Category: Hops

The End Of July Heralds These Thursday Beery News Notes

August. It’s coming. Even though it’s the month of my road trip holiday, the first in two years, no one says “Yay! August!!” do they. It’s the last gasp, the slipping away of the sands of summer. The first hint of sweater weather. Darker beers to suit darker days. The crops are coming in, as the scene in Norfolk, England shows.

How is that barley crop doing… for those of you still drinking grain based beverages. Not well. Bryan R. tweeted a very graphic graphic, shown to the right. The US barley crop is collapsing under the heat. Canadian farmers planted 8.3 million acres of barley in 2021, up 9.7% encouraged by last year’s crop but it’s been dry and hot here, too. Northern Ireland looks to be in better shape. France looks fine, too. The rest of the western EU may be dealing with too much rain.

How’s the hops? Stan has issued his latest update on the hops markets, Hop Queries. And it contains an interest discussion on the effect of heat waves on the NW US crop this year:

“One variety that could cause issues is Cascade, as other growers have seen it hit hard.” This comes at a time that farmers have reduced Cascade acres because brewers cut back contracts. Brewers who are counting on buying fresh Cascade at below contract prices on the spot market, which has become standard operating procedure for many smaller breweries, maybe be unpleasantly surprised. (There will still be older Cascade around, but perhaps available for a good reason.) As is to be expected, the heat was hardest on “babies” (first-year plants) because they aren’t yet established. And, of course, the babies tend to be in-demand varieties, because growers are going to plant what brewers want. For instance, a field with Chinook will include only a few babies (replacing plants that grew old or became diseased), and Chinook stood up well to the heat.

Expected result? Less supply of the most desired varieties.

Lingering or revived pandemic blues got you down? Missing the many still delayed fests? Head east!

The 31st Qingdao International Beer Festival, one of the largest beer festivals in China, opened on Friday evening in the coastal city of Qingdao, East China’s Shandong province. The 24-day carnival has gathered more than 1,600 beers from over 40 countries and regions, according to the tourism commission of the Xihai’an (West Coast) New Area, where the festival is taking place. There will be over 400 activities covering international exchanges, economic and trade exhibitions, fashion shows, parades and performances during the festival.

These things are apparently a thing. Room to grow, too. Ten tents in 2022, I say!

Martyn wrote about the development of the water supply for brewing in the City of London in one of those pieces on history that does not make you yearn for the earliest of the good old days:

…despite the mythology that surrounds the river’s historic alleged unwholesomeness, brewers made use of its water to brew their beer for centuries: In 1509 the Bishop of Winchester (who owned considerable land alongside the river in Southwark – much of it occupied by brothels) and the Priory of St Mary Overies granted a license to the brewers of Southwark to have passage with their carts “from ye Borough of Southwark until the Themmys … to fetch water … to brew with,” so long as the brewers did not try to claim the passage as a highway, a license renewed by later bishops. (The Thames at Southwark is surprisingly shallow at low tide, and horse-drawn carts could be driven some way out into the stream to collect water in casks.)

Speaking of water, here as link to an interesting piece by BBC Scotland on the changing attitudes younger folk have towards alcohol. Apparently, 29% of youff are dry, up 10% over the last 15 years. If you can’t access the BBC Scotland site, here’s a brief intro. Bottom line – don’t be planning your business on an expanding beer market over the next few decades.

Elsewhere, the young folk are being less sensible as this report from France of the situation in Mexico explains:

Like all businesses in the capital — home to around nine million people — customers in the bars of Zona Rosa have their temperatures checked and are asked to use hand sanitizer. “People want to drink,” said bar owner Ernesto Castro. “The truth is that young people don’t care if they’re going to be infected or not. They want to party,” the 55-year-old said. “They feel that they’re not going to be infected and it’s a problem because the pandemic is still there and getting worse.” Last Friday the authorities raised the pandemic alert level in the capital, but did not impose new restrictions on economic or social activities.

Jenny Pfäfflin drew my attention to claims made about “natural beer“:

I’m not against alternative beers, but marketing it as more “natural” or “wholesome” than barley beer is a lot to unpack.

Seems similar to the idea of “sustainable” beer in Australia. The natural stuff is based on banana and honey and seems to be yet another weird beverage that flies the banner de jour, including the “heritage” banner. Note: “heritage” is the word for history where you leave out the bits you don’t like and rearrange what’s left to maximize comfort levels. In this case, it seems to be a tribute to craft’s heritage of banging things in to a pot and making up a back story to sell the stuff.

By the way, I never know how to react to a majoritarian/ privileged voices presenting a selection of minority/ under privileged voices. Curated protest? Appropriation of anti-appropriation? Seeing it a lot this year. But conversely, at least it is better than the bizarre branding we see in Poland: “White IPA Matters”!

The company has not responded to the allegations and complaints yet. Mr Mentzen, the owner of the brand, is a member of Poland’s right-wing Confederation party and has contested two elections – local elections in Poland’s Torun city in 2018 and for the European parliament in 2019 – both of which he lost, according to the Daily Mail.

Finally and perhaps related, a fairly sad observation to read:

I miss what my life was before beer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Beery News Notes For The Middle Of May 2021

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is that it? Barrel bottom scraped? A bit of a quiet week. Keep hunting. And I’ll learn again about all the good stuff that I missed on Saturday. And, speaking of which, please don’t forget to check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday  and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

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

If That Was April Is This Thursday’s Beery News Notes?

Boy, did that fly by. April 2021. Lots of real world activity in my life even in the time of the enhanced Ontario lockdown. Vaccine jabbed, moved a kid from one city to another, annual income taxes submitted, another birthday… So things are looking up. Certainly could be worse. I could have concerns about the Truman Brewery Shopping Mall development as illustrated above. I know nothing about it. But the Evening Standard of London, England reports:

…heritage groups, residents and existing business owners have said the new plans are not in keeping with the area, the work could obscure views of the landmark’s Grade II listed chimney and there will be less need for office space post pandemic. Developers Old Truman Brewery said there has been “extensive consultation” with the council, residents, local workers and businesses and is a “high quality design with appropriate uses.”

Speak of the old and the brewing related, there was a fair bit of interesting char related to this article on an archaeological dig in Pembrokeshire, Wales:

Some 2000 years after Neolithic occupation began on the site, a stream became a focus of activity, where hot stones were used to generate steam or hot water, which resulted in the formation of a burnt mound. Water contained in the wooden trough was heated by stones placed in an adjoining hearth. While this process is well understood, the purpose of such features remains a matter of ongoing debate, with use for cooking, craft activities, brewing and saunas all suggested. Over 40 such mounds were found along the pipeline, with radiocarbon dating at one site indicating reuse over a remarkably long timespan of over 1500 years.

“Bronze-age Welsh brewery, I’d say” according to Martyn and “…the size of the troughs matches the batch sizes for farmers brewing for their own household…” says Lars. Barry: “I used to survey them… to calculate potential number of uses based on fracture rate of the stone used and the size of the mound…” Plenty of neato.

He’s the thing… as you may appreciate I have little interest in the alcopops labeled as “vodka soda” or even “craft beer” or even even “IPA” so you likely can guess how little I care about small-dose cannabis beverages. But there was this money quote in this article in Forbes this week which was fairly blunt:

“This is not a medical product. This is an alternative for White Claw,” Kovler says plainly. “No one under 35 likes beer anymore and calories and hangovers are unattractive. For us, it’s an obvious, forward-thinking idea… there is so much opportunity.”

Has anyone mentioned that cannabis comes with a hangover called crippling anxiety for many? No. Thought not. Anyway, it this were to kill off White Claw I suppose it would be something. But it won’t. Just another product in a pretty can on the shelf that really doesn’t have much to do with beer which is fine as I am well over 35 and don’t plan changing that in the near or medium future.

The Beer Nut celebrated his 16th bloggaversary this week, channeling Beckett. Less focused with a piece in Pellicle by ATJ on smoked beer or perhaps just the one sort of smoked beer called rauchbier or… well, when you reference both Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings along with Prometheus, well, it all gets a bit… well… but it is important to note that Game of Thrones did actually make a beer:

This strong golden ale is co-fermented with pinot grigio and viognier grape juices, then bottle conditioned with Champagne yeast.

So this wasn’t that… as it were.

Stan issued another edition of Hop Queries this week and, as usual, shared some excellent insights into corners of the brewing trade few others write about – including this time stuff related to a “fuss that resulted from a few things Shaun Hill of Hill Farmstead Brewery said in New Zealand last month”:

“I’ve unfortunately had to brew with some of that Galaxy and destroyed batches of beer that tasted like pencil shavings because of it. At the point that something of highest quality is not being produced with transparency and things are being done for the sake of homogeneity, monoculture and, basically, just earning capital, things can get pretty far out of whack pretty quickly.”

Stan also shares the position of Hop Products Australia on the matter, contrasting the needs of the niche specialist brewers like Hill Farmstead and the general craft brewing trade stating a bit obliquely “consistency encourages a level of brand loyalty that forms the foundation for future growth.” I am not sure with whom I sympathize but Hill comes off as suggesting he should get first access to goods produced by others to literally cherry pick. Sounds like the folk who get to the grapes at the grocery store first, picking through the bunches leaving bruised fruit behind.

Lily Waite joined a trend I have noticed and referred to the craft beer trade as “we” describing an article on the craft beer trade… but she runs a brewery so it is all inside baseball. Good. And a great tl;dr ensued.

I found this an odd statement from the wine world:

No more Kiwi wine for me while New Zealand kowtows to China.

I presume Mr. Johnson is similarly concerned about the authoritarian tendencies of Viktor Mihály Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, home of Johnson’s beloved Tokaji. New Zealand has taken a path that is distinct from the battling one that Australia is taking in its trade war with China, a diplomatic row that includes malting barley:

Beijing hit Australian barley with a 73.6 per cent anti-dumping duty and a 6.9 per cent countervailing duty last May, in a move Canberra regards as politically motivated. Previously about half of Australia’s feed barley and 86 per cent of its malting barley, by value, was exported to China – but that trade has withered since Beijing’s taxes took effect.

Speaking of the politics of beverage alcohol, Chuck nailed it:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer trolled Donald Trump’s former adviser, Larry Kudlow, Sunday with a tweet mocking him for apparently failing to realize that all beer is “plant-based.” “Excited to be watching the Oscars with an ice cold plant-based beer. Thanks Joe Biden,” Schumer posted, along with a photo of himself sipping one in front of a TV.

Nice. That’s it for now. Enjoy your May Day. Wave a red flag and, while you are doing so, 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. 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.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The End and Beginning

Here we are. The end of March and the beginning of spring. Baseball is on the TV. Shorts and sweater weather. Excellent. I even planted lettuce seed and radish seed last weekend under row cover. Just a bit. I’m no idiot. Well, not that sort of idiot. Like many this year, it’s been a quiet week for good beer writing. Hopefully everyone else has been planting their first radishes, too. It’s also the end and beginning of the year of the plague and the second… year of the plague. Things are weird. Free beer for the vaccinated? Jab-based pub passports… why not? Me, I’m not doing too much soul searching or looking back but this by Martin serves as a milestone of sorts:

A year ago I walked into tourist Cambridge on the hottest day of the year so far. The tourists (typically two-thirds Japanese and Chinese) were completely absent. The Universities looked forlorn. Pubs were advertising their loo rolls, and the staff at Fopp treated me like their first visitor of the week. Perhaps I was.

Enough of that. In good news of 2021, The Guardian reported on an outcome which gives joy to any staff lawyer working for a municipality:

…after a dogged six-year campaign by locals, the Carlton Tavern will reopen next month – lockdown permitting – after the developers were ordered to rebuild the pub “brick by brick”, a ruling that pub campaigners say has set an extraordinary precedent. “People said it was impossible,” said Polly Robertson, a leading member of the Rebuild the Carlton Tavern campaign… “I just thought, no – I’m not going to let it lie.” 

Speaking of the pubs of England, Mudgy wrote about Cask v. Covid and picks a winner:

Nowadays, the pubs that don’t offer cask tend to fall into the categories of places that are effectively restaurants, down-at-heel boozers that only appeal to a local clientele, high-end trendy bars and some beer-focused places that think not selling cask puts across a modern image. Any pub seeking a wide appeal rather than just a captive market of locals will offer cask in some form. There is a huge amount of loyalty to the category that isn’t going to disappear any day soon. The day Wetherspoon’s start dropping cask from some of their pubs in England and Wales is the day you really need to start worrying about its future. It’s not just changing a brand on the bar, it’s making a statement about what kind of pub you aim to be.

To the northwest, a tale of high tech beer packaging tech in Iceland:

The equipment in the line comes from numerous parts of the world, including the U.S.-made end-of-line Econocorp E-2000 cartoning machine.  “We were led to Econocorp during conversations we had with other machine suppliers who are familiar with the kind of machinery that’s suitable for craft brewers,” says Ólafsson. “It’s just the right size machine for our production, and it’s very simple in design and, subsequently, in operation.”*

Me? I love everything from Econocorp. Elsewhere, Stan was good enough to send out his Hop Queries newsletter on Wednesday. Topics this month include “Up the downstream,” “Query of the month,” “UK hop exchange,” “Look & listen,” “At the Hop,” and “Hop profile: Nelson Sauvin” which confirm that, yes, this is a newsletter and, yes, even Stan can’t resist the hop pun. It’s also edition 4.11 which tells me he’s throwing a fifth anniversary party for the next one!  I won’t spoil the Danny and the Juniors reference but Stan does provide this:

In a Wall Street Journal review of “The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats” a writer gushes: “Beer lovers, too, might want to raise a mug to (David) Fairchild. A boozy night in a village inn buying rounds for Bohemian farmers resulted in Fairchild procuring the finest German hops, which he smuggled out of the country, allowing American brewers to vastly improve their sour, inferior beers.” That’s simply not true. Full stop. No farmers in the United States at the beginning of the 20th  century successfully managed to grow continental landrace hops, although English Fuggles did find a home in Oregon.

That is interesting. Formerly, I had a client in PEI who owned a former tavern which was formerly owned by a local brewer who, in his formative years, travelled to England and back, returning with hop rhizomes in pockets that he nurtured and kept damp that whole sailing voyage. The yard of the house was still rotten with them. Google maps shows it still there. Wonder what they are.

Jeff on government. As they saying goes, no one likes to see sausages made.

Also semi-officially, I like the idea of this notification from a bar as referenced on Reddit and Twitter and a bunch of other places. It would be useful for future reference in discussions with one’s children. I, for example, know some one which is or could be a grandmother who was also barred for life from a certain establishment two Saturdays in a row. Having better documentation and records retention principles may have helped.

Gary wrote a very interesting piece on an issue of Brewing Trade Review from 1962 including info on the iconic Toronto brewery set up by my hero E.P.Taylor in the early 1960s and still pumping out macro gak today!

The plant still exists, as Molson-Coors Beverage Co.’s main Canadian brewery. The tower-like, oblong-shape central building of dark brick with contrasting light frame atop, shown in the article, is still a leitmotif at the plant, on Carlingview Rd. in Etobicoke, Toronto, despite much expansion…

Ryuuhyou Draft. Japanese sea ice beer. Low in malt. Blue in colour. Speaking of weird Japanese beers…

“We will pitch the product as the standard beer for the new era.”

Ban-zoink! Elsewhere and much to the opposite, my personal hat supplier Katie M has written about her new business, Corto, with a deft dramatic touch:

“Did you know you can get down under the flooring?” our always-happy landlady beamed, on a final visit to sort the fire alarms. No. We did not know that. We’d agreed not to mention the storage issues for our sanity’s sake, clueless about how we were going to overcome the challenge of managing inventory in such a small space. Tom had only just stopped having nightmares about having to fill the entire ground floor with bathrooms. “The hatch is under the stairs, in the cupboard.”

DON’T GO IN THE BASEMENT!!! You’ll never believe what happens next.

By contrast, I found this portrait of startup Belgian brewers Antidoot a bit bizarre and even a bit disturbing, especially this bit:

A few months after the unpleasant Spring Release, Tom Jacobs read an article in Belgian newspaper De Standaard about a French winery in Bordeaux called Château Pétrus. Pétrus wines were highly coveted, partly for their quality (they are produced on an exceptional slope with blue clay soil) and partly for their scarcity (the vineyard covers only 11 hectares). A limited amount of Pétrus wine is released each year (the whole of Australia, for example, receives only 36 bottles). As a result, bottles of Pétrus were being purchased by speculators who resold them on the black market at huge markups, used as investments which which would grow in value with each passing year the wines aged. 

Weird. I think they invented pre-speculation. Just to be clear, Château Pétrus is one of the great wines of the world, producing vintages since the 1700s. It does not attract high prices on the secondary market. It attracts high prices on the primary market as this LCBO screen shot shows. Antidoot, on the other hand, is one startup brewery among thousands. One of the least reflective articles on a brewery I’ve ever read. The passage where the rocket scientists also invent compost is amazing. Spinal Tap meets beer. Sucker juice.

One final note: beer bottles prove that recycling is bullshit. Never knew that.

There. Spring. Hmm… why doesn’t my heart go dancing? And that waltz isn’t particularly… you know… entrancing? No desire… no ambition leads me… WTF!?! Oh yes – the second spring of a pandemic but, screw it, still spring. Get a beer, turn that soil and plant some seed! While performing your ag-art, 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.

*ZZZZzzzz….

The First Thursday Beery News Notes For A Brand Spanking New 2021

Well, here we go. One year gone and another year starts full of hope and promise… oh, and an insurrection in the US Capital. Nice. This is the year of the 18th anniversary of my beer blogging, too. That’s 31.56% of my life. What an utter waste. Not at all like the art of Joel Goodman, photographer of the image above as well as the partner photo of the same spot in Manchester one year before taken early on New Year’s Day 2020, a portion of which shows up here as a random header image. Lovely stuff and a great expression of where we are today.

Speaking of reality today… do you know about storm chips and the associated beer weather severity standard? Note I wrote “beer” and not “beers” as in much of Canada the plural of beer is beer. “Beers” means a selection of brands of beer. Twelve Molson Golden are twelve beer. I have my doubts about the particular application as there is no way Kings Co., PEI is in the 24 beer zone but Truro, NS is only at 12 beer. I have a pal from the little islands to the lower left who talked of 1970-80s storm stayed parties held in houses with bordered up windows lasting two or three days until the blizzard had gone past. As posted on the FB page for Storm Level Brewing.

First… err… second, I failed you all before Christmas by not mentioning Martyn’s post on the roots of Jamaica’s love of strong sweet porter:

Draught porter was sold from draught porter shops, in existence in Kingston, Jamaica from at least the Edwardian era; from casks in refreshment parlors that also sold fried fish and bread; and also by travelling salesmen, who would call out “draaf porter!” as they travelled on foot around rural villages in the Jamaican interior, carrying a large tin container with a spout, and cans in quart, pint, half-pint and gill (quarter-pint, pronounced “jill”) sizes, for serving. Jamaica also had itinerant ice-cream salesmen, who would sell a blend of “frisco”—ice-cream and “snow ball”, shaved ice flavored with fruit syrup, mixed together—and “a measure of draught porter for the older folks.”

I wonder if Sam Adams authorized either this guy’s keg delivery technique or his filming rights? The opportunities for injury are a bit boggling. Speaking of which, this non-beer entrepreneurial advice thread had one nugget I quite likes, somewhat related to the Great White Male Hero problem with the good beer narrative:

The biographies of tech unicorn founders won’t help you. Survivorship bias is terrible. For every one that succeeded thousands more failed.

After asking on Twitter if he should, Mark Solomon joined the beer blogging world with his new site Headed Up North on which he is going to share an Indigenous perspective:

There is a tradition in many Indigenous communities, and I have since learned in many other cultures, on winter solstice.  Many communities light a fire at sunset and keep the light going all night.  While winter solstice is known as the shortest day of the year, the one with the least amount of daylight, there is a refrain that it only gets brighter from here. Those fires are not to strike back at the darkness but to honour it and sit within it. In the Anishinaabe creation story there are songs and teachings about the nothingness at the beginning then came darkness.  Darkness is not nothing.  We learn a lot about ourselves and others in the darkness.

In our regular pandemic trade news corner this week, cellar sellers are most note worthy. Makes sense. We’ve seen it from place to place including now at Falling Rock Tap House in Denver:

“We weren’t going to make it if we just kept on doing what we were doing,” Black said.  Luckily, for the past 23 years, Black and his team have been slowly amassing a nest egg. “We have just probably a couple thousand bottles of beer that are vintage,” Black said.  The collection contains very rare, highly sought-after beers from big-name breweries around Denver and the US.  The most prized item is a 750ml bottle of a collaboration blended sour beer made in 2008 by The Lost Abbey Brewing Company called “Isabelle Proximus.” When the Cellar Sale list was posted, the lone bottle sold in one second for $400. 

Retired Martin has started to chronical the take away pubs from his new location in Sheffield:

…we’ve had some wonderful beer, alternating porters and bitters and crafty keg with impunity. The only problem is, cask must by law be enjoyed within 3 hours, which means drinking 4 pints between us in an evening out of Bass glasses (NBSS 3.5/4). That’s not a habit you can keep up forever.

Here’s a big of a helpful hint for the history buffs. If you look at this image from the Twitter feed of a sailing cargo firm you will see in the lower right an explanation of the various grades of tea. These grades appear in many 1700s and 1800s newspaper notices and may assist in determining if accompanying cargo such as beer are considered fancy goods – or nor.

Best historical slag of the week: “your bum is so heavy you can’t get up“! In another history fan news, Dr. Christina Wade at her site Braciatrix wrote about a Viking burial in Ireland in the first part of the release of her Phd thesis. I am hoping for more beer content so this as yet is a placeholder – but a useful one as she canvasses questions on the quality of evidence. I note this especially in the context of the Vikings in Canada and the archaeological evidence they left behind as described in this handy post from Ottawa Rewind, especially this bit:

Wow! Barrel piece…was this for wine? Again, where did they get the oak for this?

Careful readers will recall my 2011 post on the early European settlements in Newfoundland, including Vikings. I have not had any luck finding Viking brewing in my research but it is clear that beer and malt could well have been here before 1577, the earliest date I have so far. Were the Vikings masterless men happily brewing beer hundreds of years before the masterless men? Was there malt in that oak barrel?

Jonny the Ham* wrote in Pellicle about how Pellicle came to be. I like how it is illustrated by images from a particular journey:

The first and most important reason is that Pellicle, the concept, was originally meant to be a short photography zine taken on this trip which I would self publish—something of a passion project I had dreamt of for years, based on my love of travel and film photography. Secondly, I’m incredibly self-conscious about folk reading my innermost thoughts, so at the very least you can enjoy some nice photos.

His partner in crime – or at least publishing – Matt has written a bit in Beer 52 about his upcoming book “hopefully be called Modern British Beer” and the concept of a returning greater regionality in beer. I prefer this muchly to nationalism as a defining characteristic, if only given the reality that beer predates many borders and can reflect the more important factor of trade routes rather than anything like state regulation or even national culture.  I had just one truly tiny quibble about this bit:

Historically in the UK, regionality was a strong differentiator in beer styles and helped develop so much in terms of how we know and enjoy beers today. Take Burtonisation—for example—a process developed by brewers to mimic the mineral content of the Burton-upon-Trent water supply. The hard water of Burton contains higher levels of gypsum, which when used as a brewing process aid in the form of brewers salts will lower your worts pH. This is preferred by some brewers when producing pale, hoppy beer styles, as it aids hop absorption rates, and thus how they are showcased in the resulting beer. It’s no coincidence the story of IPA began here, in the Midlands. 

Quibble? The brewing with and drinking of the sulfurous waters of Burton predated the inclusion of masses of hops. Hops were first added by one clever brewer in the late 1600s at the Brimstone Alehouse to deal with those who had to deal with the, err, vomitous qualities of his local product ripe with regional… umm… vernacular. Which actually makes Matt’s point even a bit better.

Elsewhere, Dave Infante is “joining”** VinePair‬⁩ to cover the beer industry. Send him tips if you think it is a good idea to send other beer writers your tips. And speaking of speaking about beer, I liked this back and forth between Monsieur Noix du Biere and Matt. Are local voices too likely to be embedded or are the embedded ones the best perspective? Note also the second alt use of the word “indigenous” in today’s roundup. I prefer “vernacular “for this particular meaning but I don’t think anyone’s toes are aching.

Finally, two good posts this week from Boak and Bailey on, first, a surprising forerunner of an improved pub from the 1880s and, second, a helpful piece on the rare duck these days that is ESB. Looks like they spent their recent break from beer blogging over the holidays writing beer blog posts. Alistair is taking another sort of break this January but found time to post about a day dream he is having about another venerable beer, Trukker ur-Pils.

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

*The Hammer? The Hamster?
**…which could mean anything from being a freelancer to CEO.

Christmas Eve 2020’s Merry And Very Own Beery News Notes


1775tavern1

It’s gone a bit quiet, hasn’t it. Yes, yes… there’s lockdown after lockdown all around – but there’s also winter settling in and Yuletide, too. Watching the UK – French blockade news is disheartening but at least France 24 is reporting all the Scottish scallops now in Paris have been sold. So, while we can’t be like those folk above from 1775 – and while we can’t even be down the pub with Santa Sid – we can more quietly mark the season and the day as our beliefs guide us. Go make a snow angel or just watch the stars overheard if the clouds take a break. Or do whatever you want… MNSFW.  It’s too late anyway, December 23rd as I write this. Tibb’s Eve in Newfoundland. Too late to change what’s happening now. The arse is out of it. We have bought the gifts, loaded the larder, filled the buttery and started to drain the bottles. Not quite the new roaring ’20s yet still a welcome break from the lockdowns.

Lockdowns. Always the lockdowns. One report on the lockdown from the auslanders on the way out of the EU  comes from The Retired Man Named Martin who went out a shipping in Sheffield:

Well, there was no panic buying. Perhaps because Northerners are less reliant on brie than London, perhaps because Morrisons are better at stocking shelves than Waitrose, perhaps because there’s a choice of a dozen supermarkets within a mile radius.

No panic. Good. No one needs that. Similarly – but a word that beer nerds like to deny – one of the most important in brewing is also on the go. Consolidation.  As Cookie noted, it is interesting then to read news of CAMRA welcoming one particular deal:

The Campaign for Real Ale said: “While we still need to see the detail of this deal, at first glance it appears a positive move. We hope this means that Marston’s will continue to run the pubs as beloved locals, securing their future for the communities that use them and the people they employ.” Findlay pledged to continue with Brains beers and said its tenanted tied pubs would now be able to stock the ales made by the Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company as well.

1,300 jobs saved. Maybe. Prepare ye for the top trend of Q1-Q3 2021. Consolidations are coming just as they always have after bottom is hit. Speaking of saving the day, I had no idea that there was intra-Germanic regulation of beer branding:

The consumer protection agency from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has now banned a beer called Colonia, produced by a Frankfurt brewery, from being sold in NRW, where Cologne is situated. The State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection (LANUV) said the Frankfurt beer’s name and label could lead consumers to think they were buying Kölsch… The word Colonia harks back to the Latin name of the Roman colony from which the city developed, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium… The term “Kölsch” has a protected geographical indication (PGI) within the European Union, meaning that a beer can be sold under that name only if it is brewed within 50 kilometres (30 miles) of the city of Cologne.

The Beer Nut is not panicking either in this time of second or third wave – and gave a lesson to those unappointed and slightly sad mere beer experts who know not how to cram so much opinion, information and joy into just one paragraph:

Blackest of the black; shiny with a deep tan head, it looks like it promises a good time. The aroma is fairly mild, but gives you all the cocoa you could want from a porter. The flavour is where it really excels. Well, flavour and mouthfeel: the two are inextricably linked. Big and creamy, and a little chewy is how it rolls; cakey, gooey. On that texture rides dark chocolate and liquorice for two kinds of sweetshop bitterness: a rich coffee roast and then a fruity plum pudding thing at the end. It’s sumptuous, and one of those strong dark jobs that makes you wonder why breweries even bother with barrel ageing. More biggity-big no-gimmick porters please!

Speaking of excellence, Martyn noted one “ancient brewing” story that was 67% less full of lies – and utter lies – with only passing reference to Dog Fish Head and the Hymn to Ninkasi, both well trod recourses to the shortcutter, in favour of more interesting info:

The location suggests the Natufians—a hunter-gatherer group that lived along the eastern Mediterranean from 15,000 to 11,000 years ago—used beer in honoring the dead. The beer’s age—between 13,700 and 11,700 years old—is a surprise. The beverage is roughly as old as the oldest Natufian bread, from between 14,600 and 11,600 years ago, discovered at a nearby site in Jordan.

Also thinking historically-wise, Gary posted a double this week, both on the question of English Christmas ales. One about Hallett and Abbey’s version from 160 years ago and, then, the associations between the day and the beer:

The Belgians and northern French took in general to branding beer for Christmas especially after World War II. It was a progenitor to the current widespread practice by craft brewers to label beers for the Season. Anchor Brewery’s annual Christmas Ale was influential here. Its beer is spiced, a different formula each year, reflecting that part of the Christmas beer tradition. Christmas ale was never, in other words, a fixed style or type of beer. At best it might mean something special made available at Christmas. Sussex-based Harvey’s award-winning Christmas Ale, a barley wine (old Burton type), is an outstanding current example in the UK.

Never knew that. And speaking of things I had never heard of until just now, Stan released his latest Hop Queries monthly newsletter this week full of stats and non-stats sharing mucho including this about “dip hopping”:

So what do we know? Kirin began using the process in 2012 for its Grand Kirin beers. Basically, brewers there make a slurry by steeping hops for about an hour at temperatures (150-170° F) lower than found in conventional whirlpooling, then add the slurry into cooled wort before pitching yeast. Kirin found that the resulting beers contained as much linalool as dry hopped beers but less myrcene (which may mask fruity aromas associated with linalool and other oxygenated compounds). This also reduced production of 2M3MB (an onion-like off flavor).

Onion an off flavour? Don’t tell my Yuletide roasts. All in moderation, of course. And one last note. Stay within your means. Even Jude Law, the other lesser Leonardo DiCaprio, has issues with focusing on managing the load. Govern yourselves accordingly. Ho. Ho. And… ho.

There. Soon 2020 will be gone. Like I said about 1987. That one sucked. Let’s see how the last week of 2020 plays out but Trump’s going, we may now be past peak beer writer editor fawning and the vaccine is well on the way. Can’t be all bad. And remember that for more good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  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 have a look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (who advocates for a blog renaissance this week… though it is funny that he says “paid=good”… just means obedient far too often.)  And remember BeerEdge, too. Go! Merry Christmas all you all. See you on New Year’s Eve.

The Last Autumnal Thursday And Its Beery News Notes

I have been burning off unused holidays built up over the months of the early times, back when there were no days or even hours to be had. This week, I motored 20 km west, over to MacKinnon Brothers to pick up gifty swag and chatted briefly about business with brother Dan, the brother who joined the 1780 challenge and pretendy stabbed the rebellious Craig for the camera. They brew on the lands the family has farmed since the 1780s when they first arrived as Anglo-American Loyalist refugees.  The site has got to be one of the most attractive in all of brewing-dom, especially with the new barn space upgrades Dan showed me and that just slightly less new build cathedral-like reception building. Gorgeous. More images below.

 

 

 

 

Other than that, it has been a quiet week in my corner of the universe. Some Tuesdays I open up my folder for the weekly round up and find thirty things to consider. Others, not so much. Let’s see what’s up? First up, our local government run store started and stopped a ill-considered deal with Skip The Dishes, a meal delivery service, providing a way for prepared food and food-like objects to be delivered to Ontarians with some hootch. Not no more – and with good reason:

Through the partnership, customers could have ordered alcohol from the SkipTheDishes app and website. The partnership caused consternation in the restaurant and bar industry, which has been relying in part on the sale of alcohol through takeout and delivery to pay its bills. “Following direction from the Ontario Government, effective end of day today, LCBO’s partnership with SkipTheDishes is paused until further notice,” the LCBO said in a statement on Sunday.

In other offices elsewhere, folk are more successfully branching out to keep the lights on. I have to say, I have no idea who the market is for the Cicerone Explore Beer which, for $25 gets you a digital badge… but not decoder ring.  The next level up, the Certified Beer Server program is simple enough for anyone needing such things. Also – and this one really does me in – one of those blogs that pretends it’s a magazine, Hop Culture, has sold. Fruit juice oriented stuff. Scan my site. Never referenced it.  Often times, these sales are for the IP to the name or the URL  rights so go figure.

Much more substantive is the piece in this week’s Pellicle (of which I have to admit I am a low-mid-level patron, my only such dalliance), a neato exploration of the Neomexicanus hop of New Mexico which Stan has written of some years ago now:

I’m stunned by this revelation. The hop bines I’m looking at—while not at their most majestic—are very much viable and alive. It seems like a miracle. For other varieties, surely such water deprivation would leave nothing but a shrivelled brown mess? “If I had Chinook or Cascade and had the same situation where I lost water, they would probably die” Brain agrees. As we climb back into the Mule, I’m bristling with excitement for what I’ve just seen; hops deprived of water for many weeks that are alive and well.

[Note to self: I need to search the Pellicle sight to see how many things have “stunned” its cadre of authors but “bristling” might be a new one.]

And as for the man who will never sell*, The Beer Nut has launched and investigation into the clone beers of grocer Aldi and finds the relationship is only branding-deep:

What a jape! What an absolute wheeze! When discount supermarket Aldi brought out obvious knock-offs of BrewDog’s flagship beers Punk IPA and Elvis Juice, the Scottish brewer retaliated with ALD IPA, appropriating the German chain’s company livery. Suspiciously soon afterwards, Aldi agreed to begin stocking ALD alongside their specially-commissioned BrewDog doppelgangers, Anti-Establishment IPA and Memphis Blvd. It seemed like a perfect opportunity for some blind-taste fun, to find out if Aldi really can go toe-to-toe with a brewery of BrewDog’s stature. Of course, the recipes of Anti-Establishment and ALD have nothing at all in common with each other, and the beers look very different: one a russet amber, the other purest spun gold.

The question of whether Scotch eggs are a “substantial meal” has popped up again and again given England’s pandemic rules. Law. This story about the situation at the establishment Number 29, in Burnham Market, Norfolk illustrates how frustrating such as vague standard is for all involved:

Mr Roberts, 62, says he refused the two ‘black-booted bouncers’ entry and after a confrontation escorted them off his premises. The former fireman said: ‘They said they wanted to come in but I said they did not have the right of entry….” He added: “I took the commercial decision to offer a free Scotch egg, either with chips or with a salad, to anyone who wanted a drink. I’d call that a meal. Two government ministers have said a Scotch egg is a substantial meal. That’s good enough for me.”

More beer law! I hear it’s what the cool kids want. Wine Enthusiast has published an article on one of craft’s dirty secrets, the commonly sticky hands even when the goods are intangible:

Palfreyman, the attorney who works with breweries on trademark issues, says the key to avoid problems is “common sense.” Think before you print or post, he says. Ask for input from attorneys, or someone from outside of the company first. Breweries that push these boundaries “might find something funny about what they are doing, or think it’s an homage,” he says, but they’ll find that corporations that own and defend their trademarks “are humorless.”

Ha ha. So funny. Me make money off your skill and efforts. Not unrelated, I like the thinking being applied in Thailand as they consider the advertising taxation of no-alcohol beer:

Beer companies could have one non-alcoholic product advertised legally at the same time as an alcoholic product creating a link in the audience’s mind to the product that are restricted from advertising.

Conversion. That’s what lawyers call these sorts of cheater pants allegations! Or appropriation. Or… something… not that different from swiping the intellectual property of another if you think about it. And in Kenya, the rules about trying to control the image on embossed beer bottles are being considered in court:

Minor players have over the years been pointing fingers at East African Breweries Limited (EABL) for engraving this type of bottle with its trademark bottling out rivals. This has led to long-winding legal battle on whether EABL is legally allowed to do so. In January this year, High Court Judge Grace Nzioka ruled that EABL had the right to collect and package their beer brands in their embossed bottles pending determination of a case in which six beer distributors affiliated to Keroche Breweries had challenged the move.

Finally, some bad direct adulteration news out of Brazil for at least three fans of craft beer:

A third person has died in Brazil of suspected poisoning from a batch of craft beer contaminated with a toxic chemical used in antifreeze and other products, police in the state of Minas Gerais said on Thursday… Traces of the sweet-tasting solvent were found in the water tank used by the Backer brewery, whose craft beers have won international prizes and are widely available in Brazil.

Not good. But that’s it for the week so you can cogitate your knogging on that for the next seven days. As always, for more good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter (except last week because she is busy with opening her new bar business), The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Go!

*Sell out… I meant to write sell out… really…

Your Final Thursday Beery News Notes For November 2020

Time flies when you are having fun. I’ve likely started more than one of these posts with that quip since this all began, haven’t I. Probably should have my head examined. Except. I have. Twice this week. Drove a pleasant drive to an hour and a half to a sleepy rural district hospital for one sort of probing on Monday and another sort nearer by this week. Nothing serious.* Poking and prodding. The joys of middle age with the next stage coming into view. If I get a third test this week, perhaps I might be given a top hat like the gent above. The image from the West Sussex Archives triggered a lot of interesting chat about the nature of their outfits and that clay pipe but it’s the beer mugs that are the show stopper. Are they pints or quarts? I have one smaller version, a 1940’s green Wedgewood which sits proudly on a shelf.

Speaking of which, the distinctions and differences between a Czech dimpled mug and an English dimpled mug were excellently explored this week by Casket Beer:

Yes. The distinction between these two glasses matters based on history and tradition. Aside from the subtle differences in design, they come from different places and have been vessels for different styles of beer. Further, getting it right adds to our experience when we drink, which is important for breweries in today’s market.

Me, I prefer to get some things wrong and take pleasure in how well they work out – like having IPA in a weissebier glass. Or in a frozen one. Speaking of being one’s own master in small matters, Matthew L wrote about the state of his personal nation as another lockdown struck from a consumer’s point of view:

The final straw for me was the aforementioned Tier 3 announcement.  All pubs not serving a “substantial meal” were to close.  That kiboshed most of my typical weekend.  I contemplated walking to Spoons, or any of the nearby places that do food, sitting on my own with a pizza and 2 pints, then going home (how many “substantial meals” can anyone consume in one day).  Any fun I’d have just wasn’t worth the effort on top of everything else I’d have to do.

Also from one consumer’s point of view comes this post from Kirsty of Lady Sinks the Booze on the moments she has missed, including missing the train:

Since getting a promotion and a pay rise I have done what many working class people do and tried desperately to avoid working class people. Instead of the bus (albeit the wifi enabled fancy express bus with nightclub style lighting) I now get the train, and pay over a ton for a monthly season ticket. Of course since privatisation there are three different trains home and because I’m tight I will never pay extra to get a different company’s train if I miss mine. Hence I will spend £9 on beer, to save the £5.60 train fare. 

Vaccines soon. That’s what I’m thinking. Others too – rather than pretending that owning a brewery means you know more than public health officials, Kenya‘s Tusker is sharing the safety message:

Speaking on the campaign, EABL Head of Beer Marketing, Ann Joy Muhoro, said, “Tusker believes that Kenyans can enjoy their favourite drink with friends in a safe and responsible manner, in line with the set protocols. That is why through the “dundaing” campaign, we are encouraging our consumers to adhere to the set health protocols, as they enjoy their Tuskerat home or at a bar.”

Historically-wise, Bailey and Boak studied the introduction of the jukebox into the UK pub and shared their findings:

This turns out to be surprisingly easy to pin down thanks to the novelty value of these electronic music boxes which guaranteed them press coverage. We can say, with some certainty, that the first pub jukeboxes arrived in Britain in the late 1940s. Even before that date, though, the term ‘jukebox’ or ‘juke-box’ was familiar to British people through reportage from the US.

Best “political tweet with a side of beer” of the week. Second best “political tweet with a side of beer” of the week. Best tweek of the week:

Currently slightly obsessed with TGL-7764, the East German standard for beer. It‘s basically a beer style guideline with some brewing instructions. Only thing I struggle with is colour, though, it‘s provided in NFE and „Einheiten nach Brand“ and I have no idea what these are.

And then he followed up with a link to the TGL-7764. Neato. Similarly mucho neato, Stan wrote about the 107 words to describe hops but neither “twiggy” nor “lawnmower driven into a weedy ditch” appear so I am not sure I can give it all much credit. But that’s just me.

In China, new fangled hydrogen fueled trucks are being used to deliver beer:

The Asian subsidiary of beverage giant Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, meanwhile, added four hydrogen fuel-cell trucks to its fleet, the company announced Sept. 28. It plans to deliver beer using the trucks, making China the first nation where the company has deployed such vehicles for beer shipments.

Martyn found an excellent  cartoon from 32 years ago, framing the thoughts from the time about low and no alcohol beer. I have to say I am of the same mind. It can lead to things, that sort of thing. Just this week I watched as two fully grown adults who have always appeared to have a complete set of marbles going on about the wonders of sparking water. Which they seem to be paying money for. Money they earn. With effort.

My thoughts, as always were, “historic beer style” is an oxymoron. “Style” is a modern international construct, a form to which brewers brew. As Ron has effectively proven, forms of beer in the past were brewed to brew house standards to meet local market expectations. Different names for similar things and similar names for different things were far too common.** Andreas Krennmair*** explored both the oxy and the moron in his post this week about Dampfbier which has that added excitement of relating to a variant of “steam” – a word so many want to own but never seem to understand:

The problem here is… if a beer style’s origin story sounds too good to be true, it probably is not actually rooted in history. Naive me would simply ask why other beers like Weißbier brewed with wheat malt wouldn’t be called the same name because supposedly, the yeast would ferment as vigorous. When we actually look at historic sources though, an entirely different picture is unveiled…

And lastly, Matty C. had an article published this week on a topic near and dear to my heart – the disutility of all the artsy fartsy craft beer cans:

Important stuff like beer style and ABV is too often – in my opinion – printed in a tiny font to make space for more artwork, or isn’t even featured on the front of a can at all. And while this isn’t an issue for most hardened beer fans, for those who exist outside of beer fandom’s bubble (and let’s be honest with ourselves here, that’s most people) it’s actually making it more difficult for people to differentiate between brands. The result of this? Consumers turning back to old, faithful brands – probably owned by big multinational corporations – and turning away from craft beer. 

The phrase I shared was “barfing gumball machine” for these things. Much other similarly thoughtful comment was shared.

Done! Soon – December!!! Meantime, don’t forget to read your weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, 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, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Go!

*Weirder and weirder I am. Seems I have a fully formed molar deep set up into my cheek bone. It is not doing anything. Just sitting there. Thanks for paying your taxes so that could be confirmed.
**I linked it up there! Why are you looking here, too?
***Pour le double!!!!

The Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week Before The Neighbour’s Holiday Season Begins

A quiet week. Not surprising in mid-November, I suppose. Being next to the United States and, even more to the point, being within the FM broadcast range of local US based heavy metal FM radio station, it is difficult not to be aware that something is starting. Their unending holiday season is upon us. In Canada, the holiday season is really, say, December 10th… maybe… until the last of the bought-once-annually Grand Marnier is shaken into a coffee sometime in early January. Weeks, not months. In the US, the future is now. Which means we have turkey and beer pairing blurts clogging up the news. Do these really affect beer sales… or turkey sales for that matter? Get back to me on that.

What’s really going on? Max got out and about. That’s nice. And real. While we are locked down in one way or another, it’s good to find some outdoors. I’ve taken up staring at the sky at night myself. I have really fallen for Epsilon Lyrae myself, which makes sense for a Canadian seeing as it is a double double. I even bought a 20x to 60x scope, the sort of thing also used to bird watch or be a creepy neighbour. The Pleiades alone at 20X are worth the price of admission. And you can drink a beer as you gawk. If you have to. Just sayin’.

Whatever you are experiencing, it could be worse. You could be caught up in the Tomsk Beer Company scandal in Siberia:

The Investigative Committee said earlier that Ivan Klyain is suspected of using his official post to illegally prevent the construction of a building in 2016-2017 on territory close to the Tomsk Beer company, which he controls. The 61-year-old Klyain has served as the mayor of Tomsk since 2013. Before being appointed to the post, he had been the director-general of the Tomsk Beer company, one of the largest breweries in the region, since 1994. After becoming mayor, his wife was elected by Tomsk Beer’s board of directors as the facility’s director-general.

Bad. Bad bad. But the good news is that beer in stadiums is coming back in Tatarstan!

Elsewhere and for the great indoorsmen amongst us, Pete Brown and a few others commented on the  four episode BBC2 TV broadcast Saving Britain’s Pubs hosted by someone named Tom Kerridge. Now, if we are lucky this will show up as a cheap filler on Sunday afternoon on PBS or TVO sometime in 2023 so I have time. Maybe. Rather than a documentary followed by panel format on UK licensing policy, it actually sounds like just a restaurant refit sorta show that pre-dates, you know, the pandemic:

If there’s a common theme running through all four pubs in the series, it’s that the people running them need to add a keener, shrewder business eye to the the long list of talents they already display in running pubs that are popular but not profitable. The things a pub needs to do to survive may not always got down well with the regulars: The first thing Tom tells the Prince Albert to do is put up the beer prices. The domino players nursing one beer all night in the Golden Anchor are shifted to the back room to make way for the craft beer-drinking hipsters who are gentrifying the area.

Yeah, get those happy regulars the hell out of here! But… remember people shifting spots in a bar? Remember people in bars? 2019 was great, wasn’t it? Maybe it’s really just to be taken as a show about the before times. But talking about beer has a notoriously poor track record when it comes to TV… and radio… and newspapers… and so Mudgie also shared his thoughts:

People still like the idea of pubs in theory, but in practice they visit them less and less. Of course it is still possible to do well in a declining market, but that should not be allowed to obscure the wider picture. By and large, the reason so many pubs have closed is not because they haven’t been run as well as they could have been. And it was disappointing, if not entirely surprising, that an entire hour discussing the decline of the pub trade passed by without a single mention of the legendary Elephant in the Room…

Good point. There was a slow death well underway before the more rapid form came along. Speaking of which and on the smaller small screen… is it just me or did Craft Beer Web Event replace Beer e-Publication Editor** as the odd new thing of 2020? Seems like that to me based on the barrage of beery things to watch on line for the last week or two’s worth of Thursdays to Sundays. Not that I watched any. It’s getting like those 47 global beer awards things. Too Organic, if you know what I mean.*** I felt particularly badly seeing as two of my own co-authors were presenting at two of these web events – but they spoke at the same time, I simply could not in good conscience choose one over the other.

Speaking of webby things podcasts, Beer with Ben* finds someone called Ben with interesting things to say about beer and its beginnings:

I’m back for a second series and this time we will be taking a journey through history, as well as beer. 2020 will see us finding out how our earliest counterparts would have made those first brews, look to the local environment to forage and find some of the ingredients and, of course, see if it’s possible to do it ourselves.

Excellent. That sounds really real and not in decline even if likely… organic.***

And speaking of odd jobs sort of in beer, I have no idea what this is if it is not a overly fancified web intern in the ABev macro construct. Consider these strange but assigned tasks:

– Work cross-functionally to plan and manage the Organic Social content calendar which supports key activations across both brand and eCommerce.
– Manage the content creation process for both Paid and Organic Social, from brief to delivery.
– Upload and schedule Organic Social content.

Caught up with excitement by the prospect? Me neither. Nice to know the opposite of “paid” is “organic” which is perhaps a comment on what is left of you and your span of years when you go unpaid too long.

Somewhat to the right on the scale of things that are cryptic was ATJ in Pellicle wandering on and about lagers this week. I wonder if he might benefit from a backyard telescope. The over ripe prose is pungent:

I am both mystified and enthralled whenever I think of the deep sleep of lagering, the process that brings the raw ingredients of the beer into a sharper focus. Enchantment touches me like a spell when I consider the steampunk-like nature of some of the brewing techniques such as lautering and decoction mashing. Then, as if conjured up by some celestial agent, there is the aristocratic elegance of noble hops, which, when writing its entry for the Oxford Companion to Beer, I was surprised to discover that it was a marketing term from the 1970s instead of something from the days of Hansel and Gretel.

Heavens! All very prog. Fortunately, sensible Stan sent around his hops newsletter with it’s dedication to a plain speaking, staid and common sense outlook when it comes to hops – with an update on Hopfen and Stopfen:

The verb stopfen has a slightly different meaning. It is used when repairing clothes or to be more precise darning socks. But more importantly it’s the same word (potentially even etymologically) as to stuff. Whether you want to say one stuffs a pillow with feathers or food into oneself, the word stopfen can always be applied. Hopfenstopfen is therefore the act of stuffing beer with hops, which I guess is an even more fitting term now with all the hazy beers around.

Not at all organic, that. Pretty real, too.

That’s it. As I say, a quiet week. But don’t forget to read your weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (this week Jordan speaks warmly of Tom Arnold) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  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 have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Go!

*h/t to Merryn. The podcast comes in multiples of series which is odd as Ben told me they come in multiples of seasons.  Note: Ben’s Beer Blog is not associated with Beer with Ben. 
**I actually saw some folk fawning over their favourtie best beer writing editors the other day. Tres Organique!
***Wait for it!