Category: History

The Times Are Really Too Serious For The Thursday Beery News

I am not sure what exactly struck me about the two images I have placed side by side above this week as Jeff took a moment to be silent as I fret and bathe my hands in sanitizing stuff. To the left is a photo from the Facebook page for Belgium’s Oud Beersel and to the right we have a moment shared somewhere of Dan of the Brewery of St Mars of the Desert. Lovely. There are certainly common aspects of the colours and massing within the images. But what each of which really spoke to me was about such excellent things not being as we expect them to be. Lambic from a cardboard box. Goodness from a jug.*

First off, what a whalloping take on beer festivals was offered up by Ben this week:

…there might be no character more reprehensible in this industry than the craft beer festival organizer. Even we lowly beer bloggers, with our distended bellies full of free barrel-aged stout and our shoulders slouched from years at an overheating laptop that’s rendered our genital useless, will look upon the shady beer festival organizer and, with hate in our hearts and complimentary cheese in ours mouth, rightfully share our open disdain for this unique breed of leech.

It has always surprised me that while Ben exists on the planet it is I who have been labeled as “good beer’s community curmudgeon” or “the planet’s #1 naysayer.” Don’t believe it. This post of his goes boom when it hits the floor with facts flying in all directions. I, as dear mother always said, am nothing in comparison.

Somewhat more subtly but still in the realm of pulling the band aid off with one sharp tug of the child’s quivering arm, Jordan wrote about Mascot, a Toronto brewery this week:

From my left, Trevor asks at one point, what makes one of the guest taps an Old Ale. Old Ale does not come up much, and never had much cache in my experience. There’s not really a satisfactory answer from behind the bar on that point, and Trevor speculates for a minute about what it might be. It’s at this point that I realize that I’m not having any luck looking up information on any of the beers on offer. The website offers lunch, brunch, and dinner menus, but no tap list. You can download a product list from the website, but it is dated April 2, which puts it at at least 49 weeks old.

Yeowch. And when a principal of the brewery shared on FB that “in the process of changing the beer program and educating the staff more” Jordan replied “I am actually surprised no one got back to me when I gave them 24 hours notice.”

Jordan also had an excellent interview with the national broadcaster on the effects of Ontario government policy.* Which leads to a question or two. Especially when combined with Ben’s post above. Why is no one else noticing this stuff? Are writers in your area also taking the dumb parts of beer culture apart? Or is this just a new blip here in a place to stand, a place to grow? One possible reason raised in a side conversation is that the state of craft beer has gotten to the point that the beer itself is now not that big a part of the calculation. The taproom, the beer label, the music, the pairing… it’s all about not-the-beer. Who speaks for the beer anymore? Not sure. I left a comment at Stan’s that is not unrelated that I am plunking here to remind me to unpack it a bit more:

I think I’ve decided upon a theory that works. Craft is not longer the era many brewers are in now. The glass of handmade was abandoned long ago. We are now post-historical in the sense that Nietzsche wrote about. Sheer capability to do anything is what is being explored. We don’t like that feeling, the abandonment of the system. We all know that milkshake IPA is not an IPA but we desperately hand the three letters as a suffix. We need connection even when the whole point is breaking connection. So too how beer writers comment on White Claw as it it’s something other than another alcopop. Historians and commentators exist to explain context. Context is now irrelevant.

Moving on, as Covid-19 fills the news, there are somethings to note. First, as Carla Jean points out, breweries should not be branding any beer about a killing strain of infection as a baseline principle. Of course, morons immediately slagged her for the suggestion. [Because craft is special, right? And filled with good people.]

Next, in the general area of what I call the Balkans, Prof. Todor Kantardzhiev, director of the Bulgarian National Center for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases explained something that I had not known:

When contacted with the virus by the third day, the person may not be ill but spread it. It is not yet known how to spread how close the contact should be. The coronavirus is highly susceptible to disinfectants. Dies very quickly from alcohol. “Regular hard drinkers are much more protected! ” he added.

Interestingly, a few Balks to the west, Serbian government leaders were saying not so much the opposite as pretty much the same thing backwards… maybe:

President Aleksandar Vucic seized on questions about the efficacy of alcohol applied externally to kill the virus to make a joke. “Once again, I joke on my own account,” he said. “After they told me — and now I see that Americans insist it’s true — that coronavirus doesn’t grow wherever you put alcohol, I’ve now found myself an additional reason to drink one glass a day, so…. But it has nothing to do with that alcohol [liquor], I just made that up for you to know.”

So, who to believe? Dunno. But, yes, #tuttoandràbene.

Somewhat related, this image to the right was attached to a tiny tweet about the politics of quarantines in 1721 London:

In late 1721 the common council of #London complained to #Parliament about the Quarantine Act, which they claimed “affected ‘not only the rights, privileges and immunities’ but also the ‘trade, safety, and prosperity of the city of London’.”

Click on the image and have a look at the drinking scene in the lower left corner. Looks like a tiny beer fest, everyone properly staggering. Except those are getting cancelled, too.

Elsewhere and without thoughts of contamination, NHS Martin directed us to a new writer this week, Blackpool Jane. While the focus is on the fitba, there is beer afterwards such as when:

We managed to secure an outdoor table and sat back and relaxed with some great beer, watching the world go by and simply enjoying Blackpool and each other’s company.  We had planned to take in the Queen tribute band at the Marton Institute Beer & Music Festival, but we simply couldn’t bring ourselves to leave this idyll.  I enjoyed three pints of the delightfully-quaffable Potbelly Beijing Black before tucking into a Chicken Panang Curry, with a couple of amarettos for dessert. 

Short takes:

When your turn for the mandatory isolation order comes along, don’t forget there is more beer news every week with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast now as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. Check them out.

*Update, Dec 2021: just for posterity, the weird but no doubt Covid panic induced butt hurt in the comments was over earlier wording “Flavour from a jug of juice” which I really never should have edited out.
**For the double!!

Fine… It’s March And Here Are The Thursday Beery News Notes

I thought the new month would have made a big difference. But a couple of twelve hour days in hard black shoes and a snow squall meeting me as I got off the bus that finally made it through rerouted traffic and, well… well… well, at least it ain’t February any more. Let’s see what is going on!

First, there was much fretting in Engerlant over the shadowy Portman Group issuing an edict against a beer label. Now, I’ve beer posting about the shadowy Portman Group’s edicts since at least 2008 so I don’t really care that much now. But the fretting of others was remarkable. SIBA objected to the lack of much due process. The BBC covered it like it was an actual news story. Martyn wrote: “Running with Sceptres is not the ditch to die in over the Portman Group and its bans…” and then wrote more. Folk were cloyingly superior, spitting angry and even spent all the rent money. Pete went all Pete and shouted from the barricades that we need to “…check out the beautiful, sometimes strangely moving, artwork.” See, that is my issue. To me, that label on the can looks like panels stolen from a 1950s Rupert the Bear book.  And me, I don’t buy beer for the artwork and especially not Rupert the Bear rip-offs. In fact, if the art is too good, I assume they are cutting corners on the actual brewing resources. The money can only be spent once after all. Watch yourselves out there.

In another chapter of the tale how craft goes bad, we learned that Goose Island tri-packs with bottles of 2017, 2018 and 2019 Bourbon County stout have been marked down in the US Midwest to about 20% of their original inflated price. Imagine how many casks of the 2020 and even 2021 are sitting there in brewery warehouses… err… cellars with operating managers knowing how little it is really worth now. With such bad value, maybe they will be candidates for that #FlagshipFlotsam* thing one day.

In yet another sign of craft’s collapse, I had originally thought that this was a parody post from Ben, the tale of a overly-branded vegan brewery in Toronto shutting:

It’s like gentrification on human growth hormones, delivered by “The 5700,” a company that “manages a growing portfolio of lifestyle and entertainment brands that live online.” Now excuse me while I clean up the rage-induced blood-vomit typing that phrase has induced. Vegandale Brewery, which seemed to actually just be a coat of paint and a new name for the main floor of the existing Duggan’s Brewery, who officially moved to the basement of the location six months ago, wasn’t helping the image of veganism. Vegandale Brewery launched with the slogan “Morality on tap” and poured beers like Morally Superior IPA and Shining Example Stout. Yikes.

One last bit of endtimesy-wimsey news from CNY:

The Gordon Biersch Restaurant Brewery in Destiny USA closed today, joining a growing list of locations the national chain has been shutting down across the country. The brewpub — a restaurant with an attached brewhouse — opened in the Syracuse mall in 2012 and occupied a space on the first level, near the Hiawatha Street entrance.

I went there once as the family shopped out in the unending megamall for transitory branded objects. I came away with no actual recollections of the experience. Apparently, I was not alone… or at least not as alone as the bartenders were.

More in line with the “get in line” section of the news, I was glad to see this bit of law enforcement in Ontario’s news this week:

Jason Fach, 38, pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing death in December. An agreed statement of facts says that he had had four 20 oz. beers in a little more than an hour at St. Louis Bar and Grill the night of the crash. Fach has been sentenced to six years in prison. On Feb. 28, police announced that they had charged the restaurant, its owners and two staff members. The charges include selling liquor to an intoxicated person, permit drunkenness on licensed premises and failing to facilitate inspection. Under Ontario law, an establishment and its ownership can be held responsible for overserving someone.

The liability of a licensed establishment is distinct from social host liability in which responsibility is much reduced here in the land of the maple and the moose.

On another sort of establishment in another land, Retired Martin posted a lovely photo essay, a snippet of one of which sits above, on a very specific topic this week:

“Should it be open ?” I asked the chattiest of the group, all of whom had OS maps in plastic wallets round their necks. “Oh yes, I phoned them up before we set off. They SAID they’d be open”. Hmmm.

Even more elsewhere, it was Icelandic Beer Day last Sunday.

A nice posi-post of a piece on a lager was sent out via the internets by Pellicle this week:

Thankfully, there was Keller Pils, a lemon-bitter pale lager from Bristol brewery Lost and Grounded. The first barely touched the sides: one gulp, two gulps, three gulps, gone. The second, golden and glistening with condensation in a Willi Becher—a classic straight German glass that tapers elegantly towards the top—took longer. It was crisp but rich, toasty and bitter, direct and deeply rewarding.

One problem with these sorts of nice posi-posts is how they remind you of other positive experience unrelated to the subject matter. I can think of fifty other beers that have happily let to “one gulp, two gulps, three gulps, gone” which is not, I suspect, the point of writing about a particular thing. I did notice the pretty can, however. And this rather honest comment from a co-owner of the brewery:

“It’s like a Rubik’s cube, you know?” Alex says. “It’s about the branding. It’s the communications. It’s the quality of the product. It’s about people out on the road talking about it. It’s about how you work with the wholesalers … it’s all sorts of everything.”

And speaking of nothing in particular, here’s an interesting bit of spam by email:

I am the marketing director for Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. As you may know, Jolly Pumpkin is an all wild, oak-aged brewery. We are announcing the launch of a new canning line for our wild ales and thought that your readers might be interested in the news. The first beers off the line will be year-round favorites, Bam Bière and Calabaza Blanca. We will also be canning Hyrrokkin, the first release of a new fruited seasonal saison series. 

Jolly Pumpkin in a can! Long term readers will recall when I spent a happy late afternoon in the company of owner/brewer Ron J back in 2007 when beer bloggers were still unique enough to not have the parking lot lights turned off and all the doors locked when one showed up to check out a brewery.  Now they sell the stuff in a can. Pretty cans. Life comes at you quickly.

Speaking of the most fabulous thing I heard related to the drinks trade this week…

The bartender at the Radisson Kingswood Hotel in Hanwell, near Fredericton, helped deliver a baby in a snowstorm on Thursday night. Storey said she got the call when she was closing down the bar for the night. “The person who works the front desk, Nick, comes over and says, ‘There’s someone having a baby in our lobby,'” said Storey. “At first I thought he was kidding.”

That’s enough. Once a child is born we have hit peak beer news for the week. And remember, if you want more beer news, check out Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast now as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. Check them out. They are like blogs but with people speaking and saying “umm” a lot instead.

*…which is still really better than #JetsamJanuary if you think about it.

These Be The Final Thursday Beery News Notes For February 2020

Go. Go put on your 45 of Don McLean singing “American Pie,” his lament for the milestones marking the ends of innocence during the first two decades of the rock ‘n’ roll era. Go put it on and have have a good cry because that’s sorta what happened this week. BeerAdvocate got bought.  They didn’t “join forces” with anyone.* As they explained on Monday:

A large portion of our business relied on revenue from BeerAdvocate magazine. As the focus of readers and advertisers shifted over recent years, our publication wasn’t immune to the issues that have impacted the entire print media industry. Next Glass stepped up to ensure that our awesome community that we’ve all worked hard to cultivate since 1996 can continue to thrive for years to come.

They ran out of dough and needed someone to take them over. Which is fine.  Next Glass runs that Untappd thing I don’t use but others do. So that is good. BeerAdvocate  will continue in a fashion but just not what they have been doing excellently for over twenty years.  I share the photo to the right as testimonial to their excellence. I took that photo and they like it so much they put it in their magazine in the December 2007 edition. Didn’t ask. Didn’t pay me for it. But I got a good complaining post out of it sixteen years ago so it all worked out in the end.** But it sucks that they had to take a buy out.

From the archives and related: the state of beer mags in 2007.

As mentioned last week, Jancis Robinson is asking questions about the transport weight of wine bottles in a world more and more concerned with sustainability:

The most sustainable way of shipping wine is by sea in a tanker. A wine shipped in bulk to New York from Australia could easily have a lower carbon footprint than one trucked in bottle from California (though behemoth Gallo has long shipped wine across the country by rail). A container of bulk wine holds two and half times as much wine as a container packed with conventional 75-cl bottles. It may sound dreadfully unromantic, but the technology of bulk shipping of wine has improved beyond recognition in the last few years, as has the expertise of professional wine bottlers in major wine-importing countries in northern Europe.

What weight of beer is shipped around the world and how big a carbon footprint does that represent? Should that be calculated into the value of an imported beer – or a big craft beer shipped by truck across the continent?

Best image in beer this week from B and the other B.

Ben, Canada’s leading beer writer best known for not writing that much about beer anymore,*** took the time to do what I can’t be bothered to do – complain about #FlagshipFebruary which is on its last legs… err, week! I meant week!

At the risk of opening my door tomorrow morning to find a frothy-mouthed Beaumont on my porch with a straight razor in his hand, I’d suggest the way to move the needle forward in craft beer isn’t to have a handful of established beer writers talk about a handful of beers that were once relevant. They (the beers that is) are essentially relics of a bygone era and while they broke down doors for today’s craft beers, our interest in them now is and should be a sort of reverential nostalgia and tolerance. Instead of endearing icons, I’d suggest they’re now a bit more like once-great athletes, hanging around their respective sports just a little too long.

Yesterday’s beer for yesterday’s fans brought to you by yesterday’s… Oh. Yes… err… no… that would be unkind.

Note: …and then Ben goes and posts one of his best posts ever**** on Wednesday on the cancellation of the Ontario Beer Summit, a beer diversity conference in Toronto that was being organized by indefatigable Ren Navarro, due to lack of buy in from the target audience, aka the local craft brewers.

Katie is writing something… but what?

In the hot legal new department, Brendan tweeted about the Estate of Johnny Cash (yeah!) suing something called Cash Brewing Company Inc. (boo!) for ripping off the man in black’s trademark.  They even have a beer named “The Can in Black” which I think qualifies as a bastardly thing to do to the memory of old Johnny.

Dr. Christina Wade has written about on the connection and disconnections between alewives and witches in early modern England:

While we may never truly know if alewives were accused of witchcraft simply because they were alewives, it is clear that women who brewed were perhaps particularly vulnerable to the witch-hunts.

Not moving far in space but certainly in time, a brewer in Norfolk, England is pushing a beer barrel on a 140 mile trip. Why? To to raise money for the testicular cancer charity, It’s On The Ball. BBC Radio Norfolk has the story somewhere in this three hour broadcast at about the two hour and fifteen minute mark.

Stan’s Hop Queries digi-hop-zine came out this week and included this observation:

Peter Darby, who has been breeding hops in England for almost 40 years, once said this: “English flavor is like a chamber orchestra, the hops giving simultaneously the high notes and the bass notes. In comparison, a Czech beer is more like a full orchestra with much more breadth to the sound, and an American hop gives more of a dance band with more emphasis on volume and brass. The recent New Zealand hops (e.g. Nelson Sauvin) are like adding a voice to the instrumental music.”

I usually hate that sorta thing but I don’t fully in this case. Almost. Analogies? Really? So 2008. I really only mention it to remind you to sign up. That up there is just a tidbit and a bit of a blip at that on on the great information he periodically produces through the periodical. Did you know that there were 770 attendees at the 2020 American Hop Convention? Neither did I… until Stan told me so.

Stan also sent me an email asking my thoughts on this book, How NOT to start a F@ck!ng Brewery. I checked out the Amazon “Look Inside!” thingme and had flashbacks from writing the Al and Max book. So much dirty language. So much. 

And finally, sad reality in the form of far grimmer bit of news than anyone would want to have to face was shared on Wednesday with the shootings at MillerCoors in Milwaukee. Terrible news. Yes, be excellent to each other.

Next week, on to March. In the meantime for more beer news, check out Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast now as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. What else? What indeed.

*They also confirmed on their blog post that they didn’t run a blog, either.
**…and I never saw a case of beer either, Evan.
***A remarkably packed field competed for this award.
****Blogs are back, baby!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another, Alex Peel, Greenock Creek wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wag.

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

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

Note #1: quaff…

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

Note #2:  -able…

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

Result: Robin wins.

Yup:

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

Dr J noticed a person doing a good job:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Thursday Beer News Notes For The Week That The Bills Come

It was supposed to be fun. All fun. But now there is the reckoning. Not just in the sense of #Dryuary but #Skint-uary. #I-spent-all-I-had-uary. No wonder folk feel a pinch and stop splurging. Remember, though… pubs can be for cheap sustenance, too.  And if you are really stuck, here is a guide to getting the booze out even if you want to go out. And even if you get the booze out, just thank your lucky stars you aren’t deep into big US milk.  It’ll be #Dairy-uary next year if this keeps up. Fighting all this as a voice raging in the wilderness, the Pub Curmudgeon posted his warnings about state control of such matters – and included this very attractive poster that should really be placed by every child’s bed.

That being said, first off all hail June Hallworth of the Davenport Arms in Stockport, England, Still working at her family’s pub at 81. Her secret is a surprise:

Despite a life spent around alcohol, Hallworth doesn’t actually drink. “My husband used to ask: ‘Is there nothing you like the look of?’” Yet she has witnessed changing drinking habits: before, you’d struggle to get people out of the pub after last orders. “You’d have to shout at them to drink up. Now, people drink earlier. You can lock up more easily.”

Clearly, June is on team #Dryuary. Wonder if she also minds a mobile phone or a little foul language, too? And here’s something interesting and not unrelated – a map of England indicating where alcohol and drugs are laying people flat, kicking or otherwise. Entitled “Deaths from alcohol and drugs by Local Authority in England” – does it make sense? By which I mean, are there cultural, logical, socio-economic aspect to the information? Why is the lower left tippy-toe bit so much worse off than that other bit up there off the North Sea? Hmm… also not unrelated… a poem… on drinking… circa 1700:

His trembling hand scarce heaves his liquor in,
His nerves all crackle under parchment skin;
His guts from nature’s drudgery are freed,
And in his bowels salamanders breed…

So, at least it is not all new. Speaking of getting at the new, I am not entirely sure that I agree with Matt but I do support his right to argue for the place of what he calls beer media:*

Establishing strong lines of communication with both the beer media and the drinker is essential, but as pointed out in the first part of this series, engaging with these two sets of people are actually very different things. Yes, a press release is an essential tool for getting out snippets of information and keeping people informed about what your business is doing. However, there are more effective—and importantly, more meaningful—ways of engaging with the press.

One would hope that sort of thing does not lead to this sort of thing… Because that is really not that far off other sorts of things. Like how baijiu got where it is today. Baijiu you say?

Produced at a state-owned distillery in Moutai Town, in the scenic southwestern province of Guizhou, Kweichow Moutai is rich in symbolism. “Moutai was the favourite drink of Premier Zhou Enlai, Mao’s longtime number two… He made Moutai the baijiu served at all official state dinners.” Legend has it that Red Army soldiers used it to cleanse their feet on the Long March, while in 1972 Zhou Enlai and President Nixon were famously pictured toasting each other with it. “So it became the baijiu of China’s elite…”

To avoid these various pressures of lobbyists and state control, we need information and, honestly, if believes that one really all should buy the new edition of The World Atlas of Wine:

Robinson bears the main responsibility for this new edition, and her limpid, authoritative style is part of what makes the book so engaging. “At least half of the words on 45% of the pages about wine regions are completely new”, Robinson points out. As with earlier editions, there are excellent introductory sections on how grapes are grown and wines are made, plus wholly new sections on the roles of temperature, sunlight, water, money and climate change on winemaking. There are twenty-two new maps, with some countries (including Brazil, Cyprus and Uruguay) receiving their own pages for the first time.

One thing I have not considered adding to my lifestyle** is home delivery of booze. But now craft is in so it must be good. Yet… the rules for these sorts of things at least in in Toronto are a bit involved:

“When we heard foodora was an option for delivering our beer, we immediately got on board,” said Joey Seaman, head of business development at Bellwoods Brewery said in a release. “This is definitely the most convenient way of getting our beer into the fridges of our local Toronto customers that can’t easily make it to our Bellwoods Brewery bottle shops. Only Smart Serve-certified foodora riders will be delivering alcohol. If the order recipient doesn’t produce valid ID, appears intoxicated, or attempts to purchase for a minor or impaired individual, foodora says that the delivery will be cancelled, and a $20 restocking fee will be applied.

I love that a delivery dude is now empowered to assess the appearance of intoxication and charge a penalty. Like that’s going to happen.

Finally, a bit of the old science after a h/t to Stan:

Here’s a sentence that I never imagined writing in a paper “More generally, the two fly species preferred different #beer styles”. Yup, dear tax payers, we are using your money to investigate which fruit fly species prefers which beers! (And Trust me, this actually is useful!)

At least they gave the flies a selection of fine Belgian beers as part of the program. Oude Kriek was one of the offerings!

Oh, and here is @katzenbrau revealed!

Now that it is a new year, there is still no reason to forget to check in with Boak and Bailey’s on Saturdays, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast now as well! Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast.

*The other term used – “beer writers” – is too wide a label for this purpose, something that the guilds seem to be forgetting.
**Do I really need to say it?

Your Brief Beery Thursday News Notes For Boxing Day

Like you, I am tired. End of year tired. I was tired on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day offers no rest. It feels like the end of a university term and tomorrow we travel. 2019 was a good and busy year – and next week, in my fifty-seventh year, I enter my seventh decade on the planet. I need a rest. So I will be brief this week if only to see if I can get in another nap. Ray of B+B perhaps captured my mood with the tweeted image to the right accompanied by the one word “England.”

I had no idea that Dec 23rd was celebrated as Tibb’s Eve in Newfoundland. Fabulous. And Cookie gave tips on how to survive the 25th by being sensible on the 24th.

Jeff at Beervana had a good bit on style evolution. He uses the example of an oat ale from twenty years ago. Somewhere, I have similar notes on a hot IPA from the late 1980s. I am not sure if these illustrate a continuity of evolution or the fact that evolution is a cycle of organic unplanned diversification of traits followed by crisis out of which only a few of the diversifications survive followed by more organic unplanned diversification of traits.

Alistair at Fuggled is reviewing the year in a number of posts, including on his pale beer experiences of 2019.

@oldmudgie noted something endtimsey in the Morning Advertiser‘s round up of the year 2019 in craft. Seems like most popular craft brands in the UK are part of big industrial brewers’ portfolios. Only four years ago, it was something just starting to get confusing. Where will be be in another four?

Gary did us all a big favour with finding and exploring a reference to Labatt IPA from 1867 as yet uncovered in the English discussion:

I searched carefully and could not locate an English version, I believe none was prepared. The author was A.C.P. R. (Phillipe) Landry, whose biography may be read in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, here. He wrote the study when at Laval University in Quebec City. He was trained in chemistry and agronomy, and was later a noted federal politician, surviving to 1919. I’m not aware that his work has been previously cited in Canadian beer historiography. I have not read every single brewing history resource, so if anyone did raise Landry’s study, I’m happy to know of it.

What thrills me is how it fills a gap in my much suspected continuity of indigenous strong ale in eastern North America from the 1700s to today:

This creates a very useful stepping stone chronologically from NY state strong ales [edit: ie those brought in by the Loyalists] to Albany Ale (1830s) to Labatt (1860s) and Dominion White Label (1890s), to EP Taylor (1930s), to Bert Grant (1980s) and to today’s high test craft IPAs.

This is a different branch from the sequence that goes Albany Ale to Ballantine IPA to Sierra Nevada that Craig wrote about almost four years ago now. The idea that we can link the transmission of experience from generation to generation as part of general culture seems much more reasonable to me than anyone involved in first gen micro brewing having an “a-ha!” out of which the rest came.

And there was a hot blast of unhappiness aimed at the Cicerone server training program, much of which was unhappier than I thought warranted but much of which was also based on some obvious limitations. This is at the heart of objections: “…dropping coin on some private co. that clearly hoards prestige on specious grounds.” Plenty of people responded with the sort of authorized Party Central Communications Committee invocation of craft’s inherent right to silence we are sued to… or, stunningly, rooted for rote memorization as a intellectual pursuit. These, of course, are some of the most depressing things about good beer** and something I attribute to money or rather a lack of money in the complainant’s accounts. One does not bite the hand that feeds you.

My take is that it is always funny when folk compare it to law school* (as if the standards and candidates are equivalent) when the course and others like it isn’t formal education and not a source of new ideas like an academic process. It’s a social media propagated, non-accredited, proprietary, non-peer reviewed program that (given the intellectual property controls) sits outside of the marketplace of ideas. But it is a reasonably affordable and accessible certification for educating front of house staff to a proper standard. Which is good enough. And the basis for a good next step. Best new observation? Robyn’s:

Gonna give a slightly spicy take and add that it’s an industry cert that is both prohibitively expensive and made as a necessity for women and other marginalized folks to get in order to be taken with 1/10th of the seriousness a straight white male homebrewer gets by default.

Me? Until I see the published archive including the thesis of every graduate, I’m not going to look to the program for too many interesting new ideas. But whenever someone serves me a good beer with a reasonably knowledgeable comment, I welcome the skill and assume they are a graduate with some level in their back pocket.

Actually seriously, New Belgium’s owner-employees voted to sell to Kirin despite, as noted two weeks ago, the problems with a profitable authoritarian military branch in Myanmar being in the mix. As one report noted:

Activists are hoping the publicity surrounding the trial will increase the pressure on international businesses like Kirin to sever ties with the Myanmar military. “The profits are being pumped back into the military, helping to fund their operations,” said Mark Farmaner, director of the Burma Campaign UK, which has published a “Dirty List” of about 80 companies linked to the Myanmar military. “Kirin are literally helping to fund genocide.”

Remember: it’s about money. Strike another brewery off my list of interests.

Well, that was more than I intended. As we head toward a new year, don’t forget to check in with Boak and Bailey’s on Saturdays, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too.  I’m off to sing some Boxing Day carols and eat leftovers. Happy New Year to you all!

*Yet never oddly engineering of medicine…
**…not just my view…

The Last Thursday Beer News Notes Before The UK General Election

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bad Guinness pours. All day. All bad.

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

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

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

Martyn made a confession…

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

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

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

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

The DC Beer 2019 year in review post is up.

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