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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Last Thursday Beery News Notes For Q3 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See: tales of Bamburg past and future.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The First Beery News Notes For A Thursday In Autumn 2022

The autumn leaves are a ways off falling but the time is coming fast. We have had nothing but great grass growing weather in these parts so more with the mowing than action with the rake so far. And as we say goodbye to saying goodbye, the photo of the week was this one published by Paul Spencer who described the experience:

It was surprisingly very good. Big aromas of raisins and port. There was a tiny bit of sourness, but it was much fuller-bodied than I expected. There was quite a lot of sediment and the cork disintegrated upon opening. Would drink again.

As seems to be the trend, not a lot going on in beer writing* this week but let’s see what’s out there hiding. Strategies need to be employed. Hey, this might get things spiced up again:

Maybe I should start a beer fake news website. Does it matter that the brewery in rural Snowdonia set up by two people who gave up their corporate jobs to follow their dream, etc. etc., doesn’t actually exist? How many readers would ever know?

Bring back “Daily Beer Haiku“! That’s what I say… Perhaps relatedly, among all the many confirmations that there is no money in beer writing over the years, this has to be one of the grimmest:

I started to get royalty checks for “The Brewmaster’s Table” in 2015; 12 years after the book was published

Err… as good a warning as any to folk that think there is money in this gig.

Wandering south, it’s odd reading the description of this cidery’s location as the “wilderness” given it’s a farm sitting few miles from Ithaca NY but English folk abroad will be English folk abroad. The piece in Pellicle on Eve’s Cidery in Van Etten in upstate NY is very interesting with some gorgeous photos from the property, highlighting the effect in various areas:

The difference is profound. Though both are superb, recognisably the same variety, boasting voluptuous texture, pristine orchard fruit and seamless acid structure, there is an unmistakable increase in depth and breadth in the Newfield. An upped intensity and unctuousness; where pears and blossom sprung from the North Orchard, here are melons, honeys and the most gorgeous butter popcorn finish. The evidence in favour of Autumn’s conviction is tangible and compelling.

Note: after they slaughtered and pushed out the Indigenous nations and American Loyalists into Canada in the later 1700s** the American Revolutionaries who took the stolen lands found ancient Indigenous apple and peach orchards in northern NY. Perfect place.

Better researched history news. Is that a thing? Liam expanded on his “Hops in Ireland” essay:

…I thought it would be best to do some myth-busting to highlight that hops were grown in this country in various quantities and were even used in commercial brewing. This is a record of the history, mentions and other snippets of information pertaining to hop growing in this country, where I will show and prove that we have been growing hops in this country for the last 400 years at the very least in varying amounts and with various degrees of success, albeit not on the same scale as the bigger hop growing countries.

And Gary continued his series on Imperial brewing in India during the British era, getting into some of the deets including getting into cask tech and the details of brewing at altitude:

As Mumford noted, when the wort boiling in the kettle did not agitate sufficiently, the boiling fermentation might arise. He noted damp firewood might do it, so the boil was less intense than normal, but clearly his high elevation was a major cause. As wort at a mountain brewery would boil below 212 F you would not necessarily get the same agitation as at 212 F., especially with an open boiler. With an enclosed, hence pressurized one, better control could be attained.

Definitely related, Ruvani wrote an excellent personal essay on her experience of the passing of the Queen and how it caused her to reflect on her own life’s arc as a child of Sri Lankans who moved to the UK and the place of beer within it:

English IPA should, by all logic, stick in my throat, yet I continue to devour and praise them. I know full well the excessive damage the British East India Company, purveyors of said IPA did to the Subcontinent, how rich they became from plundering our resources and labor, and how that wealth still circulates among the British elite. How can I, armed with full awareness of the damaging nature of its marketing, enjoy a bottle of Bengal Lancer? And yet not only was it one of the first English IPAs I really rated, I still regard it as an excellent example of the style. Can we separate the beer from its history, its heritage? Can I disconnect my love for it from my own history and heritage?

The passing of the Queen and also the article struck a surprisingly strong chord within me as well. And it led me to an unexpected thought – a middle of the night thought – that more than just a trade, the supply of beer is so often the liquid that actually helps fuel empire’s reach, whether military or by way of commercial hegemony. More than just cash for conviviality. The lubrication to take a nation. Think about it. Just a while ago, I wrote about how Japan’s macro lager was a product of German and American imperialism, shot through with the need to find other uses for the USA’s excess rice production (drawn originally from West Africa long with the stolen people) in the decades after the end of slavery.  We see similar things with the German imperial brewing legacy in China and elsewhere. Taunton ale in the 1700s was as much the middle manager’s reward in the sugar production concentration camp plantations of the Caribbean as much as IPA was in India. Beer is not indigenous to North America – it is all colonial. Even this season’s joke of pumpkin beers are an echo of Deleware’s early days as New Sweden in the 1630s. Heck, a Massachusetts’s brewer took Jamaica for England in 1655. It was with the English in Baffin Island in 1577, too. But that all comes after the gunboat commercial diplomacy of the Hanseatic League, those cannon wielding goods traders of the Baltic who pushed hopped beer on northern Europe from the 1200s to the 1400s. You either get them on your beer or just get them when you’re on your beer. If beer is empire, disconnecting may well be a very complex process – even if an entirely worthy one. Peace may be good for beer but oppression may be as well. Maybe beer still helps violent tyranny.

News from the markets of supplies. I hadn’t really been aware of the reason behind the tightening CO2 supply in North America – and it is a bit weird:

Some smaller breweries are even shutting down after a carbon dioxide production shortage caused by natural contamination at the Jackson Dome — a Mississippi reservoir of CO2 from an extinct volcano… The Jackson Dome has provided CO2 to the food and beverage industry since 1977. It became contaminated, cutting off access to a major source of a key ingredient. Experts describe the situation at the site as “dire.”  

I suppose non-experts would call it “the shits” or something else less scientific. That being said, switching to the ag update desk, there is some good news from the fields… at least our fields. StatsCan says the Canadian barley crop has rebounded from a dismal 2021:

Higher barley yields compared with 2021 (+59.1% to 68.4 bushels per acre) are projected to more than offset lower anticipated harvested area (-14.8% to 6.3 million acres). As a result, barley production is expected to rise by 35.5% year over year to 9.4 million tonnes in 2022.

That is a nutty per acre yield increase. UK barley sales to the EU have jumped as well but that may be due to drought on the continent. Turkey‘s crop is up 37% and…

The EU-27+UK 2022 barley production is estimated at 59.8 million tonnes, slightly down from the 60 million tonnes seen in May, but up from 59 million tonnes last year.

Hard to keep track of all that. But then… consider the lot of a grain farmer in eastern Ukraine.

The roar of an incoming projectile fills the air, the nearby detonation shaking the ground and sending a plume of black smoke into the sky. Lubinets barely flinches. “I’ve got used to it. It was frightening during the first couple of days, but now — a person can get used to anything,” the 55-year-old said, the smoke dissipating behind him. The farm complex has been hit 15 to 20 times, Lubinets says, and he’s lost count of how many times the fields have been struck. The grain storage has been shelled, the electricity generation facility was destroyed, and multiple rockets rained down on the cattle barn — empty since the livestock was sold off as the war started. Of a prewar workforce of 100 employees, most were evacuated and only about 20 remain.

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

*Not even as many B.O.B.s or the usual crop of BW4BW. Some amazingly boring newsletters, too, along with startling blegs for money. 
**BTW – proof not to ask good cider makers about history. This is some really well meaning but totally weird colonial denier stuff right in the middle of a self-congratulatory settler ally passage: “So the people fled, the British didn’t give them any food; they starved to death in camps up in Canada. And white people just moved in.” See what really happened was the American Revolutionaries attacked the Haudenosaunee villages (as well as the CNY American Loyalists), destroyed their crops, then forced the survivors west in early winter Nov 1779 to Fort Niagara where there were no supplies and no hope of sufficient resupply – then the Revolutionaries resettled the stolen Haudenosaunee lands. The British actually shared their rations at Fort Niagara. And the British resettled the CNY American Loyalists and Haudenosaunee  in what is now Ontario (where I as government official work with their government officials now.) In response, the Haudenosaunee and British burned the valleys in CNY the next fall to establish a buffer zone well south of the lake. Which is even why Rochester NY is not on the lake.  That’s why there are communities areas in both Ontario and CNY called the Eastern Gate, Cherry Valley and Schoharie.People ought to know this stuff. I wrote my letter to the editor.

Your Slightly Subdued Beery News Notes for Mid-September

I was thinking of what to post as an image this week, given this time of mourning for HM**** QEII. And here it is – the declaration of the passing and proclamation of the new sovereignty… in British Antarctica. The penguins now know. Which is good. Because they told the bees, too. It’s been an unsettling week for a mildly pro-Commonwealthy Canadian like me and some of mine. A cousin stood in line for hour in Edinburgh to pay respect. Others including others of mine are acting as if Thatcher died again.* I get it… though I don’t get Americans (the land founded on and continuing to benefit from genocide, slavery and treaty denial) joining in the kicking – while denying any such assessment applies to them. But this is not about sanity. This is about feelings. And folk have many sorts of numb dumb feels that come forward at times like this. And sad feels. And respectful feels. It’s OK. Feel your feels. But just remember that we have section 176 of the Criminal Code here in Canada, buster. No harranging.

Moving away from that news and a little bit, what has gone on out there this week? Well, one lad named Brad has moved to the future – to the Coronation of CRIII in fact – and has an posted an image of the two bottles he plans to open for that big day: a 1952 paired with a 1911! Click on the image for some crisp labeling action.  You may moderate your jealousy safe in the knowledge that the contents taste like cardboard – BUT… it’s the thought that counts.

Regardless of how you are feeling… how about just getting outside. Stonch marched 45 km on Tuesday in the Black Forest. And the season of harvest is still upon us guiding us to visions of the ease of making ales along with the joys of home home growing. Kate Sewell posted an excellent photo essay on her team’s efforts, including a bit of child labour enlistment…

Now… maybe giving equal time in the free time political broadcast sense, we turn to The Beer Nut of Ireland who (like B+B) posted this week about getting out in about… visiting London, England and crawling, as they say, amongst its bars. He shared a very firm recommendation on one particular supp:

A&H London Black is a masterpiece of stouty complexity, absolutely packed with flavour. Not way-out or weird flavours, it’s still predominantly chocolate and coffee as it should be, but present to an intensity that’s almost too much, almost too busy. Yet it pulls back at the last instant, aided by a modest 4.4% ABV. The result is an absolutely perfect balance of porter’s sweet and bitter sides, both represented in a big way but not clashing. It is a very different proposition to Draught Guinness and I don’t get why you’d mention them in the same breath. Regardless, I would be very pleased to see this beer becoming commonplace.

It has its own Twitter identify, too. And speaking of Guinness, the Mudge himself provided some good insights this week on its first UK national competitor when he discussed the business of Bass:

The business model of the original Bass company was to a significant extent based on selling its beer into the free trade across the country. Before Draught Guinness, Bass was the first nationally-distributed draught beer. This still lives on to some extent in areas like the West Country and North and West Wales… Another aspect of this approach was concluding trading agreements with family brewers to sell Draught Bass in their pubs, giving them another string to their bow and Bass more sales. Most of these were swept away by the merger mania of the 1960s, but one that survived into more recent time was with Higson’s of Liverpool.

From the “Is / Not Is” file, Alistair linked to an interesting video on the inflationary pressures brewers face, primarily focused on packaging and energy costs. He made a canny observation:

Inadvertently skewers the whole “our beer is expensive because of ingredients” line. The main drivers of prices are packaging and energy use. In theory, a local brewpub, that goes from tank to tap should be cheaper, at least a little.

Boak and Bailey also raised questions about the lack of critical thinking about good beer may be due to the finger wagging set shutting down voices. For the contrary view, please note: beer is not there for your discussion… it is there for you just to buy along with all the nice trinkets from those who profit from beer. Obey. Buy the tee.** Frankly, Fuggled is the home the best Statement on Style this weeks:

… the hopping is too much for the Munich Helles style. The BJCP guidelines on the other hand have it both to strong and having too many IBUs. As a “Festbier”, which GABF calls “German Style Oktoberfest/Wiesn”, it is just a touch too strong, and again has too many IBUs, but BJCP has it being too weak and with too many IBUs for its Festbier definition. A random thought popped into my head, maybe it’s a Dortmunder….? Nope, GABF says it has too many IBUs for Dortmunder, but acceptable abv. In BJCP world, where Dortmunder is called “German Helles Exportbier”, both ABV and IBU are within the expected bounds. Do we have a winner here then, it would appear to be a German Helles Exportbier? But wait, what about the guidelines for the European Beer Star categories? Basically it could be either a Festbier, or an “Export”.  There are times when I have flashbacks to my days studying theology.

You know, all this all discussion about discussion might serve as good motivation to answer the call issued by the Craft Brewers Conference, a request for proposals for seminars at the 2023 get together:

Seminar proposals are reviewed and selected by the CBC Seminar Subcommittee, a group of mostly brewery members of the Brewers Association, selected annually as experts in the specific seminar tracks for that year’s conference…. Seminars are expected to provide actionable takeaways for attendees to help improve their businesses. Proposals should clearly outline the skills and knowledge that attendees will learn from the seminar.

Sounds a bit bureaucratic… but still – send in your idea and get some fresh discussions going at that level. An opportunity for some new voices raise some new ideas.

Related perhaps, Jeff wrote a very interesting piece on many of the ways status affects the good beer world. I generally see this tiny culture as riddled with claims to status, many dubious. So, I was interested to read his thoughts which touch on reputation, signaling, ambitions and traditions:

In the small group of beery obsessives who write blogs or rate beers online, though, status does come into focus. It seems undeniable that the appearance of hazy IPA is one of the reasons it succeeded, especially in Boston, where status is a big deal. People could see across the room what you’re drinking.

That idea of projecting fad status as a goal oriented habit is what my eldest might now call a loser move, by the way, as a keener of experience over the numbing ways of the older gens. This sort of craft as status isn’t really the thing today’s young are much interested in. Hard to believe but that cover of The New Yorker is coming up on its eighth anniversary. But that is to be expected. Status chasing is, as Jeff points out, hunting a moving object.  Today, those hazy IPA young are in their thirties now – and you know what people in their seventies now said when they were teens about people in their thirties!

And finally, one of the better sort of shameless junkets I’ve seen so far. But just remember: no one at Peroni is actually your friend…

There. A distracted week in many ways. A few B.O.B.s*** out there to read if you are into that sorta thing. A few strained efforts to identify something as a new style as well. What can you do? Well, we hope for a better future. As you find your bearings, please 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.

*These observations from a self-described republican heavy of the “them” approach to understanding illustrate the condition of the smug view, a view describing respect as self-abasement: “They loved the novelty of the switch, but also the continuity it represents. A large chunk of my country seems to revel in self-abasement, and is then delighted to present this subservience to the world as something magical. I wish I knew why we do it, but I don’t. It’s a continuing mystery to me.” Must be swell to be that much better.
**Previous sightings of the control freaks: 2009, 2016. 
***Beer Owner Bios. They are all amazing. And the same.
****Crushingly corrected. The shame… the cutting shame…

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 First And Most Exciting Beery News Notes Yet For September 2022

So… me and we are back from holiday. And I’ve been away and back on the road for work already. Before the before I was roadlying it a lot but the big project is in the final strokes and, happily, it seems all turned out fabulously. To the extent I understand. We are well past the gravel, moved on from the concrete and are thinking asphalt. School starts next week, too. Just a few first days of school left in this family. Days are being squeezed by the junior ranks. I am looking forward to the big holiday one day, a life with days like Martin has been enjoying on his wandering retirement. He’s in the Isles this week, westering home, land o’me peeps, the Local Hero zone. I hope Alistair has been able to reach for the Kleenex. Plenty of pub social commentary and observation.

What else is going on?   First, expect a fresh breakout of the usually high quality amateur medical science* from the brewery consultancy classes as we have received harsher worser news about booze health wise in Canada:

Any level of alcohol consumption had a net negative impact on health for almost every disease reviewed by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA)… The health risks become “increasingly high” when someone has six or more drinks per week. And for women who have three or more drinks per week, the risk of health issues increases more steeply compared to men, research shows.

Note: four years after the j-curve was dumped, those cardio benefits have now  been ditched. You are on your own now. Ben takes the right path and suggests it is time for more consumer focused health info for drinks.

Stan shared more bad news. The Euro hop crop has been hit hard by their drought:

Estimates made as harvest began — late, in many cases — indicate that the German crop will be down about 20 percent from 2021, and 18 percent below and average year. The Czechian crop, which is almost entirely Saaz, will be down 43 percent from last year’s record crop. BarthHaas reports, the “early maturing German varieties (Hallertau Mittelfrüh, Northern Brewer, Hallertau Tradition, Perle) are affected and will yield poorly. Rainfall towards the end of August are giving hope for the later maturing varieties that still have time to recover.”

I am thinking of a GoFundMe for the new book a copy of Egypt’s Beer: Stella, Identity, and the Modern State by Omar D. Foda. $120.75 USD is like what… 24 bottles of wine? Have we had reviews that I missed? I need to know if I need to know.  

Note: the new knowledge embraces the new not knowledge.**

Our pal Evan has writing another great piece, this time exploring the sherry cask trade:

Those two legal rulings led to the growth of an important new business in the Sherry Triangle: the sherry cask trade, which produces sherry-seasoned casks for export. Today, Work notes, there are really two types of sherry casks made in the Sherry Triangle. “One goes into the solera process, and that stays in that solera for years and years and years. It grows patina around the outside, from the ambience of the mold and fungus growing in the area, and it gets the sherry flor inside,” he says. “And there’s another kind of barrel that the coopers are making, and basically these coopers are making an export-style barrel.”

Judging of the Scottish Beer Awards are underway and one of the most interesting thing is how the judges are not picked from the all too familiar international floatplane-assisted consulto set but are representatives of the actual local scene. Top marks for that. Bonus for actually naming the judges on line.

Speaking of jingoism, the question of whether something is related to a culture or not is a semi-spicy one. You may, for example, recall my own review last February of whether Japanese lager is all that much Japanese. Things are not as they seem. So the question of China‘s relationship with beer from Tsingtao to craft was immediately a topic I would find interesting:

Before resigning ourselves to understanding Chinese beer as—broadly and imperfectly—a beer brewed in China by a Chinese company with a brand recognized as being Chinese, there is still the question of style. No broadly-recognized Chinese beer style currently exists. Is it possible to create one? Considering how Cascadian Dark Ale became a Black IPA, despite having no historical connection to India, there is a possibility of it being co-opted by others and turned into a generic category.

Hmm… the problem also could be that trying to frame beers as national in nature is a bit of a dead end.

In England, Ed wrote about signs that he has seen that the pubs in his village are threatened:

…the natives of Ripley have long been staunch pub supporters. I mean it’s not like they’ve got anything else to do apart from stay in and watch DVD boxed sets. But it seems no more. The two evenings I’ve been down recently the number of people in the pub apart from me and my friends varied between nought and two. This is not good. If pubs in Ripley are quiet what hope is there for the rest of Britain? As a #PubMan I fear for the future.

Also much discussion of the another threat to another pub, the Compton Arms in Islington district of London. But it isn’t just another pub. It’s the pub George Orwell described in perfect in 1946, all as unpacked by Kat Thomas in The Spectator:

…the Compton Arms could soon be consigned to the history books. Four neighbouring households, having grown used to a more tranquil setting during Covid times, aren’t relishing the return of us locals – the people who give this pub its purpose and personality. They’ve successfully obtained a licence review, having pieced together a few claims around the pub being a public nuisance and a threat to health. Which, as a regular, seems an almighty stretch.

Time Out joined the response to the situation as did Roger Protz and many other voices.

Odd corporate brewing news out of India where seeking compliance with regulatory rules is cause for getting the boot:

Carlsberg said it is removing “certain” board representatives from its India unit that come from its partner Nepal-based Khetan Group, accusing them of acting against their joint venture’s interests. The move represents a deepening of a long-standing dispute that first came to light in 2019, when Carlsberg India board members from Khetan first protested internally before asking the Indian government to investigate what they said was Carlsberg’s non-compliance with laws on trade discounts, advertisement and sales promotion.

Finally, I was a little surprised by this response that I got from Mikkeller when I asked if their reputation restoration efforts would include a public compliance and improvement reports:

It’s not a part of our current action plan, but definitely something we will look into. Are you familiar with some relevant ressources or providers of public compliance and improvement reports, we should reach out to?… If you are familiar with a HR consultancy that is specialized in retail dominated companies like ours with a split between national and international locations, please let us know. We would be very interested in getting in touch with them.

I was particularly surprised as I thought they had a consultant and that this would have naturally been part of their response to acknowledging harassment claims but when I went back to the GBH report on their approach I saw that it really isn’t really about restoring public confidence:

“…we’re also trying to facilitate a process that doesn’t involve courts and extensive legal action that wouldn’t be good for anyone. We’re able to do that because we have the cooperation of the company.”

Not sure how consumer confidence is supposed to be restored if making outcomes public weren’t considered whether through the courts, an HR comms plan or otherwise.

Suddenly wish I had access to these sorts of beers…

There. Probably a dog days week. as there was not a lot of news and not a lot of wonderful this week… but life is life! As you ponder that bit of wisdom, 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.

*…swapping one dependency for another…
**See footnote three for more of the same.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And also this from a seventeen year BA veteran:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Mid-August Mailing It In From Vacation Beery News Notes

So, I probably should have skipped this week’s post given I have paid less than my usual not paying all that much attention. But walking past Montreal’s statute of Edward VII, the best of him that I can think of,* has inspired me to do my duty. So much nicer that the somewhat ignored statute of his mammy, Vicky, turning a cold shoulder a couple hundred yards further south. These little imperial spots are joined by other odd wee hints like we see at the Bell Telephone building on Beaver Hall built in 1928, where we can see a little hint of the rose of England there above the main door. Very weird. Makes one a wee bit more sympathetic for the nationalist cause, doesn’t it.

Well, enough imperial politics. What has been going on with beer? I have had one or two but I like my vacations without beer as much as with. Not so with others out there. For example, Ron has been on the road again, the descriptions of which travels are always some of my favorite things of his to read. Luckily he has not forgotten his need to describe his first meal of every… frikkin’… day:

We don’t rise very early. Well, the kids don’t. Me and Lexxie head down for breakfast at 10:30. And just miss breakfast. But they are serving brunch. Luckily, I can get something with fried eggs: pork hash. It’s quite nice, but the broccoli is almost raw and very tough. As we eat, the dining room fills up a bit. Still far from full, though it is pretty big. 

And Stan has taken a break in his vacation to do a bit of a round up on Monday but he is in no way not not not promising to do it next Monday. I liked this comment he made:

I pass it along not only because I think the combination of five words at the top should be put to music, but because it helps explain why the speed at which beers that don’t taste like beers that came before are being introduced.

Speaking of beers that don’t taste like beers, I liked this thought by Mr. B as to perhaps the why of it all:

Allow me to add a reminder that, back in the early days of microbrewing, what gave rise to the craft beer industry we know today was specifically NOT listening to what people wanted, but rather making good beer and educating people as to why it was so good.

Speaking of which, please note that fresh beer was very common before the days of micro brewing. It was called draft. Ask your uncles. Everyone drank it. And please also note that in 1997 imported beers were not hard to find and often in quite good condition if you had any interest in finding the store or bar that had them. Unlike revisionist histories so common today, reading reports from the time will quickly confirm that the main impetus for the micro brewing revolution was not to take on big beer but to make beers like those widely available imports. I have no idea why so little effort goes into researching a certain class of article when they reference the recent past  – but it shows. I can only appease my disappointment with another entirely gratuitous shot of another fabulous building in Montreal. Just click on the link for the fine details. It’s some sort of bank… or a hotel… or a hotel for bankers… Have I mentioned I’m in Montreal?**

Trying to make sense of another sort of misinformation – the adulteration of the concept of IPA – Matt wrote a long piece on the classifications of beers falling under that shadow… err… label and I was for the most part a very useful thing. There is still too little critical consideration of hierarchical, chronological and taxonomic legitimacy… but… what a lovely bit of truth telling is this:

A session IPA is not an IPA. It is a marketing term designed to sell you lower strength beer on the premise of it being as intensely hoppy as its stronger cousins. In reality, these beers are pale, or golden ales. In the past I have been told by brewers that a session IPA is brewed with the same amount of hops as an IPA, but some of those brewers also make beers called DDH pale ales, so which is it? Call it pale, call it golden, call it a hoppy bitter for all I care, but please let’s stop giving these low strength pretenders the credibility of a true IPA. 

Actual nerds interested in actual history may want to block out May 11-13, 2023 to hold a spot for a virtual lecture or some such experience on experimental archaeology and medieval brewing. Those so inclined can also watch the archives of past beery discussion panels from Ireland’s BeoirFest here.

Excellent reportage of London’s past from Boak and Bailey this week with a story on the Star of the East pub as well as an oral history from Robin Davies, a worker at  Godson’s Brewery in the 1980s. Fabulous.

Finally, Beth wrote another good article on the continuing systemic pale old boy control of craft – which, come to think of it, does remind one of the keystone above the entry way to that Bell Telephone building:

… according to those interviewed for this article, even if some people do begin to accept their role in beer’s exclusionary hierarchy, marginalized folks in craft beer will still likely face insurmountable barriers to equity unless organizational leadership and decision-makers relinquish their need for control. “There are a lot of spaces in which white people, and especially white men, still hold power,” says Lay, who notes that history has shown that redistribution of power rarely comes by asking nicely.

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

*Only one I’ve ever seen. Such a bragger.
**I am in Montreal!

The Beery News Notes For The Thursday Before My Actual Vacation

Vacation? Haven’t had one of those since… 2019? Actually going places and looking at things? Don’t know how I will manage. Mr. Protz wrote* about one way to go places and look at things in Belgium, a tram that runs 42 miles and stops something like 68 times at or near watering holes. Much excitement in the ensuing comments. People want to be on that for sure. But… does it come along with a separate… err… washroom car? Pour le pissoire en volant? Annnnnddd… I might have thought the paint job on the tram might have been a little more exciting given the grey ground, grey sky, grey building setting. But you know me and my commitment to that colourful palate of life’s joys.

First up, Pellicle published another great story by David Jesudason. It’s the sort of piece I wondered for years about, though I was wondering why I never saw them. It’s a portrait of a possibly perfect pub, the Southampton Arms in Kentish Town, London:

This is the only real quandary you face when you visit the Southampton Arms—where to sit and who to sit among. The welcome is warm, inviting, and inclusive. The beer itself meets the most agreed-upon definition of ‘craft’—entirely independent, hand-picked, and varied in style, but not quality. The surroundings are uniquely comfortable for a busy London pub—a rare mix of classic hardwood floors and wood panelling, with a communal seating arrangement that fosters conversation between old and young, rich and poor.

The photos by Lily Waite are gorgeous, laden with the interior’s deep browns and rich creams as well as the bright pop of flowers and the glowing beer. They describe a casual, even worn in pub with a relaxed garden for a backyard escape. It looks like homey, the sort of place I would love to visit. Except I am not traveling to England. I will have to console myself with other wonders. Somewhat related, Old Mudge shared some thoughts this week about the general idea of updating of pubs and whether they are always warranted:

Was there any evidence that the previous layout of the Armoury imposed significant extra costs or held back its trading performance? Very often, pub refurbishments seem to be embarked on simply out of a sense of wishing to smarten things up and move with the times rather than any kind of rational cost-benefit analysis. And, as I have remarked before, once the initial surge of interest has subsided, refurbishment often becomes like a drug where you have to keep increasing the dose to get the same effect. The current zeitgeist is very much against the old, quirky and well-worn, but hopefully one day we will return to a time where these qualities are once again seen as desirable in pubs.

At an earlier point in the overall bevvy process, Barry M (the estate manager of all my German land investments) had a piece published this week about a variety of cider making methods in his adopted home:

Unlike the apple varieties typically used to make the majority of English and French ciders, German cidermakers have traditionally favoured what are generally termed dessert or culinary apple varieties with little to no tannin content. Think of the types of apples used in the Eastern Counties of England. Looking through German books on apple varieties, anything with elevated acid levels tends to be put under the Mostapfel category, deemed most suitable for making Most. And indeed, they do make very good cider, with well-made ciders showing a freshness and fruitiness that marks out this German variant of our favourite drink.

And interesting news out of Maine where Brienne Allan is opening a new brewery with a well-defined focus:

Allan, head brewer, was preparing the inaugural batch of beer for Sacred Profane’s opening mid-August as the only lager-exclusive brewery in Maine. Sacred Profane will basically offer two beers, both lagers: one pale, one dark. And Allan fully intends to make them better than anyone else does. To this end, Allan and her fiance Michael Fava, Sacred Profane’s operations manager and a former brewer at Oxbow Brewing Co. in Newcastle, take great pains during the brewing process. They triple decoct, concentrating the wort three times at three different temperatures to develop deep, complexly layered flavor in the lagers.

Conversely to the wonderful spaces, in the aftermath of the #GBBF, some spoke up about the unpleasant aspects of the event including Emmie Harrison-West who wrote a well considered bit entitled “Everyday sexism at beer festivals: a thread” including this very yik observation:

Touching: at bars, men touch and hold your waist to get past you. They wouldn’t dare do this to their male friends though, would they? Strangers would touch my arm, my hands, pull me in for bear hugs where their arms wrap around my body.

Good to see at least that the organizers issued an apology for failing to uphold any sort of standards for bad behaviours. Note: Stan also pointed out that the “Brewer of the Future” as selected at the #GBBF is 59 years old.  The only thing weirder was that the competition was for the best home brewer. Maybe “RetroBrew84” might have been a better prize title!

Jordan wrote a rebuttal about a piece on tech and beer that had me scratching my head (see the very foot of the last footnote last week) but Jordon thought about it from another angle – how dependent whatever craft has morphed into is driven by the internet:

For me the frustration is that it seems not to grasp that beer itself is a technological construct. In order for it to exist we need to create all of the ingredients, and all of the ingredients chosen to make an individual beer must be chosen by someone. There is always an intelligence behind the design of a beer because the constituent parts do not make themselves readily available. Beer doesn’t exist in the wild. What this means is that any technology that conveys information is going to fundamentally alter the intelligence of the designer of the beer.

And this week Jeff reviewed the concepts of what could be lumped together under the umbrella of the “Limited Transmission of Craft Culture” when he posted about the fact that no one know what “session” is supposed to mean:

The conversation led to low-ABV beers and how to deal with those, which inevitably led Torch and Crown’s Chris McClellan to comment on the best strength for session IPAs. Ah, session IPAs. This led us away from numbers and into language, and this we can file under “things Jeff knows.” And I know regular beer drinkers have no idea what “session” means.

Lots of good discussion followed which led to confirmations that the lack of understanding is a US matter not shared in other lands and, as Gary pointed out, quite seasoned beer fans “have little interest though in technics and terminology.” There is (in my learn-ed estimation) good reason for this: (i) this information is irrelevant to the actual pleasure, (ii) not standardized and so too often sounds like Mr Boring going on and on making it dubious information; plus (iii) it’s too often made up anyway making it not actual information. These are, after all, these times. It also illustrates the fundamental failure of some beer writing – that it is not so much informative than something like rhetoric. The conversation spun off in all directions leading to this summation on my part:

That’s because beer geeks in the US are disconnected from both the vast majority of US beer drinkers as well as vernacular beer culture in other countries. Hence the third artificial lexicon. Unfortunately most beer writers are beer geeks.

A constant observation that I really haven’t beaten you over the head with is this: the audience for so much of the beer writing I sift through every week  is written for (i) other beer writers and (i) other folk tied to the trade. Not the general beer drinking public like that piece up there in Pellicle. No, for too much of it there is an aspect of deep affirmation to it all, goal oriented writing – not unlike reading the histories of the now departed US pop historian David McCullough who seemed oblivious, for example, to the fact that a huge portion of the residents of the 13 colonies in 1775 wanted nothing to do with the revolution. Details. Details…

Finally, I’m not sure what to make of this. At all. Web 1.0 meets setting up a potential liable case? This approach is hardly conciliatory. Is the goal getting lost? What was the goal again?

That’s enough for now. Next week, we will be reporting from the road. On special assignment. Until then 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 mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays or Wednesdays – and also sometimes, on a Friday, posts at The Fizz as well. And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… in 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable.) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now wound up after ten years.

*OK, a couple of weeks after The Times mentioned it.

The Beery News Notes For When You Dream Of Sweater Weather

As you all know all too well, I taught English to rude high school kids and bored adult evening classes in Poland in 1991. So sweater always strikes me as a word that should raise and eyebrow or two:

Student: “You wear that just to sweat in it!?!?” Teacher: “No, it’s for when it’s cold.” Student: “So… you don’t have something to wear when you sweat?” Teacher:  “Well, there is a sweatshirt, sure.” Student: “Wait, a sweater and a sweatshirt and different things?” Teacher: “Yes – but a sweatshirt is not a shirt.” Student: “WHAAAAT??” 

(Next class… you have to explain what a “bunny hug” is.)  I was thinking of sweaters, sweatshirts and bunny hugs as I did crofter cos-play all weekend out in the yard. I should feel guilty for wishing away the warmth as I dig, haul, dig, haul, get lightheaded, sit, get up, dig, haul… repeat… daydream of sweater weather… have a cold beer… plan putting the garden to bed for winter… shorter nights… and sooner or later nap. And to dream of sweater weather. Cooler weather. OK, maybe not that cold.

Good to have dreams. Many are living theirs at the Great British Beer Festival. Not Matthew sadly – but many others. Lots of happy faces at the hashtag even if Des de Moor can’t find enough mild. Ruvani held court. And Ed posted this excellent cheat sheet clearly created in some sort of trade feedback meeting setting. SWOT. About cask ale. See? I can read the big letters up top. It’s interesting in a direct sense but also in an indirect one.* It’s an interesting sign of hope that something can be worked out. Best line. “Lost Expertise From Staff Leaving” under threats.  And the worst?  “Learn From Craft.” Don’t be doing that sort of thing.

Speaking of doing, Ontario small rural brewer John Graham of Church-Key Brewing in Campbellford continues to volunteer as a driver of goods and people in and out of Ukraine. I am absolutely struck by his dedication to humanity and the effort he is putting in towards that end. Here’s a video from Monday of what he doing. What’s he doing? Doing good.

What else went on this week? The Morning Advertiser in the UK published** a very messy argument in favour of ramming the square peg of today’s range of beers into the round hole of the reasonably now long departed concept of “craft” referencing such terms as “real craft” “craft-washing” “craft-style beer” “craft-influenced beer” and “in the style of craft” for fear that otherwise “the craft beer scene will be watered down”!  I am not sure if I missed the time loop portal but that argument is about a decade too late. Stop digging up the empty grave! It’s all about fruit sauce, adjuncts and scale these days.  And money. And, by the way, who would have predicted back in 2005 that the much maligned too sweet and reasonably sour and slightly funky dud known as Chapeau Exotic would have ended up as the archetype for craft beer in 2022?

And there may not be enough money going around these days, according to Heineken:

The company recorded 24.6% organic growth in operating profit, while it generated sales of €16.4 billion, a rise of 22.4% on an organic basis. However, Heineken said that while consumer demand has been resilient in the first half, “there is an increasing risk that mounting pressure on consumer purchasing power will affect beer consumption”.

But while Molson Coors is forecasting a similar low coming in from the horizon they have taken that possibility into account:

A year ago, Molson Coors began trimming its portfolio of lower-priced beers to focus on more other options. Some investors wanted the company to ditch the segment altogether and instead focus entirely on more expensive beers, which have performed better in recent years. “What some would regard as an Achilles heel, in the past, has positioned us perfectly at the moment,” Hattersley said. “Some of our competitors only operate in the premium space, which is obviously not a place I’d like to be as we’re heading into what’s clearly going to be tough times.”

Always interesting to see beer businesses seeking to be where the beer buying public is going to be. People can’t buy what they can’t afford.

Note: Canada waaaaay over invested in pot. 425 million unsold tons destroyed in 2021.

The scene. The poem.

Breeze Galindo is the focus of this month’s edition of Beth Demmon’s Probibitchin’. She’s a west coast turned east coast brewer who is also involved with the Michael James Jackson Foundation for Brewing & Distilling:

“Garrett had never heard of me at all,” Breeze laughs. That changed when an acquaintance on the West Coast reached out to Oliver to recommend her as an MJF Board member. (Note: boost! your! friends!) With Other Half’s blessing — and a glowing reference — the position was hers by October 2020. Now with the Foundation’s resources, Breeze hopes to take it to the next level by chairing a brand-new mentorship program, slated to formally launch this fall.

Jess of Boak and Bailey published an excellent piece on a disappearing aspect of pub architecture – the function room that served as the location of many of life’s milestones in the past:

You’re dealing with customers who are struggling emotionally and can’t or don’t want to have boring conversations about logistics. Undertakers are trained to deal with this; publicans not so much. And they can’t be sure about how many people are going to turn up – “No, we’re surprised too, we didn’t think he had any friends!” – and so fixing a price that works for both parties is a challenge. Because of a general trend towards hosting weddings in posher places (country hotels, stately homes, the Maldives) it’s also harder to justify holding a room that only does any business when someone dies.

Long time pal of this here blog and fellow Scot abroad Alistair Reese of Fuggled fame has had a very interesting article published in Pellicle this week on the rise of Murphy & Rude Malting Co in Charlottesville, Virginia:

Sitting by the open roll door of an industrial unit in the historic Woolen Mills district of Charlottesville, Jeff, owner and maltster at Murphy & Rude Malting Company tells me how he started learning about craft beer’s supply chain as a result of the new law. Jeff had assumed that in a state in which agriculture plays such a significant role in the economy there would be several malting companies already in-state ready to work with the coming tsunami of new brewers. What he discovered shocked him, there was not a single malt house in the entire state.

Note: the image next to the story above is not related to the story above but I liked it so much when I saw it this week at a store in town that I added it anyway. Sorta ag, though, right? Rude ag. What would the children think it meant? Rude. Ag rude.

And finally in sadly negative news,*** a small brewer in Canada’s tiniest province received a whack of play hate cowards this week when it posted images of the Prime Minister’s visit.

“So within a few hours, we had thousands of comments, we were getting hundreds of private messages, we are now getting phone calls to the brewery and all of these comments are extremely negative, vulgar, there is a lot of profanity being used, sexualizing our staff,” Murphy said in an interview outside the pub. 

Nutso.

So there you are. Have fun. But not too much fun. You know what I mean. While you exercise moderation, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesdays or Wednesdays and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. And the long standing Beervana podcast (Ed.: which I have missed from this list for some unknown reason.) There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now… nope, there was a post on July 25th… 2022 even.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Still gearing  up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too. (Ed.: give it a few weeks to settle in and not be as agreeable.) Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s now winding up after ten years.

*No, I don’t know what I meant either.
**Word spread through a Mudge-Alert!
***Finally more unnecessary neg – or perhaps just this week’s clangers – conveniently all lumped together down here for easy and brief reading. Or ignoring. First, we have a complaints department update… I am not sure which complaint is worse: the beer, the scoring, the basis for the scoring or caring about the first three. And perhaps relatedly, there was a sighting of the denialists oath this week – craft beer working conditions are apparently A-OK… so stop your complaining… as if that makes a difference. And, sticking with the theme of wasnotwas, the style experts have now determined (in a bit of a bizarre twist) that style is not a construct so much as a result… meaning any trending branding label can go on any old thing. Takes experts to tell you that there sort of thing… or not thing… beware! Beware too those who think appreciating this all stuff requires professional expert guidance! This too!! The fruits of these scholars are a glory to behold. Also really beware of the long thread that makes something pretty simple look reeeealllly hard – you can usually spot one of these by first going right to the end to see what the point is. In this case, trying to sell you consultancy services! It’s a frikkin’ dog and pony show! Because there is no way anyone in the trade could figure out the tap configuration of their bar. PS and finally… it’s like there’s a few sentences missing, with all due respect, as doesn’t this only make sense if books, beers of the world bars, pencils and note books, trade gatherings of any sort, telephones, word of mouth and you know humans talking to humans did not exist prior to 1990?