Industry Marketing – Page 6

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.

The Mid-May Thursday Beer News Bulletin

A busy week. In a way, much meatier than usual I’d say. But I’d say that, wouldn’t I. I am only trying to suggest there is something here below that is worth the next six minutes of your life. And I have thousands of posts, don’t I? Some of you have read most if not all of them. My blog posts. Thousands of six minute packets of the little bit of life God gave you. Hundreds of hours. Think about that next time you look in the mirror. And now… the news.

Clever Barry in Germany spotted the most interesting aspect of the news that Sam Adams and Dogfish Head are corporately co-mingling here on out. Have a look at the bit of the press notice under that thumbnail: “craft and beyond“! The whole thing is so disassociated to actual interesting small scale local brewing that I feel a bit odd addressing the matter at all. Some might be impressed with the dollars at play and some at the funny way its about “Sam and Sam” but its really a dull tale – if only because it’s been over a decade since I bought any of either brewery’s beers as far as I can recall. And it really wasn’t anything like a merger. While I don’t think that personality matters to beer culture at all, except as being suckers to branding, I do agree with Jeff otherwise that the deal is a bit of a head scratcher. My hot take?

Wow! New Kids on the Block have announced 2019 summer tour sharing equal billing with the Backstreet Boys.

Robin and Jordan* first announced a new Ontario Craft Beer Guide weekly podcast and then, despite all rumours, released the first of their new Ontario Craft Beer weekly podcasts. I don’t like podcasts as what takes six minutes to read becomes thirty minutes of listening and, well, just reread that first paragraph up there. Adds up. Yet I liked listening to this one given it is informative and bright light entertainment – but I am not sure I will go back over and over and spend 1/48th of a day a week, 1/336th of my week, 1/224th of my waking week listening on a regular basis. I have a lawn to mow, for heaven’s sake. Condo residents may, therefore, approach the matter differently.

This is one of the best beer culture video archive gems yet: the only pub in Scandinavia in 1965.

Speaking of Scandinavia, Martyn has absolutely taken one for the team by describing in inordinate detail his thoughts on a very dull new drink: Carlsberg Danish Pilsner. Reflecting on his past life with the thing within the green label, he wrote:

I don’t have anything against big-corporation beer in itself, but I do have a big problem with dull beer: I can’t drink it. I have a very low boredom threshold with food and drink (and most other experiences, actually) and I would literally rather drink nothing than drink more than a couple of pints of beer with no interest. And that Carlsberg: it wasn’t actually bad, or faulty, it was simply a cypher, a blank hole where beer should have been. There was no pain in drinking it, but it was a hedonistic vacuum that actively repelled me, that made me not wish to experience this beery nothing.

Fabulous.

The big news in beer law is that Guns N’ Roses are suing Oskar Blues Brewery, the brewery that labeled a beer as Guns ‘N’ Rosé without, you know, asking:

The complaint says Oskar Blues applied to trademark Guns ‘N’ Rosé last year and abandoned the effort after the band objected. The lawsuit says the brewery is still selling the beer and the merchandise. The band wants a court order blocking the brewery from misappropriating its name, destroying the products and turning over profits from Guns ‘N’ Rosé and other monetary awards.

Seems to make sense. I mean, the whole mash-up Boing Boing e-culture of 2003 died an ugly death a decade and a half ago, right?

The big other news in beer law are the allegations that BrewDog improperly appropriated the idea of an advertising agency named Manifest when it was creating its Punk AF brand. Apparently it is another beer I have no interest in buying as, like much bulk macro craft, it is over priced, over branded and in this case, pretty much no-alc. Could this story be more boring? Duller that Sam+Sam? Not sure. One response from multimillionaire top law school grad cottage industry owner Mr. Watts was a bit poorly stated and this just looked bad. But INCITE web-mag-thing thought otherwise and interviewed the CEO of Manifest:

As such, our creative platform was called ‘Punk AF’, playing with the fact AF can mean both alcohol-free and ‘as fuck’ but also unlocking their biggest brand asset – their flagship beer Punk IPA. This is the central ‘idea’ to our concept. It’s simple, yep, but it’s rich in thinking and precisely answered the brief. Or so we thought. When they said they wanted to pursue another direction, we understood and moved on. When I saw a preview of Punk AF on Twitter in January, I flagged to BrewDog that this was our concept – I received no reply.

My only comfort in all of this is that the word idea is in quotation marks up there. Setting aside the actual details of the commercial dispute, I think Mr. Oliver’s thoughts on an entirely different matter might still apply:

There are a lot of folks out there who need to understand: If you can get yourself into a state more frothy than “mildly annoyed” over beer…there is something seriously wrong with you. And, btw, you are not “important” to the beer world, okay? Me either. Get. A. Life.

I like this idea of putting the consumer more squarely in the middle of the :

A craft-beer bar with prices that fluctuate with supply and demand is planned for downtown Detroit… The owner of the Kalamazoo Beer Exchange, where beer costs move up and down like stock prices, “now plans to open a Detroit Beer Exchange” at 1258 Washington Blvd., in the Stevens Building… The Kalamazoo bar and restaurant opened in 2010, with 28 taps and prices that change up-to-the-minute as well as occasional “crashes” that for five minutes bring every beer to its lowest price — such as $2.50 for a Bell’s Oberon or $1.50 for a Miller High Life…

See, I would just happily ride the trough caused by the off set of the folk chasing the tale of trend. That could work out very nicely if one was prepared to sadly wallow in last year’s model.

I am stopping there. Don’t forget to check out Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday and if you are into podcasts, see if Robin and Jordan keep it going next Tuesday. The week is filling up.

*Also star of radio and TV! Well, he was on province-wide public radio and TV on Wednesday.

The Thursday Beery News Update For Fire, College, Style and Being Fifty-Six

I picked that picture up there of a fire in France earlier in the week, the night time warming of the vineyards at Chateau Figeac: “rows and rows of candles on the vineyard to protect the vines from frosty nights…” Here’s perhaps an even more stunning image, the French Côte-d’Or lit up at night form above. I spent three weeks in Paris with pals in 1986, weaving from art galleries to bars to cafe’s to our small family run hotel. We were there so long we got grief from the owners for being so bad at getting to know Paris, for wasting the experience that we were being told where to visit and that led to me, a gawky probably hungover 22 year old, staring at the blue glass at Notre-Dame. Lovely then. Sad now.

Let’s go! Diageo has done a good thing:

The maker of the iconic Irish stout Guinness has announced it is removing plastic from beer packaging. Plastic ring carriers and shrink wrap will be removed from multipacks of Diageo’s beer products – Guinness, Harp, Rockshore and Smithwick’s. They will be replaced with 100% recyclable and biodegradable cardboard.

Excellent. And here’s an excellent suggestion for a gravestone, one that speaks to one of our lingering and perhaps pre-Christian rituals.

I am a bad man. I missed a post by a co-author, mainly because it came out two Thursdays ago, exactly when I am in a post-update publication funk. It’s Jordan’s post on the things he has learned creating and running a college course about beer:

How do you create something unique from scratch? For one thing, it’s continuing education, which means that it’s nights and weekends. It has to be affordable. It’s a self selecting group of students and they have presumably been through a long day at work or a long week at work by the time they get to you. It has to be instructional, educational, and entertaining enough to hold their interest. It probably needs to be a little interactive and there has to be room for discussion. That goes for all 67 hours of class time from the preview workshop to the last week of the last class. So there I was: anxious about public speaking, with no experience teaching, tasked with creating and administering 67 hours of content, and just bloody minded enough to think I could pull it off.

Speaking of structures, Jeff wrote and excellent thing on the development of flash in the pan styles and by excellent I mean he stated something that I have long considered the case:

With trends, there’s a push-pull, and the pull is what establishes the style. First breweries gamble with something new—that’s the push. With a style like gose or a technique like kettle-souring, the push may last for years before a brewery scores a hit. But then that organic interest comes and customers start asking for the new thing. Brewers have been pushing saison for 20 years and Americans are just not taking the bait. But hazies? That’s all pull now. Even brewers who hate them feel compelled to offer their ravenous customers what they want.

Pay attention to that push. Many folk deny it exists, saying its all demand driven. As if there ever was a public outpouring demanding a gap needed to be filled by Black IPA or sugar coated breakfast cereal gose. Officially absolving the beer drinking public from these sorts of abominations of marketing is a welcome thing. And the distinction between trend and style also fits better with the original Jacksonian intention of style to be an emulation of a classic. Good stuff.

Speaking of writing excellent things, Evan Rail has been tweeting about writing longer writing beery-wise as part of his process of writing a new piece of longer writing:

As a writer, you’re constantly doing short-term, short-gain work, which makes it really hard to get ahead. The work that brings real satisfaction — and which often makes for long-term success, financial and otherwise — is hard to fit into the day-to-day grind.

It’s the same for the amateur boy beer writer. Time is the commodity I simply don’t have. I’ve put in 24 hours since 36 hours ago. Frankly, I was glad to get a number of posts on beer and 1400s Bristol this winter but if I had my druthers I would do that sort of research and writing all the days of my life.

Politics? Here in Ontario, we have a particular form of conservative government which is dedicated to changing the way we get our booze and dope. It even affected the annual provincial budget to the point I have to go into work today to look at some beer law, an interesting puzzle. This was a telling tweet:

Number of times Doug Ford’s budget mentioned the words “alcohol” or “beer”: 46. Number of times “poverty” was mentioned: 0. Priorities.

That being said, we regularly regulate these things at the provincial level and alcohol has been at the forefront of cultural policy at many times in our past, not only from the 1870s to the 1930s the period people can’t cope with. Ontario, the true foundation of all hoppy beer trends. Buy our book Ontario Beer for the full story. Seriously. Grow up. Buy it. Pretend it’s my birthday.

A short post this week. But lots of good stuff to share. And it really is my birthday. On a Thursday before a four day springtime weekend. “W” to the “oooot”! And this is the one I have been waiting for. Fifty-six! Remember when you were nineteen and you couldn’t wait to be fifty-six? As you reflect in the arm glow of that, don’t forget Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday. Each a gift to us all. See you next week!

These Are The Greatest Mid-April Beery News Notes Yet!

Howdie! It’s definitely spring now. Definitely. I’ve planted radish seed and the snow’s all gone. More planting to come this weekend. It’s a busy time in the beer world with the great retreat having begun in earnest. The Craft Beer Conference is going on in Denver so plenty of hope and new instructions* being delivered. And, in a real sense, nothing immediately new has actually been done under the umbrella of craft has been done for quite a while. Whither glitter 2.o? No one knows… or perhaps cares. Not Martin Taylor who posted the photo of the week up there on Wednesday, clear glowing golden goodness.

Oh, speaking of the Craft Brewers Conference, apparently they hauled an old rocker (who, for some reason, is a brewery cross-branding project) out to speak to them all and he regaled them with a few sexist jokes! Fabulous. Conversely, all hail the greatest mind in the beer world over at least the last decade:

…the ruination of nomenclature leaves you with no power to describe things.

How many times have I said that very thing? Never? You’re probably right. But I like it.

In exciting rule of law news, the Canadian federal government has announced it is changing the rules barring inter-provincial trade in booze! Too bad it is regulated at the provincial level as last year’s Comeau ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed. Will there be a constitutional conference on all this? Likely not. Somehow, somewhere a bilateral agreement between two will start the ball rolling. My bet? Nova Scotia and Manitoba!

Neolithic malting techniques explained!

Next up, Thornbridge Brewery in the UK announced a new take on beer and, in a move I trust might be appreciated by our last quote giver up there, it’s a step back of the best sort:

Seeing as the current beer market is awash with Citra/Mosaic US-style IPAs, I wanted to create a beer that uses only British ingredients that was slightly different. I took the concept of German Kellerbier, a timeless, classic style of unfiltered lager, which is as close to cask conditioned real ale as the Germans get, and put a British spin on it to create our new beer, which we named Heartland. Kellerbier is known as a fresh-tasting, highly drinkable style with flavours drawn from the yeast (as it would have been served direct from the tank) with a fine bitterness.

Read the whole thing. I have never wanted to have a glass of a new beer more. That sounds entirely yum.

One a word: why?

More research has been published in The Lancet showing that regular alcohol is never a good idea if avoiding health issues is part of your life plan. Note again: no j-curve. You are just trading off long term health for short term jollies. Which can be quantified apparently. I am sure your favourite beer writer will disagree with the medical opinion – but who takes health advice from a paid booze trade advocate? Oh, some of you do? Interesting.

Speaking of things that set of craft crybabies, in even greater neg the UK’s newspaper The Independent has asked the questions we all want answered. Has craft actually succeeded in making beer no fun? Has good beer gone uttlerly boring?

Another day, another press release with the words “craft beer” in the title – perhaps the second or third this week. This time, a madcap alternative to craft beer fun runs, craft beer mini golf, craft beer rafting, craft beer cycle tours, craft beer billiards, craft beer haircuts and craft beer yoga: a new London “craft beer hotel” from the people at BrewDog. It’s apparently a revolutionary place with “craft beer in every room”. Please excuse me for a moment while I consign said email to subfolder “CRAFT CRAP.”

It’s true, isn’t it. Who thought a decade ago that ten years of money and ego could actually succeed in making beer so boring? But they have! I like the article’s tag line… sub-title… whatever you call it: “Big business has killed the authenticity of small-batch brews.” I probably have not paid a nickel into the BrewDog coffers for half a decade so you can’t blame me. I like micro and local too much to bother with big craft.

The Beer Nut again takes one for the team and compares discount Italian lagers. Sadly, the better one will never make our side of the Atlantic.

Martyn has written an excellent post on an unexcellent thing… the disappearance of the word “bitter” from the English landscape:

Exactly when it started happening I’m not sure, but bitter, once the glory of the British beer scene, is disappearing. In the place of all those marvellously hoppy, complex bitters and best bitters we once sank by the pottle and quart, we now have brews sold under the same brand names, made by the same breweries, very probably to the same recipes, with the same ingredients – but describing themselves as “amber ales” instead.

Fortunately, Ontario is behind the times so our old school local preferences are still out there to be enjoyed: sweetish husky pale ales, nut browns, dark ales that might be milds but no one has bothered to inquire.

Finally, we here in Ontario and across Canada heard the news of the sad early passing of Joel Manning. Ben Johnson wrote a fitting warm remembrance:

To a person, anyone I’ve heard speak of Manning is likely to note that “he is a good dude.” He was affable, open, steadfastly committed to helping people in his industry, and always willing to talk. He was also, in every sense of the word, a professional brewer. Manning began brewing beer at age 20 when he was hired as a brewing assistant at the original Amsterdam Brewpub in 1986. He worked his way up to Brewmaster there in just three years and held that position until 2004. In 2005 he took over as the Brewmaster at Mill Street Brewery and remained in that role until his retirement last year. He worked in the beer industry for 32 years.

There we are. Another week has passed and if it had a theme in good beer, it was one of loss, both welcome and deeply sad. I hope it’s a better week ahead. Taxes loom** but so does the four day Easter long weekend. Did I mention the 150 garlic that overwintered outback are suddenly popping up green? So there is good in the world. I expect more of it to be reported by Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday. You should, too.

*Surely, independent malt.
**Which I still do by hand and pencil and paper for four tax returns for some unknown reason…

Perhaps A Very Short Version Of Thursday Beer News.

I say “very short” up there as I never know where these things are going. I am like a one man Brexit in that sense. Suffice it to say, mustering the time and content for this post differs from week to week but, unlike Brexit perhaps, is always the source of joyous surprise. I couldn’t imagine anything could be more screwed up than 1970s Canadian constitutional conferences – shown live on TV all day in my youth. But Brexit is it! I know some of you are actually living under this nutty-nutso situation so I will not go on. Excecpt to wonder what a backstop really means to @thebeernut.

So what is up in reality land? First, Geoff Latham has an interesting question: what does this record from a brewing session that occurred in September 1848 mean? It appears to show someone dabbling in early hipsterism, employing unholy techniques when it comes to hops. Click on that thumbnail. Can you read the text and help with the mystery?*

Interesting. Second, now Stan has a question:

I think I’ve only asked a variation on that question one other time — in this case the more open ended, “What is the most important hop ever?” — and Jason Perrault of Select Botanicals and Perrault Farms said to give him a little time to think about it. I haven’t pressed him on it since, but now might be time.

My answer – and I am sticking to it – is the one in the beer on the ships that had the cannons of the Hanseatic League 1300 to 1500. Likely proto-Saaz.

Home brew for three pence a pint! What year would that have been? That was my own Burco dream back in the middle of the 1980s. Speaking of the 1980s, great news of Mendocino Brewing Company, care of a Tom tip. An early micro brewing icon is being revived:

Though the beer is not being produced inside the cavernous, 65,000 square-foot facility, Krauss and his team have high hopes about the future, to the delight of local beer drinkers and fans of the legendary brews. “Red Tail Ale and Eye of the Hawk are back,” smiles Krauss. The beers have recently been revived by the brand’s original brew master, Don Barkley, and can currently be purchased on tap at a few inland Mendo locations: in Ukiah at Crush, Cultivo and the Sports Attic; in Hopland at Campovida; and once again, where it all began, at the Hopland Tap, where the ales were originally served more than three decades ago.

Right on. Moving on, we find some odd responses to the idea of more craft beer going into the UK supermarket chain Tesco. Apparently, the Tand is still the clearest thinking person in beer culture:

This should surprise nobody. Breweries are businesses and while keeping it cosily in the bubble is nice for fans, it don’t pay the milkman. Big beer and big business want a share and they know how to go about it. Expect much more of similar.

The odd thing for me is the twin ideas that (i) for some reason we beer writers are supposed to be boosters for a bigger market slice for the brewers that self-identify as preferable and yet (ii) we want to keep those precious brewers human scale as if this all is some sort of personal relationship. Note: never has this occurred in all of human history.

Similarly, Paste magazine has listed some of the contract beers they sell under house names – and then unpacks who is actually making them like this entry for Mission Street Pale Ale:

Attributed to Steinhause Brewing in CA, this pale ale actually comes from California’s own Firestone Walker, who also makes a handful of other Mission St. styles like blonde and black ales as well as a hefeweizen. They’re also behind Trader Joe’s Fat Weasel Ale, Jumping Cow Amber, Frugal Joe’s Ordinary Beer, and the Gila Monster Amber Lager.

I had heard years ago that Unibroue up here in Canada made all their Belgian ales. Makes sense. Why sell bad beer in your store when you can rebrand good stuff? And why be a brewer competing with chain branded beer when you can brew it yourself? Everyone wins.

Speaking of beer on the move, Josh Rubin has a great story in The Toronto Star on the ambitious expansion of one Ontario brewery into the Big Apple including one non-traditional and interesting comment from a craft brewer:

Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, was puzzled but welcomes the new arrival. “It seems like an awfully strange move, but then again, we’d probably happily open in Paris or Tokyo, so maybe it’s the same for everyone these days,” said Oliver. “If they make great beer, people will come. And I can walk there from my house. Brooklyn once brewed 15 per cent of all the beer in the United States, so I’m sure that one more brewery/taproom will be just fine,” Oliver said.

Clever people. I hope they make a go of it. Sadly, elsewhere apparently stupid is still a part of craft beer culture:

“We understand it is a bit risqué, but it’s in good humor, comical, and consensual. We have received good feedback from when we have showed this to many” said Brady.

Jeff obviously was not part of that early feedback loop. Really, I hope you don’t bother looking at the underlying story. Morons. Particularly swell that they are ‘splainin’ sorts who unilaterally assert something is consensual.

Finally in far happier branding news, big craft brewer Stone has lost its motion for a preliminary injunction in that trademark infringement case against cheery micro macro Miller. I say happy because the court has confirmed that the case between Stone and Miller over beer brands is all about money and not some sort of special status. I say happy, too, because it places Dr. Johnson squarely back in the midst of it all, as we observe again with him the unassailable truth that brewing offers and perhaps even inflicts the curse of “the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice” upon those who are not careful, who over reach. Brendan has more in his Wednesday afternoon tweet-fest of the court’s ruling.

Well, that’s it. Not as short as I had thought – and not even all that pointless! More good news than sad. Not a bad week. The dirty snow has already faded to the lump here an there on the north side of things. Desperate for more? You know the drill: Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday. See ya next week, unless that real job of mine gets in the way. Think I am out at meetings on Tuesday and on the road Wednesday night. Uh oh.

*Ooops… forgot I hate any use of “mystery” as it relates to beer and drinking culture.

That’s It! February Is Over And We Can Now Go On With Our Lives And The Beery News

What a week. I’d tell you about it but that would be telling. On the upside, February is over and that is always good. I never liked it. Icy sidewalks, dirty snowbanks. Elsewhere, daffodils are popping up and buds are bursting. Here, I am convinced every step outside is my last. I haaaaate winter now. The stinkin’ head cold I’ve been dealing with tops it all off. To remind me of happier winter moments past, above is a wonderful photo from Andy Macpherson from the 2015 Xmas photo context of exciting snowy action with him and his pals at Bucktail Brews, a New Jersey brewing project in planning. I hope it works.

News of the week? First up, I don’t disagree with this from @tonitwopint but…

A lot of conversation was generated around Founders, but their situation is indicative of a much larger issue. The conversation needs to continue on a larger scale. If the overall culture of the beer industry were inclusive, it would make it harder for places like that to thrive.

… but you do see two sorts of issue dilution (aka responsibility deflection) being thrown about in such matters: (i) brewery X’s fault needs to be understood in the context of other brewers and (ii) craft brewing needs to be understood in the context of greater society.* Yes and no. Founders may be indicative of a larger issue but it’s also pretty clear that Founders itself alone allowed a culture of bigotry to foster. A particular circumstance which should not be lost. Not cheery but important.

Endtimesy news from Nate.

Timelessness: a study of a back alley tavern from A London Inheritance

In no doubt a move intentionally timed to break the hearts of those interested in #FlagshipFebruary, one of the actual flagships but one not mentioned in the campaign has taken a huge if not fatal hit:

One of Goose Island’s original beers, Honkers Ale, will no longer be on sold on shelves soon. Once a flagship when Goose Island was a locally-owned, craft beer pioneer in Chicago, Honkers Ale is being reduced to being offered only in its brewpubs, according to a post on the Guys Drinking Beer blog, which broke the news. “Honkers Ale was one of the first beers to really put Goose Island on the map. We love this English Bitter style beer! Honkers Ale is not being discontinued and will still be served at our brewpubs…”**

Honkers: a beer so beloved by me it got passing reference once in 2010. RIP.

Entirely crappy news with the filing for bankruptcy by All About Beer magazine and especially the news that plenty of people are left holding the bag. Interesting discussions here and here on what the point and best business model for running a beer magazine in North America is these days. Sad. Actually, just kinda sad.

Speaking of #FlagshipFebruary, even though use of the hashtag went from about 1,000 a day on Twitter to about half that over the course of the month, I was pleased to see how positive the outcome was. Not just a rear guard action at all. As I had hoped in mid-January, it moved sufficiently off its actual stated mandate to keep interest up rather than beating the dead horse of beers like Honkers no one much cares for anymore. This past week, we have a love letter to a mild, an example and a style which has never been any sort of flagship related to craft. And we had that lovely personal essay by Jay in which the beer is entirely incidental. Wonderful. Now onto that ray of hope, #MoneyMakerMarch when we explore how beer actually works.

In perhaps related beer junket news, a planeload of freebie tourists and cap in hand journalists drinking freebie beer filled the toilets of a plane mid-Atlantic. Such a useful illustration for future reference. Kind of a gross one. Again, grimness prevails.

An interesting bit of intra-provincial comparison went on in Canada’s other national newspaper this week with an article on opening times across our fair land. Ontario, where I live has the latest start – 11 am. Anything earlier, as we learn in school is Satanic. Which is why I do not understand the taverns and dives of New Brunswick opening at six in the morning. Who the hell has to drink in public at that time? Apparently, New Brunswickers.

You know that what follows on social media will be a bit of a grumpy mess, a bit off one’s marbles when it is introduced with the notion that notwithstanding “the steady descent of Twitter generally into a platform for people to get furious over trivia and hurl abuse at people they don’t know…” as if perhaps one did not oneself participate at that level but, never the less, that is what Pete Brown did when he took off on a personal one-legged hopping finger pointy race to explain three reasons why some beer costs more:

But looking at the sheer ignorance of the people we were debating with, two things occurred to me. One, yes, it’s probably not worth bothering engaging with people who for some reason have chosen to spend their precious time on this planet arguing with people they don’t know about subjects on which they are entirely ignorant. But two, the frequency with which this particular attitude surfaces suggests that perhaps we’re at fault too. It’s not just on social media: in pubs and bars, when there’s some strong, rare beer being sold in thirds or halves only, there’s always someone who works out the cost of a pint (even though you can’t buy a pint) and decries how outrageous it is.

The… err… challenging thing is the three reasons (ingredients, time, techniques) are not really (i) explained in terms of the effect of value relative to similar competitors nor are they (ii) explained in the context of fadism-based hyper inflation*** nor are they (iii) explained in terms of the specific effect ingredient, time or technique have on the price. Are they 1%, 5% or 50% variables on overall price? Why can’t we have this explored at a proper level of detail? Apparently understanding price and value are separate issues. [Ed.: we are now having another personal fugue state experience for a mo… and… and… we are back.] Well, if the goals is arguing “on the side of the industry people defending and justifying the expense of some beers…”

That’s it! A bit all endtimesy when you look at it. Frikkin’ February. I blame you. In mere hours it will be March. Joy shall reign! Maybe I’ll even have a beer. Can’t quite be certain if I’ve even had one single beer over the last seven days. Rotten stinking February head cold. Soon, I’ll probably rush to plant radishes so I can stare at the small first patch until it’s clear that nothing is going to grow until a few more weeks have passed. Weeks more waiting. Joy delayed.

What do I have to live for until the soil warms? Well, what other than Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday? Surely that is enough for anyone. Though an early spring might be nice, too.

*Though it is fabulously educational to search for “founders” and “racist” on Twitter.
**Isn’t it always fun when the J. Jonah Jameson breaking the news lines are used? Especially when followed by gooey fanboy exclamation marks.
***One of these days, I’ll pull my gueuze and lambic purchases receipts from say ten years ago when I could afford the stuff. I’d bet fifty cents that the price has doubled compared to the lowest decade of general inflation in centuries. Further, note… yet note.

Your Thursday Beer News Notes For The Week Winter Showed Up

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

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

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

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

Beer at the Post Office? Thanks Vlad!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lovely stuff.

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

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

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