The Last Lingering Beery News Notes For July 2022

What is up?!? Happy end of July! No one ever says that. I saw back to school ads this week. That sucked. Except the kid will be going back to school. And we had some wicked storms come through this week – a tornado even hit north of here – and now it’s almost sweater weather. Nice. Portents of autumn. Already. That sorta sucks. Like the Red Sox collapsing back to .500 after being ten games up. Also sucks. Thank God for my surrogate Expos, the Mets. And they showed good taste this week by having everyone’s favourite milliners’ client, ex cool band roadie and friend of this blog, Garrett Oliver, through out a first pitch! What a great thing to have experienced.

First news this week? Just a couple of weeks ago I mentioned the archeological digs at Sedgeford, England where medieval maltings are being uncovered. This week, beer person extraordinaire Nigel Sadler took his interest to the next level and has been participating in the dig, presumably as a volunteer. His Tweet-fest has been fabulous, including these two with their detailed observations:

The kilns are wattle and daub construction across the site. There is only evidence of one steep shown here. Likely this was used almost permanently despite the various kilns burning and being destroyed. I’m getting steep measurements later. Bags of grain were lowered in to soak…  A post hole has been discovered under the germination floor sited between Kiln 1 and the steep which raises questions as to whether an earlier kiln structure was here.

Locally, one of the best small breweries in Ontario, Stone City right here in my home town, is up for sale very much as a going proposition.*  Oh, to be 25 year younger and a bit wealthier.

Perhaps 25 younger and indubitably a bit wealthier in the ways of the world, The Beer Nut shared a “return to fests” story this week and included a few interesting observations about the format:

Three years after the inaugural event, Fidelity was back in the Round Room of the Mansion House a couple of weeks ago. It’s the only festival of its kind in Ireland, where punters pay up front and have free run of forty producers’ stands, each pouring two beers (with a handful of ciders and meads) per session. In a change to the previous iteration it was split across two days rather than having a daytime and evening session — I guess they get more people going to both that way. One for me was plenty and I rocked up on the Friday.

My experience of these beer buffets is that they are a bit of a disaster, encouraging bulk bevvying akin to the 1870s and 1960s here in Ontario. He also shared a follow up post on the same event and shared the best sort of takeaway anyone could hope for: “I’m sure a lot of effort goes into making sure it looks so effortless.”

Oh, and about that bulk bevvying… I wrote another post this week myself, on Ontario’s mid-1900s attempt to provide a reasonably safe environment for beer drinkers of both genders:

Those of you alive to the information era we live in will know that a year or so ago I reposted a bit of research I did for our book Ontario Beer on licensing in this here province after temperance and the phenomenon of the ladies only license that was introduced in 1934 as part of that.  But I had not really considered the other side of the coin, the men’s only license.

I popped into work on Wednesday, too, and got the image up there of goold old Forms 8, 9 and 10 attached to Ont. Reg. 407 as set out in the R.R.O. 1960 which illustrates the gender based licenses. Click and gawk to your heart’s delight. I would love to find a description of a women’s only public house.

Why is the same beer book being published over and over?

Harvest time. Excellent! And another Goldthorpe sighting and at possible brewing scale. So exciting. I had thought that the grain would have migrated east. I had heard it might be around in central Asia but are there patches still in Ireland as there were in the late 1800s as this report at the time mentioned?

The next broad-eared variety is Goldthorpe, which was found in a field of Chevallier so recently as 1889. How it arose, or whether it has any connection with the Continental broad-eared forms, I cannot say.  Goldthorpe has a high grain-yielding potentiality, but it is characterized by a long ” neck.” and the ears are extremely liable to become detached from the straw, especially when the crop is allowed to become fully ripe, as it should be, to obtain the highest quality. The unfortunate bearing of this characteristic on the fortune of the variety will be appreciate; when I add that Goldthorpe was, and still is, one of the best quality barleys in existence.

Broad-eared certainly sounds like Battledore.

Someone who used to post a news update every Monday sent me the link to this post about the problems – for some – associated with IPA domination… not to mention hegemony illustrated succinctly thusly:

…think back to recent years, and the kinds of beers you may have sampled from Sierra Nevada in that time. Perhaps you loved the Nooner pilsner, or the seasonal Summerfest lager. Maybe you were a devotee of the annual Oktoberfest lager, even after the COVID-19 pandemic prevented it from being a yearly collaboration with a German brewery. Maybe your jam was the Otra Vez gose, or Ruthless Rye, or fall seasonal brown ale Tumbler, or Sierraveza Mexican lager. Maybe your first exposure to classic Belgian ales was Sierra’s Ovila series of abbey ales? Not a single one of those brands is referenced anywhere on the Sierra Nevada website today. Zero of them, in any capacity, are implied to still exist.

That’s not good. And it’s boring. Keep good beer boring, IPA. Way to go. Alistair is fighting the good fight against IPA tedium with his tenth(!) annual best beers of Virginia. Recommendations include an alt, a stout, a Rauch Märzen plus a few pils/pilsens.

Perhaps conversely, the Pubmeister wrote about Margate, a favourite of mine 350 years or so ago, and covered the face paced romance of a pub game I had not heard of before – carrom:

It’s like a table top type of pool, played with fingers, our new friend demonstrating a drag that would have had him drummed out of the German Subbuteo Championships before his bare feet could touch the ground. At Xylo we met two guys out celebrating a birthday who joined the carrom enthusiasts, and Vieve and Jess, two impressive young women who reappeared a little later in the Little Swift and joined us in the sort of free-ranging conversation that you only get in pubs.

Top headline news of the week: “Beer-drinking pony who lives in pub is made mayor“!  Tweet of the week? Photos and descriptions from Kitsault, a ghost town in British Columbia… but a ghost town not from the 1890s but from the 1980s that has been perfectly maintained:

In Kitsault’s community centre sits the Maple Leaf Pub. Lined with the crests of every province, it could be the pub of any small town in Canada. On the last night of the town’s existence, the remaining residents had a drink and signed a poster.

And finally… a couple of dishonourable mentions to finish up. First, I think this is one of the unkindest stunts I have ever seen – one’ arsehole’s attempt to trigger complaints about a Sam Smith’s pub. Don’t be like this:

As I went over to the bar, I pretended to search my pockets, and said “s***, I haven’t got any cash”. I asked if they took card or if a PayPal payment would be acceptable. The barmaid, who looked like a teenager, wrinkled her brow as she noticed the workspace I had created behind me. She said: “You can’t use those in here. If the owner Humphrey [Smith] were to come in and saw that, he’d tell us to shut and ask everyone to leave.” The barmaid did actually look genuinely worried. It felt as if she was being sincere. I asked her if I had to leave with my items, she said yes, that I had to go. As I was packing up, I decided to take one more selfie, to see what would happen.

Perhaps speaking of which, there is another class of arsehole that is unbearable – the “craft insider”** – the interview of one of whom, in a late sighting, illustrated the condition:

The people who care will be in the liminal space of barely knowing much about craft beer but who are usually very vocal about it.

Nice to know how folk think of others. And the superfluous abuse of “liminal” is also one of those benchmark for this sort of thing. Don’t be like that either.

That’s it for now. Long weekend coming up starting with my fourth Covid-19 shot at 4 pm Friday.  Pray to the gods of your choice on my behalf. See you next week when I will complain complain complain about whatever happens. In the meantime, 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 the mostly weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: some crackle this week at about 20 mins.) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s wound up now after ten years.

*Had to be told of this opportunity by the folks to the west end of the lake. Jeesh.
**Sometimes related to the “little did I know that Icelanders are mad for hotdogs” sort of expert… though, to be fair, this is an excellent confessional of a number of sins of omission. The “orange slice in wit” thing is old enough now that it is pretty hitting its own drinking age.

What Did Ontario’s Separate Men’s And Ladies’ Beverage Rooms Looks Like?

Once in a while I get asked things by members of the professional media. It is flattering and instructive. The questions are usually specific but also open ended enough to allow for some back and forth and, as in this case, an opportunity to dig a bit more. This week I received this question from a rather large outlet to my east:

I’m trying to get information about one such former tavern: Montreal House, in Peterborough. I’m looking into Montreal House because yesterday Peterborough city council voted against giving it a heritage designation; this means the building will be demolished. The Montreal House was built for lumbermen from Quebec who came to work in the Peterborough… I was wondering if you knew about the Montreal House? And if you were knew how I could go about confirming if the tavern really was the last—or one of the last—men’s only establishments in the province?*

Those of you alive to the information era we live in will know that a year or so ago I reposted a bit of research I did for our book Ontario Beer on licensing in this here province after temperance and the phenomenon of the ladies only license that was introduced in 1934 as part of that.  But I had not really considered the other side of the coin, the men’s only license.

Something seemed odd about the suggestion that this one tavern was the last one, sitting there in Peterborough, a mid-sized Ontario City known for its most excellently named minor hockey team, the Peterborough Petes. That something odd was that there was the idea that there would have been one the last one and not a bunch.  Usually when a law like this changes, any number of permits would shift in terms of their application. So why did someone think there was just this one last straggler? I wanted to know what this was about. So I had a look where every clever beer writer starts looking. In databanks of court rulings.

One excellent resource describing these spaces popped up almost immediately, the 1953 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling in the case of Assaf v. The City of Toronto. It is excellent because it is a case of an expropriation which occurs when a government takes someone’s land for a government use and has to pay compensation including all legal fees, loss of business income, etc., etc.  So there is a description of the thing being valued:

The lands expropriated are situate on Bay Street Street, in the city of Toronto, having a frontage of 35 feet 8 inches on the west side of Bay Street just north of Queen Street, by a depth of 82 feet 3 inches. Upon the land is erected a four- storey brick building, with fire-escape to the rear, and a full basement. It is well located where traffic, at least during the day, is very heavy. The building consists of a basement, the ground floor and second, third and fourth floors. In the basement are the heating apparatus, storerooms, refrigerator units and a beer-cooler. On the ground floor there is a lobby with a ladies’ beverage-room and a men’s beverage-room, with washrooms for both ladies’ and men’s beverage-rooms. On the second floor there are two dining- rooms, with a lunch-counter, and also a fully-equipped kitchen, two washrooms and a counter. On the third floor there are ten bedrooms, nine equipped with sinks with hot and cold running water, one bathroom and a separate toilet. On the fourth floor there are ten bedrooms, eight equipped with sinks with hot and cold running water, one bathroom and a separate toilet.**

Those in the know may have caught this before I did but it looks like those lands were among those expropriated for the building of Toronto’s New City Hall.  Based on the 1913 map of the area, a bit of which is displayed above, it looks like the place was called the Cadillac Hotel before the first world war and Canada’s brief and leaky era of temperance. It sat right under what is now the south-east corner of the outdoor skating rink in Nathan Phillips Square which has been used, pursuant to Federal regulations, as a location in every Canadian film since 1964.*** And notice what was in the place after it got its 1940’s renovations discussed in the case: separated ladies’ and men’s beverage-rooms off a ground floor lobby with washrooms for each.

What sort of thing went on in these spaces?  If we rely on Court cases, we learn of the bad things. For example, in an appeal from the judgment of the County Court of the County of York, dated June 18, 1939, the Court of Appeal of Ontario found itself involved in the case of a bar room brawl in one ladies beverage room:

Riley was working in the tap room when a “rumpus” occurred in the ladies’ beverage room. Riley encountered Lloyd in the lobby, where he inquired as to the cause of the rumpus. Lloyd said he couldn’t seem to do much about it and, according to Riley, turned the matter over to him. Riley entered the ladies’ beverage room, to find Stephenson in a bellicose mood with his feet on a chair, and when he ordered him to remove his feet, a fight resulted, in which, according to Riley, Stephenson struck the first blow. It was admitted that no express instructions were given to Riley, either by Finnegan or Lloyd, to strike Stephenson, and that the general instructions to the waiters were to handle customers peacefully.

Notice: neither Riley or Stephenson were ladies. In the 1945 trial decision in a case brought by one Mr. Gardner, a customer, against Mr. McConnell, the manager, we get a bit more detail on another fight:

The plaintiff is a cook who had been employed in that capacity at the Leonard Hotel… He was a married man and had been accustomed to patronize the beverage room of the defendant together with his wife and their friends. He joined his wife and her friend at a table near the taproom, having entered the beverage room through the lobby of the hotel. The beverage room also had a direct entrance or exit, as the case might be, from it to St. Paul St. at the opposite end of the room from the tap-room. The tap-room was presided over by the husband of the defendant McConnell, who was the manager of the hotel and of the beverage room. The beverage room in question was the one known as the ladies’ beverage room, and had as waiters in it two men—one Jefferson and one Meighan.

Again, there were plenty of men in this space including one called Bloomer who looking for a fight and found a few including with the staff as the judge discussed:

I accept Gardner’s evidence that he was treading his way with caution to avoid becoming mixed up with any trouble which was occurring between others in the beverage room, and was proceeding to the door when he, as he puts it, was “crashed into” by a man in a white coat, ostensibly a waiter and who, Ι accept on the evidence, was the waiter Meighan who had been struck by Bloomer. The result was that Meighan was knocked to the floor with Bloomer on top of him, still assaulting him.

Fantastic! And still… all these men.  Hmm… the same thing happens in 1955 when we read about a…

… young man in question [who] along with two or three companions strolled into the beverage room, ordered a bottle of beer from the waiter, was supplied same, drank it and then wandered into the ladies beverage room, sat there chatting for five minutes or so, when the manager of the tavern, accompanied by an inspector or police officer, came in and challenged the boy as to his age.

These sorts of things go on in rulings from 1960, 1965, 1969 and 1971 – one of which even makes it to the Supreme Court of Canada. In that last ruling from 1971, we have a rather vivid description of a session at one of these places:

Lorenzo Beauchamp and Massicotte joined Florence Dallaire at her table in the ladies’ beverage room. She thought that her brother was “feeling good” and that he talked in a strange way but that he walked all right. An argument developed and Mrs. Dallaire slammed her glass on the table and left. Although Massicotte and the deceased had not quite finished their one draught of beer they proceeded to leave the ladies’ room by the staircase, where the deceased suffered his fatal fall.  His condition immediately before leaving the ladies’ beverage room therefore becomes critical; Vincent McAlendin, who was the waiter on duty in that room, thought that the deceased’s condition was good, and that there was no reason to refuse to serve him beer. He was not stumbling or wobbling on his way out. This evidence is confirmed by Charles Fasciano who had heard the loud talk at the Beauchamp table but observed that the deceased’s manner of walking was not impaired on his exit.****

OK – now we have some ladies and they are perhaps of the harder variety… glass slammers. Otherwise, you see this sort of thing like here in the lead up to a 1961 case of murder after a bar closed:

…the only evidence as to the amount of beer consumed by the appellant during the evening of 9th June, apart from that contained in his statement, was given by his companions Zackariah and Baker. Zackariah said that the party of four (the appellant, his wife, Baker and Zackariah) went into the ladies’ beverage room of the Wembley Hotel about 8:30 p.m. Mrs. Fisher “had a coke” and “we had a few beers and then we went down to the Men’s Room,” after Mrs. Fisher left the party about 9:20 p.m. They had “some beer” in the men’s beverage room, and the appellant left Zackariah and Baker “to see some friends.” He returned about three-quarters of an hour later and “had a beer with us… He finished his beer and part of another one.” Later he said in examination-in-chief “That makes three he had down there,” that is, in the men’s beverage room.

So the calculation seems to be this: drinking men include bad men therefore men need to have their own space to be drunker or nastier than the space where the ladies gather or where folk mix. That is why one category of license was called the men’s beverage room in Ontario’s regulations.***** That seems to be the thing to take from these rulings. The ladies beverage room license was actually “ladies and escorts” as the signs read, like the one at the Douglas Tavern that I mentioned in Ontario Beer which is now closed and converted as of June 2021. But any escort in theory was present on the consent of the ladies as I understand it, given that women could also be there alone or with other women. Those escorts were supposed to be a spouse or a date. Yet one report of a 5:1 men to woman ratio was witnessed at the ladies beverage room of the Tusco Hotel in Toronto in 1936. When three government inspector asked the bartender why he was serving unaccompanied men in the ladies beverage room, the bartender said that he didn’t want trouble. There were clearly picking uppings going on.  The manager of the swanky Royal York pointed out another benefit: it “tends to increase the tone of business” if men are not left to drink alone. ******  Drinking men include bad men.

And it is important to appreciate that the same establishment could have multiple licenses then.  We see that also in the rulings. Have a look at this report in the Georgetown Herald newspaper from February 1, 1962. At that point, municipal governments had to poll residents to see if they wanted any of the licenses in their community. Here the good people of Erin Township to Toronto’s northwest said no, no and no to each of three classes: ladies beverage room licenses, men’s beverage room licenses and dining room licenses. And in fact notice that the ladies beverage room polling got a higher “yes” turnout that the other two. The voting public didn’t want booze but it really didn’t want men only boozers. With good reason. The painter William Ronald discussed the problem in an interview in 1963:

We didn’t even have any night clubs in Toronto until eight or nine years ago. And I don’t drink. This is perhaps why. Everybody asks me why I don’t drink. I don’t really know why. I had an uncle that died of alcoholism at the age of thirty-two. I was very fond of him. My mother’s brother. But really what I think it is now – when I was up in Canada on a recent visit – you see, they have what they call beverage rooms up there, men’s beverage rooms and ladies’ beverage rooms… And they’re horrible. They’re like washrooms with beer, you know. And if you’re not with a lady then you have to go to the men’s beverage room, and it’s not so nice. But if you’re with a lady you can go to the women’s, which is a little poshier. Then they used to have – maybe still have – a twelve o’clock curfew. And so at twelve o’clock everybody loads up and drinks, you see. And so the whole idea of drinking in Canada is to get drunk. I had never seen people drink the way they drink in New York. *******

That puts it in pretty clear perspective. The reason why you needed ladies beverage rooms was to create the other space, the men’s beverage rooms. Because men drank like pigs. Drank to get drunk. To fight. Which was also the problem they were dealing with at the outset of Ontario’s temperance regulations in 1877: men left alone will drink like pigs. Which means every bar now is really a ladies beverage room and, really, it means that the temperance movement won. Thanks ladies.

The references to these sorts of places fade away in the law books in the early 1970s. Reforms came in then that lowered the drinking age, loosened up where you could drink – and also drink in nicer lounges without buying food. Ontario was growing up. Was the Peterborough question answered? No. That may be for another day. Or a pro writer like the one who asked me the question. Let’s see what he finds.

*If the story goes live, you will be the first to know who wrote me.
**There is also an excellent exploration of the “gallonage” of the place – the amount of beer sold, calculated in utterly generic and bulk form. See in the headnote: “There should be some compensation for the difference in gallonage between our hotel and any similar hotel within a radius of 500 feet; the evidence shows that our business in the 12 months immediately before the expropriation was 69,526 gallons, while the gallonage in the 12 months before our purchase was only 25,706…”
***Utter lie.
****See also the 1965 ruling the case of Stephens v. Corcoran et al., 1965 CanLII 210 (ON SC), with this great detail on the spaces within these drinking establishments: “He went to the hotel for the purpose of consuming beer, and in the evening he planned to take his wife and two daughters to the policemen’s games which were to be held at the University of Toronto stadium. Having parked his car at the west side of the hotel, he entered the more southerly of the two entrances to the beverage rooms, the entrance being marked by a “1” in a circle on ex. 1 which is a floor plan of the ground floor. He proceeded to the point numbered “2” where he joined some friends, and consumed in all three pint bottles of beer. He had partly consumed a fourth bottle when he and one or two friends decided to go into another beverage room at the north- west corner of the ground floor, where he took his place at a table at which there were already others sitting and singing, at the point numbered “3”. He brought his partly-consumed bottle of beer with him, and sat down. I find that he was only in the second beverage room a short time before the 6:30 closing hour arrived and the dispensing of beer was closed off in accordance with the law. The table at which he sat may well have been at a point “T” in the same room, which during the day was used as men’s beverage room only and not as a men’s and ladies’ beverage room. About 6:40 p.m. the plaintiff decided to leave. The singing had come to an end, and he said he was going home. He proceeded from the table through a door marked “6” on ex. 1, and then proceeded westerly along the hall, which was illuminated presumably by sunlight shining through a closed door at point No. 9. This was not only closed but apparently locked in some fashion, perhaps by a padlock as shown in the photograph which was taken on October 11, 1965. However, the lighting conditions, it was agreed, are comparable to those which existed on the date of the accident. The plaintiff passed the first door on the left shown on ex. 4. It was locked. When he came to the door “5” on ex. 4 and indicated by figure “8” on ex. 1, he opened it apparently and then fell down the stairs which led to the cellar.”
*****The terminology differed amongst the provinces. In Saskatchewan until 1972 the mens’ only space was a parlour but a mixed area was a beverage room.
******This is not made entirely clear in Craig Heron’s excellent book Booze where it is discussed at page 291. Many pages are given to the topic in Try to Control Yourself by Dan Malleck – including the tale of the Tusco Hotel at page 171 and the Royal York at page 172.
*******The first day of the interview being the date of my birth… the passage goes on: “Some people drink to get drunk here but most people drink just the way they take a cigarette, you know. And some people can drink a lot of liquor but I rarely see people walking along the street the way you do in those towns up there; and cities. And up there not too long ago, for instance, I saw a young man about twenty-two, well-dressed and so on, on a Friday or Saturday night – it’s the big night – and white shirt, I remember, and all this; and there he was on the sort of Fifth Avenue of Toronto completely plastered, stoned, as they say, out cold on the sidewalk, being sick, and his two friends trying to drag him into the car. And this was a very common sight. This is the way always I was brought up – this is the way drinking was.”

The Thursday Beery News Notes For Summer 2022’s Second Third

The trouble with writing something on a weekly basis is you notice that another week has passed. This is why I don’t shave every day. Looking at the same mug in the same mirror at the same time each and every morning? No thanks. You notice too much. Like that one third of this summer is already done. And the last three weeks don’t even count. Panic! Panic!!! Max is having none of it. He is squeezing every moment out of the good weather – and has found a new cocktail to go along with it. I say cocktail but it seems to be booze free: “The coffee is hot. Then they mix it with tonic and ice, add the lime and you get a glass of refreshing goodness.” I will have to try that.

Heatwave. Euro heatwave. Best place to be? In an old pub painted white on the outside with thick insulating walls and a hearty aircon system? Worst place to be? In the car when the prosecco blows. Or working in a brewery for that matter, as one witness confesses. Fact: 3.6 times more people in the UK think drinking beer is a proper way to beat the heatwave than eating iceberg lettuces. Plural. That’s what the graph says – floating, a little alienated even, just there above this Bloomberg story. Looks like Tesco’s estimate for sales this past week:

…there’s pressure on retailers too, though more to keep the nation in supply of its summer quenchers. Supermarket chain Tesco Plc expects to sell more than 9 million ice creams and lollies in the coming week, a record. The supermarket also expects to sell 9 million bottles and cans of beer and 50,000 bottles of Pimms, the classic British summer gin-based fruit drink… Peas, lettuce and apples are particularly susceptible, he said, and crops can’t be shielded. “It’s not catastrophic — it happens,” said Ward. “Extreme heat is uncomfortable for people and plants.”

Either way, bad week to be a lettuce: get eaten or burn. Perhaps making matters worse for the the green crunchies, it appears that some lab coated type people are telling some other not lab coated people to lay off the sauce when being slowly roasted during a heatwave:

“Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it encourages the kidneys to lose extra fluid. That is why you tend to go to the toilet to urinate (pee) much more when you drink alcohol. Alcohol also makes you sweat more. The combination of sweating more in the heat, and going to the toilet more, means you lose more fluid than you take in and become dehydrated unless you replace that lost fluid by drinking water.” Official guidance also urges people to avoid caffeine during the hot weather for the same reason.

WHAAAAATTT!!!  Hot cuppa tea is the best thing on a hot day. That’s what Grannie always said. Never mentioned lettuce either, come to think of it. And they call themselves scientists.* Thankfully, the New York Post found a couple of people perhaps partially of the lab coated variety to root for beer as the mercury climbs:

…in the midst of an international heat wave, one physician on Twitter claimed beer can help with hydration. Academic Ellie Mackin Roberts sparked a now-viral debate when she recently tweeted 10 steps to help beat the heat. Tip No. 9 read: “If you are dehydrated (and an adult, and able to do so) drink a half a pint of beer (inc. alcohol free!) and then move straight onto water (or a sports drink or cordial if you don’t like water).” Followers of Roberts, an expert in ancient Greek history, quickly responded, questioning how beer could ever be helpful in trying to avoid dehydration. However, Dr. Stuart Galloway, of the University of Stirling told Femail that the beverage contains electrolytes, sugar and salt, which helps the body retain fluid, rather than it going straight through. 

Gary added an interesting but also labcoatless and lettuceless post on the conditions in pubs in Halifax, England in 1932 and how the local establishments managed another heatwave ninety years ago:

“The public do not realise the trouble we have to go to, to keep our beer cool,” one licensed victualler said. “When you have a rock cellar as we possess, the business is bad enough, but publicans that do not possess this advantage have a busy time trying to cool their beer. Some of the best bitter beers require nursing if our customers are to be satisfied in these hot days,” he continued, “and even with advantages regarding cellarage I have to keep a succession of wet sacks over my casks to keep them cool.” In one restaurant sacks, thoroughly dampened, are placed over the casks of beer, and from time to time a system of sprayers pours ice-cold water over them.

That’s the spirit – and at least they were not resorting to putting crap in the lager and calling it innovation! Honourable mention and a big “thanks for coming out” for at least shitting on the 2009 video “I am a craft brewer” even if it took them thirteen years to admit how stupid it was. All very “wad some Power the giftie gie us“… Dave! Some are still unaware.

This week in beer writing mildly troubling angst: dashes.

Health update: booze bad. Relatedly, in Jerard Fagerberg’s disappointingly brief but excellent interview (within an important health confessional of sorts) former beer writer Norm Miller shares some thoughts on his 2018 decision to back away from drinking:

During his tenure, Miller became synonymous with the Massachusetts beer scene. But by 2018, Miller was drinking too much. As an obese man in his 40s, he needed a holistic lifestyle change. He never felt physically addicted, he says, but the pressures of being in the beer media were indeed getting to him. “I didn’t consider myself an alcoholic, I just drank because I felt like I should keep up with everything,” he says. “It was a combination of trying to keep up with everything and sincerely liking to try different things. It was a bad combination. I decided to step away, because my health was more important than a weekly column.”

PS: Norm‘s normal now… nearly. I applaud the raising of the ill effects of booze but it is sad to see it hidden in the lower shelf of GBH well behind all the regular dubious claims to fame for booze.

Canadian craft Faxe weekly update.

Note: there are upsides to the heat or at least a moderate amount of it. The barley crop in Ireland is loving it, according to grower and not well dead poet, John Dunne: “…grain fill looks really good. You can’t beat sunshine to put weight in grain.” And, did you know, that actual grains make interesting flavours that can be expressed though a resulting booze-laden beverage? No, really. Apparently adding buckets of jam is not required according to this heads up from Curmudgeon Ale Works citing an article in Modern Farmer:

“There were a few older, open-pollinated varieties that really didn’t taste very good. But then there were a few that were absolutely stunning. And what fascinated us was that all of the hybrids kind of tasted the same.” Time and time again, the flavor of the heritage and heirloom grains outperformed the hybrid rye varieties—but that doesn’t mean hybrids don’t have their place. Swanson still grows hybrid grains, such as the popular AC Hazlet, because they “are incredibly robust in the field,” he says. “They give beautiful standards, they yield astronomical amounts.

Pay attention, brewers. And an addendum to last week’s comment about medieval alcohol making:

Later this week blackcurrants are going to make wine too… farmers will convert anything to alcohol, it’s our superpower…

In addition to all its issues, craft beer also has a labour problem, according to this excellent and detailed article by Julie Rhodes:

Think about it this way, if the 1990s were like the kindergarten stage of the overall craft beer industry journey, full of wide-eyed enthusiasm and experiential learning moments, the 2020s are proving to be like middle school – full of angst, infinite possibilities, and pivotal decision-making that will determine the long-term future of the industry. We will have to wait to see if the cool kids can mature enough to make equitable and mutually beneficial decisions that will carry this industry beyond the awkward stage, but many are hopefully optimistic.

AKA the era of the spotty faced gits. I like it.

And finally a question: why bother with B.O.B.s** (or W.O.B.s for that matter) set in places you will never see and drinks you will never have? Among the usual questions about veracity in drinks writing, don’t these reach a further level of abstraction from reality, so far that they might as well be entirely made up? A sort of social science fan fiction?

For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: with a good discretion of the purchase of Amsterdam’s recent buyout by Danes this week at about the midpoint but avoid around the 24th minute if you don’t care for sputum) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s (Ed.: now very) irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… still not on the radio dial…)  And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water. There has also been the Beer O’clock Show but that’s wound up now after ten years.

*Other points of view have been circulating.
**Beer Owner Bios, that sort of subset of puffery that is as close to press release reporting as there is… well, except for when that’s all it actually is…

The Death Defying Mid-July 2022 Thursday Beery News Notes

That’s a bit of a bold claim. Death defying. But, having checked the stats, I am 98% sure that no one has died as a direct* result** of reading the weekly beery news notes. I also can confirm that no one has been harmed by reading Taste, the recent memoir by Stanley Tucci.*** It is mainly about his life with food. I finished reading it just yesterday. If you need any assistance in identifying what I am talking about, that is actually the book’s cover just there to the right.  No, really. Taste about his life with food and people, too, and makes for good light reading except when life was not light when it is actually a bit better. Recommended – especially as he includes recipes. So it is a 87% memoir and 13% cookbook… or recipe book. Which is good. I thought when finishing it… I have never read a book about beer that is remotely similar. I wonder why.

Enough about me… and Stanley.  First up, some history. Martyn has opened up a very interesting discussion on the question of medieval England and whether they actually didn’t drink the water – something I also doubt – by excellently questioning society’s capacity to replace it with ale:

The population of England in 1300 was approximately 4.25 million. If we leave out those too young to drink ale, that equals about 3.5m “adults”. The recommended liquid intake is 3.5 pints a day. So if they are only drinking ale, those adults are going to require a little under 560 million gallons of ale a year, minimum – and much of their time would be spent doing hard labour under a hot sun, when the requirement for liquid might be as high as ten pints a day…

Now, I am not going to get all linky and suggest that the initial conclusion drawn is incorrect (as I suspect it might be) but I would like to add a few assumptions into the mix which might also make it not entirely correct. While Martyn has quite rightly deducted kids from the calculation, I would suggest a few other points. First, there is no need to suppose that there was equal distribution between men and women, between rich and poor and between town and country.  Male labourers in rich country estates may well have consumed more than their share.  Second – and I think this is even a bit more important – access to more fermentables than statistically captured malted grains would have been common, especially in the countryside. Plus remember the wine trade. Third, I am not sure what is meant by “ale” in that it could be 1% or 10% alcohol. If it is too thin… what else makes up the necessary caloric load for life? That’s key. Water won’t do that. Fourth, Unger**** states that the requirement per person in the English Navy in 1535 (yes, 200 years later) was 4.6 litres a day. Was there an agricultural explosion during those two centuries that could support a change in diet? Fifth, our pal from 1378 Piers rated water the lowest of all drinks but did indicated that sloth was to be avoided or “ye shul eten barly breed and of the broke drynke…” I know that Martyn would agree that this sort of more granular review would be required to finalize the answer – but I do agree that there is no evidence that medieval people did not drink water to be found in the statistics that they drank a lot of ale.

Note: Cookie advises don’t get Humphed.

And I missed this last week, Lew Bryson on stouts and porters as used and then abused by the micro and craft beer movements in their turn:

Both types were throwbacks to much older Anglo-Irish beers, and as is often the case, the beers that were brewed in the 1980s were, by and large, guesses at what the older beers were like… [I]f porter and stout were the two sources of the river of dark beer that would grow to capture the palate of beer geeks and the Yummy Beer Drinkers (YBDs, that’s my name for the people who want diabeetus dessert in a glass)… Porter’s melody got drowned out. Despite slam-hopping it (“robust” porter), throwback-lagering it (Baltic porter), sweet-tweaking it (coconut and vanilla porter), and bomb-boosting it (the inevitable imperial porter), porter got smacked aside by imperial stout, and never recovered.

Speaking of porter, could this Goldthorpe whisky be associated with the long lost malting barley strain Battledore? Could my dream of a hordeum zeocritum porter come true?

Pellicle published a very interesting bit of reading about the first bottling by a small scale scavenging side project run by English film maker, Thomas Broadhead – Dimpsey Cider. It is written by Hannah Crosbie, who clearly identifies as a wine writer  – which gives us passages that are less, you know, about the squishy chumminess of things than many a beer writers might jot on about … like in this:

“It’s a miracle it was actually a drinkable product,” Thomas admits. “We left those barrels until February, we finally tasted and were like, ‘oh, this is actually tasting quite good!’ Only then did I order the bottles and commission the artist for the label.” And so, Dimpsey’s first cuvée, Unprecedented Times, was born. Notes of caramel apples, citrus and smoke from the barrels envelop a vibrant pétillance. Around 470 bottles were made, and those that weren’t smashed by ParcelForce found their way to London’s aesthetic-led drink spots: Bar Crispin, Gipsy Hill Brewery and—the restaurant where I first came across it—Top Cuvée.

There’s a lot of good in there. The writer was attracted to the drink first as a consumer. And, while there is a bit of bio in the piece, it is not beating us over the head. I do also like that the question of balancing time for this side project is a topic that runs through the article. There are some deft touches in there, leaving the question of Broadhead’s life choices just hanging a bit. Will there even be a second batch?

Breaking: there are at least two approaches to handling information. Reminds me of that 1976 homebrewing club.

My spam filters snagged something called BeerBoard this week and I noticed it was enticing me to hand over my personal contact information to gain more on that fast breaking news that “Volume and Rate of Sale are down double digits, while Percentage of Taps Pouring also dipped.” Wow. I am shocked. Not really. These days of jostling bleggy blogs for the shy – aka newsletters – seeking (cap in hand) to let us know the same four things that all the other newsletters and social media links (and sometimes actual new outlets) are saying, well, they lead me to one conclusion. I don’t exactly need another newsletter to tell me there’s a downturn. We all know things are tanking when the BA uses the magic words “mixed bag“! The arse is out of it, as we say.  Boak and Bailey picked up on the endsy timesy theme asked an interesting question this week about the UK public’s response to the uptick in pub prices during a time of general inflation:

In the context of supply chain issues, rampaging inflation and staff shortages, let alone the long-term structural problems caused by the pubco model, how much control do most really have over the price of a pint? That’s not to say, of course, that some people don’t do quite well running pubs. We find ourselves thinking of a businessman who owned several pubs in Cornwall and would turn up for inspection in a huge Range Rover with personalised plates, gold cufflinks flashing. It’s perhaps no wonder his customers got the impression that running a pub might be a nice earner and occasionally grumbled about the price of a pint.

My thought was not that it was about getting ripped off so much as customers voting with their reduced buying power to make sure this end met that other end. (This is not a club and I don’t really associate beer with self in the sense that it is an end needing meeting.) Plus I am still not ready to move back to the idea of hanging out in bars – not with, what, the seventh wave upon us? For this? These things are going to take a bit more than naïve possy cartooning and #LetsBeerPositive to get over. Or maybe it just goes the way of that weird but brief big band revival of the late 1990s. Remember that? Me neither. Again, no time to invest in craft beer folks.

In a happier time and place, Gary Gilman has let loose a social media blitz of his trip to France, tweeting up a storm while handing the keys to his blog to his better half – including this fabulous photo of a market fish stall in Calais. What manner of beast is that in the foreground? I am thinking monkfish but who knows. Well, the guy in the sweater with all the stripes does, I suppose.

Speaking of which,***** I am not sure I can fully, heartily, entirely… hesitantly… marginally… agree with Jeff in this particular application of what looks like the great white male theory:

Stone also helped convert Americans to hops (though they had a lot more company than they once admitted). It was, ironically, that strong association to hops that ultimately led to the awkward phase—though Stone also had quite a run as an established, successful brewery. When the haze displaced bitterness, Stone had a hard time adapting its brand.  

I think one needs to include the words Berlin and Keystone in any eulogy of the Stone that was. For me, repeated poor business decisions might have been central to the… awkwardness of that business ending poorly. Plenty of good regional and national breweries followed other paths.  Sometimes I wonder if that sort of quieter success is considered less interesting. Because…

Congratulations to Eoghan Walsh on the successful completion of his series “A History of Brussels Beer in 50 Objects” and the accompanying book launch, finishing up sorta where it began:

In December 2021, Brussels Beer Project publicly announced what was both the worst kept secret and the most unexpected recent development in Brussels beer: they had started brewing Lambic. They did so in a quintessentially Brussels Beer Project manner – by wheeling one of their coolships onto the Grand Place and parking within a couple of metres of the Brouwershuis, the centuries-long seat of brewing power in Brussels. 

This whole project is a great illustration of the power of properly handled personal websites combined with a clever social media presence.

Finally: beer awards. Q: if this is the ultimate… which is the penultimate?  And which is the antepenultimate? Shouldn’t this be clearer? One would want to know when and where one is wasting one’s time.

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

*made you look.
**made you look again.
***I have now read 32 books in 2022 which is part of my personal productivity project for the year. Along with a number of things like being over ten months in to intermittent fasting which made the Tucci book a risk – but one worth taking. A fair few have been this sort of celebrity bio, some of which lean on happy times and avoids much of the bad times. Not something that I might have taken up before too often – though I highly recommend Alex Trebek’s if only for the news that he swore like a stevedore like any good northern Ontario lad should. Greg Allman, George Clinton, Stanley Tucci, Mel Brooks, Dave Grohl might serve as a handy scale against which one might measure these things. Allman being the most revealing of life’s grimmer side and Grohl the least. Note that Tucci is in the middle. But there is a gap to his left and a fair distance to Clinton. Clinton is only to the right of Allman because he seemed to cope better with many of the same demons – or perhaps just because he is still alive at 80 despite much whereas Allman ended his days at 69 in large part due to his addictions in youth. 
****A History of Brewing in Holland 900-1900: Economy, Technology and the State by UBC professor Richard W. Unger, published in 2001 at page 88. He also shows at page 90 that per person consumption in the Netherlands from 1372 to 1500 averaged between 210 and 320 litres a year based on total population.
*****See? Fishy. Ha ha. Funny joke.

July 2022’s Very Own First Beery News Notes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tweet of the week:

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

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

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

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The Mid-Year Checkup

Me. Wednesday morning. I ran out into the backyard in my slippers to cover up the small Romaine plants before 8 am –  given there was the dumbest rabbit ever out there, eating some weeds in the lawn about seven feet away from the finest dining he ever saw… if he were to ever see it. It seems it’s hard to get a good class of lawn rabbit these days. I may have triggered the neighbours’ yappy dog in the process. Jings. Life’s rich pageant or what? Breaks up the week, I suppose. It can be a bit of a challenge coming up with things to write about in the good beer world every week. Every once in a while interesting stuff pops up. For example, I had no idea that there was a Malting Barley Committee (MBC) of the Maltsters’ Association of Great Britain (MAGB) that issued edicts but late last week, care of Nigel‘s careful watch, we learned that they have made their decision on crops for the 2023 malting barley planting season. Say goodbye to the Splendor and Tungsten in your ales! As if you noticed…

It is Canada Day down Canada way… or at least it will be Friday. Eight years ago, I told the tale of how our Constitution of 1867 was first described to the leading lights of the future nation by a future Prime Minister. You can go read the whole thing but here is the portrait painted by one present of Sir John A. in his natural state:

…John A. entered bearing symptoms of having been on a spree. He was half drunk. Lunch is always on the side table, and he soon applied himself to it – and before we had well entered on the important business before us he was quite drunk with potations of ale…

Being as I am fascinated by all the tinkery clinkery bits of technology, I had a read through the current online edition of  Brewer Magazine, a trade journal that looks like an industry version of the old weekly newspaper that was 80% ads for members of the the downtown business association. Unlike the Gammy Bird, however, the ads seem to be real and are fairly interesting, especially this machine that would seem to be a robot that would take over the middle kid’s 2019 summer job, smashing out of date cans of beer out back of the contract brewery. I could never figure out if it was a good job or not. I suppose being covered in stale malty good spraying from smashed cans on 33C high humidity days may not be exactly how one wants to take one’s ale.

Q: is booze collapsing all around? Not in Illinois. Josh Noel wrote about in The Chicago Tribune (perhaps paywalled) wrote an excellent piece about Dovetails’ kolsch service in the Windy City:

While it may not be surprising to find a brewery such as Dovetail, dedicated to reproducing continental European beer styles, also reproducing European beer culture, there has been an unlikely development in Chicago since Dovetail’s first kolsch service in 2019: other breweries have also started doing it. Logan Square’s Hopewell Brewing hosted two kolsch nights in spring, and Double Clutch Brewing, which opened last fall in Evanston, has also done it.

In his mastery of the thing all the beer experts foolishly tell beer writers never to do, The Beer Nut displayed all his skills this week in his considerations of one of my all time favourite beers, Jolly Pumpkin‘s Bam, first encountered around 15 years ago. The resulting observations should serve as a bit of a life lesson for the rest of all you all:

It’s a medium orange-yellow in the glass and quite opaque. The aroma is a fun mix of fruit salad — with pear, mandarin and lychee in particular — meeting a very Belgian saison spicing and a lacing of farmyard fun. That’s a lot of complexity already for something that’s only 4.5% ABV. There’s a floral, perfume intensity in the foretaste, mixing bergamot and lavender with softer white grape. The body is quite thin and that renders the flavour a little harsh, accentuating the bitterness. It’s still very tasty, though. There’s too much going on for it to be refreshing, but it still just about works as a sipper.

Notice the use of observe fact and clear language. No reference to chemistry puffery and not burdened by style. As I read recently, observation defeats theory every time. Or something like that. The human sensory experience laid out plain.

Again with the use of personal eyeball powers, I would never have guessed that beer pub ticking was a jet-setter sort of function but there we are, the lad with the guide in the carry on luggage on an aircraft cabin flying over salty seas:

Right, if you’ve an allergy to the Channel Islands I should come back to this blog in, ooh, October. Twenty-three GBG entries for 170,499 islanders, and I needed ten (10) ticks for the set, having not set foot there since 2014 (before this blog started). If I’m going to finish the Guide this year, I needed to get those ten done in one trip. Nipping back to Sark for one pub in September is far harder than nipping back to Sandwich, and costs ten times as much.

Also: Auld Mudgie linked to a blog of a wandering pub lover that I had not noticed before, Merseyside Pub Guide.

Alistair triggered the sort of interesting discussion that Twitter is still letting you have – this time about the lack of actual special glassware utility, one of those old chestnuts in beer. Best comment? From Max:

I must add the glass I used for smaller servings is the same I use for wines, brandy, and whisky. I got it after judging at a beer competition (which uses the same glass for all styles, go figure).

Similarly, see this consideration of the role of Brett v hops in the transportation of strong ale long distances yoinks ago. So much more interesting information comes out of discussions backed by solid records.

Conversely, we had a sighting of the content control clique movement this week. Same as 2009 and 2016, arises in times of crisis. In the hardscrabble ill-considered beer writing trade, this tendency is sorta like the anti-Christ of the weekly beery news roundups. Leads to bizarre results. Deny the call to obey! Good thing Lew is on the job.

And, yes, the creative if not needy spins on the sale of Stone to mega brewing was the theme of the week amongst a certain set. Beth Demmon, as usual, offered the perspective with the clearest view from a local vantage point:

… this type of deal is a well-worn path. Big business-buys-smaller business in a seemingly mutually beneficial, nine-figure deal. Life goes on, capitalism lives to see another day.

This set of quotes from those attending these days of remembrance is hilarious. Not one using the phrase “decades long cluster fuck!” As noted in 2004, likely the seminal makers of sucker juice.   Jordan and Robin prodded the corpse, heroically finding the energy this week to care enough to discuss what are effectively the two stale assets of apparently no value in the Stone deal: (i) the face of the business and (ii) the long term business plan. Neither now needed. Isn’t the deal just a fire sale to avoid further losses if the long descent from the core business as a premium gas station brand allowed to continue further?

Finally – and in a more fact based reality – beer snakes!

Yorkshire’s decision to ban beer snakes, the comically long stacks of empty pint pots so beloved of cricket fans, forced luminous-jacketed stewards to engage in a series of slow-motion chase scenes with unruly cup-collectors, one of whom was amateurishly but unmistakably disguised as Scooby Doo. The England team have been restyled as great entertainers but the fans’ response has been: hold my empty beer. And also this one. And several dozen more. And now run! These races were surprisingly hilarious – though clearly not for the stewards, who, by tea, had completely given up… 

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

The First Thursday Beery News Notes For Summertime

I took the week off. Things to do. That toilet flap with the itsy-bitsy trickily drip? Replaced. Raised bed cover? Mended. Hedge? Trimmed. Whipper?Snipped. So I am a bit tight for time. Good thing, then, that the beer world went dead this week as far as news goes. Me, I might go over to the USA on Friday but might just go to the west end of Ottawa instead… border still have rules you know. Maybe nip over to a dep and an SAQ in Quebec, too. I’ll let you know if I did next week. Please stay calm in the interim. Please. If I was going south over the big river this week, I could hit the Thursday night “Beers, Bikes and Barges” talk in Albany, NY where Craig is talking.

Join the Historic Albany Foundation, Discover Albany, the Albany Ale Project, and the Erie Canal Museum for this hourlong cycling tour through Albany looking at the city’s Erie Canal and brewing history. See sites like the location of the enormous John Taylor and Sons Brewery and Lock #1 on the Old Erie. The ride begins and ends at C.H. Evans Brewing Company, where you will be treated to a beer as part of your ride as well as a brief history of the brewery itself.

That sounds like a lot of fun. Though they misspelled enooooooormous. Because it really is that big. H_GE and a zillion U’s in between. Big. And that’s only the remaining part of the facility. There is even a stream running right under the building still. That’s the sort of thing you get to see when Mr. Gravina hauls you all over town saying “LOOK AT THAT!!!” 37 times a minute.

Stan released his latest Hop Queries bulletin by Telex… err… email subscription and, as always, has the substantive news that the kids all are filling the streets demanding.

Hop acreage strung for harvest in the three northwestern states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington declined this year for the first time since 2012. Given what happened to world beer consumption beginning in March of 2020, that shouldn’t be a surprise. There’s an overall surplus of hops, in various forms, to be worked off. Fact is, farmers only reduced acreage 2%, planting 59,896 acres, which is 1,255 more acres than they harvested in 2020 . . . and 30,213 more than 10 years ago.

So… is it Crisis, What Crisis? or These Be Yon End Times! Dunno. I tend to pay more attention to my reassuring blood test numbers than freaky hop acreage stats. Other news? Apparently BrewDog didn’t share it’s private business planning with the world a few years back – just like every other private business didn’t:

Brewdog’s CEO James Watt was involved in preliminary discussions about a potential sale of part of the firm to rivals Heineken, the BBC has learned. Leaked emails from 2018 reveal he told Heineken he was “open to being more pragmatic in our views on independence”. He previously criticised craft brewers for “selling out” to bigger companies. Brewdog said the BBC’s reporting had demonstrated “vindictive scrutiny and malicious criticism” of the beer firm.

Why would this be something anyone would think would be made public? I was thinking how BrewDog has basically replaced all of macro industrial beer as the “bad guy of beer” – some of which – maybe much of which – is probably deserved… but the weird thing is how they have seemed for a whole to soak up all the attention for the past few months – and perhaps letting other bad actors off the hook.* So, it was some relief to see that GBH has shifted focus to another toxic situation well worthy of attention:

A current Tired Hands employee says Broillet has effectively resumed his role as CEO and is at the brewery’s facilities six days a week. A former brewer who left the company this spring as a result of Broillet’s presence at the brewery confirmed that the founder has been working at Tired Hands’ property for months. “The public wasn’t made aware of that at all. He just kind of snuck in and [employees] really don’t want him around,” the former employee says.

Conversely – at least in the heroic outcome department – Martin himself shared another bit of research no doubt uncovered in the preparation of his upcoming book on stout with the tale of how Guinness administered under medical care got one particular gent out of a rather challenging personal situation:

On Sunday June 18 1815 at around 6pm in the evening, at the height of the Battle of Waterloo, ten miles south of Brussels, a 33-year-old captain in the 7th (Queen’s Own) Regiment of Hussars named William Verner, born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, was hit in the head by a French bullet — one of 47,000 casualties that day.

Fabulous. Far less corpse ridden, Ray wrote an excellent piece for their B+B Patreon subscribers on his father’s approach to pubs:

He also taught me everything I needed to know about pubs and drinking, when I started (a bit late) in my early twenties. I remember sitting with him in the Railwayman’s Club in Bridgwater while he explained that I was drinking too slowly to be sociable: “Bloody hell, son – like this! Chug, chug, chug…” Third of a pint goes. “Chat, chat, chat. Chug, chug, chug.” Next third disappears. “Chat, chat, chat, then finish it…” Final third down the hatch. “Then get the next round in.” I think of him, I guess, as the ultimate Pub Man.

My old man was a church minister… but he was late to the ways of the cloth and shared hints of a similar youth in industrial Scotland. A short poured pint would “have gone back in the bartenders face when I was a lad.” Tales of great uncle with head butting skills. Hence my familiarity, no doubt, with this sort of grim news from the Old Country:

…alcohol-related hospital stays were nearly eight times higher among the most deprived Scots. Minimum unit pricing was introduced to curb excessive alcohol consumption and related harms, including death, crime and unemployment. But a separate PHS report published earlier this month found “no clear evidence” the policy had reduced consumption amongst the most harmful drinkers.

Bad news continues. Good beer is at risk of collapse, according to one correspondent from the antipodes:

Joseph Wood started making beer in a shed in New Plymouth more than a decade ago. Now he’s a master brewer, and the beers he makes at Liberty Brewing north of Auckland are some of the most awarded in the country. But he’s never seen anything like the past 12 months. “It’s a miracle we’ve managed to keep stock on the shelves. People moan about the price of beer – they’ve been lucky to get it at all.”

Is it that bad? Let’s watch and see if the brewery closings speed up. I give them a summer grace period. We’ll know by October. And, speaking of the neg, there was a interesting anti-craft comment of  note over at NHS Martin’s post about his visit to the Ring O’Bells:

I can barely recall* a time when I’ve resorted to the can fridge for a beer in a pub, I’m so utterly mistrustful of the fancy can lottery, which in pubs is often the repository for the wackiest sweet and sour high abv fruity-sweet hell-beers that I’ve never heard of. Also, is it just me that regards drinking what is in effect the takeaway/off license option in an on-licensed premises, somehow like eating a takeaway in a restaurant, kinda not the point. And finally, why is it that what’s probably the only acceptable use of a specialist drinks fridge, for bottles/cans of good dry ciders, is as rare as speckled hen teeth…

Lordy. An unhappy man in beer? Never hoyd of it! Well, neither did the person making the comment as he was actually quite happy in a good pub with a pint of plain beer.  But… it does speak to division in a way that I get – and worth tucking away should a new sort of craft collapse actually be underway. As to the fancy can lottery, just this week I got tricked** into trying a Cold IPA*** in a fun can which, if true to Nu-Styl Rools, means an unbalanced blast of hot Minwax furniture polish to the mouth with thin traces of malt. Similar themes were afoot in this YouTube bit Eoghan Walsh noted shared of Irish people trying craft beer. Hint: they aren’t signing up anytime soon. Not a growth sector. Thinking of investing your time or money further in craft? Please tell us why in the comments.

There. Thought it would be shorter. Sure didn’t take that long to write. Last week? I poured over that one over and over for days. No one gave a crap. As they shouldn’t. For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: back again this week) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… 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.

*Time for another reminder of the “Sex For Sam!” project that still gets that pass.
**Tricked, I tell ya!!
***I name no names.

The Mid-June 2022 Edition of Thursday Beery News Notes

Finally. I am now convinced we may not get snow again… probably… the crops are a’risin’ and they are getting noticed and even harvested by strangers new to the neighbourhood. I even sharpened the manual mower and dug up the now dead fig tree’s root. In fact, I was reminded just last Saturday how much better beer was than having a fat guy at 59 heart attack when, laying on the lawn sweaty and staring at that damn fig root once cut from the planet which gave it life, I chose to have a beer rather than a heart attack. Good call. Meantime, I got on the Dall-E app thingie to see what all the cool kids are up to. Apparently the AI for the app likes its beer writers fat, white and male. I don’t dare show you the other three panels. Still… quite extraordinarily perceptive.

First up, I love this image from the Mi’gmaw academic Robbie Richardson of Princeton – and his caption: “There was a two man band doing a mix of Pink Floyd and Louis Armstrong covers.” Fabulous. He was in a London working man’s pub and captured the spirit of the scene in this shot as well as a second photo. Note: not yet included in the listed, upgraded or relisted by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England.

Speaking of pubs, there is pub ticking and there is speculative pub ticking that requires you to tick a pub just in case only to find out that the pub was not worth the tick! But in the tick that was not ticky there are also gems, like this beer right here, a Dulse Stout. I like the sound of that. But I grew up near the Bay of Fundy.

Evan demonstrated a deft use of social media on Wednesday with his multi-tweet, multi-media argument on the relationship between Czech culture and a state owned Czech brewery. Read it. It’s better than 87% of the paid beer writing this week. Here, let me start you off:

I keep seeing Czechs ask “Why shouldn’t we privatize Budvar?” aka “Why should the Czech Budweiser brewery remain under state ownership?” A few quick thoughts on the pros and cons.

A bit further out there, we have either apparently run out of gimmicks or have achieved master level gimmick:

A Scots brewery has joined forces with a company of professional musicians in a bid to discover whether playing piano to fermenting beer affects the taste… Sean Logan, a member of the company, is playing a wide selection of his music to two batches of new beer now in the fermentation tanks at Bellfield’s brew house. The two new beers – Resonancy IPA and Resonancy Pilsner- have been brewed specially for Pianodrome’s summer-long ‘Resonancy’ at their new, upcycled piano amphitheatre at the Old Royal High School.

And, never the gimmick, I missed this a month ago about the last Fred Fest coming and going:

This weekend marks the final Fred Fest, a rare beer charity event created to honor the birthday of legendary Portland beer journalist Fred Eckhardt. Later this summer venue host Hair of the Dog Brewing is closing, and this will be one of the last occasions to celebrate both owner Alan Sprints and Fred Eckhardt’s invaluable contributions to the industry in-person.

Boak and Bailey had somewhat positive experiences at three ‘Spoons and were pleasantly confused:

It was busy but peaceful with mostly older drinkers chatting in groups as diffuse sunlight warmed them through big windows. Ruddles was, again, surprisingly, delightful, this time at £1.49. Adnams’s Ghost Ship (£2.10) was good, too – a reminder of what a great beer this can be, full of citrus zest. The tables were spotless and polished and the in-house mag sat there looking harmless, with a cover feature about Curry Club rather than, say, DOES TRUTH MATTER? 

But what about goes into what is in the glass? A study is being undertaken by my old alma mater, Dalhousie, in combination with two local breweries, 2 Crows and Propeller. They are looking to see if they can solve an old issue with how malt is made:

Historically, malting involved soaking barley in water, laying it out on the floor to germinate, and then drying it. This is a process called floor malting. Today, pneumatic malting is automated with large maltsters spreading the barley out on a perforated floor and blowing air through that floor to precisely control temperature and humidity before drying the malt. Two concerns about floor malted barley have been hindering the growth of craft malting: the potential for higher levels of a flavour-altering compound called Dimethyl Sulphide (DMS), and a condition called premature yeast flocculation…

Big picture, brewing industry economic challenges continue. Belgian brewers face bottle shortages:

Companies like the historic Huyghe brewery in Flanders, for example, are starting to run out of bottles. The lifeline, for now, is the accumulated stocks of bottles that were purchased from a supplier company in Russia. These days, supply has been interrupted and finding alternative suppliers with the capacity to respond in Europe is anything but easy due to the strong concentration that has occurred in the industry in recent years.

Similar stories out of the UK and Germany. Plus not enough C02. Plus drought. Plus the hot sauce is disappearing. (Glad I have backup.) In Hawaii and in Asia, the brewing basics are not as easy to get your hands on:

All food prices are going through the roof in Singapore. “It’s getting harder and harder for us to get any supplies at all,” Jesemann said. Hops and malt, delivered by ship from Germany, are also becoming hard to come by. The pandemic and the Russian war have made everything more complicated.

Now… there was an interesting set of three separate posts this week which added up to a bit of an interesting conundrum or at least signs of change. Worth unpacking.  First, to set the scene, Jeff used all his fingers and toes and came to the correct conclusion that there are a lot of beer  brands out there:

I was doing that same back-of-the-envelope math recently, and things have changed just a smidge. American breweries are within spitting distance of making a million individual beers. Maybe they already do. Three changes account for this. (1) The US has seen a more than fivefold increase in breweries since 2010, to around 9,500. (2) The number of beers each brewery makes has skyrocketed. Partly that’s a function of a changing market that rewards churn. But partly it’s a result of the fact that (3) almost all those breweries have taprooms, and a a lot have multiple taprooms. People are in turn drawn to those retail sites to sample new beers and buy four-packs they can’t get at the store. 

I totally agree. We could also do a similar calculation of local bakery cookies, squares and other doodads. As things localize and multiply – as the dream of big national craft continues to fade – we have a splendidly mindboggling range of options… as long as you can be everywhere all the time. Which you can’t. Which leads me to Robin and Jordan writing in conversation as they do monthly for Good Food Revolution. This month they discuss the fragmentation of style over the same timeline that Jeff discusses his numerical ker’splosion:

J: It’s not just flavour, either. As part of the instruction at George Brown, I’m explaining to people about the Lovibond Company. They were stained glass manufacturers who came up with a standard colour spectrum for beer. Sort of pale straw down to deep brown, but in gentle gradation. One of the students asked, “So what happens when beer is suddenly pink?”

R: I do take your point. While styles have changed so much throughout the centuries, things do seem to be going pretty alarmingly fast in terms of flavour development, with everything but the kitchen sink being put into a beer. Sometimes the beer is even aged in a kitchen sink for that flavour.

It’s an interesting discussion – but, with respect, it does move a titch to the reactionary. In the sense that it depends on chestnuts like Garrett Oliver on wine (no, wines have a massive range of flavours) and dear old Michael Jackson (whose declaration of style as periodic table flopped way before the beer went pink.) But it serves as a great X axis to Jeff’s Y.*  Facing this shock of the new… well, newish… we (rejecting the 1880s Michelson and Morley approach) should not worry about preserving a conceptual status quo. In the million brand universe the idea that beers can “rise up above all of the nonsense” like hit songs may not recognize that (i) the hits were rarely the most interesting songs** and (ii) there are far too many beers now for it to mean anything when a tiny foil Sunday School gold star gets awarded. It is simply no longer meaningful. That centre no longer holds.

Which leads us to Ben Johnson who has rejoined the land of the beer writer and posted his first post since last he posted in over a year and a half, reminding us all to disclaim the freebie:

It’s pretty basic marketing. For the cost of beer and shipping, you can put your product into the hands of people who are happy to share news and images of that product with your target audience. Beer writers and influencers get beer, they write about it and photograph it, and then share their work with their beer-loving followers; and the brewery, at least in theory, sells more of that beer.

This, too, is now a bit of a read guard action. Not because people don’t let folk know when a freebie is being discussed. We see disclaimers all over the place now – and that is great. Problem got solved. But the new problem is… it’s also sorta useless. And sorta 2018. Think about it. What beer drinker is now so weak of will that they are influenced? Wanted to be subjected to marketing? Second, many of the more interesting breweries just do not send freebie samples just like they don’t submit beers to award competitions. They know their base and have no need of the TikyToky marketplace of ideas. Third, too many freebie opinions boiled down to generic praise. Worse, fingerwaggery may ensue. Me, I can buy the beer.*** I can take the risk with a few bucks that I might not like something once in a while. Frankly, I am much more likely to be attracted by a skillful brewery that also displays a bit of good humour and jokes with itself. I am also much more interested, like Mr. Lemon, in what is a short walk away.

All of which adds up to something. And its something very different from even just pre-pandemic. The pre-pan. There is now just too much in beer to be aware of all that much about all the beer. It has been foretold, of course. Over seven years ago it was clear that it was impossible to be a “beer expert” but we are also well past even that. With the explosion of brands and styles and influencers (not to mention the seemingly hundreds of beer award competitions – now including a prize for iconic supermarkets? FFS. Really?? Have things gotten that tight for the award fee gatherers?) the confusion isn’t fading, it’s now a bazillion times worse. Or maybe better. Is all that variety actually all that bad ?

What can the poor beer writer do? No problem. Keep it specific. Look for the details. Experience what is actually there and now what you’re told should be there. And maybe write about it. That’s what I say. By this I mean if you are someone with the knowledge of what is good right there in your local area write about it… or write about what London Cooper was or… what is interesting about trademark law as it affects brewing or… or even what Ron has been eating… well, then you have half a chance to still be interesting and informative or even just funny. Write – even if its probably not all actually journalism. Writing is good. I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating. Write. It’s hopeful thing. The hope that we acknowledge the rich niches which have replaced outdated umbrellas and overarches and authority figures. THIS JUST IN: no one need read Michael Jackson ever again except for archival purposes.

Perhaps connectedly, Stephanie Grant thought about something like it and wrote an interesting piece at her space “The Share” comparing craft beer now to the downsides of dating, including the fork in the road at phase 3 :

This is the part of the relationship where you start questioning things. Should I stay or should I go? It’s a hard question when beer has become part of my identity. What happens when it’s not? I left my job at the brewery. I started freelancing full-time. Initially, I dreamt of writing for breweries, but I started questioning that. Did I even want to work in the industry anymore? During this stage, my beer fridge went mostly untouched. It had been months since I posted about beer and even longer since I purchased a six pack. Meanwhile, my cocktail bar GREW.

Did she ditch the dud at phase 4? You will have to go read.

The rut is real – and, let’s be honest, maybe its because just as we have this unwieldy explosion of beer brands and alleged styles, we also have a limited range of beer writing themes.**** So much writing has not caught up with the scene from the consumer’s seat. Why listen to drinkers when you can talk at brewery owners? Yet… I think the last few years’ worth of new writing on social justice through the lens of beer is invigorating and, like the niche and the local, points to the way. Focused as it is on their personal experience, it is a step forward exactly because it’s written by people who actually do “think about press freedoms or the politics of their readers” and then think about their experience in beer overall. These writers have had to work to be heard. And beer doesn’t traditionally have much time for the bad news. Commissioning editors get the yips about bad news but these writers now sometimes write uncomfortable personal things. Discomforting interesting things – unlike what that DALL·E mini app would have us believe as illustrated above. It is also interesting that it is occurring just as established news services also shine a brighter light on the little ways of brewing.  Again, I speak of hope. This is excellent. And it bodes well for a better future.

What’s it all add up to? In the million brand world, just don’t be a follower. Be the subject of the story of your own experience. We simply don’t have any use for the good old days when craft beer was the defined as the domain of the heroic great white male, whether brewer or writer. A past when perhaps, to channel Mr. Ahmir Thompson, we have been burdened by the achievers who kept down creatives. Someone should let the DALL·E mini app up there know we may be done with that. If we are lucky. It’s a needed change – because it was not all good and fun, whatever you were told.*****

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

*Another interesting X and Y graph would be where one axis represented the collapse of  stylistic and branding certainty and the other axis represented the increase in card carrying Cicerones.
**Have you ever seen “Pina Colada Song” aka “Escape” lip sinc-ed vids? Big hit. In its fifth decade of existence. Shitty.
***This is my favorite line when a brewer offers me samples, that I am not one of that sort of writer. Brewery owner then laughs. Then I laugh. It’s a nice bonding time. Then I pay and go.
****They include: (i) social justice through the lens of beer, (ii) comforting praise for the rural brewery preferably founded by career changers… perhaps before they change back, (iii) beer writers interviewing beer writers and other circles of praise, (iv) possy spin over what arrived for free this week (yet… who could deny him this time?) and (v) affirmations of the abiding beer fibs through time like there is nothing to worry about the marketplace, temperance bad, puritans really bad, j-curve good ’cause beer is health food! (I often think of whether Gary Bredbenner so well remembered by Lew at the time now 13 years ago was affected by this… and Norm Miller as well.) Not to mention the crap that isn’t even beer. Fibs and lies, I say. Money in this case is the root of all evil, isn’t it… yet so is its absence.
*****Which is to say we are well past the day a decade ago when Melissa Cole could say that “brewing industry is not only booming and forward-thinking, it is also fabulously friendly” while James Watt was calling someone out by saying “…if we wanted advice from you, it would be about how to simultaneously patronise women and bastardize beer…” Quite the reversal! But it is a meaningful reversal of sorts as brewing is not and has not been a friendly place even if there are friendly faces to be found. And it’s good for us all to have grown up even if it means you leave behind those things of interest in youth.

Yet Another Week’s Worth Of Beery News Notes On A Thursday

Here we are. Again. Growing in wisdom. Me, I’ve been reading more books this year and keeping track. Keeping track of a lot of things. Self-improvement? Do more of this cut down on a bit of that. Twenty-seven books so far this year, not one of them about beer. Currently (after reading the highly recommended book The Shipping News,* ultimately a comedy set in a fictional version of small town Newfoundland in which beer – and screech – make appearances) I am on a third by Questlove, this one Creative Quest, an encouraging book about the creative process. I usually avoid self-help books… but then again I avoided books, too… too many law books can do that. You can help decide if it has any positive effect.**

Martin was particularly creative in his photo work, the image right there from his post about a guitar themed pub, Northern Guitars in Leeds. Love the angle.

Just to prove I do occasionally (mostly by accident) take advice, I did take a pub tip from Chris Dyson for my second pre-gig pint in Leeds. Perhaps the pace of change has slowed a little in the east of Leeds, but the Calls District was busy enough, though Northern Guitars was only ticking over. I guess their trade comes from music nights.

For the Jubilee, the ever excellent A London  Inheritance posted photos of processions, streets crowded with people and/or bunting from past royal celebrations – including a few pubs covered in banners including The George in the Strand.  Some not pleased with last weekend’s events – which is fine. Here is a live action photo of the madcap goings on. We are advised by The Daily Star that the event was pretty boozy as to be expected:

The streets of Soho, in the heart of London, were lined with drinkers and Ripe in East Sussex was just one of hundreds of villages that celebrated with an open-air party. Everywhere you looked, it seemed, someone was enjoying the day. James Heale tweeted: “Horse Guards Parade. Man singing lustily in an England ‘96 shirt, six pack in one hand, fag in another. Union Jack billowing behind him, Tesco crown on his head. The lion roars”. In fact, some people appeared to be enjoying themselves a little too much.

Rooting for an Oaken Joob myself, now. That would be fun. And a bit of a surprise for those most involved. Oh, one last but not least thing – Maureen won the prize so a parcel of goodness shall be sent her way…

Now that the bunting is folded up and put away, reality strikes. First up, why is lager more expensive in London and Northern Ireland compared to other parts of Britain? Less of a puzzle, sanctions against Russia appear to be effectively stopping beer imports:

That has pressured the economy and affected the habits of Russians used to a lavish selection of foreign-made alcohol. “The beer situation is very cheerless,” said Anton, a 36-year-old IT expert who works for a state financial organisation in Moscow. “Not to mention Paulaner, Pilsner Urquell and other tasty stuff, I’m not at all confident if Russian beer is here to stay. There are problems not only with beer imports but even with imports of hops,” he added. Russian breweries depend heavily on imports of raw materials, such as hops.

Another sort of shortage is also at play as the North America is undertaking the rare step of importing malting barley to make up for a poor 2021 crop. Keep an eye on that.

In another sort of dreary news, the iconic Buffalo Bill‘s brewpub of the San Francisco Bay area is shutting – after inflicting the dubious upon us all!

Buffalo Bill’s is best known for putting pumpkin ale on the map in 1986 when Owens was inspired by the beer first enjoyed during colonial America. Owens became obsessed with crafting a modern take on pumpkin ale after learning that even President George Washington once brewed the orange-hued beer during a time when pumpkins often substituted malt. Not long after Buffalo Bill’s resurrected the polarizing beer, other brewpubs around the country began to follow suit and devised their own renditions of pumpkin ale.  

Jay wrote about the original owner, Bill Owens, and the place calling it “one of California (and America’s) earliest brewpubs.” Pretty sure I had their Orange Blossom Pale Ale once, found in a NY state beer store over a decade ago. But do you think I can find the review? Who runs this place? What a mess!

Enough! Something fun. The screenshot to the right [Ed.: my left] was grabbed from this short vid of an old pre-decimalization penny auto bot thingie – which still works.  Called The Drunkards Dream. More info here, here and here.

And something uplifting. Beth Demmon has published another interesting bio of someone in beer, this time April Dove who balances her interest as a roaming brewer with her professional life as a nurse:

For now, that life means remaining a nurse. It “pays the bills,” April says, although moving into beer full-time remains the dream. The first years of working through COVID-19 left April with nightmares and PTSD. “I did things I hope I never have to do again,” she says. “I saw things I never want to see again.” But she’ll continue to invest in a future in beer, setting goals for herself like pouring one of her beers at a beer festival in the next year. Despite the challenges she’s faced, April hopes that by sharing her experiences with others who have been systemically excluded from craft beer, she’ll be able to introduce her passion to many more.

Ron‘s been on a bit of a roll in terms of writing about his experience of beer, he kissed a squirrel… errr… had a Newkie Broon this week and also featured a trip to Folkestone with Mikey:

It was at least three years since I’d last been. The longest gap, probably, ever. Well, since we started going there. Mikey went twice every year. I’d accompany him on at least one of those trips. I became weirdly fond of the place. Perhaps because of its ordinariness. And the really good chippy. Andrew asked on my return: “What did you do other than hang around in pubs and cafes?” “Nothing, really. Other than a little light shopping.” It genuinely was all breakfasts and beer. And the odd whisky.

The story goes on to end up being a neat and tidy description of two classes of pub, the pricy mini and the cheap maxi. Which makes one wonder if the lounge and the public bar have really just relocated. Boak and Bailey and their wise comment makers wrote about the gradations of such spaces exactly one yoink ago.

And there was an excellent example of Twitter as helpful tool in the form of a description – from the hand behind the Glasgow brewery Epochal – of drinking a 126 year old bottle of McEwan’s Pale Ale which was recovered from The Wallachia which sank in 1895 in the Firth of Clyde:

This one still had a good amount of carbonation. It smelled old but in a peculiarly musky, libraryish way rather than an excess of oxidation. It had a pronounced Brettanomyces character with subtle aromatic acids and miraculously retained a clear hop character, clear enough that I could have a guess that they used Fuggles and Goldings. On the palate it was very dry and still had a powerful, clear bitterness.

Connectedly, Gareth Young of Epocal was also featured in Jeff’s well researched article “Lost, Stock & Barrel: The Forgotten Funk of Old Ales” published by CB&B with this wise observation:

The flavors that marked stock ales of past centuries lacked many of the problems that can trouble mixed-culture brewing: excessive acetic acid, intense funkiness, chemical off-flavors. Instead, using what we would now call “heritage” barleys, techniques like long boils, cleansing tanks, and dry-hopping, brewers are edging back toward the refinement for which old stock ales were renowned.

You know… there is a school of beer history writing, now largely retreating in the rear view mirror fortunately, one based too heavily on supposition and assumption. We heard too often that old brewers made smoky even though there is plenty of evidence against it. Competent brewing starts in the 1800s we are told even though there is plenty of evidence against it. What really needs doing is reading some good history books.

Speaking of being in the good books, The Beer Nut is on the job this week examining if one brand extension has succeeded… and was not impressed:

The aroma is sweet and fruity: lots of very obvious hard caramel, sitting next to softer plum and raisin. The flavour is rather less complex. I was hoping that Landlord + caramel would unlock some new dimension of taste, but I could not perceive anything other than a quite hop forward English bitter — meadow blossoms and earthy minerality — spiked with thick and gloopy treacle. It’s sticky, not wholesome, and the two aspects don’t meld well together. The label promised chocolate and roasted malt, like a proper dark ale, but the flavour doesn’t deliver that.

Question: why a lottery?  Why not just promote a program you create, find sponsorship for and provide for free with next level resources identified? We have so much green-washing, #MeToo and #BLM cap waving but never quite cheque sending, Ukrainian net profits only giving corporate PR under the guise of charity. The price of the Sam Adams Pride packaging alone would likely pay for the program’s costs.

Apparently, in a case of un-red-tape, the Province of Saskatchewan’s Auditor has noticed that craft brewing is not getting noticed:

…according to the provincial auditor, the province is struggling to keep pace when it comes to meeting its regulatory oversight targets. The auditor’s latest report notes that of 83 approved craft alcohol product lines, over half (43) did not have valid lab test report certificates. These certificates prove products are untainted and that their alcohol content matches the label. Saskatchewan Provincial Auditor Tara Clemett says the SLGA [Ed.: the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority] is failing to follow up when producers fail to submit a new certificate, which is required every two years. One producer, she noted, had not provided an updated certificate more than nine months after its two-year deadline.

Craft brewers are not concerned. The best way to not be spoken about.

Finally: are we tired of discussing mild yet? No! Are we tied of The Tand winning awards? No!! Are we tired of NA bevvie trade associations? Probably.

There… a middly sort of week I’d say overall. For more, check out the updates from Boak and Bailey mostly every Saturday but not from Stan every Monday as he is on his summer holiday. Check out the weekly Beer Ladies Podcast, and at the weekly OCBG Podcast on Tuesday (Ed.: back again this week) and sometimes on a Friday posts at The Fizz as well. There is a monthly sort of round up at The Glass. (Ed.: that seems to be dead now.) There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. And the Beervana podcast. And sign up for Katie’s irregular newsletter, The Gulp, too. And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch. The AfroBeerChick podcast as well! And also look at Brewsround and Cabin Fever. And Ben has his own podcast, Beer and Badword (Ed.: …notice of revival of which has been given… 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, never saw the movie with Mr. Creepy in the main role. The book is excellent even if it can’t really be taken as a documentation of Newfoundland life. [It caused me to buy The Ashley Book of Knots, too, and doubt every half-hitch I make out in the garden.] Yet as in the book Newfoundlanders do, however, shoot off shotguns in their front yards in enthusiastic celebration still in some out ports. My pal, married on Fogo Island, was under attack as they were driven, post vows, about the place, from village to village. BLAM BLAM BLAM!!! Over and over. Were they in a convertible or standing in the back of a pickup? Can’t remember that bit of the story. BLAM BLAM BLAM!!!
**as Martyn helpfully did in last week’s comments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lew on blind tasting:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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