Category: Ontario

The First Thursday Beery News Notes For A Brand Spanking New 2021

Well, here we go. One year gone and another year starts full of hope and promise… oh, and an insurrection in the US Capital. Nice. This is the year of the 18th anniversary of my beer blogging, too. That’s 31.56% of my life. What an utter waste. Not at all like the art of Joel Goodman, photographer of the image above as well as the partner photo of the same spot in Manchester one year before taken early on New Year’s Day 2020, a portion of which shows up here as a random header image. Lovely stuff and a great expression of where we are today.

Speaking of reality today… do you know about storm chips and the associated beer weather severity standard? Note I wrote “beer” and not “beers” as in much of Canada the plural of beer is beer. “Beers” means a selection of brands of beer. Twelve Molson Golden are twelve beer. I have my doubts about the particular application as there is no way Kings Co., PEI is in the 24 beer zone but Truro, NS is only at 12 beer. I have a pal from the little islands to the lower left who talked of 1970-80s storm stayed parties held in houses with bordered up windows lasting two or three days until the blizzard had gone past. As posted on the FB page for Storm Level Brewing.

First… err… second, I failed you all before Christmas by not mentioning Martyn’s post on the roots of Jamaica’s love of strong sweet porter:

Draught porter was sold from draught porter shops, in existence in Kingston, Jamaica from at least the Edwardian era; from casks in refreshment parlors that also sold fried fish and bread; and also by travelling salesmen, who would call out “draaf porter!” as they travelled on foot around rural villages in the Jamaican interior, carrying a large tin container with a spout, and cans in quart, pint, half-pint and gill (quarter-pint, pronounced “jill”) sizes, for serving. Jamaica also had itinerant ice-cream salesmen, who would sell a blend of “frisco”—ice-cream and “snow ball”, shaved ice flavored with fruit syrup, mixed together—and “a measure of draught porter for the older folks.”

I wonder if Sam Adams authorized either this guy’s keg delivery technique or his filming rights? The opportunities for injury are a bit boggling. Speaking of which, this non-beer entrepreneurial advice thread had one nugget I quite likes, somewhat related to the Great White Male Hero problem with the good beer narrative:

The biographies of tech unicorn founders won’t help you. Survivorship bias is terrible. For every one that succeeded thousands more failed.

After asking on Twitter if he should, Mark Solomon joined the beer blogging world with his new site Headed Up North on which he is going to share an Indigenous perspective:

There is a tradition in many Indigenous communities, and I have since learned in many other cultures, on winter solstice.  Many communities light a fire at sunset and keep the light going all night.  While winter solstice is known as the shortest day of the year, the one with the least amount of daylight, there is a refrain that it only gets brighter from here. Those fires are not to strike back at the darkness but to honour it and sit within it. In the Anishinaabe creation story there are songs and teachings about the nothingness at the beginning then came darkness.  Darkness is not nothing.  We learn a lot about ourselves and others in the darkness.

In our regular pandemic trade news corner this week, cellar sellers are most note worthy. Makes sense. We’ve seen it from place to place including now at Falling Rock Tap House in Denver:

“We weren’t going to make it if we just kept on doing what we were doing,” Black said.  Luckily, for the past 23 years, Black and his team have been slowly amassing a nest egg. “We have just probably a couple thousand bottles of beer that are vintage,” Black said.  The collection contains very rare, highly sought-after beers from big-name breweries around Denver and the US.  The most prized item is a 750ml bottle of a collaboration blended sour beer made in 2008 by The Lost Abbey Brewing Company called “Isabelle Proximus.” When the Cellar Sale list was posted, the lone bottle sold in one second for $400. 

Retired Martin has started to chronical the take away pubs from his new location in Sheffield:

…we’ve had some wonderful beer, alternating porters and bitters and crafty keg with impunity. The only problem is, cask must by law be enjoyed within 3 hours, which means drinking 4 pints between us in an evening out of Bass glasses (NBSS 3.5/4). That’s not a habit you can keep up forever.

Here’s a big of a helpful hint for the history buffs. If you look at this image from the Twitter feed of a sailing cargo firm you will see in the lower right an explanation of the various grades of tea. These grades appear in many 1700s and 1800s newspaper notices and may assist in determining if accompanying cargo such as beer are considered fancy goods – or nor.

Best historical slag of the week: “your bum is so heavy you can’t get up“! In another history fan news, Dr. Christina Wade at her site Braciatrix wrote about a Viking burial in Ireland in the first part of the release of her Phd thesis. I am hoping for more beer content so this as yet is a placeholder – but a useful one as she canvasses questions on the quality of evidence. I note this especially in the context of the Vikings in Canada and the archaeological evidence they left behind as described in this handy post from Ottawa Rewind, especially this bit:

Wow! Barrel piece…was this for wine? Again, where did they get the oak for this?

Careful readers will recall my 2011 post on the early European settlements in Newfoundland, including Vikings. I have not had any luck finding Viking brewing in my research but it is clear that beer and malt could well have been here before 1577, the earliest date I have so far. Were the Vikings masterless men happily brewing beer hundreds of years before the masterless men? Was there malt in that oak barrel?

Jonny the Ham* wrote in Pellicle about how Pellicle came to be. I like how it is illustrated by images from a particular journey:

The first and most important reason is that Pellicle, the concept, was originally meant to be a short photography zine taken on this trip which I would self publish—something of a passion project I had dreamt of for years, based on my love of travel and film photography. Secondly, I’m incredibly self-conscious about folk reading my innermost thoughts, so at the very least you can enjoy some nice photos.

His partner in crime – or at least publishing – Matt has written a bit in Beer 52 about his upcoming book “hopefully be called Modern British Beer” and the concept of a returning greater regionality in beer. I prefer this muchly to nationalism as a defining characteristic, if only given the reality that beer predates many borders and can reflect the more important factor of trade routes rather than anything like state regulation or even national culture.  I had just one truly tiny quibble about this bit:

Historically in the UK, regionality was a strong differentiator in beer styles and helped develop so much in terms of how we know and enjoy beers today. Take Burtonisation—for example—a process developed by brewers to mimic the mineral content of the Burton-upon-Trent water supply. The hard water of Burton contains higher levels of gypsum, which when used as a brewing process aid in the form of brewers salts will lower your worts pH. This is preferred by some brewers when producing pale, hoppy beer styles, as it aids hop absorption rates, and thus how they are showcased in the resulting beer. It’s no coincidence the story of IPA began here, in the Midlands. 

Quibble? The brewing with and drinking of the sulfurous waters of Burton predated the inclusion of masses of hops. Hops were first added by one clever brewer in the late 1600s at the Brimstone Alehouse to deal with those who had to deal with the, err, vomitous qualities of his local product ripe with regional… umm… vernacular. Which actually makes Matt’s point even a bit better.

Elsewhere, Dave Infante is “joining”** VinePair‬⁩ to cover the beer industry. Send him tips if you think it is a good idea to send other beer writers your tips. And speaking of speaking about beer, I liked this back and forth between Monsieur Noix du Biere and Matt. Are local voices too likely to be embedded or are the embedded ones the best perspective? Note also the second alt use of the word “indigenous” in today’s roundup. I prefer “vernacular “for this particular meaning but I don’t think anyone’s toes are aching.

Finally, two good posts this week from Boak and Bailey on, first, a surprising forerunner of an improved pub from the 1880s and, second, a helpful piece on the rare duck these days that is ESB. Looks like they spent their recent break from beer blogging over the holidays writing beer blog posts. Alistair is taking another sort of break this January but found time to post about a day dream he is having about another venerable beer, Trukker ur-Pils.

There. That’s a good start to the year. And for more good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey, back now mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  We have a new entry from the DaftAboutCraft podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword.  And remember BeerEdge, too.

*The Hammer? The Hamster?
**…which could mean anything from being a freelancer to CEO.

The Last Autumnal Thursday And Its Beery News Notes

I have been burning off unused holidays built up over the months of the early times, back when there were no days or even hours to be had. This week, I motored 20 km west, over to MacKinnon Brothers to pick up gifty swag and chatted briefly about business with brother Dan, the brother who joined the 1780 challenge and pretendy stabbed the rebellious Craig for the camera. They brew on the lands the family has farmed since the 1780s when they first arrived as Anglo-American Loyalist refugees.  The site has got to be one of the most attractive in all of brewing-dom, especially with the new barn space upgrades Dan showed me and that just slightly less new build cathedral-like reception building. Gorgeous. More images below.

 

 

 

 

Other than that, it has been a quiet week in my corner of the universe. Some Tuesdays I open up my folder for the weekly round up and find thirty things to consider. Others, not so much. Let’s see what’s up? First up, our local government run store started and stopped a ill-considered deal with Skip The Dishes, a meal delivery service, providing a way for prepared food and food-like objects to be delivered to Ontarians with some hootch. Not no more – and with good reason:

Through the partnership, customers could have ordered alcohol from the SkipTheDishes app and website. The partnership caused consternation in the restaurant and bar industry, which has been relying in part on the sale of alcohol through takeout and delivery to pay its bills. “Following direction from the Ontario Government, effective end of day today, LCBO’s partnership with SkipTheDishes is paused until further notice,” the LCBO said in a statement on Sunday.

In other offices elsewhere, folk are more successfully branching out to keep the lights on. I have to say, I have no idea who the market is for the Cicerone Explore Beer which, for $25 gets you a digital badge… but not decoder ring.  The next level up, the Certified Beer Server program is simple enough for anyone needing such things. Also – and this one really does me in – one of those blogs that pretends it’s a magazine, Hop Culture, has sold. Fruit juice oriented stuff. Scan my site. Never referenced it.  Often times, these sales are for the IP to the name or the URL  rights so go figure.

Much more substantive is the piece in this week’s Pellicle (of which I have to admit I am a low-mid-level patron, my only such dalliance), a neato exploration of the Neomexicanus hop of New Mexico which Stan has written of some years ago now:

I’m stunned by this revelation. The hop bines I’m looking at—while not at their most majestic—are very much viable and alive. It seems like a miracle. For other varieties, surely such water deprivation would leave nothing but a shrivelled brown mess? “If I had Chinook or Cascade and had the same situation where I lost water, they would probably die” Brain agrees. As we climb back into the Mule, I’m bristling with excitement for what I’ve just seen; hops deprived of water for many weeks that are alive and well.

[Note to self: I need to search the Pellicle sight to see how many things have “stunned” its cadre of authors but “bristling” might be a new one.]

And as for the man who will never sell*, The Beer Nut has launched and investigation into the clone beers of grocer Aldi and finds the relationship is only branding-deep:

What a jape! What an absolute wheeze! When discount supermarket Aldi brought out obvious knock-offs of BrewDog’s flagship beers Punk IPA and Elvis Juice, the Scottish brewer retaliated with ALD IPA, appropriating the German chain’s company livery. Suspiciously soon afterwards, Aldi agreed to begin stocking ALD alongside their specially-commissioned BrewDog doppelgangers, Anti-Establishment IPA and Memphis Blvd. It seemed like a perfect opportunity for some blind-taste fun, to find out if Aldi really can go toe-to-toe with a brewery of BrewDog’s stature. Of course, the recipes of Anti-Establishment and ALD have nothing at all in common with each other, and the beers look very different: one a russet amber, the other purest spun gold.

The question of whether Scotch eggs are a “substantial meal” has popped up again and again given England’s pandemic rules. Law. This story about the situation at the establishment Number 29, in Burnham Market, Norfolk illustrates how frustrating such as vague standard is for all involved:

Mr Roberts, 62, says he refused the two ‘black-booted bouncers’ entry and after a confrontation escorted them off his premises. The former fireman said: ‘They said they wanted to come in but I said they did not have the right of entry….” He added: “I took the commercial decision to offer a free Scotch egg, either with chips or with a salad, to anyone who wanted a drink. I’d call that a meal. Two government ministers have said a Scotch egg is a substantial meal. That’s good enough for me.”

More beer law! I hear it’s what the cool kids want. Wine Enthusiast has published an article on one of craft’s dirty secrets, the commonly sticky hands even when the goods are intangible:

Palfreyman, the attorney who works with breweries on trademark issues, says the key to avoid problems is “common sense.” Think before you print or post, he says. Ask for input from attorneys, or someone from outside of the company first. Breweries that push these boundaries “might find something funny about what they are doing, or think it’s an homage,” he says, but they’ll find that corporations that own and defend their trademarks “are humorless.”

Ha ha. So funny. Me make money off your skill and efforts. Not unrelated, I like the thinking being applied in Thailand as they consider the advertising taxation of no-alcohol beer:

Beer companies could have one non-alcoholic product advertised legally at the same time as an alcoholic product creating a link in the audience’s mind to the product that are restricted from advertising.

Conversion. That’s what lawyers call these sorts of cheater pants allegations! Or appropriation. Or… something… not that different from swiping the intellectual property of another if you think about it. And in Kenya, the rules about trying to control the image on embossed beer bottles are being considered in court:

Minor players have over the years been pointing fingers at East African Breweries Limited (EABL) for engraving this type of bottle with its trademark bottling out rivals. This has led to long-winding legal battle on whether EABL is legally allowed to do so. In January this year, High Court Judge Grace Nzioka ruled that EABL had the right to collect and package their beer brands in their embossed bottles pending determination of a case in which six beer distributors affiliated to Keroche Breweries had challenged the move.

Finally, some bad direct adulteration news out of Brazil for at least three fans of craft beer:

A third person has died in Brazil of suspected poisoning from a batch of craft beer contaminated with a toxic chemical used in antifreeze and other products, police in the state of Minas Gerais said on Thursday… Traces of the sweet-tasting solvent were found in the water tank used by the Backer brewery, whose craft beers have won international prizes and are widely available in Brazil.

Not good. But that’s it for the week so you can cogitate your knogging on that for the next seven days. As always, for more good reading check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter (except last week because she is busy with opening her new bar business), The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Go!

*Sell out… I meant to write sell out… really…

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

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

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

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

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

Craft and shemomechama. Discuss.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These Thursday Beer News Notes Have Me In Stitches

Thanks for all the cards and flowers. As hinted last week, the eyelid is now 19% smaller which makes it all 100%  better. I’ve spent the week on meds and on the sofa so, no doubt, these will be less dynamic in terms of being actual new notes than those to which you have become accustomed. Maybe. Best thing noticed of the week? As if a personal gift in my half dazed troubled state, Lily Waite posted a picture of a stoneware mug/stein she made from a lighter Draycott clay. Fabulous and cheery.

Did anything else happen this week? Oh, yes! A US election. America is still divided but as the graph just below shows, along lines that indicate that there might be more to it that mere political allegiance as the accompanying tweet explained. Resentment and widely held prosperity don’t always mix well. Best Biden-based fact:

Washington D.C. liquor store owners say supporters of President-elect Joe Biden have purchased more champagne bottles Saturday than during the previous two New Year’s Eve celebrations combined.

Boak and Bailey shared interesting thoughts about what in the wine world might be considered bottle variation, a hallmark of the real:

For us, a little inconsistency introduced on the front line, in pubs, is part of the way we get to really appreciate a beer we love – not beer being served in poor condition here, just the difference say in drinking ESB that’s been on for one day as opposed to two, three or four.

I’m all in. Here in Ontario, there is a micro era style known as dark ale. If you are lucky the cask is old but not too old which means there is a slight tang that cuts the cloy. Note: your contemporary tin ‘o juice-muck won’t offer that experience. It’ll just explode in your hand. Stan re-upped the related beer rule #4 in reply.

Also here in Ontario, Ron Redmond reported on the response one brewery has made facing allegations of discriminatory services:

Before long, Cowbell also noticed and quickly issued an apology that was sadly lacking in one regard. The apology itself. That further infuriated people. However, I was somewhat heartened to read that they were planning to reach out to Ren, Ontario’s reigning Beer Diversity Monarch, (a hail and hearty “Long live the Queen!”) to come to the brewery and do that thing she does so well. And that is, “plain-splain” why the Ontario Craft Beer industry needs to be to be more inclusive towards the BIPOC and LGBTQ2 communities. As a member of both, Ren is uniquely equipped to calmly, rationally and even happily explain its importance to people, even those as dense as myself.

The path forward is not smooth as Don notes. Not everyone is ready to move on… but that is a reasonable response and one to be expected when serving a thoughtful consumer base. Relatedly, BA Bart posted a review of an academic text, Beer and Racism: How Beer Became White, Why it Matters, and the Movements to Change It by N. Chapman and D. Brunsma.

And very sad news this week with the passing of Bill White of Better With Beer and many other things, a man whose expertise touched all aspects of Ontario’s beer industry. Many tributes here, here and here.

Despite the Raging Orange being on the way out, the big news remains the global pandemic and how folk are coping. In the UK, there seems to be resistance to the idea that:

Britons flouted lockdown in their hundreds of thousands in London today as a market was packed with visitors helping themselves to takeaway beer on the first weekend of new coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

Looking forward, JJB has some interesting thoughts on what the world after looks like in 2021:

When the vaccines are deployed and life returns to normal, rent arrears will be demanded, business rates will return, VAT will go back up, furlough will end and there’ll be a huge destruction in the hospitality industry as a result (and lots of opportunities for survivors)…

Interesting. Certainly after the collapse of the late 1990s there was a surplus of brewing equipment that led to the easier entry early era of craft in the early 2000s. Will those with cash again ride the new wave of the vaccinated boom. Of course they will. As noted a number of times before, debt drowns as it depends on continuing upside.

Looking backwards in this week’s edition of Historian’s Corner, here’s an interesting video with Sir Geoff Palmer describing the role of James Watt at the outset of industrial brewing. Watt was from my father’s home city in Scotland so if you want to hear hearsay versions of any erroneous folk tales of early pump tech let me know.

By way of warning of the temptations of free samples, The Beer Nut himself shared a live update on the new Guinness 0.0:

This is very much an idea whose time has come and I can see it doing well. Edit on 11/11/2020: Diageo have just announced a total product recall due to microbiological contamination. I haven’t suffered any ill effects but you can’t be too careful.

Elsewhere, I spotted an early response to the challenge posted by Boak and Bailey (one we should all take up) to write on the theme of something about beer or pubs that’s always puzzled you? Over in The Mad Brewer’s Notebook we read:

Can you imagine going into the supermarket and then finding out how much your shopping is after it’s bagged and you’re committed to purchasing whatever you have? Can you imagine doing online shopping and finding out the cost when you look at your bank statement? Walking out a bank and complaining to your mates you only found out your mortgage interest rate was 20% after you’d signed the paperwork? Of course not, prices are clearly labelled, you can figure out how much you’re spending as you’re going along. But this is very much the not situation in most British pubs.

Finally, yesterday was Remembrance Day here in Canada and I have been thinking of the time I stayed with a pal in 1986 in Islington area of London. We went into his small local pub, the long shut Old Parrs Head I think, and I was introduced around as a second Canadian. Not long into the session, someone cracked that we should talk to the old guy in the corner to much guffaw. He’s Canadian, too, we were told. We looked at each other, didn’t see the joke and went over to the older man. The place went oddly quiet. We introduced ourselves and could quickly see he was in a rough way, damaged by alcohol. Turns out he was from Saskatchewan. A farmer’s kid who fought in WW2, fighting the Nazis though Holland in the 1940s. When he was released from his service he got a telegram from his family that said “don’t come back, there’s nothing here for you.” So he sat in London for the next four decades, making do but drinking himself to death. The pub owner came over after a while and joined us as we chatted away. He was a bit in shock. “Christ,” he said, “I didn’t know he could speak.” The vet had been sitting silently in that corner of the pub when he had bought the place.

Don’t forget to read your weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (this week Jordan shares his love of Windsor!!!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Go!

Your Election Results Swamp All Interest In Thursday Beery News Notes News Notes

I started writing this before the closing of polls in the US, late afternoon Tuesday. It’s a bit of an odd week for me, filled with important work related discussions, a long evening of election night coverage as well as undergoing a voluntary, long planned but slightly disconcerting introduction of tiny number of tiny stiches into my right eyelid.  For all I know, here as I write, none of that will matter when you read this as new chaos or just strange confusion may be raging by Thursday to the nation of the south. Well… to be frank getting eyelid stitches will matter to me. And even to you, perhaps just momentarily, if you have said “yik” in your mind once or twice while reading this paragraph. It’s OK. I’ve said it myself, too.

Frankly, I’m sort of glad for that personal distraction. Jeff wrote about managing this election week… and his hopes for what’s to come. It’s now 11 pm Eastern on Tuesday night and those dreams of a healing many not quite be coming true:

I want so desperately to return to a time when hazy IPAs are the most contentious issue before us. Given the stakes and the emotional energy, we’ll desperately need beer and all it provides to manage and heal the damage this election will almost certainly inflict. I’ll be back to decoction mashing and double dry hop beers soon enough. In the meantime, I want to express my best wishes to all of you, whatever your political stripe. Being a citizen in a democracy can be hard work. We’ll need to find a well of grace and goodwill to get through the next week. And beer. Lots and lots of beer.  

Or maybe less beer. Think about it. Stan wrote a best of list, made a bit of fun about writing a list but still stuck to the true core goal of any good list by listing only beers that are utterly inaccessible to 94.7% of anyone reading the list. But it does include this fabulously swinging observation:

… reading vintage notes is a guilty pleasure. You can find online what rock critic Robert Christgau and Carola Dibbell wrote in 1975 for Oui magazine. Their notes include this lovely entry about Straub in Pennsylvania: “At moments, we thought this was just wonderful and wrote down comments like ‘springy’ and ‘soft-edged.’ Then at other times, like now, too drunk to know if we were more or less drunk than we had been the times before, we wondered what we could have meant.”

Glory days. When was that exactly? Forty-five years ago. In a skin mag? Now, is it the case that all we have left is the question of whether it is actually nice to know people are getting paid to write about beer even if the writing isn’t of any use? Isn’t that up there with drinking 46 witbiers before lunch without thinking anyone might consider that a bit of a negative in the context of the drinking’s own purpose? While we are at it, should those others, the influencers be saved or chucked out? What else is running out of ideas? Does all that fit into Jeff’s forward thinking purer hopes… or will we look elsewhere, perhaps even slumping back a la Oui‘s particularly piquant context for those tasting notes?

Elsewhere, in the UK they are in another sort of temporal loop with the reintroduction of lockdown. Stonch wrote last Sunday about the rush before the coming end times V.2.0:

…aaaand we’re fully booked for lunch again. However at about 4:30pm tables will start becoming free for a last hurrah for drinkers. We won’t be opening on Wednesday so this will be our last day of trading pre-lockdown… 

Things are getting incendiary in Britain, with the Morning Advertiser suggesting the pandemic response is actually a stealth war on pubs. That’s a bit thick. As with here in Ontario, it’s really about folk dealing with partial data, guesstimates and trying to do the right thing. It’s be nice if we could just get back to arguing about packaging options with a wee soupçon of ad hominem like in the good old days?

Yes! The past. Surely that must be a safe space. Umm. No, it isn’t. Marty the Zed told us the tale of The Most Dangerous Brewing In The World:

The Quetta brewery must rank as one of the most difficult postings of any brewer’s career. According to Henry Whymper the sun was “so intensely hot, even in the winter months, that a brewer has to wear a sun helmet whilst at the same time he has to clothe himself in a fur-lined coat to protect himself from the biting cold which there is in the shade … 

Excellent. And for the double, M’ d’Z’ also wrote about the blegging for a Guinness 0.0… but is it an ethical question if it’s doubtful as to whether it’s even really beer? I hope the style guides get updated to take into account all the not-beer beers. The not-beer experts will demand it, right?

What is real? Who are the trusted? Where is the foothold that can give us even a glimpse of reality? Surely, the Tand’s the one for that and his review of the latest Protzean prose, The Family Brewers of Britain, provides promise:

It is these companies that are the subject of this book, which describes in detail how the families had mixed fortunes and how they arrived at where they are today. All had the shared problems of war, deaths, economic depressions and more, but while some overcame these by good management and internal agreement, others saw bad management, fraternal fallouts, splits, disagreements over money, policy and more. All are faithfully chronicled in Roger’s usual meticulous style.

Speaking of publications, interesting to get an email for “Style Trends”, a monthly communication from MC Basset, LLC with the URL www.thebeerbible.com which has nothing to do with the book, The Beer Bible. Confusion reigns. Except I am Scottish Presbyterian genetically which means that they are both definitely going to Scottish Presbyterian genetic hell. But not the Protz. He’s safe.

Now it is Wednesday morning. Bleary headed but heading out soon to travel to the city where the guy who will cut my face lives and works. Which, for some reason, reminds me to mention Ben’s podcast. While the medium is entirely inferior without any indexing and too many podcasters putting us all through their dreary revenue streams of ads and the mumblymumbly… mumbly, Ben is actually not sucking at it. This week he did the remarkable and provided an hour plus long interview with Toronto’s Jason Fisher on the state of his brewery, Indie Alehouse, and the state of Ontario’s craft beer industry. It is a little bit rich that the history was rewritten, that it’s now bad to add fruit flavouring compared to, you know, 2014 – but that’s craft for you.

Catching up with the US results mid-day mid-week, it’s interesting to see that Oregon approved the legalization of psilocybin mushrooms. Now, watch the beer writers suddenly become psilocybin mushroom geniuses: pronouncing on the market, the issues and the loopholes in the law.

Finally, Dr. J posted a few good thoughts about a presentation she was giving today… by which I mean yesterday:

“BREAKING NEWS: A Randomly Scheduled Brewery Hip-Hop Night Failed to Make the Brewery’s Customer Base More Diverse.” We can all get a good chuckle from efforts like these, but the truth of the matter is that too many efforts to diversify taprooms result in… inauthentic pandering. In this talk, Dr. J will introduce a way to rethink relationship-building with your future fans that leads to lasting, mutually beneficial relationships.

Good. Hopeful. If it’s archived, go watch. BTW, I once considered calling this blog “Inauthentic Pandering” – but the name was already taken too many times.

I know. It’s all a bit higgled with the piggled up above. Will next week be better? Next month? Next year? Will I post a stitch pic? Dunno. Meantime, read your weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (this week Jordan sent a coded secret message in the guise of news about a new brewery in my town letting me know there was a new brewery in my town) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Go!

 

The Last Thursday Beery News Notes For October 2020, The US Election And My Tomato Plants

It’s been difficult to cope with the changing of the seasons as I have for every other year I’ve ever been on the planet. Familiar things – like heat or evenings – just seem to have gone away. But the week of Hallowe’en every four years helps set a milestone that’s hard not to stub your toe upon. So here we are. Orange leaves turning to wet bran flakes in the ditch.  Speaking of orange, I saw the image above passing by upon the glowing screen this week, one of a series of four pub scenes by Ruskin Spear (1911-90) whose art included “the citizens of Hammersmith relaxing in local pubs.” Happy people in pubs… or not… also was the topic of my Zoom chat with Boak and Bailey. We had never met before but we chatted away for two hours last Sunday. Blogging. Brewing history. Pandemic. Gossip. Very grateful to have been invited by them.  I took a very fuzzy photo to commemorate the moment.

Out there in a more focused reality, Jessica Mason wrote wonderfully about visiting a neighbour:

I wondered, momentarily, if I should tell her what I did for a living when I wasn’t visiting people in the mornings. Tell her about the industry I worked in. About the drinks and hospitality sector or any of the magazines for which I’d written. I wanted so much for her to know that it wasn’t just her feeling lost and alone. That entire sectors of society had been overlooked and that the paucity of support for those in need had begun to force people into poverty. Do I tell her that I’m really a drinks and pubs writer? That later on that day I’d be at a desk looking for the right words to describe something that made people feel good and interested. Things that reflected our thoughts, tastes and individuality.

In Scotland, a ruling has come down on the meaning of cafe during pandemic, the sort of ruling we may be seeing more and more of in the coming weeks and months as the cold and dark comes upon us. In this case, an injunction was granted against a municipal order to shut based upon the legal principle “surely to heavens this could not be a cafe!”:

“The council’s main, final reason for forcing us to close was that some of our dishes were ‘too smart and too fancy’ for us to be considered a cafe. “Nothing in the law dictates how smart you can or can’t have your food in a cafe.” One20 was granted an interim suspension order by the Court of Session after an online hearing on Friday, 23 October and remains open this weekend.

Further to the south, in Manchester a different legal consideration on the nature of food service was before the Covid considering authorities:

The head of Greater Manchester Police Licensing got on the blower to let us know that Slice Gate has been revisited and our Nell’s Pizza slices (cut from 22 inch pizzas) are now officially deemed substantial.

And to the left, further west, we learn of this heartwarming tale from Northern Ireland:

A man threw a tin of beer over a PSNI officer and shouted “Up the ‘Ra” after being told to return home during the lockdown, a court heard yesterday. Neil Murphy (37) was given 12 months probation for the assault on police and disorderly behaviour outside his flat in north Belfast.

Nice one, Neil. Well handled pandemic response. What’s the “‘Ra”? Short form for the “‘Rona”?

Ryan Avent of The Economist wrote a worthwhile series of tweets that add up to a good remembrance of the phenomenon of blogging which, of course, continues hereabouts and many other places under other names including journalism:

Blog posts could of course blow up. But the potential for instant mass virality was smaller, because drawing attention to blog posts meant creating a post of one’s own, and even link roundups took a bit of effort… As snarky as blogging could be, the medium generally demanded a minimal level of argument and contextualization greater than what’s asked of twitter users: if, at least, one wanted to attract others’ time and attention.

Going further back, Eoghan posted a photo of his beer book bookshelf and started a trend in posting photos of one’s beer book bookshelves.  Me, I have more piles and piles of piles of books by the easy chair myself. There’s a copy of The Chronicles of the Maltmen Craft in Glasgow 1605-1879 in there somewhere. Which I know makes you all riddled with jealousy.

Be prepared. Whenever anyone posts a graph for any reason at all, I am going to quote this guy who wins for this week’s most fabulous gnumbskullery*:

I think that’s hard to conclude from this chart. It might still be true, but i think it’s a lot more complex with alot more unanswered questions.

One of my personal heroes is Katie Mathers, as you may have guessed, and I am saddened to hear that she has met up with the virus… but cheered that she’s found a positive angle:

…it’s actually quite cool that I have something that’s spread all over the world. A big viral connection to the globe…

Here is an update to the story from the Ithaca NY area, the one about the brewery that had to close because it brewed old school micros that no one wanted. Well, the facility has been bought but some downstate operation”

Big aLICe, headquartered in Long Island City, Queens, has reached a deal to buy the former GAEL Brewing Co. on State Route 14 just south of Geneva on Seneca Lake. GAEL owner George Adams announced his brewery’s closing earlier this month. Big aLICe co-owners Kyle Hurst and Scott Berger hope to have the new brewery and taproom open early in 2021. Big aLICe, which also has a tasting room in Brooklyn, is known for a wide range of beers, from hazy New England IPAs and pilsners to sours and barrel-aged brews.

Well, there is some sort of lesson there. You can shape it as you like.

In other business news, we hear a lot about the challenges faced by the hospitality sector and how it affects brewing but here is an interesting story about the challenges faced by Canadian drinks exporters:

…beer exports are down too. Year-to-date sales to the end of July are down 13 per cent compared to the same period last year, trade association Beer Canada data show. Pacific Rim Distributors, the leading distributor of B.C. craft beer, has certainly felt pandemic pain. “We saw a deeper drop in sales in the first quarter because COVID-19 hit Asia before North America,” says Garett Senez, vice-president of marketing for the North Vancouver-based firm representing 13 craft brewers in 19 foreign markets.

Interesting that Ontario’s own “Collective Arts plans to open a satellite brewery in Brooklyn next year.”

Otherwise, beer continues to get more and more boring according to the latest Euro-gak news:

Drinks giants have reported higher alcohol-free beer sales in the latest sign the low- and no-alcohol drinks sector continues to grow. Heineken and Carlsberg have both created alcohol-free versions of their flagship beer labels, Belgian brewer AB InBev recently launched a low-alcohol alternative to Stella Artois, and this week drinks giant Diageo launched a booze-free version of Guinness in Britain and Ireland. Danish brewer Carlsberg – behind the Tuborg and Kronenbourg brands – on Wednesday reported a 29% growth across its alcohol-free brews in the three months to September, compared to the same period last year.

Similarly, the Boston Seltzer and Hard Iced Tea Co. has seen its shares soar.

Speaking of the tactics of macro-gak, Heineken in the UK has been caught forcing its own pubs to sell its own beer… which sounds a bit weird to someone not in the UK:

Heineken has been fined £2m for forcing publicans to sell “unreasonable” amounts of its own beers and ciders. The pubs code adjudicator (PCA), an official who oversees the relationship between pub-owning companies and their tenants, said Heineken had “seriously and repeatedly” breached laws that protect publicans from company behaviour aimed at prohibiting pubs selling competitor brands.

Finally, to top off a less than cheery week, Jeff noted the extinguishment of the All About Beer online archives. I was more written of than wrote in that organ but it did speak to an era or two, thriving in micro times, collapsing under a shoddy hand through perhaps the peak of craft. We have left that behind.

There you are. Less actual beer news that most weeks. But remember that, as the days shorten in the coming darkest third of the year northern hemispherically speaking, there’s more out there. Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (this week Jordan skips his obligations to the sponsors!!!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too.

*The “g” is sometimes even silent.

Some Thursday Beery News Notes For A Normal Mid-October Week

It’s normal now, right? All normal. Despite what we think and do, it’s definitely normal to get locked inside when the cold creeps in around the nooks and crannies in mid-October.  Yet people are still running around outside, the massive idiots. Wear your masks! And don’t complain about sensible pandemic safety processes!! And write short sentences with many exclamation marks!!! Hmm… the only thing that has really ticked me off this week is I haven’t found any good images to plunk to the right of the first paragraph. Bet Max has something… let me check…  nope. Jeff? Yup. Wear your masks.

Now that that is clear, first up we have a post by Stan is always cause for some serious noting, especially as it relates to the sense of smell and does not advise that loss of the sense is tied to Covid-19:

Researchers at Kyushu University found that the olfactory sensory neurons can exhibit suppression or enhancement of response when odors are mixed, meaning that perception is not the simple sum of the odors. In their experiments, mice that were genetically modified to have their neurons emit green light depending on the amount of calcium ions in them — an indicator of activity — upon absorption of excitation light, the researchers were able to record the response of the neurons in the mice’s noses.

Mice. Noses. Little mousie noses. As with most things, I do not actually understand what is going on here but I trust and have a firm belief in science that gives me an abiding sense of comfort. I am also a good smeller. That sort of thing regularly appeared on my middle school report cards.

Aaaaannnd…. I also don’t understand this from an email received from Pellicle… exactly… which states they will be converting from $ to £:

With recent exchange rate fluctuations the amount getting paid to us has become an uncertain factor, and we’re aware that most of our supporters are UK-based, so this will also avoid any extra fees from your bank when you are paying in dollars. It means we’ll get stronger idea of what we’re receiving each month, and can build more concrete editorial plans in advance. 

Govern yourselves accordingly. I do hope they still take my money. And I hope they take yours once you sign up, if only for pieces like this drinky travel piece taking us to rural England by Kate published this week under the title “With Provenance to Guide Us — Visiting The Moorcock Inn, West Yorkshire“:

It’s late February and sleeting sideways; the sky is an impressive shade of gritstone. Smoke plumes diagonally from the restaurant’s brick ovens outside, which have been slowly roasting mutton all night. Hot roast potatoes will be pulled from them throughout the afternoon, served with aioli as the bar snack of your dreams.

Kate also made the news. News? Oh. News! Oh, well. Let’s see what’s going on. Parts of Britain are now shutting again. In Glasgow, bar and restaurant workers dumped piles of ice in the street as a hospitality shutdown came in and the work went away. The commentary by, I assume, Jimmay is fabulous. Pub man Stonch unpacked an interesting aspect of the laws that applied in his area: the meaning of a “substantial meal”:

… this means the Coronavirus regs on this can be interpreted using case law relating to the ‘64 Act. In Timmis v Millman (a 1965 case) “a substantial sandwich accompanied by beetroot and pickles was a table meal”. So there you go. Get your beetroots ready, publicans!

And Mr. Mudge wrote on the same worthwhile issue:

If you are not going to have an objective yardstick such as price, then you will need to resort to a more subjective definition. Government minister Robert Jenrick* tied himself up in knots by saying that a Cornish pasty on its own wasn’t a substantial meal, but put it on a plate and add chips or salad and it magically becomes one. Few would dispute that a burger and chips would qualify, and the health-conscious should surely be allowed to substitute a salad for the chips. If a burger, then surely also a steak ciabatta, which is in principle the same kind of thing. And a cheese or hummus one for the vegetarians. Before too long, you have a cheese toastie with a couple of lettuce leaves qualifying.

You know… I don’t actually know what a toastie is exactly, either. I assume a toasted sandwich. Or a sandwich made of toast. That was on my middle school report cards too: “..the child thinks a toastie is a toasted sandwich… no hope…”

That’s pivoting. Everyone pivoting. Even though we are staying still. Here in Ontario, Ben has been writing upon his blog (taking a break from narrowcast poor radio impersonation) and decided that Covid-19 has been somewhat good for the Ontario booze trade or at least increased consumer access:

But there is an upside to this — if you’re the kind of person who can find the upside to a viral pandemic increasing our substance use – and it’s that the vigour with which we’ve all embraced the drink has actually had an affect on the availability, politics, and culture related to beer. Yes, this pandemic is a lot of things, most of them terrible, but it also might just be the best time to drink beer in Ontario.

Not necessarily a great deal for consumers medium or long term unless wholesale rates come down – but a good survival technique and good for us all to take part in now. New shops like Byward Market Wine Market (fine booze plus small takeaway meals) will be a next model… until the next next one comes.

In other good news here in eastern Ontario – as reported on Canadian Beer News and also discussed on OCBGTP – Slake Brewing in nearby Prince Edward County (just south of the very questionably named county seat of Picton) has opened. I post to remind myself to go.

Pivoting #2. Or is it #3? Or #4? Something called the Drinking Studies Network (that also looks a lot like a blog) posted “Threat or Opportunity? COVID-19 and Working Men’s Clubs” by Ruth Cherrington:

The post-COVID future of clubs could lie to some extent in drawing upon their enduring ethos and ideals which include their not-for-profit status. The 21st century setting has brought new challenges but also some tools that can help such as social media. With the usual club experience and contact with members impossible, club committee members had to make more use of Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. Nearly 9% of those surveyed used social media to build up the club’s community and membership over lockdown. Facebook groups became more important for clubs’ committees, especially to let members know what was happening, when they would be reopening and how.

I’d go to an old farts club if they had them around here. Maybe. Would I? Dad peeling potatoes in Yorkshire during the Berlin Airlift might even qualify me for the Legion. But would I go during these the early dark ages? Do I go anywhere? Well, other than the used record shop…

Unrelatedly, this thread on the habits of those in sports and entertainment who passed through this person’s former job at a hotel bar is fun: “Bob Seeger: Honestly he looked like anybodys grandpa with his flannel and orthopedic shoes“; “Stevie Nicks …difficult.” Remember hotel bars?

Now, in this week’s History Comes Alive corner, Gary is finding the time and steam power to get some of the beer history researched and writ… the opposite of my efforts, a personal failing that gnaws within me. One of many. This week he posted about the first draught beer sold in bottles and began with a handy definition:

Pasteurization is used in brewing, including for most imports and mass-marketed beers, not to make it safe for consumption as in the case of milk, say, but to render it stable from a microbiological aspect –bar  to retard souring in particular. Thus, for modern, bright, bottled or canned beer that is not pasteurized, which is the first?* Coors beer is a notable early case, at least the domestic U.S. Coors.** Coors did not abandon pasteurization in bottles until 1959 though…

Elsewhere in space and time, Martin asked “where does Bristol end?” and found a pub that went all snug for Covid-19. BB2 replied: “One of our guidelines is unless there’s an open field separating it, it’s in Bristol.”

Beer… should reference something beery… The proper brewing of lager was discussed in Craft Beer & Brewing through a piece by Steve Holle of the KC Bier Company in Kansas City, Missouri:

Traditional lager brewing requires “more” than a typical ale fermentation. Because the “more” requires additional costs and resources to achieve very subtle, small, and incremental enhancements to flavor, there is always the temptation to take shortcuts by buying cheaper ingredients, skipping decoction, pitching less yeast, raising the fermentation temperature, shortening the conditioning time, or using artificial carbonation.

This neatly illustrates nicely the need for a separation of traditional lager from macro gak conceptually. I was thinking of that when I was writing back and forth with Jeff yesterday about his excellent SNPA post. Others were also thinking of proper lager brewing. Alistair was asking about if decoction mashing was practiced in Victorian Britain.

And finally, Kate Bernot has written about Canada’s ice beers… though sorta missed the twin towers of the phenomenon, Maximum Ice and all the future goth TV ads especially the one with The Smiths*, in favour of something about… a penguin. Still, it is a handy primer and notes importantly that the ice beer boom never busted as it traveled south:

Ice beers are a Canadian invention dating back to the early 1990s; they’re essentially stronger versions of the domestic lagers North Americans had been drinking for decades. American beer companies swiftly copied this “innovative” idea and mass-produced their own versions including Milwaukee’s Best Ice, Keystone Ice, Bud Ice, Busch Ice, and Natural Ice. 

Why does it live on? It’s richer as well as stronger. So curlers dig the stuff. Goes with rye and K-Tel LPs.

There. Enough! I’m rating this a mid-grade week. Or maybe just a mid-grade post. Either way, another week has passed. Like the grains of sand passing through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives. Remember there’s  Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays (this week Jordan shits on tweens!!!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well.  And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. And Ben has finally gone all 2009 and joined in with his own podcast, Beer and Badword. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plenty of good writing. Only a little journalism. Journalism. Yup. Apparently all writing is ultimately… journalism. Sorry Shakespeare. You aren’t in any give-away trade papers.

*Someone at the Labatt PR firm back then knew the value of good music in a beer ad.

Thursday’s Beery News Notes For The Clampdown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beer for dullards?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week The Patios Reopened

A better week. Not a perfect week in any sense but a better week. Here in Ontario, more coming back to life. As of this Friday, where I live I can get a haircut, go to a church that is 30% full and hang out with ten people at a time. Things are moving forward. One key issue: should pubs still have a proper level of grot as they reopen? Hmm… And when Her Majesty the Queen told us “we will meet again” did she imagine it would be on asphalt in a parking lot?

Furthermore on the hereabouts, on Monday the AGCO announced the expansion for outdoor service on Monday, effective in most of Ontario this Friday. Toronto and the surrounding areas as still considered too much at risk and will open at a later date. The rules for creating a bigger outdoor area are interesting:

1. The physical extension of the premises is adjacent to the premises to which the licence to sell liquor applies;
2. The municipality in which the premises is situated has indicated it does not object to an extension;
3. The licensee is able to demonstrate sufficient control over the physical extension of the premises;
4. There is no condition on the liquor sales licence prohibiting a patio; and,
5. The capacity of any new patio, or extended patio space where the licensee has an existing licensed patio, does not exceed 1.11 square metres per person.

Even more interesting, those who meet the above criteria are not required to apply to the AGCO or pay a fee to temporarily extend their patio or add a temporary new licensed patio and they are not required to submit any documentation to the AGCO to demonstrate compliance with the above criteria.  We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Elsewhere, Boak and Bailey have celebrated another step towards liberation with the takeaway service at their local micropub being now a going concern:

…the reopening of The Drapers is definitely next level, game-changing stuff. Not necessarily because every single beer is utterly brilliant, but because [w]e suddenly have access to a range of cask beers, not just one at a time; [w]e don’t have to decide a week in advance what we want to drink, and we (probably) don’t need to worry about running out between deliveries[; and T]he range that’s been on offer so far includes things we would not have been able to get hold of easily. It also includes new-to-us beers that we wouldn’t have wanted to risk buying in bulk, on spec.*

Stonch tweeted about one of the pains in the neck he has to deal with as he moves to reopening:

The shysters trying to cash in hospitality operators’ anxiety about re-opening at the moment are something else. Steady trickle into the inbox offering weird, unscientific and unnecessary products and services in the name of “COVID-19 secure”. Fuck off, spivs.

The timing and rules for reopening in Britain remain murky at best but Mr. Protz celebrated one  wonderful milestone, the return to brewing cask at Timothy Taylor’s:

We are incredibly chuffed to announce that today is the first day since lockdown that we have produced CASK!! Thank you so much to every single one of you for your support through this incredibly difficult period! Slowly but surely, we are getting there!

Katie wrote an excellent bit on the lockdown’s effect on small brewers… when they weren’t brewing including preserving, returning to home towns and this:

For the synth-aware, Adrian’s current kit (at the time of writing this) was his Eurorack, AKAI Pad controller, Yamaha mixer and Roland Boutiques SH-01, TR-09 and TB-03. If you fancy hearing his creations in action, find him on twitter at @wishbonebrewery.

Catching up elsewhere, Gary has been busy and I particularly liked this piece of his on a 1935 conference which added helpfully to the question of 1800s adjectives in North American beer labeling:

Rindelhardt stated that cream ale and lively ale, which he considered synonymous, were devised in the mid-1800s to compete with lager. He said they were ale barrelled before fermentation had completed to build up carbonation in the trade casks, or krausened in those casks, and sent out. In contrast, sparkling ale and present use ale – again synonymous – might also be krausened, and later force-carbonated, but were a flat stored ale blended with lager krausen. This form, provided the lager krausen was handled correctly, still offered an ale character but in a fizzy, chilled way as lager would offer.

“Cream ale”  and “cream beer” are of special interest as careful readers will recall. Check out his thoughts on the revival of Molson Golden, which I can only pronounce as if I were from Moncton, New Brunswick.

Speaking of history, I was reading through Canadian artist Tom Thompson’s diaries of the summer he disappeared over a century ago and was struck by this:

June 7, 1917: I had a hell of a hangover this morning. The whisky we had yesterday hit me hard but at least I didn’t go blind. That happened numerous times after the Temperance Act went into effect and people started making their own alcohol  Sometimes the alcohol wasn’t right and people would go blind drinking it.

Note that he did not say prohibition and indicated activities not akin to prohibition. Never really right to use the US term and apply it to the Canadian context.

Closer to the present, Jeff wrote about the great Bert Grant (and I added my two pieces in the cheap seats of Twitter replies), Canada’s true gift to craft beer:

The West Coast was divided into segments, and the cities of Portland and Seattle followed a parallel but separate track. The breweries there had their own founders and in one is a historical lacuna that explains a great deal about the influences that guided hoppy ales in the Pacific Northwest. That forgotten figure is Bert Grant, who left the hops business to start his own brewery in 1982 and whose first beers created an instant appetite, decades ahead of the rest of the country, for hoppy ales.

Read all three pieces as you only understand 1982 if you understand 1944.

Jordan celebrated a milestone, hitting a decade in the beer soaked life.  What did he learn? “Soylent Green is people!!!” No… let’s check that… no, beer is people:

If you wanted to play around with ingredients, you’d be a home brewer. A professional brewer, by default, brews for someone else. One assumes that a professional brewer does that because they enjoy it. One assumes that they make a product they believe in to the best of their ability and share it with the world. One assumes they are mindful of all the collective effort that goes into that.

Speaking of home brewers, in 1973 the BBC sent the fabulous Fyfe Robertson in search of the perfect pint made in an English basement. Have I posted this before? If I have it’s worth a second look. Speaking of Auntie Beeb, Merryn linked to a BBC 4 story on bere barley in Orkney.

One last thing. I have seen a few calls from part time editors feeling adrift who are encouraging vulnerable beer writers to turn to them in exchange for the usual pittance and a scraping of your voice in exchange for theirs. Do not be fooled! This is the time for you to be you:

Beer writers! What have you wanted to cover that might not appeal to a mainstream site? An underreported subject that merits a quick dive? An aspect of beer culture that deserves a closer look? Get a blog!

[What is a “quick dive” anyway?]

There. A better week. Keep writing and reading and keeping up with the chin uppitry. Check in with Boak and Bailey most Saturdays, plus more at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too. Plus the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick  podcast as well! And have a look at Brewsround‘s take on the beer writing of the week. Not to mention Cabin Fever. Thanks for stopping by while not leaving the house. Except now you can leave your house a bit more. Do it!

*Edited only to make things as I wish they were.