Category: 1800s

The Day After St. Paddy’s Day Beery News Notes

There, at least that’s over. That’s him there to the right, apparently ordering two. You know, this may have been the St. Patrick’s Day that I’ve always wanted. Quiet. By force of law. Even last year, during the first week of something being quite wrong, there were college idiots half smashed on a Tuesday loitering around the downtown square, wearing green things made of plastic. Amateurs. Appropriating plastic coated amateurs. In 2017, I asked why craft beer hated the day. I don’t think that is the same now but it’s mainly because craft beer has ceased to exist in the same sense four years on. Not much taking a unified stand against anything these days. Not much of a soap box to stand on anymore so much as being an object of the inquiries.

Breaking: craft beer loves generic globalist multi-internationalism.

In days of yore brewing news, Martyn has undertaken the work I’ve been begging him to undertake for at least a decade: exploring the 1898-1899 Canadian Inspectorate of Foods and Drugs study on stouts and porters:

…the average strength of the Canadian porters was 5.73 per cent abv, nearly 20 per cent less than the average stout strength. The two beers had almost identical average apparent attenuation, at 81.4 per cent for the porters, and 81.5 per cent for the stouts. Other analyses show big differences, however. The average percentage of maltose in the finished beer was 0.594 per cent for the porters, and 0.747 per cent for the stouts. The average percentage of solids in the finished beers was 4.99 per cent for porters and 5.6 per cent for the stouts…

Whammo! Kablammo!! Now you can all shut your pie holes about it and face facts.  “What about McDonagh & Shea porter out of  Winnipeg, Manitoba brewed to 8.8 per cent abv?” you say? Shut up. Get out.

Speaking of relatively recent history, sad news of a pub closing trade in Burton England was tweet-paired with this fabulous image of a 1962 price list for brewers and pub chain operators, Mitchells and Butlers. A great opportunity to identify grannie’s top drinks as well as the relative price of things. Fact: Dubonnet is not vermouth.

And in even more recent recent history, this picture of Eugene Levy and John Candy as the Shmenge Brothers of SCTV fame in the 1984 Kitchener Octoberfest parade posted this week by the University of Waterloo Library is as cheery as it gets. Careful fans will recall how pivotal the same parade is in the plot of the 1983 film Strange Brew, staring fellow SCTV alumni Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis. That’s an actual production vehicle, by the way – a Messerschmitt Kabinenroller.

Thing you couldn’t do in 2019. Going back into past restaurant reviews and finding evidence of unidentified covid-19 symptoms being the unwitting basis for complaint.

Not quiet sure what to make of this supply chain news out of Australia, whether it means Asahi are switching their malt purchases to be more local or just that it is now going to be tracked as local:

The new supply chain means that local barley will be used to brew Australian beers like Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught for the first time in decades. Asahi, which developed the new direct sourcing program after it purchased Carlton & United last year, will now buy more than 70,000 tonnes of malted barley direct from farmers in Victoria and southern NSW to be used at its Yatala and Abbotsford breweries. Growers in northern NSW are expected to join the scheme before this year’s harvest while the first beers brewed under the program will be rolled out in April.

This one program appears to include 7.6% of Australian malt production so what ever it is it is significant.

Not unrelatedly, though he will fully disagree and it pains me when he does, Stan captured one of the best examples of craft beer nonsense that I’ve ever seen:

Breweries have terroir as well. But instead of revolving around a patch of land, ours are centered on a group of people. We operate our business on a human scale and with a human face. 

Remember when people used to say stuff like that? Many copyright law suits later and the firings of all the women in the craft beer bar and… and… and… Speaking of which in a sort of contrapuntal way, diversity in brewing and the craft beer trade continues to be a big discussion circling about the topics of both inclusion and actual identify as this article in Foodism Toronto discusses:

Sandhu has a beer on his menu dedicated to his grandfather, Chanan, which includes Indian coriander as one of its ingredients. “I actually do see a high percentage of Indian customers ordering the beer that’s named after my grandfather,” Sandhu says. “I think these populations feel safe and they feel comfortable at our brewery. We don’t just see them coming in just once, but they become regulars.”

Unlike the samey “I miss the pub” teary tales or the quite uncomfortable “beer has been the only thing that gives my life meaning” confessionals, Mr. G. Oliver has looked to the future and sees hope as well as these three interesting trends:

What use is a “share bottle” you can’t share? It’ll be interesting to see if the stemming of the pandemic brings the 750 back at all. I think people are doubling down on case sales; we haven’t wanted to make any more trips to retail than necessary. People are also buying fewer expensive specialty beers.  I also think that the pandemic is helping fuel the rise of the non-alcoholic category. A lot of people are now home for lunch every day. What are you going to drink with your sandwich for lunch? NA beers can provide a perfect answer, and there’s nobody watching you “drink a beer” at lunch in your kitchen. NA is getting normalized faster than it would have otherwise.

By the way… does anyone know how you are supposed to find a story on GBH? What a hot mess of a front page.

Stonch, well known pub lad and operator of Britain’s longest-running beer blog, praised CAMRA on its 50th anniversary this week for, yes, achieving its goals:

Yes, there’s been a growth in excellent keg, and that has perhaps pushed cask ale out of the limelight in many beer-focused bars. Yes, the immediate after-effects of the pandemic will produce challenging conditions for cask-centric brewers. CAMRA has plenty to be keeping busy with, and without doubt can remain relevant and vital if it so chooses. Speaking as a publican, I can say with confidence that there is no way that a significant part of today’s pub-going public would be happy to visit a pub that didn’t offer reasonably well-kept cask conditioned ale. That commercial reality will preserve this particular part of Britain’s heritage for years to come.

And from the other side of the bar as well as knees under the organizational table, the Tand praised CAMRA on its 50th anniversary this week for, yes, achieving its goals:

I’m a relative newcomer, my tenure in the Campaign being a mere 40 years, but happily my anniversary as a member coincides, more or less, with the fiftieth year of our venerable organisation.  Like many, I’m looking forward to Laura Hadland’s book outlining CAMRA’s rich history and to reading the tales of those who have made this epic campaigning journey, both with and before me. Of course, while the organisation is to be congratulated, it is also an excuse for members to raise a glass to themselves, whether they are grey in beard and sandal or – like some of us – still youthful and inspired. Young or old, we are all the Campaign for Real Ale, and we can justifiably bask in our own reflected glory, even if just for a day.

For an alternative view, consider the Viz magazine perspective.

Best actual brewing thing I have seen this week? This:

OH MY GOSH – sooo excited!! Today’s the day we’re brewing our 1st 2021 Vintage Ale @FullersBrewery and I got the honour of mashing it in! Thanks @FullersGuy!

Me, I’d make my own now… but they employed a cunning strategy and reversed the image so we will never know how the beer was made. One thing is for sure. There aren’t any ambering hops in there.

There. Saturday is spring. Yes, the second spring of a pandemic but still spring. So while you turn the soil and plant the seed, 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 more from the DaftAboutCraft  podcast, too. And the Beervana 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 – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too.

As Summer Soon Turns To Autumn Take Comfort In These Beer News Notes For Thursday

Hmm. Nothing of, like, a common theme out there this past week, was there? There was some great apple pressing porn to watch, for sure. That stuff is great. And my near neighbours at MacKinnon have been bringing in their hops crop, as illustrated. Fabulous. But there’s also the pending end of summer and, with it, the end of the best chance pubs and brewers had to store a few nuts away for the coming cold.  Something for the stretch until Christmas. Old Mudgie painted a bleak picture of what was to come in the UK for pubs and brewers. And a beer shop shut in Oakland… its obit just above the one for the creepy knife store shutting. And a brewery in Kitchener, Ontario is now up for sale. Polk told me so. 2021 is going to be the year of cheap surplus brewing kit. Not a cheery theme.

But that’s in the future, not in the now. Let’s check in there… err.. here. This week, let’s start over at the ever popular History Corner. Come along. Robsterowski of “I Might Have a Glass of Beer” shared it thoughts about an anti-steam brewing tirade posted in the 23 March 1862 edition of Allgemeine Bayrische Hopfen-Zeitung and even provided a handy translation:

The steam-powered breweries increase constantly in number and it seems they shall quite soon squeeze out the other breweries, or force them into imitating them. As in so many other [trades], the machine seems to make manual labour almost redundant in the brewery. The question must be asked: which beer is preferable, that produced by steam or by hand? Experienced beer conners prefer the latter. 

This goes to the idea that steam beer began simply as a next step industrial brewed beer – but I do love the idea of “factory beer” as the great evil. Because it’s all factory beer, now… right? Interesting that values which were frowned upon in 1862 include steel, lightness and speed. It’s a bit late of a date, I would have thought, for such a broad fear of modernity. Speaking of a similar thing, Jeff tweeted about Belgian Biere de Cabaret from 1851 including this  contemporary comment:

“Has a very sweet and pleasant taste, creamy, and something honeyish that is highly sought after by aficionados.” An amber-golden color, unusual for the time. It has always intrigued me, not least because of the name.

Something? Factory beer is never “something” beer. Boom, it’s there. Always or never. That’s it. Plus I like aficionados… Knut talked about that term back in 2008 but had a better one… though I would not have expected the Spanish word to be in 1851 beer commentary from Belgium… but then again it was once called the Spanish Netherlands before it was the Austrian Netherlands. Is that it?

Now, I do like the idea of #SoberOctober (even though I would have just called it #SoberTober)… except… I have never associated October with wild eye binge drinking. No big holiday, no big bowl sports game. No woo. No hoo. Which I suppose means I don’t like it. Hmm. Except it might be building on a self-fulfilling wish. No crazy reason to overdo it. So no one did! Hey, nothing changes but victory proclaimed!!

This is even weirder than #TotesSobeTobe. It was in fact with a heavy heart that I read the post with this bit of odd triumphalism:

It’s important to remember that there was no useful IRI data in 2017 that told @SierraNevada that they should make Hazy Little Thing. It took instincts, guts, and maintaining a pulse on the industry’s long tail. Doing so gave them a one year head start on their competition.

Kinda mainly wrong, no? I say wrong based on this end of year 2017 blog post (ie a primary source contemporary with subject matter) that recorded reality at that moment:

You know, much is being written on the murk with many names. Kinderbier. London murk. NEIPA. Gak from the primary. Milkshake. It’s gotten so bad in fact that even Boston Beer is releasing one, a sure sign that a trend is past it. Some call it a game changer, never minding that any use of that term practically guarantees something isn’t.

I blame belief systems. Needing to associate yourself with things. Do you associate yourself with such things? I wouldn’t mention it except that it seems to be, you know, a thing.

Hop. Not a belief. Fact. Here’s some slightly disorganized hop news. As if Brophy was really also on the other line… In other hop news – Arkansas. Boom! Who knew?

Next up? Awards. Folk were talking about awards this week. Are they just for the needy? Canadian needy awards are the worst given how needy Canadians are. Are they really too much about the fee and other money aspects? Really? I can’t believe you thought that. For me, it’s never going to get to the point that nominations come from someone other than the candidate… which is my minimum standard for a competition being of any interest. But is it also problematic due to systemic bias?

Imagine what your work would look like if you weren’t gunning for someone to tell you you’re the best, that you’ve beat your peers out this year. If you’re not chasing this particular carrot, shaping your work (even unconsciously) toward what usually gets these accolades, what do you do? Who can you be? The world might be bullshit, but maybe we can be free from the false narratives and stale aesthetics perpetuated by awards, at the very least. 

Yikes! But, certainly, when the same group of individuals own the contest, select the judges, set the rules, act as judges, report on the event, receive a payment or two and then spend the rest of the year being palsy-walsy with the next slate of fee-paying candidates, well, it is all a bit too weird, isn’t it . Too small a circle to be taken seriously. Which might be a good point – why aren’t they just really for fun?! Which is what model railroading is all about! Sorry, not model railroading… craft beer… yes, that’s it.

Speaking of model railroaders, a couple of late breaking “old guy shakes hand at sky” stories came in Wednesday. First was the troglodyte at Stone* yammering about something revolving about himself. You can go read it on your own time. But second was that weird article by ATJ advocating for less information. In particular, hiding the truth about calories in beer. (Perhaps it’s the wine press bullies.) Now, this is especially odd as the information is readily available. That didn’t stop the one Chicken Little’s solo becoming a duet:

Since calorie counts are meaningless to 99.99999% of drinkers, it’s mere virtue-signalling to call for their introduction, and an expensive pain in the butt for small brewers to have to supply for all the one-off beers they are likely to produce.

Whachamahuh? See, eleven years ago Bob Skilnik explained how easy it is to calculate the calories in beer. Here’s the story.  Here’s a calculator. Basically, it’s 250 calories to a 20 oz UK pint of 5% beer. Or 1/8th of your daily dietary requirement. Or 200 calories to a 20 oz UK pint of 4% beer. 1/10th of your daily dietary requirement. Standard. No research needed – but add a few more calories for any increase in heft. So it’s funny folk want to hide that simple truth. But the funniest thing is idea that calorie counts are meaningless to all but a few beer drinkers. Below is a handy comparison of trends for the term “beer calories” compared to “beer history” as search terms.  Now, I am not one to suggest one might want to examine one’s own life choices but if the dead end is where you are looking to find a niche of little interest, the study of beer history is clearly it.

Just another line I rode down from 2004 to now…

Finally, back to today and to reality… and as she has in the past, Beth has been very open again on her income from beer writing for the purpose of telling other freelancers to roll with the flow:

I just broke $12K for the entirety of 2020, which (despite being around 1/3 of my original 2020 income goal) is pretty damn impressive considering I’ve had zero childcare outlets for my ASD-diagnosed 3 year old since March.

I point this out to also note that if someone is going out of their way to be both painfully truthful about themselves while being encouraging to others, well, I expect that I can trust their word on other things.

Well, that’s summer 2020 going out with a load of complainers, complaints and the compliant. And me. I’m so great. Looking forward to Autumn 2020? Me too! As you do that, remember there’s  Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (where Jordan shits on… no one!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword (and this week rants about why beer awards are stupid.) . And BeerEdge, too.

*Wailing away at his social media presence pointlessly for at least eleven years!

Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week The Patios Reopened

A better week. Not a perfect week in any sense but a better week. Here in Ontario, more coming back to life. As of this Friday, where I live I can get a haircut, go to a church that is 30% full and hang out with ten people at a time. Things are moving forward. One key issue: should pubs still have a proper level of grot as they reopen? Hmm… And when Her Majesty the Queen told us “we will meet again” did she imagine it would be on asphalt in a parking lot?

Furthermore on the hereabouts, on Monday the AGCO announced the expansion for outdoor service on Monday, effective in most of Ontario this Friday. Toronto and the surrounding areas as still considered too much at risk and will open at a later date. The rules for creating a bigger outdoor area are interesting:

1. The physical extension of the premises is adjacent to the premises to which the licence to sell liquor applies;
2. The municipality in which the premises is situated has indicated it does not object to an extension;
3. The licensee is able to demonstrate sufficient control over the physical extension of the premises;
4. There is no condition on the liquor sales licence prohibiting a patio; and,
5. The capacity of any new patio, or extended patio space where the licensee has an existing licensed patio, does not exceed 1.11 square metres per person.

Even more interesting, those who meet the above criteria are not required to apply to the AGCO or pay a fee to temporarily extend their patio or add a temporary new licensed patio and they are not required to submit any documentation to the AGCO to demonstrate compliance with the above criteria.  We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Elsewhere, Boak and Bailey have celebrated another step towards liberation with the takeaway service at their local micropub being now a going concern:

…the reopening of The Drapers is definitely next level, game-changing stuff. Not necessarily because every single beer is utterly brilliant, but because [w]e suddenly have access to a range of cask beers, not just one at a time; [w]e don’t have to decide a week in advance what we want to drink, and we (probably) don’t need to worry about running out between deliveries[; and T]he range that’s been on offer so far includes things we would not have been able to get hold of easily. It also includes new-to-us beers that we wouldn’t have wanted to risk buying in bulk, on spec.*

Stonch tweeted about one of the pains in the neck he has to deal with as he moves to reopening:

The shysters trying to cash in hospitality operators’ anxiety about re-opening at the moment are something else. Steady trickle into the inbox offering weird, unscientific and unnecessary products and services in the name of “COVID-19 secure”. Fuck off, spivs.

The timing and rules for reopening in Britain remain murky at best but Mr. Protz celebrated one  wonderful milestone, the return to brewing cask at Timothy Taylor’s:

We are incredibly chuffed to announce that today is the first day since lockdown that we have produced CASK!! Thank you so much to every single one of you for your support through this incredibly difficult period! Slowly but surely, we are getting there!

Katie wrote an excellent bit on the lockdown’s effect on small brewers… when they weren’t brewing including preserving, returning to home towns and this:

For the synth-aware, Adrian’s current kit (at the time of writing this) was his Eurorack, AKAI Pad controller, Yamaha mixer and Roland Boutiques SH-01, TR-09 and TB-03. If you fancy hearing his creations in action, find him on twitter at @wishbonebrewery.

Catching up elsewhere, Gary has been busy and I particularly liked this piece of his on a 1935 conference which added helpfully to the question of 1800s adjectives in North American beer labeling:

Rindelhardt stated that cream ale and lively ale, which he considered synonymous, were devised in the mid-1800s to compete with lager. He said they were ale barrelled before fermentation had completed to build up carbonation in the trade casks, or krausened in those casks, and sent out. In contrast, sparkling ale and present use ale – again synonymous – might also be krausened, and later force-carbonated, but were a flat stored ale blended with lager krausen. This form, provided the lager krausen was handled correctly, still offered an ale character but in a fizzy, chilled way as lager would offer.

“Cream ale”  and “cream beer” are of special interest as careful readers will recall. Check out his thoughts on the revival of Molson Golden, which I can only pronounce as if I were from Moncton, New Brunswick.

Speaking of history, I was reading through Canadian artist Tom Thompson’s diaries of the summer he disappeared over a century ago and was struck by this:

June 7, 1917: I had a hell of a hangover this morning. The whisky we had yesterday hit me hard but at least I didn’t go blind. That happened numerous times after the Temperance Act went into effect and people started making their own alcohol  Sometimes the alcohol wasn’t right and people would go blind drinking it.

Note that he did not say prohibition and indicated activities not akin to prohibition. Never really right to use the US term and apply it to the Canadian context.

Closer to the present, Jeff wrote about the great Bert Grant (and I added my two pieces in the cheap seats of Twitter replies), Canada’s true gift to craft beer:

The West Coast was divided into segments, and the cities of Portland and Seattle followed a parallel but separate track. The breweries there had their own founders and in one is a historical lacuna that explains a great deal about the influences that guided hoppy ales in the Pacific Northwest. That forgotten figure is Bert Grant, who left the hops business to start his own brewery in 1982 and whose first beers created an instant appetite, decades ahead of the rest of the country, for hoppy ales.

Read all three pieces as you only understand 1982 if you understand 1944.

Jordan celebrated a milestone, hitting a decade in the beer soaked life.  What did he learn? “Soylent Green is people!!!” No… let’s check that… no, beer is people:

If you wanted to play around with ingredients, you’d be a home brewer. A professional brewer, by default, brews for someone else. One assumes that a professional brewer does that because they enjoy it. One assumes that they make a product they believe in to the best of their ability and share it with the world. One assumes they are mindful of all the collective effort that goes into that.

Speaking of home brewers, in 1973 the BBC sent the fabulous Fyfe Robertson in search of the perfect pint made in an English basement. Have I posted this before? If I have it’s worth a second look. Speaking of Auntie Beeb, Merryn linked to a BBC 4 story on bere barley in Orkney.

One last thing. I have seen a few calls from part time editors feeling adrift who are encouraging vulnerable beer writers to turn to them in exchange for the usual pittance and a scraping of your voice in exchange for theirs. Do not be fooled! This is the time for you to be you:

Beer writers! What have you wanted to cover that might not appeal to a mainstream site? An underreported subject that merits a quick dive? An aspect of beer culture that deserves a closer look? Get a blog!

[What is a “quick dive” anyway?]

There. A better week. Keep writing and reading and keeping up with the chin uppitry. Check in with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. Thanks for stopping by while not leaving the house. Except now you can leave your house a bit more. Do it!

*Edited only to make things as I wish they were.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For Week Three… I Think… Maybe

It’s now April so I think we may be well into the third week of the kids at home and limited public travel. The working life of a municipality has been fairly breakneck but we are all in this together.  Not much time for either the beer or the blog… which puts a bit of a damper on beer blogging. But, as with last week, beer has again be delivered – this time from our own and excellent Stone City Ales where the staff have been heroes* – so let’s see what we can find, shall we?

There are a lot of brave positive statements being made in the beer trade out there, this sort of thing found in the spam filter included:

With the number of breweries, tasting rooms, restaurants and bars closed across the country, we want to remind you that retailers such as grocery stores and bottles shops currently remain a viable way to shop for beverages while practicing social distancing. We also encourage the use of online delivery services as a responsible option in those states where available.

This is good but, at some point, also unnecessary for every point in the supply chain to issue.  We are probably at that point.  The messaging now needs to be stay in place and see you at the other end when the shift in the industry can be reassessed. Me, I hope this new home delivery in Ontario becomes a norm.

On Wednesday, Jordan posted a piece on how the virus and staying in place was affecting one of the less unloved sectors in the beer trade, contract brewers:

Contract Brewing is a fraught subject, but preserving the companies that are doing it has an upside in the face of this 12 week lockdown that the city of Toronto has imposed. There are a number of existing companies that depend on the contracts to fill their volume. Junction Brewing produces both Paniza and True History. Storyteller is produced at Brunswick in Toronto. If those contracting companies fail, there is a knock on effect which causes a decrease in volume at those larger facilities. 

A wee bit of brewing history was discussed last weekend when reports came out of a stash of Victorian era beer found in a UK archaeological dig at a former site of Tetley’s Brewery:

Buried treasure isn’t always the stereotypical chest of gold coins: In the case of a recent British archaeological dig, it turned out to be an enormous stash of beer. Last month, while digging on the site of the former Tetley’s Brewery, in the Northern English city of Leeds, archaeologists from the West Yorkshire Archaeological Services (WYAS) discovered a neatly-stacked stash of over 600 bottles — many of which were still full…

Not sure I want to drink any of the stuff. Moving to the eye on the near future, Stan released the latest issued of his regular newsletter on the state of a key corner of the trade, Hop Queries.  It included this passage on the state of hop farming as Covid-19 moves through the marketplace:

Brewers hope to be in a better position to make predictions for the rest of 2020 before long, but hops are agriculture and farmers can’t wait. As Gayle Goschie at Goschie Farms in Oregon wrote, “Mother Nature has her calendar and we coordinate our needed seasonal work around what the year’s weather brings us.” Although she and the office team are working from home, field work is continuing at normal pace. “Having 40-50 employees spread over 500 acres of hops has us practicing social distancing to the max.”

Back to today, the man called Protz wrote about an age-old question – why is UK cask ale so modestly priced:

I disagree with James Calder on the need to “premiumise” – ugly word — real ale. I cannot accept that cask beer should be seen as the drink of choice of the better-off. It was clear to me that one reason the Wat Tyler in Dartford was busy on a damp, cold Tuesday lunchtime in March was that its captive audience was made up of people who couldn’t afford more than £3.50 for a pint.

Also with a thumb on the pulse of the moment, on Monday Bart of the BA sent out some stats showing a shift in US beer sales was clearly occurring, with the theme being “all beer up“!

IRI scan data from the week ending 3-22 is in & it was another big week for off-premise as consumers stocked up and replaced on-premise purchases. BA Craft up 31.1% by volume versus the same week YA. All beer up 30.7%.

And a wonderful story out of central New York state this week with those whose employment affected by the reduction of work doing the unexpected:

Four of the laid-off workers — tasting room managers Cassie Clack, Barb Lewis, Alanna Maher and Janelle Reale — had a surprise. They’d reached out to dozens and dozens of current and former tasting room staff at the winery and urged them to come together — or as together as they can under social distancing. Then they led a 70-car caravan to the winery at 623 Lerch Road to pick up the wines and beers they’d been ordering all week.

Good stuff. And there was more – as of Tuesday, like so many other craft beverage firms with a distiller’s kit, BrewDog had made a significant contribution to the fight against the virus:

Jill & Leanne, NHS Ambulance Service, picking up 1,000 bottles of free @BrewDog sanitiser today for their frontline team. We have donated over 100,000 bottles to key workers and charities so far.

And finally Ron the Honest has posted a number of posts about his recent junket to Brazil describing events as they were and perhaps not how they are always presented:

I’m up much earlier than I would have liked. 7 AM. As the car taking me and Martyn to where we’re talking is scheduled for 7:50. And I want to have time for brekkie. Martyn trolls up a few minutes after me.

“I don’t expect to see many judges at my talk. They’ll all still be in bed. Pissheads.”  “That’s a bit harsh, Ron.” “Count how many turn up. You’ve more chance as you’re on an hour later.”

Folk think I have a bug in my ear over this junket stuff but having been on a few way back when I primarily find it entertaining, especially as Ron describes it. More fun than productive. Like all these meetings we now know could have been emails. Except a good serving of fun with a side dish of the same small circle. But fun is good.

Remember – even in these troubled times – there is more beer news every week with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. Keep hunkering! We got this.

When The Second Week Of February Strikes And All You Have Are Thursday Beer News Notes…

It’s a funny time of the seasons. Photos on social media from the mid-Atlantic and southern England definitely look like spring to me but it’s going to top out at -15C here on Friday. One last kick from the angry gods, just the one I  hope. Hope. Oh… and just don’t fall for the matchy matchy beer and candy stuff. Don’t be hoping that is going to work out. Unless your spouse is already bought into good beer, don’t ruin your relationship by mixing hope with your hobby addiction.

Speaking of dopey, drunken History posted this century old ad up there and it sorta speaks to the moment. Maybe. Not a lot making sense these days. Odd times. So please remember that image next time some half-read blab goes off over the temperance movement. Temperance won. Winter won’t win but temperance did. If you are reading this, you happily live in a temperance-based  society.

Except perhaps… well… anyway, the Beer Nut discovered a media campaign that makes also absolutely no sense at all. And… there was this odd story of a beer release line up facing off with a man and his Glock:

No shots were fired during the squabble outside the Other Half Brewing Company in Carroll Gardens — and a suspect was being questioned Saturday, police said. The gun-slinging skeptic struck around the corner from the brewery, on Garnet Street, where beer lovers with camp chairs and hand trucks regularly line up overnight to buy limited-run, $18 four-packs in collectible cans, sold when the doors open Saturday mornings.

Even odder, he waited around until the cops came. Odd times.

Conversely, Life After Football painted portraits of favorite characters he has met on his pub ticking travels in England:

For me, the best boozers are ones that are full of characters and not necessarily for the faint-hearted. A pub where you can walk in, have a chat with a complete stranger and time flies.  O[f]* course, you also have the riotous evenings where pubs are jam packed and anything goes! Over the past 500+ pubs there has been plenty of characters and I’ve uncovered a few photos from the Lifeafterfootball archives to recall some of the Midlands’ finest #pubmen.

Matt posted another in his thoughtful and open posts about how breweries should deal with beer writers, this time on the topic of samples. I don’t know if in a 10,000 brewery world the idea of chasing a very few folk paid to write 100 word notes for newspapers makes all that much sense – especially given the apparently urge to give repeat attention to a handful of blabby brewery owners or their PR staff** – but the post is full of realistic good advice like this:

Consider how much beer you are sending out. One can or bottle is enough. Seriously. There is no need to send out a case to try and curry favour among your selected media. Consider what I said earlier about the limited amount of time said media has to work their way through the amount of samples they might be receiving. One is plenty.

Exactly. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the sad puppy face on a brewery or brewery owner when I take far less of the sample than offered whether in the tap room or the store house. Hint: your favorite pet thing is often not going to be the favorite of others.

A sad bit of news out of central New York with the passing of Joe Fee but an excellent obit from Don Cazentre that explains his family’s business was in bitters for your drinks:

Fee Brothers got its start in the middle of the Civil War, when Joe Fee’s great-grandfather and his brothers began making and importing wine in a location overlooking the Genesee River. That led to the company’s long-running tagline, which Joe Fee liked to recite: “The House of Fee / by the Genesee / since eighteen hundred and sixty-three.” The company evolved over the years, and moved to its current location on Portland Avenue after a fire. During Prohibition, it survived by producing altar wine. It also started making flavored syrups or cordials with flavors like Benedictine, Chartreuse, Rum and Brandy.

Jancis, who we all should follow, shared an “Australian bushfire report through the eyes of our winemakers” including this assessment of the situation from Stuart Angas, Hutton Vale Farm wines:

In the Hunter region it is perhaps a different story with some producers (Tyrrells for example) declaring their 2020 vintage lost, but let’s keep this in perspective, the Hunter region is over 1500km from us! For the media to paint us all with the same brush…is so irresponsible.  We have the utmost respect for what the Tyrrell family has done, we ourselves declared our 2015 vintage unsuitable for our quality of wines and didn’t make any red wines that year. (Our next release will be 2016s).

Another, Alex Peel, Greenock Creek wrote:

Very fortunately, the Barossa Valley was not in the direct fire front of any South Australian Fires and our vineyards are in great shape. We expect to harvest in the next 2-3 weeks and already colour intensity, tannin development and flavours in the berries is indicating a very strong, quality vintage. We just had 20mm of rain over the weekend and this has been received at the perfect time in our vineyards to see us through to harvest with some water reserves for the vines to ripen the fruit evenly and un-stressed. 

Speaking of wine, Katie put her thoughts on spending extended quality time with one winery in the Mosel last summer in order for Pellicle this week including encountering the noble rot:

On my next bunch—smaller, but beautiful all the same—a lacing of powdery botrytis [or noble rot, a fungus that sweetens and intensifies the flavour of the grapes as it wraps them in decay] turns plump, shining berries luxurious velvety shades of lavender and mauve. On my first day, Rudi had told me about the magic of this fungus. No doubt reading my reactions (I have no poker face) he’d encouraged me to eat the nobly rotten grapes I’d picked to understand their value. The flavour was spiced and honeyed—much richer than I expected from a grape—and the tang that came from the seeds as I crunched reminded me of sherbert. 

Next time you read someone raving on about the “just add  fruit syrup” sort of brewing or how wine all tastes the same, think of Katie and her prized fungus.

Martyn shared his thoughts about sitting along in a pub in an excellent piece he published yesterday:

Of the thousands of hours I have spent in pubs over the past half a century, in a fair proportion I have been on my own, and I’ve enjoyed them all. I love the sociability of pubs, I love the interplay between people, the crack, in groups small and large: I married the woman who is the mother of my child in part because she was the person I most enjoyed going down the pub and chatting with. But I also love being a solo pub goer, sitting, sipping and thinking.

Speaking of pubs and care of Mudgie, the Morning Advertiser struck a slightly paranoid note with this piece by on the point of the pub being about alcohol:

Dry January may be behind us, but I’m sure many in the trade will agree that the booze bashers seem set on pouring cold water on enjoying a drink all year round. The cynic in me has started wondering if all the noise around the alcohol-free category is less about marking and more focused on manipulation.

“Bashers”? “Manipulation”? Play to audience much?  This rivals the independent eye found in the 1940s journalistic style of baseball writers. Hard to carry on with the article at that point.

Finally, as Alistair wrote, something surely worthy of a shout out in @agoodbeerblog‘s weekly round up: a Scots Gaelic language beer reviewer. Slàinte mhath!!

That’s it.  I keep meaning to get shorter and shorter but these hings keep having a life of their own. For more, check out Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week… or Friday… post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the  AfroBeerChick podcast now as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. Anyone else? Let me know!

*Sic. Sick!
**Hint: find those actual thoughtful expressive people to foster an actual continuing relationship with.

The “Here’s Your Hat – What’s Your Hurry, January?” Edition Of Beery News Notes

There is nothing I like about January. It starts with the worst holiday in the year and ends with ice five inches thick covering every corner of your property. Usually. It’s actually been a warmish winter with only a couple of sharp snaps into the -20C region. But it’s still January so I hate it. This week sucked on a number of levels: coronavirus, Kobe and even a cat named Jinx.* Yet is will be March four weeks next Monday. So that is good. Did you need me to explain how the calendar works? Is that why you come here? Probably not. Not that you need me to explain anything else… and yet I do… week after week. Like this =>

I didn’t see much about beer in the news, frankly, but someone forgot they drove onto a ferry near here so it wasn’t all about zippo – but then I did see that photo up there from Lars’s trip to a museum in Oslo:

Saw this in Oslo Historical Museum today: the Tune stone, 4th century. Raised in memory of Wodurid, “the bread lord”, by his three daughters, who brewed the funeral ale.

There is more in Wikipedia Norske-style. I can’t read a word of it but it’s still really interesting. I did notice that Norwegian for “log in” is “logg inn” which is really, you know, a bit lazy on their part.

And there was that “the sky is falling!” article on the craft beer industry in what is called our national newspaper… except isn’t really. But I really liked one thing in it, this stat about the US craft beer market:

…major brewers have acquired the equivalent of 7 million to 8 million barrels of production as they purchased previously independent companies and added them to their rosters. That’s a significant shift in a roughly 25-million-barrel industry…

So one-third of craft is now macro.  And macro-craft and Sam Adams is more than half of craft. Which is weird. But exactly as I suspected…

And Beth just had to remind us that we are coming up to the second anniversary of glitter beer which come right before the second anniversary of the end of glitter beer. And she noted the diversity diversion trend applies to craft beer.**

Plus Jordan got some regional state-run media attention this week with his recreation of an 1830s old ale from what was York, Upper Canada but is now Toronto, Ontario:

The recipe was put together from notes in a diary by William Helliwell — the brewer at Todmorden Mill in the 1820s and 30s. Todmorden Mill was located at the bottom of Pottery Road. “The great thing is that all of the brewing details, all the detail that makes the recipe for this beer is sprinkled throughout that diary,” St. John told CBC News. “He’s not recording it because he’s keeping track, he’s recording it because it’s just part of his day-to-day life. He’s really more interested in the girl next door.”

Wag.

And Mudge semi-fisked the stats about UK pubs losses/gains including this assertion of what really is the obvious:

A few years ago, Pete wrote an angry blogpost in which he called racism over the suggestion that had made that, in some areas, the increasing Muslim population had been a major factor in the decline in pub numbers. However, it was pointed out in the comments that this wasn’t racism, but a simple question of fact. If the proportion of people in the population who don’t drink alcohol, especially in public, increases, then inevitably the demand for pubgoing will decline. He later deleted the post, and now accepts the point in his article.

Note #1: quaff…

1510s (implied in quaffer), perhaps imitative, or perhaps from Low German quassen “to overindulge (in food and drink),” with -ss- misread as -ff-. Related: Quaffed; quaffing. The noun is attested by 1570s, from the verb.

Note #2:  -able…

…there are 3 rules that control how the able/ible
suffix is used.
1. In original Latin words, the suffix was -bil- and the vowel was
the thematic vowel of the verb.
2. In new Latin words where the thematic vowel was no longer
apparent, the suffix was reanalyzed as -ible.
3. Words that are formed in English use -able. 

Result: Robin wins.

Yup:

The weird thing about the ‘return of bitter’ narrative is that at no point in the last decade has bitter been remotely difficult to find on sale.

Dr J noticed a person doing a good job:

The beertender at the new spot in Terminal E at CLT is personable AF and knows her tap list back and forth. Just watched her upsell 3 separate parties who asked Coronas/Bud Lights. Beer politics aside, she’s out here doing work and pouring lovely beers in clean glass. Props…

Day Bracey wrote about putting together a fest in Allentown but not that Allentown:

We’re talking Allentown, Pittsburgh, a predominantly black “redeveloping” neighborhood between Mount Washington and the South Side. By “redeveloping,” I mean “pre-gentrified.” They have a coffee shop and folks are actively looking to open a brewery there. Once that happens, the flood of white people will be inevitable and Pittsburgh will have a Lawrenceville 2.0, or rather an East LIBERTY 3.0. What better way to combat this than by filling the streets with 5,000 people who may be interested in gentrifying responsibly, with investments in both the people and the buildings? 

Neato. And finally, Katie watched a cooper bash a firkin and made a tiny movie.

So not all that much news this week. More anecdote, perhaps. Some tableau, even. Mainly maybe mise en scène. If you want more of that and some other stuff, too, don’t forget to check in with Boak and Bailey’s most Saturdays except for last week and weeks like last week, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast now as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast.

*Note: Googling “Polk” and “Jinx” delivers some weird results, not all of which relate to unfortunate U.S. Presidential luck in the 1840s.
**As we see in diverting misery-level funding.

The Last Thursday Beer News Notes Before The UK General Election

It’s not often that I get to headline the weekly update with something so.. so… unbeery – but is beer ever really that much removed from politics? Consider this photo to the right that circulated about a man to the left. I was as sad that it was Coors Light, the faceless multinationals of beer that he was pouring as much as I was saddened by the mleko* pour.  The Late Great Jack Layton held the red banner high here in Canada for years and he also knew how to pour a beer with a bit of style.

Given it is Yule, I will start with Ben Johnson and his list of ways to avoid the Christmas party hell you fear most, other drinking your good stuff:

Hosting at home guarantees my own access to good hooch but it also opens the door to the undesirable possibility that my guests might assume that they will be graced with the same luxury, which of course they are not. Indeed the one downside to hosting is that it means people might drink my beer. Thankfully, over the years, I’ve learned ways to keep my guests from dipping into my stash and I’m here to pass that wisdom on to you.

Speaking of Yule, Merryn in Orkney and Lars in Norway were discussing Christmas brewing obligations in Norway when Lars made this extraordinary statement:

This was not even the law for all of Norway: it only applied in western Norway (the Gulathing area). The other regional laws did not have this provision. (The Frostating law required brewing for midsummer.) Neither did the Swedish regional laws.

The Frostating law? Now I have to get my brain around the legal brewing requirements of other jurisdictions. It would be interesting to have a great big list when folk had to brew and why.

Katie of the shiny and the biscuit gave us a wonderful portrait of and an interview with two Mancunian fans leading the cause of cider from their demand side of the commercial transactional teeter totter, this week at Pellicle:

With Dick and Cath leading the march, Greater Manchester has become the centre of “real” cider in the North in the space of two years. Together, they created the Manchester Cider Club, and in doing so have brought cidermakers like Tom Oliver, Albert Johnson (Ross-on-Wye) and Susanna and James Forbes (Little Pomona) to the city. At regularly sold-out ticketed events and inclusive meet-ups, they are encouraged to answer questions and share their cider with a new, northern audience.

From further east, the tale of Vienna Lager was told at scale in the seven days at A Tempest in a Tankard:

Four hours east of Munich as the RailJet flies, the Viennese were marking a milestone anniversary of their own, albeit with much less fanfare: 175 years of Vienna Lager. Even if no museums commemorated the fact, and even if the media resonance was akin to the sound of one hand clapping, Vienna had good reason to celebrate its contribution to the culture of brewing. Bottom-fermented beer had been produced for centuries in Europe’s Alpine regions, but it wasn’t until Anton Dreher, owner of the Brauhaus zu Klein-Schwechat, brought together technological advances he learned in Britain and Bavaria that he was able to produce the first lager beer that could be brewed year-round. That happened in 1841. **

Big Beer Corporate News? Apparently darling of a decade ago Stone is maybe up for sale, a rumour of a story almost entirely confirmed by the denials of the brewery. In another sort of bad brewery news reporting… or rather reporting on bad news for a brewery… it appears that New Belgium may have new clients amongst the authoritarian military elite!

The New Belgium Brewery insists it is not like other companies. Its owners, who are also its employees, are devoted to fighting social inequity and climate change, proving business can “be a force for good,” its website says. Their CEO Kim Jordan was honoured among 30 “World-Changing Women in Conscious Business” last year. Employees even get free bicycles. But those ethical credentials have not stopped them planning to sell their firm, which has breweries in Colorado and North Carolina, to a beer giant accused of funding genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.

Wow. Too bad there was no way for the governing hands on the nNew Belgium transaction to be warned of the situation, like a hearing of the International Court of Justice or anything. Speaking of things end-timesy, beer in the U.S. of A. is dying again:

The trend doesn’t appear to be reversing itself. Sales of domestic beer slipped 4.6% between October 2018 and October 2019, according to Nielsen. Microbrew and craft beers are also in a minor slump, down 0.4%, despite Big Beer companies scooping them up left and right (AnheuserBusch just purchased Craft Brew Alliance, which makes Redhook Ale).

“Microbrew” can only be a word used by someone who knows very little about microbrewing, rights? Aside from that, the story is White Claw and, if we had any sense, no one would care as that is something other people buy like purple velvet trousers or quadrophonic stereo systems. So why do we care? I don’t care. Affects me in no way. Nada.

All of which leads to the news in Ontario that the national brewpub chain Les 3 Brasseurs has announced that four of its locations in Ontario are closing:

Ten years ago, we entered the strategic market of Ontario and, over that time, experienced some great victories, notably our Yonge and Oakville restaurants, but also some challenges,” said Laurens Defour, CEO of 3 Brewers Canada, in a statement. “This is a difficult decision, but we have concluded that we need to close some sites in order to support the evolution of our business.

Careful readers will recall that I happily attended on of the busier outlets in Oakville last year and was quite happy with the carrot pale ale I was served.

Barry in Germany posted an afternoon’s worth of photos of old apple and pear trees taken during a walk with his dog. Elsewhere in Germany, there is a pub branded with the likeness of Roger Prozt but denying it is a pub branded with the likeness of Roger Prozt. Protz commented thusly:

I’m not even allowed to be flattered. They deny any connection to me because they think – wrongly – I’m going to sue them. I recall the image that was produced for a beer event, same style for all participants.

Note: of the two being depicted, I’d suggest the dandy, the fop, jack the lad was more mocked than Peg. Interesting that the powdered wig was not a wig at all. And speaking of the Irish of yore, here is the tweet of the week:

“Ale has killed us”? Short memories of the Vikings apparently. But enough! I have a long day’s work ahead of me then need to settle in for the the election results. Don’t forget that there’s more news at Boak and Bailey’s on Saturday, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too.

*A teacher in Poland I once was…
**I used a slightly different quotation than Boak and Bailey so I feel justified.

Your “Is It Now Yule?” Edition Of The Beery New Update For A Thursday

December. The month that is three weeks long followed by two weeks of blur before real winter sets in. Winding up the year’s work is the main thing on my plate. From 2006 to 2015 this would have been the culmination of the annual Yuletide Kwanzaa, Hogmanay, Christmas and Hanukkah photo contest but I have long come to my senses. You can see the annual winners here. That is the 2012 Champion up there by Robert Gale of Wales. As I wrote then, click on the photo so you can see the full scale and explore all the detail for yourself. Robert explained in his email where the photo was taken:

Located in Manchester, England, the Circus Tavern apparently has the smallest bar in Europe. It’s also located in the hallway of the pub near the entrance which means it very easily gets crowded.

Well, did anything happen this week in beerland? OK, fine: the big news in craft was not just a buyout this week but that a minnow was seemingly swallowing a whale. The billion dollar baby that is Ballast Point was sold seemingly to a mere brewpub. It is not quite what it appears as the purchase was made with a bucket of moolah earned from a sale four years ago in the hospitality industry along with input from other friendly and wealthy investors. Within minutes of the announcement, Josh Noel on the scene in Chicago noted the reasons why the sale was made from the view of Constellation brands:

… on maximizing growth for our high-performing import portfolio and upcoming new product introductions, including Corona Hard Seltzer, scheduled to launch this spring.” That’s right. It all comes back to hard seltzer.

Excellent. Hard seltzer. The future is now. Anyway, Noel’s story in Wednesday’s edition of the Chicago Tribune will be your best starting point for the background. Me, I suspect that (even if not Plan A but at the fallback Plan C level of the original Ballast Point purchase) there was the opportunity for significant tax write offs down the road.

Elsewhere, I declared that one particular story was one of the best bits of beer writing I’ve read this year and I meant it. Just look at this:

The ditching of big-brand lagers was similarly controversial and Ashley’s attitude reveals the gulf between traditional attitudes and those of the modernisers. There is still lager on offer but it’s from Moor and Lost & Grounded. Though you might think these would appeal to Bristolian drinkers, there’s a weird loyalty to international brands brewed under licence, and these sometimes hazy, fruity, characterful beers bear little practical resemblance to Foster’s or Stella, despite the shared family tree.

An actual investigative research and writing piece from Boak and Bailey that takes a very immediate specific example of the life of a pub in our times and makes it a universal question cut with a strong note of sympathy: “it’s drinkers who prefer a more traditional, unpretentious atmosphere who have to schlep or catch the bus.” Fabulous.

Others have commented but I was – perhaps oddly – reminded of this when I read Matt Curtis and his reasoned argument for more UK breweries joining SIBA to promote independence. While he is correcting in stating this:

This still means that at least 86% of beer sold within the UK is produced by the multinationals. As such I am eager to see the next step in the discussion of independence, and some real progress in terms of presenting this argument to a greater number of industry members and bringing them together to form a unified front against increasingly tough competition and unfair access to established routes to market… 

I am mindful of the beer drinker of modest means seeking their refuge from craft. Is that not as much a cry for independence? For autonomy from the gaping maw of gentrification into which craft beer is poured?

Bad Guinness pours. All day. All bad.

I am never sure of anything that is based on the concept of “wine drinkers” and “beer drinkers” as being subsets of the population but I found this bit of discussion from Danielle Bekker of Good Living Brewing failure interesting. She asks whether it wouldn’t be better to describe beer according to flavour profiles as opposed to more familiar methods. Being a hearty believer in the uselessness of style as a construct I like the idea but then hit a wall with the notion of a beer that “will appeal to wine drinkers as well as women.”

Sadly and as reported on this week’s edition of the OCBG, Waterloo Brewing Ltd. from Ontario says it has lost $2.1 million to a cyber scam:

The Ontario brewery says the incident occurred in early November and involved the impersonation of a creditor employee and fraudulent wire transfer requests. Waterloo Brewing says it initiated an analysis of all other transaction activity across all of its bank accounts, as well as a review of its internal systems and controls that included its computer networks, after becoming aware of the incident this week.

Martyn made a confession…

I know there are beer writers who eschew any involvement with corporate freebies, but my argument has always been that I’m very happy to accept free stuff, from beer to trips abroad, when it enables me to put information in front of my readers that I would not be otherwise able to give them. Certainly I do not believe I have ever held the boot back because someone had dropped off a case of beer. 

At the risk of someone searching the blog’s archives, I don’t think this is ever the key points. My concerns are always two-fold: (i) you are telling the story that the brewery provides for you, even if you do put the boot in and (ii) you are not telling the story of the brewery which does not pay for the trip. So they all go to Asheville and then they all go to Carlsberg. Bo. Ring. There is a third point. You do not go to these junkets alone. Even if “it enables me to put information in front of my readers that I would not be otherwise able to give them,” well,  the same information will be put in front of same readers by the other members of the same traveling hoard sent the airplane tickets, the hotel room reservations and the buffet passes. There is no special story attached to a junket. Go find a unique story instead.

Two items from the co-authors. First, Craig has been digging more and found two very early advertisements for Albany Ale in the Charleston Daily Courier of 1808. Which not only means triple was being brewed in 1808 but it was being shipped to Charleston. Which is cool. I have seen “treble” spruce beer in New York City in 1784 but never a pale ale at that weight with that name.

Second, Max. Max was the centerfold cheesecake pin up in a Czech newspaper this week. A very hairy centerfold. Wonderful.

The DC Beer 2019 year in review post is up.

That is it. I am on a train as you read this over your morning coffee. I’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime,  there’s more news at Boak and Bailey’s on Saturday, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And look for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too.

These Are Ye Beere News For Yon Thursdayish This Month From Yuletide

And I suppose the lead up to US Thanksgiving. I am not in the US and, honestly, does it feel a bit late for a harvest fest. The parsley is under snow now around these parts. But the Grey Cup is on this Sunday so that’s good. Hamilton versus Winnipeg.  Oskeeweewee Oskkeewahwah! Say that out loud a lot this weekend – wherever you are. And whether it’s Canada’s autumnal glory* or turkeytime down south, do take care. I didn’t… by which I mean I forgot to note whose tweet I grabbed this lovely common sense public health poster from last Friday. D’uh. [I lie. It was Martyn.]

I was complaining (again)** about the lack of interesting beer writing last week and immediately I was hammered by some fine examples. Consider this realistic vision of Brussels from Eoghan Walsh at Brussels Beer City:

Brussels stinks. It really stinks. Some days it smells glorious, of skewered rotisserie chickens dripping their paprika-stained grease onto the footpath or of the sweet scent of mashed-in grain that marks a new lambic season. On other days it is repellent – the amoniac fug of warming piss rising from pavements heralding summer’s arrival, or the damp choking fumes of the city’s unending winter congestion. 

Lovely stuff. In another hemisphere, Jordan St. John painted another sort of truthful picture of the start of affairs off the Mimico station platform a few stops to the west of downtown Toronto:

…I get the sense that 18 beers would be a lot to maintain. Some of these beers are re-using constituent elements and are not unlike each other. Take the Steampunk Saison, my notes verbatim: “Quite Sweet, Graham Cracker malt character, a little golden raisin or apricot jam character here. Low carbonation for a Saison. Mild notes of spicy orange peel amidst that.” It struck me as closer to Fuller’s ESB with the yeast switched out than a classic Saison. The Belgian style Tripel struck me as a larger version of the same beer. Still stone fruit and graham cracker, but with the intensity dialled up, reaching towards peach nectar. Checking in with the brewmaster, Adam Cherry, he confirmed that the ingredient builds were similar.

It’s a lovely portrait of the sort of locally successful, regionally recognized but also somewhat ordinary brewery that unfortunately rarely gets noted in the rush for the next amaze-balls moment. My immediate response was that Jordan had deftly displayed how to be both fairly critical and warmly encouraged – and encouraging – simultaneously. Exactly the best sort of analysis that, like Eoghan’s olfactory piece, places you by the writer’s side senses engaged.

An excellent and not unrelated discussion took place this week between Beth D and Crystal L as well as others on the role of judging and judges. I took my usual coward’s stance but went back to consider both the challenges of seeking and independent voice while wanting to be recognized as a peer. I’m grateful that they shared their thoughts.

Elsewhere, humility not being their strong suit, I am not surprised by the puffery. But would you really pay for the ever-loving cattle branded “two sides to every story” approach? Real money? Me neither. No doubt in response to the other subscriber offering mentioned a few weeks ago. God love ’em.

2020 is coming. Are your ready? I’m not. But I might feel better if I was heading to the Alcohol and Drugs History Society’s meeting on Friday, January 3rd and 4th, 2020 at the New York Hilton, Concourse Level.  I’d want to be there if only for the presentation by Stephen N. Sanfilippo, of the Maine Maritime Academy, of his paper “It’s My Own Damn Fault; or Is It?” Alcohol and the Assignment of Blame in Mid-19th-Century Maritime Songs and Poems. Being a lad raised by the sea in Nova Scotia, the only place cooler than Maine, I eat this stuff up:

Many nineteenth century seamen’s songs praise consumption of alcohol. Naval victory ballads often end with a toast by the victors, and sometimes include the sharing of liquor with the vanquished. Jack-Back-in-Port ditties also sing the praise of alcohol. This paper will give only passing attention to such songs. Instead, attention will be given to those seamen’s songs, and temperance reformers’ poems, in which alcohol consumption leads to disaster. Such songs and poems always involve the placing of blame. This placement is often not what might be expected, and is frequently complex and illusive.

In their monthly newsletter, Boak and Bailey sought to calm the waters of beer’s social media effect on those caught in its grasp:

Twitter in general can be frustrating, of course, but the conversation around beer is so much better now for us than it was a few years ago when the volume of trolls and bullies felt overwhelming at times. But this is a genuine request: if you think Beer Twitter is particularly terrible, if it really gets you down, can you drop us a line to explain why? Maybe there’s something we’re missing, and maybe there’s something we could do to help.

I think I agree. My behaviour has particularly improved. Far less bastardliness going around these days. At least amongst the scribblers as not all sorts of bad behaviour in beer is gone as Matt let me know of the crime and punishment of a figure in the UK’s craft beer scene.

The founder of a Norwich brewery who duped a businessman into paying £30,000 for equipment he never owned showed a “cavalier” approach to business, a court has heard.  Patrick Fisher, 39, has been jailed after he pleaded guilty to two fraud charges, including one which saw him submit false invoices. Fisher, of School Avenue, Thorpe St Andrew, who was previously a director of Norwich’s Redwell Brewery, admitted one count of fraud by making a false representation to Russell Evans between January 1, 2015, and January 31, 2017, when he claimed to own brewing equipment, when he did not.

That seems to be a bit unfair to Cavaliers, doesn’t it. No, he showed a criminal approach to business. Nice sort of old school larcenous heart to the court case, however.  Very Greene v. Cole, circa 1680-ish.

You might think the same thing is going on with the news about New Belgium being sold into the Kirin universe.  Yawn, I thought. So four years ago. And  the workers got a big payout, right? But then I read this one Facebook from a (former?) employee:

…please don’t lose your “dangerously unbridled in my passion for craft beer” I still have mine. That is the saddest part of this, I feel like everything I was taught, believed and shared at NBB was a fucking lie. I still love this industry and am proud to be working with new, small independent and innovative breweries everyday! It’s not OK to tap out! We need to remain CRAFT to the core. Watch your growth, listen to your employees and don’t chase trends continue to be a trendsetter. The industry needs you stay strong!!

Hmm… has that ship sailed? Maybe. Anyway, that is the week that was. For further beery links, your weekend starts with the Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then turn the dial on the wireless to the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look to see if there was a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter. It’s usually got even more linky goodness.

*Not unrelated to my own glory days… because they pass you by… glory days…
**Even Jeff noticed with concern.

Your Thursday Beery News Updates For Mid-November

The last of birthdays, anniversaries and public holidays over the last four weeks has finally passed. And it has snowed. Wednesday was as sharp as deepest January at -16C even if it was +8C last Saturday. Five weeks before the solstice. So, I am buried in wool blankets at home this week, covered as soon as I get through the door, hugging the wood burning internet server looking for answers.  Which is where I found the image above, from 1979 when Rocky II came out. It’s from Piccadilly Square in London. Notice the sign for Wards Irish House, mentioned by Boak and Bailey in 2014.  Another report, two years later describes the entertainments:

Wards Irish House. Used to drink there in the ’70’s. Great Guiness with shamrock carved in the head. Once watched a group of people torturing a rat to death on their table top. Great seedy memories!

Conversely, Retired Martin has had a happier experience in his unending pub travels, especially with his visit to The Old Ship Inn in Perth, Scotland which he has shared in a lovely photo essay:

“How are ya ?” says the lovely Landlady. “Thirsty I bet“. Little things make a pub. It was Jarl, of course, a cool, foamy gem of a beer… 

Perhaps somewhere in the middle, Boris Johnson has apparently failed to keep his word, this time related to staying out of the pub until Brexit is sorted:

…the prime minister had claimed he would not drink until Brexit is sorted – with the first phase of the UK’s withdrawal set for January 31. But he failed to show restraint and maintain his “do or dry” pledge after pulling a pint in a Wolverhampton pub… Asked if he would taste the beer, he replied: “I’m not allowed to drink until Brexit is done.” He added “I’ll whet my whistle” before indulging in a sip.

Beth Demmon also told a tale this week – but one with more integrity – about Michelle McGrath, executive director of the United States Association of Cider Makers:

…she hobnobbed with agricultural producers, including a small cluster of organic orchardists operating in the mineral-rich Columbia River Gorge in the rural north of Oregon. They were looking for ways to diversify their income streams, and cider was “just taking off,” according to McGrath. This was the future, she realized. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and have the right passion.” 

Speaking of the right place at the right time and have the right passion, the rumours are true! Prague: A Pisshead’s Pub Guide – 3rd Edition is being written! And if you give to Max he might stop hitting me up for spare cash.

The Simpsons on beer and also on beer.

There has been a small somewhat odd protest in England related to Paul:

…bring back Paul! Paul worked at #Beavertown Brewery until he was sacked without reason and without warning. Paul is a well-respected member of staff who always supported his workmates! Reinstate Paul!

Katie is on the case, as usual. She has asked if anyone at all can tell her more about the sacking of a team member named Paul Shaw. Oddly, no deets yet.

In perhaps bigger news, Josh Noel gave the heads up on the swallowing up of the Craft Brew Alliance by Anheuser-Busch. AB now acquires full control of craft brands like Kona, Redhook, Widmer, Omission, Square Mile Cider, Wynwood, Cisco, Appalachian Mountain – making it the largest craft beer company in the United States. Nutty. Diana Barr in the Puget Sound Business Journal explained how this is the end of a process that started some time ago:

Anheuser-Busch InBev owns 31.2 percent of Craft Brew Alliance and agreed to pay $16.50 per share in cash for the remaining shares, the companies said Monday. The deal — which Reuters valued at $321 million — is slated to close next year, pending approval by regulators and a majority of CBA shareholders not affiliated with A-B, officials said. Most of CBA’s brands… already are distributed through A-B’s independent wholesaler network. 

MarketWatch argued that what looked like a premium price might actually have been a bit of a steal given recent stock price fluctuation. Jeff provides a brief boatload of background:

Originally called Craft Brands Alliance, it began in 2008 as a loose partnership with Seattle’s Redhook, which like Widmer had sold a minority stake to Anheuser-Busch, to combine sales and marketing operations. In 2008, it became a single company (called Craft Brewers Alliance) headquartered in Portland. The two companies were of a similar size at that point, but Widmer Brothers soon eclipsed Redhook. CBA had been contract-brewing Kona beer for the mainland since 2001. In 2010 the company acquired Kona outright. It owned a portion of Goose Island and sold it to ABI in 2011. In 2012 it launched a gluten-free brand and in 2013 a cider brand. More recently it began acquiring smaller breweries.

Perhaps as an antidote, a tale of restoration in the form of one last post on a pub in England – and a splendid one from Boak and Bailey who recently revisited The Fellowship Inn at Bellingham, south east London:

It was designed in glorious mock-Tudor style by Barclay Perkins’ in-house architect F.G.Newnham. On the opening day in 1924, Barclay Perkins reported that over a thousand meals were served. Again, check 20th Century Pub for more contemporary accounts of the life and colour of this and other big interwar estate pubs. When we visited in 2016, a small part of the pub was still trading, though most of it was empty and and terrible disrepair…

In happy news, the British Guild of Beer Writers:

…has shortlisted 28 writers, journalists and bloggers in its Annual Awards. The winners in 11 categories as well as the overall Beer Writer of the Year and Brewer of the Year will be unveiled at the Guild’s Annual Awards presentation and dinner on 3 December. Judges read, viewed and listened to some 150 entries which included books, newspaper and magazine articles, both printed and online, as well as blogs, radio broadcasts, films and podcasts.

I was unaware of the three nominees for Guild Award for Best Citizen Beer Communicator but see one writes mainly in Russian and another has a very shouty vid channel. Hmm… are they EU or just British citizens? Frankly, I find the total entry pools of 150 a bit sad comment but there we are. While someone will send out the attack dogs for merely mentioning, as both the BGBW and the NAGBW have placed themselves into the fairly generic good newsy trade journalesqueism niche – aka “beer and brewing industry coverage” – pretty squarely with this years award structure it might be time for a broader garage band level revival of creative and consumer focused writing. But that’s me. Remembering.

Gary takes up the challenge in a pre-facto sort of way and wrote my kind of post – history, beer and law from 1887:

Here’s what happened. A public house in Brick Lane, London was shown to have mixed two beers. One from Barclay’s was – my calculation from gravity numbers in the case – 5.7% abv, the other, a “small beer” from a dealer, only 2.4% abv… The mixing statute prohibited adulterating or diluting “beer” or adding anything to it except finings. The key issue was, did Crofts dilute beer by mixing a weaker beer with a stronger? The magistrate held yes; the appeal judges agreed, although not without some difficulty in the case of one judge.

It’s a start.

UPDATE #1: want a model of how to write about a business from a impassioned consumer’s perspective, look no further than these HATS IN CHIGAGO!!

UPDATE #2: I’ve discovered a new interest: alt forms of beer competition. This week – the curling bonspiel model:

Judging reform: (1) entries only nominated by others, (2) judging by panels with multiple tastings over time, (3) regional play downs leading to multiple progressive winnowing, (4) independent accredited controls. Allows more participation without one shot beers no one can buy.

There… enough for now. I have to go hibernate, to sob quietly for the summer of 2019 that I could pretend was just, you know, taking a break… until now. For further beery links, check out the Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then tune your dial to the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look to see if there was a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well.