Category: Ships and Shipping

The “It’s Not Funny At All Out There” Edition Of The Beery News Notes…

Wow. I am going to leave it at that. Because there ain’t much of the big issue sorta news I want to be reading, I suppose. Not now, not this week. Nope. I am definitely having 9/12 waves myself. Not good. But 150 years ago? Well, Jennifer Jordan on BlueSky has been discussing the 1874 business ledgers of Milwalkee Valentin Blatz and there is plenty of news. Price fluxtuations, losses at sea… but for me… just look at that penmanship!  That upper case K is out of this world! You can practically hear the pen tip scratching across the page. Whatever the coming years have in store for us – and it may not be pretty – we can at least look back at the hand of Blatz for a lesson in confidence and verve.

Where are we? Starting with some beery beer news, Andreas Krennmair shared a re-creation of a much forgotten German beer style, Adam:

Dortmunder Adambier, apparently often also just called “Adam”, was a very strong dark wheat beer, often aged for years, and thus very clear, with a dark-red-brown colour. The malt made to brew it was kilned to only a pale colour, and no additional dark malts were used, so any colour of the beer came from “browned proteins”, as the article says it, basically from the long, intense boil the wort undergoes. When Adambier was poured, it poured like oil, but without any foam, and had a sweet taste and vinous taste to it.

Sounds a bit like a beer Boak and Bailey wrote about this week after spending some time in Gdansk, Gdinya and Sopot Poland recently – Danziger Jopenbier:

It’s a historic style associated with the city, brewed to some kind of original recipe, and selling at 16 Polish złoty  (£3) for a 50ml shot. In presentation, it was treated much like a liqueur or a sherry and reminded us of both Riga Balsam and Pedro Ximinez fortified wine. It was extremely sweet and sticky, completely flat, with a funky, leathery, pipe tobacco stink. A curiosity, then, rather than something to session on.

This is just a bit of their an excellent and extended piece about their merry trip, there just a few kilometres across the waters from Putin’s own nuclear navy yards at Kaliningrad. I taught English along those same Baltic shores of Poland in 1991-92 so it’s interesting to read what’s new and what’s the same:

The city itself is a war memorial. At the end of World War II it was 90% destroyed, an apocalyptic rubblescape. The new Soviet-controlled authorities debated what to do and, at one point, someone suggested leaving the city centre as a vast ruin, to remind the Germans of what they’d done… Gdańsk was rebuilt not as it was in 1939, but instead to recall the days before 1793 when it was part of the Kingdom of Poland.

Yup. I remember being in a large church in Gdansk where a tank battle had happened in 1945… within the church.* I mentioned in the comments that that I recalled there being no pubby pubs back then either – except a rougher sort of stand up tavern for men just off work that the guide I bought suggested “are best avoided.” I mainly drank my Gdanskie at home.

David Jesudason published another pub profile last Friday and discussed a feature installed in the 1950s, a snob screen:

“They could have privacy not just from the other side of the pub,” says Ralph, “but from the bar staff as well. You open it to order your drink.” The pub had a revamp in 1956 when Young’s took it over, previously it was a cider house, and Ralph reckons the snob screens are from them and still have the original 70-plus-year glass.  Ralph finds it amusing that as a gay person he’s living and working among all this archaic segregationana.

I like that word. Perhaps we might also suggest “segregitus” Or is it “segregitis“? Or did the “segregitus” leave us with a case of “segregitis“? Such questions I have.

You know what is weird? Finding out that Canada exports the fifth most bulk wine of all the nations of the world. More than much larger producing countries like France or South Africa. And what’s weirder? Canada also exports by far the cheapest bulk wine of any nation in the world, at just 29 cents US a litre. What’s that about? What is bulk?** Where is all the dirt cheap wine being consumed?

You know what is also weird?  Chaos packaging. Like putting gravy in beer cans or, perhaps, as the ultimate end game for a certain sort of craft, the next step after NA hop water perhaps:

…the decision to market the cans of air came from marketing specialist Davide Abagnale, who initially saw an opportunity when he started with selling Lake Como posters online. Explaining more about the initiative to can the air from the area, a spokesperson for the business told CNN, that Abagnale wanted to offer “something original, fun and even provocative” as well as “create a souvenir that could be easily transported in a suitcase for tourists”. Abagnale explained how the cans, which rather than contain any liquid, subvert the norm and give people something closer to a “memory” rather than a “product”.

So, not so much about the experience but the illusion of experience. I’d gladly pay with a photograph of some money.

Have you ever wondered what something extreeeemely tannic tastes like but don’t want to taste it?  Wonder no more as, for free, Barry himself guides you through the physical convulsions that are part of the experience.

And Stan thanked me for a link to a story that I think is actually far more interesting that its initial interestingness might suggest. The initially interesting point is how pervasive alcohol is in nature and how common it is for animals, bird and bugs to consume it. I’m not surprised. In high school, we watched out the front window each autumn as tipsy starlings drunk on over ripe rowen berries flipped 360° loop-de-loops on the telephone wire – or just flopped to the ground unable to fly until they sobered up.  Interesting.  But check your mailboxes for your own copy of the latest edition of Trends in Ecology & Evolution wherein we can read the original study which also states:

…the ancestor of humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas possessed a single amino acid change (from alanine to valine at site 294, denoted ‘A294V’) that dramatically increased its catalytic efficiency for ethanol. This arose approximately 10 Mya, following the Mid-Miocene Climatic Transition when African forests were gradually replaced by savannah. Around this time, our ancestors adopted a more terrestrial lifestyle and were possibly more likely to encounter fermented fruits on the ground…

That means the question may not be when humans first had alcohol. It may be about when they first learned to make it or store it or otherwise control it enough to have it year round and not just when the fruit was juiced laying about their feet. When did it start? One Million Years BC?

Perhaps relatedly, one of the things that makes The Beer Nut the world’s top reviewer of beer (other than his incessant reviewings of beer) is his egalitarian approach to all venues and all beers, high and low. This is especially evident in his periodic coverage of Wetherspoon beer festivals – which I take to be a sort of in-pub promotion across the chain rather than a fest in the GBBF sense. He treats this event with both respect and reality as he dropped in at a number of outlets recently. I share the alpha and the omega of his most recent thoughts on the topic:

The JD Wetherspoon Autumn Beer Festival arrived in mid-October. I managed to spend some time at it, both in the central Dublin pubs, and abroad… Unsurprisingly, stout and porter were the standouts. The cask format shines brightest in the dark. Plodding through all the cheap, samey bitters to find them is worthwhile to find the good stuff.

And speaking of which, Pellicle‘s article this week is by Gabe Toth, a profile of the cask specialists at Hogshead Brewery in Denver, Colorado including this bold admission:

“Cask beer, at least in America, has that reputation of being an older person’s beer, like your grandfather’s beer, versus the hip young thing, seltzer or whatever. Beer in general is suffering a little bit of that—I feel like younger people in general are turning more toward other beverages and losing interest in craft beer.”

Jordan did some thinking about loss of interest, too, this week as he assessed the Ontario good beer scene and declared the beginning of a new era – based on the new retail modalities and associated realities:

Does the world really need Carling Light when Keystone Light exists? Does Old Vienna mean anything to people outside Chatham-Kent and Windsor? Does Labatt regret sending one REALLY EFFECTIVE sales rep to Thunder Bay in the 1990’s to sell Crystal? Whoever that was, they’re legend.  You’re going to get consolidation of products. You’re going to get less choice, at least initially. The convenience and grocery and big box retail situation has less patience for variety and more desire for expedience than The Beer Store did. The new paradigm is about choice, but it’s largely about choosing how much you’re going to pay for a single product.

Finally, before the regular list of more alt-news about alts and other beers, I would note the suspension of operations at The Share from Stephanie Grant. Looking forward to an energized return. Also, congratulations to those shortlisted with the BGBW Awards.

Otherwise, a shorter post this week. Such the way of this point in time. Other things on the mind. Still, with all that has happened and will happen… for more beery news check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast (maybe he’ll do one again) and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (now hardly at all) odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too.  Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down.  Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too.  All About Beer has podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube.  The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that but only had the one post.

**From this 2017 report on the British Columbian wine industry: “Nationally, it is important to note that Canadian exports totalled 72.9 million litres in 2015. Of this, only 1.8 million litres was premium wine (non-bulk), representing $32.8 million of the total $73.9 million of all Canadian wine exports. It is impressive that premium wine accounted for only 2.5 percent of wine exports, but represented 44 percent of the total value of all wine exports…” More here.
*Our beach side resort city, Kołobrzeg, on the other side of Kaszubia, was also destroyed and rebuilt as it was where the Nazis attempted a Dunkirk as the Soviets encircled them. They stuck around and the sounds of maching gun firing range welcomed one of my first late summer balcony beers when I got there.

Your Definitely Final And Last Chance End Of Summer 2024 Beery News Notes

The next time we meet it will be autumn. Who submitted the requistion for that? Thanks. A lot. At least we get one more Saturday in. We’ve had a good run of weather to see us out, picking a couple of pounds of tomatoes a day.  I’ll need a new hobby once the garden slows down. Maybe I could join a men’s pie making groups or something. The American Association of Wine Economists is one of my favourite BlueSky feeds to follow. They seem interesting. That up there? Germany 1920s. Men with a hobby. Comparatively speaking, a better sort of marching in those times.

Speaking of weird, Stan’s monthly newsletter Hop Queries is out for another month and, under the surprising heading “Bitterness and Attitude”, he wrote:

When we moved from the low-altitude flatlands of Illinois 700 feet) to New Mexico (5,320 feet), a professional brewer told me to just throw in a few more pellets when I brewed an IPA. I hope the information in the archives is more useful.

Oh!  Altitude. He wrote altitude.  That makes waaaaay more sense. Note: rumours of Stan O’Eire. Another bit of a puzzle was encountered in this story of the passing of a venerable Mancunian:

…for ten years straddling both decades there was one constant on the streets of Moss Side and Old Trafford – George Powell, the self-syled Ginger Beer Man. He became a legend too selling his home made brew from his bike. George has died, aged 97, and later this month 500 people from all over the country and abroad are expected to pay their respects and attend his funeral. And his son Glen is going to ensure he will get the send-off the big family man deserves after his perfectly timed win at bookies Betfred. Self-employed handyman Glen won £20,000 from a £4 wager… much of his winnings will be spent on George’s funeral at the Church of God of Prophesy in Moss Side, burial at Southern Cemetery followed by the wake at Bowden Rugby Club.

Would that have been an alcoholic ginger beer? I used to brew one based on the CloneBrew recipe. This January 1978 edition local CAMRA newsletter “Whats Doing?” from Manchester suggests (at page 9) that the Salford brewers Walker & Holmfreys brewed a ginger beer along side ale brewing.

Staying there about, you know some things are worth repeating. This same passage in Katie’s edition of The Gulp at the end of last week was quoted in the Boak and Bailey Saturday update but I have to note this fabulous bit of stream of consciousness too:

…I have to check myself before I wreck myself. Tonight is going to be a late one. But it’s just so delicious, so perfect in this moment. Savour it, I tell myself, knowing that I can’t. I’m not a savourer. I eat in big bites, drink in big gulps. I want the best things all in one go, now.

There go I, too. Back here at home, Ontario’s new booze sales in corner stores have attracted all sorts of attention… including the independent accountants:

When the Ford government expanded sales of beer, wine, cider, and ready-to-drink cocktails into Ontario convenience stores and gas stations on Sept. 5, it did so ahead of schedule. A master framework agreement (MFA) signed under the Liberal government in 2015 gave the privately run Beer Store exclusive rights to sell 12—and 24-packs of beer. It was set to expire in 2026, but the government’s expedited plan involves an “early implementation agreement” with the beer retailer that will see the province pay the company up to $225 million. The FAO report will estimate the financial costs and benefits of accelerated expansion “and compare these fiscal impacts to a scenario where the Province expanded alcohol access at the expiration of the MFA on Dec. 31, 2025.”

Listening to CBC Radio 1’s Ontario Morning the other day, they played an audio reworking of this story including interviews with convenience store clerks and customers about the new rules and heard some interest points of view. Shop owners have not been informed about expired product returns so many only place small orders. And a portion of product has to come from small producers – 20 per cent for beer, ciders, and ready-to-drink cocktails, and 10 per cent for wines. Which is not a bad guaranteed return. But there are supply chain issues getting all the stores stocked up. Me, I have not taken advantage of the new world order yet.

Conversely, over on FB, Max has been out and about posted a brief report on his trip to Vorkloster, a brewery in Predklasteri, Czechia… using many words I do not know:

Vorkloster’s pivnice is cute and friendly, it does feel like part of a monastery, and many of the punters are locals dropping by for a pifko. The kulajda was just luvly. The Výčepní tasted jaded, like the feeling of an afternoon after a couple of very rough days at work. Jantarový Ležák is like an otherwise very good sauce that’s just not thick enough. Tmavý ležák has the right balance of coffee and milk chocolate.

Breaking news out of Albany, NY:

Free pizza is almost dead at the City Beer Hall! Long live pizza at CBH! A promotion in place since the City Beer Hall opened in spring 2011 at Howard and Lodge streets downtown provided a small individual cheese pizza for free with every pint of beer sold. The practice is being sharply curtailed, now available only after 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

I will have to check in with Craig to find out of I was ever there. Over at Pellicle, Katie (for the double) wrote about a beer that I used to cross provincial borders* to buy, Theakstons’ Old Peculier:

If it wasn’t for the Steel’s Masher, Old Peculier would not be the beer it is today. The way that the malt is hydrated and mashed by the machine is incredibly efficient, releasing enzymes and raking through the grist before it can form dry-centred clumps. This machine makes short work of stiff mashes. It was invented in Scotland by James Steel, a brewer who, like many of his peers in industry, was making a lot of Scotch Strong and Wee Heavy beers—high malt content, low water content mashes. Getting the paddles around a mash like that is like stirring six tons of day-old porridge, in intense steam heat, in cramped conditions.

Speaking of the good stuff, Matty C wrote about cask ale for What’s Brewing (apparently a play on words of the 1978 Mancester journal of note mentitoned above, What’s Doing) and makes a very good point about the enjoyment of things in the abstract:

I tend to find that foreign visitors who appreciate their beer genuinely revere the cultural significance of cask dispense. But they also find only disappointment when, after months of anticipation, they arrive at last only to be served a tired pint of London Pride that is, well, warm and flat. We’re responsible for that reputation because in so many places where cask beer is served it’s not treated with the care it deserves. I don’t believe in the notion that cask should be some sort of protected appellation though. For me, the problem exists because advocates too often tend to raise cask beer on a pedestal, when really it should be treated like the most normal thing in the world. Yes, it’s a wonderful way to drink beer, but it’s not that special, really, it’s just beer, after all. Care and reverence are not the same thing.

On the topic of keeping the beer cool, one award winning pub has a related issue on its hands with the authorities due to a noisy fan:

Mr Bull took over the listed corner boozer in Gosport, Hants, in 2022. The previous landlady had the cooling unit located in a door cavity close to the beer cellar but after receiving safety advice, he moved it into the courtyard. Following a complaint, he was visited by a planning department enforcement officer last summer and later informed he would need planning permission for the unit. As part of the application, Mr Bull spent £1,500 on a sound survey as part of this in order to prove that the unit was not noisy. However, the survey found that the unit was loud enough that “it would cause sleep disturbance” to someone sleeping on the ground floor of the house next door, and ‘may’ do so for someone sleeping in the upstairs room.

Speaking of a proper pub, I have seen such things in histories of Victorian saloon hellholes… but never in real life:

…see that trough in the pub? That was so blokes didn’t have to leave the bar to relieve themselves. People in London are posh now though; they go to the gents for a piss.

Want a job in beer? Perhaps an open position with the Anderson County Beer Board is for you!

The three members would serve a three-year term expiring in September 2027. The Beer Board was established for the purpose of licensing, regulating and controlling the transportation, storage, sale, distribution, possession, receipt and/or manufacture of beer, according to a county government information. Interested residents can send a resume or pick up a request-to-serve form at the County Commission Office, 100 N. Main Street, Room 118, Clinton, TN, posted outside the office door. 

Will Hawkes is doing an excellent job in London Beer City with his extended series on the history of the biggest pub in London from the 1930s to the 1990s, reminding us that the past is a foreign country and that includes the fairly recent past including the era of the rave:

…Fascination at the Downham Tavern took place on Sunday afternoons, taking in not only DJs but also live bands like Natural Life. These all-dayers quickly became a huge thing, according to Wilson, who always played the last three hours, and who played at Bonnie’s on Saturday nights.  “We had the best laser show, we had the first gyroscope in [a dance] venue,” says Wilson. “When we first started [in 1988] we had 300, 400 people but it just took off. It got to stage where we had ticket touts … the build-up was massive, ‘I can’t wait, I can’t wait!’” Unusually for a pub, all this excitement was not fuelled by beer. Ecstasy arrived in the UK in a big way in the late 1980s, and it’s fairly safe to assume it was a key part of the Fascination experience. “Oh yeah,” says Wilson with a chuckle. “That was flying about.” The Downham Tavern all-dayers ended in 1990. By that stage, media hysteria about rave culture had reached fever pitch, and policing had become much stricter…

There was a good piece in the Manitowoc Herald Times on a 71 year old ship that has helped make that fine community the “Specialty Malt Capital of the World”, the self-unloading freighter SAGINAW:

The name was changed to SAGINAW on Nov. 20, 1999, in honor of Michigan’s Saginaw River. By 2008, the vessel was repowered from steam propulsion to diesel. Today, the 14,000-ton SAGINAW routinely transits between the ports of western Lake Superior and the Port of Manitowoc at least twice a year. Briess confirmed we can expect to see one more shipments of grain this year aboard SAGINAW. With up to 25 million pounds of raw barley in each delivery, that equates to about 40 million 12-ounce bottles of beer.

Finally, word of two more passings. Many remembrances followed up the announcement of the passing of drinks writer and cider maker, Susanna Forbes:

Forbes, whose long fight with cancer had been known by those close to her, had not faltered over the past few years in her dedication to the industry she loved. Speaking to db last year, she outlined how much she “appreciated people and cherished the perspective that treatment and its challenges had uncovered”. Her generosity of spirit showcased by her constant reminder that “in times of hardship you recognise the people who go out of their way to really make a difference”. Friends and colleagues have come from far and wide to pay their tributes to Forbes for her personality and kindness being at the forefront of their descriptions.

And there was another passing this week of particular note for me, of a craft beer pioneer in my old hometown of Halifax NS, Kevin Keefe of the Granite Brewery:

When Keefe opened the Granite Brewery, it was the second microbrewery in Canada — and first east of the Rockies. That’s a far cry from today as there are dozens in Nova Scotia alone. Keefe first became interested in craft brewing after reading an article about it. In 1984, he went to the U.K. and learned how to do it at a brewery. Not only was Keefe a brewer, he was a savvy businessman. “If I retailed it to the liquor commission, I’d get 50 cents a bottle, but if I sold it in a glass to you, I’d get almost two bucks a bottle, so it didn’t take very much for me to figure out, well, what I want to do is sell it to you,” Keefe told the reporter in a 2017 interview for Halifax Magazine. And thus the Granite Brewery operated out of Ginger’s Tavern.

The Granite of Halifax was a big part of my good beer education. I was a bar rat there in my early twenties as soon as he opened the place. I can smell the Ringwood yeast in my mind’s schnozz this very minute.

There. Until next week, check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and let’s all see if Stan cheats on his declared early autumnal break from his updates on Mondays. Then listen to Lew’s podcast and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is thereback with the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down.  Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too.  All About Beer has podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube.  The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that but is writing for 47 readers over there.

*When we lived in PEI in eastern Canada, I would stop in Sackville NB when returning from Halifax NS just to grab a few Peculiers.
**Me, I’m all about the social medias. Facebook still in first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (183) rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (932) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,457) hovering somewhere well above my largely ignored Instagram (152), crap Threads (52) with Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear.

A Perhaps Much Abbreviated Thursday Beery News Notes For My Big Week Off

Off. It’s not like I’m off doing very much but, you know, I have actual chores to do, a couple of nights in Montreal… and other day trips to take… and summer’s slipping away so maybe there won’t be so much in this week’s beery news notes.  And I am going to have limited access to scribbling time during the middle of this week so let’s see what I can come up with… no one wants someone to get that sad and lonely feeling if there isn’t something to read as they slurp down their Froot Loops early this Thursday morning. Hmm. How to cover up my half arsed effort? Perhaps another slightly different format will suffice. Let’s have a Q+A session!

Question #1: Does anyone do social media as well as Lars does? It was on display in this week’s photo essay on a little historical brewing recreation he did last weekend at a museum:

Had to clean the inside of the rost (lauter tun, the wooden vessel), because it was mouldy. Hard to avoid with wooden gear… Foundation of the filter is alder sticks. For color, flavor, and to give the wort space to run underneath the real filter, which comes on top…

My observations: I hates me a mouldy rost.

Question #2: do we care if we use the original language’s grammar and spelling when referring to beer related things? I am disinclined to worry about this all that much but that is not a universal thing. There’s a thread:

Not to nitpick the thriving transatlantic linguistic exchange through l/Lager, but for anyone not writing bilingual #WhatsBrewing blurbs, what generally would be pro-copy guidelines for US-ENG capitalisation in writing keller, kellerbier, but: Kellerwald?[…] My remark goes beyond the basics of why other natural languages should/can drop German capitalisation when importing, trying to get at the desired branding (“auratic”) effects of opting back in when it creates perceived authenticity, say for Scandinavian or Czech diacritics.

My thought: be consistent but be prepared for people to think you are weird when you talk about Poland’s capital amongst English-speakers.

Question #3: why should I care about NA beer? NA beer to me is expensive fancy soda pop that is made in an unnecessarilily convoluted manner. I thought of that on Monday when Stan reported from the World Brewing Congress:

Today there will be three presentations related to making sure non-alcoholic beers are safe to drink. This is important and was already on my radar when I read “How Mash Gang is Breaking the Alcohol Free Mould.” That is not to imply that Mash Gang beers are not safe, or that the story should address what the company is doing to assure the beers are free of pathogens. It simply reflects my current fascination with what brewers might do to make non-alcoholic beer better without the many useful functions ethanol performs. One of those is making beer safer to drink.

My concerns: in addition to a swath of cheaper established competition, the idea that NA beer has not solved the sanitation issue is decidedly off-putting. And this may well explain in part last week’s omission. Plus it was a very bobby B.O.B.

Question #4: do you miss RSBS as much as I still do, all these years later?  Answer: well, we may have a form of this care of Boak and Bailey tinkering around at BlueSky. They have set up a list that allows you to follow all added on that list to effectively create a aggregator displaying those who sign up for those who follow. Have a look.

Question #5: do any of you not draw lines in the sand? I am 100% on board with Laura Hadland this week in The Drinks Business:

I have a personal blacklist of the companies I will not deal with because of their past actions. I don’t write about them, I don’t spend my money on them, I don’t visit them. This quiet boycott is a private affair. If I don’t agree with someone’s ethics, I don’t fan their flames. There are so many fantastic businesses out there that I do want to shout about, it’s rarely an issue. Last week, however, I was approached by a PR company offering me a spot on a very interesting project. I was feeling pretty excited as I scanned through the details. Until I spotted one of the toxic names from my blacklist. Deflated, I immediately replied to the email letting them know that I could not participate. I told them why too. That was that. It felt quite good for a minute.

My total concurrence: I won’t ruin the punchline but, again, go have a look.

Question #6: so if the CBHOF is using the Baseball Hall of Fame nomination process, will the “good character” rule also apply? That states:

Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

So, given the recent years’ allegations of sexism, racism and a bunch of other serious -isms in craft beer… how will that be taken into account? See, working as I do in governance, I can assure you that there is always a set of process rules that run along side the substance rules in these things. You can have the greatest process in the world but they only affirm the substantive standards which have to be set out before any nominations are considered. Do we know what they are?

Question #7: does my national, regional and local construct for North American craft hold water? Jeff asked for more:

I think we should talk about local and regional, since you hinted at it and Stan picked it up but didn’t elaborate. I am hesitant to respond without understanding your fuller take.

My point: all those nice cans from the like of Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams fill grocery store and gas station shelf space where other distributed beers used to be found.  As I said, “basically I see that one of the tensions is framed by the economics of investment required for scale. Locals have done well. Turns out there was space for a few big grocery store national craft breweries but at the expense of those intercity / interstateers.” See, I think that the mob of ankle nipping locals can defend themselves from big craft in each market but regionals have found themselves, for a few years now, neither here nor there.

Question #8: Maybe related, is there any passing of a micro era brewery more shocking than the closing of Cambridge Brewing C0mpany which will serve its last beer on December 20th? The notice was on Instagram:

We were the first commercial brewery to produce a Belgian Style beer in this country and one of the first to embrace multiple yeast strains in-house and even to intentionally invite wild organisms into our brewery…. A heartfelt thank you to all who have participated in our dream. To our customers that have joined us time and again over the years, your support and friendship enabled our success. To all that are working or have worked here, you guys are what made this place so great. What an honor and a joy it has been to work alongside you! So please join us often over the next 4 months! We still have Patio Season, Festbier, Fall Menu and more coming. 35 years, one hell of a run. 

My thoughts: Perhaps it’s an east coast thing but I heard about CBC long before I had ever visited. Along with Shipyard and Gearys in Maine, it was a name I heard when I was a young beer fan in Nova Scotia, a name spoken with reverence by those coming back from the Boston states.  Then in 2013, we found ourselves right there and witnessed the making of pumpkin ale with the actual pumpkin harvest and made a bit of a photo montage over at FB.  Get over to CBC while you still can.

Question #9: What the heck is “hop preparedness” anyway?

Question #10: Has Ron out-Ronned himself with this dialogue? It’s a two-part play between father and son as they recall visiting Dad’s old home town:

“Marks and Woollies next door to each other and Boots over the road. Used to be typical of a UK high street.”
“But now they’re all gone. I’ve heard this story before.”
“They aren’t, though. Boots is still there and Marks has moved to by the old Warwicks brewery.”
“Loads of pub pictures coming up, I suppose.”
“There sure are, son. There sure are.”
“Don’t talk like John Wayne, Dad.”

My response to these things is always that Ron missed his calling as an author, getting sidetracked into a pub as he was at age twelve. Fabulous bit of writing.

Question #11: did you have any beer in Montreal? Yes, on Tuesday a cask brown ale at a funky fermented veg place called Poincaré and also a Mexican style lager at La Capital Tacos. Both were local beers but to be honest the food outshone them. Fish terrine at the first place before crossing St. Laurent to the other for Pastor tacos. We walk, we eat. We eat, we walk.

Last question, #12: why did it rain all Wednesday? We still saw the penguins and marched around town but I feel like moss is growing behind my ears. My nooks and crannies felt a certain alliance with the wild managed orchards of Cidrerie du Golfe in Brittany as featured in Pellicle this week which contained this excellent facts:

Their emphasis on nature is a way for them to preserve cider’s heritage, they say, strongly attached to rurality and peasantry. A tradition partially lost since the World Wars, when cider was relegated to second place in the region. “Soldiers were given red wine in the trenches while cider was distilled to be used in weaponry, it changed people’s habits,” Virginie says. “Before WWI, people in Rennes were drinking up to 400 litres per year!”

Used in weaponry! Heavens. Well, that’s it. Enough of this inquisition! I wrote half of this on an iPhone. So it is what it is and we all will simply have to live with that. Here are the credits, the stats the recommends and the footnotes and the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections.* Want to keep up with the news before next Thursday? Check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan back each Monday… with a top drawer effort this week. Elsewhere go look at then listen to Lew’s podcast. And get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by this year’s model citizen David Jesudason on the odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now revitalised and wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back with all the sweary Mary he can think of! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog in this weeks best medium as message news. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down.  Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too.  All About Beer has introduced a few podcasts… but some may be losing steam… until… Lew’s interview! And there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube.  The Moon Under Water… is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that but is writing for 47 readers over there. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link! Errr… nope, it is gone again.

*This week’s update on my own emotional rankings? Facebook still in first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (+13=146) rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (929) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (-2=4,464) hovering somewhere well above my largely ignored Instagram (160), crap Threads (52) with Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear.

The Beery News Notes For The Dog Days Of August

Here I am! Thursday morning once again. And the whole world of beer and brewing… and photos of vegetables. It’s what you demand. I know. I hear you. That’s an Orangello plum tomato from Chiltern right there. Just six seeds to the pack and everyone a winner. Super productive and tasty. Seed influencer opportunities most welcome. Katie Mather is eating her veg, too, as we read about in this week’s feature in Pellicle:

Eating salads, for me, has been a radical act: buying fresh food, taking the time to prepare and pre-prepare meals, encouraging myself to eat and to feel good about eating. Learning how to make bowls of healthy, nourishing vegetables and herbs so delicious that I don’t think twice about devouring them. I’ve been steadily unlearning my aversion to salad dressings, and my unhealthy belief that unless they are low-calorie, salads are worthless. 

Exactly. All veg is worthy. Is anything else happening out there, things not in my garden? Other than, you know, famous pubs surprisingly burning to the ground days after being sold off… what’s that you say? Here’s the update:

An update post on the pub’s Facebook page on 27 July said: “The Crooked House has been sold. Unlikely to open its doors again. Marston’s have sold the site to private buyer for alternative use, that is all we know. This is just to update the page so nobody makes any wasted journeys to the site.” A petition to save the pub from redevelopment, launched on 29 July, had attracted more than 3,500 signatures. Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands, said there were “a lot of questions” surrounding the fire. “I’m sure the authorities will get to the truth,” he said.

The BBC has visited in happier times. There are rumours that the path of the fire trucks to the site was somehow obstructed leading to suspicions piled upon suspicions: “… blocking off of the lane to the pub seems to indicate a deliberate act.” Police have been on scene. Jings! I say no more.

In almost as disasterous legal news, ye who lives by the sword apparently dies by the sword as whatever is left of California’s former craft darling Stone has lost a tradename court case in Europe to Molson Coors, owners of of the venerable Stones bitter brand – making some extraordinary and entirely unaccepted claims:

Among them was a claim that Molson Coors had not provided “sufficient evidence of genuine use” of the Stones bitter brand – which has been around since 1948 and which was the sponsor of Rugby League and The Superleague in the 1980s and 1990s… that was rejected, along with the claim that “the element ‘Stones’ of the earlier (Molson Coors-owned) trademark will be perceived by a part of the English public as the music band ‘The Rolling Stones’ or the surname ‘Stones’, whereas the trademark applied for Stone Brewing is perceived a reference to the object ‘ stone’.”

Speaking of Molson, to my east… perhaps… Gary has been writing about mid-century brewing marketing from Quebec in a series of posts like this one focusing on 1939-40 advertising including one from Molson with this eye-catching slogan:

The campaign tied into a longstanding advertising theme at Molsons, “The beer your great-grandfather drank.” 

Yum… beer flavours from the mid-1800s… Now, on the topic of what your great-grandfather wouldn’t be drinking, The New Yorker has a piece this week on something recently noticed in France:

Recently, in Paris, posters appeared all over town advertising an unfamiliar beverage: vière. “Du jamais bu,” one poster punned—“Never before drunk.” It came in a seven-hundred-and-fifty-millilitre glass bottle, just like a Chablis or a Marsannay. The bottle had a metal cap, the kind you might pry off the top of a Heineken. “It’s not a typo,” Gallia, the drink’s manufacturer explained, on its Web site, of “vière,” adding that “we wanted to switch things up by combining two malts that we love.” Vin (wine) + bière (beer) = vière. 

Really? Perhaps you would prefer a citron presse instead? Simple. Perhaps something your great-grandfather would enjoy.

Update: Jessica Mason (who totally wins this week’s best humoured approach to rudeness award) reports that the young folk love cask but they are clueless… dimmer than a 25w lightbulb and just can’t find it in a pub!

Speaking to the drinks business, the ‘Drink Cask Fresh’ campaign coordinator Pete Brown said: “The industry talks it [cask ale] down way more than the drinker does. No one ever says it’s old fashioned or geeky or old men in socks and sandals. We say it to each other. Younger drinkers don’t.” Brown explained: “It’s not just about how tall the font is – the badge at eye level is handy but you can’t have two and a half foot long hand pulls. But even Guinness with its new font is now poured just below eye level. Cask is the only beer poured beneath the bar where you can’t see what’s going on and this greatly adds to the uncertainty around it.”

Not sure I believe that… but beer writers interviewing beer writers is on the rise, however.*** Yet also not sure I believe this either.  Paste is having none of the sort of thinking that leads us to kiddie cask campaignning and vière, instead joining the death of craft pile-on and pronounced upon the scene thusly:

Welcome to the spiritual ennui of the beer world, a problem at least partially separate from the myriad economic factors that have made it so daunting to run a successful small brewery in this day and age. On the most basic level, the craft beer landscape has simply felt trapped in stylistic stasis in recent years, a far cry from the previous era of new discovery and growth that was fueled in the 2000s and 2010s by a market in which it was so much easier to turn a profit. This stagnation has no doubt played some role in the migration of craft beer drinkers to other segments of the alcohol world…

Moving on. Have you? Perhaps relatedly, no wonder Ron has joined the masses of people (as discussed just last week) who are questioning why they ever every got at all interested in beer now that it is (i) not cool and (ii) fruit juice with a malt base:

There are so many parallels with the real ale movement. Kicking off with, mostly, very excited young people who want to change the (beer) world. Slow beginnings, followed by intoxicating, seemingly never-ending, growth. Then you look around and you’re all in your forties. And those young people, they just don’t understand what good beer is. They like some new nonsense, that isn’t proper beer. Not like the stuff you love. “Your beer is boring.” Youth says. “We want something new and exciting. Not that old man beer.”

Old man beer? What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that what your great-grandfather drank? Speaking of one form of that – and despite all the recent Guinness love – this may be reason enough to boycott the stuff and all Diagio products:

Guinness and Kilkenny back on tap in Moscow despite the war sanctions: Exports of Irish beer and spirits to Russia have been suspended, but are now available in pubs and supermarkets. Vladimir Putin’s local Irish pub in Moscow is boasting of pouring real pints of Guinness and Kilkenny, despite sanctions imposed against the war in Ukraine

But is it?  Are these all bootlegged products smuggled infrom third countries?  Is Heineken not the worse offender?

Heineken Russia launched an Irish stout last year after Guinness was withdrawn from the country following the invasion of Ukraine. In March 2022, the Dutch drinks giant said in that it would join other western brands in withdrawing from Russia following the invasion. However, it maintained a local business that has developed products after it withdrew the Heineken, Miller and Guinness brands. The company makes Miller and Guinness in Russia under third party licences.

Or is it Carlsberg? Questions questions questions. I ask all these questions as, frankly, I am not paying the fee to look behind the paywall.** But they are great questions, you will agree! Speaking of questions being asked, Greene King Abbot Ale came second in the race to be named the  Champion Beer of Britain… and people went nutso… as reported in the measured tones of The Sun:

Angry real ale fans are all frothed up amid claims a champion beer contest was rigged. They are questioning how sponsor Greene King’s Abbot Ale won a coveted silver medal at this year’s Great British Beer Festival. The Suffolk brewer’s pub staple was also named the UK’s best premium bitter. Greene King is one of two backers of the festival, along with the JD Wetherspoon pub chain — where Abbot Ale is one of the biggest sellers. Drinkers at London’s Olympia venue were outraged at the vote by the Campaign for Real Ale. Beer blogger Mark Briggs, of Burnley, fumed: “I suspect some unfair influential intervention.

Mr. Briggs appears to write a column for a  chain including the Lancashire Telegraph given sa bazillion links pop up for the same story so perhaps it should be beer columnist, beer connoisseur and passionate pub campaigner.* I am of the “get a goldfish!” persuasion in such matters so congrats to this mid-range and accessible brewery for put out a pretty good product.  Some beer nerds just need to get a life.  And as for doubts as to the definitive authority of a beer judging contest – what the hell do you expect? The ever reliable Ed was even on the scene of the incident:

…the next day was a bit of a struggle it was brightened by the return of twerps whinging on about the GBBF on twitter, this time because Abbot Ale got overall second place in the CBoB. CAMRA and the blind tasting panel are in the pay of Greene King it seems. Which I suppose makes a change from Wetherspoons. To me the twerps are just showing their ignorance. The wonder of cask beer means that at times it can elevate beers to highs you would never have expected. If people spent less time suckling at the devil’s drainpipe and more time drinking beer served as god intended they would realise this.

Martin went out and about looking for some to make up his own mind: ” sadly it’s a bit dull and “milky” (NBSS 2.5)… 2.5 is the level at which you don’t take a beer back, you just decide NEVER to try cask again.”

Things I did not know until this week #1. Sir Walter Raleigh brewed a beer in Virginia in 1585 – and it was made of corn:

…the same in the West Indies is called MAIZE: English men call it Guinea wheat or Turkey wheat, according to the names of the countries from whence the like has been brought. The grain is about the bigness of our ordinary English peas and not much different in form and shape: but of divers colors: some white, some red, some yellow, and some blue. All of them yield a very white and sweet flour: being used according to his kind it makes a very good bread. We made of the same in the country some malt, whereof was brewed as good ale as was to be desired. . . 

Not the oldest beer in North America as eight years early that came to what is now Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic care of the 1577  mission of Sir Martin Frobisher, spending a summer for the English navy mining for ores some of which may have ended up in the superior cannon that destroyed the Spanish Armada. Neato. But is this new find the first beer brewed in the hemisphere or even the actual first beer? I know that Cartier brought wine and cider in his hold in the 1530s as was drunk in the 1520s off Newfondland. Still looking for Cabot‘s records from almost 100 years before Raleigh’s trip.

More recently, we learned this week from Boak and Bailey that 1860s London barman Thomas Walker was born Mary Anne Walker – and moved between those identities for a number of years:

Once he had become famous, this became more difficult. Throughout the late 1860s, newspapers delighted in reporting that ‘the female barman’ had been found out again, and taken to court. Eventually, he made some attempts to capitalise on his reluctant fame. In 1870 he went into business with one Solomon Abrahams with the idea of being the celebrity landlord of a pub in Shoreditch. Walker ended up in court again after a dispute over the takings with Solomon. (Lake’s Falmouth Packet and Cornwall Advertiser, 15 January 1870.) Eventually, perhaps having run out of options, in the 1870s, Thomas began performing as Mary Walker, “the original Female Barman”, on the music hall stage.

Back to the present, in health matters CNN published a commentary on a study published by The Journal of the American Medical Association indicating an unbalanced increase in mortality from alcohol use:

According to this research, from 2018 to 2020, women saw a 14.7% increase in alcohol-related deaths, compared to a 12.5% increase among men. And the shift was also pronounced among individuals 65 and older, where there was a 6.7% increase in alcohol-related deaths among women, compared to a 5.2% increase among men… There is also the simple fact that Americans have long had a deeply dysfunctional relationship with booze, and as women have moved toward greater equality with men — and lived lives that look more like men’s — women are engaging in more alcohol-related dysfunction.

Really? And what to make of some of the negative news out there when the European Union has declared that beer production has now returned to pre-pandemic levels?

In 2022, EU countries produced almost 34.3 billion (bn) litres of beer containing alcohol and 1.6 bn litres of beer which contained less than 0.5% alcohol or had no alcohol content at all. Compared with 2021, the production of beer with alcohol in the EU increased by 7%, returning to levels closer to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, when production was at 34.7 bn litters. When it comes to beer without alcohol, there was no change compared with 2021. The EU’s total beer (with and without alcohol) production in 2022 was equivalent to almost 80 litres per inhabitant.

Something is selling… but what? Is it just that we want comfort beer in these times of uncertainty? I’ve buy that. If you think about it, isn’t that what identi-craft hazy fruit flavoured IPA are? As much as macro lagers are labeled? Is it what is on the plate next to the comfort beer that really matters, like this rural Australian pub has discovered?

In between pulling beers at the bar and serving fine South Australian wines in the adjoining dining room, Sanne passes me the wildlife-driven menu I’d travelled all this way to see, where I gamely order the specialty of the house – the feral mixed grill – a challenging plate sporting such non-everyday delicacies as emu rissoles, kangaroo fillet, goat chops and camel sausage. Dismissing the momentary reservation I might in fact be devouring a petting zoo – when the dish arrived, it was absolutely delicious – beyond delicious in fact – my favourite, I think, was the goat chop.

Mmm…. feral mixed grill… great-grandpas likely tucked into that once in a while, too.  And – that is it! And as per ever and always, you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via social media and other forms of comms to connect – even including at my new cool Threads presence @agoodbeerblog. Have you checked out Threads as Twitter ex’s itself? (Ex-it? Exeter? No that makes no sense…) They appear to achieved to make social media offer less and less. Brilliant… but I never got IG either. I still prefer the voices on Mastodon, any newer ones noted in bold:

Alan McLeod | A Good Beer Blog (… me…)
Stan Hieronymus | The Man!
Boak & Bailey | The B² experience
Curmudgeon Ale Works | Jonathon is Brewing
Katie Mather | Shiny Biscuit and Corto
David Jesudason | “Desi Pubs” (2023) author
BeoirFest | They say “Let’s Talk Beer”
Ron Pattinson | The RonAlongAThon Himself
Al Reece AKA Velky Al | Fuggled
Jennifer Jordan | US hops historian
Andreas Krennmair | Vienna beer and lager historian
Beer Ladies Podcast | Lisa Grimm and colleagues
The Bar Towel | Toronto’s chat zone for beer lovers
Chicago Beer Society | Folk in Chicago getting social over beer
Jay Brooks | Brookston Beer Bulletin
Joe Stange | Belgian beer expert, beer magazine editor
Cider Bar | Barry makes Kertelreiter cider
Laura Hadland | CAMRA historian and beer writer
Brian Alberts | US beer historian
Jon Abernathy | The Beer Site
Maureen Ogle | US Beer Historian
Lars Garshol | Norwegian Beer Historian and Kveik Hunter
James Beeson | Beeson on Beer
Carla Jean | MAINER!!!
Thandi Guilherme | Beer Ladies Podcast Co-host
Lisa Grimm | Beer Ladies Podcast Co-host
Roy of Quare Swally | Beery ramblings from Northern Ireland
Rob Talksbeer | Podcaster and Youtuber
Anthony Gladman | UK Drinks Writer
Jeff Alworth | Manna Of Beervana
Northwest Beer Guide | Fairly self explanatory… but not NW Latvia…
Evan Rail | Prague based GBH editor, freelance writer, NYT etc.
Todd Alström | 50% of the Alströms
Jacob Berg | Beer talking librarian

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters to stay on top of things – including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan at his spot on those  Mondays! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on many Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now more occassional but always wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too.  All About Beer has introduced a podcast.  There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube soon celebrating a decade of vids.   And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

*…and draftsman of some pretty ripe prose: “It presented itself foggy golden in colour. The aroma being certainly intense, as I expected. Peach, lemon-citrus, passion fruit and some piney notes were all identified. There was a sublime flavour explosion of more juicy, peach, passion fruit and lemon-citrus on the palate. Some floral, subtle spice, pine and soft, caramel malt sweetness were also tasted; in this beautifully balanced, Simcoe and Loral Cryo hopped beer. More tropical fruit, lemon-citrus and a hint of spicy warmth, in the crisp and long, drying finish.” Lordy!
**It’s not like I’m speading money on just anything for your pleasure reading, you know. Look at this, for example. Clearly a botch on the meaning of the meaninglessness of “craft”… yet there it is. Does one pursue the question? No, because it is going to be public knowledge in 73 hours. It always is. Make that… two:  “Upon satisfaction of customary closing conditions, Tilray will acquire Shock Top, Breckenridge Brewery, Blue Point Brewing Company, 10 Barrel Brewing Company, Redhook Brewery, Widmer Brothers Brewing, Square Mile Cider Company, and HiBall Energy. The transaction includes current employees, breweries and brewpubs associated with these brands. The purchase price will be paid in all cash and the transaction is expected to close in 2023…  the acquired brands will elevate Tilray Brands to the 5th largest craft beer business position in the U.S., up from the 9th…” Canadian whacky tobakky firm buys tired old dull brands… why? Jeff has more. Note: I do pay for The New Yorker. All the funny cartoons and those fabulous “Tables for Two” columns are worth every penny.
***Sort of the old self-sustaining adver-news-a-torial thingie I suppose… in The Lion King wasn’t this called “The Circle of Life”? Yet… if how Pete… who will say these things? PS: do you like the chronological appoach to footnotes instead of the traditional sequential? I’m experimenting. Send a telex with your thoughts.

Your Inordinately Cheery Beery News Notes For These Days Of The First Frosts

Beer snake! Never seen one from that point of view before. Thanks to beer and baseball specialist Shana for the perspective from the bleachers at one of the last Cubs games of the year. Like my Red Sox, they sorta similarly sucked this season. Reminds me of, what… the first forty years of my life? Ah, the good old days. Anyway, one must be positive. You know, I wrote that header up there before I wrote anything this week. Why? Because there seems to be a lot of bad news out there. Bad in the world and fairly bad in the beery bit of that world. So, as always, I shall try to be the voice of optimism, of good cheer and positivity. I tell myself this again… as I start out…

First up, let’s check the shipping news. Despite what the keen beer trade statisticians who are good and making numbers bendy say, apparently there is a global slowdown coming so fast and hard that trans-Oceanic shipping lines are cutting back:

Ocean carriers are canceling dozens of sailings on the world’s busiest routes during what is normally their peak season, the latest sign of the economic whiplash hitting companies as inflation weighs on global trade and consumer spending. The October cancellations are a sharp reversal from just a few months ago, when scarce shipping space pushed freight rates higher and carriers’ profits to record levels. 

What’s this got to do with beer? Export and imports. Except for big buyers like Ontario’s LCBO, most good beer likely does not ship by the full container load. But it still could be good news for the small and local even if not so good for the forces of international craft.  So… less beer may be moving on the high seas. We see the same thing happening across the bar. Not so good. The export geared breweries of Britain may have a lead on this lesson, learning the hard way due to Brexit… though to be fair those with a local market focus also seem to be suffering. Jings. Tough days. Soon it will all be about nods, winks and word of mouth if you want to find the good stuff.

Never one to be glum… or even fixed in one spot for very long, The Beer Nut went on a holly joliday and reported back from the BXLBeerFest in Brussels which offered beers sort of in the round, reminding me of the Tardis’s console:

I made arrangements to attend last year. That didn’t work out but tickets rolled over and so there I was, if not quite front at least fairly centre, on the last weekend in August 2022.  Sixty invited breweries occupied eight circular pods, each pouring four or more beers at a time. The selection was carefully chosen from Belgium, Europe and North America, with an emphasis on the wild side of fermentation, like saying “we invented lambic, show me what you can do”.

Circular pods! How futuristic! I hope they wore garish wide-lapelled purple, green and/or yellow corduroy suits, too. And played the best of Seals and Crofts on a loop. But that’s just me. Bright. Cheery. Elsewhere, Alistair wrote about dreich this week and (other than knowing you have no idea how to pronounce it because I can) I liked this bit:

Saturday in central Virginia was dreich, gey dreich, as the remnants of Hurricane Ian drifted up the Shenandoah Valley. It was a day for comfort clothes, pots of tea, and whatever mindless shite the kids wanted to watch on the idiot box – I am starting to worry about their love of screens, but that’s not the point of my post. I pondered lighting the first fire of the season, but the wind was whipping along at 20mph and I have an in built fear of a chimney fire. Into this revelry of gloom came a text message from Jason at Devils Backbone…

Speaking of dreich, I see that Jeff has reported on fifth anniversary that relic of 2017, the “independent” seal offered by the US Brewers Association to its membership. For me, it was an extension of 2012’s “crafty” botch that sought to rally beer buyers around the BA’s central “one ring to rule them all” branding approach to selling craft beer in the US.* While (i) these sorts of things may have given comfort to big national craft and, conversely, (ii) the more recent explosion of small and local breweries  fundamentally altered the discussion, I was most surprised by this tidbit in the article indicating how they may have missed the boat – they don’t ask the only people that matter:

Beer in general has been lagging, but craft beer is no longer the bright segment in a declining category. In recent quarters, only imports seem to be bucking the trend—while craft tracks with other domestic categories. And customers themselves? It’s hard to say. The Brewers Association hasn’t done any recent polling on the question—or made it public, anyway.

Note: if there was good news from consumers, polling results would have been made public. Verdict: dud.

And I don’t know what to make of the news that the very large object identifying as BrewDog won a court case. From the BBC News report I see that the defendant “failed to respond to the court” which seems to indicate that a Statement of Defence (as we would call it in Ontario) was not filed. Which, if that is the case, leads to a default judgement which effectively does not represent a ruling on the merits. That being said, I am somewhat concerned that all the sins of craft have merged into this one matter, as it is (i) being a big mean brewery, and (ii) one that is for the most part elsewhere. The resulting response seems to be dumping all errors on this single example, accepting without any serious question the deftly played PR sidestep and perhaps even wiping the balance of craft’s record clean – perhaps comforting and  perhaps even re-numbing ourselves to the more widely spread problem still all around us. Moving on craft? **

Which is the opposite of what Beth Demmons does in her Prohibitchin’ series*** – which this month features Omolola Olateju of Black Girls Drink who makes this excellent point:

“The complications of getting these alcohol-related licenses, LOLOLOL!” she laughs, cynically but genuinely. “I really do wonder about the gatekeeping. Right now in the drinks industry, there are financial barriers and resource barriers — it’s really painful.” One change she believes would help alleviate said barriers would be more BIPOC people getting involved at the legislative level to identify and correct problem areas. “I’d be really curious — and I make some positive assumptions — around how that would change the industry,” she says. “That to me is the next equity front: people in ‘the system.’”

Speaking of the system… note: not Pete’s best photo… that is Pete, right? And grey? Really. Talk about yer dreich! No… not Pete… no, the logo’s background!!****

The reporting on reporting is real this week as Stan chose two stories about wine could well apply to beer: (i) one about the way that the story behind a drink made the drink more appealing and even more valuable to the buyer and (ii) the second …

…another instance where the word “wine” could be replaced with “beer” in two instances. “The wine industry itself is much to blame with its history of pretentiousness, and its absurd rituals and vocabulary that convey the message that one must be a connoisseur before one can enjoy wine.”

I mention this as the two seem to be two side of the same coin to my mind: the myth making  as obstacle making and the gatekeeping of the faux connoisseur… as obstacle making! Strip those away and what do you have?  You know… other than a world without bevvy’s consulto-judge-journalist class?***** Well, what you would have is reality like… bowling and beer – in Walsall!

We met up with Dan Gilbert and Coxy and explained why we had had left The Lion only for Dan to exclaim that he loves UB40. Which made me laugh. We headed to The Wharf Bar. There was karaoke. I was urged to have a go and despite it being free as opposed to the £20 in the bowling alley I wasn’t feeling it. There wasn’t many people in and I like a good sized baying audience when I perform. 

Before you get all caught up in that moment and go off to just do anything anywhere enraptured by the prospect of beer and bowling – BEWARE! Via CookieNet!, we have learned about the most violent pub in Britain along with its, err, customer conduct standards:

He is said to have required an operation to stop the bleeding, with the wound he survived snagging an artery, with police noting customers were “served alcohol by the bar staff” despite it “being evident someone is seriously injured”. At the time of the incident, police also said that management knew “the risks of its customer base yet chooses to ignore this”.

Yikes!  Finally, a white lab coated eggheads have taken credit for all that you love in beer:

Belgian investigators have improved the flavor of contemporary beer by identifying and engineering a gene that is responsible for much of the flavor of beer and some other alcoholic drinks. The research appears in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. For centuries, beer was brewed in open, horizontal vats. But in the 1970s, the industry switched to using large, closed vessels, which are much easier to fill, empty, and clean, enabling brewing of larger volumes and reducing costs. However, these modern methods produced inferior quality beer, due to insufficient flavor production.

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

*You will recall that Flying Dog quit the BA over this sort of thing at the time.
**Well, more you than me. I am still off the gluten (happily) so leaning on a little wine or a drop of cider if I need a hit – though I did a test with a can of Guinness. My histamines slept though the whole pint.
***The award winning series!
****Yes, there is… though to be fair… he may well have been suffering from the IPA yips!
*****Because who the hell wants to be an expert in things that have no perceived value?? No, best to stick to the plan.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For A… For A… I Dunno…

You can get in a rut about things can’t you. These headers for example. It’s just a thing. But a thing almost in a rut. Is craft beer in a rut? I dunno. It didn’t do anything new and stupid this week, did it? It is, however, like a thing that could find itself in a rut, isn’t it.  Makes people say odd things… like: “…not me, not my part of the thing… my thing is really a separate thing…” When things are actually fairly bad, people still take time to say that sort of thing. Because this thing is not like that thing. Not my thing. Can’t be. Never.

First up, the views shared by Alistair at Fuggles on home brewing around little kids ring true for me as I packed in my questionable home brewing hobby completely once we were well and truly surrounded by rut rats :

This weekend was the twins 4th birthday and with time speeding by at a fair old clip, it feels difficult to justify taking 8 hours, give or take, to brew an all grain batch of homebrew. While there is no shortage of decent beer to be had in the central Virginia region, either locally produced or from further afield, there are still times when I just want to drink something I have brewed myself. Enter pre-prepared malt extract.

Speaking perhaps of my home brewing, I found this piece on on imposter syndrome as suffered by women in the drinks trade interesting but I was particularly interested as I have known many men who admit to suffering from the experience as well, especially in law:

Imposter syndrome, according to the American Psychological Association, is a psychological phenomenon wherein you doubt your own skills, abilities, and inherent worth, no matter how much you achieve or accomplish. For many, it’s an inner voice that whispers, “you’re not good enough, you don’t know anything, and one day, everyone is going to find out… storytelling has the power to combat imposter syndrome; however, it will take a proactive effort to tell stories that go beyond the bylines, brewers, and old-boy’s networks that have dominated both breweries and beer journalism.”

Come to think of it, a lot of what sucks about craft beer sucks about law. Stress. Alcohol. Irrational expectations. But not the 50 kg sacks of grain. Even in my early 40s when folks wanted me in on a brewery I knew there was no way I could hack hauling around 50 kg sacks of grain. I wasn’t ever going to go there once I grew used to the seeming reassurance of the hard tight black shoes.

Next up? Just last week I wrote:

Thing never said in beer: “…and certainly thanks to all those who nominated the winners…” Oh… 

And this very week I am pleased to read:

Oh wow, this is huge. A massive thank you to whoever nominated me and a huge congratulations to all the other incredibly talented people on this list!

Which is great. More of this, please. And congratulations Charlotte Cook aka @ilikeotters along this the others who were nominated by even further others who, as nominees in the Best Brewer of Britain category, likely can in fact haul around 50 kg sacks of malt, nae doddle.

How to quit in style. Fabulous.

Careful readers out there will recall that I have a particular thing for the role of alcohol in early victualing of ships‘ holds. This week VinePair shared what dear old Ferdie Magellan was packing:

Documents from Magellan’s expedition cite a hefty 203 butts (barrels) and 417 wineskins — from the Jerez wineries in southwest Spain’s Andalusia region — made it onboard. Today, this amounts to nearly 243,000 liters of booze. Magellan and his crew must have really needed the extra liquid luck on the expedition, seeing as the cost of wine and other provisions amounted to 1,585,551 maravedis. Taking inflation and conversions into account, Magellan brought about $475,665 worth of booze on board. Researcher and crew member Navarrete noted in Document No. XVII that this number accounted for 20 percent of all costs on board.

Speaking of the ancient of days, Garrett Oliver himself guided me to this story in The Harvard Gazette about the scale of brewing in ancient Egypt:

Thanks to his recent excavation of a brewery in the ancient Egyptian city of Abydos, the senior research scholar at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts may get his wish, and soon. But the excavation revealed far more than a way to reconstruct an ancient recipe for suds. The industrial-scale production — on par with today’s best microbreweries — offers direct evidence of the kind of power wielded by Egyptian kings.

I would have thought sustaining an empire for thousands of years might have been evidence enough of the power of Egypt but… you know… I am not a guy who went to Haaaa-vaaaard. Where they call beer suds!*

Evan Rail on hard seltzers: “I thought most of them were gross. A few were harmless but boring. Several were close to nauseating.” Exactly.

Gary Gillman (aka Gee-Gee… OK, not) went off on an interesting wander around what is/was and what is/was not the North American hop known as Neomexicanus care of a part called part one (including below) and part (…wait for it…) two:

…the sources mentioned seem to reserve “neomexicanus” for the Rocky Mountain, American-origin hop while “Manitoba” or “Canadian” describes another hop from North America. While classification as such for regional examples of North American wild hops is beyond my scope here, it might be noted that location – terroir, if you will – plays an important role for all hop attributes, even relatively locally as Stephens explains in her article.

I just don’t believe in #RauchBeerMonth.

Throughout the Commonwealth we hear comments about the news that Vanity Fair has reported: HRH The Sovereign Herself has got to cut back:

According to two sources close to the monarch, doctors have advised the Queen to forgo alcohol except for special occasions to ensure she is as healthy as possible for her busy autumn schedule and ahead of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations next June. “The Queen has been told to give up her evening drink which is usually a martini,” says a family friend. “It’s not really a big deal for her, she is not a big drinker but it seems a trifle unfair that at this stage in her life she’s having to give up one of very few pleasures.”

I dunno. Ninety-five? That’s when I start smoking menthol ciggies regularly. I’ve beaten the odds by then. No filters either. Something else is killing me by then.

Daniel Craig‘s choice of bars makes perfect sense:

“I’ve been going to gay bars for as long as I can remember,” the 53-year-old actor told Bruce Bozzi on the “Lunch with Bruce” podcast. “One of the reasons (is) because I don’t get into fights in gay bars that often. … The aggressive dick swinging in hetero bars, I just got very sick of it as a kid because it’s like I don’t want to end up being in a punch-up. And I did. That would happen quite a lot.”

Nice. Still, can’t go a week without reminding you all of how craft has failed once again, with some pointing out how BrewDog seeking to redefine arsehole ridden work environment with the phrase “high-performance culture” which guides one’s mind to the article on imposter syndrome up there… and perhaps thoughts on who exactly is the imposter in these cases?  The burdened worker or the poser jet set whiner?

I can’t even imagine how horrible having a fruit lambic with eggs benedict might be.**

In the category of “discussions of places I will never go” I came across this fantastic example of a buried lede in this quotey piece on a Cornish rarity, Spingo,  in Pellicle by Lily Waite:

“Spingo is the definition of a cult beer. It stands outside the ‘scene’ and, like [local annual festival] Flora Day, is about Helston doing its own thing,” says Jessica. “They bring out a new beer every twenty years or so and that’s it. The locals seem happy with Middle and, from our observations, seem to regard Flora Daze as a dangerous innovation. You haven’t really experienced Spingo until you’ve had a pint at 8am on Flora Day, dispensed from a hosepipe into a plastic glass. Magic.”

Speaking of Jessica, she and Ray visited Kirkstall Brewery in Leeds and provided a first hand report. The story illustrates how superior the web based beer writing can be if only that it is current.  Like radio reporting on a sports event, it’s fresh and immediate even if a snapshot of a weekend trip I wasn’t on and can’t realistically replicate. By contrast, the piece on Stingo above refers to a visit in June. Why the backlog? Why wait for Waite? Worse, of course, is when you have to read through something that comes out of a physical printing press.  Stale and via mail. Viva hands on laptops! Vivi!!

Viva indeed. For more check out the updates from that same Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan now on a regular basis again 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. 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. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword – when he isn’t in hiatus as at the mo, more like timeout for rudeness! And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*I love knowing that someone’s ass is burning by someone else calling beer “suds” because it totally disrespects their mild addiction cloaked as a hobby.
**Not to mention which fruit was lambicized before the eggs benedict was held hostage.

Wouldn’t We All Prefer A Nice Quart of Dorchester Ale… Or Beer?

Have my mentioned my last two and a half years have been a bit of a blur at work?  The history blogging has suffered.  But it’s always the things we hold most dear that fall away, aren’t they.  Well, as I expect is the case with you, it’s a bit quieter in the evenings around here so I thought I would pull out some of the delayed research and have a look at Dorchester Ale and Beer starting with a summary of the known information to date.  First, if you look at this notice in The Literary Gazette of 1819, you will see something that is apparent from the research: there is both Dorchester Ale and Dorchester Beer.  For purposes of this bit of writing, I am not going to get into the distinction but it is important to note that they likely were not synonyms.

Dorchester is the county town of Dorset, which sits on the middle of the bottom of England on the Channel. Daniel Defoe praised it in his book A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain (1724–26):

“The town is populous, tho’ not large, the streets broad, but the buildings old, and low; however, there is good company and a good deal of it; and a man that coveted a retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time, and as well in Dorchester, as in any town I know in England…”

Dorchester was a key departure port for Puritans emigrating to New England in the 1600s. Dorchester beer was popular before and after the American Revolution from at least the 1760s in New York City to the early 1800s. It is not mentioned by Locke in 1674. There was a song about it published in 1784 praising its power to even sooth political disunion.  Coppinger described its ingredients in this way in the 1815 edition of his fabulously named book The American Practical Brewer and Tanner:

      • 54 Bushels of the best Pale Malt.
      • 50 lb. of the best Hops.
      •   1 lb. of Ginger.
      •   ¼ of a lb. of Cinnamon, pounded.

So, a spiced pale ale says he. You can figure out the 54 bushel to 14 barrel ratio but his version of it does not look like super strong stuff.  That would seem to go against the cross-Atlantic shipping market for it so we can think about that a bit more. Or we can turn to North American’s best beer writer who doesn’t write book nor blog, Gerry Lorentz, who added a great whack of information in a comment left at this here blog posted in October 2018 which I add here in full simply because I can:

I’m sure that Dorchester beer probably didn’t stay constant over the centuries. Coppinger’s recipes contain a long list of additives, so that fact that he says Dorchester beer contained ginger and cinnamon probably doesn’t amount to much. Friederich Accum indicated that “Dorchester Beer is usually nothing else than Bottled Porter,” this coming after a discussion of Old Hock, or white porter. In Observations on the Diseases in Long Voyages to Hot Climates (1775), John Clark also indicated that Dorchester beer was similar to porter. He discussed “country beer,” noting it as one of “the usual diluters” of meals for the fashionable sort in India: “Country beer is made by mixing one part Dorchester beer, or porter, with two or more parts of water.” Others writers viewed Dorchester beer as similar to brown stout. One early twentieth-century researcher looking to get more information on Dorchester Beer put out a question in Notes and Queries in 1905 asking about a footnote in William Gawler’s 1743 poem, Dorchester, that indicated that “an eminent Dealer in Dorchester Beer, now living in London, reckons amongst his Customers the late Czar, the Kings of Prussia and Denmark, as well as his late and present Majesty of Great Britain,” which points to a Baltic trade similar to porter.

Both William Ellis in the London and Country Brewer (1837) and John Farley in The London Art of Cookery, 7th edition (1792) point out the “chalky water” used in making Dorchester beer. Farley writes that “The Dorchester beer, which is so much admired, is, for the most part brewed of chalky water, which is almost every where in that county ; and as the soil is generally chalk.” So, perhaps it had some Burtonesque qualities to it.

Thomas Hardy probably has the best, and least helpful, description of Dorchester Beer in his book The Trumpet Major, in which he states: “It was of the most beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full in body, yet brisk as a volcano; piquant, yet with a twang; luminous as an autumn sunset; free from streakiness of taste, but finally, rather heady. The masses worshipped it, and the minor gentry loved it better than wine, and by the most illustrious country families it was not despised.”

Excellent. Clearly a strongish ale. And Gerry is always right. I would but quibble the slightest bit about the qualities “Burtonesque” but I have my own theory about the vomit inducing levels of sulfur that spawned that region’s Satanically hopped styles a generation or two earlier that Dorchester rose into popularity.

In the 1922 book Thomas Hardy’s Dorset, by R.T. Hopkins, we read

Dorchester has now lost its fame for brewing beer. But about 1725 the ale of this town acquired a very great name. In Byron’s manuscript journal (since printed by the Chetham Society) the following entry appears:

“May 18, 1725. I found the effect of last night drinking that foolish Dorset, which was pleasant enough, but did not at all agree with me, for it made me stupid all day.”

A mighty local reputation had “Dorchester Ale,” and it still commands a local influence, for this summer I was advised by the waiter of the Phoenix Hotel to try a bottle of “Grove’s Stingo” made in the town. It is a potent beverage–and needs to be treated with respect, to be drunk slowly and in judicious moderation.

Hopkins continues with the same passage from Thomas Hardy that Gerry L. noted in his comment, above, as well as others from Hardy as well as a mid-1700s song “The Brown Jug” that references a Dorchester Butt as a measure of at least one lad’s girth.

Acknowledging the love-hate relationship we have with records, the earliest i have found Dorchester Ale is recorded as being delivered to North America relates to a shipment to Virginia mentioned in a letter dated, oddly, June 28th and July 25th 1727 from one Robert Carter to Edward Tucker, the latter of whom died in 1739, merchant of Weymouth, Dorset who served as mayor in 1705, 1716, 1721, 1725, and 1735, and also as a member of Parliament:

…Your Portland is gon to York to fill up I have Six hhds of my Crop Tobbo: on board her which Sent you a bill of Lading had Russell bin at liberty to have Sent a Sloop for this Tobbo: he might have got redy for this Fleet I must desire you to Send me in the next year in one of your Ships a hogshead of your fine Dorchester Ale well and Carefully bottled of and under very good Package Your Master Britt will tell you how I was abused in the last. The Southam Cyder the Portland brought me I doubt will never be fine it is not yet Bottled If you can Send me a hogshead of it in bottles that is right good Such as I had two Years ago, it would [be] Acceptable but in Cask I will have no more I am with a great deal of Sincerity…

Hmm… it is fine and worth being shipped. In 1752, Frances Monday was before the judge in London’s Old Bailey indicted for that she assaulted John Hall and stole from him one half guinea in gold.  The evidence of Hall begins thusly:

Last Thursday se’nnight I had been in the Borough, staid late, and was in liquor. I could not get into my lodgings in Grey’s-Inn-lane. I was going from thence to Westminster to an acquaintance there, and passing by the new church in the Strand this woman came cross the way to me and asked me to go with her and drink some Dorchester ale. I went to a place which she said was the Black Swan between the new church and Exeter Change. I drank but one glass of beer. She then asked me to give her some shrub. which I did, and a bottle to take home with her.

Ms. Monday was acquitted based on her alternate version of events, backed by witnesses: “The gentleman made me a present of it. After he had what he desired of me, he said he would have it again, or he’d swear a robbery against me.” So… perhaps a sort of beer that was name dropped perhaps to show a bit of unwarranted class?

In his MA thesis for the Université de Sherbrooke submitted April 2014, Mathieu Perron stated that Dorchester ale (or beer) was mentioned among numerous other beers in the notices published in La Gazette de Québec during the early years after the fall of New France:

De 1764 à 1774, sur 28 mentions relatives à la bière dans les petites annonces de La Gazette de Québec, 15 occurrences appartiennent à la catégorie « Porter », le restant étant réparti entre différents Malt Liquor. Ces bières (Dorchester Ale/Beer, Yorchester Ale, Taunton Ale, Welch Ale) aux degrés d’alcool élevés, génèreusement houblonnées,  raditionnellement consommées par les classes moyennes anglaises, attestent du transfert des habitudes de consommation chez les classes marchandes de la province…

Fabulous references to the variety available to the military elite in that garrison town.  And I need to see the ad for “Yorchester” ale now.

Further south, in his diary of 1775-76, the Reverend Dr. Samuel Cooper, pastor of the Brattle Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts – a bit of a coffee fiend –  records being treated to “a Glass of Dorchester Ale” on one occasion as he made his way around his fellow revolutionaries in Boston during its bombardment by the British.

After the war, as part of reparations claims which were made with various degrees of success, Henry Howell Williams a 1775 tenant on Noddles Island in Boston Harbour claimed for goods “Destroyed by a Detatchment of the American Army or Carried off by said Detatchment, for the Use of the United States” claimed just in terms of the liquor in his cellar:

3 Barrls. Cyder 36/2 Q. Casks Wine 220
1 Dozn. Ditto Bottled		 1412.–
1 Hamper Dorchester Ale. 6 Dozn. Excellent Cyder 3.16.–
3 Dozn. Carrl. Wine 1 keg Methegalin Sweet Oyle &c. 6:4:–
2 Hogsheads Old Jamaica Spirit 231 Gallns @ 5/- 57.15.–
3 Hogsheads New Rum Just got home from the
W. Indies Quanty. 234 Gallons a 3/4-		 39:0:0

Which seems like a lot – and also places Dorchester Ale in fine company.* And on both sides of the Revolution in Puritan Boston, a century and a half after being founded by Dorset folk.

At about the same time back in England but on the same end of the cannon demographically speaking as Mr. Williams of Noddles Island, we read about a pleasure garden named Jenny’s Whim in the Pimlico area of London, “a very favorite place of amusement for the middle classes”:

This feature of the garden is specially mentioned in a short and slight sketch of the place to be found in the Connoisseur of March 15th, 1775:—”The lower part of the people have their Ranelaghs and Vauxhalls as well as ‘the quality.’ Perrott’s inimitable grotto may be seen for only calling for a pint of beer; and the royal diversion of duck-hunting may be had into the bargain, together with a decanter of Dorchester [ale] for your sixpence at ‘Jenny’s Whim.'”

Then things get all scientific. In the 1797 essay “Experiments and Observations on Fermentation and Distillation of Ardent Spirit” by Joseph Collier the pre- and post-fermentation densities of four type of beer are described: Porter, Ringwood Ale, Dorchester Ale and Table Beer. It is interesting. Of course it is. If it was not interesting why would I have mentioned. it? The author uses a “saccharometer” like this. Without knowing the details of the calibration or the scale, the relative ratio is enough to tell us that Dorchester is sweet and a bit strong, a bit more than double that of Table beer. Dorchester drops 39 degrees of the “whatever scale” where Table beer drops 18. Ringwood drops 44 degrees but has a final gravity that is two-thirds of Dorchester.  Notice too that these are “the most celebrated malt liquors” – which is interesting.

In an 1816 German text entitled Jenaische allgemeine literatur-zeitung, Volume 3, it is listed in another list of English ales. I include the whole passage because it’s pretty interesting as a snapshot of the times. Ron or someone cleverer that I will be able to translate but quite neato to see the references to Queen’s ale and Wittshire ale . 

More science. In 1829, Dorcehster Ale is listed in the book Description and Use of the Brewer’s Sacchatometer as having a “proportion of alcohol” of 5.56 which placed it below Burton and Edinburgh Ale and above London Porter.

Does it start to become faded? After his fall from grace and the financial support of the Regent, Beau Brummell exiled in Calais in the 1820s was said to drink it according to this 1860s account and an 1855 article in Harpers:

 Not even for Lord Westmoreland, his creditor for frequent loans, would the Man of Fashion consent to “feed” at an earlier hour. Being a pauper, Dorchester ale, with a petit verre, and a bottle of the best claret were his usual beverage when alone; but he counted largely on invitations to dinner from passing Englishmen. As he grew older, gluttony grew upon him; ho had not the heart to refuse an invitation, no matter what the hour of ” feeding.”

In Slaters Directory 1852/3 it was written:

The spinning of worsted yarn and the manufacture of woollen goods , formerly ranked as the staple here; but these branches have greatly declined, if they are not entirely lost – blanketing and fiuscy being the only articles now manufactured. Dorchester ale has long been famed, and it still maintains a superior character; the mutton of this district is liekwise held in great and general estimation. 

The same source for that text has a helpful page on one Robert Galpin of Fordington in the County of Dorset, Brewer, which give a helpful sense of scale of brewing operations then or at least his operation at the time.

What to make of it all?  Dorchester Ale / Beer appear to be a Georgian thing that arcs in parallel to Burton and Nottingham, coming after 1600s and early 1700s strong English ales like Lambeth, Derby, Hull and Northdown/Margate.  Like Taunton, it is exported to North America and perhaps elsewhere in the colonies. It is not as strong as others and seems to have chalky water with a pronounced residual sweetness.  Premium while not necessarily being a headbanger.

Interesting also to note how these strong pale ales named after the city or region in which they were brewed generally (but not exclusively) fit between (i) the Medieval and Tudor pattern of naming beers according to their heft: half-penny, two penny, double double and (ii) the brewer branded beer, scientifically made proto-styles we start seeing beginning in the 1800s. Like the climactic observations on the reason French bread in great in the recent excellent article in the New Yorker “Baking Bread in Lyon“, they would have been remarkable for some local characteristic that set them apart.

I will have to organize these posts on English Stuart and Georgian era regional strong pale ales into some better categorizations. They need an umbrella term. They are not styles in the same sense as their predecessors or their descendants. But they were clearly recognizable and sought out for their prestige.

*And I trust that table rendered well at your end of the internets.

Beer And Brewing By Hudson Bay In The Late 1600s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 1655 Good English Beer Made Its Way To The Caribbean

It’s already 38C according to the humidex outside at 11 am. I’m not gardening. I’m not even hanging around outside until the shade starts making its move in the backyard. With the sting of the Beer Nut’s pointed truth fresh in my mind, how about patching together a beery post about trans-oceanic beer transit.

And what a tale it is! Let’s not forget that the earliest date I have established for trans-Oceanic beer transportation is 1577. In that year, Martyn Frobisher brought a boatload of miners to gather iron ore in Canada’s Arctic. And he brought a boatload of beer to keep the miners lubricated. 80-and-one-half tunnes in all:

Biere for iij monthes contayneng 168 daies after the computation of one gallone aman per day 80 1/2 ton at 2li 5s per ton wth caske iron whoopes and chardges.

All seems to have gone well but it would, wouldn’t it. It’s the Arctic and the beer would have been able to keep relatively cool. What about further south and days of heat like today out there in the yard? We know that good old Taunton ale was shipped south in the 1700s. It’s in New York City in the 1750s and into the Caribbean with its delivery to Jamaica in the 1770s. But the British were in the equatorial zone of the Atlantic well before that. Did they bring beer? Yup:

In September 1655, Major Robert Sedgewick was pleased that the beer shipped along with the troops on the Western Design remained potable: “Amongst the rest of our Provisions our beere proved generally very good wch was a very great refreshment and is so to this day.” 

See footnote 53 at page 124 of Temperateness, Temperance, and the Tropics: Climate and Morality in the English Atlantic World, 1555-1705, a PhD dissertation from 2013. The author-candidate, M.R. Hill contextualized the footnoted information in this way:

In the hot climates of the Atlantic world, however, English travelers and colonists usually had to make do without their cherished beers. European grains did not grow well in the West Indies, leaving the English without ingredients for brewing in the island colonies. Beer often failed to survive long sea voyages, corrupted by bad casks, heat, or simply the passage of time. In the West Indies the English imported drinks or turned to local substitutes such as mobby (a mixture of potato juice and water, sometimes fermented), citrus drinks and rum-based drinks. Because they shipped well, however, distilled spirits often replaced beer among the English in hot climates.

Jamaica was invaded by the English in 1655 as part of Cromwell’s Western Design, ousting the resident Spaniards after flubbing an attack on what is now the Dominican Republic. They landed in Jamaica on the 9th of May. Sedgwick’s letter in which he praises the beer was dated 6 September, four months later. Notice that he wrote that it was a great refreshment and “is so to this day.” Notice that the beer was “shipped along with the troops on the Western Design…” It lasted through a Caribbean summer.

Wikipedia tells us that “Within a year the 7,000 English officers and troops that took part in the invasion were reduced to 2,500.” Robert Sedgwick was one of those who died.  Interesting fellow. Born in England in 1611, he spends his later twenties and thirties in colonial Massachusetts, joins the Military Company of the Massachusetts but goes back home to support Cromwell. He takes to the sea, attacks the French in what is now the Canadian Maritimes and into New England before attacking Spain further south. Sedgwick, Maine is named after him. Boston of the 1630s was a beer drinking town:

Boston was, in the early days of the Company, the principal seaport town in North America, untrammelled as yet by a custom-house, and the flags of the maritime nations waved at her wharves… she exported to the mother country dried codfish, tar, turpentine, lumber, spars, whale oil and bone, deerskins, furs, etc., receiving in return Holland gin, strong beer, and merchandise of every description.

Sedgwich himself seems to have operated a brewery in Boston in 1637. It says this in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America:

… after being licensed by the General Court held in Newton, Massachusetts on 20 November 1637, Captain Robert Sedgwick opened the first of the New England breweries in Charleston, now part of greater Boston.

He also seems to have obtained a licence to brew from the local Boston government in 1635. He was something of an all-rounder:

Charlestown has cause to remember Genl. Sedgwick for the results of his active public spirit when residing in the town. He was an enterprising merchant, built wharves, carried on a brewing establishment, built the old Tide-mills, and had an interest in the Iron Works at Lynn. “He was representative in the style of his ideas and character of the liberal Puritans of those early days of Now England history, religion was in all his thoughts, and yet he openly opposed the prevailing intolerance. He was a very brave, zealous and pious man.”

So, it is entirely reasonable that Sedgwick would not only have written about the beer that arrived in Jamaica along with the English in 1655, he might have been involved with keeping in good condition. Keeping it in good condition from at the latest May to September at the earliest.

He dies in 1656, one year after the invasion of Jamaica and left children who died lived there and in England and in New England. Beer lad.

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

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

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

Another great photo essay from Martin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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