Category: Making Fun of Beer

The Ever Uplifting Beery News Notes For The Beginning Of That First False Canadian Summer

We are hitting the ground running this week. The image of the week up there is from Liam who posted a few shots on #BeerSky of his latest find, a “grubby 1920s silver-plated pint tankard” from Clery’s Restaurant in Dublin. I think it is all very charming. Careful readers will recall my own foray into such matters with a mid-1800s pewter quart pot I picked up in 2012. Just the thing for a very large measure of Porter.

And there was again a lot about beer writing this week. Not sure if that is good or bad. Stan beat me to one particular thought on Monday. A few years back I complained to him in an email that so much beer writing was repetative, timid and sort of dull and he gave me the best advice which he has repeated in his post this week – you’ve been around too long, seen too much… or something like that:

I would add this thought. What is new to me or Evan Rail or Jeff Alworth or Alan McLeod might be different than what is new to somebody finally getting around to visiting a new brewery because one opened in their neighborhood… There are many opportunities to write something new, for both the beer experienced and the beer inexperienced audiences.

Gary writes on a similar note. Yet having heard that and agreeing to a point, I am also mindful of the tweet David Jesudason posted about his current situation. You will remember that he is the current holder of The Michael Jackson Award for Beer Writer of the Year from BGBW. But, if you click on that thumbnail, you will see he says:

I am currently in a position where I am not sure I can continue this type of work.

Because while there may be “many opportunities to write something new, for both the beer experienced and the beer inexperienced audiences,” I would submit, there is little to no support for many types of normal business reporting and investigative reporting that we see in  other areas of lifestyle writing. And why is that? Does it leads to things like this? A story about one British brewer with a claim:

Speaking about the expansion, Vault City’s co-founder Steven Smith-Hay said: “Our ambition is to be the biggest dedicated sour beer producer in the world. This new site will be instrumental in achieving that.*

The headling added certainty by way of the “to be” rather than “may become” sort of grammarical structure. And, yes, the author does not write the headling but it all led to the statement “I’ve got a lot to say about that Vault City interview but tough cheese I’m on holiday” as well as the statement “was from a press release anyho” with questions about the reality of that ambition. To be or not to be. But only on social media. Will there be follow up? Will track records be tracked? Is it that we don’t really care and it’s all puffery for… well, you know.

It also may be related to the opinion piece “Hazy IPA Conspiracy Theories” from Andy Crouch. He who upset my world by this article – by leaving me more in agreement with the very Mr. B who Andy sought to criticize. As reported last week, Mr. B pointed at Hazy IPAs as either the cause or at least a key symptom of US craft’s sputtering retraction.  Why? Well, in addition to simmering tone of “one does not question craft”, Andy also surprisingly uses that hallmark of a weak argument: poorly dolled out snark. Phrases deployed included “grumpy old craft beer cowboys” and “strawman” and “laugh out loud moment” and especially “55 year old dudes grumbling” as, you know, Mr. B is older than that. Setting such faux juveneilia aside, what he really misses is this:

The popularity of consumer products, including beer, wine, and spirits, ebbs and flows over time. In just the past decade, we’ve seen the rise and fall of cocktails, cider, hard seltzers, and many others. Each will continue to play some role in the drinking landscape but no drink has a right to the public’s attention. Craft beer has many issues but chief among them is a generational disconnect. The audience for craft beer continues to age, younger folks make fun of craft beer dads and their beer samplers on TikTok, and the industry stands in a corner publicly wishcasting for the return of “beer-flavored beer.” 

What Andy does not seem to want to admit is that it’s not about the rise and fall of each particular form of drink but a greater overall trend. These sugar bomb beers that are labeled as Hazy IPA are nothing more than the beery sibling to RTDs, coolers and hard seltzers. Interchangible. Forgettable. Cavity causing. They may sell but they are part of that continuum that speaks to a candy fixated palate. Kinderbier. Easy to make and easy to sell with the right cartoony can wrapper.  In fact, their rise was perfectly culturally appropriate for the troubled times, a perfect drink for an era of crisis that started with the shock of Trump getting elected and then continued on through the daze of life in the pandemic. They are booze for unsettled people who have bigger things to deal with, those who don’t want to think about it. Any of it. The “eating a box of ice cream sandwiches stnading by my fridge because I can” of beers for folk who no longer can muster the energy to give a shit.  What sort of industry bases its long term health on that sort of consumer? By all appearances, this shrinking one called craft.

Speaking on asking why things are the way they are, Steve Dunkey wrote a bit of a exposé of the Good Beer Guide that was publishing in What’sBrewing, describing some of the politics behind the scenes including this bit of a revelation:

There isn’t enough room in the printed book for every pub that could meet new nationalised selection criteria. Each branch has an allocation that it can fill, and it’s well known that the allocation will be filled regardless of the quality of the pubs, because it’s believed at a branch level that if it doesn’t fill its allocation, it might not have as many entries the following year. This would restrict it if it then did have the great pubs to fill the quota.

That is quite the thing. I had no idea that there was no centralized editing of submissions from the regions. The story raises other questions, too. Check it out.

Stan (for the double) has all the questions and this week shared another Hop Queries where he pointed out again another few trends trend that point to continued retraction:

Hop Products Australia harvested 26 percent fewer metric tons of hops in 2024 than in 2023. Much of that was intentional, taking into consideration that the worldwide supply of aroma hops is greater than demand. Production of Galaxy, which is 65 percent of what HPA sells, was down 20 percent to 879 metric tons. Vic Secret dipped 22 percent and Eclipse 57 percent…. A report from Germany suggests acreage has not been reduced to the extent it has been in the United States. When the numbers are toted up, Perle and Hallertau Tradition will likely decline the most, while high alpha acreage will likely increase slightly.

And apparently the days of food and beer pairing are well behind us. As Jeff noted from a recent newsletter reporting from a conference speech by a commercial investment banker – it’s now all about “the mood management” business! As a banker might, the points being made included a grind that sounds a lot like someone worried about their ROI:

      • If consumer are walking away from beer, Nik asks that you explain Modelo, Pacifico, Michelob Ultra, Voodoo Ranger, Busch Light, and Coors Banquet to him, which are all performing great.
      • We’re not in the beverage business, we’re in the “mood management business” per Nik. He says we drink 8 beverages a day and that alcoholic ones are competing with non-alcoholic ones.
      • “There’s no such hing as lazy markets, only lazy marketers”
      • Prices have been going up lately. Are we doing enough to reinforce that value we provide to command the new, more premium price? (He implies no)…

Mmm… mood management. That’s a lot of “out-Barting” even BA Bart (as recently seen as a few weeks ago) for pushy positivity in a retracting market but RBC (actually my own bank, with those very unAmerican two out of three letters) and its investment bankers have needs. The problem with beer is you, you and you… especially you… are LAZY!!! I know I am. And, yes, so does my bank.

Next up, Millie Bowles writing for Kent Online shared the tale of neighbours fed up with the smells off the neighbouring property, the contract brewers South East Bottling:

Fed-up neighbours say the stench from a brewery is so bad they cannot sit in their gardens – but bosses are urging residents to be more “pro-business”. People living near South East Bottling (SEB) on Northdown Industrial Estate in Broadstairs have complained of a “yeasty, sickly” smell which can even force them to keep their windows shut. Such is the pong, Thanet District Council has now ordered the company to carry out an odour assessment. SEB, which works with brands such as Old Dairy and Tiny Rebel, says it is “unfortunate that in current times, local residents and the council choose to operate in an anti-business manner”.

Stench! Pong!! We read that Marion Langelier, 82, is stopped from going out in the garden because of the smell as well as “noise issues, notably “banging and crashing’ bins.” Giving equal time, we also read that Chris Prentice, 49, says it is “like hot Weetabix. It’s quite comforting. It’s nice.” Hot Weetabix? How spicy! But the real question is this – why do UK newspapers include people ages? Otherwise, solid business reporting.

Not quite as smelly apparently but still irritating is Albania where NHS Martin unpacked** some of the trials and tribulations one can meet when traveling there:

… we sprinted to Berat’s bus station where the bus driver checked 3 times we really wanted to go to Lushnje. “Can we go to the Station please” we asked as the bus pulled up in an unprepossessing centre, the Mansfield of the Balkans, but the driver just pointed vaguely to the west. If in doubt, follow the tractor. Well, there’s a building called “STATION” anyway; five minutes to spare for the 10:38. No bus stops, no timetable, no-one to ask, just (bizarrely) two cafes side-by-side. Resigned to missing (if it had ever run) the 10:38, we resolved to seek advice from the cafes. It’s what you’d do in England, isn’t it, ask in a pub. The chap in one pointed heavenwards, the lady who brought us two espressos borrowed Mrs RM’s phone to point at a roundabout a half mile south, though a bus driver taking a fag break added “autostrada” mysteriously…

There is more. I think they ending up catching the 1:38 pm bus. Me, when I worked in Poland in 1991 I tried Albanian carrot jam. Cured me of making further travel inquiries.

As a follow up on the receive spate of breweries going under, Ed wrote an interesting post on his pre-brewing life as a microbiologist with a firm that went into receivership:

When I worked as a microbiologist the company I was at went bankrupt and managed to re-open a soon after with a slightly different name doing the same business. It had been obvious the company was not doing well for some time. A big customer had been lost so the work just wasn’t there like it once was. When I saw the owners daughter updating her CV on a work computer I thought the company was definitely going under, but despite this it still came as a shock when it finally happened. I’d worked there for years so though intellectually I’d guessed I’d soon be on the sausage it hadn’t prepared me emotionally for when reality hit. 

Finally and perhaps along the same line… in my undergrad years over 40 years ago, one entertaining pal would discuss hypothetical washroom fixtures he wanted to see. He dubbed one the VomKing 5000? Apparently they exist for real in Germany according to one posting on the Dull Men’s Club on Facebook. Note: this is a free standing barf station in a public washroom there. Handles and all. I think it only lacks the mist of ice cold water spraying your forehead that my pal had designed into his porcelain dream. His grip handles may also have been refrigerated in his version. But here you can head butt the flush button in this model. Reminder: the internet was made for educational purposes. You have been educated.

And with that great moment in blogging history… from Alpha to Omega… input to output…so… once again… that is it and we roll the credits… well, the credits, the stats the recommends and the footnotes and the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections.*** Want to keep up with the news before next Thursday? Check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan back each Monday. Elsewhere go look at then listen to Lew’s podcast. And get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by this year’s model citizen David Jesudason on the odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now revitalised and wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back with all the sweary Mary he can think of! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog in this weeks best medium as message news. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down.  Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too.  All About Beer has introduced a few podcasts… but some may be losing steam. And there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube.  The Moon Under Water… is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that but is writing for 47 readers over there. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link! Errr… nope, it is gone again.

*I couldn’t gather the energy to keep up with the Vault City thing further –  but Stonch made a great point.
**Travel pun!!
***This week’s update on my own emotional rankings? Facebook still in first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (128) rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (913) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,474) hovering somewhere above or around my largely ignored Instagram (163), with sorta unexpectly crap Threads (43) and not at all unexpectedly bad Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence of mine just sitting there. 

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The First Of May

OK, the lawn has been mowed. Even though we had frosts three times in the last week. That is a milestone. As is the Craft Brewers Conference for 2022. I like the logo. No reference to #CBC2022. Actually looks like it was used by the Minnesota Beer Distributors’ Convention back in 1974. Right down to the bottle rather than, you know, a can. So… some people are getting back together. To get a bag or two of fruit sauce. Even we were out last night at a favourite place and hardly anyone had a mask on. Yikes. Our local numbers have moved from worst ever to less than worst ever so people must have forgotten or given up. Fingers crossed!  That’s where we are. Fingers being crossed.

The big news is in beer periodicals… as it is periodically. Is there a comeback being made with the news that All About Beer has been revived to some extent by Beer Edge collaborators Andy Crouch and John Hall:

When we founded Beer Edge in 2019, we drew on our experiences with All About Beer and the role it had in developing our own education and careers to help define the vision for our new company. Meanwhile, All About Beer’s bankruptcy concluded and the company and magazine closed for good. Bradford and Johnson later regained control of the brand itself and the content archive. And in early 2022, they agreed to sell these individual assets to us.

I will be interested in hearing about the business model. Andy, a public service lawyer in the real world, is acting as publisher with John reviving his role as editor, a position last held in 2017. After learning that GBH is essentially subsidized by non-publication public and private revenues (and subject to the inexplicable* withdrawal of cash, too) I thought a bit about the other ways of making an entirely niche topic at least break even. Pellicle, for example, on its third anniversary has announced a sustainability goal based on subscribing patrons with a noble goal: “your subscription lets you ensure that people who can’t afford it can still access our features, free of charge“. I am among the subscribers as Pellicle often offers writing you don’t see anywhere else. The main remaining old school periodical is Craft Beer & Brewing run these days by Joe Stange appears to be run as a for profit business with generous old school subscription rates with various tiers no doubt providing quite a range of valuable benefits.  I don’t subscribe as I find the articles, however excellent, to be often aimed towards the supply side, rather than me and my consumer demands. What is the proposition now from All About Beer?

The other big news in the brewing world in 2022 is really the resurgence of big beer. Or rather BIG BEER. As illustrated this week by the fabulous news from Molson Coors:

Molson Coors Beverage Co. says its profits soared in the first quarter for its largest quarterly sales growth in more than a decade. The Colorado and Montreal-based company, which reports in U.S. dollars, says it earned US$151.5 million or 70 cents per diluted share, up from US$84.1 million or 39 cents per share a year earlier. Underlying net income excluding one-time items was US$63.8 million or 29 cents per share, compared with US$1.6 million or one cent per share in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Revenues for the three months ended March 31 were US$2.2 billion, up nearly 17 per cent from US$1.9 billion, primarily as a result of strong growth outside of North America amid fewer on-premise restrictions in Europe.

So much for the end times that all the experts spoke of. Like seltzers taking over. We do, however, still seem to have a slight bitterness in the mouth. Speaking of macro-lag, The Tand shared an image of what I think is a very attractive beer label, Cerveza Victoria lager from Malaga Spain. Utterly unhip with its middle aged guy in a suit wiping the sweat off his bald head, the use of white in his shirt, the hankie, the table and the background sends the image of pounding heat. I like the straw hat, too. Lovely design.

Less wonderful are the stories David Jesudason shared of his disheartening discriminatory experiences in the bigoted wine world for Glug:

One of the worst racist nicknames I endured was repeatedly said when I worked at a bar during my university days from 1999 to 2003. It was my job to carry the bottles of wine from the cellar and the manager of this West London establishment – Keith – would reward my efforts by calling me Gunga Din. For those not familiar with the Rudyard Kipling poem (and I’ve got a feeling that my racial abuser only knew the title) it’s about an Indian water carrier so expendable that after being killed helping the British Army his life is summed up by the jokey line: ‘You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.’ Although it’s a highly offensive term, it’s actually fitting as I was as dispensable as Kipling’s Hindu hero and if I’d complained I would’ve been ushered out of the door.

Just to be clear, the need for the efforts of Crafted for All and Beer Diversity at #CBC2022 give me no greater hope for the experience in the beer world.

Also at #CBC2022, rolling out craft’s long stale mantras of “we” and “winning” and “wars” is so utterly bizarre. And to my mind, the group think enforced at these gatherings has led to things like hazy IPAs being effectively gateway drinks for seltzers. Dumbing down leading to loyalty leachate. And shit like this:

… beers brewed with marshmallows. This once niche ingredient has actually become a trendy adjunct, but will it stick? …the marshmallow beer trend is like a Peep in the microwave: it is on the rise! Just last year, the number of beers containing marshmallows available through Tavour increased 31% over the year prior… these brewers started using mallows in small doses in select Stouts… fans of the brewery loved it and continue to love it. Tavour recently featured one such Drekker, a dessert-inspired smoothie Sour –– Chonk Mango & Marshmallow. It sold out in less than 48 hours.

I feel dirty just mentioning that. Sharing another sort of thing I don’t want to experience, Ed told a tale of mixing beer and rock climbing this week as he retro-ticked:

On the last night of our trip as the pints went down we were planning what to do in the morning before we went home. We were tempted by the fizzy keg climb Double Diamond (HVS 5b) on the impressive Flying Buttress. I was also tempted to pour more beer down my neck, it was the last night after all. When it started raining heavily I agreed to lead the climb before heading back to the bar, confident it would be far too wet to climb in the the next day. So when I was greeting with blazing sunshine when in my hungover state I peered out of me tent in the morning I was not filled with joy. 

By contrast, Jordan has done the far more sensible thing and taken up writing about beer more often. I say this with the greatest of pleasure as for a certain set it can seem that one of the qualifications for being a beer writer, when not hiding in podcast oblivion,** is not actually writing all that much about beer. Not Jordan! His immediate focus? Actually reviewing beers that show up in the mail and being a bit honest about the process:

I didn’t read the label. Although I try to do right by everyone, sometimes, there’s so many samples that I’m profligate. Sometimes I’ll try things and they aren’t worth mentioning; I’d just hurt the sales. Sometimes, I’ll really enjoy something but I won’t find a place for it. With Hoppy Pollinator, I just didn’t want you to know about it on the off chance you’d prevent me getting more of it next year.

I liked this article by Will Hawkes about the current trend of Dark Mild in England’s Black Country, a theme I’ve seen nosed around periodically over the years. Twenty years ago and more, Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild was a but of a lantern in the dark to the home brewing set. I say I liked it but more so after I did a bit of text analysis on the 3,800 piece to establish what I was reading given, you know, it was filed under the word “critical“… something of an unlikelihood.  I thought to do this primarily as the article makes no mention of the sorts of background to Mild that one would find in, say, a piece by Ron Pattinson… like his 2011 bit in the BeerAdvocate “A Short History of Mild.” So… 42% of the article is made up of quotes from folk in the trade. Three historical records are cited and the rest is mainly pleasant physical observations or input from or about four breweries making these Dark Milds: Yates, Bathams, Fixed Wheel and Box Car. What do we call this sort of writing? If it was in the newspaper, a lifestyle piece on a regional scene?

Matt mentions another aspect of reality:

News of another brewery closure. They are dropping like flies at the moment. My thoughts with all the affected staff.

That was raised in relation to Exe Valley Brewery shutting down. In operation since 1984, the current owners only held the reins since 2020. They join another brewery well into its fourth decade, Wood’s Brewery in Shropshire, along with many others. Normal churn or end times? Hard to know but hard times for the owners and staff.

On the up beat, Beth Demmon continues her series of profiles at Prohibitchin’, her blog receivable by email, with this week’s article on Lauren Hughes, head brewer at Pittsburgh’s Necromancer Brewing and how they are seeking to make change:

Strategic hires at Necromancer Brewing, ensuring long-term support of said hires through consistent mentorship, and plenty of community-facing events that signal safety and support for marginalized people. “Having people enjoy beer in a place where they feel welcome and being able to give back to the community so much, that means a lot to me,” says Lauren.

Finally, I am not sure I would call a beer experience “Schubert-like in its symphonic harmony” given he completed only six of his thirteen symphonies and one of those is named Tragic.

There. 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.

*Actually, quite explicable.
**Let’s be honest. They take up too much footprint in your audience’s available time, you can’t cite an idea within them for a quote, the attract no comments of consequence and they contain no means to link to something they reference. You may as well as be sending postcards to the handful of folk who listen. And writing “umm” for every seventh word.

The Thursday Beery News Notes For A Somewhat Ugly Week In Beer

I almost took this week off. It’s been a very busy stretch at work. It’s good busy, mind you. Takes the mind off the pandemic, the near death experience suffered by American democracy and winter and… and… and… Other than that, I did see both the nearest and seventh farthest planets from the Sun last weekend. That was cool. And, see, I noticed the winter brown goldfinches at the feeder just starting to show their yellow feathers at their shoulders. Spring is coming. Oh, and I had a beer or some beer or something at some point. This is still a beer blog, right?

Hmm… what’s in the news? Horrible breweries apparently. First, the end times seem to have struck once again in the semi-beer fruity gak. You a betting reader? Seriously, when is it going to die off? The exploding gak. Jeff started it. And the we end up here. Really. Just look to the right at the warning one horrible brewery had to issue and consider how horrible the warning issued by the horrible brewery actually is. Actually, I know nothing about the horrible brewery except it is happy, first, putting out a horrible fruit gak beer and, then, a horrible warning about the horrible fruit gak beer. Hide the exploding can in your garbage, they say. Hide the exploding can in your garbage? That’s the advice? Did they check with the local solid waste dept? So they must be horrible. Right? Right. I hope they are not but they might well be. Watch your step. You, too.

If that was not enough,* Vinepair started the ball rolling with the story of another horrible idea, the $90 six pack. It’s a dumb idea which has nothing to do with the beer and everything to do with the $90 despite the spin:

After talking to Gislason, however, I don’t think he deserves derision for Hanabi Lager. Though he’s got grand ambitions, and a funny way of revealing them, his ego is in check. You will probably roll your eyes a few more times as you read this story, sure, but who knows? Gislason might very well be taking lager to a place it’s never been before. “The vast majority of beer consumed in the world is lager, albeit an ‘industrial-commodity’ version that’s relatively simple and homogeneous in flavor,” says Gislason. “Recognizing that high-quality lager brewing was underrepresented in the craft brewing world, that became our brewing R&D focus about 10 years ago.”

Sucker juice. A sad tale based on a false premise. Jeff perhaps was unnecessarily detailed in his criticism, giving the discussion a little too much oxygen. It’s not about disrespect as much as not giving a shit. These things arise from time to time and either die off or end up in the business acquisition they were actually initially set up to serve. Best response? This:

Fuck these guys, we do the same thing for $12 a four pack.

Speaking of horrible brewers, the big story of the week would be the situation at Boulevard Brewing, which was first described in a Reddit post:

I left Boulevard Brewing Company in March 2020 because of harassment I received because I was pregnant. My boss stood me and another female employee up in the lab, in front of another coworker, and demanded to know if we were pregnant. When we refused to answer, he told the other woman “the only way you could be pregnant is by your cat”, then continued to ask me. I reported this to HR, but it started a cycle of reporting his behavior to HR and then being punished (by him) for going to HR.

Nutzo. If denigrating and potentially illegal employment standards could be wrapped up in the word “nutzo”… which it might or might not. It’s sorta sweet – in no way that makes any sense on this planet – that the brewery issued a statement that says it was all fine… a joke maybe… but not real… look over here… shadow puppets… AND then, on Wednesday, they repented or at least reflected and started living in reality. THEN, late Wednesday, folk identifying as employees posted an alternate version of reality, of multiple executive firings. Wow. Need to keep an eye on this one.

So much for beer people are good people. Some are. Some aren’t. Speaking of which, beer people writing about other beer people is usually dull as dishwater… or worse, less interesting than exploding fruity gak or a $90 six pack or sexist piggy stuff. But in this case the bio bit on Chalonda White, aka Afro Beer Chick, is good. Very good. I should work one like that, too, but on me. If I was that good. But I am not as interesting. And not committed to important things like Chalonda is. I could learn a thing or two. Grow up a bit.

Enough!. Let’s look elsewhere. Brexit’s effect on the UK wine trade is petty shocking as described by one wine merchant:

I now hope, if the wind is blowing in the right direction, to start seeing stock from early February. My orders with producers were placed as far back as December. So from what was a 7-10 days turn around has become a 5-6 week turn around. Another of those Brexit dividends. 14/22…

Just last week, we discussed* the effects of Brexit on the UK import market. This seems to indicate it is going to be ugly.

Note: it’s never a good idea to use social media to self doom scroll after you get an article published. Blaming headline writers, the readers… anyone with a different view is a bit weird. If it isn’t explained in the story… is it a good story?

One of Canada’s beer blogs that likes to pretend it isn’t a blog has posted a good piece with four people involved in the beer trade talking about the pivot and the way forward:

At Matron we’ve learned to adapt to the rapidly changing market: we’ve leaned into online sales and home delivery. In fact, we predict that to make up for the shortfall in bar and restaurant sales, breweries will need to sell up to half of their beer online this winter to survive. On the flipside, you, the craft beer drinker, have gained incredible access to the majority of Ontario breweries, whether it be shopping directly from the brewery’s website, or supporting one of the many independent bottle shops that have sprung up.

I am rooting for them all. Matron is one of my near neighbours… in the Canadian sense, an hour’s drive away.

And Matt C wrote about Czech v. German in Ferment 52 and has found a number of solid witnesses to give testimony as to their preference. I approve of the following point most heartily:

But one bone I must pick is with those who replied to my poll by stating they don’t like Czech beer because of the diacetyl (an off flavour that makes your beer taste like butter.) And I understand Czech beers often have a rich, butterscotch flavour, but it’s not like the hot buttered popcorn character that makes you want to tip a pint of naff cask down the drain.  “People who say things like that are the type who talk without knowing what they’re talking about,” Evan says, bluntly. “But yeah, there is diacetyl in Czech beer sometimes. There’s diacetyl in German beer sometimes, too.”

The diacetyl police are amongst the most tedious of beer fans. As far as I am concerned it all comes from (i) nutritionalism*** and (ii) need-to-take-a-stand-ism and (iii) the unfortunate proliferation of off-flavour seminars rather than on-flavour seminars.

There. Unfortunately, more seriously nasty stuff going on than good. But some good and we have the eternal glow of the deep and abiding hope for more good. To continue your quest for actually good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft 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.  And remember BeerEdge, too.

*Which is good for me because, in case you haven’t noticed I like to write a weekly post about all the things I read about so that you can read that in addition to all the things I read about.
**You did have a roundtable discussion by Zoom meeting afterwards, right?
***See Michael Pollen, yes, but see also a sort of fraidy-cat approach to things and the deference to the people who, utterly hypocritically, ended up giving you strawberry milkshake sour fruit candy beer crap. Have a Yorkshire bitter from an actual open square fermenter. Enjoy the slight buttery goodness.

Beer News For The Week When You Learn 1/52nd Of All Human Thought Relates To The Super Bowl

Well, that was quite a something. The game was dull and boring the halftime show was worse. But it’s over. And, really, you only get one “Prince in the rain for your halftime” experience in a lifetime. It’s all degrees of sucking from there. Otherwise, three weeks to March. That’s all I know… so, let’s go crazy with some beery news on a Thursday.

In a surprise move, the beer ads on the Stooper Stupor Super Bowl broadcast actually triggered actual discussion. It started with the odd message from ABInBev summed up neatly with this tweet.

To be clear, Bud Light is not brewed with corn syrup, and Miller Lite and Coors Light are.

Which immediately pissed off big corn. So MillerCoors sent corn farmers their beer! Since then we have been reminded that much high test US craft also relies on corn sugar to boost its strength. This is called chaptalization in wine and it is not considered good. Mainly because it is considered bad. But with US craft beer it is apparently considered – on the near highest authority – to be very good. A rice v. corn debate then broke out. It was exciting. Me, I was caught up in the moment and noted that “138 years of a massively popular rice-based beer and its cultural place still confuses some commentators.”  Stan piled on historically and noted with both flair and panache:

On January 30, 1881, well before A-B took aim on beers brewed with corn, the author of a full-page article in the Chicago Daily Tribune chose the side of rice in the rice versus corn debate. The author stated, “Corn beer is not a drink for Americans or Germans. It is good enough for the Spaniards, Greasers, Indians, and the mongrel breeds of South America.” Instead the author lauded the exceptional crisp taste that resulted with rice, and added, “for years the ‘blonde,’ or light colored beers have been fashionable and grown into public favor in America.” The author also suggested most breweries in Chicago used rice, while Milwaukee brewers used corn.

Me, I’m pro-corn since at least 2008. And I am pro–rice, too. And Jeff’s from sugar beet farming stock. So we are all the better for the whole thing.

Changing gears but still on the general theme of “Knowing v. Not Knowing What’s Real” last Saturday England’s newspaper The Telegraph broke the news that no one had considered ever before – that there is a craft beer bubble! To be fair, the article mainly focused on the bubble from an investor’s point of view.

“There is still growth, but the market is now much tougher for new entrants,” says Jonny Forsyth, global drinks analyst at market research group Mintel. “The number of brands is outstripping the growth and now people with money are wising up to the market. If someone asked me to invest in a craft beer company now, I’d say ‘no way, that ship has long sailed.’”

Hard to disagree with that.* And in Colorado, a fourth brewery had announced its closing – the fourth just since 2019 began. Remember: money likes money, not fads. Apparently thermometers are sorta fads… or at least not traditional…. or someone was having a bad day. Speaking of making money, there was an interesting follow up to the news last week of Fuller’s sale. Head Brewer, Georgian Young tweeted:

Thank you @Will_Hawkes it has been a strange week with so many uncertainties for some colleagues but my great team @FullersHenry @FullersHayley @FullersGuy along with the Engineers, Tech services, Quality et al are looking forward to the next chapter friends

Then the former Head Brewer, John Keeling, tweeted: “Today I took people on a Fullers Tour, not sure if there will be many more.” Melancholy days even if the future is arguably… well, hopefully no less as bright.

Attentive readers will remember Robert Gale. He won the 2012 Christmas Beery Photo Contest. Well, Robert is living with Crohns Disease and recently had a stoma  – or alternative nether region – installed. He recently tweeted about a post he placed on his blog with this fabulous invitation to readers: “Here’s my experience when I tried beer for the first time since having a new bum installed“! Here is his post entitled “Beer and Stoma.”

Once upon a time, an anonymous brewer berated R(Hate)Beer on this here blog. Now, with the announcement that it has been fully owned by ABInBev, he is not alone.  Which is a bit unfair but not entirely unfair. Oddly, the former principle owner wrote on the competing – and for my money superior – BeerAdvocate:

RateBeer is a quality-focused organization, and our value to the community has always depended on our integrity, and willingness to put in greater effort to produce more meaningful scores and information. I’m very grateful for having the opportunity to serve you all. It’s been a great pleasure meeting so many of you in person, and through this more fully understanding our important role in industry, and the joy, pride and responsibility felt by so many out there in RateBeeria.

That’s nice. As I have reminded you all often, always remember there are people out there behind the blogs, forums, tweets and… what else is there? People. And money. People and money. And beer. People and money and beer.

#FlagshipFebruary is one week in and – boy oh boy – are there ever more days in the month than actual flagships out there, aren’t there. We learned that macro brewed Euro-imports are allegedly flagships. We learned that a brewery can have eight flagships.  And another can have a sexist flagship. We learned that it’s  departure lounge beer, “stupid” and a “legacy craft promotional thing.” It’s cloudy and new, too! We also learned that all the sponsorship were only to make sure the writers chosen to write blog posts got paid.  [Ed.: we are just having a personal fugue state experience for a mo… and… we are back.] That’s nice. The upside is that it did not die a dumb death.** And this one won me (even with the “moule frites” for mussels and fries***) by proving this is not just, not solely #OldBeerForOldGuysFebruary. Plus I was reminded how wonderful McAuslan Oatmeal Stout is from a modestly priced can. Fabulous! The downside is we still have no idea what it all really means other than some sort of odd booze-laced homage to the Counter-Reformation. Whatever it is, what it is now won’t likely be what it is a couple of weeks from now. Stay tuned. I’m rooting for it. Really. Like almost 50/50 on the upside. Well, except for money for writers. I’m 100% on that especially given how much money they are getting each!

That is it. Early February ice storm out there as this goes to press. Need to shuffle along not knowing exactly when my feet will be cut out from underneath me. Meantime, look to Boak and Bailey on Saturday and then Stan on Monday for updates on these and many more good beer news stories.

*Some always try.
**An actual phrase in our household: do not die a dumb death. Like the award winner “Doubt it, Ralphie!” which I thought was a line from some forgotten early 1960s TV comedy until Dad told me that when there was a neighbourhood kid who hung around when I was maybe four who just lied all the time. Name? Ralph.
***I just can’t shake the sub-motif of Turgenyev’s Fathers and Sons.

If This Is Thursday That Must Be Columbia… Or Tunisia… Or The Beer News!

Big day around these parts as the lad graduates from high school today. Victory! Burn the text books!!! He’s outta there!!! Speaking of ceremonies, let’s just jump into the good news this week with that fabulous photo of a Great Lakes Beer* delivery to a wedding party last weekend. You ever notice the breweries you really like are, you know, really likable? Great customer service.

Speaking of fabulous, M. Lawrenson issued a fabulous edition of “News in Brief” last Friday and coined a classic: “Bud Gear Hunting“! I giggled all weekend over that one.  It is a wonderful thing to watch one man battle the humourlessness that good beer has fallen into. You know how people keep having to say “remember – beer is supposed to be fun!“? That sorta thing is needed to be said because it isn’t always much fun. And if you label this or that cynical, well,  you really need to get a fish.

Speaking of needing to get a fish, this vacuous response to a well placed query about shelf life QC was stunning… or stunned. Apparently (1) it is up to consumers to monitor the problem of stale dated beer on behalf of big craft (ie the ones with money enough) and (ii) the proper response to queries about why big craft can’t manage shelf life QC is:

And speaking of Collabs, that’s something we’ve been doing since 2004 or 2005. We’ve helped some awesome small breweries get attention they deserve, and have worked with some of the best in the biz. Super stoked to think about all the fun and great beer we’ve had over the years.

Now, that’s a wee bit cynical. Almost as cynical as attempting a pile-on while blurbering incoherently about “being indie” as if anyone cares. Folk should just try for likable more often. Who cares about “indie”? Better ti be likable. It is nice to be nice. Did you know Great Lakes Beer takes care of their own shelf stock to make sure that it’s fresh? Plenty of local brewers do. Because they can. That’s nice of them, isn’t it.

Refreshingly, there are actually clear headed people out there getting to the point of what makes for a great moment out in a pub and having a beer, people who are able to tell you what it is we really love about this whole obsession:

The result was a beer that warmed and lost its head too fast and by the end tasted like something that had been left on the bar for two hours. Of course, this poor bloke was alone and incredibly busy so he could be excused. Bollocks! No, I was the only client inside that pub and there were only two or three people outside.

Speaking of nice, the Drunk Polkaroo has been tweeting poetry.  “Open. Pour. Drink. Repeat.” is amongst his finest works. Ah, beer poetry. Beer Haiku Daily was a favourite of mine. Remember that? That was great. When people enjoyed just clean beer fun.

Here is an inordinately detailed discussion of Untappd that unpacks that craft-specific phenomenon of reluctance to acknowledge customer opinion. I’ve never bothered with Untappd but if you had you might want to have a look.

I am with Jason. As I said last week, it takes a bit of craft-quality amnesia to not understand that the microbrewers and then the craft brewers from the late 1970s to the early years of this decade were largely cloning the styles of Europe including, largely, the ales of Britain. So, while Matt is correct to suggest auslanders are reluctant to embrace UK craft, the diagnosis is not as suggested.  UK cask is one of the foundations of US craft and, frankly, UK craft has taken on wee too much cloning to stand that much apart. And hyperventilating. A bit of that, too. Not unrelated, there now is a Trappist brewery in England.

Serious but strong thoughts from Dr. Jackson-Beckham.

Finally, an actual serious story about the passing in Atlanta of Minnesotan Todd Keeling, a beer dispense system inventor, that Tom brought to my attention:

A fast-talking tinkerer and father of four was at SunTrust Park to install his beer tap invention when he died, his family told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday… Kuchta said her nephew was excited to learn that another MLB stadium wanted his beer tap technology, Draftwell, which was going to cut down pour times at SunTrust from a 14-second average to five seconds.

We engage in health and safety considerations throughout all the construction work I am involved with and we are always aware how dangerous familiar workplaces can. That is as true in all aspects brewing as any other industry. Very sad.

I will leave you on that note for this week. Remember to check out Boak and Bailey with the news on Saturday as well as Stan on Mondays.

 

*The one with the Great Lake being Lake Ontario and the location being Etobicoke and not the one with the Great Lake being Lake Erie and the location being Cleveland.

Finally – A Quiet Week In Beer Thursday Links

Quiet. So quiet Stan is taking a month off. You know what he does in these little gaps of his? Not judging. No. Not me.  It’s election time in Ontario all of a sudden but, again like in 2014, I expect a quiet sleepy time for beer as debating point on public policy. That is our current Premier Kathleen Wynne performing the obligatory pouring of the beer back in the last 2014 campaign. Oddly, she chose an iconic brand from another province far far away. I shall make no such error. I am announcing my committment to offering you the best politicians pouring beer photos throughout the next month of campaigning.

Was it really quiet this week? OK, there were some spats. Folk not liking folk calling folk out. I don’t get into these personality things much so I can’t speak to the dynamics. These are all strangers to me. And then there was that whole “Monday of the Glitter Beer” argie-bargie. While there are good intentions involved, my position remains clear:

I really should have written “silly” and not “stupid”* for niceness’s sake… but my point would have really been the same. You dull a beer with murk and then add adulterating if likely benign elements to make up for the loss of beer’s natural jewel like gleam? But isn’t the real thing folk should understand is that it just doesn’t matter at all? I was a bit surprised by the glitter as a thing women use association argument as I think of glitter as a thing children use. Stuff on the craft shelf like the Elmer’s glue and construction paper. Hmm. Maybe it helps to be Canadian with pals in upstate New York. Let me explain. In upstate New York, adults eat hot dogs. I get it. I even do it when I am there. There is a rich history of ultra-local hot dog loyalties. But in Canada hot dogs are the food of a child. Like racing all a giggle towards a teeter-totter in the park. Or excitedly wearing a new ball cap with Thomas the Tank Engine.** That’s what hot dogs are. And glitter. Doesn’t mean its not worth taking pleasure in. Fill your boots! [I understand folk like to play “name the hops in the beer” too.] Frankly, any reason for a good schism is reason enough for me.

Jordan has been quiet. Now he says he will no longer be as quiet.

Hmm. Even though I have unjustly received the sting of the Protz, this situation is a bit odd.  A newspaper… well, a newspaper-like-thing sneakily reconstructing an apparently new interview and story from an old interview and story. How odd.

What else is going on? Kara Loo and Kelissa Hieber posted a good summary of events at this year’s US Craft Brewers Conference from the positive party line point of view. I say US even though the BA seems to be silently absorbing the Ontario craft movement and maybe other Canadian craft brewing regional discussions. Is that happening elsewhere, too? Me, I find the “Stronger Together” stuff a bit weird. One ring to rule them all. Who would have thought independent and small mean homogenization and centralized authority? Jeff likes “independent” but I just don’t get it at all. Hard to think of a vaguer word to frame a potentially stalling trade’s rebranding campaign around.

There is a good reason no one goes to watch three-legged races. The rope tying up the participants. I think of that often when I read folk trying to describe the economics of craft brewing while carefully avoiding any discussion of the owners’ take from these businesses. It’s all very well to tell sad tales of the actual hardships families of brewing staff face but why is that not partnered with the story of the lifestyles, cottages and fishing boats of the established and emerging craft brewery owners?

Speaking of quiet, will what might have been called in the 1950s or 60s eastern mystical mindfullness and beer be a thing? Well, it is a thing already – one that’s called “laying off the hootch” but you see my point, right? Andrew Jefford poses the question as it relates to wine in this way:

I would simply point out that there are, in fact, many points of similarity between the general practice of mindfulness and that of wine tasting.  You can indeed be a mindful wine taster; wine tasting at its most subtle and rewarding is a ‘mindful’ activity par excellence.

I get it. It’s about the immediacy of now. But I just end up having a good nap when I am achieve this sort of state of mind. Or staring at an ant crawling through the lawn. Up and down the blades of grass. Or reading a few travel posts by Ron. Why add alcohol? Isn’t the cool spring air sweet enough?

The Low House in Laxfield, England has been bought by the community just eleven years after it was the subject of a post on this here blog. Just eleven years. Coincidence?

Another month, another stage in the  case of Stone v. Keystone… and this is the point in the litigation that the non-lawyers eye will start to glaze over. See, Stone has moved to dismiss the counterclaim rather than answer it with a statement of defense to the counterclaims. Got it? Bored yet? You know, I took Civil Procedure from Tom Cromwell, a wonderful professor who later became a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada… and even I am getting a bit bored. Mind you, I think it was a Friday 8:30 am class so I likely only went maybe once every five weeks. As always, legal brain*** Brendan in Syracuse unpacks the situation.

Not beer: Living Colour.

Oh – and I did have a few beer.**** I especially am enjoying a small stash of Brouhaha, a nut brown ale from Refined Fool out of Sarnia over by Michigan. Lovely. He who is tired of nut brown ale is tired of life.

That’s it. Laters.

*I did poll the drinking age women in our house and they did go with “stupid” so…
**Not to mention, giving equal time,  1 Corinthians 13:11.
***He is such a brain.
****Remember – in Canada, the plural of “beer” is “beer” – like moose. OK?

Your Beery News For The Sudden January Thaw

Nothing slows down life as much as three weeks of the freezing weather that we are just about to get a break from. Well, that and regularly keeping track of the beery news again. It’s been since November since I started back up.  I was last August’s jaunt as Stan’s intern that did it, I suppose. Give me a few years. I might get reasonably good at it. Maybe. Sorta. Bet I pack it in come spring.

Anyway, first up, all that hope and rage you have balled up into the narrative that moderate alcohol is good for you? It’s very likely a crock. Why? Because “…low-volume drinkers may appear healthy only because the ‘abstainers’ with whom they are compared are biased toward ill health.” My take? If you regularly wake up hungover you are likely hurting yourself. Start with a few liver function tests.

Crap. Eric Asimov has mentioned Prince Edward County wines in The New York Times. I’ll never be able to afford to drink the local stuff now.

More bad news? Why not? The sudden shutting of central New York’s venerable Saratoga Brewing was covered in great detail by central New York’s venerable Don Cazentre. It’s not that often that beer business news gets covered as business news but Don is regularly the one doing it. Another form of the death of the dream of national big craft – along with, you know, less and less of the stuff being sold. Hail the new boss! Local murky gak in a sterile monoculture branded taproom where everyone wants to tell you about how great the beer is. Now, that’s my kind of entertainment.

Now, how about something positive? I definitely award the best long writing this week to the two part essay by Matthew Lawrenson on pub life for the perspective of someone with autism:

I’ve been told that people are wary of me due to my “beer blogging’s greatest monster” reputation and are surprised when I’m more anxious and less obnoxious than they’ve been lead to believe. All I can say is that, usually, things are rarely what people expect them to be.

My favourite thing about the essay is how plainly described it all is. Matthew treats the subject objectively, with the respect it deserves. Very helpful. By way of a bit of contrast, because it’s important to keep this dynamic, Jordan took on the argument being made by Canada’s macro brewers about our excise tax regime and found it seriously lacking, working both the numbers as well as his sarcasm skills:

…let’s do the math. Wow! The average price of a case of beer is $36.50 if you go by the examples that Beer Canada have used. Now, let’s see. 24 x 341ml = 8,184 ml. How many ml in a HL? Wow. That’s 12.218 cases of beer per hectolitre. That’s 293 bottles and a low fill! Hmmm. What’s $31.84/293? Oh wow. It’s 10.8 cents a bottle in federal excise!

I was left (again) with the feeling that all cost inputs deserve that level of scrutiny. It’s we the buyers and our cash that runs the whole industry, after all. Why shouldn’t we get a simple straight answer? Consider J.J. Bell’s news today that he is dropping Harvey’s from his pub’s line up because “They’ve been using their strong position in the local market to price gouge, pure and simple.” Now, that’s some plain speaking about value.

How did we get here? Maybe beer 5,000 years ago in Greece. Merryn Dineley ordered the article so I am looking forward to greater analysis that just the abstract but the reference to “remains of sprouted cereal grains as well as cereal fragments from the Bronze Age” sure seems interesting.

Not beer: Al Tuck. Listen for a bit. There you go. Feel better, right?

Coming to the end but still enough time for my favourite use of Twitter in beer-world for 2018. Josh Noel’s fictional life of John Holl started on New Years Day this way:

On a Thursday evening in 1986, as a spring storm pounded the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, John Hall sat in an airplane on the rain‐glazed tarmac and did something he would recount for the rest of his life. He reached for a magazine.

Finally. All things come to an end. And speaking of ends – bumboats. Say it fast five times over out loud… in public: Bumboats!  Bumboats!  Bumboats! Bumboats! Bumboats!” Hah – made you do it.

Laters.

Al and Max and the Strange Blue Light

I have been playing with this addition to the adventures of Al and Max first shared with the world in 2014’s cult classic, The Unbearable Nonsense of Craft Beer.  The five whole reviews of that first book left at Amazon have meant the world to me since that time. It is still available at a very reasonable $12.95 at Lulu and I assure you Max keeps every penny. He’s worth it.

I have played with the character of Al in a few posts a few years back but this larger piece has sat building itself in draft almost since the book came out. It is still in unfinished shape but I am not sure I will get back to is so… here it is. Oh, and you didn’t miss this post. I published it on 6 January but dated it to August 2017 when I last played with the draft.

+++++++++

1. The Shed

Alan was standing out in the backyard. He stood about ten feet from his shed, staring at it. He had gone out to put in a few more hours getting the garden ready for this spring’s seeds but for while now he had been staring at his shed. Again. His youngest child was staring at him from her bedroom window.

“Mommy!” she shouted downstairs, “Daddy’s staring at the shed again!”

He was. It’s true. He was just staring at the shed. He couldn’t get over it. It changed his life. How had Max and Ron materialized through the back of the shed all those times and now nothing? Then, what made that door to other places and other times close itself to him? He got mad for a while. Then a bit glum. Then, when winter passed, he found himself just staring. He had tried to find the invisible button, ran his head over every inch of the damn thing, kicked every half rotten board trying to figure it out. It was becoming clear that his portal was now just an outside closet full of little used tools and broken bikes.

“Come on in for supper, Dad,” the boy called, leaning out the back door.

“OK. I’ll be right in.” He didn’t move.

“Mommy! Daddy’s still staring at the shed!” his youngest shouted again a few minutes later.

_

He thought he had moved on. He was going to work. Keeping up with the laundry. You are never prepared for when a project is done, he said to himself. The porch gets painted. The manuscript goes in. The co-worker gets assigned to another job. Snow comes. Six months later you are so deep into the next job you’ve pretty much forgotten about the day to day crap the last one – and the one before that – stuck you with.

But then one night he had a dream. In the dream he was staring at the shed. That was nothing new. Shed staring dreams were common. They competed with that dream about the boss springing the grade 11 math exam on him without warning. But on this night the shed door was open. And there was something glowing at the back.

Al awoke. He couldn’t shake the idea that the dream meant something. He tweeted Max who, with the time change east, was already in the pub over in Prague.

@pivnofilosof: You had a dream about your shed? Again?

@agoodbeerblog: Yes… but it was more like the shed was talking to me in my dream.

@pivnofilosof: Have you been drinking?

@agoodbeerblog: No. Just put on coffee, why?

@pivnofilosof: I dunno. Maybe because you are tweeting me about your goddamn shed again?

@agoodbeerblog:Oh, OK. I suppose. But this time it was different.

Max read the messages from Al patiently. It had been weird. But he was Argentinian and understood weird. Al he went on and on, again, about the meaning of the dream. Well, Max really just sent tweets like “@pivnofilosof: oh yes?” and “@pivnofilosof: that’s interesting” as Al tweeted on and on for the best part of ten minutes. Max was in a pub on a sunny spring Saturday afternoon reading the paper and was enjoying himself too much to think all that much about a shed in Canada. Until that is Al got to the point.

@agoodbeerblog: It’s like the shed had a voice or at least wanted to tell us something.

@pivnofilosof: Us? It was your dream.

@agoodbeerblog: Us. You need to come over.

@pivnofilosof: No way. I am not starting this again.

@agoodbeerblog: I am not sure we really have all that much choice.

@pivnofilosof: What?

@pivnofilosof: WHAT?!??!

Alan was gone. Must have closed his computer. Screw that, thought Max. He was sick of the beer rant stuff. And a bit tired of Al. Nice guy but he hauled him though space and time and for what? The nonsense is still the nonsense and nothing is change. He read his paper a bit more, had another Únětická 10°.

Time to start thinking of supper. Before leaving for home, Max headed to the men’s room and, opening the door, he reached around for the light switch. Funny, he thought, it should be right there. He hand rested on a mop handle. No, it was a shovel. What the hell was a shovel doing here? He kicked something and tripped. “Why’s there all this crap in here?” he asked himself as he sat on his ass surrounded by junk in the dark. Max heard a voice calling.

“Hello?” Then the far end of the washroom the bright beam of a flashlight and a voice speaking in English. “Hello? Oh dear. Not a racoon at all. It looks like… Max?” It wasn’t the washroom. He was in Al’s shed.

“Fuck,” Max said. “Fucking fuck shit fuck.”

2. The Blue Glow That Spoke

Max was steaming. And bored. Hours had passed since he left Prague beer taproom. It was already midnight in Canada. He’d called home. Shouting and pleading in at least three languages Al didn’t understand. Arrangements could be made he supposed but until then here he was stuck with Al and that goddamn shed. They had been now staring at it for a few hours sitting on lawn chairs with Al going on and on about the shed. Max would be more than steaming and bored, however, if the shed in the corner of Al’s backyard wasn’t glowing a light neon blue. That was interesting. Weird even. Plus he has no idea how to get home.

“Maybe you should just walk into the light and let it envelop you,” said Alan trying to be helpful..

“Are you fucking joking? Walk into the light?” Max complained. “Let’s review how many times you get to do that in life. Once… and… oh, only the once.”

“Sorry,” Alan said, now remembering he had mentioned that idea about an hour ago. He looked at his beer. And the empty bottles by his chair. He now remembered he had mentioned it already a number of times. And everything else he could think of. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t ask for Max to show up like this… not really.

“I have to get home, Al,” Max said for the seventeenth time. “I really can’t be here!” Max swung around and knocked his beer over. He looked down, his disgust with the situation moving up another notch watching the excellent ale seeping into the ground. He stared. He stared at it some more. It was night. He was in Canada. He didn’t wanted any of this.

“I can get you another, Max,” Al said. “There’s plenty. What do you want?” Max didn’t respond. Al was worried. Al had been getting a little worried for a couple hours now. He thought Max was really going to lose it soon. And he was trying to figure out how to keep his neighbours from calling the cops if Max let loose with another string of his startlingly diverse multi-lingual foul mouthed language. But Max didn’t. Not now. He was just staring at the shed.

“Look,” Max said quietly. He was pointing. Alan looked. The shed glow was stronger all of a sudden. And the spot where the beer had spilled was now glowing blue as well. The light was moving, growing. A figure in blue neon had formed in the shed door. A big shaggy topped bearded guy with glasses, half see-through, half… half a blue glowing tweed jacketed, a very familiar figure. He moved towards them. Max decided he was reaching even his maximum weirdness capacity.

Alan and Max looked at each other, at the figure in the door and at each other again.

“OK… this is weird,” Max quietly whispered to Al.

“Holy shit,” said Alan not at anyone in particular. Then the scene went quiet as all three looked at each other not moving. The man in blue moved over to the chair that Max had been sitting on, grabbed the back and pulled a blue glowing ghost clone of it towards him. He sat down with a smile.

“Jackson. Jackson’s the name. I think. Or was. Or might be. Not quite sure,” the figure said rubbing his chin, brows a bit furrowed. “Any chance of a beer?” said Jackson’s figure with an almost fatherly smile as he looked around. Alan put a beer on the table and the ghost’s blue hand reached over and pulled back with a blue neon replica of the beer in his hand. He drank deeply, downing half the bottle in one long draw.

“So… why am I here… and, umm, why is… where is here?” Jackson asked.

“We have no idea… Micha… Mr. Jacks…” Alan said as he was cut off by the blue figure.

“Look… one thing you need… I need to… to understand. I am not sure…. I am not Michael Jackson. Not really. I am something like him but not him. I’ve been dead for a while now and, you know, what with that whole merging with the singularity thing… it’s really hard to keep track of how much of what I was is still what I am.”

Neither Alan or Max knew what to say. So they just stared.

“Plus you are projecting your expectations all over me. That’s a little disconcerting.” He rubbed at his chest as if he was getting itchy.

“Sorry. err, Michael…?” Alan said confused looking at Max. Max was just staring at the ghost in blue now. But he looked like he was getting into this.

“So…” Max was gearing himself up to ask, “so, you are a bit of Jackson, a bit of the universal and a whole bunch of what we think of you?”

“Maybe… Exactly! Couldn’t have put it better… I think..” The blue figure said. He congratulated himself with the rest of the bottle of beer. He waived the empty at all, obviously seeking another.

Suddenly, music was coming from the shed. A falsetto singing “we-hee-hee” to a 1980s familiar beat.

“Is that…?” Max asked.

“Yes, we are all filed alphabetically in there,” the blue ghost said. “I have to listen to that all day and night. The King of Pop. Not what I expected in the world to come. If he hadn’t died so young I wouldn’t have had to put up with him yet.” He made a motion as if to grab at his crotch and then rolled his eyes. Al passed him another beer which again was left in his hand as Jackson drew away the blue clone. As Jackson drank, Al could feel the real beer in his hand lighten as the contents disappeared.

“… the way-eh you make-a me feel…” drifted out of the shed quietly, echoing.

“So, if you aren’t Jackson… what should we call you?” Al asked as he handed the form another beer, not noticing he was now tapping his toe to the ethereal beat. Another clone of the beer came into being.

The Jackson-like form paused. “Hadn’t thought of that… need another name to describe this state of being, don’t I. Of non-being… I suppose you could call me Hunter. I recall something about that…” He drew on the beer, nodding approvingly.

“OK, how about we don’t, Mike,” said Max, clearly now exploring some limits. If he was going to be stuck here, he thought, might as well set some rules, enjoy himself.

Jackson didn’t take offense. “Sure thing. I am open to suggestions. How about Fred. I always liked Freds. You can call me Fred. Freddie Mercury. Always had a soft spot for him. Once in a while, I can hear a few notes from his direction when the crotch man gives it a rest for a bit. Fred Hill. Fred Flintstone. Yes, Fred will do nicely,” said the figure in blue with a smile.

“Fred the beer by Hair of the Dog… Fred  Eckhardt…” Alan continued listing out loud, still trying to be helpful despite the weirdness.

“Oh. OK, fine. I can’t be Fred,” said the figure as if he had remembered something quite important he had not recalled for some time. “Not Fred… he’s Fred… who am I?” he said trailing off. Looking around he added “… and where am I?”

“How the hell knows or cares… it’s not like I want to be here either,” Max snapped having gotten all a bit impatient as he stood to go get another beer. “Maybe we’ll just call you ‘you’ for now, if that’s OK. Let’s see how that goes.” He took a couple of steps towards the shed. “This is too goddamn freaky. I need to figure out how all this is going to get me back to Prague.”

“Prague?” The blue form asked? Alan made a quick face at the blue figure as if to say that was Max being Max, not to worry. He got a shrug in reply.“Prague is nice. I like Prague.”

“Me too.” Alan then realized he had never been to Prague, that he was making inane small talk with the semi-undead on one hand and, on the other, a magically transported Argentine wanting to be back in Prague. He got all weirded out again.

“So,” Max said rounding on the two seated figures, “my can you tell me a little about what brings you here this fine midnight?”

“Me?” the blue form asked, pointing at his own chest.

“Yes, you, for fuck’s sake. You!” Max said getting all pointy, raising his voice to match his irritation.

“Well,” he said, “it’s that anger of yours – it’s about that rant of yours. Your trips through time and space and the diary you published. It’s all come to our attention.”

“Your attention?” Max asked, “who’s that you, You? Are there other “yous” back in the shed?”

Al thought this “You” thing was already falling apart a bit. And he was worrying about the neighbours. Max was getting emphatic. He didn’t want to trigger that other sort of “Max being Max” thing.

“I was asked to pop by. I think. Yes, that’s it. I was asked to pop over and have a word. We just wanted to make sure that you two were not missing the point, losing your focus on what matter. You sounded so unhappy there for a bit,” he said. “It’s just beer, you know.” Jackson had another long approving draw on his beer.

Al could not believe his ears. Here he was. Looking at… the residue of what once was Michael Jackson… maybe, the spirit of the man who created the whole style nonsense, the one being on Earth who did more than any other to aggrandize the humble glass of ale – and he’s the guy who tells him that it’s just beer? Al’s mind raced, not knowing what to say.

“Oh, by the way… I can read some of your thoughts, too,” said the glowing blue man. “part of the whole other-sidey stuff. Sorry. Supposed to mention that. Quite interesting. Max, you have an absolutely filthy mind.” Turning to Al, he said ,”You can’t imagine…” .

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes I can,” Al replied, slapped again with the scarring experience of his travels with Max. So many new words. So many new bad bad words.

“Anyway,” the undead in blue said turning back to Max, “the general consensus back there,” he said pointing at the shed, ”is that your ranting ways have left you in a bit of a bind. You’ve snookered yourselves. You’ve come to dislike the thing you like, haven’t you? What’s the point of that?”

Max looked at Al and back at the speaker. “But you are… or, fair enough, were… the guy who started it all. Who got us into the predicament in the first place. Beer styles. Beer pairing. Beer expertise. You aren’t suggesting that’s all made up,” Max said, waving his hands around.

“No… no… well, yes… and no. I did have quite an interest in all that, I guess…” he replied a bit sheepishly. “But it was because beer was so underappreciated. You have no idea what it was like in the 1970s. I hardly have any idea. I can hardly remember it but what I do recall is that it was bad. Watney’s Red Barrel. You have no idea.”

“Yes, we get that, but how does that translate into what has happened to good beer? All the posing, the weirdo adjuncts, the overpricing… the communicators?” Al asked, wincing at the last word. “Surely, you have something to say about that?”

Max jumped in. “Let’s get to the point. How do you feel when people hold meetings and praise you ‘with many hosannas’ claiming there will never be another like you?”

“Didn’t work out too well for the last guy, all that hosanna stuff, did it?” he replied with a smile, turning to Max. “Honestly? It’s all a bit depressing, actually. I mean if I could be depressed. Which I can’t. Because I died. Or he died. Hmm… lets just say deadness resolves all that. It’s quite handy in a way…” He paused. “Don’t get me wrong. I spent my whole professional life looking for the next drink, the better drink –  and I made it… here… or at least not down there. That must stand for something. I clearly was not all wrong, lads,” he said.

“Yes, there is that,” Max agreed. Alan nodded.

“So,” he continued, “while I am not going to agree with you on everything you wrote, I do see that it’s a bit like the person who loses a loved one and then drops all interest in life. I mean, if I was such an example of someone who went out and made my personal curiosity about beer into my rich life’s work, then why is the proper response to my early and untimely passing everyone putting one’s feet up? Saying there won’t be another like that Jackson guy? Surely to G… sorry… surely, my example itself ought to serve as reason to go out in the world, follow curiosity and find new things that I never saw. You’d think that’d be some sort of legacy.”

“Not passion?” asked Max.

“Ha! I don’t see too many of those “passion” people up where I ended,” Jackson replied laughing, waving his blue empty bottle again. Al handed him another of his shrinking stash. “Well, no, that’s not true. Plenty of good folk like Robert Langridge. You see them.”*

Alan rubbed his chin, thrown a bit. “I guess I see what you mean. But isn’t there another problem with your legacy? Is there enough elbow room for the gang following your footsteps? I mean you were one of the few who has made a decent buck, made a decent contribution from just beer writing. Is there enough beer money flowing from the brewers to the thinkers and writers?”

“Thinkers? Really? Look, grow up at bit, would you?” the glowing blue figure snapped. “You don’t have to die and sit for a semi-infinity in a place where time has no meaning mulling over stuff to know no one has a right to an income from an interest in good beer any more than you have a right to cash because you want to write. It has to be good writing to even be considered worth payment. Same goes for beer.”

“Exactly!” said Max exclaimed, “that’s my point!”

“Steady on, Max – it’s not all that profound,” The ghost paused and looked around. “By the way, any chance I could get a proper glass? Something of a goblet?” Jackson pulled a translucent litre can out from under his tweedy jacket and poured. “Your stash is fine, Al, but I brought my own just in case.” His translucent hand reached for the glass, poured and lifted a faint copy of the glass to his lips as the earthly one sat still empty before him.

“Does that really say ‘Westy 12’ on the can?” Max asked incredulously.

“And ‘Big Gulp’ and ‘As Seen on TV?’” asked Alan.

“It’s called heaven for a reason, boys…” the apparition said with a wink.

3. The Stars Still Stood Still

They talked. They drank. If time had had any meaning that night, hours might have passed. But as long as the blue figure was there, the mid-point of that night seemed to carry on, the stars holding their position in space even as the occasional comet raced by. The conversation carried on, Max showing less and less irritation and much more interest in what the blue ghost was saying.

“I remember realizing after enough folk I knew had died that they switched from being a subject to an object. Sometimes it happened immediately,” the visitor said. “One minute you imagine the next editorial meeting, based on the last one and the one before that. You don’t notice the guy in the chair next to you half the time but he’s a someone. Then you hear the guy’s kicked it and, just like that, he’s a character in your life. Locked in.”

“So,” Max asked trying to understand, “what you are saying is that not only are you not really you because you were something that is different than you are. And that on top of that you are locked in because what you are is pretty much all you can be?”

“Yup. That’s about it. Plus all that projecting. You have no idea. Folk project their expectations all over you after you bite it. It saps away the what you were bit by bit. The process of objectification I suppose. You guys aren’t too bad. You’re hardly draining me away at all now.”

“Yeah, I never read you that much – sorry about that,,” Alan said. “Nothing personal but I came so late to your books that I pretty much had framed my own ideas by that point. I am not sure what you stand for… stood for. I mean it’s all very fine to be the first at something but there’s not a lot that is mastered on the first go, right? Plus I came to good beer through Dave Line…”

“And I’m Argentinian,” Max said.

The other two looked at Max and then each other.

“OK… shut up… it’s complicated,” Max said.

Alan took another gulp of whatever was in his glass, looked up into the dark. And then asked “do you mind?”

“Mind? Mind being… blue? Dead and blue? No, not at all” he said as his blue hand waved away the notion in a glowing slash. “From this side of things you also have a good sense of what matters and what you ended up achieving. If you are lucky, it was something a bit useful. It’s a privilege and maybe even an obligation to do something a bit worthwhile. You know, I did get to teach a lot of people a good bit about something I really liked in life. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Nothing at all,” said Max. Alan just swallowed, then raising his glass to tap his neighbour’s. The blue outlined one just passed through, even as there was a quiet “clink” in the night.  They all sat and thought there own thoughts for a while under the unmoving heavens.

“OK,” said Al, “if we accept that it is good to be useful and share your skills, are there still opportunities and different views being excluded?”

“Never my aim,” the blue form said, “though the weight of the expectation to do so projects upon me terribly. Hardest stuff to bear. But, regardless of what people think, there is one single point that needed to be made which might seem like exclusion – beer was and remains disrespected compared to wine. You can repeat after me if you need to. Wine is more expensive than beer and is always been more profitable than beer. Wine is still held in high regard. Beer is taken for granted – dismissed. It may be because beer aim for consistency that they are considered a bit boring. Shifting the reputation of good beer was and remains critical. Folk like you two do nothing for the cause when you go on about the unbearable nonsense of it all.”*

Max and Al both visibly unimpressed at the idea of a “cause” but their companion was not to be deterred. “I have said it before and it remains as true today. Wine is never blamed for deaths on the road, family breakdowns or other social ills. It’s all caused by beer. So beer needs to be taxed to stifle demand, its advertising needs banned, its points of sale limited. These views are held by a surprising number of people with influence or power in bodies like the European Union. If I am going to find myself facing that sort of reality, I need to stand against it.”

“But isn’t that a bit done by now?” Alan asked. “Isn’t the day long passed where the cause needs boosters? We’re in the 5,000 brewery universe now. Every town of any size has a nano-brewing hipster or a good beer bar. Isn’t it long past time where we need to prop up the one-sided communicators with their identical blog posts about the same one junket? Good local beer stands alongside the good local wines made within an hour’s drive from here. The brewers and wineries even support each other. The wine is great. Oz Clarke’s writing about it, one of the up and coming underdogs in wine.”

“They make good wine around here? Really?” Max said. “Why didn’t you tell me? I like wine. You think I don’t like wine? Do you have some of this wine? How come you never told me about these wines? You thick headed freckled idiot.”

Al looked at Max, a bit surprised by his lack of hospitality. “You want some wine?” Alan asked Max, then looking at Not Fully Jackson. Seeing them both nod – and agree he was in fact an idiot – he went off to grab a bottle of local Riesling and a Pinot Noir from his stash. A few minutes later, he was filling his guests eagerly upheld glasses.

“Wow!” said the blue man holding up his glass of Devils Wishbone white. “That’s fabulous. Crisp acids, light fruit, creamy minerals.”

“Nothing wrong with that at all,” Max said, holding his glass up to the blue glow. “You really are an asshat for not telling me about this,” considering the wine with obvious experience.

“Fine,” said Al, “and it’s the limestone and loam that makes them that good – but the point is made. These are small local producers of excellent wines, no different that the small local brewers down the road. Good beer is like fine wine is like good cheese. Like good books and good… good… anything! But these days, it’s either overlaid with all this victim discourse or this needy even passive aggressive PR claptrap. You’d think we were talking about the endangered white rhino the way people go on…”

“…not to mention the pay for play whether in a bar’s tap line up or the contents of some of these communicator’s internet organs,” added Max, smacking his lips after dropping a second glass of Norman Hardie’s red. “You know, this would go well with a nice bit of manchego … or even lovecký sýr…”

“Or a good aged cheddar. You Canadians do a good job with that, you know. You wouldn’t happen to have… “ Alan was already walking again across the lawn back to the house to get them both some cheese, amazed how they well they were getting along.

“Grab some crackers while you’re in there,” shouted Max at Al’s back. “And olives if you have them…”

“Good call, Max” said Jackson approvingly.

4. The Path Forward

“You know, I knew you were going to say that” the blue form said.

“Of course you did. You can read our minds, remember?” Max said with a nod.

“Oh, yes. Of course. So where were we?” Al asked, nabbing that one last olive.

“Taste, local, good beer, good wine…” the blue man sighed, happy with the snacks. “It’s all about the same thing: is it good? When I started out, it was all so bad, so industrialized.”

Alan rubbed his the top of his head. “Bad? Isn’t beer always going through phases, being build up to a massive scale only to be replaced by the smaller and more agile? Even E.P. Taylor started out as a small disruptive force in brewing. It’s not about scale. You know, you once wrote:

Unfortunately people who take destructive and irreversible decisions based on “public taste” are usually ten years behind everyone else in their appreciation of whatever is at stake. People who quote “taste” to support their argument usually have no taste and no argument.**

“These days it’s not ten years or even ten months… ten weeks is old news,” Alan added. “It’s frenetic. So many brewers making so many beers with nothing lasting even long enough to be considered a seasonal anymore. Not to mention that craft beer has gotten so big.”

“And Big Beer’s gotten so craft,” added Max.

“You are quoting me to me, Al? What’s your point?” the ghost said. “Isn’t it enough that I am dead but that you quote the dead not living me at the now not living dead me?”

“Sorry. But it’s just that craft today is just a phase based on allegedly good taste as much as the next thing that passes craft by will be,” Alan said. “Craft craps on micro for not having the right taste. Big craft craps on big industrial for being supposedly “crafty” when the two are virtually identical. Whose taste can we trust if it all just marketing, just an argument?”

“Craft? Ah, craft! So that really took off, did it?” the blue man rubbed his chin, “I remember using that back in 2003, probably earlier. It’s was still a fairly new word for microbrewing from just before I kicked the bucket, right?

“Well, it was all craft. It’s independent now. You’ve really have been dead for a while,” said Max who quickly – and somewhat surprisingly – regretted his rudeness.

“Don’t worry. It’s just a word” said Jackson a bit to himself. “…craft, dead… just words.”

“Craft,” said Al shaking his head. ”It’s become just another form of phoney, another bastardization of the simple goodness, a fraud on the honest price for an honest beer. Radler, for God’s sake…”

“They brought back Radler?” the ghost said taken aback. “I never thought craft would take on producing and promoting, a drink that looks like lemonade.”

“So much tastes like lemonade these days… and Gatorade… and…” Alan said.

“It’s all about finding the next trick to play on the consumer,” Max said, “the next junk additive to chuck in the next stupid packaging.”

“Adulteration? Adultery? Hint? Can anyone pick up a hint from the dead guy in the room?” The ghost of Jackson was holding his hands up with a shrug looking at Max and then Al and back and forth.

“I’m not following you,” said Al looking back and forth himself.

“Sixth commandment anyone?”

“Are you saying that the adulteration of beer was prohibited by God?” Max asked.

“Bingo!” shouted the unJackson. “Everyone thinks it’s about marriage but that’s already covered by number nine, the whole coveting thing isn’t it. No, the rule relates to the whole of life. Don’t mess with stuff pretending it makes anything better. As with marriage so with beer and any number of other things. People can smell a phony. Good beer has a hard enough time without the phonies.”

Alan and Max had no idea what to say. Then they did.

“Whaaaat?” they fell over each other saying.

“Wasn’t that exactly what we said after our trips in our diary about the state of good beer?” Max added.

“Look, I have to go. But I will be straight with you,” the blue figure said standing up. “It’s not like your little book set the word on fire or said anything everyone else wasn’t thinking already. But you seemed to have the right goal, the intention to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong about good beer.”

Al and Max shrugged in agreement as they also got up.

“See that blue glowing garden shed over there? Whatever that is – and I am not sure I am all that sure myself – well, whatever that is… it sure likes the whole right and wrong thing. I spent my whole life thinking about the good, the bad and the ugly of beer. Keep it up. But Max? Maybe a little less of the garbage mouth, OK?”

“Screw that!” Max said with a laugh. Ex-Jackson was walking back across the lawn.

“Well, it’s been fun but I must be going, gents. I can’t believe it’s this late in the…” He paused, considering how to explain non-chronology. His form was starting to lose some detail as he spoke the words. “That other Jackson fellow seems to have taken a break and I need to take advantage of the opportunity. It’s been good talking with you but there’s only so much guidance I can give you. Beer is complex enough yet so approachable that there are plenty points of view worth exploring.”

“Even the communicators, the storytellers?” Al called out as the blue form moved back into the shed, fading and merging with the blue glow.

“Even the commuuunicatooors!” they could hear his last words echoing from a distance. Then was only silence.

“… the way-eh you make-a me feel…” drifted out of the shed quietly, breacking the silence. Echoing.

“Was that a groan?” Alan said.

“Poor bastard,” said Max shaking his head, following towards the shed as the blue glow started to fade.

A moment later, he was gone as well, Al standing alone on the lawn wondering to himself if Max had meant to do that and where exactly he might now be.

*See Jackson, The Beer Hunter, “Sweet flavours from the cowshed”.
**See Jackson, The Beer Hunter: “Wine snobbery … and brewers who won’t learn or fight back” – Published in Print 1 March 2002, Brewers’ Guardian.
***See World Guide to Beer, page 204.

The Intern’s Beery Links For Mid-July

Ah, the mid-July week off. Nothing teaches you more about how life is a fleeting interim stage than July. The poppies and irises are already in the past. The last of the early radishes have long been dug under. Time is passing. One day you wake up and discover you are a 54 year old intern for some guy named Stan. Hmm.

What’s gone on this week in beer?

When The Selling Out Game Has Some Weird Players

The BeerCast has posted an excellent unpacking of the sale of the discount shelf of London Fields (mothballed) brewery by an experienced guest of the Queen to those oddest of flatmates, the Danes of Carlsberg and the Empire State folk at Brooklyn Brewery. Expect a shedding of everything associated now with the name and then a massive leveraging of the name. For a mere four million pounds, most owners of craft beer won’t get out of bed in the morning. Given the situations of all involved, this deal looks like and smells like money all around.

Cheery Not Niceness

I enjoy these teletext messages from Matthew Lawrenson on Twitter. They retain his snappy direct humour but it’s like the words are coming out of the mouth of Tinky-Winky. I love the format he is developing. Thirty years ago visiting family in Scotland, I would sneak into the TV room to play with the remote, exploring teletext. Checking the weather forecast for Skye in multi-colour dot matrix… then checking out the soccer scores. All while the TV plays on underneath the text info. Magic. As a form of brewing and craft commentary this singular and effective. This one was posted Friday morning my time here in North America. Note the author. And the cheeky image.

Being Nice

I am less certain about this conversation one Twitter – while making no comment on the particular conversation.  It’s the pattern. You see it quite often, a double form of delicacy. The desire to speak discretely of a brewery or bar doing something wrong being jumped upon for either (1) not name the names or (2) raising the real issue without naming the names. I am never quite sure what makes folk more upset, not getting all the juicy gossip or finding fault with a craft community member without first satisfying a level of procedural test for bringing evidence before a criminal court. Yet, it is only beer. I dunno. Folk seem happy to slag airlines and coffee shops. It seems a particularly southern Ontario concern but you see it pop up in England, too. In this case, the misapprehension that brewery or bar staff have some deep loyalty if not a monogamous bond with the boss seems the root of the problem.

Oliver Grey expanded on this concern mid-week. He primarily discusses the tribal divide between big craft and big beer, framing it from the perspective of Campbell’s narrative structure:

I get it, the hero of the story needs a villain to triumph over. I wrote about it at length. But it’s important to remember that to the villain, the hero can often look like a terrorist. For every story a perspective, for every perspective a truth. Therein, the issue slumbers.

Seeing as he has to deal with fools like this, I get the point. But there is the greater risk that is engaged with far too much in beer – the Hosannas, all the Hosannas. Given alcohol makes you initially feel good, it is not unexpected that people like saying nice things about it but taking the next steps of treating it like something beyond criticism and discord has always struck me as a bit weird, leaving ideas and interests unexamined. Give me cheery naughtiness anytime.

Mentioning the Bad

Jeff Alworth made a promise on Friday that definitely borders on the niceness question:

…enough of the excuses: Boak and Bailey are right, I should be writing about bad beer more often. I’m actually going to start looking for them. Rather than just writing scathing reviews, though, I’ll use it as an opportunity to discuss why I think the beer is bad, because “bad” is in many dimensions an objective evaluation. A good brewer may fail to execute on a vision, which is one kind of bad. A mediocre brewer may compose an uninspiring recipe, a different kind. Or the beer may have faults and off-flavors, a kind of bad that is now rarer, at least in these parts. Beer may be bad because of technical, aesthetic, or other reasons–and there’s actual value in discussing the nature of the problems.

I am delighted by this declaration, if only because it is framed as contrary to the Jacksonian model we have inherited. I would note that it is not what was first given that was inherited but what was later devised. Change is good. Let’s change some more, please.

Jet Setting

In an effort to bite the hand that feeds me (not), I wonder about this tweet:

It’s not that I equate this sort of event with junketeers who dash off to lap up the gravy and PR before regurgitating some or all, then claiming to be clever. My question is whether this is simply another form of the internationalization of commodity craft, that globalist mono-culture that leaves nothing local in its wake. I would be thrilled to hear about what local beer questions and successes were discussed in South Africa by South Africans. Not sure I will.

Other Stuff

Interesting to see that Diageo via Guinness USA has a money flow to another beer site on the internets. GBH calls it underwriting. Beervana calls it sponsorship. This pays for interesting writing. Good. Also interesting that this goes largely uncommented upon especially compared to other funds flowing from other big drinks empires into smallish bank accounts. Just to be clear, I have happily spent sometimes shockingly generous sums for running ads on this website and its predecessor. To be fair, they were largely from outside the brewing world due to my (way back then) huge following. I call them ads. In the glory days, it paid for a lot of travel. Still, interesting quiet little pay packet play.

Yes, Mirella. Very good tee.

And finally, the best use of a GIF ever. Thanks Zak. This is going to end up dumber than “crafty” isn’t it.

AGBB’s Proof of Pumpkinness Assurance Certificate

pump1The tweeted response from Nickel Brook Brewing this morning read “how bout them pumpkins?” It was sent in reply to today’s hurried announcement of A Good Beer Blog’s Pumpkinness Assurance Certificate Program. The program was launched after many many minutes of study and consumer outreach consultancy upon reading this post by the venerable Boing Boing which explains:

Pumpkin is too watery and stringy to can, and the USDA has an exceptionally loosey-goosey definition of “pumpkin,” which allows manufacturers to can various winter squash varieties (including one that Libby’s specially bred to substitute for pumpkin) and call it “100% pumpkin.”

WHAT??? Boing Boing was/were just quoting an article at Food + Wine which contains this bombastic statement: “pumpkin puree is not pumpkin. It’s squash.” Oh gourd – no… we live in a land of LIES!!! Now, as Stan testified a few days ago, pumpkin beers are more popular than the chorus of complaints would have us understand. He told us to look at what people are putting in their shopping carts. Sounds like he should have told us to look at what brewers are putting in their mash tuns.*

pump2How many pumpkin ales are actually being made of this year’s pumpkin patch crop as opposed to last year’s bucket of miscellaneous variety gourd glop? How many other ingredients in your beer could be treated with such callous disregard? I posted a tweet bearing witness to the scene at Cambridge Brewing Company near MIT in Massachusetts on 18 August 2013. See the volunteers at work. How many other craft brewers put in the effort that Nickel Brook and CBC are putting in? Speak up! Do you know of one? Send in some compelling evidence and we can issue an official Proof of Pumpkinness Assurance Certificate Notification. For an unnecessarily large fee I am sure I could even draw, sign and mail a certificate to someone. And make sure you ask to see the paper before you buy your next pumpkin ale. Accept no imitations.

*By the way, I get it. I have seen a Blue Hubbard Squash. I have even grown them. Ugly as sin even if tasty as all get out. No wonder they keep them hidden from view. Might make the greatest ale in the history of mankind but no one is putting that on the label.