Category: Law

These Be The Thursday Beery News Notes For The Summer Doldrums

A nautical theme this week. Or at least one at the outset that will soon wander away, off on its own, finding another purpose in life. It is dead out there. But you know what they say: no news is beer news. Beer is good like that. It’s the people related to beer that get in the way. Things got fully into or out of swing with the Fourth of July, remembered by Ottawa historian Andrew King in his description of bonfires made of old barrels… perhaps even boozy barrels… ka… boomski!

First off, the way of the world. One beer blog dies as another is revived with the publication of “News in Brief #62” at Seeing the Lizards including an analysis of a recent botch mentioned a few weeks back:

“You just have to look at history.” pontificated dubious scholar Sophie Aubergine-Pickle “They just got a handful of whatever grain they quite literally had to hand, threw it in some water. And left it.” “It stands to reason, doesn’t it? The human hand has all kinds of stuff on it. Bacteria. Wild yeast. Skin flakes. That stuff beneath your fingernails. If you leave it long enough, of course fermentation will spontaneously commence. And people back then would drink anything.”

Entirely conversely, I really liked this piece at GBH by Jamaal Lemon on the Charleston Schützenfest – a post US Civil War meeting space with beer and rifles, the sort of thing that developed in NYC a decade earlier in the mid-1850s. The story carries the combo of lived experience and scholarship that is too often lacking in these days. It also avoids another problem – the suspect helpful hand of the privileged. Since #BLM, #MeToo and even back to #Occupy we see too much of what we used to call the good South African Liberal* efforts to speak in support turning into taking on a heavy role in defining then steering the discourse. An allegedly helpful listing here gathered by those not on the list, a intervening pasty editor there. None of that in this piece – as it ought to be:

The beneficiaries of Charleston’s antebellum society have long manipulated virtually all local industries for generational gain, in an effort to maintain that established hierarchy. Just as it could happen in high school athletics, so it could in the local brewing industry, whose skewed diversity statistics serve as a testament to that longstanding inequity. This isn’t anything new: Systems of oppression constructed during Charlestown’s slave era were disrupted at the end of the Civil War, only to be violently reintroduced after the collapse of Reconstruction.

As you know, I have a very soft spot in my heart for brother Stonch but through these last few months he has done us all a service by sharing experience of being a pub owner during this pandemic with an independent eye, as in this tweet:

Our Ellie often spouts some absolute jarg lyrics, but I agree with her here. There’s danger of hospitality looking looking like, as my friend @jwestjourno put it, “the catering wing of the covid-denier corps”… Also, the problems of hospitality staff having to self-isolate after contact with infected – already crippling the industry (or even worse, becoming ill) – is only going to get worse without any degree of social distancing or mask wearing being adhered to in the workplace.

Excellent points. And remember this, too, next time you read some stumbling voice tell you his or her idea is too “nuanced” for Twitter. That’s just the hymn of the illiterati.

Some people have a blog on the side, about a bit of bun.

Boak and Bailey published an interesting post, sensibly and practically describing their thoughts on the success of Camden Town Brewery’s Hell lager. And, as we see often, received some feedback antagonistic to diverting off the single path of craft-thought or, in the German, KrafphtÜberlegen:

Helles means ‘light’. Beers badged as such tend to be very pale, light-bodied and with relatively low alcohol content. It’s got broad commercial appeal, as Camden Hells has proved, because that basically describes most mainstream lagers. Calling your lager a Helles is a great way to have your cake and eat it: it’s simultaneously (a) a normal, non-scary lager that people will actually want to drink and (b) a craft beer with heritage worth an extra pound a pint.

Apparently “helles” (like every word ever) has a variety of related meanings and (like every word ever) slightly different usages and different degrees of usage in slightly different contexts and cultures so be prepared for the wisdom of the self-certified in the comments. Yawn.

A PSA: if you see bad behaviour, call out bad behaviour. Whether it is bigotry or unfair employment standards or dangerous quality control only bad practices at breweries are assisted by saying “…[t]he responsibility to the consumer lies directly with them…” Nope. If you hold yourself out as a knowledge holder, withholding information is on you.

A fabulous story about a fabulous bar:

My dad said we could do something special for my 6th birthday. ‘Anything you want,’ he told me. I think he thought I was going to say ‘ice cream.’ But I said I wanted to go to New York City, and two weeks later we were on a plane. We spent the morning of my birthday shopping…

Here’s an interesting story in the Daily Mail about the late Eric Tucker, a pub man who painted what he saw:

Most of the pictures feature Lowry-type scenes from smoky pubs, tumbledown terraced streets and factories and showing flat capped locals with their wives… Now the former professional boxer – whose paintings were rejected by the art establishment while he was alive – is finally to have his talent celebrated after the unexpected discovery led critics to laud him as ‘the secret Lowry’. 

Finally, frankly a sad bit of apologia found at The Glass, describing the natural state of beer judging due to the ridiculous macho requirement that beer judges not spit unlike wine, spirits, tea and every other taster of fluids:

Of course that’s not the same as drinking that many beers in a day. A judge might take just a handful of small mouthfuls in the course of assessing a beer. But still, you have to swallow in order to get the aftertaste, unlike wine and spirits where you spit. At the end of the day you’re not drunk, but I certainly wouldn’t want to drive. And there’s an element of having drunk… that weariness and woolliness that can creep in after a spot of day-drinking.

Note: you’re drunk.

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

*Related to some so don’t bother…

The Thursday Beery News Notes For A Somber Canada Day

You will recall that Canada Day happens at each year’s mid-point and that in the past we’ve mentioned the role beer lover Sir John A. Macdonald in creating the confederation of colonies which formed into the current constitutional construct. Well, this year his statues are coming down and the news of hundreds and hundreds of graves of Indigenous children at forced residential schools started during his era is now coming out that has the nation reeling and reflecting. This will be, accordingly, a briefer edition of the news notes.

First and as I have mentioned before, mini-multinational BrewDog is a story that keeps giving and giving. We saw how they promoted the prize of a solid gold beer can as winnings in a contest and how it only turned out to be just gold plate. Stupid and a massive self-inflicted injury. Again. But the story that caught my eye was actually from a few months ago when BrewDog bought a Scottish estate as part of a carbon set-off scheme:

If BrewDog has bought Kinrara, it could be an interesting purchase, bringing a different type of landowner into the market, one apparently wanting to offset their carbon emissions rather than shoot and kill wildlife.  If they, or any other owner, intend to end muirburn and reduce deer numbers to allow woodland to regenerate, that would be a good thing.  Equally, however,  a “productive grouse moor with 10 year average of 476 brace”, the “challenging, high bird pheasant shoot” and salmon fishing on the river Dulnain might prove very attractive for the purposes of entertaining corporate clients. The problem is neither the public nor the Cairngorms National Park Authority would appear to have any idea of the new owners’ intentions

What appears a bit distasteful to me is (i) offsets are just a way to do one thing to offset another, (ii) the other thing remains carbon-related bad behaviour, (iii) the funds for the purchase appear to be from the crowd sourcing and not overall business revenue so there is no imposition to serve as a deterrence for more carbon-related bad behaviour and (iv) they have bought themselves an estate for future corporate playboy playground fun. What in all this is particularly eco-friendly? Punk as croquet.

Again, the Toronto Maple Leafs are watching the Stanley Cup finals from the sidelines or the golf course but at least if their goalie George Hainsworth from 1933-37 is watching from heaven he will have poured himself a beer as the great rival, the Montreal Canadiens play for glory. Oh, and he also played for Montreal… and won the cup with them… twice. So he’s probably quite happy. Except he’s dead.

“Juice Lord” is a stupid name for a beer but apparently two breweries think it’s important enough to go to court over.

Dr Christina Wade continued sharing her good work, this week discussing 155 cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia and the brewing related legal information they hold:

…here we see a law regarding perhaps cheating or fraud. There are quite a few different translations for this law code (108), with various phrasing that changes the meaning somewhat. Paraphrasing this particular translation another way, it perhaps means that if the alewife accepts money by the large stone, but not barley, for the price of ale; and the price of ale is less than the price of barley, she is cheating, and therefore shall be killed. This anxiety about cheating alewives is something often repeated throughout history.

Barry in Germany introduced me to the concept of a bierwagen. It appears to be a traveling beer bar / trailer that shows up when he prays fervently enough. Seems like a very good idea that I need in my neighbourhood.

Irish beer prices in the late 1980s and again what was available in 1972.

As the pandemic takes a break or has its back broken, depending on who you listen to, it appears the great new world order is regressing back into the old world order… at least in NYC:

Over the past year, the drinks were allowed under a new “off-premises privileges” rule, designed by the New York State Liquor Authority to help failing restaurants during a time of uncertainty for the food and beverage industry. With vaccinations topping 70 percent in New York and coronavirus cases on the decline, the governor rescinded the state of emergency on Wednesday, leaving many businesses that have not yet fully recovered economically with a surplus of supplies for the to-go drinks, as well as the drinks themselves. “They’re sitting on thousands and thousands of to-go cocktails that will be illegal to sell tomorrow,” wrote St. John Frizell, a restaurateur in Brooklyn, in an Instagram post.

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

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The First Of Summer

Above, is an image from a conference posted by Ed Wray, which he dubbed “Ten Years of Barley Varieties.” It is lovely. And not unlike the chicken wings crisis chart, that. It is quite the thing to see how rapidly varieties come and go. When I worked in Holland in 1986 in the big cut flower auctions, I had a favorite rose –  Mercedes – which had a particular balance between its soft scarlet bloom and the pea green of the stem. But like all things, it fell out of fashion or the hybridization isn’t that stable and when back in Canada it only lasted a few years before it was no longer available in the market. Nice to see the constancy of Maris Otter. Something like myself.

Update: apparently, the G7 event at Cornwall England reported upon last week due to Trudeau’s pint has become a super spreader event that “…is closing down pubs, bars and hotels at a frightening rate.” I have moved forward my second jab to the end of tomorrow afternoon. There is some disagreement as to the cause, however.

Also from the UK, perhaps a different sort of political statement from Stephen McGowan on the issue of sticking with the process for evaluating the effect of minimum pricing in Scotland:

I would remind all stakeholders that the Scottish Parliament is under a legal obligation to consider the impact of MUP on licence holders and producers; as well as the impact on the licensing objectives, as well as the impacts on individuals and groups in society. “Success” is therefore a nuanced, complex pattern. Parliamentarians, like the rest of us, will always welcome news of falling health harms – but I urge us all to remain circumspect about whether MUP is a “success” for if we allow ourselves to view success through the sole prism of consumption levels, that is to ignore what the 2012 Act actually requires.

Like self declaration of importance, “nuance” is one of those proclamation that usually hides a combination of motive and the incapacity to actual state an idea. In this case, it’s really not nuanced at all. Just a call for balance. But we need to remember what is being balanced is the health of one person as opposed to the income of another. Such is the reality of a regulated trade in compromising pleasure products.

Note: “…allegations of widespread misconduct in America’s craft beer industry…” is how it is described in the journalistic part of the world. Misconduct is a great word for is as, like bigotry, it is an umbrella word avoiding the need to distinguish between the different forms of grasping that we are learning more and more about. Craft beer seems particularly fertile ground for this sort of bad behaviour, being not quite consequence free as its hymnals promise. BrewDog seems to be the gift that keeps giving in relation to now a number of aspects of this stuff. The Press and Journal of Aberdeen, Scotland shared information about the brewery’s (literally) dodgy habits when it comes to business partners:

Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, the advocacy group that campaigns for a fairer tax system, said: “This is a disappointing, but sadly common story – companies whose approach to tax havens is entirely at odds with their projected image. “Having major investors using Cayman as a conduit is certainly antisocial, but it’s about as punk as croquet… Asked how the company could reconcile its ethos with the fact such a large proportion of its stock was held by the Cayman entities, a Brewdog spokeswoman said she “can only comment about BrewDog’s own tax obligations and activity”.

But see, unlike those who look at this things as “snafus“, the relationship between investors having spare change from not paying proper taxes and investment recipients then receiving cash from the same the resulting pool of investment funds is entirely direct and, frankly, obvious. BrewDog receives a benefit because the UK Treasury does not. And the UK taxpayer is asked to make up the difference. Now, their brand’s health is dropping in the standings and, as Brewbound reports, BrewDog’s good housekeeping seal of advanced ethical status is now at risk. Are they a ponzi? Punk as croquet. Gold.

We have to recall that there was a before times, that the “craft” brand is recent and has never been better than wobbly if not simply needy. Ed the actual brewer shared his thoughts:

As to actual craft beers many of them sound more like alcopops now anyway, and certainly some craft brewers have embraced exogenous enzymes, bollocks ingredients including actual bollocks, and genetically modified yeasts (something multi-national brewers have never dared use). I’m not going to make any moral judgement but I can’t see where the craft is.  The standard bearers of craft beer in Britain have always been Brewdog and it’s been obvious for years that they’re tossers. Recently their ten year plan was revealed and they’re going to focus on producing lager because they want to be bigger than Heineken. Can anyone tell me how becoming a giant lager selling multi-national is craft?

We have to remember that “craft” arose to prominence only around 2003 after (1) the stalling of the markets in the late 1990s, (2) the formation of the BA and (3) the “Sex for Sam” scandal. Micro needed rebranding. Then it starts to die a slow death starting in 2015-16 with the sell off which continues today with the trade abuse scandals.

Entirely conversely, Max continued his purifying walk to Litoměřice – and his story gets even better with this bit below proceeding an ending of this middle of the tale drawn surely from the early pages of Wind in the Willows:

The walk was as brutal as I expected given my shape, and there were several moments when I questioned the wisdom of the endeavour, but the sights and the utter peace that surrounded me more than made up for it. When I reached the highest point, I found a resting site and I spent a good while just admiring the view of the České Středohoří and feeling very well about myself. From then on, the way will be mostly downhill and I had already cover about two thirds of the distance.  The trail took me to the village of Hlinná, a few kilometres outside Litoměřice. It was not in my plans, but I saw a pub and couldn’t resist it. There was nothing in this world that I wanted more than a beer at that moment…

Somewhat similarly, Martin celebrates a stroll but one through less green, more hardened lands to reach the wonders of the Elton Liberal Club:

A succession of Old Boys come in and report difficulties renewing their membership, skilfully resolved by the young barman. Old learning from young, and vice versa. “There’s a wake later” the barman tells us. For the Liberals, I assume*. But not for the Elton Social Club, which seems in splendid health as I leave to the “Push the Button” by the Sugababes.

The BBC has one of those stories about beer bottled yeast in the holds of shipwrecks:

Scientists at Brewlab, a spin-out from the University of Sunderland, have studied yeast strains and brewing techniques for years. The firm’s founder, Keith Thomas, says that once beer from the Wallachia was in his lab, it was treated with the utmost caution. “We opened it in containment level two laboratory conditions,” he says. This involved unsealing the bottles in a special cabinet filled with sterile air, in order to protect the scientists from any possible pathogens in the beer. This measure also ensured that the samples did not become contaminated with any modern-day yeast strains.

I’d be sending the submarines to the Black Sea, myself. Home of ancient wrecks in deep cold oxygen-less waters. Imagine finding sealed beers from Hanseatic League in the Baltic. That would be neato.

Hints of things ending. A great brewery’s trappings being auctioned off. Maureen‘s recollection of her rejection of an otherwise beloved beer bar in Colorado. And Boak and Bailey’s call in their newsletter to save The Rhubarb:

This time, though, it feels different. The Rhubarb is the last pub in the neighbourhood. When it’s gone, it will be gone, and a great swathe of Bristol will be totally publess. They say you need to pick your battles. It feels as if this might be ours although we’re worried we don’t have the time to commit to a long campaign. The difficulty is at the moment there doesn’t seem to be an organised campaign to save it.

I am too Scots Presbyterian to accept the oneness of intoxicating substances even while I entirely acknowledge them. In Ohio, there is the 350ness of it all apparently. Still, not sure if this is correct as we have gone over the “unmalted grain becomes beer” scenario* a number of times over the years:

“Primitive beer is [as simple as] ripping grains out of the ground, taking them in your hand, and throwing that grain into water,” Muraresku says, wisdom imparted to him by a prominent beer scientist. “The microbiome on the hand could have been responsible for those early yeasts. Aside from not having to dehusk it or heat it, you’re creating a beverage that … is safer than water. And if the right grain was sitting in the right water over time, it would have naturally started to ferment with whatever yeast and fungi were on the grains.” 

Sir Geoff Palmer, surely one of the most interesting users of Twitter, shared a very interesting set of images illustrating the intersection of racist bigotry and brewing science at an early point in his career:

Our History: Truth-battle did not start with me calling Dundas a slaver, it started in the 1960s when my research said the Aleurone produced the digestive enzymes in the grain, not the Scutellum. Maths and more recent publications say I was correct. Lucky…l nearly got the sack.

Note: if anyone suggests they are a beer expert immediately ask them to describe the difference between the aleurone and the scutellum. Email me the response.

And Barry Masterson wrote about “Perry, Pomonas and Pomology” for Cider Review:

…the earliest developments of British pomology (the study of fruit and its cultivation) were tightly bound with the making of cider and perry, an industry that developed with great intensity during the latter half of the 17th century. With the end of the English civil wars, farming life was returning to normal, perhaps with renewed energy. At the same time, conflicts on the Continent meant that foreign wines were maybe not so easily imported, so the production of local wines became an important topic that exercised the brightest minds of Britain…

Finally, amongst the greatest bar tabs of all time we give you the Boston Bruins of 18 June 2011.

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

*Are beer writing editors no longer a thing? 2018 seems so recent.

These Are The Beery News Notes For The First Thursday Of June

The left lateral collateral ligament is something I have which I had not considered for most of my life. Well, not until I strained mine yesterday. Yeowsers. It’s been a bumpy old year so far. Me, I blame gardening. Heaving soils and such. The good news is the cure. Napping. I can do that. But what of the drink, you ask? Let’s see. First up, this article by Valerie Kathawala on the role of migrant labour in wine got me thinking about the price of the bottles I buy:

Selling natural wine involves a narrative about holistic farming, intimate scale, and transparency of methods. So while the wine industry as a whole has much to answer for when it comes to issues of worker welfare, it’s a question that falls harder on natural producers, who stake their claim on making ethical, kinder-to-the-planet wines that align with the conscious consumer’s values. 

Is there an equivalent reliance on cheap foreign labour in beer? I think the head of the UK’s Wetherspoon chain of pubs, as fabulously illustrated to the right, might be finding out there was but there might not be as much now:

Brexit-backing Wetherspoon pubs boss Tim Martin has added his name to the list of those wanting to relax work visa rules for EU migrants. Martin, who toured the country’s Wetherspoons pubs espousing the benefits of a hard Brexit, says that the UK should make it easier for lower-skilled EU workers to relocate here. His comments came as rival pub and restaurant bosses told the Telegraph that recruitment in the industry was so poor that many sites are having to close to lunchtime trade.

Question: what do you do when the brand gets an upgrade but what’s in the can goes in the opposite direction?

The West Berkshire CAMRA mag is online for all those who want a copy. I don’t really know where West Berkshire is. I also don’t know where Pontefract is but Martin took us there this week.

The Beer Nut explored sweet lambic, something I dabbled in 15 or so years ago but then no more. His description of a black current beer from Lindemans is enough to make one take up a habit:

It’s a beautiful beetroot-purple in the glass, with an electric-pink pillow of foam on top. The aroma has a little oaky spice and a dollop of crème de cassis liqueur. The latter comes through strongly in the flavour. I was expecting Ribena but it’s much more a classy French aperitif. This tastes of sunny afternoons, especially on a sunny afternoon.

Max guided me to an excellent article by writer Anandi Mishra on her life with alcohol:

That first year, I mostly drank alone. Friends were capricious then, not wanting to ‘drink much’ lest they ‘become alcoholics’. As a nation, India’s obsession with quickly bracketing people who enjoy a drink as ‘raging alcoholics’ got the better of them. During the solitude of these drinking sessions, I turned to the page to process how I felt. I’d write out my hopes and dreams while drunk, most of them dwelling on my desire to be a writer. I read, and wrote profligately. Most nights I sat down with printouts of Brain Pickings articles, George Orwell’s essays, anything I found ‘readable’. Punctuated by swigs of beer, I’d make notes for hours. When in 2014 I moved to Chennai to pursue a journalism degree, the boldness of that decision was largely motivated by my solitary drinking sessions.

News out of South Africa, with an unexpected outcome in a  umqombothi brewing contest:

He might have been the only male contestant vying for the crown, but in the end the judges were unanimous in selecting Sibusiso Skhosana.

Sibusiso Skhosana is from Thembisa, East Rand, Gauten and here is a description of the beer he was making. H/T to the man with hats.

Is it just me or in this last wee while and the uncoverings of craft beer’s seamy side (more of which was revealed in the UK this week) does the label “independent” smack a bit too much of the consequence-free narrative? It’s a bit like the tone I watched play out when a question was dared to be asked of an “important person” in craft:

Q: But doesn’t this ambiguity/reluctance to name names just perpetuate the wink wink attitude to this kind of behaviour Paul?
A: Taking a moment to clock that you’ve turned up to criticise one thing I could have said over acknowledging the many things I did say. Aye, I think that’s all I’ve got for now Eoghan.

Oh dear. The poor little craft stuff wears upon you, doesn’t it. By the way and quite related, running brewery names through employment sites like Indeed with reviews by former employees and you get some interesting information:

DO NO rotate staff out to prevent repetitive stress injuries… Majority of staff is part time or temporary workers brought in on the daily. There is zero opportunity for promotion of part time workers the company also heavily promotes alcohol abuse…”

Finally, I am always interested in the realm of expertise extrapolation. That’s why I stay up at night listening to Coast to Coast AM from a station out of Cleveland. Someone knows something about X so they have an opinion of Y. Recently, we saw a lot of probably well meaning but somewhat dangerous supposed legal advice being passed around related to abusive craft brewing work situations. People have real problems and should not be distracted by pro-am beer bloggers. The medical equivalent is of course far more prevalent with beer writers, last bastion of belief in the J-Curve. With an absence of intent, Jeff seemed to continue with the tradition this week with a piece that walks an unusual line along a wobbly if not fictional fence: “Alcoholism is a dangerous disease, and no one should try to downplay its horrors. But neither should we attribute this behavior to a larger group.” My immediate fear is he contradicted himself in those two sentences. Me, I am guided more by the advice of the US  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Excessive alcohol use is responsible for more than 95,000 deaths in the United States each year, or 261 deaths per day. These deaths shorten the lives of those who die by an average of almost 29 years, for a total of 2.8 million years of potential life lost. It is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States… More than half of alcohol-attributable deaths are due to health effects from drinking too much over time, such as various types of cancer, liver disease, and heart disease. 

Why qualify that sort of reality? That’s the same as a Covid-19 pandemic every five or six years. Better to take this oath: “booze is pretty much not that good for me but I choose to drink anyway!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Mid-May Beery News Notes For The UK Pubs And Other Floodgates Opening

What a week. We hit 50% first vaccine coverage locally and folk over 18 are able to try to book appointments. Our two eldest must head to two town over in three weeks for their. But as for me, the provincial government has gotten very cold feet over the AZ jab just as I await word on my where and what and when my second jab will be. Oooo… sole mio. Oh, to be the happy man that Tim Holt found reference to in an unnamed book: “[h]is hobby was chaffinches… on a Sunday he would lie nearly through the day sucking up the treacle beer through the tube… thinking of nothing at all…” Magic.

Of course I am not that man and, like all you all, must face the realities. This includes the biggest news in US craft beer circles is the news which isn’t really news at all.  Sexism is wide ranging within the culture and this week, led last weekend by Notch Brewing’s Brienne Allan, names were named.  Beth Demmons provided the best summary of the situation as of Monday afternoon through another well documented article at VinePair, setting out the background:

Allan, production manager at Notch Brewing in Salem, Mass. and a former leader of the Pink Boots Society’s Boston chapter, was on-site at Notch’s forthcoming Boston area brewery to help assemble the new brewhouse. After being in Covid-19 quarantine for a year, she says, she’d gotten used to not having to deal with sexism, but it didn’t take long for it to rear its head once — then twice — more.

In response, Allen went on line. She received over 800 response to her exasperated question “what sexist comments have you experienced?” The responses range from the crude to the horrific as Demmons writes. There have been initial consequences including a staff uprising at Tired Hands Brewing of Ardmore, Pennsylvania by Tuesday afternoon as reported upon by the Philadelphia Inquirer. And firings and resignations at this and other breweries and organizations followed and may continue to follow. Libby Crider of St. Louis’s 2nd Shift also shared experiences of what she has to put up with from pigs but also welcomed the wave of support. David Sun Lee shared the statement above from my local and beloved Matron Fine Beer. Also read Jessica Infante’s piece on the story from Tuesday as well. In addition to these grim allegations, one of the more interesting bits of information was this:

Let’s say hypothetically I run a for profit marketing business, that doubles as a publication, and am on record/screen shotted, warning clients to pull certain SM accounts before a hypothetical article dropped… am I contributing to the toxic male presence in beer while posting articles of the toxic male presence in beer? Asking for a “friend”.

Hardly independent publishing if that is the case.  Interestingly, GBH ran a story that consisted on interview notes with Brienne Allan along with commentary from two lawyers on the challenges whistleblowers may face in the form of defamation lawsuits. It was odd as it seemed to give both slightly false hope as well as a warning to whistleblowers. As a lawyer, I also found it a particularly odd approach what with the legal conclusions drawn like:

…users and providers of internet services are generally protected from defamation claims when they post or share content that was created by a third party…

Not to mention the categorization of brewery owners and employees as “public figures” which would require acceptance of the phony rock star narrative which is also part of the problem with depictions of craft beer culture. As always – as with pro/am beer writers offering medical advice – get actual professional advice if you are in any way involved with a situation like this.

My own two cents in all of this was to remind people – again – that the whole shift from “micro” to “craft” brewing was an intentional rebranding specifically in response to a sex scandal that led to criminal charges. You can read about the 2002 “Sex for Sam” promotion fiasco here and, if you doubt the primary sources I cited, you can read about it also in  Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business by Josh Noel as reviewed here.

Katie questions the political economics behind the low ethical standards in what was supposed to be craft’s brave new world – what she calls “social justice paint jobs”:

I have worked in marketing for over a decade, and in that time I’ve developed a talent for sniffing out social justice paint jobs. This in turn has allowed cynicism to grow where it’s not welcome — I desperately want to see beer businesses working to bring good into the industry, and to banish what’s rotten, and to believe that this is being done for the benefit of everyone who interacts with the industry. It’s difficult to see how anything that operates within a capitalist society could survive without adopting capitalist goals…

Me, I am not one to think that “it’s the same everywhere” as I think craft has built for itself its own particular variant of the problem:

If you were wanting to create a cover story for anti-social behaviour why not create an alcohol laced drinkers’ loyalty culture controlled top down by the clique of brewery owners, cleverly labelled as a community driven by passion?

It’s that dream of a consequence-free experience under which it provides a particular cover for some pretty bad behaviour, the thing that still allows someone known to be a creep at work to claim it’s his personal matter.* Sorry. Nope.

Somewhat related, while these matters may raise many points of view, I am not sure this is exactly how one should put this, inclusion-wise. Seems itself to be pretty whitely-dudely:

…I want to balance my interview list a bit, so if you make or sell these beers and you’re not a white dude then I’d love to talk to you…

So… if this is all true, then are we facing a reality that unless you are a tiny family operation or a big brewery with all the controls a proper independent and empowered HR department that there is a risk the pigs are in charge? Maybe. Maybe not. As Jeff recommends, we can at least start by remembering that all humans deserve respect, kindness, and equity.

Speaking of tiny family operations, Joe Stange has written a profile of Virginia’s Wheatland Spring Farm and Brewery run by  Bonnie and John Branding. It is published in what is either Craft Beer & Brewing or Beer & Brewing depending on which web page upper left logo you are looking at. Warning: there may be pigs but they are the proper sort so it’s OK. The Brandings make land beer:

That experience in Germany also inspired the brewing of what the Brandings call “land beer.” To them, all Wheatland Spring beer is land beer. The Germans use the word landbier—it simply means “country beer,” and breweries use it to evoke images of local, traditional lagers. To the Brandings, it reflects the farm and its surroundings….  Land beer “has to do with culture and a mindset,” John says. “It’s this connection to agriculture and to artisans, and to this more tightly knit community of craft maltsters, small hop growers, and small family breweries.” In Germany, he says, those small village breweries aren’t trying to compete with the bigger ones. “They’re happy and content with their market, just as it is…. 

History lesson time. The T-feed presence known as “Intoxicating Spaces” posted this message and accompanying image to the right (my left):

A charming C18th view of St Pancras Wells, a spa and pleasure garden on the site of the present-day station. As well as healing waters, it offered ‘the best of tea, coffee, neat wines, curious punch, beers, other fine ales, and cyder’.

I have writing a bit about pleasure gardens, such as Vauxhall Gardens in the last third of the 1660s at Lambeth, England as well as, note bene, Vauxhall Gardens in NYC in around the 1760s. I would absolutely love access to a pleasure garden. Why have you not provided that to me, world?

Courtesy of TBN, I saw that Ron wrote about British military brewing in WWII including in the jungles of Burma:

In Burma they took the concept of mobile brewing one step further than a brewing ship. They stuck breweries on the back of lorries. Quite a clever way of getting beer production as close as possible to the front line. Given the conditions under which it was brewed, I doubt it tasted that great. The soldiers must have been glad to get any beer at all, out in the jungle. 

Look! A “curate” sighting care of the Mudge. So 2018. I thought we were done with that once it came to mean “stuff I own” but there you go.

Marverine Cole directed my eyes to this piece in The Guardian about troubles facing the only Belgian brewery that really really matters, Rochefort:

The monks have doggedly claimed that plans by Lhoist, an international company run by one of Belgium’s richest families, to deepen its chalk quarry and redirect the Tridaine spring risked altering the unique taste of their celebrated drink. Now, thanks to a deed dating back to 1833, it appears that makers and drinkers alike need no longer worry. A court of appeal in Liège has confirmed that while the quarry owner also owns the spring, it does not have the right to “remove or divert all or part of the water which supply the abbey”.

Holy subsurface riparian rights ruling, Batman! Excellent outcome.

Boak and Bailey educated us all on the history of pale’n’hoppy ale. As did Ed. They wrote in response to a post from Jeff on Thornbridge Jaipur. The point of pointing this out is not the appearance of corrections and disagreement. No, it was the appearance of a collective exploration that helped everyone and build understanding. Certainly helped me. Excellent. Good stuff indeed!

Finally, the pubs have opened in the UK for indoors pints and, just like that, the arseholes are back:

To the group of lads who ran up a £200+ drinks bill outside a #bristol pub yesterday, were abusive staff & fabricated complaints, only to then do a runner. You are the very worst of the worst sort of people, and we sincerely hope the police can track you down #unbelievable

In happier pub opening news, Jeff only had to move the sofa and TV to get the place fit for human company.

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

*Just had to note what a sad exercise this sort of statement is: “While this was all my PERSONAL life, I am so very sorry that these poor choices are now reflecting on the excellent people and products at Grains of Wrath. I emplore those who have any questions or concerns to ask me personally. I’m happy to talk to you and answer any questions you may have because open and honest dialogue is the only way to move forward.” No, bringing bad behaviours out into public with real consequences is how to move forward.

 

Ontario Once Had Women Only Taverns And Other Establishments

I was reminded this week of another bad era in drinking for women, right after the initial relaxations of our legal systems of temperance in Ontario in 1927 after decades of dour under the new surveillance culture of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.  If you look at my post about women and alcohol prior to the temperance laws you will see there was far more leisurely liberty  in these parts in 1827 than 1927.

But, then, I was also reminded of one of the great innovations of the day that has now been forgotten – the tavern for women under the special restricted license. There’s probably a master’s thesis just waiting to happen if there were enough materials still around on the topic. I was responsible for writing the portion of Ontario Beer from 1900 to 1984 or so and this is the text below that covers that era. And it’s one of my favourite aspects along with the fact that by WWII, as illustrated our own major brewing outfit Labatt was running patriotic cartoon strips in newspapers to boost morale featuring a beer loving lady of the house, Ti-Jos… which I presume is a diminutive for Petite Josephine. Times had changed.

The passage below referneeces Dan Mallack’s 2012 book Try To Control Yourself, my copy of which I cannot seem to lay my hand on at this moment. Anyway, I had thought I had posted about this at some point but I do not appear to have done so. That being the case, here it is today offered if only as support that there are better paths forward if we are open enough to recognize them.

————————-

The role of women in this era of hotel based beverage rooms were a great cause of concern. Soon after the changes in 1927, the Hotel Grimsby asked to “prepare a Ladies Beverage room, as a great number of ladies do not want to go in the same room as the men.” Unlike we might be told in the revisionist view that the temperance movement was solely populated by hysterical fun crushers, the reopening of public drinking places not only led to perceived moral dangers such as gambling and prostitution but also risks of harassment or worse for the modern women who, as part of their desire to enjoy more liberal rights. wished to seek out new entertainments and drink their beer outside of the home. 

Malleck shows, before further amendments in 1934 addressed the concern, efforts were made to meet this demand by individual hotel operators. In one case this required use of a dining room as a women only location. The LCBO was sympathetic but did not approve of the circumventing of the law required, the inspector reporting it as “the subterfuge of the sandwich.” Restricted access to the beverage room also applied to waitresses as well as the female customer. They, unlike their male server coworkers, were subject to official inquiries as to whether they were themselves sources of immorality. Social clubs serving women or a mixed membership were even at times ordered to stop serving beer except to men. The beer drinking woman who chose to avoid the public space and stay at home when drinking also faced public disapproval when buying and even commentary in the press.

Throughout this time of social transition, in addition to working with the provincial government in the implementation of the Liquor Control Act, brewers in the 1930s were quite able to work with each other when their interests were aligned. In 1933, E.P. Taylor corresponded with his Quebec competitors national and Molson sharing information related to retail price cutting by their own agents. The next year, Carling received plans about the use of cardboard cartons to replace wooden crates to achieve freight charges savings and provide greater convenience “for tourists, for people going fishing, and so forth.”

Under Canada’s division of powers between the federal and provincial levels, the government of Ontario regulated how beer was retailed. As new changes were brought in in 1934 continued to reflect the surveillance principle even as settings for and modes of drinking expanded. The law now defined the word “establishment” to include club, hotel, inn, public house, tavern, military mess, restaurant, railway car or steamship having premises. And among the many classes of license created, licenses were now also available for establishments which served beer to men only, to men and women together or to women only.

A few remaining “ladies and escorts” signs from this era can still be seen in rural Ontario such as at the Douglas Tavern in Renfrew Co. Licenses were also available for light beer only or beers of any strength as well as other forms of alcohol. By creating separate zones for different economic groups, different genders and different beers, the bad old days of wild taverns warned of by the temperance movement could be avoided as the behaviours of each group could be observed.

 

Your Very Own Mid-April 2021 Beery News Notes For A Thursday

What a difference a week makes. My birthday is coming up. My 18th bloggaversary is coming up. My jab appointment is coming up. The radishes are well up.  Speaking of the 18th bloggaversary, I was thrilled to realize that quite early on I had witnessed and captured forever perhaps the first bit of beer blogging snark or at least shade back in 2003.  Nothing like being a part of history. Oddly, someone just offered me $300 for that original URL  “genx40.com” under which the beer blogging started. I can’t imagine what for.

Pubs are open in England for outdoor service and apparently everyone I follow is a vitamin D deficient dipsomaniac. Except Matt. He was anxious. And Boak and Bailey hovered.  Me, even after I get the jab it’s going to be a while before I am settled enough to race towards a crowd. Retired Martin, as always, provided a great photo essay of his experience, a portion of one of which is captured above. I love capturing of the moment, the hipster hat in shades next to the guy at the left taking a seat. Two years from now the set up will look like something from a sci-fi movie.

Speaking of things not affected by the pandemic, what is not to love about this chart provided by BA Bart indicating what is needed to be remembered if you hang your emotional well being on the peg of craft beer. It shows the percentage of actual craft (not baloney craft) sales as a percentage for the years 2019, 2020 and into 2021. The percentage is stable. You see it dips in the summer when normal people buy more normal beer. And rises when they slow down. Nice. Pundits can cease their concerns otherwise.

In the greatest city in the world, Montreal, people are falling in love with the local lager scene:

Richer says lagers “appeal to a lot of different people” — everyone from “Monsieur et madame Tout-le-monde,” who might normally be fans of Molson or Labatt, to beer geeks who are looking for something simple, but well-crafted, and with lots of variety. To be clear, this isn’t a trend created by the pandemic — just accelerated by it. Across Quebec, hopheads still rush out to the latest can releases at breweries like Messorem Bracitorium, Brasserie du Bas-Canada, and Sir John, which specialize in full-on, double-dry-hopped hazy IPAs. But even those breweries are making lagers.

Perry. One of my heroes in the drinks writing world is Jancis Robinson and this week she offered her website a space to let us know about a rare perry:

Flakey Bark is a marvel of a drink. Broad, bold, structural, it carries on its breath a muscular depth of pear skin, peach pit, earthy bacon rind and wet slate. Its tannins in youth are formidable – so much so that eating the fruit raw is said to skin the roof of your mouth. It is built for food-pairing, offers extraordinary versatility in that respect, and with age it unfurls into layers of riper, fleshier fruit. A treasure – a delicious one. And one bad storm could wipe it entirely from existence, because there are only six mature Flakey Bark trees left in the world.

Nutso. Absolutely nuts. Speaking of which: brewery gets grocery store deal,  brewery told off apparently by morons.

I set out a slightly different understanding of the agreement which binds Ontario’s In and Out Store, aka The Beer Store, compared to some skuttlebutt observations being made. Our own expert beer business reporter Josh Rubin knows more about the situation than anyone else and has set out the deets in The Toronto Star. Very unlikely (aka impossible) that the team leading the big brewers who own TBS into the 2015 Master Framework Agreement that gave us grocery store beer did not see the writing on the wall for the system’s long term prospects. The ten year deal gave them the time to transition.

Or maybe an agreement to terminate. The talks leading to 2015 weren’t exactly public but getting ten years to transition otherwise stranded capital assets into operational loss offsets is a pretty civilized way to wind up EP Taylor’s brilliant idea as it became obsolete… it ends up being free to the 3 owner/breweries’ own pockets and fairly organized as it gives them time to sell the properties applying the funds meaningfully. Not unlike how the Federal gov’t has done it since Chretien. Securing the pension plan will be the big question.

That last point is key. The question of the land and buildings in the inventory of assets is not an issue. Otherwise useless assets offset operational losses. That’s part of the solution. That’s having a spot to put down the hot pan from the oven. The pension, however, is potentially problematic unless it is vested and capitalized. If so, all in all it was a brilliant plan.

Looks like Flying Dog,* the sort of brewery folk thought much about before the second Obama administration, has lifted the IP from BeerKulture, the diversity collabs they were working with:

Hi, @FlyingDog! Did you folks really have a meeting with @beerkulture to work on a collab, walk away from it, and then release Kulture King? That’s disgraceful, dilutes @beerkulture’s brand, and undermines the work they do to make beer better.

Two odd last things. Folks for over a decade have suggested that there is an issue with the reality of the Great White Male narrative in craft beer. Good reason. It’s a false construct. This is not news. Why did you think it was? Also, the idea that WBB invented criticism of craft beer?  Maybe if you were nine years old in 2014. Please. A very fine voice but pretty much common until folk stopped caring much about craft beer in 2015. Grow up. Buy my book. Please.

I really still can’t tell you anything about Project X but it is exciting and charming and… interesting. More laters. Meantime, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (who marked their 100th episode with gratitude for all) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  There is more from the DaftAboutCraft  podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

*A proud sponsor of many of A Good Beer Blog’s Christmas Photo Contests of 2005 to 2016… or so…

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For Spring… Actual Spring With Radishes Sprouted And Robins Singing And…

I have been waiting to try out this new introductory sentence that I came up with. Tell me what you think: “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Yes, that’ll do nicely. Here we are! The Red Sox are playing real games. And it is warm enough to sit outside for more than five minutes… to get chores done in the yard… to get a sense that soon enough I will be jumping in Lake Ontario to cool off. And… Ontario have gone into an absolute lockdown today. No shops open other than groceries and pharmacies. Out city is relatively safe – even with a small spike yesterday – but we have ICU patients from elsewhere coming to our hospitals because elsewhere is not as relatively safe. I placed another home delivery of excellent beer to mark the moment.

To top it off, it has been a quiet week in this corner of the internet, in the world of beer. What have I noticed? The Suez! I am fond of the Suez canal… but not as fond of it as my slightly mad great-grannie Campbell was between the wars. Her favorite pub circa 1936 was named The Suez Canal… as illustrated to the right from a post circa 2012. Anyway, nice to see the ship has shifted and Suez has been cleared and that goods are moving again:

The shipments included common goods such as the consumer products made in China along with the equivalents of more than 11,000 20-foot containers, hauling wastepaper from the U.S. to India, more than 1,600 boxes holding automotive parts heading from Germany to China and 641 containers packed with beer from the Netherlands—the brands unnamed—on their way to China.

Gee – do you think the name of those beers might rhyme with Bline-hicken? Frankly, I was a bit surprised that so little bulk beer was involved.

From southern England, Stonch has shared some timely and sensible advice as a pub landlord for customers returning to their favorite establishments as they are able to open a bit just as we shut again – and which does open up the question of how to be an ethical pub goer in these times:

Remember, you can’t go for a pint if you’re unwilling to check in for NHS track and trace: pubs are legally obliged to ensure you either use the NHS app, or give your details manually. If you won’t, they must refuse you admission and service. Businesses will be fined – in an amount starting at £1000 and rising to £10,000 for multiple breaches – if they let you in. If you’re going to make a fuss about it this – due to some libertarian, freeman-on-the-land bullshit that’s wrecking your head – you’ve barred yourself from every pub in the UK.

Plain and true. Also from England, the heritage blog A London Inheritance has posted about a pub called Jack Straw’s Castle in Hampstead. As per usual, the post has a great selection of photos past and present as well as a good amount of background detail on the locality being discussed in and about London:

Jack Straw, after who the pub was named, is a rather enigmatic figure. General consensus appears to be that he was one of the leaders of the Peasants Revolt in 1381, however dependent on which book or Internet source is used, he could either have led the rebels from Essex, or been part of the Kent rebellion. Jack Straw may have been another name for Wat Tyler and some sources even question his existence. Any connection with Hampstead Heath and the site of Jack Straw’s Castle seem equally tenuous – he may have assembled his rebels here, made a speech to the rebels before they marched on London, or escaped here afterwards.

Interesting news in the US with some final high level figures about what the pandemic did to the craft sector in 2020 as per J. Noel:

NEWS: @BrewersAssoc says the craft beer industry saw a 9% decline (driven greatly by the pandemic), which dropped craft’s share of the overall beer market to 12.3%. However the number of craft breweries grew yet again in 2020, reaching an all-time high of 8,764.

EcoBart kindly confirmed these figures relate to volume and not value, suggesting it relates to on premises v. off drinking.  I would have thought that direct sales from the brewery were more profitable but that would maybe only apply to the continuing wave of the new and good and tiny and local.

Hereabout and somewhat similarly, apparently it is possible to run a massive and reasonably monopolistic beer retail chain and still lose masses of money. Josh explains:

The retailer, majority owned by Molson Coors and Labatt, had an operating loss of $50.7 million in 2020, as competition from grocery stores and restaurant bottle shops grew, and keg sales were crushed by COVID-19 restrictions… The Beer Store also saw its operating revenue fall to $399.4 million, down from $402.2 million in 2019, and $418.9 million the previous year.

I will miss the stupid name for the chain after it’s gone. Like I miss The TV Store and The Shoes Store. It’s nickname is “The IN and OUT Store” because every branch has a sign that says “IN” and one that says “OUT.” Ah, Ontario. More here on whatever TBS is here from 2015 when its end times were foretold. Relive the thrills of the Beer Ombudsman announcement.

In Japan, one effect of the pandemic has been a rise in no/low beer sales – and not to craft newbies but to established macro beer fans as Reuters reports:

The pandemic is propelling an unexpected boom in alcohol-free beer that has Asahi Group Holdings forecasting a 20% jump in revenue for non and low alcoholic beer this year after flat sales in 2020. Asahi is also debuting a new “Beery” label and has plans to expand its line-up. Main rival Kirin Holdings, which had a head start in the category, expects its sales volumes in the segment to jump 23% this year after a 10% rise in 2020 and recently revamped one of its main non-alcoholic beers.

Finally, like all of you I received the email blurb about November’s Ales Through The Ages event at Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg and, unlike most of what I write about, I had to actually cross check what I saw with others to ensure my eyes did not deceive me. Except for an optional event on Monday morning after the main conference is over, there are only male presenters. And the topics are not particularly diverse.  It’s all a bit weird to see such a thing. I can’t imagine I could travel even over half a year off given other obligations but… it’s all a bit weird.

One last thing. I came across a master list of current beer blogs. It was so 2006 when I found it. Called Top 110 Beer Blogs, it lists 157 blogs. Sweet.

I still can’t tell you anything about Project X but it is exciting and charming and… interesting. More laters. Meantime, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  There is more from the DaftAboutCraft  podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The End and Beginning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There. Spring. Hmm… why doesn’t my heart go dancing? And that waltz isn’t particularly… you know… entrancing? No desire… no ambition leads me… WTF!?! Oh yes – the second spring of a pandemic but, screw it, still spring. Get a beer, turn that soil and plant some seed! While performing your ag-art, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  There is more from the DaftAboutCraft  podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too.

*ZZZZzzzz….