beer wrestling. beer wrestling. beer wrestling. please.

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING 06.26.17

George Carlin, beer rater (see below)

Administrative note: There will be no more weekly links here until August. Not a complaint about upcoming travel, but there simply won’t be time to collect and organize them, and my body likely will have no idea what time zone it is in by the time I link again. As an aside, I hope that when posting does resume I can link to a story about “beer wrestling.”

Finally, a Low-ABV-Themed Beer Bar With Bidets in Every Gender-Neutral Bathroom.
Headline of the year. [Via Willamette Week, h/T @Beervana]

Top 10 Austin Breweries.
a) They got No. 1 right. b) Sentence of the week, when considered in context: “Blue Owl’s full potential as a taproom brewpub is mostly stymied by their surrounding neighborhood in that the neighbors don’t want to see 239,000 millennials trod through their azaleas on the way to score some sour hooch. Braedyyn, this way through the yard, bro! [Via The Austin Chronicle]

Remembering the Milwaukee Brewers’ ill-fated “10-Cent Beer Night”
Thank goodness it rained. A full house might have made things pretty ugly. “One man ordered 130 beers and his group finished them by the sixth inning.” [Via Milwaukee Record]

AROMA AND FLAVOR

George Carlin Tasting Beer.
Jay Brooks uses a New York Magazine article to illustrate how people viewed craft beer, even before it was called craft beer, twenty years ago. Spoiler alert: The panel did not care for Dixie White Chocolate Moose. I do not understand. [Via Brookston Beer Bulletin]

Bringing the Beer Cocktail into the 21st Century.
If you are going to write about beer cocktails, do it right. Talk to Jacob Grier and Geoffrey Wilson. [Via October]

HISTORY

What was the colour of brown beer in the 19th century?
Wonderful detective work, using resources you might not, but should, be thinking about. [Via Daft Eejit Brewing]

The Value And Adulteration Of Porter Circa 1757.
Circa 1757 going on 2017. I commented on Twitter that I might totally agree and totally disagree with the conclusion here. I expect explaining will only make me appear more confused, but in a couple of parts I’ll try. First, centuries ago for most drinkers local was the only option. Now we have a choices. My thoughts continue following the next link. [Via A Good Beer Blog]

ALCHEMY

That ‘local beer’ might be made in another state — or country.
This story would fit comfortably in the business category. It triggered a bunch of exchanges (not always friendly) on Twitter that considered local sometimes within a business context and other times within what I can best describe as an evil empire context. But those aren’t the contexts I’m focused on. When I’m in line at G&W Sausage (the ZIP is 63116, ours is 63139) and the guy behind the counter offers me a can of Busch it’s a local moment. Moments may provide their own context. Time to move on. [Via MarketWatch]

Veteran critic Alan Sepinwall on how peak TV has changed television criticism.
No, not another Peak TV/Peak Beer analogy. Instead, there is this near the end: “TV is alchemy. Shows are made at a certain moment in the lives of the people making them, of the characters on the show, and of the audience watching it. If you change any of those things, let alone all three of them, something is going to be off.” Some drinkers find a similar moment in a beer that not every brewer can make. Others in the “quieter, local and lovely” (well put, Alan). They are not mutually exclusive. [Via Vox]

BUSINESS, PRETTY MUCH AS USUAL

When Conflict is the Interest.
I’m also constantly repeating myself on matters related to ethics in journalism, which Bryan Roth explains is not what’s at the heart of Ratebeergate. But I’ll add that the ethics of journalism must report to Ethics with a capital E, and what we are really talking about is integrity. [Via Good Beer Hunting]

6 Surprising Things About Producing a Beer On A National Scale.
To be clear, the point here is not to call out The Beer Necessities for some breach of integrity. It’s a publication that promotes AB InBev’s The High End group. Just as CraftBeer.com is publication to promotes members of the Brewers Association. But take a look at Thing No. 1 – “It’s brewed using secret machines.” Lee Breslouer and Craig Nunn ultimately answer to the same bosses, to I understand why Breslouer took Nunn at his word and didn’t try to put the secret on the record. However, we would expect more of an independent journalist.
      But there were other questions that could have been asked. It will be a month before I can get to this, so if you write about beer and have a chance to ask these questions I look forward to reading your scoop. Question No. 1: Has Anheuser-Busch found a better way to dry hop beer? No. 2: Are they keeping the information to themselves? When Lagunitas started using a “hop cannon” Jeremy Marshall shared details, photos and drawings to make it easy for brewers that followed.* Want to know how Sierra Nevada’s “torpedo” works? Ask them.
      *In contrast, Lagunitas keeps the way it preserved “wet hops” in Born Again Pale Ale proprietary. I guess it’s not 2010 anymore. [Via The Beer Necessities]

40 Years From Now, The U.S. Could Look Like Las Vegas.
Plenty of implications here for breweries. [Via FiveThirtyEight]

What if Amazon disrupts the heavily regulated beer industry with Whole Foods?
[Via MarketWatch]
On demand craft beer? Not yet.
[Via Houston Beer Guide]
Related.

Why Diageo Is Paying $500 a Bottle for George Clooney’s Tequila.
I apologize, because this is behind a paywall and I have no idea what the story said beyond the first two paragraphs. But the subhead, “Craft distilling is following the trail blazed by craft brewing,” and first sentence make the point: “Diageo is so desperate to avoid ending up the Budweiser of U.S. liquor that it could pay almost $500 a bottle for George Clooney’s tequila brand.” (My emphasis.) [Via The Wall Street Journal]

OOPS

This Is The Beer Of The Future, If Climate Change Goes Unchecked.
UPROXX hosts the popular entertainment channel, Hitfix, among other entitities, so probably reaches a different (and much, much larger) audience than these weekly beer links. I’ve considered pointing to a few posts, because they are reminders everybody starts somewhere. But this I’m not sure about. It is so strange I’ve considered it might be tongue in cheek. “It’s a good thing IPAs are declining in popularity” — where did that come from? A malt fan? A yeast fan? A water fan? You likely can find your own issues. [Via UPROXX]

WINE

The art of wine wrestling.
“We were being watched by a small audience who tasted along with us and bet on one or other team, using pieces of cork as tokens. Backing the most successful team could win the spectators free wine or meals . . .” [Via Meininger’s Wine Business International]

Antonini: Too many people are making Justin Bieber wines.
I no longer expect people to leave comments here, but I will ask the question anyway. What would a Justin Bierber beer be? [Via the drinks business]

FROM TWITTER

Unfortunately, these won’t keep people for arguing about the definition of craft beer.

I have never wanted a definition for "natural wine." It's an ideal. https://t.co/EvSIpCSlh7

— Eric Asimov (@EricAsimov) June 21, 2017

New definition of craft beer. A lot of bearded middle class people trying and failing to improve upon a glass of lager.

— Cooking Lager (@CarpeZytha) June 24, 2017