Was I always a May-man? Attending graduation ceremonies were never my thing when I was young or when the kids were. I spent most of the time, as with the movies, counting up the crowd’s investment in cut flowers… coming as I did from that family business. But it is otherwise extremey pleasant, what with the windows open and the furnace off, the idle mowing and the slow pace of digging and planting as well as the imagining (but not yet doing) of projects needing to get accomplished before the snow flies. The weeks before the biting bugs, the forest fire smoke, the doing of the projects. The weather now warm enough for a beer outside. Or, you know, maybe a bit of gin… Ahh… gin time.
What else is going on. What’s that? WHAAATTT IS THAT ?!?!? Freakish news out of France this week as reported in The Times:
For centuries, wine drinking has been at the heart of French identity. Now, however, in a development that will have traditionalists spluttering, it has emerged that last year for the first time, the French drank more beer than wine. Beer consumption outstripped that of wine by ten million litres, according to figures released this week by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine… Martin Cubertafond, of Sciences Po university, said wine was usually served at formal family meals at home, but the number of single-parent families had risen. More than two thirds of households now consist of only one or two people. Big Sunday lunches at which a bottle naturally appears are less common. “Wine isn’t an option with takeouts or lunches that take less than 30 minutes,” Cubertafond said.
I suppose that is a point – gathering around the table is less of a regular occassion – but France’s wine industry was as much built on workers drinking it out of jam jars as the haute stuff. Me thinks there needs to be a “Viva Les Plonks!!” ad campaign. Everywhere. All the time.
Tighten your seat belt. We are off on a bit of a quest this week. Where else in the world are we headed? Next up, Ed wrote us all a note this week, telling a story of Ried brewery in Ried im Innkreis, Austria in which he shared many pictures of stainless steel objects before disclosing this vital bit of information if you were to follow in his footsteps:
We stopped for refreshments after the tour in the bräustüberl (brewery tap). I can’t say I was disappointed the grey sausages ran out before I got to them, the brown sausages I had were fine. They looked like frankfurters to me, but having once caused outrage in Italy by incorrectly calling something salami I’m not taking any chances.
When have we all not been disappointed with the grey sausages. Moving along and further afield, Ruvani has also been on the road and reported back this week in great detail on her trip I believe in April to Tblisi Georgia including these notes from Agara Brewing:
Beer styles keep it straight with two notable exceptions: the ubiquitous tomato gose (the owner tells me the style originates from Russia) and a tarragon sour whose moss-green appearance may be unusual but harbours an exceptional gentle umami flavour that had me coming back for more. Tarragon is, we are told, a very popular flavour here and it works perfectly with a subtle kettle sour base. While the WCIPA was a bit on the heavy and sweet side, the tomato gose leaned into a strong garlic-herb profile giving it full gespacho characteristics. While pretty far out of the way, I’d consider this a must if hitting up the incredible Abkhazian regional cuisine at nearby Amra, the only restaurant to serve this variety of food from this contested area in Tbilisi. Being in the sticks isn’t always a bad thing (Londoners will know the importance of having proper local craft beer sources) and while you can Wolt it, it’d definitely recommend a short taxi ride out to the mothership. Side note, this is not a tourist area – be prepared for some staring.
“Ubiquitous Tomato Gose” would make for a good folk tune title. No really. Now… have you been in the Faroes? I haven’t. My ancestors may have but I have no record of their wanderings that a’way. Well wonder what the wander would be like not more as Knut has reported from the scene:
There are towns with a more thriving nightlife than Torshavn in the Faroe Islands, so don’t go there for a stag weekend. But I found a little gem of a café that combines local food and drink with international inspiration – and a nod to big brother Denmark… Think upmarket versions of Danish smørrebrød. There are vegetarian options, roast beef, cheese – and my favorite, Fiskaflak vid turrum fiski – Fried fillet of haddock, remoulade, pickled onion, capers, dill, and a lovely and tasty garnish of shredded dried fish.
Mmm… a tasty garnish. Sounds a bit “grey sausages” to me. Similarly perhaps, wine in cans has apparently discovered a need to tell its own happy story* which is definitely veering off the “Viva Les Plonks!” initiative:
Some of my favorite accounts are, like, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is one of our best accounts. It’s such an amazing cultural institution, and it’s so cool that people are walking around seeing the greatest art of all time, and drinking our wines. We’re in places where it’s really fun for people to drink. And we’re in alignment with our target customer: a cool, interesting person who likes cool, interesting stuff, and is involved in cool, interesting cultural or social events.
I too like cool interesting stuff. And bottles. From a single vantage point, Emma Inch revisited a space in 2006, 2016 and 2026 and found traces as well as distinctions:
Sometimes, it’s in those places where there is the most life, that the most phantoms are to be found: the pubs in which you waited alone for a lover who no longer loved you back; the pubs in which you laughed out loud at the joy of discovering an understanding of new flavours; and the pubs in which you found a surge of celebration and a sense of belonging. Some pubs – given time – can do all of those things, but maybe not all at once. Because the truth is, though very different pubs, The Princess Victoria, Craft Beer Co., and Crossbar are, in fact, the same place. They each have the same walls, the same doorways, the same windows, and they each occupy the selfsame patch of ground. I don’t just mean metaphorically: they’re spatially identical though, of course temporally, they might as well be eons apart.
A bit further west, Liam posted a lovely vignette on settling into another unfamilar pub in Cork … errr Carlow on a Saturday night, giving this photo of the banal a lovely context:
Decompressing in the ‘oldest’ pub in the town, after trying 3 others for a quiet seat. My Macardle’s is pushing it on the best before date, and why I normally go for one from the fridge these days. At this stage it could be Pliny the Elder for all my palate would know, so it’s back to rituals. Two little old ladies have joined me, pleasantly smelling of lavender and gardenia. I think I may be in there Saturday night spot! They are drinking Coors from the bottle and bitching about other pubs, and I think they’re great…
Viva ladies smelling of lavender and gardenia! Speaking of which in words but perhaps not in experience, Matt Gross introduces us to the prospects of what is unexpectedly presented as a favourite NYC bar:
Until a few years ago, there was a bar in my Brooklyn neighborhood called Lavender Lake. It was named, of course, for the adjacent Gowanus Canal, famous as one of the most polluted waterways in the United States, where we treat polluting our waterways as a competitive sport, like baseball and tax evasion. For well over a century, nearby oil depots dumped their waste into the canal, hard rains pushed sewage overflow into it, and generous citizens did their part by tossing in handguns, bodies, and automobiles. Over time, the Gowanus developed an unmistakable aroma, not to mention a variety of hues that earned it that nickname: Lavender Lake.The bar was about what you’d expect a canal-side bar with a name like Lavender Lake to be. Affordable, dark, crowded, with a back deck that looked out on the canal, suffused with various odors.
Perhaps also suffused with odors, from late last week (and for Stan) in France the deer are drunk and causing traffic issues as reported in The New York Times:
It is inebriation season for wild animals, according to the agency, the Gendarmerie de Saône-et-Loire, which is based in a rural region in central-eastern France. “In the spring, some wild animals consume buds, fermented fruits, or decaying vegetation — and may exhibit completely unpredictable behavior,” the agency wrote last week on social media. The police force noted that tipsy animals can quickly cause collisions if humans are not vigilant. To prove this point, the authorities in the picturesque Burgundy region, known for its berries and wines, posted a video of what appeared to be a very drunk deer that has captured international attention.
I think in my youth, “inebriation season for wild animals” meant something different. Here’s some notes:
Note #1: doesn’t this look a lot like this?
Note #2: “…the low-priced, unprofitable, “unpretty,” côc…”
Note #3: “…Nielsen data that shows a 6% drop in beer for 4 weeks thru 5/2…“
Building on that last point, I saw this interesting admission and even a fresh new retroactive pivot at Food in Canada in this story on the challenges facing brewers including this passage focussing on Toronto’s Collective Arts:
“We started in craft beer 13 years ago, but from the get-go, we always believed our brand would expand beyond craft beer,” says Toni Shelton, VP brand and strategy. “We have options for everyone, wherever they are in their drinking habits.” Today, Collective Arts’ portfolio includes craft beer, non-alcoholic beer, ready-to-drink cocktails, spirits, cider and wellness beverages. Its foray into the latter started with sparkling waters that were initially designed as mixers. Positive feedback led the company to position them as standalone refreshments, which eventually evolved into Botany, Collective Arts’ functional wellness brand.
This seems to suggest that the way forward for craft beer is to make “not craft beer” and that, in fact, that was always the understanding as in 2013 it was possible to guage the market and plan for the future. I seem to have misplaced my Believe-o-Meter so I will have to get back to you on that one.
As foreshadowed, I went out a bought a bottle of gin last Monday, reminded by this comment below in The Telegraph’s “Devil’s Advocate” column** by Evgenia Siokos:
Gin can’t even defend its own integrity. You would never have it neat, as you would a good reposado or even, in exceptional circumstances, vodka; I recommend Black Cow or Tito’s. From the hobgoblin-green shape of Gordon’s – loved by Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother; hated by teenagers left hanging over the porcelain – to its other wily guises – sloe gin, pink gin, dry gin, craft gin – all gin is beyond salvation.
Heavens. You would think Ms. Siokos was thinking of Sambuca. No good has ever come of Sambuca, as one old pal says. The eldest is in the Western Hemisphere for the next ten days so one must have gin. May, after all, is the beginning of gin season.
Further back in time and perhaps due to the news that Jeff shared, from the archives attentive readers will recall a few posts on a 1600s beer called Lambeth Ale which left a bit of a puzzle as to what it was. It was included in lists like that of John Lock from 1679 but I believe I found only a few references to what it tastes like other than coy mentions like “she is pert and small like Lambeth ale” and that it may have been bottled and kept like champagne. Lordy. I’ve come across one more reference in The Marriage-Hater Matched, a rude Restoration comedy by Thomas D’Urfey from 1693 where the character Lady Bumfiddle vigourously objects to be being served it:
Lady Bumfiddle: Deliver me, what’s this? [Makes faces and spits.] Egad. Mrs. Commode, prithee what hast thou given me here ? Egad!
Commode: Lambeth-Ale, Madam.
Lady Bumfiddle: Lambeth Ale, what a plague came into thy Head to give me Lambeth Ale?
Commode: T’is fresh and good, Madam.
Lady Bumfiddle: To give one the gripes! Egad, fresh and good, said she. Puddle for Frogs, as I’m a Protestant. Go, prithee, fill it me with sherry, sugar and nutmeg, according to the ancient, laudable custom, Fool.
L. Subt: Ha, ha, ha, this Lambeth Ale has mortified her strangely. Go get my Lady some sherry, you know what she drinks well enough.***
Is “puddle for frogs” a slur for drink fit for a Frenchman? It was, after all, the middle of the Nine Years War.**** And is Lambeth so fresh light and bubbly that it is newish and continental and not at all an ancient custom? Is it… hipster beer circa 1693? Seeing as Pepys drank it in the 1660s I don’t see that being the case but I’d love to learn more.
Speaking of sherry, in 2005 – that’s (yikes) 21 years ago – I joked about starting another blog on the benefits of that fine wine. And here, just like that, Pellicle is featuring the drinking in its natural setting with this piece by Michael Fabro reporting from Jerez:
I arrive at half past one on a mild spring afternoon. Javi, the bartender, taps his knuckles on the old wooden bartop, a bulería—the last act of a flamenco show—still sounding in his ears. “Copa de fino, porfa,” I ask. I’m a bit early and the impending rush has not yet begun. For the moment, it’s me and a group of three Spanish guys, content with drinks in their hands after slipping out of work early. Some traditions haven’t changed. The walls are decorated with metre-high posters of bullfighters and portraits of great flamenco singers from decades gone by, alongside religious imagery. The Virgin’s weeping eyes stare back at me as I sip fino from my small vasito.
One last thing. Again a reminder that there will be an edition of The Session next month celebrating Martyn Cornell’s final book Porter and Stout: A Complete History. Boak and Bailey will share an update soon on when you need to get your thoughts organized in preparation. Which means you, please, need to keep an eye on Boak and Bailey postings every 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.
*“Happy stories!” is the gift that will give all year.
**Shared via the free daily newletter summary.
***Yes, I modernized the puncuation and replaced the long “s” with a standard one. My BA’85 in English complained but shut up after I asked what it had ever done for me.
****Fine – I missed the whole “Nine Years War” stuff, too. 1693 was not exactly when one would be chucking around Francophile sayings.
