The Beery News Notes For When You Dream Of Sweater Weather

As you all know all too well, I taught English to rude high school kids and bored adult evening classes in Poland in 1991. So sweater always strikes me as a word that should raise and eyebrow or two:

Student: “You wear that just to sweat in it!?!?” Teacher: “No, it’s for when it’s cold.” Student: “So… you don’t have something to wear when you sweat?” Teacher:  “Well, there is a sweatshirt, sure.” Student: “Wait, a sweater and a sweatshirt and different things?” Teacher: “Yes – but a sweatshirt is not a shirt.” Student: “WHAAAAT??” 

(Next class… you have to explain what a “bunny hug” is.)  I was thinking of sweaters, sweatshirts and bunny hugs as I did crofter cos-play all weekend out in the yard. I should feel guilty for wishing away the warmth as I dig, haul, dig, haul, get lightheaded, sit, get up, dig, haul… repeat… daydream of sweater weather… have a cold beer… plan putting the garden to bed for winter… shorter nights… and sooner or later nap. And to dream of sweater weather. Cooler weather. OK, maybe not that cold.

Good to have dreams. Many are living theirs at the Great British Beer Festival. Not Matthew sadly – but many others. Lots of happy faces at the hashtag even if Des de Moor can’t find enough mild. Ruvani held court. And Ed posted this excellent cheat sheet clearly created in some sort of trade feedback meeting setting. SWOT. About cask ale. See? I can read the big letters up top. It’s interesting in a direct sense but also in an indirect one.* It’s an interesting sign of hope that something can be worked out. Best line. “Lost Expertise From Staff Leaving” under threats.  And the worst?  “Learn From Craft.” Don’t be doing that sort of thing.

Speaking of doing, Ontario small rural brewer John Graham of Church-Key Brewing in Campbellford continues to volunteer as a driver of goods and people in and out of Ukraine. I am absolutely struck by his dedication to humanity and the effort he is putting in towards that end. Here’s a video from Monday of what he doing. What’s he doing? Doing good.

What else went on this week? The Morning Advertiser in the UK published** a very messy argument in favour of ramming the square peg of today’s range of beers into the round hole of the reasonably now long departed concept of “craft” referencing such terms as “real craft” “craft-washing” “craft-style beer” “craft-influenced beer” and “in the style of craft” for fear that otherwise “the craft beer scene will be watered down”!  I am not sure if I missed the time loop portal but that argument is about a decade too late. Stop digging up the empty grave! It’s all about fruit sauce, adjuncts and scale these days.  And money. And, by the way, who would have predicted back in 2005 that the much maligned too sweet and reasonably sour and slightly funky dud known as Chapeau Exotic would have ended up as the archetype for craft beer in 2022?

And there may not be enough money going around these days, according to Heineken:

The company recorded 24.6% organic growth in operating profit, while it generated sales of €16.4 billion, a rise of 22.4% on an organic basis. However, Heineken said that while consumer demand has been resilient in the first half, “there is an increasing risk that mounting pressure on consumer purchasing power will affect beer consumption”.

But while Molson Coors is forecasting a similar low coming in from the horizon they have taken that possibility into account:

A year ago, Molson Coors began trimming its portfolio of lower-priced beers to focus on more other options. Some investors wanted the company to ditch the segment altogether and instead focus entirely on more expensive beers, which have performed better in recent years. “What some would regard as an Achilles heel, in the past, has positioned us perfectly at the moment,” Hattersley said. “Some of our competitors only operate in the premium space, which is obviously not a place I’d like to be as we’re heading into what’s clearly going to be tough times.”

Always interesting to see beer businesses seeking to be where the beer buying public is going to be. People can’t buy what they can’t afford.

Note: Canada waaaaay over invested in pot. 425 million unsold tons destroyed in 2021.

The scene. The poem.

Breeze Galindo is the focus of this month’s edition of Beth Demmon’s Probibitchin’. She’s a west coast turned east coast brewer who is also involved with the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling:

“Garrett had never heard of me at all,” Breeze laughs. That changed when an acquaintance on the West Coast reached out to Oliver to recommend her as an MJF Board member. (Note: boost! your! friends!) With Other Half’s blessing — and a glowing reference — the position was hers by October 2020. Now with the Foundation’s resources, Breeze hopes to take it to the next level by chairing a brand-new mentorship program, slated to formally launch this fall.

Jess of Boak and Bailey published an excellent piece on a disappearing aspect of pub architecture – the function room that served as the location of many of life’s milestones in the past:

You’re dealing with customers who are struggling emotionally and can’t or don’t want to have boring conversations about logistics. Undertakers are trained to deal with this; publicans not so much. And they can’t be sure about how many people are going to turn up – “No, we’re surprised too, we didn’t think he had any friends!” – and so fixing a price that works for both parties is a challenge. Because of a general trend towards hosting weddings in posher places (country hotels, stately homes, the Maldives) it’s also harder to justify holding a room that only does any business when someone dies.

Long time pal of this here blog and fellow Scot abroad Alistair Reese of Fuggled fame has had a very interesting article published in Pellicle this week on the rise of Murphy & Rude Malting Co in Charlottesville, Virginia:

Sitting by the open roll door of an industrial unit in the historic Woolen Mills district of Charlottesville, Jeff, owner and maltster at Murphy & Rude Malting Company tells me how he started learning about craft beer’s supply chain as a result of the new law. Jeff had assumed that in a state in which agriculture plays such a significant role in the economy there would be several malting companies already in-state ready to work with the coming tsunami of new brewers. What he discovered shocked him, there was not a single malt house in the entire state.

Note: the image next to the story above is not related to the story above but I liked it so much when I saw it this week at a store in town that I added it anyway. Sorta ag, though, right? Rude ag. What would the children think it meant? Rude. Ag rude.

And finally in sadly negative news,*** a small brewer in Canada’s tiniest province received a whack of play hate cowards this week when it posted images of the Prime Minister’s visit.

“So within a few hours, we had thousands of comments, we were getting hundreds of private messages, we are now getting phone calls to the brewery and all of these comments are extremely negative, vulgar, there is a lot of profanity being used, sexualizing our staff,” Murphy said in an interview outside the pub. 

Nutso.

So there you are. Have fun. But not too much fun. You know what I mean. While you exercise moderation, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays or Wednesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletterThe Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable.) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now winding up after ten years.

*No, I don’t know what I meant either.
**Word spread through a Mudge-Alert!
***Finally more unnecessary neg – or perhaps just this week’s clangers – conveniently all lumped together down here for easy and brief reading. Or ignoring. First, we have a complaints department update… I am not sure which complaint is worse: the beer, the scoring, the basis for the scoring or caring about the first three. And perhaps relatedly, there was a sighting of the denialists oath this week – craft beer working conditions are apparently A-OK… so stop your complaining… as if that makes a difference. And, sticking with the theme of wasnotwas, the style experts have now determined (in a bit of a bizarre twist) that style is not a construct so much as a result… meaning any trending branding label can go on any old thing. Takes experts to tell you that there sort of thing… or not thing… beware! Beware too those who think appreciating this all stuff requires professional expert guidance! This too!! The fruits of these scholars are a glory to behold. Also really beware of the long thread that makes something pretty simple look reeeealllly hard – you can usually spot one of these by first going right to the end to see what the point is. In this case, trying to sell you consultancy services! It’s a frikkin’ dog and pony show! Because there is no way anyone in the trade could figure out the tap configuration of their bar. PS and finally… it’s like there’s a few sentences missing, with all due respect, as doesn’t this only make sense if books, beers of the world bars, pencils and note books, trade gatherings of any sort, telephones, word of mouth and you know humans talking to humans did not exist prior to 1990?

The Last Lingering Beery News Notes For July 2022

What is up?!? Happy end of July! No one ever says that. I saw back to school ads this week. That sucked. Except the kid will be going back to school. And we had some wicked storms come through this week – a tornado even hit north of here – and now it’s almost sweater weather. Nice. Portents of autumn. Already. That sorta sucks. Like the Red Sox collapsing back to .500 after being ten games up. Also sucks. Thank God for my surrogate Expos, the Mets. And they showed good taste this week by having everyone’s favourite milliners’ client, ex cool band roadie and friend of this blog, Garrett Oliver, through out a first pitch! What a great thing to have experienced.

First news this week? Just a couple of weeks ago I mentioned the archeological digs at Sedgeford, England where medieval maltings are being uncovered. This week, beer person extraordinaire Nigel Sadler took his interest to the next level and has been participating in the dig, presumably as a volunteer. His Tweet-fest has been fabulous, including these two with their detailed observations:

The kilns are wattle and daub construction across the site. There is only evidence of one steep shown here. Likely this was used almost permanently despite the various kilns burning and being destroyed. I’m getting steep measurements later. Bags of grain were lowered in to soak…  A post hole has been discovered under the germination floor sited between Kiln 1 and the steep which raises questions as to whether an earlier kiln structure was here.

Locally, one of the best small breweries in Ontario, Stone City right here in my home town, is up for sale very much as a going proposition.*  Oh, to be 25 year younger and a bit wealthier.

Perhaps 25 younger and indubitably a bit wealthier in the ways of the world, The Beer Nut shared a “return to fests” story this week and included a few interesting observations about the format:

Three years after the inaugural event, Fidelity was back in the Round Room of the Mansion House a couple of weeks ago. It’s the only festival of its kind in Ireland, where punters pay up front and have free run of forty producers’ stands, each pouring two beers (with a handful of ciders and meads) per session. In a change to the previous iteration it was split across two days rather than having a daytime and evening session — I guess they get more people going to both that way. One for me was plenty and I rocked up on the Friday.

My experience of these beer buffets is that they are a bit of a disaster, encouraging bulk bevvying akin to the 1870s and 1960s here in Ontario. He also shared a follow up post on the same event and shared the best sort of takeaway anyone could hope for: “I’m sure a lot of effort goes into making sure it looks so effortless.

Oh, and about that bulk bevvying… I wrote another post this week myself, on Ontario’s mid-1900s attempt to provide a reasonably safe environment for beer drinkers of both genders:

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

I popped into work on Wednesday, too, and got the image up there of goold old Forms 8, 9 and 10 attached to Ont. Reg. 407 as set out in the R.R.O. 1960 which illustrates the gender based licenses. Click and gawk to your heart’s delight. I would love to find a description of a women’s only public house.

Why is the same beer book being published over and over?

Harvest time. Excellent! And another Goldthorpe sighting and at possible brewing scale. So exciting. I had thought that the grain would have migrated east. I had heard it might be around in central Asia but are there patches still in Ireland as there were in the late 1800s as this report at the time mentioned?

The next broad-eared variety is Goldthorpe, which was found in a field of Chevallier so recently as 1889. How it arose, or whether it has any connection with the Continental broad-eared forms, I cannot say.  Goldthorpe has a high grain-yielding potentiality, but it is characterized by a long ” neck.” and the ears are extremely liable to become detached from the straw, especially when the crop is allowed to become fully ripe, as it should be, to obtain the highest quality. The unfortunate bearing of this characteristic on the fortune of the variety will be appreciate; when I add that Goldthorpe was, and still is, one of the best quality barleys in existence.

Broad-eared certainly sounds like Battledore.

Someone who used to post a news update every Monday sent me the link to this post about the problems – for some – associated with IPA domination… not to mention hegemony illustrated succinctly thusly:

…think back to recent years, and the kinds of beers you may have sampled from Sierra Nevada in that time. Perhaps you loved the Nooner pilsner, or the seasonal Summerfest lager. Maybe you were a devotee of the annual Oktoberfest lager, even after the COVID-19 pandemic prevented it from being a yearly collaboration with a German brewery. Maybe your jam was the Otra Vez gose, or Ruthless Rye, or fall seasonal brown ale Tumbler, or Sierraveza Mexican lager. Maybe your first exposure to classic Belgian ales was Sierra’s Ovila series of abbey ales? Not a single one of those brands is referenced anywhere on the Sierra Nevada website today. Zero of them, in any capacity, are implied to still exist.

That’s not good. And it’s boring. Keep good beer boring, IPA. Way to go. Alistair is fighting the good fight against IPA tedium with his tenth(!) annual best beers of Virginia. Recommendations include an alt, a stout, a Rauch Märzen plus a few pils/pilsens.

Perhaps conversely, the Pubmeister wrote about Margate, a favourite of mine 350 years or so ago, and covered the face paced romance of a pub game I had not heard of before – carrom:

It’s like a table top type of pool, played with fingers, our new friend demonstrating a drag that would have had him drummed out of the German Subbuteo Championships before his bare feet could touch the ground. At Xylo we met two guys out celebrating a birthday who joined the carrom enthusiasts, and Vieve and Jess, two impressive young women who reappeared a little later in the Little Swift and joined us in the sort of free-ranging conversation that you only get in pubs.

Top headline news of the week: “Beer-drinking pony who lives in pub is made mayor“!  Tweet of the week? Photos and descriptions from Kitsault, a ghost town in British Columbia… but a ghost town not from the 1890s but from the 1980s that has been perfectly maintained:

In Kitsault’s community centre sits the Maple Leaf Pub. Lined with the crests of every province, it could be the pub of any small town in Canada. On the last night of the town’s existence, the remaining residents had a drink and signed a poster.

And finally… a couple of dishonourable mentions to finish up. First, I think this is one of the unkindest stunts I have ever seen – one’ arsehole’s attempt to trigger complaints about a Sam Smith’s pub. Don’t be like this:

As I went over to the bar, I pretended to search my pockets, and said “s***, I haven’t got any cash”. I asked if they took card or if a PayPal payment would be acceptable. The barmaid, who looked like a teenager, wrinkled her brow as she noticed the workspace I had created behind me. She said: “You can’t use those in here. If the owner Humphrey [Smith] were to come in and saw that, he’d tell us to shut and ask everyone to leave.” The barmaid did actually look genuinely worried. It felt as if she was being sincere. I asked her if I had to leave with my items, she said yes, that I had to go. As I was packing up, I decided to take one more selfie, to see what would happen.

Perhaps speaking of which, there is another class of arsehole that is unbearable – the “craft insider”** – the interview of one of whom, in a late sighting, illustrated the condition:

The people who care will be in the liminal space of barely knowing much about craft beer but who are usually very vocal about it.

Nice to know how folk think of others. And the superfluous abuse of “liminal” is also one of those benchmark for this sort of thing. Don’t be like that either.

That’s it for now. Long weekend coming up starting with my fourth Covid-19 shot at 4 pm Friday.  Pray to the gods of your choice on my behalf. See you next week when I will complain complain complain about whatever happens. In the meantime, for more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: some crackle this week at about 20 mins.) 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 (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletterThe 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… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s wound up now after ten years.

*Had to be told of this opportunity by the folks to the west end of the lake. Jeesh.
**Sometimes related to the “little did I know that Icelanders are mad for hotdogs” sort of expert… though, to be fair, this is an excellent confessional of a number of sins of omission. The “orange slice in wit” thing is old enough now that it is pretty hitting its own drinking age.

The Death Defying Mid-July 2022 Thursday Beery News Notes

That’s a bit of a bold claim. Death defying. But, having checked the stats, I am 98% sure that no one has died as a direct* result** of reading the weekly beery news notes. I also can confirm that no one has been harmed by reading Taste, the recent memoir by Stanley Tucci.*** It is mainly about his life with food. I finished reading it just yesterday. If you need any assistance in identifying what I am talking about, that is actually the book’s cover just there to the right.  No, really. Taste about his life with food and people, too, and makes for good light reading except when life was not light when it is actually a bit better. Recommended – especially as he includes recipes. So it is a 87% memoir and 13% cookbook… or recipe book. Which is good. I thought when finishing it… I have never read a book about beer that is remotely similar. I wonder why.

Enough about me… and Stanley.  First up, some history. Martyn has opened up a very interesting discussion on the question of medieval England and whether they actually didn’t drink the water – something I also doubt – by excellently questioning society’s capacity to replace it with ale:

The population of England in 1300 was approximately 4.25 million. If we leave out those too young to drink ale, that equals about 3.5m “adults”. The recommended liquid intake is 3.5 pints a day. So if they are only drinking ale, those adults are going to require a little under 560 million gallons of ale a year, minimum – and much of their time would be spent doing hard labour under a hot sun, when the requirement for liquid might be as high as ten pints a day…

Now, I am not going to get all linky and suggest that the initial conclusion drawn is incorrect (as I suspect it might be) but I would like to add a few assumptions into the mix which might also make it not entirely correct. While Martyn has quite rightly deducted kids from the calculation, I would suggest a few other points. First, there is no need to suppose that there was equal distribution between men and women, between rich and poor and between town and country.  Male labourers in rich country estates may well have consumed more than their share.  Second – and I think this is even a bit more important – access to more fermentables than statistically captured malted grains would have been common, especially in the countryside. Plus remember the wine trade. Third, I am not sure what is meant by “ale” in that it could be 1% or 10% alcohol. If it is too thin… what else makes up the necessary caloric load for life? That’s key. Water won’t do that. Fourth, Unger**** states that the requirement per person in the English Navy in 1535 (yes, 200 years later) was 4.6 litres a day. Was there an agricultural explosion during those two centuries that could support a change in diet? Fifth, our pal from 1378 Piers rated water the lowest of all drinks but did indicated that sloth was to be avoided or “ye shul eten barly breed and of the broke drynke…” I know that Martyn would agree that this sort of more granular review would be required to finalize the answer – but I do agree that there is no evidence that medieval people did not drink water to be found in the statistics that they drank a lot of ale.

Note: Cookie advises don’t get Humphed.

And I missed this last week, Lew Bryson on stouts and porters as used and then abused by the micro and craft beer movements in their turn:

Both types were throwbacks to much older Anglo-Irish beers, and as is often the case, the beers that were brewed in the 1980s were, by and large, guesses at what the older beers were like… [I]f porter and stout were the two sources of the river of dark beer that would grow to capture the palate of beer geeks and the Yummy Beer Drinkers (YBDs, that’s my name for the people who want diabeetus dessert in a glass)… Porter’s melody got drowned out. Despite slam-hopping it (“robust” porter), throwback-lagering it (Baltic porter), sweet-tweaking it (coconut and vanilla porter), and bomb-boosting it (the inevitable imperial porter), porter got smacked aside by imperial stout, and never recovered.

Speaking of porter, could this Goldthorpe whisky be associated with the long lost malting barley strain Battledore? Could my dream of a hordeum zeocritum porter come true?

Pellicle published a very interesting bit of reading about the first bottling by a small scale scavenging side project run by English film maker, Thomas Broadhead – Dimpsey Cider. It is written by Hannah Crosbie, who clearly identifies as a wine writer  – which gives us passages that are less, you know, about the squishy chumminess of things than many a beer writers might jot on about … like in this:

“It’s a miracle it was actually a drinkable product,” Thomas admits. “We left those barrels until February, we finally tasted and were like, ‘oh, this is actually tasting quite good!’ Only then did I order the bottles and commission the artist for the label.” And so, Dimpsey’s first cuvée, Unprecedented Times, was born. Notes of caramel apples, citrus and smoke from the barrels envelop a vibrant pétillance. Around 470 bottles were made, and those that weren’t smashed by ParcelForce found their way to London’s aesthetic-led drink spots: Bar Crispin, Gipsy Hill Brewery and—the restaurant where I first came across it—Top Cuvée.

There’s a lot of good in there. The writer was attracted to the drink first as a consumer. And, while there is a bit of bio in the piece, it is not beating us over the head. I do also like that the question of balancing time for this side project is a topic that runs through the article. There are some deft touches in there, leaving the question of Broadhead’s life choices just hanging a bit. Will there even be a second batch?

Breaking: there are at least two approaches to handling information. Reminds me of that 1976 homebrewing club.

My spam filters snagged something called BeerBoard this week and I noticed it was enticing me to hand over my personal contact information to gain more on that fast breaking news that “Volume and Rate of Sale are down double digits, while Percentage of Taps Pouring also dipped.” Wow. I am shocked. Not really. These days of jostling bleggy blogs for the shy – aka newsletters – seeking (cap in hand) to let us know the same four things that all the other newsletters and social media links (and sometimes actual new outlets) are saying, well, they lead me to one conclusion. I don’t exactly need another newsletter to tell me there’s a downturn. We all know things are tanking when the BA uses the magic words “mixed bag“! The arse is out of it, as we say.  Boak and Bailey picked up on the endsy timesy theme asked an interesting question this week about the UK public’s response to the uptick in pub prices during a time of general inflation:

In the context of supply chain issues, rampaging inflation and staff shortages, let alone the long-term structural problems caused by the pubco model, how much control do most really have over the price of a pint? That’s not to say, of course, that some people don’t do quite well running pubs. We find ourselves thinking of a businessman who owned several pubs in Cornwall and would turn up for inspection in a huge Range Rover with personalised plates, gold cufflinks flashing. It’s perhaps no wonder his customers got the impression that running a pub might be a nice earner and occasionally grumbled about the price of a pint.

My thought was not that it was about getting ripped off so much as customers voting with their reduced buying power to make sure this end met that other end. (This is not a club and I don’t really associate beer with self in the sense that it is an end needing meeting.) Plus I am still not ready to move back to the idea of hanging out in bars – not with, what, the seventh wave upon us? For this? These things are going to take a bit more than naïve possy cartooning and #LetsBeerPositive to get over. Or maybe it just goes the way of that weird but brief big band revival of the late 1990s. Remember that? Me neither. Again, no time to invest in craft beer folks.

In a happier time and place, Gary Gilman has let loose a social media blitz of his trip to France, tweeting up a storm while handing the keys to his blog to his better half – including this fabulous photo of a market fish stall in Calais. What manner of beast is that in the foreground? I am thinking monkfish but who knows. Well, the guy in the sweater with all the stripes does, I suppose.

Speaking of which,***** I am not sure I can fully, heartily, entirely… hesitantly… marginally… agree with Jeff in this particular application of what looks like the great white male theory:

Stone also helped convert Americans to hops (though they had a lot more company than they once admitted). It was, ironically, that strong association to hops that ultimately led to the awkward phase—though Stone also had quite a run as an established, successful brewery. When the haze displaced bitterness, Stone had a hard time adapting its brand.  

I think one needs to include the words Berlin and Keystone in any eulogy of the Stone that was. For me, repeated poor business decisions might have been central to the… awkwardness of that business ending poorly. Plenty of good regional and national breweries followed other paths.  Sometimes I wonder if that sort of quieter success is considered less interesting. Because…

Congratulations to Eoghan Walsh on the successful completion of his series “A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects” and the accompanying book launch, finishing up sorta where it began:

In December 2021, Brussels Beer Project publicly announced what was both the worst kept secret and the most unexpected recent development in Brussels beer: they had started brewing Lambic. They did so in a quintessentially Brussels Beer Project manner – by wheeling one of their coolships onto the Grand Place and parking within a couple of metres of the Brouwershuis, the centuries-long seat of brewing power in Brussels. 

This whole project is a great illustration of the power of properly handled personal websites combined with a clever social media presence.

Finally: beer awards. Q: if this is the ultimate… which is the penultimate?  And which is the antepenultimate? Shouldn’t this be clearer? One would want to know when and where one is wasting one’s time.

There. That’s enough. It must be! For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: ??? ) 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 (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletterThe 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… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now winding up after ten years.

*made you look.
**made you look again.
***I have now read 32 books in 2022 which is part of my personal productivity project for the year. Along with a number of things like being over ten months in to intermittent fasting which made the Tucci book a risk – but one worth taking. A fair few have been this sort of celebrity bio, some of which lean on happy times and avoids much of the bad times. Not something that I might have taken up before too often – though I highly recommend Alex Trebek’s if only for the news that he swore like a stevedore like any good northern Ontario lad should. Greg Allman, George Clinton, Stanley Tucci, Mel Brooks, Dave Grohl might serve as a handy scale against which one might measure these things. Allman being the most revealing of life’s grimmer side and Grohl the least. Note that Tucci is in the middle. But there is a gap to his left and a fair distance to Clinton. Clinton is only to the right of Allman because he seemed to cope better with many of the same demons – or perhaps just because he is still alive at 80 despite much whereas Allman ended his days at 69 in large part due to his addictions in youth. 
****A History of Brewing in Holland 900-1900: Economy, Technology and the State by UBC professor Richard W. Unger, published in 2001 at page 88. He also shows at page 90 that per person consumption in the Netherlands from 1372 to 1500 averaged between 210 and 320 litres a year based on total population.
*****See? Fishy. Ha ha. Funny joke.

July 2022’s Very Own First Beery News Notes

What to do on summer holiday? Now that it is July, I really have to figure out what the second half of August could promise. Not just chores, right? Chores ought to be done by then, done well before the snow shovels and garden hose swap places again. Martyn’s eternal holiday got me thinking about this… again… this week with his post about the pub in Greve de Lecq, Jersey that is apparently separated from all public transportation access other than by foot. It’s like a pub in some unpublished work on Winnie the Pooh – if and when they all grow up, get jobs (and trousers, if we were into finger pointery) and drink a lot of beer. Look at that path to the village pub! While there are many attractions of the pub ticking life that do not do that much for me, this has me thinking about getting some of that woven into my upcoming weeks off. Toddling down earthy paths to bechy pubs. Too much to ask?

What else is going on out there? Are we at the dog days yet?* Certainly not – at least at one archeological dig to which news of which Merryn happily guided me, excavations in a place called Chalkpit Field where maltings from the Dark Ages are being uncovered:

Much of the work undertaken involved cleaning the main malting house features identified from previous years but with special attention paid to the most recently revealed features at the northern and southern ends of the trench. A the northernmost end of the trench, two kiln-like features appear to represent further malting houses, with a considerable quantity of collapsed daub still in situ.

Nosing around the internets as one does I learned that this dig is part of a project investigating “the entire range of human settlement and land use in the north-west Norfolk parish of Sedgeford” and that the maltings date to the triple digit centuries. Fabulous.

Still with the British stuff, there was a good, summarizing (if ultimately despairing) article in The Guardian about the state of pressures on the British pub:

The total number of pubs dropped below 40,000 during the first half of 2022, a fall of more than 7,000 compared with a decade ago… The hospitality sector has faced immense challenges in recent years as it recovered from the pandemic, which resulted in national lockdowns that caused closures and reduced demand. However, the researchers suggest that while pubs managed to battle through Covid-19, they are facing a fresh challenge because of record-high inflation and an energy crisis.

Also in TG, Singapore Slung? Beer made from purified sewage.

Pellicle ran a tribute to an old friend, an old neglected pal… and old pal perhaps we all take for granted… a pal that may not even be there anymore –  Newkie Broon:

“It doesn’t make it the same, and it’s a shame,” Mark tells me. “But that’s how things move on.” The beer has now become a joke back home, a travesty. A victim of its own success that has been transformed beyond recognition—proving that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But despite the bitter taste left by losing a legend in the North East, with bottles gathering dust on the shelves of Newcastle offies, the hardy heritage of my hometown lives on through determined, independent breweries sparking a resurgence in brown ale.

I like this near 40 year old clip and the message about what are reasonable sources of influence.

Moving west across the Atlantic, I encountered what was essentially a demand from Stan: “If it were Monday & I was recapping the previous week via beer links this one would be at the top“! Heavens. Good thing it is an interesting read. One Roger Baylor on the question of chatting over beer in America as a person who is outside US alignment, politically speaking, and how it offers hope in these pretty hard times:

I’m free to remain a leftist as it pertains to larger issues, and to vote accordingly, while also judging local grassroots political affairs by criteria unique to the immediate acreage lying just outside my front door. Stated another way, it’s possible for me to have a beer with David Duggins, a Democrat and New Albany’s public housing director, and talk about pressing issues of church-state separation and Supreme Court overreach. I did so last Saturday. It’s also possible for me to have a beer with Indiana’s U.S. Senator Todd Young, a Republican, and talk about federal regulatory issues affecting small businesses, American foreign policy, and other topics that have always been of interest to me.

And so much further west it is east again, I have heard of this sensible use of excess local crops like the neighbours of MacKinnon and their strawberry wheat of a few years back so it is good to see the trend-worthy idea elsewhere, this time in Japan:

Last summer, Ayumi Kato, a 32-year-old member of the town’s community revitalization team, planned the project to support farmers and others amid the pandemic by utilizing nonstandard agricultural produce that would have been discarded. After discussions with other women who are local farmers, Kato decided to create two types of beer: one using Amao strawberries and one using local corn. About ¥850,000 was raised for the project from all over Japan through a crowdfunding campaign. After being offered from the Kirin factory the malt produced in the town, the project members asked a craft beer brewery in Anan, Tokushima Prefecture, to produce the beers for Tachiarai.

Beth Demmon has published yet another in her series on interesting people in the good drinks world, this time Colette Goulding who makes cider in London with Hawkes. This is an excellent observation that came out of their conversations:

The future of cider, both in the U.K. and across the world, lies in the hands of people like Colette. But speaking up in a room full of mostly older men (who often come from more rural areas and espouse old-school ideas) isn’t always easy, especially as a relatively younger nonbinary person who has been in the industry for two years. Discussing diversity as an integral part of cider itself can be a challenge, they say, but one they’re up for.

It has yet to get stinking hot enough here to make the tomato leap in their cages but if it does some day soon, there is only one thing for it – hefeweisen. Nothing breaks the back of a mid-morning scorcher filled with when seven minutes of weeding and thinking about maybe weeding than a few litres of Teutonic clovey wheaty stuff followed by a good nap. And apparently, as Boak and Bailey found out, it is a good year for it – even if not everyone knows it:

BBF’s version, available in 440ml cans, actually pours stubbornly clear, or at least only faintly hazy. It has vanilla in the aroma and, of course, a bunch of banana. At 5%, it’s not as strong as the Schneider original – or, indeed, as most standard German wheat beers. We liked it so much we bought a box of 12 to drink at home. Perhaps others don’t share our enthusiasm, though, because it was discounted to £25.60 – about £2 per tin. At present, they don’t have any in stock.

More about wheat here which, characteristically for US beer writing, misses the entire two centuries of its own wheat beer brewing history.

Tweet of the week:

Finally, a helpful bit of health advice in you are finding too much is causing too much.

There. You have been informed. A bit. For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: Robin got a job!!!) 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 (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletterThe 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… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now winding up after ten years.

*Could be as there is plenty of writing not about beer under the umbrella of beer writing. Keep keeping it dull, semi-pros!  As a policy point during the times of good beer’s gentle decline, it’s important to remember that beer has reasonably obvious boundaries. 

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The Mid-Year Checkup

Me. Wednesday morning. I ran out into the backyard in my slippers to cover up the small Romaine plants before 8 am –  given there was the dumbest rabbit ever out there, eating some weeds in the lawn about seven feet away from the finest dining he ever saw… if he were to ever see it. It seems it’s hard to get a good class of lawn rabbit these days. I may have triggered the neighbours’ yappy dog in the process. Jings. Life’s rich pageant or what? Breaks up the week, I suppose. It can be a bit of a challenge coming up with things to write about in the good beer world every week. Every once in a while interesting stuff pops up. For example, I had no idea that there was a Malting Barley Committee (MBC) of the Maltsters’ Association of Great Britain (MAGB) that issued edicts but late last week, care of Nigel‘s careful watch, we learned that they have made their decision on crops for the 2023 malting barley planting season. Say goodbye to the Splendor and Tungsten in your ales! As if you noticed…

It is Canada Day down Canada way… or at least it will be Friday. Eight years ago, I told the tale of how our Constitution of 1867 was first described to the leading lights of the future nation by a future Prime Minister. You can go read the whole thing but here is the portrait painted by one present of Sir John A. in his natural state:

…John A. entered bearing symptoms of having been on a spree. He was half drunk. Lunch is always on the side table, and he soon applied himself to it – and before we had well entered on the important business before us he was quite drunk with potations of ale…

Being as I am fascinated by all the tinkery clinkery bits of technology, I had a read through the current online edition of  Brewer Magazine, a trade journal that looks like an industry version of the old weekly newspaper that was 80% ads for members of the the downtown business association. Unlike the Gammy Bird, however, the ads seem to be real and are fairly interesting, especially this machine that would seem to be a robot that would take over the middle kid’s 2019 summer job, smashing out of date cans of beer out back of the contract brewery. I could never figure out if it was a good job or not. I suppose being covered in stale malty good spraying from smashed cans on 33C high humidity days may not be exactly how one wants to take one’s ale.

Q: is booze collapsing all around? Not in Illinois. Josh Noel wrote about in The Chicago Tribune (perhaps paywalled) wrote an excellent piece about Dovetails’ kolsch service in the Windy City:

While it may not be surprising to find a brewery such as Dovetail, dedicated to reproducing continental European beer styles, also reproducing European beer culture, there has been an unlikely development in Chicago since Dovetail’s first kolsch service in 2019: other breweries have also started doing it. Logan Square’s Hopewell Brewing hosted two kolsch nights in spring, and Double Clutch Brewing, which opened last fall in Evanston, has also done it.

In his mastery of the thing all the beer experts foolishly tell beer writers never to do, The Beer Nut displayed all his skills this week in his considerations of one of my all time favourite beers, Jolly Pumpkin‘s Bam, first encountered around 15 years ago. The resulting observations should serve as a bit of a life lesson for the rest of all you all:

It’s a medium orange-yellow in the glass and quite opaque. The aroma is a fun mix of fruit salad — with pear, mandarin and lychee in particular — meeting a very Belgian saison spicing and a lacing of farmyard fun. That’s a lot of complexity already for something that’s only 4.5% ABV. There’s a floral, perfume intensity in the foretaste, mixing bergamot and lavender with softer white grape. The body is quite thin and that renders the flavour a little harsh, accentuating the bitterness. It’s still very tasty, though. There’s too much going on for it to be refreshing, but it still just about works as a sipper.

Notice the use of observe fact and clear language. No reference to chemistry puffery and not burdened by style. As I read recently, observation defeats theory every time. Or something like that. The human sensory experience laid out plain.

Again with the use of personal eyeball powers, I would never have guessed that beer pub ticking was a jet-setter sort of function but there we are, the lad with the guide in the carry on luggage on an aircraft cabin flying over salty seas:

Right, if you’ve an allergy to the Channel Islands I should come back to this blog in, ooh, October. Twenty-three GBG entries for 170,499 islanders, and I needed ten (10) ticks for the set, having not set foot there since 2014 (before this blog started). If I’m going to finish the Guide this year, I needed to get those ten done in one trip. Nipping back to Sark for one pub in September is far harder than nipping back to Sandwich, and costs ten times as much.

Also: Auld Mudgie linked to a blog of a wandering pub lover that I had not noticed before, Merseyside Pub Guide.

Alistair triggered the sort of interesting discussion that Twitter is still letting you have – this time about the lack of actual special glassware utility, one of those old chestnuts in beer. Best comment? From Max:

I must add the glass I used for smaller servings is the same I use for wines, brandy, and whisky. I got it after judging at a beer competition (which uses the same glass for all styles, go figure).

Similarly, see this consideration of the role of Brett v hops in the transportation of strong ale long distances yoinks ago. So much more interesting information comes out of discussions backed by solid records.

Conversely, we had a sighting of the content control clique movement this week. Same as 2009 and 2016, arises in times of crisis. In the hardscrabble ill-considered beer writing trade, this tendency is sorta like the anti-Christ of the weekly beery news roundups. Leads to bizarre results. Deny the call to obey! Good thing Lew is on the job.

And, yes, the creative if not needy spins on the sale of Stone to mega brewing was the theme of the week amongst a certain set. Beth Demmon, as usual, offered the perspective with the clearest view from a local vantage point:

… this type of deal is a well-worn path. Big business-buys-smaller business in a seemingly mutually beneficial, nine-figure deal. Life goes on, capitalism lives to see another day.

This set of quotes from those attending these days of remembrance is hilarious. Not one using the phrase “decades long cluster fuck!” As noted in 2004, likely the seminal makers of sucker juice.   Jordan and Robin prodded the corpse, heroically finding the energy this week to care enough to discuss what are effectively the two stale assets of apparently no value in the Stone deal: (i) the face of the business and (ii) the long term business plan. Neither now needed. Isn’t the deal just a fire sale to avoid further losses if the long descent from the core business as a premium gas station brand allowed to continue further?

Finally – and in a more fact based reality – beer snakes!

Yorkshire’s decision to ban beer snakes, the comically long stacks of empty pint pots so beloved of cricket fans, forced luminous-jacketed stewards to engage in a series of slow-motion chase scenes with unruly cup-collectors, one of whom was amateurishly but unmistakably disguised as Scooby Doo. The England team have been restyled as great entertainers but the fans’ response has been: hold my empty beer. And also this one. And several dozen more. And now run! These races were surprisingly hilarious – though clearly not for the stewards, who, by tea, had completely given up… 

That is it!  For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: me finks the teens are hired for fests because that is all the can afford as the dream of craft continues to collapse…) 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 (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletterThe 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… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now winding up after ten years.

The Mid-June 2022 Edition of Thursday Beery News Notes

Finally. I am now convinced we may not get snow again… probably… the crops are a’risin’ and they are getting noticed and even harvested by strangers new to the neighbourhood. I even sharpened the manual mower and dug up the now dead fig tree’s root. In fact, I was reminded just last Saturday how much better beer was than having a fat guy at 59 heart attack when, laying on the lawn sweaty and staring at that damn fig root once cut from the planet which gave it life, I chose to have a beer rather than a heart attack. Good call. Meantime, I got on the Dall-E app thingie to see what all the cool kids are up to. Apparently the AI for the app likes its beer writers fat, white and male. I don’t dare show you the other three panels. Still… quite extraordinarily perceptive.

First up, I love this image from the Mi’gmaw academic Robbie Richardson of Princeton – and his caption: “There was a two man band doing a mix of Pink Floyd and Louis Armstrong covers.” Fabulous. He was in a London working man’s pub and captured the spirit of the scene in this shot as well as a second photo. Note: not yet included in the listed, upgraded or relisted by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England.

Speaking of pubs, there is pub ticking and there is speculative pub ticking that requires you to tick a pub just in case only to find out that the pub was not worth the tick! But in the tick that was not ticky there are also gems, like this beer right here, a Dulse Stout. I like the sound of that. But I grew up near the Bay of Fundy.

Evan demonstrated a deft use of social media on Wednesday with his multi-tweet, multi-media argument on the relationship between Czech culture and a state owned Czech brewery. Read it. It’s better than 87% of the paid beer writing this week. Here, let me start you off:

I keep seeing Czechs ask “Why shouldn’t we privatize Budvar?” aka “Why should the Czech Budweiser brewery remain under state ownership?” A few quick thoughts on the pros and cons.

A bit further out there, we have either apparently run out of gimmicks or have achieved master level gimmick:

A Scots brewery has joined forces with a company of professional musicians in a bid to discover whether playing piano to fermenting beer affects the taste… Sean Logan, a member of the company, is playing a wide selection of his music to two batches of new beer now in the fermentation tanks at Bellfield’s brew house. The two new beers – Resonancy IPA and Resonancy Pilsner- have been brewed specially for Pianodrome’s summer-long ‘Resonancy’ at their new, upcycled piano amphitheatre at the Old Royal High School.

And, never the gimmick, I missed this a month ago about the last Fred Fest coming and going:

This weekend marks the final Fred Fest, a rare beer charity event created to honor the birthday of legendary Portland beer journalist Fred Eckhardt. Later this summer venue host Hair of the Dog Brewing is closing, and this will be one of the last occasions to celebrate both owner Alan Sprints and Fred Eckhardt’s invaluable contributions to the industry in-person.

Boak and Bailey had somewhat positive experiences at three ‘Spoons and were pleasantly confused:

It was busy but peaceful with mostly older drinkers chatting in groups as diffuse sunlight warmed them through big windows. Ruddles was, again, surprisingly, delightful, this time at £1.49. Adnams’s Ghost Ship (£2.10) was good, too – a reminder of what a great beer this can be, full of citrus zest. The tables were spotless and polished and the in-house mag sat there looking harmless, with a cover feature about Curry Club rather than, say, DOES TRUTH MATTER? 

But what about goes into what is in the glass? A study is being undertaken by my old alma mater, Dalhousie, in combination with two local breweries, 2 Crows and Propeller. They are looking to see if they can solve an old issue with how malt is made:

Historically, malting involved soaking barley in water, laying it out on the floor to germinate, and then drying it. This is a process called floor malting. Today, pneumatic malting is automated with large maltsters spreading the barley out on a perforated floor and blowing air through that floor to precisely control temperature and humidity before drying the malt. Two concerns about floor malted barley have been hindering the growth of craft malting: the potential for higher levels of a flavour-altering compound called Dimethyl Sulphide (DMS), and a condition called premature yeast flocculation…

Big picture, brewing industry economic challenges continue. Belgian brewers face bottle shortages:

Companies like the historic Huyghe brewery in Flanders, for example, are starting to run out of bottles. The lifeline, for now, is the accumulated stocks of bottles that were purchased from a supplier company in Russia. These days, supply has been interrupted and finding alternative suppliers with the capacity to respond in Europe is anything but easy due to the strong concentration that has occurred in the industry in recent years.

Similar stories out of the UK and Germany. Plus not enough C02. Plus drought. Plus the hot sauce is disappearing. (Glad I have backup.) In Hawaii and in Asia, the brewing basics are not as easy to get your hands on:

All food prices are going through the roof in Singapore. “It’s getting harder and harder for us to get any supplies at all,” Jesemann said. Hops and malt, delivered by ship from Germany, are also becoming hard to come by. The pandemic and the Russian war have made everything more complicated.

Now… there was an interesting set of three separate posts this week which added up to a bit of an interesting conundrum or at least signs of change. Worth unpacking.  First, to set the scene, Jeff used all his fingers and toes and came to the correct conclusion that there are a lot of beer  brands out there:

I was doing that same back-of-the-envelope math recently, and things have changed just a smidge. American breweries are within spitting distance of making a million individual beers. Maybe they already do. Three changes account for this. (1) The US has seen a more than fivefold increase in breweries since 2010, to around 9,500. (2) The number of beers each brewery makes has skyrocketed. Partly that’s a function of a changing market that rewards churn. But partly it’s a result of the fact that (3) almost all those breweries have taprooms, and a a lot have multiple taprooms. People are in turn drawn to those retail sites to sample new beers and buy four-packs they can’t get at the store. 

I totally agree. We could also do a similar calculation of local bakery cookies, squares and other doodads. As things localize and multiply – as the dream of big national craft continues to fade – we have a splendidly mindboggling range of options… as long as you can be everywhere all the time. Which you can’t. Which leads me to Robin and Jordan writing in conversation as they do monthly for Good Food Revolution. This month they discuss the fragmentation of style over the same timeline that Jeff discusses his numerical ker’splosion:

J: It’s not just flavour, either. As part of the instruction at George Brown, I’m explaining to people about the Lovibond Company. They were stained glass manufacturers who came up with a standard colour spectrum for beer. Sort of pale straw down to deep brown, but in gentle gradation. One of the students asked, “So what happens when beer is suddenly pink?”

R: I do take your point. While styles have changed so much throughout the centuries, things do seem to be going pretty alarmingly fast in terms of flavour development, with everything but the kitchen sink being put into a beer. Sometimes the beer is even aged in a kitchen sink for that flavour.

It’s an interesting discussion – but, with respect, it does move a titch to the reactionary. In the sense that it depends on chestnuts like Garrett Oliver on wine (no, wines have a massive range of flavours) and dear old Michael Jackson (whose declaration of style as periodic table flopped way before the beer went pink.) But it serves as a great X axis to Jeff’s Y.*  Facing this shock of the new… well, newish… we (rejecting the 1880s Michelson and Morley approach) should not worry about preserving a conceptual status quo. In the million brand universe the idea that beers can “rise up above all of the nonsense” like hit songs may not recognize that (i) the hits were rarely the most interesting songs** and (ii) there are far too many beers now for it to mean anything when a tiny foil Sunday School gold star gets awarded. It is simply no longer meaningful. That centre no longer holds.

Which leads us to Ben Johnson who has rejoined the land of the beer writer and posted his first post since last he posted in over a year and a half, reminding us all to disclaim the freebie:

It’s pretty basic marketing. For the cost of beer and shipping, you can put your product into the hands of people who are happy to share news and images of that product with your target audience. Beer writers and influencers get beer, they write about it and photograph it, and then share their work with their beer-loving followers; and the brewery, at least in theory, sells more of that beer.

This, too, is now a bit of a read guard action. Not because people don’t let folk know when a freebie is being discussed. We see disclaimers all over the place now – and that is great. Problem got solved. But the new problem is… it’s also sorta useless. And sorta 2018. Think about it. What beer drinker is now so weak of will that they are influenced? Wanted to be subjected to marketing? Second, many of the more interesting breweries just do not send freebie samples just like they don’t submit beers to award competitions. They know their base and have no need of the TikyToky marketplace of ideas. Third, too many freebie opinions boiled down to generic praise. Worse, fingerwaggery may ensue. Me, I can buy the beer.*** I can take the risk with a few bucks that I might not like something once in a while. Frankly, I am much more likely to be attracted by a skillful brewery that also displays a bit of good humour and jokes with itself. I am also much more interested, like Mr. Lemon, in what is a short walk away.

All of which adds up to something. And its something very different from even just pre-pandemic. The pre-pan. There is now just too much in beer to be aware of all that much about all the beer. It has been foretold, of course. Over seven years ago it was clear that it was impossible to be a “beer expert” but we are also well past even that. With the explosion of brands and styles and influencers (not to mention the seemingly hundreds of beer award competitions – now including a prize for iconic supermarkets? FFS. Really?? Have things gotten that tight for the award fee gatherers?) the confusion isn’t fading, it’s now a bazillion times worse. Or maybe better. Is all that variety actually all that bad ?

What can the poor beer writer do? No problem. Keep it specific. Look for the details. Experience what is actually there and now what you’re told should be there. And maybe write about it. That’s what I say. By this I mean if you are someone with the knowledge of what is good right there in your local area write about it… or write about what London Cooper was or… what is interesting about trademark law as it affects brewing or… or even what Ron has been eating… well, then you have half a chance to still be interesting and informative or even just funny. Write – even if its probably not all actually journalism. Writing is good. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating. Write. It’s hopeful thing. The hope that we acknowledge the rich niches which have replaced outdated umbrellas and overarches and authority figures. THIS JUST IN: no one need read Michael Jackson ever again except for archival purposes.

Perhaps connectedly, Stephanie Grant thought about something like it and wrote an interesting piece at her space “The Share” comparing craft beer now to the downsides of dating, including the fork in the road at phase 3 :

This is the part of the relationship where you start questioning things. Should I stay or should I go? It’s a hard question when beer has become part of my identity. What happens when it’s not? I left my job at the brewery. I started freelancing full-time. Initially, I dreamt of writing for breweries, but I started questioning that. Did I even want to work in the industry anymore? During this stage, my beer fridge went mostly untouched. It had been months since I posted about beer and even longer since I purchased a six pack. Meanwhile, my cocktail bar GREW.

Did she ditch the dud at phase 4? You will have to go read.

The rut is real – and, let’s be honest, maybe its because just as we have this unwieldy explosion of beer brands and alleged styles, we also have a limited range of beer writing themes.**** So much writing has not caught up with the scene from the consumer’s seat. Why listen to drinkers when you can talk at brewery owners? Yet… I think the last few years’ worth of new writing on social justice through the lens of beer is invigorating and, like the niche and the local, points to the way. Focused as it is on their personal experience, it is a step forward exactly because it’s written by people who actually do “think about press freedoms or the politics of their readers” and then think about their experience in beer overall. These writers have had to work to be heard. And beer doesn’t traditionally have much time for the bad news. Commissioning editors get the yips about bad news but these writers now sometimes write uncomfortable personal things. Discomforting interesting things – unlike what that DALL·E mini app would have us believe as illustrated above. It is also interesting that it is occurring just as established news services also shine a brighter light on the little ways of brewing.  Again, I speak of hope. This is excellent. And it bodes well for a better future.

What’s it all add up to? In the million brand world, just don’t be a follower. Be the subject of the story of your own experience. We simply don’t have any use for the good old days when craft beer was the defined as the domain of the heroic great white male, whether brewer or writer. A past when perhaps, to channel Mr. Ahmir Thompson, we have been burdened by the achievers who kept down creatives. Someone should let the DALL·E mini app up there know we may be done with that. If we are lucky. It’s a needed change – because it was not all good and fun, whatever you were told.*****

There. Another long variation on a theme. But that’s what the beery news notes is for! Reading the writing. And for more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: back again this week) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletterThe 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… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now winding up after ten years.

*Another interesting X and Y graph would be where one axis represented the collapse of  stylistic and branding certainty and the other axis represented the increase in card carrying Cicerones.
**Have you ever seen “Pina Colada Song” aka “Escape” lip sinc-ed vids? Big hit. In its fifth decade of existence. Shitty.
***This is my favorite line when a brewer offers me samples, that I am not one of that sort of writer. Brewery owner then laughs. Then I laugh. It’s a nice bonding time. Then I pay and go.
****They include: (i) social justice through the lens of beer, (ii) comforting praise for the rural brewery preferably founded by career changers… perhaps before they change back, (iii) beer writers interviewing beer writers and other circles of praise, (iv) possy spin over what arrived for free this week (yet… who could deny him this time?) and (v) affirmations of the abiding beer fibs through time like there is nothing to worry about the marketplace, temperance bad, puritans really bad, j-curve good ’cause beer is health food! (I often think of whether Gary Bredbenner so well remembered by Lew at the time now 13 years ago was affected by this… and Norm Miller as well.) Not to mention the crap that isn’t even beer. Fibs and lies, I say. Money in this case is the root of all evil, isn’t it… yet so is its absence.
*****Which is to say we are well past the day a decade ago when Melissa Cole could say that “brewing industry is not only booming and forward-thinking, it is also fabulously friendly” while James Watt was calling someone out by saying “…if we wanted advice from you, it would be about how to simultaneously patronise women and bastardize beer…” Quite the reversal! But it is a meaningful reversal of sorts as brewing is not and has not been a friendly place even if there are friendly faces to be found. And it’s good for us all to have grown up even if it means you leave behind those things of interest in youth.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For Spring 2022

Let’s see how this goes this week. Still on the meds but all went well, thanks for asking. Don’t be losing track of those wisdom teeth. Just sayin’. From Ukraine, NPR’s Tim Mak reports that due to martial law access to legal alcohol is limited but recently in Vinnytsia there was no ban. The welcoming bartender above is Oleg, who Mak reports had Jäegermeister, a local lager or a kind of berry cider on offer. No doubt they were most welcome from the other photos posted from the bar. Give directly and without delay. If you have a need to filter that through beer, consider supporting Ontario brewer John Graham who has gone to Germany and Poland with others to transport people and supplies involved with Ukraine’s disaster.

First up, there was an excellent tight piece of writing this week by Holly Regan on one of the downsides of the pub, a glimpse of despair. It’s the sort of observation that you don’t see in beer writing much as it is a fairly false positively filtered genre:

…I order a half of Bitter and get sucked into conversation with the bloke behind me: a train driver who wishes he had worked in pictures, all narrative arcs and glassy-eyed ambition. He sees me reading “Ulysses,” so we talk about Joyce, films, and the human condition. It starts off like a Linklater movie until it turns all Aronofsky, as the inevitable end of prolonging the experience begins to reveal itself. He says he’s been parked in that seat for two straight days, and it chills me, triggering memories of times where I couldn’t stand to be in my body, either.

Alistair has been digging through the Austrian National Library’s archives and found a few things that have made their way into a few posts. He found records related to I discovered the Witt & Williams English Brewery of Hamburg, established in 1869 and wound up in 1871 – and he did the maths so we don’t have to:

The ad goes on to inform us that samples are available from the brewery, just write to them with postal instructions and the relevant cash for a case of either 24 full sized bottles or 24 half bottles. 4 thaler 15 silbergroschen, approximately 4 Shillings 1.5 pence in old British money, or if I have done the various sums correctly £24.20 in modern British money ($31.96/€29.05) would purloin for you a case of either “Double Brown Stout” or “The golden Ale”, while 3 thaler 15 silbergroschen (do your own maths, my head hurts) would get your the XX Porter or IPA.*

Ron has added to the question of diastatic brown malt with his post drawing on research he set aside for a decade or so:

The method of making brown malt was changing, for a variety of reasons, one of which was the high risk of a fire.

“it was formerly the custom to dry brown malt also on ordinary kilns, with wire floors, but the labour on these was of a most disagreeable and exhausting character, and brown malt is now generally dried in wire cylinders.” 

The presence of diastase in older forms of brown malt is explained by the way it was produced. Diastase is much more sensitive to heat when moist. By first removing all the moisture from the malt at a low temperature, the diastase was not damaged as much by the finishing high heat.

Careful readers will recall how in 2017 Ed sent me a brown ale with a diastatic brown malt he had created. He explained his malting process in great detail here. And in 2014 I went so far as forming The League of Diastatic Brown Kilnfolk to explore the idea – based in large part on a reference in one of Ron’s books to the quick flame kilning of the malt to achieve a darkening of the outside while retaining the diastatic properties inside. The clubhouse has been a busy spot ever since.

Jordan has provided the third in his series of posts on the 1904 brewery workers’ strike in Toronto, widely relying on extensive citation from contemporary newspapers like this report in May 25th edition of The Globe:

The lockout of union brewery workers, which has been expected ever since the trouble at the Reinhardt and O’Keefe breweries opened, has occurred. Yesterday, the unskilled union men employed by the Dominion, Cosgrave, Copland, and Toronto Brewing and Malting Companies were locked out by the brewers. This action was decided upon at a meeting of the Master Brewers’ Association, and resulted in the calling out to-day of every union brewery man in the city with the exception of those at Davies’ Don Brewery, which is paying the union scale. 

Solidarity, buvver Davies! In other legal news, the testimony in the Keystone / Stone court case is getting weirder and weirder. Plenty of thanks to Bianca Bruno of Courthouse News for sharing some of the juicier bits. Much has been made by the apparent disclosure that Keystone Light is just Coors Light that was not up to specification – as if breweries would not have strategies for dealing with waste, that great concern of E.P. Taylor. But the real story is the nonsense at the heart of Stone’s claims:

Wagner said the company may not survive the business losses it claims to have suffered because of consumer confusion caused by Keystone Light’s “stone”-heavy rebranding. “I know Keystone spent tens of millions of dollars to advertise. I think it would take at least as much to try to rebuild our brand,” Wagner said during questioning by his attorney Douglas Curran. Curran asked Wagner a follow-up question. “If Stone isn’t made whole, what do you think will happen?” Wagner responded: “I think we’re going to lose our company.”

I am not sure Wagner, Stone’s founding brewmaster, actually knows what he himself said.  It would require not just consumer confusion at the first moment of encountering the Keystone advertising in question but the continuing purchasing of Keystone by a large group of people believing it to be a craft beer made by Stone. No one has alleged such a silly suggestion. The two beers are entirely different, not just in terms of price and point of sale but in terms of flavour. Where is the this mass of misguided craft nerds? Nowhere. Because they don’t exist. Which means they pose no risk to Stone. Like some of the witness stand statements by co-founder Koch, this makes little sense and should be looked upon with a wary eye by judge and jury.

Kate Bernot triggered an interesting flood of confession and accusation about the bomber bottle of micros of yore as avaricious scam. I never minded all that much as it gave you enough if you liked whatever was in there but not too much if it sucked.

Spring 1953 looks so pleasant that I can’t believe anyone ever did the sort of thing illustrated in this US Brewers Foundation ad “First Fine Day of Spring” which came with the slogan “In this Friendly, Freedom-loving Land of Ours – Beer Belongs… Enjoy It!” Who are these people and how old were they? I like the idea of getting as snazzed up as anyone but did people really do this?

Collaborations are so common (in a couple of ways) these days – but I kinda liked this marketing plan rolled out by English craft brewery Wild Beer Co. – as reviewed by The Beer Nut:

English brewery Wild Beer Co. came up with this wheeze for the just-finished 2022 Six Nations rugby tournament: six collaborative beers produced with brewers from the competing countries. Of course I bought all six, and at a fiver a can they weren’t cheap. I had every right to expect something special from each.

The price point seems to be his main complaint but, if I might, the whole point of “collabs” is a bit of a soaking for the poor purchaser so the buyer should beware as soon as the word is floated. In this case, however, at least the soak did not just go to a sadder purpose like some starving beer writer on the bleg who came up with the brilliant idea of getting their name on the label in return for suggesting chocolate or beer juice or, you know, dirt be added to an otherwise perfectly fine beer.

Finally, in the “when licensees go a bit nuts” category, this tale of a breakup between the Fullers Brewery people and one of their tenants, a Mr. O’Neil, which took an unusual turn:

The erection of the fence, made up of wooden boarding, came as a shock to local residents who told MyLondon they did not know anything about it. A spokeswoman for Richmond Council confirmed Mr O’Neil does not own the land adjacent to the pub. She said: “Mr O’Neill has been in dispute with Fullers Brewery, which is the freehold owner of The Plough. The freehold does not own the triangle of land immediately adjacent to the public house – there is no registered owner and this area of land is considered part of the public highway.

Nutso. Like to see it. There. Not a bad week’s worth of words. For more check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletterThe 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.

*No, God as my witness, I have no clue either. Not one clue…

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The First Thaw

Not the big thaw, the ice jam busting thaw. Just the small thaw that tells you a big thaw is not that far off. The thaw that tells you you probably don’t need to buy more bird feed for, basically, the squirrels. The bastardly squirrels. You can sit out now. In the sun. With your Bobo and you Eephus. Yup, it’s a time when your mind starts to look forward to spring. And outdoor unpaid labour followed by a nice cold beer. That’s where it all started, right? As the old Temperance Society hymn told us, yardwork is the root of all evil. Soon coming. Get ready.

But for now, first up is The Beer Nut who found a bit of an expensive dud this week and it does make one wonder how much silent regret there is out there for this sort of thing:

Clearly this has been designed, and priced, for the special-occasion market. Anyone new to big barrel-aged stout and apprehensive about what it brings may find themselves enjoying how accessible it is. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it’s rather bland given the specs. I don’t want a sickly bourbon bomb but I do want more substance and more character than this displays. Perhaps releasing it fresh would have been the better move.

So not a drain pour but, still, not necessarily a beer you want to share with pals who know what’s what – or the price with thems who might not. Is there a word for that? There has to be a word. And what would our man in the EU think of this: blue beer in France: “Question?” “Yes, is it a shitty beer? “Quoi?” “Votre bier… c’est un biere du merde bleu, monsieur?” Peut etre.

Elsewhere, on a day out in Kent (are there ever days not out for Martin?) we gained another bit of knowledge on the rules of pub snacks as they relate to the odd hairy bits:

The Larkins was a lovely cool pint; that ramekin of scratchings a tad let down by the inclusion of pork crackling, which really ought to be outlawed. Unless scratchings have hairs on them, they have no right to that name.

There was a bit of a bittersweet tale posted by Boak and Bailey this week, a story of something found in a pub which starts:

On Saturday 8 March 1975, a 16-year-old boy wrote an autobiographical note on a piece of thin chipboard and concealed it in the skittle alley at The Lord Nelson pub in Barton Hill, Bristol.

Hey look! It’s Ren Navarro appearing on CTV discussing dessert beers nationally. A great public education public service.

Jeff wrote about what he called “malt consciousness” this week and I think he is partially, almost entirely quite right:

I had to spent eight days in Bavaria before something magical happened in my appreciation of beer. Because the main difference among the beers I drank (and drank and drank) came from the malt, I was able to tune into that wavelength. For the first time, I developed “malt consciousness.” I understood the role malt played—something many American brewers and most American drinkers still lack. Brewers are a lot more sophisticated now, and they understand that you’re not going to make a very interesting helles from generic two-row pale. Yet I’m not sure we’ve quite arrived at full malt consciousness.

If you go back to the brewing recipe books of twenty years ago, you will see much more interest in a range of malts that you do today. One of my first posted beer reviews eighteen years ago included the faded but one time most important US micro, Pete’s Wicked Ale. Before the new millennium, ales were malt and lagers hop focused. They really weren’t so binary but that was the story, as we see in this 1991 article about the Buffalo brewing scene or this one from 1987. Full bodied dark ales. Malt was the main event before craft appropriated and reframed micro in the early 2000s preparing us for the everything is IPA world we now want to leave behind. The present malt revival is great and adds another dimension to local brewing for sure. But it’s not new. We are remembering.

The big theme went off in another direction this week, a few more indications of the continuing death… or perhaps these are the zombie years… of craft like this:

Observation: There’s a LOT of confusion right now among wholesalers, trying to get a bead on the current direction of the craft beer industry. A general feeling of “something has fundamentally changed, but we aren’t quite sure what” going around. It’s creating some paralysis.

And Chris Loring of Massachusetts’ Notch Brewing shared this thought:

US brewers can take anything of value and tradition and make it a gimmick before beer drinkers experience the real thing. When was it decided we’d be clowns instead of professionals? I’m done, this is embarrassing.

Then… we learn again that a portion of CAMRA is populated by pigs. Then there was the end-timsey news about contract brewing no alcohol beer being a thing with the unskilled… and, of course, the Flagship February dead cat bounce. It is all flounder or founder? Whatever, I presume it all is the sort of cleansing we would expect after a pandemic… or a recession… or a competing innovation that draws attention elsewhere. Sorta facing all three makes for a guaranteed shift. M. Lawrenson had some interesting thoughts about the perhaps associated irritability of drinking establishments with social media observations:

Unfortunately, some places don’t see it this way.  Apparently, they live and die by their Google rating.  I gave 4/5 to somewhere last week.  On Sunday afternoon, they sent me a message saying “Hi, is there we can do to get you to change your rating to a 5?”  I struggled to think of a reply, as I’ve been to this place twice a week for the last 6 months and it’s been pretty much the same every time.  They could make it perfect for ME, I suppose.  But what’s perfect for me ain’t gonna be perfect for everyone.   Perhaps they recognised my name and imagined I’m some kind of “influencer” in the pub world.

Also, relatedly, I think this is one opinion that is about 180 degrees wrong about the nature of change we are seeing:

As someone who’s covered the seething angst and vexing contradictions of America’s craft beer industry and culture for over a decade, I find this a remarkable development. Where have all the hate tourists gone? Or, to put it another way: How did a craft beer industry and community so opposed to selling out become so inert in the face of their beloved breweries getting sold off?

Umm… maybe the development of small local breweries with no chance of ever being in a buyout maybe? The hate stop hating big craft and just moved on to a more interesting experience. That’s only the main story in history of good beer circa 2015-2022. Sweet status-based self-citation, however.

Note: “not Britain’s oldest boozer.”

I really dislike most beer culture cartoons as they are… umm… not all that likeable* but I do like the more deftly drawn ones by Emily Thee Cannibal, possibly a proctologist, like this one about a pairing of Allagash White with a soft cheese… except I can’t stop feeling that the cheese looks like a dying PacMan. It’s a slower more dignified death for sure… but still.

Finally and weirdly, odd news from (i) the folks fighting against the bad actors and powers of BrewDog and (ii) the folk rooting for Mikkeller despite the bad actors and powers. Both groups seem to have engaged the same consultants to deal with their respective complaints. I hadn’t appreciated that in January there was an announcement that@PunksWPurpose had acquired a “platform to affected Brewdog workers to assist [them]… in their core mission of tackling Brewdog’s cultural issues” but saw today that the same consultancy was hired by Mikkeller to provide provide  a “Workplace Reconciliation Program.” This is a little confusing for me, being a lawyer who dabbles in areas of owner v. contractor, employer v employee issues, as you are either on one side or the other in my profession. Do you really want to share your experience to be used against an allegedly overbearing employer with someone hired by another allegedly overbearing employer to smooth the waters?**

Perhaps it is just as one correspondent wrote privately, “folks might be more interested in catharsis than anything else” regardless of the outcome in terms of justice. The display may be enough. Me, I’d say don’t rely on a consultant, get your own legal advice (especially when the consultant does not seem to understand independent legal advice means) or go to a tribunal (usually free). Whatever you do, be especially careful to not create a record of any complaint that ends up owned by the party against which you are making a complaint. You will see it next in your cross-examination when you do end up making that legal complaint: “… but didn’t you say in Feb 2022 the following…“***.

There. Done. For more check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Or is that dead now?) There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletterThe Gulp, too (… back this week!) 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 (which I hope is  revived soon…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*rahrah, craft is great, comes in brown and other colours…kittens!
**Then the odd news turned into an odd thread when the consultancy lead jumped at the tail end of a chat I was having with DSL, wanting a discussion with me about Mikkeller, then suggested I was aggressive (no), directed me to the FAQs (no thanks) and sought to get me off Twitter and speak on the phone (really, no thanks). Crisis management deflection stuff. Frankly, I think I find most offensive thing is the use of “reconciliation” which is appropriate when talking about bringing a fundamentally divided nation together, not helping a frigging contract brewer cope with its self-inflicted crisis.
***But, then again, I pretty much did the same thing spilling my beans such as they are, a bearing of witness to a hired investigator about my tangential involvement in a similar issue… which was where the discussion with DSL started – and should have ended. Go figure.

The End Of July Heralds These Thursday Beery News Notes

August. It’s coming. Even though it’s the month of my road trip holiday, the first in two years, no one says “Yay! August!!” do they. It’s the last gasp, the slipping away of the sands of summer. The first hint of sweater weather. Darker beers to suit darker days. The crops are coming in, as the scene in Norfolk, England shows.

How is that barley crop doing… for those of you still drinking grain based beverages. Not well. Bryan R. tweeted a very graphic graphic, shown to the right. The US barley crop is collapsing under the heat. Canadian farmers planted 8.3 million acres of barley in 2021, up 9.7% encouraged by last year’s crop but it’s been dry and hot here, too. Northern Ireland looks to be in better shape. France looks fine, too. The rest of the western EU may be dealing with too much rain.

How’s the hops? Stan has issued his latest update on the hops markets, Hop Queries. And it contains an interest discussion on the effect of heat waves on the NW US crop this year:

“One variety that could cause issues is Cascade, as other growers have seen it hit hard.” This comes at a time that farmers have reduced Cascade acres because brewers cut back contracts. Brewers who are counting on buying fresh Cascade at below contract prices on the spot market, which has become standard operating procedure for many smaller breweries, maybe be unpleasantly surprised. (There will still be older Cascade around, but perhaps available for a good reason.) As is to be expected, the heat was hardest on “babies” (first-year plants) because they aren’t yet established. And, of course, the babies tend to be in-demand varieties, because growers are going to plant what brewers want. For instance, a field with Chinook will include only a few babies (replacing plants that grew old or became diseased), and Chinook stood up well to the heat.

Expected result? Less supply of the most desired varieties.

Lingering or revived pandemic blues got you down? Missing the many still delayed fests? Head east!

The 31st Qingdao International Beer Festival, one of the largest beer festivals in China, opened on Friday evening in the coastal city of Qingdao, East China’s Shandong province. The 24-day carnival has gathered more than 1,600 beers from over 40 countries and regions, according to the tourism commission of the Xihai’an (West Coast) New Area, where the festival is taking place. There will be over 400 activities covering international exchanges, economic and trade exhibitions, fashion shows, parades and performances during the festival.

These things are apparently a thing. Room to grow, too. Ten tents in 2022, I say!

Martyn wrote about the development of the water supply for brewing in the City of London in one of those pieces on history that does not make you yearn for the earliest of the good old days:

…despite the mythology that surrounds the river’s historic alleged unwholesomeness, brewers made use of its water to brew their beer for centuries: In 1509 the Bishop of Winchester (who owned considerable land alongside the river in Southwark – much of it occupied by brothels) and the Priory of St Mary Overies granted a license to the brewers of Southwark to have passage with their carts “from ye Borough of Southwark until the Themmys … to fetch water … to brew with,” so long as the brewers did not try to claim the passage as a highway, a license renewed by later bishops. (The Thames at Southwark is surprisingly shallow at low tide, and horse-drawn carts could be driven some way out into the stream to collect water in casks.)

Speaking of water, here as link to an interesting piece by BBC Scotland on the changing attitudes younger folk have towards alcohol. Apparently, 29% of youff are dry, up 10% over the last 15 years. If you can’t access the BBC Scotland site, here’s a brief intro. Bottom line – don’t be planning your business on an expanding beer market over the next few decades.

Elsewhere, the young folk are being less sensible as this report from France of the situation in Mexico explains:

Like all businesses in the capital — home to around nine million people — customers in the bars of Zona Rosa have their temperatures checked and are asked to use hand sanitizer. “People want to drink,” said bar owner Ernesto Castro. “The truth is that young people don’t care if they’re going to be infected or not. They want to party,” the 55-year-old said. “They feel that they’re not going to be infected and it’s a problem because the pandemic is still there and getting worse.” Last Friday the authorities raised the pandemic alert level in the capital, but did not impose new restrictions on economic or social activities.

Jenny Pfäfflin drew my attention to claims made about “natural beer“:

I’m not against alternative beers, but marketing it as more “natural” or “wholesome” than barley beer is a lot to unpack.

Seems similar to the idea of “sustainable” beer in Australia. The natural stuff is based on banana and honey and seems to be yet another weird beverage that flies the banner de jour, including the “heritage” banner. Note: “heritage” is the word for history where you leave out the bits you don’t like and rearrange what’s left to maximize comfort levels. In this case, it seems to be a tribute to craft’s heritage of banging things in to a pot and making up a back story to sell the stuff.

By the way, I never know how to react to a majoritarian/ privileged voices presenting a selection of minority/ under privileged voices. Curated protest? Appropriation of anti-appropriation? Seeing it a lot this year. But conversely, at least it is better than the bizarre branding we see in Poland: “White IPA Matters”!

The company has not responded to the allegations and complaints yet. Mr Mentzen, the owner of the brand, is a member of Poland’s right-wing Confederation party and has contested two elections – local elections in Poland’s Torun city in 2018 and for the European parliament in 2019 – both of which he lost, according to the Daily Mail.

Finally and perhaps related, a fairly sad observation to read:

I miss what my life was before beer.

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

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The First Of Summer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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