Category: IPA

The Last Of August’s Thursday Beery News Notes

What was that? Summer 2021? Done? It’s still going on here as I am on an actual holiday and doing fun stuff like getting new spectacles for my face and a new electrical panel for the basement. Wooot! This is the dream and I am livin’ it. I even had 330 ml of a 3.8% beer yesterday and watched a Netflix show about the Korean buckwheat noodle dish naengmyeon, as recommended by DSL.* Both a drinking and then hangover dish apparently. Now I know why my buckwheat noodles suck. I didn’t immediately rinse and rub them in ice water. And, yes, a hundred other reasons. Never again. Probably. Maybe.

First off, it was good to read “The Ancient Magic of Malt: Making Malt Sugars and Ale from Grain Using Traditional Techniques” by sometimes reader Merryn Dineley in the journal EXARC.net,* 2021 (vol 2) who set the record straight:

This paper is presented as a historical narrative as well as being an explanation of basic ‘mashing in’ techniques. I aim to tell the story of the development of my understanding of how to make malt and malt sugars from the grain. I have learned from other experimental archaeologists, from ancient technologists and brewing scientists as well as from ethnographic research and the study of traditional style malting, mashing and fermentation techniques. One of the common myths about the origins of beer thousands of years ago is that grain was perhaps left in a container, it got wet and, somehow, turned into beer. This is impossible. The conditions for making malt and malt sugars do not exist in this situation. 

A bit later in time but still in the past, Rob Sterowski at “I Might Have a Glass of Beer” wrote about Epochal Barrel Fermented Ales, a brewery intent of brewing the old fashioned way:

Possibly the most erudite of Scottish brewers, Young deserted the world of academic philosophy to devote himself to a study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century brewing literature instead, and Epochal Barrel Fermented Ales is the result. A skilled home brewer, he has set up his small brewery in Port Dundas to make beers influenced by the way it was done two hundred years ago. His beer is fermented with a multi-strain yeast, cleansed to rid them of excess yeast and then allowed to mature to completion in oak barrels with a handful of whole-cone hops. The finished product is naturally carbonated in the bottle.

As Boak and Bailey noted, suggestions that the #MeToo and #BLM movements’ efforts to expose craft beer’s ugly side have faded were found wanting with the news of an open letter to England’s West Berkshire Brewery. You can click on the image to the right to read the complaints yourself. It is certainly one of the long failings of the drinking entertainment pleasure trade to address the piggish attitudes that go along with booze. So it is good to read that folk won’t be bullied to keep quiet when it comes to bigotry and harassment even if a lot of the privileged voices have wandered away.

I wasn’t familiar with English comedian Sean Lock. He passed away this past week but I am glad to know he had a hobby.

Update: I failed in not mentioning “Empire State of Mind” by David Jesudason published in GBH (thereby upping their average significantly) who looks at IPA from the point of view of the “I” as in India:

My father’s love of empire, and his belief that Britain was a civilizing force, was mirrored in the drink he called his own: the India Pale Ale. Of all of his beliefs, this one was particularly confused. His friends were Lager drinkers, and his adoption of IPA was a way of pretending to be refined in the days before the craft revolution had taken hold. But where he saw a drink that was emblematic of genteel, colonial India, I see something very different: Owing to the beer style’s association with the East India Company and its brutality, I can’t help but think of bloodshed, oppression, and enslavement.

I noted that it was an parallel to “Britain’s Idyllic Country Houses Reveal a Darker History“, the recent NYer piece on England’s National Trust but also cause for reflection on my own family’s path. One side included servants at big houses like that of the Collins publishing family as well as a great-grandfather who was a Sgt Mjr British army out in the empire while the other side, displaced highlanders in Greenock, built the ships that shifted the sugar that came out of the colonial system. Many died young, many had lives of if not poverty then at best modesty – with much drink caused troubles in industrial towns before many emigrated the hell out of there. If you have any doubt as to the way that IPA is code for empire consider this from that NYer article:

“At the end of the day, we went to a very, very, very rich country and transferred a lot of its wealth to this country, by trade, entrepreneurship, and looting,” Dalrymple said. In 2003, Angus Maddison, a British economist, calculated that India’s share of the global G.D.P. went from 24.4 per cent to 4.2 per cent during two and a half centuries of colonial rule. In 1884, the British state had a total income of two hundred and three million pounds, of which more than half came from its overseas territories, including seventy-four million pounds from India. Taxes were levied across the world and sent to burnish the metropole.

Good for someone to finally point out in depth the obvious issue with IPA as a placeholder for good beer.  Might as well brand US craft lager Berghof.

Note: craft.

One of Canada’s few pre-Confederations tavern/inns/hotels, the Queen’s Inn, is up for sale in my fair town. I wrote about it in 2004 when it was just 165 years old and I was only 41: and is ripe with history and charm:

…he remembers one particular customer who continued coming in until he was in his 80s. The gentleman, Mitchell recalled, was blind and had a booming voice. “Give him two drafts,” the bartender told the younger Mitchell. “We just put the price up to 50 cents. Have fun.” “I didn’t know what he meant. I put the two beers down and said, ‘That’ll be 50 cents.’” “Forty-five is all you’re getting,” the man bellowed back.

Another pandemic affected business. And, on that theme, Josh Noel pointed me in the direction of the tale of overzealous expansion which ended in the collapse  of Ale Asylum of Madison, Wisconsin:

Dilba said the pandemic “didn’t help” the business but added, “there were other extraneous factors, which I won’t get into, but the pressure applied by the pandemic was significant. And we’re not alone in that. Everybody in this world is in this fight together that really made moving forward very difficult.”

Factors cited elsewhere in the article include too many local beers, too many out of state beers in local bars and rent increases. Maybe also it’s because Americans are just drinking less, according to VinePair or, rather, the authors of the polling study they echo:***

Sixty percent is down nearly five percent from 2019. It’s down even more compared to 2010, when 67 percent of U.S. adults replied “yes” to the survey. There seemed to be a shift in drinking habits from 2019 until now. The average number of drinks per week (3.6) dropped to its lowest since 2001. Additionally, men (63 percent) reported drinking at a higher rate than women (57 percent).

Good reason to find another career than drinks writing! One person who does not care is likely Sister Doris Engelhard, the brewing nun in Germany whose story as told by NPR was the retweeted topic of the week:

“I only brew beer that I drink myself, so if the other sisters want to drink a wheat beer, they’ll have to buy it themselves,” she says. She also waves away any question about the intersection of her faith and her beer. “Beer is part of the Bavarian soul. If you’re not happy with yourself, you won’t be happy in a cloister,” she says. “And eating and drinking are part of that life. It’s not about being pious. All I need to do is believe in a higher power that accepts me as I am.”

Speaking of good stories about good outcomes, the BBC reported this week on the life of Cesar Kimbirima, a child soldier in Angola who found himself left for dead, now running a Wetherspoons pub:

…as the sky started spinning, and his consciousness faded to black, he thought it was over. His life would end in the long grass, while his blood poured into the dry Angolan earth. More than 20 years later, that dying soldier pours pints at the pub he manages in south London. As he chats to punters, and waves to babies in prams, there is no hint of Cesar Kimbirima’s former life.

There. That is it for now. Not sure if there will be an edition next week as I am driving to the sea. We will see. During these last lazy days, for more check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and (if I dare say) from Stan mostly every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness! And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*who once posed as me just to be nearer Lars.
**an archaeological foundation of some sort out of The Netherland with an address on the fabulous street, Frambozenweg!
***Hah! I’m one to talk.

The Panicky Two Weeks Left In Summer Edition Of Thursday Beery News Notes

“Of course, you know there are more weeks in summer than that” say all the really boring people. No, that’s it. Soon it is corduroy and scarf season. And you will ask yourself what it was you did with those two last weeks of summer. You know you will. Here in Canada, we are having a national election all of a sudden – or at least now that the coming fourth wave is leaving a very small window for these sorts of things. As the photo above from the PM’s campaign shows once again, you can’t campaign for election in Canada without being seen with a beer. The choice of the can is clever – can’t see how little he’s had.

First up, Jeffery John linked to a story in The Observer this week asking the question “Can hospitality’s recruitment crisis ever be fixed?” which mentions the twin issues faced by the UK: (i) pulling the visas on much of your hospitality working cohort right before (ii) bumbling and stumbling with the regulation of the hospitality trade all through the biggest pandemic in a century. So people move on and likely should:

In March, former London restaurant manager Sam Orbaum decided that, after three years, he was done with regular restaurant shifts. Previously, he sailed through weeks of long hours but the freedom of furlough prompted the 30-year-old to question that lifestyle and, particularly, the “strain” of stop-start Covid-era reopenings. A lot of the pressure, insists Orbaum, was “self-inflicted. The team [at my employer] were always very, very supportive.” Rather than owners or managers cracking the whip, he observed a tendency among young, ambitious staff to “take on burdens voluntarily”.

Yeah, that sucks. Jeff noted that he “…mothballed the kitchen at my pub and just do drinks and snacks partly because of the chef shortage, but also because as a publican providing a ‘gastropub’ (hate the word) offer is more trouble than it’s worth.” Could it also be that the public has also revisited, reviewed and revised its own needs… and gastropubs didn’t make the list?

What do we need? In Scotland, apparently pubs need beer according to the BBC but they can’t get it because something has run short:

Scottish Hospitality Group spokesman Stephen Montgomery said a broken supply chain for an industry already under pressure following lockdown restrictions was “an utter disaster”. “Piling this stress onto the already existing anxiety of recruitment, the pingdemic, debt and HMRC starting to knock on business owners’ doors, this is beginning to push people over the edge,” he said. The SLTA has raised concerns over a potential shortage of carbon dioxide supplies, three years after the industry – along with others – was hit by a previous CO2 shortage.

[What’s a pingdemic?] While we are at it… you know, it might be good if some brewers could get behind promoting another type of CO2 shortage:

During a routine quality control panel, we identified that some cans have undergone secondary fermentation, causing higher levels of CO2 in the cans which has resulted in higher than normal internal pressure inside the cans. With this increased internal can pressure there is the risk of these cans leaking, coming apart at the seal, or potentially bursting at higher temperatures.

Matty C. asked the question “why add CO2 when cask make the stuff itself?” OK, he didn’t ask this question but recently he went in search of cask in pub and found other questions:

Personally, I’ve really taken a shine to table service and the more relaxed, dare I say more continental approach to service we’re currently being treated to. The reality is however, that many British establishments simply aren’t equipped to operate this way, and will continue to lose revenue until they can trade as normal.

Normal? Nice try. Jordan’s all over you when it comes the coming endy times:

Day 521: Say, listen: Import beer sales were down 39.4% in June. Supply chain on grain from Europe is looking real dodgy. One of the threads I follow suggests that China’s ports are temporarily closed and shortages of goods are likely to be a thing. If you think you’ll need items six months from now? Stuff you know you need? Maybe start thinking ahead in a non-panic kind of way. They may be more expensive later. To quote a deep voiced fellow: things are going to slide in all directions.

That is a strong statement. Perhaps to save the day, locally our prog heroes Rush are making a beer. Perhaps that will save the day… Perhaps…

Interesting trend. Two weeks ago it was InbevABBigThingie saying the money is coming in just fine and now Carlsberg is doing the happy dance:

The world’s third-biggest brewer said beer volumes in key markets China and Russia had risen to “well above” pre-pandemic levels while European markets such as France, Switzerland and Sweden remained below levels achieved before the coronavirus crisis. “While the uncertainty about the remainder of the year continues, we’re satisfied with the strength of the first-half results and the good start to the third quarter,” Chief Executive Cees ’t Hart said in a statement.

Wow. So… is macro winning?

Jeff wrote an ever so slightly hyperventilated piece about the beer known as  Pliny the Elder – but perhaps I feel that way as I have never had one. There are two sightings of “important” as well as a “more important” and a “very important” in there but I will defer to Stan who says it is so that is fine.* And at least there is something being written. Even unending newbie identi-guides like this are sorta something. But you know how it is. You point out how little actual writing is going on and people get all uncomfortable and weirded out. Weirded. Out. Don’t be doing that. It is just beer.**

Speaking of which… Stan was active again Monday. I think he is getting almost regularly active on almost every Monday. I hope he is OK. I do like how he was clear on this point about the former brewery known as Sam Adams:

…not caring about Truly, robot waiters and beers from a brewery I don’t patronize is perfectly OK. Climate change is something to pay attention to. Hard seltzer is not a threat to the world our grandchildren will live in.

What I find most amazing in the whole conversation related to the brewery is how Sam Adams continues to get a pass despite its pervy past. But folk don’t care about that either.**

Much more open and honest, Ron published an ever so slightly concerning account of his weekend in that place in Germany where those things fly over the river taking you from this place to that place and back again:

Just around the corner, there’s a little pub. Im Kipchen. Quite a few football fans, but also quite a bot of space right at the back. Mikey goes in search of beer. Weissbier and Alt, as usual. When he gets back, he asks: “Do you fancy a shot?” “No. I’m stopping all of that. It’s unhealthy.” “What? You were knocking back the rum merrily enough this morning.” “Just kidding. Of course I want a shot. Several, in fact.” “You had me worried there for a minute.”

It all gives pause, doesn’t it. Still, things could be worse, as the image to the right reminded me as it slipped by on the river of social media this week. As the all the grim news this week seems to remind us. Hmm. Best go out and see if there is a tomato or two lurking out there waiting to be found under a lower leaf. As I do, remember there are always updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness! And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*Unlike this very ungentlemanly comment in, you know, the comments: “Just reading about this swill gives me a headache. Ugh… When will the IPA trend end?” That’s a bit much.
**“But these are my friends on the internets you speak of?!?! My internet friends?!?!??!” BTW good luck with the quality of the entries this year. I’d have more confidence if the word “prorated” was used correctly. And, yes, I meant to drive two **’s to the one footnote…

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For Mid-July

Beer season. This right here. This week. This is the week in all the beer ads. Mid-July. No “Back to School” sale ads on the TV yet and no freak snow storm hits Manitoba” news items of the Weather Network. Right here. Right now. The moment of beer. Perfect. I spent a similar perfect summer night, the night before last, stuck at the site of that weird weekend seven years ago with Ron Pattinson and hairy Jordan, when I stayed at an airport hotel full of wedding parties to save a buck. Well, I had to see my middle kid off on a plane so it only made sense to stay at the same place, right? No. Odd seeing the formerly jammed hotel essentially devoid of people. And devoid of services like food. I also had a work meeting from 5:30 to 10:45 in the evening by Zoom which was also odd to do in a hotel room. I don’t know how any of that relates to my new favourite web thing, pictures of dogs people have rescued that are really coyotes but there you go.

OK. Enough! Let’s get right to the good beer reading. There was a most thoughtful article on saison published by Joe Stange in Beer and Brewing. It provides great insight as to the methodology he recommends for formulating a beer.  Like this passage about grain options:

Chucking in different grains is fully in the spirit of saison. Keep it intentional: Know what malted or unmalted grains are going to do to your flavor and body, and choose them based on the profile you want. Wheat and spelt can bring softness and nutty, lemony notes, for example. Rye tends to bring peppery notes along with a certain smoothness. Or keep it clean and bright—Saison Dupont, after all, is brewed with 100 percent pilsner malt. 

Know. Great word choice. Best line: “I’ve never had a saison that was more drinkable because of spices, but I’ve had many that would’ve been more drinkable without them.”

Top tier side interest from Katie Mather – Speedway!

I was delighted to find Shove it, Chuck it, Toss it… a blog about English pub games, a topic near to my heart and largely distant from my experience. Consider this detailed description of The Princess Royal in Taunton, Somerset including facts facts facts like this:

With social distancing rules in place for another couple of weeks at least, pubs of all sizes are having to be very careful and creative around the potential for crowding, particularly during large sporting events like the EUROs. Some of the more traditional West Country pubs are better equipped than most to deal with these issues thanks to their (currently mothballed) Skittle Alleys. The Princess Royal is one such pub, with a substantial Twin Skittle Alley/Function Room that’s currently being put to good use as an overspill to the main bar when things get a bit too busy.

Staying in Britain* I spotted this excellent observation on the state of cask ale from El Mudgeo:

You might well think that, if cask beer is struggling, there is already an organisation ideally placed to champion and promote it, and indeed incorporates it in its name. However, over the years, CAMRA’s objectives have multiplied and become more diffuse, and cask beer itself doesn’t seem to feature very high on its list of priorities. No doubt many members will say that Marston’s beers wouldn’t be much loss anyway, while happily sipping on a keg mango sour in the craft bar. It is a touch hypocritical to claim that you are campaigning for real ale while at the same time dismissing most of it as not really worth drinking.

Excellent continuation of the story of a walk from Max:

The place I wanted to go to was about 7 km away, but the walk promised to be mostly under the sun and I just couldn’t be arsed. Fortunately, there’ s a train leaving regularly from the town’s main station that would take me (almost) there in a few minutes – it was a no-brainer. But what to do with the time I would save? Pivoing, of course; I remembered Minipivovar Labuť still had a few beers I wanted to try.

Excellent continuation of the story of Charleston:

Mr. Sammy Backman has been a family friend since I was three years old. A significant part of my upbringing took place on James Island at Backman’s Seafood, a family-owned dock and seafood market that’s been around since the late 1950s. In my life, I’ve never referred to him as anything other than “Mr. Sammy.” “Back then, Black folks didn’t own any boats. It was hard for us to get loans,” Mr. Sammy says. “My mother once paid off a $100,000 loan, only to have the bank ask for collateral when she later asked for a $10,000 loan.”

Excellent story elaboration via Twitter from Dr. Christina Wade:

We also have an Old Babylonian text from Ur, which is basically one giant insult, which among phrases like ‘’You are the one who disappears from work” and ‘you raise an afflicted hand in order to eat food’.

The Tand wrote of “the Beer Police” which is nice if only because it reminds us that folk are getting back to normal and fretting over nothings:

It is funny how tables have turned, but didn’t CAMRA with its erstwhile disapproval of keg beer, used to get the same Beer Police allegations thrown at them? For the record CAMRA is all about choice with an emphasis on cask ale. In line with that, my drinking last Thursday, with its overwhelming predominance of cask, fully complied with this. “Take that Beer Police.” The Beer Police have also been having a pop at us Bass drinkers. Liking Bass is harmless, doesn’t mean approval of Molson Coors and there are bigger beery fish to fry, so lay off.

Speaking of Ron, he discovered that Canada was in fact part of the British Empire in both the spirit and letter of the law this week:

Have you spotted my current theme yet? Obviously, it’s Canada. Only joking. IPA…  Away from the topic of this post: Canadian IPA in the late 19th century. I’d forgotten that I had these. It was only when I started going through my analyses of IPAs that I spotted them. That’s the problem with having so much information. You can’t remember all of it. What strikes me is the similarity to domestic UK IPA. (Only because I was looking at those yesterday could I remember.). The Canadian versions average out a little stronger, by 3º in gravity and 0.34% ABV. While the rate of attenuation was a little lower, but still very high.  Still, a striking similarity between the two sets, despite being brewed 50 years apart.

And finally, more “BrewDog sucks” news at VinePair which is really getting so common is it even really news anymore?

Posts on the shareholders-only, company-run BrewDog EFP forum, reviewed by VinePair, suggest that the brewer has at times struggled to deliver on the perks it has promised its punks. A November 2020 thread has become a 2,000-posts-and-counting clearinghouse for equity punks’ grievances, ranging from long-delayed deliveries and reduced “lifetime” discounts, to poor communication from the company in which they’ve invested. “By the way still no EFP beer after waiting nearly 2 years,” posted a frustrated punk. “For a beer company that makes beer, wastes beer, pours away beer, makes more beer … is it really too much to send said beer to it’s [sic] shareholders as promised?”

Yes, it is too much. Because that was not the point of giving them money.

Contrary-wise to all the foregoing, have you noticed the over use and misuse of “nuance” in beer chit-chattery? It seems to be getting worse.  Tends to ultimately mean “my point is not being well made” as far as I can tell. In this moment, the second and third level writers** (none of which are mentioned above) seem to be jockeying*** a bit like the first level ones did not long after Michael Jackson died. That was more subtle. Folk suddenly added “top beer writer” to their web bios. Within days. “Top not dead beer writer” was more like it. Anyway – and as with “leading” – I think “nuance” is a marker of some sort. But what? Jockeying for the small cheques docile compliance offers? And how does it relate to finding yourself washing a coyote in your bathtub?**** I only mention it as I have to wade through the stuff each week.

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

*Unlike that trophy…
**The finest of the regularly wrong, much more so than that boogieman “the media“!
***It’s all a bit of a status v. merit struggle, like the 1790s tensions between the Washingtonians and the Jeffersonians. Whiggery depended on the mutual acceptance of status regardless of merit whereas libertarian might is right principle was all about the cacophony of the aggregate ends justifying the means. Whigs give us the small intense circle of praise seal mitten cartoons from Ackbar planet and the textual equivalent. Whigs praise each other as important. That makes them important, too. See? But who can really be trusted? None. Who is an expert? Nobody. In a small pond with too many fish for the available oxygen, things get rough. These aren’t those early days by that small lake at William’s Coopers Town.
****Other than, you know, the seeming requirement to be fundamentally wrong about obvious things.

Your Mid-August Beery News Notes For A Thursday

Wow. I thought last week was dull. Not much happening but it’s mid-August, right? Starting out this week’s drafting I wondered how I’ll fill the page. That’s sorta like any August, right? It’s not the pandemic, right? Not at all. Right? To the right is an image that popped up on Twitter which I liked so much I bought the same hat. Maybe. Remember: winter is coming.

What is up? USA Today published an article on the state of racial diversity in brewing in America this week. It got a fair amount of attention, including weirdly stated attention, for what it stated but I find it as important that it was published where it was published. USA Today sits in hotel lobbies and piled next to the door in gas station convenience stores when you travel the interstates. It is lightweight and cheery and has a lot of things called info-graphics. Yet it is pretty specific in the specifics:

Just 1% of craft brewery owners were Black, the survey found. There about 60 Black-owned craft breweries out of more than 8,000 craft breweries in the U.S. By comparison, that survey found that the population around breweries was about 12.2% Black. The U.S. Census lists Blacks as accounting for 13.4% of the population.

Along those lines, GBH has published three pieces on racial discrimination on craft this week. Beth, the named editor, mentioned this passage in Part II by Toni Boyce:

A community excluded from craft’s evangelical crusade can’t seriously be expected to carry on the industry’s message or inconvenience themselves to support the industry that excluded it, let alone convince others to do so.

I mention this in particular as it connects in my mind with another reality pointed out by Josh Noel (published along with the rest of his book) that a goal in forming the Brewers Association in around 2005 was to cope with the separate – and not all savory – identities being expressed in micro brewing at that time and to form one message of one semi-plastic community.

Matt published a helpful commissioned guide to current understanding of what IPA is. Of course it’s riddled with the normal quibbly inaccuracies but, unlike most matters related to beer expertise, it actually acknowledges that it’s riddled with inaccuracies. Because beer expertise is about intentions, right? And desires. And not admitting. Anyway, because it’s self-aware its a very good guide to current perceptions:

For now I want to provide you with my own personal list of IPA styles, developed by analysing existing style guidelines published by the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) and Brewers Association (BA) and then adding my own whimsical spin on them. I have used US definitions rather than those developed by UK bodies such as CAMRA and SIBA as I feel these are the most up to date and accurate with regards to what is actually being brewed in terms of IPA specifically. 

This is good. There are a few styles missing, of course, but that’s quibbles. Pre-craft* macro IPAs still exist. Beers like Harpoon IPA which were sometimes called NEIPA before NEIPA. And beers like Keiths IPA which are macro lagers but which are also somewhat popular. And Deuchars. What the hell is that, anyway? And North America has almost 180 years of continuous autonomous IPA brewing history.**  But these are quibbles. As is a snapshot of what the marketeers are making you believe these days, it’s great. Play Ron’s game, too!

I might be more sympathetic to this effort to raise awareness about greenwashing published in Forbes if the brewery were not owned by a firm that supplies a murderous military dictatorship.

Josh Noel*** published the story of that darling of that past brief era called “craft” – Goose Island Bourbon County – in this the year of pandemic:

The Bourbon County show must go on. Exactly how it will go on during the coronavirus pandemic is unclear. But as it has for the past 10 years, Goose Island Beer Co. will release its flock of barrel-aged Bourbon County beers the day after Thanksgiving across Chicago and beyond… But if the COVID-19 pandemic persists into November — which seems likelier than not — those crowds may become a public health hazard.

Of all the things that aren’t worth it these days, somehow a beer release event is very low on the list yet also very high on the list. Like: (i) who would go… (ii) and who would go? NowhuhImsayn?

Jeff complained and complained in a piece he published on the craft era Franken-glass curiosity that is the IPA glass by Spiegelau:

According to designers, the elongated snout-like bowl creates an aroma “cannon”; the Michelin-man bubble-ridges at the base agitate the beer into further aromatic heights. Curves can be nice, but these are jejune—they don’t flow naturally, but rather bulge foolishly like the barrel on a 1960s toy ray-gun.

I again remind the most careful readers that the whole thing was a bit carney as the glass is just a relabeled existing design with a few ml more in volume. Racket. Better to use a jam jar.

For some reason, the Brewers Association is keeping data it has published related to Brewery opening and closing hours private, available to the membership. Unnecessarily Masonic. And I should know! I expect it is similarly a bit pointless as Le Bart may have been foreshadowing. Kinda comforting to be excluded, too.

Well, that is it. OK but no award winner. Hah! Who needs awards? For more of the same but different, check in with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And BeerEdge, too.

*If anyone calls anything before around 2005 “craft” you have to remember and sympathize as they might be a beer expert so, you know, that has to be taken into account. See if you can find a US brewing historian specializing in the 21st century instead.
**The reality is there were at least three coexisting sources acting routes to US micro IPA brewing. So far I have: (i) UK home brewing and brewing encountered on 1970s and 80s personal and professional travels both ways across the Atlantic, (ii) Bert Grant and his Canadian roots and routes in strong hoppy ales, (iii) SNPA as a clone of Ballentine as Foster explained. But don’t be looking to others to tell you that.
***Pour Le Double!!!

The End Of November’s Thursday Beery News Notes

I won’t miss getting past November. The worst month in my year. Damp and dreary. I mourn the end of the garden, the shortening of the days. The death of parsley. While Katie may have pointed us to a more healthy approach to November, I know too well that just a month from now, nearing the end of December, we’ll start feeling the days just slightly lengthening even it the cold is deepening. I took Monday off as I am still due about three weeks away from the office this year and drove off looking for signs. Just after noon, I found one on that dirt road up there. On the south side of Bloomfield, Ontario in Prince Edward County. It’s the last few hundred yards to the rolling idled farmer’s field across from Matron Fine Beer. I stocked the pantry with some jolly juice for Yule. Clever me.

Speaking of the hunt, Boak and Bailey may have found a small redoubt in the battle for more mild assisted by those behind the lyrically titled BADRAG:

Tasting notes on mild, like tasting notes on ordinary lager, can be a struggle, like trying to write poetry about council grit bins. Good mild is enjoyable and functional but, by its nature, unassuming, muted and mellow. Still, let’s have a go: dark sugars and prune juice, the body of bedtime cocoa, hints of Welsh-cake spice, and with just enough bite and dryness to make one pint follow naturally into the next.

I actually have to write bits of essays about council grit bins once in a while at work but never poems.

Never thought we would need a beer cooler for keeping beer cool when ice fishing out on a wintery lake in Saskatchewan frozen a foot thick but this is actually a clever idea. It keeps the beer from freezing.

The decade photo challenge as posted on behalf of IPA. I wonder if IPA will sue for defamation or whether the law’s recent dim view of chicken not being entirely chicken will deter such reckless? Speaking of the laws of Canada, drunk driving in Quebec now carries a new serious penalty:

Starting Monday, Quebec motorists convicted of drunk driving twice in 10 years will have to blow into a breathalyzer every time they start a car — for the rest of their lives. Their licence will be branded so any intercepting police officer will know to inspect the driver’s ignition for an interlock device — a piece of equipment that prevents the car from starting if the driver’s estimated blood alcohol concentration is above the legal limit.

To my east across the ocean, Mr Protz alerted us all to the closing of a pub that has been in place for about 750 years, the Cock Inn “situated on an upward slope on the north side of a tributary of the river Sence” as reported in the Leicester Mercury:

One of the oldest inns in England built in about 1250 AD, it witnessed the preparation and aftermath of the Battle of Bosworth Field and the death of Richard III and the start of the Tudor reign. The notorious highwayman Dick Turpin would return here after working the Watling Street, taking refuge in the bar chimney, stabling his horse in the cellar when pursuit was close at hand.

Interesting to note the nature of its feared fate: “…hope it will reopen and not become a house, as many village pubs do.” Still on the pubs, Retired Martyn has ticked all the GBG 2020 pubs in Glasgow but on the way made something of an admission about a distraction:

Yes, by the Tim Horton Christmas Spiced Caramel Brownie and a medium filter. I read that “nearly eight out of 10 cups* of coffee sold across Canada are served at Tim Hortons restaurants and more than 5.3 million Canadians – approximately 15 percent of the population – visit the café daily“, and Canadians are never wrong. Most of them.

Who knew? And he visited Greenock, the paternal ancestral seat, too. Great photo essays as always. The Pub Curmugeon prefers to work similar themes in text.

I was confused by a thread about CAMRA discount cards this week, accused of being  out of date, faithless to the true cause and a money grab… but then there seems to be no way to replace them in terms of the good they do. It stated with this:

I’m a CAMRA member & I work in a brewery. CAMRA needs to address the corrosive paradox of claiming that real ale is ‘the pinnacle of the brewers art’ while promoting discount schemes for cask beer. So I’ve drafted an AGM motion & explanation.

Discount? Doesn’t that mean well priced? Speaking of which, is beer about to get cheaper in Sweden?

Sweden’s state-run alcohol monopoly chain Systembolaget is planning to cut the costs of its cheapest beer from next year. The cheapest beer sold at Systembolaget today costs 8.40 kronor ($0.87). But next year it plans to launch two new kinds of canned beer for less than 6.90 kronor… the plans, which are meant to compete with border trade, that is Swedes travelling across the border to Denmark and Germany to stock up on crates of cheap beer.

The wonders of scale. Big entities can do great things, can’t they. Just consider this story on beer and the environment:

Anheuser-Busch, in partnership with Nikola Motor Company and BYD Motors, completed their first ever ‘Zero-Emission Beer Delivery’ in the company’s hometown of St. Louis — utilizing both companies’ innovative fleet technology to deliver beer from the local Anheuser-Busch brewery to the Enterprise Center using only zero-emission trucks.

Imagine! Using the word “innovation” and not referring to copycat alcopop IPAs!

Finally, I am not sure I want legalized beer corkage opportunities. Just another argument I don’t need. Go out where you want and spend the money at the place.  Don’t bring your own cutlery either.

There. A quieter week in these parts. But a busy one at work so there you go. Busier still soon enough, too, what with the last month of the decade comes the inevitable “best off” lists. I myself sorta did one at the end of 2009, at least painting a picture of where things stood.  I’ll have to think about what I’d say ten years on… other than wondering where the time went. Where did it went…

In the meantime,  there’s more news at Boak and Bailey’s on Saturday, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And look for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too.

 

The First Thursday Beer News, Resolutions And Gnawing Regrets For 2019

One eye on the beer, one eye on you!†

Wasn’t that fun? New Year’s Eve = The Worst Holiday Eh Ver. I had promised myself I would be nicer again this year* but I honestly found this holiday more boring than usual. Was it because it was on a Monday? Because it rained? I was holiday-ed out? You decide. I did drink a wee bit but we stayed in. I sipped on an insanely** cheap Belgian beer throughout the day and shared a swell bottle of Ontario Riesling in the evening.  Defrosted grocery store pastries shared about the family room. Wooo!!!

Anyway, here we are: 2019. Big news so far? The Trump shutdown of the US Federal government has halted the breakneck manic approval of more and more, newer and newer transient ephemeral brands of craft beer, the amnesiac mainstay of the trade over the last few years. So he can’t be all bad. Not unrelated, David Frum also linked Trump to craft crusaders this week. Slightly related, U.S. Sen. and potential Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren appears to have done herself a beer-related injury.

I am absolutely gutted that I did not follow the DrinkablongwithRon 2018. What sort of animal have I become? I even had string. I did notice that noted British beer writer Jeff Evans announced he is pulling the plug on his website:

A short message re Inside Beer. After ten years, I’ve decided to close the Inside Beer website, due to other pressing commitments. The site will stay live for a few more weeks but will not be updated. This Twitter account remains open. Thanks to everyone for their support. HNY!

I note this not only for the update but to capture Martyn’s keen observation: the move is related to Jeff getting a more attractive opportunity. No doubt more to come on what that turns out to be.

One thing I did do in 2018 was avoiding Brut IPA altogether… along with glitter beer, that one month flashpoint. Never had nuttin’ of neither. I’m still coping with kettle sours. The New York Times, being generally more useful, has provided us with a helpful if brief study of its local BeePah action:

It’s taken a little over a year for Brut I.P.A., a new style of India Pale Ale, to sweep through the craft-brewing community. The name is a reference to brut, a dry Champagne. By all accounts, it was created by Kim Sturdavant, the brewmaster of Social Kitchen and Brewery in San Francisco, who used amyloglucosidase, or AMG, to remove the sugars in an I.P.A. AMG is an enzyme usually added to make light beers and to balance big beers like imperial stouts.

More of the best of the new? Ed posted the most honest Golden Pints ever. Mashtun and Meow’s were filled with fun and gratitude. More GP18 here. In other beer writing news and opinion, Matt is laying off the sauce. Crystal is off the sauce, too. BeerAdvocate reminded each of us to ask ourselves… why not lay off the sauce?  And Tandy Man asked about another sort of laying things aside:

It has been a very quiet year for the blog for many reasons. I have had the passing of my mother to contend with, been very busy with beery things here in Rochdale, Oldham and Bury and latterly in Manchester for Manchester Beer and Cider Festival. But I don’t think it the main reason. I just couldn’t be bothered. Little inspired me frankly.  Some things interested me, but overall, just all a bit flat. Like a London pint.

I suppose it’s been obvious that creative beer writing has not been quite as interesting over the last couple of years as it was in its hay day (given all the jostling to be Bernstein and Wordward, pretendy or otherwise) but it’s important to be OK… be just OK, like the man above,† with the idea that one can be neither a craft PR type pushing for greater collective boosterism or sitting looking in the mirror, finding yourself admitting you are are cutting back for health reasons. While Stan may be right, that beer reading has been rather spare the last couple of weeks, there is still that great big middle ground to write about and it is full of interesting things worth exploring and sharing your ideas. So while I won’t be confused anytime soon for a #beerpositive**** supporter, Polk is on the right track.

Say – speaking about drinking and health, this is an excellent article worth considering because it’s written by a wine writer and judge who is also a liver disorder specialist. He poses the question this way:

I believe advice that everyone should have at least two alcohol free days a week is a well-intentioned effort to combat the enormous adverse impact that alcohol has on some individuals’ health and well-being. The question, of course, is whether that strategy will be effective in reducing the well-known damages of excessive drinking to individuals and society: liver disease, neurologic problems, socially unacceptable behaviour, and driving under the influence, to name just a few.

See that? “Well-known”… which means if you don’t believe it you are participating in something like climate change denial.***

New booze laws for 2019? That’s what you showed up for, right? I left it for last. Big news is how the crowds at the next World Cup will face plumped up booze taxes:

In an effort to make their country healthier, authorities in Qatar have introduced new taxes. But with the World Cup just round the corner, fans around the world will be raising their eyebrows almost as high as the new prices for booze. That’s because the Gulf state has added 100% to the cost of alcohol – seeing a crate of 24 beers now retail for £82 and a bottle of gin set you back and astonishing £73.

Other new laws include unintelligible changes to craft distiller operations in California, relaxed retailer rules in Tennessee and Colorado, tougher drink driving laws in Ontario, and a booze crackdown in Turkmenistan.

Well, that’s enough for now. Can’t give away all the good stuff on the first Thursday. Predictions? What will happen in 2019 otherwise? Ask me in 12 months. What’s happening Friday and on the weekend? Go ask Boak and Bailey on Saturday and then Stan on Friday.

†Don’t be looking for the linked connection down here…
*I don’t mean that I will be even nicer, just that again I promise… only to fail.
**I have no idea how this gets shipped to Canada for such a low price. Does it come by tramp steamer with no guaranteed delivery date?
***And for God’s sake stop taking about a J-curve. You just look silly.
****#beerrealism is much more interesting. #ThinkingAboutDrinking, too. And I need to get my own butt in gear. Frankly, more than anything, I blame me.
*****Ben predicts on three topics, and does so rather well. On the most interesting topic, DME, the main question I have is not one really asked yet except in discussions on the QT. Something is afoot – as the story so far is not right. The other question I have I will ask: how much of the deposit money was borrowed and how much was actual saved cash. If the former, the ripples will spread much more widely. Who will lend for such equipment now? If the latter, perhaps spare me a full throttle application of the broke craft owner motif next time we meet. But, as Ben’s gathered threads ask by implication, think on the fate of Texas’s Big Bend Brewing Co., now closed due to $1 million lost to DME and the others who may soon follow. 

If Mid-November Were More Exciting Would You Be So Happy With Your Thursday Beer News?

So. Here we are again. This is a bad week. Traveling around central Canada. Long meetings. Hotel rooms. Fortunately, I am working on my Korean food skills as part of this road show. My newly increased obsession, kimchi is… well… it’s like a hipster Scot would have invented if Korea hadn’t done it first. Peace food. Other than that, its all hotel breakfast buffets and minivans fully of cheery engineers. Bounding down the highway balanced on a buffer of spicy exotic cabbage.

First off, I was alerted by someone no doubt more attentive that I am, given my kimchi induced food coma, that there has been a shock wave hammering those writing about the history of saison. You see,  has shared his thoughts of a fact-checking mission he undertook on the “2004 book Farmhouse ales, and especially the contribution it includes by Belgian brewer Yvan De Baets” and YdB is not too thrilled but sadly fell back on what looks like a status based defense in his extensive comments offered in response:

This is your website. By definition you will have the last word on it. Cool. I will not start a debate here anyway. I have more to say about some of your claims but I don’t have nor the time nor the desire to do it: not only I strongly dislike the ego battles, but more importantly the first tanks of our new brewery are arriving in a few weeks and I have to prepare them a nice nest.

Remember: watch out for expertise transposition. Few brewers are actually all that acquainted with the means and methods of the historian. Its not in the nature of the gig. Likewise, vice versa. Dig it? For me, however, I think the real problem is assuming anything written in 2004 is going to represent an exhaustive examination of a topic involving beer. A decade and a half is a long time for research to advance – especially when that decade and a half saw the explosion of the digitized historical records. That being the case, taking a strong stance either in favour or against such stale dated research is likely a mug’s game.

More convivially, Eric Asimov of The New York Times (who I like a lot) wrote a piece about the ciders of the Hudson Valley (which I like a lot):

All share a deep-seated desire to understand the traditions, nuances and complexities of apples and ciders. They are the latest wave of a great cider revival in the Northeast, reaching through New England, out to the Finger Lakes in western New York, and down through the Appalachians. For anyone used to most commercial ciders, which are often made from concentrate, sweetened and sometimes flavored, these serious ciders are a revelation. They are mostly bone dry, with the flavors of apples and of the region. Apples, too, it turns out, express a sense of place, what wine lovers call terroir.

Less authentically, apparently what was a contract brewery is now an app that the deal did not include. Figure out that one if you will… and this one for that matter:

Drinking at taprooms isn’t just en vogue, it’s a permanent part of today’s industry that now drives about 10% of Brewers Association-defined volume.

Permanent? You misspelled “today’s top fad” darling. Not unconnectedly, Matthew Curtis announced his retirement from the collective blog Good Beer Hunting. One never know what is behind “effective immediately” but one hopes its nothing too drastic. I line it up in my mind with the tweets about breweries hiring passionate beer comms for their passionate beer comms needs. All in all, a very tough row to hoe but hiring Rebecca would be a smart move, for example:

Hi guys! I’ll be looking for some freelance/ad hoc work after this month. I’m an accredited Beer Sommelier and was even nominated as Best Young Beer Writer this year by the (!).’

You know, Pete Brown used to be a beer comms guy but he is no longer working for this sort of work. He is working on being a better Pete* – which is great – but once in a while loses his marbles most wonderfully:

Oh fuck off. I’m sorry (I’m trying to rein in the bad language and anger and be more professional) but fuck the fuck off. Even the most cursory reading of the history of pale ale/IPA shows this simply isn’t true.

Like others, I don’t really even care what he was writing about when he got so deliciously rude… but in case you are curious it was about a disappointing relaunch of Bass Ale.

Czech beer drinking in a slump.

Tandleman has an opinion on the four Cloudwater cask offerings pending according to a tweet – as well as a very nice new profile photo of himself as you can see. He must have a good social media consultant.  I wonder what social media consultants like that cost…

These days, calling anything “one of the most important beers in modern American brewing” is a bit silly but the Chicago Tribune found cause to so publish in relation to Allagash Brewing’s Coolship Resurgam. I remember about a decade ago getting in a handbags match over someone claiming one US brewery or another was the first to do something to which I replied something something about the Allagash coolship – which Ron will correct correctly as being a “cooler” in English. These things get heated. Fortunately, even the shock of the new is past us now given we live in hyperspace and no one really cares, knowing that next week’s new thing will in turn be stale by the following weekend. Just hope the Allagash beer is tasty.

As noted last week, readbeer.com is up and running. We now can see the output of 63 different sources of online beer writing. That will grow and with it the decentralized, leveled goodness of blogs will return. One of the great things about the former RSBS was how access to ideas was not being filtered through the gauze of self-proclaimed expertise or assertions of journalism. Access was immediate and it was up to the reader to sift clues.  Soon there will be 630 feeds. Best to keep up.

Well, that is enough for now. I am closer to home for most of next week so maybe this will be more considered. Maybe something big will happen that will fill the thousand words with one long observation. Maybe I will sit and count the days to first Christmas and then Spring Training.  That’s more like it. In the meantime, check in with Boak and Bailey for the regular Saturday update.

* Fab.

Warm Weather And The Taxes Are Done Early May Thursday Beer News

Is there any news now that the temperature is over 20C? Isn’t that the real news? Is there any other news to cover? Sure there is the mule making process* being experimented with again, the comminglings this time happening at the #CBC18 event. A magic time with all sorts of attractions. One might find some news there… but how to do that (i) at a distance resistant to the back-slappy back-scratchy and, you know, (ii) sober? What idealism. That’s not how the news is gathered. Buddy up and hit the free bar!

LAST MINUTE ADDENDUM: an hour and a half long video of Ron going on about brewing in the 1700s at a US university. [Gotta fisk and fact check…]

Elsewhere and perhaps from another universe, the best tweet of the week was this one by Dominic Driscoll who berated a beer festival for attracting nothing but the same old “rip-off street food and only hipster attendees.” Actually, I found the selection of shades of grey in this image attached to his tweet rather compelling. Perhaps not all that #CBC18 but still a worthy gathering.

Check your trousers for flying monkeys. Boston Beer had a good quarter.

You know what? I bought three types of cloudy ale variants last weekend as well as a brett saison for takeaway from Ottawa’s Flora Hall Brewing and I was happy to report to myself, once I settled in back home, that I quite liked them. One was even a NEIPA. Nothing like the SunnyD stuff labeled NEIPA crap that I have been handed before. This was cream and fruit and grain all a bit like your morning yogurty muesli. Which is something I like to eat. So why not? I bet they would even pair well with my morning yogurty muesli.

Conversely – and sadly – this story does not live up to the headline as “Adnams Makes Beer from Leftover Marks & Spencer Sandwiches” is really just about recycling the crusts of sliced sandwich loaves. Not anywhere near as disgusting as I had hoped so therefore not anywhere near as fun. Still… it might pair well with recycled crusts of sliced sandwich loaves.

Speaking of which, “Today’s Beer” makes much more sense than “Modern Beer” as a descriptor, given styles are shifting at the speed of a fruit fly family’s genetic fingerprint. A few years from now it will be more like “This Afternoon’s Beer”… maybe.

While, yes, this beer may have nothing to do with Washington it is still sad to have to say the actual history of brewing in the 1700s colonial and independent America was vibrant, clearly full of good beer, brewed at a generous scale and sometimes exported – and porter was even cellared and aged.  Looks like a case of becoming what you berate. Click a few links to the right starting here if you want to know the real story. If you want to, that is.

Back to today, remember when cable TV companies complained about all that convergence happening on the information superhighway? Same:

One could argue that alcohol consumption may have decreased nationwide, but the way the study controlled for countries that had specifically introduced recreational pot, before and after, seems to provide strong evidence that access to weed on some level replaces a degree of alcohol consumption. The results of the study also reportedly “take into account age, race and income data.” They confirm similar findings from two previous professional studies on the same topic, all of which have suggested a link between marijuana legalization and a decrease in alcohol sales.

Which means tomorrow’s Today’s Beer might not even be beer. Don’t worry. Just like brewing history, craft can bend the words so deftly that tomorrow’s today’s beer could actually be not beer and, yet, still be called beer.

I like this story in The Washington Post and not only for the admission that the interest in non-alcoholic beer is due in large part to the author’s alcoholism. My problem is that rather than hunting out non-alcoholic beer when I don’t want the booze, I like to hunt out drinks simply without alcohol. Pear juice. Yum. Assam tea. Ahh. Ginger ale. I am mad for good ginger ale. And it illustrates the problem with folk who say they are really only into craft beer for the flavour: there are masses of other flavours out there to be explored elsewhere, well away from the ethyl alcohol. Summary? If you don’t want or can’t have a beer… why have a bad beer?

I also like this incredibly detailed bit of research in something that is likely not connected to The Wall Street Journal but I have no idea why it was undertaken. Now I know that North Dakota out drinks South Dakota in terms of beer. By a tenth of a gallon of beer. I think that might be a nonfact. Or is it an unfact. A true thing that matters not a jot. Not a sausage. I do like how it show little meaningful correlation between taxes on beer and consumption of beer.  North Dakota has the 17th highest taxation level. Think about that. 17th. Boom. Don’t even mention Rhode Island. Just don’t.

One more thing. I was happily reading an article today and then got blind sided by another one of a sort of weird but typical editorial choice showing up in beer periodicals. I’ve been holding back. This is something that I have found to be somewhat embarrassing for years. Let me share my pain. It is illustrated to the right in the sub-tile kicker (or whatever journos call it) beneath the headline for this article on mead in the latest issue of that CAMRA mag. “Fire breathing dragons and armies of the undead…“?!? What unmitigated cheese. But then you see the same thing in the same article above a very nice piece by Boak and Bailey: “…the lost art…“! It’s all a bit ripe. Holiday cheese ball ripe. What am I complaining about? It’s that weird junior high basement dungeons-and-dragons grade ancient, mystical, medieval claptrap. You see it everywhere. It’s a bit there in that Raiders of the Lost Ark OG cover, too. Makes you feel like you should be drinking your beer from a pre-raphaelite vase while discussing hobbit culture as Houses of the Holy plays quietly on a slow loop somewhere down a hallway.** You see a hint of it anytime brewing is referred to as a “mystery” or “alchemy” even though it is the opposite of that – just a very common practice undertaken regularly for millennia by a large number of ordinary people. Would we  discuss, say, the “alchemy” of shoes? Or the “lost art” of, errr, growing reasonably ordinary tomato varieties in a nice terracotta pot bought at the hardware store? No. No, we wouldn’t. It’s like that loser “rock star brewer” crap of the X-treme beer era but, unlike that, it never seems to have the decency to go away. Never ever. No matter how stupid and laughable it all is. Does anyone actually get the slightest wiff of “mystical magical alchemy” mumbo jumbo at all from beer? Do you? Or is it just lazy cliché layout copy?

OK, that is it. The week that the BA plays BB right down to the big screens and the group hate on the evil other – terrible bad majoritarian popular beer.  It’s over. That week is done. And like every week, a new week begins each Thursday at noon. See you at the end of the next one. Go!

*Don’t get me wrong. The mule has wonderful attributes: “more patient, hardy and long-lived than horses, and are described as less obstinate and more intelligent than donkeys” according to wikipedia. Thick skin and and natural cautiousness. But they are just not… natural. The result of a meeting that would not otherwise occur. Who loads the Wikipedia entry for “Mules” anyway?

**Many is a word
That only leaves you guessing
Guessing ’bout a thing
You really ought to know, ooh…
(…you really aughta know-a-woe…)
[Fade out on twiddly electronic stoner keyboards.]

The Two Year Dead “Craft” Is Still Dead And Might Be Expecting Company

This graph… err… table to the left right was posted on the internets today by Jeff Alworth. It is tied by him to the piece in GBH by Bryan Roth about the meaning of IPA – which has the wonderful and likely most accurate thing about IPA or even craft I have read: “IPAs are what people want from me, you kind of have to give them what they want…” Jeff posted a piece himself on the now stone cold demise of of “craft” – an event I sent my funeral wreath and condolences in relation to over two and half years ago. Oliver Grey wanted it put out of its misery even further back.

The main point to focus on today, however, is not the disutility of the terms but the disutilty of the graph. It goes to a notion of abstraction and levels of abstraction. The graph offers a fabulous illustration of the failure to align levels of abstraction. You will see, yippee, that IPA wins in the race to top the craft beer style race.  The problem is not whether this is correct or not as we all know people who know nothing about craft beer who ask for an IPA. It’s the chardonnay of white wine circa 1999 in that respect. Code for (i) something that the drinker will like (ii) that the bartender will understand (iii) because the bar likely stocks it. Because “…you kind of have to give them what they want…”

The problem is that IPA is an umbrella term, even if a useful one. Consider the other terms in the list. “Craft Scottish,” “craft porter,” “craft dark beer” and even “craft amber” might for the average person reasonably all fit into “craft brown beer” as an umbrella term. “Craft IPA” on the other hand is known to include unspecified styles like IPA itself, DIPA, TIPA, BIPA, WIPA and any number of other Franken-styles designed primarily to ram the three letters “I” and “P” and “A” onto the label to ensure that the code speaking person in the bar orders one thus making the sale. Does this mean IPAs are not the most popular category? No. Does it mean I always know what I will get in the glass when I order one? The answer, compared to say pilsner, is also no.

As the ripples on the lake into which “craft” was flung a few years ago spread out to their limit and fade, we should be aware of how its fate was tied to it becoming an abstract concept prone to influence, interest and malleability. For me, IPA is half way down that same slippery slope.* I look for other words to guide me beyond the relative hop intensity flag that it waves. As has happened over and over, hop intensity itself fades as either or both an offering or a preference. You see it starting in the fruity murk that I have been, frankly, fooled a few times into ordering. As in the past, what is an IPA might be now or in the future be quite forgotten for the very reason that graph unintentionally demonstrates.

*…because, see, before badly used words are flung into the lake they slide down a slippery slope. Presumably there is a ramp involved near shoreline.

You Stop Paying Attention For A Minute And – WHAMMO! – It’s May


What a busy run. I was out of town in a tall building talking about things for days, trying to get four sets of income tax returns in before the deadline, haggling over the extracting a child from a university dorm post-exams and even writing two brewing history columns for a magazine yet to be launched into the public discourse. And planting the vegetable garden. Radishes don’t plant themselves. April may well be the cruelest month and it is, in large part, because it always seems to fly by in a haze of tasks. Can I complain a bit more? Tra la. It’s May.

Things I need to do: blend. Ed sent me a bottle of diastatic brown malt ale. After I begged. My plan is to take a good brown ale or porter and compare and then mix a la Cornval. Maybe I’ll get to that later this week. That sounds exciting.

Things I need to do, the next: reflect upon the urban jungle. I did get out into the town briefly after a long day talking in tall buildings. Twice I had a pint – a lovely dimpled mug’s worth* of Granite IPA – at that place I visit regularly – as in 2009 and then again in 2013. I really am a sucker for Ringwood which, having been raised as a child upon the Granite’s work. It’s funny. I can call it yogurty and think “yum” while at the same time certain lagers can get lumbered as being yogurty yik. I suppose if I paid attention in any of the “off-flavour” seminars I’d have a better vocabulary about such things but I would rather throw myself down stairwells than do that. I liked it more than the average BAer did. Way more than the RateBeerbarians. Good thing I rarely take others seriously.

Things I need to do, furthermore: consider this. I heard while standing in a tap room that the same one brewery in eastern Ontario was seriously moving towards getting out of the 64 ounce growler trade altogether in favour of half size 32s. I found this very odd. Some sort of freshness claims were made. I was unmoved. Quarts over pottles? Perhaps if there was a better lobby group behind the pottle makers, surely a cottage industry clinging on to a traditional way of life. Support the half gallon.

Things I need to do, lastly: watch out. I worry. About the way of the world. About the weight of the world upon us all. But I don’t worry that much about Sam Adams. As Stan wrote, there has been a lot of worry leading up to and after the release of Boston Beer’s quarterly numbers which, as Jeff pointed out, were utterly brutal. If this were a sports team, the ownership would either sack general management or, conversely, back off and put the future entirely in the hands of general management. Unlike many a sorts team, this is just a brewery… and cidery… and alco-pop maker. So I care a lot less. Koch the Less Hairy is not any sort of hero.**(*) Nice enough I am sure, a bit weird what with the yeasty-yogurty thing… but it’s likely a good time for his retirement, actually. Watch out for folk who say too strongly otherwise. Ask if car service arrangements were involved. Gotta watch out for those sorts of things.

May. What shall I do in May?

*LOOK RIGHT! CLICK!!
**Craft beer writing really needs to stop drowning in superlatives of its own invention. Thank God I only practice in beer writing where the income is small but moral judgement enriches.
**(*)So… why does the asterisk have five points on the keyboard but six on the screen?