Monday musing: On local, women, and a wine scandal

We’re wrapping up the summer phase of our Grand Adventure with an American history field trip and packing for Part II-Europe, so a few links to posts you should read and think about:

– On Locale, and Maeib writes, “Whilst supporting this initiative as I like to see local businesses flourishing, and will support them wherever possible, I don’t want to hear the words ‘beer miles.'”

Be sure to read the comments. I can tell you that three months into paying attention to all things local, not just beer, it’s possible to spend too much time thinking about this. Take a break and enjoy the beer, local or otherwise.

– The Wall Street Journal recently joined the marketing to women discussion which has already already consumed plenty of space here.

But you have to smile when you read that Coors “set up a unit code-named Eve this year to develop beer brands and marketing techniques appealing to women. The unit’s mission, the company says, is to create ‘a world where women love beer as much as they love shoes.'” What beer has been assigned that task? Blue Moon.

This is what beer is about: Beer Babe eventually gets around to drinking Shock Top Belgian White (a Blue Moon knock-off, as a matter of fact).

This is where beer need not go: A fictitious restaurant captured a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence with a fictitious wine list. Quite a mess in the wine world (reading here and here will be enough to make your head explode).

The news to me is that there’s an organization called the American Association of Wine Economists. I don’t think I want to drink in a world where there is an American Association of Beer Economists.

#6 – Where in the beer world?

Where in the beer world is this?

Could this be the stumper?

This photo was snapped during our current adventure. That narrows it down to 24 states, eight provinces and one territory. I’ll rule out Alaska and the Yukon for you.

Anway, this isn’t really a hit-the-buzzer-first-Jeopardy-type contest (Daria would kick your butt), so feel free to comment even if you don’t know where this barn resides.

Heck, I bet we’d all like to know if you can tell us what Koehler beer used to taste like.

(Here’s how this feature started, in case you forgot.)

Book review: Amber, Gold and Black

“I think I was the first person ever to use the phrase, ‘beer style.’ The next thing was to try to define what they were, which lots of people have done since, but I think I was the first person. But then my focus became really to talk about, to try to describe the flavors of beer. When I was first writing on beer, nobody else was describing the flavors in beer. It’s very frustrating when you read old books on beer.”

         – Michael Jackson, interviewed in All About Beer magazine in 1997.

Amber, Gold and BlackI went looking for this quote about the time I reached the fifth chapter, the one about stouts, in Martyn Cornell’s new book, “Amber, Gold and Black: The Story of Britain’s Great Beers.”

Although Cornell himself writes in the introduction that this is “the first book devoted solely to looking at the unique history of the different styles of beer produced in Britain” don’t mistake it as “just another book about styles.” No, it’s about beers, sometimes specifically what they tasted like and other times giving us some damn good leads. Most importantly, this book brings them to life in a manner I think Jackson would have approved of.

Cornell uses a nicely balanced combination of words mined from a dizzying number of sources and his known, cleverly mixed with delightful vintage illustrations (his first book, “Beer Memorabilia,” also belongs in your collection).

As Cornell showed with “The Story of the Pint,” he is a trustworthy historian. Yet this is not all about the past. He writes that the microbrewery boom in England has “helped bring in new styles such as golden ale and wood-aged beers.” It is an unapologetic “celebration of British beer in all its many beautiful shades and inspiring flavours.”

And it is specific to the UK (although it provides examples of how styles evolved as they were exported to other brewing nations), making it comfortably uncomprehensive. We don’t need another compleat guide to styles. Cornell passes on breadth to provide refreshing depth.

Certainly this book will be useful in starting, and one would hope settling, barstool arguments. As Cornell’s press release states, “Long-standing stories about beer, lovingly retold over pints by beer drinkers and brewers down the ages are comprehensively debunked in the book.”

Now to that fifth chapter. We find Charles Knight writing in 1851 about Guinness: “Its sub-acidity and soda-water briskness, when compared with the balmy character of London bottled stout from a crack brewery, are like the strained and shallow efforts of professed joke compared with the unctuous, full-bodied wit of Shakespere [sic].”

Then Cornell connects the dots by explaining the difference between London and Dublin stouts.

“Amber, Gold and Black” is available only in electronic form for a modest £5 (about $10 US). Not everybody seems keen on reading it on a computer screen. Personally I had no problem. My only complaint would be that it lacks an index.

Quite simply, this is both a terrific resource and a wonderful read. An index would make it easier to find just the right fact or phrase when you find yourself perched on a barstool, computer on your lap, pint in hand, ready to make an important point.

Need to know more? The Table of Contents is here.

Important news for light beer drinkers

Brew Blog reports that MillerCoors is bringing back the classic “Great Taste, Less Filling” advertising tagline for Miller Lite.

MilllerCoors has said it plans to drive growth for its two lead brands by focusing on sharply differentiated marketing positions. Coors Light is about Rocky Mountain cold refreshment. Miller Lite is about taste.

“Research has shown the two factors that matter the most to mainstream light beer drinkers are taste and refreshment,” MillerCoors said on Tuesday in a message to distributors. “And so the path to simultaneous share growth for Miller Lite and Coors Light is clear: We will distinctly align each brand against one of these benefits, driving home our positions in everything we do on behalf of each brand.”

So now we’ve established that Coors Light has nothing to do with taste. That’s progress, I guess.