Category: Law

The Fascinating If Not Captivating Beery News Notes For November’s Start

November. Yippee, November! No one ever said that. Maybe if you were born on the first of November. Or in New Zealand. A New Zealander born on the first of November might be feeling they hit the jackpot, come to think of it. DSL might, too. Speaking of which, the Austrian Beer Party is saying yippee or whatever it is you say thereabouts. Still at 10% in the polls, down from 13% a month ago but no joke:

An upstart satirical party whose flagship policies include an unconditional beer allowance for every citizen and municipal lager fountains has come out of nowhere to win fourth place in national opinion polls. Founded in 2015 by a charismatic punk rock singer, the Beer Party was until very recently a fringe phenomenon in Austrian politics, scraping only 0.1 per cent of the vote at the last parliamentary election in 2019.

What else is up? I need to make this snappy. Things to do. Naps to have. Hmm…. Crisp Malting issued its 2022 Harvest Report which contains some startling observations about the climate:

It was the sixth driest summer on record and the driest since 1995, with just 62% of the usual summer rainfall. Additionally, we also saw more sun than usual at 115% of the 1991-2020 average. As a result of all this weather, it was the earliest barley harvest ever – some fields were cut on June 29th – and by July 19th, 70% of the UK winter barley harvest was cut. In the 50s and 60s, this would have been a month later, in August. Harvest in Scotland closed out earlier than usual also, another demonstration of the impact climate is having on our agricultural calendar.

Jings. Word is by 2042, the harvest will take place in 2041 a full twelve weeks before the time of planting. Canada is also having a bumper crop – and seeing higher prices for the wrong reason.

And I’ve come across something I am not sure I’ve seen as much as I thought I might – a review of the Good Beer Guide from Phil Mellows of British Beer Breaks who attended the book launch:

The strength of the Good Beer Guide, and what makes it different from, and in many ways better than, competing guides, is that the people picking the entries are so close to the ground. They know exactly what’s going on with the pub, because they drink in there week in, week out. This is also a weakness. A pub can fall out of favour with these individuals for all kinds of reasons that may be obscure to the occasional visitor. And there must be, it seems to me, a growing pressure on the decision-making resulting from the limit imposed on the number of entries allocated to each county or region.

Economics abounds. Muskoka buys Rally. Bench Brewing and Henderson sorta maybe merging. And Jeff has it right – Ommegang has lost its way.  Another sign of the times? Lost Abbey is cutting back:

The Lost Abbey’s co-founder and managing partner Tomme Arthur says the scale-down is an acknowledgment of vastly different market conditions than those of the brewery’s sales heyday seven years ago… Arthur says he hopes that reducing costs, particularly on rent and property taxes, will mean the brewery can maintain its staff of roughly 35 employees. “You can’t get small enough quick enough if you’re trying to protect the flank,” he says. 

I’m worried. Not about beer. There will always be beer. I am worried about my problem with Twitter. If we lose Twitter there’s bound to be a new problem for me that will replace my problem with Twitter. I’m having a look at Mastodon but  who’s over there? 100% of everyone voted to not “Quit the Twit” in my scientific study. And what will I do without it, without for example good folk going all pointy finger over a history of lambic which is an accusation of all other histories of lambic? I quite like “jeremiads full of invective“… although he’s misspelled jeroboam, hasn’t he. Sad.

Sadder? A thieving beer guzzling monkey in India!

Matty C has also asked a question of verbiage. Specifically the use of Helles:

I’m talking about ‘Helles’, and how it’s become the latest in a stream of buzzwords the lager machine has sacrificed to maintain its youth and vim. But why this particular terminology, and how did it take hold? How accurate are modern brewers’ renditions of this classic Bavarian style? And does what a beer is called really matter, if people are enjoying great lager as a result?

I like my words to mean what they mean and not mean what they don’t mean. Otherwise it can lead to things.  Ron found himself lead to things and in a bit of a pickle out and about on the Brazilian beer tourism scene again:

Last full day in Brazil. A bit weird. An election and the clocks changed. Plus everything in the centre of Florianopolis is shut…. It’s going crazy outside. People clearly think Lula has won. I hope that’s fireworks and not gunfire.

I trust it all worked out.  Speaking of travel and a bit more sedate sort bit of travel, B+B took us to Cologne, Germany this week and laid down a new law:

We decided on a rule: you need a minimum of three beers per pub on a Kölsch crawl. The first one will taste weird because it isn’t the same as the last you were drinking. You gulp that one down. Get the city scum out of your throat. The second, as you acclimatise, allows you to pick up distinct aromas and flavours. How is it different? Why is it different? The third allows you to appreciate what’s in front of you in its own right, and decide whether you want to turn this into a real session. Or walk on. Because you’re never far from another.

In brewing history this week, Gary highlighted the upcoming 2022 Chicago Brewseum Beer Summit and, elsewhere, @AfricanArchives wrote about a moment in history that I had not heard about – The Battle of Bamber Bridge which saw US soldiers fighting each other in England in 1943… and the local English publicans taking a side:

In 1943 Black American soldiers faced off with white American Military police during World War 2 on British soil. Black American soldiers had to fight their own white American soldiers, while in England, where they were fighting the world war. …when the American Military police found out that their own black soldiers were drinking at the same pubs as white people, they went in to arrest them. The people in the town got mad about that treatment and decided to then turn their pubs into “BLACKS ONLY DRINKING PUBS”

Finally, a less inspiring story came to light just when the blog post was going to the presses. Ben Johnson posted an excellent exposé on one Ontario brewery facing little public condemnation after allegations of sexual harassment:

It is unfortunate then that, when the City of Kitchener recently opened up their Requests for Proposals (RFP) process to find a “non-premier brewery partner” to serve beer at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium Complex and Kitchener Golf Courses, they awarded the contract to Four Fathers Brewing Company in Cambridge. Unfortunate, of course, because in 2018 Four Fathers founder and University of Guelph Professor John Kissick actually was charged with two counts of assault and one count of assault with a weapon. Those charges were ultimately dropped in 2020 when Kissick entered into a peace bond with the party who brought forward the charges, but to craft beer drinkers and any feeling humans who watched video of the (alleged) assault (myself among them) the incident likely left a bad taste in their mouth.

There. Nothings like ending on a crummy note. For better news, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey hopefully now again mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast. The  OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run… no, it is back and here is the link!

Your Frighteningly Well Researched Beery News Notes For Mid-October 2022

Wow. I even scared myself a little just putting this together this week. So much effort. So little point. And all the stuff on the cutting room floor. Whew. What’s that? Yes, summer has lingered, thanks for asking. The frosts have only brushed the yard as it turns out. The garden is still going on with plenty to still harvest. Still time for more cardoon mush. You know, you really aren’t a chef/gardener/drinks biz personality until you’ve made your own cardoon mush. And I’ve yet to even eat one of my first crop of salsify. Yet there is it, right by the front door.

Before we get going, an update on the comments I made last week about my hopes and dreams for a futuresque dreamscape of smooth brightly coloured plastics and chrome at BXLBeerFest in Brussels, The Beer Nut reporting. In his update he shared the scene, a bit of which is to your right, my left. Pallets. Wooden pallets held together with wire or tape or something. Really? Craft really needs to get into the modern world, that’s what I say. The world of plastics and chrome.

First up, Eoghan posted some serious thoughts about the point of all his beer writing efforts:

Do I want to continue writing about Brussels and beer? Is it still interesting for me? More importantly, is it still interesting for you? If I stop what I’ve been doing these past five years, what comes after? Do I stop altogether? Or do I try something different? But if I try something different and I fail, and fail utterly, then what? What happens then? Would I want to continue to write?  These might seem like mundane questions, a fixation on something – a blog – that ultimately has little intrinsic value. But that would be to do down the time and the energy I’ve put into my writing in the last five years, and I’ve done myself down enough in the past.

Lots have people have moved on so that is no shame in itself. Just see how many of the beery podcasts, newsletters and blogs listed below are dead or dying. But the idea that writing about a fixation has little intrinsic value needs serious quashing. It’s only in the writing that the fixation becomes of value. Exploring the weird thing that triggers the imagination is always worthwhile. This is the problem with the British Guild of Beer Writers and NAGBW shift from talking about “writing” to the thinly smug language of “reporting” and “journalism” over the last few years. Not only does it smack of needy niche (and also pretendy-ism… yes, I said it) it misses the fundamental point that most of this is obsession, not reportage. Write!

The UK’s Telegraph had a rather positive report on the best new low-beers and no-alc… which also led me to the concept of “Sober October” which seem to be a cheater pants copy of Dryuary:

I started Sober October four weeks early, for weight loss reasons after seeing my holiday snaps. I was doing quite well, but while watching TV I found that my right hand kept reaching over to the side-table where the beer should be. The ingrained habit of taking a swig of something cold and hoppy was proving impossible to break. So I let the hand have the beer it wanted – just without the alcohol. My hand couldn’t tell the difference and, surprisingly, my tastebuds couldn’t either.

I am still in the “I can’t be bothered paying that much for fancy soda pop” school but your mileage may differ.  Lots of solid recommendations for British readers.

Seems ‘Spoons may have weathered economic crisis just in time for the next economic crisis:

… the battered JD Wetherspoon share price already had so many dismal expectations priced in that the results themselves were a reminder of the business potential. After all, the company made an operating profit and generated free cash flow. After exceptional items, it also recorded a profit. I think the operating profit and free cash flow are a welcome sign that the business is rebuilding. It has faced and continues to experience considerable challenges, from energy inflation to staff availability. The fact it has turned an operating profit provides a foundation for improved results in future…

Speaking of the economic pressure on the pub, Pete Brown wrote a bit romantically for CNN’s American audience on the subject.

The folks behind the GABF might need that sort of explanation about British beer styles as apparently this year they balled a heck of a lot into one awards category, according to Alistair:

When GABF has a category called “English Mild or Bitter” it suddenly makes sense why Mild and Bitter don’t have a following in the US. Even the trade organization doesn’t give enough of a shit to understand that mild and bitter are wildly different beers… Also, with medals handed out for ESB as a separate category the grouping could easily have been “Bitter” and “Mild/Brown Ale”. There is little logic from a style perspective for lumping mild and non-extra special bitter together.

Seems rather muddied to me. Stan wrote about about seeing the awards from a seat at the ceremony and was more optimistic. As per usual and as is good. (Folk need to keep off my turf.*) Relatedly, here’s the winner of “The Most Craft Industry Style Observation Upon The Awarding of Craft Industry Awards” award… of all time… well, at least for this week:

Winning at GABF is a testament to the breweries who medal. It’s a huge honor and should be celebrated. At the same time, not winning at GABF is no way diminishes a brewery that entered. Ultimately it’s a crapshoot and a bunch of world class beers will be overlooked.

Emmie Harrison-West raises an interesting question about another far more serious aspect of fests in her very detailed article, one that’s really worthy of the space: “Have beer festivals become a hotbed for crimes against women?” 

For over 14 years, Harriet, who lives in Newcastle Upon Tyne, has been attending beer festivals. She says that this derogatory, sexist behaviour towards women and their bodies ‘has been “normal” culture’ for as long as she’s been attending them… reporting such instances of sexism and sexual harrassment at beer festivals was difficult, or that a process simply didn’t exist. That such behaviour and crimes against women had been ‘normalised’ to the extent that women simply accepted it, ignored it, and ‘didn’t make a big deal.’ 

It is good that this discussion is framed as a discussion of crime. Anything less is also a form of normalization.** The article also talks about concrete responses like London police’ Ask For Angela program and The Coven who advocate for women’s safety at events and attend as wellness officers launching the initiative at the Leeds International Beer Festival in September 2021.

Elsewhere, Ron has written about travel again with a focus my favorite character in beer pop culture… his wife Delores:

After bringing back her wine, I tell Dolores: “There’s one big advantage this place has: self-service drinks. None of that “singles only” for me here. It’s trebles all round.” “Don’t go crazy, Ronald.”*** “When have I ever?” “Hmmpfh” She makes that funny noise which somehow manages to convey contempt, pity, incredulity, scorn and a tiny hint of amusement.

And speaking of travel, Jeff gathered up his nickels and bought a ticket to Norway for KviekFest22!**** Now, I am not one of those who usually will comment upon a drive-by bit of beer writing by a stranger in a strange land but – I have to tell you Jeff did one of the most cleverest things I ever did see… he turned a beer porn photo op into a anthropological guide to making farmhouse ale – with photographs and “fig. 1” style descriptions and everything, like this:

As the water heats, the brewer prepares the mash tun. In the actual event, we used a more sophisticated steel tun with a metal strainer, but typically Stig would use a plastic tun (in the old days they were wooden) he’d prepare with a filter log and juniper boughs. (Even with the steel mash tun, he packed it with juniper.)

1. The log has a trough in the bottom and holes throughout.
2. Stig places the open end next to the faucet and then,
3 and 4., he packs juniper boughs around the log for finer filtration.

I love that the guys name was Stig.***** That photo up there? That’s the log. (More like a junk of wood to me. Logs big. But who am I to take away from the spotlight of this excellent piece of information sharing that means more to anyone and everyone than anything journalissimo submitted for crude pay?)

Speaking of being away, there was a lovely bit of exploration shared by Kieran Haslett-Moore about the times to be had in New Zealand:

I breakfast at a vibrant bakery that also does café service. A dome of scrambled eggs, sausage patty, confit mushrooms and glazed ham all spiked with Szechuan crispy chilli oil. A family dressed like it’s 1983 walk along Lower Stuart Street. They are animatedly discussing the city’s wifi service. They head into one of the city’s ‘Scottish shops’ .

Finally, a lovely piece of long writing at the BBC about Nathalie Quatrehomme and her family line of Parisian cheesemongers:

“We make lovely Maroilles washed in beer,” she said. “And we do lovely Langres in Champagne.” And aging isn’t the only way the siblings add a touch of personality to their cheeses. “In addition to being agers, we transform cheeses,” explained Nathalie, evoking a handful of offerings familiar to regulars of Parisian fromageries: Brie with truffle; Camembert dunked in Calvados and rolled in breadcrumbs. Others in the shop, however, are unique creations. Fourme d’Ambert is stuffed with a sweet fig and walnut paste to counterbalance the funk of the blue. A Camembert mendiant (beggar) is covered in jam, nuts, dried fruit and a touch of dark chocolate.

Yum. I must be hungry. Must go eat cheese. As I do, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the  OCBG Podcast which is on a quieter schedule these days – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) Check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run.

*Funny joke. Ha ha. Not saying anything else.
**Seems to be a common saying in the household.
***Which is why I found the Mikkeller “reconciliation” thing so weird, dissuading people with claims from the law.
****No, you’re right – but it SHOULD be the name!!
*****“Presenter: Another man who had his head nailed to the floor was Stig O’ Tracy.“

Your Inordinately Cheery Beery News Notes For These Days Of The First Frosts

Beer snake! Never seen one from that point of view before. Thanks to beer and baseball specialist Shana for the perspective from the bleachers at one of the last Cubs games of the year. Like my Red Sox, they sorta similarly sucked this season. Reminds me of, what… the first forty years of my life? Ah, the good old days. Anyway, one must be positive. You know, I wrote that header up there before I wrote anything this week. Why? Because there seems to be a lot of bad news out there. Bad in the world and fairly bad in the beery bit of that world. So, as always, I shall try to be the voice of optimism, of good cheer and positivity. I tell myself this again… as I start out…

First up, let’s check the shipping news. Despite what the keen beer trade statisticians who are good and making numbers bendy say, apparently there is a global slowdown coming so fast and hard that trans-Oceanic shipping lines are cutting back:

Ocean carriers are canceling dozens of sailings on the world’s busiest routes during what is normally their peak season, the latest sign of the economic whiplash hitting companies as inflation weighs on global trade and consumer spending. The October cancellations are a sharp reversal from just a few months ago, when scarce shipping space pushed freight rates higher and carriers’ profits to record levels. 

What’s this got to do with beer? Export and imports. Except for big buyers like Ontario’s LCBO, most good beer likely does not ship by the full container load. But it still could be good news for the small and local even if not so good for the forces of international craft.  So… less beer may be moving on the high seas. We see the same thing happening across the bar. Not so good. The export geared breweries of Britain may have a lead on this lesson, learning the hard way due to Brexit… though to be fair those with a local market focus also seem to be suffering. Jings. Tough days. Soon it will all be about nods, winks and word of mouth if you want to find the good stuff.

Never one to be glum… or even fixed in one spot for very long, The Beer Nut went on a holly joliday and reported back from the BXLBeerFest in Brussels which offered beers sort of in the round, reminding me of the Tardis’s console:

I made arrangements to attend last year. That didn’t work out but tickets rolled over and so there I was, if not quite front at least fairly centre, on the last weekend in August 2022.  Sixty invited breweries occupied eight circular pods, each pouring four or more beers at a time. The selection was carefully chosen from Belgium, Europe and North America, with an emphasis on the wild side of fermentation, like saying “we invented lambic, show me what you can do”.

Circular pods! How futuristic! I hope they wore garish wide-lapelled purple, green and/or yellow corduroy suits, too. And played the best of Seals and Crofts on a loop. But that’s just me. Bright. Cheery. Elsewhere, Alistair wrote about dreich this week and (other than knowing you have no idea how to pronounce it because I can) I liked this bit:

Saturday in central Virginia was dreich, gey dreich, as the remnants of Hurricane Ian drifted up the Shenandoah Valley. It was a day for comfort clothes, pots of tea, and whatever mindless shite the kids wanted to watch on the idiot box – I am starting to worry about their love of screens, but that’s not the point of my post. I pondered lighting the first fire of the season, but the wind was whipping along at 20mph and I have an in built fear of a chimney fire. Into this revelry of gloom came a text message from Jason at Devils Backbone…

Speaking of dreich, I see that Jeff has reported on fifth anniversary that relic of 2017, the “independent” seal offered by the US Brewers Association to its membership. For me, it was an extension of 2012’s “crafty” botch that sought to rally beer buyers around the BA’s central “one ring to rule them all” branding approach to selling craft beer in the US.* While (i) these sorts of things may have given comfort to big national craft and, conversely, (ii) the more recent explosion of small and local breweries  fundamentally altered the discussion, I was most surprised by this tidbit in the article indicating how they may have missed the boat – they don’t ask the only people that matter:

Beer in general has been lagging, but craft beer is no longer the bright segment in a declining category. In recent quarters, only imports seem to be bucking the trend—while craft tracks with other domestic categories. And customers themselves? It’s hard to say. The Brewers Association hasn’t done any recent polling on the question—or made it public, anyway.

Note: if there was good news from consumers, polling results would have been made public. Verdict: dud.

And I don’t know what to make of the news that the very large object identifying as BrewDog won a court case. From the BBC News report I see that the defendant “failed to respond to the court” which seems to indicate that a Statement of Defence (as we would call it in Ontario) was not filed. Which, if that is the case, leads to a default judgement which effectively does not represent a ruling on the merits. That being said, I am somewhat concerned that all the sins of craft have merged into this one matter, as it is (i) being a big mean brewery, and (ii) one that is for the most part elsewhere. The resulting response seems to be dumping all errors on this single example, accepting without any serious question the deftly played PR sidestep and perhaps even wiping the balance of craft’s record clean – perhaps comforting and  perhaps even re-numbing ourselves to the more widely spread problem still all around us. Moving on craft? **

Which is the opposite of what Beth Demmons does in her Prohibitchin’ series*** – which this month features Omolola Olateju of Black Girls Drink who makes this excellent point:

“The complications of getting these alcohol-related licenses, LOLOLOL!” she laughs, cynically but genuinely. “I really do wonder about the gatekeeping. Right now in the drinks industry, there are financial barriers and resource barriers — it’s really painful.” One change she believes would help alleviate said barriers would be more BIPOC people getting involved at the legislative level to identify and correct problem areas. “I’d be really curious — and I make some positive assumptions — around how that would change the industry,” she says. “That to me is the next equity front: people in ‘the system.’”

Speaking of the system… note: not Pete’s best photo… that is Pete, right? And grey? Really. Talk about yer dreich! No… not Pete… no, the logo’s background!!****

The reporting on reporting is real this week as Stan chose two stories about wine could well apply to beer: (i) one about the way that the story behind a drink made the drink more appealing and even more valuable to the buyer and (ii) the second …

…another instance where the word “wine” could be replaced with “beer” in two instances. “The wine industry itself is much to blame with its history of pretentiousness, and its absurd rituals and vocabulary that convey the message that one must be a connoisseur before one can enjoy wine.”

I mention this as the two seem to be two side of the same coin to my mind: the myth making  as obstacle making and the gatekeeping of the faux connoisseur… as obstacle making! Strip those away and what do you have?  You know… other than a world without bevvy’s consulto-judge-journalist class?***** Well, what you would have is reality like… bowling and beer – in Walsall!

We met up with Dan Gilbert and Coxy and explained why we had had left The Lion only for Dan to exclaim that he loves UB40. Which made me laugh. We headed to The Wharf Bar. There was karaoke. I was urged to have a go and despite it being free as opposed to the £20 in the bowling alley I wasn’t feeling it. There wasn’t many people in and I like a good sized baying audience when I perform. 

Before you get all caught up in that moment and go off to just do anything anywhere enraptured by the prospect of beer and bowling – BEWARE! Via CookieNet!, we have learned about the most violent pub in Britain along with its, err, customer conduct standards:

He is said to have required an operation to stop the bleeding, with the wound he survived snagging an artery, with police noting customers were “served alcohol by the bar staff” despite it “being evident someone is seriously injured”. At the time of the incident, police also said that management knew “the risks of its customer base yet chooses to ignore this”.

Yikes!  Finally, a white lab coated eggheads have taken credit for all that you love in beer:

Belgian investigators have improved the flavor of contemporary beer by identifying and engineering a gene that is responsible for much of the flavor of beer and some other alcoholic drinks. The research appears in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. For centuries, beer was brewed in open, horizontal vats. But in the 1970s, the industry switched to using large, closed vessels, which are much easier to fill, empty, and clean, enabling brewing of larger volumes and reducing costs. However, these modern methods produced inferior quality beer, due to insufficient flavor production.

Modern! Bad. Bad modern… but… craft is modern… is craft bad? Is that what science is saying? Hmmm. As you ponder that, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the  OCBG Podcast which is on a quieter schedule these days – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run.

*You will recall that Flying Dog quit the BA over this sort of thing at the time.
**Well, more you than me. I am still off the gluten (happily) so leaning on a little wine or a drop of cider if I need a hit – though I did a test with a can of Guinness. My histamines slept though the whole pint.
***The award winning series!
****Yes, there is… though to be fair… he may well have been suffering from the IPA yips!
*****Because who the hell wants to be an expert in things that have no perceived value?? No, best to stick to the plan.

These Are The First And Most Exciting Beery News Notes Yet For September 2022

So… me and we are back from holiday. And I’ve been away and back on the road for work already. Before the before I was roadlying it a lot but the big project is in the final strokes and, happily, it seems all turned out fabulously. To the extent I understand. We are well past the gravel, moved on from the concrete and are thinking asphalt. School starts next week, too. Just a few first days of school left in this family. Days are being squeezed by the junior ranks. I am looking forward to the big holiday one day, a life with days like Martin has been enjoying on his wandering retirement. He’s in the Isles this week, westering home, land o’me peeps, the Local Hero zone. I hope Alistair has been able to reach for the Kleenex. Plenty of pub social commentary and observation.

What else is going on?   First, expect a fresh breakout of the usually high quality amateur medical science* from the brewery consultancy classes as we have received harsher worser news about booze health wise in Canada:

Any level of alcohol consumption had a net negative impact on health for almost every disease reviewed by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA)… The health risks become “increasingly high” when someone has six or more drinks per week. And for women who have three or more drinks per week, the risk of health issues increases more steeply compared to men, research shows.

Note: four years after the j-curve was dumped, those cardio benefits have now  been ditched. You are on your own now. Ben takes the right path and suggests it is time for more consumer focused health info for drinks.

Stan shared more bad news. The Euro hop crop has been hit hard by their drought:

Estimates made as harvest began — late, in many cases — indicate that the German crop will be down about 20 percent from 2021, and 18 percent below and average year. The Czechian crop, which is almost entirely Saaz, will be down 43 percent from last year’s record crop. BarthHaas reports, the “early maturing German varieties (Hallertau Mittelfrüh, Northern Brewer, Hallertau Tradition, Perle) are affected and will yield poorly. Rainfall towards the end of August are giving hope for the later maturing varieties that still have time to recover.”

I am thinking of a GoFundMe for the new book a copy of Egypt’s Beer: Stella, Identity, and the Modern State by Omar D. Foda. $120.75 USD is like what… 24 bottles of wine? Have we had reviews that I missed? I need to know if I need to know.  

Note: the new knowledge embraces the new not knowledge.**

Our pal Evan has writing another great piece, this time exploring the sherry cask trade:

Those two legal rulings led to the growth of an important new business in the Sherry Triangle: the sherry cask trade, which produces sherry-seasoned casks for export. Today, Work notes, there are really two types of sherry casks made in the Sherry Triangle. “One goes into the solera process, and that stays in that solera for years and years and years. It grows patina around the outside, from the ambience of the mold and fungus growing in the area, and it gets the sherry flor inside,” he says. “And there’s another kind of barrel that the coopers are making, and basically these coopers are making an export-style barrel.”

Judging of the Scottish Beer Awards are underway and one of the most interesting thing is how the judges are not picked from the all too familiar international floatplane-assisted consulto set but are representatives of the actual local scene. Top marks for that. Bonus for actually naming the judges on line.

Speaking of jingoism, the question of whether something is related to a culture or not is a semi-spicy one. You may, for example, recall my own review last February of whether Japanese lager is all that much Japanese. Things are not as they seem. So the question of China‘s relationship with beer from Tsingtao to craft was immediately a topic I would find interesting:

Before resigning ourselves to understanding Chinese beer as—broadly and imperfectly—a beer brewed in China by a Chinese company with a brand recognized as being Chinese, there is still the question of style. No broadly-recognized Chinese beer style currently exists. Is it possible to create one? Considering how Cascadian Dark Ale became a Black IPA, despite having no historical connection to India, there is a possibility of it being co-opted by others and turned into a generic category.

Hmm… the problem also could be that trying to frame beers as national in nature is a bit of a dead end.

In England, Ed wrote about signs that he has seen that the pubs in his village are threatened:

…the natives of Ripley have long been staunch pub supporters. I mean it’s not like they’ve got anything else to do apart from stay in and watch DVD boxed sets. But it seems no more. The two evenings I’ve been down recently the number of people in the pub apart from me and my friends varied between nought and two. This is not good. If pubs in Ripley are quiet what hope is there for the rest of Britain? As a #PubMan I fear for the future.

Also much discussion of the another threat to another pub, the Compton Arms in Islington district of London. But it isn’t just another pub. It’s the pub George Orwell described in perfect in 1946, all as unpacked by Kat Thomas in The Spectator:

…the Compton Arms could soon be consigned to the history books. Four neighbouring households, having grown used to a more tranquil setting during Covid times, aren’t relishing the return of us locals – the people who give this pub its purpose and personality. They’ve successfully obtained a licence review, having pieced together a few claims around the pub being a public nuisance and a threat to health. Which, as a regular, seems an almighty stretch.

Time Out joined the response to the situation as did Roger Protz and many other voices.

Odd corporate brewing news out of India where seeking compliance with regulatory rules is cause for getting the boot:

Carlsberg said it is removing “certain” board representatives from its India unit that come from its partner Nepal-based Khetan Group, accusing them of acting against their joint venture’s interests. The move represents a deepening of a long-standing dispute that first came to light in 2019, when Carlsberg India board members from Khetan first protested internally before asking the Indian government to investigate what they said was Carlsberg’s non-compliance with laws on trade discounts, advertisement and sales promotion.

Finally, I was a little surprised by this response that I got from Mikkeller when I asked if their reputation restoration efforts would include a public compliance and improvement reports:

It’s not a part of our current action plan, but definitely something we will look into. Are you familiar with some relevant ressources or providers of public compliance and improvement reports, we should reach out to?… If you are familiar with a HR consultancy that is specialized in retail dominated companies like ours with a split between national and international locations, please let us know. We would be very interested in getting in touch with them.

I was particularly surprised as I thought they had a consultant and that this would have naturally been part of their response to acknowledging harassment claims but when I went back to the GBH report on their approach I saw that it really isn’t really about restoring public confidence:

“…we’re also trying to facilitate a process that doesn’t involve courts and extensive legal action that wouldn’t be good for anyone. We’re able to do that because we have the cooperation of the company.”

Not sure how consumer confidence is supposed to be restored if making outcomes public weren’t considered whether through the courts, an HR comms plan or otherwise.

Suddenly wish I had access to these sorts of beers…

There. Probably a dog days week. as there was not a lot of news and not a lot of wonderful this week… but life is life! As you ponder that bit of wisdom, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and perhaps now from Stan once in a while on a Monday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on most Tuesdays or Wednesdays or Thursdays – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable.) 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now wound up after ten years.

*…swapping one dependency for another…
**See footnote three for more of the same.

What Did Ontario’s Separate Men’s And Ladies’ Beverage Rooms Looks Like?

Once in a while I get asked things by members of the professional media. It is flattering and instructive. The questions are usually specific but also open ended enough to allow for some back and forth and, as in this case, an opportunity to dig a bit more. This week I received this question from a rather large outlet to my east:

I’m trying to get information about one such former tavern: Montreal House, in Peterborough. I’m looking into Montreal House because yesterday Peterborough city council voted against giving it a heritage designation; this means the building will be demolished. The Montreal House was built for lumbermen from Quebec who came to work in the Peterborough… I was wondering if you knew about the Montreal House? And if you were knew how I could go about confirming if the tavern really was the last—or one of the last—men’s only establishments in the province?*

Those of you alive to the information era we live in will know that a year or so ago I reposted a bit of research I did for our book Ontario Beer on licensing in this here province after temperance and the phenomenon of the ladies only license that was introduced in 1934 as part of that.  But I had not really considered the other side of the coin, the men’s only license.

Something seemed odd about the suggestion that this one tavern was the last one, sitting there in Peterborough, a mid-sized Ontario City known for its most excellently named minor hockey team, the Peterborough Petes. That something odd was that there was the idea that there would have been one the last one and not a bunch.  Usually when a law like this changes, any number of permits would shift in terms of their application. So why did someone think there was just this one last straggler? I wanted to know what this was about. So I had a look where every clever beer writer starts looking. In databanks of court rulings.

One excellent resource describing these spaces popped up almost immediately, the 1953 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling in the case of Assaf v. The City of Toronto. It is excellent because it is a case of an expropriation which occurs when a government takes someone’s land for a government use and has to pay compensation including all legal fees, loss of business income, etc., etc.  So there is a description of the thing being valued:

The lands expropriated are situate on Bay Street Street, in the city of Toronto, having a frontage of 35 feet 8 inches on the west side of Bay Street just north of Queen Street, by a depth of 82 feet 3 inches. Upon the land is erected a four- storey brick building, with fire-escape to the rear, and a full basement. It is well located where traffic, at least during the day, is very heavy. The building consists of a basement, the ground floor and second, third and fourth floors. In the basement are the heating apparatus, storerooms, refrigerator units and a beer-cooler. On the ground floor there is a lobby with a ladies’ beverage-room and a men’s beverage-room, with washrooms for both ladies’ and men’s beverage-rooms. On the second floor there are two dining- rooms, with a lunch-counter, and also a fully-equipped kitchen, two washrooms and a counter. On the third floor there are ten bedrooms, nine equipped with sinks with hot and cold running water, one bathroom and a separate toilet. On the fourth floor there are ten bedrooms, eight equipped with sinks with hot and cold running water, one bathroom and a separate toilet.**

Those in the know may have caught this before I did but it looks like those lands were among those expropriated for the building of Toronto’s New City Hall.  Based on the 1913 map of the area, a bit of which is displayed above, it looks like the place was called the Cadillac Hotel before the first world war and Canada’s brief and leaky era of temperance. It sat right under what is now the south-east corner of the outdoor skating rink in Nathan Phillips Square which has been used, pursuant to Federal regulations, as a location in every Canadian film since 1964.*** And notice what was in the place after it got its 1940’s renovations discussed in the case: separated ladies’ and men’s beverage-rooms off a ground floor lobby with washrooms for each.

What sort of thing went on in these spaces?  If we rely on Court cases, we learn of the bad things. For example, in an appeal from the judgment of the County Court of the County of York, dated June 18, 1939, the Court of Appeal of Ontario found itself involved in the case of a bar room brawl in one ladies beverage room:

Riley was working in the tap room when a “rumpus” occurred in the ladies’ beverage room. Riley encountered Lloyd in the lobby, where he inquired as to the cause of the rumpus. Lloyd said he couldn’t seem to do much about it and, according to Riley, turned the matter over to him. Riley entered the ladies’ beverage room, to find Stephenson in a bellicose mood with his feet on a chair, and when he ordered him to remove his feet, a fight resulted, in which, according to Riley, Stephenson struck the first blow. It was admitted that no express instructions were given to Riley, either by Finnegan or Lloyd, to strike Stephenson, and that the general instructions to the waiters were to handle customers peacefully.

Notice: neither Riley or Stephenson were ladies. In the 1945 trial decision in a case brought by one Mr. Gardner, a customer, against Mr. McConnell, the manager, we get a bit more detail on another fight:

The plaintiff is a cook who had been employed in that capacity at the Leonard Hotel… He was a married man and had been accustomed to patronize the beverage room of the defendant together with his wife and their friends. He joined his wife and her friend at a table near the taproom, having entered the beverage room through the lobby of the hotel. The beverage room also had a direct entrance or exit, as the case might be, from it to St. Paul St. at the opposite end of the room from the tap-room. The tap-room was presided over by the husband of the defendant McConnell, who was the manager of the hotel and of the beverage room. The beverage room in question was the one known as the ladies’ beverage room, and had as waiters in it two men—one Jefferson and one Meighan.

Again, there were plenty of men in this space including one called Bloomer who looking for a fight and found a few including with the staff as the judge discussed:

I accept Gardner’s evidence that he was treading his way with caution to avoid becoming mixed up with any trouble which was occurring between others in the beverage room, and was proceeding to the door when he, as he puts it, was “crashed into” by a man in a white coat, ostensibly a waiter and who, Ι accept on the evidence, was the waiter Meighan who had been struck by Bloomer. The result was that Meighan was knocked to the floor with Bloomer on top of him, still assaulting him.

Fantastic! And still… all these men.  Hmm… the same thing happens in 1955 when we read about a…

… young man in question [who] along with two or three companions strolled into the beverage room, ordered a bottle of beer from the waiter, was supplied same, drank it and then wandered into the ladies beverage room, sat there chatting for five minutes or so, when the manager of the tavern, accompanied by an inspector or police officer, came in and challenged the boy as to his age.

These sorts of things go on in rulings from 1960, 1965, 1969 and 1971 – one of which even makes it to the Supreme Court of Canada. In that last ruling from 1971, we have a rather vivid description of a session at one of these places:

Lorenzo Beauchamp and Massicotte joined Florence Dallaire at her table in the ladies’ beverage room. She thought that her brother was “feeling good” and that he talked in a strange way but that he walked all right. An argument developed and Mrs. Dallaire slammed her glass on the table and left. Although Massicotte and the deceased had not quite finished their one draught of beer they proceeded to leave the ladies’ room by the staircase, where the deceased suffered his fatal fall.  His condition immediately before leaving the ladies’ beverage room therefore becomes critical; Vincent McAlendin, who was the waiter on duty in that room, thought that the deceased’s condition was good, and that there was no reason to refuse to serve him beer. He was not stumbling or wobbling on his way out. This evidence is confirmed by Charles Fasciano who had heard the loud talk at the Beauchamp table but observed that the deceased’s manner of walking was not impaired on his exit.****

OK – now we have some ladies and they are perhaps of the harder variety… glass slammers. Otherwise, you see this sort of thing like here in the lead up to a 1961 case of murder after a bar closed:

…the only evidence as to the amount of beer consumed by the appellant during the evening of 9th June, apart from that contained in his statement, was given by his companions Zackariah and Baker. Zackariah said that the party of four (the appellant, his wife, Baker and Zackariah) went into the ladies’ beverage room of the Wembley Hotel about 8:30 p.m. Mrs. Fisher “had a coke” and “we had a few beers and then we went down to the Men’s Room,” after Mrs. Fisher left the party about 9:20 p.m. They had “some beer” in the men’s beverage room, and the appellant left Zackariah and Baker “to see some friends.” He returned about three-quarters of an hour later and “had a beer with us… He finished his beer and part of another one.” Later he said in examination-in-chief “That makes three he had down there,” that is, in the men’s beverage room.

So the calculation seems to be this: drinking men include bad men therefore men need to have their own space to be drunker or nastier than the space where the ladies gather or where folk mix. That is why one category of license was called the men’s beverage room in Ontario’s regulations.***** That seems to be the thing to take from these rulings. The ladies beverage room license was actually “ladies and escorts” as the signs read, like the one at the Douglas Tavern that I mentioned in Ontario Beer which is now closed and converted as of June 2021. But any escort in theory was present on the consent of the ladies as I understand it, given that women could also be there alone or with other women. Those escorts were supposed to be a spouse or a date. Yet one report of a 5:1 men to woman ratio was witnessed at the ladies beverage room of the Tusco Hotel in Toronto in 1936. When three government inspector asked the bartender why he was serving unaccompanied men in the ladies beverage room, the bartender said that he didn’t want trouble. There were clearly picking uppings going on.  The manager of the swanky Royal York pointed out another benefit: it “tends to increase the tone of business” if men are not left to drink alone. ******  Drinking men include bad men.

And it is important to appreciate that the same establishment could have multiple licenses then.  We see that also in the rulings. Have a look at this report in the Georgetown Herald newspaper from February 1, 1962. At that point, municipal governments had to poll residents to see if they wanted any of the licenses in their community. Here the good people of Erin Township to Toronto’s northwest said no, no and no to each of three classes: ladies beverage room licenses, men’s beverage room licenses and dining room licenses. And in fact notice that the ladies beverage room polling got a higher “yes” turnout that the other two. The voting public didn’t want booze but it really didn’t want men only boozers. With good reason. The painter William Ronald discussed the problem in an interview in 1963:

We didn’t even have any night clubs in Toronto until eight or nine years ago. And I don’t drink. This is perhaps why. Everybody asks me why I don’t drink. I don’t really know why. I had an uncle that died of alcoholism at the age of thirty-two. I was very fond of him. My mother’s brother. But really what I think it is now – when I was up in Canada on a recent visit – you see, they have what they call beverage rooms up there, men’s beverage rooms and ladies’ beverage rooms… And they’re horrible. They’re like washrooms with beer, you know. And if you’re not with a lady then you have to go to the men’s beverage room, and it’s not so nice. But if you’re with a lady you can go to the women’s, which is a little poshier. Then they used to have – maybe still have – a twelve o’clock curfew. And so at twelve o’clock everybody loads up and drinks, you see. And so the whole idea of drinking in Canada is to get drunk. I had never seen people drink the way they drink in New York. *******

That puts it in pretty clear perspective. The reason why you needed ladies beverage rooms was to create the other space, the men’s beverage rooms. Because men drank like pigs. Drank to get drunk. To fight. Which was also the problem they were dealing with at the outset of Ontario’s temperance regulations in 1877: men left alone will drink like pigs. Which means every bar now is really a ladies beverage room and, really, it means that the temperance movement won. Thanks ladies.

The references to these sorts of places fade away in the law books in the early 1970s. Reforms came in then that lowered the drinking age, loosened up where you could drink – and also drink in nicer lounges without buying food. Ontario was growing up. Was the Peterborough question answered? No. That may be for another day. Or a pro writer like the one who asked me the question. Let’s see what he finds.

*If the story goes live, you will be the first to know who wrote me.
**There is also an excellent exploration of the “gallonage” of the place – the amount of beer sold, calculated in utterly generic and bulk form. See in the headnote: “There should be some compensation for the difference in gallonage between our hotel and any similar hotel within a radius of 500 feet; the evidence shows that our business in the 12 months immediately before the expropriation was 69,526 gallons, while the gallonage in the 12 months before our purchase was only 25,706…”
***Utter lie.
****See also the 1965 ruling the case of Stephens v. Corcoran et al., 1965 CanLII 210 (ON SC), with this great detail on the spaces within these drinking establishments: “He went to the hotel for the purpose of consuming beer, and in the evening he planned to take his wife and two daughters to the policemen’s games which were to be held at the University of Toronto stadium. Having parked his car at the west side of the hotel, he entered the more southerly of the two entrances to the beverage rooms, the entrance being marked by a “1” in a circle on ex. 1 which is a floor plan of the ground floor. He proceeded to the point numbered “2” where he joined some friends, and consumed in all three pint bottles of beer. He had partly consumed a fourth bottle when he and one or two friends decided to go into another beverage room at the north- west corner of the ground floor, where he took his place at a table at which there were already others sitting and singing, at the point numbered “3”. He brought his partly-consumed bottle of beer with him, and sat down. I find that he was only in the second beverage room a short time before the 6:30 closing hour arrived and the dispensing of beer was closed off in accordance with the law. The table at which he sat may well have been at a point “T” in the same room, which during the day was used as men’s beverage room only and not as a men’s and ladies’ beverage room. About 6:40 p.m. the plaintiff decided to leave. The singing had come to an end, and he said he was going home. He proceeded from the table through a door marked “6” on ex. 1, and then proceeded westerly along the hall, which was illuminated presumably by sunlight shining through a closed door at point No. 9. This was not only closed but apparently locked in some fashion, perhaps by a padlock as shown in the photograph which was taken on October 11, 1965. However, the lighting conditions, it was agreed, are comparable to those which existed on the date of the accident. The plaintiff passed the first door on the left shown on ex. 4. It was locked. When he came to the door “5” on ex. 4 and indicated by figure “8” on ex. 1, he opened it apparently and then fell down the stairs which led to the cellar.”
*****The terminology differed amongst the provinces. In Saskatchewan until 1972 the mens’ only space was a parlour but a mixed area was a beverage room.
******This is not made entirely clear in Craig Heron’s excellent book Booze where it is discussed at page 291. Many pages are given to the topic in Try to Control Yourself by Dan Malleck – including the tale of the Tusco Hotel at page 171 and the Royal York at page 172.
*******The first day of the interview being the date of my birth… the passage goes on: “Some people drink to get drunk here but most people drink just the way they take a cigarette, you know. And some people can drink a lot of liquor but I rarely see people walking along the street the way you do in those towns up there; and cities. And up there not too long ago, for instance, I saw a young man about twenty-two, well-dressed and so on, on a Friday or Saturday night – it’s the big night – and white shirt, I remember, and all this; and there he was on the sort of Fifth Avenue of Toronto completely plastered, stoned, as they say, out cold on the sidewalk, being sick, and his two friends trying to drag him into the car. And this was a very common sight. This is the way always I was brought up – this is the way drinking was.”

These Are The Beery News Notes For The Week Of Jubilee Madness

It is here! Jubilee!!* There shall be bunting. Confession time: I like the Queen herself. I like the structure that the Crown in Canada give the law that I practice. And… that’s pretty much it. Others are less enamored thanbeven that. So… we recognize that Her Maj does like a drink and a pub yet we do recognize that the whole rah-rah Union flag bunting and the children of Oswald Mosley’s nasty jingoism has tainted the whole flaggy wavey aspect… along with the colonial record… and… rampant and growing inequality… and well… Boris… but HRH like a drink and a pub!  In commemoration of the Platinum Joobe, I participated in one of the few ways the government in Canada provided and got a few pins. Pins! What Canadian child doesn’t long for their very own lapel pin celebrating HRH? And in mad cap celebration, one will be gifted to the maker of the cleverest comment left below this post or on social media responding to this post on an appropriately related theme. Remember – cleverest.

First, I missed this a few weeks back, a post from Ashley Newall with a number of forms of branding from Bradings brewery of Ottawa, the first step on our blessed patron E.P. Taylor’s rise to fame.  Of particular note is the photo of the Bradings Man by Yousuf Karsh and how similar it is to one of EPT’s assets, the branding for Cincinnati Cream Beer discussed in the bigger scheme of cream beer six years back.

Two writers took the helpful step this week of tweeting guidance on stories located in obscure journals. First, a Lily Waite bio in Waitrose Magazine (as illustrated) and, second, ATJ in Brewing & Beverage Industries Business saved here on the perils facing brewing industry in these uncertain times. Brewery closures, investment failures and hegemony from big craft. Times are hard at all corners of the trade, especially given the UK’s situation. It was all foretold of course, if only by the obvious patterns set out in brewing industry history. Consider this letter from Carling to Molson in the 1930s. Beer competes. Beer colludes. The small and weak fail. Spend your pennies wisely.

Not sure the monks were all that wise with the pennies as Jeff explores, here quoting from reporter John W Miller** of the publication America: the Jesuit Review:

“…it is very modern, with automated machines that require only a handful of workers. Everything is top-of-the-line. Bottling lines come from Italy, brewing gear from Germany…” In order to service the debt and fund the monastery, the business plan called for the monks to build to annual production of 10,000 barrels a year… Miller helpfully reports that they had annual revenues of $1.5 million, which is pretty good if you’re not servicing a lot of debt.

In Boak and Bailey’s newsletter for May there was a comment made which, unlike everything they have ever ever written, had me shaking my head. It’s this passage in a good discussion about when to stop blogging:

Another natural full stop on a blogging project might be when you ‘make it’ as a writer and sell your first commercial piece. That’s not why everyone gets into blogging but we’ve certainly seen quite a few people make that transaction, with the blog as a stepping stone.

Perhaps what is meant is that this is the reason folk themselves think to stop blogging about beer – which I agree with – but it is not an actual reason to stop writing for the public without pay on a website you control. Why write to make someone else money? Seems weird. Let’s be honest. You have not made it or (too often) you have not made much of anything. So much of what I have to sift through to put together this weekly review is boring derivative and/or feeble writing for pay.  Very generously I would say half of what is most interesting is writing shared freely.*** Very generous half. Hunt out that other good stuff along with me. And write.

Lew on blind tasting:

We taste 5 spirits (blind picked by my daughter from 20 whiskies, rums, barrel-aged gins, calvados) in colored @GlencairnGlass & fearlessly guess all but one wrong.

Lew: “I’m dead sure we’re stupid…” Gold!

Not really related at all, BBC Four apparently ran a replay of Abigail’s Party last evening. You can see the entire miserable drunken thing here. A great trip back into “not nostalgia” for anyone convinced the past was a better place.

Perhaps it’s just an unfortunate camera angle but only in Montreal could someone out-Scandinavia the Scandinavians when it comes to stark and grey:

The space, designed by Ethan’s wife, interior designer Annika Krausz, has soaring ceilings, a firehall door with daytime light streaming through, and heated floors for the winter. Two immense earth-toned paintings by Annika’s father, renowned artist Peter Krausz, and a huge red light fixture above the semi-circular bar further enhance the space.

Another sighting of a brewery sending 100% of proceeds and not just profits as part of supporting the Ukraine cause. Good.

Debates of the week: (i) In the US, can you cool warm beer that was previously cold and (ii) are UK rough pubs a real thing?**** Expertise abounds with, as per, many contradictory positions taken.

Conversely, for years I wondered why beer writing did not focus more on particularly fabulous pubs… then I realized that there would be a chill from the many of those not mentioned,***** one of the great drivers in beer writing topic selection. Robot says “must raise all ships must raise all ships.” Happy then are we to see in Pellicle an honest to goodness warming tribute to a great singular pub, The State Bar of Glasgow:

The State Bar isn’t particularly trendy or arrogant, it’s a humble affair with an unassuming frontage. Possessing an Edwardian horseshoe bar upstairs—an ideal spot for watching football, doubly so as the bar is strictly non-partisan, (a rare blessing in Glasgow). Head downstairs and you’ll find yourself in what feels like the cosy library of a well-to-do Victorian household, complete with dusty books to read, well-worn leather chairs and a crackling fireplace. You can find all the essentials here; house wines and spirits, Tennent’s, Guinness, Cider & McEwans 80-/, or “wee heavy” as it’s known by the locals, and a stage for the bar’s weekly comedy or acoustic nights.

Nice. Now on to cheery international beery news time. Price hikes of 6% to 10 % expected in Japan. In India, beer drinkers may also be facing beer price hikes in addition to the local rationing mentioned last week. South American brewers are seeing “early signs of demand destruction” while a beer contamination scandal in Brazil (in which coolant and wort mixed during the brewing process leading to deaths) has reached the courts. Brewing for a rare medical disorder charity in New Zealand.

Finally, GBH seemingly did the right thing – though in the wrong order – and got some actual advice about writing risky bits about BrewDog and British court processes now republished, though there is the odd suggestion that others can rely on the legal opinion received. Beware! Now… it will be interesting to see if a legal paperwork of some sort now follows. As I have often said, just getting a legal opinion doesn’t stop a plaintiff from taking steps. I trust all involved got independent legal advice, too, just in case assurances had been given.

For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: but not again this week) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. Things come. Things go.

*I expect scenes not unlike those in The Return of the Archons to play out. In tribute, an old pal used to shout “Festival!” in bars as he smoked three cigarettes at a time. That sort of thing.
**Quoting heavily yet still slightly slagging the author he relies upon as it relates to a side issue: “… but he’s not an industry writer and doesn’t realize…” No need of that… I clearly like to project a less saucy approach!  
***If you have any doubts, read Boak and Bailey‘s archives… then go on to Jeff at Beervana… or Jordan‘s site or… or… or…
****Of course they are. The playgrounds of racist, sexist and every other sort of beery bigotry… oh, and violent, too. But most labeled as such are not.
*****And perhaps also the tourist association funders who ensure junkets are (i) paid for and (ii) non-selective. I mean, sure, a rising tide raises all boats but who doesn’t want to control the tides???

The Beery News Notes For The Last Of May 2022

This is the time of year when it all becomes a blur. Weekend plans for the next three months need to be scheduled because, before you know it, time times out and things gotta get done before the snow flies. Snow will fly. We know that. So I spent the past long weekend recreating my turf-bound ancestors life circa 1450. Fires and dirt and nothing much around to make a meal out of. Completely unlike the very modern lads of Halifax, Nova Scotia’s Oland brewery shown above circa 1950…or ’60… They are modernists. No safety glasses, no screens or other barriers as the clinky clacky glass flew by. “Lean in to check, Jerry!” the boss shouted. That being said I did, no doubt like the lads above, have a beer or two after my efforts were done.

Now, let’s see what’s gone on the world of brewing. I hope not as much as last week, given the news ran to almost 3000 words. First up, even though he is taking a break from his weekly round up, Stan is still producing his Hop Queries newsletter, now up to Vol. 6, No. 1., which included this passage on a product I have no personal interest in trying whatsoever – no alcohol, no calorie hop tea… or perhaps something even less:

I confess the word gimmick came to mind last month when the company announced the launch of Hoplark 0.0, Really Really Hoppy and invited me to see the plant. They are making the point that their drinks contain no alcohol and no calories. Because I’ve been buying their HopTea at my local grocery store, because hop water seems to have become a thing (there are other non-beer companies producing hop-flavored drinks, Lagunitas and Sierra Nevada have both launched national brands, and many smaller breweries have started to produce their own), and because Hoplark is being made only about a 30-minute drive from home I decided to visit.

Moving to matters of actual beery things, I liked this post at The Regency Town House website, an examination of urban planning circa 1825. It’s a discussion of the planning of Brunswick Street West  in Brighton and Hove, England and the street is still there as is at least one of the pubs:

Busby’s scheme for Brunswick Town shows the east side of Brunswick Street West was planned to be individual stables and coach houses for the houses on the west side of Brunswick Square and the south spur of the road for stables at the rear of Brunswick Terrace West. The plan also shows the Star of Brunswick public house with a cottage opposite at the northern end of more stabling at the rear of the garden where Lansdowne Mansions would be built by the 1850s. There were two modest buildings just to the west of the pub which would be used as Green Grocers and Bootmakers.

The core of our fair city was build on Georgian plans and at work I regularly bump into stables and lanes for horses as part of the untangling of property interests.  The air would be full of the scent of poo.

Knowing my family’s industrial Scottish reality, this discussion from the BBC is a very light touch on the devastating reality that organized intoxication was for most. Events from the 1890s still echoed into at least the 1960s as family members sought to escape their past and present.

Sticking with the 1800s, Edd Mather posted about brewings from August to December 1849 according to the Alexander Berwick & Co  Brewhouse Book 1849 – 1852 which I understand was an Edinburgh outfit. Hefty brews from 6.3% to 8.7%. He then converted the first of the beers listed for home brewing set, in case you are interested in a pint of P3 come sometime in June.

Jubilee update. Coronation beers found in Stroud. Relatedly, someone felt “mildly patriotic” elsewhere.

Evan has a project on the go which all beer writers should be excited about, a survey of success and failures in book publishing. I added two sad tales but really need to balance off with the happier tales with Craig of Albany Ale… as well as Al and Max Theatre! Go make your confessions so that others may not suffer!

Eoghan wrote a strikingly sensible statement: “I will avoid subjecting you to my trite observations on my first experience of America…”

States in India have started rationing beer:

West Bengal recently began rationing beer to retail outlets with demand doubling over summer last year. Most states have witnessed volume recovery and are looking to surpass pre-pandemic levels, said Rishi Pardal, managing director of United Breweries, India’s largest beer maker. “Owing to peak summer demand, few states have also introduced local regulations have also introduced local regulations on movement of goods inter-state which may impact fulfilment of demand in certain markets,” Pardal said. “We are well-prepared to serve the market.”

On to the local election where all is quiet beer wise – odd given Canadian politicians tend to kiss more beer taps than babies during elections. One thing did happen. I was sent a copy of a lobbying document issued by the Ontario Craft Brewers but sent apparently by someone unhappy with the message. Here is the memo and here is a bit of the anonymous message in the covering email:

The attached may or may not come as news to you – but it would appear to be against your interests as contract brewing facilities, as well as anti-competitive and short sighted. The OCB appears to be focused on targeting and scapegoating smaller businesses, many of whom are diverse, incubators of new products, and if successful will eventually graduate to brick and mortar operations, while seemingly ignoring the much larger collective threat to Ontario Craft Beer from larger international brewers or the rapid growth of cocktails and ready to drink alcoholic beverages. 

Heavens!  Now, to be fair, the OCB memo does state that contract brewers do not contribute to local economies and take up valuable shelf space from those brewers who do. My immediate reaction was thinking of how these production breweries are often not “either or” businesses, how I knew of someone who worked a brewery’s canning machine who was packaging cases for plenty of other small breweries in Ontario, some bricks and mortar as well as some contractors. These smaller breweries and contracting firms would not otherwise would not have access to retail outlets or other expanded sales routes. And they, along with the production brewery itself, might not survive without this sort of work as part of the provincial supply chain. Many OCB members operate like this. Odd. The focus is needed elsewhere.

The gall is what gets you, as Afro.Beer.Chick flagged. So if someone wants to reference Juneteenth on a the label of some hazy IPA gak with fruit flavours added, does Mr. Driven Snow now get a chunk of change?

Bad behaviour claims against BrewDog continue – and I wonder if perhaps developing in a way that avoids the risk of examining similar acts closer to home. Are they the worst actor? Certainly not the sole bad actor. But the loss of reputation spreads. The situation is now tense. Evidence is undeniable. Individuals rightly utterly violated and repulsed. Me, I don’t drink the stuff myself. Good to see that the actual authorities with adjudicative powers are now becoming involved. Things need sorting.

And finally… Ron posted an excellent set of observations on another thing I avoid – beer fests – and how many are serving such small measures that they deserfve to be called “Thimble Fests“:

I used to go to many more. The main Belgian one, whatever that’s called now. The Borefts Festival. Others in Stockholm and Copenhagen. But that’s all a few years back. Now, I just can’t be bothered with most festivals. Why is that? Well, I’ve already told you, really. Lack of seating, long queues for beer. But the biggest reason of all is small measures. If you’re lucky, you might get a 15 cl serving. But it might well be just 10 cl or even a piddling 5 cl. I’ve got two glasses sometimes to take the edge off my frustration. Or taken along my own Imperial pint glass. A combination of small measures and long queues wring all the pleasure out of a festival for me. Getting in line for your next beer as soon as you’ve been served your last makes for a queueing festival rather than a beer festival.

Me, I don’t go as I don’t like being shedded with hundreds of drunk strangers. But I like that – “a queuing festival” pretty much sums that up.

There. Half the length and no doubt twice the value. For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: but not this week) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. Things come. Things go.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For May Two-Four 2022!

May two-four. Back again. I explained it back in 2014 when I included the photo to your right (my left) of Bob and Doug McKenzie who were Canada’s #1 export forty years ago and whose 1983 movie, Strange Brew, is the last cultural statement about beer before microbrewing struck in earnest. Even though the movie isn’t set on the Victoria Day holiday in the second half of May, you can see many aspects of our drunken mildly retro-pro-monarchist celebrations replayed in Canadian homes as well as at campsites and cottages throughout the land this weekend as people feign gardening and practice inebriation. And it’s a big year for our top dog, our numero uno, our favourite anti-Nazi. Speaking of which… you know what broke? That cap thing on my whippersnipper that keeps the weedwhacker’s string coil in place. How the hell does that break? Spool went flying and the lawn’s all half haggy still. Didn’t so much break as ‘sploded. Now I have to hunt down a replacement lawn trimmer line cap or I have to buy a whole new thing-a-ma-jig. Pray for me.

Now… to the beer news. First up, a set of photos posted by the Glasladies Beer Society of a recent Glasgow beer fest set up in what looks like a somewhat permanent outdoor space. Being who I am, a child of children of the Clyde, the event looks like a mass gathering of aunties and uncles and masses of cousins. The use of steel container boxes is interesting as a relatively cheap but cheery but secure set up. Looks like it was held at the Glasgow Beer Works in the Queenslie Industrial Estate. This may be a common site for some of you but sometimes that’s still remarkable.

Next, Ron wrote a piece he titled “The Future of Mild” which serves as an interesting counterpoint to the fan friendly writings on the style mentioned two weeks ago. Ron provides an interesting set of thoughts about Mild itself and how styles may or may not make a comeback:

I’d love to go to Cross Green and drink 10 pints of Tetley’s Mild again. But it isn’t going to happen. The world has moved on. Beer styles come and go. And almost never return. I’ll just cherish the memories of a time that’s gone forever. Like a Porter drinker in the 1940s. The same fate, incidentally, awaits Pilsner and IPA. All styles have their day.

The fate of Mild has been formed he suggest as “it’s harder to throw all sorts of random shit into a Dark Mild.” That would seem to be where we are at. The post also lead to an interesting considered discussion on the nature of revivals. Jeff wrote:

…I wonder if a style that was once quite popular ever came back as a major style, perhaps not as popular as it was during its heyday, but with significant production. It’s probably happened, but I suspect it’s very, very rare. Once fashions change, styles sunset.

TBN reminded us of the classic example of style revival – Hoegaarden. I expect this is as much framed by the word “style” and its imposition limiting structure but the entire micro (1980-2003)) and craft eras (2003-2016) were based on revival of lost beers. Hoppy malt rich ales were descendants of earlier strong ales like Ballantine IPA and Dominion White Label as much as they were clones of imports.  So… revivals common enough in the days when brewing was not so wound up with novelty and amnesia. We always have to remember how quickly we forget. As recent at 2011, SNPA’s place in the pantheon was still somewhat speculative. Now, of course, it was always the source of all things including those that came before it – thanks to the nation’s PR professionals!

Speaking of perhaps one revival or perhaps homage that has not lasted, one bit of news that I was a bit surprised to learn about this week was how St. Joseph’s Abbey of Spencer, Massachusetts is no longer brewing its beer. This was all the news in 2015 and I reviewed their first beer as you can read here. The monks announced:

After more than a year of consultation and reflection, the monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey have come to the sad conclusion that brewing is not a viable industry for us and that it is time to close the Spencer Brewery. We want to thank all our customers for their support and encouragement over the years. Our beer will be available in our regular retail outlets, while supplies last. Please keep us in your prayers.

Jordan thought it a particularly worrying development based on their low labour expenses. Greg reported that the equipment was already listed for sale before the announcement. I gratuitously added the 2015ish image up there from the celler’s stash for Stan. Pretty sure the bottle has move about six inches in seven years.

Des generated a wonderful cascade of comments related to cellered casks with this big barrelled beery buttery – including these cautionary ones:

Not being funny, but going on that photo, “immaculate” is a strong word. Serviceable, cleaner than many, maybe. And as I’m sure has been pointed out, a 36 (massing the best part of 200kg) is a H&S nightmare. You romantic.

Note: please don’t send out bleggy emails saying “ I don’t have limitless cash on hand to subsidize this project, but it’s reality nonetheless. I need at least [XXX number of] paid subscribers…” Listen to the wind… the marketplace of ideas is speaking… write for joy or get a job to support your hobby interest in booze.

Boak and Bailey elaborated something at their Patreon widget-a-thing  that was evident in their (lovely and highly recommended) account of Ray’s out for hike and stopping at rural pubs with pals:

…at least part of the joy we took in drinking it on this occasion must be down to having “earned it”. The same goes for that first beer of the weekend, after a tough week at work. Or, as many people have observed, almost any mediocre lager you drink on holiday. How do you compensate for this effect? Well, you don’t, unless you’re a Top International Beer Judge. Instead, you report the context when you give notes on a specific instance of drinking a specific beer. And you make judgements about the overall quality of a beer based on mutliple encounters in multiple contexts. A beer that tastes good every time you bump into it is probably a good beer, full stop.

I wonder if we have become so enthralled with these beer judging events for hobbyists that we miss the obvious – that those beers actually do taste good in those contexts. And that judging contexts make beer taste bad. Because they are geared to ensure failure. Because that is what institutionalizing human experience does, makes you distrust and then outsource your own experience of life. Stop feeling bad because someone who has a certificate for passing the equivalent of a grade 11 history class says so.* Not to suggest TBN is not correct when he explains “Beer is weird. You’re lucky to have me here, putting things straight.” It is. We are.

Handy example: print off and cut into separate burger and beer images. Throw all in air and match the beer with the nearest burger. Equally valid. Every. Time.

Rolling Stone put out a story about beer prices this week under their “Culture Council” tab, not something I have notice from them in all my years at the coal face. The author, Kevin Weeks of Anderson Valley Brewing (who actually follows me on Twitter so I feel extra bad for not noticing before), argues interestingly that any increased costs faced by brewers are likely not going to justify the level of price increases that consumers are going to see on the shelf from the big brewers so…

For the smaller craft breweries facing this dynamic, this is an excellent opportunity to differentiate their brands by both managing pricing and clearly conveying priorities to the consumer. The most obvious tactic is to hold price (or implement only slight increases) to create an opportunity to increase market share through a comparable pricing advantage over the larger brewers that are grasping for margin.

And this passed by my eye this week, “It always rains on Monday” by Ian Garstka. More of his work can be found on IG. Prints available from the artist.

Perhaps relatedly at least atmospherically, Gary posted about “Birmingham Beer Detectives, 1937” who in plain clothes were sent out to protect the interests of the beer-drinking public and augment lab testing quality controls:

It seems therefore, at least for a time, a two-track beer-tasting inspection system existed, city and industry, to control beer quality in pubs. Perhaps the whole thing, at city level, collapsed with the Second World War – bigger fish to fry, if you will, but this remains to be known. Certainly at industry level, tasting onsite continued into the postwar era. A number of press reports, one pertaining to Ansells in 1949, attest only too graphically, a conviction of an inspector for drunk driving.

There’s a BBC historical drama script right there for the taking. I can smell the damp tweed and ashtrays now.

Note: “Finnish brewery release new beer celebrating Finland joining NATO“!

Note also: “TikTok star says Wetherspoons ‘scammed’ him out of £2,000 of food and drink.” Star!

Finally and falling under Stan’s reminder “no one cares what you think, Alan” I upset Maureen a bit a tiny bit (which I never like to do) when I commented about this article on Hogarth’s Gin Lane and Beer Street as I mentioned it amounted to was a bit of a sneeky apology for mass drunken frenzy. My observation was quite specific so I should explain so that all you all can correct me. The first half of the article is fairly straight forward GBH-style with loads of quotes from other sources framing the well understood topic. But then it goes in an odd direction mid-essay with the statement that those “in positions of power in England sought to create an all-around negative image of gin.” According to the article’s own previous paragraphs rightly describing the generally understood hellscape unleashed by gin at the time, I was left wondering if it could also be said that people in power now are perhaps creating an all-around negative image of the Covid-19 virus. My wonderment didn’t last. I found this key angle within the article odd. Odder still the suggestion that the works of Hogarth were for an elite:

Because of the timing, “Gin Lane” and “Beer Street” are often viewed as a work of moral propaganda, and some have speculated they were commissioned by the government to help reach gin’s working-class imbibers. Tonkovich points out this is not the case, however, because that working-class target couldn’t have easily accessed these prints. “These prints would not have been affordable for the working class,” she says. “They might have seen them in a tavern or through a window, but they couldn’t buy prints, so who is the audience for these? People of the press and the merchant class.”

The thing is… I just don’t think that is correct. Because I don’t think that is how mass communications and specifically those on virtue and vice worked at the time. If you look about at English political pamphleteering in the 1600s and 1700s, you see a wide-spread, robust and even salacious debate within a highly literate population. Vibrant grassrootism. You also see in the first bits of the 1700s, the development of the First Great Awakening and proto-Methodists sermonizing to many millions.** Consider, too, 1751’s Essay  on the Characteristicks and the “frenzy” of gin. Ideas related to a proper and healthy society were flying about. These and other Hogarth pieces fit into that scene. And, as the Royal Academy explains, fit into it in a very specific and intentional way given Hogarth’s process:

Hogarth aimed the prints at the popular, rather than fine art market, stating in his prospectus for the prints that: ‘As the Subjects of those Prints are calculated to reform some reigning Vices peculiar to the lower Class of People in hopes to render them of more extensive Use, the Author has published them in the cheapest Manner possible’. As a result the line in these prints is thicker and less sophisticated than in other prints engraved by Hogarth, both to enable the printing of more impressions without significant loss of quality, and to approach the characteristic style of popular prints.***

We are assured, via the hive, that the two prints were in wide circulation and that Hogarth’s works were even used for moral instruction by schoolmasters. So if they are not luxury items but rather something of a targeted public service announcement to those at risk, the paragraphs that follow seem strained, racing through the Victorians and US Prohibition then on to us today with a suggestion of the elites guiding government overstep. And, on the rebound, inappropriately sewing  doubts as to Hogarth’s good faith intentions under the guise of some sort of shadowy social engineering as opposed to improving public health. Had gin been slandered? Seems all a bit goal oriented.****

There. More fodder for a good general public debate. Away you go! And for more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but no longer from Stan every Monday as he’s on another extended leave of absence. Plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and 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. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*If you are unaware of this phenomenon, I recommend the works of Ivan Illych to you, starting with 1973’s Tools for Conviviality.
**and they themselves mocked in return.
***See also “The marketing techniques of William Hogarth (1697-1764), artist and engraver” by Mark McNally at page 170 “The conscious decision to set the price of prints according to the theme and the intended audience was further demonstrated with the distinctively didactic Gin Lane, Beer Street and the Four Stages of Cruelty which were advertised twice in the widely read London Evening Post on 19 and 26 February 1751 priced at one shilling each being ‘done in the cheapest manner possible in hopes to render them of more extensive use’ with an alternative set priced at 1/6d being done ‘in a better manner for the curious’. Despite the relative lack of sustained advertising for these key prints, which formed the basis of Hogarth’s campaign with his friend and magistrate Henry Fielding to draw attention to the moral decline of the lower classes, they became as popular as many of his more heavily publicised prints. This was perhaps due to the fact that they were primarily meant as social commentary and evidence of the need for reform rather than for commercial interest…” and also especially at footnote 123: “Hogarth noted with satisfaction in how ‘some masters gave their apprentices sets of the prints as Christmas gifts’ and that ‘he had even heard of a sermon preached on the prints’.”
****PS: a word about disagreement. If we are going to take beer writing seriously at all, we need to get used to the idea that a reader may either (i) disagree with aspects of what they read (as I have above with backing supporting research) or (ii) call out poor writing (which I have not done above.) One of the saddest things in good beer culture is the “hooray for everything!” mantra and, its cousin, the abusive response for those who who don’t buy in to the hooray. Let’s be honest – rooting for booze is weird. I blame too much booze and good folk struggling for not enough money as the commissioning organs do just fine. In this case, my comment to Maureen attracted the less than attractive, the dropped turd. Let’s be honest. I get negative comments and labels all the time and have for a couple of decades from publications high and low,***** sometimes from people I can’t imaging deserving one’s full respect. One scribbler who has my respect once even told me “hear that – that’s all the beer writers in Toronto mocking you” to which I responded “who gives a fuck about beer writers in Toronto?” We don’t worry about such things, especially now that the beer writers in Toronto either either have moved on now and are mowing the lawn somewhere in the suburbs, arguing with themselves. None of which relates to the article above that, in small part, I disagreed with. It is a well enough written if skimmy summary with a mild expression of the standard beer writer political slant on public health (“…nanny state! …neo-prohibitionists!! …folk putting my income at risk but mentioning health!!!“) but, no Maureen, it is not an example of something that did not exist before. The wheel that was invented long ago still turns round and round. Which is good. Because it gets thoughts going and leaves conversations enriched. Which is why I do this every week – to think about what is being written. If you aren’t doing that, why do you bother?
*****Funny ha-ha joke…no really… just kidding… footnote to a footnote, too! Very light and amusing, right?

Your Mid-May 2022 Thursday Beery News Notes

Chores. Garden chores. The pruned willow is just about casting enough shade for its six month tour of duty, leaning over me as I sit and sweat and drink a beer. And, about thirty feet away, I built a nice small patch of salad-y things this week radishes, red and green lettuce. Stuff getting done. That’s something, quite a something. For a place that had three frosts under two weeks ago. Then I remembered I have rabbits. Not mine. The wild bunnies of the neighbourhood. So… now I need to box in the patches with walls and a cage top. Perhaps a hinge top will be introduced. Not having chicken wire dig into your neck once the top slips as you gather in the harvest? That’s innovative. Innovation born of not thinking something through fully in the first place. That’s my style.

Beer news? Beer news! It’s a big week this week. First up, the Craft Brewers Conference 2022 ended up having a couple of note worthy twists this week: a fine beer got runner up to the runner up where the runners up don’t actually exist aaaaannnnnnnnd… it was a Covid-19 super spreader event. There’s not much you can say as not one saw it coming… except Robin:

So uh…everyone at cbc just not wearing masks huh…

Not hard at all, doing the right thing. And if that wasn’t enough, plenty of folk wrote have thoughts about the #1 third place for an American classic. Andres wrote the thread o’the week on process. We also got juries of beer fans standing up to snarkily defend the indefensible verdict… the “not credible“*… because “they’re all world class experts of course“… which I take to be a dig but it might not be a dig. AJT added a useful note:

Reminds me of the story that John Keeling tells about when he was at Fullers and judging in the US – their ESB was knocked out of the ESB category for being out of style…

In longer form, we had omni-directional finger wags from Jerard Fagerberg and… my pal Lew who may want to recognize the third possibility:

But as I say to people who complain about the Electoral College, if you don’t like the way the rules are, work to change them. If you’re a brewer who thinks that every medal in every category should always be awarded, because we’ve reached the point as an industry where common levels of excellence are understood and achieved – or, hell, just because – then get organized, find other brewers who feel the same way, and get the rules changed. Or don’t. But if you don’t agree with it, and you don’t do anything about it, you’re just going to be pissed when it happens again. Savvy? Now get out there and brew, or drink, and stop worrying about this. There are a lot more important things, even in beer.

GET OFF HIS LAWN!!! Note: Electoral College references are akin to Godwin’s Law. And that third possibility? For me, be like most people and realize these events are just low level oddly structured fun that are focused on brand promotion. No one loses an eye. Competitions are just a nice side-hobby in the beer world.

On a point much further along the parabolic niceness scale, Lily had her essay on a possibly perfect pub published in Pellicle this week, the story of the Salutation Inn of Ham, Gloucestershire which comes with a few extras:

The pub is welcoming and homely, with low ceilings, pew-like wooden benches, and a fireplace lending welcome warmth to the pub’s two front rooms in winter. The bar is lined with taps and hand pulls pouring beer and cider from across the South West—including the pub’s own brewery adjoining at the rear—as well as the trusty and ubiquitous Guinness… The walled garden which houses the pigs is dotted with apple and pear trees, and the odd damson. The pigs, raucous and rambunctious as we step through the door in the elderly wall, are fed on a mix of apples, cheese curds, and occasionally pellets. Once the private garden of the Berkeley estate manager (the castle’s estate covers 6,000 acres across the local area), it is shown on early 19th Century maps surrounded by orchard after orchard—a cider history now long gone. 

Traveling much farther, Jeff made a flash visit to Norway which I worried was was going to be a bit of a drive-by so it was comforting to see the both Lars and Knut gave it the thumbs up. Still… it was a bit of an American abroad with the experience being too much or too little like the USA:

… you might mistake it for a pub in Ohio. Lots of hazies and other IPAs, some barrel-aged stouts, assorted pales. They even have Guinness … Those styles drive the same kind of drinkers in the US, but the difference is that in America they are dwarfed by the number of “regular” craft drinkers… We go through different developmental stages, and the first one is imitation. Norway has yet to find what they like on their own terms. I expected farmhouse brewing and especially kveik to be quite visible, yet it’s not. In fact, when people at the beer fest asked me about my plans for Norway and I mentioned Voss, 80% of them had never heard of the farmhouse tradition there… On the other hand, I’ve been impressed with the beer in general.

Ah, that old assumption that a land matches one’s expectations. Man is indeed the measure of all things. I’ll still probably just stick with Knut’s or Lars’ take on their own homeland. Local knowledge. As Stonch wrote of Prague this very week:

Over the years I have benefitted enormously from the writing of Evan and also Max @Pivnifilosof. Evan also once helped me and my mate Dave get tram tickets when we were too drunk to put the coins in the machine

Elsewhere, the problem of payment came up in a discussion at Boak and Bailey’s over the weekend and I clued into something that had not crystalized within my brain bucket before. I was led to a thought only after I wrote this:

…inventive creative writing sure has taken a hit in the good beer world. Payment has never amounted to quality in my mind, often the opposite. Yet it’s becoming more and more the case that it’s either paid for writing that’s pleasant enough or bits and bob that never seem to get enough time to be properly fleshed out. I can’t say I’m ever comfortable, for example, with histories published and paid for by the word – but who even has the time to put in a proper effort as the amateur’s act of obsession? Retirees, that’s who. They seem to be holding up their end of the bargain.

I then thought “why did I write that?” I did so for two reasons. First, I am always reluctant to be disagreeable especially (honestly… not tugging at a dangling thread) with B+B and, second, I wondered whether it was even true.  But it is if you look at it this way. Writing for pay puts a meter on the writing. You will get X amount per word or a flat rate but the reality is that you really are putting yourself on a clock. Based on what you are worth per hour rather than whether the writing is any good. Leading to conserving resources, measuring time as well as money. And deadlines.

Screw that. When I was young and fancy free before a few years back, I had all the time in the world to swan about researching obscure stuff about brewing. Not so much given an uptick in very interesting but very demanding work related matters.  Hence Martyn and Martin and Gary and Ron and the Tand and any number of others of the golden handshake who are able to research and scribble with a bit more leisure. Interestingly, the abovementioned Lars has written honestly this week about the other side of the coin, my path not taken a decade and a half ago:

I worked hard to set up talks back in September and October and had one month of good income with from that, before covid stopped it all. So now I need to try to restart that, but without spending so much time on it that I miss my book deadline. I got a deal writing articles for Craft Beer & Brewing magazine, which has also helped. The long and the short of it, however, is that less than a year into this I’ve had to start dipping into my savings, and it’s not a great feeling. So while I will keep doing all of the above to produce some money it looks like it won’t be enough.

Lars then shared an interest in readership support. Go read and contribute if you can. I have written it before but it repeats saying: I have every sympathy for someone who has decided to write about beer. For all the money in beer there is very little money in writing about beer, however interesting the topic.

Which leads to a few things. Like the issues of scope creep and expertise extrapolation. Sure, multiple skilled interests are possible – Dave Sun Lee is but one example – but the good folk who are committed to writing for cash have to go out further upon the waters with nets and lines. They give us stories not about beer but about other alcoholic beverages – about boozy seltzers and things claiming to be non-alcoholic beer even though both are so often laced with fruity gaks that defeat any commonality with brewed malt and hops. Where does it lead other than the inevitable high priced craft NA still unflavoured seltzers?!? Tottering towards international economic collapse, that’s where!!! Consider this behind the The Chicago Trib’s paywall, summarized by author Josh Noel this way:

Goose Island is taking Bourbon County into the world of pricey NFTs ($499 each!).

We really need to know no more. Could you imaging chucking away your pay that way? Pet Rocks taught me enough about that sort of thing in elementary school coming up on 50 years ago… though it did allow me the opportunity to post “Sucker juice layered upon the sucker juice!” There. Dots connected. Thanks for walking this path with me. BTW: Josh Noel is just wrong this time:

After digging in, I can see the future where NFTs play a role connecting brands and customers. Especially in beer, where the bond can be strong.

More sensibly, Gary indexed his recent posts on colonial English pubs in India. Excellent.

Finally, what to think about GBH apparently crossing a line and pulling an article about a legal process?***  While it is entirely healthy to be dubious of craft breweries and their ways, a few grabs on social media about the article prior to its removal may help explain why a reasonable cease and desist letter was sent. Consider this:

“[BrewDog CEO/cofounder James] Watt may have tried to uncover this alleged plot by paying a former romantic partner nearly £100,000 ($125,000 USD) in Bitcoin to gather information on ex-BrewDog staff and others who have been critical of him.”

… and this:

“Documents and interviews suggest Watt paid her to help him uncover information about his critics” and “The woman says she did not defraud or harass Watt, and that she does not believe former BrewDog employees are plotting against him. Her lawyers say she will “robustly” defend herself against these allegations” and “Three women who had contact with Ziem say they did not believe her to be part of a plot to take down Watt, and say they suspected Watt was using Ziem to gather information on them.

Contempt of court. It happens. It basically means you are contemptuous of the judicial process. Usually it is raised when someone won’t respect a warrant demanding their attendance but it can also mean that you are not letting the court do its job of fact finding, that you are interfering with the process. You can see how speculation and allegation become restated as fact. I see it now as I did when I saw the story’s brief appearance:

Speculative review of partially obtained evidence to be framed under the unique system of Scots uncodified civil law! Amazing pluck. Plus “… Watt may have tried to uncover this alleged plot by paying…” and “…people he sees as his enemies…” Impugning skullduggery? Heavens!

I was more thinking that there would be a form of libel suit under Scottish civil law due to the assertions of fact exemplified above but The Beer Nut guided me to the other process, the contempt under English proceedings pursuant to a UK statute.  Statutory contempt seems to require consideration of whether there is a lack of good faith, if we have “fair and accurate report of legal proceedings held in public” and whether “the risk of impediment or prejudice to particular legal proceedings is merely incidental”… all of which only a judge would determine. Only an actual judge. Lessons hopefully learned.

There. So serious this week. For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday except last Monday and next Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and 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. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*To quote my favourite source, me: “And how can you have a mythical standard second place beer? It not only represents something not present but superior while also being inferior to another not present beer. Both of which (not being present) are not contemporaneously experienced, just somehow recalled.”
**Question: While we are at it… why do we rightly (example) qualify one beer publication as “Ferment, the promo magazine of a beer subscription service” when GBH is rarely mentioned as the promo magazine of a beer consultancy service? Both publish very interesting pieces and both aren’t really “reader supported” but actually subsidized by the non-publication side of the business for, logic dictates, non-publication side of the business reasons?
***And not even related to this continuing weirdness.

Your Mid-April 2022 Thursday Beery New Notes

And how’s the wax-flavoured chocolate hangover going?  No tiny kids left around here so it has been a modest affair compared no doubt to others. Life moves forward. Still playing out the pandemic habits. The local news has not been great as the squiggly line up there shows. The sixth wave. Is it passing? Don’t know. So we are in the basement, now watching Moon Knight and, really, have no idea what is going on. Something about sand. Still, around here the snow this week only lasted hours.  And the radish seed is in the ground and the raspberry canes are starting to show their first green as buds open. Things are happening. Yes, the clothes dryer even died but I actually found and immediately bought a replacement that will be delivered today or perhaps tomorrow. Our one small supply chain victory. Not like the dishwasher. We ordered it after the last one died. It’s been months. The some day one day dishwasher, in whole or in parts, is floating somewhere offshore deep in a ship’s hold. Floating out there upon Pacific Ocean waves.

Beer? You stopped by for beer news? Let me see. Where did I put that folder. Here it is… first stop is in legal land. Brendan P shared that the modest personalities behind Stone have filed court documents rejecting the jury award of 25% of the original claim, seeking another $168 million based on the very questionable claim that the Keystone…

…rebrand caused a fundamental change in the trajectory of Stone’s business from which it has not recovered today and will likely never recover.

Really? I just don’t believe it. It would be nice if there was a separate trial of these assertions, given Stone’s self-inflictions and failures to move to the next level what with debacles like the Berlin brewery and never quite earning that grade A level of consumer respect that others second wave brewers have achieved in the marketplace. It would be good to have these facets of their commercial history carefully reviewed by the courts to see what trends and trip ups were really to blame.

One thing is for sure. Out there is the really real world, it’s not been a great year for craft beer generally – even if, given the real news, one may want to put that in perspective. As CNN reported:

For many of the nation’s small and independent brewers, this year will prove to be a true test of their staying power. Early data for 2022 shows that brewery closures are on the rise and some sales have been spotty… The pandemic and its ongoing effects, as well as the war in Ukraine, continue to drag down smaller brewers, who are battling climbing costs, rising rents, and seemingly interminable supply chain challenges… “2022 is going to be a make-or-break year for many breweries…” 

Now, while that may be true, it is always important to respect the chronology. Just as prohibition didn’t start the rationalization and reduction of players in the US brewery industry (a phenomenon started with the introduction of English modernization investments in the 1880-90s)  so too we have to remember and respect that craft brewing was starting to slow prior to the pandemic. 20% by 2020 never happened and even the numbers that are reported are propped up vastly by the Boston Beer fib and the muddling it up with comparisons to things which just aren’t beer. What do you reckon actual small brewery actually traditionally brewed actual beer represents in the market these days?  2%? 3%?

What does this wobbly market perhaps produce? Well, perhaps complaints about the complaints about a price of a pint. And perhaps even complaints about questions about the authority of beer writing. Relatedly, while we all wallow in myth, I am not sure I am buying the complaint in 2010 that overpricing of Cantillon was due to reselling, especially given I was buying  half bottles of their stuff in CNY for $7.50, $8.50 (pervy premium?) and even $9.00 USD around 2007-08 which was well above their cohort. Sure it was a prime example of being “shelted” but the brewery needs to take responsibility for part of their own no doubt quite profitable aggrandizement. Bottom line of all this? The training wheels have come off sometime ago and it’s shifted to a buyer’s market now. I* have choice and I know how to use it. Caveat braciator.

So be clever. Get the basics right. Pete Brown posted a very helpful guide to filling out a form – which may sound like a backhanded compliment but it’s not. Apparently the beer world is rife with folk who can’t manage to figure out how to submit the  beer to the right category in the contest as well as folk who can’t figure out how to structure categories in the contest. Here’s his help:

One year, we had an entry that was all about a piece of experiential marketing at a beer event. It was an installation I’d visited personally, and when we came to discuss it, I waxed lyrical about how brilliant it had been, how original and immersive it was, how professionally it had been executed, describing all the little details that made it truly special. The rest of the judges looked at me blankly, and when I finished, one of them said gently, “Yes, Pete, but none of that is on the entry form.”

And do right. David Jesudason has written an excellent piece for Pellicle about the obstacles faced by the beer fan with mobility challenges:

These include being ignored when ordering, or having his personal assistant asked by the bartender what he wants to drink. Not being able to use disabled toilets as they’re being used as a store cupboard. Not being able to attend eating areas or events as they’re located in inaccessible rooms. Or travelling to London from Essex only to be told at a pub that it’s “too busy” for him to enter. And it’s not just the establishments that can ruin his drinking experience. Other drinkers ignore him when there’s no table free that’s at the right height (a high table is useless for someone in a wheelchair) and his personal assistants can be verbally abused if he appears to be drunk—or is drunk, it’s his preference, after all.

Back to the economy. It’s still nipping at our heels. How bad are things getting out there? One English news outlet has suggested the answer is “bad“:

One of the oldest British traditions is meeting your friends at the pub for a nice cold drink. But all this could change soon as news suggests that the cost of a pint of beer could soon set you back £7… BlackCountryLive readers have expressed their fears the price hike could see many beloved pubs disappear from our streets. Phil said: “No pub would survive that.” The sentiment was echoed by Mick who wrote: “Not bothered but it’s the pub owners I feel for.” Brenden added: “It will destroy the local pub.”

I don’t know about these sorts of forecasts. I just don’t believe them either. Hasn’t beer and beer culture survived through adaptation? There have been plenty of dead ends along the way, century after century. Not all brewing industry trends have been wise. Stone is proof enough of that playing out in the US craft scene. Remember Pete’s Wicked Ale? Why wouldn’t today be the same? Yet… notice that Heineken sales are up in Europe over 11% in 2022 “with beer sales in bars and restaurants almost tripling.” Nutty. Beer survives. Things will adapt, especially as long as there are these sorts of places to enjoy… even if not exactly for the reason advertised:

Bass mirrors, Bass glasses, a beer range centred on everything but Bass. A pint of Plain, or was it the Usual ? I don’t care, and with half a dozen blokes seated along the bar discussing Ted Deighton I couldn’t read any of the pump clips even if I did. How do people score beers on What Pub when they can’t read the pumps. I’m not complaining, not more than usual, I just want to see lively pubs full again. The Angel isn’t an obvious “ale pub”, most here were on lager, but at £3.30 a pint the cask sells well enough.

I’m not complaining either. Beer will go on. The dryer will come. I know it in my heart. But will the dishwasher? Will the dishwasher?

There. That’s enough for this week. For more, checking out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and 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. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular 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 (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*Speaking as the Global Every- person Beer Buyer as per.