings here standing underneath the ‘table service only’ sign at the bar. During his phone call he threatened to “just shut the pub” which would have made this an epic pub ticking fail. Not sure what had upset him so much, but looking at my picture maybe he was on the phone to the company that looks after the shutters.

See also Lord Largis illustrating the “non-tick”:

I hadn’t eaten properly and as the bus approached the Hussey Arms I remembered how good the food is in there, but I’ve been spending too much on takeaways and meals of late and I’m trying to cut this cost down. I had an R Kelly lyric pop into my head. “My mind’s telling me no, but my body, my body’s telling me yes”. But as it was now dark and I wasn’t overly convinced that I knew where my first pub to visit was, my mind won and I remained on the bus.

I like that clarity of the vignette. Much uncertainty, conversely, surrounds a news release that informs us that two of Ontario and Canada’s best established craft brewers have done a form of a deal focusing on efficiencies in distribution. Trouble is… it seems to be more than that. As Jordan stated:

Getting increasingly angry about this entire set of messaging and the general level of competence. Insulting to everyone’s intelligence to dangle the shiny thing at exactly the same time as letting the majority of staff go.

Ottawa’s news source The Review had more on the background:

“I can confirm that layoffs took place today, but they are largely not related to the Steam Whistle announcement,” said Beau’s spokesperson Jen Beauchesne, in a Tuesday afternoon email to The Review in response to an inquiry about the layoffs and the Steamwhistle announcement. Most of temporary layoffs which occurred this week are because Beau’s is slowing down production, while the company does maintenance work on its lines and brewing tanks, said Beau’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Steve Beauchesne. “We have been having some fermentation issues,” Beauchesne said. “We need to empty the tanks and do a deep clean.”

Questions have arisen but, look, the Beauchesnes are family brewers from a small town in far eastern Ontario and (a rarity) I happily call them friends. They are great fun folk who I’ve had over to the backyard and who’ve had me to their fests. The times, however, may not be kind and if the business changes coming are greater than they are in position to discuss today, I can only wish them and their community the best.

B.O.B.** of the Week: Mr B on a rather good brewery in his neighbourhood. The denial of standard B.O.B. context at the outset is an interesting variation on the brewery owner bio.

Finally: “Man driving 870 miles in world’s smallest car” – not about beer but, still, please send your 500 word essays as usual on how it is still like beer to the regular address to be entered in the context for our weekly prize of a photograph of a ten dollar bill.

That’s a lot. Busy week. For more, check out the updates from that same Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan now on a regular basis again every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (where a parsing of press releases was featured this week accompanied by giggle, chortles and the mewing of cats) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword which may revive some day. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*See The King v. Carling Export Brewing & Malting Co. Ltd., [1930] S.C.R. 361 at page 373.
**“Was ist eine B.O.B.? Das is eine B.O.B.!!” Translation: Brauereibesitzerlangweiliglichbiografie.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The Quietest Week of Summer

Crickety chirp chirp. Not necessarily in the beer world but certainly in this part of Canada. Holiday long weekend leading into the first week of a summer month? Everyone is gone. I am even holding the fort solo as others jump in a lake at a family cottage. O sole mio. Naps followed by long sleeps abound. Fortunately, the amusements never end in boozeland as the exchange above best illustrated this week.

First, take a moment this week to remember Florencio Gueta Vargas who died on July 29th in a hops field in Yakima County, WA. He worked for decades in the fields but was overcome by temperatures in excess of 100F that day. He leaves behind a wife and 6 children. Workers like Vargas endure conditions most of you would never accept.

Archivally, interesting news out of North Carolina:

We’re in the process of picking up a HUGE donor collection of national importance. A research collection and personal archive going back at least until the late 1970s. Historians of modern US craft beer history and brewers are going to drop their jaws as much as we have.

I know of one other particular private collection which would be likely mind boggling if released but these are the realities of this sort of hoardy hobby world. The recipient of the donation of 20 boxes describes itself this way: “Well Crafted NC documents beer and brewing history in North Carolina from the breweries of the 1700s to the craft breweries today.” They are also colleagues in the same publication series that includes my two histories. Likely need more of those sorts of landing pads created in more jurisdictions as a form of careful succession planning.

Not unrelatedly, Gary has written another fabulous post on aspects of eastern European brewing in the lead up and during WWII. This time it’s an interesting bit of research related to the hops trade up to early 1941:

…American cotton might be paying for hops ending in American hands… Such cooperation between Russia and Nazi Germany was not inconceivable. The 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty, was still in force between the two countries. It only terminated when Germany invaded Russia in June 1941… It does seem clear America imported no, or very few hops from Germany after the European war started on September 1, 1939. The Royal Navy imposed a blockade of Germany that was generally highly effective, for one thing.

Stan popped in this week for a few Monday musings on three topics. “Why We Drink” caught my attention:

A bit of context for the “hard seltzer is dead, no it’s not” flap. “How Big Beverage poured empty promises down our throats” (from The Goods at by Vox) barely mentions beer, but you can connect the dots.

The two points he highlights from the article (and you will have to go to Stan’s to find the link… bloggy etiquette must be observed) are (i) “we’ve created an entire category of ‘functional’ beverages that claim to have the ability to make us better in every single way, from our brains to our beauty” and (ii) “Instead of collectively admitting that we love drinks… we would rather fool ourselves into believing that drinks can fix us.” It’s interesting as the entire ethos of craft has been build upon personal improvement, a step up. But this is intentional as before craft was created as we know it today, micro-brewing was being led down the pervy and wastrel path. It needed cleaning up… but has it gone too far with, for example, the nutso health claims?

Beer law news? Bloomberg Law reports that Bell’s Brewery has settled a law suit in another copyright infringement situation:

Michigan’s Bell’s Brewery Inc. reached a confidential settlement of a suit alleging its “Deer Camp” beer infringes a “Deer Camp” coffee trademark held by hunting goods company Buck Baits LLC.

Note that the wording used is identical and the offended party may have deeper pockets, h/t MK.

Sir Geoff Palmer has been appointed Chancellor at Heriot-Watt University, home of Scotland’s great brewing college. I came to his writing through the human rights side first and, in particular, have enjoyed his use of social media to argue for a new interpretation of many historical Scots matters including many of the same figures whose names pop up in Canada, like Dundas and Picton. But, yes, he knows more about beer than any of you, too.

What else is going on in the world? I like these cardboard six-pack holder thingies from Norway, especially given the way the plastic ones are killing the planet:

The WaveGrip carrier has been developed in line with Berry Global’s Impact 2025 sustainability strategy, which aims to work with customers to help meet and exceed their sustainability goals. Each carrier weighs just 7.95g for a standard six-pack and is recyclable in most paper and board waste collection streams. Despite its light weight, it is strong and easy to use, while delivering excellent pack retention.

Note: “Excellent Pack Retention” was the name of my folk-punk band in the 1990s.

Not speaking of which, interesting to read that Anheuser-Busch InBev revenues are up even if profits are not matching the full trend. So much for (again) craft the destroyer. That being said, likely they are selling seltzers and auto parts somewhere out in the world, making up for the general disinterest in beer.

From France, two views of the new vaccination passes to get into shops and bars:

“Long live the health pass!” said Chastelloux, who, like the others interviewed for this story, spoke in French. “You have the right not to get vaccinated but not to stop other people [from] getting on with their lives. Shopkeepers need to work, and we need to be able to treat other medical conditions than COVID.”

…and…

“Show a pass in order to drink a beer with your friends? In France? The so-called country of liberty, equality, fraternity? I’m giving up going to restaurants. I’ll boycott cafés. We can eat with friends around each others’ houses. And shop in small stores, not supermarkets,” he said.

Retailers line up on both sides, fearing lost sales in either case. Were this to come to pass here in Canada – with our local double jab rate approaching 75% – there might be less disagreement.

Finally, here is a bit of a bizarre take from Alaska on the problems facing brewing and other hospitality trades in terms of get employee levels up:

Virtually every brewery in the state is looking for help. Like in all industries, it seems like Americans aren’t returning to work post-pandemic like labor and economic forecasters thought they would. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I’m not about to go into the political side of the issue – that doesn’t fit my singular writing objective of “making people thirsty for good beer” – but the bottom line is that, if you want in, now’s the time. Servers, publicans and tap room attendants seem to be in high demand, but there’s room in the brewery, too, if you want to get your boots wet and stir the mash with the big boys and girls in the industry.

By “not getting into the political side” I assume the author means the low wages, health and safety questions and non-unionized environments. Claptrap from a trade shill it seems.

As you nap away the hours, too, don’t forget to check out those weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness! And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

The End Of July Heralds These Thursday Beery News Notes

August. It’s coming. Even though it’s the month of my road trip holiday, the first in two years, no one says “Yay! August!!” do they. It’s the last gasp, the slipping away of the sands of summer. The first hint of sweater weather. Darker beers to suit darker days. The crops are coming in, as the scene in Norfolk, England shows.

How is that barley crop doing… for those of you still drinking grain based beverages. Not well. Bryan R. tweeted a very graphic graphic, shown to the right. The US barley crop is collapsing under the heat. Canadian farmers planted 8.3 million acres of barley in 2021, up 9.7% encouraged by last year’s crop but it’s been dry and hot here, too. Northern Ireland looks to be in better shape. France looks fine, too. The rest of the western EU may be dealing with too much rain.

How’s the hops? Stan has issued his latest update on the hops markets, Hop Queries. And it contains an interest discussion on the effect of heat waves on the NW US crop this year:

“One variety that could cause issues is Cascade, as other growers have seen it hit hard.” This comes at a time that farmers have reduced Cascade acres because brewers cut back contracts. Brewers who are counting on buying fresh Cascade at below contract prices on the spot market, which has become standard operating procedure for many smaller breweries, maybe be unpleasantly surprised. (There will still be older Cascade around, but perhaps available for a good reason.) As is to be expected, the heat was hardest on “babies” (first-year plants) because they aren’t yet established. And, of course, the babies tend to be in-demand varieties, because growers are going to plant what brewers want. For instance, a field with Chinook will include only a few babies (replacing plants that grew old or became diseased), and Chinook stood up well to the heat.

Expected result? Less supply of the most desired varieties.

Lingering or revived pandemic blues got you down? Missing the many still delayed fests? Head east!

The 31st Qingdao International Beer Festival, one of the largest beer festivals in China, opened on Friday evening in the coastal city of Qingdao, East China’s Shandong province. The 24-day carnival has gathered more than 1,600 beers from over 40 countries and regions, according to the tourism commission of the Xihai’an (West Coast) New Area, where the festival is taking place. There will be over 400 activities covering international exchanges, economic and trade exhibitions, fashion shows, parades and performances during the festival.

These things are apparently a thing. Room to grow, too. Ten tents in 2022, I say!

Martyn wrote about the development of the water supply for brewing in the City of London in one of those pieces on history that does not make you yearn for the earliest of the good old days:

…despite the mythology that surrounds the river’s historic alleged unwholesomeness, brewers made use of its water to brew their beer for centuries: In 1509 the Bishop of Winchester (who owned considerable land alongside the river in Southwark – much of it occupied by brothels) and the Priory of St Mary Overies granted a license to the brewers of Southwark to have passage with their carts “from ye Borough of Southwark until the Themmys … to fetch water … to brew with,” so long as the brewers did not try to claim the passage as a highway, a license renewed by later bishops. (The Thames at Southwark is surprisingly shallow at low tide, and horse-drawn carts could be driven some way out into the stream to collect water in casks.)

Speaking of water, here as link to an interesting piece by BBC Scotland on the changing attitudes younger folk have towards alcohol. Apparently, 29% of youff are dry, up 10% over the last 15 years. If you can’t access the BBC Scotland site, here’s a brief intro. Bottom line – don’t be planning your business on an expanding beer market over the next few decades.

Elsewhere, the young folk are being less sensible as this report from France of the situation in Mexico explains:

Like all businesses in the capital — home to around nine million people — customers in the bars of Zona Rosa have their temperatures checked and are asked to use hand sanitizer. “People want to drink,” said bar owner Ernesto Castro. “The truth is that young people don’t care if they’re going to be infected or not. They want to party,” the 55-year-old said. “They feel that they’re not going to be infected and it’s a problem because the pandemic is still there and getting worse.” Last Friday the authorities raised the pandemic alert level in the capital, but did not impose new restrictions on economic or social activities.

Jenny Pfäfflin drew my attention to claims made about “natural beer“:

I’m not against alternative beers, but marketing it as more “natural” or “wholesome” than barley beer is a lot to unpack.

Seems similar to the idea of “sustainable” beer in Australia. The natural stuff is based on banana and honey and seems to be yet another weird beverage that flies the banner de jour, including the “heritage” banner. Note: “heritage” is the word for history where you leave out the bits you don’t like and rearrange what’s left to maximize comfort levels. In this case, it seems to be a tribute to craft’s heritage of banging things in to a pot and making up a back story to sell the stuff.

By the way, I never know how to react to a majoritarian/ privileged voices presenting a selection of minority/ under privileged voices. Curated protest? Appropriation of anti-appropriation? Seeing it a lot this year. But conversely, at least it is better than the bizarre branding we see in Poland: “White IPA Matters”!

The company has not responded to the allegations and complaints yet. Mr Mentzen, the owner of the brand, is a member of Poland’s right-wing Confederation party and has contested two elections – local elections in Poland’s Torun city in 2018 and for the European parliament in 2019 – both of which he lost, according to the Daily Mail.

Finally and perhaps related, a fairly sad observation to read:

I miss what my life was before beer.

Probably more common a thought that folk would admit. As you contemplate that, don’t forget to check out those weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness! And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

These Are The Beery News Notes For The First Thursday Of June

The left lateral collateral ligament is something I have which I had not considered for most of my life. Well, not until I strained mine yesterday. Yeowsers. It’s been a bumpy old year so far. Me, I blame gardening. Heaving soils and such. The good news is the cure. Napping. I can do that. But what of the drink, you ask? Let’s see. First up, this article by Valerie Kathawala on the role of migrant labour in wine got me thinking about the price of the bottles I buy:

Selling natural wine involves a narrative about holistic farming, intimate scale, and transparency of methods. So while the wine industry as a whole has much to answer for when it comes to issues of worker welfare, it’s a question that falls harder on natural producers, who stake their claim on making ethical, kinder-to-the-planet wines that align with the conscious consumer’s values.

Is there an equivalent reliance on cheap foreign labour in beer? I think the head of the UK’s Wetherspoon chain of pubs, as fabulously illustrated to the right, might be finding out there was but there might not be as much now:

Brexit-backing Wetherspoon pubs boss Tim Martin has added his name to the list of those wanting to relax work visa rules for EU migrants. Martin, who toured the country’s Wetherspoons pubs espousing the benefits of a hard Brexit, says that the UK should make it easier for lower-skilled EU workers to relocate here. His comments came as rival pub and restaurant bosses told the Telegraph that recruitment in the industry was so poor that many sites are having to close to lunchtime trade.

Question: what do you do when the brand gets an upgrade but what’s in the can goes in the opposite direction?

The West Berkshire CAMRA mag is online for all those who want a copy. I don’t really know where West Berkshire is. I also don’t know where Pontefract is but Martin took us there this week.

The Beer Nut explored sweet lambic, something I dabbled in 15 or so years ago but then no more. His description of a black current beer from Lindemans is enough to make one take up a habit:

It’s a beautiful beetroot-purple in the glass, with an electric-pink pillow of foam on top. The aroma has a little oaky spice and a dollop of crème de cassis liqueur. The latter comes through strongly in the flavour. I was expecting Ribena but it’s much more a classy French aperitif. This tastes of sunny afternoons, especially on a sunny afternoon.

Max guided me to an excellent article by writer Anandi Mishra on her life with alcohol:

That first year, I mostly drank alone. Friends were capricious then, not wanting to ‘drink much’ lest they ‘become alcoholics’. As a nation, India’s obsession with quickly bracketing people who enjoy a drink as ‘raging alcoholics’ got the better of them. During the solitude of these drinking sessions, I turned to the page to process how I felt. I’d write out my hopes and dreams while drunk, most of them dwelling on my desire to be a writer. I read, and wrote profligately. Most nights I sat down with printouts of Brain Pickings articles, George Orwell’s essays, anything I found ‘readable’. Punctuated by swigs of beer, I’d make notes for hours. When in 2014 I moved to Chennai to pursue a journalism degree, the boldness of that decision was largely motivated by my solitary drinking sessions.

News out of South Africa, with an unexpected outcome in a umqombothi brewing contest:

He might have been the only male contestant vying for the crown, but in the end the judges were unanimous in selecting Sibusiso Skhosana.

Sibusiso Skhosana is from Thembisa, East Rand, Gauten and here is a description of the beer he was making. H/T to the man with hats.

Is it just me or in this last wee while and the uncoverings of craft beer’s seamy side (more of which was revealed in the UK this week) does the label “independent” smack a bit too much of the consequence-free narrative? It’s a bit like the tone I watched play out when a question was dared to be asked of an “important person” in craft:

Q: But doesn’t this ambiguity/reluctance to name names just perpetuate the wink wink attitude to this kind of behaviour Paul?
A: Taking a moment to clock that you’ve turned up to criticise one thing I could have said over acknowledging the many things I did say. Aye, I think that’s all I’ve got for now Eoghan.

Oh dear. The poor little craft stuff wears upon you, doesn’t it. By the way and quite related, running brewery names through employment sites like Indeed with reviews by former employees and you get some interesting information:

DO NO rotate staff out to prevent repetitive stress injuries… Majority of staff is part time or temporary workers brought in on the daily. There is zero opportunity for promotion of part time workers the company also heavily promotes alcohol abuse…”

Finally, I am always interested in the realm of expertise extrapolation. That’s why I stay up at night listening to Coast to Coast AM from a station out of Cleveland. Someone knows something about X so they have an opinion of Y. Recently, we saw a lot of probably well meaning but somewhat dangerous supposed legal advice being passed around related to abusive craft brewing work situations. People have real problems and should not be distracted by pro-am beer bloggers. The medical equivalent is of course far more prevalent with beer writers, last bastion of belief in the J-Curve. With an absence of intent, Jeff seemed to continue with the tradition this week with a piece that walks an unusual line along a wobbly if not fictional fence: “Alcoholism is a dangerous disease, and no one should try to downplay its horrors. But neither should we attribute this behavior to a larger group.” My immediate fear is he contradicted himself in those two sentences. Me, I am guided more by the advice of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Excessive alcohol use is responsible for more than 95,000 deaths in the United States each year, or 261 deaths per day. These deaths shorten the lives of those who die by an average of almost 29 years, for a total of 2.8 million years of potential life lost. It is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States… More than half of alcohol-attributable deaths are due to health effects from drinking too much over time, such as various types of cancer, liver disease, and heart disease.

Why qualify that sort of reality? That’s the same as a Covid-19 pandemic every five or six years. Better to take this oath: “booze is pretty much not that good for me but I choose to drink anyway!”

On that cheery note, please don’t forget to check out those weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

Your Mid-May Beery News Notes For The UK Pubs And Other Floodgates Opening

What a week. We hit 50% first vaccine coverage locally and folk over 18 are able to try to book appointments. Our two eldest must head to two town over in three weeks for their. But as for me, the provincial government has gotten very cold feet over the AZ jab just as I await word on my where and what and when my second jab will be. Oooo… sole mio. Oh, to be the happy man that Tim Holt found reference to in an unnamed book: “[h]is hobby was chaffinches… on a Sunday he would lie nearly through the day sucking up the treacle beer through the tube… thinking of nothing at all…” Magic.

Of course I am not that man and, like all you all, must face the realities. This includes the biggest news in US craft beer circles is the news which isn’t really news at all. Sexism is wide ranging within the culture and this week, led last weekend by Notch Brewing’s Brienne Allan, names were named. Beth Demmons provided the best summary of the situation as of Monday afternoon through another well documented article at VinePair, setting out the background:

Allan, production manager at Notch Brewing in Salem, Mass. and a former leader of the Pink Boots Society’s Boston chapter, was on-site at Notch’s forthcoming Boston area brewery to help assemble the new brewhouse. After being in Covid-19 quarantine for a year, she says, she’d gotten used to not having to deal with sexism, but it didn’t take long for it to rear its head once — then twice — more.

In response, Allen went on line. She received over 800 response to her exasperated question “what sexist comments have you experienced?” The responses range from the crude to the horrific as Demmons writes. There have been initial consequences including a staff uprising at Tired Hands Brewing of Ardmore, Pennsylvania by Tuesday afternoon as reported upon by the Philadelphia Inquirer. And firings and resignations at this and other breweries and organizations followed and may continue to follow. Libby Crider of St. Louis’s 2nd Shift also shared experiences of what she has to put up with from pigs but also welcomed the wave of support. David Sun Lee shared the statement above from my local and beloved Matron Fine Beer. Also read Jessica Infante’s piece on the story from Tuesday as well. In addition to these grim allegations, one of the more interesting bits of information was this:

Let’s say hypothetically I run a for profit marketing business, that doubles as a publication, and am on record/screen shotted, warning clients to pull certain SM accounts before a hypothetical article dropped… am I contributing to the toxic male presence in beer while posting articles of the toxic male presence in beer? Asking for a “friend”.

Hardly independent publishing if that is the case. Interestingly, GBH ran a story that consisted on interview notes with Brienne Allan along with commentary from two lawyers on the challenges whistleblowers may face in the form of defamation lawsuits. It was odd as it seemed to give both slightly false hope as well as a warning to whistleblowers. As a lawyer, I also found it a particularly odd approach what with the legal conclusions drawn like:

…users and providers of internet services are generally protected from defamation claims when they post or share content that was created by a third party…

Not to mention the categorization of brewery owners and employees as “public figures” which would require acceptance of the phony rock star narrative which is also part of the problem with depictions of craft beer culture. As always – as with pro/am beer writers offering medical advice – get actual professional advice if you are in any way involved with a situation like this.

My own two cents in all of this was to remind people – again – that the whole shift from “micro” to “craft” brewing was an intentional rebranding specifically in response to a sex scandal that led to criminal charges. You can read about the 2002 “Sex for Sam” promotion fiasco here and, if you doubt the primary sources I cited, you can read about it also in Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business by Josh Noel as reviewed here.

Katie questions the political economics behind the low ethical standards in what was supposed to be craft’s brave new world – what she calls “social justice paint jobs”:

I have worked in marketing for over a decade, and in that time I’ve developed a talent for sniffing out social justice paint jobs. This in turn has allowed cynicism to grow where it’s not welcome — I desperately want to see beer businesses working to bring good into the industry, and to banish what’s rotten, and to believe that this is being done for the benefit of everyone who interacts with the industry. It’s difficult to see how anything that operates within a capitalist society could survive without adopting capitalist goals…

Me, I am not one to think that “it’s the same everywhere” as I think craft has built for itself its own particular variant of the problem:

If you were wanting to create a cover story for anti-social behaviour why not create an alcohol laced drinkers’ loyalty culture controlled top down by the clique of brewery owners, cleverly labelled as a community driven by passion?

It’s that dream of a consequence-free experience under which it provides a particular cover for some pretty bad behaviour, the thing that still allows someone known to be a creep at work to claim it’s his personal matter.* Sorry. Nope.

Somewhat related, while these matters may raise many points of view, I am not sure this is exactly how one should put this, inclusion-wise. Seems itself to be pretty whitely-dudely:

…I want to balance my interview list a bit, so if you make or sell these beers and you’re not a white dude then I’d love to talk to you…

So… if this is all true, then are we facing a reality that unless you are a tiny family operation or a big brewery with all the controls a proper independent and empowered HR department that there is a risk the pigs are in charge? Maybe. Maybe not. As Jeff recommends, we can at least start by remembering that all humans deserve respect, kindness, and equity.

Speaking of tiny family operations, Joe Stange has written a profile of Virginia’s Wheatland Spring Farm and Brewery run by Bonnie and John Branding. It is published in what is either Craft Beer & Brewing or Beer & Brewing depending on which web page upper left logo you are looking at. Warning: there may be pigs but they are the proper sort so it’s OK. The Brandings make land beer:

That experience in Germany also inspired the brewing of what the Brandings call “land beer.” To them, all Wheatland Spring beer is land beer. The Germans use the word landbier—it simply means “country beer,” and breweries use it to evoke images of local, traditional lagers. To the Brandings, it reflects the farm and its surroundings…. Land beer “has to do with culture and a mindset,” John says. “It’s this connection to agriculture and to artisans, and to this more tightly knit community of craft maltsters, small hop growers, and small family breweries.” In Germany, he says, those small village breweries aren’t trying to compete with the bigger ones. “They’re happy and content with their market, just as it is….

History lesson time. The T-feed presence known as “Intoxicating Spaces” posted this message and accompanying image to the right (my left):

A charming C18th view of St Pancras Wells, a spa and pleasure garden on the site of the present-day station. As well as healing waters, it offered ‘the best of tea, coffee, neat wines, curious punch, beers, other fine ales, and cyder’.

I have writing a bit about pleasure gardens, such as Vauxhall Gardens in the last third of the 1660s at Lambeth, England as well as, note bene, Vauxhall Gardens in NYC in around the 1760s. I would absolutely love access to a pleasure garden. Why have you not provided that to me, world?

Courtesy of TBN, I saw that Ron wrote about British military brewing in WWII including in the jungles of Burma:

In Burma they took the concept of mobile brewing one step further than a brewing ship. They stuck breweries on the back of lorries. Quite a clever way of getting beer production as close as possible to the front line. Given the conditions under which it was brewed, I doubt it tasted that great. The soldiers must have been glad to get any beer at all, out in the jungle.

Look! A “curate” sighting care of the Mudge. So 2018. I thought we were done with that once it came to mean “stuff I own” but there you go.

Marverine Cole directed my eyes to this piece in The Guardian about troubles facing the only Belgian brewery that really really matters, Rochefort:

The monks have doggedly claimed that plans by Lhoist, an international company run by one of Belgium’s richest families, to deepen its chalk quarry and redirect the Tridaine spring risked altering the unique taste of their celebrated drink. Now, thanks to a deed dating back to 1833, it appears that makers and drinkers alike need no longer worry. A court of appeal in Liège has confirmed that while the quarry owner also owns the spring, it does not have the right to “remove or divert all or part of the water which supply the abbey”.

Holy subsurface riparian rights ruling, Batman! Excellent outcome.

Boak and Bailey educated us all on the history of pale’n’hoppy ale. As did Ed. They wrote in response to a post from Jeff on Thornbridge Jaipur. The point of pointing this out is not the appearance of corrections and disagreement. No, it was the appearance of a collective exploration that helped everyone and build understanding. Certainly helped me. Excellent. Good stuff indeed!

Finally, the pubs have opened in the UK for indoors pints and, just like that, the arseholes are back:

To the group of lads who ran up a £200+ drinks bill outside a #bristol pub yesterday, were abusive staff & fabricated complaints, only to then do a runner. You are the very worst of the worst sort of people, and we sincerely hope the police can track you down #unbelievable

In happier pub opening news, Jeff only had to move the sofa and TV to get the place fit for human company.

That’s a lot. Take the time to take it in. And please don’t forget to check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

*Just had to note what a sad exercise this sort of statement is: “While this was all my PERSONAL life, I am so very sorry that these poor choices are now reflecting on the excellent people and products at Grains of Wrath. I emplore those who have any questions or concerns to ask me personally. I’m happy to talk to you and answer any questions you may have because open and honest dialogue is the only way to move forward.” No, bringing bad behaviours out into public with real consequences is how to move forward.