Category: Malt

The “If This Is December Do These Be Holidays?” Edition Of Beery New Notes

I have to say that imagining holidaying in any sense is a bit of a stretch for me and no doubt many others these days. Which tends to mean it is a good reason not to seek out strong drink but rather look elsewhere for meaning – like my choice this last few weeks: engaging in a prolonged and meaningful battle with the neighbourhood squirrels attacking my bird feeders. Think about it. Healthy outside-y lifestyle stuff getting out and setting up unstable and tall poles just out of a squirrel’s leap. Not quite what the doctor may have ordered on the Isle of Man between the wars as illustrated to the right but… is that really a doctor or the accounts manager of Clinch’s in disguise. And smoking! Dodgy looking moustache, that.

Victim of Math‘s starts us out on another week of pandemic laced news with a slight bit of economic upside news in the UK – or at least not a downside:

This is an interesting little nugget from the latest economic forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility… They expect alcohol duty revenue in 2020/21 to be *higher* than in 2019/20.

You may wish to roam the graphs and summaries of the associated Economic and Fiscal Outlook – November 2020 so here is the link to that. There’s this graph, too, that suggests in this economic downturn folk are turning to wine and spirits instead of beer. Are you?

Craft and shemomechama. Discuss.

Elsewhere and as it is to be expected, American big industrial beer is planning how to come out of the pandemic running. Beer & Beyond, the voice of MolsonCoors, Canada’s other secret infiltration force into the US economy right after Hollywood comedy movies, has asked the following about the marketplace:

With Americans heading into the holiday season, the beer industry is preparing for a winter fraught with uncertainty. A resurgent virus and ongoing recession are colliding with traditional times of elevated beer sales in both on- and off-premise venues.  One thing is for certain: People are continuing to drink beer. The big questions are where are they buying it, and how?

The article goes on to state “…data from past recessions show, the beer industry tends to hold up relatively well during economic downturns…” which is true as far as it goes* but it will be interesting to see how this principle holds up where local policy driven pandemic triggering full on economic depressions are occurring in, for example, the non-masker alt-right parts of rural America.

Speaking of pandemic ridden landscapes of elsewhere, I fear I am not fully convinced by this week’s excellent article “I Am Gruit” but it is very gratifying that author Hollie Stephens did consult with one of Unger‘s texts:

“The power to control to sale of gruit was in effect a right to levy a tax on beer production” writes Unger. Public figures who had been granted gruitrecht sought to extend their power throughout their domains. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, towns had taken over the taxation of gruit, handing the task of producing the gruit mixture over to a gruiter and ensuring that it was sold on to brewers at a fixed price.

It’s about the sense of scale. My reading of Unger’s work on gruit is that the scale of production  (which went far beyond foraging) and resulting wealth it generated sustained the early modern… or the late medieval… era in the Low Countries and was only displaced more by the cannon of the Hanseatic League‘s hopped beer pushing trading ships more than anything. But otherwise a entirely helpful introduction fitted into such a short space. And a Steve Beauchesne sighting!

Also this week,** Ron wrote three blog posts about a drunken abusive vicar in mid-1940s Dogmersfleld in Hampshire, the Rev. Hugo Dominique de la Mothe. The name itself is a give away but here’s a summary:

The accusations brought under the Clergy Discipline Act of 1892, Section 2, were that between June, 1942, and June, 1944, the rector had been frequently drunk, had “resorted to taverns and tippling.” had been guilty of immorality in that on or about May, 1944. at Dogmersfleld, he was in such a drunken condition that he committed a nuisance in the presence of women, and that he made derogatory references to the husband of Mrs. Maggie Robinson, his servant. 

Interesting that the matter held in Winchester Diocesan Consistory Court received such public notice. The cast of characters who show up as witnesses is gold.

In the now, the Tand Himself wrote this week about the new brewery in his home toun of Dumbarton, Scotland – even including a question and answer session with the owner thrown in for good measure:

The current production, as you’d expect, covers all the bases. One delight to this ex season ticket holder, is that the brewery produces the official beer of Dumbarton FC. This pleases me greatly as I remember all too well drinking in the Dumbarton FC Social Club – like the then football ground, but not the club – long gone. Then, we drank without a great deal of enthusiasm, beers from Drybroughs who had rather a monoclastic view of brewing, each beer being parti-gyled from a base beer which wasn’t great to start with. Mind you, we knew nothing of that then.

Less now but still somewhat tartaned, the history of Holsten Diät-Pils in the UK is the focus this week of an excellent post over at I Might Have A Glass of Beer:

In the 1980s so-called “premium lager” was the next big thing, as drinkers realised the watery draught lager nonsense they‘d been drinking wasn’t the real deal, and traded up to more fashionable bottled products. “More of the sugar turns to alcohol,” ran the tagline, alluding to strength in a way that got round the rules. The reference to the specially high attenuation was taken by drinkers to mean not so much  “you can drink this if you’re diabetic”, but more “this will get you pisseder, faster”. In comparison to most British beers, Diät Pils was a alcoholic monster: 45% stronger than a 4% bitter and nearly twice as strong as mild or the draught ersatz “lager” people had been drinking before.

Malt. This image to my right caught my eye this week representing trends in the last 20 years of England’s malt barley deliveries. The variety of varieties is quite stunning as are the names. Somewhat more sensible in tone than what we have to put up with the recent namings in hops. Very much settled on the planet Earth.

In further UK pubs and pandemic news, Stonch has found a sensible voice in Jonny Garrett:

…the REAL angle should be “pubs are SAFER than illegal gatherings at home”. They are controlled, clean, ventilated, so opening them could reduce home transmission. We need to campaign for that study.

This has been a line that Ontario’s Premier, Doug Ford, has been playing well. Best to be in well regulated settings. I still don’t go out that much but… you know… Elsewhere and to less effect, Pete B went wandering with some ideas on Scotch Eggs and alcohol absorption and governance models. Conspiracy abounds. But the £1,000 grant does seem a bit of the little and a bit of the too late, doesn’t it. Yet it’s in a combo of benefits we have on good word. So maybe it is…

Speaking of health… there was an excellent article in The Counter on the state of alcohol health disclaimers in the US and the role corporate lobbying plays to dumb it down with an interesting example from Canada’s north:

“I was surprised we were able to run it for [a month], honestly, before we got stopped,” said Stockwell, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and professor of psychology at the University of Victoria. “I was thinking that that was only because it was in the Yukon, out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody quite knew what was going on until the launch—that’s why we got away with it.”

Note: it is “…estimated that the cancer risk posed by drinking one bottle of wine a week was comparable to smoking five cigarettes for men and 10 for women in the same time span…” Excellently simple statement.

Finally, best beer blog interim research potentially becoming – but in no sense now – a fail yet… perhaps.

December, eh? Wasn’t quite expecting that. As you contemplate life’s passage once again, don’t forget to read your weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (where this week they share a fear of teens and also speak of me, me, me!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Go!

*See that handy graph link above just a bit.
**Because, you know, this is a weekly update sort of thing…

Thursday’s Beery News Notes For The Clampdown

What are we going to do now? It appears the summer has ended with a thump. The clampdown. The BBC reports that social gatherings above six are banned in England from 14 September.  The nightclubs of British Columbia are now shut. Greece has shut down.  Kinda makes reading about beer a side show… kinda. Jeff, however, connected the dots and spoke for all of us when he wrote:

I’d like to raise a mug to all those workers out there who make possible the pint of beer it contains. This has been a rough year. Depending on how you count, the pandemic put somewhere between thirty and forty million people out of work. Many breweries were forced to lay off staff as volumes fell.

The BBC (again) published about the why for those being displaced in shops, restaurants and bars serving the now empty high-rise office block with particular attention paid to the underground network beneath much of downtown Toronto:

For businesses in areas like the PATH, the Covid emergency phase is not over,” says Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. “Yes, the government is no longer imposing closures, but effectively you may be closed because you have no customers.” While no agency has calculated the estimated cost of these closures yet, the businesses in the PATH typically generate $1.7bn in revenue annually and generate about $271m in tax revenue, according to the city of Toronto, and many have been shuttered since mid-March.

What is a bar to do when its whole model is predicated on the presence of humans? Maureen asked a similar question. I answered: “goats!”

What news of beer otherwise? First, some law and an application for municipal planning approval for the replacement of everything on one (again) Toronto City block has caused great upset. Because it is the location of a dive bar called Sneaky Dee’s:

Local Toronto bar Sneaky Dee’s could be torn down after the city announced it has received a proposal for a 13-storey building in its place. The proposal, which was submitted Sept. 4, calls for a mixed-use building that would cover the current residents of 419, 421, 423, 429, and 431 on College Street. It would also consist of a total of 169 units and more than 13,000 square metres of “combined residential and non-residential gross floor area.” Some Torontonians took to Twitter to express their unhappiness about the proposal, and a petition has been started calling for it to be rejected.

In other legal unhappiness, much has been made of the implications of the firing of many staff by Surly, a craft brewery in Minneapolis, coincidental to a union drive. “Arise, Surly Workers” wrote Dave Infante who noted an obvious trend:

In the few instances where workers in the craft brewing industry have seen through the charade and decided “lol this sucks, let’s organize,” owners have dropped the #oneteamonedream pretense with the quickness. It happened at Rogue Ales in Newport, OR in 2011; and again at Pyramid’s Berkeley, CA brewpub in 2013; and in 2019 in San Francisco, where workers at Anchor Brewing, the country’s oldest craft brewery faced a decidedly corporate union-busting campaign that featured high-powered anti-labor law firms and managers shouting “fake news” at workers exercising their federally protected right to unionize. Very cool shit, nice work all around. 

T-Rex understood what was what as illustrated to the right. Beth, too. And GBH published something a wee bit adrift on the topic but, surprise, could not come to clear conclusions. In sum:

The tension between the two narratives shows that despite businesses reopening, the pandemic’s dramatic effects on the hospitality industry are far from over… It’s currently unclear whether the Unite Here union has any legal avenue to fight the layoffs or planned Beer Hall closure.

Displaying greater clarity, this explanation about pouring central Euro lager is excellent. Effective use of social media. Twenty-seven 600 word articles on the subject could not have put it so well.

Note: not a brewery. A beer company, sure.

Note: not small. Not really even a beer company anymore, either.

More law. Ron wrote an interesting post on a question of Scots law, circa 1948 in the case of more than one case of “Dodgy crown corks”:

The defect in their condition was due to being kept in the damp cellar since February 1948. Dunn knew that corks should be stored in a dry place, and that dampness encouraged the growth of various moulds. Moreover, he failed to use the corks in the order in which they were sent to him. Further, he or his servants ought to have inspected the corks within a reasonable time after delivery, and in any event prior to using them.

Nice touch in the report on the use of “various moulds” indicating, perhaps, a particularly unpleasant multi-coloured effect.

Completely separate from either the situation today and the law, Merryn published a piece on the conclusions drawn in her thesis on pre-historic brewing – very high on the neato scale:

Brewing uses few ingredients, only requiring malted grain, herbal preservatives, water and yeast. These ingredients may survive in the archaeological record in a number of ways. Accidents in drying the malted grain, as happened at Eberdingen-Hochdorf can occur. Residues or sediments of the brewing process may occasionally survive in unusual contexts, such as in the sealed Bronze Age cist graves at North Mains and Ashgrove. Residues of barley without any other plant remains indicate the residues that result from washing the sugars from the mashed barley or ‘sparging the wort’. Those barley residues that contain pollen or macro plant remains indicate the addition of herbs during the boil prior to fermentation.

Again, and without a thought for the law, Retired Martin has again taken us to a place without the cares of the day… except in this episode of his series entitled “287,392 UK Pubs” he explains how those at the Blake Hotel in Sheffield are managing the Covid-19 social distancing rules:

3 pm on a Saturday, filling up but quieter than you’d think, a landlord giving the now customary speech. “Take a seat, fill in the track and trace, follow the one way system, one at a time in the loos, leave glasses on the table“ I felt sorry for him. “I’m sounding like a stuck record !“. “We’re trad drinkers, we miss the interaction at the bar” said the next group. I know how they felt.

Speaking of ye olden times, Eoghan Walsh published a good story of a gruit revival, something I may now have lived through two or three times. While a nod to Unger‘s clarifications on the important role control of gruit played in medieval society would have been nice, I love this level of detail:

Invaluable input came from a most unexpected source: a rich seam of human excrement mined by archeologists from the bottom of a medieval latrine. “They found the remains of hops, juniper, caraway, and bog myrtle, and they asked me how this could be possible that in one stratum of this toilet are these four ingredients appearing together at the same time,” Overberg says. “They thought this clearly had something to do with brewing.” And Overberg naturally agreed. “They have excavations for a period of 300 years, and it is all the same. It’s always hops and bog myrtle, caraway, juniper.

Lastly, The BeerNut wrote a review (no, really he did!) that contained a passage that triggered another thought:

Pyynikin has really missed the mark on “Pacific” here. There’s not an iota of tropicality about this, and nothing American either. Maybe it’s a Finnish take on New Zealand’s ubiquitous Canterbury Draught, because that’s about the only way it makes sense. As beer in its own right it’s inoffensive, and might even be enjoyable as a dark-evening sipper. I couldn’t deal with the surprise, however, and resented it for the rest of the glassful. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

My first thought was it was clearly a tribute to the possible first brewer in Quebec,  Brother Pacifique Duplessis. But then I thought… how little I care about branding of beers. Then I realized how much I have to wade through every week is basically (i) folk writing about the branding of beer especially as displayed on the container. As opposed to the beer itself … and clearly unlike the TBN above who makes note of the  missing connection. Then I wondered what else are similar categories for me: (ii) fun and pozzie but samey brewery owner interviews, (iii) conversely, greater important questions of rights contextualized in brewing,  (iv) then, conversely again, dreary cut and paste posts of others’ research labelled as “reporting” and… (v) all the superlatives. Always the superlatives. Each theme has its audience I suppose and certainly varies in ultimate value… but what percentage of the weekly collective output isn’t one of the five categories above? Sure, these things come in waves – like yesterday’s topics of food pairing and sell outs – but more would be good to add. Please advise by next Wednesday. A fella has deadlines, you know. Next big thing could be canals. Could be.

There. Done. For more please check in with Boak and Bailey Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (where Jordan points a particularly pointy finger at the letter “B”!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And BeerEdge, too.

As I Lay On The Sofa During A Week Off I Daydream Of Thursday’s Beery News Notes

There. I said it. I’m off this week. I think everyone else is too as there has not been much reading to do. Or is it that I have not been reading? Look, I’ve been in a hotel for two nights in another city, an experience which was 87% comfortable, 13% covid angst.  I’ve slept in, napped, dozed and generally watched the lawn grow from various angles and elevations. And I’ve drifted pointlessly on the internets.

Maybe I just needed to get off my butt and have a look around.  So I did and to the right is my favorite and rather science-laced photo of the week posted by Sir Geoff Palmer along with this explanation:

Barley to Malt: 1972 Electron Micrograph of transverse section of a starch granule from barley (left). After the barley is grown (malted) channels of enzyme digestion (starch to sugar) in a starch granule can be seen (right). Starch to sugar digestion also occurs in our mouths…

Excellent. And made of actual science. The best read of the week has to be this story which is also a bit science focused about how animals use alcohol including a phenomenon I’ve actually witnessed, the drunken starlings at the Rowan tree:

North American songbirds sometimes get grounded when they eat too much fermented fruit. This can easily happen in the spring when migrant birds gorge on crabapples which have overwintered, or arrowwood, juniper, winterberry, and other native berries still clinging to branches. Cedar waxwings, which feed largely on fruit, are especially vulnerable to intoxication or even fatal alcohol poisoning. Certainly some of this is accidental, but birds have been observed breaking the skin on fruit, thus exposing the juices to airborne yeast spores, and returning 24-48 hours later to selectively eat the fizzy fruit.

Forty years ago in high school, we sat watching out the front window as the row of starlings did 360 flips on the telephone wire, holding on all the time but each losing grip over and over. Magic.

In more sober news, Jeff has been running a reader’s survey. Have a look.

In less sober news, Don Redmond posted a posted about a brewery crawl in my home town six months ago during the pre-times.  And he included some business-side stories, the sort of information that never comes out when folk are reporting as opposed to writing:

…he added that outside money people had approached him on occasion, asking if he’d like investors. While outside interest is obviously a good sign for any business, simply because it means others see your potential and would like a piece of that pie, there’s also a downside. Silent partners never stay silent. In fact, they tend to forget what the word ‘silent’ actually means. And since they would like to see the best return on their investment, it isn’t long before they start suggesting cost-cutting measures…

Quite conversely, extravagance reigned as the BBC reported in 1983 on the new quiches of Glasgow’s pub life. And speaking of odd food and beer but more of a not pairing, here is a tale of engineering and brewing and seafood out of the Philippines which I am not sure I can quite follow:

The conglomerate, also the nation’s largest beermaker, will plant 190,000 mangroves in coastal areas near the capital to prevent flooding at the site of the proposed largest gateway in the Southeast Asian nation. To protect these forests, San Miguel will also grow 100,000 mud crabs monthly at the 10-hectare mangrove plantation in Bulacan province, President Ramon Ang said in a statement. Mud crabs can be a source of livelihood for people in the area, he said.

On the other side of the planet, Evan wrote an excellent piece on decoction brewing which included a bit of technical detail of a science-y sort which you might expect from Beer and Brewing* magazine:

Polyphenol levels? Highest in triple-decocted beers, followed by double-decocted beers, and then single-decocted beers, with infusion-mashed beers down at the very bottom, according to a 2004 monograph written by scientists at the Czech Republic’s Research Institute of Brewing and Malting. Dimethyl sulfate (DMS) and acetaldehyde? Lower with decoction, higher with infusion, in both green and finished beers, both of which also improve in direct relation to the number of decoctions, according to a 2005 paper by researchers at Pilsner Urquell. That paper also credits decoction with improving bitterness, cold-break content, sedimentation, and soluble nitrogen.

While I can’t imagine anything more tangential to a political scene that beer in Hong Kong at the moment – this moment when their democratic rights are being stripped – apparently GBH did find a way:

By and large, Hong Kong’s craft beer community was supportive of the protests, although few bars could advertise their support openly, because the police control the issuing of liquor licenses. Now the protest chants have been silenced and banners removed because of the national security law, whose broadly defined crimes include obstructing the government and promoting hatred of China. At least one employee of a local brewery has quit his job and fled the city because he feared he would be targeted under the new law. Although legal analysts say it’s unlikely the law will have a direct impact on employers such as breweries, it does give police new powers to search and seize property without a warrant if they suspect it has been used by someone violating national security.

I have no idea which “legal analysts” speak to the potential that a regime with a massive cultural genocide on the go in one end of the country would not want to bother with craft breweries – but the author appears to still live half time in Hong Kong so there is that reality.

Beer for dullards?

Back to the science based reality, Stan posted an excellent piece that apparently could not wait for his newsletter (which you must and should sign up for) on the new hop varieties which are coming down the pipeline:

The most anticipated new name this year is whatever HBC is calling HBC 692. Releasing the name is an event is on the calendar (Sept. 9, 9 a.m. PST) for Yakima Chief’s virtual hop harvest. HBC 692 is a daughter of Sabro and depending on who is describing the aroma and flavor is packed with “grapefruit, floral, stone fruit, potpourri, woody, coconut, and pine.” She is a high impact hop, bound for plenty of hazy IPAs.

Again in less science based news, we are told that a Sam Smith’s pub posted a Covid-19 notice on Facebook (as shown to the right) then removed it then indicated that it is not participating in track and trace due to privacy concerns… whatever that means… speaking as a privacy lawyer… Not where I’d be spending (i) my hard earned and/or (ii) remaining time on this mortal coil.

Brewing science is also dangerous. But it is also tasty and even edgy as this tale from western Canada shows:

A Calgary brewery is hoping to convince beer lovers that an ale made from municipal wastewater is tasty and safe. Village Brewery has teamed up with University of Calgary researchers and U.S. water technology company Xylem to create a limited-edition batch. The water comes from the Pine Creek wastewater treatment plant by the Bow River in southeast Calgary. Partially treated water was run through an advanced purification system that involved ultrafiltration, ozone, ultraviolet light and reverse osmosis.

Perhaps even less appealing is this piece starting at the outset of this odd story about an anti-police brand of beer, there was this intro which gave me such great faith about what it takes to be a beer reviewer these days:

A fellow recently asked me if I would participate in online beer reviews.  There would be a paycheck attached.  I don’t drink whiskey (my only memory is something that would taste like a used sweat sock) and wine is like cough syrup.  I hated Formula 44 as a kid.  My mom would nearly fight me to take a teaspoonful. I got in touch with the editor of a national beer magazine.  He’s a former broadcaster and the grandson of a Stroh’s distributor.  The editor gave me a long list of smaller breweries here in the Northwest.  It’s a good jumping off point. 

Note: having worked as both a criminal defence lawyer and also with the police, I’m convinced there are certainly bastards and scumbags but there are also a lot of hard working good folk who do the things that need to be done that no one thanks them for. So I’d likely pass on the beer, too. And backing anyone fighting for BLM and other forms of holding officers and officials to account while doing better.  But without a doubt I’d never read this guy’s reviews.

How is the macroeconomic scene looking here well into month six of the pandemic lockdown? Good or horrible depending who you are:

During the COVID-19 period (from the week ending March 8 through August 8), beer category volume growth has averaged 15.3%. Nielsen estimated that the beer category would need to average 22% volume growth in off-premise retailers to offset the loss of on-premise sales — which hasn’t happened. That estimation assumes the on-premise accounts for 20% of the industry’s total volume and sales declines of 90%, the firm said.

Not helping is the reintroduction of US tariffs on Canadian aluminum which goes into those cans that are keeping good beer sales moving. One brewery notes:

Ninkasi’s CEO Nigel Francisco says it is pushing out their planning and their ability to quickly react to a changing market place. “We’re experiencing a can shortage,” Francisco said. “So, what’s happening is, there’s so much package product being sold and consumed in the market right now. It’s pushing some of the small breweries like us to supply shortages. We haven’t experienced any true supply shortages yet, but we have experienced longer lead times.”

Hangover science? Not that I am going to write about hard seltzers… but this is interesting information:

On the other hand, because it doesn’t containcongeners, a byproduct of the fermentation process that produces chemicals like acetone, acetaldehyde, and methanol, the hangover from White Claw could be less intense for some people, especially if they don’t generally experience stomachaches. “Hard seltzers have a very low concentration of congeners, which are thought to contribute to hangover symptoms,” Dr. Braunstein says. “Certain alcohols, such as red wine, brandy, and whiskey, are known to contain much higher levels.”

Finally, and as Martyn advised, BrewDog valuation has passed that of both Carlsberg and Stella each according to something called Brand Finance… according to the Morning Advertiser:

Brand Finance also used factors such as marketing investment, customer familiarity, staff satisfaction and corporate reputation to name Budweiser the world’s strongest beer brand… Interestingly, among this year’s climbers was independent Scottish craft brewer and pub operator BrewDog which bounded ahead of bar top mainstays such as Stella Artois to take 18th place…

“Craft” meaning exactly what in this context…? anymore…? ever…? BTW: also craft… while also “?”

There. Done. That’s a bit better this week. A reasonable mix, a bit of volume. And a lot less angst. I did see a dreary article which will go unnamed that combined “neo-prohibitionist” with a passing science-less denial of alcohol’s health risks** so there is bad stuff out there. Be warned. For more of the good stuff but from a different view, check in with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And BeerEdge, too.

*The addition of “Craft” in the title seems to be a bit nouveau, a tad post-URL so I’m a bit confused as to branding versus identify.
**There is still no J-curve. People don’t get sick because they don’t drink. They don’t drink because they are sick… or against it as a Scottish Presbyterian or Muslim and sick… or because they just don’t like the taste and sick… or they are a child and sick. Science.

Beer And Brewing By Hudson Bay In The Late 1600s

This post is a reworking and updating of a passage from that cult classic Ontario Beer: a Heady History…, the book Jordan and I published five years ago. I post this not only as a blatant reminder for Christmas giving, but as a look see to add to what we knew then about the role of beer in the years from 1660 to 1690.  This was one of my favourite bits to research as it combined a number of heroic tales on the edge of Europe’s known universe.

The conflict for control of what is now Ontario from the later 1600s was primarily between France and England. But the Dutch colony in what is now central New York on the Hudson River also sought its share through its alliance with the Mohawk nation until the 1660s. In the northeastern interior of the continent, events were part of what were known as the Beaver Wars.  The beaver was destined for hat makers in Europe and at this point…

The fur trade depended on the labour of native people and on their centuries-old trading network… After being worn for a year, the pelts that made up the robes shed their long guard hairs, exposing the short hairs required for the felting process. Several hundred thousand used pelts, known as castor gras d’hiver would have been available annually…

Who knew European fancy hats depended on used Indigenous clothing?  The beaver pelt was certainly a commodity recorded in the Company’s minutes. Anyway, after taking New Netherlands to the south of the French, England continued to expand its North American trading empire on Hudson Bay and James Bay through the establishment of “factories” or commercial settlements in the 1660s and 1670s. Beer was consistently included in the ships stores for the voyages to the factories and, apparently unlike the French, so was the means to brew beer as soon as the ship made shore.

The English came well prepared with provisions, useful trade goods and even spoke the language – and as part of those preparations beer was clearly important to the early explorers.  Perhaps their version of an astronaut’s roast beef dinner in a squeezable tube of three centuries later.  The early ships’ crews exploring the eastern fringes of the Canadian Arctic in voyages in the 1570s and early 1600s considered their beer of great importance and even instrumental in survival.  Driving further west in search of trade routes, in 1668-69 the crew of the Nonsuch were forced to over-winter on the James Bay coast and reported upon their return:

…they were environed with ice about 6 monethes first halting theire ketch on shore, and building them a house. They carried provisions on shore and brewd Ale and beere and provided against the cold which was their work…

Here is a YouTube vid showing the recreation of the ship, giving a sense of scale. It’s tiny. Note the reference to the two separate forms of fermented drink. Ale was likely unhopped or lightly hopped and brewed for early drinking while beer would have been hopped likely for longer keeping. None would have been considered an IPA as the sulfurous vomitous mess that later became known as Burtonized water was only being first explored as a tonic in a small alehouse in 1686.

After the return of the Nonsuch, Charles II granted a charter to the Hudson Bay Company in 1670. According to the Minutes of the Hudson Bay Company from the early 1670s, an order placed by the Hudson Bay Company’s London management for three grades of beer as well as malt and hops was recorded in the minutes noted on 16 February 1674:

John Raymond: By Severall quantities of Ship Beere at 40s p. Tonn Strong beere at 12s, 9d a barrell & Harbor Beere at 6s 6d p. barrell with Malt & Hopps dd. Capt. Gillam, Morris and Cole, £ 79.

A few months later, on 6 July 1674, the committee of the Hudson Bay Company directed payment to the same John Raymond £ 30 on account of “Beer and Malt. dd. on board the Prince Rupert.” The three grades of beer supplied and the means for crews to brew their own beer once the ships made landfall illustrates the various functions beer played in the life of the company. Ship beer sold in bulk not the barrel was the cheapest and weakest would have served as daily drink for the crew while at sea. The strong beer was reserved for the officers, as was apparently the case on Hudson’s voyage. The drink identified as “harbor beer” was sold at half the price of strong and may have been a middle strength beer for when the ship was at anchor. It’s actually the only time I have seen that grade of beer listed.

In 1674, the Hudson Bay Company planned 3 quarts of beer a day per man and shipped enough beer and malt to supply the trip there and back – and also to survive a winter. Twenty-seven tunns of beer and fifty-nine quarters of malt were purchased in 13 April 1674 for that season’s sailing of the 32 man expedition. Here are the instructions – and note that the plan included enough malt (or “mault”) for the 20 who were supposed to overwinter:

They were clearly planning to brew and that would require a total roughly 18,000 lbs of malt or enough malt to provide each man with a beer made from pound of malt a day. The details of all provisions can be found in the minutes from 14 April 1674.

Like the Nonsuch six years before, the crews of the Prince Rupert and Shaftsbury had to stay over in the winter of 1674-75 but were better prepared and provisioned for this possibility. It was too late too late in the season for the ships to return to England so arrangements were made for them to over winter in Rupert River and the crews were employed to cut timber to build houses for them as well as a brew-house and a bakery in the small fort. Their planning was not always successful. The beer and “winter-liquor” reportedly ran out by April 1674 at one Hudson’s Bay fort even if the stores of beer and malt shipped with the crews were significant.

The establishment of the northern English presence did not go unnoticed and clashes between the empires required feats of nearly unimaginable hardship and daring. When forces from New France struck at the forts on Hudson Bay in 1686, its soldiers walked north overland from the St. Lawrence Valley through hundreds of miles of forest before attacking and capturing Hudson Bay forts including Moose Factory at the mouth of the Moose River.  The conflict was fairly civilized, with negotiations taking place over flagons of port wine. The return trip of the French forces by foot took four months just to reach the northern community at Temiskaming in December. The French detachment survived on five or six pounds of pork each as well as sprouted barley which had been “originally intended for brewing beer.” They probably found more than enough malt when they opened the brewery’s store rooms.

The French, temporary victors in this phase of Europe’s war for the New World’s north, survived the march home through the primeval winter forest by eating the brewing malt of the defeated English. Seventy or so years later, their control of northeastern North America was about to be lost.  England and later Britain continued its trade via Hudson Bay but the greater focus of European efforts had long shifted away from the trade in woodland pelts.  To the south, colonial farming plantations and entrepreneurial coastal towns were expanding in the early 1700s – which was accompanied by the first boom of commercial brewing in the Western Hemisphere.

The Mid-July Thursday Beer News You Need

Mid-July! It’s lovely. Warm. Tropical even. We are actually getting the edgy remnants of Hurricane Barry into the Great Lakes basis so it’s all a bit thick out there.  Raspberries picked by my own sausage-like digits. And the fire flies are at their peak. I let the garden go a bit and they seem to love it. 100+ flashes a minute in one corner of the garden. Beer has its role, too. I even had one last night, mid-week. At a Denny’s.* A Bud Light. The weirdest thing was being handed a ice cold bottle and an ice cold glass. Entirely hit the spot. Mid-week, mid-month, mid-summer, mid-year, mid-aged.

What is going on? Well, Josh Noel, who admitted to needing something to wash out his mouth after writing about hard seltzer, has written a helpful article for the Chicago Tribune on dark lagers:

And that gets to the genius of dark lager. They’re beers that typically have a modest amount of alcohol — about 5 percent or so — but are long on aroma and taste. Flavors usually include a mild to deep roast character and can veer into chocolate, char or coffeelike terrain thanks to the roasted malt that gives the beer its dark hue. But unlike most of the porters and stouts they resemble, dark lagers tend to finish dry. The best dark lagers make for stealthily ideal summer beers: interesting layers of flavor, but refreshing. The color, which can range from deep amber to impenetrably black, winds up playing a visual trick.

We have an excellent local black lager, Blacklist from The Napanee Beer Company, so I am particularly grateful for this addition to the discussion.

Note: “bee boles were used before the development of modern hives to provide shelter to the skep…”

As we have been noticing over the last few weeks, beer writing and commentary seems to have divided into (i) “it is so dull and boring right now” for one reason or another** and (ii) HOLIDAY!!! So it was good to see some interesting travel being discussed by a couple of Brits abroad. Nate posted a top ten list of things to do in a city I have lived near – Gdansk, Poland – and gave ten top tips for visiting the old Hanseatic port including hitting up a museum about the Solidarity movement and this:

Shoot Some Guns – Maybe a controversial one, but I’d always wanted to shoot some guns since we can’t do it in the UK and I stumbled across a shooting range whilst doing some research. DSTeamStrzelnica was a great experience where we got to shoot four guns (A Glock 17, a revolver, AK-47 and another rifle) and it only cost us £18 each to shoot a full clip of each gun. It was a really fun experience!

Retired Martin has been in NYC and left us a photo essay with commentary:

How joyous to see a “Sorry, no samples” sign, by the way. 16 ounces (80% of a pint) is practically a sampler anyway.  I reckon the Five Boroughs Hazy IPA served in a plastic glass will have cost me £8 by the time taxes and Lloyds Bank conversion charge are added on.  Still cheaper than Port Street. “Tastes like Brew Dog” says Mrs RM.  It tasted like Hazy Jane. On to the High Line, the one place in New York where you can avoid craft beer and tipping…

Saskatchewan’s Pile O’ Bones Brewing Co. is getting a bit of heat for its name – folk saying its disrespectful to the local indigenous community – but according to this Cree language place name resource site, the location of what is now Regina was called “oskana kâ-asastêki” which meant “where the bones are piled.”

Beervana had a interesting guest blog post this week written by Ben Parsons is the co-founder/brewer, along with Rik Hall, of Portland Oregon’s Baerlic Brewing which unpacked the benefits in the US for craft brewers to self distribute their beers:

I would posit that if and when a brewery business does get into some troubled water—albeit from market conditions, saturation, losing chain grocery, etc—not owning their own distribution rights could easily be the last nail in the coffin. And although distributors are a very necessary part of the industry, their foothold on this particular part of the conversation is risky business and needs modernization so that it better fits with the current state of the industry.

Folk chatting about early brewing methods is always interesting. Who knew that bands in the pottery meant the line to fill with boiling water before topping up with cold before adding in the mash was so obvious?

At the Corrigall Farm, Orkney, large tubs that have marked lines inside, usually about one third to a half way up. Custodian told us (years ago, hope I have the details right) that you put in boiling water to the mark, then top up with cold and it’s the correct temperature.

Pilsner as the anti-NEIPA? Maybe.

This is an interesting piece, a remembrance of 16 of B.C.’s now shut early micro- and even some more recent craft era breweries. And it contains this interesting bit of history:

Horseshoe Bay Brewery was the first microbrewery in Canada when it was opened in 1982 by John Mitchell and Frank Appleton to produce beer for the nearby Troller Pub and became Ground Zero for the craft beer revolution. Mitchell and Appleton soon moved on to Spinnakers, and Horseshoe Bay briefly closed in 1985 before reopening and produced beer well into the 1990s, before closing for good in 1999. The original brewhouse, made from converted dairy equipment, is still in use today at Crannog Ales in Sorrento.

Now, that would be a real Canadian beer nerd’s pilgrimage: “honey, I am off to see the original brewhouse, made from dairy equipment!” It’s halfway between Kamloops and Sicamous, if you are planning the trip yourself.

That’s it! Have a great week as Q2 turns into Q3. I will be lounging myself. Well, dapper by day then lounging through evening. Such is the life of the office worker. Check out the beer news from Boak and Bailey on Saturday and maybe on Monday we will have a sighting of the inter-continental Stan now that he is back from Brazil.

*You can mock me after you’ve tried the burger. I was surprised, too.
**hard seltzer, everyone’s already been bought out, even glitter beer is so last year…

A Thursday’s Worth Of Beer News As The Dog Days Truly Set In

Summer. Proper hot summer. Half the folk you want to see at work to get things done are off on vacation. Half the places you want to waste some time in are filled up with tourists. And half of the ways you’d want to waste your time are not possible because your provincial government owned liquor store bought a new wholesale distribution system that does not seem to work and has left shelves emptying.  Jings. There better be Pimms for my weekend’s punch bowl, that’s all I can say.

What else is going on? First, Merryn has continued to explore malting with a tweet thread this week gathering some sources in support of a series of posts by Simpsons Maltings, like this one on the elements of the steeping stage.  Reminds me of that Anglo-Norman children’s guide to malting from the mid-1200s:

Now it would be as well to know how to malt and brew
As when ale is made to enliven our wedding feast.
Girl, light a fennel-stalk (after eating some spice-cake);
Soak this barley in a deep, wide tub,
And when it’s well soaked and the water is poured off,
Go up to that high loft, have it well swept,
And lay your grain there till it’s well sprouted…

Traditional brewing practices like these are actually easy enough to identify… but rarely discussed given the trend to adulteration… err… innovation. Ask detractors to show you the soles of their shoes to check if they are boosters.

More than a bit of shock and dismay expressed in the American mid-Atlantic over the closing of Mad Fox brewpub of Falls Church, Virginia:

In the closing announcement, Madden cited the difficulties with the brewpub business model and the rise of breweries in the surrounding area contributing to an “extremely competitive craft beer market.” “When we opened in 2010, there were 40 breweries in Virginia. Now there are close to 250,” Madden said in the post. “The Brewpub business model is a tough one to maintain compared to a Brewery Taproom with little overhead, lower rents and outsourced food trucks. Our draw from the surrounding areas has dwindled in what has become an extremely competitive craft beer market, which has resulted in this final decision.” 

Tom Cizauskas shared some background:

Mr. Madden is a successful doyen of the area’s ‘craft’ beer scene, both with Mad Fox and for a quarter-century before that. Beyond his own personal successes, he has mentored area brewers, he has organized beer festivals for brewers (beginning back when that concept was foreign), he was co-instrumental in bringing good beer to Washington baseball. 

Don Cazentre wrote about another odd example of that competitive market out there, a Syracuse brewery called…

Anything But Beer, which Berry runs with Logan Bonney, makes alcoholic beverages from a base of fruits and vegetables instead of the barley malt used in most traditional beers. The beverages, which include hard ciders, are carbonated like beer and are about the same strength as many beers — 6 or 7 percent alcohol. They’re served by the pint at bars and restaurants, like beer. They are gluten-free and vegan-friendly. Flavors run the range from strawberry lime and ginger chai to Irish whiskey apple.

Weird. Fancy Zima. Speaking of which, one of the sadder things about good beer these days is there seems to be an expectation that not only do you as the happy beer consumer have to care about the PR characterization of brewery ownership props as presented but now the cult of personality has been extrapolated into sale channels. Just look at this hot heroic mess:

Dealings related to The Bottle Shop’s liquidation mark a renewed interest from ABI’s Beer Hawk in expanding its wholesale trade platform, which has been operating for 18 months. Andrew Morgan, who founded The Bottle Shop, will be joining Beer Hawk to oversee this area of its operations. Roberts said that Beer Hawk plans to accelerate its wholesale activities, and that Morgan possessed unique skills to achieve that.

Nothing against the individuals named – but does anyone without an interest in a piece of the cash flow really care? Does anyone doubt that the skills might just be unique? Just another sort of marketing blurt. Matt had a cooler head when he noted it’s all just about receivership and administration, aka the accountants. He also noted that ratebeer and Beerhawk now are working not at arm’s length:

Interesting to see that shop is now “officially” live in the UK. Currently listing 372 beers, all directly linked to sister company .

Continuing on, I like this article in Pellicle on foraging for tasty brewing adjuncts in Ohio even if the continued misuse of terrior* rivals only the needy puffery of those who toss around curate to mean select:

“It was just supposed to be a clean, monoculture saison,” Brett says as he picks bright green buds from the sagging spruce branches. “The morning of the brew day, I said, ‘You know, I just don’t want to do that.’ So I drove out and picked three pounds (1.4kg) of spruce tips.”

Foraging, however, is an excellent word that needs no turd buffing to convey meaning.

Lastly, Lew Bryson wrote of his unnatural admiration for  Naturdays, a discount line of fruit beer produced by Anheuser-Busch InBev:

I have to admit, I’m two cans into a six-pack while writing this article. Pink and yellow, flamingo-decorated cans. I bought it out of a sense of duty and fairness, because if you’re going to pick something apart, you should have tried it. But once I opened a can, and tasted that first cold, sweet-tart slug, duty and fairness went out the window, and I was just another guy on a hot summer night, ripping my way through a pounder of Naturdays. 

Yum. And that’s it for now. I need to plan the weekend. Where shall I lay upon the grass within reach of a few weeks to pick from the carrot patch so that I can claim I did a chore as I suck Pimms Punch from a wriggly jiggly straw? Such an exciting decision. There should be more beer news from Boak and Bailey on Saturday but Stan..?  I still don’t know. He may well be in Brazil for another week and, so, on another hiatus. See ya!

*If it isn’t about the terre, it’s not about terrior. Vernacular is useful. As might be indigenous. Probably local makes most sense. Or just explain what you did. Adjectives are a waste of time. 

 

Your Beery Newsy Notes For The Coming Summer Solstice

Ah, the middle of the year. The exact middle of the year. I love when the planet is at this angle. Heat but not too much heat. Sorta the end of one of the tops stretches in the year. The next step will be the stinking hot and the death of the lawns and then the long goodbye, the decline. Enjoy this week.

First up, cheery Ed wrote a lovely piece on visiting the Spaten brewery. Lots of photos. And an interesting observation at the end:

For those that care about the distinction between the bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie this brewery was definitely not craft, but at no time did I think the people working there were any less passionate about brewing as any other brewers we met. 

Passion. Rhymes with fashion. And mash tun. Speaking of which, super-Lars-man wrote a lovely string of tweets on his weekend experiment in baking a mash of malt like some old school Baltic bad boy brewer with real action photos:

Huh. Three hours in the oven at 250C, last 45 minutes with the hot-air fan on to blow out moisture, and the center temperature remained stubbornly stuck at 100C the entire time. I burned the surface black, so must have been hotter than in Lithuania.

Wow! Reading Lars’ tweets about baking malt, kveik and other things is a bit like reading a James Joyce novel – set in Dublin but are about the human existence. The malt is like all of Joyce’s people of Dublin and the yeast is like Death but Death as played in that black and white movie with the chess board. Am I right? Right.

Eric Asimov must have been thinking of something similar when he wrote about the role of wine critics in The New York Times:

I believe that the most valuable thing wine writers can do is to help consumers develop confidence enough to think for themselves. This can best be achieved by helping consumers gain enough knowledge to make their own buying decisions without the crutch of the bottle review… reviewers often try to eliminate context by paring away these outside elements. All that is left, and all that is judged, the thinking goes, is what’s in the glass. Is that a good thing? I’m not convinced. Usually, wines are scored in mass tastings where very little time can be devoted to each bottle. The critics taste, spit so as to diminish the effects of alcohol, evaluate, maybe taste and spit once more, and move on to the next glass.

I quote than in length for two reasons. First, to bulk up the word count. Second, to ask you to consider if we can consider the role of the beer critic in the same way. For some time, it has struck me that one of the keys to being able to claim the title of “beer critic” or “beer expert” is to know less than me.* Granted, I know a lot but, let’s be honest, I don’t throw it around. That, however, is not the point. Point: why are wine critics, beer critics and Eric Asimov all so different?

Boak and Bailey wrote about recent thoughts on the place of Wetherspoons in English pub culture:

They seem tatty, the quality of the offer declining, presumably as they struggle to retain the all important bargain prices as the cost of products go up. But every now and then we’re reminded why they’re so popular: as truly public spaces, ordinary pubs and working class cafés disappear, Spoons fills the gap.

I loved the story and the eavesdropping but I also asked myself whether there was a reversal of cause and effect. Could Spoons be filling because their presence causes ordinary pubs and working class cafés to disappear? Think Walmart.

I can’t think of anything drearier than going to Venice to drink Belgian beer. Well, maybe drinking DIPAs in Venice. You think Charles and Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited were drinking frikkin’ Belgian beers in Venice? Not a chance. Checking what the critics said first? Nope. By the way, if I say I am Charles, the Beer Nut insists he is Sebastian. Happens every time.

The big news in beer law this week was the courthouse shocker when in Cardiff, Wales our pals at BrewDog lost a discrimination case:

District Judge Phillips said: ‘In my judgment, it is clear that in this case the claimant has been directly discriminated against by the defendant because of his sex. ‘The fact that by identifying as female he was still able to purchase a Pink IPA makes no difference. ‘I accept what Dr Bower says, namely that identifying as female was the only way he could purchase a Pink IPA at a cost of £4.’ Judge Phillips awarded Dr Bower £1,000 in damages after saying he would have felt ‘humiliated’.

Responses have been many but oddly the focus has been on the successful plaintiff.  Nail spitting angery responses. My pal and co-author-in-law Robin, in an excellent broader piece on the matter, wrote “Firstly, I’d argue that Bower was operating under extremely bad faith” saying his motive for the court case was that his male privilege had been addressed in an unsuitable way. I can’t agree as, in part, once the ruling is in motive is immaterial. My pal Dr. J. explored the ideas and she wrote:

Perhaps I should sue for the “humiliation” of feeling forced to identify as male every time an organization uses male pronouns to supposedly refer to everyone…

It is interesting that the case was framed as discrimination and one of the fabulous aspects of discrimination law is that is protects the deeply unpopular. I am interested also that it was a male-led** brewery sued by a male plaintiff*** for sexism who was awarded the outcome by a well considered male judge.**** It’s all so weird. Yet it does remind us to seek the nugget of truth in the deeply unpopular point of view. Perhaps using sexism as a means to sell beer under the cloak of someone else’s human rights  is so clumsy a strategy that this sort of ancillary wrong isn’t so much offensive as a hallmark.

There. Haven’t I said enough? I’ve likely said too much.  Don’t forget to check out Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday… seems he’s back. It’s good that he’s back. He likes to write about stuff that I don’t like to write about. That’s what makes him so likeable. Them, too – la même.

*Truly unrelated to the comment but still… seriously, you think you need professional input on making your own Radler? Make your own damn Radler. Experiment and figure out what works. Next someone is going to tell you how to make a Red Eye and then charge you for the “advice”! And don’t deny  the existence of the bad. Looks silly and, if you think about it, is a bit of a resignation note.
**Both males who met at law school,no?
***Apparently some sort of PhD.
****District Judge Marshall Phillips, president of the Association of Her Majesty’s District Judges. He sits at the Cardiff Civil and Family Justice Centre, where he is also the regional costs judge.

The Thursday Beer News For The Best Week Ever!

What a week. A good week, right? As weeks go, I suppose. If you are into the whole “week” thing. This is the week that we learned Aaron Rodgers can’t chug a beer. That is pretty big news, right? His team of choice, the Bucks lost. Canada said hoo and then said ray. Now… maybe we get our national butts kicked by Golden State.

Just in time for this past week’s European Parliamentary elections, Ed decided to go all nationalist and rate a few sovereign brewing traditions:

…let’s face it, the beer in some countries is better and the four First Class Beer Countries have great beer cultures too. I have carried out extensive research into them and have just come back from a study tour of Germany which confirmed my findings, so for those of you who are still unclear on this matter here’s the ranking…

Aside from the stunning lack of objectivity and the narrow research tools applied to an alarmingly thin data set, I like it! Of course, each of his named top four nations of beer have many horrendous examples of garbage brew and, of course, many other nations have fabulous beers and, of course, his four choices actually have dubious claims to being actual singular nations as opposed to nineteen century splinters or, worse, aggregations of pre-Victorian political convenience but… I like it!!!

A study of Lars studying Kveik. Larsology. Larsologically speaking, quite likeable.

One of the odder bits of news this week was finding out that the Morning Advertiser, the UK brewing trade newspaper, takes money from brewers to take the brewers data, create an advertorial and then hires freelancers to  write it up – then publishes it under the sub-header “in association with” the brewer. No word on how much money changed hands for the the advertorial services. Bizarre? Perhaps.

Scone => rhymes with dawn! Exactly.

Martyn chose this week to write a large number of excellently placed words on malting and maltings:

What I wasn’t expecting on the joint Brewery History Society/Guild of Beer Writers trip to Crisp’s maltings in Great Ryburgh in Norfolk was to be allowed inside the kiln, where the malt, once it has germinated enough, is dried off. These pyramidal structures, often topped with cowls that turn with the prevailing wind, are again familiar to anyone who has ever visited Ware in Hertfordshire, once the greatest malting town in the country, or Burton upon Trent, where multitudes of breweries had their own maltings.

I have no idea what he was talking about as if I am not inside a malting kiln within seven minutes of being on site I feel utterly… ripped… off. Otherwise, some extremely violent news about how Maris Otter is kept from becoming Maris Notter.

More self-consciously uncomfortable and leery than straight sexist but I’ll take alternate views on that any time all day long. Note: the past is a foreign land.

For this week’s headline in beer IP law, Josh Noel reported in the Chicago Trib on an odd clash between one big and one small brewer on the use of a name. Unfortunately, you have to swim a bit through the story to get to the only actual point in law:

…without a federal trademark, Palfreyman said, No-Li’s recourse may be limited, at least in Chicago. It could conceivably have common law rights to the name in places where the beer is already sold, he said. That means Goose Island may have established rights to the name in Chicago. But Ahsmann said he wouldn’t oppose No-Li from expanding distribution here.

This news based on the leak of the week is a bit disconcerting… in a way – but I must note I thought it was odd that a local disaster in a time of many local disasters was the one chosen for this initiative:

Over 1,400 brewers around the country signed up to make the beer in their own taprooms—nearly a quarter of all the breweries in the United States. But more than half of those brewers have yet to send any money raised from the beer to Sierra Nevada… The brewer, however, says it has been in contact with many of the brewers and, while the numbers are “concerning,” it expects them to honor their commitment. They just need more time.

And it was a big week in beer news around our house as the I shared on Twitter the other day. Helping with the canning by day two. Kegging lessons started on day three. Good gang, good work and an actual trade if the long hours are put in. Jordan put it best: “Finally after all these years, a conflict of interest“!

Otherwise, it’s been a little quiet on the beer news front this week. Is that why Stan flies somewhere exotic every once in a while? To hide from these uncomfortable pauses where folk have nothing to talk about but beer can wrappers and… well… that’s about it. Please check out Boak and Bailey this Saturday… but that guy Stan? I am betting he calls in sick again this this Monday. Again.

The Q2-May Slightly Shorter Version Of Thursday Beery Newsy Notes

Two evenings of work this weeks seriously imposed on my idle key tapping time. I know you share my pain. Anyway, it’s just as well as it’s been a quiet week from my point of view.

The Ponderosa Tavern is  shutting its doors in my old hometown of Bible Hill, Nova Scotia after a five and a half decade run. I never actually went to The Pond as it was a bit rough in my day but it is interesting to learn about how taverns, a beer-only form of establishment, were approved under the local law. There was a local vote in which, I note, the folks of Bible Hill near the proposed tavern said “NO!” while those who lived farther away said “YES!”

Another great photo essay from Martin.

Towards the end of last week, the Brewer’s Association issued their new guidelines for today’s temporary beer styles which might stay relevant until September. Making fun of these guidelines in sorta blog fodder circa 2009 so I will leave it there. It’s also far harder to make fun of something so evidently off the rail so I will just leave it there.  Also, if I use the new guideline for anything it might be as a road map of what to avoid so I think it is best if I just leave it there.

The man sometimes known as Stonch is reminding us all to get a life as again he takes a long walk in Italy. There may be beer.

Here’s an interesting video on the expansion of New York, early bits of which I think might not be entirely correct given my research a few years ago into colonial New York breweries. See, folk used boats and weren’t waiting for roads to be built. So there were breweries up the shore.

Geoff Latham has found an excellent bit of information, a miraculous 1690s plan to create 1:10 malt extract syrup for navigators to address the bodily perils faced at sea:

…and they are no other than Corn and Water concentrated, or reduced into a more compact and narrow compass; the one for the extinguishing of Hunger, the other of Thirst…

You know you are going to be a bit disappointed by an article on the state of alcohol retailing in Ontario when the second line starts with the words: “[f]ollowing the repeal of alcohol prohibition in 1927…” We didn’t have prohibition. We had temperance. Different. Still, this ain’t a bad response to the chicken littles who fear the costs of privatization:

There are two important lessons to take from these exorbitant claims. The first is that the figures that opponents of the plan are claiming are entirely unsubstantiated. They are simply the figures they claim. In order for them to have any legal weight whatsoever, they would have to be proven in court, which would require The Beer Store to open its books. Given the grandiose figures being tossed around, it is entirely possible that The Beer Store is bluffing in an attempt to maintain its privileged treatment. The second important lesson here is the price of cronyism overall. The government over-regulating and picking winners and losers in the market hurts consumers twice over. First through inflated prices and poor customer service, and again as taxpayers via legal challenges.

How many journals can I keep? I have a cheese one, a gas station bathroom one, a favorite socks one… thanks be to God I have beer to fall back on as a pleasure, not a task. Speaking of odd habits, don’t find yourself collecting hundreds of collector beers. No one cares.

Jeff’s on a book tour. Speaking of books, Boak and Bailey have published a greatest hits. Which is good. I loved REO Speedwagon’s greatest hits… a lot. So I am looking forward to Balmy Nectar all the more.

It’s fun to pick on an article with so many errors but the underlying unspoken truth might be worth noting – folk are spending a lot on craft beer without any identification that it is good value:

People spend more on craft beer every month than they do on their monthly cell phone and utilities bills. Drinkers are shelling out an average of $59 per month on beer, a new survey from Chicago-based market insights agency C+R research, found. Millennials spend $5 more. More than half (56%) of millennials said they drank an ice cold craft brew at least once a week.

Millennials. Go figure. Likely members of the style set.

Another week in beer in the books. No great shockers but there is still the rest of Thursday and Friday. Want to know what happens then? Check out Boak and Bailey on Saturday and Stan on Monday.

As January 2019 Dies Off Another Set Of Beery News Is Born

A surprisingly long set of links face me in my inbox today. Folk send me suggestions all the time… well, some of the time… OK, once in a while. Honestly, for the most part to make this weekly update of the news in good beer I just email myself links as I notice a story through the week. Usually there are seven or nine by early in the week. This week, I had over twenty by Monday. And, yes, emails. So… let’s dive right in.

First off, if you are in Toronto this evening (and I will be if only passing through via VIA) you can pop over to this fabulous fundraiser for an important cause to witness some top notch curling action (like that to the right from last year) at the Beer Sisters’ Charity Hopspiel:*

On January 31st, brewers from across Ontario will gather at the Royal Canadian Curling Club in Toronto’s east end. Clad in array of plaid, denim, light-up shorts, toques and matching jerseys, 24 brewing industry teams will face-off to raise money for the Native Women’s Resource Centre in Toronto. The Beer Sisters’ Charity Hopspiel, hosted by beer writers and educators Crystal and Tara Luxmore, is in its 7th year. The event has raised over $32,000 for the centre, and the sisters hope that this year they’ll cross the $40,000 mark.

Fabulous! And at the Royal Canadian Curling Club! An actual place I am assured, not just a mid-range brand of rye whisky from the 1950s.

Next, Katie wrote a wonderful piece on heritage barley published in Ferment that explores the use of Chevallier, the darling English malting from around 1820 to WWI. I immediately started badgering her about joining my Battledore revival crusade.

Note: Victorians represented in under 1% of the graph and the most striking thing is not their habits so much as the near replication of the feat right before the economic meltdown of 2007-08. Nonetheless, a very handy set of charts and who doesn’t like handy sets of charts?

Not journalism.  Or at least not good journalism.** Just badgering. Easy enough to get a quote from someone but it usually requires letting them speak.

An clear and accurate guide to tipping in Canadian tavs, pubs and bars.

Beer Ramen. Kill me now.

Update: We’ve had an actual update on #FlagshipFebruary and I couldn’t be more grateful for the clarification:

…it is in our and the industry’s best interest if we take a moment occasionally to appreciate the flagship beers of the industry’s foundational breweries…

So, the brewery has to have continued through the good beer era and the current flagship is the brewery hallmarks to recognize. Andy Crouch wrote a wonderful dense poem of a tweet on the same topic:

Revisiting long established flagships tastes of antiquity, success, failure, unfulfilled dreams of resurrection, and ultimately nostalgia. A place in time to momentarily revisit if only to remind you how far you’ve come but rarely a place to linger long.

I noticed this statement in a piece on German brewing culture and I thought it was extraordinary for suggesting agricultural capacity of a landscape is not the governing factor in whether beer was made or not:

Alsace is on Europe’s religious faultline. Beer is often thought of a drink of the Protestant north, but the facts don’t really bear that out. Belgium, Bavaria and Bohemia are historically Catholic (even if that religious attachment has faded); only Britain, of Europe’s foundational beer cultures, is Protestant. Does this suggest beer is less Protestant than thought? Perhaps, but I also think Catholic cultures are (as you might assume) better at preservation.

Well, I suppose someone has created a jam/jelly faultline based on religion. Me, I’d suggest many western and central European brewing traditions were pretty much established before the Reformation.

The effect of the US government shutdown on the brewing trade is measurable. Why the difference in processing wines and spirits? I blame the slackers attracted to a career in the beer label branch.

Gary’s piece on Watney’s Red Barrel as experienced in eastern North America at the time contains plenty of those links to contemporary primary documents that leave you persuaded. By way of contrast, this could really be read in two entirely opposite ways:

“I actually am mystified myself,” says Jeff Alworth. He should know…

Fine. I’ve held on long enough. Let’s talk Fuller’s or at least the highlights of the discussion. Promethean Jordan found a very helpful Brexit angle on the timing based on last year’s visit. Martyn argued convincingly that the whole sale spoke of business success and a strong future going forward. Then he added a bonus history of Asahi to deal with, you know, the legitimacy issues. Jeff at distance took it as a hefty body blow and mainly sees that it poses great risk to the English cask ale scene. Boak and Bailey wrote from their semi-characteristic personal perspective, supposing they are facing another long goodbye to a treasured relationship. Matt sided with the corporate success group and then started blatantly and publicly gambling with Boak and Bailey over the matter. Pete wrote first about his lack of levelheadedness when faced with the news and then got level headed and then sorta wobbled again in the semi-revisionist Book of Genesis stuff.***

My take? First, Fuller’s has been masterful in building up its reputation with good beer conversationalists over the last ten years. Remember how fun it was when @FullersJohn started tweeting? How beer writers were brought in and got their names on the label? What is really being noticed now is how the emotional credit Fuller’s they earned through that clever outreach has been truly a rich investment. And notice how none of the commentary comments upon that even though it was all done openly and with integrity.  Second, the only constant about the beer business over the centuries has been the goal of continuous growth, merger and acquisition. Brewing has two great outputs: beer and wealth. This is just the latter being successfully served after a long stretch merrily servicing the former.

I love this tweet by Jancis R:

Never ceases to amaze me when we get messages like this: ‘We’d like to find out how to go about having our wines scored by Jancis Robinson, as well as the costs involved.’ Who charges to taste wine?

Who charges to taste beer? I know some but it would be rude to mention, no? Conversely, there is a craft beer fraudster working the US south:

“The phone rang and rang and rang…I checked the house and it was empty. The door was unlocked,” Brandon Oliver says. “His chickens were still in the backyard…about 90% of his clothes were gone…he left as if he only had six hours to leave.” Foster left his tools out at the unfinished beer garden. He and his family left town overnight.

The abandonment of the chickens is a sweet detail.

As someone with hearing that will never get any better, I really like this inordinately nice idea from a campaign under the heading Quiet Scotland:

Ever left a shop or been unable to enjoy a meal or drink because the background music has been so loud? Don’t like complaining? Try leaving one of our polite cards to get your point across.

An email went around from NAGBW HQ about the impending demise of the All About Beer web archive and I first thought it was an oddly presumptuous thing to send… and then I thought it was kind to alert me. I did not save any of my own work as anything I pitched was not dubbed worthy – which made me happy. I really hate editors and others paid to make things duller. But I did save Stan’s story How Craft Became Craft for very obvious reasons.

And, finally, let’s just watch this**** and listen to the screams of those precious darlings witnessing a part of their personal emotional foundations, the rebellious idols of their youths, being washed away out from underneath their feet:

That’s it! A big week in the contemporary detritus of good beer culture. Please check out Boak and Bailey on Saturday and then Stan on Monday for more sensible and refined responses to the week in good beer.

* For those not in the punny know, see Bonspiel.
**Which is quite another point we never explore when a writer claims the journalism label… or at least the helpful bits. Seldom the adoption of the concurrent ethics lead at that moment.
***“Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale began life as an attempt to imitate Fuller’s ESB.” Really? How many beers is SNPA an clone of? Ballentine IPA. Burt Grant’s work. What else?
****And this, for that matter.