Month: April 2014

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 04.28.14

How to drink without getting drunk – by drinking yeast? Will this work? An Esquire interview with Jim Koch of Boston Beer last week went viral when Koch revealed his secret to drinking all night and not getting drunk. “Koch told me that for years he has swallowed your standard Fleischmann’s dry yeast before he drinks, stirring the white powdery substance in with some yogurt to make it more palatable.”

Snopes.com followed up with “both sides of the story” investigation, but concluded, “For now, a definitive answer awaits empirical evidence gathered through properly controlled studies.”

So here’s an anecdotal contribution. Twenty years or so ago, Daria and I attended a fundraiser for a local (for us, at the time) Peoria musician who was ill and without health insurance. There were kegs of donated beer that sold for 25 cents a plastic cup, although in the spirit of the evening most of us contributed more. As we headed home, trying to remember the last time we drank filtered — the key word in the conversation — pale lagers, Daria remembered something written by Charlie Papazian suggesting craft beer was less likely to give you a hangover because it was unfiltered (hence, containing more yeast).

So when we got home we opened up packages of dry yeast, dumped them in glasses of water and choked them down. No hangovers in the morning, but of course that proved nothing. The only thing we really learned is how bad a cocktail dry yeast and water makes. Wish we’d known the yogurt trick.

[Via Snopes.com]

Colorado’s booming beer taprooms experience some growing pains. Wait, brewery taprooms and food trucks aren’t the greatest inventions ever? [Via The Denver Post]

‘Brew Dogs’ visit New Orleans to resurrect a ‘zombie beer’ “It’s just counterintuitive. I was always taught not to drink the bayou water.” [Via The Times Picayune]

Boulder’s Kettle and Stone Brewing to change name to avoid trademark fight. This is what happens when “craft” camaraderie and real world business reality meet. At the Craft Brewers Conference in Denver earlier this month Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head said his company spent more money last year defending its trademarks than it cost to open the brewery in 1995.[Via The Denver Post]

‘IPA’ beer abbreviation not as fun as one might think. A reminder that in the real world people (there’s that term again) still ask, “What the heck is an IPA?” [Via azcentral]

Curiously related to the question asked here Monday — Who gets to decide what is bad beer? — New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov explains the problem with what he calls “wine populism.” The same points could be made about “beer populism.”

Asimov argues that that a critic’s job is not to validate the choices of consumers. “If anything, it’s to make them question their assumptions,” he writes. “You may drink a wine without ever wondering what it is you like about it. Such uncritical drinking is fine; nobody is obliged to give wine a second thought. But if a negative assessment of that style of wine actually causes you to consider all the things you like about it, your experience of that wine may be broader and deeper.”

What struck me in the Businessweek story about how well Corona sells despite the fact it is a “bad beer” was how reporter Kyle Stock leaned on populism, citing online ratings. So the story was “a lot of people don’t like Corona, but a lot of people buy it” and why. Wouldn’t it have been more compelling to have a critic explain why Corona is fundamentally flawed (or do it himself) and why people still buy it?

This relates directly to the “Does American craft brewing have a quality problem?” discussion. Because, let’s be honest, quality challenged beers from breweries smaller than the behemoth occupying 142 acres in St. Louis ain’t exactly new. That some beers are flawed just happens to be discussed a bit more. People still buy them. People like them.

There are a lot of ways to make bad beer. You can make a lousy beer that includes no dimethyl sulfide (DMS), no diacetyl, is not oxidized, astringent or light-struck (smells skunky unless you shove a lime in the neck of the bottle). In other words, without flaws a laboratory would flag. So it was refreshing to see this posted Monday in the Phoenix New Times: “Bad Water Brewing and Craft Beer’s Real Quality Problem.”

I won’t want to spoil it for you, but here’s a snippet: “Some display metallic flavors, or floating particles of coagulated protein and dead yeast. But more than that, Bad Water’s beers are insipid. The flavors are weak; the bodies are thin. They bring nothing to the table, add nothing to the conversation. They are uninteresting, mundane, and sterile.”

This is particularly disappointing because in trying to learn more about the brewery (which apparently is not a brewery at all, but an enterprise selling beer) I discovered: “Bad Water Brewing produces high quality beer dedicated to sharing a distinct beverage brand for influential individuals whose loyalty never forego quality, character, originality and taste. Bad Water has added a new age splash to an ancient Belgian tradition, developed with an equal blend of art and science. An individualized clientele approach to branding is based on the exchange of product with a next level experience for our brand ambassadors.”

I had such high hopes.

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 04.21.14

The Corona Coup: How Constellation Sells So Much Bad Beer. Just a thought. It would be interesting to see the results of a blind tasting where the same people who give other Mexican beers a higher rating and rip Corona to shreds compare the two. Could they tell the difference? [Via Businessweek]

Passion for beer pales in Belgium and Glass half empty for Germany’s proud beer industry. Guess there’s no beery reasons to visit those places any more. [Via Associated Press and Reuters]

For Masochists, Here’s Some Hops-Flavored Soda. “It’s a frustrating beverage designed for frustrated people.” Quite an endorsement, don’t you think? [Via The Atlantic Cities]

New Beer, Old Cans: Why Investors Should Pay Attention to Miller Lite. So why did it take so long for somebody at Miller to think, “This retro thing that worked for Pabst – why don’t we try that?” [Via the Motley Fool]

Beer spills into history books. The story states the Oregon Hops & Brewing Archives is the first of its kind in the country. From my perspective, it is a good thing that and agricultural historian at New Mexico State University is an unofficial adviser to the Oregon State University project. [Via Register-Guard]