Category: Food

The “I’m Just Back From Toronto And Boy Are My Arms Tired” Edition Of Thursday Beer News

A pubby sort of place

It was a short visit. Twenty-two hours. Nine of which were used up at a conference. A very interesting one. Ten of which were the worst hotel stay that I have had in a very good hotel in my entire life.* And three of which I hung out with Jordan. [You may place these experience in their proper order in your mind as you see fit.]   We wandered and ended up down by the docks. The nice docks.** We talked about craft fibs, money, and the seeming draining away of fun in good beer culture.*** And then we asked the waiter if he liked his job, because he seemed to.  He did. A lot. When the waiter left, we asked why any place would make a beer that tasted like thin lemonade with a soapy hint of dish liquid. Jordan made me drink it. I made a funny face when I had the first sip of that one. Then made another sort of face when I gulped the rest of the sampler glass. I am sure it sells. What do I know?

Two bits of news related to getting things right. Getting the truth out. First, Maureen Ogle has finished her revisions to Ambitious Brew and is about to press the publish button. [Editorial note: she did… buy it now!]**** Fabulous.

And Martyn has written yet another post. It’s like 2009 over there at his blog. Active. So odd to see an active blog. Anyway, it is excellent set of complaints about how horrible the beer style information is in the Good Beer Guide 2020:

It’s not as if all the information on beer styles that the GBG gets wrong isn’t out there in easily discoverable forms: there are now a considerable number of books, blogs, magazine articles and so on giving the true facts about how the beer styles we know today developed. And yet the 2020 GBG still prints utter nonsense…

Excellent. And then there were comments this week about money. Money is like truth. Stan wrote this in passing in his Monday beer news update and it struck me as a particularly obvious point that I had not seen made yet:

The price question is a constant in beer circles (and pops up pretty much every day). But it is one that brewers must continue to consider if they are serious about inclusivity.

I was a bit less impressed with the opposite argument seeming to be be made, that expense and exclusivity were not a barrier to inclusion. But then that was put in a bit of perspective when I read someone arguing that if people really cared about working in craft beer that they should not be too concerned with being paid. These are some of the reasons craft beer culture sometimes seems like an alt-reality with whole necessary pieces simply missing. Then BeeryEd wrote this and the whole thing seemed to right itself again as fresh air returned:

Trust me. As someone that’s been in the game a lil while and spent waaaay too many hours on spreadsheets in regards to costings etc. I guarantee you there is enough to pay people fairly. I promise you. Hence why we have a bunch of brewers that do and are fine….

The comments that flowed from his string of tweets were instructive. And then they just got mean. Because craft beer is full of great people. And thin lemonade with a soapy hint of dish liquid.

Speaking of inclusion, I’ve learned there is a frequently updated list of “Black Owned Craft Brands and Other Diversed Ownership” drink makers map! And because I love maps almost as much as inclusion I am linking to it right => here. Add more data. The world needs more data.

Care of a Katie tweet, I found this fabulous review of the food and drink at the Hackney Church Brew Company by Jay Rayner in The Guardian which starts thusly:

Down a shadowed road an old man shambles. He’s wearing a secondhand pinstripe jacket and sensible shoes with cushioned soles. Pools of buttercup-yellow light spread from reconditioned railway arches, illuminating the uncreased faces of the Friday-night crew outside, bottles of the finest local microbrew in hand. Music booms. There’s a cavernous bar gilded in red neon with the legend Night Tales. Broad-shouldered bouncers stand sentry, thumbing their phones. The old man shuffles past, aware it’s not for him. I can’t help but feel a little sorry for him. This is because the old man is me.

I resemble that remark myself. And I even went to yet another bar this week. I never go to bars but last Friday for one at the Kingston Brewing Company after work. It’s like I never had children. And what a selection! I had a Vim & Vigor which I much prefer to think of as Vim & Vigour.

Fergie Jenkins beer! He once almost slapped me to the ground in 2006. At Cooperstown, NY. Hall of Fame Game crowd. Walking towards the game he was barreling from where he had been signing books to the field where he was to be introduced before the game between the Reds and the Pirates. He was 64. Felt like I was hit by a side of beef. Solid. Took one of my best photos ever – of a ball hit into the left field crowd just near me.

And finally, Lew has been recalling the first time he experienced a regular undergrad habit of mine:

I stopped at the border liquor store before returning home to the dry county of Hardin. The cashier weighed my empty milk jug, I filled it with draft Schlitz, and she weighed it again—the store sold beer by the pound.***** When I got home, I opened the jug and started drinking. I put away the groceries, and decided I needed a shower. On a whim, I took the beer along. It wasn’t long till I was soaped up, hot water rinsing off the day. I grabbed the jug, and tilted it back. Hot water pounding on my back, cold beer running down my throat. Wow! I’d found a whole new experience. The shower beer!

There. I need a rest. My fingers are all tipped with blisters from all this writing. No worries. I have time to heal. Boak and Bailey will be on duty for the beer news on Saturday and Stan will be covering on Monday. The OCBG Podcast is available most Tuesdays in plenty of time for happy hour at the mess, too. See ya!

*I checked my diaries all the way back just to make sure.
**Amsterdam’s Brewhouse on the Lake, 245 Queens Quay West. Everyone has a screen, watches a screen, is a screen.
***I blame all the off-flavour seminars teaching folk how much good beer is bad or at least flawed. Yet teaching people that soapy lemonade is OK. Haven’t got to the soapy lemonade bit yet? Wait for it.
****But please also seek out the actual vibrant story of colonial brewing in British North America from the 1620s and then its continuation in the USA before the Germans brought over lager in around 1840. Start here.
*****Beer by the pound is an even more interesting story that needs to be researched and reported upon.

 

The Thursday Beer Notes For A Week Or So From My Summer Vacation

There is a certain something in the air. The sound of back to school ads? The fear of seeing a pumpkin ale on a store shelf? Summer is winding up. Harvest has begun, as MacKinnon has pointedly pointed out.  I was out there in the trenches… err… ditches in 2018. Looking forward to their Harvest Ale this fall.

Not entirely unconnectedly, we were up in Ottawa last weekend visiting with eldest before it does and one of the best moments was a pint of London Pride. The middle one has been working at a craft brewery this summer and it was very instructive to watch him take a sip. He has been canning contracted and the brewery’s own stock of beer since May, coming back coated with the stuff. He has tried many brands. But he didn’t know what to make of London Pride, asking what that taste was. It wasn’t fruity. It’s an actual ale, I said.

I thought of that when I read this from The Beer Nut on Wednesday in one of his inordinately regular, lengthy review posts:*

My only other Irish beer for today’s post was from YellowBelly, a brown porter named Chewbaccale, in defiance of the Walt Disney Corporation. It is, fittingly, a big lad, at 6% ABV. It’s all about the balance: a touch of roast, but not too much, and a splash of caramel, but not too much of that either. It’s incredibly satisfying to drink, in that way you only get from brown malt. A little weaker would perhaps make it even better, but might also make it Touching the Scald. Either way, I’d love to see lots more beer like this around.

I was also thinking about this when I chatted with Jordan last Friday morning as I sat in the yard on a day off:

Does Beer develop or just change? Not priggery. “Develop” might suggest (i) progression, (ii) intention. As The Beak of the Finch shows, evolution causes both loss + gain. Each are just results of pre-existing qualities that succeed or fail in new contexts…

My point was illustrated by the idea that it is impossible to have a general global English pale ale fad before 2022 as there just aren’t the hops to support it. Fruit-ee-oh favoured hops control the world. Stan had confirmed that peak Fuggles in the US was achieved in 1930. No wonder TBN longs for more traditional British ale flavours. No wonder my son the brewery worker did not recognize the taste. Hmm. Have traditional British styles become so rare abroad that we have to think of them like Belgian beers in the 1970s?

Elsewhere, something called The Suffolk Gazette posted results of a study that suggest that drinking beer makes men more intelligent:

Boffins at Suffolk’s prestigious College of Medicine found men who drink at least five pints of ale a day were far better equipped to hold high-level discussions about important issues of the day. And blokes on the beer were also more adept at completing brain tasks like finishing cryptic crosswords and solving complicated mathematical equations. The surprising findings will be music to the ears of boozers across Britain, who have been insisting beer is good for them since the drink was first invented in 1937.

Oh, it’s a joke. Speaking of which, Stan posted the picture to the right on Twitter and heard from the crowd: “That store is NO JOKE. He must have $60k+ in bottled beer stock in there.” Which sounded pretty general to me.  This sort of thing interested me in 2006. Do people still drop $300 after driving for hours? Do they have kids?

Did you know that Ontario has a deli meat cold cuts competition every two years? I wan’t that press pass. But the judging took place a couple of weeks ago so I will have to wait until 2021.

The Master Brewers podcast posted an episode entitled “Breathe, Breathe, Breathe, Scream” about brewer Kerry Caldwell who overcame the 34% chance of survival calculated by the hospital after she was injured in 2015 when a brew kettle boiled over at a brewery where she formerly worked. They also discuss improving brew house safety by adding a cut-off mechanism that would avoid her sort of incident.

The Beer Nut** has yet again alerted me to a matter of good ecclesiastic practice. In Cork, Ireland one priest is a bit fed up with folk bringing beer and other personal relics of the deceased to funerals:

Fr Tomas Walsh, who has previously spoken out about Godless Godparents and disrespecting the Holy Eucharist, has criticised behaviour he has seen at funerals. Writing in the weekly Gurranabraher newsletter, Fr Walsh said inappropriate memorabilia is being brought up to the altar at funeral Masses. “Bringing things such as a can of beer, a packet of cigarettes, a remote control, a mobile phone, or a football jersey does not tell us anything uplifting about the person who has died,” Fr Walsh wrote.

My late father, a Protestant minister, confiscated cameras brought out during weddings – walking up the aisle hand outstretched for delivery of the offending article as he continued to speak, leading the service – so I do get Fr Walsh’s point.  Seems a bit pagan. Except the remote control. That’s gold.

It’s interesting that the acquisition of a craft brewery by big bad macro is so uninteresting:

AB InBev SA (NYSE: BUD) has agreed to acquire Platform Beer Co., which will join Anheuser-Busch’s Brewers Collective as its newest craft partner. Platform Beer Co is the fastest growing regional brewery in the United States in 2017, known for their diverse portfolio of unique beers and innovative approach. Platform, founded in Cleveland by local entrepreneurs Paul Benner and Justin Carson, began in 2014 as a homebrew-inspired brewery devoted to community outreach and education. Still carrying community values at the core of their business today, Platform is known throughout Ohio for their taproom customer experiences and vast beverage portfolio of award-winning innovative products – creating more than 200 unique beers per year. The brewery’s unparalleled creativity and experimentation has resulted in more than 600 recipes that include a variety of unique seasonals, sours, ciders and fruit ales, barrel-aged beers, and a line of hard seltzer.

“Homebrew-inspired“? Now there is a new nothingness. “…a line of hard seltzer…”??? Hooray for everything! I look forward to maybe three of those 600 brands being discount regional pale ales by 2022.

There. Next week will be the day before the holidays expect the quality to decline… if that is possible.  Check in with Boak and Bailey for more news on Saturday and Stan on Monday. The OCBG Podcast should be there, too, on  Tuesday so check it out. Have a good weekend!

*Pray for his liver.
**The Double!!!

The Summer’s Lease Hath Far Too Short A Date Edition Of Thursday Beer News Links

Gather ye rose buds, lads and lassies. Five more weeks until Labour Day weekend looms. Back to school ads on the TV start soon. Remember: every fair from fair sometime declines. Boom. Chucka. Lucka. Photo of the week is from retiredmartin who has been out gathering. Note the first:  check out the third person’s experienced expression. Note the next: there is a missing fourth person. What is not to love?

A great start this week so far, don’t you think? Let’s go! Next, Dr. J. Nikol Jackson-Beckham spoke at Slow Food Nations about the progressive influence craft beer has on communities – something I would have thought would have been happening at every slow food conference since time began. She sat for an interview on her thoughts about food and justice:

Largely people are heartbroken because their intentions are good but haven’t actually been realized in their business. The project of equity, inclusion and justice tends to overwhelm people with a sense of fear of doing it wrong. So my approach is to come at this as a huge opportunity for a business both in terms of social good and the bottom line. To do this, a business has to think about it on par with all other organizational goals, build infrastructure and then talk through specific tactical scenarios that people can grab on too.

Here’s some science for you. Drinking is being studied studiously and one study has found out that folk are not altering their habits all the same way. It asked the question “why are alcohol-specific deaths going up in Britain when alcohol consumption is going down?”

Countervailing alcohol consumption and alcohol‐related harm trends in the UK may be explained by lighter and heavier drinkers having different period and cohort trends as well as by the presence of cohort trends that mean consumption may rise in some age groups while falling in others.

I heard a similar science-like story on NPR Monday morning but never found the link. [It’s sad when things turn out like that.] But the point was teens seem to be reversing what the last set of teens did and the newbies are turning to the bottle after their elder teens of the last ten years have been subsisting digitally.

Writing advice. Boak and/or Bailey included more than one excellent observation in their monthly newsletter but I liked this one the bestest:

A couple of weeks ago we posted about migrant workers from Suffolk in the Burton brewing industry. In a follow-up Tweet we said: “TIP: If you really want to learn about beer and brewing, don’t just read beer writers – look beyond.” This is something we think is important. When we wrote Gambrinus Waltz, for example, most of the research was undertaken in newspapers, old magazines, books about London, theatrical biographies, autobiographies… We hardly looked at a single book by a capital-B, capital-W beer writer, except for Ron Pattinson and Martyn Cornell.

Sounds like a couple of dodgy sorts to me… but the point is correct: get ye to the primary records as often as possible. Right after the rosebuds. Or perhaps they are your idea of rosebuds. Good all-round general thinking advice, when you think of it.

Hmm. Not sure I like this. The next nightmare beverage has apparently shown up in Malaysia:

Asians love the bubble milk tea. They love beers as well. One franchise has decided to merge the both together in what it considers the “matchmake of the century”… The Boba Beers consists of Butter Beer made with Kirin Ichiban, Guinness Milkshake with Guinness (duh), Strawberry Lime Cider made out of Apple Fox Cider, and Watermelon Beer mixed with Tiger Beer.

I don’t judge but, well, it sounds pretty yik. I expect some craft brewer will update* it and the kids will go nuts.  Because tea+beer=boba can’t help but be cheaper to make than even beer+juice+radler.

Geoff Latham had a good go at pointing out that one craft fabulous UK brewer selling into the EU was seemingly breaking the law:

It’s not allowed under EU rules. They closed the “personal import by post” loophole when tobacco sales by post rocketed. The person importing can have their goods seized and face prosecution. The company exporting also can if the correct customs documents don’t accompany the beer

I liked Zak Avery’s experienced views on the matter, too. Craft is all fine and good but a couple of weeks of short sharp shock might be called for.

New brewery news: Ontario emigrants brewmaster Andrew Bartle, marketing manager Marissa Bégin have declared their new operation The Church Brewing open for business. This is great and especially so as they are located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia** near where I grew up, where my Dad was a United Church minister which means he likely went to presbytery meetings in a future brewery.

I am enjoying the approach Matt Curtis and his journal Pellicle are taking in treating good beer as part of broader food and rink production.  British wine has been included in that scope this week:

Thanks to this bumper crop, British wine is being spoken about with more fanfare than ever before. British sparkling wine, particularly from vineyards based in Sussex and Kent, is now widely recognised to be on par with Champagne. This perhaps explains why in 2017 the Champagne house Taittinger planted vines in Kent (though, due to its appellation, they cannot call what they make here Champagne) in order to exploit similar growing conditions as the prestigious house enjoys in France.

Boak and Bailey have hit for the double this week when on Wednesday they posted a tweet with a link to a 1971 article from the publisher of the foundational and likely all-time leading home brew and good beer books in terms of sales, Amateur Winemaker. The article is about beer tourism to Belgium, a copy of which is produced to the right. I love it. While a bit cringe making on topics matrimonial, it is far less creepy in its sexist approach than the sometimes leering thoughts of one Mr. Jackson when he spoke of ladies AND it does an excellent job describing the subject matter of his article – traveling to Belgium in that year of 1971 to explore the beer culture. I particularly like the observation that sweetening sour beers like Rodenbach or Gueuze was locally common. This primary record proves their earlier observation – and raises again the question of why no one has seriously studied the influence of Amateur Winemaker publications. Then again, perhaps Columbus did actually discover the New World.

Finally, a point of view from our side good beer on the word authenticity. While I am a bit of a loaf, I do like reading about good menswear as I am a man who needs to wear things. Permanent Style is one of the best current guides to things I can never afford which offers an alternative voice on matters analogous to good beer and here is their take on that word:

In the past couple of years ‘authentic’ has become increasingly important to how I see clothing.  Partly, this is because the other terms – or values – have become less important.  Heritage has been overemphasised. Frankly, some old companies make terrible products and are stuck in the past, unable to adapt either to changing consumer expectations or the media that markets them.  So too has craft. The fact it is done by hand doesn’t necessarily make it better. Some craftsmen set out on their own before they’re ready, and deliver a poor product. And some things are just better made by machine. 

Interesting. Given most “craft” beer is made on computerized set ups that manage much of the process automatically, the comparison may well be a useful one.

Well, that is it for now. Not a boring week at all. Boak and Bailey should have even more to share on Saturday and I am now trusting Stan to being back again Monday. Consider, too, the OCBG Podcast which is broadcasting the thoughts of Robin and Jordan as they observe upon good beer each Tuesday now coming on three months or so.

*aka poach.
**pronounced “Wuhff-fuh” locally.

Tra-La! It’s May!! Here’s Your Thursday Beer News For The Lusty Month

Ah, summer… or at least that part of spring that is after filing taxes. Tax Filing Day, Labour Day and Christmas Day are the only three actual dates that turn the calendar for me. The real seasons are (i) winter plus mud month plus fretting about the furnace and tax forms, (ii) the months of joy, the time of year when all the good movies are set in, and (iii) the long goodbye to all signs of life on the planet. Last week’s cruddy news was clearly the last burst of the bad time before the coming of… the good time. It all makes sense.

What has that got to do with beer? Other than that the months of semi-public semi-irresponsibility are here? Do you think I could sit around my yard listening to a ball game on a tiny AM radio in view of the neighbours and passers by wearing plaid shorts and a funny hat drinking a beer in November or March? No, that would be weird. Now? It’s expected. You know what else is expected? The week in beer news. Let’s go!

First, all bow to Bristol as Boak and Bailey have posted a remarkable post on the 1960s opening of a Guinness brewery in Nigeria based on a collection of records shared with them by the daughter of the plant’s technical director:

David Hughes’s 2006 book A Bottle of Guinness please gives an excellent summary of the rise and fall of the Ikeja brewery. After 1985, the import of barley was banned, and so Nigerian Guinness began to be brewed entirely with local sorghum. Stout ceased to be produced at Ikeja after 1998, with production moving to Ogba, further away from Lagos again. Fiona’s father, Alan Coxon, went on to become head brewer at Park Royal from 1972 until 1983–84. He left Guinness after a dispute with management over, as Fiona understands it, plans to gradually and slyly reduce the ABV of Guinness’s core products.

Value. Interesting. Hmm… somewhat distantly relatedly, I remember first seeing this phenomenon in a New York beer store years ago when there were cans of Heady Topper or some other supposed special beers that wasn’t supposed to be sold outside of Vermont. They sat on the counter by the cash register for ten bucks a pop. I thought “what idiot pays ten bucks for one can of beer” but now it appears that sort of idiot might be the backbone of UK small craft beer retailer strategies:

Some buyers are driven to underhand measures to secure hyped beers for their shops. “I know there’s a lot of jiggery-pokery that goes on,” says Sandy. “It’s a dog-eat-dog world in the craft beer scene.” Stories of retailers buying beers from other shops to resell in their own establishments are common. This can even stray across borders. “I’ve certainly heard of bottle shops ordering from European websites,” says Ferguson. “I know someone up the road was doing grey market beer imports. Obviously HMRC wouldn’t take a kind view of that.”

[Note: I only take journalists seriously when they choose to use the word “jiggery-pokery” if and only if “dog-eat-dog” also is used.]

As another example of writing worth your time, Matt Curtis has led the announcement of his new project Pellicle, a digital magazine with a scope broader than the normal and seemingly failing format of the beer mag, with an article on Irish oysters… and beer:

Inside, we arrive at a table laid out with freshly cut wedges of lemon and lime, along with a few bottles of Tabasco. The gathered crowd marvelled at the effortlessness with which Hunter shucks an oyster. Taking it in one hand—that hand encrusted with salt and dirt, evident that he had been hard at work pulling in nets that day—he inserts a short blade into the shell. Finding exactly the right spot in less than a second, he pops the shell in two with a single motion. Careful not to touch the salty fruit within with his fingers, he then uses the blade to clean the shell of any grit or rough edges, before ensuring the oyster is no longer attached to its shell, and serving.

Having lived in an oyster area or two in eastern Canada, my only concern is Matt failed to find a place for my favorite oyster word – spat. That’s what we of the western Atlantic call a first year seed oyster. Never mind. What I like is how the article is unburdened by any of the wowsy, life changing experience claims much beer writing for money is larded with. Which means it’s an example of just better writing. And a nice clear subject matter travel funding statement, too. Nice. Still, slathering an oyster with Tabasco is an utter waste. But, well… never mind.

Next, Robin wrote an interesting post under the title “Tampopo, Ramen, Beer, & the Amateur” which I immediately was taken by given her assertion of the priority – nay, the primacy of the amateur:

With the word amateur celebrated instead of filled with negative stigma (the latter, I feel, unfairly gets more focus), suddenly all the events people go to, the sense of wonder and excitement I feel when I go to a bar I’ve never been to before, when I don’t recognize a THING on the beer menu, and that wild, devil-may-care attitude when I order something to just try it…all of that suddenly made more sense to me. There was no single word that could accurately define it. “Passionate” felt too one-sided. “Curious” didn’t quite cover the drive. And a label of “connoisseur” or even “expert” seemed to remove a lot of the assumption that there is always more to learn and discover about beer. 

Excellent. The only folk who could fine a negative in amateur is the phony pro, the self-labeled expert. Ay mo. A mass. Am ant. It’s all about love, baby.

The opposite of which, I suppose, is the grasping crowdfunder. Give me the amateur over that every time. Boo, grasping crowdfunders!!

Martyn wrote a wonderful fact packed tweet that I need to share in full:

In England in 1831 there were 5,419 common breweries, 23,582 full-licence pubs that brewed their own beer and 11,432 beer shops that brewed their own beer, over 40,000 breweries in all. The country’s population was 12,011,830. That would require over 187,000 breweries today.

I think of facts like that when I read folk think there were something like 150 or 275 breweries in the US prior to 1800. Makes no sense. Ah, but for a record to bring us back to reality we wallow in the shallows of easily available evidence.

Speaking of summer, tra-la and all that, we often hear a lot about the quality of beer at baseball games. Suckers who like the Toronto Blue Jays are particular complainers. Me, if I am honest and count my ticket stubs, I am more of a minor league guy. So I’m delighted to read that my nearby Syracuse Mets have upped their triple-A game beerwise:

It’s seems to be going about as well as the ballclub hoped. Even on a day when lots of beer was available for a buck, a steady stream of customers popped in for a full-price IPA, Imperial Stout, Saison or other style made by a noted local or national craft brewer. “We’re getting a whole new demographic of people coming to the games — the craft beer enthusiasts,” said Clint “Tonka” Cure, the Mets’ assistant general manager. “And then we’re also getting the craft curious — the people who aren’t sure they’re going to like it but think this is a good time and place to give it a shot.”

That picture way up at the top is from my July 5, 2016 visit to the ball park at Syracuse.  I love Syracuse. We haven’t been south for a couple of seasons since the Canadian dollar tanked but maybe I’ll get my butt back down there this year for a few games. I can take my Mr Mets book to get signed.

That’s it! Another week has passed and tonight I sleep in Oshawa!! What could be better? I bet Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday will let us know.

The Government-Shutdown No-Deal-Brexit Why-Kids-Don’t-Drink Version Of Thursday Beer Notes

Woot!!! Holding up the roof since 1693!!!!

So… two weeks and a bit until #FlagshipFebruary* begins… meaning the inevitable rebound to #TrendyMarchMania will see some of the dry,  those off the sours for almost nine weeks hitting the bottle extra hard. You know, we really need to full year calendar to keep all this stuff straight – given we also have #MildMay and #DecemberIsForAmataurs, too.

As I mentioned a few updates ago, the US government shutdown has caused all approvals required by brewers from the  Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. I clucked at the time that at least this halted the manic pace of biere nouveau but – and with a hefty h/t to @beerinator – it appears that the permitting process is far more intrusive that that:

In a suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in D.C., Atlas notes that the government has approved labels for its cans of The Precious One, an apricot IPA, but not the labels for its kegs, known as “keg collars” before the shutdown began. Those kegs can’t be shipped out for sales outside of D.C. without label approval from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau: Doing so would violate federal law.

Who knew that “permitting” included such minor matters?***1/2

Next but disconnectedly so, here is an excellent primer for buying wine for a crowded restaurant table. Note the following statements:

I simply order what I most fancy eating and what I’d most like to drink, that’s what gives me most pleasure — even if the combination may seem bizarre to the sommelier… Do you worry about which cheeses to pick off a cheeseboard? I’m sure you don’t, so don’t worry about the wine…

Fabulous advice. Applies to beer, too.**

Unrelatedly, wonderful views (see above) of a +335 year old pub structure in Dublin, Ireland. Here is some backstory from 2016 on the efforts to save the structure:

“The astonishing skeletal grid of ceiling beams and joists is still intact on the ground floor, as well as early brick walls with ancient embedded timbers… With all of the modern partitions and ceilings now removed, the ground-floor shop retains all the grand scale one would expect of a public inn of the post-medieval period, complete with typical corner chimney stacks…”

Not connected at all, good to see some wonderful news of Young’s in England taking a stand on saving its affected staff from the fallout caused by Brexit. More here on the business reasons behind this sensible move:

The boss of pubs firm Young’s on Thursday cheered higher sales, but warned that hiring staff is tougher. Patrick Dardis said around 38% of his 5000-strong workforce are EU nationals, and added: “More workers [from Europe] are leaving here than coming. The recruitment and the retention of top talent is increasingly difficult.

Whiplashedly, ScienceDirect published this so it must be right. It’s a research paper entitled “Why are young people drinking less than earlier? Identifying and specifying social mechanisms with a pragmatist approach” which sets out a number of reasons why my children are apparently smarter than I was as a kid:

Recent analyses of surveys of youth drinking in Sweden have found a strong decrease both in rates of abstinence and in levels of drinking among drinkers. For instance, alcohol consumption among 15- to 16-year-olds has fallen more than 50% between 2000 and 2012. At the same time, the abstention rates among boys and girls have increased from about 30% to more than 50% . Moreover, heavy episodic drinking has decreased from 34% to 18% among boys (ibid.)…  Similar declining trends of alcohol consumption among young people have been identified in other European countries, North America and Australia…

Virtigo inducingly, the Tand himself has posted about how craft sees cask and it’s good enough to have a whole month dedicated to the #MarchOnCraftFibs campaign. It starts fabulously thusly:****

Yesterday there was a Twitter post that caught my attention. It referred to an opinion piece in Imbibe Magazine by Jessica Mason in which she claims that “We’re on the precipice of a cask revival”. The article goes on to explain her thinking which can be summed up – more or less – that cask can revived – wait for it – by modern brewers adopting Golden Ales. Well I exaggerate, but I hardly agree either with the way the article says “cask is becoming ever more exciting, flavoursome and stylistically broad” as if we’ve all been drinking flavourless crud for all these years and can only be saved by innovative craft brewers rescuing us from our own stupidity. 

And utterly conversely, I finally figured out what I don’t get about GBH writing style. This piece by Roth is pretty good even if it needs editing down to get some control of the subject. It’s like there is a need to give each source equal space.  And the obvious extra access to New Belgium, an acknowledged sponsor, is there, too. But those are the problems with the subject matter presentation. That’s normal middly stuff. No, it’s the fact that the letters “GBH ” actually appear 22 times within the text of the story. Twenty-two! Breakout the flashing neon font. Enough already. One is enough. Three is cloying. But referencing your own publication 22 times in a story is weird. Needy. And too bad. It’s an important story and would have been much better if it was just cleaned up with a lashing of confidence.

One last thing: stunning stats on pub waste.

That’s enough for now. My neck hurts. Odd. Mid-January is quiet time. I actually typed all this while balled up in family quilts watching VCR recordings of cooking shows from the 1990s. Seriously. Who has time for -26C, Sunday’s promised nighttime high?  I want it over. You want it over. Like Brexit, we know the next few weeks are just going to be ugly and we need to get them out of the way. Need relief along the way? Check out Boak and Bailey on Saturday and then Stan on Monday for a well earned break.

*Hmm. Now not thrilled with the hinted need to seek to attach a big old lumbering craft revenue stream to what is basically a hashtag.
***1/2Not sure what this footnote is for… it’s even out of order.
**Have another cold Big Mac, you big carrot-headed lardass! [Note: as a distant cousin of Mr. President, I reserve the right to call him a big carrot-headed lardass.]
***So much of wine pairing advice these days is based on relaxing and not worrying while beer pairing advice is so anxious.
****We really do need to acknowledge what a clear focused writer the Tandy One is.

The First Thursday Beer News, Resolutions And Gnawing Regrets For 2019

One eye on the beer, one eye on you!†

Wasn’t that fun? New Year’s Eve = The Worst Holiday Eh Ver. I had promised myself I would be nicer again this year* but I honestly found this holiday more boring than usual. Was it because it was on a Monday? Because it rained? I was holiday-ed out? You decide. I did drink a wee bit but we stayed in. I sipped on an insanely** cheap Belgian beer throughout the day and shared a swell bottle of Ontario Riesling in the evening.  Defrosted grocery store pastries shared about the family room. Wooo!!!

Anyway, here we are: 2019. Big news so far? The Trump shutdown of the US Federal government has halted the breakneck manic approval of more and more, newer and newer transient ephemeral brands of craft beer, the amnesiac mainstay of the trade over the last few years. So he can’t be all bad. Not unrelated, David Frum also linked Trump to craft crusaders this week. Slightly related, U.S. Sen. and potential Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren appears to have done herself a beer-related injury.

I am absolutely gutted that I did not follow the DrinkablongwithRon 2018. What sort of animal have I become? I even had string. I did notice that noted British beer writer Jeff Evans announced he is pulling the plug on his website:

A short message re Inside Beer. After ten years, I’ve decided to close the Inside Beer website, due to other pressing commitments. The site will stay live for a few more weeks but will not be updated. This Twitter account remains open. Thanks to everyone for their support. HNY!

I note this not only for the update but to capture Martyn’s keen observation: the move is related to Jeff getting a more attractive opportunity. No doubt more to come on what that turns out to be.

One thing I did do in 2018 was avoiding Brut IPA altogether… along with glitter beer, that one month flashpoint. Never had nuttin’ of neither. I’m still coping with kettle sours. The New York Times, being generally more useful, has provided us with a helpful if brief study of its local BeePah action:

It’s taken a little over a year for Brut I.P.A., a new style of India Pale Ale, to sweep through the craft-brewing community. The name is a reference to brut, a dry Champagne. By all accounts, it was created by Kim Sturdavant, the brewmaster of Social Kitchen and Brewery in San Francisco, who used amyloglucosidase, or AMG, to remove the sugars in an I.P.A. AMG is an enzyme usually added to make light beers and to balance big beers like imperial stouts.

More of the best of the new? Ed posted the most honest Golden Pints ever. Mashtun and Meow’s were filled with fun and gratitude. More GP18 here. In other beer writing news and opinion, Matt is laying off the sauce. Crystal is off the sauce, too. BeerAdvocate reminded each of us to ask ourselves… why not lay off the sauce?  And Tandy Man asked about another sort of laying things aside:

It has been a very quiet year for the blog for many reasons. I have had the passing of my mother to contend with, been very busy with beery things here in Rochdale, Oldham and Bury and latterly in Manchester for Manchester Beer and Cider Festival. But I don’t think it the main reason. I just couldn’t be bothered. Little inspired me frankly.  Some things interested me, but overall, just all a bit flat. Like a London pint.

I suppose it’s been obvious that creative beer writing has not been quite as interesting over the last couple of years as it was in its hay day (given all the jostling to be Bernstein and Wordward, pretendy or otherwise) but it’s important to be OK… be just OK, like the man above,† with the idea that one can be neither a craft PR type pushing for greater collective boosterism or sitting looking in the mirror, finding yourself admitting you are are cutting back for health reasons. While Stan may be right, that beer reading has been rather spare the last couple of weeks, there is still that great big middle ground to write about and it is full of interesting things worth exploring and sharing your ideas. So while I won’t be confused anytime soon for a #beerpositive**** supporter, Polk is on the right track.

Say – speaking about drinking and health, this is an excellent article worth considering because it’s written by a wine writer and judge who is also a liver disorder specialist. He poses the question this way:

I believe advice that everyone should have at least two alcohol free days a week is a well-intentioned effort to combat the enormous adverse impact that alcohol has on some individuals’ health and well-being. The question, of course, is whether that strategy will be effective in reducing the well-known damages of excessive drinking to individuals and society: liver disease, neurologic problems, socially unacceptable behaviour, and driving under the influence, to name just a few.

See that? “Well-known”… which means if you don’t believe it you are participating in something like climate change denial.***

New booze laws for 2019? That’s what you showed up for, right? I left it for last. Big news is how the crowds at the next World Cup will face plumped up booze taxes:

In an effort to make their country healthier, authorities in Qatar have introduced new taxes. But with the World Cup just round the corner, fans around the world will be raising their eyebrows almost as high as the new prices for booze. That’s because the Gulf state has added 100% to the cost of alcohol – seeing a crate of 24 beers now retail for £82 and a bottle of gin set you back and astonishing £73.

Other new laws include unintelligible changes to craft distiller operations in California, relaxed retailer rules in Tennessee and Colorado, tougher drink driving laws in Ontario, and a booze crackdown in Turkmenistan.

Well, that’s enough for now. Can’t give away all the good stuff on the first Thursday. Predictions? What will happen in 2019 otherwise? Ask me in 12 months. What’s happening Friday and on the weekend? Go ask Boak and Bailey on Saturday and then Stan on Friday.

†Don’t be looking for the linked connection down here…
*I don’t mean that I will be even nicer, just that again I promise… only to fail.
**I have no idea how this gets shipped to Canada for such a low price. Does it come by tramp steamer with no guaranteed delivery date?
***And for God’s sake stop taking about a J-curve. You just look silly.
****#beerrealism is much more interesting. #ThinkingAboutDrinking, too. And I need to get my own butt in gear. Frankly, more than anything, I blame me.
*****Ben predicts on three topics, and does so rather well. On the most interesting topic, DME, the main question I have is not one really asked yet except in discussions on the QT. Something is afoot – as the story so far is not right. The other question I have I will ask: how much of the deposit money was borrowed and how much was actual saved cash. If the former, the ripples will spread much more widely. Who will lend for such equipment now? If the latter, perhaps spare me a full throttle application of the broke craft owner motif next time we meet. But, as Ben’s gathered threads ask by implication, think on the fate of Texas’s Big Bend Brewing Co., now closed due to $1 million lost to DME and the others who may soon follow. 

Merry Christmas Beer News Updates Everyone!

This is going to be great. A weekly news update laced with the holiday spirit. Everything is going to be wonderful and swell. The one and only problem seems to be that I seem to have some sort of new sys admin tool on the bloggy app of mine so bear with me if this all ends up looking like a dog’s dinner* or… thinking of this season of Yule… the day after Christmas dinner with distant cousins!  Footnotes and embedded images seems to be a hassle. Fabulous.**

Anyway, the first gift I offer is the photo of the week above, found on Twitter under the heading “Matchbox Covers Depicting Drunk Cats by Artists Arna Miller and Ravi Zupa.” Cats have always struck me as a struggling species. You can find more images of beer loving hardly coping cats with serious drinking issues by Miller and Zupe here.

Next up, the new government of Ontario has its own gift for us all – a plan to distract us all from the important business of the day to ask us how liquor retailing should be changed! Wow!! The survey even comes with a dumb name, “Alcohol choice and convenience for the people”… which has everyone wondering when the same survey is going to be rolled out for, you know, squirrels and chipmunks.  Or drunken barely coping cats. Fill it out if you like. Even you! Apparently  they are interested in views from beyond Ontario, given that is one of the possible responses. Thanks for skewing the responses to my detriment.

I like this video of Garrett Oliver plunked on YouTube by Epicurious magazine. He demonstrates a wonderful ease with explaining beer. It is unfortunately presented in a way that suggests it’s macro v. micro. I’d prefer some crap craft bashing. He also talks about relative value – but presents some some odd arguments. No, a craft IPA does not cost $4 rather than $1 because of the hops. And a good German malty beer is not double the price of a poor one due to the cost of the malt. There is much more to price and, yes,  not all as easy to explain – but his general argument that good costs more is there and welcomingly well presented. 

Jeff has unpacked how Beervana pays its way:

A little less than two years ago, I began running an experiment here when I took on Guinness as a sponsor. In July, we signed a contract for a third year of sponsorship, which will run through June 2019. This is a slightly different model than the subscriptions Josh describes, but the upshot is the same: the idea was to find a partner who saw value in the site and wanted to reach my very specific, engaged readers.

This is good. Open and honest. And we few remaining actual bloggers need to support each other, knowing how hard it is to make a buck writing one of these things… or just finding the time or accessing the resources you want for the research you want to do. Not unrelated: self-inflicted expertise extrapolation? Heavens to Betsy! Let the man think out loud.

Speaking of supporting our fellow bloggers, Robin ran into Canada’s newest jam blogger in the market the other day. He’s very keen on new content creation. 

The British Guild of Beer Writers has published a list of the best beer books of 2018. The trouble is it seems to be a list of all the beer books published by guild members from 2018. There’s twenty-six books listed, some of which were published years ago – even under other titles. Decisive selection. The best book of the year is not included. 

Conversely, Max in a single not necessarily beautiful image posted on Facebook has told a thousand words… and then added a few words: “…’twas good. ’twas very good, and the second one too. Pivovar Clock Hector at Pivni Zastavka…” The only thing that defies scientific knowledge is how the glass shows multiple lacy rings, each matching a gulp while we all expect that he downed it in one go.

It is an important observation on how useless the US Brewers Association’s definition of “craft brewer” has gotten that it acts as filler for the weekly update only after I have hit 750 words. Jeff notes how it is now entirely related to accommodating one non-craft brewer. Wag that I am, I retorted *** that it no longer requires a brewer to actually brew very much beer.  There. That’s all it means. 

Related: an honest man in Trumps new America or the root of the problem?

This week, Merryn (i) learned not to want to be a medieval farmer and (ii) linked to a 2013 web-based data presentation about Viking brew houses which I am linking to here for future Newfoundland reference but it’s totally today…  so there you go.

Finally, how about some law? This speaks nothing to the people or the business involved but I have no idea how I might determining whether to consider sending string-free cash to a cause like this one:

We know that the decision to invest your hard-earned money is not to be taken lightly, no matter how big or small your contribution may be. We would gratefully use the funds to assist with legal fees, as we continue to protect ourselves, our name, our businesses, and our team. We are looking for and in need of building a legal fund that will provide for our past, present and future legal demands, as a rapidly growing grassroots craft beer franchise system. 

The legal issue appears to be mainly legal dispute with their franchiees. I have no idea who is right and who is wrong. Craft makes it extra blurry. Having advised upon franchise agreements in my past private practice, I would not want to suggest where the right sits. Often in the middle.

Relatedly perhaps, Lew asked about unionization and proper wages for craft brewery workers and got an ear full on Facebook.

Well, on that cheery legal note, I will leave you for now with Jay Brooks description of how “T’was The Night Before Christmas” is really about beer. And, please dip into the archives to remind yourselves of Christmas Photo Contests past. Ah, beer blogging. Remember how fun that was? Until then, Boak and Bailey have more news on Saturday and, the Great Old Elf himself, Stan has more news on Christmas Eve. Ho. Ho. Ho. 

*where is the basic HMTL editor I knew and loved? I can’t even indent this footnote or make the asterisk a larger font than the text. What sort of animals are running WordPress??? Hmm…
**There. Killed if all by installing a “classic editor” widget.
***Yes, retorted.

The Session 134: Beer In The Garden Does Not A Biergärten Make

For this month’s edition of The Session, host and Expos successionist Tom Cizauskas has asked us to think about beer gardens:

What is a beer garden? Or what isn’t a beer garden? Or what should a beer garden be? Or where is a beer garden? Is a beer garden a place of foliage and shrubberies? Or is it a plot of concrete with umbrellas? Is a beer garden an outdoor bar? Or an outdoor Biergarten pavilion with Gemütlichkeit und Bier? Or is a beer garden to be found at a brewery with a hop trellis de rigueur?

My problem is I have never been to a beer garden. Not really a Canadian thing. Oh, folk will talk to you about a patio but that is completely different.

So… I will mention two things. The first is that Joe Stange has written a particularly wonderful entry for this month’s contribution on the joys and, umm, realities of taking your family to an actual German Biergärten. It’s the sort of great writing that an editor of a beer magazine would reject and its publisher never pay for. It’s that good! The second thing is that while I have never been to a beer garden I have written about in the past, including this piece below from 2011 “Saturday Afternoon Beer As I Smoked Meat By The Shed” which, amongst other things but especially as the southern end of the yard has lost its lovely tree, reminds me how I can’t wait for the weather to warm up so I can fix up the shed roof, clean the place out, set up a chair and have some Saturday afternoon beer as I smoked meat by the shed as I listen to a baseball game drifting in and out on my tiny AM radio.

++++++++++++

After two weeks off that saw a lot of road, it was good to have a Saturday to commune with 5 pounds of pork and 5 hours next to the Weber set up as a smoker. As perfect a summer day as ever there was, the fire sparked quickly given the subtle breeze. I dry rubbed the joint for only an hour or so and then settled in for a long afternoon’s watch.

 

 

 

 

Despite the moment, I took a few scribbled notes:

⇒ Mill Street Organic Lager is a beer that had been mainly offered in an irritating 10 ounce bottles but is now available in 500 ml cans. It has a nice body for a 4.2% beer – some pale malt roundness framed by slightly astringent hopping leafing to an autumn apple finish. one of the few Canadian better sort of sessionable beers. Good beer at a good price that lets you have a few.

⇒ I should be grateful to have a Rickard’s Blonde in the fridge – because I happily downed the first two samples sent and then had to go back and ask for more. It’s a slightly sweeter lager than the Mill Street, a bit darker with a slightly peachy tone supported by heavy carbonation. Its light astringency is present from first sip onwards leading to a bit of a rougher hop finish. Its sameness from the sip to swallow got me thinking but it is quite worth buying for what it claims to be.

⇒ Hop Devil is an old pal that served as a change of pace mid-smoke. It pounds that crystal malt that some English beer commentators now suggest is overkill. The hops have black pepper and pine tree with maybe a bit of menthol. A beer I would happily have on hand anytime.

⇒ The Samson came my way care of a pal who was traveling through Quebec and found this at the Government SAQ store up in Gaspé on the Atlantic coast. Apple butter with molasses notes open up into black cherry. Bready and bready crusty make me think of the drink that Dr. Pepper wishes it was allowed to be. No need of this to be held out for the few and the easterly. Nothing Earth shattering but more evidence that Canada needs better beer distribution.

Shed. Beer. Shed beer. They held me in good stead as the afternoon wore on. Slow smoked the pork and slow passed the hours as I day dreamed about the human condition as well as the drawing to the end of holidays.

All The Good News Beer News For 03Q218

What day is it? The meds are making for a blur. Without getting overly graphic, the other day there were four hands within inches of my nose and two of them were working a thread and needle. Gums were tightened. Rearranged. Anyway, it’s not been a time for gulping buckets of ales and lagers but it has been a great time to wallow in both mild misery and brewing related social media with a slight sense that things are either not right or, you know, the meds… so…

First off, given Vlad’s news in the lead up to the Russian performance art event mimicking an election that he now controls a nuclear powered cruise missile as well as a submarine bomb that now hover and skulk amongst us all ready to strike if we… what… say bad things about him… well, in light of that the news about Russian barley seems a little less important. But, it is interesting to read how Russia has become a key bulk exporter of our favorite grain. I don’t expect this to directly change much – but indirectly, the overall market might get shifted in a way that benefits the Western beer buying public due to new malt quality barley flooding the market.

While we Canadians are (i) subject to the Crown-in-Canada and (ii) members of the Commonwealth, I can’t imagine setting the opening hours according to somebody’s wedding. Do my UK readers care?

Lew blogged.

Next, if you click on the thumbnail to the right, you will see a promotional photo for BrewDog* from, I am told via Stringers on Twitter, the year 2014. Yet neither of the Google Image searches for “BrewDog sexism” and “BrewDog feminism” are otherwise particularly productive. So… keep all that in mind as you read on about their great new PunkNotWorthy class PR stunt (coming just days on the heels of their million beer giveaway PR stunt) and then their still a teensie-weensie bit odd apologetic confessional. Why mention the “talented team of women at BrewDog” as you ask to be excused for an admittedly botched stunt? Being newbies to taking an actual stance on an actual thing exterior to their imperial corporate existence, it seems they also borrowed this from (or at least failed to heed the failings of) the sexist / not sexist stratagem behind last week’s gaff by Stone. The best that can be said now might be that it is bad if superficial marketeering. The best we can hope upon reflection is that it was an entirely miscalculated act of sincerity by a corporation that is fairly immune to simple sincerity. Further comment: Mhairi McFarlane, Craft Queer, and many more. And M. Noix Aux Bières made an interesting observation:

There’s something badly wrong with the beer media when a company messing up its marketing gets more coverage than their announcement, in the same week, that they messed up one of their recipes.

Is that all there is? Big bulk craft. Getting it fairly wrong. Again? Leaning on the PR. Again. Because that’s what big bulk craft does. Does anyone care about these globalists anymore? It’s great route to medium term millions but the long term often see weirdnesses arise. The yeasty yogurt non-movement of 2016, for example. If you need any further proof of that reality, look at the news released on Tuesday that Sierra Nevada is changing direction, dropping innovation, getting back to lean on its flagship SNPA and hiring a PR firm to flog it.  Subtext: branch plant expansion hasn’t panned out, sales have dropped, panic setting in, “let’s not let SNPA turn out like Sam Adams” muttered around the executive committee room during breaks even as they set out on that same path.

There is another way. A more thoughtful path. This interview of Francis Lam, host of NPR’s The Splendid Table contained this interesting tidbit about the relationship between good drink and food:

There are people who have a beautiful wine with every meal, but for a lot of people that act signifies something special. You have to eat, but you don’t have to drink, so the idea of having something at the table that is there, almost purely for pleasure, is meaningful. I think for a lot of people that signifies that we’re here to actually enjoy, rather than just feed.

This is an aspect of the beer and food pairing discussion does not focus on, giving all the attention as it does to restaurant settings. Simply gathering and enjoying. How rad. It is even more interesting when considered along with this column from the ever excellent Eric Asimov of The New York Times in which he discusses how austere herbal old school value Bordeaux go so well with food even if not separate sipping. It would be interesting to see unloved or less understood beers highlighted alongside foods served at home that bring out their better natures… but that would require craft beer and pop beer writers to admit (i) value matters and (ii) some prominent beers are, you know, sorta duds.  But you are not a slave to either trade associations or the other voices who would control you, are you. Have some pals over, treat them swell and see what works over dinner. After all, this is only beer we are talking about.

Infogramtastic news! This important NEIPA tasting graphic passed by my eye this week. Click for a larger size for the full details. This decade’s wide leg jeans.

Celebrity newbie brewer or local newbie brewer?

And finally, Pete added a strong contribution to the discussion about pay-to-play in beer writing** as sort of a wrapper around a disclosure statement about a drinky junket to Catalonia:

I’m going because I’ve been keen to check out the explosion in Spanish craft beer for several years now and think there will be some genuinely interesting stories, but haven’t been able to afford to do it under my own steam. Will my reporting of the trip be influenced by the fact that I’m being given hospitality? I don’t believe so (beyond the fact that I’m actually there, of course.) But any story I write about it will carry a disclaimer explaining that it’s been paid for by someone else, so the reader can make up their own mind.

While we have never met,*** Pete and I have gotten along as web-pals for well over a decade but don’t really see eye to eye on this in each instance… but we see the same questions the situation raises so it was good to read his comment “I was wondering what your reaction would be!” For me there are two things: self-certification and subject matter control.

As I have said before, it is not up to the writer to suggest that they are the self-certifying measure of any reliability. Only the reader can judge the result. But as long as there is disclosing, the judgement is informed. When I hear of folk presenting as beer experts or, worse, journalists quietly running review-for-pay schemes or side-gigs as law firm holiday tap takeover party as partnering hosts but not openly disclosing, I tend to place their other work in, umm, context. I am entirely sympathetic to the need to make money in a minor niche like good beer but one person simply can’t be all things. Promote and influence or research and write. The key word being “or” of course.

The bigger problem is one Pete might be implying in passing: “…beyond the fact that I’m actually there, of course…” It’s not, in fact, that he is there. It’s that he is not somewhere else. Where no one else is. Where no trade or tourist association pays the bills for travel and hotel. Where the beer isn’t free. I put it this way:

I need to better unpack your thoughts. You sit near a line. Main general quib? Lost stories of the unjunketed topics. Explorations. The work of @larsga is best example. Deep down, though, perhaps I never admired you more than when you were mid-Atlantic alone on a container ship!

Lars Marius Garshol, without a doubt, has done more to exemplify what researching in the service of understanding beer and brewing should be than anyone else in this decade. He has spent what seems to be every spare moment and every dime on seeking out the rural, secret brewing patterns lurking in the countryside of the northern third of Europe from Norway to Russia. These sorts of creative efforts and the resulting independent focus is what leads to innovative, interesting and reliable writing.  He sets a very high standard for not only me, the playboy amateur armchair historian, but even places more driven and diligent traveling researchers like Robin and Jordan, Boak and Bailey, Ron and (yes, of course) Pete**** in rich context. But it is a shared context. Pete makes that very clear, sets out the whole picture and places himself in that picture at his own angle of repose. We all do that. It’s just that some do it better and more openly than others while a few don’t at all. It shows.

There. Another week in the books. Please also check out Saturday’s take on the news from BB2 as well as Monday’s musings from Stan. I look forward to their corrections and dismissals and outright rejections of some or all of what sits above. It’s no doubt what’s needed.

*Disclaimer: I got boxes of BrewDog samples a decade ago. And I think I may have bought one small can of their beer coming up on five years ago on this trip.
**Disclaimer: I got boxes of BrewDog samples a decade ago. And I think I may have bought one small can of their beer coming up on five years ago on this trip.
***Because I hardly ever go anywhere…
****In fact, if I had the money, I would fund them all to chase after narrow and likely hopeless projects knowing they would come up with some of the best finding and writings as a result.

It’s March! It’s March It’s March It’s March News!!!

So… I like March. For years I proclaimed March in 89 font letters on one of my old blogs. I am far more restrained now. A place between two seasons. Did you see that it snowed in Ireland and the UK this week? Farmers out east call this the Million Dollar Snow* – the late storms that drench the fields on melting. And all brewing trade social media has been suspended over there for the last few days for pictures of snow laying thinly all about, just like the story told in the carols! Must be that EU Committee on Taking Photos of Snow (EUCTPS) funding grants finally kicking in.

First, right after last Thursday’s deadline, The Tand Himself** wrote about the inversion of reality that craft has become in the UK market and under their cultural version of the term’s application. Years ago Boak and Bailey discussed the vague and wandering UK use of the word “craft” and it seems like it’s wandered six steps further since then. While it is useless to get too caught up into it, craft now appears to mean “an expensive crap shoot enjoyed by folk many times you likely would not want to spend much time with” – or, you know, something other than what’s in the glass. Who needs that? The better  approach such clinky studies with a certain humility and thank God others are playing with just, you know, honesty. We are blessed and less affected here where craft can still range from $2.80 a tall boy to whatever the market might bear. Related: discount craft discussion #1 and discount craft discussion #2. Somewhat related: odd personal product placement posing deep and abiding questions about value.

Next, I like this footage from the BBC archive of a show discussing the 1986 about the new UK craze for trend in brown bread. Which is interesting. Context about trends in food and other social patterns should be always related to trends in beer culture. Me, I was in Britain for a good chunk of 1986 and remember both the good malty ales and my uncle complaining about all the whole wheat and vegetables suddenly in his diet. Related: drive-by expertise. Unlike branding, actual history and knowledge are reasonably identifiable things. Dr Caitlin Green, lecturer at the University of Cambridge in history, has posted a series of images of ancient drinking vessels. That drinking cup carved out of amber is one of the more wonderful things I have ever seen. By further contrast, consider this discussion of the poorly traced and argued history of lambic – part of our heritage of mob craftism. Why must this be so?

Back to today, interestingly how Ben noted a change in the demeanor of UK trade reporter James Beeson who wrote about his unhealthy relationship with alcohol on Friday and then how drinking swanky craft before 3pm on Sunday made him somehow “a winner.” I’ve often noted to myself how two classes of people seem to align their identity with drinking, alcoholics and beer writers. If you feel the first, the second is irrelevant – just as he openly explored in the thread that followed. No beer makes you a winner. It’s best to be well. And I wish him well. No one needs a millstone.

Do you see a pattern up there? Proper personal insight compared to something else, perhaps second hand. Yet Jeff manages this tension with care and perhaps a bit daring in his posts on sexism. It’s not his story to tell but it’s the story he can tell or host. Still, even with his own discussion on the fact it is not his story – and the reality that we each are only what we are – I just wish the posts didn’t have a male host as intermediary… so, I will pair this link to one from Nicci Peet who is making a documentary about women in all sectors of the trade and has even launched a Patreon campaign to support it:

If you’re here you probably know I’ve just launched a new documentary project photographing women (cis, trans, genderqueer, woc) in the UK beer industry. There’s a lot of talk and debate lately around sexism and inclusivity. Part of the problem is that there’s a lack of visual representation of the diverse range of women who work in the industry. When I say women working in the industry I don’t just mean brewers. If you have a passion for beer there are so many different routes into the industry. 

Both Nicci and Jeff’s very much worth your time. [Related for contrasting context.] And, just so we are clear, the #1 lesson on exactly how not to do it was brought to you Wednesday afternoon by Stone‘s Arrogant Beavis and Butthead social media intern:

 

 

 

 

The tweets are all now deleted – but for a hour or so defiantly defended. It makes one wonder why do they stick with the junior high locker room branding at Stone? It’s all about judgement of others with a passive aggression from a largely unwarranted stance. Don’t get me wrong. They make mainly pretty good gas station beer that’s reasonably reliable and know how to get the government grants for the branch plants. But apparently because that’s how the head office rolls if the intern’s tacit instructions are anything to go by. Time to move on.

*Unrelated.
**aka TTH.