2000-05 – A Good Beer Blog

The Near Mid-October 2023 Edition Of Your Beery News Notes

Took a week off this week just to make sure, you know, all the turkey leftovers were consumed and all the necessary prep chores were done well ahead of winter. To the right is half of the garlic crop as well as the bundle of garlic greens that will be tomato mulch next year. They get replanted soon. Haven’t noticed any particular theme this week but no doubt that quiet is due to the horrors in the Middle East piling upon the horrors in Ukraine. Facing uselessness in the presence of such evil, what do you do? Keep garden and scribbling? Yup.

First up, being October, Pellicle has a timely feature this week by Ariana DiValentino on one of the more venerable and more drinkable pumpkin ales out there, Pumking by Southern Tier of western New York State:

“Pumking should be the brewer’s target for a pumpkin beer,” he adds. Critics and craft beer fans alike echo this, crediting the balance between spicy, sweet, bold, and bitter. Personally, I think it manages to strike a balance in another way: the type of drinker it attracts. Though pumpkin ales are traditionally maligned, there’s something about taking one and turning the volume up to 11 that transforms it into a magnet for craft devotees. And yet, you don’t need to be a beer geek with an encyclopaedic knowledge of hop varieties to appreciate Pumking. You don’t even need to be a beer drinker, really; anyone who likes pie is likely to find the phrase “pumpkin pie in a glass” tempting. Drinkers come for the pie and stay for…also the pie, because in this case, there’s truth in advertising.

Southern Tier was a favourite of mine in the old cross border beer shopping days of ten to twenty years ago. I played a role in bringing their beers into the Ontario market after years of enjoying their range of beers, especially the big ones that led up to Pumking. My first note on Pumking dates to 2009 when a bomber cost you $6.49, well after the after-party. My first pumpkin beer note goes back five years earlier to October 2004 when I bought Post Road by Brooklyn Brewing. But by 2011, unlike what the Pellicle article seems to suggest with the phrase “the nascent hype in the early 2010s“, cracks were already starting to show in the reputation of the long established style. Even the venerable The Atlantic in 2011 questioned their place:

Some beer styles are loved, some are ardently despised, but none is more divisive than pumpkin ales. Those who love them wait all year for their seasonal release; others can’t even broach the subject without foaming at the mouth. “I hate pumpkin beers,” wrote my friend and Washington City Paper beer writer Orr Stuhl. “Even picking a ‘favorite’ — say, Dogfish Head’s — is like picking a favorite airborne illness.”

Hah!! Good one. More timely and far less snippy, Jessica Mason has reported on some new solid data on inflation in the UK’s beer maket ‘Spoons sub-sector:

Using pricing data gathered at every Wetherspoons pub in October 2022 and October 2023 via the pub group’s app, the analysis identified how, currently, the average price of a pint of Carling in a Wetherspoons pub is £3.35. This has increased 11% since Oct 2022, when it was £3.02. According to the findings, 740 Wetherspoons pubs have seen inflation over the last year, 58 have seen deflation, and five saw no price change. Drilling down into the data, the Wetherspoons pubs with the highest inflation rates are The Rann Wartha, Cornwall (42.2%), and The John Francis Basset, Cornwall (42.2%) while the Wetherspoons pubs with the highest deflation rates are The Golden Beam, Leeds (-20.1%), and The Myrtle Grove, West Yorkshire (-19.7%).

I’ve always liked The Myrtle Grove… or at least I would have if I had ever heard of it. And it’s not just in the ‘Spoons. Sucker Juice is always right there begging for your attention:

Brewed independently by the artisans at Freetime Beer Co in Wales, Nothing Beer embraces a minimalist ingredient list; just water, rice, malted barley, hops, and yeast. “As a London-based tech company we are proud to have partnered with another independent British brand in Freetime Beer Co for this launch,” says Ryan Latham, Nothing’s Global Director Brand & Creative. While the limited-edition release (at £20 for a pack of six) is only available in the UK at the moment…

That’s $33 a six. Nuts. Everyone is on the take. Same as it ever was. Except it isn’t. Because inflation is also tied with contraction as Nickolaus Hines explains at the InsideHook:

“…beer as a whole [is] losing out to other alcohol categories, as well as the rise of people who abstain from alcohol altogether… “In plain English, the industry has lost about 30%, or 2.2 million, of its youngest LDA consumers in five years,” Purser said. “This is a pattern, and the current brand crisis has accelerated this broader category concern.”*

Somewhat relatedly in terms of the scramble, here’s a bit of a sad turn from the world of wine which I am quite aware of being replicated in a way in beer, a private financial exchange need to receive a tasting note back from a known beer writer – thus underlining any semblance of the writer’s independence. But in this case, it is the publisher limiting access to the notes issued by a group of critics to those out there who pay 160 Euros. Wine writer Jon Bonné considers the situation thusly:

The fascinating part: This is the first time I can recall anyone has taken a stab at putting a dollar figure (euro figure) on this specific bit of content generation. I won’t say it’s what the market has determined, but it’s what someone thinks the market will bear. It also cuts off at the knees one of the more wobbly arguments of recent years: that these tasting notes and scores are for consumers. Consumers are grabbing bottles from the aisle cap, or checking on the latest orange fad. These are for producers + their agents. If that’s so, then how much more ripping off of the fig leaf is this than the many existing shades of trade-writer clubbiness?

Speaking of wine, the Count Alexandre de Lur Saluces has died… which surely leads each of us to ask “who hasn’t been in this situation?”:

Unknown to the public at large, however, the count owned only 7 per cent of the estate with 48 per cent held by his elder brother and smaller amounts by other members of the extended family. They rebelled against his autocratic behaviour and lack of dividends, which led to an embarrassingly public fight, when in 1996 they agreed to sell majority control to Bernard Arnault, the billionaire owner of the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH. Bitter words were spoken by all sides of the family, with the count declaring “Mr Arnault is financing [other family members] to get rid of me. If he gets hold of this château he will install his fashion models here and start producing a perfume called Yquem!’’

Indeed. And the no doubt well-perfumed Ron’s gone a bit further back, lingering in the early 1970s for a bit this month:

I’m just getting the mixture right between water and dirt to let me have a good old wallow in nostalgia. Or at least, casting a glance back at the past. And hoping no-one is returning my gaze. We were looking at Whitbread’s 1973 set of beers. Time now for the other fermentables: adjuncts and sugar. What should be remembered here is that Whitbread had long been a holdout in the use of adjuncts. Only starting to use them in 1965. Much later than most of their rival brewers. Other than wartime, of course, when they had no choice but to.

For Cider Review, Barry Masterson went a bit further back in time to the Middle Ages of Bavaria to tell the tale of perry’s hayday there:

A chance discovery I made while reading some older articles tracing the ancestry of Austrian perry pear varieties yielded one of the earliest definite mentions of perry in central Europe. The Bavarian-Austrian poet Neidhart von Reuental, probably one of the most famous Minnesänger or minstrels of the period, made a reference to perry in one song. Around 1240, after he had moved from Bavaria to the area near Melk in current day Austria, he added two verses to an existing song, written of course in Middle High German…

A great tale of daring do was set out in Twex this week, a story of inebriated public menace once upon a time in New York City:

In September 1956 after drinking heavily at a bar in New York City, Thomas Fitzpatrick made an intoxicated barroom bet that he could travel from New Jersey to New York City in 15 minutes. At 3 a.m. he stole a single-engine plane from the Teterboro and flew without any lights or radio before landing on St. Nicholas Avenue near 191st Street in front of the bar where the bet was made. The New York Times called it a “fine landing” and a “feat of aeronautics”. For his illegal flight, he was fined $100 after the plane’s owner refused to press charges.

For the double, we have another story of dissent from about the same time – but this time from Belgium:

Never forget how on Nov 16, 1949 a bunch of Belgian students from Ghent took over a fortress and attacked the police with fruit because the city had raised the price of beer. On November 16, 1949, 138 students (including one girl) entrenched themselves in the Gravensteen in Ghent. The battlements are adorned with playful student slogans, while the police and fire brigade are treated to overripe fruit and smoke bombs. The student-like violence can only be contained with the greatest difficulty by the police. The student joke is front-page news in the international press.

And you think you’re a beer evangelist. Pffft! Sadly, such clear-headed thinking, taking on issues head-on does not seem to exist in all quarters:

Paul Leone is the executive director of the New York Brewers Association, and he says craft beer simply isn’t a growing industry anymore. Before 2016, the growth of the industry was 10% year over year. “No doubt there are breweries that are looking to sell, there are breweries that are not going to make it for the long haul, unfortunately, but I would caution people and say that this is a business like any other business,” Leone said. “There are breweries that are no doubt struggling, and there are some that are expanding… We are not over-saturated and there is no bubble.”

I don’t know what to make of that… don’t worry be happy… whistling in the dark? Also not sure how homogenized craft beer culture is across North America. Can we even make generizations about the politics? I would note if pressed (contrary to Jeff’s suggestion that it identifies as left/liberal rather than right/conservative due to the Bud Lite botch of just a half a year ago) that in 2013 this was the results of a study involving a number of prominent breweries, mainly in Colorado – progressive as anything:

Craft beer drinkers tend to embrace healthier active lifestyles as well as exist on the fringe of conformity. This segment typically enjoys riding bikes, walking from place to place, hiking, camping and in general embraces an outdoor lifestyle. Consequently, they frequent places such as Whole Foods, Sprouts, local fresh markets, REI and national parks. Their choice of music is more generational than driven by their consumption of craft beer; most of the brew pubs we visited played indie-pop music like Dave Matthews, Mumford & Sons or Dawes. Our local observations revealed that many craft beer drinkers value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, creativity, intelligence, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, and witty banter.xxix This definition matches the “hipster” sub-segment of the millennial generation. Craft beer drinkers did not appear to be lazy as they aspire to be accomplished and productive. Craft beer drinkers tend to be more professional than then the blue collar working-class.

And remember: that New Yorker cover is coming up on its ninth anniversary. Still holds up… unlike Mumford & Sons. I am more in alignment with Jeff’s post this week, “The State of Beer Education” or at least the conclusion:

…as the everyman (everyperson) drink, most people feel comfortable ordering and drinking it without deep engagement. What makes it so popular is the very thing that leads to incuriosity. I have reconciled myself to this reality and, on balance, I think it’s a good thing. Beer is wonderful because its accessibility enables it to be the mass social beverage. That requires a simple, unfussy product.

I like that. But I don’t fully buy the route he gets there. Let’s be honest. Beer as a subject for an education just does not attract all that much actual independent study or scholarship other than perhaps in the bio department. Resulting titles are a bit overblown, newbie guides are praised as if they are a thesis while actual thoughtful writers are still refused footnotes by publishers. There isn’t even anything as detailed and complex as the popular annual guide for consumers published under Hugh Johnson‘s name but long overseen by Margaret Rand. [Get yourself a copy.] And too often beer courses are often proprietary, without a published syllabus or independent peer reviewing in any true academic sense. And beer (sorry to break it to you) is simply not “every bit as complex and nuanced as wine“* – especially in these days of adjunct focused, easy-to-please kettle sours and fruit sauce variants. But do you care? No! As Jeff says, the best of the many beer courses you can take online or at say a community college are very helpful entry points especially for ambitious brewery and bar staff but it is self guided study that creates the best education you can gain – whether with wine or with beer. On you way! Hit the books. If that’s your thing. If not, have a beer.

And… there are still no drunk elephants stories for Stan again this week. Just a drunk monkey on the loose in Indianapolis which… makes one wonder whether this is really news:

A monkey named Momo is on the loose in Indianapolis — and one neighbor reported seeing the simian sipping a beer. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said Momo escaped from his owner’s home in the Ironridge Court area of the city’s east side on Wednesday and was subsequently spotted the Gate Drive neighborhood, about a quarter mile away. Police said they were unable to confirm whether Momo has bitten anyone while on the loose.

What the hell kind of good is a “monkey on the loose!” story if there isn’t any biting?!?! Fine. That’s it. As per always and forever, you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via social media and other forms of comms to connect. I have an update on the rankings. TwitterX is now really starting to drop in the standings. I am actually deleting follows there when I find strongly established mirroring accounts set up by favourite voices elsewhere. Now, for me Facebook is clearly first (given especially as it is focused on my friends and family) then we have BlueSky rising up to sit in a tie with Mastodon then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex hovering somewhere above or around Instagram with Threads and Substack Notes really dragging – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence just sitting there. Seven apps plus this my blog! I may be multi and legion but I do have priorities and am getting them in a row. All in all, I still am rooting for the voices on the elephant-like Mastodon, like these ones discussing beer, even though it is gardening Mastodon that really wins:

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts (barely!) and even newsletters to stay on top of things (though those things called “newsletters” where 1995 email lists meet the blogs of 2005 may be coming to an end of value… if the trend with so many towards the dull dull dull means anything… Lordy… it’s not my place to say but there’s at least two that seem think you still get paid by the word…) including the proud and public and certainly more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan at his spot on those Mondays! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on many Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now much more occassional but always wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back with all the sweary Mary they can think of! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s good. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast…… but also seems to be losing steam. And there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube soon celebrating a decade of vids. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

*Phillies v. Braves fourth inning update!
**It is an observation often paired with “I don’t know much about wine…” (Update: A point Jeff later sorta took pains to illustrate.) Sure, there are many excellent examples of fine and facinating beers but only a fraction of those found in good wine. Why? Vintages for one. In the twenty years since my first pumpkin ale, each decent winery has put out twenty versions of the same one wine and each winery puts out any number of wines. And then each one changes usually beneficially with understood time frames. There is so much to explore. Beer aging is now often sort of a joke – when it isn’t a source of familial accusation and humiliation!

The Rushed Beery News Notes For A Bloggy Hangover Week

Not my hangover! The beer blogosphere’s hangover. Some weeks like last week have so much happening that it takes a few hours over a few days to put it all together… even thought you know you’ve missed stuff. Weeks that follow those one, like this one does, are not so much dead as hungover. The world takes a little breather. Plus it is the time of the great watering. My spare moments from the reading and writing is, as you know, caught up with tomato patches and peas in pots. June will be June after all. Climbing beans are now climbing for God’s sake.

Speaking of matters agricultural, on the whole I am not one for beer writing about drinky scribbling personalities but I definitely take exception to my exception when it comes to this article in Pellicle on Barry Masterson, founder and maker at Kertelreiter in South-West Germany’s Schefflenz with whom I have chatted on line for years (and in whose project I have invested a tiny wee bit of Canadian coinage):

Since Barry began harvesting pears from ancient trees on those morning walks with his Border Collie, Anu, he has become not only one of Europe’s finest perrymakers, but a leading authority on this most mysterious and understudied of drinks. “His passion is irresistibly infectious,” cider and perry writer Chris Russell-Smith says. “He has spent countless hours presenting at online cider events, engaging with cider lovers on social media, writing about the history of perry, and promoting the International Perry Pear Project.”

Barry himself was also published this week, in Cider Review on the question of “the winification of cider”:

…every so often on social media there is a kind of kickback against the apparent winification of cider. Some appear to fear this as a kind of erosion of the traditions of cider and argue that cider is cider (and I do agree) and can stand on its own two feet. But is this really something that is happening at a meaningful scale that changes anything? Or is it something that cider has actually lost? What does this idea of winification really mean?

So many questions. Read the piece for some answers. Sticking around in Germany, a tip of the hat to Jeff who alerted us all to this piece on Köln / Cologne and its beer scene from A Tempest in a Tankard:

Unlike the fairly marked variations between the Altbiers of Düsseldorf just downriver, Kölsch is like a ski race. Yes, there are differences between the Kölsch from different brewhouses, but for the most part, the quality is measured by the fraction of a second. You won’t leave disappointed. There’s way more to the story of Kölsch — the Kölsch Convention of 1986 that granted the beverage protected status, for example, or the difference between Kölsch and a local historical style called Wiess (not to be confused with Weißbier), which was the precursor of Kölsch. There’s also the Köbes, the illustrious beer servers of Cologne. But I’ll leave all of that out here and just give you a quick run-down of pubs and brewhouses for your next visit to Cologne.

The Tand posted this week on the sticker shock one finds when out drinking in London these days and sometimes the experience of stickerless shock:

Prices of course vary, and here, as you can imagine, I’m talking about prices in pubs. Oddly, though, prices of beer, as often as not, aren’t clear as you’d hope. It is not at all uncommon – yes, I’m looking at you Stonegate as a main culprit – to list the price of everything but beer on table menus. Is beer pricing so volatile that it can’t be committed to print? I’d have thought not, so what could the reason be for this omission? There are laws of course about displaying prices, though I think these are rather loosely complied with generally and for sure can’t be relied on, though again this varies and in most of the places I go to, the prices are out in the open, but when you go of piste, rather less so.

Martin posted a post this week with some excellent coverage of the gull nesting scene in Newcastle Upon Tyne which is really worth recording here for posterity – just in case his blog gets shut down by the North East Gull Community Personal Data Privacy Protection Commussion (hereinafter “the NEGCPDPPC”) or some such administrative entity. Not really beer related but, having seen The Birds, I think it is important to keep an eye on these things.

Here’s a new twist on the Bud Light botch – was it intentional? Warning – check the source:

The whistleblower stated on “Tomi Lahren Is Fearless” that “nobody’s happy” about the fall in sales and “everybody” considers the move a “very bad idea.” However, on the corporate level, he claimed that this could have been part of a strategy to undermine the American company. “When the company was bought over by InBev, a lot of things changed when it was owned by Anheuser-Busch. You know, it’s an American brand,” the whistleblower remarked. He explained that the company previously offered many benefits prior to its purchase by InBev. Through the fall in sales for the Bud Light brand, the former employee stated that the corporation could restructure both employee benefits and its company standards through layoffs and renegotiating contracts.

This week’s obits: Skagit Malting, Brick Brewery, O’Fallon. Relatedly, another indication of the times from GBH on the sadder sort of old school in craft, a throwback to twenty years ago in the form of another glut of second hand brewing equipment:

Now is an opportune time to be a U.S. brewery looking to score a deal on used equipment. Brewery closures and an increase in mergers and acquisitions have led to more used brewing equipment on the market than in years prior, with low prices as much as half-off new equipment. The glut of fermenters, canning lines, mash tuns, and more is a symptom of a mature market facing a low- or no-growth future—and it could be a harbinger of even tougher times ahead for craft breweries.

Well, an opportune time if there was any hope of an expansion of beer sales. As per, no one would answer the phone when the GBH call was placed to equipment manuacturers but that might because the repo man has already been by and removed all the office equipment.

More pleasantly, Katie Mather published another excellent edition of The Gulp this week under the title “My Favourite Bar Is A Petrol Station Forecourt“:

The buzz of the bikes coming through and past the petrol station is only part of why I love drinking here—because drinking here is what is done. All along the spectator side of the barriers and buffers are fans with cans, dressed in racers’ merch and sponsor hats, listening to the local radio’s coverage of the race. I love the strangeness of the situation, of spending time somewhere that was never intended to be used as a space for people to linger, a place I shouldn’t really be. I like the atmosphere that strangeness creates, a kind of collective in-this-together spirit, where everyone is sound, everyone chats, everyone realises the absurdity of the situation and relishes it.

Casket Beer did a bit of a service to pre-craft microbeer history reaching all the way back 23 years to revisit Michael Jackson’s Great Beer Guide with a particular eye to the glassware used:

Published in 2000, the Great Beer Guide is a fantastic book and offers a nice snapshot of what the beer world was like at the time. It does this by offering a brief overview of 500 beers from around the world. While many think of the United States beer culture as still being in the dark ages in the year 2000, there’s an impressive number of beers from the States represented in the book. Though Jackson may have been a bit polite in some cases, there are many that are or were, excellent.

I relied on this book heavily in my earliest days of writing about my own beer hunting and gathering two decades ago and always liked that photo of Fuller’s 1845 – snazzy, thought I. The scene in 2000 was definitely more about the imports than the locals . The disassembling of the glassware offered in the book points out how developed the marketing was even if the US market had not at that point been on par with the rest of the world.

I wish we had more lower alcohol actual ales (mild or ordinary bitter, for example) so I am a bit of two minds about the effects of the new UK taxation scheme that is driving breweries to lower the pop of some of their mainstream brands as the Daily Mail noted this week:

…the ABV for Old Speckled Hen is down from five per cent to 4.8 per cent; Spitfire Amber Ale is down from 4.5 per cent to 4.2 per cent; and Bishops Finger is down from 5.4 per cent to 5.2 per cent. While the reductions may appear small, they generate a tax saving of 2p to 3p on every bottle and can made. Rather than passing this saving on to drinkers, the cash is being pocketed by the brewers and retailers. They argue the cut protects them against rising costs, rather than profiteering, while some say they are cutting alcohol levels for the ‘good of public health’.

Boak and Bailey’s monthly newsletter had a wonderful bit of the old vignette this time around:

The area around the Arnolfini arts centre is a particular hotspot for bag-of-cans drinking. Wander around there on any summer night and you’ll see plenty of people sitting on benches, or on bare stone, with their supermarket carriers. As Shonette observes, they might dangle their legs over the water, or sit cross-legged in a circle. Some of them might be dressed smartly, straight from the office; others in more typical stoner-student style. And there is usually, of course, a background hum of weed, along with music being played from phones or USB speakers. Something about this habit strikes us as pointedly democratic. Even if you can’t afford £5+ pints in one of the harbourside pubs, you can still be out in town, feeling the buzz of the city.

There’s some concern about the resulting detritus… but how does that compare to the wreckage caused at another economic snack bracket attending an all-you-can-drink prosecco brunch as reported in The Times?

“It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m here to get drunk,” she hollers. The rest of her table chant in agreement. “More prosecco! More prosecco! More prosecco!” Brunch trudges along. You’ve managed to escape for two cigarettes. Three women have vomited. One man had a fight with the DJ. He stood beneath the ladder hurling abuse as the DJ danced to Afraid to Feel by LF System and waved him away. You told the man to sit down. He called you a “snake” and stared you down as he drank a whole bottle of prosecco in a few gulps. You told a manager. They said: “It’s brunch. What do you expect? Just give him some free doughnuts.”

Finally, the King has commissioned a portrait of Scottish brewing educator @SirGeoffPalmer along with nine fellow members of the Windrush Generation. What a lovely thing.

That’s it! That’s enough from me. I’m off to the garden now. Gonna transplant a tomato from one spot to another. Because I can. As for beer news, it’s back to you all for now as always. And as per, you can check out the many ways to connect including these voices on Mastodon, the newer ones noted in bold:

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters to stay on top of things – including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan at his spot on those Mondays! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on many Fridays. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now more occassional but always wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast. There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube soon celebrating a decade of vids. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!*

*And finally the list of the departed newsletters and podcasts or those in purgatory. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

Now It’s March And These Are The Thursday Beery News Notes

Well, it’s March. Finally. From the last crop out of the garden until now I wait every year for the return to the best nine months of the year after the unreal times that are December followed by the garbage months of January and February. No, it is always all about March with me. March, March, March. And… it’s been -16C outside in the mornings. Perhaps I missed anyone mentioning it… but Canada sorta sucks sometimes. Speaking of sucks, I love Retired Martin’s photo essay on Sheffield’s Queens Hotel as shared above. I know the feeling. What else is out there? Let’s see.

In more local news, Forbes magazine has an article on breweries led by women in Africa – including one in Rwanda with an eastern Ontario twist:

Josephine Uwase and Deb Leatt number among them as brewer and chef, respectively, at Rwanda’s Kweza Craft Brewery. Like Nxusani-Mawela, they have gotten their share of coverage, in part because Kweza is Rwanda’s first brewpub; in part because Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company in Ottawa has very publicly supported Kweza with fundraising and consultation…

Less locally, for my favourite “craft in outrage!” story of the week we go to the waters off Argentina:

The owners of the three breweries in Mar del Plata, which had teamed up with a diving school for what they described as a first-of-its-kind months long experiment in deep-water beer making, were left mystified, and heartbroken, upon discovering on Tuesday that the barrels were gone. “I started crying,” said Carlos Brelles, who runs the Thalassa Diving School in Mar del Plata, a coastal city five miles from the sunken ship. “Three or four people without morals destroyed the work of so many people who put in so much effort.”

Heist! The breweries are going to try the idea again. Speaking of unfortunate situations, I have not idea why this was published other than as a submission to a dull interview contest:

5. Did you think it was going to be your most popular beer or did that take you by surprise?

I do not feel that any of our beers have a greater popularity than others. So many are good on their own merits.

Very confused I also was when I thought I was agreeing about his observations on the odd use of the term “badass” and got the thumbs up while he, Mr. B., got another sort of response. All part of the seeing and speaking of things that are otherwise unspoken.

To my east, we learn through error. It’s a principle that Lars illustrated this week as he tweeted out his Kvass making skills:

First mistake. Too much bread, and wheat bread apparently soaks up more water. So from 5l of water I’m left with 1l extract from the bread…

To my less east, I liked this profile of Gloucestershire cider and perry maker Kevin Minchew published in Pellicle this week and not only for the lack of a polished romanticized backstory:

In his own words he was living “hand to mouth,” the traditional farm labourer’s way—working hard, eating simply and drinking the product of the land from his own hands. But he recognised this couldn’t go on forever, so the traditional cidermaking life is having to take a back seat while he focuses on the day job…

To the west, Josh Noel had a great article in the Chicago Tribune this week on facing the conflicts while working in hospitality in these days of Covid:

Bondi hasn’t been out to eat in nearly a year. He doesn’t think it’s safe. So why do his customers go out? Why do they sit there, indoors, masks off, in the midst of a pandemic? He regularly serves people who appear to be congregating outside each other’s pods or bubbles — such as a group of six women who had brunch at Jerry’s one recent weekend. “It’s hard not to have contempt for that, at least from my point of view,” he said. “But I’m a professional and I try to treat everyone as well as I can.”

Down south, Alistair has posted his thoughts on the semi-silly distinction between brown and robust porters according to an ancient BJCP dartboard:

When you look at the 2008 BJCP guidelines for Porter, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the difference between brown and robust was largely based on the side of the Pond your drink came from.

It’s part of his efforts to drink his way into enlightenment upon the meaning of the word in the American context.

Everywhere, there has been lots of slightly worried considerations of purpose or status or something in the beer scribbling world. After all these years of reading, I still see that the best finds the general in the specific, if not the human condition then at least the illustration of a principle or common experience. But everything is not the best. Some is the work of the keen newbie. Some the hobbyist seeking distraction. But that is OK, too. That’s pretty much me. I was thinking about this when I pulled the January 18th issue of The New Yorker and read the article “Is It Really Too Late to Learn New Skills?” by Margaret Talbot and got stuck on this passage:

Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill, the authors of a 2019 study on perfectionism among American, British, and Canadian college students, have written that “increasingly, young people hold irrational ideals for themselves, ideals that manifest in unrealistic expectations for academic and professional achievement, how they should look, and what they should own,” and are worried that others will judge them harshly for their perceived failings.

Better have a chat with my kids. That’s a bit weird but would explain a lot.

Interesting merger and acquisitions news out of India as Molson Coors is selling big time but not in the way that they might have hoped:

Singapore-headquartered Inbrew Holdings Pte Ltd has acquired NortAmerican lager producer Molson Coors’ beer business in India. London based non-resident Indian (NRI) businessman Ravi Deol owns Inbrew Holdings Pte Ltd through privately held Ahead Global Holdings. Molson Coors India Private Limited (MCIPL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Coors Brewing USA with popular beer brands in India.

And finally, some common sense out of Japan as Kirin finally ditches that joint venture with the military dictatorship that controls Burma:

Brewing giant Kirin said on Friday that it is ending a six-year-old joint venture with a holding company in Myanmar that is linked to the country’s military. The army this week seized power in a coup, detaining the country’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and numerous other top government figures. Kirin is “deeply concerned by the recent actions of the military in Myanmar,” the company said in a statement, adding that it had “no option but to terminate” the partnership.

No option, eh? Does this mean New Belgium is OK again? Dunno. Probably not.

There. A whirl around the world this week. For more, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more withe the Beer Ladies Podcast, 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.

A False Thaw In February And Your Thursday Beery News Notes

Fine. January is done and more jabs are getting jabbed out and about on this planet. A better situation than at any time in the last year. That’s good. Just weeks to go until spring. Like you, with these few warmer days I am planning the veggie garden and have my row covers ready to go. To help with those considerations, I have a new beer coming this week. Beer is like buying from eBay these days. I get an email saying I might want to consider this new beer from Matron. And I do. And I buy it along with something called Bobo, too. I live the Bo and Bo. It will all be on the front step Friday. So exciting. I shall watch like a child watching the stockings hanging by the fireplace on Christmas Eve.

First up this week, Black History Month has begin with a celebration of Theodore Mack, owner along with “a group of investors under the United Black Enterprises banner” who bought People’s brewery in 1970 and then only hired black employees. Fight the power. More here, here and here. And speaking of the calendar, more backlash against those in brewing trade PR who’ve been attacking folk opting out of the dipsomania-laced crowdsourcing so that the brewers who fund that PR have enough money in the kitty:

I’d also like it noted how unsupportive and honestly sometimes just straight-up gross some people are about others’ sobriety. Placing blame if businesses fail, mocking Dry January. It’s hard as fuck to not drink and you people suck.

Unconnectedly, ATJ posted a image from a 1922 book which again supports my long held understanding that no Belgian in their right mind drank unsweetened lambic before the unknowing but self-flagellating English language beer writer tours began in the 1970s. Likely something of a local lads’ gag, no doubt, watching them suck back the vinegar, then outdoing each other to heap praise.

Speaking of mid-20th century stuff but too late for the presses last week was Martyn’s take on the new labels on the beers from the relatively venerable US brewer, Anchor:

The design of the “classic” Steam Beer label is a crowded mess, the name of the beer only the second most prominent part of the label, at best, with some kind of odd parchment effect in the background making it look as if the colours failed to fix properly on the printing plates. The Porter label is better, being simpler and more direct, but still with distracting clusters of barley and hops that detract from the impact.

Fibby fake heritage, as Martyn points out, is a bit of a bore. I don’t care greatly either way as branding is one of the least interesting areas of the good beer world.

One other late excellent word was that of Kate B. on the scandal at Boulevard which, yes, includes the GBH standard cut and paste from the work of others but a more daring, hardnosed and personal conclusion than that website is usually known for:

As a reporter, I struggle with my duty to ask questions of survivors. It’s a journalistic necessity, but it runs the risk of retraumatizing a person. My need to verify facts is counter to survivors’ need to be believed, to have their abuse validated. Even asking them to repeat the who, what, when, where of their experiences runs the risk of doing psychic damage. Trying to identify the why of it all—if there even is one—feels ethically impossible, and potentially harmful. That’s because people who have experienced abuse are often made to feel it’s their fault or that they are misreading the facts, often termed “gaslighting.”

Speaking of which in a way, in another way I am not sure I can agree with this from my personal hero Dr.J.:

“A lot of people ask me, ‘How did it get this way in craft beer?’ Craft beer isn’t special—craft beer is a microcosm in the U.S. If there are inequities and disparities in craft beer, it’s because it’s serving as a mirror for the country at large,” Jackson-Beckham said. But she remains hopeful about the future of the industry.

My question relates to craft beer as microcosm. It isn’t. It is overly represented by a white, male, clubby tribe with access to money and wading in alcohol. Sort of like the Masons in plaid shirts. While the statement above was made well before the Boulevard scandal broke, it is clear that many knew much for yoinks but turned a blind eye, according to impressively investigative work by the actual professional journalists of The Kansas City Star:

Boulevard employees recalled widely-known stories of harassment, particularly from a few high-ranking employees. Even when the women they victimized reported them, they remained in power. Even McDonald, who came back last week to lead the company in its time of crisis, acknowledged hearing reports in the past but not acting on them… The founder, now 67, acknowledged serious failings. But he didn’t want to believe his brewery had a systemic cultural problem. And he views the accusations against Boulevard employees as “isolated issues.”

Right. One also can only assume that this situation was well known to some of the beer trade writers among us but was not worth the trouble to report upon.

In another area of the craft-not-craft industrial zone, we read:

…james watt taking domestic flights between London & Aberdeen and being irked by his international ones being cancelled in the middle of a pandemic, all while running a supposedly climate conscious business lol. can’t make this shit up…

Also over there, the Beer Nut linked us to a story on the potential for the party being over for Irish folk coming back from the UK:

The EU is considering stopping Irish holidaymakers loading up on cheaper alcohol and cigarettes when they travel to other countries – with new rules that would also affect trips to Northern Ireland. Ireland is one of the most expensive places in the EU to buy alcohol and cigarettes, due to high excise duties. In a public consultation launched yesterday, the EU suggested holidaymakers should pay excise duties at home rates rather than where they buy products.

I asked many questions and tried to compare to the US-Canadian border which sits at a very long 2-wood from my house, just over the horizon. Not sure I was fully successful in informing myself.

Brendan P. has pointed out, as illustrated to the left, the latest dumb legal move by one of the least appealing of the legacy micros out there. Apparently they now own all the rights to “bastard” too. I’ll let Austin Powers know. It’s sad that whatever goodwill they had as a quality gas station retail shelf supplier has been trashed in the cause of their protection of a common word and the most utterly tired brandings in beer. Keystone. Sawstone. Didn’t even notice they sued something called Hollystone. FFS. Is there any constituency left rooting for Stone in these matters? Is there any way these court cases lead to growth or is it just part of a rear guard strategy after the disaster in Berlin? Like those who would diss Dry January, there is a whole sector of the brewing trade that seems to live in a disconnected delusion about what the customer base actually thinks.

And finally another paper-based beer mag disappears after a irregularly schedule life and less than a year after an industry veteran was brought in. A tough row to hoe. Viva blogs! Viva!!!

That’s it. Now, for 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.

The First February Thursday Beer News Notes Of These Our Roaring Twenties

When I was a lad, there were common end-of-the-world tales and prophecies that circulated in the grocery store checkout newspaper headlines and junior high hallways. Nostradamus and his fanboys. I think all the dates that were ever suggested are now in the past. Twenty-twenty was never actually much on my mind. But it has a certain ring. We even had reverse twenty twenty / forward twenty twenty this week. Which is very cheery. Pink dress shirt with key lime necktie cheery. Be of good cheer. March is just four weeks away. The dark days are coming to an end.* As Katie** wrote in her latest newsletter, The Gulp:

The soil is warming up. The snowdrops have started meeting in their cabals, in open defiance of the iron grey sky. I’ve seen them. We’re nearly there.

You know what is very 2020? Sobriety. There is talk of it, for example by brewery staffer Jemma:

Not that I was a raging alcoholic, but the daily drink (or two or three) is considered normal and expected, and it was time for me to just kinda put myself in check. I had to prove to myself that I could go without alcohol and I’m proud I was able to.

There are sober bars out there, sober event spaces, calls for sober diversity and there was even a bit of a messy wander in PR publication October, too. But it would be messy, wouldn’t it. I’d worry about any self-clearing self-diagnosis… you could be a raging alcoholic… I’ve sat with many a yellow eyed beer worker telling me about the distance between themselves and alcoholism. Consider Greta, too. Sobriety may be the new glitter. Or it may be made up of admissions others would do well to heed.

Noteworthy #1 : Chibuku from Botswana.

Noteworthy #2: the shadowy Portman Group*** neatly summerized.

Noteworthy #3: Jeff considers his tenth ‘lance-a-versary.

TBN congratulated Englishman abroad Ron on his subtle celebration of Brexit this week, as illustrated. Ron fell back on his regular “I’m thinking now I should pretend it was deliberate” but I don’t buy it. More to the point, what does it mean. Barm is yeast. Was it a yeasty stout? Why can’t people think of my needs when discussing things in my absence?

JJB posted another of his wonderful vignettes of his beloved Italy, of a bar he visited in Sicily while also exercising his right to be an Englishman abroad:

Despite the silly English language beer names and descriptions, I was mightily impressed with Ballarak during what was by necessity a fleeting visit. I subsequently learned that the brewery has another, more food-led venue in the Kalsa, a much less sketchy district of central Palermo (the Ballarò is wonderful, but not for the faint-hearted). I’ll be sure to visit both sites when I’m next about.

Elsewhere… hmm… let’s see… you know, I wonder sometimes about the regularly recycled beer topic like explaining freshness, food and beer and Stan’s favorite, the wonderful world of off-flavours. Too bad Ladybird Books don’t put out a series of “Craft Beer for Youth” so that they could all be under one cover and on a bookshelf I don’t have to encounter. Next to the newspaper rack coated with fabulous headlines like “Three guys who like beer start a brewery.”****

Somewhat related, in my spam email folder, I found a letter of complaint sent by Arran Brewery of Scotland about a bottle deposit scheme proposed by the government in Edinburgh:

Gerald Michaluk the Managing Director of the brewery, like the vast majority of his fellow brewers, are set against the Scottish Governments proposals. “It is clear this is a terrible scheme, ill thought through and will disadvantage the small brewers and the smaller shop keepers. At a time when, along with other policies, is seeing the brewing industry is being tightly squeezed from all directions this could be the final straw that breaks the camels back.

The BBC covered the story back in May 2019. I mention this because Ontario has had standardized beer bottles for yoinks and a cooperative returns system since 1927 and it seems to work wonderfully with significant public acceptance.

Another sort of mental rut was noted in relation to Tony Naylor’s article in the Guardian headlined “£96 a bottle: the exotic beer that is as expensive as vintage wine” which rather sensibly points out the factors which caused such a fright. When challenged, the author tweeted this:

Who’s this “we”? I’ve always been 100% against ‘refined connoisseurship’ & the whole cultural cringe of a wine-beer equivalence, particularly where used as cover to drive-up £££ (as it has been) of average beers. Lot of “super-premium” things in beer now really ain’t that super.

Well said.

Old Mudgie has noticed another bit of a new slag being offered by the craft keener contingent: “pint culture“! Seems a bit unnecessary to me. As the OM says, “smaller measures are available in every single establishment that sells draught beer” so why bother making a thing of norms. I am, as you know, all in for quart culture. Don’t even get me started on communal pottle culture.

Speaking of false constructs, Matt asked if the “rebel” culture of craft was going away. Despite efforts by the BA to rewrite the Book of its Genesis glowingly, I am of the class who is aware “rebel” was a bit of a manufactured stance created in the early 2000’s in large part to counteract the salacious drunken tone of micro which was best… or worst… exemplified by the “Sex For Sam” campaign dreamed up by Jim Koch and still illustrated by the sexist labels that pop up from time to time. Matt wrote:

It’s an attitude that has spawned a thousand imitations. Most notably from BrewDog here in the UK, which, with beers like Punk IPA (now the largest selling craft beer in the country), fought its own version of a guerilla war in the beer aisles. The brewery, which now produces beer on three different continents, even held “craft beer amnesties” at its chain of bars, where you could trade “macro” beer for a pint of its own.

I think of it more this way: making vast sums off of brewing is no more novel or rebellious than Mr. Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address proved that things were more unified. Like the fib of small as noted by Evan, rebel is one of the great foundational fibs of craft. Brewing is always about money. The rest in large part fluff, PR and untruth still quietly bowing to mammon. Pick your heroes wisely.

Speaking of himself, very good news that Evan has been appointed an editor at that thing that must reference itself as GBH 27 times in most of the blog posts they run. Hopefully, a more serious and less self-congratulatory approach may result.

In even more good news, there is a brewing collective in Minnesota, the Brewing Change Collaborative that aims to foster diversity a bit more actively:

Despite national statistics that not only show little diversity in the brewing arena but also a disproportionately white workforce, Louder, along with industry colleagues Elle Rhodes and Nasreen Sajady, began to devise a plan that would empower people of color to become more involved in the brewing industry. Using a platform of advocacy, education, and most of all, a safe space to talk about issues in the industry that impact people of color, the Brewing Change Collaborative was conceived. “I am already tokenized and one of the few people of color that owns a brewery,” says Louder. “I would go to work every day and still be that lone person. I didn’t want to be the ‘only other’ in my ‘only other’ situation.”

Conversely, some very sad news that one of the heroes of micro is packing it in, facing not only, first, the beast released by craft but also, now, the taproom and even time itself:

The first female brewer since Prohibition has announced her retirement. Carol Stoudt, who kickstarted this region’s craft beer boom with Stoudts Brewing Company in the late ’80s, has announced via press release that she will retire and take the brewing company with her. “This was a difficult decision to make,” says Carol in the press release, “but we’re not moving enough volume to justify the expense of keeping the brewery open. However, we’re not closing the doors to any business opportunities that could help the Stoudts brand live on.”

Stoudts were a go-to delight for me in my early days of beer hunting in the wilds of central New York fifteen years ago. I guess I stopped doing that. I especially loved their Double IPA with the lovely elephants on the label. But as Ontario’s brewing scene grew, I transferred my allegiance in such matters to Nickelbrook Headstock. One problem Stoudt faced in miniature.

And speaking of old beer for old folk, it’s well-sponsored and perhaps overly-rouged #FlagshipFebruary time once again. Jordan wrote about 10W30, featured here in 2013, and how it’s a funny thing to find a hold out in Ontario – but the first feature was also about another elderly ale from Ontario.

If such tales from the crypt aren’t enough to keep you occupied, don’t forget to check in with Boak and Bailey’s most Saturdays, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (bonus Kingston references this week) 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. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch.

*The sixth day of February is about sunny as the fourth of November. Unless it was cloudy. Or is now. Wherever you are.
**Who tweeted entertainingly on the sound of a sub-Boris.
***see, for example, 2009.
****Actually published in The Daily Standard.

The Thursday Beery News For When The Winds Of November Come Early

Fine. Here we are. It’s now dark as midnight on the bus ride home from work. The garden is all dead. Dead. Dark. Wind. Cold. And these sensations are also the first hints of the happy holiday season. Depending on your cultural context, it may be just three, four, five or six weeks from the day when everyone packs it in and hits both the bottle and the buffet hard. Not everyone is waiting. My pal Ben, who is semi-Nepalese, is traveling there and found a good beer that was also basically semi-Nepalese. As illustrated. No reports yet on if it was any good.

Also internationalistically, now that craft beer has co-opted kveik, is Lar on the hunt for another indigenous set of yeast strains from Russia?

Kveik signals very clearly when it’s done. It’s almost like the little critters are knocking on the glass, saying “we’re done now.” Starter turns all grainy, and once you stop the stirrer, they settle out in 3-4 minutes. Not so with this Russian yeast. It’s just as milky still.

Speaking of new discoveries, another new beer publication was launched this week, Beer Edge featuring the northeast US’s Andy Crouch and John Holl. The subscription rate is a bit out of my snack bracket but we are promised tidbits au gratis from time to time, focused perhaps more on the trade side of things than whatever community means or doesn’t mean:

From long-form writing that explores the culture, business, and process of brewing, to shorter essays, think pieces, and timely editorials, Beer Edge hosts sharp writing that provides context to an industry that often just receives cursory coverage. For consumers, bartenders, brewers, industry executives, distributors, farmers, bar owners, tourism boards, analysts, and anyone else eager for more news about the craft beer industry…

Speaking of the trade everywhere, Crystal Luxmore tweeted about an organization and an issue that needs more attention:

When you love tasting, selling and making alcohol it feels like drinking is a joyful part of the job — but it also opens you up to massive health risks and addiction issues…

The organization is Not 9 to 5 and the issue is over-drinking on the job when your just is in the drinks trade. More here. Not at all unrelated, a British self-described archaeologist, technologist, infovore, mediocre chef under the nom de plume “Archaic Inquiries” published a rather shocking piece on the role of alcohol in archaeology:

I’ve not worked outside of archaeology much, so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that I didn’t think that was a particularly inappropriate thing to say to a supervisor you’d just met (though it didn’t strike me as very smart). But as I thought about it, I started to recall all the antics of archaeologists under the influence, both adorable (getting in trouble for using government jello for wrestling at the McMurdo Antarctic research station) and not so adorable (I once saw a crew chief fall out of the company truck because she couldn’t stand… at the end of the work day).

I also learned that we “shouldn’t giggle when someone pukes into their shovel test pit“! Wow. I have not had a drink since Saturday. Seriously.

Bread.

I have a confession. And not that I have puked in a test shovel pit. No, I am uncomfortably interested in one aspect of the TV show from 40 years ago, Three’s Company. Only one aspect, I said. The Regal Beagle. Why? Well, the past is a foreign land worth studying. And when writing my bits of the history of Ontario, I realized that SCTV’s McKenzie Brothers and their movie Strange Brew was a last vision of the world of Canadian beer before micro hit us all over the head. So, too, in a way was Three’s Company‘s Regal Beagle – an American vision of a 1970s faux British pub. I want to put together enough images to figure out the pub set to see what what props were considered necessary 45 years ago. Here’s a blurry analogue vid view of the bar unfortunately filled with bad acting. There seem to be three beer engines back there but were they used? Here is a gif posted this week of Ralph Furley walking into the place, showing the brasses by the door. Here is another tweet with an image of the one bleak plot of the entire show – but with the bonus of an out of place “Ye Olde English” nutcracker sitting at the end of the bar, the couple in the background (above) expressing it for all of us.

Getting back to real life nostalgia, Alistair of Fuggles fame was able to revisit the Prague of his twenties and visit his old favour boozer, U Slovanské lipy:

…no airs and graces, no pointless fripperies, and the majority of patrons were locals rather than tourists, perfect. The big thing that had changed though was the prices. Where I had been used to paying only 20kč for a half litre of Kout’s magisterial 10° pale lager, the nearest equivalent available, Albrecht 10° from Zámecký pivovar Frýdlant, was about double that. Yeah, it was odd having sticker shock in a Czech pub, but a quick conversion in my brain telling me the beer was $2 a pop for superb lager soon put that into context.

In upstate New York, a tiny town voted to go “wet” this week:

In a 3-to-1 vote, the referendum, aimed at making the town “wet” again, passed and a town that has been dry since Prohibition will now be wet. “I’m all for it, absolutely,” said Eleanor deVries on Tuesday afternoon after voting, adding that the town needs it economically.

I trust Eleanor has settled down since Tuesday’s results. Economically, by the way, is the new medicinally.

Sadly but yet again, your weekly reminder that good beer people are not all good people – this time, the distasteful and fairly racist Halloween outfit edition:

Breweries can talk about diversity all they want but when this idiocy still happens it shows how far craft beer has to go to create a safe and welcoming space for POC. You need to not just talk about diversity but “walk the walk”.

I might have added “…as well as a welcoming space for non-fascists…” but that’s just me. Not quite as horrible, but still thoughtless…

You know what’s shitty? A prime time TV show on one of the major channels asking for free beer for their changing rooms & wrap party in exchange for ‘exposure’. If you are paying hundreds of thousands of pounds for your ‘talent’ you can afford a few hundred on some fucking beers…

Conversely and to end on a happy note, Jeff gave us a four photo explanation of why in Sicily he has proclaimed:

This place immediately enters my top ten of best drinking establishments I’ve been to in my life…

Exhibit A. Exhibit B. Exhibit C. Exhibit D. Case closed.

There you go. A bit of a global tour. In space and time. The good. The bad. The ugly. For further beery links, check out the Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then bend an ear towards the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look to see if there was a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well.

The Victoria Day Week 2019 Thursday News In Beer

Victoria Day. Is that done only in Canada? Probably. Well, we spent it in Ottawa with the fam and the friends of the fam and it ended up with me paying for it all. Warning to parents of young children: they grow up and they can’t afford their own needs. Anyway, we had fun and in two spots, Brothers as well as the hotel bar I enjoyed the local Dominion City’s Town & Country Blonde Ale. And I can confirm that Irene’s is still one of my homes, the honeyed wood even richer 15 years later.

You can now lose hours and hours and hours to the excellent interviews of folk from the recent history of the British brewing trade care of brewingstories.org.uk.

Stan wasn’t really contradicting Jeff and Jeff really wasn’t saying it as any sort of main point but this is an important observation:

I agree, but would another clause. These brewers do have a vision for what they want to create, but they also have enough of an ego to think that they are making beer that will appeal to an audience broad enough to support a thriving business. They may not want to print money, but many like ending up on something of a stage and more look forward to feeling money in their pockets.

Show me a brewery that is not based on the profit making model and I will show you an impending failure. Everything else has to be built upon that foundation one way or another if it is going to be sustained: capitalist or socialist, private or public. But pretty much anything can be built upon that model.

Beer in corner stores is coming to my province. I like it.

I was really taken by this answer wine writer Oz Clarke gave on why you need to keep an old copper coin in your wallet if you are in the habit of being in places where you are presented with dodgy red wine from time to time. Now, while I have happily avoided any interest in taking an “off flavours” class (aka misery mongery) I am now interested to see if the copper coin works with any poorly made beers – and apparently I should be focusing on lagers. Any particular candidates for experimentation?

I had no idea there were jazz bagpipers. I approve.

I was quite pleased with the news in this brief article on the beer coming out of Grimbergen Abbey, a brewing monks’ collective that sold their branding in the 1950s. Sounds like it’s reasonably actually actual:

“We had the books with the old recipes, but nobody could read them,” Stautemas said. “It was all in old Latin and old Dutch. So we brought in volunteers. We’ve spent hours leafing through the books and have discovered ingredient lists for beers brewed in previous centuries, the hops used, the types of barrels and bottles, and even a list of the actual beers produced centuries ago… Stautemas, who lives with 11 other monks at the abbey, said: “What we really learned was that the monks then kept on innovating. They changed their recipe every 10 years.”

I like that last bit. Instability is at the heart of brewing. But TBN may well be right: ultimately, it’s really just big-brewery PR.

In this week’s stolen IP news, an Alberta brewery has been allowed by the trademark holder, the municipal government, to use up the last of its stock labeled “Fort Calgary“:

On Wednesday, city officials met with Elite Brewing and Bow River Brewing to discuss the cease-and-desist order over the use of the name, which is trademarked by the city. According to a memo that went to councillors from administration, the city has agreed to allow the brewery to retain the name until the beer is sold out “in the spirit of co-operation.” If any beer is left on July 30, when it’s projected the beer will be sold out, it must be stripped of the name.

What is it with craft brewers and purloined intellectual property ? Do small bakeries steal the brand names of others? Do weavers and potters? Nope. This story is a bit different as there seems to have been a discussion and a resulting understanding that then was not fully understood.

Here is an interesting stat:

Prince Edward Islanders spend less money on alcoholic beverages than anyone else in Canada, according to a recent report by Statistics Canada. The report found Islanders spend $614.70 per capita on liquor. The national average was $756.90.

Apparently, folk in Newfoundland and Labrador spend $1,029.20 each a year for the national leadership. But note that this is not average sales per unit, just gross sales. And prices in Newfoundland, I suspect, are way higher per unit. But that’s not the interesting thing. The interesting thing was when I lived in PEI from 1998 to 2003 I had pretty much unlimited access through my neighbours to an excellent moonshine vodka called, in its finest form, Augustine. They also still had speakeasies. Everybody and his dog also home brewed. So the stats may mean less than the little they appear to mean.

Neato: six 5,000 year old yeast strains extracted from brewing related pottery in Israel.

Finally, this is weird. Apparently the deadbeat brewery left an unhappy employee in charge of the social media account:

After nearly 30 years Ironworks has come to a shameful end. Yesterday @ 3pm, five armed police officers and a tax enforcement official seized the brewery and changed the locks, and ushered the employees out.

The news is not good: $15,409 in taxes and fees. A pretty modest amount but then add on that no employees have been “paid in the last several months, as well as he stopped paying their payroll taxes over the last year” and you have a sense that there was much going wrong here. H/T Robin.

Well, another week goes by. A bit of a slow one. Such is life. Lessons? Pay your bills. Name your beer a name no one else owns. Simple! Check out Boak and Bailey this Saturday but be warned that Stan on hiatus this Monday. He does that. Hiatuses. Hieronymustic Hiatuses. It’ll be OK.

Your Thursday Beer News Notes For The Week Winter Showed Up

I should not complain about having to shovel snow on the 20th of January when its the first real snow of the winter. It’s not that tough a life. Five weeks to March today means it won’t be all that bad from here on out. What effect has this on my beer consumption? Not so much in volume but now is the time when a pint of stout and port is added to any sensible diet. I say “a” pint with care given the concoction should be somewhere in the area of 10% alc. Yowza. But when does great reward comes without some risk?

Not long after last week’s deadline for news submissions, Ed tweeted that he had “[j]ust been sent an excellent article on rice malt beer 😉” The study describes the potential of rice for brewing and sets out an optimized malting program allowed water saving. Which is cool. But it is also cool that it is about the use of rice which, except for corn, is the most hated of fermentables. This is despite the fact that rice beer came to Canada about 93 years ago – well after it was brewed in the U. S. of A. – a fact which has been fabulously preserved for us all in the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the case The King v. Carling Export Brewing & Malting Co. Ltd., [1930] S.C.R. 361 at page 373 about the production of beer during the era of US prohibition:

I do not think we can accept the suggestion that there was no market for lager beer in Ontario. The learned trial judge dwells upon the fact that rice beer is peculiarly an American taste, and infers that it is not sold in Ontario. The evidence in support of this does not proceed from disinterested sources and I wonder whether the boundary line so sharply affects the taste in illicit liquor. In truth, it is stated by Low that it was not until some time in 1926 that the respondents began the manufacture of rice beer, and we are not told at what date, if ever, in their brewery, rice beer wholly superseded malt beer.*

Wouldn’t it be interesting if we stopped calling it “American-style lager” and just called it rice beer… or corn beer as the case may be? Will it take another century to pass for good beer to admit this fundamental reality of North American brewing culture?

Beer at the Post Office? Thanks Vlad!

I am still not sure what to make of #FlagshipFebruary.** Like a lot of you, I have been making up alternative hashtags like #GoldenOldieAles, #FlogshipFebruary and #PartyLikeIts1999. But it’s earnestly offered and, you know, as long as there isn’t a secret spreadsheet being sent around to members of the good beer PR-consulto class prearranging who are going to each write about this or that fabulous flagship as a way to artificially drum up interest and maybe future paying PR gigs, I think we might actually come away with a reasonably good taste in our mouths.

It reminds me a lot of by far the most successful of such hashtags, #IPADay created in 2011 by this blog’s friend Ashley Routson aka The Beer Wench.*** But (and this was not really the case in 2001 so laugh not) I would argue was easier to determine what an IPA was in 2011 than figure out what “flagship” mean today. As I am l not clear what a flagship really is, I asked some questions like if the Toronto brewery Left Field consider their oatmeal brown Eephus (1) their foundation (2) their flagship (3) both or (4) neither. They wrote:

We’d be comfortable calling it a foundational beer. We don’t really refer to any beer in the lineup as a flagship. Along with a few others, it’s one of our year-round offerings.

See, foundational does not (usually) mean flagship. More evidence? Consider this September 1990-ish beer column on the state of affairs in Lake Ontario land. It mentions the venerable and largely forgotten Great Lakes Lager. Foundation? Sure. Not the flagship. That’s now Canuck Pale Ale. You know, flagship might also even be a slightly dirty word in the trade. A tough row to hoe for the industry marketers behind this scheme. But hope lives on eternally in such matters as we learned from the new CEO of Sierra Nevada who, faced with the task of turning things around for the musty ales of yore, stated:

…he’s bullish on Sierra Nevada’s prospects heading in 2019 and he’s projecting 5 percent growth. He believes that advertising will help turn around Pale Ale’s negative trajectory, and that continued growth for Hazy Little Thing, combined with increased focus on Hop Bullet and Sierraveza, will propel the company forward this year.

Advertising! How unlike beer macro industrial crap marketeers!! If that is the case, me, I am launching #FoundationAlesFriday come March to get my bit of the action. Join my thrilling pre-movement now.

Beer so horrible that it can’t really be called beer is rising in popularity in Japan as sales of the real stuff and the semi-real stuff drops.

Elsewhere, I tweeted this in response to the wonderful Dr. J and I quite like it:

Well, the multiplication of “style” to mean just variation leads to a dubious construct that bears little connection to original intent and leaves beer drinkers more and more bewildered when facing the value proposition of fleetingly available brands however well made.

Let’s let that sit there for a second. Fair?

Send a furloughed US Federal employee a beer. Or help with some unplanned bridge financing for an out of luck new brewery.

Even elsewhere-ier, Matt Curtis is to be praised and corrected this week. Corrected only in the respect that he wrote the utterly incorrect “in true journalistic style I was too polite to say” in his otherwise fabulous piece**** on what it was like going booze free for three weeks:

As I walked down Shoreditch High Street on my way to an event from the British Guild of Beer Writers showcasing alcohol free beers I passed some of my favourite bars and restaurants. I found myself pining to sit within them, simply to soak up the atmosphere. In that moment I felt that merely the sound of conversation and conviviality would sate my urge to drink more than any can or bottle of low alcohol vegetable water that has the indecency to call itself beer.

Lovely stuff.

Note: an excellent lesson in what it means to understand beer. “It’s what [XYZ] told me…” is never going to serve as reliable research. Just ask, beer writers! Ask!!! Conversely, this article in The Growler serves as an excellent introduction to the 18 month rise of kveik on the pop culture commercial craft scene. I say pop culture commercial craft as it has been around the actual craft scene for a number of hundreds of years. Much more here from Lars.

How’s that? Enough for now? Winter getting you down? Remember: things could be worse. I think so. Don’t forget to read Boak and Bailey on Saturday and then Stan on Monday if you want to stay on top of things. Perhaps he will update the impending contiguous v. non-contiguous acreage rumble we’ll all be talking about in a few weeks.

*Buy Ontario Beer for more fabulous facts like this!
**Though I do like the concept of the pre-movement.
***Note: I make no comment on the wide variety of beer “wenches” or “nuts”… or “foxes” or “man” or any such other monikers. At least they don’t claim to be an expert.
****The current edition of Boak and Bailey emailed newsletter contained this bit on Matt’s experiment: “…it all seemed pretty reasonable to us. But even if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be any of our business. We did wince to see people in the business of beer berating him for his decision, and winced even more deeply when we saw people nagging at him to break his resolution.” I agree that this is sad and, I would add, smacks of the nags shouldering the alky’s burden themselves.

A Guide To Maxing Out Your Upcoming #FlagFeb Experience

While I suggested in the last Thursday update that I cannot find much drive within myself to take on the call to celebrate the flagship beers of yore in February I am not being a grump. As you can clearly see to the right, both the shed and I like flags. And I recognize that Master Polk and Mistress Polk, for example, appear to be positively enchanted. The Fuggled folk are all a’giggle. So, it is perhaps useful for me to see what I can do to assist even if I do not jump on the bandwagon. Let’s start with a clarification of terms. Mr. B. wrote this about #FlagshipFebruary on Facebook deep down on a thread:

Flagships are, I think, the beer that formed the foundation of the brewery… not necessarily its current best-seller. I’m sure there are brands that outsell Central City’s Red Racer Pale, for example, but I would certainly list that as the brewery’s flagship. Ditto Deschutes Black Butte.

There are a few things to unpack there. It’s not a beer that founded craft era so much as the brand for each brewery. So the brewery, practically, has to be old and its given candidate brand needs to be something of a survivor. And its not necessarily the most loved today which means you may need to do a little sleuthing unless you are going to stop at Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or Sam Adams Boston Lager. So how are you going to do that?

Act like a historian. One handy resource that you can start with are the Past Winners’ records for the Great American Beer Festival. So, if you look at the first awards list you see that in 1983 SNPA was the overall winner while SABL won top dog in ’85 and ’86. Fine. But look at 1984. Yakima Brewing won first and second place for an imperial stout and a Scottish ale. Hmm. Now, look at 1987 where SABL won as best “Continental Pilsner” as opposed to “Continental Amber Labers” – really.

The brief study of these records raises a few more questions. Is the brand’s recipe or even branding sufficiently similar now as it was then when it served as a foundation? Were those really the hops they use back then? Are you really experiencing the same thing? Does it even exist? Also, do these flagships actually represent the brewery’s foundation or are they just the lucky ones that now have survived the obstacle course of time, those whims of a succession of a beer fads and trends. Does its current status actually reflect its actual history or is it, like the beak of the finch, the one which by luck could accommodate unforeseen future? Figuring out that might take a little work.

My thoughts? Not that this initiative is any sort of minefield that we will fail at but that this is a great opportunity to consider the relationship between the micro brewing phase of approximately 1983-2003 and the craft phase from 2003 to the present. How much of craft’s history is made up and heavily laced with retrospective rosy coloured glassware? Plenty, I’d say. How much is even based on the lessening status of the great old white male brewery owner? Maybe a bit? So… if you really want to celebrate the actual foundation of the good beer movement, look at the structure of the early medal categories and go get yourself some stout, an amber or a porter. Find a Fuggle.

Use #FlagshipFebruary. Use it to explore and enrich your own understanding. Sours, fruit beer, barrel aging and even heavy hopping are developments largely from later in the second half of the history of your hobby. You may need to accept that what is actually the old and foundational is actually new and novel to you. Which is good. So do it.

If Mid-November Were More Exciting Would You Be So Happy With Your Thursday Beer News?

So. Here we are again. This is a bad week. Traveling around central Canada. Long meetings. Hotel rooms. Fortunately, I am working on my Korean food skills as part of this road show. My newly increased obsession, kimchi is… well… it’s like a hipster Scot would have invented if Korea hadn’t done it first. Peace food. Other than that, its all hotel breakfast buffets and minivans fully of cheery engineers. Bounding down the highway balanced on a buffer of spicy exotic cabbage.

First off, I was alerted by someone no doubt more attentive that I am, given my kimchi induced food coma, that there has been a shock wave hammering those writing about the history of saison. You see, Roel Mulder has shared his thoughts of a fact-checking mission he undertook on the “2004 book Farmhouse ales, and especially the contribution it includes by Belgian brewer Yvan De Baets” and YdB is not too thrilled but sadly fell back on what looks like a status based defense in his extensive comments offered in response:

This is your website. By definition you will have the last word on it. Cool. I will not start a debate here anyway. I have more to say about some of your claims but I don’t have nor the time nor the desire to do it: not only I strongly dislike the ego battles, but more importantly the first tanks of our new brewery are arriving in a few weeks and I have to prepare them a nice nest.

Remember: watch out for expertise transposition. Few brewers are actually all that acquainted with the means and methods of the historian. Its not in the nature of the gig. Likewise, vice versa. Dig it? For me, however, I think the real problem is assuming anything written in 2004 is going to represent an exhaustive examination of a topic involving beer. A decade and a half is a long time for research to advance – especially when that decade and a half saw the explosion of the digitized historical records. That being the case, taking a strong stance either in favour or against such stale dated research is likely a mug’s game.

More convivially, Eric Asimov of The New York Times (who I like a lot) wrote a piece about the ciders of the Hudson Valley (which I like a lot):

All share a deep-seated desire to understand the traditions, nuances and complexities of apples and ciders. They are the latest wave of a great cider revival in the Northeast, reaching through New England, out to the Finger Lakes in western New York, and down through the Appalachians. For anyone used to most commercial ciders, which are often made from concentrate, sweetened and sometimes flavored, these serious ciders are a revelation. They are mostly bone dry, with the flavors of apples and of the region. Apples, too, it turns out, express a sense of place, what wine lovers call terroir.

Less authentically, apparently what was a contract brewery is now an app that the deal did not include. Figure out that one if you will… and this one for that matter:

Drinking at taprooms isn’t just en vogue, it’s a permanent part of today’s industry that now drives about 10% of Brewers Association-defined volume.

Permanent? You misspelled “today’s top fad” darling. Not unconnectedly, Matthew Curtis announced his retirement from the collective blog Good Beer Hunting. One never know what is behind “effective immediately” but one hopes its nothing too drastic. I line it up in my mind with the tweets about breweries hiring passionate beer comms for their passionate beer comms needs. All in all, a very tough row to hoe but hiring Rebecca would be a smart move, for example:

Hi guys! I’ll be looking for some freelance/ad hoc work after this month. I’m an accredited Beer Sommelier and was even nominated as Best Young Beer Writer this year by the @Britbeerwriters (!).’

You know, Pete Brown used to be a beer comms guy but he is no longer working for this sort of work. He is working on being a better Pete* – which is great – but once in a while loses his marbles most wonderfully:

Oh fuck off. I’m sorry (I’m trying to rein in the bad language and anger and be more professional) but fuck the fuck off. Even the most cursory reading of the history of pale ale/IPA shows this simply isn’t true.

Like others, I don’t really even care what he was writing about when he got so deliciously rude… but in case you are curious it was about a disappointing relaunch of Bass Ale.

Czech beer drinking in a slump.

Tandleman has an opinion on the four Cloudwater cask offerings pending according to a tweet – as well as a very nice new profile photo of himself as you can see. He must have a good social media consultant. I wonder what social media consultants like that cost…

These days, calling anything “one of the most important beers in modern American brewing” is a bit silly but the Chicago Tribune found cause to so publish in relation to Allagash Brewing’s Coolship Resurgam. I remember about a decade ago getting in a handbags match over someone claiming one US brewery or another was the first to do something to which I replied something something about the Allagash coolship – which Ron will correct correctly as being a “cooler” in English. These things get heated. Fortunately, even the shock of the new is past us now given we live in hyperspace and no one really cares, knowing that next week’s new thing will in turn be stale by the following weekend. Just hope the Allagash beer is tasty.

As noted last week, readbeer.com is up and running. We now can see the output of 63 different sources of online beer writing. That will grow and with it the decentralized, leveled goodness of blogs will return. One of the great things about the former RSBS was how access to ideas was not being filtered through the gauze of self-proclaimed expertise or assertions of journalism. Access was immediate and it was up to the reader to sift clues. Soon there will be 630 feeds. Best to keep up.

Well, that is enough for now. I am closer to home for most of next week so maybe this will be more considered. Maybe something big will happen that will fill the thousand words with one long observation. Maybe I will sit and count the days to first Christmas and then Spring Training. That’s more like it. In the meantime, check in with Boak and Bailey for the regular Saturday update.

* Fab.