Industry Marketing – Page 5

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!

The Thursday Beery News Notes For When Craft Gets Redefined Again!

Well, it really hasn’t been redefined – by it may as well have been. Tom noticed this image this week:

In this supermarket, cases of hard seltzer dominate the floor of its refrigerated beer aisle.

Except it isn’t really just hard seltzer. It’s a cheap ass canned booze called Truly made and sold by the promoters at Sam Adams beer, right? Moo. Lah. Well, someone has to have money, right? Not you, of course. You believe there’s no money in craft. I didn’t write my comment back as any sort of serious prediction but if the day comes that the US Brewers Association allow this stuff as “craft” well you heard it here first.

What else is going on that’s a bit unsettling? I find this meme* about your dream job in beer odd. First, when did all the writing about beer become so trade side? Who the hell wants to actually work in beer? Beer is about the sitting and the not working. (Maybe not really paying attention seems to be part of the gig these days.) My dream job in craft beer? Good pay plus high health and safety standards along with job protection. And a union card. Like that is ever going to happen.

Josh Rubin** has a story in The Star on troubles at Ontario’s brewery former monopoly’s retail side:

Molson Coors and Labatt each own roughly half of TBS, with Sleeman Breweries owning a small percentage. In 2016 under pressure from the provincial government, TBS offered independent craft breweries “ownership” stakes without financial obligations, and a place on the board. Jeff Carefoote, owner of Toronto’s Amsterdam Brewery, which is a TBS “owner,” said he hadn’t previously seen a shortfall. “I certainly haven’t seen anything like this since we’ve been owners,” said Carefoote.

There is a suggestion that the retail operation might go away. The main reason E.P. Taylor configured it the way it is now, however, was on the wholesale side. He considered breweries competing on things like trucking costs waste. Smart guy. There’s a dream job in beer I want. I want to be E.P. Taylor.

“Wow. Secrets of the maltsters. c1911.”

In the U.S. of A., C.B.S has done some investigatory investigations on why booze costs a lot:

The first stop: a North Dakota barley farm that has been operated by state native Doyle Lentz’ family for over a century. The grain harvested from the cold northern plains could eventually make its way into a pint of beer or a glass of whiskey. “I make about a penny a beer,” Lentz said. He said it was about the same as what his grandfather made during his time running the farm. “I’m pretty sure if your cost of your alcohol’s going up – probably not happening out here in North Dakota too much,” he said.

Damn. I was hoping to blame the farmers. Lew rightly points out the research seemed to be a bit limited: “[a]ccording to the people in the supply chain, NO ONE is making more money off the huge increases in the cost of a drink at a bar.” Someone is making money. It might be disbursed but follow a few drinks owners and upper staff on Facebook and you get to see the holiday homes you paid for.

Speaking of being co-opted for the benefits of the ownership class, did you notice this floating around social media this week? Apparently BrewDog wants you to go neaten up their shelf displays as if you care? I’d rather stick nails in my eyes that do volunteer shelf stacking like some cheese eating school boy*** just so the brewer can’t require the distributor doesn’t pay for this part of the supply chain job. BrewSuckers.

I couldn’t care less about anti-health advocacy on behalf of brewers… but Martyn does so here is the link.

Jeff wrote about the importance of branding but I am not sure I agree:

Branding and marketing is hard. It requires a global perspective, one that touches on sales, marketing, product development, distribution, packaging—really, it touches every part of a brewery. Done properly, it becomes an integrative exercise that brings these pieces together. The problem is that most breweries don’t want to devote the time to such a big project, and so things proceed piecemeal, and the brand develops in a shaggy dog fashion with no strategic purpose.

See, to me the 10,000 brewery world means that thinking globally is what makes you a BrewSucker. Beer is now becoming like the local bakery. You go there because it’s good. One reason beer and food pairing, that darling of a decade ago, failed so miserably is those paid PR folk pushing it were trying to analogize to Michelin star restaurants. It isn’t. It aimed to high. But a good neighbourhood bakery? Good beer can be that. And branding won’t help if the cheese scones aren’t any good or cost too much.

Mudgie wrote in praise of boring brown beer in support of a few observations by John Keeling like this interesting one:

He also makes the important point that “CAMRA was formed to save the great beer that was being brewed and not to get people to brew great beer.” It’s often claimed today that CAMRA’s primary objective was increasing choice, but in fact this represents an attempt to rewrite history. In the early days, this was definitely not the case. Real ale was felt to be under threat, and so the core purpose was a preservationist one, to champion the beers that were already in existence, encourage people to drink them and spread the word about where they could be found.

Tradition! So sayeth Topol. Speaking of which, Matt was a bit unhappy on the idea of “beer that tastes like beer” but beer that tastes like beer is a valid concept. My point being that “beer that does not taste like beer” might also be a valid concept, just one for others. Not me. Truly.

My hero Jancis was writing about sustainability and wine and noted one particular culprit in this tweet:

Wine producers could make MASSIVE impact on carbon emissions if we communicators could successfully re-educate consumers about glass bottles. Handful of international wine writers travelling by train and boat ain’t going to do it alas…

What is the evil unsustainable practice in craft? (You know, other than the pay, the health and safety standards and the lack of union cards.) I’d say trucking. The idea that we need west coast North American beer trucked across the continent to compete with good local product is weird. Big craft? Big evil craft.

Jordan, who wrote me just today in realtime of a less than charming cider that tasted like pig shit, has again proven the joys of coming into a point in life with a comfortable income and written freely about Toronto’s Rorschach Brewing, unburdened by thoughts of risks he might pose to future gigs, unshackled by obligations past:

It seems to me an interesting reversal of fortune for the Rorschach brand. At the time of launch, the lineup of beers all drew their names from the world of psychological concept. The Rorschach inkblot test itself is designed to reflect the patient’s state of mind; the kind of thing a Hollywood movie might use as signification for diagnosis. The names were in some cases quite clever. Take Icarus Complex: A Double IPA with Kiwi and Lactose, named for a condition in which spiritual ambition is thwarted by a personal limitation. Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? I don’t think much about Browning these days, unless it’s Maillard.

Again with the Maillard! BANE!!!! Otherwise, another excellent outing.

A tankard from Alchester (43-200 CE).

And finally, Lars found a lady in Chuvashia, Russia with yet another unique strain of brewing yeast and spoke of his work:

Just normal searching. Helps to know the Russian for “village beer”. Push absolutely every contact you have, over and over and over, until eventually someone helps you out. In this case, colleagues at work, and the Chuvashians I visited in 2017.

Neato. I went a hour to my east today to a cafe to drink my favourite beer, Bobo, and the brewer walked in. Sorta the same thing. Right? Sorta.

Well, that is enough for me. For more, 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.

*pronounced “me me” as that’s what they really are all about.
**aka Canada’s Josh Rubin.
***…Gotta get up and take on that world…“

Your Quieter Mid-September Thursday Beer News Update

Quieter? Why yes,says I. Quieter. We have begun the long slide and climb towards the Vernal equinox, the true beginning of the year. By which time my carrots for 2020 should be up. I have yet to pick a carrot. Not one. Before you pick a carrot you have dreams that they are all sweet as candy and the size of baseball bats. Like the feeling you have the day before the lottery is drawn, the anticipation felt walking to a first date. You can eat those little green young stems, you know. You can’t eat a lotto ticket.

So what is going on? First off, Martyn posted another great essay – this time on a small Greek craft brewery which opened in the town where he has been holidaying for years… oops… and now it seems it is gone. Did I see only a draft? It was titled “How Heineken Tried To Bully A New Small Greek Brewer And Failed” and it was wonderful. I know it was named that because I saved the URL in an email to myself. Some of his best stuff. I hope he didn’t get bullied and it did not fail. Please check in, Martyn.

Speaking of locals explaining the local experience rather than the fly-by experts from away who seem to get most everything wrong, Ben Keene* has written a lovely detailed piece about the breweries to be found along the Hudson River Valley train line:

Between the cities of Yonkers and Poughkeepsie (the terminus), no less than a dozen breweries can be found in the small towns dotting this historic river valley, almost all of them a fairly short walk from the corresponding Metro North railroad station. So whether it’s one more hurrah to cap off summer travel, or a trip meant to dovetail with the Hudson Valley’s colorful peak fall foliage, here’s your guide to breweries near the Metro North train line from Westchester to Dutchess County.

As an Upper Hudson Valley Beer and brewery man myself, I find the idea of doddling along the rails for days by the more southerly river shorelines very compelling.

The inclusivity anti-bigotry hashtag #IAmCraftBeer has reached every continent now. Sweet.

I liked this brief photo essay entitled Why Oh Why Do We Cellar / Horde Beer. Time To End This. Sorry, I Have Been Stupid. No More. I only have a few bottles left that I stuck away years ago and they give more pain than pleasure. Weren’t we all silly? Jeff Scott aka @beergeek might agree, I think, as he finds finds cleaning out his hoard, too.

Is 2013 the year the original hyped breweries of the American craft beer scene were opening? No.

As mentioned in the 29 March 2018 edition of these Thursday notes, some questions as to the actual history of lambics have been raised by Roel Mulder of the blog Lost Beers. Remember that next time someone suggests blogging is not a higher form than, say, periodical publishing for pay… as Punch magazine has apparently now** taken notice of the question at whiplash speed and run an article on the situation:

…according to Mulder, that’s a flawed family tree. “Lambic certainly wasn’t the first of the family to surface,” he says, citing evidence that sweet faro, in fact, came before, with the earliest mention dating to 1721—more than 70 years before the arrival of lambic. Gueuze, meanwhile, a merger of young and old lambic, didn’t appear until the early part of the 19th century, while kriek came about at the century’s end. But perhaps the most firmly held belief in the legend of lambic is its adherence to the idea that the beer can only be produced within tight Belgian parameters, the regional microflora supposedly crucial to its creation. Yet Mulder has found lambic brewing records from the Netherlands dating as far back as 1820.

Someone help me out with this – just as soon as we locate Martyn. Do that first.

This is interesting. A new Molson Coors macro brewery is opening in British Columbia. I did like this quote from the firm:

“We’re constantly looking at innovation and introducing new products to the market, knowing that there’s interest in changing things up,” said Andrew Molson with Molson Coors.

Fascinating. But that much capacity, the capacity to produce more beer than the total amount of craft beer sold in the province in the 2018/2019 fiscal year, is an odd investment. A question. Consolidation is the logical answer with brewing but whose production is going to get rolled into this facility to justify the scale? Not folk in the province’s craft scene, that’s one thing that’s for sure. Odd.

In this week’s beer label lawsuit news, some knuckleheads out near the Pacific used the image and name of UK TV baker Mary Berry and then blurted the classic excuse:

“It was totally intended as an homage, but I get it, people gotta protect their image to the public,” Armistice cofounder Alex Zobel told SFGate. That sounds fairly conciliatory, but the brewery’s Instagram post is more pointed, stating in part: “Somebody’s agency has a very soggy bottom, indeed.” The brewery told SFGate it plans to rebrand the beer as Cease And Desist Berry (reminiscent of Lagunitas’ Undercover Shutdown Ale, if you ask me).

Boring. Boring idea in the first place. Boring style. Boring. Homage? Free advertising stunt more like it. Boring.

Finally, a note*** from the eldest brother:

Therefore one should not discuss geometry among people who are not geometricians, because they will not recognize an unsound argument. The same applies to all other sciences.”

Seems applicable. Right?

There. A bit quiet. That’s OK now and then. Now, off to think about that carrot patch for another week. In the meantime, Boak and Bailey will have more news on Saturday and Stan will be with us on Monday. The OCBG Podcast is ready most Tuesdays by the recess bell, too. Their review of TIFF and TBW are good listens this week. That’s a lot. Is there too much updating. What if someone comes out with a mid-week update by way of a Wednesday evening edition? I’ll be ruined… ruined!!!****

*Also author of Best Hikes Near New York City and Camping New York: A Comprehensive Guide to Public Tent and RV Campgrounds.
**In an article dated 10 September 2019 with the very odd statement “The Dutch historian had just published his 2017 book…” I am sure someone can explain.
***Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 1.12… as if you didn’t know…
****As if I get up at 4 am Thursdays and write all this!

Your Thursday Beer News For The Last Of August… Of Summer… Of…

It’s over. Well, I don’t go back for another five days but the kids are getting geared up for their respective schools and the hot hot heat is gone. Fabulous. Me, I continue to rest and convalesce. I had no idea I had not taken two weeks off for years. Two-thirds of the way in, I am a bit dumbfounded. May eat a peach today. Because I dare. By the way, fresh peach chunks and fresh tomato chunks with olive oil and basil. You have been advised.

The big news this week is White Claw, some seltzer thing that I will never see or try if the gods are pleased. Zima again. The news is not White Claw itself but that that bastion of east coast liberal culture, The Atlantic, published an extensive article by Amanda Mull on this summer’s cultural phenomenon, seeking the why of it all:

A major factor in hard seltzer’s current popularity is what it’s not: difficult or aspirational. Being a cool young drinker has had a lot of arbitrary rules in the past decade. For much of the 2010s, booze trends have centered around limited-edition, high-alcohol craft beers and booze-heavy, professionally assembled cocktails. These trends have demanded that young people learn the ins and outs of booze culture; have a willingness to pursue the stores, bars, and breweries that meet their very particular tastes; and have the ability to spend some money to try new things. To get the full experience, those drinks also have to be aesthetically pleasing—all the better to document on Instagram, to show off your generationally and socioeconomically appropriate good taste.

Screw you, kiddie curating class. Screw you, the aesthetic tyranny of Instagram-determined good taste, as Mull calls it. A blip? Hah! As Josh Noel noted, the White Claw‘s variety 12-pack now outsell every craft beer. After a few months. Screw you, craft. Actually, this reminds me of a line that Stan noted The Beer Nut mentioning earlier this week:

I didn’t expect to get such a cliché of everything wrong with the concept of ‘milkshake IPA’ but here it is. If this is what you wanted beer to be in 2019, fill your boots.

See, it reminded me of that because milkshake IPA and White Claw are exactly the same thing, a facile form of booze that is identifiably different and needs no consideration as it goes down. It’s the other “screw you, craft” beverage. And, yes, after a decade it’s quite possible that people are actually exhausted with the multilayered Art Rock keyboard of being over-informed with non-information by the self-appointed and of, yes, of being intensely beveragely cool being the core of their entertainment time. My kids just like the odd Gordon’s gin so I deffo saw this coming.

Similarly negatively – but hanging on to defend a seemingly crumbling last redoubt – Miles Liebtag in Medium tells us Here’s What’s Killing Craft Beer: Us.** Somewhat curiously to me, he writes:

Allow me to share with you a law of Craft Beeria, deduced from ~8 years of in-field observation: one’s Beer Knowledge is often in direct and inverse proportion to one’s Market Knowledge. The former is what one knows about beer qua beer: how and why and when and where it’s made, and how that set of questions has both historical and political dimensions, what makes a beer look and smell and taste the way it does. The latter is one’s knowledge of trends, brands, who and what’s hot, what’s trading well, what’s rare, who’s on the outs, etc. It’s not that the twain shall never meet, just that they rarely do, and often the entire beer media universe seems bent on keeping them apart.

Jings! Perhaps an over wrought over-intellectualizing of both categories** might just be playing a role in all this, too. Beer from a consumer perspective or even that of a brewing technician is not complicated compared, you know, to actually complicated things. We go to movies and buy from Amazon but no one really cares about the logistics of either. Who needs to be associated with the body of beery knowledge that gets foisted on unsuspecting drinkers while all the while studiously avoiding the obvious questions like relative value? That’s beer today. It all befuddles the buying public Hence the unhappiness. Hence… White Claw!

Need a happier link to a simple time? 1970’s TV ads for Courage Best.

In the latest edition of his emailed newsletter on the state of hops, Stan*** discussed the idea of terrior in hops, one that he has long suspected, has been studied by folks in white lab coats:

I’m pleased the idea is catching on. Earlier this month, Coleman Agriculture in Oregon hosted Bine to Beer: Coleman Hop Terroir, announcing that Coleman, Oregon State University and Red Hill Soils have begun a study into hop terroir… The initial study included two hop varieties, Sterling and Centennial, grown across four different locations in the Willamette Valley, and two main types of soil. Scientists analyzed the soil and took into consideration all the other factors involved in growing hops. A sensory panel evaluated beers brewed with these hops.

Interesting. Terrior in beer is a rare thing but here this study found that the differences between Sterling hops from different locations were more muted and nuanced while the differences were clearer and more easily identifiable with Centennial. If they are replicated year after year, I’d say you might well have some terrior right there.

In other joyous beer as farm news, Katie Mather of @Shinybiscuit herself wrote about and with the folk at Rivington Brewing Co. in Chorley, Lancashire who brew on their family farm:

Tenth generation farmer Mick leans against the stone doorway, letting Ben do most of the talking. When he’s done, we head off with muddy boots to their current setup, a mile or so down a puddled and potholed lane, heavily shaded by the midsummer greenery of thick forest scented with marshmallowy clouds of Himalayan balsam. It’s in this woodland vale that Tap Beneath The Trees takes place, Rivington Brewing Co.’s summertime taproom gatherings. Over the years these little weekend-long beer festivals have gained cult status among the beer fans of Lancashire. Ben tells me that people come just as much for the countryside convalescence as they do his beers and that he’s completely happy about that.

Lovely stuff. And certainly an antidote to all that fretting up there. Who cares about so much of it all? Not when you can go up a country lane and find a wonderful glass of tasty. Or around a city corner. I did that this week myself and found my beer of the year to date but will leave that a separate post.

In a last nod to joy, Ben gave a tip to read a good article in Craft Brewing Business on the good beer scene in Toronto by the design firm involved with the Left Field branding refresh – the last two words there being something that usually makes my temples ache:

We were received with equal warmth at Left Field’s East End taproom, nestled snug in an alley in a charming and lived-in neighborhood. In this area, many years former, a massive factory turned out bricks by the thousands: the neighborhood retains a blue-collar industrial charm. We sampled a number of beers, including a knuckles-down DIPA called Laser Show and a lip-smacking fruited sour called Squeeze Play. We met the staff at hand and talked shop. After a quick tour of the brewery and reviewing our itinerary for the remainder of the trip, we were off to check out a couple more spots relevant to the local beer conversation before calling it an evening.

What I like about the article is how the branding firm sought out an understand of the local scene. I also like how they stuck with the original logo without too many tweeks and then rebranded around it. Wow – look at me fawning over the outside of the can… jeesh…**** Now, if only someone would tell everyone that Canada had only temperance and not prohibition that would be great. Breweries never shut. Booze available but fairly restricted.

PS: being a lawyer is actually fun some days.

My other big news was, of course, the response to my mammoth post on the meaning of Lambeth Ale. Thank you for all the postcards, telegrams and teletyped messages of congratulations. Whatever shall I blog about next month? While I ruminate on that, you will be pleased to know that we can expect Boak and Bailey back behind the newsdesk on Saturday and Stan to be right there on Monday. Catch the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays, too. What Septemberish-fun!

*Not me. You. Max and I warned you about all this five years and and did you listen? No.
**My reaction was not as spicy as that of others but perhaps one sees it in the unnecessary use of “beer qua beer”?
***For the double!
****Full disclosure. I have spent more on them than that damn sample was ever worth.

The Probably Not Quite As Long As Usual Thursday Beer News Given I Am On Holiday

I want to live in Montreal. Might retire there. Just for the subway. It runs on rubber tires. No screeching metal on metal. And the pale ales. All over the place, you go in to a pub or restaurant and there they are. Good malt forward classic cold pale ales of one sort or another. Without haze. Without franken-hops pretending to be mango or hot dogs. Below left to right* are Archibald, Bishop and St.-Ambroise. From Quebec City, Montreal and Montreal respectively. Happy. Happy. Happy. Beer with beer flavour. Favourite newly found bar? Tie. Wolf and Workman, Old Montreal and Le Petite Marche, at the north end of the Plateau on St. Denis. Might go again next week. It’s only two hours drive away.

First up, one obvious sign that you are dealing with a good beer writer is that they are just a good writer. So happy news, then, as this was announced by one of the B‘s of B+B as it related to the other B:

Anyway, the reason we’ve been on a Monday afternoon bender is to celebrate publication of Ray’s first novel, “The Gravedigger’s Boy“. We’re not going to use this account to promote it, but I wanted to say *something* coz I’m dead proud of him. ^Jess

Elsewhere in England, Greene King has been acquired by a Hong Kong based firm CK Asset Holdings for mind-boggly £4.6 billion. The Tandy one has shared his thoughts:

As Greene King carries little emotional attachment in the mind of most beer drinkers, it was always unlikely that its takeover would have beer fans rushing to man the barricades. That’s just how it is, but wait. Greene King is a big part of the British brewing industry. It owns a large number of pubs – over 2,700 – and these are spread all over the country. Heck we even have plenty of them here in Greater Manchester where, one must admit, they aren’t exactly the most popular beerwise. Their type of beer is not always particularly suitable to local tastes.

Something else that’s not suitable to location tastes as the brewery that controls the license to brew Skol in Rwanda has had to retract an alarmingly bad branding idea:

A beer company in Rwanda has apologised after critics said jokes that appeared on their bottles were sexist. One of the jokes on a bottle of Skol asked, “when can a woman make you a millionaire” with the answer “when you are a billionaire”. Skol launched the beer labels with the jokes printed on them on Friday but on Monday promised to stop using them.

Being a northern hemisphere western hemisphere sort of person, I was happily informed that “Rwanda is ranked fifth in the world for gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2016 report” – which makes the local brewery’s initial decision all the more mystifying. Except that it’s beer. And… you know.

Reading Canadians on personal consumption politics is a bit like reading English folk writing about voicing opinions on the personal preferences of others. It always seems a bit awkward and unpracticed. The Polk and Ben Johnson as well as others in Ontario wrote this week about the question of craft breweries donating to political parties. First, a bit of Polk:

It is the ultimate first world problem to be worried about the politics of your favourite brewery, but in a world where every dollar counts, it does to those of us who wish to see the world a better place for everyone. Our money is a reflection of our beliefs to a certain extent, although most of us still shop at Walmart, Loblaws and other huge corporations with spotty track records in how they treat their employees, the environment and even their loyal customers.

Now, a bit o’Ben:

A savvy business owner should recognize the importance of being at the table when decisions are made that affect his or her business and the best way for a brewery to do that in Ontario is with donations (Indeed, the lack of an alternative method in the form of cohesive lobbying efforts is probably one of my biggest beefs with the brewing industry in this province and is a conversation for a dozen more blog posts). Because don’t forget: Breweries are businesses.

If I was to suggest anything, I think both views somewhat overstate the case. No donation gets you access you don’t otherwise get by being otherwise annoying and individual purchasing choices don’t really send the sting of a generally organized boycott. Yet, if a smarmy Canadian-style middle ground is needed, I might suggest that being aware of your beliefs as you make these decisions is good for the soul and arms you for the next time you face the ballot box.

Katie:

If only writing was just sitting down and thinking about what I might want to say and it just happened…

CNY beer intellectual property law guy Brendan Palfreyman was featured in a law publication recently. It’s always good to be recognized outside the bubble. Have a look under the thumbprint right there next door. You can likely read the whole thing. Probably an utter violation of copyright law!

One third of the way in, this two-week holiday thing is working out just fine. Expect Boak and Bailey to have more news on Saturday and Stan to be there on Monday. The OCBG Podcast is a reliable break at work on Tuesdays, too.

*1,2,3.

If This Be Thursday Be It Not The First August Edition Of Ye Beery News?

Finally. August. I am not one to complain but July has seen me up at 5:45 am most days to drop three householders off at their various destinations about town before I get to my office. There. I complained. And the heat. My genetic code has spent most of its existence in the land of the midnight sun. I burn in the shade. I miss cardigans. There. I complained again.

This week’s photo of the week is from a tweet by @davidtinney1. Ghost signs are always good but this one of Whitbread is lovely.

First news: Stan sent out Vol. 3, No. 3 of his Hop Queries newsletter this week and some of the news from Europe makes other bad news from Europe look like not so bad news from Europe:

The 57^th Congress of the International Hop Growers’ Convention is meeting this week in Slovenia. You can bet the weather is being discussed. The heat wave tracked here in Vol. 3, No. 2 was not necessarily a setback for much of this year’s German crop, but another heat wave and lack of precipitation combine to raise new concerns. The situation appears worse in the Czech Republic. A report from July 6: “After climatically promising May the weather in June 2019 unfortunately got back into the groove of previous several years, i.e. to the dry and hot weather. A particularly adverse situation developed at the temperatures, when monthly average reached the value of 21.4°C, exceeding the long-term average of 17°C by 4.4°C. Together with unevenly distributed rains, which were mostly of stormy nature, they had a very negative impact to the growth and development of hops, which seemed to be quite promising in this year.” Harvest begins in a few weeks.

Were I Snagglepuss and this was a 1960s Saturday morning TV cartoon, I might say “Heavens to Murgatroyd!” but I am not so I won’t.

Next up, the Tand Himself shared his thoughts on the state and source of murk as we know it today and I think he has it right:

I think it was Robbie Pickering who first coined the term “London Murky” and then it was rather unusual to see deliberately hazy beers, championed by a few and regarded with a mixture of indifference and horror by most of us “traditionalists”, but the beer itself was well enough brewed, with my main objection being that it – pun intended – muddied the cask conditioned waters and undermined the convention built up over many years, that a problem pint was identified by sight first of all, if it was presented as less than clear. There was more or less a nationwide acceptance on both sides of the bar that this was a starting point about a case to answer on a beer’s saleability. In short the increase in hazy beers eroded the customer’s position and allowed barstaff to say something that had largely been eliminated; “It’s meant to be like that”…

On the topic of bad ideas, Jason Notte triggered a lively and thoughtful debate on the cultural appropriation of Chinese imagery and language and perhaps even cultural slurs by Stillwater. Argument made in favour: “…inspired by some of your favorite Chinese takeout classics.” David Sun Lee concisely shared: “That Fu Manchu font can GTFO.” All seems pretty crass to me. “Inspired by” usually is.

Speaking of inspired, one of the biggest problems with podcasts – along with the discovery that humanity gets by through mumbling most of the time – is that you cannot link to the un-indexed content in any meaningful way. So, as I was listening to the R.J. Beer Half Hour Of The Airwaves this week, I live tweeted my thoughts on one observation being made about how Robin felt being called a beer blogger despite all her good writing:

Interesting hierarchical suggestion: beer authors / book writers > published columnists > website columnist > bloggers > YouTubers > instagrammers > mimes! Journalists? Not really around anymore. I place playboy amateur brewing historians at the top. But that’s me.

Now, it has been such a long time that anyone cared about beer blogging that metablogging about blogging is unknown to the youff of today. That being said, after you listen to the podcast yourself. I find the idea that there is a pecking order of beer writer-ship still really odd. To be fair, I am pretty cynical about these things and to be really fair I think the only thing I have not done in that list is beer YouTubing… because there is only one thing sadder than podcasting.* That being said, it is entirely unfair to (i) label anyone these days as a “blogger” and then (ii) put them down because of it. Being a beer blogger these days is like being a Victorian botanist funding trips to Papua New Guinea though frittering away the family estate. Good things may come of the effort but no one is in it personally to come out better off. No, I would far prefer people were put down for claiming to be beer journalists as that is only comparable to being a Venusian.**

Good to see the Ontario Provincial Police sending out this image of someone suspected LCBO shoplifter. There were odd rumours going around that government liquor store shoplifters were being allowed to go free. Nasty thing to say. Nasty thing to do.

Vinepair posted an article this week that has a tile that explains everything: “We Asked 20 Brewers: What Are the Worst Trends in Beer Right Now?” Its interesting because folk seemed to share a wide range of what they each actually thought were the worst trends. Right now. This comment by someone I don’t know named Harris Stewart, Founder and CEO, TrimTab Brewing is particularly interesting:

The beer community is a vocal one, and we love how people freely review, discuss, and share their opinions about beers they try. However, a trend I see that isn’t constructive is a tendency of people to default their reviews to a comparison of any given beer to an archetype of that beer style. As opposed to evaluating a beer as an independent expression of a style — and most importantly whether they liked it! — it becomes more a question of does it taste like X beer or is it better than Y beer. We as a brewery place primary importance on innovation and are never trying to duplicate an expression of any given style. So, we believe it would be a positive move for craft beer if the community would keep an open mind and evaluate beers as unique steps along an evolution of a style, not a catalog of archetype imitations.

I say this one is interesting as it is a renunciation of so much: Style as archetype, beer store shelf as a place of decision making, consumer as independent opinion makers with their own personal experience and existence. Problem: if one is to “keep an open mind and evaluate beers as unique steps along an evolution of a style” how does one know and communicate to others when something sucks?

On that note, the long weekend is upon me. I took Friday off, too. Boak and Bailey will more news on Saturday and Stan seems back on track on Mondays. The OCBG Podcast should be there, too Tuesday so check it out. See you!

*Joke. Funny ha ha!
**Not so much.

A Thursday’s Worth Of Beer News As The Dog Days Truly Set In

Summer. Proper hot summer. Half the folk you want to see at work to get things done are off on vacation. Half the places you want to waste some time in are filled up with tourists. And half of the ways you’d want to waste your time are not possible because your provincial government owned liquor store bought a new wholesale distribution system that does not seem to work and has left shelves emptying. Jings. There better be Pimms for my weekend’s punch bowl, that’s all I can say.

What else is going on? First, Merryn has continued to explore malting with a tweet thread this week gathering some sources in support of a series of posts by Simpsons Maltings, like this one on the elements of the steeping stage. Reminds me of that Anglo-Norman children’s guide to malting from the mid-1200s:

Now it would be as well to know how to malt and brew
As when ale is made to enliven our wedding feast.
Girl, light a fennel-stalk (after eating some spice-cake);
Soak this barley in a deep, wide tub,
And when it’s well soaked and the water is poured off,
Go up to that high loft, have it well swept,
And lay your grain there till it’s well sprouted…

Traditional brewing practices like these are actually easy enough to identify… but rarely discussed given the trend to adulteration… err… innovation. Ask detractors to show you the soles of their shoes to check if they are boosters.

More than a bit of shock and dismay expressed in the American mid-Atlantic over the closing of Mad Fox brewpub of Falls Church, Virginia:

In the closing announcement, Madden cited the difficulties with the brewpub business model and the rise of breweries in the surrounding area contributing to an “extremely competitive craft beer market.” “When we opened in 2010, there were 40 breweries in Virginia. Now there are close to 250,” Madden said in the post. “The Brewpub business model is a tough one to maintain compared to a Brewery Taproom with little overhead, lower rents and outsourced food trucks. Our draw from the surrounding areas has dwindled in what has become an extremely competitive craft beer market, which has resulted in this final decision.”

Tom Cizauskas shared some background:

Mr. Madden is a successful doyen of the area’s ‘craft’ beer scene, both with Mad Fox and for a quarter-century before that. Beyond his own personal successes, he has mentored area brewers, he has organized beer festivals for brewers (beginning back when that concept was foreign), he was co-instrumental in bringing good beer to Washington baseball.

Don Cazentre wrote about another odd example of that competitive market out there, a Syracuse brewery called…

Anything But Beer, which Berry runs with Logan Bonney, makes alcoholic beverages from a base of fruits and vegetables instead of the barley malt used in most traditional beers. The beverages, which include hard ciders, are carbonated like beer and are about the same strength as many beers — 6 or 7 percent alcohol. They’re served by the pint at bars and restaurants, like beer. They are gluten-free and vegan-friendly. Flavors run the range from strawberry lime and ginger chai to Irish whiskey apple.

Weird. Fancy Zima. Speaking of which, one of the sadder things about good beer these days is there seems to be an expectation that not only do you as the happy beer consumer have to care about the PR characterization of brewery ownership props as presented but now the cult of personality has been extrapolated into sale channels. Just look at this hot heroic mess:

Dealings related to The Bottle Shop’s liquidation mark a renewed interest from ABI’s Beer Hawk in expanding its wholesale trade platform, which has been operating for 18 months. Andrew Morgan, who founded The Bottle Shop, will be joining Beer Hawk to oversee this area of its operations. Roberts said that Beer Hawk plans to accelerate its wholesale activities, and that Morgan possessed unique skills to achieve that.

Nothing against the individuals named – but does anyone without an interest in a piece of the cash flow really care? Does anyone doubt that the skills might just be unique? Just another sort of marketing blurt. Matt had a cooler head when he noted it’s all just about receivership and administration, aka the accountants. He also noted that ratebeer and Beerhawk now are working not at arm’s length:

Interesting to see that @ratebeer shop is now “officially” live in the UK. Currently listing 372 beers, all directly linked to sister company @TheBeerHawk.

Continuing on, I like this article in Pellicle on foraging for tasty brewing adjuncts in Ohio even if the continued misuse of terrior* rivals only the needy puffery of those who toss around curate to mean select:

“It was just supposed to be a clean, monoculture saison,” Brett says as he picks bright green buds from the sagging spruce branches. “The morning of the brew day, I said, ‘You know, I just don’t want to do that.’ So I drove out and picked three pounds (1.4kg) of spruce tips.”

Foraging, however, is an excellent word that needs no turd buffing to convey meaning.

Lastly, Lew Bryson wrote of his unnatural admiration for Naturdays, a discount line of fruit beer produced by Anheuser-Busch InBev:

I have to admit, I’m two cans into a six-pack while writing this article. Pink and yellow, flamingo-decorated cans. I bought it out of a sense of duty and fairness, because if you’re going to pick something apart, you should have tried it. But once I opened a can, and tasted that first cold, sweet-tart slug, duty and fairness went out the window, and I was just another guy on a hot summer night, ripping my way through a pounder of Naturdays.

Yum. And that’s it for now. I need to plan the weekend. Where shall I lay upon the grass within reach of a few weeks to pick from the carrot patch so that I can claim I did a chore as I suck Pimms Punch from a wriggly jiggly straw? Such an exciting decision. There should be more beer news from Boak and Bailey on Saturday but Stan..? I still don’t know. He may well be in Brazil for another week and, so, on another hiatus. See ya!

*If it isn’t about the terre, it’s not about terrior. Vernacular is useful. As might be indigenous. Probably local makes most sense. Or just explain what you did. Adjectives are a waste of time.

The Look Back At The First Half Of 2019 Edition Of Thursday Beer News

I was thinking about “summer, summer, summer!” as this week’s theme but the coming dawn of Q3 slapped me in the face when I was sitting myself down, knuckles poised over keyboard. Time is flying and we need to get out and about and enjoy ourselves. Like the people above. The photo of the week above is from Jack Dougherty, handy pal of @rpate. Used without permission for purposes of review, I get an early modern renaissance feel from the image, a grim morality tale with arse crack. The only thing I can’t believe about it is that it is not set in Glasgow. Then again, nothing is on fire in the scene.

Update: craft… I kid you not.

Next, we have a fabulous tweet from robsterowski which first led me to this great story, a lesson of the role beer can play in protecting our freedoms:

Local residents in the German town of Ostritz protested against a neo-nazi festival – by buying up all the nearest supermarket’s beer so that the nazis couldn’t get any.

Wonderful! Wunderbar!!! Here’s the story in German. What a lovely tale of making your euros do the talking. Reminds me of when I lived in the Netherlands in 1986 and there was an odd news item on the TV involving a fire department. Apparently when the then tiny Dutch Nazis set up a meeting, the local folk came out to burn down the hotel. The family I boarded with smiled and pointed at the TV as the tale was told.

Boak and Bailey sent out their newsletter and argued again (as others have) for more positivity in beer writing:

If you think old fashioned cask bitter is better than hazy craft beer from the keg make the case for it. Make it sound delicious. Move people to want to drink it. Telling them not to drink stuff they like won’t work, it just leaves a bitter taste.

I am not against such things, but because I’m not particularly interested in other people or being a booster of beer generally I’m not really moved to write about much in that sort of manner. But that is me. I personally find properly written moaning takes more skill as a writer and observer. It’s far more entertaining and often more honest. Less un-noticing of things. Interestingly, the best example this week of measured consideration came from Boak and Bailey whose notes on their day in Edinburgh refreshingly captured being in a place with few references or footholds.

Speaking of which, some fascinating and initially Brexity bad news for UK beer nerds with wandering ways according to the Eurostar railway (etc.?) Twitter feed:

The personal luggage allowance for alcohol is 4 bottles/cans of beer or 1 bottle of wine so if you have more than 4 bottles they can be taken from you. Please read Alcohol Policy for information…

Joe Stange doesn’t like it but I so enjoy not being surrounded by boozy libertarianism when locked in a train carriage with strangers that I expect the actual travel experience will be improved on average. Then word comes through that it was all a misunderstanding! Hooray! I can safely plan my next Euro-trav happily knowing that no one is supposed to neck full bottles of spirits en route!

Troubles in the world of good beer are not really news these days but this press release is perhaps not the best way to let folk know. This bit is the most interesting:

Together we changed the world of brewing and have been helping hundreds of people and businesses to further explore their passion and businesses in beer. That said we could have done much much better. Our stakeholders, members, course attendees and clients deserved so much more and we failed you in many ways. This has affected people financially, personally and it has been more then frustrating for you. I personally accept full responsibility for this.

The amazing thing is the Monty Python aspect to the messaging. From the heights to the depths at Mach 4. Voooooooom… splat. I can’t read the words without hearing the voice of John Cleese. I find it so satisfying in that sense, I have made no inquiries as to the actual nature of the troubles involved. (Mr Walsh has recommended own his services to avoid such drafting errors in the future.)

A great piece by Evan Rail in VinePair (even if the early micro-brewers were cloning Euro-beers, a clear decade before the whole “rebel” thing started up) on how US embassy trade staff have been leveraging big US craft industry marketing:

While the U.S. government works to promote sales of American craft beer abroad, American craft beer also helps to promote the U.S. Just as French embassies use French cuisine to promote the image of France, and South Korea is currently enjoying the benefits of global K-pop fandom, American craft breweries can assist with what is known as soft power in the diplomatic world, part of which can come from an appreciation for a country’s culture. In an era when American political influence is on the wane, it doesn’t hurt the U.S. if the entire planet falls in love with New England IPAs.

Well, that actually might hurt reversing the decline of diplomatic efforts but I am sure other aspects of the program will work out just fine.

This was my favorite bit of beer science for the week: an explanation of how some of the carbonation in your beer might have come out of a horse’s arse. Speaking of which, here is another item on non-alcoholic craft beer aka soda pop:

“I think a lot of people assume that alcohol is why they have fun drinking beer,” Shufelt says. But, he adds, sometimes when people take a break, they begin to see it differently. He says that around the time he turned 30, he began to reflect on his life. He was getting married and taking his career more seriously. He became more focused on his health and good nutrition. “I realized alcohol was so inconsistent with every element of my life,” he says.

Jings. Ever try a nice cup of tea? Pennies a cup.

And with that I bid you adieu for another week. This was all a bit rushed with another busy week with evening meetings and such. Acht, weel. All the extra spelling mistakes just add spice, right? Check out Boak and Bailey on Saturday and see if Stan makes an appearance on Canada Day Monday. See you!

June! June?? June!!! The Thursday Beer News For The First Week Of June

So… on Monday night it was just +5C overnight in nearby Ottawa. I have my furnace on June. I sat out the other afternoon and wondered if I might put on long pants and mull a little ale. My radishes love it. Since when do I live for my radishes? Sure, they are incredibly sweet and mild this year. But really… I’m ready for the stinking hot anytime now.

The news that the Province of Ontario is moving towards beer sales in corner stores has released a raft of weirdly half-baked understandings related to the future look of the world of craft beer like this:

Scott Simmons, president of the Ontario Craft Brewers Association, has long been encouraging the province the expand alcohol sales beyond The Beer Store… While craft beer accounts for eight per cent of all beer sales in Ontario, Simmons told CBC News last month that further privatizing the market could raise that number. “When you start expanding retail access to more grocery stores, big box stores or specialty alcohol stores or convenience stores, you’re just creating more distribution.”

My take is more reality based, that creating more distribution into low-choice outlets like corner stores will aid mostly those brewers with deep pockets, existing robust distribution and a ready supply of the stuff most people already buy. Big breweries. I know already that I don’t go to a corner store to buy local artistinal soft brie-clone cheese. Craft beer is not Pepsi. It’s the local brie-clones. Maybe brie with alcohol breaks that rule about shopping at corner stores. Maybe.

Jordan and Robin ask other good questions but I don’t agree that the ban on litigation in Bill 115 is going to be as ineffective as they might argue. It would take a new winning provincial constitutional argument to overturn that provincial law when it comes in. Change is coming. In a vidyah we see that Dan of MacKinnon is expanding but wants craft only stores and a local university prof says it’ll all raise prices. Brain. Aside from that, this low rent political campaign about it all is just plain weird.

The secret to getting into the world of advertising? Hang around in the right bars and buy the right people drinks apparently, according to the BBC.

In sorta history news, there is no caveat like a beer archaeologist’s caveat that the recreation isn’t really a recreation.

Back on Monday, Ze Beer Nut focused his problematically regular reviews of new beers on the unproblematic world of no- and low-alcohol beers. The results are not heartening given the regularity of worty and aspirin appear in the tasking notes. Let me ruin the ending for you:

It seems you can’t just strip the stuff out and expect things to taste as good.

Now, because I am an intrepid reporter… which is a perfectly good word for journalist that I need to work with more… I had by accident* a very nice can of low alcohol sour beer on Saturday afternoon – and then I had another. Muskoka Ebb & Flow. And I added fruit flavour. A dribbed of apricot jam liquid. And it was good. And I chatted on line with a clever sour beer brewer about it. And the brewery. And that was good, too. It paired very well with the flag of Togo paired with a Gay Pride flag as a statement on human rights flying right there in my backyard.

Is peat-free organic beer coming?

Oh, Stone’s hairy guy made a funny thing happen and then no one cared. I am more impressed by Bud UK’s Pride branding campaign… and that is a modest low level of being impressed I speak of, to be fair.

“Yun craft greth” is now my new favorite slag for bad craft beer. It popped up in the comments posted in response to a post by The Pub Curmudgeon on problems with the cask market in the UK:

Marston’s are going to withdraw cask from 21 of their 22 managed pubs in Scotland. The initial reaction to this is some quarters was one of dismay at the reduction in cask availability. Surely Marston’s could have done more to promote it? However, as Britain’s leading cask ale brewer, they’re hardly going to abandon it lightly: it’s not like they’re some trendy craft brewer trying to make a point. It seems clear that, despite their best efforts, they simply can’t achieve the throughput necessary to keep it in good condition and, given this, it has to be regarded as a sensible and pragmatic, if disappointing decision.

That is it for now. Another week gone. Three evening work meetings in a row means I am writing this foggy headed, early morning. You probably can’t tell the difference. Boak and Bailey will no doubt be with us again this Saturday… but that guy Stan? He surprised us with links from the road last Monday. He is sneaky like that. Sneaky Stan. See if he does it again.

*I just grab all the pretty bright coloured cans.