Me and Mine – Page 3 – A Good Beer Blog

The Rather Distracted And Perhaps Brief First Beery News Notes For Spring

So much happening out there. Except maybe in the beer world. All a bit dull this week. Yet, it is spring. And the plants are on the move. I have to dig up me parsnips as soon as I can. You never know if you are going to pull up something the size of a pencil or a baseball bat – but by leaving them in the soil all winter, their starches convert to sugars and the make a fine ginger orange soup. And wouldja look at that there? Growing right now in a corner of the basement in part of my seed starting set up. A zucchini. A tiny wee zucchini. It’s spring for sure now.

Speaking of farming, Stan is slacking off in New Zealand but took time to post a lovely image from the hop harvest:

“These are my moisture meter,” said Brent McGlashen, a fifth generation hop grower, well into a day last week punctuated with frequent grabbing, breaking and smelling of freshly picked hops being kilned on one of the Mac Hops farms.

There. I pretty much just poached his whole post. But there are other posts. Go see.

Picking up on the weak signals from beer culture idea, the monthly B+B email newsletter for March had this idea:

Futures thinking is a way of reflecting on what might or could happen. It’s not about trying to predict the future but, rather, accepting uncertainty and considering multiple possible outcomes… What’s the equivalent today? There are certainly breweries doing things that make most of us think, “Interesting, but it’ll never catch on.” For example, there’s been a slow but steady trickle of beers using waste products, such as Toast Ale, made with surplus bread, and Singapore’s NewBrew which is made with recycled sewer water.

Great. Sewer juice. That sorta puts the “dis” in dystopian, no? What next – powdered beer? Hmm. You know, I really do like how the focus is on coping with the range of futures rather than the prognosticating expert Dr. Tomorrow claptrap. It’s like the risk matrix sort of thinking I’ve participated in big project planning. Craft beer might have avoided a whack of issues if it has tried a bit of futures thinking… but… well, it’s craft, right?

No, let’s stay with reality based reality. Facts. Like this. In a bit of a post-St.Patrick’s Day round up, I found this to the right very interesting from KHM: “My mate Alan (of chip review fame) on the folk music cardio workout.” Seems a pal of a pal wore a FitBit while playing a gig on the big day and learned a lesson. I do recall fitting into my 32 waist jeans back in my slam dancing days so it’s a likely tale of health and publife aligning neatly. Can’t say the same about this item on alcohol and heart health that I came across, a medical study published just a year ago that, again, confirms that the J-Curve is a fantasy, given not only the now well established understanding that it’s not that non-drinkers get sick but, once sick, the ill just don’t drink as much. It now turns out the light drinkers are also otherwise healthier, too:

…individuals in the light and moderate consumption group had healthier lifestyle behaviors than abstainers, self-reporting better overall health and exhibiting lower rates of smoking, lower BMI, higher physical activity, and higher vegetable intake (eFigure 3 in the Supplement). Adjustment for the aforementioned lifestyle factors attenuated the cardioprotective associations with modest alcohol intake...

Veg intake. That’s what did Lemmy in. Low veg intake. I’m reading his biography right now, by the way. Quite the lad. The good news from the cancer study by the way is that the two drink a day thing makes a lot of sense. We are built to take a certain amount of the alcky. Bevvying below that is really low risk but, be clear, heading northward causes a rapid increase in complications. Not funny.

But you know what is funny? People debating if Jeff is or is not a “beer bro“! WTF? I haven’t a clue what they even meant by it. I assume either it’s being too Alström circa 2008… or not Alström enough! But he was slagged just because he triggered a discussion on whether it is actually important to have full measures of beer served. Of course it is, well all know that – and everyone else is wrong but… the point is this: who gives a flying fuck about beer enough to call someone else a “beer bro” like is signifies anything other than the speaker is a utter moron? Hil. Aires. Lou. Zars.

I like this image. A useful reminder that early US microbreweries were not about the dissassembling big macro but to leverage the interest in imports. That’s one of the “20% in 2020 era” revisionist myths that bulk craft created.

Hmm. I am of slightly two minds about this story in the BBC where a 41 year old warrant was enforced related to a bar room fight even if I lean heavily to the result:

The story began in March 1980 when McGrath, an Irish-British national born in Leeds, was out drinking with friends. The 21-year-old, by his own admission, became involved in a drunken fight between two groups of young men. In his telling, he fled to a nearby pub when police arrived. “I’m not getting involved with the police,” he remembers thinking. But British prosecutors alleged he was part of a group that assaulted an officer, who suffered a broken nose, cuts and bruising while attempting to restrain a suspect. Five men were charged, including McGrath. Instead of facing justice, he fled to Ireland. He says he absconded because he believed he was being “set up”.

Note: After the jury met, he “was acquitted, the judge told jurors that he did not know why the case had been brought after so many years.” Still… brawling and absconding are crimes. I’ve been defence on historic claims, though none so minor.

Martyn was on the Beer Ladies Podcast, well worth a listen.

Matthew wrote a good piece on Guinness in the Pellicle,* especially around the idea that there is Guinness guilt. I suffer from no such thing. I have always thought that a good mass produced beer is a very fine thing. Guinness is up there with Miller High Life and Utica Club and… well, there must be a few others. It can be lovely:

In some places, though, to me it just seems to taste spectacular: The Thomas Connoly in Sligo, Lucky Joe’s Saloon in Fort Collins, Stoke Newington’s Auld Shillelagh, and, my favourite spot for a G, The Fidds’ in Levenshulme, South Manchester. When I am in such a place, I wouldn’t want to drink anything else. It’s not just about the beer, it’s about achieving a certain, blissful state of mind. I don’t want to think, I just want some pints.

Why does Guinness make memories?My uncle told the story of following Scotland’s rugby team as a travelling fan and, back in the day in Dublin, having gravity poured Guinness from barrels under the bar… which meant the person pouring had to lay on their side. I myself had 14 pints one night for free in a pub in Hampstead Heath, London near our hostel back around 1986. I’ve told you this one before, haven’t I? One of the loveliest humans I ever saw walked in that pub early that evening. She just stood there, dressed in a little black dress, big waves of blond hair up top, wearing just that one broach a golden a harp. She stood there looking at us, us looking at her. Until the place quietened. Everyone just staring at her. At which time she proclaimed “BOYS, I’M THE GUINNESS REP AND IT’S FREE TONIGHT!!!” Suddenly, we were in a scene from a movie. We’d won the lotto! Cheers filled the place, kegs were carried in on the shoulders of beefy gents in branded garb, everyone loved everyone else and we drank and drank and drank. I can die happy having lived there that evening.**

Jamie Goode wrote in Wine Anorak about the pending crisis of worthless drinks writing now being done by computer rather than by ill served disrespected humans. But wasn’t this the promise of the computer age? Didn’t Dr Tomorrow himself promise us all in around 1974 that they’d take the tat work off the humans? The picture they paint of the life of a bulk writer isn’t that compelling:

…for a long time many ‘journalists’ have been employed creating copy with the sole motivation of search engine optimization (SEO). Reading articles that have been written with SEO in mind is tiresome. I don’t do it: I want my writing to be me, writing in my voice, in my style, as well as I can do it. I’m lucky that I can afford this luxury, and I’m hoping for my readers that they appreciate the integrity of this approach. Many modern journalists might be employed by a newspaper of repute, but they don’t get their bylines in the paper. Their job is to show up for a shift and get paid perhaps £130 to write an article an hour for 8 hours. The subjects are determined by keywords trending on google….

Yikes. Bring on the server farms, I say! Now finally… witness an honest brewery. And not about what is in the beer or how much they sold you but… but breweries being honest about taxes:

Ram McAllister, owner and head brewer at Fairweather Brewing, said the proposed tax hike will hit the small brewer with an additional 20.8 cents to 41.8 cents per 100 hectolitres produced or 0.21 cents to 0.42 cents per litre. “We don’t welcome any tax increase,” said McAllister. “(But) this one has been misrepresented or misunderstood as the equivalent of a six per cent increase in the price of beer.”

Thank you. There. Done. Enough. Finis. Consider Mastodon. Here’s your newbie cheat sheet:

Anyone else? And check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and maybe from Stan at his spot on those Mondays but, you know, he writes bits and bobs when he can… like this! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason every Friday. Once a month, WIll Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too even if it’s a bit trade. There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!***

*I’m calling it “the Pellicle” now. Not “The Pellicle” because that is not the name. Like “the rugby” which I say to my kid who plays. As in: “Good day at the rugby, kiddo? Good, now you know what I read in the Pellicle?” That sort of thing.
**And we didn’t even imagine doing something like this…
***And finally the list of the departed newsletters and podcasts or those in purgatory. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Ben has had his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

The Thursday Beery News Notes For March March March !!!

I like March. The mud. The late winter blizzards. The building anxiety about income tax return preparation what with that retirement savings deadline yesterday. This particular March is the last full month of my fifties. Yup, I go from being an old young man to a young old man in around seven weeks. Just like that. Which means, yes, I was in a bar when M*A*S*H ended forty years ago this week. It’s enough to drive one to drink. Except we Canadians are driving ourselves away from the bottle according to a government bean counting agency report – as even the BBC reported this week:

Canadians appear to be losing their taste for alcohol, according to findings in a new report that showed beer and wine sales at historic lows. From 2021-22, volume of beer sold per person in Canada slumped drastically. The volume in wine sales slid by its largest margin since 1949… The report, released by Statistics Canada, a government data cruncher, found that sales of alcohol slid for first time in a decade, by 1.2%. Wine sales decreased by 4%, the largest decrease ever recorded by Statistics Canada. Beer’s time as the top alcoholic beverage by sales has shown signs of going flat, according to the report. Over the last 10 years, beer has continued to lose market share, totalling an 8.8% drop.

From breweries to the halls of academia, the news was met with discontent. Trouble is… this isn’t news. As the chart from StatsCan shows this has been a 50 year dteady decline, though with an extra bit of collapse since the recession 15 years ago. We are coming up on consuming half of what folks did two generations ago. I blame colour TV.

Far more pleasantly, Barry pointed us to a great article in Cider Review on the history of perry in the cider country of Normandy:

Pays Domfrontais; this crumb of land in south Normandy, where there are no more than perhaps twenty producers, where production is perhaps a per cent of Normandy’s total, if that, and where the perry might just be the best in the world. The landscape is all but flat; it ripples, rather than rolls, only rising to a swell at the ridge on which perches the medieval town of Domfront. Everywhere is agricultural; every patch of land tilled and tended, covered with corn or cows, narrow, sunken lanes cut into the sea of green. But, as in Austria, it’s the pear trees that make you coo and gasp. Rather than Mostviertel’s ubiquitous lines along the side of fields, here they just as often dominate widely-spaced orchards; always tall, high-branched— haut tiges in local parlance — towering over the handful of apple trees that cluster around them.

Sticking with the local scene elsewhere, Evan Rail has written about the Starkbierzeit beer festival in Munich, Germany for Vinepair this week, how a lesser known German tradtion has found even less traction in America – which may well be part of its charm:

Not every U.S. craft brewery has been able to make a starkbier festival work. Following an initial event in 2014, Wisconsin’s Capital Brewery discontinued its Starkbierfest after just a few years, instead focusing on its better-established Bockfest, which coincidentally takes place at about the same time of year. Other brewers have found that it helps to get back to basics. At the 9-year-old KC Bier Co. in Kansas City, Mo., earlier starkbier celebrations included different types of doppelbock released over several weeks. But the brewery’s 2023 Starkbierzeit sounds a lot more like an event in Munich, featuring a golden doppelbock called “Carolator,” in memory of Carol Crawford, sister of brewery founder Steve Holle. After receiving a blessing from a local priest, Carolator was released to the public on Ash Wednesday.

At the end of last week, Stan reported in his newsletter Hop Queries that there is a glut in the US hop market:

Speaking at the American Hop Convention in January, John I. Haas CEO Alex Barth estimated that the industry is sitting on an excess of 35 to 40 million pounds of hops. Therefore, farmers in the Northwest need to reduce the acres of aroma hops strung for harvest by 10,000 — about 17 percent — to balance supply and demand. Acreage may not be cut that much immediately, and as one industry member told me it could take “three, four, five years” to work off the excess. But when the USDA releases data about 2023 acreage in June, expect the reduction of most proprietary varieties to be pretty stunning. Across the board, stakeholders who own the plant rights to many of the privately owned cultivars are discussing 20 to 30 percent cuts. That includes Citra and Mosaic, of course, because growers planted more of those two in 2022 than any other variety.

Expect the invention of Stale Hop IPA just in time for Christmas 2023. How else are they going to deal with this bit of surprise. Speaking of things not being as expected, apparently the old joke about American beer being like making love in a canoe is no longer acceptable if legal precedent is to be trusted:

The National Advertising Division, which is part of the Better Business Bureau, sided with Anheuser-Busch, which challenged a 2022 ad for Miller Lite that uses the phrase “light beer shouldn’t taste like water, it should taste like beer.” The agency said that Molson Coors should “discontinue” the ad because is “not puffery or a mere opinion.” In the 15-second spot, a cyclist takes a break from riding uphill, cracks open a beer and douses himself with it. No specific beers were mentioned, however the beer uses a similar blue color that adorns Bud Light packaging. NAD said that it “determined that tasting ‘like water’ is a measurable attribute” and that customers might “reasonably expect that the statement is supported by such evidence.”

More observations. JJB aka Stonch aka Jeff Buckly* made a very intersting observation about big beer’s inexplicable recent interest in crappy no-alc beers:

…it’s so blatant the big brewers are pushing their awful alc free versions of their key beers largely so they can have the brand promoted at sports competitions. Idea is you see Heineken 0.0, and then think of actual Heiny.

Still more as Retired Martin is still wandering around the nations as well as around the factilities he and his visit:

That long trestle table is the only downstairs seating, which at least ensures you’ll talk to people like it’s 1995, but sadly we were (again) the only custom at 1pm on a Saturday, which Mrs RM resolved by chatting to the Landlord while I explore upstairs. You may not be aware, but 97% of people would rather stand outside a micropub in a storm, rather than be the first person to go and sit in the upstairs area, and that’s a fact. I could hear Mrs RM saying “He’s done all the Beer Guide pubs” which is always cringeworthy, so I didn’t overstay my visit…

I have no idea why the sink is on the cistern though it likely saves water… but… err… where do you place your feet when you use it? Not at all relatedly, as the newly hired voice of the competition noted, ABInBev have laid off employees at a number of the craft breweries they picked up during the buyout years begun now around seven years ago:

Employees have been let go from Houston, Texas-based Karbach Brewing and Patchogue, NY-based Blue Point Brewing … Citing anonymous sources, Craft Business Daily reported layoffs at Lexington, Virginia-based Devils Backbone and Asheville, North Carolina-based Wicked Weed.

As the craft-esque beer market continues to retract I am not sure why there is the assumption that there would not be layoffs, given the shelf really doesn’t care how production occured, how promises and assumptions were exchanged late in the era of the Obama administration.

Very much another sort of shutdown was the theme as Jeff shared his observations about drinking on a snowy day, a highly recommended way to pass the hours as a blizzard roars:

As we sipped and chatted, Sally’s eldest brother Tom mentioned that #StormDrinking is a thing in New England. Finding a warm nook with a cold beverage and friends is the perfect way to while away a Nor’Easter. We joked about its Portland equivalent, which would be more like #SnowDrinking. Even as we were planning our final move—a restaurant or pub near home—we were still thinking the clouds weren’t going to deliver more than a couple inches. Yet as we called around, we kept hearing the same thing. Places were shutting down and sending staff home while they could go, or planning to close soon. Fortunately for us, Migration Brewing was open, and the bartender said she was happy to hang out if anyone showed up. So off we went.

In a warmer setting, Mark Dredge wrote a good piece about a contest that apparently started here in my home town at Queen’s University – home of my rugby fandom – running a mile while drinking beer:

It’s a simple and relatable race: Short enough that anyone can attempt it, hard enough that most will fail miserably, absurd enough that anyone who learns about it will want to hear more. The event consists of four 400-meter laps around a running track, beginning nine meters behind the official starting line to reach the metric 1,609m of an imperial mile. That extra nine meters becomes the designated “chug zone” in which, before each lap, runners have to down one 12oz beer. It’s four beers, four laps, and try not to puke.

Runners World ran a similar story in 2015 with a bit of focus on the silliness of the concept. You know, around about when we packed the college bar for that last episode of M*A*S*H, we did a similar stunt at undergrad forty years ago: the annual three legged race. Why there I am twice in the yearbook in the spring of 1982, at the start of the race all big and fit and trim and full of youth… and soon to be full of beer. Long since sensibly banned of course. The insurers must have found out. See, you and your partner had to run up the seven four story stairways of the residences joined at the hip and chug a beer at each top landing. Most of us floated and spent more time on fancy costumes than anything like training. We two were dressed as “science students” and kept pace by saying “sign, cosign” over and over as we ran. The records were set in my era by a classmate (who was apparently ninth or tenth, just missing a seat on Canada’s Olympic eights rowing team) and whoever was tied onto to him. Upper left to the right. Artie and Wugg are there, too, to the far right. Fortunately, the architecture allowed for hosing down the stairs afterwards.

There, that’s enough for today. Did I mention that you still need to check out Mastodon. It’s so nice. Here is your cheat sheet if you want to have a look see:

Remember also to read the blogs and the newsletters for more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and also from Stan at his spot on those Mondays when he checks in from the road. . And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? The Moon Under Water if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. Book some time for Hugging the Bar as they go long as well as the Guys Drinking Beer in Chicago. And check out The Share with Stephanie Grant.

And, yes, also gather ye all the olde style podcasts while ye may. Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. Did you know Lew Bryson started a Seen Through A Glass podcast in November 2022? Me neither! And the long standing Beervana podcast but it might be on a month off (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too even if it’s a bit trade. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. And remember the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

Finally, we lift our hats to the departed newsletters and podcasts… and those perhaps in purgatory. BeerEdge may have been effectively absorbed into the revival of All About Beer. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Ben has had his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

*Proof! Since corrected to Mr. Bell himself. Though it still suggests that he only recently made a change to move away from food service at the Ypres Castle Inn. He’s run it for a few years now without a kitchen.

These Be The “February Goes Like A Bat Outta Hell” As Per Usual Beery News Notes

March. The most magical word in the dictionary. OK, pie is up there, too. But March. It’s coming soon. I even started spring cleaning by working on the old cold room built under the front steps of our 1964 bungalow. That’s a tidier view of it in 2007. When I stashed beers. Some pretty sweet bottles in there back then. Now I am 18 months into mainly gluten free intermittent fasting in part to recover from that hobby. And, spoliers, I shelve more wine than beer. So this week, I threw a bunch of +15 year old empty beer bottles that I kept from those days into the recycling blue box including a couple of these – only then to be woken at 3 am by someone rummaging through who (as I found out when I checked in the morning) took them all. He’s going to get a surprise when he’s told at the depot that he has a fine collection of utterly unreturnable US-bought craft and import niceties.

Beer? Beer! First up, here are a few brief headlines for your consideration:

- - Yikes: “…if there is any fetishisation of babies at the event, it will be immediately shut down…”!?! Or… maybe sooner.
  - Hmm… brand buy out or merger?
  - Ron says parti-gyling but I say gyling paritay!!
  - Mudgie sees a pattern of busy pubs.
  - Bill Gates has bought 3.76% of Heineken.
  - The Beer Ladies learn about the origins of the Brewseum.

Speaking of headlines, this one at the BBC is a bit of a neck twister: “Brewdog: UK craft beer giant expands into China”:

The joint venture with Budweiser China will see the Scottish firm’s Punk IPA and other beers brewed in China… In a statement, Brewdog founder James Watt described the Budweiser partnership as “transformational” and said it would bring the craft brewery to “every corner of the world’s biggest beer market”. Under the deal, Brewdog said it expects its beers would begin to be produced at Budweiser China’s Putian craft brewery, in the south-eastern province of Fujian, by the end of next month.

Where is the “craft” in “multinational with ambitious plans under geonicidal dictatorship”? Also… funny that craft nerds are more upset about the arrangements with Bud! There is so little left in that adjective. And the also not-craft of Molson (Coors) is also apparently on the move too, though much less dictatorially:

Molson has seen six straight quarters of net sales revenue growth, with expanding sales in the Americas and elsewhere around the world, resulting in global net revenue above the 2019 baseline. Importantly, Molson’s third-quarter trend for sales to retailers (STR) was the best it has seen in over a decade. The brewer also initiated historic price increases of 10% in the U.S., far above the usual 1% to 2% hikes, to offset the impact of its own rising costs. So while Molson ended up narrowing its full-year outlook to the lower end of its guidance as a result, it is still expecting the long-term trend to keep growing.

Perhaps reflecting the core market that helped start this sort of growth during the pandemic, this week on Boak & Bailey via Patreon, I enjoyed their fond recollection of the deeper days of Covid when adults drank in the park:

During the second and third national UK lockdowns, in the winter and spring of 2020/21, we noticed that one of these wharves became a kind of unofficial outdoor pub. A group of men would hang out there most afternoons and evenings drinking beer they’d bought from the CO-OP next door. Some of them looked as if they might be homeless, others were in hi-vis workwear and branded boiler suits. You’d walk by and hear them chatting, amiably, or laughing together. It sounded exactly like a pub, only outdoors, with birdsong in the background.

And over on his substack page called Episodes of my Pub Life, David Jesudason shared the story of the Red Lion pub in West Bromwich and in particular the complexities* behind four stained glass windows:

In Smethwick and West Brom it was obvious where the diaspora came from and what their mission was. Punjab. Here for a better life. Dalwinder Singh who runs another excellent desi pub, The Island Inn in West Brom, summed it up: “I came here and I couldn’t speak English.” Now look at him. His punters love him. His son runs a thriving pub in Walsall. The glass shows how India was being partitioned and this led to huge amounts of violence between different religions. The bloodshed was not something they left behind in India, though.

Good to see such a range of winners at the Deja Bru 2023 historic recreation homebrewing competition, including an Albany Ale winning a medal.

Pellicle ran a helpful story on an oddly little covered topic – a beerfest. In this case, it’s the Independent Manchester Beer Convention aka Indyman aka IMBC and particularly worthwhile attention is taken to explore the venue, the 117 year old Victoria Baths, with some great supporting photos of the architecture:

Some breweries have the privilege of their own exclusive space and in 2022 Victoria Baths’ Turkish Rest Room became Thornbridge Brewery’s ‘House of Jaipur’, with light evocatively streaming through the striking ‘Angel of Purity’ stained glass window. By contrast, Berkshire-based Siren brought an industrial chic feel to the dark and atmospheric boiler and filtration room, while Cheltenham’s DEYA Brewing brought bean bags and chilled vibes to their bar, all drenched in deep red light. Things seemed to naturally slow down a notch in Room 3.

But in Thailand a beer fest has been cancelled due to the politics of beer fests:

The inaugural Beer People Festival was looking for a new 3,000sqm space after The Street Ratchada shopping mall announced last night that it would no longer host the event because its reputation could be damaged. “The shopping center is concerned that it may cause the public to develop the misconception that the shopping center supports political parties and is not neutral, which may bring about protests or political rallies and may cause disturbance to others in the shopping center or may affect the image of the shopping center in the future,” it… canceled the event to reduce “the risk of political impact” and reserved the right not to be responsible for any of the event’s expenses.

More have entered the AI-verkleption sweepstates this week with Robin and Jordan sharing their fears for future beer writing. And Jeff has continued his anxtity AI week. I wouldn’t worry if I were them… maybe. Let me explain. Last week Jeff posted a discussion with the image to the right that he descibed this way:

It’s appropriately Hopperesque; the algorithm successfully captures the distant look on the man’s face the artist was famous for.

To my eye, it’s actually a bit shit. Has all the charm of the diagram on a pizza box. The sepia tones are all wrong for Hopper who usually used brighter if matted colours. Plus the man’s eyes don’t have a distant look. His eyes are sorta crossed. And the woman’s hands are mangled like they got caught in a hay bailer and were fixed by a doctor who only used spoons. Then there are three glasses of beer for two people, the extra yellowish one dangling in space as it sits half off the table. Robin and Jordan’s AI text tests have a similar disengagement. Too bland to be claptrap. Elsewhere we learn that it’s an excellent source of neat and tidy packets of falsehood. So it’s also a claptrap machine. All in all, I think we are safe… and these three writers are safe. Unless you don’t give a crap about the standards of your imagery and your text or your research. What if you’re a brewery that buys and sells in bulk? Yes, this stuff could put fourth-rate branding summer interns at jeopardy. It could serve as a first draft short cut to let smaller teams get through more bulk work I suppose. But isn’t this fretting about the sort of stuff you want to avoid anyway? By the way, versions of this have been in places like law and community newspapers for years. No one seems MIA from AI. Is it all a fad, this year’s Segway? Shades of Free Beer 1.0 from 2005? Maybe.

Speaking of which. Where are we on the state of actual beer writing? Boak and Bailey in their monthly newsletter stated very positively that:

It feels as if there’s plenty of beer blogging going on at the moment. We’ve been struggling to keep our Saturday morning round-ups to the usual six or seven links. That’s fantastic to see.

Matty C, conversely, also posted some very interesting thoughts this week, interesting in particular given his chosen path. I aggregate thusly:

I’ve woken up thinking about the heyday of beer blogging, and how what I loved most about it was how observational and selfless it was, and how it helped me learn about the nuances of beer culture around the U.K. I’m struggling to find writing to really get engaged with at the moment because—and I’m guilty of this in my own work—so much writing now seems to centre the writer and their experience. And this just isn’t that interesting to me. I miss the observation.

I sit a bit in the middle of those two poles but find, as usual, it is important to move away from the idea that “blogging” is a class of beer writing, especially in terms of quality. There is some horrendously shitty paid and published beer writing and also some excellent stuff shared by amateurs and/or semi-pros either on personal websites, sent via newsletter or recited (with or with 27 “umms”) in a podcast. For me, what is important are the substantive categories – and what I see at the moment are a few main themes in pub and beer writing with, of course, both overlaps and outliers: (i) industry writing, (ii) trade friendly writing, (iii) politico-socio justicio writing and (iv) innovative creative writing.** Is there a fifth category worth mentioning?

Now… it’s the last on the list that Matt may be missing most, the interesting individual observation. There are a number of voices still taking the time to do this but they are certainly fewer than a decade ago… or two for that matter. Where are the wags, the short stories, the haikus, the artistes? As we can see below in the lists, we’ve had another wave of quietening of many voices in 2019-20. It wasn’t really the pandemic so much, I would argue, a bit of boredom after years of craft brewery buyouts. Which may be the real point. There is only so much to write about in beer culture, only so many angles – especially when during a deepening market contraction… errr, sorry, maturation. Plus when you find that your chosen area of life like beer culture is not always or never really was a “community” but in fact a marketplace undermined by an alarming lack of social justice, well, one starts to look for other hobbies. After all, it is only beer. And stamps are, you know… stamps! And there’s sherry too.

That’s enough for today. Did I mention that you still need to check out Mastodon. It’s so nice. I take pictures of all the mosses that I see when out on walks – and people tell me how lovely they are! Really nice. Sure, you need to take the time and have some patience but regular posting attracts the audience. I particularly love how you can follow a hashtag there. So do go and see. I even small-i-fied my recommended starter list of links for you so as to be less daunting. Have a look:

Remember also to check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters for more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and maybe soon from Stan at his spot on those Mondays but, you know, he writes when when he can. Do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more?

And, yes, also gather ye all the podcasts and newsletters while ye may. Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast but it might be on a month off (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too even if it’s a bit trade. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

I’ve reoganized to note the departed newsletters and podcasts or those in purgatory. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Ben has had his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

*Extremely complex it seems.
**Industrial writing, like say the UK’s Morning Advertiser, is really only meant for business folk and a few fawning fans eager to have new words in their mouths. About the newest gadget. Or hop price fluctuations. Presumably this is reasonably secure for the writers and important for business folk – even if dreadfully boring for everyone else. Trade friendly writing is driven by the writers who have fewer facts than industry writers but want to please a larger group of fawning fans. Clubby writing. Standard issue brewery owner bios, kitty kartoons and authorizative statements on national beer cultures based on chaperoned junkets, discount trips on long weekends backed by a handful of emails. It’s glossy and pretty and all a bit empty. It’s also too often uncritical puff. Even industry writing is somewhat critical. And social justice writing is clearly critical. At its best, it sits miles away from political parroting. It’s a rich area of exploration that now has been well examined and should continue to gather pace. But – whether it’s a history or one of the various calls to action – social justice writing needs and thankfully often receives a committed thoughtful hand on the keyboard keeping it both factual and compelling.

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!! It’s The Ten Days To Christmas Beery News Notes Post!!!

I can’t figure out if being pressed for time will make these notes this week brief or lengthy. The line “I didn’t have time to write a short letter” which is linked to Mark Twain mostly… but in my mind to Jonathon Swift… but in reality to 1600s French mathematician Blaise Pascal… comes to mind. See, not only is it Yuletide with all the running around, I had to finish my bridge. One of the reasons the old beer blog and especially historical research leading to more on the old beer blog quieted a bit has been my part secondment to a big bridge project. Well, it opened to the public Tuesday as Fine Balance Brewing of our fair city’s east end celebrated on Facebook with the image above hoping to see a stream of west enders now heading their way. On time. On budget. Huge fun project. Happy to be the guy who wrote the contract and negotiated the deal.

Enough about me… first up, Christmas has beer RUINED for some in Gloucestershire:

Motorists faced delays on a motorway after boxes containing sweets and beer kegs were spilt over the carriageway. Two lanes of the M5 in Gloucestershire were closed after the spillage which also included books. The problem was reported at 06:30 GMT on Friday and lanes 1 and 2 southbound were closed between junction 13 at Stroud and junction 14 at Thornbury.

And things are tightening in other ways, of course, but I won’t add my list to the lists of disappearing craft breweries as B² did last Sat. And even though I expect it would upset one of those passive aggressive reductionist kitten craft mascots who demand that no one expresses opinions… I have to say this is one of the more interesting observations on how bad the situation is situation from John Porter:

The problem, as we both know from Publican Industry Report days, is that new breweries and pubcos arrive in a flurry of PR and excitement, and tend to disappear quietly to avoid unpaid bills and disgruntled investors. Like you, I suspect there’s always a lot of double counting.

Jordan is crunching the numbers in Ontario and the news is also not that good here for the beer industry. Ontarians are getting older on average and newcomers may not all be all that interested in beer. Beer volumes sold have hit the lowest point in 73 years. He uses words like “eerily” and “painstakingly” and “hanging” and “I’m forced to manually” and “irresponsible” and “robust” which seems all very… err… physical… but the point is not only made but well proven. The arse is out of it all.

The badness reaches out in all directions as these things go sideways. At what point should drinkers rally around with a bit of focus to save the best? And when is it an end or a new beginning?

Real ale fans were saddened to hear of the forthcoming closure of Manchester’s Beer Nouveau… Though Steve Dunkley’s popular tap is no more, the story is not yet over under the railway arch at 75 North Western Street. The space is being taken over by Katie Sutton, the new owner of Temperance Street Brewery. Renamed the Temperance Street Brewery & Tap, the venue will initially open Fridays and Saturdays. Katie works full-time in the NHS, so she is being supported by Matt Gibson of Temperance Street Cider. Both the brewery and the cidery already operate out of the premises and extensive work is not needed.

Speaking of the NHS, Martin once again has shown why private reportage of thing beery are so helpful, this time with a photo essay from his trip to Cologne focusing on Gaststätte Lommerzheim aka Lommi’s. Linger over the images like the one right there. Not all samey pretty beer porn like we see so often. And a brief tale of prowess:

More customers under 30 than over 50, and Mrs RM the only non-bloke, but she outdrank them all. 3 in 20 minutes and we were gone, after admiring the tree outside the Gents (so not quite the Combermere). Honestly, it was perfect, like your favourite Sam Smitha if it wasn’t run with lunatic rules.

It is interesting to see how quickly the discounting of bulk brewery owned Bourbon County is happening this year:

… stumbled upon the below this afternoon. Can confidently say I never expected the reserves and prop to be on the shelf 16 days after Black Friday. Happily took a barelywine and prop and went on my way.

Also interesting to note that one long standing ad placement with Sound Opinions, a US public radio music program out of Chicago, has been dropped. The email read:

We recently learned that we’re losing a significant portion of our funding in 2023. Our long relationship with our major sponsor, Goose Island, has ended due to the shaky economy. We have other revenue sources: a generous grant from the Goldschmidt Foundation, small ad buys, and individual donations from dedicated listeners like you. But it’s not enough to keep the show running at full speed.

If you like music, listen and give. It’s dandy and via Patreon there are a number of bonus features.

The Japanese marketplace appears to have recently hit a particular point of inflection beer-wise-ly:

Beer and quasi-beer sales fell 8 pct from a year before in Japan in November, still reeling from October price hikes, estimates from Kirin Brewery Co. and others showed Monday. Asahi Breweries Ltd. reported a 7 pct drop in the value of its sales, while Kirin logged an 8 pct fall in volume and Sapporo Breweries Ltd. a 7 pct decline. Brewers incurred marked drops in sales of canned products, mainly for household consumption.

Jeff wrote the first “best of list” that wasn’t an unrealistic, purely sample based thing submitted months ago to a mag for the editors to churn upon. He also led up front with excellent context:

Obviously, no one can try all new beers in a year. As all sample groups are, this is highly individual. And, since I do most of my drinking in Oregon, it’s got a lot of Oregon beer. It’s also not exhaustive. I recall a wonderful pFriem Canadian Lager I enjoyed at the brewery, a delicious gueuze from Tilquin I enjoyed at a beer festival in Oslo, a cracking good festbier at Heater Allen, and more. Furthermore, if you think I avoid hoppy ales, behold: this list is lousy with ‘em! I love all beer styles, and it seems like 2022 was a good one for hops.

And Pellicle posted a profile of Glasgow brewers Epochal, sometime past subject within these here weekly notes:

Epochal specialises in barrel-aged pale ales, table beers, Scotch ales, porters and stouts—the latter two having a rich history in Glasgow. The beers undergo an extended dry hop for the duration of their secondary ageing. The mature beer is then bottle-conditioned with a small portion of one-day-old fresh beer, a process employed by one of Scotland’s top 19th-century brewers, the Glasgow-born James Steel. The entire process takes anywhere from three months to a year, resulting in beers you can ponder over, or drink for pure pleasure, depending on your mood.

Is GBH becoming a travel vignette site?

Finally, wrongest quote about the history of beer passed my eyes this week:

For most of the time, intoxication was not the main purpose and could only be achieved to a limited extent, if at all, given that beer had a low alcohol content for most of human history.

See, to make weak beer you either need to first make strong wort or you have to waste resources to boil way too much watery wort. It’s how it works. If you don’t believe me, ask Babylon. Please do better. If only at this Yuletide.

That’s it! Next week, the best reading of 2022 will be mentioned here as well as perhaps also in the updates from Boak and Bailey we see mostly every Saturday and also also perhaps from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly and highly recommented Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s coming back soon. See also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run… no, it is back and here is the link!

The Laziest Beery News Notes Of The Last 167 Weeks! Honestly… Why?

OK, I took the week off to burn off vacation days. No plan. Sure, I had a few things I could do on a list but I got through that list by about 11:15 am on Monday. Hmm… what to do… what to do… oh, the World Cup is on! I really didn’t plan as I have not been paying attention. Because it’s all so corrupt… that game I played from the elementary school yard until I was 44 or so a decade and a half ago. That the old man played for Greenock Academy, losing to Falkirk in 1946’s championship at Hampden Park. Less fabulously, there I am with my pal in 1986, just over half my life and just under half my body mass ago at the end of a game heading to the tav… I miss those socks. Anyway, so I watched some fitba this week sitting in the basement. Should I have gone to a pub to watch? Maybe. Might still. I love the idea of having a favourite seat for this sort of thing. I had one until twenty years ago in a tavern in my old stomping ground in PEI. I can think of another in Halifax NS maybe 40 years ago. Comfy corners where the shoulders can nestle in. Martin found one, too, the one up there at the Dog & Partridge:

Perhaps I just wanted to sit in my favourite Sheffield pub room.

What else happened this week? Well, first I am not sure why Budweiser thinks beer is something that can be donated as noted on to Johan Roux’s Mastodon feed (with the h/t):

#Budweiser will donate all of the #beer brewed for the #WorldCup to the winning country. It is also expected that the company will sue #FIFA because of a breach of contract – the sale of beer was banned a few days before the start of the championship. In total, Budweiser will donate tens of tons of beer worth 75 million euros.

And I listened to the Beer Ladies Podcast interview of John, The Beer Nut and I was struck by something. It was one of the best podcasts I had ever heard. Not because of John… or, rather, not due to John or… well, he does sort of giggle, doesn’t he. No, what I mean is that it was so well done technically. A second of dead air between comments was just allowed to be a silence. No one jumping on the other. Nothing forced. Lovely pace to the discussion.

AND… Ray of Boak and Bailey wrote one of the best Patreon essays I’ve read of theirs. A really good piece of writing about realizing his father was no longer at an age when a pub crawl was possible.

I didn’t drink myself until I was 20 which Dad found pretty weird, along with almost everything else about me, I suppose. We always got on but didn’t have much to talk about, or anything to do together other than watch telly. When I finally did start drinking, and got into beer, something clicked. Suddenly, he could take me to The Railwayman’s Club, The Commercial Inn or The Rebel’s Retreat in Bridgwater. There, he taught me to drink ‘properly’: “Blood hell, son – chat chat chat, chug chug chug, chat chat chat!” And when he came to visit me in London, I got to show him the pubs I’d found. (Where he’d often be able to wangle a lock-in.)

Fabulous – and also sad in that way that a rich life is aware of its own passing. My folks passed a decade ago and I can recall the creeping feeling leading up to their deaths of the slow loss of sharing, in my case including soccer games and a kitchen filled with cooking.

Speaking of excellent writing, it is the case that there are good writers who don’t necessarily have much to say. There are also those poorer writers who struggle along working out what are really more interesting ideas.¹ But it is a real treat when the good idea meets the skillful writer like they do in this week’s wonderful feature at Pellicle, David Jesudason’s lengthily titled “Please Don’t Take Me Home — How Black Country Desi Pub Culture Made Football More Diverse“:

Oddly, desi pubs are usually very British in terms of decor; the Red Cow run by Bera Mahli since 2010 (who also worked in Birmid for a short time before he went into the pub trade) has two traditional lounge bars. They can also be reworked to look like an old-fashioned Indian club-style bar like in the Prince of Wales on West Bromwich high street. My 15-minute conversation with Steve at the Red Cow was deeply touching—we hugged—as he’s so passionate about making sure non-white fans are safe during the match, and is one of the many Sikhs who have ensured West Brom is home to one of the most diverse football crowds in the country.

It’s a story that has a lot of commonality with Ray’s thoughts when you thing about it. The only way I can describe the commonality between David’s piece, Ray’s thoughts and the Beer Ladies Podcast interview discussed above is a calmness in the moment. There are none of the burdens.² ³ ⁴ No, in this piece like all the best sort of writing there is also a person and a moment. The scene being seen. I’d be at this pub regularly… if it was in my town… and if Canada has the same sort of pub life… which it doesn’t.⁵ Le sigh.

Ghost of beer scenes past? Eoghan wrote this about an article on Belgian beer:

…I love the classics as much as the next person, and Belgian beer moves more slowly than other places, but there is a world of interesting beers beyond the Trappists and Saison Dupont – brewers/importers, where is your curiosity?

The article in Imbibe mag in part painted a picture of decline, the same one that could have been about brown ale and other darlings of the past shunted aside by craft’s obsession about what was big in, you know, the last six weeks:

Over the last half-decade, Belgian beer’s wattage has dimmed stateside. Saisons have struggled to find traction and comprehension. Local breweries and taprooms have proliferated, negating the need for beer imported from across the Atlantic. To that point, Anheuser-Busch InBev is now producing Stella Artois stateside, and Spencer Brewery, America’s only Trappist brewery, ceased operations in Massachusetts this year. According to a website statement, “The monks of St. Joseph’s Abbey have come to the sad conclusion that brewing is not a viable industry for us.”

What else is going on? Speaking of ghosts, Jenny P. posted a menu from a Q3 20C US steakhouse chain called Lums Restaurant and, well would you look at that, found a very interesting beer list. Click on that. Notice something? Not lager led. A balance of ales and lagers. The idea that post-WW2 beer in the US was all about the macro gak is one of the laziest tropes in American brewing history.⁶

Perhaps by way of contrast, Will Cleveland wrote a great story about a Montana beer co with one product – a light lager – both called Montucky Cold Snacks:

Zeitner said the banks laughed at them initially. “They were like, ‘We’re not going to give you a million dollars to compete against Budweiser or PBR. Are you crazy?” Of course, they are the only ones laughing now. That’s evidenced by some of the ridiculously kitschy and awesome Montucky Cold Snacks merchandise the brewery sells, including pool floats, dog toys, sunglasses, onesies, hats, and a wide variety of other stuff. The rejection caused Zeitner and Gregory to re-examine their plan. They realized that PBR doesn’t brew its own beer, helping them consider a similar, albeit much smaller, path.

Finally, Twitter death march update. Boak and Bailey spoke of their troubles with Le Twit in their November newsletter⁷ which is really also worth a read. This is just a sliver of their thoughts:

We even had a Twitter-fuelled stalking incident – a real low point, and a wake-up call. We started unfollowing, muting and blocking people more freely. Having a word with ourselves, we also learned not to respond to every narky Tweet. Just because people wanted to argue with us didn’t mean we had to play. And we reduced our usage of the site overall. For the past few years, we’ve rolled our eyes at people complaining about the “toxic” nature of “beer Twitter”. Like many things, it’s as good as the effort you put into it. Share the kind of things you want to see, resist the urge to contribute to the cycle of gloom, and it can be A Good Thing. But now, Twitter might be dying.

There’s a lot of good reason to leave right there. But I ain’t goin. No sir-ee. The other day the damn blue bird app was flickering on and off like a bad lightbulb. But I’m still here. If you are concerned and want other sources, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey hopefully now again mostly every Saturday and also from Stan more now on a Monday than almost ever! Check out the weekly and highly recommented Beer Ladies Podcast. The OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s coming back soon. See also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run… no, it is back and here is the link!

¹ I used to have a book of letters of Alfred North Whitehead and took great comfort in one written to Bertrand Russell in which he praised the B student over those in the top of the class for being a source of far more interesting ideas, just put a bit poorly.
² The shouty “WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT”foolishness plumping up a dull PR piece. It never is.
³ Or the copycat drive-by bill-paying article, research done from a distance, often based on Twitter polls or email “interviews” of a sort: “I reached out to…” No doubt financially necessary and not always horrible if done well.
⁴ Or, the worst, that “mystery” stuff which is virtually a declaration that a beer writer has given up. Smacks of clairvoyants and spiritualists… “woooa… you need to speak with a beer consultant…” [insert unexpected creaky noise] “…only then will you understand… woooaha000…“
⁵ Because soccer and cooking! Being a perceived majoritarian but a first-gen freckled, identity is a thing. In work, friends and family I gravitate to these inclusive relationships and moments but it can also still get the awkward in return. I don’t care as much anymore. Alongside the homemade mince and tatties, the homemade curries of my Mississauga youth were legit even if they hopscotched (literally) from a great-granddad in 1890s India, through 1940s Britain and on to 1960s Canada when I showed up.
⁶ But it suits the generally accepted false craft origin story neatly.
⁷ OK, I follow B+B by blog, newsletter, Patreon, Twitter, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram even emails and once by Zoom. That’s weird. Weird that it has never struck me as too much or, you know, stalking on my part.

Your Beery News Notes Of Mid-November With The Furnace Running Full Blast

And now it’s cold. For good. Plus snow. See that poblano pepper plant setting blossoms? That was Sunday. Sunday?!?! Now it’s frikkin’ cold. Happy we bought a new furnace a few years ago. The old one was a one-stager that came on like a jet plane taking off a runway. Woke you up early in the winter. Every time. Until you got used to it. This new one sneaks up on you. Ramps up. Which means you wake up and ask yourself whether it’s running or not. That’s an improvement. We’ve had the place for 16 years now. Should see us out. First thing I did when we bought the place was ruin a brick. Shouldn’t have done that. But I did save a couple hundred poblano seeds. Always do that.

First up? Pubmeister writes… had an interesting post this week on the taverns of Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland which included this wonderful anecdote right at the end:

Meanwhile in the Black Bull regular customer Daniel was holding court on a wide range of issues, ranging from cricket to his mother’s trade in cheap underwear. His father was once the licensee at the Loudonhill Inn when it was on the convoluted Western buses route from Airdrie to Ayr. Daniel said the drivers used to come into the pub to make sure the customers didn’t miss the last bus home.

That little moment needs slipping into a movie, that does. Speaking of the life in the country, we’ve had a bit more good news about the prospects for the 2022 Canadian malt barley crop with the prayed for combo of high prices and high volumes:

…prices in parts of Canada have surged more than 30% since August. Canadian barley prices are approaching the all-time highs set in 2021 as beermakers and livestock feeders seek to replenish dwindled supplies after last year’s drought, said Peter Watts, managing director of the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre… Dry weather scorched fields last year, shrinking Canada’s barley harvest to the second-smallest since 1968. US farmers reaped the smallest crop since 1934, just after Prohibition ended. Barley production rebounded this year, jumping 34% in Canada and 45% in the US. North America typically harvests enough barley to account for a fifth of global commercial beer production.

Conversely perhaps, The New York Times reported this week on how in Mexico preferential access to water resources for breweries was creating real hardship for residents:

“You’d open the tap and there wouldn’t be a drop of water,” she said. The brewing factories, though, “they produced and produced and produced.” As droughts become more frequent and severe around the world, brewers and other heavy industrial water users have landed at the center of the climate fight in Mexico, with activists leading a movement to reclaim resources from corporations that has gained recognition at the highest levels of government. Even the promise of jobs and economic development is wearing thin as extreme weather events put the disparity in access to water between private industry and households on clear display, forcing some of the biggest global brands onto unsure footing.

And I like this tidbit of information which flew by on social media, gleaned from an interview with Kurt Vonnegut Jr in 1977 in Paris Review. His grandfather’s brewery, Lieber of Indianapolis, added coffee to the grist for extra zip. Click right for the deets. Jay Brooks posted even more information in 2007 about how there was a connection to Denver’s Wynkoop Brewing, which in 1996 brewed a beer a Vonnegut tribute beer – again with coffee. There’s a lot of chronology right there. Take a minute if you need it.

Speaking of fouled things of days gone by, The Telegraph in England by Christopher Howse reliving a slice of taverns past under the title “Pubs used to be revolting – and that is how we liked them” with tidbits like this:

I never got the hang of smoking, but I did not need to. Having taken to drink like a duck to Burton Best Bitter, I did my smoking passively. Early evening sunbeams lit up billows at the deep end of the Archetypal Arms… The Archetypal Arms had bowl-glasses (for bottled Mackeson milk stout or a Babycham) upside-down in wooden docking bays above the bar. These caught smoke curling into them from below, layer upon layer. But when smoking was banned in 2007, the true smell of the pub came out: drains, sweat and drink-spoiled carpets.

Mmm… Some lovely photos of the same era here at Londonist, drawn from The London Pub (a new book with a Pete Brown foreword) one of which is snipped and clipped just above. 1947. Such trousers. But, let’s face it, probably still a smelly scene. Snankin’ perhaps but still smelly. Perhaps less so and here in the present, Martin has done a good deed for us all with a guide to 24 hours in Glasgow:

Where to start? Well, a 9am Breakfast with Lorne sausage at Cairn Lodge on the M6 is the only way to go if you’re driving into Glasgow… 11 am The Bon Accord. Best for beer quality on my visit, and a chance to relive the moment in 1978 when the Scots thought they were going to win the World Cup… 12pm Walk along Sauchiehall Street. Eat that Tunnocks wafer you’ve been saving in your coat pocket…

Had my first pint as a 17 year old on Sauchiehall Street* with my old man. Don’t tell the shadowy Portman Group, which purports to save teens through branding regulation in the drinks trade in the UK. They’ve issued a self congratulatory statement on its many wonders:

For over 25 years, our Code of Practice for the Naming, Packaging and Promotion of Alcoholic Drinks has sought to ensure that alcohol is promoted in a socially responsible way, only to those aged 18 and over, and in a way that does not appeal particularly to those who are vulnerable. It is backed by over 160 Code Signatories, which includes all the leading retailers in the UK. Thanks to the Code, over 170 products have been amended or removed from the market. Many hundreds more have been helped to adhere to the Code before appearing on shelves through the support of the Advisory Service.

Hmm… I wonder of 6.8 branding alteration interventions a year is all that an accomplishment. Also sounds like the proverbial waters into which the proverbial oar was stuck were perhaps not such a cesspool.

Elsewhere, I watched an episode of the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. It’s only because I began playing with my Roku TV and came across it a bit by chance, an auto-recommend after watching another train ride video from Japan. Very soothing, those Japanese train ride videos. Anyway, it was very well produced and it was nice to see Martyn talking about IPA’s history. The trouble is only how the format of video forces such a low level of data transfer, especially for the efforts clearly made. This, of course, is compounded by the corner into which the followers of style have painted themselves with regard to IPA, as was illustrated by this passage in the British Beer Breaks newsletter describing a related discussion:

Garrett described IPA to the gathering in Burton as “a family of styles, variations on a theme”, that theme being hop-forward beers. There also seemed to be general agreement that an IPA must be above a certain strength. Yet the country’s best-selling IPA, the Greene King one, is a mere 3.6% abv. And those sweet and juicy New England IPAs are now being dismissed by some as not true to IPA style. As beer historian Martyn Cornell explains in the Craft Beer Channel’s handy history of IPA, the label has been loosely used by breweries for a long time. The important thing is, as Garrett put it, that “we ensure it never becomes just a marketing term”…

Bit late for that. Ship? Sailed. And now… here is your weekly beery Mastodon update. Followers just about doubled in the last week, 108 to just over 200. I am sensing that content at least in the near future is really going to be king… OK… perhaps maybe… an earl. Me, I’m working the #BeerHistory hash with a few others linking to existing content. As a peer based system, it’s more about what is said. Things are more facilitated by Twitter. Facilitated. As Jeff wrote, the shift is a bit daunting. But I found this comment interesting, the old school revisited:

Elon M taking Twitter private and destroying it may be the shock we creators, who left our blogs and DIY internet endeavors in the late 2000s / early 2010s for various social media style micro-blogs owned by other people, needed to wake us up and shock us back into the Indie Web rather than the Corporate Web.

Capitals. Hmm. But I also found this comment from Matty C interesting too:

We still have over 1000 people view the site each month via their RSS feeds! Just checked our entire site referral history and a we haven’t had a single click on a link placed there, ever. Doesn’t give me much evidence that its worth investing in.

Flux. That’s what we are in. Fun. Innit. Or it’s all going to get fluxed. Or not. I’m lonely… it’s so cold…

What? Sorry. On a personal note, it’s just over a year now since I added drink consumption to my daily stats sent to myself by email with a line of code. See, I started tracking stuff because in September 2021 I began a fasting diet that continues today. I only eat in a 6.5 hour or so window each day. Every few weeks I add something more to track, some other topic. Books read, stretches stretched daily. And… did I floss? Nothing too obsessive. Takes a minute a day. But it works. I am lighter and stretchier. And in November 2021, I added drinks. Well, booze. So I can report that in the last 365 days I had 47% alcohol free days and another 13% of just one drink. I average under 2 drinks a day. So a reasonably healthy relationship with the booze all in all. I recommend it.

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

*I can even pronounce it!

The Tired Old Thursday Beery News Notes For The End of October

Tired and old? Not the notes! Just me. The municipal election was Tuesday and it was a long day at the coal face, pick and shovel in hand. My sixth election for work. I love it as I get to practice a very specific sort of thing that only applies one evening every four years. Like being good at Leap Year law. Well, at least good enough. I also crossed over to the nearby US of A this week for the first time in years. Didn’t buy any beer given how crummy the exchange rate is and how high the duties – but I did get a couple of boxes of Cracklin’ Oat Bran, one of the cereals our Canadian federal government denies us. The US port of entry at the bridge 35 miles or so from here has been rebuilt and looks like something out of Star Wars… or Red Dwarf maybe. It’s actually really an interesting bit of architectural design. Imposing. As it should be.

What else is going on? Well, Jordan was in town last week – but I was tied to the desk and couldn’t make the twenty-three minute walk to Spearhead (led by Josh, himself a municipal candidate!) to watch the brewery’s rather ultra set up produce an ESB for an excellent charitable cause. The brewery is very good about offering support like that also producing a light lager for CJAI, the community radio station whose monthly minutes I take as secretary of the board.* Jordan shared a bit about the experience:

…we’ve got Maris Otter, a little Dark Crystal, and some Black Patent Malt for colour correction. We’ve got Challenger, Fuggles, and East Kent Goldings which should give it some verisimilitude… The brewing system at Spearhead is so advanced that there are not a huge number of pictures you can effectively take of the brew day. I have raked out enough mash tubs on camera over the years and I always feel I look a little silly doing it. I also felt silly posing next to the console with my finger over the transfer button so I made Jacob do it. I feel like I look a little silly most of the time.

For Punch, Courtney Iseman wrote an interesting piece on simmering backlash against the vague concept of IPA. I was particularly pleased to see it reached back and made the case for continuity even if it suffers from the amnesia that beer writer interviewing beer writer summations like this also offer:

IPA’s true history remains buried in England, and is all but unknown in the United States. From a 19th-century influx of German immigrants to post-Prohibition consolidation of American beer under just a few behemoth brands pumping out yellow, fizzy water, the United States was a longtime lager land. Peter Ballantine & Sons Brewing Co. made one of the country’s few IPAs from the late 1800s until 1971, which inspired Fritz Maytag to make, four years later, Anchor Brewing Co.’s Liberty Ale, a dry-hopped pale ale that motivated more U.S. brewers to follow suit.

Craig described the history of American IPA dating back to the early 1800s in 2013 – and at least 1852 in Canada – but at least that part of the chain from Ballantine to today has been acknowledged.
Speaking of improving the track of actual brewing history, the comments last week illustrated the need to be diligent. That responsibility led me to one particularly unique factor to include in considerations, suggested in 1933 by the British scientific journal Nature, a stick to medically measure how pervasive ale was in the medieval era:

The medieval publican had a bad reputation for fraud and dishonesty, while the tavern was often regarded as a place of ill-repute. Alcoholism during the Middle Ages in England, as elsewhere, resembled in many ways the alcoholism of classical antiquity… Legislation dealing with drunkenness or control of the liquor trade was practically unknown in the ancient world, whereas taxation of drink, reduction in the hours of sale and the number of taverns and other restrictions were introduced in the Middle Ages. The absence of syphilis in both ages was noteworthy in view of the fact that alcohol was such a frequent incentive to exposure to infection and was liable to aggravate the disease when once it was acquired.

One more historical question – did this cleric actually first bottle a beer?

Pellicle sent out an update to subscribing supporters like me and the message is clear – the plan to have a self-sufficient quality beer writing without compromising dependence is possible:

…at the time of writing this we are at 296, which is the highest number of Patreon supporters we’ve ever had. We hope you feel your support is worthwhile, and if its not, please consider my inbox always open. We understand that circumstances change, and things aren’t simple for many of us at the moment, including ourselves. I want to ensure that the way we run Pellicle is transparent, and you can see where your donation goes… While we maintain our ethos is to celebrate the joy inherent within our favourite drinks cultures, we also believe that these spaces can only be truly joyful if they can be enjoyed by everyone. We’ll continue publishing articles in this vein in the future for this reason.

The recent piece by Emmie Harrison-West on the failure of UK craft to support a call to end sexism is proof enough of that intention. Compare assurances elsewhere that a “critique on the beer industry itself” is best avoided. I also liked this week’s article on the folly of wine tourism and suggest they apply equally to beer tourism which, as one wag recently put it, is a euphemism for getting drunk in a city where no one knows you. If you think of it, that second Pellicle article as well as the one in Punch above also align a bit with the image to the right, a brewery advert aimed at a French colonial soldier in Algeria spotted on Twitter this week. Click for deets.

Stan in his newsletter ~~Hopping Mad~~… ~~The Hoptician~~… err… Hop Queries included an extended bit on that thing I know nothing about called first wort hopping:

In 1995, the German brewing magazine Brauwelt reported on the “rediscovery of first wort hopping,” documenting that many German breweries implemented first wort hopping 100 years before. It is a technique where hops are added to the first runnings of wort from the lauter tun. This exposes hop material to wort at lower temperatures and an elevated pH for an extended period of time. Advocates for FWH claim it produces a beer with improved bitterness qualities that can be described as “smooth” and “harmonious.”

Sounds a bit like myself, smooth and harmonious.

Glynn Davis wrote about how interviewing one restauranteur who went alcohol free led to considerations of the overall value proposition:

Rather like Hussain has found at the Blue Naan, the adoption of non-alcoholic and low-alcoholic drinks is not going to help attract customers (quite the opposite could be the case, in fact), nor are they going to be some big money spinner for hospitality businesses. But that’s not to say they don’t have a place in helping companies achieve other aims that might be more focused on health, wellness and faith, rather than just being about hard cash.

One last thing? Was craft beer culture ever cool other than to the people with the buzz at the expensive beer bar? Or was the relatively dead air on social media after the results were released more the case?

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

*I like to play both sides in radio land.

Your Last Thursday Beery News Notes For Q3 2022

Well, what a few weeks it has been. After the mourning period for Herself among other things, Hurricane Fiona comes along and hammers into family and friends out east where I grew up. Don’t know yet what’s happened to our old house and garden. Despite the loss of life and damage to property, there was in some areas an attitude that we bear these burdens and move on. Example: Krystle Collier’s home in southwest Newfoundland’s Port Aux Basques was destroyed but she found her White Claw Seltzers still in the fridge. Go Krystle!

Beer news? First up, Martyn wrote an interesting piece for Pellicle this week about the revival of Gales Prized Old Ale:

This October the new edition of Prize Old Ale will be bottled and put on sale, each bottle containing a tiny, homoeopathic quantity of every other batch of POA going back to the reign of King George V. Henry, and his masters, the Japanese brewing giant Asahi (which acquired Fullers, and with it Dark Star, in 2019) hopes that drinkers are now knowledgeable enough about mixed-fermentation beers, and what they have to offer, to appreciate Prize Old Ale, which—in the UK, at least—they were probably not when Fuller’s first relaunched it in 2007.

My own tiny special reserve, illustrated to the right as Stan himself would want, has been offered up as a bio-pool refresher should the team need it. 25 years old now, I don’t dare open it. I bet Krystle Collier would, though. I’d let her.

By the way, a bit to the east, did you know that the Beer Party is polling 13% in the Austrian Presidential campaign.

Back in Britain, there has been much talk about the proposed rebranding of cask ale as fresh ale. This seems to be another go as something that has had a few goes and reminds me a lot of the US craft beer botches such as “crafty” and “true craft” and, yes, “independent” beer. But the issues at play are distinct – central to which is price. Jessica Mason framed it succinctly as the Forces of Timbo v. the Forces of Premiumization:

Wetherspoons Tim Martin gets slammed for devaluing beer and using one price for all, despite research showing people are seeking out premium drinks…

Cookie‘s on Team Timbo BTW. And why not? Most people are not wanting to pay more for beer, especially in these times:

BCA’s head of pubs Graham Manwaring said that as well as the rising cost of brewing their beers at the BCA brewery in Upper Gornal, they were also facing higher costs from beer suppliers like Coors and Carlsberg Marston’s. “We are going to have a careful look at our prices to see how to balance it for customers and to maintain the business.” He said the level of rise had yet to be determined but was expected from mid-October. “It is not going to be easy for anybody. Everyone know pubs are going to have to raise prices. “It is a very difficult time to be trading,” he added.

Hard to argue that the one economic opportunity right now that cask should be leaning on hard is how cheap it is – not upselling it. (But do consultants really want to be seen consulting in favour of discount offerings?) One other more conceptual problem, of course, is this: there is already fresh ale at every brewery taproom as well as that other sort of beer, Fresh Hop Ale. The new phrase fails to distinguish meaningfully. And everyone already knows was cask is. It’s that. “Fresh” is a bunch of things. And the real problem is that many folk know full well what cask is and still aren’t that interested even at a low price. Speaking of which, Boak and Bailey found another thing in the British pub that’s not all that interesting:

We didn’t particularly mind eating a mediocre burger when it’s less than a tenner. When it’s more than £15, we expect it to have a bit of something about it. We completely understand that when everything is going up, you need to charge more to stay in the same place. As we explored in a post a few months ago there are thresholds at which you will lose customers, particularly when they’re also grappling with the increasing cost of living. Based on our observations, this is already happening.

Changing topics, eleven and a half years ago, Andy Crouch proclaimed “A New Era of Beer Writing” was upon us:

In the stead of groundbreakers such as Michael Jackson, Fred Eckhardt and others, many beer writers have been content to gently tread within the outlines of their predecessors’ sizable but not all-encompassing footprints, rarely venturing into new territories. That means producing tasting notes, and sometimes regurgitating questionable beer and style histories. For those of us who write about beer for a living, even for BeerAdvocate magazine, we need to do more. We need to write about people and place as much as we do about product. In focusing on special releases, limited-batch series and the novelties that comprise so much of today’s beer writing, writers often fail to capture the true essence of the characters and spirit driving craft beer’s unstoppable ascension. Too often, writers craft never-ending odes to their favorite breweries, while skirting over problem points.

I mention this as there was a bit of a huff after the NAGBW awards were announced. Jeff considered the evidence indicated that “[t]en years ago when I judged, there was a ton of very mediocre stuff from small papers around the US. You’re right that we have lost a lot of those outlets, but the quality of work is WAY higher” while I suggested that there are “fewer other outlets for paid writing, very few blogs,* very few books compared to 6, 8, 10 years ago.” We are both probably right in a meaningful sense – but I think Andy was also right from his perspective a bit more than 6, 8, 10 years ago.

Comfortable and careful writing is not good. Covers up stuff.** Remember: even if the subject matter has narrowed or even in part just shifted – shifted along with the politics even – the writing can still be comfortable and careful. You know what isn’t daring anymore? Positive repetitive blah however well written and layered with gorgeous photos. And do we need another style guide? Or more blocky kitty cat newbie cartooning, confused stabs at market trends or another feel good article about a distant brewery or pub you’ll never ever see,*** one with the ugly bits deleted? Probably not. But do we reject those forms? Probably not that either. I’m not advocating rejection. Build it up again, broadening and including. If Jeff is right and the quality is higher, then broaden the scope, add to the voices getting attention and widen the variety of topics and the ways they are explored.

Speaking of things not much written these days, Gary wrote a bit about lightness and humour in beer writing by way of introduction to the beer at breakfast – or rather breakfasts – in India a century ago:

Sir Allan’s padre thought “beer” a better choice for the second, more substantial breakfast. Evidently it was pale ale – doubtfully stout, but who knows. So this tells us pilsener and English beer were regarded as quite different, as indeed today. The former was lighter in colour, taste, and alcohol. The witticism Sir Allan reported was a colouful way to make that point.

See: tales of Bamburg past and future.

In GBH, there is an excellent article on new opportunities in non-traditional crops for brewing by Hollie Stephens:

“In the last 150 years we have lost a third of our topsoil.” This explains why Miller says that he has not found it difficult to convince farmers to give perennials like Kernza a try, a sentiment which Kimbler echoes. “What they really need right now are more diverse crops, more diverse cropping systems, and more ability for them to adapt their practices on their unique piece of land, unique climate, and economic and social situation,” she says. “They just need a lot more options.”

Quibble: not sure why the significant and growing percentage of non-tilled traditional grain farms wasn’t explored. Tiny quibble.

Finally, Lars posted a fabulous photo of a drinking hall in Norway that is over 800 years old:

This is typical Setesdal: this is the second oldest wooden building in Norway (if we omit churches), dated 1217. It’s not in a museum, though. Just by the side of the road.

The NYTs wrote about the area in 2019. Right about where my McLeods were – well, you know, after they were MacLeods… and after they were cousins to Elliots who themselves were once O’Llliots after they were O’Ljots and both and all were the Sons of Ljot. Wha’s like us?

There you are. More than I had imagined. Next week it is October. While you think about all that means, please check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and perhaps now from Stan usually on a Monday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on a quieter schedule these days – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to 404 bloggy podcast heaven… gone to the 404 bloggy podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable… not sure this went very far…) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now gone after a ten year run.

*And, just to be clear, while this is wonderful writing, it is not a blog. Four posts in a year, paid for and no space for comments? Column. Not a blog.
**And it feels like stuff may be getting gently coved up again a bit, doesn’t it…
***Are they all even there? It would be so easy to create a false story about wonderful bar in Ulan Bator.

A Slightly Less Puffed Up Edition Of Your Thursday Beery News Notes

Here I am. Still on vacation but at least at home making dinners rather than forking out for them. Let’s be clear. I am not a cheap date when out and about but at the same time I do have my limits. Big city fun can hit that after a few days so nice to be back in the backyard for week two. Well, once the rain lets up. Gotta say, though, Montreal is my favorite big city even though I am maritally prohibited from rooting or the Habs. Drove past the front gate of the original and still operating Molson brewery established in 1786 when I got a bit lost in traffic coming into the downtown. Quite the edifice.

Speaking of working, on Wednesday Gary posted an image of a 1938 Quebec beer delivery truck out in winter. Looks like a display as those boxes look empty and stacked way too high. I cropped this image out of the right hand corner. I love the guy’s look. Button suspenders over a tucked in sweater, high lace leather boots, fedora and tie. And look at the window in the background. Signs – perhaps in neon – for Brasserie Frontenac, Boswell Cream Porter as well as Dow Old Stock Ale. These brands were all related to provincial firms that merged in 1909, the amalgamation which inspired a young E.P. Taylor two decades later to start off on his global merger mania. The truck and many of the boxes are also labeled with Dow’s Black Horse Ale. Cream Porter was still a thing when I lived in the Ottawa Valley in the mid-1990s under the Champlain brand made by Molson and in fact and early beer review on this here site was for Labatt Porter. Now there is a style that needs revival.

What else is going on? A few more ripples caused by the long piece in Pellicle on the state of IPA today are worth noting. JJB himself wrote positively of the explanation and agreed with how the code of IPA (as opposed to the definition) is effective for Stonch as a publican:

I can tell you that consumers with only a cursory knowledge of beer know what IPA means to them, and moreover that concept tends to be very similar across the board. When someone asks for an IPA, I know which taps to point them to.

Matt himself was unhappy with his thoughts being “torn apart in a @BeerAdvocate thread…” but that is a bit of an unfair statement as it was also praised there. His tension is reasonable.* There is a dismissal of old school thread writing but it is always good to remember that many there (folk who have no interest in blogging or certainly no interest in the dead end world of semi-pro beer writing) who know a hell of a lot about beer even though there are, yes, many oafs. For example, I entirely agree with this from someone on the site for fifteen years:

Once breweries realized that some of us were well and truly over the murkbombs, they started relabeling, or at least redescribing. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been shying away from any packaged beer called IPA unless I’m already familiar with it.

And also this from a seventeen year BA veteran:

It appears to me that the craft beer industry is viewing IPA = money and given this consideration I suspect that we will continue to see more and more beer brands with this labeling. They may be brands that can fit within one (or more?) of the categories that Matthew Curtis listed in his article or maybe they will be some brand-new name (e.g., New England style Wheat IPA) that some person just willy-nilly comes up with to make money.

Exactly. See, along with avoiding humour and any actual grasp of much of history, good beer culture has a very hard time with debate. It’s apparently uncomfortable for those trained on the short course who then have decided that they know what needs to be known, like a teen watching a movie with their parents when a dirty bit come on No, in craft beer culture it is a fundamental principal that you have to all sing from the same hymnal because it is all… great! That is why it generates no serious academic discourse – or even researched to and fro anymore. “Expert” is sorta of a participation award. Can you even call doing something “taking a course” if it fails to generate any deliverables that aren’t just repetition by rote? No, to discuss and disagree is rude. And that is one main reason why general good beer culture isn’t taken seriously.

Related perhaps, Ron summed up a trip to the USA and his observations on the beer scene this way:

I’m just back from the US. Wasn’t that impressed with the beer selection. Mostly: IPA, Sludge IPA, Sour Shit, Sour Shit with fruit, Sludge IPA with shit, Sludge IPA with fruit and shit, Pilsner.

Boak and Bailey unsettled me with a related consideration following up on a post from Jeff on the idea of session a few weeks back:

Jeff Alworth is right – most people (quite wisely) haven’t let themselves get bogged down in precisely what these terms mean. They just know that a brewery choosing to use a relatively more obscure word to describe its product is saying “You’re no rube, you know the lingo, welcome to the club.” As Matt points out, though, these terms are suffering the same fate as ‘craft beer’, becoming applied so widely, to products of such varying character, that consumers are beginning to distrust them. When you’ve decided you tend to like beers labelled IPA, and habitually order IPA, there’s only so many times you can be served something that doesn’t fit your mental model without getting irritated.

I am not sure what “quite wisely” is meant to suggest here. Basically, there isn’t much light between what is being said about the meaningless of craft beer’s terminology as code and Ron’s observations about how shit IPA has become due to the breakdown of meaning. Meaning it is no longer even code. You have to take a cartoon character approach to still suggest there is any integrity in all this. Which is what is being done, of course.

My thoughts? What’s the level below lowest common denominator? IPA might as well be “eBeer” or “iBeer” now. The meaninglessness has hit max and all it serves to do it shout “drink me, fool!” which is why I focus on the adjective and not the noun EEEPAH. And avoid anything like a flogged flavour wheel in favour of the theater of the mouth.** Fortunately, as we know, things have three names. In this case, there will be the name on the can or tap handle, the name the brewer uses and the name the beer knows itself by.

Which is perhaps why the lager boom is so attractive. It retains far more stylistic integrity that the botch US craft has made of the IPA everything concept. Paste magazine has gone so far as to say this is the best thing in the good beer world these days:

That’s the biggest thing that has changed, in the last few years—i.e., the pandemic era—ease of access to good craft lagers has increased exponentially, and breweries have seemingly gotten much better at making them! Even breweries not particularly known for lager are now frequently producing excellent examples, and I’ve seen a notable number of breweries also rebrand themselves to revolve more tightly around lager as a central philosophy.

One more thing. Stan picked up a thread from the IPA story, an actual fact about a yeast strain and unpacked it to explain how beers branded as Steam Beer do or at least did actually display a unique trait even though Steam Beer has little unique to do with steam:

In 1911, while conducting tests as part of another project at the University of California, T. Brailsford Robinson discovered just how different steam beer yeast acquired from California Brewing in San Francisco was from lager strains. “The yeast of the steam beer has accommodated itself to these conditions (warmer fermentation and the clarifier) to such an extent that it can no longer be employed for the preparation of lager beer, while lager-beer yeast may without difficulty be used for the manufacture of steam beer,” he wrote.

Neato. Also neato? Old lost Halifax Nova Scotia bars. Also neato? A Doctor Who based brewery. Less neato? The fall of certain people in the brewing trade that I know little about. Never been that much into the individual as a cornerstone to all of this, now that I think of it. Not neato? Possible signs of the market crashing.

For 22 years, Neal Stewart worked in sales and marketing for breweries like Pabst, Flying Dog, Mark Anthony Brands, Dogfish Head and Deschutes Brewery. He is leaving beer behind and left with some very powerful parting thoughts:

I had plenty of time to reflect on my time in the beer biz and quite honestly, it was a painful process. I discovered two things. First, my self-identity was wrapped far too tightly with my profession. My primary identity was my job. I wasn’t “Neal, the husband” or “Uncle Neal.” I was “Neal, the beer guy” or “Neal, the (insert one of the 47 breweries I’ve worked for) guy.” I was enamored with that identity and my ego needed it. Second, I really think I was addicted to stress. I’ve done some research and although “stress addiction” is not a clinical term, it is known that stress causes the brain to release cortisol and dopamine… When my life suddenly changed from 70 hours a week of non-stop calls, meetings and thinking about the business, to silence, I didn’t know how to react.

Wow. If that is you, get out. What ever it is you do. And one more thing. I hadn’t expected that this beer would be as good as it turned out to be. Glutenburg Pale Ale out of Quebec. A bit of a rarer find in the Ontario LCBO but out there if you check the inventory. Made without barley but perfectly tasty as a base beer in one’s life. Which is what it might become. Through an odd sequence of absolutely low level medical matters it turns out that I may have a degree of gluten intolerance. See, I had to have a small four stitch operation on my right eyelid, which led to an observation about how my left eye sat, which led to a couple of CT scans in nearby quieter county town hospitals which led to an ENT guy sticking a camera into my sinuses, which led to connecting the dots to a very high wisdom tooth, which led to a removal operation, which led to me having a very tiny bit of my skull removed as a door for the wisdom tooth operation. All of which left me breathing better… unless I ate bread. Hmm. Bread made me puff up a bit. All over. Unpleasantly so on rare occasions. And feel like I had hay fever. Stuffed. So I dropped bread. Clearer head. Breathing better. Had a beer. All came back. Uh oh. So I bought this beer. Didn’t come back. Hmm. I had put the feeling when having a beer down to water bulking up or general alcohol reaction but it appears to be a third aspect of the beer – the gluten. Going to keep up the experiment for a bit. All of which I mention as ungraphically as I can as a recommendation to try it yourself for a week perhaps. See, being puffed is not good. Tiny important passages restrict. Blood pressure rises. Things not ticking along optimally. Leads to other things… more serious things.

There. The beery zeitgeist for another week has been summarized! Want more? Well, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and perhaps now from Stan once in a while on a Monday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays or Wednesdays – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well (Ed.: we are told ‘tis gone to podcast heaven… gone to the podcast farm to play with other puppies.) And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable.) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now wound up after ten years.

*I would not want to fail to mention Beth‘s similar sentiment: “I don’t have enough money to enter work for awards I don’t have enough money to fund my own press trips I don’t have enough money to buy a hundred samples to try I don’t have enough money for all the subscriptions or memberships How do writers do it? Actual question…” I may play a grump on social media but I am utterly sympathetic to the plight of the beer writer coming to the realization that for all the money in beer there is little money in beer.
**Make your own copy of the chart if you like. It’s also free and actually useful.

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 newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable.) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now 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?