Another in the occasional series showing how my place of work was protected by a seawall… or a lake wall at least with cannon. I like how this drawing by George Harlow White from 1876 gives a sense of scale of the wall’s height.
Is There Anyone More Interesting Than Simon H Johnson?
I like helping people. Say what you like, I am a people person at heart. I helped people today. I have been helping people so much this week, I have snapped at an old pal in my business life and been living on five hour sleeps. I made a lamb sausage curry tonight, too. So it is with some discomfort but for more giggles that I read Simon’s post today entitled “Reluctant Scooper regrets that…” about his regrets over not being able to respond to all the demands made of him including regrets that he can’t:
– read your blog just because you tweeted me to do so in BLOCK CAPITALS
– write 500 words for free in the next two hours for your magazine because the writer you usually pay to do it has got delayed at an airport with no wifi / is face-down in a vat of custard / has caught VD
– recycle your press release into an “innovative yet commanding” blogpost
– do any kind of RT / Like / +1. Even if you say ‘please’. Even if you didn’t ask in Comic Sans. Because you asked for it
– attend your bar opening which is three hundred miles away. On a Tuesday night. With 24 hours notice. Because all the proper beer journos have got gastroenteritis. Or a better offer…
It does remind me of my latest policy update. It appears that Simon has a lawn, too, but he is able to sum up the point of beer blogging succinctly with a “[i]f it isn’t for shits & giggles, what to we do it for?” Perfect. Exactly. This week I have been working through Shakespeare’s Local by Pete, perhaps his real breakthrough book. I have assisted with comments on the draft of another book. I got 16 beers worth of samples dropped off. I helped a household of seven stay sane. I thought a lot about Albany, NY in the 1600’s and how it is just possible they were exporting beer out into the larger Dutch West Indies colonies. I drove to Ottawa and back Thursday night. I worked at my job, too. I was told there was “a bunch of young beer people who follow you questioning your relevance to your face” and knew how important it was to not give a rat’s ass in any way whatsoever.
There is so much fun in all of this. So many shits and giggles. Why bother with the rest?
An Apology And Thoughts About My Lawn
It was with relief and pleasure that I was able to share emails with Jason Fisher of Indie Alehouse in Toronto today after our strong disagreement over the weekend. Others have suggested that, on one hand, I was well out of line and, conversely, entirely in the right but it still was not a good thing for me to do… calling him a jerk. So, I am sorry. I told him so in an email last night and slipped a note in the comments this morning. An apology is a good short cut to getting to where you want to be – especially if you have never met someone you owe an apology.
That being said, and as I told Jason, I am not sure that resolves our disagreement even if it civilizes it. See, there was enough brain imploding stuff in the message for me that I not only disagree with where he was going but was also left wondering if someone gave out a vital message about my blog and blogging in general that I missed. It comes from these lines of Jason’s:
I’m not sure why bloggers at the same time feel like journalists but also refuse to do any basic fact checking or follow up. Did you contact anyone to clarify anything before writing? It appears you didn’t even fully read the article… .. Keep the standards high and please feel free to reach out with questions to the subjects you write about. You would be surprised how much help you will get if you are open about your intentions and honest in your writings. Thoughtful criticism is amazing, but get’s muted when others just spew hate or nonsense.
You will note the potential to read this statement to suggest that I am like a journalist – not to mention a spewer of hate or nonsense. I am not a journalist. True, I like to write about good beer and journalism and enjoy my many conversations that follow posts about that such as this recent one. But asking questions about journalism as applied to good beer doesn’t make me a journalist. I have written and sold articles but, frankly, being shocked at the pittance the path offered by way of reward have since declined further offers. You poor bastards, I think whenever I read an article.
In my 2008 review of Michael Jackson’s last edition of Great Beers Of Belgium, I got as close to where I think I have ever got to expressing how many different sorts of writing can be applied to good beer. And of those sorts of writing I’ve decided that what I do is write personal essays about my relationship with beer presented to the public through this medium. The post I wrote that triggered Jason’s strong response was no different. And I even considered it supportive. Still do. Not boot-licky but certainly supportive. I was in particular interested in the complex environment of microbes sitting on a grape monoculture and discussed that quite briefly in a very brief post. I did also reiterate that I hoped the resulting beer from the wild yeast project was not sold for twenty bucks a glass and continue to have that strong hope even if it was a source of unhappiness. What was most missed, however, in that welling up of emotion were three statements that I also continue to keep close to my heart. The project in question is a great idea, I hope the beer will be yummy and also, just to drive home the point, I hope it is tasty, too. Hardly, Mr. Hate-y McHate-ster.
So? Why is this continuing post of confession of iniquities worthy or at least driving into another paragraph? Because some anonymous wit tweeted “Wow… talk about get off my lawn syndrome” which is odd because this is, in fact, my lawn. I write my own stuff here, don’t expect anyone takes much from it, like having interesting conversations but do pretty much what I want. See, this is also my lawn. I explore suburban food gardening out there. Here I explore ideas about beer in here. I don’t write with ambition. I don’t write for readers. I don’t certainly write articles. And I really don’t care much for anyone’s opinion as I don’t owe strangers, even you reading this now, anything through my writing any more than I owe the neighbours lettuce because it falls within their view. Don’t confuse me for a booster. Or a ready or implicit PR source for your interests of business. Or someone needy for a relationship with a brewer. Or a ready object for your judgement. Or someone with an agenda that needs to be parsed from tone when the express words don’t suit yours. Or even part of your scene or community or industry. I am just a guy writing. Because I like writing. Like I like green beans and raspberry plants.
Where does that leave us? Stan put it well when he set the rule that it is only beer. But another person I have never met even on -line may have put it better when he interjected in the flow that the best beer is a shared buddy beer, a great reminder of the proper point of the entire hobby – because this is all a big hobby, right. Assuming someone is needing pointed interjection is a pastime of the congenitally misguided as well as the nicest sort of folk you may encounter. Finding malice where none exists is such a waste. Don’t bother. Not on my lawn at least. So you can believe me when I repeat that I am sorry, Jason. But believe me also when I write I think the project of wild yeast inoculation is a good idea. Because I do.
But Which Spenser Would Not Be The Fool?
Jordan posted an excellent taking up of the exploration of ideas around junkets last evening. Earlier in the day he and I had a very good exchange on the topic and I assured him that the point was that this was very much that – an exploration. It interests me because in my other areas of life, there is no question that accepting side b$enefits from those I am dealing with would be greatly challenging to say the least. But Jordan’s review captures many of the differences that may make the situation distinct. He concludes his piece with this:
I suspect that the fact that Alan’s blog post needled at me at 6:30 AM in an environment where most people would be content to listen to a light jazz soundtrack and punish the continental breakfast buffet speaks to the fact that I have an active moral compass when it comes to representing my activities as they relate to writing about beer. There is also the other fact, which some folks might not be willing to admit to. While I’m certainly compensated well for writing (be it books or newspaper columns), a trip like this would typically be beyond my financial means. Given the circumstance, if someone invites you to go to Boston, meet Jim Koch and eat a bunch of really good seafood while drinking a selection of beer on their dime, the response is predictable. As Spenser would say, “We’d be fools not to.”
Being the proud holder of a degree in English Lit before the LLB and LLM, I immediately assumed we were talking about the author of The Faerie Queene, itself an exploration of virtue – but I was unclear how that would attach to a beery jaunt in Massachusetts, to Winthrop’s very City upon the Hill. Then I thought it might be reference to the Victorian thinker Herbert Spencer who was, perhaps like Jordan, a utilitarian in matters such as these. But this Spenser’s ethics are a distasteful pre-Randian whackjob un-virtuous sort of utilitarianism, the sort that allows wikipedia to summarize his thoughts as including “anything that interfered with the ‘natural’ relationship of conduct and consequence was to be resisted and this included the use of the coercive power of the state to relieve poverty, to provide public education, or to require compulsory vaccination.” Screw you, too, Herb. Turns out Jordan was actually referring to the character Spenser in the novels of Robert B. Parker. This Spenser is also Bostonian so a junket there would make no sense. Not sure how his ethics play out but seeing as he is a detective one assumes they are somewhat reality-based.
Some years ago now, there were bloggy posts about the ethics of beer writing that went in circles before settling neatly on a high shelf where it sits well within reach, getting brushed off now and again. The Junket Registry is nothing more than the same ideas turned around, like looking at another side of an unsorted Rubik’s cube. I never gained the obsession that others did when it first came out so I don’t know how many paths it offers towards its own resolution. Within Spencers and Spensers alone the range of options is quite remarkable, too.
Can You Make Wild Beer In A Vineous Mono-culture?
Like most things, Canadians are about half a decade behind so it is no surprise that a group of Ontario brewers have decided to take a kick at wild beer or that some in the Canadian media reacted to the invitation as if they had no idea what was going on in the wider world of good beer. Which is nothing against those directly involved. It’s a great idea. Hope it is yummy and not sold for twenty bucks a glass. Experiment on your own dime, brewers.
Wild indigenous wine yeasts are one of the current things. Like Citra hops. Craze that might be a fad. Here today and gone tomorrow. Yet the yeast is itself. From the photo up top from the Macleans magazine article, you can see the brewing is done in a vineyard, an agricultural monoculture. But is it a monoculture of yeast even if the plants are all clones? Apparently not. We learn that our mutual friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae is certainly on the grapes but only on about 1 in 1,000 berries. What else is in there? The beer will tell. Could be tasty. Hopefully.
PS: get a coolship, wouldja? Wild inoculation via narrow topped vessels might be less than optimum if the history of beer before a hundred or so years ago is anything to go by.
Maybe A Junket, Payment, Sample, Freebie, Pal Registry?
Having the odd combination today of a chorus of the “I Can’t Quite Follow You” Blues contrasted with being offered an actual beer junket itinerary, it popped into my head that an independent registry of potential conflicts for good beer opinion makers might be in order. Sort of a confessional. Sort of a preventative. Yet also likely an interesting aggregate effect if, you know, aggregated. What would be some categories of information that might be included for the junket category:
♦ Name (optional)
♦ Destination and name of brewery or breweries.
♦ Price of junket and portion you paid.
♦ Who organized the junket?
♦ Why were you selected to go on this junket?
♦ Will you disclose the junket in any resulting articles?
♦ Will you refer the junket as “research” in any resulting articles?
♦ Do you intend to call people on junket “friends” in any resulting articles?
♦ Will you disclose to your actual friends that you intend to call people on junket “friends” too?
There. That’s a start. Please use the comments section for your junket disclosures. I am sure that will be helpful way to handle this.
More Evidence Of New North American Beer Journalism
While I was happy to be corrected (again) by Stan last month on the state of beer journalism, one does like to see it in forms where the story is based on new angles and less on relationships. So, happy was I to read Crystal Luxmore’s piece posted in the Old and Stale this afternoon developing the idea of beer and terrior but doing so a bit more specifically than I have seen, using Canada to frame the context:
New Brunswick’s barley is said to have “wet feet” because of the East Coast’s rainy days, unlike the dry, cracking Prairie soil where most Canadian malt is grown. And so when brewmaster Liam McKenna created his Yellowbelly Pale Ale using only “Maritime malt,” he says he could taste the difference. “Maritime malt has more proteins than a Prairie malt so you get these nutty, strawberry flavours in the beer,” says McKenna, brewmaster at Yellowbelly Brewery and Public House in St. John’s.
I have to admit I believe in terrior, the idea that your food can reflect the soil it comes from. Sadly, little comes from one patch of soil anymore. Well, except at my house. I have the same variety of carrot out on the front lawn as well as in the backyard patch. Their tastes differ mainly because I have not yet, even after five years, moved enough dirt around and not yet fed it enough lamb poo and not yet double dug in enough compost. For 99.99999% of beer, malt is like my carrots. And Canada is the bulk barn when it comes to malt. Remember that when someone offers you a US craft beer. It’s all terrior schmerrior for the most part. But there’s a claim to be made of that 0.00001% of the malt that’s able to be used and then is used to showcase the effect.
Yet Crystal (remember her?) does not stop at malt in her brief piece. She covers water, yeast and hops, too, in a neatly succinct piece drawn from interviews of brewers and the obligatory Globe and Mail quotation from a US based Phd in something. What does it lack? Well, corroboration for one thing. Could we please have comments from consumers confirming the claims of vendors have any merit? Trouble is who would one ask? Beer thought is a shoal of troubled waters when it comes from independently corroborated information. Someone is either a beer writer pitching a competing idea, juggling the need to please three sources of beer income or was once married to the person who wrote the book from which the idea in the story is nicked. Or you are Jordan. No matter. Beer is a pleasure trade with few kicks at the can offered who would put things plainly. And we all benefit from those who take a good honking wail at the can when it’s within a boot’s reach. As in this case.
Election 2012: While I Still Have The Power To Blog….
I better make some comment on this election, make some statement given the history around here even if the digital world has deemed blogs to commentary what 8-tracks are to fine audio media.
I was over in the states yesterday and found an active economy. My favorite lunch spot, the Fairgrounds Inn where I have been going for at least six years now was hopping on a Friday lunch. I had the Italian Combo, thanks for asking. And I got my hair cut. The guy getting sheered next to me went on about the Biden debate. Unhappy but a bit shallow. Was there really cause to gripe? Businesses were expanding. On the way out of town, my rear passenger side wheel just about seized and we were lucky to come over the hill on #37 and see Frenchy’s Auto Repair right there. An hour was all it took to get a part delivered and see us back heading to the border. We lapped up the warm late late summer air on a gorgeous rural vista out back of the repair ship. Everyone in the place was happy and busy and working. Some were having a beer. One of my favorite things about the slice of the USA I get to see is how it is both so similar to the Maritimes as a bit of a hard luck corner of the nation but also how frankly cheerful and confident folk are. The restaurant was at a dull roar of conversation the whole time we were there. It was hard to tell if the auto repair was a place of work or a fairly hearty social club given all the people coming and going while we were there.
What will America do on 6 November? My take is that Obama has not been passed, the Federal Senate will not budge and a number of member of the House will move to the left, not the right. There will not be a throw the bums out movement. I don’t think Mitt Romney would be a catastrophe any more than four more years would. No wave of nuttin’. But the next four years one way or another will be about managing recovery. Whammo. Not sure the will be a WHAMMO!!! but there will be a Whammo.
None
More International Insurance Map Brewery Fun
It was the best of times and insurance maps. It was the worst of times, you know, and… insurance maps. Errr. a tale of two cities of sorts, I suppose. From the upper left we have the Kingston Brewery as well as Portsmouth Brewing of my town from 1908 plus, to the upper right, the Albany Brewing Company, then below left Beverwick Brewing Company and, lower right, Taylor Brewing and Malting all of Albany in 1892. What can we learn from these images? Click on each image and find out for yourself. Here is what I see:
♦ UL: As discussed last August, the Kingston Brewery dates from at least 1791. The badly digitized 1824 map shows a set of buildings on the inland side of the inner harbour road. The 1908 map shows much of the same complex built up overtime. The malt kiln, laid with iron tiles, is no longer used and a lot of space is dedicated to ice houses as part of the lager operations. And there is a manure pit. Dangers which might be faced by fire crews are noted. Where a boiler might be found or a pump. The notes state that hoses are distributed meaning there is water throughout. The basic set up is a courtyard. There is a four story tower as well as a basement with a fermentation room and a stock cellar.
♦ UM: By comparison, Portsmouth Brewing in is more orderly. Based more about access to the lake than the older cross town competition. The kiln is on the land side of the property and leads into the brewery proper which leads to the bottling room. The coal and barrel sheds are separate. There is a basement and the main building is three stories high. Our commentator Steve Gates, author of The Breweries of Kingston and the St. Lawrence Valley has an excellent photo of the brewery from the next year taken from the vantage of someone under the letter “F” in “Fisher” as shown on the map. He also tells us that they had been brewing lager since 1872. Hence the ice house.
♦ UR: Next, the Albany Brewing Company neatly fills a city block as this picture from the coal shed view of 1865 to 1870 shows. I am sure there is a very good reason that hand grenades were distributed throughout the brewery for fire fighting purposes but I am not sure what that might be. Unlike the Kingston breweries above or Taylor below, there is no access to waterfront. Unlike Beverwick below, there is no train spur leading to the building. To the right center, there is a five story tower where it appears the coolers are located. The office is across the street to the south and a police station to the north. It’s in the middle of things. Looks like there are horse stalls near the coal shed that open out on to Green Street to the left of the image.
♦ LL: The Beverwick Brewing buildings appear to be more modern again. Founded in 1878, it has a rail siding… which apparently leads it to be suitable for a model railway set. The main building looks impressive. Five stories with a sixth in the attic. Brick arched ceilings on multiple floors frame fermenting tubs and beer tubs. Coolers are located in the fifth floor. A more compact footprint but, at 100,000 barrels a year, very productive and, therefore, famous. A very industrial set up compared to the others.
♦ LR: Last, good old Taylor Brewing in its elder years. The neighbouring buildings have been left vacant with only the core brewery seemingly in operation. Six stories very much oriented towards the river. When I saw this and saw the images of de Hooch yesterday, its position by the water looked like Dutch breweries lined up along the shore in Haarlem in 17th century paintings. I think that’s the building to the middle right in the image at Craig’s post on the brewery, though that was almost half a century earlier.
What does that tell us? You tell me. I see a range of brewing systems laid showing about 120 years of technological advances. Still plenty of ale brewing going on but a range of transportation methods from horse carts to ships to trains. For the most part, the breweries are all still malting at the turn of the 20th century.
More On The World Atlas Of Beer By Tim ‘n’ Steve
I have been thinking about this book a bit more. The other day when Mr. B. left a comment, I responded in part “I think you have hit a very sweet spot between newbie and fan. Imagine being the one who created a bridge over that gap.” The more I think about that line, the more I think I have hit exactly on what I like about the book. When I wrote the line, I am pretty sure I meant that the book places itself very well between the interests of the newbie and the interests of the fan. But when I look at it again, I think what I really should have been thinking more about the bridge and less about that sweet spot.
Point? The WAo’B can serve as a bridge between people of different interest levels. It’s as a great best device any beer fan can use to explain this great hobby’s attraction. It describes tasty beers in a simple manner. Also, it’s is not based on style, that logic that you have to already be a nerd to understand or dispute. It may sound obvious but the stranger to good beer is unlikely to be also a stranger to the map of the world. Plus, it offers the view from further down the road. Like the fully collected album of stamps, it sure looks swell but… it also hides all the effort, all those long nights at the kitchen table licking and sticking, licking and sticking. Much more than a primer but less than an encyclopedia, it’s neither daunting nor simplistic. It sets out a path to enlightenment – and show how it goes though not only Britain and Belgium but Bamburg and Brazil.
Where does that lead us? Keeping a copy around to chuck at the visiting pal who you just handed a beer? Sure. A gift for a friend who is planning a month on Eurorail or diving across America? Why not? Seems to me that The World Atlas of Beer is probably not going to be the last book a beer nerd buys – but it could be the first book a hop head may remember being given.