Category: Health

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For A… For A… I Dunno…

You can get in a rut about things can’t you. These headers for example. It’s just a thing. But a thing almost in a rut. Is craft beer in a rut? I dunno. It didn’t do anything new and stupid this week, did it? It is, however, like a thing that could find itself in a rut, isn’t it.  Makes people say odd things… like: “…not me, not my part of the thing… my thing is really a separate thing…” When things are actually fairly bad, people still take time to say that sort of thing. Because this thing is not like that thing. Not my thing. Can’t be. Never.

First up, the views shared by Alistair at Fuggles on home brewing around little kids ring true for me as I packed in my questionable home brewing hobby completely once we were well and truly surrounded by rut rats :

This weekend was the twins 4th birthday and with time speeding by at a fair old clip, it feels difficult to justify taking 8 hours, give or take, to brew an all grain batch of homebrew. While there is no shortage of decent beer to be had in the central Virginia region, either locally produced or from further afield, there are still times when I just want to drink something I have brewed myself. Enter pre-prepared malt extract.

Speaking perhaps of my home brewing, I found this piece on on imposter syndrome as suffered by women in the drinks trade interesting but I was particularly interested as I have known many men who admit to suffering from the experience as well, especially in law:

Imposter syndrome, according to the American Psychological Association, is a psychological phenomenon wherein you doubt your own skills, abilities, and inherent worth, no matter how much you achieve or accomplish. For many, it’s an inner voice that whispers, “you’re not good enough, you don’t know anything, and one day, everyone is going to find out… storytelling has the power to combat imposter syndrome; however, it will take a proactive effort to tell stories that go beyond the bylines, brewers, and old-boy’s networks that have dominated both breweries and beer journalism.”

Come to think of it, a lot of what sucks about craft beer sucks about law. Stress. Alcohol. Irrational expectations. But not the 50 kg sacks of grain. Even in my early 40s when folks wanted me in on a brewery I knew there was no way I could hack hauling around 50 kg sacks of grain. I wasn’t ever going to go there once I grew used to the seeming reassurance of the hard tight black shoes.

Next up? Just last week I wrote:

Thing never said in beer: “…and certainly thanks to all those who nominated the winners…” Oh… 

And this very week I am pleased to read:

Oh wow, this is huge. A massive thank you to whoever nominated me and a huge congratulations to all the other incredibly talented people on this list!

Which is great. More of this, please. And congratulations Charlotte Cook aka @ilikeotters along this the others who were nominated by even further others who, as nominees in the Best Brewer of Britain category, likely can in fact haul around 50 kg sacks of malt, nae doddle.

How to quit in style. Fabulous.

Careful readers out there will recall that I have a particular thing for the role of alcohol in early victualing of ships‘ holds. This week VinePair shared what dear old Ferdie Magellan was packing:

Documents from Magellan’s expedition cite a hefty 203 butts (barrels) and 417 wineskins — from the Jerez wineries in southwest Spain’s Andalusia region — made it onboard. Today, this amounts to nearly 243,000 liters of booze. Magellan and his crew must have really needed the extra liquid luck on the expedition, seeing as the cost of wine and other provisions amounted to 1,585,551 maravedis. Taking inflation and conversions into account, Magellan brought about $475,665 worth of booze on board. Researcher and crew member Navarrete noted in Document No. XVII that this number accounted for 20 percent of all costs on board.

Speaking of the ancient of days, Garrett Oliver himself guided me to this story in The Harvard Gazette about the scale of brewing in ancient Egypt:

Thanks to his recent excavation of a brewery in the ancient Egyptian city of Abydos, the senior research scholar at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts may get his wish, and soon. But the excavation revealed far more than a way to reconstruct an ancient recipe for suds. The industrial-scale production — on par with today’s best microbreweries — offers direct evidence of the kind of power wielded by Egyptian kings.

I would have thought sustaining an empire for thousands of years might have been evidence enough of the power of Egypt but… you know… I am not a guy who went to Haaaa-vaaaard. Where they call beer suds!*

Evan Rail on hard seltzers: “I thought most of them were gross. A few were harmless but boring. Several were close to nauseating.” Exactly.

Gary Gillman (aka Gee-Gee… OK, not) went off on an interesting wander around what is/was and what is/was not the North American hop known as Neomexicanus care of a part called part one (including below) and part (…wait for it…) two:

…the sources mentioned seem to reserve “neomexicanus” for the Rocky Mountain, American-origin hop while “Manitoba” or “Canadian” describes another hop from North America. While classification as such for regional examples of North American wild hops is beyond my scope here, it might be noted that location – terroir, if you will – plays an important role for all hop attributes, even relatively locally as Stephens explains in her article.

I just don’t believe in #RauchBeerMonth.

Throughout the Commonwealth we hear comments about the news that Vanity Fair has reported: HRH The Sovereign Herself has got to cut back:

According to two sources close to the monarch, doctors have advised the Queen to forgo alcohol except for special occasions to ensure she is as healthy as possible for her busy autumn schedule and ahead of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations next June. “The Queen has been told to give up her evening drink which is usually a martini,” says a family friend. “It’s not really a big deal for her, she is not a big drinker but it seems a trifle unfair that at this stage in her life she’s having to give up one of very few pleasures.”

I dunno. Ninety-five? That’s when I start smoking menthol ciggies regularly. I’ve beaten the odds by then. No filters either. Something else is killing me by then.

Daniel Craig‘s choice of bars makes perfect sense:

“I’ve been going to gay bars for as long as I can remember,” the 53-year-old actor told Bruce Bozzi on the “Lunch with Bruce” podcast. “One of the reasons (is) because I don’t get into fights in gay bars that often. … The aggressive dick swinging in hetero bars, I just got very sick of it as a kid because it’s like I don’t want to end up being in a punch-up. And I did. That would happen quite a lot.”

Nice. Still, can’t go a week without reminding you all of how craft has failed once again, with some pointing out how BrewDog seeking to redefine arsehole ridden work environment with the phrase “high-performance culture” which guides one’s mind to the article on imposter syndrome up there… and perhaps thoughts on who exactly is the imposter in these cases?  The burdened worker or the poser jet set whiner?

I can’t even imagine how horrible having a fruit lambic with eggs benedict might be.**

In the category of “discussions of places I will never go” I came across this fantastic example of a buried lede in this quotey piece on a Cornish rarity, Spingo,  in Pellicle by Lily Waite:

“Spingo is the definition of a cult beer. It stands outside the ‘scene’ and, like [local annual festival] Flora Day, is about Helston doing its own thing,” says Jessica. “They bring out a new beer every twenty years or so and that’s it. The locals seem happy with Middle and, from our observations, seem to regard Flora Daze as a dangerous innovation. You haven’t really experienced Spingo until you’ve had a pint at 8am on Flora Day, dispensed from a hosepipe into a plastic glass. Magic.”

Speaking of Jessica, she and Ray visited Kirkstall Brewery in Leeds and provided a first hand report. The story illustrates how superior the web based beer writing can be if only that it is current.  Like radio reporting on a sports event, it’s fresh and immediate even if a snapshot of a weekend trip I wasn’t on and can’t realistically replicate. By contrast, the piece on Stingo above refers to a visit in June. Why the backlog? Why wait for Waite? Worse, of course, is when you have to read through something that comes out of a physical printing press.  Stale and via mail. Viva hands on laptops! Vivi!!

Viva indeed. 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 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 – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness! And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*I love knowing that someone’s ass is burning by someone else calling beer “suds” because it totally disrespects their mild addiction cloaked as a hobby.
**Not to mention which fruit was lambicized before the eggs benedict was held hostage.

The Middle Of September 2021 Edition of Your Beery News Notes

Where to begin? It’s been a good week in my hometown. CHeery even. The summer is lingering and the backyard crop of tomatoes and grapes has been coming in. Eighteen months in, it is one of the most normal weeks so far even if we see elsewhere things are returning to other more difficult norms. I was reminded of even a third norm by the wonderful image above of the lonely pub by John Bulmer from 1964 that passed by on social media this week. Lovely and evocative. It reminded me of me. Or at least mine. That empty space? Space like that was where my people lived. Or did before they move up and/or away. This norm of today shall also pass.

Update! Lisa Grimm on new bad stouts in Ireland:

…with Heineken recently releasing Island’s Edge, and Guinness rolling out their new Guinness 0.0. Island’s Edge has been expressly positioned as a stout for people who don’t typically drink stout, and to that end, it includes tea and basil in the recipe to make it, to paraphrase, less bitter and more refreshing, though none of the flavours of tea or basil are noticeable in the resulting beer. So, having had a pint of it recently, I can confirm that it does, indeed, lack those flavours…along with most other elements of flavour.

Next, I had to grab a screen shot of this image to the left from Stan‘s weekly round up. You can open it in a new tab for the full size. It’s super tiny because it’s a huge image from the Craft Brewers Conference on an indoctrination education session on lager brewing. These images always make me scratch my head year after year. It was all about hazy beer education a few years ago and massive barrel ales a few years before that. Beyond clubby. Chasing the tail in lock step with every other brewery in attendance. That once again is the business plan for these fiercely independent and sometimes off center breweries. That’s weird.

The same idea is bouncing about in Kate Bernot‘s excellent, subtle and perhaps surreptitious piece on Oregon’s Full Sail Brewing’s perhaps last chance effort to regain some reputation in the craft beer marketplace. The plan? A fantasy of chasing and copying Boston Beer’s now decade or more and well established run as far away from actual beer as possible. There are three references spread across the article to that strategy. It’s like a plan to marry rich. Plus look at this:

… Full Sail’s beers weren’t being placed on shelves in desirable places, primarily because low prices on the Session line of beers led them to be shelved next to light beers, while the drinker Full Sail wants to attract might only be shopping in the craft section… To correct this, Full Sail raised prices on June 1 on most of its beers by a couple dollars per pack to bring them more in line with other regional and national craft breweries. Though it goes against the laws of supply and demand, the switch led to an +11.5% boost in sales on Session beer in Oregon and Washington markets three months after the price change… Tiernan says part of the boost for Session is shelf placement next to other craft breweries, and part of it is a more strategic approach to the idea of “value.”

Entirely anti-beer consumer initiatives like that might be described as the “premiumization of old craft”… or perhaps lipstick on a pig. Time will tell if the bait and switch has a lasting effect with the beer buying public. It’s probably far too late. As Jeff on the ground both tweeted and was quoted: “I suppose a few folks are still kicking around who feel warmly about [Full Sail], but not many…” Dead cat bounce?*

Ian McKellen helps out on quiz nights at his pub.

There was an interesting hour of radio provided by the CBC’s new season of Tapestry and its interview of Edward Slingerland, academic and author of Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization. He also confirms or at least bolsters my suspicions or at least speculations that alcohol pre-dates community discussed here four years ago.

…in the standard account, alcohol’s this kind of byproduct of agriculture, and it happened after agriculture. But once I started doing the research for the book, if you dig into the archaeological record, what it looks like is hunter-gatherers were making alcohol in a serious way, way before agriculture. Probably this goes back 20,000 years or so, but we certainly have direct evidence 13,000 years ago that people were making beer in what’s now Israel. And then we have sites like the site in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe, where hunter-gatherers — this site’s probably 12,000 years old — were coming together, building these massive ritual complexes.

He does unfortunately use the word “myth” to describe the idea how alcohol makes people aggressive suggesting those people were already aggressive before describing how alcohol just dampens control. That, to me, is describing removing the guard against bad behaviour that would otherwise be left in place. Odd argument. Also uses “neo-prohibition” while advocating for measured control. As in temperance. Which is pretty close to what people mean by “neo-prohibition”…But a good listen nonetheless.

Question: is Matt suggesting that Boursin spreadable cheeses are his perfect hangover cure?

Ron shared a few thoughts on him being compulsive which he believes is the basis for his success as a beer historian:

I realise my head isn’t like everyone else’s. Compulsive behaviour. It’s part of me. When I looked out of my office window and saw someone touching every sign along the road, I didn’t think “What a weirdo”. No. That’s just like me, I thought. A bit more public and odder looking, but basically just like me. Being compulsive has its advantages as a researcher. It means I go through material fully. Really fully. Whenever I see beer analyses or price lists, I have to record them. It’s a pain in the arse, quite a lot of work, but I can’t help myself. Thirty years of such compulsive behaviour has left me with some amazing datasets.

Mostly unrelated, making beer can sometimes remind me of the consequences of drinking beer.

Finally, this quotation from the CBC and Dr. J Nikol Jackson-Beckham gave me pause:

“If you weed out a bad actor but do not change the culture, when the next bad actor comes along, they will thrive in the same environment.” Dr. J, “The unthinkable has happened, finding your way after harassment, discrimination, or abuse has changed everything.”

I paused for the message itself as well as the long haul Dr J. is on. I wrote about her thoughts in 2017 in a post titled “Peter Pan As Craft Beer’s Archetype” and it may well be that not much has changed. Fight!

That’s it. As you start at the bottom of the glass or at the floor before you, for more check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan now apparently a regular again every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (the talk was of awards this week) 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 – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness! And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*Investment concept referring to a late final brief upturn of a plummeting stock. Refers to the fact that even a dead cat will bounce on the sidewalk if dropped from great enough a height. Not sure this is actually true but the image is effective.

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 Thursday Beery News Notes For Summer’s Sprint

Here we are. The second month of summer. Soon it will be halfway through summer. Spring takes its time. Lingers. Summer is a sprint. To keep pace, I ran a couple of breakneck polls on Twitter asking you good folks about the biggest lies told by craft beer. Hard to narrow it down after writing this weekly column for so long. One immediate finding from the first poll was that the “craft is 99% asshole free” lie is a lie of general application. Whether it’s the bad boss, the sexist and the racist on staff at the bar, the beer writer spreading health myths or assigning blame for beer can hand grenades to the consumer… the general rule has wide application. So I ran it again with that option removed. We’ll see. Tune in for continuing coverage at 11.

Out there in the world beyond my own mind’s wanderings, Andy Crouch posted a really interesting audio interview at Beer Edge with actual reporter Norm Miller this week. Their chat starts seven minutes in but it is well worth the wait. Andy and Norm discuss things like their respective court room experiences – but the real angle on the story is their views of the unhealthy relationship with beer seen too often in the craft beer scene:

Norm wrote that he was giving up beer writing because he needed to stop drinking. He talked about the impact his tasting was having on both his physical and mental health. It was a bold and honest piece of writing and should be required reading for everyone in the beer industry. Spend anytime at a beer event or industry get together and it quickly becomes obvious that some and perhaps many in the beer business have an unhealthy relationship with the product they sell. Whether it’s overconsumption, drinking and driving, or forgiving behavior that would otherwise be unforgivable but for the presence of alcohol, it’s the third rail of the American beer business, one that few dare to touch.

Well, one of the third rails along with observed sexist behaviours, observed bigoted behaviours, the actual financial status of breweries,* the pervasive packaging of canned craft hand grenades….

Less ominously, here’s a lovely and witty visit to the Welsh town of Builth Wells presented by a very busy Martin which includes a portrait of the Greyhound Hotel. Less Welsh by far and over in the cyberverse, on Sunday, Ron and Mitch Steel and a few other guys are talking on your computer screen about IPA. Govern yourselves accordingly.

Looking into recent brewing history, Ray and Jess of the B and the other B wrote extensively about Harp Lager with lots of quotes and imagery  and then get some great comments providing further detail.

The brewhouse was fitted with a Steinecker Hydro-Automatic system which meant that “from a control console… the whole brewing operation is controlled by one man, from the selection and transfer of the grain to the pumping of the finished wort to the wort receiver”. The formal opening ceremony took place on 28 June 1963 with an inaugural brew started by the Queen’s cousin, Lord Mountbatten – a sign that this was a big deal.

I will never think of the phrase “Steinecker Hydro-Automatic system” the same way again. By they way, did I ever mention that my grandfather had a heated chat with Lord Mountbatten – right after he had told Lord Louis’s Admiral to go fuck himself? During of a naval engagement in WW2. Probably told you already…

Across the Irish Sea, Marble Beer Ltd., seemingly sensing that BrewDog was getting all the attention in the “how not to respond well to crisis” contest, came out with one of the best semi “sorry not sorry” admissions seen in a long time:

…we believe we owe it to not only our team but also our loyal customers and drinkers to set out how we are going to build and nurture a positive, inclusive and fair Marble community now, and in the future. However, before we continue we feel it’s only fair to our previous management that we first state that some of the allegations made on line were outright falsehoods, but that does not mean we do not wholeheartedly accept that the company fell far short at times…

Wow. There are a lot of moving parts in there. Cookie gave the heads up and a fair commentary, too. Unnecessary and not a wholesome part of any apology.

In industrial packaging news, once again another week sees another complaint about incompetent packaging errors in the drinks trade. Not quite the beer can hand grenade situation (as seen above) but the expensive bottle of cider that empties half of itself before you have a sip as reported upon by CiderReviewAdam:

There are too many ciders, particularly but not exclusively, pét nat ciders that are frankly explosive. This was marketed as high end and sold at, for cider, a premium price. It should not be losing half of itself on opening… The average consumer’s tolerance for this sort of thing is a lot shorter than mine is, and this sort of incident, happening with the regularity it does, comes across as amateurish.

Note: amateur is not the opposite of professional in this context. This is not amateurish. It is incompetent professionalism. As are beer can hand grenades. Unless you are you just pretending you are a journalist, tell this story.

My patronage recipient, Matt, linked to a story of his posted a few weeks ago at the Ferment 52 blog on the question of whether beer can be too fresh:

… I decided to speak to brewers about it. And while some denied it was something they had experienced, others said they found it to be a common phenomenon, and referred to it as can, or bottle shock. The idea being that the very process of packaging and shipping beer can cause its flavours to destabilise—albeit temporarily—and that giving them time to properly rest before serving is what’s required for maximum enjoyment. Some even took this view further, admitting that their beer didn’t taste quite how they wanted until several weeks after it’s packaged.

This reminds me of good wine having to sit for a day after travelling as well as coming in and out of point on a 6 to 12 month cycle. But it’s really also pointing out that very fresh beer is a different thing. Also good but different.

Over there in the wine world, the winner of the inaugural Crap Tasting Note of the Year awards has been announced:

From the very opening, with the rhyme of ‘bright’ and ‘light’ to the pointless alliteration of ‘excited effervescence’ (have you ever seen a lethargic effervescence?)  it’s clear that we are dealing with tasting gibberish of the very highest order. Yet the writer sustains it throughout. There’s more garbage in 97 words here than some writers manage in notes three times that size. There’s unnecessarily archaic language (‘writ’), more alliteration (vigour of the vintage), and garbled imagery. Why would a soloist be monochrome, for Chrissake? What does it even mean? And why have you mixed up sound and colour? 

Less honestly wholesome yet somewhat indistinguishable is one of the more embarrassing examples of the blog-for-pay** GBH self-promotion was published this week but it was not in GBH. Looks like Washington Post journalist Julia Bainbridge was pestered by emails from the cheap seats and gave them some space at her personal blog… oh, it’s a newsletter. Things we learn include: (i) “…we (the media) need to be clearer about the numbers and what they really mean…” (ii) “…Beers brewed with fruit have had a crazy last couple of years, and Bryan is like the only reporter I have seen cover this…” and (iii) “…American psyche for food and beverage is unique in the world…” Grab easily available stats, repackage the obvious as insight and – Voila! – expertise. Amazeballs.

I think that’s enough for now. Have to go gaze at the Twitter polls for another few hours. Hey, 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.

*Remember when seeming adults presenting as seasoned beer writers but dependent on continued access to craft brewery owners insisted over and over that there was no money in brewing craft beer? That was great.
**“It’s a magazine… it’s a real grown up magazine… it is!!! I just have three other jobs to maintain access to my sources…“

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The First Of Summer

Above, is an image from a conference posted by Ed Wray, which he dubbed “Ten Years of Barley Varieties.” It is lovely. And not unlike the chicken wings crisis chart, that. It is quite the thing to see how rapidly varieties come and go. When I worked in Holland in 1986 in the big cut flower auctions, I had a favorite rose –  Mercedes – which had a particular balance between its soft scarlet bloom and the pea green of the stem. But like all things, it fell out of fashion or the hybridization isn’t that stable and when back in Canada it only lasted a few years before it was no longer available in the market. Nice to see the constancy of Maris Otter. Something like myself.

Update: apparently, the G7 event at Cornwall England reported upon last week due to Trudeau’s pint has become a super spreader event that “…is closing down pubs, bars and hotels at a frightening rate.” I have moved forward my second jab to the end of tomorrow afternoon. There is some disagreement as to the cause, however.

Also from the UK, perhaps a different sort of political statement from Stephen McGowan on the issue of sticking with the process for evaluating the effect of minimum pricing in Scotland:

I would remind all stakeholders that the Scottish Parliament is under a legal obligation to consider the impact of MUP on licence holders and producers; as well as the impact on the licensing objectives, as well as the impacts on individuals and groups in society. “Success” is therefore a nuanced, complex pattern. Parliamentarians, like the rest of us, will always welcome news of falling health harms – but I urge us all to remain circumspect about whether MUP is a “success” for if we allow ourselves to view success through the sole prism of consumption levels, that is to ignore what the 2012 Act actually requires.

Like self declaration of importance, “nuance” is one of those proclamation that usually hides a combination of motive and the incapacity to actual state an idea. In this case, it’s really not nuanced at all. Just a call for balance. But we need to remember what is being balanced is the health of one person as opposed to the income of another. Such is the reality of a regulated trade in compromising pleasure products.

Note: “…allegations of widespread misconduct in America’s craft beer industry…” is how it is described in the journalistic part of the world. Misconduct is a great word for is as, like bigotry, it is an umbrella word avoiding the need to distinguish between the different forms of grasping that we are learning more and more about. Craft beer seems particularly fertile ground for this sort of bad behaviour, being not quite consequence free as its hymnals promise. BrewDog seems to be the gift that keeps giving in relation to now a number of aspects of this stuff. The Press and Journal of Aberdeen, Scotland shared information about the brewery’s (literally) dodgy habits when it comes to business partners:

Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, the advocacy group that campaigns for a fairer tax system, said: “This is a disappointing, but sadly common story – companies whose approach to tax havens is entirely at odds with their projected image. “Having major investors using Cayman as a conduit is certainly antisocial, but it’s about as punk as croquet… Asked how the company could reconcile its ethos with the fact such a large proportion of its stock was held by the Cayman entities, a Brewdog spokeswoman said she “can only comment about BrewDog’s own tax obligations and activity”.

But see, unlike those who look at this things as “snafus“, the relationship between investors having spare change from not paying proper taxes and investment recipients then receiving cash from the same the resulting pool of investment funds is entirely direct and, frankly, obvious. BrewDog receives a benefit because the UK Treasury does not. And the UK taxpayer is asked to make up the difference. Now, their brand’s health is dropping in the standings and, as Brewbound reports, BrewDog’s good housekeeping seal of advanced ethical status is now at risk. Are they a ponzi? Punk as croquet. Gold.

We have to recall that there was a before times, that the “craft” brand is recent and has never been better than wobbly if not simply needy. Ed the actual brewer shared his thoughts:

As to actual craft beers many of them sound more like alcopops now anyway, and certainly some craft brewers have embraced exogenous enzymes, bollocks ingredients including actual bollocks, and genetically modified yeasts (something multi-national brewers have never dared use). I’m not going to make any moral judgement but I can’t see where the craft is.  The standard bearers of craft beer in Britain have always been Brewdog and it’s been obvious for years that they’re tossers. Recently their ten year plan was revealed and they’re going to focus on producing lager because they want to be bigger than Heineken. Can anyone tell me how becoming a giant lager selling multi-national is craft?

We have to remember that “craft” arose to prominence only around 2003 after (1) the stalling of the markets in the late 1990s, (2) the formation of the BA and (3) the “Sex for Sam” scandal. Micro needed rebranding. Then it starts to die a slow death starting in 2015-16 with the sell off which continues today with the trade abuse scandals.

Entirely conversely, Max continued his purifying walk to Litoměřice – and his story gets even better with this bit below proceeding an ending of this middle of the tale drawn surely from the early pages of Wind in the Willows:

The walk was as brutal as I expected given my shape, and there were several moments when I questioned the wisdom of the endeavour, but the sights and the utter peace that surrounded me more than made up for it. When I reached the highest point, I found a resting site and I spent a good while just admiring the view of the České Středohoří and feeling very well about myself. From then on, the way will be mostly downhill and I had already cover about two thirds of the distance.  The trail took me to the village of Hlinná, a few kilometres outside Litoměřice. It was not in my plans, but I saw a pub and couldn’t resist it. There was nothing in this world that I wanted more than a beer at that moment…

Somewhat similarly, Martin celebrates a stroll but one through less green, more hardened lands to reach the wonders of the Elton Liberal Club:

A succession of Old Boys come in and report difficulties renewing their membership, skilfully resolved by the young barman. Old learning from young, and vice versa. “There’s a wake later” the barman tells us. For the Liberals, I assume*. But not for the Elton Social Club, which seems in splendid health as I leave to the “Push the Button” by the Sugababes.

The BBC has one of those stories about beer bottled yeast in the holds of shipwrecks:

Scientists at Brewlab, a spin-out from the University of Sunderland, have studied yeast strains and brewing techniques for years. The firm’s founder, Keith Thomas, says that once beer from the Wallachia was in his lab, it was treated with the utmost caution. “We opened it in containment level two laboratory conditions,” he says. This involved unsealing the bottles in a special cabinet filled with sterile air, in order to protect the scientists from any possible pathogens in the beer. This measure also ensured that the samples did not become contaminated with any modern-day yeast strains.

I’d be sending the submarines to the Black Sea, myself. Home of ancient wrecks in deep cold oxygen-less waters. Imagine finding sealed beers from Hanseatic League in the Baltic. That would be neato.

Hints of things ending. A great brewery’s trappings being auctioned off. Maureen‘s recollection of her rejection of an otherwise beloved beer bar in Colorado. And Boak and Bailey’s call in their newsletter to save The Rhubarb:

This time, though, it feels different. The Rhubarb is the last pub in the neighbourhood. When it’s gone, it will be gone, and a great swathe of Bristol will be totally publess. They say you need to pick your battles. It feels as if this might be ours although we’re worried we don’t have the time to commit to a long campaign. The difficulty is at the moment there doesn’t seem to be an organised campaign to save it.

I am too Scots Presbyterian to accept the oneness of intoxicating substances even while I entirely acknowledge them. In Ohio, there is the 350ness of it all apparently. Still, not sure if this is correct as we have gone over the “unmalted grain becomes beer” scenario* a number of times over the years:

“Primitive beer is [as simple as] ripping grains out of the ground, taking them in your hand, and throwing that grain into water,” Muraresku says, wisdom imparted to him by a prominent beer scientist. “The microbiome on the hand could have been responsible for those early yeasts. Aside from not having to dehusk it or heat it, you’re creating a beverage that … is safer than water. And if the right grain was sitting in the right water over time, it would have naturally started to ferment with whatever yeast and fungi were on the grains.” 

Sir Geoff Palmer, surely one of the most interesting users of Twitter, shared a very interesting set of images illustrating the intersection of racist bigotry and brewing science at an early point in his career:

Our History: Truth-battle did not start with me calling Dundas a slaver, it started in the 1960s when my research said the Aleurone produced the digestive enzymes in the grain, not the Scutellum. Maths and more recent publications say I was correct. Lucky…l nearly got the sack.

Note: if anyone suggests they are a beer expert immediately ask them to describe the difference between the aleurone and the scutellum. Email me the response.

And Barry Masterson wrote about “Perry, Pomonas and Pomology” for Cider Review:

…the earliest developments of British pomology (the study of fruit and its cultivation) were tightly bound with the making of cider and perry, an industry that developed with great intensity during the latter half of the 17th century. With the end of the English civil wars, farming life was returning to normal, perhaps with renewed energy. At the same time, conflicts on the Continent meant that foreign wines were maybe not so easily imported, so the production of local wines became an important topic that exercised the brightest minds of Britain…

Finally, amongst the greatest bar tabs of all time we give you the Boston Bruins of 18 June 2011.

That’s a good bit of reading for you. Once that’s done, 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.

*Are beer writing editors no longer a thing? 2018 seems so recent.

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.

The Very Last Beery News Notes For A Thursday In May 2021

One of the worrying things about these weekly news note posts is how rapidly one follows another. I wonder if they speed the pace of life. It’s not unlike shaving every morning. I look in the mirror and say “not you again!” But it is never quite again. Time the revelator.* Or maybe more time the avenger?** Well, no time to wallow in that puddle as there’s news to note. Beer has to display the entire breadth of human experience, from the highs to the ruts. Starting off, Pellicle posted an excellent story this week about the dire situation facing independent bottle shops in the UK.

Otters Tears first opened in 2015, bravely attempting to turn the fortunes of an already struggling high street. But, as with Beer Ritz in Leeds, in 2020 it was forced to close its doors, shifting sales entirely online. The turning point for Hardy was a particularly busy match day at local football club Port Vale. It left Phil pinned behind the counter at the rear of the store, with the seating area in the cellar largely ignored by the “vertical drinkers” standing in the shop’s entrance.  “I stopped doing drink-in from that point on,” Phil says. “We didn’t lose any money by doing it, but it was far less stressful.”

Not quite similarly, this image passed by this week, of a calm dog in the corner of an Irish pub. I am less interested in the dog than the corner, honestly, and more into the decades old patina of shoulders and sweat, greasy old wool coat and even possibly Brylcreem that makes up that lovely look. Less lovely, Britain’s roughest pub. Jings.

Interesting update on a stats discussion held in June 2020 about how little effect Covid-19 had on US alcohol consumption – except in relation to who was benefitting from the sales:

About a year ago, I was saying that COVID-19 wouldn’t lead to a large increase in alcohol consumption per capita (see below), and then it didn’t. It *did*, however, cause a large redistribution of income from small to large businesses…

Relatedly, US stores are ditching craft beer from their shelves to stock the more profitable seltzer crap. I bought a box on the insistence on my kid the other day. I took a teaspoon of four flavours. All certified crap. But craft beer is cheuggy so it has to go. Sad. Conversely, minor league baseball has better options that they are exercising – like in Syracuse where they have teamed up with a craft beer bar:

…confidence is built around what he calls the stadium’s beer “guru,” Kara Johnston. He sees her as a future Hall of Famer in beer procurement. She’s the person responsible for stocking up and often serving at The Hops Spot, the dedicated craft beer emporium on the first base side of the stadium concourse. It’s affiliated with the downtown Syracuse beer, burger and poutine bar of the same name and has up to 100 different beers on rotation.

Sadder was the lone beer can mascot spotted at an NHL playoff game this week. The only person allowed to watch the game and they had to dress up in a beer can suit. Did they dance? Who did they dance for? Probably wished he was in Syracuse. Bud Light was light of buds that night…

Hopwise, Stan wrote an interesting article published in CB&B (which really should have been in last week’s edition) about the potential end of some hop varieties:

Craig Mycoskie, Round Trip’s founder-brewer, does not yet have any hop contracts, but he isn’t worried that Hop Head Farms (Hickory Corners, Michigan) will be out of Tettnanger or Select when he needs more. Like lagers themselves, we take them for granted—it’s as if nature herself chose the classic varieties and will always provide them… However, that doesn’t mean they’re immune to climate change and environmental regulations. At times, hops with old-fashioned characteristics are exactly what you need to make old-fashioned lagers and other classic styles. If growing those vintage varieties should somehow cease to be practical—and there are some indications that may be the reality—then breeding new ones with old-fashioned character is going to be necessary.

H/T to @Glidub for the link to an interesting guide as to how to avoid Māori cultural appropriation which was published in 2019 but serves as an example of many sorts of guide craft beer should be adopting.

In addition to the sad spectacle of the ethical genuflect in the craft beer trade, actual stories about horrible situations in craft brewing continue to come out and one particular sort of shocking I had not expected was that of the co-owner shoved out of management.

Questioning inappropriate behavior was seen as a buzzkill. Establishing paid maternity leave was not a priority. When I welcomed my second child in 2014, I returned to work after six (unpaid weeks), strapping my little girl to my chest to carry on. As a mom of two young children, when I expressed the need for a better work/life balance, it was seen as a lack of commitment to the business. Advocating for fair compensation was an annoyance. Expressing the need for help in my ever-expanding job responsibilities was a weakness. “You’re not acting like an owner,” is what I was told over and over and over. 

Relatedly, Beth Demmon wrote a piece In GBH on the resistance being expressed by trade associations to the suggestion that they take on the important job of ensuring their members are in good standing, including being in line with the normal sorts of codes of conduct that we see in many sectors.  I was thrown off by this following unclear statement that suggested taking on this oversight to protect the public was not part of the toolbox available to non-profit corporations like these:

It’s very, very unlikely many organizations have the ability, or desire, to address most instances of harmful or rule-flouting behavior by their members.

It’s actually quite likely they have the ability, subject to the general local corporate law under which they operate. They just need to amend their by-laws and pass the amendment at a general meeting. Easy peasy. It’s really only the desire they lack.*** Because presumably it would rock the boat… or… craft… Remember, like the myths we see about the actual authority of those NDAs brewing staff are asked to sign, craft loves the fibs. Forget that stuff! It is important to hold craft beer brewers and organizations to account for not taking on the responsibility to ensure their membership acts appropriately.

Elsewhere, big asparagus is giving out medical advice. In other health news, all alcohol kills your brain cells.  Contrast this mere science with this but of education news: an Anglo Saxon school primer from the 1000s with the a discussion with a teacher that affirms from the student: “Ale if I have it…” Which reminds me a bit of this early tale of craft in Ontario:

The Deli was a secret room at Upper Canada Brewing Company made from empty glass skids used for surreptitious day drinking. One day we realized every single production team member was in there and we could hear our brewmaster vainly searching for employees… We waited a bit and slipped out one by one so as not to raise any more suspicions. Thank goodness for unions. 

Finally, Boak and Bailey sent out their newsletter again this month which includes a lifting of the corporate veil:

Even though the blog has been a bit quiet lately – we’ve both been busy to the point of burnout at work – somehow our Saturday morning news roundups keep happening. They’ve become a habit, really, with both of us bookmarking things throughout the week and then one of us (usually Ray, at the moment) doing the write up at dawn on Saturday morning with a big mug of tea or coffee at hand. The other (usually Jess) reviews, edits and editorialises, if required – particularly important when we’re trying to summarise complex issues such as sexism in beer or the politics of lockdown.

So that’s how it works! 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.

*Listen.
**Listen. Though to be fair I thought this one was called “Tiny Avenger” for a long time.
***Last evening in about an hour’s reviewing of the internets, it became clear that it was quite likely it was that brewing related organizations did have the ability to kick out pervy members. 

Your Beery News Notes For The Middle Of May 2021

Here we are. Fed up with the pandemic. Fed up with hobbies, as illustrated above. I even had to cover the damn tomatoes again this week as we approach mid-May just to be sure. But sunshine, warmth and all things good are promised from here on out… you bet… so I am looking forward these days. Speaking of hobbies, I even have a second beer related project, one in addition to Project X. Let’s call it Project Y, shall we? Project X has a longer arc for sure but Project Y is cheery, quite positive. You know how these things are.

And, well, for Project Y as part of my due diligence I had to go hunting for a particular beer book, a particular history of a particular patch of the Earth.  And I was struck by something as I dug through my shelves – how many creative and interesting beer books came out from about 2008 to about 2017 or so. That was the Golden Era, wasn’t it. I was buying a book once a month back then. When things were not about craft selling to big beer or then about craft adulterating the beer with fruity adjuncts… or non-beers like seltzers and sodas. Could you imagine writing a style guide to seltzers? A few people are dripping tears upon the keyboard even as they read those words… because that is what they are doing.

Anyway, not me. I have Projects X and Y to keep me smug and warm as this lockdown continues. Speaking of which, is this true?

Seltzers were the inevitable end. Throughout history people have always desired beer that tastes less like beer. The death of gruit. The death of smoke beer. The death of highly roasted beers. And now, the death of beer.

There seems to be a lot of seltzer based anxiety in the beer writing world as much as the beer brewing world. What to write about when there is nothing to discuss? Add alcohol, flavouring and carbonation to water. Bingo! Same story over and over.

Interestingly and instead of books, some beer writers appear to be engaging in a relatively recent sort of paid web event. Pete Brown is running book club events on his back catalogue where you can join in the discussion for a fee. One of the most successful books of the Golden Era, his 2009 book Hops and Glory,  was the topic last night.  And Gary Gilmore is appearing at a conference this very afternoon, speaking on the topic of Margaret Simpson: Pioneer Publican-Brewer in Upper Canada. A paper will follow. And Pellicle is holding a second anniversary beer bash where, at least in the UK, you can buy a selected six pack and drink along. I might pop in, if only at the end of that one given it is still at the end of the work day my time.  I highly recommend jumping on these sorts of things as with any luck, like apparently interesting beer books themselves, they will also be a thing of the past once the vaccines are all in arms and the world moves on to its next norm.

What else is going on? Well, an apology to Martin who left a comment on last weeks post that I didn’t get around to noticing needed approval for three days. Such are the consequences and resulting administrative burden from the flotsam, jetsam and other forms of abuse that usually appear in the comments. But chit chat is always welcome so, again, sorry for the delay.

Liam at BeerFoodTravel has posted a second discussion about the history of hops in Ireland, this week covering the 1800s in a detailed calendar entry style like this:

1835 – Under the headline ‘Irish Hops’ a Belfast newspaper states that The Commission of Revenue Inquiry recommended that Irish grown hops should pay a similar rate of duty as those grown in England. (There are also mentions of duties on ‘Irish hops’ in 1843, 1845 and 1846 in various parliamentary records.) Once again this would indicate that hops were possibly still being grown somewhere on the island and in enough quantities to warrant discussion in parliament.

In other hop news, an email that gave me pause came into the spam filters this week from the otherwise reputable firm Yakima Chief Hops:

In 2017, YCH launched a line of innovative hop products known as Cryo Hops® using a cryogenic hop-processing technology that separates whole cones into two components—concentrated lupulin and bract. These concentrated lupulin pellets provide brewers with maximum aroma impact while reducing the negative effects experienced with brewing hoppy beers. The Cryo Hops® brand has since been recognized on beer labels worldwide.  YCH has combined this novel process with cutting-edge hop lab analysis techniques to create Cryo Pop™ Original Blend, formerly known as trial blend TRI 2304CR.

Really? See, I just want Fuggles. I want a bucket worth of Fuggles pitched into a hot bubbling malty wort out of which comes something called ale. I don’t want the “TM” or the “R” all that much either.  How pleasing it was, then to read the announcement of nearish-byish Aston Brewery’s new mascot, Fermie.  The logo was too small for my preferred slogan “Consume me very soon or time will ravage me!!!”

In the UK, trade interests have no doubt rallied effectively to block the right to know what goes into your body should this initiative to list calories in beer get come to pass:

Public Health Minister Jo Churchill has told colleagues she wishes to launch a 12-week consultation on the plans. They would force any business with 250 or more people to publish the calorie information about drinks – meaning the change in the law would hit most major pub chains. Churchill points to the fact that 7-8% of drinkers’ calorie intake come from booze, with lower socio-economic households and those already overweight benefiting the most from the policy. But last night critics slammed the plans as “madness” saying they would be a hammer blow to an already struggling part of the economy.

Not quite clear on the scope of her jurisdiction. And apparently neither was Minister Churchill as the whole thing was scrapped within minutes… days… well, a few weeks for sure.  A fair bit further along the continuum of health and booze, a grim bit of good story telling popped up on BBC Scotland this week, the story of a violent addict who got past it.

Related? Are we really to believe that we are all supposed to not notice the information quality provided by influencers but we are all supposed to sneer a bit a bloggers? I might have to revisit the hierarchies of content control but it is becoming clear that one of the hallmarks of expertise more and more is not actually publishing anything. All a bit topsy turvy.

Related? Nice bit of beer porn out of France this week from GBH. The text is characteristically precious GBH-style likely state funded tourism PR mixed with an NBC Olympics level coverage sweet heartwarming personal story but, well, there’s a lot of nice imagery in there.*

Note: “Historic England believe that only 10 to 15% of identifiable maltings survive.”

Is that it? Barrel bottom scraped? A bit of a quiet week. Keep hunting. And I’ll learn again about all the good stuff that I missed on Saturday. And, speaking of which, 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.

*I had to preserve this response from Tom C. on FB: “Made me laugh so hard, I almost scalded myself with the single-farm free-trade coffee that I was sipping in the waning darkness of the early dawn, after having been so heartily accosted by my dog, ravenous for his morning gruel, that I relented and fed him, putting off for the moment my Thursday-morning ritual of dallying over Alan’s beery news roundup. And, then my day began.“

The Thursday Beery News Notes For That Week Some Got To Exhale

What a relief. Never more to worry about the man to the right. It has been said many times that we should never trust someone who does not take a drink. How much more so the man who does not know how to take a drink? I only raise the events of Wednesday in the context of one of the better callings out I have seen in a while – the response to BrewDog suggesting an airport in Scotland be named “Joe Biden International” being an image of BrewDog beers being on the menu at one of Trump’s Scottish golf resorts.  Follow the money.

First up now that that is out of the way, Eoghan Walsh elbowed in and held the top seat at Pellicle this week with his story of a cidery amongst the future freezer lambs:

“Nobody in New Zealand drinks cider,” says Alex Peckham, sitting alongside his wife Caroline on their farmhouse’s veranda, his face turned towards the distant snow-freckled mountains of Kahurangi National Park. “And we’d like it to stay that way.” It’s not the proselytising mission statement you’d expect from the co-founder of one of New Zealand’s most renowned cideries.

Speaking of nobody drinking, Andy Crouch in Beer Edge addressed a matter which was raised here a week or two ago – the animosity towards Dry January – and did so (unlike the man above) with an even hand:

…the public shaming of Dry January participants that now flows at the beginning of every year is often smug, self-assured, and off base. Telling people that taking a break from beer is “stupid” or to “keep it to yourself, feel good about yourself, and let the rest of us be” is entirely unhelpful in a culture that should be encouraged to periodically reexamine its approach to alcohol. Conversely, joking about extended periods of refraining from alcohol consumption as “sober curiosity” or worse yet “detox” belies a potentially questionable relationship with alcohol…

Shaming. Been around a long time. I presume there is a bigoted implication to the use of frogs or toads in this editorial cartoon on the 1870s to the left. One would not use the word “frog” in Canada in this way without fearing a cross-check to the neck for the foreseeable future. But were German lager lovers toads generally to the US nativists of the time or is the warty imagery cartoon specific?

Things not as they are. In stylistic news historical-wise, Martyn posted an excerpt from his upcoming book on stouts and porters arguing that Baltic Porters are not really Baltic at all:

In Poland, however, many (not all) brewers developed their own twist on DBS. The expression Baltic Porter only dates from the 1990s (and there is some doubt as to who invented the term), but it has come to mean a strong black beer brewed with a typical porter/stout grain bill, at the same time using bottom-fermenting yeasts, a style specifically developed in Poland, and personally I don’t believe it should be used for any beer that doesn’t fit that description. 

History of another sort was made this week as a Trappist brewery found it had run out of actual Trappists as Jeff summarized the facts as known:

Eoghan Walsh noted on Twitter that “The last monks left at the end of 2020, meaning Achel fails to fulfill 1 of the criteria for Trappist designation (being brewed under supervision of monks). Westmalle were supervising, but that wasn’t enough for the ITA board.” Yet he added, hopefully: “Was talking to someone else about Achel only recently, and this was not on the radar. I share [Joe Stange’s] sanguinuity that it will eventually be sorted out. This report says they can still call themselves Trappist, given they follow the other edicts, but let’s see.”

Nice to see another reason for things collapsing. Across the channel, the trend continues as the big Post-Brexit crisis news appears to be distinguishing itself from mid-pandemic news as it relates to the effect on the UK pub:

The importer of the German beer I sell has also reported major difficulties and increased costs due to new procedures/requirements caused by Brexit. Lots of beers are going to be more expensive when the pubs re-open.

Note 1: Will this era be the lead in to a time of better quality through the filtering of the marketplace? Stonch v. Protz debate the issues. Only one has had the jab, by the way.

Who to believe? While we are at it, the idea of “qualifications” is always a bit dodgy when the come to the self-certified almost as much as the accredited peer reviewed accreditation invites expertise extrapolation? What can one do? That being said, this is an interesting bit on not accepting being told to shut up:

Like many people I have spent the past few years in a roaring, frothing rage at the incompetence and mendacity of the charmless, greasy-palmed hucksters who have somehow blagged their way into governing us. Occasionally, by which I mean most days, I have expressed this rage via a scalpel-sharp, profound and witty political tweet. Weirdly, not everybody is as impressed by these contributions as I am. Indeed, at least one person usually replies: “Stick to tweeting about food, Rayner.”

Note 2: in Tring there is “…a carving of a monkey holding a bottle of wine and reading a book…

In matters of actual expertise, Stan published another excellent edition of Hop Queries who reported on the response to a bit of readership outreach he had engaged with, the sort of thing that one likes to see:

I was pleasantly surprised by the response. The information helps me decide what to include each month. I feel a little bit guilty about not replying to each of you individually, but then there wouldn’t be time to assemble this newsletter. In case you are curious, the majority of those who responded are brewers, and the majority of brewers are homebrewers. A number grow hops or are otherwise in the hops or brewing trade – and I was a bit surprised by how many brewers or homebrewers who answered are also backyard hop farmers.

Note 3: this week’s best cinematic reference to beer – a smoothie beer in the movie Total Recall from 1990. Any other week, that image would be up there instead of the Orange Blob. Note: that is just three years before the same actor played a heartier role in the beer world.

Also pastly, once upon a time I had posts under the title Pub Games which were mainly English pub games. So I was really pleased that Mark S gave the nod to a post at the well named blog “Shove it, Chuck it, Toss it…” on Leicester Skittles Tables:

I’ve been asked on a number of occasions since I started this blog for the dimensions of the various Skittles Tables featured. Whilst many of these tables are still common enough and regularly come up for sale locally or online, good examples are not cheap to buy, and in some cases the enquiry has come from overseas where building your own table is the only realistic option. I’ve answered these queries personally in the past, but I thought it was high time I created a more permanent and accessible record, starting with my own example of a Leicester Skittles Table. 

Finally, is it only me or are beer writers being a bit more open on their dependence on Twitter and other social media sources for their research. Consider this, this and this.  I don’t mind except it appear concurrent with a theme that Twitter is useless. Best thing since email, that’s what I say…

There. Soon be February. Prepare ye for Valentine’s Day posts from the perhaps doubly desperate.  Meantime, for more actually good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword.  And remember BeerEdge, too.

Your Middle Of January 2021 Beery News Notes For A Thursday

And what a Thursday! The last of Donald Trump’s pre-incarceration period!!!  Days to go… unless he drops the big one and we all fry. That would be typical, wouldn’t it. As soon as you think you are getting rid of a fifth-rate loser like Donnie T, he drops the big one and we all fry. I shall miss things. As in all things, sure, but in particular the sort of unsmarmy positive stuff that slips through all the smarmy positive stuff about good beer, like that image above from The Wicking Man as well as his accompanying message:

I’m sure many have had difficult times in lockdown and like me have been lifted by good people on Twitter. Many thanks to my #pubtwitter friends. Your tweets and blogs have made me smile and I look forward to the days when we can share our pub trips again.

The Tand wrote a bummer of a post about the perils Welsh icon Brains Brewery faces in these uncertain times:

So what has happened? In short, Covid-19 has happened. Wales has been particularly hard hit by restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic causing “significant financial pressure” to Brains. The company had already concentrated business on a core number of  around 160 pubs with the remaining 40 or so being closed or sold off in March 2020.  Clearly this wasn’t enough to stave off problems, as this was followed by an announcement before Christmas that rival pub chain Marston’s was to take over on 25-year lease, 156 Brains pubs in a bid to save 1,300 jobs.  The deal includes a supply agreement to continue the availability of Brains brands in the pubs, which will be leased to Marston’s at an annual rent of £5.5 million. Brain’s managed houses will also be run by Marston’s.

And similarly Jeff wrote about the death of Portland Brewing Company, an early participant in that area’s scene, offering us basically an obituary written by an old friend:

On the Friday afternoon of January 8th, Portland Brewing put out a short note announcing that, after a 35-year run, they were winding down all operations. It was a strangely subdued note given the brewery’s historical significance. One of the founding quartet of Portland breweries that started putting out beer between late 1984 and 1986, it played a substantial role in laying the foundation that would place beer at the center of the city’s identity by the early 1990s.

Going back further, Jeremy Irons as Wooster advertising a sherry of a sort in the 1970s. Fabulous.

Canadian author Anne Theriault spotted an important moment in 18th century English brewing culture the other day:

Because I am twelve years old, I wish to read more about the 18th century Farting Club in Cripplegate, where members “meet once a Week to poyson the Neighbourhood, and with their Noisy Crepitations attempt to outfart one another.” Truly the past is a foreign etc… 

Careful readers will recall that Cripplegate was one of the great brewing areas of London for hundreds of years.  Theriault linked to her source, Geri Walton, who had shared further detail including this:

To determine a winner, stewards acted as judges and new stewards were chosen quarterly. The stewards also resolved any disputes that arose “between the Buttocks of the odoriferous Assembly.”[7] Furthermore, to ensure the competitors did not cheat, in a nearby room a bespectacled Alms-woman sat. This elderly woman’s job was to check the underwear of participants: If “any member was suspected of Brewers Miscarriage, he was presently sent in to be examined by the Matron, who after searching his Breeches, and narrowly inspecting the hind Lappet of his Shirt … made her Report accordingly.”[8]

The fact that there were 21 footnotes below the story is in itself wonderful.

Along the same lines and following up on their 2011 false claim of inventing the beer photo contest, US brewery Founders found time to commit a form of hari kari this past week. Perhaps it was the photoshopped image of their flag as the Battle of Congress last week but their lost their social media marbles by banning everyone on the planet who mentioned them – well, who mentioned their lack of interest in living in the 21st (and perhaps even the 2oth) century. It got so fun that folk like me baited them just to get blocked on Twitter but then all that happened was this:

Funny thing. That blocking strategy rolled out by Founders this weekend? Search for their Twitter handle as any prospective new customer might and you find this long list of folk very unhappy with you. Meaning @foundersbrewing decided to trash their brand

It’s true. This is how that works. Someone woke up and stopped all the blocking by Tuesday. Dumbasses.

Continuing from last week, Mark Solomon has posted again on his new blog, this time about his project Indigenous Brew Day:

I do worry about my alcohol consumption, I would be lying if I told you I don’t think often about addiction regularly.  I do believe I have a healthy relationship with alcohol but I am aware that can change quickly.  Although there are many Indigenous peoples who are struggling with addiction, there are many that have a healthy relationship with alcohol.  I want to tell that story, and turn around the misconceptions about Indigenous people and alcohol.  Indigenous Brew Day is a great start in changing misconceptions. 

ATJ wrote about missing pubs behind a paywall so I never got to read it.

The Beer Nut shared thoughts on one of his nation’s character flaws when it comes to good beer:

This beer deserves to sell in quantity but I fear that the mainstream stout drinkers are too set in their ways to switch, while the craft-curious have too much choice of other beers in more fashionable styles with arty labels to bother with this oulfellas’ stout which isn’t even in a can. The difficulty in getting Irish people to drink stouts is our beer scene’s principal national tragedy. And if you agree with me to any extent about that, make sure you get yourself some of this.

Further odd division was fomented by those who would control who should speak and what should be spoken when it comes to Dry January… oddly called Dry Feb here in Canada. “Keep it to yourself” v “if you’re doing Dry Jan and you’re sharing your experience keep it up” and see also this yet this but also this. I expect you can figure out where I sit on the question.

Kate Bernot has noted that the SCOTUS has declined to hear the case in Lebamoff v. Whitmer, a court case about widening interstate alcohol shipping laws. “Certiorari Denied!” is all they said. So no actual ruling with interesting chat to read unlike the similarly framed case before Canada’s top court in 2018.  SCOTUSblog has framed the issues in the case this way:

Whether a state liquor law that allows in-state retailers to ship wine directly to consumers, but prohibits out-of-state retailers from doing so, is invalid under the nondiscrimination principle of the commerce clause or is a valid exercise of the state’s 21st amendment authority to regulate the sale of alcoholic beverages within its borders.

And finally, in other semi-regulatory news, it appears the US Brewers Association may be facing challenging times, too, as they have announced a temporary free membership offer:

Not a member but want to join? To ensure no breweries are missing updates due to financial barriers, we’re offering nonmember breweries a temporary membership free of charge. Reach out to our membership team if you’re interested.

Jings. Well, that is that for now. Enjoy the reassertion of US democracy over the next week. As you do, for more good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword.  And remember BeerEdge, too.