Quebec: Retirements And Consolidation At McAuslan

Date: Wed, Apr 24, 2013

If I have a favorite beer at a favorite pub, it's a pint of McAuslan Oatmeal Stout at the Kingston Brewing Company. It does not hurt that the place is a block from my work. But news has thrown a pebble at my world just now, placing that pleasure at perhaps some risk:

After a quarter century in the business, the husband-and-wife team behind the McAuslan Brewing company has sold their company to another Montreal-based microbrewer, RJ Brewers. Peter McAuslan, who founded the company with his wife Ellen Bounsall in 1988, told CJAD News it was just the right time for the two of them to get out. "When one starts a business, you always have a sort of an end point in mind," McAuslan said. "Both of us over the last ten years said, 'well, there's going to come a point where we're going to want to sell out and take advantage of the work that we've done."

Risk you say? Don't get me wrong. I have had RJ's Belle Gueule and it has its worthy place. But successors rarely maintain the particularity of a beer even if quality generally is maintained. Different equipment, hands on the knobs, water tables or yeast strain races? You're never sure about these things. With luck, I'll stand corrected this time and that wee note of licorice will be there along the twiggy hops for years to come. Good news for the team of McAuslen and Bounsall certainly and perhaps part of an era we'll be entering where many such just rewards are gotten by many more retiring first wave microbrewers.

But, really, it's not like I drank the beer because of them. I drink it because of it. And I hope it has many more years ahead of it.

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Apparently "Throughput On Kegs Does Affect Quality"!

Date: Mon, Apr 22, 2013

Do you ever read a sentence about the beer trade that just drops onto the table and sits there gawking back at you, dimwittedly? The line below in bold is one of those:

Jonathan Bennett, PR man for Miller Brands, insists Peroni wasn't worried that Skeggy would do to the brand what Daniella Westbrook did to Burberry when she was papped head-to-toe in its checks. "It's not a commentary on Skegness itself; we just didn't feel Peroni was right for [the hotel]. I'm sorry that the landlord was unhappy, but this has been a successful strategy for us for a long time," he said. "Throughput on kegs does affect quality," he added, tacitly implying that his inspectors believed not enough drinkers in Skeg would cough up for a pint that is commonly sold for as much as £5 a pop (though Bain had planned a £4 price point).

This is nothing against Peroni which, as Jeff recently pointed out, is pretty good for, you know, bulk beer. But hardly a beer I would expect that could pretend to be too good for Skegness... or any other place for that matter. More kraphtt than craft. See, however, what the marketing goal actually was: make the beer falsely limited in availability and then raise the price. Pull back on the market by 10% and then raise prices by 25% to make net gain without investing anything. Cha. Ching.

Yet, is there anything being done by Peroni that isn't being done regularly in the craft beer world? Manufacturing demand through manipulating supply and creating a narrative around preciousness and rarity? If you think about it, does playing that branding card ever convey anything but a lack of integrity?

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Where Are The Alternative Beer Classification Systems?

Date: Fri, Apr 19, 2013

I saw this article by Crystal Luxmore the other day and it got me thinking. It starts this way:

Grapes are the inspiration behind a trendy beer style that is bringing the worlds of wine and beer together: new hybrids that are seducing hopheads and oenophiles alike. Beer-wine hybrids – or vinales, as I like to call them – are beers made with one or more wine ingredient. They range from subtle and beer-forward versions, such as a porter aged in a cabernet franc barrel, to more grape-centric fusions, such as Dogfish Head’s snappy saison, made plump and fruity with juices from viognier and pinot gris grapes. In 1999, Dogfish began experimenting with hybrids and now the Delaware brewery is at the forefront of a vinale movement, which is flourishing south of the border and in Belgium and Italy.

Not sure than any actual oenophiles are moved in the slightest by these sometimes quite evil potions but that is not my point. Note the sidebar "...or vinales, as I like to call them..." See, I like how she gave herself the authority to coin a word in that way. Now, like Mr. B, I think the substantive concept (as opposed to the welcome procedural autonomy) is founded on sandy shoals in that it is proposed in relation to style based classification. Given the whopping failure that styles as a concept are more and more obviously becoming, it's not a good way to go.

But... the desire to more accurately describe things in some taxonomy related to good beer is not only a rare one but one that needs fostering. Jay has recently been going back in craft beer time to, in good beer years, 37 million BC if hop heads are to be believed. That translates to the late '80s when malty goodness was king and Pete's Wicked Ales published a chart suggesting a description of beer based on a four quadrant X-Y axis sort of diagram. I like the concept because it is actually understandable, something the 1283 identified "styles" of beer� can no longer claim to be. It is also rational, again not something that characterizes the smelly old dog of style-based belief systems, in that it recognizes the overlap or at least flow from one expression of beer to another. Crystal's proposed "vinale" is like that. It recognizes something occurring and seeks to explain it simply.

Keep one thing in mind: I don't recommend you drink most of the stuff. Just as swirling a lemon lolly pop in an IPA is no way to either add welcome new flavours - nor certainly to invent a style - pouring beer on grape musts or letting it hang out in a cask that has held, say, chardonnay is a way to capture new flavours... but not one that is likely to, you know, taste good due mainly to the over reliance on the wine component. But that is not to say it is theoretically possible one day for someone to find some value in the overlap, the mixing. And remember ciders and meads have a long track record of names for mixes and concoctions like "braggott" and "metheglin". Collectively the words are not stylistic in any sense of Platonic orders of understanding. They are, rather, more functional, addressing the prime components found in the beverage. And they are largely in Welsh... which is cool.

So is "vinale" a keeper? Maybe. But more importantly it offers a way ahead even if along a road less taken. It offers a peek at an alternative classification system that might develop based on function just as the Pete's charts describe a theory of beery relativity. More of such thinking, please.

�We also need to be mindful that there appears to be a new style created at the birth of each new US craft brewery, a phenomenon that needs its own pithy label tying concepts of inflation, bubble economics, PR and a dim but persistent association with some vague authority.

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Albany Ale: Mainstream Media's Willpower Is Crushed!!!

Date: Thu, Apr 18, 2013

It has been clear from the first inklings that there was a big story on Albany brewing that has yet to be told that there's been a silent force out there keeping us down. Mainstream media. There. I've said it. Whew! What a relief. I've been keeping that in for some long. You have no idea. But now? It's over if this old media utter capitulation by the Times-Union of Albany is anything to go by:

An amazing fact: For decades during the mid-19th century, Albany was second only to London among cities with the largest capacity for beer production. Also true and also amazing: A signature style produced by many of the dozens of Albany breweries was so widely distributed that researchers have found mention of "Albany ale" throughout the U.S., from New Orleans to San Francisco, and abroad, from Nova Scotia to Buenos Aires to Germany. From what local beer blogger Craig Gravina has been able to determine, Albany ale was a double-strength beer of about 8.5 or 9 percent alcohol, fairly sweet and heavily hopped. Gravina and Alan McLeod, a Canadian blogger and fellow student of the history of Albany brewing, maintain separate blogs (drinkdrank1.blogspot.com and beerblog.genx40.com), as well as a joint Facebook page titled The Albany Ale Project They use all three outlets to document their findings, including details about more than 40 breweries that operated in Albany from 1650 to 1875.

Well, there you go. And while I am a bit upset that Craig did not refer to me expressly as, you know, his hero I have to say (i) yes, I can read between the lines and (ii) his work on this project has been something that... errr... I could not, you know, pull off. At all. While I may have him totally if we are measuring by bulk, age and old Maple Leafs hockey cards (suck on that) his energy on this file has not only inspired my own continued interest first piqued by that pesky ad in an early Victorian newspaper ad from Newfoundland that I posted about over three years ago now. But, since then, he has simply run with it like a crazy man. Like a crazy man with his pants on fire. All praise Craig.

But it does not stop there. He's telling the tale of Albany ale on public radio, too. Check out his instructions to find the archives for Midday Magazine on WMAC for that. And this very Saturday right around happy hour time, he is speaking to the Albany Institute, the oldest museum in America, on the topic. Boo. Yah.

I believe the phrase is I am not worthy. Or at least I am stuck in another country. Let's go with that.

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Quebec: Jean Dit Laforge, Microb' L'Ile D'Orleans

Date: Mon, Apr 15, 2013

I've reviewed a few beers by Microbrasserie De L'Ile D'Orleans before, a DIPA and a strong stout, but at 10% this seasonal winter beer tops them both. But, as this is mid-century week, well worthy. Who was Jean Dit Laforge?

Deep dark brown ale with a rich rim and foam of melted chocolate. Dry cocoa and vanilla on the nose. While creamy, it has a somewhat modest body for its strength. Twiggy minty hops, vanilla over milk chocolate then bitter baker's chocolate with maybe a bit of plum in the malt. Sweet but short of cloying. A bit of a convection but what to make of it? Maybe not an imperial milk stout but perhaps a Congressional one. I am working on gradations of government organizations as adjective for beer quality. Trying to figure out where People's Bulgarian Soviet Agrarian Committee, Sub-Committee on Transport fits. What I like about it is how it displays another sort of balancing. Balance is often describes achieving a middle point with layers but in this case, it's more of the see-saw sort of balance. There's a range of bitternesses as well as sweetnesses here. But it is fairly deftly pulled off.

Moderate support from both the RBians and BAers who appear compelled to describe what it is as much as than how it tastes.

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Two Wooden English Tankards From The 1500s

Date: Sun, Apr 14, 2013

A few months ago, I referenced a wooden tankard that had been found on Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, as part of my review of Mitch Steele's book IPA. I didn't clue into one aspect of the tankard until I read this story about another similar wooden tankard from the 1500s found last year in the mud of the River Thames as described in this story posted at the Museum of London's website:

It is comparable in shape to a modern beer mug, however, this tankard holds three pints. Was it used to carry beer from the barrel to the table or, was this someone’s personal beer mug? The quantity of liquid held in the tankard and markings suggesting it once had a lid, may indicate that it once served as a decanter. However, the lack of a spout seems to contradict this theory. The only other items that are contemporary and similar in appearance come from the Mary Rose, although the Mary Rose examples carry 8 pints.

Eight pints!! That is otherwise known as a gallon. Click on the picture to the right for a full version of the Mary Rose tankard. Notice how it appears to have straps of split branches rather than metal. Notice also how the photo above of the three pint tankard neatly illustrates how the handle shape likely indicates there was a lid just as on the Mary Rose tankard. Otherwise, why does the handle rise up above the rim as it does? Nothing like the well applied use of scientific photography in the cause of drinking vessel description accuracy by Murray Saunders for the Daily Mail and the unnamed photographer in the Wharf article. Perhaps a guild of their own is in order.

Speculation goes on that these large vessels may have been used as jugs but I wonder. Not only is there no spout, obviously a known technology in those times but it presumes very odd handling of the beer. Barrel to jug to mug. Why not just barrel to mug? B => M is better than B => J => M technology as it needs no staff person as middleman. No waiter. Why wouldn't these sailors just be lined up daily and given their full gallon, the measure for consumption throughout day? It's not like they are sitting in a pub as they drank the stuff. Besides, ship's beer was weak. And anyway, serving jugs had a different shape.

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Another Good Reason To Support The Little Guy

Date: Sat, Apr 13, 2013

Keeping in mind that by "little guy" I actually mean small brewers and not larger brewers who need their smallness to be defined by a trade organization... but this news out of Newfoundland is just weird:

...the bosses at Labatt Breweries in St. John’s apparently thought it was a good idea to instruct their employees to train workers who would replace them in the event of a strike. The employees refused and walked out, and are currently on a wildcat strike. The mind reels, and then reels some more upon news that a judge ordered the workers to stop interfering in Labatt’s daily business because, he said, they would do the company irreparable harm. Apparently, in a globalized knowledge economy, being replaced on the job does not qualify as doing irreparable harm to a worker.

We have to also be mindful, of course, that being a good brewer does not automatically entitle you to be considered as a good employer. You will recall how in 2011, Rogue of Oregon was the subject of "a devastating article about how Rogue Brewery treats its workers" to quote Jeff. Like any good consumer, that was the last time I bought any of their beer but, to be honest, anti-union tactics is something of a norm. But asking local workers to train their own foreign import replacements? Notice that a Canadian bank has been accused of the same thing this week. Which has led to an apology from now sweaty browed president and CEO Gord Nixon as clients are voting with their feet and withdrawing their deposits.

We clearly have a problem with any law that allows this. And any community that condones it. Will Canadians walk on Labatt, too? I hope so. Most likely in Newfoundland where the policy hits home most closely and people have an aversion to being led. They are not called the masterless men for nothing. One would hope these things would matter more generally, too. I do appreciate when Ethan points out that, hey, it's capitalism but one needs to recall that capitalism is about trade and, frankly, turns on the principle "buyer beware." As in be wary. Be aware. Know who and what you are dealing with. And appreciate, as Nixon now knows, that it is the consumer who defines what is appropriate within the construct of capitalism, not the law or business.

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Wine's The Real Challenge For Good Beer, Not MacroGak

Date: Thu, Apr 11, 2013

As you know, I have been writing a bit about wine here because I am thinking about and drinking a bit of the fluids of nearby Prince Edward County. News today from those last few staff at Statistics Canada who have not met the wrath of our rural overlords indicates I might not be alone:

For some, beer is as Canadian as the Maple Leaf, and anything less would be downright unpatriotic. But, new statistics show, a nation of beer drinkers are increasingly switching from hops to grapes. “Despite the small increase in beer sales, both in terms of volume and dollar value, the market share dominance of beer continued to decline as consumers turned more to wine,” Statistics Canada said today, referring to numbers that are now a year out of date, but still show how tastes continue to change. “In 2002, beer had a market share of 50 per cent by dollar value, while wine had 24 per cent,” the agency said in an annual report on alcoholic beverages. “By 2012, the market share for beer had declined to 44 per cent, while wine accounted for 31 per cent.”

Notice the underlying factor, however, as this statistic is by dollar value. We are as a nation spending more on wine. We may well not be buying or drinking more wine but we likely are. Buying better, too... or at lease more expensive. Plus we are buying what is becoming fairly common around us, good local wine. Yet, we buy and make beer and spirits, too. We are polyboires, we Canadians, as the original StatsCan report explains.

My near western neighbour, Prince Edward County, here by the northeast corner of Lake Ontario provides only a small bit of Ontario's and Canada's overall wine production. Recently, I received samples of a number of Diamond Estates wines from Niagara, the better known wine region to the southwest of the same Great Lake. Because it is wine, it's a bit hard to get a handle on what to make of even such a selection let alone place them in the context. I'll mention two. I shared the EastDell Gamay Noir and, again, were pleased with the quality - especially the characteristics of the grape as grown in Ontario soils. I am not sure I would trust a wine at that price point to be as dependable were it European or South American. I unexpectedly liked a light bodied white wine, Birchwood Fresh Gewurztraminer / Riesling, even though it it is a modestly priced blend but, then, was a challenged by the implications. But that's the thing, isn't it. See, for me, unlike beer, taking into account all the challenges posed by nation, region, vintage, grape variety, blends, sometimes actual terrior and bottle variation - not to mention price point and vintner's intention - the variables are simply more complex as a whole than good beer. I don't know how to get my arms around the body of data presented to me by wine. So I focus on zones. I buy red wines from the Côtes du Rhône and Rieslings from the Mosel - Ürzigers if I can find them. And, lucky for me, I also buy local wines from nearer and often - but not always - more affordable zones.

I know, I know. Your a beer geek and you've been told that beer goes with more things and is more complex. You even believe beer goes with chocolate better, never having had even a reasonable port. But the saddest truth is these sorts of arguments makes a little sense. Good beer is wonderful and so is wine. So's gin, for that matter. But learning about beer is a fairly straight forward or maybe just relatively straight forward matter, not even considering all the misdirection from above and its own inherent multi-faceted nature. You read 20 beer books these days and, be honest, you come away with the sense you've maybe read six. I read any book in the Faber series on wine, for example, and I am boggled by the sheer volume of data. 475 Beers to Try Before You Die? What about facing 2575 wines of the Côte de Beaune in a lifetime, a stretch of land in one French valley of maybe 5 by 20 miles.

What to do with this as a beer nerd wanting to start learning about wine? Start. Same goes for teas or cheeses for that matter. Take the chip off the shoulder if it's there and start trying them. Start trying to figure them out and realize as you do that you will likely never master the stuff. You'll never get a glimpse of the borders of the topic for that matter. But that is OK. You've never have a beer from all the US craft brewers either. Will anyone? Who cares.

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Has Discontent Struck Good Beer In A Time of Plenty?

Date: Tue, Apr 9, 2013

A little bird, or rather an email correspondent, who was present advised me that at the recent Craft Brewer Conference there was a closed session at which at least one well placed big-mid-sized Midwest brewer "sure made for good entertainment at the voting members session of the CBC- you know, the one the toss the media out for". Apparently, unlike what is seen on the public sessions, issues like the asymmetrical effect of tax breaks and grants are creating divisions amongst those who would like you to believe that they sing all from the same hymnal... and, then, would like to sell you the hymnal so you can keep in tune, too. Interesting, then, to read about one implication arising from this sort of thing as illustrated by one particular expanding good beer market, Ashville NC, as reported today by Bill Night at The New School:

If the $9 Mil for New Belgium that Magee mentioned sounds like a lot to you, maybe you'll be interested to find that New Belgium actually snarfed up $13 million in total from "the public trough", as explained in this post on the blog Ashvegas. As far as I can tell, Sierra Nevada wasn't quite as gluttonous, and only needed a little under $5 million to set up beer camp in North Carolina:

- State of North Carolina: $1M grant to New Belgium
- Buncombe County: $8.5M tax incentives to New Belgium
- City of Asheville: $3.5M tax incentives and infrastructure to New Belgium
- State of North Carolina: $1M grant to Sierra Nevada
- Henderson County: $3.75M tax incentives and infrastructure to Sierra Nevada

You know who should be really pissed about all that money? The small brewers who built Asheville up into Beer City USA.

Redistribution of wealth is tricky stuff and it does not help that those receiving are national craft millionaires even though sometimes it seems they would like us to think that they are hunting for sofa change to try to make payroll. But it does not stop there today as Harry Schuhmacher in the Beer Business Daily touches on more of the questions left unanswered after the recent conference. He discusses questions of tax policy as I discussed here the other day as well as badly made and overpriced craft - and even how succession planning leading to big money buyouts are all discussed. All important big issues that can leave a bad taste... sometimes by actually leaving a bad taste.

But, most interesting to me is the "S" word - smugness. Harry puts it succinctly: "I've met a few new craft brewers over the last year, and I get the sense lately that many think they invented beer." A great direct line. I can't, however, speak to the truth of it as, being trained in the law, I assume this is a phenomena that is woven throughout all business sectors so I don't know whether this is new to beer or that the guard has been left down a bit recently. Yet the other sources mentioned above might be indicating that might well be the case. Where does all of this lead? Good beer did well in the recession, expanding market share as the economy took a hit. But that does not mean the industry is immune to all risk.

For me, big business is big business and will act as such. Lobbying and entitlement will benefit the largest most. But the time needs to come when US craft will stop trying to pretend all brewers are small start ups even if only to argue for financing opportunities which can benefit businesses of different scales. Beyond that, the risk of fatigue needs to be addressed - and not fatigue of flagship beers as Harry suggests though that is happening too. Craft beer is starting to act like pre-teen soccer league where everything and everyone is special. Every brewer gets the medal. Every one gets the treat at the end of the game. In the case of craft beer, the treat is unending increased prices and increased sales forever and ever, amen. Nothing works that way.

Change will come and will likely be unexpected. Change may also be brought upon oneself. How would a brewer best situate itself to withstand a shift away from these present times of plenty? Admitting opening how things actually are might be a start.

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Did Those Diatoms Poison Your Beer Lately?

Date: Mon, Apr 8, 2013

Interesting news today out of Germany:

“When arsenic level in beer is higher than in the water used during brewing, this excess arsenic must come from other sources,” Coelhan noted. “That was a mystery to us. As a consequence, we analyzed all materials, including the malt and the hops used during brewing for the presence of arsenic. They concluded that the arsenic was released into the beer from a filtering material called kieselguhr, or diatomaceous earth, used to remove yeast, hops and other particles and give the beer a crystal clear appearance. Diatomaceous earth consists of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae that lived millions of years ago. It finds wide use in filtering beer, wine and is an ingredient in other products.”

A couple of months ago, a very oddly spirited defense by someone not really wanting to identify themselves was made in the comments against customers knowing everything that touched their beer. Diatomaceous earth was mentioned in the argument as an obvious example of something benign. Yet here we are. Potential source of badness. Maybe. I distrust pop articles of scientific studies as much as I distrust the adamant anonymous comment maker. But it does raise interesting questions. How useful ultimately are our understandings?

Craig posted about errors found in a Huffington Post infographic today. I don't know what screams more of distrust than (i) Huffington Post or (ii) infographic. One error was related to the well worth myth-ridden path to the beginnings of IPA. Yet, something struck me about that error. As I commented, I read this weekend in the Montreal Gazette about how brandy was created because wine was not enduring the new longer sailing trips the Dutch were able to make in the 1300s and 1400s. There may be a similar story related the development of port and sherry as a means to make the stuff get to its intended destination. And for any number of other goods for all I know. So, it is not entirely far fetched as, based in large part by the Baltic trade of the 1700s, it was the case that strong drink was known to travel better than weak drink.

Is it possible that something was known and not needing recording about characteristics of successful long distance booze travel? Traders' trade knowledge? I don't know. I do know that it is entirely possible any maybe even likely that Ben Franklin did make that statement about beer as much as he made a very similar one about wine. He certainly was not against re-purposing in other parts of life. Which is all a bit of a way to suggest could it be that we are too attached to fragments of evidence seen up close and guide ourselves away from patterns which may be presenting themselves if we just drew back and looked? But what patterns? Is it that adding any process or ingredient to brewing could find us looking at a trace of arsenic... or maybe that a trace of arsenic is no different than, you know, cyanide in kriek?

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Beer And Food: Home Made Apple And Mozzarella Pizza

Date: Sat, Apr 6, 2013

So, this was dessert. We made a stack of pizzas tonight. This was the last one. I even have the blister on the back of my wrist where I brushed the hot oven wall to prove it. But apple pizza? Thirty years ago in the north end of Halifax, Nova Scotia there was Pizzeria Tomaso with Mr. Tomaso still holding sway before he sold the business to a local family who promised to keep up his standards, brought from Sicily. It was only open Thursdays and Fridays from 4 to 7 pm. He was about 80 and had 15 high school kids working behind him. I remember going in once and among the stacks and stacks of pizzas seeing, among those destined for law firms head offices and nearby neighbourhood families, boxes marked "the Cabinet" meaning the five or six extra larges were destined for the cabinet room of the government of the province. I remember asking for anchovies on my 'za and he came past the clerk taking the order to slap my face saying "You want anchovies? You a good boy." He used to cook pizzas 90% of the way and offer then tax free as "cook at home" pizzas because he was really mad that there was tax on pizzas. The CBC Halifax evening TV news was presented live from his pizzeria counter once a year when Frank Cameron and Doug Saunders hosted the show in the '70s and early 80's. He used to give away wine when you were waiting for your order because he was so mad that he was not allowed to sell it. And they still make an apple pizza.

Beer? Oh, yes. I deglazed the onions with Bogfather. None made the apple 'za.

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Session 74: Beer Balance Found With Moinette?

Date: Fri, Apr 5, 2013

Another new month. Another edition of the Session to have forgotten about until the last minute. This year's version is being hosted by This Is Why I'm Drunk:

April’s topic is “Finding Beer Balance.” It’s a discussion I hope will offer a variety of responses as people consider their interests outside of finding the perfect pint. Is beer your vice? Is beer your reward? Does beer really have to be either? Do you find lifestyle balance through work, hobbies, family or maybe even “Dry Days” like David Bascombe? There are a variety of ways to find balance.

Balance? As in balance point? No thanks. I shift. I shift from good beer to affordable good wine sometimes to spirits but mainly come back to good beer and also not good beer. Soon there will be Pimms punches once the heat comes in the afternoon. And think of tea. The things I could tell you about tea. Coffee is more about the happy rut of good morning Joe but tea... now that's something to get obsessed about. Complex, moderate, surprising. Balance.

Maybe. Sure, it's tasty. But obsessing about tasty is like being passionate about your lawn. It doesn't lead anywhere all that much. Yet beer is like tea in that it exemplifies balance. It's weaker than other things for the most part and yet a decent mouthful. Each make you pee. So, it perhaps begs to be taken with perspective. It may, in fact, offer that perspective inherently. If you listen. I am having a Dupont Moinette as I write this. Malty but not a cloyish glob. Hefty but not overly so. The hops add framing but it's the yeast doing all the interesting stuff. Lots to think about. Things coming at you from different points of view. And a beer that can give rise to different points of view as well.

Balance exemplified by perspective. Balance also exemplified by context. Beer may be asking you to think about its components, its limitations and its alternatives. If you care to think about it maybe it's asking you to leave it alone once in a while, too. To find something else. Like tea.

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Your Thursday Night Beer News Roundup

Date: Thu, Apr 4, 2013

Turns out there is a big world of other news out there. When people are complaining all over the place about their competition - even while, you know there are no competitors just allies in good beer - there are actually other tales being told. Important stories which do not actually even include the word "crafty" at all:

⇒ The national beer reserves of Norway is good for just two weeks. Never thought of the national beer reserve before but I think this is an important stat that needs tracking.

⇒ One in a while some news is actually bad news even with all that hard work from the PR consultants. Or maybe exactly because of that hard work.

⇒ It is possible for a gluten free beer to possibly be good... possibly.

⇒This is no way to sell me a new concept in beer dispense: "...by ensuring no bacteria gets in its beer in the first place, then transporting the beer directly from the brewery to the specially engineered tanks in the pub using vacuum-sealed bags kept at a constant temperature..." Yum.

⇒ What do "extreme" and "IPA" have in common: (i) adjectives capable of attractive meaninglessness and... (ii) you can put either on a label of almost anything and it'll sell for a good long while.

You know, the brains who came up with the horrible "crafty" PR turn off may be the same guys who packed that backpack. After all, it's not like they believe what in what they do. Remember the words of Seinfeld when it comes to such things: "You can be passionate about anything. Pay attention, don't let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box." I should leave it there. I do worry about going on. Or at least I used to worry until I read this column.

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Is It Time For A Return To The Way of Shale?

Date: Wed, Apr 3, 2013

I was deeply saddened to read the news from ATJ this morning as I woke with another.. another... crappy chest cold:

As for the beer brewed over here (a US version will be made later in the year with Wells’ yeast — get to the Philly Beer Week in June for the launch), there I was listening attentively, expecting Caligione to let the assembled know how he’d selected American hops and suggested this or that, but let’s not forget this is Dogfish Head. ‘We did a reduction of our 60 Minute IPA and this was then added to the boil in Bedford.’ I woke up. The idea of the chef as a brewer, which I think Caligione has always championed. ‘Yes, it’s a reduction of one beer used in the production of another,’ he repeated as if he thought we couldn’t believe what we were hearing. ‘We hope it’s the start of a long relationship.’

Another brewer - another nation - falls to the dark powers of the Collabatron X300. I hope - pray - not another soul. This is the Br-org perhaps? Could you have an anonymous collaboration? One without a press release or a launch? Would you notice it in the beer?

I could go on. In verse. But that's what #AlanandMaxBook is about. So let's be positive. Let's praise big beer for making better tastier beers at a great price. Let's praise those who would wisely defer over-investing in infrastructure while making great beers. Let us praise the younger, more interesting and maybe more respectful. Especially those who do not adulterate with barks, berries and boozy casks. Thanks be to those who favour the flavour of beer. But if you are going to go that way, maybe go crazy big.

What harm doth the jet set and the press pass wrought? Perhaps none. Yet, when writing back and forth with someone whose name is actually neither Boak or Bailey as it turns out, we turn to the writings of era before expert tasters arose, those who wrote of the experience and, perhaps, those who would more rationally place good beer in greater context. I would be very interested to know what the departed of that era - the prolific David Line or maybe even the apparently mad Ken Shales, Simon J's foreshadow - would have made of it all.

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