Category: History

Your Thursday Beery News Notes Welcoming The Second Third Of June 2021

I keep telling myself it will be a short update this week because not much happened but then (i) something happens and/or (ii) I get into my notes and I see that more happened than I thought. That’s the way of the world, folks. Speaking of which, robsterowski guided my eye to the jokey image to the right which is a helpful guide to the clans of beer writers today. Or is it? Sad commentary, that’s what it is. But what do you expect when there’s seltzer scriveners about?

But this is the way it is going for beer these days, not just those writing about beer. It’s all so uninteresting all of a sudden – which, if you think about it, is somewhat interesting.  Consider this extraordinary open letter to BrewDog published by Punks with Purpose. There are over 100 named and anonymous co-signers who say they are former BrewDog employees making extremely pointed accusations about the workplace environment:

Put bluntly, the single biggest shared experience of former staff is a residual feeling of fear. Fear to speak out about the atmosphere we were immersed in, and fear of repercussions even after we have left.

What an extraordinary statement about something as banal as a brewing outfit.  Who needs to impose a culture of fear to make beer? Update: James, corporate head of the brewery, attempted a response and made it pretty much worse.

You could as easily ask who needs to be a sexist pig to make but but Ruvani de Silva of Craft Beer Amethyst came across another craft brewery with bigotry based branding. WTAF indeed.  I used to write posts with titles like “This Is How US Craft Beer Will Kill Itself” on the silly independent beer campaign on 2012 or 2014’s “Yet Another Way Craft Will Kill Itself?” in which we considered the beginnings of craft as gimmick, the foundations of today’s bewildering non-beer beer market. Interesting to see that it may well be the capitalist pigs who kill of craft through simply being found out. Who told you otherwise?

It does seem to be all collapsing slowly, doesn’t it. Former darling NC craft brewery destination of the ticking traveling set and the tourism associations providing the related funding, the venerable Weeping Radish which was established in 1986, has gone up for sale:

North Carolina’s oldest microbrewery, which originally opened its doors in Manteo next to the Christmas Shop, is now located 35 miles north on a 25-acre farm at 6810 Caratoke Highway in Grandy in Currituck County. The sale includes the building, land and the entire business, according to a listing. The asking price is $2.6 million.

No questions about the sale are being answered. That’s a great way to stoke up a market for your properties, isn’t it.

Perhaps (taking in all the above) whistling past the graveyard, Jeff takes on a very apolitical question in this a very political time – the question of the middle market in craft beer:

In many ways, there is no single beer market. I stopped in at Culmination last night and found a brewery thrumming with activity. I had three beers: an expensive hazy, a rum-barrel Baltic (or Polish) Porter, and a Grodziskie. Not a one of those beers could ever enter the middle market. The people at the brewery weren’t there for “normal” beers, either. They wanted a unique local experience. In this sense, craft breweries are like restaurants.

Many questioned the fundamental premise but, me, I think of this as a just happy illusion. Once, I remember a middle aged, middle class radio host saying his favorite thing to do on a summer afternoon was lay upon a lawn chair, have a beer and daydream of former girlfriends. And not for any spicy reason. Just that they never asked in his dreamy mood for him to do any chores. Worrying about the middle class of the beer market is like that these days. We avoid troubles. We have a nap. The actual answer is the middle class of beer sits there before you there on grocery store shelves and in gas station  coolers. There is always something moderately interesting at a modest price, isn’t there. Brands may come and go but there’s always something.

Beer has always found a way to make it easy. Further back in time (when things were perhaps similar to today during the Gilded Age of the Capitalist Pig), we learn (as an image posted by Lost Lagers tells us) of 1890 global lager brewing capacity – which is interesting and especially compared to some of the numbers floating around Albany Ale, including Taylor’s Ale brewery in the 1880s having a capacity of 250,000 barrels, at a point in time well past its own heyday. (Note in the comments under that second link, the first time I came into contact with Craig, my partner in crime of over a decade now. Heavens!) Scale.

And certainly relatedly, I had a very good set of chats with Edd Mather this week of the Old Beers and Brewing blog. I was happy to share with him the 1811ish and 1830s era brewing books from Vassar in New York’s Hudson Valley and he immediately went to work unpacking the notes to provide instruction how to clone Vassar’s  single ale as brewed on the 13th of August 1833. Excellent stuff.

Another way beer has found a way to find its way was spotted in Afghanistan this week according to The Times of India:

Defence Ministry spokeswoman Christina Routsi said on Monday that a recent decision by the German commander in Afghanistan to ban the consumption of alcohol for security reasons had resulted in a pileup of beer, wine and mixed drinks at Camp Marmal in Mazar-e-Sharif. German soldiers are usually entitled to two cans of beer or equivalent per day. Routsi said the military had found a civilian contractor who will take the alcohol back out of the country ahead of the German troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan as the NATO mission in the country ends in the coming months.

Note: Calamity Jane drinking at a saloon at Gilt Edge Montana in 1897. Perhaps related, happy to get a Halley Marlor update. You will recall her three months ago brewing this year’s Vintage Ale at Fullers. Now she has started in a new position with  Siren Craft Brew. Good luck! Avoid the fear.

Finally, I like this statement which I read this week in relation to some of the horrible news coming out in Canada but it seems to be fairly universal:

Gatekeeping is the way of the white man. Whether it be knowledge, resources, queerness or culture it’s rooted in the colonial and capital imperialistic fallacies of scarcity. That there is a somehow a limited resource and we should obstruct others and assert control and access.

I keep wondering who it was that for so long told us craft was special and how it was related to this sort of gatekeeping. This week, I also heard the acronym WEIRD for the first time: western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic which also goes a long way and has likely been around a long time and known by others – at least before since I entered my bubble. This is also jangling about my head in relation to brewing… don’t know how but it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holy subsurface riparian rights ruling, Batman! Excellent outcome.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

A Few Beery News Notes For Early May As I Ail Rather That Ale

This may be a brief one as I find myself on Wednesday off work sick from something with nothing to do with a virus. Food allergies. Love. It. I blame the Hungarian salami provisionally. The deli had none of the German stuff I normally buy.  I know you will join me in shaking my fist at the sky from a doubled over position as you marvel at the enhanced level of excitement the ailments of the middle age offer to the modern beer blogging reader.

Still, I expect you have other things to do as those do in the picture of the week, posted on Twitter by Will Hawkes. My first reaction was “OH MY GOD!!!” as we have been in total lockdown for most of 2021 around these parts.  Even though Boak and Bailey are out on the crawls these days, I am no where near heading out into a crowd even though I have had my first AZ jab for half a month now. Still, it does look pleasant. Looks like the scene is near Kings Cross Station at Stoney Street. This would be more likely the scene I’d find myself in. Also in Britain this week:

i. a UK Member of Parliament told a beer joke this week.
ii. a beer rating service on CEFAX, the 1970s and ’80s TV based internet service of sorts, was remembered, too.

Update #1: according to Tom in the comments, apparently May is Mild Month so once again by June 99% of beer drinkers will say to themselves “what’s that mild stuff?”*

Update #2: Good to see our local Stone City Ales managed a local crisis in supply so well. See, they planned for a normalish patio springtime and then faced a renewed lockdown so they had waaaayyy too much beer. Their solution worked according to my email inbox:

Since we started our 25% off sale last week, we have been overwhelmed by your support, and we are so grateful. We just wanted to let you know the sale ends tonight at midnight, so if you would like to take advantage of this opportunity (for the first time, or again) just be sure to order online today, and simply choose a future delivery date. We don’t want to sit on fresh beers, and we had brewed lots thinking our patios may be open. Alas, we are take-out window and delivery only, so every sale really helps.  We are so proud of these beers we have out right now. Don’t miss out. To all of the health care workers and essential workers out there — WE SEE YOU, and deeply appreciate what you do for us all. 

The Beer Nut had a busy week with three posts and eleven beer reviews. Best of the lot appears to be the stemwear worthy beers of Land & Labour but no such joy for a sad faux choco-orange imperial stout from the obscurely named brewery, Wander Beyond:

On the flavour, oranges are conspicuous by their absence. It goes big on the chocolate, which doesn’t sit well with the assertive carbonation. The sweetness, bitterness and savoury side are all what you’d get from dark chocolate or cocoa powder, and there’s only the faintest hint of Jaffa Cake orangeiness on the finish. I’m down on gimmicks in beer generally; poorly rendered gimmicks like this are unforgivable.

When cooking cicadas, beer is optional.

Ron has done a series of posts on AK beer during WWII.

Someone mentioned recently that they thought AK died out between the wars. That’s not really true. AK was given a good old kick in the bollocks by WW I. Many found their demise in the war’s brutal gravity cuts. Others, though fatally weakened, soldiered on. Another war was the last thing they needed. Kicking off the war at a little over 1030º, there wasn’t far they could go once a new round of gravity cuts began to bite.

Posts on the grists, sugars and hops in AK brewing followed. Then he provided a brew it yourself recipe for an AK from 1945. Rather completist of him.

Gary is doing us all a great service with his continuing series of posts on pre-WW II Jewish-owned East European breweries. This week he wrote about the Teitel Brewery of Ostrow Mazowiecka, to the north east of Warsaw and the site of the murder of hundreds of Jews in 1939. Some good research supports the piece:

I located a print ad for the brewery in the National Archives of Israel. It appeared in the June 1, 1928 Trybuna Akademicka, a Jewish-themed, Polish-language newspaper in Warsaw. I wrote earlier that at least two other Polish breweries with Jewish ownership, the Pupko and Papiermeister breweries, placed ads in the paper in the same period.

By comparison with the above, please note elsewhere that it’s not a blog, its a “premier beverage research firm“! Such cringy puff.

Oktoberfest went and got itself cancelled again. Way. To. Go. To the north-west, another sort of doom is on the way as hard seltzers are boing brought to Belgium via AB-InBev-etc-etc. The Brussels Times tries to explain:

To begin with, the name ‘hard seltzer’ is aggressive enough. On the drinks’ British website, meanwhile, the company states, “It’s like alcoholic sparkling water, because that’s exactly what it is,” and “Don’t overthink it”. “We want to be a company that brings all people together, not just beer people,” said Elise Dickinson, marketing manager for hard seltzers at AB InBev. “Hard seltzers are an integral part of that. The demand for the drinks is also starting to increase in Europe. AB InBev is well-placed to help retailers enter this booming market.”

It really is an accusing finger at the craft beer trade that such a vacuous product is kicking it in the marketplace. Could a food product be less skilled? Still, gives a reason to pay freelancers in need. Canadians are less interested as we know how to pour vodka into club soda at 20% of the price.

Conversely, Asahi is investing in no-alcohol beer as opposed to no-beer alcohol:

“Non-alcohol is a good all-around product,” Atsushi Katsuki, Asahi’s chief executive since March, said in an interview. “It helps to resolve social issues, it connects us with new users and it leads to our profitability.” Low and non-alcohol beer sales have benefited as people spent more on drinks to be consumed at home during lockdowns, suiting Asahi’s broader strategy of focusing on higher-margin “premium” beverages.

As with seltzers, the big money is in offering less.

Odd that the previous Game of Thrones beer isn’t referenced. Is this even a story? GoT has become the My Little Pony of beer brandings. Looking forward to Game of Thrones sugary breakfast corn pops.

Retired Martin has been pumping out the blog posts and, in this piece on a trip to a place called Flatt Top in England, posts what has to be the single most honestly unattractive photo of a British pub that I have ever seen. Click on that thumbnail if you dare.

There. Back off to bed for me. While I’m there shivering under the covers, 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. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

*Ha Ha. Funny joke, right? No, really. Joking.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week Of The Big Jab

It’s a good thing that as a teenager I drank really really bad red wine a few times so I had something to measure the reaction I had to the AZ vaccine against. Worst hangover ever. But a welcome one. I was actually more nervous about the immediate reaction than any fear of a slight statistical bump for this or that anomaly. I feel like I expect many did after a night on the old Champale, as illustrated. Mock not. It is apparently still made, has review on BeerAdvocate and been around since 1939.

Trends. That’s why folk read the internets, right? This is my favorite trend story of the week, the state of Heineken sales in 2021:

Volumes jumped 5.4% in the Asia Pacific region, led by double-digit growth in Vietnam, Singapore, and South Korea. Beer sales volumes grew 9.9% in the Africa, Middle East, and Eastern Europe region, driven by Nigeria and South Africa.  Sales volumes fell 10% in Europe, where many countries remain under strict lockdown measures to combat a third wave of Covid-19 infections… Net profit for the period was €168 million ($201.7 million), up from €94 million in the virus-hit first quarter of 2020 but down from €299 million in the same period in 2019.

Lesson #1: things are looking up even if things are not looking up where you are. Lesson #2: folk elsewhere may be deflecting the realities.

You want more interesting information about the place of alcohol in the response to Covid-19… at least in Europe? Most nations are down (like me) but some are up… well, one:

So has COVID-19 got us drinking more, or less, than before? Public health researchers are trying to find out — to see if the events of 2020 have helped the world to sober up, or if we’re all heading for the mother of all hangovers. They’re finding that age and outlook on life drive our response to lockdown. Younger drinkers seem happier to find other things to do, while their stressed-out parents are more likely to be seeking solace in the bottom of a glass. And, surprise, surprise, it looks like we British have reacted to COVID-19 by drinking the most.

Beer as deflection?  Cultural standby? Beer as identify. Contract brewing as an attack on national pride has struck in Finland:

“The brand is owned by Finns, and the product development, warehousing, administration, marketing and sales all take place in Finland, and our office is located in Kontula. Production alone occurs at the factory in Tartu, where beer has been skillfully made since the 19th century,” Matti Pesonen from Kontula Brewery said. The Finnish Food Workers’ Union called on consumers to opt for beer produced in Finnish breweries instead for the purpose of preserving local jobs.

I like that. It’s good and mercantile. I saw this observation from Jeff this week and I have to agree… but how different is it from the the Finns above?

Craft beer used to lean heavily into corporate ethics. This was partly a rebuke to big breweries, laser-focused on the bottom line, and also slightly self-serving (look at how green we are!), but in the main it represented an authentic commitment to community. Lately, not so much. Many breweries still try to lead ethical lives, but they aren’t showy about it, and with some notable exceptions the trend overall has tailed off.

What’s left? Identity? Is that what they brew the beer for?  This question leads directly to a bit of a continuing discussion about England’s Cloudwater selling Scotland’s BrewDog brewed beers structured on worthy collaborations in the Tesco supermarket chain which led to an number of comments. When I find something interesting in GBH, I am careful to start at the end as they do tend to flail and one needs to see the pre-determined point the author was making. It was unfortunate to see their classic but utterly damp conclusion being applied again in this case:

What the long-term impact of one of the U.K.’s most influential breweries going into a national retailer will be remains up for debate.

Yawn-a-rama. Jordan and Robin took a harder line in their weekly podcast which, it being a podcast, I can’t draw a quotation from except to point out that Jordan used the word “crab bucketing” and both spoke of the point of brewing to be primarily to sell beer so that any sales of this sort are certainly good sales to be welcomed.  They also use the word “we” to describe the brewing trade… which I find odd. But GBH doesn’t which I find way weirder given its use of observations like “[t]hat experience is shocking to hear” and the constant self-citation. A shame given they also get money quotes like this one which is effectively the buried lede:

“I must say I do find it distasteful that it’s Tesco,” says Hayward. “Many pub goers will find a trip to their local now a trip to a Tesco Express store.”

But more to the point, I would also point out that k-os provided us with “Crabbuckit” in 2009 which perhaps really is the point that needs to be understood. He also has provided us with the song of summer 2021.*

Somewhat relatedly, Mudgie has posted an interesting set of thoughts about the problem with the UK’s beer drinking cultures and those making fun of the beer drinking cultures:

Much criticism of craft brewers revolves around them supposedly being just in it for the money and not practising what they preach. The same charge is often levelled at climate campaigners. But, in both cases, surely the sense of unshakeable moral certainty is equally worthy of satire. Within craft beer there are strong elements of wanting to change the world and stick it to the man, and self-congratulatory mantras such as “beer people are good people” which are frankly inviting ridicule. If it was just a case of a bunch of geeks who liked weird beers but kept themselves to themselves nobody would be bothered. You can’t really satirise bellringers or metal detectorists.

Hmm… and Prince Phillip was laid to rest this week. A beer man apparently. Who liked his beer from the bottle. But also from the glass in a pinch. His preference was documented in 1976:

I served Prince Phillip a beer years ago when I worked at the Westin (Hotel Nova Scotia). He pushed the glass away and draink from the bottle. Had a Keith’s.

He looked at me once on that same tour. Then he looked away.

We also lost someone central to my understanding of brewing history tis week, Ian Hornsey. Ian wrote A History of Beer and Brewing which I reviewed in 2006 as well as Alcohol and its Role in the Evolution of Human Society which I discussed in 2013. His passing has not been marked, with even his old brewery Nethergate not noting it in social media or on their website. If you see an obit, please forward it along.

That is it for this week. The jab hangover has passed and it’s been snowing on my veggies. Meantime, 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 (who marked their 100th episode with gratitude for all) 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. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

*I have to declare a conflict as realizing k-os liked this tweet of mine was one of the happiest five seconds of my 2021.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For Spring… Actual Spring With Radishes Sprouted And Robins Singing And…

I have been waiting to try out this new introductory sentence that I came up with. Tell me what you think: “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Yes, that’ll do nicely. Here we are! The Red Sox are playing real games. And it is warm enough to sit outside for more than five minutes… to get chores done in the yard… to get a sense that soon enough I will be jumping in Lake Ontario to cool off. And… Ontario have gone into an absolute lockdown today. No shops open other than groceries and pharmacies. Out city is relatively safe – even with a small spike yesterday – but we have ICU patients from elsewhere coming to our hospitals because elsewhere is not as relatively safe. I placed another home delivery of excellent beer to mark the moment.

To top it off, it has been a quiet week in this corner of the internet, in the world of beer. What have I noticed? The Suez! I am fond of the Suez canal… but not as fond of it as my slightly mad great-grannie Campbell was between the wars. Her favorite pub circa 1936 was named The Suez Canal… as illustrated to the right from a post circa 2012. Anyway, nice to see the ship has shifted and Suez has been cleared and that goods are moving again:

The shipments included common goods such as the consumer products made in China along with the equivalents of more than 11,000 20-foot containers, hauling wastepaper from the U.S. to India, more than 1,600 boxes holding automotive parts heading from Germany to China and 641 containers packed with beer from the Netherlands—the brands unnamed—on their way to China.

Gee – do you think the name of those beers might rhyme with Bline-hicken? Frankly, I was a bit surprised that so little bulk beer was involved.

From southern England, Stonch has shared some timely and sensible advice as a pub landlord for customers returning to their favorite establishments as they are able to open a bit just as we shut again – and which does open up the question of how to be an ethical pub goer in these times:

Remember, you can’t go for a pint if you’re unwilling to check in for NHS track and trace: pubs are legally obliged to ensure you either use the NHS app, or give your details manually. If you won’t, they must refuse you admission and service. Businesses will be fined – in an amount starting at £1000 and rising to £10,000 for multiple breaches – if they let you in. If you’re going to make a fuss about it this – due to some libertarian, freeman-on-the-land bullshit that’s wrecking your head – you’ve barred yourself from every pub in the UK.

Plain and true. Also from England, the heritage blog A London Inheritance has posted about a pub called Jack Straw’s Castle in Hampstead. As per usual, the post has a great selection of photos past and present as well as a good amount of background detail on the locality being discussed in and about London:

Jack Straw, after who the pub was named, is a rather enigmatic figure. General consensus appears to be that he was one of the leaders of the Peasants Revolt in 1381, however dependent on which book or Internet source is used, he could either have led the rebels from Essex, or been part of the Kent rebellion. Jack Straw may have been another name for Wat Tyler and some sources even question his existence. Any connection with Hampstead Heath and the site of Jack Straw’s Castle seem equally tenuous – he may have assembled his rebels here, made a speech to the rebels before they marched on London, or escaped here afterwards.

Interesting news in the US with some final high level figures about what the pandemic did to the craft sector in 2020 as per J. Noel:

NEWS: @BrewersAssoc says the craft beer industry saw a 9% decline (driven greatly by the pandemic), which dropped craft’s share of the overall beer market to 12.3%. However the number of craft breweries grew yet again in 2020, reaching an all-time high of 8,764.

EcoBart kindly confirmed these figures relate to volume and not value, suggesting it relates to on premises v. off drinking.  I would have thought that direct sales from the brewery were more profitable but that would maybe only apply to the continuing wave of the new and good and tiny and local.

Hereabout and somewhat similarly, apparently it is possible to run a massive and reasonably monopolistic beer retail chain and still lose masses of money. Josh explains:

The retailer, majority owned by Molson Coors and Labatt, had an operating loss of $50.7 million in 2020, as competition from grocery stores and restaurant bottle shops grew, and keg sales were crushed by COVID-19 restrictions… The Beer Store also saw its operating revenue fall to $399.4 million, down from $402.2 million in 2019, and $418.9 million the previous year.

I will miss the stupid name for the chain after it’s gone. Like I miss The TV Store and The Shoes Store. It’s nickname is “The IN and OUT Store” because every branch has a sign that says “IN” and one that says “OUT.” Ah, Ontario. More here on whatever TBS is here from 2015 when its end times were foretold. Relive the thrills of the Beer Ombudsman announcement.

In Japan, one effect of the pandemic has been a rise in no/low beer sales – and not to craft newbies but to established macro beer fans as Reuters reports:

The pandemic is propelling an unexpected boom in alcohol-free beer that has Asahi Group Holdings forecasting a 20% jump in revenue for non and low alcoholic beer this year after flat sales in 2020. Asahi is also debuting a new “Beery” label and has plans to expand its line-up. Main rival Kirin Holdings, which had a head start in the category, expects its sales volumes in the segment to jump 23% this year after a 10% rise in 2020 and recently revamped one of its main non-alcoholic beers.

Finally, like all of you I received the email blurb about November’s Ales Through The Ages event at Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg and, unlike most of what I write about, I had to actually cross check what I saw with others to ensure my eyes did not deceive me. Except for an optional event on Monday morning after the main conference is over, there are only male presenters. And the topics are not particularly diverse.  It’s all a bit weird to see such a thing. I can’t imagine I could travel even over half a year off given other obligations but… it’s all a bit weird.

One last thing. I came across a master list of current beer blogs. It was so 2006 when I found it. Called Top 110 Beer Blogs, it lists 157 blogs. Sweet.

I still can’t tell you anything about Project X but it is exciting and charming and… interesting. More laters. Meantime, 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. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

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.

These Are The Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week Of Melting

The week of melting is a great week. It occurs usually two weeks before the week of everything smells like dog poop. The week in between is called the week of maybe it won’t happen this year. One lad was thinking how nice it would be if something didn’t happen, as illustrated to the right. Max shared the image and voted it top entry for the Hogmanay Xmas Yuletide Kwanza Photo Contest 2021. It is a study of humankind’s folly… or true role of beer… or something… whatever it is we are advised by someone presented that balance was in fact recovered.

Much doings to report upon this week. First, Stan wrote about something I have never had the slightest interest in – beer recommend / review / rate apps. If you are spending any time at all on them, you need a goldfish in your life.  Something real. But Stan persists, as they say. And he delved a bit into the phenomenon to point out one app which actually had detail:

Next Glass 1.0, circa 2015, was something different. It was one of several drink recommendation apps that came and went about that time. Some got tagged as the “Pandora for beer.” For First Glass, that made sense because it took a scientific approach similar to Pandora when collecting data… [F]eature-based systems begin by measuring specific attributes of songs (or beers). Pandora created the Music Genome Project and employs musicians to catalog key elements of every song in its database. Next Glass mapped the chemical makeup of individual beers, forgoing any effort to quantify a beer based on its descriptive characteristics. 

All of which means there are graphs. Graphical displays of information. Why did it fail? Beer failed it: “…the company was never going to be able to collect mass spec information on the thousands of new beers released every week…” A.K.A. T.M.I.

Victim of Maths has tweeted an interest set of… graphs! Graphs on the effect of the pandemic on alcohol consumption patters in different nations. The form of graph itself is very helpful. But look how consumption goes up in the US while dropping in terms of the tavern trade. Who benefitted from that? White Claw? Local actual craft brewers delivering to home? Interesting stuff.

Much talk on alewives and witches again which I think is up there with the role of Sumerian goddess of beer, Ninkasi, in medieval Norse brewing. There seems to be a drive to switch one story of exclusivity with another an then make it universal rather than particular.  Dr. Christina Wade made this very good point in relation to this topics and one which is useful in any other historical studies which I present as a merged mega-tweet:

That is a really important avenue of research. And, in which case, we must get hyper-specific. Brewing in the Middle Ages could be a high-status, non-liminal, position for women. If we take the example of late medieval and early modern England, which is what these sorts of articles seem to be meaning, we can see that women who brewed were vilified. And men absolutely did accuse and lie about things to ruin women’s brewing businesses. We have primary sources for that in England. But as to whether this took the form of witch accusations the data is lacking. This may be because the populations who brewed and who were accused of witchcraft overlap. That is to say, single/widowed/poor women. That said, married women also brewed with great regularity. So it’s largely speculative.

This raises an interesting question. Why and should we participate in the continuation of myth telling? Even as myth correction. On the one hand it is organic and bolsters identity often in a healthy way. I myself am quite pleased to be generically connected to the faerie folk and advise all of you to watch your step accordingly. This, however, is quite distinct from the role I play from time to time of amateur historian – even when I get paid for that part of my research and writing. Nothing is as shockingly and clarifyingly accurate as a primary source. You can’t get around that sort of thing. You must face it. So how does one do both in an area of our collective culture as laden with fib and story telling as beer and brewing?

Never a happy event. A founder leaves a brewery.

Wee Beefy, one who has written of the horrors of the experimental craft alcopops that are too prevalent these days, has discovered a new love in an very unexpected form:

Last year or before, Maltgarden Browari came along. I had already tried a few of their excellent stouts, along with stumbling through opening their ridiculous wax capped can, and then bought a can of Tzatziki pastry sour with Pink Guava, Mango and cucumber… I drank the whole can in about ten minutes. It was ludicrously easy drinking – but also featured a distinctive but perhaps created tzatziki flavour along with the excellence of the pastry elements. It tasted very strongly of the cucumber and as I admit, the tzatziki I imagined but impressively the other flavours blended in so well together! I used it as a palate cleanser…

Me, I am physically revolted by that description but celebrate the freedom.

One weighs carefully whether one mentions BrewDog anymore given they are (i) now an international brewery with few links to micro or craft and (ii) they are adherents to a form of serial stupid that is beyond all reckoning – but… but… this one is up there with Sam Adam’s 2002 “Sex for Sam” promotion that led to charges, humiliation and (in a less than round about way than you might imagine) the Brewers Association as we know it. Trade Unionist Kmflett neatly summarized the seemingly sordid scene:

A post noted that Brewdog Indianapolis had sacked female and LBTQ employees on International Women’s Day apparently looking for a change in culture at the bar, possibly to a white male workforce. The CEO of Brewdog USA tweeted that of course Brewdog don’t discriminate while the London based head of Brewdog bars globally tweeted that he was investigating. On the one hand he was aware of an issue on the Indianapolis bar. On the other hand people are not sacked on the basis of gender or sexuality and if anyone had done that they’d be off too.

Lordy. There’s the statement from those let go. To date, no response from Mr. Jim Watt via Twitter except to point out how carbon neutral they are trying to be in addition, apparently, to be anti-discrimination neutral. It’s sad. I just checked my emails and there I was care of Stonch giving James himself advice in exchanges for photo contest prizes. It was all about how to run a blog about his wee brewery… and there it is now…  crushing hopes and dreams.

Finally, you will note every week I list below any number of podcasts related to good beer. This week I tweeted a question which got mucho response:

Honestly, how much time a week do you have for listening to beer podcasts? 27 minutes? Three and a half hours? I think of this when I encounter the 68th new podcast this year that’s over an hour long, not much edited and 7-11% filled with umms, errs and insider giggling.

I mean it quite seriously as a question about the medium. How many could you keep up with. I myself uses the FF technique in which I take a 35 minute podcast and reduce it to 5 by clicking and hunting for the actual bit of most interest to me. For all the “beer editors” out there who seem to be getting chump change for taking away the new writers voice in exchange for the dull tried and true, it would be good if there was a similar thing for podcasts, a central hub of some sort, a single global beer podcast editorial committee who could take these rambles and turn them into an actual magazine of the air of some sort. Some folk who could say “no” and who could also say “yes, this!” Listeners await.

Soon it will be spring. That makes for happy. For more happy, 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.

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.

The “Buh Bye February” Edition Of Beery News Notes

Oh, to be in England now that April’s (almost) there…

Well, that was great. February, the last month in the pandemic year around these parts. March is the bestest of the months anyway so I am just moving on, planning on getting some seeds in the ground within the next few weeks. The hard frozen ground. Not like in Ypres where Stonch waits upon the law to let his garden, above, grow.

First, an interesting comment from David Frum on the duration of the shock of the new:

It’s like when distilled alcohol arrived in Europe after 1400. Human beings had long experience of wine and beer. But distilled liquor spread carnage through unprepared societies. Took a long time to learn to cope with it. Broadcast media => social media an almost equal shock

That works. Speaking of culture shock, I can’t say I agree with the idea that the folk in their early twenties are a wave of future beer drinkers just waiting to hit the beer stores for the next forty or fifty years but Matt makes an argument:

What I’m interested in flipping here is the narrative that runs through all of these stories: that under 25’s are not interested in drinking alcohol. That craft beer, specifically, is not cool to them. While the youngest bracket within the above data might be drinking less, I believe they are almost certainly drinking better. Case in point: In putting out a tweet asking for 18-24 year olds to reach out to me about their beer preferences, my inbox was overwhelmed with a flood of positivity. 

That right there? The choir. My kindly response – avuncular even – was that my kids and their pals have little or no interest being tediously focused on building a healthy and productive future. Does it matter if they like what i like?

UK Covid Pubwatch 2021 continues. Are you a little more worried each month about the role the pub and lashings of booze have on British culture? Folk are fretting. On Thursday, Emma McClarkin of the British Beer & Pub Association forewarned of Boris’s newest announcement with this:

Outdoor opening -as we told Gov- not viable option. More support will be needed to survive prolonged closure, but what we really need is to be opened fully inside & out as soon as possible.

Stonch was more realistic and more humane:

Business owners in hospitality / leisure / retail (of which I am one) will understandably feel bitter disappointment about the glacial pace of re-opening about to be set out. However we need to be realistic and remember this is how most of the public want things to go.

This was cool. A 1989 record from Mass Observation. Typed. Might as well have been 1949.  Reminds me. I knew a guy called Bob in the mid-90s who went on about enjoying life, smoking and drinking. Died from smoking and drinking in the mid-90s. More to enjoying life than stubbing it out like a butt in an ashtray.

And Martyn added Curling, Newfoundland to my understanding. Now part of Corner Brook. I don’t actually think it’s the worst slogan ever. We’d do well to have a lot more “Alcohol: makes you an idiot” reminders. So, more like a public service announcement. Might’ve helped Bob.

An old link but an interesting one – Ottawa’s first tavern unearthed.

Here’s a lengthy post from Martyn which has little to do with beer but a lot to do with the state of understanding of beer:

Of course, having a “gut instinct” that something is or is not true, after our subconscious minds have reviewed the evidence and decided whether the arguments hold up, does not absolve us of the need to muster the evidence for others to review, because other people cannot interrogate our subconsciouses. The evidence for the two sides of the “porter name origins” argument is pretty easy to line up.

My first response was unkind as it the question was not the origins of the name of porter but the ethics of going on and writing about junkets rather than spreading one’s attention more equitably, well, facts and standards would not have such sway. But I am intrigued by the fact that “Daniel Defoe wrote in 1724 of porter being a working-class, alehouse drink” so I can overlook such things.

Elsewhere in taxonomy, Katie wrote extensively about small bready lumps in the UK.*

It’s a first date question. It’s something to debate over pints and a cheese and coleslaw bap. It’s an argument in the kebab shop at 1 a.m. It’s a reason to fall out with a favourite baker when they revise their packaging. It’s a clichéd social media meme and an easy engagement win. People queue up to die on the already heavily-bodied hill that is the true and rightful name of their favoured handheld breadstuff. We love to claim the naming rights of our daily bread. It’s personal. It’s tribal.

This article reminded me of when in 1991 as a ESL teacher in Kołobrzeg, Poland I invented a game of twenty questions for my adult evening class. They found posing oneself as an object to be asked questions was a very odd process. Apparently it was not something Stalin had mentioned might assist in expanding understanding. They also found it very odd when I proclaimed the correct answer: “jestem buka!” Or “I am a bun!”

And Stan waxed taxonomically when he picked up the “what was craft?” theme rather helpfully – in the sense that it is now a past tense discussion even if five years after the real endy times struck:

If we are going to “use 2020-’21 as a convenient place to divide the ‘craft era’ with whatever we’re about to inherit” who is in charge of coming up with a title for the next chapter?

Stan (for the double) also wrote of Kentucky Common, which I semi-secretly consider likely an echo of schenk.

And finally, over at the Beeb, the plight of the most remote pub on the mainland of Britain was discussed:

Locals have launched a bid to bring Britain’s remotest mainland pub into community ownership. The Old Forge in Inverie sits on the Knoydart Peninsula in Lochaber. The only way of reaching the village – and its pub – is by walking 18 miles (29km) or making a seven-mile (11km) sea crossing. The pub’s owner told residents in January of their intention to sell up, and following a consultation locals say they are keen to buy it.

Keeners. There. Soon it will be March. Feel free to dream of planting seeds. Peas and lettuce can take a frost. And while you are, for more good reading, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Jordan weights apology as opposed to apologia over beer cocktails this week!) 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 (explaining the reason for his irregular 1970s-esque TV dramedy season finale. Bellissimo!!!) And remember BeerEdge, too.

*I have to admit the current trend in illustration – the slightly out of focus or cartoony drawing – let the story down. When reading about differentiations amongst various  sorts of brown lumps of dough it is good to not be presented with a diagram of brown lumps.