QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“This is the formula. Mix activity with alcohol, and the people will come.”

— From At Stock Market Bar Night, Buy Low and Drink Up.

Is Craft Beer Cringe Right Now? Years ago, loving an IPA meant you were hip. What happened? is not short and covers a lot of history most of you who visit here on Mondays have lived through. So no summary from me that would not do it justice. In other words, read it for yourself.

Instead, I will lean into what Courtney Iseman lists as not cringe: “It’s important to define what’s eliciting eye rolls. It’s obviously not cringe to take your job seriously if you make beer or work with it; it’s not cringe to enjoy craft beer, learn about it and help foster the community aspect of it, whether as a professional or an enthusiast. Breweries who make a balance of what brewers and consumers want to drink sans judgment or snark, and who are more invested in creating an engaging third place: not cringe. And brewery owners, brewers, beer educators, beer judges and beer influencers who are members of underrepresented communities, as well as those devoting time and energy to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, all in the name of leveling the playing field? They are the exact opposite of all that’s being roasted within the craft beer space. They are the reason to still be excited about craft beer.”

To that I will add people who might be drinking beer at The Flats Beer Garden on the road between Golden and Boulder, Colorado, and thousands of similar establishments across the country. (Although few have views quite as spectacular at The Flats.) There are many reasons they might be there, and beer is just one of them. At the Flats, that will be likely be a draft beer from a small-ish Colorado brewery that costs more than those from very large breweries offered in cans and bottles. Modifiers—craft, local, independent, fancy—aren’t necessary.

And there’s a good chance that cringe is not a word many of the customers use very often.

LEDE OF THE WEEK

When you walk into Gilly’s House of Cocktails in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood, you’ll catch folks circling around one of the two billiards tables playing pool for free, likely with a beer in hand. You’ll see an $11 Adios Motherfucker on the menu painted on the wall next to its room-length bar, touting ingredients like overproof rum and navy-strength gin. You’ll likely notice its brightness and cleanliness. Belly up to the bar, and you may spot a black wooden message board trumpeting the blue Powerade they have on a soda gun.

If you’re lucky, you may spot co-owner Erick Castro behind the stick — the same bar-industry titan who helped open acclaimed San Diego spots Polite Provisions and Raised by Wolves. The other co-owner, Jacob Mentel, made his bones at places like Polite and Youngblood, which landed on the list of North America’s 50 Best Bars in 2023. Last November, the two officially took over what used to be Gilly’s Cocktails, an old, seedy neighborhood dive bar that began life as Gil’s back in 1968. They tweaked the name, removed the blackout windows to reduce the dank, and added cocktails to the mix, including elevated versions of disco drinks.

Their efforts produced a space that can be described as an upscale dive bar: an of-the-moment concept that’s meant to be a step above a sticky-floored dive offering beers and stale pretzels but a notch below a high-volume joint slinging highfalutin $20 cocktails. It’s a stylistic trend that’s gained momentum in the post-Covid bar scene, and the investment of big names like Castro into the trend suggest it has legs. As it grows, a concurrent question is also arising: Isn’t an upscale dive bar just . . . a bar?

— From Do Upscale Dives Belong in the Modern Bar Landscape?

YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY

– A life and death in beer. For brewer DeWayne Schaaf, a strain of wild yeast became the only living connection to his late father—then it was lost to history. Or so he thought.

– Jeff Alworth has a complaint. “N/A beer is a slow-moving, minuscule segment in the beer industry and I will continue to ignore it until its volume reaches whole digits.” I too am tired of reading what is pretty much the same story about Athletic Brewing over and over. But I’m pretty sure more people are drinking NA beers than beers made with mushrooms, and mushroom beers and the brewers who make them can be pretty dang interesting. I see opportunities.

Case in point No. 1: Why Augustiner’s new alcohol-free Helles is a big deal. I really want a half liter of this beer, and then another.

Case in point No. 2: Deschutes Brewery is doubling down on their investment in the non-alcoholic beer category with the installation of new technology and equipment to their Bend, Oregon production facility to relaunch NA Black Butte Porter, and introduce an NA version of Fresh Squeezed IPA. IMHO, NA Black Butter Porter is flat out terrific.

– A temporary passport of belonging. This, too, could have been the Lede of the Week: “Four men and one woman are drinking beer and talking and laughing, unconsciously demonstrating, perhaps, that they are regulars and belong in a pub called Hütt’n, in Nuremberg’s Old Town. ‘Ja!’ says one as if to emphasise a point he is making. He has a blush of red on his face, a light crimson bloom on his nose and what looks like the glisten of sweat on his cheeks and forehead. He takes a deep swig from his half-litre glass of Helles and lets out a loud exclamation of satisfaction. They are friends, I presume, and belong here. I, on the other hand, am a visitor, a tourist in someone else’s public space to where the group I am watching come, I would guess, at least once or maybe twice a week. However, I feel like I too also belong, if only for a short time.”

Top 5 Dog Friendly Northwest Drinking Destinations. A more useful list than most. For the record, we do not own a dog, but we (almost) always enjoy dog watching in taprooms.

– Lemon, Black Pepper, and… Wet Dog? Why Smell Is So Important to a Wine’s Flavor. And important to beer as well. Bonus link: What to read to reawaken your senses.

Do you know the real reason Millennials have fallen for Guinness? It’s because we are all severely broken, and we crave nothingness in the form of pints; oubliettes of pure darkness into which we can repeatedly descend. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

— Matthew Curtis (@totalcurtis) March 17, 2024

LEDE OF THE WEEK
Every Friday evening during the school year, I cajole the children into the bike by 18.40. I cycle them up the hill to the local municipal swimming pool and wave them through the door by 18.50. By 18.55 I’m sitting in the pub around the corner with a beer in front of me and a book in my hand. By 19.45, I’ll have finished the second of two beers, made no headway in the book, paid up at the bar, and be out the door so I’m back at the pool for the end of class at 20.00. Then it’s pile them back in the bike, and cycle them home where my Friday night routine ends and their bedtime routine begins. Lather, rinse, and repeat the following Friday.

— From On Routine (I): Friday Night Swimming.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I’m thinking that now there might be a market for television or drama that’s the opposite of the grabby, ‘Something’s happening all the time, don’t look away!’ kind of thing—that Netflixy thing,” she said. She cited the example of “The Beatles: Get Back,” the Peter Jackson documentary about the 1969 recording of “Let It Be.” Watching that was more like listening to a chatty podcast: “You could wander away and come back, because there were lots of scenes of these incredible geniuses creating in a room together, but they were also being, like, ‘Shall we have some tea?’ ” It suggested to (Lucy) Prebble that she might want to experiment with “doing shows that feel like having a bath—where you just want to be in that environment for a long time.”

— From “Lucy Pebble’s Dramas of High Anxiety”. Are you ready for less “grabby” beer?

RECKONING OF THE WEEK
“In May of 2021, it was like a rapture took place in the City of Philadelphia. The buildings remained in place, and so did the people. The sun rose and set, Phils fans still cursed the God who hated them, and clouds still fell as gentle rain.

“What seemed to go missing was just about every Tired Hands beer tap within city limits.”

— From The Brewers Building a Better — and Less Toxic — Philly Beer Scene.

IT’S JUST BUSINESS
Speaking of grabby . . . As always, Doug Veliky shares ideas worth thinking about. “On March 1st, I worked to bring these two art forms together by joining forces with Warrior Wrestling, an independent promotion, to put on an absolute spectacle of a show that nobody in attendance will forget. The entire build up toward the event, behind-the-scenes planning & logistics, and execution on the big night helped reframe how I’m going to look at IPA from here on out.”

And this could have been the quote of the week: “Spending too much time around industry members and beer fans who have been into beer for a decade+ could make one think that people are tired of IPAs. This is a dangerous echo chamber to be influencing strategic decisions.”

Of Course America Fell for Liquid Death. “All of this, in one way or another, is about building the brand, because the brand is what’s important; the brand is all there is.” [My emphasis.]

AND SOMETIMES ‘JUST BUSINESS’ SUCKS
Monster Lays Off 12 Cigar City Workers in Tampa. There is plenty of other sucky brewery news, adding up to lots more than 12 jobs lost. But one of the 12 is Wayne Wambles, the founding brewmaster. They guy who created flagship Jai Alai IPA and a bunch of other beers the brewery was built around.

Death by ubiquity. When Spuyten Duyvil opened in Williamsburg in 2003, it stood out for its selection of imported European beers — “the beer you couldn’t find anywhere else,” says Joe Carroll. “Now you’d be hard pressed to find any place without it.”

YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
Four Years Ago the World Stopped. Jeff Alworth has made a list of what the disruption meant to beer.

Sustainability. Scientists have now found a way of selectively capturing metals from a waste stream using spent brewer’s yeast. . . . Not only that: the yeast can be reused, making the process even more eco-friendly.

Lacada Cooperative Brewery: A fostering dynamic. “From the get go the character of the enterprise seemed to be locally celebratory, exulting local knowledge, produce and skills as well as drawing on local geography, history, myths and legends as inspiration. There was a fostering of relationships between the surf scene, local artists and musicians like myself, as well as the exciting café and food market culture that was beginning to blossom. This dynamism had existed disparately in one way or another for years, but for me the mentality of collaboration and cooperation really helped build something that feels harder to move away from.”

With apologies to Steely Dan, Pete Seeger, The Killers, Archie & Edith, The Drifters and Bob Dylan.

Boston Rag
“It’s also worth noting that the places that seem to charge the most exorbitant prices have something in common: they don’t put their beer prices on their menu (let alone on their website or even their Untappd menu as a verified venue). It’s like they’re actually ashamed how much they’re charging and know that if we saw those prices ahead of time, we wouldn’t order as much beer. Take a freaking hint: if you actively hide your prices from customers, you’re probably overcharging them!”

Where have all the draft lines gone?
Gone to cocktails everyone. Well, not everyone. But consider this, “Where there were fewer than 1,500 draft lines in the U.S. dedicated to non-beer products before the pandemic, there are now roughly 10,000, according to Draftline Data, which provides data and analytics for beer distributors.”

Ooh, baby, we’re a dying breed
“Abick’s was one of about a dozen surviving third-shift bars—establishments that open early in the morning to accommodate workers whose shifts typically run from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.—that dot the Detroit area, down from what was likely a few hundred during the 1950s manufacturing boom. . . . With vastly fewer late-night shifts at fewer manufacturing plants across the industrial Midwest, many once-busy early-morning bar owners face the same predicament.”

Those were the days
“When did you last see underage drinkers even try to get served in a pub? It’s what you might call a dying tradition.”

Don’t forget who’s taking you home
Save the last dance style for me. “None of these beer styles are truly extinct or even remotely in danger of going extinct. Why? Simply put, thanks to craft beer. Starting in the US, but now really all over the world, there are countless beer nerds who truly care about these old beer types, some rebrew them at home, others brew them commercially, making these beers that were definitely at the brink of extinction better known to beer drinkers all around the world.”

Gotta serve somebody
Kloster Ettal, a “Benedictine monastery was founded in 1330 by Ludwig the Bavarian, but its present form dates to the high Baroque. Following a fire in the mid-1700s, architects and artists orchestrated a symphony of white, gold, and coral-coloured marble crowned by a frescoed dome representing the skies opened to heaven. Ettal was already one of the Alpine region’s significant monasteries; with its Baroque rebirth, it only grew in stature as a place of pilgrimage. Pilgrims need lodging, food, and drink, and the monks have obliged for centuries. The Klosterbrauerei Ettal was founded in 1609. Monks still helm the brewery, offering a small selection of traditional beers.”