Category: Politics

July 2022’s Very Own First Beery News Notes

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 It’s like a pub in some unpublished work on Winnie the Pooh – if and when they all grow up, get jobs (and trousers, if we were into finger pointery) and drink a lot of beer.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tweet of the week:

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

There. You have been informed. A bit. For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: Robin got a job!!!) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now winding up after ten years.

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

Your Beery News Notes For The Start Of This The Coming Darkest Month

It gets better. We tell our teens that but it is a bit hard to believe sometimes. Like in a pandemic exiting its second year when the sun is well below the horizon. But there’s only a few weeks of this darkness and there is beauty all around even in these troubled times. Up there? That’s Angela Merkel, in November 1990, at 36 campaigning on the Baltic coast in Germany’s first election after reunification. Fabulous. She reportedly drank five schnapps with them. As discussed in early 2019, Merkel has always been handy with a beer glass. I probably disagree with most of her politics but that presence and style will be missed. She strikes me as an excellent example. Do what needs doing. My mother would say that: “it just takes doing.”

There. A bit of positivity. Let’s keep it going until we can’t. First up, I loved this duo of tweets, each of which is oblivious to the other. One, a map of the inns of Southwarke England circa 1550. The other?

What a thrill to discover a 17th C traders token in the Thames mud from the Bell, a tavern mentioned by Chaucer at the beginning of the Canterbury Tales as being close to the Tabard where him & the pilgrims met en route to Thomas Becket’s Shrine in Canterbury.

The Bell and the Tabard are both on the map. Neato. Also neato was an excellent piece that I missed last week by Evan Rail on the problem of appropriation of Indigenous matters in beer branding as well as some very fundamental misunderstandings:

“I can only speak from my point of view, and my point of view is that we—meaning society—mistakenly think of Native Americans as a race,” Keyes says. “And what we’ve got to remember is that each of these tribes individually are sovereign nations. They have their government entities. And every tribe has its different culture. Not all tribes are just a Native American culture that’s the same.”

Getting thing wrong is always central to bigotry. The bigot always wants to control the narrative. This all particularly caught my eye as I am also in a family with Indigenous members and work with Indigenous governments as part of my work. And what mystifies me about the bigots is how they miss how fascinatingly rich Indigenous culture actually is. This article also caught my eye as this very week I had to give the heads up to another major brewing publication that it had very recently published that same very derogatory racist obscenity that Evan discussed in that recent piece. Happily, it was immediately removed – and was removed with thanks.

Also, see this post from the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives about a very specific question on the similarity among brewing competitors advertising a century ago:

I’m left with some lingering questions, the biggest being these: did these two breweries hire an advertising firm, did the newspaper have this book and create the advertisements, or did the brewery have a book of phrases they chose from? My sense is that the book is for a newspaper, given the instructions for setting up a printing machine and information about inks in the latter part of the book.

Conversely perhaps, did you know that Instagram may hate beer? How about these these outfits? Do you like them? No? Me neither, but I do like honest tasting notes:

I think perhaps if I have a lifetime of connections like this I can handle a lifetime of being told my tasting notes are too personal, that who I am is wrong, of failing future wine exams. I think perhaps, if anything, I will make it more so. 

That makes much more sense that a concept limiter, the expertise in narrowing – like a little wheel. Look at that: water’s contribution is actually a binary. A toggle switch. Little good comes of toggle switch understandings. No, no need of that. Stretch your own arms wide, as wide as you can. There was an exceptionally fine example of this in terms of personal tasting in Kate Bernot’s best beers of 2021 as published in (Craft) Beer & Brewing mag. Consider this:

The aroma promises an herbal, not-too-sweet blend of licorice, Tootsie Roll, star anise, gingerbread, and dark cocoa, while the flavor delivers bigger fruit that lends a cherry-cordial and Black Forest–cake impression. It’s like dessert and digestif in one. Gorgeous.

Impression! Less of the style guide references or list of ingredient and more of the personal and taste memories. Good. It’s my personal approach, too. Along with this.* Don’t be sucked in by the actual negs, the forces of poor widdle cwaft. You be you.

In other news, the beer writers of Britain gave each other** awards this week. It lead to some unhappiness and subdued response to that was offered: “The bigger story here tho is how many new writers were recognised for first time in these awards.” In another sort of awarding, Ron finished up his fun in Brazil with a few more interesting and honest notes about the integrity of the process:

“What will we be judging today? We already awarded medals yesterday.” I ask Gordon over breakfast. “Not all the categories have been judged yet.”

You quickly see from Ron’s posts that they center on styles and that styles are more like a skills competition as opposed to playing the actual game. In addition to judging submissions after awards have been given, we also learn that the best may be rejected if they are not fitting into that square peg of style. What’s that about? So much for best of show. Surely, not great.

The process of awarding awards is often a funny thing. Consider Drake’s actions this week to remove himself from the Grammys. People think I am just a bit of a crank about these things but it isn’t so. I do this for a living. Let me tell you something about myself.  As part of my work, I oversee and advise upon many aspects of the process and substance of awarding contracts at a very high level, for up to nine figure procurements. I buy things bigger and more complex than very large craft breweries. Right down to the details. I have worked with engineers to draft specifications for evaluating grades of steel that consider the stages from the fabricator back to the steel mill back to even the mines where the ores were dug. I love it. And those experiences inform these other experiences. Which leads me to the observation that I would not select the award of a pencil supply based on the process Rob described. It’s like folk are just making stuff up!***

We need to pay attention. These sorts of awards that Ron participated in are based on the construct of style. Which is really little different from the characteristics of the various concretes or the range of coverages one needs to consider to ensure the proper sort of workers compensation policy is acquired for a particular job. All of which is timely as the question of style keeps on giving and, weirdly, not one opinion seems to be the same… even when – and perhaps especially when – people think they agree with each other. Only for example, let’s start with Boak and Bailey who approved this comment from Stan’s summary of the situation:

What a frustrating discourse! It is pretty obvious that it is helpful and sometimes demystifying to categorize beers by style. It is also obvious that some people police the style taxonomy in a way that is off-putting and hostile to outsiders.

Oh, simple comment maker. It isn’t that at all. Nothing is binary. And nothing is obviously obvious. No, we can ignore that. “Get a therapist!” says one Aristotelian. Another thoughtful person, who loves the whole thing so much they seem to really want an end to all beer – even for the best of reasons – didn’t like the idea that style is even being discussed.**** But discussed it has been. Lesson: ignore folk who tell you to shut up.

Next, the call that everything is great. Think William Blake, “All Religions Are One” for a mo. Maybe that’s it. So “Drink what you like!” we are told, conversely. We are told style and those who define it are gatekeeping and that this “reinforces the negative stereotypes of the industry.” That may be a very good argument with a very good goal – exploration and inclusion. Other cultures can be actually wonderfully enriching. But, as we see to the up and the right, that can lead to appropriations, circumstances where anything in a can can mean anything now. Nothing demystifying about that. Just a blurrier blur.

So, we have these structures and they help us to avoid the blur. We see, accordingly, Mr. B declared his entire agreement with Garrett Oliver when he rightly and righteously proclaimed:

…[he] says quite simply something I’ve been ranting about — hello, IPA category! — literally for years. Words matter. Styles matter. Expectations based upon words and styles on a label matter…”

…err… right before Mr. Oliver wrote a significantly but not entirely different thing:

Brewers can – and should – call beers whatever they want to. What I want is for brewers to WANT to hold the line on some things. I don’t think calling a deep amber beer “Pilsner” is good for customers or for brewers. That said, in the end…self-respect is always voluntary…

Voluntary. Which raises a point: really? When is a rule voluntary? If style is so central to understanding beer why can it be applied or not applied here and there however folk want. Should it be voluntary? Jings. What ever did the poor folk do before the early 1990s when the concept was invented? Were they happy? Were they maybe happier?

No wonder folk throw up their hands. It wasn’t always so. I came across a voice from the past this week, echoes of the past in something called Brewing & Beverage Industries Business magazine in which you can learn (on page 8) that folk today lack a proper understanding of brown bitter: “…balance in beer, how very uncraft…” You can also learn (on page 10) that folk today lack a proper understanding of Belgian beer:

I remain convinced that, were you to package them differently, or present them already poured rather than in the bottle most younger drinker (sic) would be every bit as enthusiastic about them as they are about Brewery X’s new bourbon barrel-aged Imperial porter or Y Brewing’s guava milkshake IPA…

See, it’s all their fault. Folk who don’t get it. The “younger drinker”! Can we tie that argument all together: awards now suck because the disfunction of style sucks because new craft sucks because young people who want new craft today… suck? Really? Isn’t something else the problem?  Hasn’t uncontrolled style division and propagation as a top down exercise itself caused craft’s cacophony as opposed to clarifying anything? Who pushed that propagation of sub-style after sub-style? Those who benefit from manufactured complexity. And who is that? Surely not the reader of a well thumbed copy of Modern British Beer.

What to make of these ye oldie fartie views? Are they the last bastion of the fight against all these young people***** and all these  strange tastes? There are a lot of strange tastes going around, it’s true. There ought to be a limit. Or at least proper labelling.  Which leads to one last thing, that I think I would be more concerned about supply chain issues if the supply on the chain were not lychee:

His shipment never left Southeast Asia, posing big problems for Urban Artifact’s Petroglyph beer, a top seller. But then, Kollman found a different supplier who already had a container of lychee sitting at the Port of Los Angeles. A lychee lifeline? Not so fast. “Two and a half months later, that [order] never left the port” either, Kollman tells me in a recent phone interview. “So we just dropped that product line.”

If the lychee supply fails, drop the product line. Make something else. Because the next thing is just as good as the last. Transitory. So lacking of structure that the next fruit flavour that comes along is tomorrow’s darling. Somewhere eight or ten years ago, did we see this coming?  Isn’t it like a culture that we have just encountered for the first time – even though it’s been there all along? What do we call this anti-style thing? Is it just… fun?

As you think about that over the week, please also check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Or is that dead now?) There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. (That’s a bit now and then now.) And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (which he may revive some day…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*I really need to print off some of these and sell them. I hear that 15 quid is the going rate.
**Surely a top journalism award.
***The “style beer” thing kills me. Just made up. Except it really isn’t. But is that what is happening? Stay tuned!
****Eine selbst beschrieben Auslander.
*****Diese lästig Jugendlichen!

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For When July Is Closer Than May

I will be positive. I will try to be positive. That’s what I say to myself. Every week. I will try. I do try. But it is trying, isn’t it. Not even sure it is all that interesting.  Far better being interesting than being positive. That’s why #ThinkingAboutDrinking >>> #BeerPositive.  Not schmarmy.  No need of that. Nope. I will try to be interesting. I will be interesting. I will. I will try.

As a start, it was interesting to see in The Telegraph the vision above of Canadian PM Justin Trudeau looking like Castro and Zappa’s love child while drinking a pint of ale as HRH The Queen had her back turned and Chuck looked pained but also comfortably numbed by the gin. By way of my review, an excellent G7 moment captured. Canadian politicians must love beer.

Elsewhere, there are few people writing about beer these days as interesting as Dr. Christina Wade of Braciatrix who wrote this week about a topic near and dear to my heart – beery references on cuneiform tablets within the records of Sumerian society:

Administration was a key part of these organizations. According to Peter Damerow, beer was not a simple agricultural product but, ‘belonged to the products subjected to the centralised economy of Sumerian states’. Indeed, he stated that the consumption and production of beer were separate entities and beer held this positon even after the decline of Sumerian culture. 

I say near and dear as I wrote of a similar thing in 2017, shared that info and had a merry chat with the good doctor.

Sticking with history, Martyn also wrote an extremely interesting piece this week drawing information out of the William Helliwell* diaries of the 1830s (much discussed in Lost Breweries of Toronto) that Jordan shared – and then contextualizing the info into London’s porter scene of that time:

William seems to have seized every chance to look round breweries on his journey: he visited two in Rochester, New York state and two more in nearby Albany on his way to New York to catch a ship to England, where he arrived in mid-June after a six-week journey from Canada. In London he had an introduction to Timothy Thorne, owner of the Westminster Brewery on Horseferry Road, from Thorne’s son Charles, whom William knew in York. The brewery, which made ale and porter, had been founded by Timothy Thorne in 1826. 

Leonard Lispenard of NYC took a similar trip in 1783 and trained under his cousins the Barclays. Did he keep a diary? Hmm…

Even more recent history was discussed by Boak and Bailey as they wrote about the demise in the later 1980s of a traditional pub in London’s Docklands, victim perhaps of a misplaced application of the new Duran Duran laced lifestyle:

We came across this small story of the loss of a specific pub through ‘Eastenders’, an episode of the ITV weekly documentary series World In Action available via BritBox. Jess being a Londoner, and Ray being a hopeless nostalgist, we often find ourselves watching this kind of thing and there’s invariably a pub somewhere among the grainy footage.

Never a good look for a writer to look for an expert to confirm a premise after the article’s been approved. Far more interesting was Max’s walk to Litoměřice:

I needed to have my computer serviced, which meant that I would have to do without it for a couple of days, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to do much else than fuck all at home. The thing had been acting up for some time already – some issue with the hard drive – and I’d decided to wait until I finished with a couple of big projects I was working on, always hoping it wouldn’t give up on me. It didn’t, and the timing could not have been any better. With the covid restrictions on all the fun stuff mostly lifted, and the weather finally nice, now I had the perfect excuse to take a couple of much needed days off to partake in one of my favourite activities: getting a train or a bus somewhere to go on a long walk in nature, with a brewery as destination. 

Sadly but interestingly so, the car crash within the wider sexism in craft car crash that is the Brewdog story keeps on giving and it is always wonderful when a beery bit of news gets the attention of someone in journalism** like this excellent balanced opinion piece by Camilla Long in The Sunday Times:

Will anyone now work for Brewdog? Thirty years ago the answer would probably have been a grudging yes. For people over 40, a cut-throat, stressful working environment — or as Brewdog’s founder put it, “a fast-paced culture” — is still closely associated with good results… But if you are under 40, the idea of working for somewhere that isn’t calm and friendly is horrifying. Young people simply won’t work for places that don’t offer good vibes. In America, where companies these days can’t hire people fast enough, hotels are offering free holidays and stays to attract good staff. Jobs are competing for people, rather than the other way round.

People still looking for a better placement within the beer industry don’t get that direct in their writing. As usual, Matty C comes closest but still hedged the best with the unfortunate use of “snafus” and describing Brewdog’s investors as “wolfish” even though it was the owners of Brewdog who took the cash. As noted these hesitancies jar the reader, leave doubts. Charlotte Cook in Beer 52 also added to the story with her personal experiences as relatively early BrewDog staff:

The inability to read the room also astounded me, women are finally speaking up for the horrible treatment they have endured in the craft beer industry. The lack of an apology from James, or any assurance of the steps being taken to improve things, suggests to me that BrewDog has not yet understood the moment of change we are going through. 

Who? indeed, would work there? Or buy the beer. Not even me and I used to take from them when they were wee needy advertising sponsors of this blog. Relatedly, Jemma Wilson succinctly shared her suspicions as to the Cicerone sexism situation. Gotta love an an independent investigation report that states “…Cicerone will be more responsive…” That’s not an investigative finding or even a recommendation.

Finally, Eoghan Walsh published the story of how and why Brussels’ grand new beer museum came to be:

Krishan Maudgal has worked in Belgian beer for over a decade, for the likes of Alken Maes and its well-known Abbey brand Affligem. In 2021 Maudgal was appointed to Gatz’s old position as director of the Belgian Brewers Federation, and he’s worked for the brewers on the museum concept almost from the beginning, helping to shape what the project will be – and what it won’t. “It’s not a showroom for only the international major brewers of our country,” Maudgal says. “It’s to promote the Belgian way of living. Eating, drinking, beer and food.”

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

*Helliwell would likely have called himself “British” or “English” but unlikely “Canadian” as there was no unified Canada of the British sort at the time. Canada then was still the name for French Canadians given they had lived in what they called Canada since the early 1600s. There was an Upper Canada which Helliwell did live in. In Nova Scotia, Ontarians are still called Upper Canadians even though the jurisdiction ceased to exist in 1841. This is all unpacked here to another degree or so…
**meaning having qualifications which do not include being on a first name basis with the subject of the beery news story.  H/T to the Tand.

 

If That Was April Is This Thursday’s Beery News Notes?

Boy, did that fly by. April 2021. Lots of real world activity in my life even in the time of the enhanced Ontario lockdown. Vaccine jabbed, moved a kid from one city to another, annual income taxes submitted, another birthday… So things are looking up. Certainly could be worse. I could have concerns about the Truman Brewery Shopping Mall development as illustrated above. I know nothing about it. But the Evening Standard of London, England reports:

…heritage groups, residents and existing business owners have said the new plans are not in keeping with the area, the work could obscure views of the landmark’s Grade II listed chimney and there will be less need for office space post pandemic. Developers Old Truman Brewery said there has been “extensive consultation” with the council, residents, local workers and businesses and is a “high quality design with appropriate uses.”

Speak of the old and the brewing related, there was a fair bit of interesting char related to this article on an archaeological dig in Pembrokeshire, Wales:

Some 2000 years after Neolithic occupation began on the site, a stream became a focus of activity, where hot stones were used to generate steam or hot water, which resulted in the formation of a burnt mound. Water contained in the wooden trough was heated by stones placed in an adjoining hearth. While this process is well understood, the purpose of such features remains a matter of ongoing debate, with use for cooking, craft activities, brewing and saunas all suggested. Over 40 such mounds were found along the pipeline, with radiocarbon dating at one site indicating reuse over a remarkably long timespan of over 1500 years.

“Bronze-age Welsh brewery, I’d say” according to Martyn and “…the size of the troughs matches the batch sizes for farmers brewing for their own household…” says Lars. Barry: “I used to survey them… to calculate potential number of uses based on fracture rate of the stone used and the size of the mound…” Plenty of neato.

He’s the thing… as you may appreciate I have little interest in the alcopops labeled as “vodka soda” or even “craft beer” or even even “IPA” so you likely can guess how little I care about small-dose cannabis beverages. But there was this money quote in this article in Forbes this week which was fairly blunt:

“This is not a medical product. This is an alternative for White Claw,” Kovler says plainly. “No one under 35 likes beer anymore and calories and hangovers are unattractive. For us, it’s an obvious, forward-thinking idea… there is so much opportunity.”

Has anyone mentioned that cannabis comes with a hangover called crippling anxiety for many? No. Thought not. Anyway, it this were to kill off White Claw I suppose it would be something. But it won’t. Just another product in a pretty can on the shelf that really doesn’t have much to do with beer which is fine as I am well over 35 and don’t plan changing that in the near or medium future.

The Beer Nut celebrated his 16th bloggaversary this week, channeling Beckett. Less focused with a piece in Pellicle by ATJ on smoked beer or perhaps just the one sort of smoked beer called rauchbier or… well, when you reference both Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings along with Prometheus, well, it all gets a bit… well… but it is important to note that Game of Thrones did actually make a beer:

This strong golden ale is co-fermented with pinot grigio and viognier grape juices, then bottle conditioned with Champagne yeast.

So this wasn’t that… as it were.

Stan issued another edition of Hop Queries this week and, as usual, shared some excellent insights into corners of the brewing trade few others write about – including this time stuff related to a “fuss that resulted from a few things Shaun Hill of Hill Farmstead Brewery said in New Zealand last month”:

“I’ve unfortunately had to brew with some of that Galaxy and destroyed batches of beer that tasted like pencil shavings because of it. At the point that something of highest quality is not being produced with transparency and things are being done for the sake of homogeneity, monoculture and, basically, just earning capital, things can get pretty far out of whack pretty quickly.”

Stan also shares the position of Hop Products Australia on the matter, contrasting the needs of the niche specialist brewers like Hill Farmstead and the general craft brewing trade stating a bit obliquely “consistency encourages a level of brand loyalty that forms the foundation for future growth.” I am not sure with whom I sympathize but Hill comes off as suggesting he should get first access to goods produced by others to literally cherry pick. Sounds like the folk who get to the grapes at the grocery store first, picking through the bunches leaving bruised fruit behind.

Lily Waite joined a trend I have noticed and referred to the craft beer trade as “we” describing an article on the craft beer trade… but she runs a brewery so it is all inside baseball. Good. And a great tl;dr ensued.

I found this an odd statement from the wine world:

No more Kiwi wine for me while New Zealand kowtows to China.

I presume Mr. Johnson is similarly concerned about the authoritarian tendencies of Viktor Mihály Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, home of Johnson’s beloved Tokaji. New Zealand has taken a path that is distinct from the battling one that Australia is taking in its trade war with China, a diplomatic row that includes malting barley:

Beijing hit Australian barley with a 73.6 per cent anti-dumping duty and a 6.9 per cent countervailing duty last May, in a move Canberra regards as politically motivated. Previously about half of Australia’s feed barley and 86 per cent of its malting barley, by value, was exported to China – but that trade has withered since Beijing’s taxes took effect.

Speaking of the politics of beverage alcohol, Chuck nailed it:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer trolled Donald Trump’s former adviser, Larry Kudlow, Sunday with a tweet mocking him for apparently failing to realize that all beer is “plant-based.” “Excited to be watching the Oscars with an ice cold plant-based beer. Thanks Joe Biden,” Schumer posted, along with a photo of himself sipping one in front of a TV.

Nice. That’s it for now. Enjoy your May Day. Wave a red flag and, while you are doing so, check out the weekly updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (who marked their 100th episode with gratitude for all) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. There’s the AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness. And remember BeerEdge, too. Plus a newcomer located by B+B: The Moon Under Water.

The Last Thursday Beer News Notes Before The UK General Election

It’s not often that I get to headline the weekly update with something so.. so… unbeery – but is beer ever really that much removed from politics? Consider this photo to the right that circulated about a man to the left. I was as sad that it was Coors Light, the faceless multinationals of beer that he was pouring as much as I was saddened by the mleko* pour.  The Late Great Jack Layton held the red banner high here in Canada for years and he also knew how to pour a beer with a bit of style.

Given it is Yule, I will start with Ben Johnson and his list of ways to avoid the Christmas party hell you fear most, other drinking your good stuff:

Hosting at home guarantees my own access to good hooch but it also opens the door to the undesirable possibility that my guests might assume that they will be graced with the same luxury, which of course they are not. Indeed the one downside to hosting is that it means people might drink my beer. Thankfully, over the years, I’ve learned ways to keep my guests from dipping into my stash and I’m here to pass that wisdom on to you.

Speaking of Yule, Merryn in Orkney and Lars in Norway were discussing Christmas brewing obligations in Norway when Lars made this extraordinary statement:

This was not even the law for all of Norway: it only applied in western Norway (the Gulathing area). The other regional laws did not have this provision. (The Frostating law required brewing for midsummer.) Neither did the Swedish regional laws.

The Frostating law? Now I have to get my brain around the legal brewing requirements of other jurisdictions. It would be interesting to have a great big list when folk had to brew and why.

Katie of the shiny and the biscuit gave us a wonderful portrait of and an interview with two Mancunian fans leading the cause of cider from their demand side of the commercial transactional teeter totter, this week at Pellicle:

With Dick and Cath leading the march, Greater Manchester has become the centre of “real” cider in the North in the space of two years. Together, they created the Manchester Cider Club, and in doing so have brought cidermakers like Tom Oliver, Albert Johnson (Ross-on-Wye) and Susanna and James Forbes (Little Pomona) to the city. At regularly sold-out ticketed events and inclusive meet-ups, they are encouraged to answer questions and share their cider with a new, northern audience.

From further east, the tale of Vienna Lager was told at scale in the seven days at A Tempest in a Tankard:

Four hours east of Munich as the RailJet flies, the Viennese were marking a milestone anniversary of their own, albeit with much less fanfare: 175 years of Vienna Lager. Even if no museums commemorated the fact, and even if the media resonance was akin to the sound of one hand clapping, Vienna had good reason to celebrate its contribution to the culture of brewing. Bottom-fermented beer had been produced for centuries in Europe’s Alpine regions, but it wasn’t until Anton Dreher, owner of the Brauhaus zu Klein-Schwechat, brought together technological advances he learned in Britain and Bavaria that he was able to produce the first lager beer that could be brewed year-round. That happened in 1841. **

Big Beer Corporate News? Apparently darling of a decade ago Stone is maybe up for sale, a rumour of a story almost entirely confirmed by the denials of the brewery. In another sort of bad brewery news reporting… or rather reporting on bad news for a brewery… it appears that New Belgium may have new clients amongst the authoritarian military elite!

The New Belgium Brewery insists it is not like other companies. Its owners, who are also its employees, are devoted to fighting social inequity and climate change, proving business can “be a force for good,” its website says. Their CEO Kim Jordan was honoured among 30 “World-Changing Women in Conscious Business” last year. Employees even get free bicycles. But those ethical credentials have not stopped them planning to sell their firm, which has breweries in Colorado and North Carolina, to a beer giant accused of funding genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar.

Wow. Too bad there was no way for the governing hands on the nNew Belgium transaction to be warned of the situation, like a hearing of the International Court of Justice or anything. Speaking of things end-timesy, beer in the U.S. of A. is dying again:

The trend doesn’t appear to be reversing itself. Sales of domestic beer slipped 4.6% between October 2018 and October 2019, according to Nielsen. Microbrew and craft beers are also in a minor slump, down 0.4%, despite Big Beer companies scooping them up left and right (AnheuserBusch just purchased Craft Brew Alliance, which makes Redhook Ale).

“Microbrew” can only be a word used by someone who knows very little about microbrewing, rights? Aside from that, the story is White Claw and, if we had any sense, no one would care as that is something other people buy like purple velvet trousers or quadrophonic stereo systems. So why do we care? I don’t care. Affects me in no way. Nada.

All of which leads to the news in Ontario that the national brewpub chain Les 3 Brasseurs has announced that four of its locations in Ontario are closing:

Ten years ago, we entered the strategic market of Ontario and, over that time, experienced some great victories, notably our Yonge and Oakville restaurants, but also some challenges,” said Laurens Defour, CEO of 3 Brewers Canada, in a statement. “This is a difficult decision, but we have concluded that we need to close some sites in order to support the evolution of our business.

Careful readers will recall that I happily attended on of the busier outlets in Oakville last year and was quite happy with the carrot pale ale I was served.

Barry in Germany posted an afternoon’s worth of photos of old apple and pear trees taken during a walk with his dog. Elsewhere in Germany, there is a pub branded with the likeness of Roger Prozt but denying it is a pub branded with the likeness of Roger Prozt. Protz commented thusly:

I’m not even allowed to be flattered. They deny any connection to me because they think – wrongly – I’m going to sue them. I recall the image that was produced for a beer event, same style for all participants.

Note: of the two being depicted, I’d suggest the dandy, the fop, jack the lad was more mocked than Peg. Interesting that the powdered wig was not a wig at all. And speaking of the Irish of yore, here is the tweet of the week:

“Ale has killed us”? Short memories of the Vikings apparently. But enough! I have a long day’s work ahead of me then need to settle in for the the election results. Don’t forget that there’s more news at Boak and Bailey’s on Saturday, at the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays and sometimes a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well. And sign up for Katie’s weekly newsletter, too.

*A teacher in Poland I once was…
**I used a slightly different quotation than Boak and Bailey so I feel justified.

Your Thursday Beery News Updates For Mid-November

The last of birthdays, anniversaries and public holidays over the last four weeks has finally passed. And it has snowed. Wednesday was as sharp as deepest January at -16C even if it was +8C last Saturday. Five weeks before the solstice. So, I am buried in wool blankets at home this week, covered as soon as I get through the door, hugging the wood burning internet server looking for answers.  Which is where I found the image above, from 1979 when Rocky II came out. It’s from Piccadilly Square in London. Notice the sign for Wards Irish House, mentioned by Boak and Bailey in 2014.  Another report, two years later describes the entertainments:

Wards Irish House. Used to drink there in the ’70’s. Great Guiness with shamrock carved in the head. Once watched a group of people torturing a rat to death on their table top. Great seedy memories!

Conversely, Retired Martin has had a happier experience in his unending pub travels, especially with his visit to The Old Ship Inn in Perth, Scotland which he has shared in a lovely photo essay:

“How are ya ?” says the lovely Landlady. “Thirsty I bet“. Little things make a pub. It was Jarl, of course, a cool, foamy gem of a beer… 

Perhaps somewhere in the middle, Boris Johnson has apparently failed to keep his word, this time related to staying out of the pub until Brexit is sorted:

…the prime minister had claimed he would not drink until Brexit is sorted – with the first phase of the UK’s withdrawal set for January 31. But he failed to show restraint and maintain his “do or dry” pledge after pulling a pint in a Wolverhampton pub… Asked if he would taste the beer, he replied: “I’m not allowed to drink until Brexit is done.” He added “I’ll whet my whistle” before indulging in a sip.

Beth Demmon also told a tale this week – but one with more integrity – about Michelle McGrath, executive director of the United States Association of Cider Makers:

…she hobnobbed with agricultural producers, including a small cluster of organic orchardists operating in the mineral-rich Columbia River Gorge in the rural north of Oregon. They were looking for ways to diversify their income streams, and cider was “just taking off,” according to McGrath. This was the future, she realized. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and have the right passion.” 

Speaking of the right place at the right time and have the right passion, the rumours are true! Prague: A Pisshead’s Pub Guide – 3rd Edition is being written! And if you give to Max he might stop hitting me up for spare cash.

The Simpsons on beer and also on beer.

There has been a small somewhat odd protest in England related to Paul:

…bring back Paul! Paul worked at #Beavertown Brewery until he was sacked without reason and without warning. Paul is a well-respected member of staff who always supported his workmates! Reinstate Paul!

Katie is on the case, as usual. She has asked if anyone at all can tell her more about the sacking of a team member named Paul Shaw. Oddly, no deets yet.

In perhaps bigger news, Josh Noel gave the heads up on the swallowing up of the Craft Brew Alliance by Anheuser-Busch. AB now acquires full control of craft brands like Kona, Redhook, Widmer, Omission, Square Mile Cider, Wynwood, Cisco, Appalachian Mountain – making it the largest craft beer company in the United States. Nutty. Diana Barr in the Puget Sound Business Journal explained how this is the end of a process that started some time ago:

Anheuser-Busch InBev owns 31.2 percent of Craft Brew Alliance and agreed to pay $16.50 per share in cash for the remaining shares, the companies said Monday. The deal — which Reuters valued at $321 million — is slated to close next year, pending approval by regulators and a majority of CBA shareholders not affiliated with A-B, officials said. Most of CBA’s brands… already are distributed through A-B’s independent wholesaler network. 

MarketWatch argued that what looked like a premium price might actually have been a bit of a steal given recent stock price fluctuation. Jeff provides a brief boatload of background:

Originally called Craft Brands Alliance, it began in 2008 as a loose partnership with Seattle’s Redhook, which like Widmer had sold a minority stake to Anheuser-Busch, to combine sales and marketing operations. In 2008, it became a single company (called Craft Brewers Alliance) headquartered in Portland. The two companies were of a similar size at that point, but Widmer Brothers soon eclipsed Redhook. CBA had been contract-brewing Kona beer for the mainland since 2001. In 2010 the company acquired Kona outright. It owned a portion of Goose Island and sold it to ABI in 2011. In 2012 it launched a gluten-free brand and in 2013 a cider brand. More recently it began acquiring smaller breweries.

Perhaps as an antidote, a tale of restoration in the form of one last post on a pub in England – and a splendid one from Boak and Bailey who recently revisited The Fellowship Inn at Bellingham, south east London:

It was designed in glorious mock-Tudor style by Barclay Perkins’ in-house architect F.G.Newnham. On the opening day in 1924, Barclay Perkins reported that over a thousand meals were served. Again, check 20th Century Pub for more contemporary accounts of the life and colour of this and other big interwar estate pubs. When we visited in 2016, a small part of the pub was still trading, though most of it was empty and and terrible disrepair…

In happy news, the British Guild of Beer Writers:

…has shortlisted 28 writers, journalists and bloggers in its Annual Awards. The winners in 11 categories as well as the overall Beer Writer of the Year and Brewer of the Year will be unveiled at the Guild’s Annual Awards presentation and dinner on 3 December. Judges read, viewed and listened to some 150 entries which included books, newspaper and magazine articles, both printed and online, as well as blogs, radio broadcasts, films and podcasts.

I was unaware of the three nominees for Guild Award for Best Citizen Beer Communicator but see one writes mainly in Russian and another has a very shouty vid channel. Hmm… are they EU or just British citizens? Frankly, I find the total entry pools of 150 a bit sad comment but there we are. While someone will send out the attack dogs for merely mentioning, as both the BGBW and the NAGBW have placed themselves into the fairly generic good newsy trade journalesqueism niche – aka “beer and brewing industry coverage” – pretty squarely with this years award structure it might be time for a broader garage band level revival of creative and consumer focused writing. But that’s me. Remembering.

Gary takes up the challenge in a pre-facto sort of way and wrote my kind of post – history, beer and law from 1887:

Here’s what happened. A public house in Brick Lane, London was shown to have mixed two beers. One from Barclay’s was – my calculation from gravity numbers in the case – 5.7% abv, the other, a “small beer” from a dealer, only 2.4% abv… The mixing statute prohibited adulterating or diluting “beer” or adding anything to it except finings. The key issue was, did Crofts dilute beer by mixing a weaker beer with a stronger? The magistrate held yes; the appeal judges agreed, although not without some difficulty in the case of one judge.

It’s a start.

UPDATE #1: want a model of how to write about a business from a impassioned consumer’s perspective, look no further than these HATS IN CHIGAGO!!

UPDATE #2: I’ve discovered a new interest: alt forms of beer competition. This week – the curling bonspiel model:

Judging reform: (1) entries only nominated by others, (2) judging by panels with multiple tastings over time, (3) regional play downs leading to multiple progressive winnowing, (4) independent accredited controls. Allows more participation without one shot beers no one can buy.

There… enough for now. I have to go hibernate, to sob quietly for the summer of 2019 that I could pretend was just, you know, taking a break… until now. For further beery links, check out the Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then tune your dial to the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look to see if there was a mid-week post of notes from The Fizz as well.

Your Last Thursday Beery News Update Before the Impending Canadian Hung Parliament

This is great. We have an absolutely gridlocked national political scene according to the polls and that, for a Canadian, is a wonderful thing. We love minority in our national federation of a parliamentary monarchy system. Best is there is a good chance that the highest vote won’t equal the most seats, given 105% of Albertans vote Tory. Probably the guy tapping the keg last week in Kitchener (at the world’s second largest Oktoberfest) gets the nod as PM.* The Leader of HM’s Loyal Opposition just looks too much like a 12 year old in his bigger cousin’s suit to pull it off. Which is fine. Which makes minorities great. Things get done. Deals get made. Progress happens.  I know in the US folks are all like “wuzza third Party?” and in the UK folk are all like “making deals based on compromise?” but here in the Great White North we know what works. And that is working.

First, an acknowledgment and a bit of a bummer. I read this note this week at Stan’s place:

For 6 years I assembled links to good reading about beer and other things fermented, posting them here on Mondays, often with a bit of commentary. That ended in with the arrival of October in 2019. Of course, the archives (in monday links during 2018 and 2019, musing before) remain, and at the bottom of every post there is a list of sites that have new links every week. You may also look at my Twitter feed on the right to see what I’ve been reading.

It would be telling half a story if I were to tell you that Stan is my favorite beer writer, the only person I will call a “beer expert” given the depth and breadth of his comprehensive knowledge. He has always had the time for my dumb questions and has even taken the time to tell me to go to straight to hell… now… exactly when I needed it. I will be sad to not read his thoughts at the beginning of every work week but I have noticed an uptick in his own blog writing activity otherwise so maybe he will focus on more posts. A welcome thought. As is the news that there will be a Lew v.2.

If there was a next gen candidate to follow in Stan’s footsteps, Evan Rail might be it. Late last week, just after the round up hit the presses, he posted an article at GBH.  (And without the obligatory 27 “GBH” references embedded in the text, too! He must know how to negotiate a contact.) The article is about hops and, more specifically, a trip he took to the Hop Research Center in Hüll, Germany to learn more about their breeding program:

Breeding itself is a delicate process. Commercial hop plants are generally all female, with female flowers. To create new crosses, male hop plants—which usually but don’t always have male flowers—are also bred. But, in the middle of a commercially important hop region like the Hallertau, how do you raise male hop plants, when just a pinch of their pollen can create unwanted hybrids on the surrounding farms, potentially ruining the crop?

Me? I probably would prefer the unofficial version of the history of CAMRA, which is what the “biography of the organization” is actually called.**

We would like this perspective to come from someone who is not perceived as having a close association with CAMRA.  The brief is for a c.50,000 word authorised biography of CAMRA, to be researched and written in 2020, with the text due at the end of the year, ready for publication in March 2021 in time for the Campaign’s birthday celebrations. Exact outline, terms and fees to be negotiated.

Nothing like a book where the subject matter gets to negotiate the outline.  Also from the UK and in line with such thoughts on the improbabilities of the world we live in, a stark truth from an English brewer on the perfect pint pour:

A proper family/regional head brewer would know that the perfect amount of foam is that which allows the publican to sell 105% of the beer from each cask.

Next, Martyn has continued in his Martyn-like habit of posting long excellent blog posts with another long excellent blog post on corporate misinformation about a certain Sri Lankan brewery’s history:***

Mind, even at five errors in four sentences, that’s not the worst pile of nonsense on the internet about what is now the Lion Brewery, famous today for an award-winning strong stout that is one of the last links with British colonial brewing in Southern Asia. The Lion Brewery’s own website is full of rubbish (and bizarre random capitalisation) as well…

Odd news out of Oregon where one brewery has been vandalized twice in recent weeks… by the same person:

Police contacted Albin in the area and arrested her for first-degree criminal mischief. However, Albin was released from the jail just three days later. She returned to the brewery around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. That’s when she allegedly threw rocks and liquor bottles into the windows and doors of the restaurant, and made Molotov cocktails that were found thrown around the inside of the brewery. The entire incident was captured on surveillance video…

Speaking of Molotov cocktails, I now have less of an issue with paper-based beer containers:

Carlsberg announced the launch of two prototypes of the new bottle at the C40 World Mayors Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. The newer, eco-friendly versions are made from sustainably sourced wood fibres and are fully recyclable. The concept of a paper-based bottle may sound strange at first, as you wonder how the structure would stand firm, holding liquid safely inside.

…but the technology probably would be put to better use in the jams and jellies trade. Which I assume is about 1,297 times bigger than beer. Isn’t it? I need to check out Insta-jam or whatever that corner of the social media boglands are called.

There. A bit of a quieter week, I suppose. And not particularly wide in the selection of voices. I did hunt around, honest. Let me know what I am missing. Still, plenty of good reading for a week filled with many bigger matters. Some things beer can’t fix. Expect a further Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and then check out  the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays. And look for mid-week notes from The Fizz as well.

*Fact: Canadian politicians must love beer.
**Illiteracy is an alarming problem, as we know, in the industrial scribbling circle but this is inordinately odd.
***And one I love as their foreign export stout makes it regularly to Ontario.

The First Thursday Beer News Of October 2019

Beer: less popular year after year!

Ah, beer. You ever ask yourself on why you bother thinking about it? You know, if it’s not your last ditch effort to cobble together a career? BA Bart posted a thread on Twitter this week on the latest stats – which seem to be in line with the previous stats. All worth considering, for sure, but there is that underlying personal question that I suppose everyone who reads this blog has asked themselves since their first glass – why do I bother? Knitting bloggers have a way easier answer. Mittens. Knitting bloggers get all the breaks.

Speaking of big stats over time, relatedly and with a similar set of graphs, apparently Russia’s public policy program to reduce alcohol consumption has been… a fabulous success:

In 2018, Russian life expectancy reached its historic peak, standing at almost 68 years for men and 78 years for women. The experience gathered by the Russian Federation in reducing the burden of disease stemming from alcohol represents a powerful argument that effective alcohol policy is essential to improving the prospects of living long and healthy lives.

By contrast, Gary thumbs his nose at Mr. Putin and gives us a portrait of one of my old favourites,* La Choulette, and the under-respected biere du garde style:

It has a full, complex flavour, quite different from the standard conception at least in North America of a “Belgian ale”. The beer is somewhat earthy, dark fruit estery, with malty/caramel tones, and an interesting tonic or “camphor” edge, almost gin-like to my taste. It has no tart notes, and is quite different from a Flanders brown style, East or West.

Before going on junket with others of the cap in hand crowd,** young Mr. Curtis wrote a response to a typical Stone-based blurt a ripping set of tweets on the failure that has been Stone Brewing’s experience in the UK and Europe including this bit of honesty:

They’ve had to sell there entire U.K. brewing operation. Instead of trying to understand their export markets, they’ve attempted to subvert them. And it’s backfired time and time again.

Yowza! It’s all true, of course, but as we know with the stale older monied end of US craft beer – facts are not all they are cracked up to be.

Perhaps related, GBH shared Jeff Alworth’s sharing of the Instagram posting by Baltimore brewer Megan Stone of @isbeeracarb on sad reality of brew house work conditions.  Because I don’t want to know what my kids do on Friday night, I stay away from Instagram so this was helpful.

Beth Demmon has published a wonderfully in-depth piece at CraftBeer.com on brewing while raising a family:

As Oliver, 34, and her generation have children—albeit later and at a lower rate than generations past—more beer professionals are increasingly finding themselves in similar situations as Oliver. Child care costs, lack of parental benefits, and other obstacles mean employees working in the estimated 7,500 breweries across the United States face the potential of their children existing in alcohol-centric spaces.

Now perhaps building upon those last two stories, “scandal” and “Ontario” usually evoke as much shock as the combination of “curling” and “action” but this week the decision of Ontario Craft Brewers*** to attend and post on social media about a government PR announcement which included standing with a certain Member of Provincial Parliament (“MPP”) due to his past and presumably present day quite intolerant positions. Ben Johnson I believe was the first to point out the glaring problem:

For an organization that has made public overtures to women in their industry, the @OntCraftBrewers looks pretty hypocritical here posing for photo ops with a kid who said he wants to make a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body “unthinkable in our lifetime.”

Brewers issued social media statements: Muddy York, Bench, Sawdust City,**** People’s Pints, Manantler. There are others. It made the news. And there was some unhappiness that the associated larger event got tarnished.  Some didn’t comment. Jordan posted his thoughts on the naturally resulting trade backlash this way:

The OCB’s leadership is actively undermining its own credibility. They have lost two members this week in Block 3 and Manantler and may well yet lose Muddy York. Their largest members are backpedaling faster than I have ever seen them and while I would like to think that this would be a wake up call to them, I just don’t believe it. I think they believe this will go away because this is an emotional response. 

Disastrous decision. In other key conservative political news which might be related, have a gander at British Cabinet member Michael Gove recently pickled out of his skull – not only in public but in the UK’s Parliament.

In more positive news, co-creator of this stuff Max headed out from Prague tracing a line north to try out some actual (and not craft bastardized) kviek in Norway as part of a program to establish partnerships between Czech and Norwegian people who practice traditional trades and crafts:*****

After a hearty lunch prepared by his wife, Julie, Sigurd took us a couple of kilometres uphill to pick juniper and get some alder wood for the next day’s brew. We came back with a full trailer and we sat in the garden to have some home made beer while we waited for our accommodation to be ready. That’s when I had my first contact with a Kveik Ale, brewed with juniper but with a boiled wort. It was amazing! It had notes of green wood and spice that reminded me of Szechuan pepper without the burn, but they weren’t overpowering. It still tasted like beer thanks to its sufficiently muscular malt base.

Wow. And no one adding fruit syrups at all!  Finally, some other beer news in brief:

a. The craft beer hangover.
b. Zwanze Day fightin’ words!
c. Beer powered radio.
d. A trip to JJB’s (aka the formerly Stonch’s) pub.
e. The most blatant example of entitled craft ripping off someone’s intellectual property yet. Oof, indeed.
f. Barry in Germany is now selling his own clinky drinky produce!

Finito! I’m actually sick as I put this together. The autumn school bug. While I recover, I can look forward to expect the Boak and Bailey news update on Saturday and Stan should back on Monday. Check out the OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays, too. Heck, there is so much to follow – what do you need me for… sorry… it’s  just the cold medicine talking… zzzzzzz… zz… zlurp… zzzzzzzzzzzz…

 

*Ten summers ago…
**If I have done anything, my part in making “the junketeer’s admission” a norm has been my proudest achievement.
***Former sponsors of this blog.
****Oddly, even having to explain a former senior staffer wearing their t-shirt as if he was still representing.
*****Sounds actually legitimate!

I Get It. It’s Lambeth Ale. But Why Is It “Lambeth” Ale?

For a while now I have been noodling around 1600s English brewing history and have a bunch of posts that you can generally find here with a few other topics from that century woven in. The important things to understand are: (i) there were distinct forms of beer easily recognizable by the consumer, (ii) they mainly were defined by their geographical source and (iii) they are often but not solely described according to that location. So, brewing elements like a local water table, the local produce including husbanded post-landrace barley malts and traditional local malt bill blends combined to create reliable and recognizable categories of beer called Northdown/Margate, Hull or Derby. John Locke’s letter of 1679 gives a good example of contemporary understanding. Poor Robin’s Almanac in 1696 sets a similar marketplace of diverse offerings under the definition of Cock-Ale:

But by your leave Mr. Poet, notwithstanding the large commendations you give of the juice of barley, yet if compar’d with Canary, they are no more than a mole-hill to a mountain; whether it be cock ale, China ale, rasbury ale, sage ale, scurvy-grass ale, horsereddish ale, Lambeth ale, Hull ale, Darby ale, North-down ale, double ale, or small ale; March beer, nor mum, though made at St. Catharines, put them all together, are not to be compared.

However, the penny has yet to drop in relation to one prominent beer in that system. Lambeth Ale.  Don’t get me wrong. It is pretty clear what it was:  a lower alcohol bottled pale ale that was highly carbonated. Consider this line from the 1712 play The Successful Pyrate at Act ii., scene 1:

Ha, ha, ha, faith she is pert and small like Lambeth ale.*

But why was it called “Lambeth” after a shoreline district along London’s southern bank?  One would think this is an easy question to answer but if we look at the facts on the ground at the time it is not one so simple to answer. For today’s purposes, let’s even call this part 1… or perhaps part 7… in my thought process.  A winnowing. A ruling out perhaps. See, what bothers me the most about it is how I can identify the who and why and what about 1600s Derby or Hull or Margate but there is a bit of an issue when it comes to mid-1600s Lambeth. There ain’t much there on the ground.

Let me illustrate my conundrum. If you look up at the image above, which I am informed is a 1670 illustration of the sights at Lambeth, you will note two things: a big church complex and a lot of grass. Here is a similar version dated 1685. I have further illustrated the concept here for clarity. Lambeth Palace is and was the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England.  It sits in what is known as – and what was at the time in question – Lambeth Marsh. Grass.

To the right is a bit of a map from 1574 which shows the scene. Lambeth faces Westminster across the Thames, combining to embody the authority of the church and state. But to the south there are a few buildings, you note. Yes. And it appears Lambeth as a zone was narrow and long with northern and southern districts. So Lambeth Ale could be from the south of the Palace and the Marsh. It is, after all, a parish. Could be. But the south seems to really only develop after the building of Westminster Bridge in the very middle of the mid-1700s.  And, as I noted a couple of years ago, when Samuel Pepys was downing lashes of Lambeth Ale, he was traveling over by boat when he was not finding it in town proper. Lambeth was a place, apparently, where one could do all sorts of things once the boat got you across. Here is Sammy P from his diary on the 23rd of July 1664:

…and away to Westminster Hall, and there sight of Mrs Lane, and plotted with her to go over to the old house in Lambeth Marsh, and there eat and drank, and had my pleasure with her twice, she being the strangest woman in talk of love to her husband sometimes, and sometimes again she do not care for him, and yet willing enough to allow me a liberty of doing what I would with her. So spending 5s or 6s upon her, I could do what I would, and after an hours stay and more, back again and set her ashore again.

Heavens. So, was it a pleasure ground with its own ale like the later Vauxhall? There is one problem I find with that. If we remember that Mr. Pepys is mentioning Lambeth Ale in the first half of the 1660s, we also find that there was a certain local someone who was not a big fan of brewing prior to that date. The Archbishop himself. Or rather an archbishop… as they come and they go. The one I am talking about is one who went in rather dramatic fashion: William Laud.

William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to either 1640 when he was arrested in the English Civil War or 1645 when he had his head cut off.** In a 1958 article on 1630s English politics,*** there is a explanation of the word Laudian which indicates High Church Anglican and sits in opposition to Puritan reforming rabble. The illustration of the distinction is the Puritan distaste for churchales – local church fundraising fetes of a drunken happy sort. Laud took a political stance in support of this but mainly as a means to exercise his power early in his term of office, to fund his church repair project and to tick off the growing Puritan element within the church. He is not considered to have been all that pro-beer at the time.

He continues to not be a big booster of brewing. Writing to one Bishop Bridgeman, from Lambeth on 29th October, 1638, Laud enclosed a letter he had written to the Dean of the Cathedral of Chester “concerning your quadrangle or Abbey-court, & the Brewhouse, & Maulthouse there.” He stated that they had better do as he instructed or “I promise you they shall smart for it“! Here is some of the enclosed letter: 

After my hearty commend: &c. I am informed that in your Quadrangle, or Abbey-Court at Chester… the BP’s House takes up one side of the Quadrangle; and that another side hath in it the Dean’s house and some Buildings for singing men; that the third side hath in it one Prebend’s house only, and the rest is turned to a Malt house; and that ye fourth side (where yo Grammar School stood) is turned to a common Brewhouse, & was lett into lives by yo” unworthy Predecessors. This Malt house and Brew house, but the Brew house especially, must needs, by noise and smoke and filth, infinitely annoy both my Lo: ye BPs house and your owne… hitherto this concernes your Predecessors, and not your selves. That won followes will appeare to be your owne fault… Now I heare ye Brewer’s wife is dead, and you have given mee cause to feare that you will fill up yo Lease againe with another life. And then there will be noe end of this mischiefe…  And in all this I require your Obedience in his Ma’yes Name, as you will answer it at your p’ill. So I leave you &c.” 

In early 1640, Laud wrote another letter. This time to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford:

I received a Letter this Week from Oxford, from an ordinary plain man, but a good Scholar, and very honest. And it troubles me: more than any Letter I have received many a day. “Tis true, I have heard of late from fome Men of Quality here above, that the Univerfity was Relapfing into a Drinking Humour, to its great Dishonour. But, I confess, I believed it not, because I had no Intimation of it from you. But this Letter comes from a Man that can have no Ends but Honesty, and the good of that Place. And because you shall fee what he writes, I fend you here a Copy of his Letter, and do earnestly beg of you, That you will forthwith set yourself to punish all haunting of Taverns and Ale-Houfes with all the strictness that may be, that the University, now advancing in Learning, may not sink in Manners, which will shame and destroy all.

After his arrest in December 1640, Laud faced a number of charges including one that he caused the shutting and pulling down of a number of brew-houses across the river in Westminster because their smoke disturbed his enjoyment of life at Lambeth. Just there to the right under the thumbnail is the charge as published in a 1695 book, The History of the Troubles and Tryal of the Most Reverend Father in God and Blessed Martyr William Laud, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. There are two witness supporting the charge, Mr. Bond and Mr. Arnold of the second of which the following is said by Laud in his response to the charge:

2. The other Witness is Mr. Arnold ; who told as long a Tale as this, to as little purpose. He speaks of three Brew-Houfes in Westminfter, all to be put down, or not brew with Sea-Coal; That Secretary Windebanck gave the Order. Thus far it concerns not me. He added, that I told him they burnt Sea-Coal : I faid indeed, I was informed they did; and that I hope was no Offence. He fays, that upon Sir John Banks his new Information, four Lords were appointed to view the Brew-Houfes, and what they burnt. But I was none of the four, nor did I make any Report, for or againft. He fays, Mr. Attorney Banks came one day over to him, and told him that his House annoyed Lambeth, and that I fent him over. The Truth is this; Mr. Attorney came one day over to Dine with me at Lambeth, and walking in the Garden before Dinner, we were very fufficiently annoyed from a Brew-House; the Wind bringing over fo much Smoak, as made us leave the place. Upon this Mr. Attorney asked me, why I would not fhew my felf more against those Brew-Houses, being more annoyed by them than any other ? I replyed, I would never be a means to undo any Man, or put him from his Trade, to free my felf from Smoak. And this Witness doth after confess, that I faid the fame words to himself. Mr. Attorney at our parting faid, he would call in at the Brew-House: I left him to do as he pleased, but fent him not : And I humbly defire Mr. Attorney may be Examined of the Truth of this.

So. What to make of all this. First, it is very unlikely that there was a brewery at Lambeth Palace that was putting the stuff out as an estate ale. Laud did not like brewing and malting on church property and his found the resulting smoke annoying and after Laud it was turned into a prison. Tauntingly to the contrary is one small reference I have found related to London’s Training College of Domestic Science:

The College was founded in 1893 by the National Society in the disused Brew House of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace. Here, training was provided for teachers of Cookery and Laundry. Housewifery was added to the curriculum in the first decade of the twentieth century after the College had acquired additional premises in Charles Street, Southwark.

For now, I am putting that brew house down to the 230 years or so between the restoration of Charles II and the founding of the College.

Second, Lambeth Ale really isn’t referenced at that exact time. It shows up very neatly a couple of decades later at the other end of the English Civil War. As early as 1660 Pepys, a fairly high government official, is drinking Lambeth Ale and apparently having time of his squalid life. The wonderfully named Lord Beverage in his Prices and Wages in England notes it as recorded by the Lord Steward from 1659 to 1708. Click on that thumbnail if you don’t believe me. I haven’t not found, in fact, any reference to it much before 1659 but I would welcome any who have.

Perhaps Lambeth meant more than just the place, just the Palace as a building. As I noted before, three years after Laud’s execution in 1648, Parliament placed a garrison and prison in Lambeth House which they also used as a prison. With the Restoration, came the rebuilding of Lambeth Palace as viewed by Pepys in 1665 but still he went there to gypsy fortune-tellers in 1668. And all this must be somehow laced into his contemporary understanding of the word Lambeth. Is it possible it started not as a geographical reference like Hull, Derby or Margate but as a bit of pre-Restoration political satire? Is the popping of the cork the popping off of the Archbishop’s head? The lightness and the fizz, a comment on his character?

I have no idea. But it does seem odd that the term appears in the middle of the great upheaval, comes out of a holy place turned into red light district and then continues on for decades, even respectably mentioned by John Locke in 1679 and the French Ambassador in the 1680s. It was so popular that it pretty much killed Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle, the Governor of Jamaica in 1688:****

Albemarle’s medical troubles began before leaving for Jamaica. In general the duke spent his nights, Sloane wrote, “being merry with his friends whence he eat very little … [and] drinking great draughts of Lambeth ale,” a practice that had secured him what Sloane termed a “habituall Jaundice if I may call it Soe.” Referring to the duke’s jaundice as “habitual” was no accident, for Sloane placed the responsibility for it squarely upon the duke’s lifestyle. Thirty-three years old in 1686, Albemarle practiced no regimen, “loves a Sedentary life & hates exercise, as well as physick,” his physician lamented. Prior to departing for Jamaica, the duke was attended by several physicians who prescribed “temperance & keeping good houres,” warning that “the voyage he intended for Jamaica it being a very hott place could not in probability agree with his body.”

Laud left a deep scar. He continued to be hated for his gross authoritarian excesses as we see from this 1730s letter from the non-conformist Samuel Chandler to theologian William Berriman:

Oh! how happy are the present times, and with what satisfaction may I congratulate my country, when titled divines, when reverend Doctors, when the dignitaries of the Church, hold up the blessed Laud as a perfect pattern for the imitation of the reverend Bench, and insert him into their calendar of Saints and Martyrs! How will discipline flourish under such spiritual Pastors! How effectually will the mouths of saucy laymen be stopped, and the liberty they take in censuring God’s anointed priests be suppressed J How secure will the Gentlemen of England be in their lives and properties and estates, when instead of the Courts of Westminster-Hall, they shall be again subjected to the Star Chamber, High commission and spiritual Courts! Oh what infinite blessings must spring up from a revival of the Laud, an principles and times!

I know this is a leap but it strikes me that the contemporary beer drinker could not but help make an indirect connection somehow between the role of Lambeth Palace and name Lambeth Ale. But, if so, what is the connotation? What is the connection? And despite that connection, it still appears to have been a singular beer – weaker, fizzy, bottled and worth rowing across a river for. And high status stuff. Worth shipping to France. Worth a Governor drinking  himself to death.

*See A Supplementary English Glossary, Thomas Lewis Owen Davies, at page 369 which defines Lambeth Ale based on that quote, concluding “seems from the extract to have been brisk and not heady.” Is that it? Is the idea that it is not “heady” the joke on the beheaded Laud?
**I really did not know that folk other than Charles I had his head cut off so this bit of research has already been instructive.
***“County Politics and a Puritan Cause Célèbre: Somerset Churchales, 1633: The Alexander Prize Essay,” by Thomas G. Barnes, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Vol. 9 (1959), pp. 103-122 at footnote 1, page 103.
****at page 225.

The Probably Not Quite As Long As Usual Thursday Beer News Given I Am On Holiday

I want to live in Montreal. Might retire there. Just for the subway.  It runs on rubber tires. No screeching metal on metal. And the pale ales.  All over the place, you go in to a pub or restaurant and there they are. Good malt forward classic cold pale ales of one sort or another. Without haze. Without franken-hops pretending to be mango or hot dogs.  Below left to right* are Archibald, Bishop and St.-Ambroise. From Quebec City, Montreal and Montreal respectively. Happy. Happy. Happy. Beer with beer flavour. Favourite newly found bar? Tie. Wolf and Workman, Old Montreal and Le Petite Marche, at the north end of the Plateau on St. Denis. Might go again next week. It’s only two hours drive away.

First up, one obvious sign that you are dealing with a good beer writer is that they are just a good writer.  So happy news, then, as this was announced by one of the B‘s of B+B as it related to the other B:

Anyway, the reason we’ve been on a Monday afternoon bender is to celebrate publication of Ray’s first novel, “The Gravedigger’s Boy“. We’re not going to use this account to promote it, but I wanted to say *something* coz I’m dead proud of him. ^Jess 

Elsewhere in England, Greene King has been acquired by a Hong Kong based firm CK Asset Holdings for mind-boggly £4.6 billion. The Tandy one has shared his thoughts:

As Greene King carries little emotional attachment in the mind of most beer drinkers, it was always unlikely that its takeover would have beer fans rushing to man the barricades. That’s just how it is, but wait.  Greene King is a big part of the British brewing industry. It owns a large number of pubs – over 2,700 – and these are spread all over the country. Heck we even have plenty of them here in Greater Manchester where, one must admit, they aren’t exactly the most popular beerwise.  Their type of beer is not always particularly suitable to local tastes. 

Something else that’s not suitable to location tastes as the brewery that controls the license to brew Skol in Rwanda has had to retract an alarmingly bad branding idea:

A beer company in Rwanda has apologised after critics said jokes that appeared on their bottles were sexist. One of the jokes on a bottle of Skol asked, “when can a woman make you a millionaire” with the answer “when you are a billionaire”. Skol launched the beer labels with the jokes printed on them on Friday but on Monday promised to stop using them.

Being a northern hemisphere western hemisphere sort of person, I was happily informed that “Rwanda is ranked fifth in the world for gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2016 report” – which makes the local brewery’s initial decision all the more mystifying. Except that it’s beer. And… you know.

Reading Canadians on personal consumption politics is a bit like reading English folk writing about voicing opinions on the personal preferences of others. It always seems a bit awkward and unpracticed. The Polk and Ben Johnson as well as others in Ontario wrote this week about the question of craft breweries donating to political parties. First, a bit of Polk:

It is the ultimate first world problem to be worried about the politics of your favourite brewery, but in a world where every dollar counts, it does to those of us who wish to see the world a better place for everyone. Our money is a reflection of our beliefs to a certain extent, although most of us still shop at Walmart, Loblaws and other huge corporations with spotty track records in how they treat their employees, the environment and even their loyal customers.

Now, a bit o’Ben:

 A savvy business owner should recognize the importance of being at the table when decisions are made that affect his or her business and the best way for a brewery to do that in Ontario is with donations (Indeed, the lack of an alternative method in the form of cohesive lobbying efforts is probably one of my biggest beefs with the brewing industry in this province and is a conversation for a dozen more blog posts). Because don’t forget: Breweries are businesses.

If I was to suggest anything, I think both views somewhat overstate the case. No donation gets you access you don’t otherwise get by being otherwise annoying and individual purchasing choices don’t really send the sting of a generally organized boycott. Yet, if a smarmy Canadian-style middle ground is needed, I might suggest that being aware of your beliefs as you make these decisions is good for the soul and arms you for the next time you face the ballot box.

Katie:

If only writing was just sitting down and thinking about what I might want to say and it just happened…

CNY beer intellectual property law guy Brendan Palfreyman was featured in a law publication recently. It’s always good to be recognized outside the bubble. Have a look under the thumbprint right there next door. You can likely read the whole thing. Probably an utter violation of copyright law!

One third of the way in, this two-week holiday thing is working out just fine. Expect Boak and Bailey to have more news on Saturday and Stan to be there on Monday. The OCBG Podcast is a reliable break at work on  Tuesdays, too.

*1,2,3.