I took a break from the World Cup on Sunday evening to watch Billy Bragg play in a converted church in our fair city. See, England and Mexico were playing at the same time over 4,000 km to the south. Bragg made it one of the themes of the show, he not being able to watch the game that I passed on for him. He received wanted (“…tell me…“) and unwanted (“…don’t tell me…“) updates on the score from the crowd. It was fun. Pubs are stocking up for the next game against Norway – which is being played at a more civilized start time for the home audiences. People are focused on this stuff. After a 5 pm trip on London Underground during England’s prior game against DR Congo, Hannah Evans in The Times Food newsletter asked where you might go in the UK to avoid the tournament and among her recommendations was the Highland Laddie of Leeds:
This old Leeds boozer got a revamp last year and was named the best pub in Britain by the Good Food Guide less than six months later. Ever since it’s been rammed with customers visiting not just for pints but the pub’s fantastic food — bar snacks such as sausage rolls with homemade brown sauce and bone marrow fat on toast downstairs (walk-ins only) and pub classics with a twist upstairs including the legendary Keema Shepherd’s Pie. The good news? They don’t show the football which means you have a 90 minute window during each game to pop in and try the menu for yourself.
You will recall the Highland Laddie being being visited by Katie earlier this year. Looking further back, Boak and Bailey are blogging like it’s 2008 this week:
Not every post has to be a 1,000+ word full researched epic. Not everything we write needs to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. There doesn’t always need to be a thesis or argument. So, this week – and we’ll see how it goes – we’re just going to see what catches our attention, and what we find ourselves discussing between ourselves, and quickly write it up.
So far they have contemplated a beer line-up upgrade as well as a former BrewDog location. I was inspired and wrote a review of a NA beer. TL:DR? It didn’t totally suck! Do something speedy and short yourself. Go-waaaaan! My note was nothing like the efforts of The Beer Nut, however, who reviewed eleven beers the other day… which booze! He was celebrating:
Another Monday, another blog post, another round-up of recent Irish pale ale. This one is the blog’s 3000th entry. It’s best not to think about what that means, and move right along with the reviews.
He was not pleased with the selection in the end. Turns out he shares the experience of many North Koreans feel when buying commercially made beer. You know… you think you know something about totalitarian regimes and then, whammo, this sort of news slaps you in the back of the head:
A source in South Hamgyong province said beer demand has climbed in Hamhung as the weather warms. But state-made brands such as Taedonggang beer and Ponghak beer are losing ground to Chinese beer and beer brewed at home. Restaurants and jangmadang, the informal markets central to North Korea’s economy, sell all three types side by side in Hamhung. Homemade beer is the best seller, the source said. Chinese beer comes second, and domestically produced factory beer trails both. Demand for factory beer is relatively weak because of its taste, the source said. North Korean people have long complained that it carries a strong barley smell and tastes heavy and unrefined.
I never pegged totalitarian absolutists like those of NK to allow not only a free market on home brewed beer but allow it to compete with the state run factory breweries. And I always thought the phrase “North Korean people have long complained” was an oxymoron.
Note #1: Setting up a beer engine.
Note #2: The Beer Store needs a lot of empties returned…now!
Note #3: “Village of 600 holds beerfest” reports Biggleswade press.
Note #4: Beer stained rubber chicken lets team down.
Pellicle‘s feature this week sees Ewen Friers visit Heaney Brewery in Bellaghy, Northern Ireland where he learned this bit of market reality from head brewer Mal McCay:
“Northern Ireland is the most tied and restrictive market in Europe for selling beer,” Mal says. “The market was designed to keep us out of it, basically.” Away from the relatively cosmopolitan Belfast, the vast majority of rural drinkers haven’t ditched bigger beers like Guinness, Coors, and Carlsberg. Whether a total revolution is realistic or not, it’s sobering to hear Mal talk about the pubs in his locale. “We had 108 kegs go to Italy for Paddy’s Day, but none [ordered] here,” he says. “There’s much more support for our beer out there than there is here. Outside of Belfast, people don’t want to know.”
Again with the economics, Jeff posted a string of thoughts on Costco cancelling their Kirkland Lager contract with Deschutes and shared this tidbit:
The beer was revenue positive, but not much. Believe it or not, most of the grist was Weyermann malt, and Kirkland went for $14 a 12-pack. It buoyed production for Deschutes and gave them a ton of good press. I asked a source inside the brewery just a couple weeks ago if they had a plan to do something with the award-winning lager that was already in the lineup before it became Kirkland. He gave me a Cheshire Cat-smile and said they had certainly blocked out a plan if that happened.
It’s all just wrapper on the can after all. Speaking of the volume market, Ron shared his thoughts on one of the upside of Wetherspoons tht he was reminded on on a recent trip to London:
…we got stuck in ‘Spoons. As you do. Andrew has a very soft spot for ‘Spoons. Probably because I took him and his brother Alexei into them so often when they were younger. The UK is still a nightmare if you have kids. You’ve no idea from the outside whether they’re allowed in a pub. That’s why Wetherspoon’s pubs are a godsend. They always let children in. I also knew that I can afford to buy all three of us meals and get a pint for me. And a couple of double whiskies. I needed to calm my nerves when out and about with the kids.
I posted this at BlueSky but, for perpetuity, I will repeat here that I was looking through a few old images that I have save over the years the other day and I came across this image. It’s a legal letter to Molson from 1934 found at Canada’s National Archives in 2013. It confirms that Molson trademarked the term “India Pale Ale” in 1869, seven years before the Bass trademark. My visceral reaction was “….they trademarked frikkin’ “India Pale Ale”!” Turns out Canada’s Trademark Act came into being in 1868 while the UK only introduced one in 1875. Which explains a lot but it is important to note that”….they trademarked frikkin’ “India Pale Ale”!”
Sticking with the Great White North, there was an oddly one-sided coverage of a fairly pointless politicial stunt in the US Congress related to Canadian booze buying policy:
Nearly all of Canada’s liquor boards have prohibited or restricted the importation and distribution of US alcoholic drinks, a move that has impacted US producers and limited access to Canada as an export market. The CANADA Act builds on comments from US trade representative ambassador Jamieson Greer, who stated that resolving the Canadian provinces’ discriminatory treatment of American alcohol producers would likely require an enforcement action. During a recent committee hearing, Greer noted that only two countries had retaliated economically against the US over the past year: the People’s Republic of China and Canada… Doubling down on the unfairness of the situation and her reasons for pursuing the legislation, Tenney said: “Canadian provinces cannot be allowed to hold American wineries, breweries, and distilleries hostage and attempt to ransom them.”
No view from Canada presented. No suggestion that these are matters that are handled in treaty negotiations, not by internal legislation. Plus, not only do Canadians not care but the US President does not usually care what individual members of Congress do or says – even though it’s led by his own party. Here’s the CBC’s story on the situation.
Germany v Budweiser? Apparently AB InBev has a need for some odd product placement where there is a history of disinterest, according to The NYT:
Twice, the Americans tried to crack the German market under different branding. Both attempts fizzled. The first was abandoned after several years of disappointing sales. The second was scuttled amid ongoing legal questions over the Budweiser name. Last fall, AB InBev announced another go, now with a product that, for legal reasons, it had to call “Anheuser-Busch Bud.” A company official said the expansion would bring Bud back to its German “roots” — its founders’ country of origin — in time for its 150th anniversary… the beer is hard to find. It’s rare to see in grocery stores…
One more World Cup related story before we start thinking about heading to the exit this week. Apparently, the Ambassador for Canada in Ireland held an event for the game against Morocco (which lead to our team’s exit) and there was a certain cocktail on offer according to the Irish Times:
I was sorry to see Canada exit the World Cup at the weekend, not least because I watched their game against Morocco at an impromptu garden party hosted by their Irish ambassador, Dennis King. But at least they went out with good grace, unlike certain other North American countries we could mention. Their typical modesty was reflected even on the drinks menu. Hence a special brew concocted for the occasion billed as the “We’re Just Glad to have Made it this Far Cocktail”. According to the recipe, also included, this comprised “2 parts Canadian whiskey, 1 part lemon juice, and ¾ part maple syrup”. Suffice to say that, if the Canadian strikers had had as much of a kick as it did, they’d still be in the tournament.
Does that sound good? Hmm… I wonder if it was official government policy available at other embassies or just the Spud Islander’s idea.
Finally, as part of last week’s low hanging tales related to the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence, there was chat about the supposed small beer recipe that George Washington, a militia colonel at the age of just 25, wrote down in 1757. Turns out to likely be the fairly common frontier militia beer similar to Jeffery Amherst’s spruce beer of 1759 that was also based on that ratio of three gallons of molasses to thirty of hot water. I do find one part of the accepted transciption from Washington’s handwriting very odd. At the start it states:
Take a large Sifter full of Bran Hops to your taste – Boil these 3 hours…
What the heck are “bran hops“? A random blend of bran and hops in a random quantity? At least Amherst measured out the 7 pounds of spruce that had to be boiled until the bark came off. And bran adds nothing. It really adds nothing after three hours of boiling. Plus it’s not like they are separating out the bran from the flour for the bread that frontier militia soldier grunts ate over 100 years before the commercial separation of bran by rollers is invented. Plus bran would just fall though the holes of a “sifter“, a perforated spoon. It all makes no sense. Sensible speculation suggests what was meant was whole dried brown hop cones – older hops. Hops that look like bran maybe. Washington himself was a porter drinker but he’d probably laugh at all the bran brewers of today.* Hmm… I wonder of he provided something like the crap militia beer for those he enslaved.
That’s it for now. As we winnow out more teams leading to the final game, please take time to check out Boak and Bailey posting on Saturday and adding to their fabulously entertaining footnotes week after week at Patreon. And do look out for more of Stan’s new “One Link, One Paragraph” format. Then hunt out something in someone’s archives! Leave oblique comments on someone’s post from 2009!! Listen to a few of Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on certain Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful self-governing totes autonomous website featuring The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword remains on pause but there is reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer and All About Beer is still offering a range of podcasts – and there’s also Mike Seay’s The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast! And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube as well as the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast.
*One bit of historical correlation doesn’t mean causation context thanks to Lord Wiki, citing the 2005 text General George Washington by Edward Lengel: “Later in the year, Washington again suffered a serious bout of dysentery; he was bedridden for much of the winter of 1757–58, and even suggested to the Virginia Burgesses that he be replaced since he could not properly do his duty as colonel of the regiment.”