Craft Fibs – A Good Beer Blog

Your Beery News Notes For The Start Of The Last Month Of Spring

Here we are. Growing season. Well, it’s been hovering between 11C and 14C in these parts mid-day so perhaps not very much growing but at least there is no frost. That’s my Pinot Noir there. I hacked out most of the Concord this year to let the swankier sibling get more sunlight. That pink edging fades soon enough but it’s a great guide to assist with what lives and dies. Is that why I garden? To judge? To dispense edict? That and salads, sure why not?

First, and sticking with the theme vinous, Katie Mather has been reporting from the front lines of the wine trade and has a discovery to share – well, two after her thoughts on what was once all in black is now very much back:

Ice in wine is becoming a *thing*. Don’t believe me? Do a couple of shifts in your local pub. Over the past year I’ve noticed more and more women (it has been primarily women) ordering white or rose wine and insisting on having ice in their glass. Perhaps it’s because they don’t really like the flavour, and the ice dulls it down. Perhaps pub fridges aren’t cold enough. Perhaps — and this is what I think — it reminds us of being on holiday. Oh god, I am doing everything I can at the moment to pretend I’m not really here. Aren’t you? The world is a nightmare, a giant morality eclipse, and if a little clinky-clinky in my glass helps lift me out of it even for a second, I am going to do it. Black Tower is an ideal icy wine, because it’s heavy in syrupy flavours. And also because you don’t really want to taste it.

Viva cheap sweet wine on ice! Our government is also all about the viva! This week as there was good news for good beer this week was in Ontario’s provincial budget:

The beer, cider, and premixed cocktails you buy at the LCBO could be a lot cheaper as of August 1, with the government cutting the markup rates the LCBO charges for those products. So long as manufacturers don’t increase their prices, the cost of beer, cider and ready-to-drink beverages could drop between 21 per cent to 50 per cent. For example, the government is slashing the markup on Ontario craft beer by 50 per cent. It’s a move that is going to further impact already falling revenues. LCBO revenues are down sharply since the Ford government started allowing the sale of alcohol in convenience stores.

Really? Booze prices could drop 50%? Really?? Jordan ran the numbers and noticed that is not quite correct:

…for every six pack sold, the LCBO gets $1.836… That’s not really helpful math since most breweries sell 473 ml cans. Translated, that’s $0.0939 cents per can. Going by the earlier example of 2,000 hL of cans sold, you’re actually doing better by about $39,700. If you were a larger regional like a GLB or Nickel Brook doing 10,000 hL in cans, you’re looking at a couple hundred grand. The government gets a nice win, because they can say they cut a tax by 50%. No one really wants to understand what I just explained, so there won’t be any probing questions about tax vs. retail markup.

Interestingly, the budget also weakened the regulations around what arrangements qualify as craft beer, as changes “would permit microbrewers to enter into a contract with another brewer that is not a microbrewer” while retaining its status. Don’t know who in particular will benefit from that change…

There was also not so great beer related news from Ontario. Unlike those high hopes I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, on Monday morning I found my Leafs jersey on the basement floor. Inside out. In a bundle. In the corner. You know, it’s reasonable – mathematically speaking – to say that the only team that loses in the seventh game of the quarter finals is the fifth best team in the playoffs. Didn’t feel that way. They certainly did better than I’ve done in the Pellicle FPL pool where me, I sit by myself at 36th out of 55 in the table – but at least I didn’t do what people at the game did:

On Sunday, the Florida Panthers ran the Maple Leafs out of their own building to the tune of a 6-1 blowout. It’s the second 6-1 loss in a row the Maple Leafs have sustained on home ice in this series and Toronto’s 2025 Stanley Cup hopes have officially ended thanks to this defeat… It’s safe to say that Maple Leafs fans have had enough of the disappointment. In the middle of Sunday night’s Game 7, multiple jerseys were thrown onto the ice and beer was reportedly thrown at Toronto’s bench as well.

I’ve seen baseball fans throw beer onto the field in Toronto but never hockey fans. At the prices they charge, it means they have to have been seriously pissed off.*

Could be worse, of course. You could be a US craft beer exporter who had to listen to this sort of weirdly denialist argument from a rep of the US Brewer’s Association as reported in VinePair:

…the in-person attendance of Chinese and Canadian buyers in last month’s 2025 Craft Brewers Conference as proof of the “lasting reputation of U.S. craft beer for quality and innovation — even amid ongoing trade uncertainty for markets,” while conceding that importers from those two countries in particular have scaled back or stopped down on ordering in the opening months of Trump’s trade war. This, after craft exports saw a 15 percent decline in 2024, outpacing the category. Still, Parr argues, “for breweries with a long-term, quality-driven approach, global markets continue to offer meaningful opportunities.”

That’s a funny thing to say. Seeing as the largest importer in the world is our very own LCBO and (i) that 15% drop was pre-Trump and (ii) for the last ten weeks with no sign of a pending policy reversal, the LCBO has entirely cut off your all your exports (in coordination with other Canadian booze commissions), well, I am not quite sure where the “meaningful opportunity” is to be found in Canada. But, you know, it’s the BA! Beer Market’s Insights continues to tell a different story for US trade:

For 4 weeks, beer biz looks a little better. Down 2.9% for 4 weeks thru 5/4, -4.6% for 12 weeks. Wine down just 2% for 4 weeks (including Easter this yr), spirits up 5.6%.

By “a little better” read “not as bad” perhaps. Note the reverse is happening in the UK with the news this week of a UK-EU trade deal as noted in TDB:

Miles Beale, chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association welcomed the reset, noted that anything that improves the relationships and practical arrangements with the EU is “great news”. However he warned that “as ever the devil is in the detail” and he looked forward to seeing the legal texts over the coming weeks. “For the UK wine sector, where imports account for 99% the wine enjoyed by UK consumers, we want to ensure that any new rules and obligations work for the UK market,” he said.

Well, that’s looking like actual opportunity. Viva! Speaking of which in only the most oblique sense which I will let you figure out on your own, this week’s feature in Pellicle is a postcard from local author, Ewen Friers, who introduces us at a pace to the pubs about the town, as illustrated by some lovely photos from MC Himself:

Quite rightly, Kelly’s and The Crown have changed little over the years, but that’s not to say Belfast and its beer is an entirely fixed concept. The place brims with lively modern bars like any small touristic city in Europe, and new takes on age-old traditions have been popping up more and more. This is true for smaller breweries too. The now sadly defunct ABV Festival and the aforementioned more recent Belfast Beer Festival have been crucial in pulling the beer environment forward. Whilst some small breweries have come and gone in recent years, like the much missed Farmageddon, the scene has continued to grow.

Entirely contrary to that sort of familiar stability and reassuring comfort, Evan Rail followed up on that weird SNPA as ESB story for VinePair this week, sensibly seeking some common sense:

For Chris Williams, competition director at World Beer Cup, SNPA’s win as an ESB shows how well Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. understood the character of its beer, as well as the changes in the pale ale category over the years. For about a decade, the competition’s otherwise English-focused ESB category has included an additional set of style guidelines for an “American-style ESB” subcategory, into which Sierra Nevada Pale Ale fits perfectly. “They looked at the specs, they looked at how their beer stacks up, and they were like, ‘That American-style ESB category is a match for our beer…

I’ll ruin Evan’s punch line: “…fans didn’t seem to notice.” Which is definately fair comment… even maybe when taken out of context. For me the whole thing is a bit of a mini-mummer of a muddle that mainly points out that it’s hard to have 1257 styles (or so) and sub-styles (or whatever) then have them shift around over time and space, then expect a clear outcome… or even a useful one! Once again, it’s good to remember this sort of judging is a nice hobby interest for all the participants. Jeff added his thoughts but, I have to say and with respect, the entire discussion has only convinced me again that the main goal of this sort of approach to style is the perpetuation of this approach to style. Does that qualify as what the kids these days are calling propaganda? Me, if I have a SNPA in front of me, I am really only concerned with the taste of the thing in front of me, not whether it has hit the bullseye on the shifting dart board of style. Still, it’s quite a nice hobby for all involved. Nothing wrong with that.

Speaking of what is in the glass itself, still on the run… err… on vacation, Boak and Bailey have been drinking a lot of lager and have come to some conclusions as discussed at and within their monthly newsletter:

When we’re drinking these half-arsed efforts we find ourselves thinking: “Why didn’t they just give that tap over to a lager from another craft brewery that knows what it’s doing? Or to the best of the local mainstream products?” This would, at least, demonstrate good taste. It’s an opportunity to ‘curate’ and to guide. And, yes, some of the national brands in Romania and Bulgaria struck us as pretty decent beers – as if they’ve been overlooked for so long that someone forgot to make them bad. We’d be happy to see them in offer in craft beer bars. If your £6-a-pint in-house lager isn’t better than something we can buy at a normal pub for half the price, or pick up from a cornershop in a scuffed brown bottle for a quid or two, what’s the point?

And The Beer Nut has been considering what to have in his glass (though not yet pouring a cheap sweet wine on ice) as he finds himself right here at the very toe tippy verge of another hot summer, and also drew conclusions:

Probably to be expected given the lactose, it tastes mostly like lemon curd, and can only make the woolliest of claims to being sour. It’s barely even bitter. Half way down I decided to add ice, and honestly I think it improved it. The flavour became less blurry, more spritzy, although less beery as well. I suppose that with “limoncello sour” it’s unsurprising that it would taste quite like an alcopop. As such, it’s a nice and undemanding summer drink, but it doesn’t press the beer buttons. And doesn’t even know where the sour buttons are. I’m unimpressed but I see what they were trying to do.

Is that so very far from Black Tower on ice? Hmm? Well, except for the price I suppose.

Finally, a fond farewell to actor George Wendt who played TV’s favourite guy at the end of the bar, Norm. His obit in The Hollywood Reporter including this explanation of how he managed the role:

The portly, curly-haired Wendt was self-deprecating about his well-honed delivery, contending that the toughest part of his job was drinking the “beer,” a warm, flat, non-alcoholic concoction that was layered with a pinch of salt in every mug to create a TV head. “There I was slamming those down for a whole day. It not only tastes disgusting, I was afraid of keeling over from high blood pressure,” he told The Washington Post in 1985. “Then I got the knack. I didn’t have to put all those brews away. It only mattered when the camera was pointing my way. It took a couple of years, but now I watch the camera. That’s how I make my money. That’s acting.”

Well, there you go. See you, Norm! And until we (not George and me… you and me!) meet again, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday (…as long as all their holiday fun doesn’t get in the way…) and Stan (….not quite every week but yes, he was there this time…) each and every Monday. Then listen to a few of the now rarely refreshed Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And maybe The British Food History Podcast. Maybe? And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer featuring visits to places like… Michigan! All About Beer has given space to some trade possy podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast with an episode just last month!. And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. Check out the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good but, hmm, they’ve also gone quiet this year. The rest of these are largely dead. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. As has We Are Beer People. The Share looked to be back with a revival but now its gone quiet. And the Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. VinePair packed in Taplines as well. All dead and gone. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. Nope – that ended a year ago. The Moon Under Water is gone – which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that – but only had the one post. Such is life. Such is beer podcasting and newlettering!

*Superior reportage from The New York Post: “The Maple Leafs’ alternate captain, Marner, is set to hit free agency this offseason and is expected to depart. After the Maple Leafs allowed three unanswered goals in Game 7, completely taking the air out of their raucous building, Marner yelled at his team on the bench, screaming “wake the f–k up.””

The Beery News Notes You Need To Get You Through Victoria Day Weekend

If we are honest, we should celebrate the Georges as much as Queen Victoria.* Sure she invented the fifth version of Canada but it was the Georgians who made us, they being the people (and, yes, their red clad dutiful doers) who kept us from being just another slice of Americana. Timely thoughts, you will agree. Some call this coming long weekend not Victoria Day but May Two Four – my greatest gift to Linguista Canadiana being the alt, May Too Far. When the Georgians were running the place, the birthday of the monarch was one of the greatest spectacles in the year as the account of 12 and, I suppose, 13 August 1827 at Guelph, Ontario on the celebration of the King’s birthday bears witness:

…all sat down and enjoyed a hearty meal. “After the cloth was removed,” toasts were drunk to everybody and every conceivable thing, the liquors, of all imaginable descriptions, being passed round in buckets, from which each man helped himself by means of tin cups, about two hundred of which had been supplied for the occasion… those who remained continued to celebrate the day in an exceedingly hilarious manner, most of them, who had not succumbed to an overpowering somnolency, celebrating the night too, many of them being found next morning reposing on the ground in the market place, in loving proximity to the liquor pails, in which conveniently floated the tin cups…

Always solid advice. By the way, the 200th anniversary of that event on the Guelph frontier is just two years and three months away. We need to recognize that boozy bicentennial! Time to apply for those government grant to celebreate our great heritage for celebration. I just hope the application form has a space for indicating the number of tiny tin cups required for the event. By the way, just seven years later, as explained up there in the Kingston Whig newpaper of 12 August 1834, not so much fun. None at all. But the advice still stands today: lay off the opium, buster.

Enough of then! What of the now? First up, Rebecca Crowe shared some of her love for her local, the The Little Taproom on Aigburth Road in Liverpool in Pellicle this week, a place of cheery activity and welcoming hosts, Si and Aggie:

If you’re in the Tap on a Wednesday night, you’ll be greeted by groups of people staring at their phones. However, this isn’t an unsociable act—it’s the Big Quiz in the Little Taproom. When you look around the regular teams, you see couples, groups, solo players, university-aged friends, alongside seasoned quiz addicts, and people just looking for some time out of the house. Si mentions how quickly the quiz has grown as a regular pub fixture. “At first, it was just a regular event to increase revenue on an otherwise relatively quiet Wednesday night,” he says, with his trademark full-hearted honesty.

Next, and perhaps quite conversely, a bit of disappointing news for the efforts being undertaken to have cask ale and pubs recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO as explained in Pellicle by lobbying leader Jonny Garrett:

During brief discussions with the civil servant in charge of the project, I was told there would be a “relatively low bar of entry” to the national list, but that there was no intention to put any submissions to UNESCO for the first few years. The reasoning was that the government was not certain how to select which cultures should be submitted, but it also feels like they are reluctant to do so until they fully comprehend the implications for governance of any that make the grade.

Seems that as the UK is late to ratifying the underlying treaty, the government has to determine how to prioritize the many claims to being awarded the designation. So cask beer is up against things like all of Scotch Whisky (a good bet to beat out cask), Welsh mens’ choirs (obvs ahead of cask) and all those charming English fetes on the village green on lovely summer Saturdays that we see on TV, the ones where half the upper middle class villagers who live there are murdered – and it was the church choir master, jilted by school teacher all those years ago, who was to blame after all!!

If, however, any evidence of the vibrant Life on Cask is required for governmental purposes, the entirity of reportage from Martin is right there for the taking. Just this week he visited wrote about his recent trip to The Castle Hotel of Manchester providing us with a lovely photo essay – including this image of the entry way like something from one of those episodes of Time Team where they uncover a Roman mosaic in a farmer’s field. Heritage.

More bad news for the US booze and craft trade. BeerBoard reported that “total alcohol sales declined -7.3% year-over-year across same-store locations during the May 2–5 weekend” as Beer Marketer’s Insights shared:

Craft beer sales continue to soften in tracked retail channels thru first few wks of April. As total beer sales “improved” a bit to $$ down 2.2%, craft beer softened to $$ down 6.3% for latest 4 wks thru Apr 20 in Circana multi-outlet + convenience channels. Keep in mind, that’s excluding non-alc craft brands tracked in separate NA segment by Circana.

It’s interesting how heavily those still wishing on that star rely on non-alcohol beer stats to prop up the decline while also squeezing that Bourcard report** dismissing the demographics hard. If all the energy to ignore the trend was employed in addressing the trend… would the outcome change? Speaking of tinier trends, has anyone actually noticed the rise of Thai beer in America?

According to reports via The Manual, Group B USA has claimed to be the first and only Thai craft beer distributor in America and now it has also started brewing stateside too. Beer lovers and Thai cuisine connoisseurs have previously only been familiar with Singha and Chang beer brands, but in a deep dive interview with Group B CEO Bamee Prapavee Hematat there is now a growing Thai craft beer movement featuring IPAs and beers flavoured with dried bananas.

Despite all those Thai beers coming it, less is still more for the rest of the US beer trade, as Evan Rail reported in VinePair this week:

“That was the height of craft beer—it was easy to keep 28 handles on tap,” says Zak Rotello, the bar’s third-generation owner. “Now, fast-forward 10 years and I have less beer on tap than ever: 21 beers out of a total of 30 handles. The others are wine and spirits.” It’s not just Rockford. Across the country, a number of bar owners are moving away from the massive tap lists of the craft era. Back in the days of what Rotello calls “rotation nation,” enthusiastic beer drinkers were always hoping to find something new on tap—and bars were happy to oblige. Instead, many bars today are offering fewer draft beers, often using those same lines for pre-mixed cocktails, bulk-packaged wine or other beverages.

And Alistair shared some related thoughts over at Fuggled, too, as he bimbled in his dotage:

Maybe I am just entering my curmudgeonly dotage as I creep ever closer to my 50th birthday later this year, but I have found little joy of late browsing the aisles and shelves of the beer retailing world, whether supermarket or specialist. Of course there are beers, usually seasonally available lagers such as Tröeg’s Little Nator, that I happily stock up on when they are available, but usually my little bimbles are more a ritual performed through a misplaced sense of duty, with a hint maybe of self-flagellating hope of something other than yet another “innovation” in the form of an IPA.

Getting a bit legal for a moment, I came across some excellent discussion of an important topic in the hospitality trade from a team of Australian academics, thoughts about the alleged “perks” in the tavern and grub trade and how they undermine hospitality workers’ rights:

As one chef put it: “Free steak dinners don’t pay my rent or stop my boss docking pay for smoke breaks.” Our data also show that workers with formal agreements were significantly more likely to receive their legal entitlements, including proper rest breaks and overtime pay, compared to those without. Why does this matter? Because protecting rights is not just about fairness. It is about safeguarding the sustainability of an industry we all rely on. Research shows when businesses rely on unpaid labour or ignore basic entitlements, they undercut fair competition, contribute to worker burnout and drive talent out of the sector.

Remember when craft brewing workers were expected to be more interested in passion than pay? What? Still?!?! Boak and Bailey (much to the contrary being unfailingly fair competators in the weekly beer new update scene***) have taken time out from their eastern European sojourns to discuss the source of skull iconography in the craft beer scenic landscape:

David Ensmiger, quoted above, suggests that in the context of punk music and skateboarding, skulls and skeletons represent a certain ‘apartness’ from mainstream culture. To paraphrase his argument, skaters, punks and bikers are monsters created by society, who delight in horrifying and repulsing ‘normies’. There’s also a more obvious sense in which skull imagery is about confronting death, and embracing life. People who fly skull flags see themselves as fearless risk takers, in both physical terms (skateboarding accidents hurt) and in terms of their cultural status. Again, this is exactly the kind of attitude craft beer producers either wanted to tap into (appropriate) or which actually reflected their lifestyles.

Fabulous stuff from they themselves, as is so often the case. I added my two cents that there was an association of the imagery with the Motörhead influenced X-treme beer era which picked up 1980s Mad Max post apocalyptic cool. Rock. On.

Speaking of the 1980s, I had no idea that stubbies were a thing outside of Canada before 40 years ago but here were are… or rather there we are according to Anthony Gladman:

The area around Fressin, known as Les Sept Vallées, is nice enough in a damp kind of way, but it’s not exactly what you picture when you hear ‘holiday house in France’. It soon became clear Dad had chosen it just to be close to the Wine Society’s outpost in nearby Hesdin. Still, when I think back to my visits there — which took me from callow teen to knackered young dad myself — what I remember drinking with Dad was beer. Or stubbies, to be precise: little 250 ml bottles of Kronenbourg, bought dirt cheap by the slab from the local hypermarché.

Are you a curious person? I know I sure am and I also know you probably are because you are here reading this very sentence. This one too. Well, in order to compensate for your undoubtedly regular sense of disappointment founded here week after week, Eoghan Walsh has a plan designed just for you – and for you and especially just for you:

Before the big announcement, a slightly smaller one – Brussels Notes turns 100 next week! That’s 100 newsletters from me to you since I first started sending them out over four years ago, and since I revived the format at the beginning of last year. A huge thank you to every one of you who’ve signed up to get them in your inbox, and to everyone who’s reading this or has read an article in the past. To mark the occasion, I thought I’d do an Ask Me Anything edition for newsletter #100. What’s my favourite bar? My favourite building? Best beer? Worst beer? The worst thing about Brussels? The best thing? Weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me in the city? Oddest thing I’ve ever seen. Best sandwich? How I actually pronounce my name?

My bet it’s pronounced “Ewan”, right? Jason Wilson is actually also possibly pronounced “Ewan” but that is entirely not the point. The point is he made a very interesting observation on US wine buying habits these days as it relates to place:

These days, in the middle of a worldwide wine crisis, it’s never been tougher to sell wine based on place. In fact, over the past couple of years, I’ve observed that a certain type of wine influencer/educator has begun to steer completely clear of talk about terroir. At the low end, the focus is on a certain populism focused on, say, wine in cans or alternative packaging. But much of the higher-end natural wine chatter also avoids a deep discussion of place. While the best natural-wine producers are committed terroirists, a lot of the derivative, middling natty wine talk is way more about winemaking technique and philosophy…

The comments are in the context of the risks inherent in the German legal wine standards adding concepts equivalent premier cru and grand cru to the labels of their bottles. The risks being that the promise better be fulfilled. Does this relate to good beer? “Local” in terms of a beer made of things from this or that “here” (or even a “there” for that matter) has never really taken off even when the best examples ring true. In a trade where popular populisit “IPA” branding has devolved to a euphemism for “maybe better” how could that little old charmer “local” have ever hoped to rise to the top?

Question: is there value in Vittles?

Finally, as you can see to the right, Mr. DJ made all my dreams come true with this post on BlueSky. And that is it! Until we meet again, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday (…as long as all their holiday fun doesn’t get in the way…) and Stan (….not quite…) each and every Monday. Then listen to a few of the now rarely refreshed Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And maybe The British Food History Podcast. Maybe? And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer featuring visits to places like… Michigan! All About Beer has given space to some trade possy podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast with an episode just last month!. And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. Check out the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good but, hmm, they’ve also gone quiet this year. The rest of these are largely dead. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. As has We Are Beer People. The Share looked to be back with a revival but now its gone quiet. And the Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. VinePair packed in Taplines as well. All dead and gone. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. Nope – that ended a year ago. The Moon Under Water is gone – which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that – but only had the one post. Such is life. Such is beer podcasting and newlettering!

*See also 2024, 2019 and 2008 for more Vicky Vicky fun fun fun.
**It’s terrible sweet how, in part, Bourcard relies on a theory that it’s cell phone photos and tracking by parents that has deterred youth drinking – but that they will snap back to act and drink like good boomers as soon as they get their own iPhone accounts.
***According to an unsolicited report authored by something called BB Consulting Associates International that I received by email spam filter in, umm, June 2024.

These Be Your Mid-April Mid-Life And Perhaps Even Fairly Mid Beery News Notes

Easter week! You’d be right in thinking it was a month ago with all the talk this week of of green beer here and green beer there. But no, it is the time of the bunny who lays eggs which happen to be made of chocolate. Christ! And each Easter is also reason to revisit this 2008 post of mine on the lack of Easter beers – which included, as illustrated, perhaps the oddest thing I have ever published on this here blog of mine. But, of course, the main event of the long weekend is the old man’s birthday, me being the old man in question. Thank you for all the cards! Sixty-two. Whaaaaa Hoooooo! Said no one never. This very evening I am celebrating by going to a ukelele orchestra concert. I have authorized myself to slip out early just in case. Still, I do hope it is silly enough to justify the price of admission.

Enough about me! First off this week, have I mentioned the global economic mood? The CEO of Mexico’s Constellation Brands Bill Newlands has:

About half of Constellation’s beer sales are from Hispanic consumers… with the demographic accounting for 78% of its total revenue last quarter. The Wall Street Journal report noted that many immigrants in Southern California and Texas have begun avoiding liquor stores, where they are often forced to show identification. Many people have stopped shopping at supermarkets after 6 p.m., hoping to avoid immigration raids… While Modelo, Corona and Pacifico are exempt from the Trump administration’s 25% tariff on Mexican imports, the company is not able to dodge the 25% tariff on aluminum when it comes to their canned beer imports.

Being from somewhere matters apparently. And speaking of tariffs,* James Beeson posed an interesting question in The Grocer: is local a liability in these trade war times? And then he helpfully explored the implications:

These liquids command a hefty price premium thanks to protected geographical indicators (PGIs) which guard the product’s name from misuse or imitation… PGI status offers “clear authenticity and product differentiation in consumers’ eyes”, and plays “a crucial role in premiumisation”… Tariffs certainly look like bad news for Rémy, which generated 38% of its sales in FY24 from the Americas. Thanks to its overexposure to cognac, it also sells 62% of its PGI spirits outside the market in which they enjoy this status.

So being from somewhere can be quite damaging. Plus… never thought over exposure to cognac could be a good thing but there you are. But then in TDB, David Jesudason was arguing that things should be more clearly from somewhere:

It’s especially concerning because most drinkers cringe at the thought of Madri – the supposed soul of Madrid – being brewed in the UK by Coors – while this unnamed beer is actually being brewed at a renowned British craft brewery. The type of brewery that brews a lot of award-winning tipples that define modern British beer for discerning drinkers prepared to pay premium prices. And this beer is no exception. Which shows there’s no need to lie. But here’s the payoff: by claiming a beer is brewed in Germany not Great Britain what exactly is a British beer company saying? Bavaria has better water than Burton? Hamburg has better brewing techniques than London? Perhaps all British brands will proudly say where their beer is brewed if cask were to become UNESCO recognised and we took our heritage seriously.

THEN… Will Hawkes considered in his latest London Beer City monthly how beer from somewhere might not really be about that somewhere at all and this might not be very good in these times:

American influence – and, more specifically, American hop flavour – has fuelled London’s brewing renaissance over the past few decades. From Neck Oil to Pale Fire, London brewers have paraded their passion for (and understanding of) Obama-era American craft brewing. American Pale Ales on London bars have become legion. Wham bam thank you Uncle Sam. The world, though, has changed. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to elect Donald Trump once might be regarded as misfortune; to do it twice is just fucking stupid. Trump’s introduction of tariffs, the bovine threats to Canada and Denmark, the increasingly aggressive way in which visitors to the USA are being treated: this points in one direction and one direction only. America acknowledges and wants no allies, and that includes Britain. MAGA is unleashed and obnoxious.

Interesting. Will the world reject US craft just as it’s rejecting the Tesla? It is also interesting that making booze under licence was one of the solutions mentioned by Mr. Beeson while is the problem for Mr. Jesudason. Hmm… Speaking of critical thinking, Katie M. took immediate and visceral objection to this article in The Guardian:

Is the editorial team all on holiday leave or something? There are SO many talented writers out there looking for an opportunity like this, and so many editors who do their jobs with skill. How can a national paper be so careless as to publish something so unpolished. The writer isn’t even to blame here, the whole process is, from commission to upload.

There was a lot of unhappiness in the susequent BluesGuy comments all of which confused me a bit until I got to this one that shared a correction to the online edition: “This article was amended on 13 April 2025 to replace some words that were omitted during the editing process.” Yikes! The post repair job was still a bit much. As ripe with superlatives as the worst of beer writing. Very much overly rouged, as the kids might say. So much unhappiness. Good thing, then, that Gary shared the good news – the Clark’sroast beef sandwich is back in Syracuse NY!

For longtime locals, the main event is the return of a Syracuse bar legend: the Clark’s Ale House roast beef sandwich. Clark’s Ale House, which operated in two locations from 1992 to 2016, was famous for its roast beef sandwich. It was simple — just medium-rare top round, thinly-sliced red onions, cold cheddar cheese between an onion roll from Di Lauro’s Bakery — but it was legendary. And when Clark’s closed for good, its devoted fans were left craving. “We’ve missed this sandwich so much,” Beach said, standing in the Crooked Cattle’s kitchen earlier this week. ”But now it’s back.”

That artisic rendering up there is the sandwich I ate at Clark’s over twenty years ago. Now… if they can just bring back the house ale and the pub’s layout.

Note #1: Katie Mather has returned to owner operated blogging.

Note #2: do you like salt in beer. People have. Since at least 1835.

Stan also spoke of an ingredient this week – specifically the hop – in his Hop Queries edition 8.12 and shared this about the return to work of two US government employees:

Two USDA-ARS employees involved with public hop research were among thousands of probationary employees who went back at work after the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) issued a 45-day stay on their termination (see Hop Queries Vol. 8, No. 10). Francisco Gonzalez, a hop horticulturist, is one of four scientists central to the public hop research program. Brandon Sandoval is a technician assisting Gonzalez… That’s not to say that things are “back to normal” at research facilities in Oregon and Washington. Not all support staff has returned to work and what happens after a hiring freeze lifted is not clear. Also, the USDA has warned employees that a significant reduction in force is likely.

Some chat this week about what was micro then craft now independent. As exhibit A we have Pete of The Times* who gave a quite reasonable explanation how craft was lost to bigger interests… just as, I suppose, micro fell to the avarice of big craft:

To my palate, Beavertown’s Neck Oil and Gamma Ray, and Camden Hells — now owned by corporations that brew as cost-effectively as they can — don’t taste as good as they did. Quality hops are costly. And proper lagering means storing beers in chilled vats for weeks. So what are drinkers to do if they want beer that’s well made by small players? Trade bodies such as Siba, which once promoted craft beer, now champion “indie” beer instead. Siba defines an indie brewer as one that’s UK-based, has less than 1 per cent of the UK beer market and is not connected with any other business bigger than that size. It issued a logo for breweries such as Fyne Ales, Vocation and Five Points to use on packaging and pump clips.

Then, as exhibit B, consider Phil Cook who gave what can only be described as commentary from a view from (Ed.: *…checks map…*) well below my feet:

‘Independent’ remains the adjective of choice in promoting and organising the many Australian breweries that might otherwise be grouped under ‘craft’ or (in earlier times) ‘micro’. But companies who persist in waving it around as they take part in the recent string of mergers, consolidations, and various other entanglements are straining the word to breaking point. It’s too much like someone insisting “being single is really important to me, that’s why I married another bachelor!”

Does it matter? Well, “it” isn’t any one thing. First, locally the word “independent” never really took off in Canada. Even well past “craft” we are… still craft. And if we look at the UK standard of 1% of the market that has little use for the US trade where the small guys got co-opted long ago to falling into line helpfully to support the aspirations of the large ones. These things, too, will not save craft beer. And does any of this matter so much as we continue on the human race’s continued shift away from the bottle? Consider this startling news from The Guardian on the state of the global wine trade:

The OIV said the consumer was now paying about 30% more for a bottle now than in 2019-20 and overall consumption had fallen by 12% since then. In the United States, the world’s top wine market, consumption fell 5.8% to 33.3m hectolitres. Delgrosso said tariffs ordered by the US president, Donald Trump could become “another bomb” for the wine industry. Sales in China remain below pre-Covid levels. In Europe, which accounts for nearly half of worldwide sales, consumption fell 2.8% last year. In France, one of the key global producers, 3.6% less wine was consumed last year. Spain and Portugal were among the rare markets where consumption increased.

Still on the holiday in Romania and pushing back against that trend by all accounts, Boak and Bailey took time to send out their monthly newsletter in which they shared thoughts on one way the pub trade can respond – reduce the congnitive load:

In the context of a holiday, a slight increase in cognitive load can be pleasurable, and part of the fun. It’s about the line between stress and stimulus… How can pubs and breweries reduce cognitive load? The experience of a Wetherspoon will rarely be thrilling but at least (kliche Klaxon) “You know where you are with a ‘Spoons”. All sorts of venues could, and can do, do some of the same things… the single greatest way to reduce the cognitive load of any experience is to keep doing it. However weird and complicated your local pub might be, by the time it is your local, you’ll know how it works and won’t find it weird at all.***

Does a gay bar at a zoo convey significant cognitive load? David Jesudason explains how you might have found that out if you visited the Hotham Park Zoo in Bognor Regis, West Sussex in the 1980s:

…this magical and enchanting period spawned the Safari Bar, a gay bar playing high NRG music, hosting drag queens and causing merriment that could be heard from considerable distances. The night was the idea of DJs Barrie Appleyard and Ian Harding, who had met at a club in Littlehampton. Ian knew the manager of the zoo and Ian phoned Barrie saying “shall we try something with the zoo, you know, gay nights or something?” They found a cafeteria (originally built as a small mammal house) that was tucked away in the back of the zoo and transformed this functional space into a jungle-themed gay bar on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights.

What went on each Thursday? Hmm. Speaking more or less on whether less is maybe more or maybe not, at the beginning of the month Retired Martin shared his thoughts on coming changes to the Good Beer Guide based on this motion that was before the gathering last weekend:

“MOTION 7 : This Conference instructs the National Executive to reduce the number of pubs in the Good Beer Guide from the 2027 edition onwards, to ensure only quality pubs are featured.“

Have the results been published beyond the shadowy membership cabal? I don’t see any reference on the so-me’s. What the heck could “quality” mean in such a context? By total contrast, I give you the best line written about beer of the week – if not to this point in the month – must be this one:

The best location for a beer, by far, was at the sausage stand near the city incinerator plant.

And, perhaps relatedly, Tom Morton, who I met through his former BBC Scotland radio show, shared a story of a dubious newpaper restaurant reviews which is… detailed:

The worst meal I’ve ever had was at a café I’ll call Les Vomiteurs in the then seriously untrendy, ungentrified, occasionally unsafe area of Glasgow called Finnieston. This was 1979 and the late Jack House was still writing restaurant reviews in the Evening Times. He’d recommended the tripe at Les Vom and as I’d never tried this intestinal delight, and fancied myself an adventurous junior gourmand, I thought I’d have a go… The formica tables of Les Vomiteurs matched the unwelcoming hardness off the proprietor, who served me up a bowl of white gunge. Boiled tatties and slimy tendrils of cow gut in milk. It was unchewable, the bits of stomach slipping about my mouth like frisky tapeworms. I swallowed, inhaled the potatoes and just made it out of the door in time to throw up the entirety of my lunch in the Argyle Street gutter. So much for acting on restaurant reviews.

I don’t know what to say about that… other than my folks grew up on the Clyde and that is the sort of keen tales of humanity that I grew up with. And speaking of the unexpected, Jeff wrote an intersting exposé of a bootleg beer he injested in Oregon named Corona Mega – and also provided some details on a resulting lawsuit:

The mystery deepened the more I dug into it. Whatever I bought that night was definitely not regular Corona. For one thing, it was a vastly superior beer. It was a tenth of a point weaker in strength at 4.5%… The label listed Oz Trading Group of Hidalgo, Texas as the importer, which was an oddly bold move for, to quote the economist Stringer Bell, “a criminal [expletive] enterprise.” (As a spicy aside, the apparent owner of Oz Trading is Oziel Treviño, a Hidalgo city councilperson who was found to have committed voter fraud in 2016.) Curiouser and curiouser, in other words.

And, finally, Pellicle published a piece by David Nilsen on depression and loss, a tough read that carries the disclaimer that “this article makes frequent and detailed references to suicide and severe depression, therefore reader discretion is advised.” The essay is primarily about the life and the passing of a brewer, Brad Etheridge, at age 43 based on conversations with his wife, Julie Etheridge but it also speaks to the broader context. It also contains this passage:

Cindy Parsons is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and an associate professor of nursing at the University of Tampa in Florida. In 2019, she and colleague Jacqueline Warner Garman (who co-owns Hidden Springs Ale Works in Tampa and is a psychotherapist) gave a presentation at the Craft Brewers Conference, held that year in Denver, on addressing mental health issues in the craft beer industry. She thinks the image of craft beer can make its workers and supporters reluctant to acknowledge the complications of mixing mental health issues and alcohol. “We’re supposed to be the happy people,” she tells me. “Do we really want to address this in our industry?”

My profession, lawyering, also has a significant mix of mental health issues and alcohol and much of what’s written by David rings true. Only by way of one example among many I’ve met, the family friend who was my first articling principal now thirty-three years ago quickly upon my arrival revealed themselves to be drinking a quart of rum to get them through each day. Drank to the death. Grim.

There you have it. A huge range of reading this week. Take your time and until next time when I will be, I promise, older and wise… please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday (…as long as all their holiday fun doesn’t get in the way…) and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to a few of the now rarely refreshed Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And maybe The British Food History Podcast. Maybe? And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer featuring visits to places like… Michigan! All About Beer has given space to some trade possy podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast with an episode just last month!. And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. Check out the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good but hmm they’ve also gone quiet this year. The rest of these are largely dead. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. As has We Are Beer People. The Share looked to be back with a revival but now its gone quiet. And the Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. VinePair packed in Taplines as well. All dead and gone. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. Nope – that ended a year ago. The Moon Under Water is gone – which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that – but only had the one post. Such is life. Such is beer podcasting and newlettering!

*Did I? Was I?
**I forgot this: I knew him and apparently drew him way back when.
***Pardon all the ellipsises… ellipsi… but the point was worth making.

The Uplifting And Inspiring Candidate For First Beery News Notes For Q2 of 2025

It’s April. Finally. Did you realize that today we are exactly the same length of time from this time last year as we are to this time next year? No? I was really hoping to start out with something profound this week… but that’s all I could come up with.* It’s got to be the election. I’m all a buzz about the election. And, as predicted last week, there has been an election beer pouring sighting this week as PM Carney took his Liberal party campaign bus to a bar in Georgetown, Ontario. He seems to have a pretty steady hand. Here’s a bit of a vid. More beer pouring please, candidates…

First up, Matthew shared the round up from the March edition of The Session with lots of good stuff. My submission was not as interesting as those of other folk* so go check out all the other entries – but also read Matthews own thoughts on why writing in this “sketching not sketchy” manner is important:

I’ve returned to blogging this year because I think getting the multitude of ideas I’ve been sitting on for months out in a way that is not bound to this process, or to the whims of a particular editor is really valuable. Writing is important, and it doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced journalist or you’re writing your first ever piece, the most important thing is that you get it done, and then move on to the next one. As I enter my 10th year as a full-time professional writer, I consider this blog to be the best place to try out ideas, and figure out what does and doesn’t work.

Next time, the host is Ding and the question is about value. Yes, there are plenty of venues and levels for we scribblers. For example, Rachel Hendry wrote a inner voice piece for the first issue of a new web mag – a wag? – called chlorophyll about a night out with the Gamay:

Tasting Beaujolais is where I learnt the term confected, a harsh word rhyming with infected and inferring the pick-and-mix stalls of the cinema complex and theatre foyer. Parma violets and foam bananas and sweet jellied cherries all manifesting in a glass that people infantilise and dismiss. Yet here, in my glass, a dismissal of an assumption takes place. A Gamay peppery and perfumed and proud. Spicy. Intoxicating. The presence of this spice allows the Gamay to take on a new meaning. A hierarchy rejected.

I like it. You can too. Just remember the scale: Beaujolais Nouveau, Beaujolais, Beaujolais Village and then the best stuff from any of the individual ten villages like Fleurie or St-Amore. From pretty silly fruit juice to age worthy complexity. Yet relatively cheap and cheery at each point up the ladder. Gamay is also pretty commonly grown for wine here in Ontario, too.

Also cheap and cheery seems to be traveling in eastern Europe but, with concerns for their safety, does one really go to Transnistra given it’s largely occupied by the post-Soviet / not-so-post-Soviets. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Retired Martin did:

…our guide Lily wasn’t much interested in facts and figures either. She showed us supermarkets, sturgeon, fridge magnet stores and the Sheriff Tiraspol ground, while changing the tour to squeeze in an unscheduled wine tasting that meant she wouldn’t get back in Chisinau in time to see Haaland and Ødegaard dismantle the Moldovan national team. What a trooper. It’s just as well Transnistrian is so quiet, hardly any traffic in the towns or on the highway, and we were able to stop at Bender’s Tighina Fortress on a promise that we “wouldn’t dawdle or attempt to read the descriptions in the torture museum” or something.

Another town with another fort is Rye in England where Pellicle took us this week where Fred Garratt-Stanley traced the history of some of the oldest pubs if you know where to look – including the chimney at The Mermaid :

Dr. Chris Moore’s research often centres around uncovering these stories by digging into architectural quirks. For example, when he learned that The Mermaid’s central chimney is made from Caen stone (a type of limestone quarried in northern France and usually shipped to England to construct religiously symbolic buildings like Canterbury Cathedral,) he was immediately intrigued. “Caen stone is basically a religious stone used to construct most of our big cathedrals, it would not have been used on a pub,” he explains. “So that’s probably Reformation stone from a dissolved monastery close to Rye that’s been reused. There’s symbolism to that; did the landlord make a conscious decision to go ‘It’s a shame that monastery’s been destroyed, let’s keep a bit of it in the pub’?”

Also keeping up with the past, Liam provided us with another slice of Irish beer history, an inquiry by the magistrates into the problem of the overpour:

…the publicans were summoned to appear in front of the local magistrates and as examples, a pair of half-gallon measures were produced belonging to two publicans, a Mr. McDonnell and a Mrs. Wafer. Both measures had been found to be correct six months previous but now held a naggin more than they previously did according to the inspector. This would equate to over 4% extra liquid per measure, which would amount to a moderate but notable loss to the publican over time. The magistrates were at a loss as to how this could happen, but the puzzle was solved when a tinman called Mr. Waters took to the stand and gave the following explanation…

There… you’re hooked! Go read the rest for yourself under that link. Not dissimilarly, Eoghan Walsh wrote a list of everything he ate outside of the home last month including but not limited to:

Half a packet of Yolloh strawberry marshmallow sweets I found hidden behind my phone at my desk. Four fruit Mentos I found in my dressing gown. A full pack of Yolloh strawberry marshmallow sweets I bought in a moment of weakness. A basket of fries at Brasserie de la Senne, shared. A portion of Boon Mariage Parfait cheese squares, with mustard, shared. Duyvis Crac-A-Nut Paprika nuts, three or four packets, the small ones from the vending machine.

And Laura Hadland wrote an excellent extended post script to a recent What’s Brewing article on sexism at British beerfests to explain the why calling out such bigotries matter:

Why do something that you know might upset a few people when you can take a different route and try not to actively offend anyone? We all know that you can’t please all the people all of the time and no doubt whatever theme or image the St Albans committee chose, they would end up with detractors saying they didn’t like the decision. But not liking something for reasons of personal taste or preference is different from choosing to use an illustration that has sexist overtones.

Gary has announced that he is done with X. (Me, I linger there still only for the inflamatory entertainment of the national election here, making any manner of political obsessive lose their marbles.) Speaking of smartening up, The Polk from The Hammer has been near dry for months now and is finding the loss of venue a continuing challenge:

I love a solid beer run and this last weekend was perhaps the worst, most depressing one I’ve ever taken and it illustrates a real problem the sober or non-alcoholic beer world has when it comes to helping folks crossover or drink a little less if that’s what they’re after… I must admit to longing for that jump in the car and head off down the road moment we used to have when it came to grabbing some new beers… There aren’t many options for a sober third space and while some breweries have NA offerings, good ones that aren’t more than a cheap knock-off of something they toss on the menu for the DD are not as easy to find. The culture of raising a glass with your friends is missing, the fluid conversation and excitement of new and returning beers, old favourites and solid stand-bys doesn’t exist…

Also over is April Fools Day. The best beer related prank was this announcement from Bill of It’s Pub Night:

I was surprised to see a local brewery — you can figure out which one — announce on Facebook that they will no longer be brewing their love-it-or-hate-it Donnie the Elder double gose flavored with muskmelon. Muskmelon — another word for cantaloupe — gave the beer its distinctive orange color, but the taste wasn’t for everyone. The double gose (sometimes abbreviated “doge” on the blackboard) had a small but vocal minority who liked it, but wasn’t popular enough to keep in the rotation. The brewers had briefly experimented with a lighter-bodied version that wasn’t as sharp, and not as pungent or orange-colored, that was called Donnie the Younger. But it turned out no one liked that one, not even fans of Donnie the Elder.

Quote to the contrary, Jordan is seeking the real truthy truth and continuing his list of new beer rules and got so excited about #6 that he skipped past #4 and #5 to get at it – it being the lack of succession as he considers the end** of Mill Street:

We’ve had a lot of breweries open and close within a couple of years in Ontario. Sometimes their annual production wouldn’t fill a large Jacuzzi. Discounting those, let’s say you have shelf SKUs and you’re up around 2,000 hl a year. What’s your plan? Are you going to get big enough to sell to a large corporation? In this economy? Is your brand important enough to be consolidated? Will anyone miss it when it’s gone? According to my spreadsheet, which requires some updating, 119 physical brewing locations have closed in Ontario since 2017, just after Mill Street was purchased. Not many of them were purchased by larger companies.

Sticking with the Canadian scene, Mélissa Gélinas in the Aylmer Bulletin out of Quebec considers what the tariffs we face in Canada will mean for her local breweries:

Sébastien Gandy, head of sales, communications, and cultural affairs at La Dérive Brasserie Artisanale in Gatineau [notes, a]ccording to reports, the cost of a can could potentially increase by 10 to 30 cents. “If it were as simple as raising the price of a can and passing it on to customers, it wouldn’t be so complicated,” said Sébastien. “The real issue is that we’re already in a price war since there’s competition between microbreweries and macrobreweries, which always have the upper hand… Ultimately, we’re caught in a political war that makes no sense, where we don’t have the tools to achieve our goals,” he said. “I think we still feel a desire among the population to encourage smaller local players.

And elsewhere in the land, we see that desire play out with perhaps surprisingly patriotic themes:

In response to repeated threats to Canada’s sovereignty and a trade war, Newfoundland and Labrador breweries want you to grab a cold one in solidarity. On Wednesday Landwash Brewery in Mount Pearl unveiled On Guard, a Canadian pale ale made with only Canadian ingredients, like Quebec hops… In downtown St. John’s, Yellowbelly Brewery co-owner and publican Craig Flynn is individually rolling each label on to individual cans for a new brew called Elbows Up. “Sovereignty is a very big belief in Canada,” said Flynn. “If you want to come after us and try to bring us into the corner, we’re going to come back with our elbows up.”

We’re apparently so proud that we just might fight a bit dirty. Blame Gordie. We’re also just a bit weird. Well, it is a global economic crisis and election time so why not be weird? Speaking of the crisis, on Wednesday the US Department issued an addendum to the Trump Administration’s aluminum tariff that will cause some concern in the world of beer:

BIS in this notice revises Annex 1 to add the following two additional aluminum derivative products in Annex 1:

(1) beer; and
(2) empty aluminum cans.

There you have it. As of 12:01 am Eastern Time on Friday 4 April 2025 all canned beer imports will cost 25% more wholesale in the USA. So… that is it for this week. A reasonable set of reads. Nothing too exotic. But some looming panic. Still, remember that there wil be a special prize for pictures of politicians at the taproom. Was Poilievre pouring in Freddie’s Beach on Monday? I need to check that out.

Until next week, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday (WHILE YOU CAN!!! They are saying they are holidaying in April and May) and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And maybe The British Food History Podcast. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. The Share looks to be back with a revival. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. VinePair packed in Taplines as well. All gone. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer featuring… Michigan! There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. All About Beer has sponsored trade possy podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that – but only had the one post. Such is life.

*I like to place the blame on someone other than myself for things like this but, if I am honest, it’s been a bit of a blur recently with two of us covering the work of eight for a few days, three for a bit more than that and four for longer. We hope to be up to five in a few weeks so, with any luck, I can get back to really goofing off now and then.
**Under that link, there’s an interesting comment from an officer of a megabrewer: “…but it’s not an insubstantial amount of liquid…“

The Last Thursday Beery News Notes For The Suckiest Part Of The Year

We have entered a short and ugly season. False spring. Dwindly wintery. The time of dirty snow. After last week’s -20C temps, high winds and back to back blizzards we got the first sense of spring. Not the reek of dog shit thawing out of snowbanks spring. But at least +5C and even a bit of drizzle. Under five weeks to the first of April. My own pea and carrot seeds will be planted in the cold dark soil by then. Not that bit of basil. No way. I am eating that plant. Soon.

First up? First up and speaking of eating, I have been looking for an angle on long time servant of good beer Jonathan Surratt‘s blog by email about sandwiches, Bound by Buns, and this week he provided in this week’s post:

I recently had the idea to see if I could incorporate beer into each of the main components of a sandwich… I met with Jenny Pfafflin from Dovetail Brewery (we call her JP) and she and I put our heads together to discuss the beer options for this sandwich. I had a rough concept for a beer braised short rib sandwich using a beer cheese spread and we talked through the other options. JP, a brewer who is also an Advanced Cicerone, was very helpful in being a second opinion and a knowledge expert on Dovetail’s line of beers and beer flavors in general.

Now, that is just the introduction to the intro. Take some time. His weekly posts often drill down deep into the details and then wallow with you in the goodness of sammy Pr0n.

Next… what a headline: “Heineken to make beer weaker“!!! Jessica Mason reports:

From 25 February, Heineken will reduce the alcohol of its Sol beer brand to just 3.4% ABV down from from 4.2% ABV. The beer, which was originally brewed in Mexico before it was acquired by Heineken from Fomento Economico Mexicana SAB (FEMSA) in 2010 in a deal worth £4.8 billion, is now produced in Zoeerwoude in the Netherlands. According to reports via The Sun, increased cost pressures facing the sector have also pushed the decision for beer companies to make the move to bring the strength down on some beers.

That’s 23.5% weaker according to my math. Yikes. At what point is that a near beer? Speaking of weak, we have this in from Beer Insights on the serious loss of interest in the darling of a decade ago, Stone, now owned by Sapporo:

…results were driven by strong growth of Sapporo brands offsetting softer Stone trends. Indeed, early in the yr, the co recorded a $90+-mil impairment charge on its Stone biz, it acknowledged while responding to critiques about its overseas investments from a Singapore-based investor with more than 19% stake in the co. Recall, Sapporo acquired Stone for a little less than $170 mil in 2022, then invested tens of mils of $$ in US production facilities.

A $90,000,000 loss on a two year old $170,000,000 investment is quite impressive. Somebody sure ain’t worthy. Conversely, Matty C got out his pen and his writing table and wrote about the end of things for CAMRA’s What’s Brewing:

Everything is finite, and all good things must come to an end. Most people understand this, even if only subconsciously, and it’s why I think we cling to nostalgia so tightly – it helps stop us worrying about that which we ultimately cannot control: change. Nostalgia plays a huge part in what we drink and enjoy. It’s largely why Guinness is so frustratingly popular at the moment (and I say frustratingly from the perspective of someone who feels like this is a missed opportunity to get more people drinking cask beer). But this phenomenon also extends to brands like Theakston’s Old Peculier and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, even Bass remains popular among some enthusiasts.

Speaking of institutions… what is a hall of fame for? The already famed? Consider Jeff‘s conclusion:

Elevating the less-heralded figures who shaped American brewing is certainly a worthy effort. Using the Hall to reshape the way we think about brewing (as well as craft brewing) would be a worthy effort. But at least after an initial round of inductees, it seems like the Hall has chosen to celebrate they already celebrated. Maybe this project isn’t for me, or the public generally, and that’s fine. Industries get to define whom they celebrate. But again, looking from the outside, it seems like a missed opportunity.

There isn’t a hall. Just a website. But… if there is no actual hall, does there even have to be actual fame? Or is it for sometinhg else? Consider Stan‘s thoughts:

For the record, I provided nominations and I voted in the election. I nominated Joe Owades (cited within the post), not because of the role he played in developing light beer, but because he was a key advisor to the early giants of microbrewing (even if the beer was not made a small breweries; goodness those were confusing times) such as Boston Beer and Pete’s Wicked Ale. As you will see when you read the entire post, people like to talk about this.

Soooo… there is the talk. But does the talk get beyond the bubble? Still, it’s a bubbly bubble for sure. Frothy even. As you consider that, we move on a bit deeper into the recent past. Boak and Bailey linked to this one on Saturday but it is too good not to record for archival posterity – a 1977 BBC documentary on the state of the UK beer industry. As Nigel Sadler wrote “a nice old film“! But it was a broadcast to a nation wide public. Not a bubble Could beer still sustain that sort of viewership now?

Well someone* is trying as Pete Brown has been granted space in the Sunday Times in England to write about beer on a regular basis. It will be interesting to see if there will be any of the analysis you would see in wine or restaurant reviews. It would be even more interesting if a writer like A.A. Gill, Brown’s predecessor in those pages, could arise in good beer. Drink was something Gill left behind with good reason. Similarly, could good beer generate this sort of academic standard we see with the four newly announced Masters of Wine? Consider these qualifications:

Jit Hang Jackie Ang MW holds a DPhil in Medical Sciences from the University of Oxford and a MA in Pharmacology from the University of Cambridge, said the IMW. He is director of Cherwell Wine and Spirits in Singapore, where he also heads the High Throughput Screening group at the Experimental Drug Development Centre. His research paper was: ‘Are Universal Glasses Truly Universal? — An investigation on whether glassware shape affects perceptions of red and white table wines made from international varieties.’

A brainiac! But there are many sorts of pursuits and pleasures, aren’t there. For example, B+B shared a tiny cheery… dare I say charming… travelogue on a recent weekend trip to Germany with Ray’s mother over at their Patreon page:

In Cologne, almost 24 hours later, we fell upon glasses of Päffgen Kölsch while surrounded by people in carnival costumes – minions, pirates, sequined suits, and so on. Our hypothesis was that Ray’s mum would love Kölsch and Kölsch culture. She’s a lager drinker by default, when she drinks beer rather than whisky, and is no longer keen on pints. Sure enough, she did like this crisp, bitter, incredibly fresh beer. Well, who wouldn’t? Truthfully, it was probably being surrounded by family, and having a fuss made of her, that made the beer taste particularly good.

Sounds ideal. No? Does for me. But maybe this is your ideal pub? Not mine but I am not an elderly emo. Really. I’m not. Others have other ideals… idles… iddles…

After the King pulled a pint called Gone For A Burton, a traditional mid-strength beer brewed by Tower, brewery owner John Mills cheekily asked him: “Going to have a slurp of that, sir?” The King replied that if he was not, he was in the “wrong place”.

Less regally, Doug Veliky has been asking some questions of brewers in these troubled times and Ottawa’s own Dominion City Brewing shared a high level of detail that they had actually shared with their customers along with a few notes:

…we’ve been refining our unique value proposition and have landed on the fact that we offer a high rate of sale and greater profit per pour than our peers. We’ve made up the attachment below [Ed.: err… above…] in a bid to educate our customers about the pricing elasticity they get with our brand (and about the true cost of their macro options once all the freebies and kickbacks are counted.) It’s made the difference in keeping our business with several accounts to date and we hope to use it as part of our pitch to accounts that might not look craft-accessible. So both a shield and sword strategy.

I like it. And I like their Town & Country, too. They are also fighting the tariff threat along with other Canadian brewers. More on the Glorious and Free initiative here. Speaking of Ontario, just days before today’s election, the liquor control agency controlled by current government of “Buck A Beer” Doug Ford slapped a new tax** on beer sales in the province:

The LCBO posted information about the fee increase on its website Monday within hours of Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford unveiling a new campaign promise to scrap the province’s mandatory minimum prices for alcohol. The increase is set to take effect on April 1. It amounts to a 4.4 per cent jump in what the LCBO calls “cost of service,” a levy that applies to all beer products — whether imported or domestic — sold at retail outlets such as The Beer Store, supermarkets, convenience stores and brewery retail outlets, as well as on beer distributed to bars and restaurants.

And finally Pellicle picked a spot for this week’s focus where I’ve actually been – but may not no longer – as author Gene Buonaccorsi got to crawl over and under the Cambridge Brewing Company, down the road from MIT and across the river from Fenway***:

With Phil off attending to customers, I asked Will to show me the notorious barrel cellar. For years, I’d heard of this nature-defying space—a small corner of a basement where some of the industry’s most mind-bending beers fermented and matured. We exit the dining room through a door towards the back and enter an industrial white-walled staircase with faded metal handrails. He leads me down to the lowest level, where we emerge into a low ceilinged room with fluorescent lights that (at first glance) illuminate a set of dry goods storage racks and the unmistakable shining silver door of a refrigerated keg room. “It’s a bit tricky from here,” he tells me. “You have to step up but also duck so you don’t hit your head.”

Duck or grouse. That’s the choice. Well, it’s a B.O.B., isn’t it. That’s it for another week. Until we meet again in March, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And maybe The British Food History Podcast. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. The Share looks to be back with a revival. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. VinePair packed in Taplines as well. All gone. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer featuring… Michigan! There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. All About Beer has sponsored trade possy podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that – but only had the one post. Such is life.

*Others too. For example, I had no idea there was a beer focused radio station broadcasting out of Sheffield: “Ale & Radio will celebrate its milestone on April 13, following a highly successful first year broadcasting beer-focused content alongside a diverse mix of music spanning multiple genres and generations. With a global audience, the station’s mission has always been to support independent breweries, bars, pubs, and beer retailers, while uniting beer enthusiasts through a variety of engaging content. Listeners can tune in for regular beer news, travel features, festival coverage, brewery interviews, and user-submitted audio beer reviews.” Here’s their webpage with a link to the audion stream. But is Pete’s as he posted “the ONLY regular beer column to run in a UK broadsheet newspaper or magazine, first one for over 20 years” or as he blogged “I’ve joined Adrian Tierney-Jones (Daily Star) in the exclusive ranks of people who have a regular beer column in a mainstream British media outlet.“?
**fine… yes, it’s a fee increase and not a tax…
***…and, once upon a time, deep down within an entertaining early pandemic freakout…

The Thursday Beery News Notes Perfectly Fit For Any Aspiring Oligarch

I would have thought Mr. Putin’s habit of defenestration would have made the prospect of being an oligarch less than attractive. I would think the real position to aspire to is the one where you don’t need the job, no one thinks you can do the job, you don’t even necessarily fit the job – but sooner or later the job comes to you. Consider Mr. Churchill above in 1932, as above, during his wilderness years. Yet immune to Prohibition when visiting friends overseas.

Is good beer entering a wilderness as we move into in this new political cycle? You know, the one dubbed by the Finns as the start of WWIII? Is that fair? I do fear that people are grasping for the return of something loved but lost as opposed to bracing for the shock of the new, like with this bit of advice:

Most of the category’s biggest threats have greater scale, but aren’t local, and that advantage must be exploited more. By directly engaging with neighbors through the hosting of events, sponsorships, and collaborating with other local businesses, breweries can build a sense of community that money can’t buy. Customers are more likely to support businesses they feel a connection to, so the more organizations that can be included, the more loyalty will compound.

What’s that? 2017 is calling? Fine. This sort of rehash strikes me as unhelpful, a sort of dreamy tariff-free wish for another time. Is that helpful? I was thinking about that when I read this on Blues Guy from wine writer Jamie Goode:

If you are a wine writer it’s really good to talk about the wines and how good they are (assuming they are) rather than concentrating on the business difficulties, the challenging market etc.! Your audience doesn’t need to know this, and it might end up putting a dampener on sales

It strikes me as a similar sort of thing. Hedging. Hedgy even. Whatever is coming is not going to benefit from tales half told or Obama-era building communities of buyers, you know, just as the money tighten. Compare that from this sort of starker statement from Beer Board about the state of diversity in US draft beer sales in 2024:

Not all brands contribute equally to volume or revenue: the top four draft brands drive about 2.5 times more sales than the next eleven brands, and 15 times more than the long tail.

Compare… hop water? As if. Yup, better to be blunter, bolder and perhaps even less pleasant. Like these top beer review panel notes of the week: “Ray quite liked but Jess almost spat out in disgust.” And as we consider Rachel Hendry‘s recent thoughts on her own writing:

Not so sexy, is it, to say things like I spent a lot of time on a project that didn’t go anywhere which now feels kinda embarrassing or I had some ideas that I thought were good but actually maybe they kinda sucked. The sadness and the strops were short lived because a) in the grand scheme of everything writing about wine really isn’t that important and b) I am a firm believer that failure is a good thing. Experiencing rejection means you were brave enough to put yourself out there in the first place, and that’s a win in itself. I like my weird and uncategorisable approaches to wine, I’ve worked hard on developing my style and ways of thinking and I’m not willing to compromise that, to conform my voice into something more mainstream.

A big fat double “Viva Viva!!” to that, Rachel. Be you. And congratulations on what every good drinks writer really needs – a job!

Consider, too, Katie who considered her relationship with the champers and thought of her favourite pal shown in thumbnail to the rights:

The lovely woman in The Gulp’s header image is taken from a 19th century German oil painting called “Maid Secretly Drinking Champers” (possibly not its original name). She has cleared away the glasses from her Lady’s table, and in the hallway, hidden from view, she downs the last remaining dregs of the bubbles. Her head is tipped right back to catch every drop, her cheeks flush with excitement, knowing she is tasting something out of her reach — and yet is literally in her grasp regularly. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate image for this newsletter.

(Good news, Katie. Champagne sales are down and prices may follow.) Katie’s piece reminded me that I have an acquaintance who was a sommelier 40 years ago and told of us how he sometimes stopped midway on the back service stairway, sipping the last dribs from a 1948 or 1963 that he had served someone then famous now forgotten at some swanky London restaurant also then famous now forgotten. What he knew is what I think Katie’s hero knew. Look at the tray. There’s more in the other two glasses on the tray. There’s more.

Speaking of good news, Jessica Mason is on the mend and too the time to tell the very odd tale of a burglery in India:

The store, based in Tiruttani in India’s Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvallur district, had been locked by supervisors on Saturday night, but when staff returned on Sunday they found evidence of people having drilled through the wall to enter the premises. According to local reports, the money that was being kept in the shop and housed in stacked iron boxes had been completely left untouched with the thieves choosing to consume the alcohol available instead. Much to the shop owner’s surprise, the money in iron boxes inside the shop had been ignored with the miscreants favouring the beer instead and leaving just a collection of empty bottles behind from their night time escapade.

How civil! Similarly note: “…this is already the best stop on the A1…”

There are other glimmers of good. Boak and Bailey considered the demise of pub food this week when they were asked to recommend a spot for that purpose. I have to say, if I am in a pub these days it is more likely as not that I am eating a meal. And sometimes, yes, I am disappointed. As they have been – until they gave a heads up:

It’s interesting how often we find ourselves in pubs that no longer serve food and hear people ask at the bar: “Is the kitchen open?” They haven’t updated their mental model from before the pandemic. Trying to answer the question we’d been asked, we debated The Barley Mow a bit – it does have food, but when is it served? We couldn’t find this out online and nobody wanted to phone to ask. In the end, we suggested a 10-minute walk into town where The Old Fish Market, a rather corporate Fuller’s pub, is still selling the 1990s gastropub dream. Our correspondent was very happy with apparently excellent crispy pork belly and roasted vegetables.

Is this reflective of a turnaround for at least the corporate chain pubs of Britain? Spoons has been booming a bit:

The pub chain also posted a 4.6% increase in like-for-like sales for the second quarter, bolstered by a 6.1% rise during the critical three-week Christmas period. But as the tills rang merrily, the company’s future increasingly appears “at the mercy of politicians,” with cost pressures mounting. Chairman Tim Martin, addressing the results, said that sales during the Christmas period were particularly strong, showing customer loyalty to Wetherspoons’ value-oriented proposition. Martin said: “Sales during the Christmas period were robust, highlighting the resilience of our approach in challenging times.”

And even further away, The Beer Nut decided to channel his inner Ron and headed to Brazil, living to tell the tale:

It’s hard to beat a bit of sunshine and warmth in the midst of the winter gloom. Last month’s New Year jaunt certainly provided that, with a week or so in sunny, and rainy, but most of all warm, São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. It’s a city that sprawls like few others, so I’m definitely not in a position to provide you with a guide to the best beer places. This week’s posts are just about what I drank, and most of that came from the supermarkets. I did get to a handful of bars, however. Just around the corner from where I was staying, and a stone’s throw from Paulista, the city’s grand main boulevard, was a small and bustling open-fronted restaurant and bar called Asterix, specialising in beers from local outfits.

A similar story seems to be taking place in Korea where small local beers are selling well in small local stores thanks to some regulatory reforms:

The market shares of local craft beers were particularly notable in convenience stores and major retail stores. In convenience stores, craft beer cans accounted for 0.18 percent of the market share in 2019. The figure jumped to 5.3 percent in 2022. The number of domestic craft beer brands also increased. At convenience stores, the number of brands increased from 26 in 2019 to 154 in 2023. Their prices also dropped from as high as over 3,700 won ($2.57) per can to 2,765 won.

So things are moving. The now gainfully employed Rachel Hendry provided us with the Pellicle feature this week, the story of “celebrity” wine branding (with pithy* observations that are equally applicable to beer) helpfully using the case** study of Dolly Parton wine so I know what to avoid:

I’d expected her wines to shimmer and sparkle like she does, for the rosé to taste like sugared rose petals and juicy segments of watermelon, the Prosecco to be effervescent with freshly zested limes and the soft perfume of wildflowers catching in the breeze. I was let down. But how do other celebrity wines compare? There’s nothing celebrities love more than making a rosé, so I try a few out of interest. Gary Barlow has one that is proudly “organic,” whatever the fuck that means these days. The wine is made from Tempranillo grapes grown in Spain’s Castile region and tastes astringent and acidic, the fruit is too intense, like softly rotting strawberries and the stringy white pith of a grapefruit.

Not at all like softly rotting strawberries, we see that Hop Queries is out for this month, Stan’s newsletter on the bitter and smelly aspects of brewing. He linked to an IG post from Crosby Hops that shared some stats on the demise of these hops varieties:

Cashmere: Down 60% in 2 years; Comet: Down 64% since 2022; Mt. Hood: 142 acres remain in Oregon; Mt. Rainier: No longer reported in Washington; Sabro®: Down 69% since 2022; Talus®: Down 78% since 2022; Triumph, Zappa™, Ahtanum® No reported acreage for 2 years…

The first is just an unfortunate name choice for any Canadian… but Mt Hood? That was always my hop to hate 20 years ago. Rough gak. Who owns those last 142 acres anyway?

And who doesn’t love a good schism? I know I do. That’s why I was so very pleased to see that the homebrewers of America are walking out on the craft brewers of America when both are facing something of a slump:

Today, the American Homebrewers Association® (AHA) filed for incorporation in Colorado and seated a founding board of directors in steps to become an independent 501(c). Founded in 1978, the AHA has operated as a division under the umbrella of the Brewers Association—the not-for-profit trade association dedicated to small and independent American craft brewers—since 1983. With these actions, the AHA will operate as a nonprofit organization autonomous from the Brewers Association, its parent organization, by the end of 2025.

Why? If we think of divorces, the roots of these sorts of things often go back to alcohol or debt. Well, we can rule out the first given, in this case, the solvent actually is – or at least was – the bond. Hmm… “very much needed“? So… what happened? Were doors slammed? Pointy fingers pointed??? Gossip is greatly apperciated. Comments are open.

Speaking of the end times, some but perhaps not that many noticed the release of this year’s Ontario Brewing Awards – but Jordan did and he made a game of it:

Since the Ontario Brewing Awards were this week, I thought I’d go back and figure out who has actually won the most OBAs over time. I awarded 5 points for Best in Show, 3 for Gold, 2 for Silver, 1 for Bronze or People’s Choice, and 0.5 for honorable mention.

Finally, a reminder. Yes, there are health warnings. But more to the point, there are habits. If you are listening to those who talk of “neo-temperance” you may be missing a mood change that has nothing to do with lobbyists or public health officials. That handy dandy thumbnail is from a YouGov survey of drinking habits in the USA over the last 12 months. I am not really the audience as I would appear to be a purple or two and the rest all greys. But if more people are purples than reds as appears to be the case, then habits are continuing on the decline. Rooting for booze is not a strong strategy. Blame whatever you want recreationally but hedge your business bets accordingly regardless.

There. As the courtier oligarch start to sweat and borders get fuzzier, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. The Share looks to be back with a revival. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. VinePair packed in Taplines as well. All gone. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. All About Beer has sponsored trade possy podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that but only had the one post. Such is life.

*Pun!
**Another pun!!

Your Beery News Notes For – YIKES!!! – The 1/24th Mark For The Year 2024… Err… 2025

It’s really good, this whole passage of time thing. It really is. Isn’t it. It is… isn’t it? Fine. Face it. The holidays are over. OVER! But that doesn’t mean the celebrations are over. For example, in the U.S. of A. we hear that it’s Prohibition Remembrance Day celebrating the 106th anniversary of the ratification of the 18th Amendment to their Constitution. Whooo!!! If “neo-temp” was actually a real thing there’d be parades. I do love me a parade. But who needs parades when you have NA beer for $5 a can!

Speaking of fine traditions, at her very clearly titled Braciatrix: The Newsletter, Dr Christina Wade shares her thoughts on the wassailing tradition which marks the eve of the Epiphany in Christianity. Or rather traditions:

Some versions of the tradition are known as apple howling, which is probably one of the most metal names I have ever heard. Excellent band name tbh. Regardless of exactly how people celebrated wassailing specifically, one thing does seem to often remain at the centre of these traditions- that is the alcoholic beverages. My favourite. So what exactly do we drink? We drink Lambswool or Lamb’s Wool. No, not the actual fuzzy stuff from the adorable creature better known for making sweaters. Nay. It’s a beverage made from ale, spices, sugar, and roasted apples. Some recipes also call for cream, eggs, or both.

That sounds pretty excellent if you ask me. Winterfestive. Speaking of the old Epiph’, we had a visitor who had spent much of 2024 in France over for the holidays and we had a galette des rois but I had no idea it was pagan and also no idea that it was causing another boring woke-trad political scandal in the old country due to its history:

Historians say French Epiphany cakes — called galette des rois (literally, galette of the kings) — can be traced to Roman festivals dedicated to Saturn and to the longer daylight hours after the winter solstice. The custom was to put a bean in cakes given to slaves, and to name the one who found it “king for the day”. In modern France, the bean has been replaced by a porcelain figure, but the finder still gets a paper crown. Over the centuries, the galette des rois merged with Epiphany and it became usual to start eating them after 12th night, at least until the French Revolution, when the cakes were banned in a drive to eradicate Christianity in the 1790s.

Matthew C, taking on the player-manager role this week, published his story on Roosters Brewery in Harrogate, England in which he does a few very unusal things. It is more than a B.O B.* Is that a B.B.O.B.? One thing is that he interviews other people to corroborate the story shared by a brewery owner. And he does background research to tell the tale of the brewery from older records than the recitals of the owner. This sort of thing gives the reader great confidence, especially as the main players seem a bit quiet:

Brew Britannia also speaks of Franklin’s reclusiveness (despite numerous attempts, I was not able to contact him for the purposes of this article) and his modesty. It’s apparent, speaking to those who knew him, that he does not consider himself to be a trailblazer, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary… “Sean was quite straightforward once we’d made contact. Mostly he was a bit embarrassed to be treated like a great authority or legendary figure. He was at great pains to credit others wherever he could,” Boak and Bailey tell me of their interactions with him, which took place in 2013. “He also described himself as an introvert and he was certainly fairly quiet and thoughtful in our conversations—although certainly passionate enough when he got down to actually talking about wine and beer.”

Such a good bit of investigation based writing, especially in a positive portrait.** Speaking of which, even with perhaps a finer focus. The Beer Nut – or rather his alt personality Stash Killer – released the results of his study on a six year old nitro can of Guinness:

It’s in the flavour where I think we’ve had some evolution. It’s definitely more flavoursome than when young, and I wish I had a fresh can to hand to compare. The tartness has both increased and become more rounded, adding a kind of classy balsamic vinegar effect. Conversely, that finishes on a sweeter note, with some chocolate, which is something in most stouts that I find missing in Guinness, and a little maraschino cherry. We’re back to regular programming with the quick finish and minimal aftertaste.

Detail. We meet that again. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, over on BlueSky, Kevin of Casket Beer, asked if anyone had ever had a Scotch Ale out of a thistle glass. Let me ruin the punch line to one of his findings:

So where did we get the notion that the thistle glass was somehow an important part of Scottish beer culture? The Gordon glass may have played a role. However, the 1993 book, Scotch Ale, by Greg Noonan likely had a significant impact, at least in the United States. The cover prominently features a beer in a thistle glass. The book’s contents do not get into glassware or indicate an explanation for why the glass was used. Maybe it was influenced by Gordon. The influential book likely conveyed to a generation of brewers, homebrewers and enthusiasts, that the glass had some meaningful connection to Scottish Ale.

Read the rest for find more findings. It’s not all that precise, sadly. As far as lost goes, these days in all the seesaw back and forth about various recent studies of medical studies and statements resting more and more on labels and less on methodology,*** I found some relief in the transcript from a transcript from TVO’s news magazine The Agenda from almost seven years ago when Mr. B himself**** and three other drinks authors to discuss the question. And it is a civil discussion where views and differences were shared and considered. Firm view like this:

If you can decompress with one glass of wine and keep it at one glass of wine per day, that’s a very uncommon pattern, but if you can more power to you. But those who get into trouble with alcohol tend to find it’s progressive, and denial is a big part of it. So if you can stick to one, go for it.

Speaking of firm and even disagreeable views but, still, focused on the detailed examination… Boak and Bailey wrote about some of the disregarded pubs of the Easton district of Bristol. Then, more importantly, in their Patreon account wrote about a few of their toilets:

Last night, neither of us popped the cork until The Sugar Loaf. Despite having been cleaned up and made a little smarter, it’s still basically down-to-earth. That meant that the toilets had no soap but did have water hot enough to have made tea with. As in, dangerously, scaldingly, steaming hot. Not that the soap or the water mattered much because nobody was washing their hands. [Shudder.]

Not segueing on the notion of popping corks at all, I noticed an interesting idea in this column by Eric Asimov in the NYT on a trend in restaurant wine lists – focus:

The wine list at Smithereens, a new seafood restaurant in the East Village, is shocking to say the least. Of its 62 selections, more than half, 32, are rieslings. Twenty-nine more are various other whites. There’s only one red wine, a pinot noir from Shelter Winery in the Baden region of Germany. Some may criticize a list like that as self-indulgent, but I love it. I rarely see a wine list with such attitude or character… I’ve noticed more and more relatively short wine lists… Not all are as provocative as the Smithereens list, but they are incisive, chosen to convey a point of view and, as good lists ought to do, shape the character of the restaurant.

Sounds like the brewery in Maine that made six stouts twenty years ago. I also like how it is aimed at breaking assumptions. Iconoclasm. Sadly, we too often read of presumed and autonomously authorized ways, like how to achieve a “sensory worst“***** which, if we are honest, depends on learning from the pew and then walking out as an adherent to a form of authority – comforting maybe but that’s too close to the precious basement of speakers, amps and equalizers audiophile approach. If you understood this at all the levels I do, you’d agree.

There are limits to disagreeability, however. In The Times this week we read about one of those situations where two sorts of disagreeabilities clash as each is based on a human right:

Pubs could ban customers from speaking about contentious beliefs such as religious views or transgender rights over fears of falling foul of Labour’s workers rights reforms. The government has been warned by the equalities watchdog that rules could “disproportionately curtail” freedom of expression and be applied to “overheard conversations”. Ministers have proposed that employers must protect workers from being harassed at work by “third parties” such as customers or clients. If they fail to do so they could be sued. However, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said this was particularly challenging in cases involving a “philosophical belief”, such as people’s views on religion or women’s rights, because many business owners do not understand such topics are protected by equality law.

Now before any of you scream “WOKE!” like a ninnie (beside the fact J. Christ Himself ask us to be awake), I can share that I have dabbled in this sort of human rights and we need to know just as there are intersecting rights we can have competing rights.****** So these knots need unraveling. And, just to be clear, there is not obligation to allow the loud boorish bigot to remain in the pub. As JJB himself has stated:

…nobody in mine ever uses racist language like Farage’s Reform activists, and if they did they’d be told to leave and never return.

With that good word, a reminder of all you all needing to put down more good words. The Session is trying a revival, a resuscitation even. On Friday January 31, 2025 please post your thoughts – via blog, newsletter, social media… anything – on the topic:

“What is the best thing to happen in good beer since 2018?

Publish on last Friday in January and then leave a comment here on a comment or even email me the link at beerblog@gmail.com! I have also proposed hosts of the February 2025 (if there is breath in the old corpse) the form of which I will leave in their good hands along with this wise advice emailed from Stan: “I will support in any way that does not require too much work ;>)“!!! Do it!

That’s it. Mid-January is here and boy is it going by. As it flees, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. The Share looks to be back with a revival. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. VinePair packed in Taplines as well. All gone. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. All About Beer has sponsored trade possy podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that but only had the one post. Such is life.

*Better Brewery Owner Bio?
**Also positive, his piece which should be called “Gud Wee Coo!“
***A new and damning report came out just this Tuesday according to the NYT: “Among both men and women, drinking just one alcoholic beverage a day increases the risk of liver cirrhosis, esophageal cancer, oral cancer and injuries of various kinds, according to a federal analysis issued on Tuesday. Women face a higher risk of developing liver cancer even at this modest level of drinking. Drinking two drinks a day — double the U.S. Dietary Guidelines’ recommendation for women but the current amount condoned for men — increases the odds of a death caused by alcohol for both men and women.” Expect outcry for booze boosters! Stan has a better way: “There is no denying the negative impact alcohol has on your body. It is stupid to claim otherwise. The rest I leave to Mary-Chapin Carpenter.“
****A long standing TVO regular it seems from the available records from 1998 or so. Not the absence of references to “craft” in the lexicon.
*****Has anyone figured out why craft experts were so good with all the flaws but so poor at the strengths?
******A plain example are those chevrons built into public sidewalk corner wheelchair ramps. When they first were installed, instances of people with limited vision walking into traffic increased. The chevons act as a warning to those using a white cane.

The First Beery News Notes For December 2024

The countdown is on! I already feel like Ed Grimley and it’s only the fifth of the month. I am too excited. That rotten cold I had is finally in the past and now I am seeing holiday things everywhere, like in the red and green scene at one pub’s outdoor washroom posted by Beer Nouveau. How cheery. Retired Martin* also included an exposé on the outside gents in one post this week:

No, I don’t know what “To the huts” means, either.

Speaking of cheer, are you having an office party? The Times says they are in mortal danger from, frankly, sensible updates to the law. I say that as a lawyer given I have never been to such madly lavish and deeply souced Christmas parties as those put on by private law firms. But that was decades ago. Here is what is going on now:

Employers that are found to have failed to do so could face claims for unlimited compensation at tribunals. Lawyers are advising that financial services businesses in the City of London — renowned for alcohol-fuelled Christmas parties — “should be particularly mindful of the new rules”… Updated guidance published in September by the Equality and Human Rights Commission emphasised that workplaces must take an active approach to assessing risk. That translates to an obligation to identify any action to clamp down on possible sexual harassment and the requirement for regular reviews of systems.

This lines up with what is… or rather isn’t… happening in New Jersey whether because of cell phones and social media, workplace harassment, remote working arrangements or lower interest in excessive drinking. Did you know some offices bizarrely arrange for staff to buy holiday party gifts for ownership? And perhaps not oddly, given Russia’s foolishly and murderously self-inflicted economic collapse, but holiday office parties are being cancelled there too. Apparently, there are after effects of this sort of thing well beyond the office:

A new low-alcohol beer has been launched by a train operator in a bid to tackle the number of passengers having drunk accidents during the festive period. The Safety Thirst beer, at 0.5% alcohol, will be stocked onboard Avanti West Coast services, which run on the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Scotland. The company said the pale ale will create a “more enjoyable travel experience” and help passengers “drink responsibly”.

The Tand doesn’t need no stinkin’ office parties for his jolly holidays. Because he found his perfect beer:

…I probably don’t score beers as much as I ought to, but I regularly do. I am probably quite a strict scorer, given that I judge beer in competitions and also that over the years, I know what its what. So, that’s a long winded way of saying, until now, I have never given a five. So let’s get to the point. It had to happen and last Friday, in an infrequent visit to our local Wetherspoons, I gave a beer a five. What was it I hear you scream? Well, perhaps not surprisingly given the quality of the brewer and the beer, it was Thornbridge Jaipur. Why a five? Well, this was perfectly brewed, clear and untainted with no off flavours, at a perfect temperature and was bursting with condition. The body and mouthfeel were perfect. The glass was spotless. In my mind I went over everything. Could it be improved in a normal pub environment? Not as far as I could tell. It was, simply, faultless.

Boom! What’s the news from the ag markets? Oh… as we have heard out of Oregon, the hops news coming out of Germany is not good:

Declining beer consumption worldwide is hurting German hops growers, who face lower prices and possible farm closures amid a dip in demand for the bitter crop. A strong hops harvest in 2024 means that Germany has regained the crown as the world’s top producer of hops, but prices have slid. According to the German Hop Industry Association, 2024 is the 11th year in a row in which more hops were produced than required.

And, speaking of not boom, Canada’s barley supplies appear to be very close to a 25 year low:

With the 700,000-metric-ton (mt) projection being only slightly higher than 542,800 mt remaining after the devastating drought of 2021, there is little room for error…. Given the drought stress experienced and the lowering of yield estimates by provincial counterparts, it is widely anticipated that final production estimates from Statistics Canada will be lower on Dec. 5. The problem is, even a 3% cut in production would take 228,000 mt off the ending stocks (all else equal), leaving them below the 2021-22 level.

In addition to drought, prices and planted acreage of barley were both down in 2024, too. If you want to obsess over this on a regular basis, check out the tables and charts of the Canadian Grain Commission’s weekly stats. And that’s all the malt news this week… NO IT ISN’T!! The Maltsters Association of Great Britain also issued an update on the 2024 numbers:

The UK malting barley harvest is now complete and the overall picture is one of reasonable quality and good supply. Winter malting barley can be summarised as variable with predominantly low nitrogen crops and grain retention levels similar to 2023. Winter barley yields are recorded at 10-15% less than the 5-year average. Conversely, the spring barley harvest in the UK has seen low nitrogen crops throughout all regions with good retention levels and yields described as better than average.

I’ve been described as better than average, too. A step up from that but facing similar climate and market pressures, traditional sake makers in Japan are heartened by UNESCO intangible cultural heritage designation for their brewing techniques:

“It’s still quite warm, even though it’s almost December. The price of rice is high and the harvest is poor, which has made sake-brewing (this year) very challenging”… The centuries-old method of making sake is unique for its three-step preparation, or “San-Dan-Jikomi”, of allowing multiple fermentation processes to progress simultaneously in a single container… While sake has lost ground as a regular drink, Maesako said it remains impossible to separate from Japanese culture. “We have sake at celebrations, at New Year’s, and also on sad occasions, like funerals,” he said. “The culture of Japanese sake is the culture of Japan itself.” The brewing technique is expected to be formally endorsed at a UNESCO committee session in Paraguay this week.

More on San-Dan-Jikomi AKA Sandan Jikomi here. Reuters posted a photo essay on the process in addition to the story quoted from above.

Panic!! PANIC!!! They are running out of Guinness:

The BBC understands that Diageo is allocating supplies on a weekly basis to make sure it has enough stock to meet demand over Christmas. A Diageo spokesperson said: “Over the past month we have seen exceptional consumer demand for Guinness in Great Britain. “We have maximised supply and we are working proactively with our customers to manage the distribution to trade as efficiently as possible.”

You know things are going to hell when folk use “proactively” in a press release. Always the actively pro, I think it’s fair to say that The Beer Nut has not always enjoyed the Canadian craft beers that have passed his way. It was good, then, to read how a couple of brewers from my old home in Nova Scotia didn’t disappoint even if one offering didn’t necessarily thrill either:

This is solidly made and workmanlike, but don’t expect fireworks. While I’m not saying that breweries running since 1997 have a particular safe-and-steady way of making their beer, this IPA suggests that there might be something to the theory. It’s not an exciting beer, but I’d say it’s a dependable one.

Boak and Bailey followed up on the recent news of a number of cask brands being discontinued with a consideration of how many brands had existed. Turns out not all that long given a number of constantly moving factors:

When we think of cask ale brands that have been around longer than that a few contenders spring to mind. Hook Norton Old Hooky dates back only to 1977. Adnams Broadside was launched in 1972. Fuller’s London Pride came to the market in 1959. And Marston’s Pedigree was introduced in 1952. You might make an argument for Bass which is not only still available but also having something of a resurgence in popularity. But it’s also, really, just the name of a defunct brewery. And that famous ‘first trademark’ was actually for ‘Bass & Co’s Pale Ale’, which is not what’s on the pump clips today.

Years ago, I noodled around looking up when the first branding attached itself to brewing, when the dissassociation of what is on the label from what is in the glass began. I can’t find the links but if you spend a little time over at Ron’s, you pick up quickly that beers up to a certain point in the middle 1800s were identified as gradations of a brewery’s output like this, not the individually animated distinct personalities in themselves we know as brands. Walk back through time. Trademarks get legislative protection in the UK starting in the 1860s. In the US, we see in the 1820s that beer being shipped out of the local market gets named with adjectives like “cream” added to impress buyers with the superior qualities of the product. A generation before in New York City of the 1790s you see beers sold by style and city of origin much like you would have seen in Britain 120 years before that. That all being the case, if you think you’ll miss the brand now maybe buy the t-shirt. You’ll probably be able to find a similar drink all the same. As the same B+B wrote in their footnotes:

Perhaps it’s studying beer history that does it – you get used to the idea that beers and brands come and go as tastes change. And if we ran a smaller brewery such as Butcombe or Cheddar Ales, we’d be rubbing our hands in glee, because this would seem to leave a gap in the market for beers which are trad, but not boring. Perhaps we’re being naive, though.

BREAKING! I had no idea that you had to “stamp” a beer sold in a bar in Quebec. Soon it will be over:

According to the microbreweries, the obligation to affix stamps to their cans and glass bottles is both unnecessary and time-consuming… Since 1971, the law has required a duty stamp to be affixed to all beer sold in restaurants and bars. The original aim was to prevent smuggling and tax evasion. Some microbreweries have recently been visited by police officers who have come to check that the labelling on the stamps complies with the law. Microbreweries that contravene the current law face fines of between $500 and $7,500. The minister was at pains to reassure, saying that a fined business could be forgiven.

BREAKING! I have no idea who these people are:

But how did a ‘celebrity’ couple come to take over this regionally-renowned boutique bar? For that, you’d have to go right back to when it first opened, in 2016. “Katy kept saying she wanted to move somewhere in the countryside but where you can also get a gin and tonic,” Adam says. “So I said: ‘That’s Knutsford.’ I spent so long persuading her to move here. Eventually she agreed and the day we moved in was the day this place opened.”

For VinePair and without any reference to Knutsford, Kate Bernot has unpacked the potential damage Trump’s proposed tariffs will do to the clinky drinky markets in a welcome greater level of detail than we too often see:

The global supply chain means that U.S. companies are heavily reliant on imported materials. For the beverage industry, aluminum is the most significant. Canada exports 75 percent of its aluminum production to the U.S., and domestic production here simply can’t replace that volume. It would take years, Uhrich says, to even begin construction on new aluminum plants, let alone to supply what U.S. alcohol companies need. Beer is obviously the most vulnerable to rising aluminum costs: Two-thirds of U.S. beer is packaged in cans. There’s simply no way, Uhrich says, that further tariffs wouldn’t drive up the cost of domestic beer as a result of costlier materials.

Canadian malt in Canadian cans – US craft! Finally, for the double in The Times, Pete Brown gave a primer on some of the newbie questions that folk who don’t know much about beer are going to ask. It’s an interesting use of the space but the paper must be concerned that there are reader lacking superficial understandings of beer such as this:

Every single menu and every single recipe in the history of humanity is based on one simple truth: some flavours go together better on the palate than others. It would be absurd to think that beer is somehow an exception to this. Beer actually has a broader range of flavour than wine. The caramelisation in a pint of bitter goes perfectly with roast beef. A Belgian-style wheat beer works well with anything you might squeeze some lemon juice over. And stout with a gooey chocolate dessert is so good, so simple, that it’s almost cheating. Just remember to pair light with light and strong with strong, that there’s no right or wrong and that it’s supposed to be fun.

Well, I suppose Christmas is the time for merry chestnuts. At least it’s better than sucking up to your commissioning editor!

That’s it! It’s been a busy week in the real world and that is where I live. Until next Thursday, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (never ever) odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from the DaftAboutCraft podcast, too. All About Beer has podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that but only had the one post. Such is life.

*Check out his walk aroung Rye too.

The Exciting Entrancing And Almost Festive Beery News Notes For A Merry Month From Yuletide 2024

Fine. Almost festive. Almost. But this is when the slide starts to feel greased. Five weeks to Boxing Day. Whoooo! The Boxing Day carols shall ring out loud around the Boxing Day leftover casserole once again!! The most wonderful time of the year? You bet. Who knows where we’ll all be this time next year so best to Yule it up right this time like these ladies on a tasting tour of Spain, back in 1959.* Which reminds me… I often wonder what beer writers do, you know, to get the happies when they are not up to that sort of no good on junkets, out and about pub crawling or at the front door in their slippers signing off on couriered packages of samples. David J shared a bit of his reality when he posted about a trip to Fowey, Cornwall and a pub called The Lugger:

I feel this same urge to relocate to Fowey whenever I visit and it’s because of the sea. And the Lugger. But first, the sea, the sea. Well, it’s not quite the sea but the mouth of the River Fowey and it’s sheltered, calm and very swimmable. I braved the tide and swam on Saturday. 15C water; 14C air, according to my swimming diary – I swim at least once a week in an unheated lido… It was choppy enough for me to get the fear, though, which is half the ‘fun’, especially if one of your vices is adrenaline. The river eventually was predictable and a back and forth from beach to buoy was followed by a pint at the Lugger, served by Christian Hanks, custodian of this Cornish pub. Often people think winter swimming is odd, but Christian is different and he takes his eight-year-old son.

Be odd. That’s what I say. With a h/t to Katie, if you think the political news is grim where you are, think of the life of an academic in China turning to pubs as last venues for free expression and folk trying to work on their own odd:

“I was completely stunned when he mentioned violence so bluntly,” said the 32-year-old, who was born and raised in China. “In China, you just can’t talk about the nature of a country so openly.” In recent months, “academic pubs” hosting free lectures by Chinese scholars from universities worldwide have sprung up in China’s major cities – such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou – offering a rare open space for free-flowing intellectual conversation in a country where the public sphere is shrinking as censorship tightens. These alcohol-with-academics sessions delve into a range of topics in the humanities and social sciences. They include issues deemed politically sensitive and often censored online, such as feminism, but also more innocuous subjects like social anxiety and cats in ancient Chinese paintings.

Excellent. Except for the cats bit. I have issues with cats. Well, one cat. Yah, you! I am having other issues, too. Remember when craft beer culture was fun and was worth making fun of? Having a bit of an issue with that. How to mock something that people are ditching faster than their Twex accounts? Jeff noted this in the context of big beer business cutting their craft losses:

I noticed a startling stat in a recent Beer Business Daily story describing how in one market the craft segment accounts for 41% of SKUs, but just 5% of gross profits. That’s unsustainable for retailers and large breweries. It’s different for small breweries, who make and sell beer in a specialty marketplace of local vendors. But it’s just too complex and expensive for big breweries to compete in such a market unless it represents substantial volume. Craft hasn’t grown as a share of the market in a decade, though, and big breweries now conclude it’s just not with the effort. And reasonably so.

See what’s said in there? While it hit peak almost a decade ago, at least in this unnamed US market craft has not grown as a share in a decade and accounts for 5% of the gross.** So much for 20% by 2020. That was never going to be any reality but is Plan B really stagnation at 5%? Really? Hmm… I suppose getting ditched is better than being a zombie brand like Stone:

The brewery’s stated focus is now on its successful launch of Delicious IPA multipacks and its Mexican salt and lime lager Buenaveza, a long way from the days of Arrogant Bastard IPA, which helped Stone make its mark in the burgeoning craft market in 1997.

Brrr… that’s cold. But, still, there’s a certain justice in that one. And note the interesting note at the end of this story about management at Constellation taking a slice while there’s still a slice to be taken:

The company has also trimmed its annual enterprise net sales growth forecast to between 4% and 6%, compared with 6% to 7% previously estimated, as retailers reduce stocking wine and spirits and consumers pare back spending on pricier alcoholic beverages. A large cloud looming over the company is the threat of import tariffs when Donald Trump becomes US President after 20 January.

Are you finding yourself jockeying for position in the coming tariff-based international reality, too? Not The Beer Nut who posted thoughts international at the end of last week and came up with a description of Allagash White that nails it:

What I liked most was the smoothness: it really slips back silkily in a way that encourages serial quaffing. There are no sharp edges; none of the spikes of coriander spice or citric zest that add character to its Belgian counterparts. There’s a pleasant element of candied lemon in the flavour but I got little complexity beyond that. It’s not a beer for complexity, though, being more about the feels than the taste. I understand the attraction of something which places few demands on your attention and offers no challenges to your palate. Creating that without turning out something bland is an impressive feat.

Boom. The best writing indicates the general through the examination of the particular. Boak and Bailey did just that exactly one moment after last week’s deadline*** with an examination of the life and death of one estate pub in Bristol, The Mayors Arms:

In its most recent guise as Sousta, a “Mediterranean restaurant and bar”, it intrigued us because it never seemed to have any customers. Ever. Its location, at the bottom end of a large council estate, on the river embankment, offers little passing trade. There are no other shops or hospitality outlets nearby. In fact, the only business that could really work here is a neighbourhood pub in a working class area where people drink plenty of beer.

Related news from India on the many many reasons for the failure of BrewDog to take hold there:

The BrewDog bar in Bandra West, a suburb that is home to many Bollywood stars and is known for its liberal nightlife, as well as its bar in the office district of Lower Parel, have been closed since the summer. The company’s logos have also been taken down from the locked-up properties, according to checks by the Financial Times. BrewDog now has only two bars open in India, having first set up there in 2021… The closures are also a setback to BrewDog’s plans for overseas expansion. Only last year, it announced plans to open 100 bars in India over the next decade. Chturvedi said the Mumbai closures were only a blip in BrewDog’s India plans.

Yet, they are opening their first Northern Irish pub. In a train station. To serve the travelling pubilc. Somewhat related are the thoughts in this VinePair emailed quote-fest on what makes a craft brewery’s taproom a crappy experience. This one, however, made me wonder if they’d ever been to Gritty’s:

“If a brewpub is in a touristy spot, chances are that the management knows there are different customers every day. There’s less motivation to make delicious beer if you’re not caring about enticing regular customers.”

I thought the point was attracting a regular clientel, like folk who visit often even if not everyday. Being hospitable and all. Speaking of which, how do you feel about price surges in pubs?

A pub chain has sparked fury over its decision to charge punters 1.80 extra for beers on match days. Greene King has been attacked for the “unacceptable” move with punters shelving out a staggering £8 rather than the usual £6.20 per pint at some of its outlets. The Torch pub in Wembley, London, was hit with the 29% increase after supporters paid big prices for their favourite pint to watch England’s match against Ireland.

How do I feel? How’d they like the idea of me packing a wee flask in me pocket? Why not just charge a modest entry fee for events, like when a “good” band is playing?

Note: I will miss the little red biplane.

And in Pellicle, Pete Brown provides us with a primer on malt barley along with his thoughts on the weather… that is, when he isn’t off wandering:

I love old factories like this. As I left the train just a few yards away, the complex reminded me, as maltings always do, of some fantastical half-imagined vision from a Ridley Scott film. There’s a red-brick monolith several storeys high with no windows in its main wall. White towers dwarf what, in their own right, are tall and sometimes fat corrugated iron cylinders, with gantries running up and down and round their perimeters. Something that looks like a watchtower from a World War II Prisoner of War camp. I imagine that if the day ever comes when it’s no longer needed as a maltings, the complex could be used as the location for a climactic gun battle before exploding in a fireball as the hero makes it out just in time.

What was that about? Anyway, in health news, some sucks to suck news from the eggheads recently:

According to new research presented at The Liver Meeting, held by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, beer drinkers tend to have lower-quality diets, engage in less physical activity, and are more likely to smoke cigarettes compared to those who consume wine, liquor, or a combination of alcoholic beverages… Beer-only drinkers, who were more likely to be male, younger, smokers, and low income, also reported the highest total daily caloric intake, adjusting for body weight, and the lowest level of physical activity. Previous studies have found that dietary quality declines with increasing alcohol consumption of any type, but little has been reported on the influence of specific alcoholic beverage type.

Feel like taking up baseless objections? Fill your boots. Just don’t blame me. I’m just the guy doing the cutting and pasting. Here’s the study. Read it yourself.

Performing one last 180 degree switcheroo while still speaking of the healthy stuff… do you ever wonder why your olive oil has exploded in price? The Times had a good explanation this week:

The main reason for the price hike, simply, is the weather… Europe produces 67 per cent of the world’s olive oil; the majority comes from Spain, followed by Italy, then Greece. Olive trees thrive under a hot Mediterranean sun, but if the heatwaves come too early, in spring, when the trees are still flowering, crops can be damaged. This, coupled with severe droughts for two years running in Spain, has had a dire effect. Global production of olive oil tanked in 2023, dropping from 3.39 million tonnes in 2021-22 to 2.28 million tonnes in 2023-24… An opposite problem, flooding, also affects harvests, as olive trees don’t like wet feet, and too much water promotes disease…

I don’t like wet feet either. Just sharing. Thought you’d like to know. And one final note as we are rooting for a speedy recovery for Jessica after she posted some tough news about a recent routine procedure.

There. That’s enough for this week. But if you need more, check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast (he’s queuing one up right now) and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (now hardly at all) odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that but only had the one post.

*From the excellent Bluesky postings of the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE): “British tourists tasting Cava on the Costa Brava, Spain, 1959. Photo by Oriol Maspons (Spain 1928—2013).“
**Jeff says “gross profits” but as profit is a net concept I understand this to mean gross revenue.
***In their monthly newsletter, for the double, they also shared this wonderful pub scene from a Friday night in Bristol: “The Green Man, a corner pub on a quiet residential street, was a particular highlight this time. There was a raffle underway and just about enough space to get a drink and find a seat. Someone won a jar of pickled onions. The booby prize was a ‘mystery shot’. There was a baby at the bar eating raffle tickets and Nacho Libre was playing silently on the TV.”

Your Bootastic Hell’s Gates Open Up Today Halloweeny Edition Of The Beery News Notes

Today is the second scariest day in the next week or so. Number two. Today, the undead walk the earth! But by next Wednesday, Americans may have elected the Nazis. I sure hope some of that polling data is wrong. Anyway, there is a time and place for everything and this day and this week’s focus is all about the lesser of those two evils – the celebration of Lords Satan’s reach into your verrrry soul and the tenuous grasp of all existence, of all of reality itself. Let next week take care of next week.

Still, good to see one of the candidates has some normal habits, some of which like drinkin’ and swearin’ were on display over beers at a stop with the Governor of Michigan at a bar on the campaign trail:

‘We need to move ground among men,’ she can be heard saying in a low voice to Whitmer, clearly not thinking that anyone was privy to their conversation. She then looked up abruptly and cut off the private chat. ‘Oh, we have microphones and listening to everything,’ a surprised Harris says. ‘I didn’t realize that.’ ‘Okay… you’ll bleep my F words hopefully,’ Whitmer joked. ‘We just told all the family secrets, s***,’ Harris replies before her busting out into a loud laugh.

Giving equal time, did you hear about the Respublican running for office in Wisconsin? Traveling GOP U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde (AKA the “California banker”) wants to ban beer sales and it has been picked up in his opponent’s political ads. Rolling Stone covered the story a few months ago:

…if we just decriminalize [marijuana]? Fine. Nobody’s going to go to jail. No one’s going to get arrested for it. That’s your self-determination, but you’re not going to turn it into an enterprise. Frankly, it should have happened with alcohol,” Hovde says in the audio. “I mean look at — alcohol has a lot of negative byproducts. If somebody wanted to distill it, drink it. Fine, go ahead…

He also apparently bought a tavern to tear it down. Booo…. Now… getting serious, Jessica Mason has reported on concerns that the language related to the pricing of beer is posing challenges:

One of the issues this kind of research presents is that if the nation is constantly sold beer on “lowest prices” translating as “best” then it will not consider beers as different or with some deserving of higher price points than others. Describing how crucial pricing is, Sussex-based Burning Sky founder and head brewer Mark Tranter told db: “All overheads continue to rise but it’s impossible to put our prices up in line with these, without running the risk of pricing ourselves out of the market and or alienating people.”

That sounds a bit like being clear about value is a bit of a problem – unless there was a way to factually explain the value to be found in an more expensive drink. Well explained value is always good. Consider how Tennent’s is holding its own in its home market due to its accepted inherent value:

Changes in UK alcohol duties have led to some lager brands, including Carlsberg and Grolsch, being reformulated to a lower 3.4 per cent ABV, but Findlay said that would not be happening with the core Tennent’s product, which has an ABV of 4 per cent and accounts for more than half of the lager segment in Scotland. “Tennent’s is such a strong brand that to reformulate it or reduce the ABV would be a no,” he stressed. “We have lower ABV variants of Tennent’s available, so there are no plans and no need to change what is an astonishingly successful brand.”

Hmm… somewhat relatedly Matty C. shared on the absense of critical writing in beer, something that that is has been one of my interests for, well, decades now given it is only through critical thought that value is established:

This week I’ve been thinking about the lack of criticism in beer writing. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot over the years, because beer and pub reviewing doesn’t really exist in any meaningful way compared to how it does in wine or food writing. I consider that there are many reasons why this is the case, the main one being a general lack of consideration from mainstream (or, indeed, niche) media outlets for beer and pubs. But also it’s because beer drinkers are a different beast to most wine drinkers. There’s a certain level of—dare I say—zealotism, that means if anyone decides to log on and pan a beer, they can almost certainly expect some flack.

This is great. He has pushed this out into a great open conversation and I have to say that it has caused me a lot of thinking – something I like to avoid most weeks. I’ve actually written this week’s notes twice to cope with my inner termoil. Why? In part, that word – zealotism. Zeal seems to sit one step down the stairs from enthusiasm and you know what we think of the enthused. Why? Because zeal places countervaling pressure on value. It distracts one from reality. So how to respond?

First, I will try to be brief but I see three distinct factors as the prime drivers of this gaping chasm between reality and zeal in beer writing: (i) objectivity denial; (i) unreliable claims to expertise; and (iii) real marketplace consequences. Starting with objectivity denial, have a look at this passage in one of Boak and Bailey’s recent (and always fabulous) Patreon footnotes to their Saturday roundups:

…the two Grodziskies we drank this week were more interesting than enjoyable. Both were also adulterated with things like fruit and tea, making it hard to get a sense of the base flavour… We’ve tended to avoid the phrase ‘beer-flavoured beer’ and similar for the reasons Jeff sets out: the idea of what ‘beer flavoured’ is totally subjective.

It appears they and I are struggling with similar thoughts* as after I started sketching this out on Monday, I realized they themselves had posted their own cogitations on this whole thing – though I cannot agree with their interim assessment that it is just a pint and “we do not need that intel” – especially given the annual investment a beer fan may make. It’s not about the pint but all the pints one buys. In a year. In a life. As a result, I believe it is not correct to say that good beer can be, should be lost in an ocean of subjectivity. One cannot determine value if everything is subjective. No, there are and should be measuring sticks which can be relied upon. There must be the intel.

That being said, who would set these standards. Who measures the sticks? Beer experts? Problem: there are no beer experts in that blanket general sense. Sure, there are real experts in specific areas of beer and brewing with the greater expertise existing in narrower areas. Like any study. And a number people certainly know much more than many others. No question. But claims of expertise in that general sense that we see eminating from some of the merely eager is a common problem with beer writing. Can we place our trust with zealots? One shouldn’t. The resulting status scrambling** to be identified as that authoritative person may be vigourous, vicious and even entertaining but all in all it’s hardly an academic process. And it creates a fog around the question of value.

Perhaps the saddest reality is that the rejection of standards and the weakening claims of expertise have left an imbalance of power. Perhaps ironically, beer writers lack sufficient security to stand up against pressures from the trade. In the very comments under MC’s post, Gary raised this very point:

The difficulty is few want to risk offending people in the industry, as future access to the brewery may be limited and awkwardness can arise when you meet them at events.

And in addition to event attendence, in order to get ahead some beer writers are also expected to show up time after time as supportive boosters – as compliant judges or even consultants. We even sometimes see the trade described as a “we”*** – which can leave one left with the impression that one gets the inside view of the trade by being effectively a branch of the trade. None of which is wrong if, well, you don’t want to be warned off the bad beer, don’t want to learn about relative value but are only looking for something to read as light entertainment. Which it often all that you get. Which is fine. Consequence free and affirming pleasure writing for a happy sometimes tipsy crowd. All fine.

But we have to be honest – that is the opposite of a critical discourse. It can deter journalistic inquiry and even triggers stronger response: “…you can’t write that, those are real people with real jobs!” or “you shouldn’t be writing about beer” or that stumblefuck of a non-thought “you are just a old curmugeon!” It even justifies the recently received assessment I’ve heard from one writer about being told in a formal setting that DEI isn’t a business imperative for breweries, just part of culture wars. And of course this is all in addition to that old chestnut of total alcohol harm denialism from the anti-science set.**** As a direct result of those factors, not only has the opportunity to argue in favour of value been lost, I would also argue that it is one key reason there is no reliable concept of “fine beer” – like we have in wine or spirits. A critical discourse is fundamental to anything deemed fine. But this trade? Won’t have it. Would you want it? I do.

Thankfully, there is a actual critical discourse out there even if the jockeying beer writers of a certain scrabbling sort don’t engage with it. Think of The Beer Nut reviewing can after can, glass after glass excellently so you don’t have to… unless you want to. He has no problem being honest about value:

My recent complaint that the Teeling Distillery giftshop was overcharging for the small cans of DOT collaboration beers at €5.50 has been heeded. The latest addition to the series was €6: For Wheats Sake!

Think also of Retired Martin, Ron and others travelling to pub after pub taking photos and making observations with his exceptionally keen eye so you don’t have to. This week Boak and Bailey wrote in generous terms on the wonders of this sort of blogging… over, you know, on their Substack:

One thing blogging is better at than social media is linking. Old skool blogging thrived on the practice of generous linking. Sometimes, it was about search engine optimisation (SEO) – which is no bad thing when it helps good stuff rise to the top of search results. But mostly it gave readers a chain to follow. We used to spend ages following links from one blog post to another when we were first learning about beer. A sort of Choose Your Own Adventure approach to study. Blogs are also more stable and more independent. They’re less likely to suffer from an egotistical investor buying up, damaging, or shutting down a platform. With a blog, you have your own space to do your own thing.

Viva blogs! Viva Viva!!! And there are a few dogged shapers of public opinion working their way into the general media who rise above as well as other sorts of independent voices with critical views are out there. Consider the David Bailey cartoons in Pellicle which have a cheery habit of undermining supposed established principles.***** Similarly, in beer history writing, we also find people digging and digging into the past pulling out the correcting facts and illuminating stories which both add depth and redirection to good beer culture. This week Liam wrote a post about the 1913 theft of pewter tankards from Dublin’s pubs for melting down and sale:

… this was a relatively common practice but it is interesting to see the ‘modus operandi’ here in print. So, it appears that the theft of drinkware from pubs isn’t a new phenomena – not that we really thought it was – although the reasons for said theft appears to have changed through the years to one of collecting. Although there is no mention of where the ladies mentioned in the report hid their soon-to-be-swapped tumblers and stolen tankards, it is possible they were tucked neatly into the folds of a dress but it is probably more likely a bag of some description was used.

See also Gary’s extensive posts on tavern culture in Quebec or Canadian brewing during the Second World War. No one will pay for that sort or writing. But no editor will also smooth or dilute it either.

These things lead to other helpful insertions and inveiglings .Last week we saw Katie Mather have a deftly written argument published in The Guardian. She wrote in support of the decision by the UK’s small brewers’ organization SIBA to ditch “craft” in favour of “independent” to help buyer understand what is in their glass:

Beer fans are starting to realise that their favourite breweries might not be the paragons of independence and system-subversion they once thought they were, and it’s leaving an unpleasant taste. Now that many of these breweries have become part of large corporate entities, the idea of standing against the man, colourful can in hand, is a ridiculous one. It’s sowing seeds of doubt across the whole industry, too – the word “craft” never meant anything specific, and so it can be used to market beers that aren’t “craft” in any understanding of the term.

And she expanded on this in The Gulp, her newsletter: “We all got bored of defining craft a decade ago. But just because something is boring, doesn’t mean it isn’t important.” I don’t really agree with any of that – but really I do like to have the well-argued ideas bouncing around in my brain. And speaking of a knowledgable grasp of specifics versus what is in my brain, Stan’s Hop Queries hit the inbox just after last week’s press deadline and it is full of detailed goodness around the king of all adjuncts, including this about how Kiren invested “dip hopping”:

Basically, they made a slurry by steeping hops for about an hour at temperatures (150-170° F) lower than found in conventional whirlpooling, then added the slurry into wort before pitching yeast. Kirin learned that the resulting beers contained as much linalool as dry hopped beers but less myrcene (which itself may mask fruity aromas associated with linalool and other oxygenated compounds). This also reduced production of 2M3MB (an onion-like off flavor)… For brewers, the appeal is pretty simply: less isomerization than with whirlpooling and greater retention of some essential oil for biotransformation. In addition, drinkers have said they perceive a difference, a positive difference, in dip-hopped beer aroma and flavor.

Me? No, not really. But sorta. You know… but how else are you going to learn? Exactly. And expertise is not just about having a deep understanding one one topic but also a view on the intersections of a number of areas. For example, The Sunday Times had an interesting story on the disappearance of Britain’s pubs called “The Black Bull” based on some excellent investigative reporting of the role of Big App:

Another Black Bull is the historic community-owned pub in Gartmore in the Stirlingshire Trossachs. Its name makes sense: this is an old drovers’ inn. There has been a pub on the site since at least 1740. It too has lost its Facebook, and the thousands of connections the social media giant brings. Wilson believes Facebook removed the page because of a row involving a New Zealand company called Black Bull Group Limited. And this, The Sunday Times can reveal, is certainly the reason why at least one Black Bull pub in England was told its Facebook page was being shut down. This New Zealand company two years ago won a trademark case against another business which launched a website called Blackbull Markets similar to its own. The firm’s complaint, heard by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, did not feature British pubs.

Look at that density of ideas. Global law versus the wee pub, private international social media control versus local community heritage – all coming into conflict. Fabulous. And speaking of fabulous, here’s one last story this week. It’s from Chris Drosner in Milwaukee Magazine, his love letter to dive bars:

I love settling onto the stool, hanging my jacket on the hook under the bar. The sound of pool balls dropping after the quarters go in. The shake of the day. The neon glow. Overhearing bad takes about the packers. Seeing ice in a beer down the bar – not my thing, but you do you. Someone hitting a pull tab big enough to pocket the cash. Being the tiebreaker in strangers’ friendly argument.

I particularly liked his list of the key signs you’re in a dive bar including: (i) “someone lives upstairs”; (ii) “unclear if it’s open, or how to get in” and (iii) “sink outside the bathroom.” Beautiful.

All of which is to say there is actual critical writing out there but it is not often found in that certain circle of trade friendly and, dare I say, commodity writing that has gotten a lot of attention. Thankfully, it role may be fading as part of the bubble burst of zealot culture. At least in beer even if not in rest of the world, like the geo-political world. Maybe. Well, let’s see how that pans out next Tuesday evening.

That’s it. That’s a lot. And there’s a lot of footnotery still to come down there below. Neatened and nicened any number of times over the more than 45 edits of this week’s post. For more beery news check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan going strong again each and every Monday. Then listen to Lew’s podcast (if he ever does one) and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on the (now very) odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is out there with the sweary Mary! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? Check out the Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good and they are revving up for a new year. And the BOAS podcast for the bro-ly. And the long standing Beervana podcast …except they have now stood down. Plus We Are Beer People. The Boys Are From Märzen podcast appears suspended as does BeerEdge, too. But not Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has podcasts and there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. The Moon Under Water is gone which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month. Pete Brown’s one cost a fifth of that but only had the one post.

*And that to me is a contradictory set of statements even if understandably so. In the first, there is a desire for the standard base beer to then, one assumes, compare with the ideal standard of an unadulterated Grodziskie, a presumably identifiable fact. In the second, the existence of standards is rejected. There can’t be a dependable body of knowledge that spawns experts at the same time as you have a totally subjective subject matter. Thankfully, I am reading a bit of Smil these days which may explain where we are. He describes how the quality of information received though individual perception is not in the control of those doing the perceiving but also that it does follow reliable patterns. Understanding those patterns can draw us back to a greater sense of objectivity by removing our natural tendencies to clarify the equation. As a result, as I understand it, reasonably objective assessment of beer is possible even if it is surpressed. But just a minute. Isn’t that itself a smarty pants faux expertise claim? Am I the zealot? Well, I have always enjoyed the sort of long long essays that argue that personal persception is deeply flawed ever since I took courses from Canada’s conservative Anglican philosopher George Grant (a chummy sports sideline watcher, Ten Penny drinking, ebullient ciggie smoking presence of my college days.) Around the same time I was reading liberal Catholic Ivan Ilych as well as atheist mathematician Bertrand Russell before I moved through my work then family into eastern North American Indigenous writings as well as other perspectives. They all teach that personal subjectivity and even institutuional authority are deeply unreliable. They also proposed various competing objective constructs that we can rely upon as footholds in any subject matter. Testing and contesting the application of those constructs is what critical analysis is all about.
**How did we get here? How did the blandification of beery expertise arise? In the beginning, you had the established authoritative few who wandered in a primordial shallow end unaware. Then, new voices arouse who started asking questions, on blogs in zines, much to the irritation of those who will never be bettered. And, about a decade ago, the dead end was entered as good bloggy writing was pushed a bit aside in favour of the hunt for paid writing. (We were all going to be published authors!!) And then, rather than fostering a peer reviewed discussion of relative merits of contrasting views, we have the unending awards circuit populated by oddly familiar judges handing out statuettes for BOBs like Halloween candy to bolster CVs and bios. (We’re all going to be award winning published authors!!) Circles of backpatting by the accepted then boost each other to take up all the available chairs and even oxygen in the room. (We merry few are all going to be well paid award winning published authors!!) But now… now with the retracting good beer marketplace those less endowed chairs have become more musical as the opportunities and the payouts shrink. Breaking: closed access newsletter subsciptions did not save the day. This is good and healthy. Be loud and proud.
***Like this comment on BlueSky in response to MC’s post: “Perhaps there is something like: all attention for beer in writing should be mostly positive, or we will lose even more fans. With the beer market on a general recline, we want to make more people enthusiastic, rather than pinpointing flaws.” Who is this “we”? And, really, who wants to be involved with any interest that is just a glob of semi-smug uninformed fans? Apparently not the new satistied than you very much lager lovers. Yet… “We Are Beer“? Really ?!? FFS.
****In addition to all the flawed, gratuitous and possibly even actionably negligent opinions on alcohol and health we are subject to from the unknowing on a regular basis, I always come back to the emailed dingbattery shared via email by one prominent beer writer about 15 years ago on the topic of drunk driving: “As much as I am against careless driving caused by drinking, smoking, the application of eye make-up, over-tiredness, cell phone conversations or the accidental spilling of tomato sauce off the veal parmigiana sandwich being scarfered whilst at the wheel, I have no wish to be associated with anything ending in “…ADD,” Alan. Bad enough that the loonies at MADD have co-opted the anti-drunk driving position to the degree that they are a force behind such things as the lowering of the legal limit — you can now have your car taken from you at .05…. which I think is quite extreme — and interlocks for all, worse still to be associated with them in any way, shape or form.”
*****Thanksfully without hallucinogenic recourse to cats.