South America – A Good Beer Blog

Beer. News. Notes. Phrases. Words. Selections. Pretentious. Minimalist. Heading. Formats.

What a week! I had no idea that I’d make it to this Wednesday evening when upon I do scribble out these notes. And it’s not even sun up before I’m out the door, although the moon apparently has a decent view up there looking east. And the reading takes a bit more digging. But as B+B wrote:

…we embraced that: let’s focus on some smaller, more unusual pieces from old skool blogs and old-fashioned Web 1.0 hobby sites. That’s good stuff, too.*****

Agreed. Enough complaining. Let’s get at it. I do like this entry in Every Pub in Dublin if only for its lack of information:

I just walked in and looked for it. And found it relatively easily, as its basically just straight back from the front door, albeit well into the hotel. It’s quite a fancy hotel bar, but nothing incredibly special. I doubt many people ever go here just to drink, what with the Baggot Street and Haddington Road pubs nearby, but you *could*.

Even more of a deterrant to drinking in Dublin is this explanation by Lisa Grimm of the environs of her pub of the week, The Circular:

…the first stone bridge was built here over the Grand Canal in 1795, replacing an earlier wooden structure, and its resemblance to Venice’s Ponte Di Rialto gave the bridge, as well as the surrounding area, its better-known name. There are stories of a Black Shuck-type dog stalking the underside of the bridge, with some tales more specifically citing the devil himself appearing as a black dog in the area. Indeed, devilish attachments (literally) continued with a stone ‘devil’ head formerly being affixed to the bridge – though whether the stories or the sculpture came first is open to investigation.

Satan himself! Yikes. [You know, I just thought it was a song by The Darkness.] On a more positive or at least not as terrifying note, there was a good bit of writing from Jessica Mason this week on a fairly singular business decision seeing one craft brewer and wine cidery to join up on distribution:

On-trade customers can now buy Red Fin cider products directly from Siren, packed in the brewery’s 30l stainless steel kegs. Two Red Fin ciders are available alongside Siren’s beers to help publicans consolidate their beer and cider deliveries. Further benefits include the option for pubs to take advantage of collaborative brand activations and events as well as custom installations. According to the business owners the new partnership isn’t financial and neither company has a stake in the other. However, the independent businesses describe it as “strategic”.

Sensible. E.P. Taylor would be pleased by the effort to cut what he would have called waste – the failure to find harmoneous deals on the non-profit making expenses. Seeing what is around you with fresh eyes was also the subject of a great interview early one morning this past weekend on CBC Ontario’s Fresh Air on a South African brewery working to support local traditional brewing:

Reitumetse Kholumo is the founder of Kwela Brews in South Africa. She recently won a pitch competition at Queen’s University for her venture.She told us how she is using the prize money to empower women and protect the Indigenous tradition of sorghum beer.

More here on Kwela Brews in this Forbes Africa article from last year. There were two other articles that caught my eye this week which touched on beer and colonialism. First, in New Zealand recently there has been controversy about the naming of a beer after a Māori navigator:

Te Aro Brewing named its Kupe New Zealand IPA after the Polynesian navigator as part of its Age of Discovery series – a limited range of beers showcasing historical explorers including Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan… Both complaints argued the association of Kupe exploited, degraded, denigrated, and demeaned his mana and, therefore, that of his descendants and the people and places associated with him….”I’m really upset about it because our tupuna is being used as a platform for promoting alcohol, and his name being used on the [packaging] says we agree to this, and we don’t,” she said. “Culture should not be used in that form; whether it be Māori, whether it be other indigenous peoples, or whether it be our community – our babies are having to walk past that every single day… that advertising, that promotion… Peka said she wanted to acknowledge the people that had used their voice to make a difference for the whānau, community and cultures within Aotearoa.”

I will leave it to you to look up the meaning of manu, tupuna and whānau like I did. The other story is the article this week in Pellicle by David Nilsen on the colonial and Indigenous legacies of brewing in Quito, Ecuador – that capital of a nation facing many serious issues. Elsewhere** we have seen how the perspectives from beer writers on a visit have posed, shall we say, challenges but this artlcle manages this well, if a bit obliquely:

…that rural connection has, sadly, not always helped chicha’s image in Quito as the city tries uncomfortably to balance its Indigenous heritage with its cosmopolitan aspirations. “A lot of people here grew up knowing about chicha, with their aunt or grandmother making it,” he says. “For many years, it had a stigma as a drink that was only for the lower classes living in the country. In Quito, as craft brewers became more knowledgeable about fermentation, they became more interested in reclaiming and revitalising this from their heritage.”

David sets it out for your consideration. We see the colonial hand moving in many ways in the article. The taprooms with the IPA. The central presence of the monestary and the museum. The application of science upon an Indigenous practice without space for a voice speaking for the pre-contact and continuing original culture as we heard the Māori perspective above. There is much packed into this piece.

Building on the least serious or perhaps most recent form of those intrustions from abroad, in Britian apparently SIBA is sick of “craft beer”… if only as a term:

Small breweries in the UK are ditching the term “craft beer” in favour of “indie beer”, warning that global corporations have bamboozled many drinkers into believing that formerly independent brands are still artisanal hidden gems. In a survey by YouGov that marks a new phase of the bitter war over what constitutes “craft beer”, consumers were asked to say whether 10 beer brands were made by “independent craft breweries”… More than three-quarters of those surveyed said they felt consumers were being “misled”…

CAMRA is in on the campaign as well. So is “craft” now a dirty word in Britain? Is it dead… again? Hmm… and there was also an interesting choice of words in an interesting paid advertorial this week in Politico, “sponsor generated content” it says. By Julia Leferman of the Brewers of Europe. Why is this bit of lobbyist comms interesting? Because of this passage:

Brewers are empowering consumers with the tools to take responsible decisions. This is about choice: if people don’t wish to, or simply shouldn’t, consume alcohol, they can still participate in the social experience of sharing a beer with friends and family. At the same time, brewers have pioneered initiatives in education and community engagement to encourage a better drinking culture and help reduce alcohol-related harm.

Could you imagine a North American trade organization place “alcohol” and “harm” that closely? Speaking of choice of words, Stan stood up for flavoured beer this week, building on the use of “beer flavoured beer” and admitting at least one of his sins:

I was wrong to use the term. It can be used to exclude, wielded as a weapon by drinkers who imply they know something others do not. “I can appreciate beer-flavored beer, the complex flavors that result from the interaction of malt and yeast in a simple helles. You are not worthy.” More obviously, it also excludes many, many, many flavors. In fact, some drinkers do not like the flavors in what they’ve come to know as beer-flavored beer. A survey of consumers in non-alcoholic beers in Northern California found they did not care for the “beer like” aroma, taste or mouthfeel they associate with non-alcoholic beers that were intended to mimic alcohol-containing lagers.

Let us be honest. Flavours that come from adjuncts are just not that interesting. The infinity that four ingredients can provide is enough for me. That’s brewing skill enough to draw me in. To be fair,² Stan did mention that he “would not drink a peanut butter chocolate merlot, but I would like to try the peanut butter chocolate porter from Schell’s.” I wonder what it would taste like? Oh, I know. Peanut butter and chocolate! Brilliant. I am not going to judge – but masking the taste of beer by adding other things to it is in the fine tradition of alco-pops. Fine. I judged. But has any industry succeeded long term by focusing on newbie marketing? One – candy. And I get that it’s a business decision to chase that market but it does seem interesting to me how that trend has tracked in parallel in recent years with the stalling and contraction of interest in good beer. A curse. A pox. Jeff has more, much of what I don’t buy given the tone of sheer presentist congratulationism.**** Still, it’s not that far off my favourite version of the phrase is 1998’s “beer-flavoured water” to describe PBR.

Consider this as something of a contrapunct to all that, entirely thoughtful words from Rachel Hendry (h/t to KM) within her thoughts this week on “Wine and Cider”:

When trees are knocked down, when orchards are treated poorly in the name of higher yields, when cider is infantilised and drinks are manipulated and artificially mimicked in order to make more money for big brands, very few of us win. Where lack of care destroys, care itself transforms. Those who take the more romantic approach, who approach the trees and their fruit and the ecosystems around it with care, who make their drinks to showcase the amazing things that apples have to say once fermented, who pick and press and pour and produce with such ferocity of respect and reverence, well our lands and our lives are better for it. We owe them so much.

I like that. A lot. Romance as integrity. As opposed to infantilism. See above. Maybe. Perhaps quite conversely but still about the language, when they are not bored (at least according to a poll run by the imported and apparently not boring brand Kingfisher) British lager drinkers appear to be really angry with brewers:

One person described a 3.4 percent strength beer as a ‘f**king shandy’, while another lamented Grolsch as a ‘once decent’ tipple, and said he’d been a fan of the old five percent mix. He wondered who the 3.4 percent beer was aimed at, while a third declared: “Grolsch, now alternatively known as p**s.” Someone else said the downgrade made Grolsch into a ‘run of the mill session lager’ that was ‘certainly no longer premium’.

Another sort of infantilisation, I suppose. Potty mouth. Still… journalism FTW. Note: Britons are also livid over noisy upgraded beer gardens and ugly view blocking teepees in upgraded beer gardens.

Finally, Stan** went someway to answer my question when he indicated that the NAGBW attracted 269 submissions from 96 entrants this year. I wonder if that is an increase or decrease? As the scope of the focus narrowed to those who “cover” the beer industry, one can’t help make comparisons*** with the often seemingly more vibrant and ecclectic awards from the British Guild of Beer Writers. Where is the Hawkes? Where is the Jesudason? Yet… I was really pleased to see the first place wine for the fabulous Courtney Iseman for her “Secondary Fermentation — New York City’s Strong Rope Brewery and the East Coast Cask Revival” in Pellicle last December. A writer of fine strong words like “craft beer cringe” and “toxic fandom“, I remember when I saw the title of her winning piece I thought “please reference Gotham Imbiber… please oh please” and yup there is was. Proper job. Proper recognition.

That’s enough. How many links do you need? Until the boo-tastic edition next Thursday, 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 (if he ever does one) and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (now very) 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.

*For example, the stunning white-washing of German atrocities in Brazil or the naive deflection of the genocide by American Revolutionaries against the Haudenosaunee in New York.
**For the double!
***Hmm… maybe “best in the world, if it is focused on the trade side, written in English, relevant to an American perspective and, yes, written by one who submitted“… perhaps?
****That’s a new one… I like it… BUT THESE FOOTNOTES AREN’T EVEN IN ORDER!!!!
*****“Evanescent“!?!? Really???? At least it isn’t “quotidian”… if there were every a inflationary ten dollar word that is never needed and rarely used correctly it’s friggin’ “quotidian”… sheesh… yet also**. See also this sort of devaluation of a concept… no one at all is shocked by a beer trade fact… no one cares…
²Am I ever not?

The “We Are Only Now Actually Halfway Through Summer 2024 This Week” Beery News Notes

Midsummer. This week. It’s now been 48 days since the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox is still a whole 45 days away. Mid. Summer. I blame public education for the false impression. The months of harvest are really just getting in gear. Moved: school should only be held in the months which are not summer gardening months. Approved. And Pete‘s #1 beer is exactly right. Beer after garden or yard work. Except… beer during garden or yard work. Or after coming back from the hardware store, I suppose.

What’s up? First off, I know my people can be a dour lot but I have never heard of it being a selling point in the hospitality trade until now in Inverness:

Dog Falls Brewing Co has applied for change of use to convert the long-closed Semi-Chem chemists’ to a beer “taproom” selling its product and other selected beers – but without music or entertainment. The brewery through planning agents Davidson Baxter Partnership Ltd, say in a supporting document to Highland Council: “The concept revolves around experiencing fresh beer from Dog Falls and selected other breweries in a setting where locals and visitors can talk, laugh, and interact with each other rather than being distracted by loud music or entertainment.” Dog Fall proprietor Bob Masson explained the concept further saying: “We want to encourage a convivial atmosphere among the customers without the entertainment add-on…

Got that? No need to repeat the point again. No entertainment. None. Nada. Don’t be looking to be entertained at this place. No way. Don’t. Not apparently related at all, I have never really needed twenty-four drinking each day in my life. Once forty years ago I got hammered starting at 4:30 am but that is only because I was a campus police officer at my small college and I arrested a guy breaking into cars at 3:30 am. After the fist fight in the wee hours and after handing the over to the actual cops, me nerves were a bit shot. So when I was offered unending tequila sunrises by my pal Bruce who was also technically my managing supervisor at that moment, I took up the opportunity. Anyway, all that is to say, by way of intro, that the entire City of Montreal is now acting like my pal Bruce and is offering drinks around the clock for interesting reasons – and the BBC took notice:

Montreal will become the first city in Canada to allow 24-hour drinking. In Toronto venues have to close by 2am, and it is 3am in Vancouver. In the US, Las Vegas and New Orleans have long allowed bars and clubs to stay open all night. While in New York the cut off time is 4am, and in Los Angeles it is 2am. On the other side of the Atlantic, pubs in London still typically close at 11pm… Ms Alneus agrees. She says the fact that so many bars and clubs all currently close at 3am presents problems for the police. She believes by allowing 24-hour drinking, those venues that don’t wish to stay open all night will be able to close at different times across the night.

I will be over there in a few weeks but I am pretty sure I won’t be checking out that scene. Yet a few hours after the party ends, in the UK for some on the move it starts up:

“Whether it’s 3am, 6am or 5pm, we all know that having a pre-holiday beer is a true British tradition. “Most of the time it’s a Fosters or a Carling and we all know they don’t exactly hit the spot. So, we decided to work with a local brewery and create the ultimate breakfast beer – the first of your holidays that matches perfectly with breaky.” Further findings from the research also revealed that a large majority of Brits (72%) believed a beer pre-10am is a “must” on our holidays.

Really? Honestly, I though it was just Ron. He’s been on the road in South America, as mentioned a couple of weeks ago, but he has finally gotten around to sharing the deets as well as the breakfast buffet experiences not to mention the glimpses into family life on holidays:

It’s quite chilly inside. Feeling a little cold, I put my coat back on. And notice no-one else has taken theirs off. They aren’t great on indoor heating here in Santiago. There’s a TV showing non-stop heavy metal videos… “Would you like to climb Mount Fuji, Dad?” Alexei asks. “No.” “Why not?” “For obvious fucking reasons. Like age and not wanting to die on a fucking mountain.” “If you weren’t old and scared, wouldn’t you want to climb it?” “No. I probably wouldn’t be able to breathe at the top of it.” “Well, apart from that?” “Just leave it.” After our first drink, it’s time for food.

In opposition to both Montreal and Ron, TDB reports that India is continuing its tightening of the prohibitions against liquor advertising after it became clear that there were efforts to circumvent the ban which already “outlaws direct advertising” by adding laws against “surrogate commercials and the sponsoring of events…” Examples:

Carlsberg would no longer be permitted to promotes its Tuborg drinking water in India by showing film stars at a rooftop party using the slogan “Tilt Your World”, which echoes its beer commercials. Nor would Diageo’s YouTube ad for its non-alcoholic Black & White ginger ale [which] features the iconic black-and-white terriers used to promote the scotch whisky brand of the same name.

Speaking of things that make you go “…hmmm…“, Jeff did some interesting data collection this week which has raise questions about some other data collection:

I found many of the breweries were no longer around. It wasn’t a marginal number. Despite the ambiguities in identifying what a brewery is, the number I ended up with was about 30% less than the Brewers Association’s official tally. For a number of reasons, this may be higher in Oregon than elsewhere: we have a more mature market, which means a lot more breweries have taprooms, which confounds things, and we also have more breweries closing because competition is so fierce. Nevertheless, it seems almost certain that the number of breweries in the US is thousands fewer than the regularly-cited figure of 10,000.

Which leads one to ask, of course, if that number is that wobbly – what else is? I mean, it’s not like any of this stuff is peer reviewed and footnoted.

Displaying far more solidity, The Guardian had a pretty good interview with ‘Spoon owner, Tim Martin, who shared some interesting information about his approach to business including this early decision:

He wanted to be a barrister and studied law at Nottingham University, but was paralysed by a fear of public speaking. “I went to my first law of contract lecture and the professor started asking questions, so I didn’t go back. It made me very nervous. It sounds pathetic but you can get these little phobias.” The solution, it turned out, was getting into the pub trade, which he did in 1979 with the opening of Martin’s Free House. The JD Wetherspoon name came later, a mashup of JD Hogg, a character in The Dukes of Hazzard, and Wetherspoon, the name of a teacher who did not think much of him.

And Jessica Mason has taken a cheeky approach to a piece which at the outset appeared to be about the place of fruity hazy IPAs in your fridge this summer as illustrated by one brand’s offering of something that is “effortlessly drinkable with a fresh watermelon taste and a pink haze” – and then is smartly turned on its head with the help of a couple of colleagues:

Tierney-Jones explained: “There’s a market for them and beer should have an element of fun but personally I tend to regard them as baby food for adults, the infantilisation of a great and noble beverage, it’d be a bit like a great wine producing chateau around Bordeaux adding mangoes or preserved lemons to their vintages.” Author and beer writer Pete Brown added: “I talk to so many brewers who say they brew hazy, fruity beers because that’s what the market wants. Then I look at the total share that hazy, fruity beers have in the market and think….’really? Looks to me like they want Guinness and ‘Spanish’ lager’.”

Brutal. Speaking of honest truths, Martyn has a book he wants you to buy and, as always, I was most obedient to the call. It sounds a bit like a reverse engineering of that earlier Jacksonian idea of classics:

There are certain classical examples within each group, and some of these have given rise to generally-accepted styles, whether regional or international. If a brewer specifically has the intention of reproducing a classical beer, then he is working within a style.

I say a reversal as Martyn is taking each of these eighty beers and expanding on their inherent implications – and not without peril as he explains:

One big problem with writing a book about beer with one foot firmly in the present is that the present is constantly changing. After I submitted the manuscript, it was announced that the Anchor brewery in San Francisco was shutting down. I hesitated for some time over whether to take the chapter on steam beer out, decided it was too interesting a style to ignore, and was saved by the announcement that the brewery had – at the time of writing – found a buyer. Similarly the chapter on Gale’s Prize Old Ale had to be rewritten twice, first after the closure of the Dark Star brewery, where POA was revived, and then after the closure of the Meantime brewery, where the brewing of POA was transferred.

Speaking of wordcraft – and for the double – Jeff wrote about a subject that never has left me with much satisfaction – authenticity. What is that you say? He summarizes: “Authenticity is a self-referential quality. We associate ourselves with products that have the social currency of authenticity because it reflects well on us. We become authentic when we consume the right products.” It has always seem circular like that to me. A vessel of an adjective into which pretty much anything can be placed. And Stan provide some more context particular to one beer related point:

In 2003, Holt and Cameron created a commercial that features a character they called The Tinkerer, who finds an old bicycle at a garage sale, carefully restores it, and then happily rides it into the Colorado countryside. They outline their strategy for New Belgium in a chapter called “Fat Tire: Crossing the Cultural Chasm” within their book, “Cultural Strategy: Using Innovative Ideologies to Build Breakthrough Brands”… The word authentic comes up in most chapters, but usually as a given and without a definition of what it means to be authentic. What is clear is how important whatever they label authenticity is to those focused on marketing.

This has not been my sneaking suspicion so much as my clear understanding for years. I think we three are all on the same page so we can be honest. The call to generic authenticity is a useful call to nothingness, a warming abstraction which is is nothing more than a vacant space for marketeers. The sibling of “effortlessly drinkable” when you think about it. This is where we are. Craft beer has long abandoned the firmer footholds of traditional techniques and smaller scale* – but will current welcome interest in Czech lager and perhaps a building upwards blip in English cask now act as a counterweight to the mess big craft has made of itself? If so, isn’t there a better word then authenticity? Perhaps credible. A credible rendition of something is a simple direct take – in the X=Y sense – without adding any intermediate generic analytical steps. I’d much rather have a credible take on a Světlý Ležák than an authentic one. Must now consider the other applications for the word in the beer world.

Finally, Matthew has written a personal essay about the pubs of his hometown of Lincoln and how his parents’ divorce when we was a teen affected his relationship them. To do that, he visits his Mum to spend a day about town:

The day starts off well. Mum has a hairdresser’s appointment on the other side of town and has offered me a lift. This means I have to leave early, burdening me with an extra hour to kill before the pubs open. No matter, I thought, this would give me a rare opportunity to play tourist in my birthplace. Mum, however, is running late, so puts her foot down. She banks hard down a side street, hitting 40 in a 20 zone. I grip my seat, before reassuring myself that she has spent her entire life driving on these roads, and probably knows them better than anyone. She drops me off close to my first stop and reminds me I need to be home before 7pm. It’s her choir practice this evening and she wants to make sure I’m back in time for tea.

We’ll have to tune in next week to find out if he made it back in time for tea. See, he ends the story in the last pub. I just hope his Mum wasn’t late for choir practice.

Enough! 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.

*A movement perhaps so spent that there’s only one move left – a Hall of Fame for the same approved names to give themselves a good old pat on the back! Will the nominating committee weigh each candidates downsides along with the PR pluses? Will “Sex for Sam” be to this HOF be what the steriod era is to another? If not, what is the committee doing? Something authentic perhaps.
**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 (132) rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (930) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,483) hovering somewhere well above my largely ignored Instagram (160), crap Threads (52) with Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear.

Fine… The Dog Days Of Summer Beery News Notes Have Begun

Is it me? It’s not you… is it? No, it’s beer. When beer sales peak, the news gets a bit sleepy or at least played out as expected. LCBO strike got settled. Beer in Canada is still expensive. Biden stepped aside. The French fascists were humilated… again. Sure, the back channel comments about the winding up of GBH continue to flow in – but nothing I would share to you lot. Some write for pay. Me, I write for gossip. I think Martin captured the zeitgeist of the week perfectly with this image above from his trip to take in the delights of the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Yarm.

Which leads to the question of the week, as posed by Stan on Monday when he responded to my comment last week that I think of him as my ever absent desk editor:

I am embarrassed, flattered, and a little surprised (perhaps skeptical) by the idea he does the sifting for me. The takeaway, to his credit, is a reminder of something all writers should remember: who the heck they think they are writing for.

Who or what do you write for? The reader? The commissioning editor? The next commissioning editor? The bills? The long dead relative who told you that you’d never amount to anything? I joke about things but I really have only been writing for myself for years. The beer trade is a benign sideshow that lets me explore ideas in an innocuous way. Ideas about life, business, quality, ethics… the whole shebang. It’s all right there. By the way, did you know a shebang was a rough hut of the Civil War era or a frontier settler? Me neither. One has to be careful about certain words.

Speaking of words, Jordan was out there recently wandering lonely as a cloud, not hunting out daffodils so much as dandelions to do some unpacking, dissecting and extractions to ‘splain a thing or two:

Dandelion has GLVs (hexenol), but that is to be expected since it has green leaves. It’s complex in that the different parts of the plant have their own properties. Harold McGee refers to the component smells as “light, fresh, and watery,” but we’re thinking about the entirety of the palate and not just the aroma. In terms of aroma, we have some of the same makeup as clover. Phenylethanol and benzaldehyde. There’s also Nerolidol, which is slightly woody and barky, which makes sense when you think of the rigidity of the stem. When the stem breaks, the dandelion’s defense method is to secrete latex, which is found mostly in the root system of the plant. The latex is not only bitter, but alkaloid, and polyphenolic. If you pick a dandelion to hold under someone’s chin, you’re going to get aroma from both the flower and the stem.

Yes, yes… outside of the Greater Toronto Area kids used buttercups to hold to a chins. But the point is made. There is science right there. Smelly tasty science. Yes, there. And there as well…. ‘s’tru’. Even if “…phenylethanol and benzaldehyde… There’s also Nerolidol… “ sounds like a particularly challenging point in a Gilbert and Sullivan libretto.

Before the doors close, GBH published an interesting story by Yolanda Evans on the practice of giving “libation” globally and also particularly in Black American culture:

“I think hip-hop just popularized [libations] in a way where we were given the language to talk about the celebrations of life that maybe we didn’t have before,” says Gates. “It’s not specific to a particular generation—hip-hop only happened 50 years ago, while we’ve been in this country for centuries,” she adds. In some ways, the genre transformed the ritual from a private and personal thing to an act so popular it eventually became removed from its roots—eventually, people everywhere, and especially in the African-American community, would pour one out for their homies without knowing they’re performing an old boozy ritual with roots that go back several thousands of years.

The piece expands much on the 2015 article in VinePair and, for me, it’s an interesting exploration a familiar thing because we Highland Scots do it, too. But it’s part of what my Reverend father would call the greater “heedrum hodrum” aka the pre-Christian rituals that hang on. But in that context it’s not so much about remembrance as thinning the ether between here and there, now and then. Want to have a moment with Grannie to share a thought? Pour a little of the good stuff on the ground.

Tasting note of the week: “…distressingly grey…”

Speaking of VinePair, David Jesudason wrote an interesting piece for that fine journal in which his powers are on full display. I love how he places himself in stories, rejecting that more formulaic approach that we suffer along with too often. Consider this passage:

He’s all for mixing Guinness when done well but prefers to use bottled Guinness over widget beer cans or draft kegs in pubs for logistic reasons, such as lower carbonation. “Bottled Guinness has a different bite, of course,” he adds. When I press-gang Gaurav Khanna, the publican at the desi pub Gladstone in south London, into mixing numerous Guinness with soft drinks, he at first struggles with wastage caused by the stout’s carbonation. After a few pints mixed with Irn-Bru and some Gonsters, though, he nailed it. (At the end of the session we had to negotiate hard over my tab because we lost count of the amount of Guinness that was “tasted,” drunk or discarded.)

But no mention of stout and port, 2012’s sensation. Why?

News out of the UK related to the affirmation of the new government’s intention to impliment its predecessor’s public venue protection standards in Martyn’s law. Sarah Neish in The Drinks Business shared the likely implications for pubs and other parts of the UK hospitality industry:

… premises are unlikely to be expected to undertake physical alterations or fork out for additional equipment… measures are expected to include: Evacuation – how to get people out of the building; Invacuation – how to bring people into the premises to keep them safe or how to move them to safe parts of the building; Lockdown – how to secure the premises against attackers, e.g. locking doors, closing shutters and using barriers to prevent access; and Communication – how to alert staff and customers, and move people away from danger. “Additionally staff will need to understand these measures sufficiently to carry them out if needed,” Grimsey tells db, which suggests there will need to be an element of staff training for front-of-house employees of Standard Tier venues.

Sensible stuff. These are different times. Speak of these times, Katie wrote an explanation of “underconsumption core” this week in her newsletter The Gulp, a concept which may explain my dedicate use of a dull manual rotary lawnmower:

Underconsumption core exists because even the most exuberant of haulfluencers are starting to feel the constrictions of what is basically a national money shortage. When Broccoli is £1.20 a head in Lidl (one pound twenty pence!! for broccoli!!), there are many other things that have to get cut from our monthly budgets. Nights out become more infrequent. Takeaways become frozen pizzas. Beer turns into slabs of whatever tinnies are on offer at Tesco. We do what we can to keep ourselves afloat when the weekly shop increases by more than 20% over a year.

Reality. It may be a variation on another thing – the return to basic beer. Don’t tell Forbes, by the way, which published a piece by one of the 198,349 beer columnists (no, not AI generated at all, no way) they seem to have on the payroll that offered this astounding statement:

Researchers highlighted the increasing popularity of craft beer and the emergence of more independent breweries, reflecting evolving consumer preferences, especially among younger consumers of legal drinking age in local markets. These breweries are often at the forefront of innovation, offering more flavors and styles that appeal particularly to millennials and Generation Z.

Right. Back on planet Earth, when someone not really at the core of a scene like the former style director of Esquire, Charlie Teasdale, takes the time to give craft beer a mocking kick it is starting to feel like the proper response is, what… pity?*

… like supporting a football team through a massive, slightly grubby commercial takeover, I stayed the course. I never wavered in my dedication to stupidly named pale ales and unorthodox beers. Even a jug of pseudo-craft – a beer brewed by a corporate outfit but marketed as a local endeavour – was better than, say, a Moretti or a Heineken. They were for drinkers, and I was a gourmand.

VinePair may well have gone next level… again, joining this latest pile-on according to Maggie Hennessy. And whereas Mr. Teasdale has moved back to popular lagers, Ms. H is touting something called “lifestyle” beer but mainly to beat the word “hipster” wtith a very big stick… over and over.** Strike me as all a bit of excessively early liminal labeling syndrome. Perhaps best to leave this phenomenon alone until it all settles down a bit and clarifies. By contrast, Courtney Iseman slides a more deftly phased zing in the larger context of her very comprehnensive survey of the use of rice by better brewers:

That industry maturation, and the decreased pressures of toxic fandom—no one’s boycotting your brewery anymore if you sell shares to a corporate overlord, nor if you put rice in your beer—has allowed craft brewers more freedom to find a place for the grain.

Toxic fandom! We are now a long way from the “beer community” fibbery. [Note: as stated in the story, it was the craft brewers were the ones who shit on rice but now it’s us beer buyers who were being toxic for taking up the brewers’s PR (touted by beer writers) as the great cause.] Ron don’t care. Ron is spending much of the month with family in South America. He is sending in posts from the field that look like he’s tied up the radio operator and highjacked a distant railway station deep inland, relying on only direct current and Morse Code to send out terse missives like this one entitled “Loving Santiago“:

The kids, too. We get to ride the metro everywhere. They drink beer, I drink pisco sour. We get to shiver together in the unheated pubs. It’s like being back in the 1970s. But in a good way. Montevideo tomorrow.

That’s the whole post? So unRon, Ron is being. Where the hell are the breakfast buffet photos, Ron?!?!?!

Speaking of a buffet, Rachel Hendry has studied the world of (call them what you will) thin bits of potato fried in oil and shared the extensive results in Pellicle this week. I particularly like the polite “don’t be an arsehole” notice to readers:

I have then chosen ten styles and flavours to explore within each section, with more precise pairings given as examples for each. I have defined crisps as a potato or potato adjacent snack that tends to be found behind the bar or in the crisp aisles of a shop, and I have defined beer styles as you might see indicated on the list displayed in a pub or taproom. There is only so much one woman can cover and I have forgiven myself for the detail and genres missed. I trust you to have the grace to forgive me, too.

And… when did PBR become hipster cool? I was interested for what I consider pre-hipster reasons in 2006. This 2014 HuffPost article traces the story… with graphs!

…something changed, and PBR was suddenly the hipster’s choice at bars and barbecues everywhere. Sales jumped by 20.3 percent in 2009 and continued to rise steadily over the next few years, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights. By 2013, Americans drank more than 90 million gallons of PBR, according to data from Euromonitor, which is nearly 200 percent more than they did in 2004.

“Rise Steadily” is one of those hints that the tipping point people can just remain seated.

Fine. That is it. And with that this and those other thats too … now we roll the credits… well, 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 on the job each and every Monday. 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 soon celebrating a 10th anniversary… or really a 9 1/2th given the timeline . 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.

*h/t The Tand.
**Stan gave sound advice (see what I did there?): “I think the relationship, if there is one, between hip and hipster has me confused. Were the bike messengers who drank PBR hip, hipsters, or something else? What PBR itself ever hip?“
***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 (132) rising up to maybe… probably… pass Mastodon (932) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,485) hovering somewhere well above my largely ignored Instagram (160), crap Threads (52) with Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear.

The Slightly More Exciting But Definitely Final Beery News Notes For January 2024

Can you believe this month? What a month, you know, as months go. Last week it was in the -20C range with the wind chill but now it looks like we are preparing for spring. Nutso. Just remembered I planted tulip bulbs out there in the fall. Hope the squirrels enjoy them. What’s that? You don’t care about that and want some beer news? Let’s go!

Perhaps unexpectedly or at least unusually for me, a listicle of sorts right off the top. This week VinePair published a very interesting article which caught me eye. It proposed a list of “The Most Overrated Beer Styles” in which they included the following – hazy IPAs; heavily fruited smoothie beers; New Zealand pilsners; sweet, opaque double IPAs; non-alcoholic beers; lactose-heavy beers; pastry stouts, kettle sours, and sour IPAs. Notice something? I would suggest that these are also the most heavily promoted styles of beer over the last few years. This is not a list of obscure faddy fan favourites. This is sorta basically something like the US Brewers Association’s recommended focus in model business plan 2018-present. It is, isn’t it. “Brew these and you will hit the ground running!” Hmm. Isn’t that a little problematic?

Another interesting but problematico trendo to note – fewer people want malting barley:

Beer sales in the United States declined in 2023, and that, combined with a robust supply of barley on hand has resulted in a decreased demand for malting barley, Mark Black, Malteurop North American procurement and trial manager, told farmers… Younger people are drinking seltzer, mixed drinks and other liquors instead of beer, said Black, who works for Malteurop in Great Falls, Montana. Draught beer sales have decreased by as much as 20% and during the first half of 2023, craft beer sales dropped by 2% and commercial beer sales by 3%, he said. Malteurop had not yet offered farmers 2024 contracts as of Jan. 16, 2024, but that could happen “any day,” Black said on Jan. 16.

Whatever is going on… has gone on… it doesn’t seem to be really about Dry January. This was made even clearer by a comment made by Richard Hughes, head of the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility as reported in The Telegraph this week:

Clean-living youngsters threaten to blow a multibillion-pound hole in public finances as alcohol and tobacco tax income declines, the head of the spending watchdog has warned. Richard Hughes, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), has questioned whether assumptions about future tax income from what are often dubbed “sin taxes” are realistic. He told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee: “There are some bits of the tax system which are themselves not sustainable. In a few decades’ time we won’t collect any fuel duty because every car will be electric, and they don’t pay any fuel duty. “Nowadays, you have to ask whether young people are drinking and smoking enough for us to be collecting alcohol and tobacco duties at the current rate that we are.”

Wow. See also this story in The Guardian which leads one to consider how perhaps those pesky sober kids are further undermining the ecomomics of concert venues. With that as the background context, in their monthly newsletter Boak and Bailey asked about what they frame as a “healthy beer culture”:

When it comes to beer styles, despite the dominance of c.4% hazy pale ales, we reckon we could go out this afternoon and find decent, locally-brewed versions of almost any beer style we fancy, from best bitter to Rauchbier. If it feels unhealthy, despite all that, perhaps it’s down to how the direction of travel skews our perceptions. A growing scene feels healthier than one that’s consolidating, or shrinking, even if what’s left is objectively better (terms and conditions apply) than at any point in the preceding 70 or so years.

According to those sorts of considerations, I probably have never lived in a healthy beer culture. The selection just isn’t there. Which is fine. The considerations appear to be what you might find in a larger city than the one I live in. Plus brewery closing and consolidations give a bit of a tone to the whole experience. And perhaps the concept really doesn’t translate well as English-speaking Canadians are far more excited by the retro doughnuts at Timmies than any innovations in beer.

Perhaps considering a Dutchie himself, Jordan wrote somewhat relatedly about being an observer also looking for a healthy beer culture while at a no- lo-alc beer fest:

Entering the festival, I noticed something that bothered me: with a small amount of alcohol on board, a crowd undulates. There is a little flux to the crowd, and pathways form as people try to get to the booths. I would attribute this to the slight loosening quality alcohol has and the urgency of people wanting to use up their tickets. Because of that people develop an awareness of their surroundings. In this instance, people stood firmly planted and clear-eyed and generally didn’t get out of each other’s way. For the most part, they talked to the people they showed up with. There was live music, but not much toe tapping. It reminded me of nothing so much as a United Church Tea Social; a genre of social activity that certainly provides fellowship but infrequently gets referred to as a banger. It led me to wonder, “What is the purpose of a beer festival?”

And Ron was also waxing anthorpological but also in a sorta retro doughnut way when he looked back to what people in 1970 thought the futre fifty years out looked like for brewing:

…neither of those predictions turned out to be true. Whitbread’s ill-fated Luton plant probably wasn’t the best example of a new brewery to pick. Bass Charrington genuinely had a plan of serving the whole of the UK from just two breweries. Neither did concentrated wort factories appear. So, 100% miss in the first paragraph. The other extreme – small, local continuous fermentation plants – didn’t happen, either. Mostly because continuous fermentation couldn’t be got to work. At least, it couldn’t be made to produce beer people actually wanted to drink.

One thing happened this week that folk in 1970’s UK brewing industry may well have assumed would have been gone long before 2024. Carlsberg Marstons is mothballing the Burton Union system that had been been used less and less in recent years. As Ed reported:

I used to work with an ex-Marston’s head brewer. Even in his time most Pedigree was brewed in stainless fermenters. They kept the unions for yeast propagation but did use the beer too. Owd Roger was the only beer made entirely in the unions as they’re the smallest fermenters.

Jessica Mason summarized the situation: “The move by CMBC has been cited as a bid to cut costs, along with the decline of the cask ale market meaning that brewing using them no longer makes fiscal sense, is reportedly a way for the brewing giant to move with the times.” Plenty of outcry – but what is to be done with outdated tech? Is there anyone lobbying for the return of the “ponto” system? Nope. “Inevitable” says The Mudge. One of the things small scale brewers can do is replicate mini-systems like the one operating Burton Union left (we are told) that can be found at California’s Firestone Walker. It would be interesting to know if that is effectively subsidized by other forms of production.

On the upside, Jeff published a lovely photo essay of his wanderings around U Fleků in Prague and a bit of the Old Town neighborhood that surrounds it including the clickable one right there to the right. Next door, almost… not really, Will Hawkes wrote about Störtebeker Braumanufaktur for Pellicle this week:

This is a North German brewery, an East Germany brewery, a Hanseatic brewery, a brewery right on the edge of Germany—and yet, in a nation where per capita beer consumption has been falling for years, it is remarkably successful, having tripled production to 350,000 hectolitres (close to 62 million pints) in the past decade. From packaging to non-alcoholic beer, Störtebeker is as confident and innovative as many German breweries are conservative.

Speaking of the new, there’s exciting archaeological news out of the studies from the recently announced findings of a BCE Ecuadorian civilization. Along wih canals and public urban architecture, they found brewing as explained by James Evison in TDB:

…it is believed that jugs discovered were used to consume “chicha”, a type of sweet beer. The beer, which has a full name of Chicha de jora, is a corn beer which is prepared by germinating maize, extracting the malt sugars and boiling the wort, like a traditional barley beer, and then fermenting it in large vessels. These were traditionally large pieces of eathenware, and would be fermented for several days before consumption.

You know and I know that I do mention wine regularly. And not only because the Pope said so. No, even as a good Scots Presbyterian I regularly look to learn more and more from wine writers including from Jancis Robinson’s books and opinion pieces. And this review posted at her website of an unexpected restaurant experience really struck me as a warm and thoughtful bit of review writing:

Named after a city in the province of Shanxi, north China, the restaurant offers a broad window frontage (one panel of which had been smashed when I lunched there recently), and a sign for Hungry Panda riders (the Chinese delivery service) of which at least a dozen came in to collect their orders while I was there. The interior of the restaurant is long, deep and slightly more modern and comfortable than many in Chinatown. Although it was only 12.30 pm, it was already crowded with many Asians of whom the majority appear to be smartly dressed young women. The waiting staff are also young and, again unlike too many of their counterparts in Chinatown, smiling, extremely charming and willing to communicate.

More positivity in the Reuters report that the Austrian Beer Party is aiming at gaining a seat in upcoming parliamentary elections:

It ran in the last parliamentary election in 2019 and secured just 0.1% of the vote but its leader Dominik Wlazny, a 37-year-old doctor and rock musician with the stage name Marco Pogo, came third in 2022’s presidential election with 8.3%. To enter parliament, a party needs 4% of the vote… The Beer Party’s egalitarian message also appeals to left-wing voters: the leader of the opposition Social Democrats, Andreas Babler, has said he voted for Wlazny in the last presidential election.

Just for Stan: “16th Century Astronomer Tycho Brahe Had a Drunken Pet Moose“!

And some good health news from Polkville aka The Hammer where the Drunk Polkaroo discusses not being quite as drunk:

Somehow, fate intervened again, and I was let go from a toxic, degenerate workplace that had helped me manifest the very worst of who I was each and every day, a path leading me to an early end and a decidedly tarnished one at that. I took a few weeks this summer to just be, to let go of a lot of the internal self hatred that often manifested itself in way too many drinks and seek perhaps a new path forward. I found a job that was exactly what I needed, a place where my most valuable asset was myself and slowly began to climb up and poke my head out of the hole I had created over the last half decade. I felt that it was time to find a way to change my own relationship with this character I had created and when Covid finally came calling on December 9th, 2023, I put down my phone, my glass and stopped the tap for the first time in 8 years.

Good. Really good. We see a fair number of people in beer that are not doing well and the culture… well, the culture isn’t exactly about interventions… is it. Happily, we have watched Norm get healthy after a very close call. My own issues were not related to my innards so much as blowing out my knee and all the carbs. I’ve now lost over 10% of my total weight as I work away at being better to myself. Others haven’t been so lucky. All the best for the Polk as he goes forward. This stuff isn’t just messing around.

Finally and somewhat to the contrary (even if also in the eastern Lake Erie-Niagara-western Lake Ontario zone as Polkalopolis), your moment of zen from last Sunday night’s NFL game between the Bills and the Chiefs. Note: the gentleman featured in this excellent New York Post (…via USA Today via Reuters…) photo is (i) a pro football player himself as a Philadelphia Eagle, (ii) the brother of one of the stars of Kansas City Chiefs, the visiting teams but (iii) he still adopted the natural plumage behaviours of the fan base of the home team, the Buffalo Bills. Already a contender for the best beer photo of 2024.*

There. Sweet product placement, too. That’s it for now. So once again… roll the credits… well, the credits, the stats the recommends and the footnotes. There is a lot going on down here and, remember, ye who read this far down, look to see if I have edited these closing credits and endnotes (as I always do), you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections. This week’s update on my emotional rankings? Facebook still in first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (up one to 113 rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (static at 911) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,438 – another week with a gain!) hovering somewhere above or around my largely ignored Instagram (creeping – literally – down to 164), with sorta unexpectly crap Threads (43) and not at all unexpectedly bad Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence of mine just sitting there. I now have admitted my dispair for Mastodon in terms of beer chat and accept that BlueSky is the leader in “the race to replace” Twex. Even so and all in all, while it is #Gardening Mastodon that still wins, I still include these links to these good folk over there waiting to discuss beer with you:

And remember to check the blogs, newsletters and even podcasts (really? barely! This era’s 8-track tapes!) to stay on top of things including the proud and public and certainly more weekly recommendations in the New Year from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan back at his spot for 2024 on Mondays. Look at me – I forgot to link to Lew’s podcast. Fixed. 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 long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast… but also seems to be losing steam. And there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube and remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

*You may also play “Where’s Waldo” with Taylor Swift in the same image. She may be in there.

An Irritable If Not Confused And Perhaps For Once Even Cranky Set Of Beery News Notes This Week

It’s been another week without frost. It’s going to be a short winter if this keeps up. Garlic still is stilling in a big pot waiting for the necessary chill coming this weekend, sorta the bookend to maple syrup time in the spring. Going to get 500 in the ground this year… but when? It’s the not knowing that gets you on edge. Too early and they sprout. Too late and they suffer. Yet I checked the photos on Facebook… and last year I planted my garlic another three or four weeks from now. What’s that about?

Enough of that! You are here for the beer. First up, Stan had a great linkfest on Monday and especially made pointed comment on the news in circulation on the fate that hops may face from climate change… aka global warming:

I am all for anything that draws attention to what global warming is doing to the planet, although, quite honestly, there are more and larger disasters looming than the demise of certain hop varieties. Even the ones I love. But I do wish the authors had acknowledged there are more agronomically vigorous cultivars available. And that there are new ones on the way. Now is the time for brewers to consider using them. More of my thoughts in the most recent Hop Queries.

You know I enjoy Hop Queries, probably the best beer newsletter out there. Here’s that update he mentioned. News you can trust. Speaking of which, there was a bit of an interesting slag this week in The Guardian‘s piece on fancy schmancy cider (the type we all like), a bit of a primer that takes a sideswipe in passing:

…they cost more than the vast majority of ciders on the supermarket shelves, although they’re still generally cheaper than natural wines, which they often resemble in packaging and marketing style. In fact, cider is more like wine from the point of view of having a single annual harvest and (pét nats aside) the time it takes to produce a bottle, which is certainly much longer than beer. As a result, producers have generally gone down the artisanal, rather than the craft beer route. They’re also attempting to raise cider’s profile by holding “salons”, or live consumer events, which are a mixture of tastings and talks.

My oh my: “gone down the artisanal, rather than the craft beer route“!!! I love how I don’t exactly know what is meant but, yes, we know what is meant. An actual craft. What craft beer lacks. Perhaps not all that dissimilar is the wine taverns of Vienna, as discussed this week at the Beeb:

Heurigen, the rustic winery-run taverns showing off their aromatic white wines around wooden tables set under grape arbors and laden with traditional Austrian fare that might include schnitzel and blood sausage, always potato salad and ham and a variety of savory cheesy spreads to go with dark sourdough bread. Paris might have its bars du vin, Rome its enotecas. But Vienna’s relationship to wine (and wine-friendly food) is unique. The Austrian capital is the only major European metropolis with a designated wine-growing area within its city limits, counting more than 600 producers on some 1,700 acres of vineyards. “Our city’s long viticultural history goes back to the time of the Celts and the Romans,” explained Ilse Heigerth, my guide in Vienna and a city historian.

I just saw a repeat of a Rick Stein’s Long Weekend shot in Vienna and he corroborated the whole thing. Staying in the centro-Euro, Martin reported on a trip to Belgrade, not a locale high on my list for my wanderings ways – and I am apparently not alone:

These foreign posts don’t get a lot of views because a) No-one else has been there and b) No-one else intends to go there. Oddly, it’s the unsung towns that get the most views. But in the last week I’ve referred to three posts from Ron, Duncan and the European Bar Guide folk and I’m sure if I live long enough my posts on Cuban pubs will be useful to someone, though possibly not the nice American lady we met last week who’s visiting every country in the world (except Cuba, obvs). We did eventually find the more ornate bits of Belgrade, but Mrs RM was more interested in photos of the trams.

Speaking of Ron Pattinson, he’s gone back in time again to the 1970s to the world of romance that was his youth:

As we were guests at the hotel, the pints didn’t need to stop at closing time. When I was young, opportunities for pints after 11 PM were as rare as flamingos in Leeds. I never passed them up. Which is a problem when you’ve paced yourself to end at “normal” closing time. I wasn’t feeling great when I rose after far too few hours’ sleep. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me eating the full English that I’d paid for. On the way back to Newark, we stopped at a Kimberley pub for a few pints. I was a bit overenthusiastic, as I rarely got to drink their beer. I was already feeling a bit unwell when we picked up the hitchhiker. About 10 minutes later I really needed to spew. Being considerate, I pushed past the hitcher, opened the rear door and puked on the road. What a hero I was.

Gary – perhaps more properly – neatly added to a space that is too often left alone, temperance drinking prior to US prohibition. Three posts were added to the whole this week on the topic of a church-run dispensery operated in Raleigh, North Carolina from 1904 to 1907 by the members of the local clergy with the blessing of the City government:

The Raleigh experiment formed part of a larger plan in parts of the South to substitute a municipally-run alcohol dispensary for the swing-door saloon of commerce… It competed with other liquor-control plans, such as outright prohibition and so-called high license. High here referred to the cost of the licence to sell liquor. A state might feature examples of all these: normal license, high license, local prohibition, and dispensary.

Someone is getting still the good word one way or another as we read that even the Finns… the FINNS(!) are cutting back:

During the third quarter, beverage companies sold 10.4 million litres less beer than in Q3 2022. The federation based the figures on sales data from its members: Hartwall, MBH Breweries, Momentin Group, Olvi, Red Bull and Sinebrychoff. Year-on-year, Q3 sales of all alcoholic libations sold by its members fell by 2.4 percent, while sales of alcohol-free drinks were also down, by 6.8 percent.

Well at least there is that. David Jesudason has written another great article for Pellicle, this time on the point of those things often written around but never as directly defined, the UK micro-pub as illustrated by the inhabitants of The Shirker’s Rest:

While the others help with the administration and publicity of the pub, James is the one that gets his hands dirty and provides the graft—he built the bar with a friend called Pete Lyons and created the beer boards. He also provides the (slightly deadpan) personality. At the bar is a notebook called James’s Book of Sayings which includes his recurring requests for customers to slide the toilet door closed, look at the boards to see what’s on offer—the keg badges are not easily viewed—and for Ben not to crowd his cellar with too much beer.

And Alistair Reece wrote a good piece on how a visit to one Virginia cider maker got him thinking about the utility of the word “house”:

Given their oenological background, Will lamented that the term “house” has come to mean the most basic wine on offer, something almost cheap and cheerful, but decidedly not excellent. His aim with House Cider is to be the exact opposite, to be the very best that Troddenvale puts out, and it is a magnificent cider, easily up there with the best being made in Virginia today, no I didn’t take notes, I was too busy enjoying it. This got me thinking about the concept of “house” products when it comes to beer. We quite often use the term “house beer” in homebrewing circles to refer to something that we brew regularly, but I don’t recall a brewery, at least not in my neck of the woods, hanging their entire reputation as a brewery on a single “house” beer. Is it perhaps that modern beer drinkers are constantly on the hunt for the new, or is it a case of fear of missing out by not pushing every possible style out the door in case the crowds choose to go somewhere else?

I wonder if they are familiar with the book The Cider House Rules by John Irving which was made into a movie I never watched in 1999. But the idea of a set of governing principles that, according to that Wikipedia summary, sorta fits tthe disfunctions of craft beer nicely:

The name “The Cider House Rules” refers to the list of rules that migrant workers are supposed to follow at the Ocean View Orchards. However, none of them can read, and they are completely unaware of the rules – which have been posted for years.

Sort of related is this message and accompanying clickable image from BlueSky, shared in whole for those without access:

Cask beer write up in heavy metal magazine by Courtney Iseman? Yeah, it’s been kinda a weird year for cask beer. Ups and downs. This one is a big up. Love it.

I like the honesty that US “cask beer’s growth is glacial” but apparently there according to those interviewed by Iseman. Is anyone seeing this on the ground as a consumer? If so where?

Note: Andreas shared information on the beer halls of Munich you might want to visit next time you’re there 150 years ago:

The sheer number of beer halls and restaurants made the area around Unter den Linden/Friedrichstraße/Leipziger Straße the “entertainment quarter” of old Berlin. They even got nicknames: “Unter den Linden” was “Laufstraße” (walking street), Leipziger Straße was “Kaufstraße” (shopping street), while Friedrichstraße was “Saufstraße” (boozing street).

One does not know what to make of certain statements when the fact in question is a couple of minutes on Google away:

FYI: “Brazilian-Germans held slaves (a fact that has been clearly demonstrated) but… Germanophone authors… presented a uniform image of Germans as masters, one that rendered slavery an aspect of the civilizing narrative of German settlement in Brazil.”

What else is true if you can’t get that right? One wonders. And the NAGBW awards were announced this week and – again – we do note the similar themes and similar candidates… but this time with also some real gaps in this subset. Having been a judge in the past, you don’t really want to name names in these things especially now given (i) the fragile state of it all as Jeff noted and (ii) the majority of the uninvolved beer writing that does not get itself self-nominated so, you know, it’s all a bit la crème du milieu… but really. For example, there’s no award or even a mention for David Jesudason’s book Desi Pubs the best book of the year!?!* Seriously? And third and an honourable mention for his other submissions? Please.

Aaaaaannnd… that’s it. I have to tend to other things. Still more to get out of – and into – the garden before the freeze snaps. That zucchini is growing by my front step even as I write this. Look at it! What an odd year. Pray for them and me next Sunday night, just a week before Halloween when the next steep drop of the mercury is due. If we are lucky and hold off the frozen air I am going to go out on the big night as Jack and the Bean Stalk with my own 12 foot tall potted pole beans by my side.

As per always and forever, you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections. I have yet another update on the rankings. TweX is now really starting to drop in the standings. I am deleting follows there more and more in favour of mirroring accounts set up by favourite voices elsewhere. Now, for me Facebook is clearly first (given especially as it is focused on my friends and family) then we have BlueSky rising up to sit in a tie with Mastodon then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex** hovering somewhere above or around Instagram with Threads and Substack Notes really dragging – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence just sitting there. Seven apps plus this my blog! I may be multi and legion and all that but I do have priorities and seem to be keeping them in a proper row. All in all, I still am rooting for the voices on the elephant-like Mastodon, like these ones just below discussing beer, even though it is #Gardening Mastodon that really wins:

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts (barely!) and even newsletters to stay on top of things including the proud and public and certainly 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 much more occassional but always 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. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast… but also seems to be losing steam. And there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube and remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

*I even reached out already and shared my thoughts. Also see above, of course.
**Gary shall turn off the lights at X unless it’s done to him first. I judge not.

The Dubious Thursday Beery News Notes For That Great Twitter Exodus

It’s been crazy out there. Election results are in. What the heck happened, other than we all have a new leader? And we say the end of that freakish warm streak that saw the garlic sitting around for an extra month before I got it in the ground. And Bills even lost to the Jets. My buddy Ben was there, went hard.. and then suffered. The beer was both a good choice and not maybe such a good choice. I understand this is in fact not live action footage from later that night. But it might be similar. Me, I am too old to get up to stuff like this.

What’s up? Brewery altitude, that’s what!* That was in fact a new subject raised this week. A new one in Bavaria at 2,244m it will be the highest brewery in Europe. Lion Stout was also brewed at height in Sri Lanka… until it wasn’t:

They don’t any more, having transferred down to sea level, but they and all the other high-altitude breweries in British India, all over 2,000 metres up, in the Himalayan foothills and the Nilgiri Hills in the south, had the same problem, and had to do 3-hour boils of the wort.

I’d be needing the meters above sea level listed on every can of beer I buy now. Aaaannnnd what else? Brewdog. Not again. Sells its beer in Qatar through the state. Set to make zillions broadcasting the World Cup in its pubs. And then pretends to take the high road. I know no one cares as we’ve all been here before but the moments need to be recorded because otherwise no one would believe it. Plus – the beer may well suck as well.

Speaking of questionable foreign marketplaces, this is an interesting chart describing the rise and fall of wine consumption in China from 1995 to 2021. Made me wonder what’s up with the beer market but you have to cut through this sort of PR inflected haze to determine what is really happening:

Beer sales are declining in China, but there is still room for expansion in the higher end of the market. And while Budweiser’s brand identity in the U.S. is irredeemably low end, in China the idea of luxury Bud is completely marketable.

The Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture issued a report on beer in China back in January 2022 which indicated that the beer market was tracking that of wine, peaking a year later in 2018. Interesting that the USDA focuses on Covid-19 as the cause of the retraction and not general economic contraction.

And Stan unpacked the far more localized retraction of Lost Abbey that I mentioned last week and, as per usual, had more intelligent and better informed observations:

Lost Abbey made its way into pretty much every trade-related conversation I had after their right-sizing story posted Tuesday. Whether the people I was speaking with were at small breweries content to remain small, at somewhat larger (but not really large) ones in the midst if figuring out how large they should be, or hop vendors who sure as shootin’ need to know how their customers are doing, the news was not shocking.

Speaking of tough economic times, Boak and Bailey wrote some interesting thoughts on the effects the recession has had on the value of each pint:

… if you’ve gone to the pub intending to drink, say, three pints, because that’s what the weekly budget will permit, you want each one to be at least decent. Perfect, really… These are challenging times all round, with energy prices, staff shortages and poor quality blue roll. Beer businesses are popping out of existence, or getting mothballed, left, right and centre… Well, it’s never the right time to be a dick about these things, but it’s also perfectly reasonable to expect a £5+ luxury – that’s what a pint has become – to spark joy. Pubs which can continue to provide that will do better business in the coming months.

When you go, you want the joy. Like Ron who explained the experience of going to a beer event of some sort in Brazil which, as usual, reads like a mid-century American theatre piece, perhaps by Tennessee Williams:

I bump into Dick Cantwell outside the hotel. He tells me that the event has been delayed until 6 pm.
“Someone just told me it’s seven.”
“The WhatsApp group says six.” Dick says.
My money is on nothing happening until 19:30. At the very earliest.
I get back to the other hotel at 18:30. Obviously, fuck all is happening. We are in Brazil, after all. I spot Gordon and we idle up to the bar. We get stuck into cocktails. I go for the safe Caipirinha option. While Gordon’s G&T comes out orange. With star fruit in it.

Sounds magic. Until the rains came. And the political rioting. Speaking of being on the move, this was the week that the long march from #BeerTwitter to #BeerMastodon really began in earnest. I know that because I first saw the link to Ron’s story on the new world order and not on Twitter. This now is clearly the future. Still, in his weekly Sunday newsletter, Jeff looked back over his shoulder:**

Welcome to Twitter Death Watch, week two! For those of you who aren’t Twitter users, it was an exciting week, as Elon Musk fired much of the staff, threatened advertisers, and complained constantly and bitterly, making me wonder if the service may really go kablooey.

Me, I look forward – but it is clear people are scrambling. While those shy bloggers hiding in subscription only newsletters are sending emails asking me if I want to join a private chat space they run (Ed.: Super Creeeeepy!!!) #BeerMastodon looks like it may well put the “pub” back in public discourse. Will cheap claims to expertise hold the same sway in a multi-channel universe?

Finally… BREAKING: In an other step in a series including beer words have no meaning and beer styles have no meaning we have brewing itself now has no meaning.*** Yes, expertise in beer is a wonderful thing. The less you know the more profound it is.

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

*Dad joke.
**Entirely ignoring Biblical advice!!!
***And beer writing is not even about beer any more. A good piece of writing but a very odd place to publish it.

The Fascinating If Not Captivating Beery News Notes For November’s Start

November. Yippee, November! No one ever said that. Maybe if you were born on the first of November. Or in New Zealand. A New Zealander born on the first of November might be feeling they hit the jackpot, come to think of it. DSL might, too. Speaking of which, the Austrian Beer Party is saying yippee or whatever it is you say thereabouts. Still at 10% in the polls, down from 13% a month ago but no joke:

An upstart satirical party whose flagship policies include an unconditional beer allowance for every citizen and municipal lager fountains has come out of nowhere to win fourth place in national opinion polls. Founded in 2015 by a charismatic punk rock singer, the Beer Party was until very recently a fringe phenomenon in Austrian politics, scraping only 0.1 per cent of the vote at the last parliamentary election in 2019.

What else is up? I need to make this snappy. Things to do. Naps to have. Hmm…. Crisp Malting issued its 2022 Harvest Report which contains some startling observations about the climate:

It was the sixth driest summer on record and the driest since 1995, with just 62% of the usual summer rainfall. Additionally, we also saw more sun than usual at 115% of the 1991-2020 average. As a result of all this weather, it was the earliest barley harvest ever – some fields were cut on June 29^th – and by July 19^th, 70% of the UK winter barley harvest was cut. In the 50s and 60s, this would have been a month later, in August. Harvest in Scotland closed out earlier than usual also, another demonstration of the impact climate is having on our agricultural calendar.

Jings. Word is by 2042, the harvest will take place in 2041 a full twelve weeks before the time of planting. Canada is also having a bumper crop – and seeing higher prices for the wrong reason.

And I’ve come across something I am not sure I’ve seen as much as I thought I might – a review of the Good Beer Guide from Phil Mellows of British Beer Breaks who attended the book launch:

The strength of the Good Beer Guide, and what makes it different from, and in many ways better than, competing guides, is that the people picking the entries are so close to the ground. They know exactly what’s going on with the pub, because they drink in there week in, week out. This is also a weakness. A pub can fall out of favour with these individuals for all kinds of reasons that may be obscure to the occasional visitor. And there must be, it seems to me, a growing pressure on the decision-making resulting from the limit imposed on the number of entries allocated to each county or region.

Economics abounds. Muskoka buys Rally. Bench Brewing and Henderson sorta maybe merging. And Jeff has it right – Ommegang has lost its way. Another sign of the times? Lost Abbey is cutting back:

The Lost Abbey’s co-founder and managing partner Tomme Arthur says the scale-down is an acknowledgment of vastly different market conditions than those of the brewery’s sales heyday seven years ago… Arthur says he hopes that reducing costs, particularly on rent and property taxes, will mean the brewery can maintain its staff of roughly 35 employees. “You can’t get small enough quick enough if you’re trying to protect the flank,” he says.

I’m worried. Not about beer. There will always be beer. I am worried about my problem with Twitter. If we lose Twitter there’s bound to be a new problem for me that will replace my problem with Twitter. I’m having a look at Mastodon but who’s over there? 100% of everyone voted to not “Quit the Twit” in my scientific study. And what will I do without it, without for example good folk going all pointy finger over a history of lambic which is an accusation of all other histories of lambic? I quite like “jeremiads full of invective“… although he’s misspelled jeroboam, hasn’t he. Sad.

Sadder? A thieving beer guzzling monkey in India!

Matty C has also asked a question of verbiage. Specifically the use of Helles:

I’m talking about ‘Helles’, and how it’s become the latest in a stream of buzzwords the lager machine has sacrificed to maintain its youth and vim. But why this particular terminology, and how did it take hold? How accurate are modern brewers’ renditions of this classic Bavarian style? And does what a beer is called really matter, if people are enjoying great lager as a result?

I like my words to mean what they mean and not mean what they don’t mean. Otherwise it can lead to things. Ron found himself lead to things and in a bit of a pickle out and about on the Brazilian beer tourism scene again:

Last full day in Brazil. A bit weird. An election and the clocks changed. Plus everything in the centre of Florianopolis is shut…. It’s going crazy outside. People clearly think Lula has won. I hope that’s fireworks and not gunfire.

I trust it all worked out. Speaking of travel and a bit more sedate sort bit of travel, B+B took us to Cologne, Germany this week and laid down a new law:

We decided on a rule: you need a minimum of three beers per pub on a Kölsch crawl. The first one will taste weird because it isn’t the same as the last you were drinking. You gulp that one down. Get the city scum out of your throat. The second, as you acclimatise, allows you to pick up distinct aromas and flavours. How is it different? Why is it different? The third allows you to appreciate what’s in front of you in its own right, and decide whether you want to turn this into a real session. Or walk on. Because you’re never far from another.

In brewing history this week, Gary highlighted the upcoming 2022 Chicago Brewseum Beer Summit and, elsewhere, @AfricanArchives wrote about a moment in history that I had not heard about – The Battle of Bamber Bridge which saw US soldiers fighting each other in England in 1943… and the local English publicans taking a side:

In 1943 Black American soldiers faced off with white American Military police during World War 2 on British soil. Black American soldiers had to fight their own white American soldiers, while in England, where they were fighting the world war. …when the American Military police found out that their own black soldiers were drinking at the same pubs as white people, they went in to arrest them. The people in the town got mad about that treatment and decided to then turn their pubs into “BLACKS ONLY DRINKING PUBS”

Finally, a less inspiring story came to light just when the blog post was going to the presses. Ben Johnson posted an excellent exposé on one Ontario brewery facing little public condemnation after allegations of sexual harassment:

It is unfortunate then that, when the City of Kitchener recently opened up their Requests for Proposals (RFP) process to find a “non-premier brewery partner” to serve beer at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium Complex and Kitchener Golf Courses, they awarded the contract to Four Fathers Brewing Company in Cambridge. Unfortunate, of course, because in 2018 Four Fathers founder and University of Guelph Professor John Kissick actually was charged with two counts of assault and one count of assault with a weapon. Those charges were ultimately dropped in 2020 when Kissick entered into a peace bond with the party who brought forward the charges, but to craft beer drinkers and any feeling humans who watched video of the (alleged) assault (myself among them) the incident likely left a bad taste in their mouth.

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

This Week’s Jam Packed Most(ly) Fascinating Beery News Notes

How I picture you all…

Here we are. A cooler quieter sort of week. Except for those harvesting. The backyard air conditioning units in the neighbourhood are still. Local schools have finally gotten back to the job of public education after two months of focusing on being the warm evening hangouts of bottle smashing teen… I’ll say it – neerdowells. Which means it will soon be sweater weather. Leaves will soon turn colour. Which makes it time for greater drinks options. Need to finish of that G with the last of the T and get in some brown drinks. Mmmm… brown…. soon. On the other side of the continent, Jon (the oldest beer blogger in the known world) has been obsessing about the local fresh hop ales and exactly how, where and when to get them. Jeff covers the what and why. That’s a sign of the season, too.

Up first this week, The Beer Nut found a beer branded with three unrelated geographical locations this week. Which was great. It also has a “D” in there which might be Danish… so who knows. He also* opened my mind a bit with this post about a thing that he thinks might be a new thing:

Fruit-flavoured sour beer, as brewed by modern craft breweries, is not something I get very excited about. There are a lot of them out there, reflecting how easy they must be to produce in assorted varieties. I like sour beer to be sour and these are very often not sour at all. Nevertheless, my curiosity has been piqued by the sub-genre that Brazilian brewers have made their own: the Catharina sour. Reports from jaded old cynics like myself have been positive, so when a brewery closer to home slapped the label on one of theirs, I was straight out to buy it.

What I would like to know is about process and percentage. How much fruit is added to the base beer, what is the base beer and what’s in the fruity stuff other than fruit. Apparently we can fret about IBUs and SRM hues but no one has any idea what’s in the fruit purée. See… I am allergic to certain surprise preservatives hidden in the sauce at the wholesale level. And it is not just me. Check out what Eoghan wrote this week. Label your beers please.

This week’s craft brewery sell out news really isn’t news:

Beer news: Heineken have bought the 51% of Beavertown Brewery that they did not already own. Was always gonna happen really but that’s another “craft” brewery taken out by the big boys. CEO Logan Plant steps down to become an “advisor”.

Beavertown really sold out when they gave away the 49% subject likely to a shareholder agreement that gave the practical oversight to Heineken. But it likely really sold out when it was created and structured in a way to sell, born as it was at the outset of the “craft loves to sell itself” era. But it really sold out when it was just a brewery as selling breweries has been part of the entire history of brewing as Thales would have predicted.

Beth Demmon has released another edition of Prohibitchin’ – this month focusing on Gabriela Fernandez, host at 1440 AM / 96.9 FM in Napa, podcaster at The Big Sip and host of Latinx State of the Wine Industry Summit:

Using storytelling as the medium to expose would-be wine lovers to the beauty of it, as well as promoting representation within the industry, became paramount. She was already the first Latina producer to be a part of Wine Down Media, the Napa radio station behind her MegaMix morning show, so building a bridge between the local Latino community and the wine community was something already well within her skill set, starting with the very words used to describe wine.

This is an interesting exposé on a UK developer focused on converting old pubs into luxury homes:

A property tycoon is continuing his quest to gentrify London by closing down pubs and other community assets that could make more money as luxury flats. The Junction is one of the only places in south London where you can watch live jazz for free most nights of the week – but not for long. It was reported recently that the venue in Loughborough Junction is not being offered a new lease by its landlord, Manlon Properties Ltd. Manlon Properties Ltd. is linked to Asif Aziz, a multi-millionaire landlord with a reputation for closing down pubs and redeveloping them into luxury housing.

Apparently it all relates to money… but perhaps there is an anti-jazze theme… perhaps only… anti-free jazzers… which is about money…

Note: Martyn has teamed up with a brewery, Anspach & Hobday**, to preview via tweet some porter facts in the lead up to the publication of his book on the stuff. A cheap and cheery approach to getting the word out.

Lisa G and Matty C made the same joke about Bell’s on their respective jaunts around Northern Ireland. On the broader topic, Lisa was keen on a number of motivations:

We had been told that it was a magical city full of cask ale (OK, I confess, that’s a slight exaggeration – we were told we could find some without looking around too hard, and that it would be in good shape) and that there would be some interesting museums. Also: ice hockey, though we aren’t quite there yet, season-wise. But perhaps the most exciting part of the journey itself was that we were promised an actual trolley on the train, with tea and snacks – something sadly still absent from non-border-crossing Iarnród Éireann trains since Covid began. As it turns out, much of this was, indeed, true.

London pie and mash, as seen today. London pie and mash, the archives.

When you have finished the pub tick marathon that Martin has, there is an accompanying soundtrack.

Many of you* have asked me what bangers I’ve been listening to as I rack up hour after hour on the UK’s motorways and single track bumpy roads this year. 96 hours in August, says Google… Now if this was BRAPA you’d get a selection of punk (‘s not dead) classics like “Oi ! open yer frecking micro NOW !”, “Don’t dribble on my GBG, Twild” and “Time for a third (3rd) ESB, then“. But stuff that. These are five records I’ve played on repeat this year.

Speaking of loads of travel, would you go to Qatar’s 2022 World Cup with the intention of drinking so much beer that the slightly limited access to beer would be enough to not go to see Qatar’s 2022 World Cup?

“Beer will be available when gates open, which is three hours before kick off. Whoever wants to have a beer will be able to. And then when they leave the stadium as well for one hour after the final whistle,” the source said. Additionally, Budweiser will be permitted to serve beer in part of the main FIFA fan zone in central Doha from 6:30pm to 1:00am every day of the 29-day tournament, which kicks off on November 20…

Now, check out Boak and Bailey on the history of Smiles Brewery, Bristol (1977-2005). Then, check out Gary post about the First Lager Brewing in India: 1928. Then, check out Will Hawkes on Munich’s Giesinger Bräu in Pellicle. Then check out the Canadian soldier having a very good afternoon until later. Then, check out the only 226 words GBH published this week.***

And, finally, best comment of the week: “I just asked who he was. Not for a biography.” Second best: “Huh?”

There. Not that much happening in the world of beer this week. As we wait for more entertainments, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and perhaps now from Stan once in a while on a Monday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on most Tuesdays or Wednesdays or Thursdays – 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.) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now wound up after ten years.

*For the double… el doublay… bardzo podwójnie!!
**A brewery apparently named after two popular but now forgotten Georgian poultry roasting techniques.
***No, I have no idea either…

These Are The Beery News Notes For The Week Of Jubilee Madness

It is here! Jubilee!!* There shall be bunting. Confession time: I like the Queen herself. I like the structure that the Crown in Canada give the law that I practice. And… that’s pretty much it. Others are less enamored thanbeven that. So… we recognize that Her Maj does like a drink and a pub yet we do recognize that the whole rah-rah Union flag bunting and the children of Oswald Mosley’s nasty jingoism has tainted the whole flaggy wavey aspect… along with the colonial record… and… rampant and growing inequality… and well… Boris… but HRH like a drink and a pub! In commemoration of the Platinum Joobe, I participated in one of the few ways the government in Canada provided and got a few pins. Pins! What Canadian child doesn’t long for their very own lapel pin celebrating HRH? And in mad cap celebration, one will be gifted to the maker of the cleverest comment left below this post or on social media responding to this post on an appropriately related theme. Remember – cleverest.

First, I missed this a few weeks back, a post from Ashley Newall with a number of forms of branding from Bradings brewery of Ottawa, the first step on our blessed patron E.P. Taylor’s rise to fame. Of particular note is the photo of the Bradings Man by Yousuf Karsh and how similar it is to one of EPT’s assets, the branding for Cincinnati Cream Beer discussed in the bigger scheme of cream beer six years back.

Two writers took the helpful step this week of tweeting guidance on stories located in obscure journals. First, a Lily Waite bio in Waitrose Magazine (as illustrated) and, second, ATJ in Brewing & Beverage Industries Business saved here on the perils facing brewing industry in these uncertain times. Brewery closures, investment failures and hegemony from big craft. Times are hard at all corners of the trade, especially given the UK’s situation. It was all foretold of course, if only by the obvious patterns set out in brewing industry history. Consider this letter from Carling to Molson in the 1930s. Beer competes. Beer colludes. The small and weak fail. Spend your pennies wisely.

Not sure the monks were all that wise with the pennies as Jeff explores, here quoting from reporter John W Miller** of the publication America: the Jesuit Review:

“…it is very modern, with automated machines that require only a handful of workers. Everything is top-of-the-line. Bottling lines come from Italy, brewing gear from Germany…” In order to service the debt and fund the monastery, the business plan called for the monks to build to annual production of 10,000 barrels a year… Miller helpfully reports that they had annual revenues of $1.5 million, which is pretty good if you’re not servicing a lot of debt.

In Boak and Bailey’s newsletter for May there was a comment made which, unlike everything they have ever ever written, had me shaking my head. It’s this passage in a good discussion about when to stop blogging:

Another natural full stop on a blogging project might be when you ‘make it’ as a writer and sell your first commercial piece. That’s not why everyone gets into blogging but we’ve certainly seen quite a few people make that transaction, with the blog as a stepping stone.

Perhaps what is meant is that this is the reason folk themselves think to stop blogging about beer – which I agree with – but it is not an actual reason to stop writing for the public without pay on a website you control. Why write to make someone else money? Seems weird. Let’s be honest. You have not made it or (too often) you have not made much of anything. So much of what I have to sift through to put together this weekly review is boring derivative and/or feeble writing for pay. Very generously I would say half of what is most interesting is writing shared freely.*** Very generous half. Hunt out that other good stuff along with me. And write.

Lew on blind tasting:

We taste 5 spirits (blind picked by my daughter from 20 whiskies, rums, barrel-aged gins, calvados) in colored @GlencairnGlass & fearlessly guess all but one wrong.

Lew: “I’m dead sure we’re stupid…” Gold!

Not really related at all, BBC Four apparently ran a replay of Abigail’s Party last evening. You can see the entire miserable drunken thing here. A great trip back into “not nostalgia” for anyone convinced the past was a better place.

Perhaps it’s just an unfortunate camera angle but only in Montreal could someone out-Scandinavia the Scandinavians when it comes to stark and grey:

The space, designed by Ethan’s wife, interior designer Annika Krausz, has soaring ceilings, a firehall door with daytime light streaming through, and heated floors for the winter. Two immense earth-toned paintings by Annika’s father, renowned artist Peter Krausz, and a huge red light fixture above the semi-circular bar further enhance the space.

Another sighting of a brewery sending 100% of proceeds and not just profits as part of supporting the Ukraine cause. Good.

Debates of the week: (i) In the US, can you cool warm beer that was previously cold and (ii) are UK rough pubs a real thing?**** Expertise abounds with, as per, many contradictory positions taken.

Conversely, for years I wondered why beer writing did not focus more on particularly fabulous pubs… then I realized that there would be a chill from the many of those not mentioned,***** one of the great drivers in beer writing topic selection. Robot says “must raise all ships must raise all ships.” Happy then are we to see in Pellicle an honest to goodness warming tribute to a great singular pub, The State Bar of Glasgow:

The State Bar isn’t particularly trendy or arrogant, it’s a humble affair with an unassuming frontage. Possessing an Edwardian horseshoe bar upstairs—an ideal spot for watching football, doubly so as the bar is strictly non-partisan, (a rare blessing in Glasgow). Head downstairs and you’ll find yourself in what feels like the cosy library of a well-to-do Victorian household, complete with dusty books to read, well-worn leather chairs and a crackling fireplace. You can find all the essentials here; house wines and spirits, Tennent’s, Guinness, Cider & McEwans 80-/, or “wee heavy” as it’s known by the locals, and a stage for the bar’s weekly comedy or acoustic nights.

Nice. Now on to cheery international beery news time. Price hikes of 6% to 10 % expected in Japan. In India, beer drinkers may also be facing beer price hikes in addition to the local rationing mentioned last week. South American brewers are seeing “early signs of demand destruction” while a beer contamination scandal in Brazil (in which coolant and wort mixed during the brewing process leading to deaths) has reached the courts. Brewing for a rare medical disorder charity in New Zealand.

Finally, GBH seemingly did the right thing – though in the wrong order – and got some actual advice about writing risky bits about BrewDog and British court processes now republished, though there is the odd suggestion that others can rely on the legal opinion received. Beware! Now… it will be interesting to see if a legal paperwork of some sort now follows. As I have often said, just getting a legal opinion doesn’t stop a plaintiff from taking steps. I trust all involved got independent legal advice, too, just in case assurances had been given.

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

*I expect scenes not unlike those in The Return of the Archons to play out. In tribute, an old pal used to shout “Festival!” in bars as he smoked three cigarettes at a time. That sort of thing.
**Quoting heavily yet still slightly slagging the author he relies upon as it relates to a side issue: “… but he’s not an industry writer and doesn’t realize…” No need of that… I clearly like to project a less saucy approach!
***If you have any doubts, read Boak and Bailey‘s archives… then go on to Jeff at Beervana… or Jordan‘s site or… or… or…
****Of course they are. The playgrounds of racist, sexist and every other sort of beery bigotry… oh, and violent, too. But most labeled as such are not.
*****And perhaps also the tourist association funders who ensure junkets are (i) paid for and (ii) non-selective. I mean, sure, a rising tide raises all boats but who doesn’t want to control the tides???

With The End Of February Comes These Beery New Notes

That was a bit much last week. All that talk of rice and here’s me trying to be more keto. I’ll try to be more sensible this week. It was, after all, a long weekend last weekend which kept me from reading all that much about beer. Read a book about third-wave ska instead. Now I’m halfway through another, Exploration Fawcett, by British military surveyor Percy Fawcett pre-WWI (aka the quasi-nutso as illustrated) in the jungles of South America. What a horrendous place. Murderous concentration camp slave-based rubber plantations along the Bolivian Brazilian border, a recent war zone, set in the murderous Amazonian jungle populated by murderous Indigenous people defending themselves against murderous imperialist Euro-losers at the end of the world. There are beer references like this one, when an actual ocean-going steamer appears entirely unexpectedly deep up a tributary:

As we glided past we saw the name Antonina in faded letters on her bow. A steward came out on the deck under the bridge, emptied a bucket of slops overboard, to watch us and straightened, his half-naked figure a small man with a mop of tow-coloured hair and narrow pinched shoulders. No one else appeared, and there was no activity ashore, but it was the hour when Europeans would be lunching. Stained canvas wind-catchers were stretched over the high boiler-room ventilators and from open scuttles air scoops protruded. On her counter appeared her name again, Antonina Hamburg, and a blade of her single screw showed beneath. “Hey!” ejaculated Dan. “What about going aboard her and having a beer? I bet they have real German beer fresh from the cask!” It was too late. Already the current had carried us past, and to drive back alongside would be difficult. We should have thought of that before instead of standing like fools and looking at her “Wonder what she’s doing here?” murmured Chalmers. “Rubber,” Dan said. “She’s come to load rubber.*

Cheery.** Like something you might read in Pellicle. Just like it. Fawcett passed thought Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia at one point. It now has a brewpub. Speaking all of which – and nothing really like it except it’s another form of exploration – Stephanie Shuttleworth revisits her old home town:

Ducking down so her dad, who played the piano for the crowd inside, wouldn’t spot her. If he did, someone would be sent to collar her and bring her in, to sing for the room. Now, my grandma could sink a rum and pep (that’s dark rum and peppermint cordial mixed together with a few ice cubes, if they have any) with the best of them. But sing, she could not. I can no longer sit down for a meal with my sadly missed grandma in that pub. Just as much as I couldn’t literally see her running under the giant sandstone window. I am thankful, however, that I can still look at the building (now a shop), step inside, and remember.

Meanwhile, Alistair wrote this week about something that I had no idea was a thing – communal brewing in Bohemia:

The word that leapt from the page as I was reading something completely unrelated in Der Böhmische Bierbrauer was “braucommune”, which translates as “brewing commune”. Naturally, given Czechia’s proximity to Zoigl country over the border in the Oberpfalz, I wondered if what I was seeing here was the remnants of a Zoiglesque communal brewing setup in Bohemia? Digging further, I discovered that in 1895 there were just 4 “braucommune” breweries operating in Bohemia that produced more than 10,000hl…***

Speaking about none of which in no way no how… don’t you love it when real medial people bait craft beer weirdos – chef’s kiss headline! It’s a BA Bart PR puff piece but still…

New research tool opportunity! Hunting through British Library Sounds audio archive reference to pub, beer, ale, “headbutting…” “all those wasted years…”!!

Real news time:

“This month posters will be displayed in all of our members pubs informing people to how seriously we take this matter. It has been agreed between all members that an automatic one-month ban will be issued to anyone caught urinating in public. “North Wales Police are backing Ruthin & District Pub Watch’s campaign and will be given permission to issue the one-month ban to any offender caught at the incident as well as any other penalties NWP have in their power to issue.” Mr Vaughan added: “This subject might generate a snigger from some and possible outrage from others who feel it is too much, but we agree that behaviour like this is just Taking The Pi**(****) when all of our establishments have toilet facilities, there is no excuse.

Unrelated – a new beer blog: Beer Nerdery. Speaking of British beer blogs, RARM went down to Liverpool to relive a moment and caught one, too:

The last time I had visited Liverpool was back in 2017 when a group of us stopped in the city for an hour or two on our way to see Halifax Town get hammered at Tranmere Rovers across the Mersey in Birkenhead. We had called in a few pubs, one of them being the Crown, whose gloriously-decorated exterior beckons you as you emerge from Lime Street Station.

I mention this mainly to share a thought. One of the problems with beer and pub and brewery porn is it is decontextualized. See that image of the Crown? Ugly street scape. I like that. An actual view… except not to scale… it’s just a photo.

Q: if the Royals are just normal folk why have so many Royals?

In their downtime in Norfolk the family are known to have enjoyed family pub lunches (a clandestine photograph showed them eating burgers in a pub beer garden) and trips to build sandcastles on Holkham beach.

And in the second of a two part series, Jordan shared more information on Toronto’s 1904 brewery strike presented with a key dates sticker tape news headline approach:

At issue here is the demand of a union wage across all breweries in the city for approximately 700 brewery workers. We have, for background, figures related from the Brewers Association to the Toronto Star on May 6th. At this point, 105 workers for Reinhardt and O’Keefe (including drivers, helpers, stablement, labourers, bottlers, wash-house, cellar, and kettle men and coolers) have walked out after finally receiving confirmation from the head office in Cincinnati.

Finally, yet another reasons to be disgusted with fearful wee Mr. Putin:

Analysts have warned that since Ukraine, which is among the top five global producers of barley, is in the middle of a major geopolitical crisis, international supplies of raw materials would inevitably be affected. The period between March and July accounts for 40-45% of annual beer sales, and barley is the mainstay ingredient used in beer. According to reports, even for brewers who source barley locally, prices could go up with rise in global prices and supply disruptions.

There. Done. Once again… nice. Really good job on my part. Really. And no rice talk. None. For more check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday and from Stan every Monday, plus more with the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Or is that dead now?) There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too (… back this week!) And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (which I hope is revived soon…) And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water.

*Long quotations… that’s the trick this week. None of that guff about rice… or research. Padding.
**I’m still passing on a trip to Ribeirãozinho during this lifetime. Note: Edwardian Brazilian trade journals have a lot in common with craft beer trade journalists. No talk of the glaringly obvious downsides.
***That’s a lot of Zs.
***Note: two non-footnoting indicating asterisks, can be confusing.