monday links

And so 2023 begins, with predictions about many things beer related.

But first, one more look back, this from Alan McLeod. He includes not only what he thought was the best thing in beer writing in 2022, but also what he thinks might be the best new thing in beer writing. I won’t spoil the surprise, and will be here when you come back.

While on the topic of beer writing, and before getting to more serious beery predictions, a bit of fun.

Jeff Scott (full disclosure, we are friends) has turned ChatGPT loose at his blog, beergeek. I suggest starting with, “A Craft Beer Eulogy From The Ghost of Hunter S. Thompson.” At the bottom you will see the AI prompt used to generate the post. If you enter that prompt in ChatGPT now you will get this response:

“Sorry, but I am not programmed to generate expletive-laden content or to imitate the writing style of specific individuals. I am here to provide helpful and accurate information to the best of my ability. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

As it turns out, ChatGPT is constantly evolving, perhaps learning. Those using it will have to do the same. For now I will leave you to enjoy the posts and AI generated images at beergeek and think about the answer I got when I asked ChatGPT about the future of beer writing:

“It is difficult to predict the exact future of beer writing, as it will depend on the interests and trends of both writers and readers. However, it is likely that beer writing will continue to evolve and diversify, reflecting the growing variety and complexity of the beer industry.

“One trend that has already been apparent in recent years is the increasing focus on sustainability and social responsibility in the beer industry, and it is possible that this will be reflected in beer writing as well. Another trend is the rise of craft beer and small breweries, which may lead to more writing about local and regional beer scenes, as well as the stories and personalities behind the breweries.

“It is also likely that beer writing will continue to embrace new technologies and platforms, such as social media and online publications, to reach a wider audience and share information and ideas more quickly and easily.

“Overall, the future of beer writing will likely be shaped by the ongoing evolution of the beer industry and the interests and needs of those who write and read about it.”

And AI?

The year ahead

– 23 thoughts about 2023. “A significant number of breweries are for sale or have been sold in the past year. Some are of great value and truly worth every penny. Others are worth zero, or worse. Expect to see more interesting sales, depressing closures, and everything in between. You won’t be able to keep up and the action already underway.”

– The state of (UK) beer in 2023. What you get with 15 years of context included. “In a nutshell, we think pubs feel at marginally less risk now than a decade ago, but brewing feels deflated and tarnished.” And, “There was perhaps some naivety a decade ago, but anyone who got the tattoos and joined the fan clubs has surely now had that shaken out of them.”

– Trendsetters and Trailblazers — 19 People Who Will Shape Beer, Wine, Cider and Food in 2023. “Some of this year’s selections have already achieved a great deal in their careers—even helping to shape the drinks world as we know it now. Others, meanwhile, may be completely new names to you (in fact we hope they are) who we feel have the ability to help define the categories they’ve chosen to pursue.”

– Things May Be Bad, But Brewers Remain Optimistic. “It’s a huge bummer to completely lose the human interaction when visiting a brewery, because we’re supposed to be the third place.”

– 12 Drinks Trends to Look Out for in 2023. “In the new year, the smart breweries doing limited volume will rethink their place in the market, double down on building a deep local footprint, and maybe even walk back previous expansions.” Leading us to…

– Are San Diego’s big breweries a thing of the past? This one is behind a paywall, but Pocket will get you past it. “Of the 44 active brewing concerns that have opened since 2018, all of them are small breweries. Of those interests, 31 (70 percent) utilize small brewhouses (brewing systems) producing 10 barrels of beer or less per batch. More than a third of those businesses are ‘nanobreweries,’ meaning they brew beer in batches of three barrels or less and produce fewer than 1,000 barrels of beer annually.”

You might also enjoy
– Pale ale: it’s much, much, MUCH older than you think.

– 2011: The Golden Age Ends. Perhaps it is good to look at the past when considering the future of beer writing on the internet.

That Was The Beer Week That Was will be on hiatus next week. It will be Boxing Day and you should have better things to do than hang out here. This last list of 2022 links is sort of a special edition, suggested by Alan McLeod. Look for something similar Thursday from Alan. Sunday, Boak & Bailey posted their list of “20 substantial pieces of beer writing from 2022 that, looking back, we especially liked.”

As I breezed through a year of Monday links to pick out three (a number suggested by Alan) I resisted this and settled on one that reads like a fairy tale and two I keep coming back to.

Feb. 10: New Belgium’s ‘spiritual side’: After unexpected 30 years, longest-tenured employee to retire

March 10: ‘It Just Wasn’t Getting Any Better’ — How Sexism, Assault Pushed One Woman Out of the Beer Industry

Nov. 21: What is Beer? No, seriously

You could not make up the first story. It is about a good life earned. It is about how terrific it is to be part of what many call the craft brewing business.

The second story is one that should have been told long before it was. Did this happen because a halo has been hung over what many call the craft brewing business? Consider this from Pete Brown, who also wrote the third story, in “Craft: An Argument:” “(Craft) isn’t just about the things we make; it’s about the kind of people we are. And for this, we get to an unspoken assumption we may be reluctant to admit even to ourselves; we believe that makers and buyers of craft products are morally superior to other people.”

Lately, I’ve been having the “What is beer?” discussion with several brewers. No, not about the court case focused on if hard seltzer is beer, or even about beers like Amalgam Boysenberry Reduction (described here by Joe Stange). Because in the 1980s the pioneers in what many call craft brewing drew inspiration primarily from beers of European origin. That excluded a lot of beers.

Heading to dinner after the first full day of Ales Through the Ages we were still talking about Travis Rupp’s presentation. We discussed if a beer made with cassava roots and without any grains should be called “beer.” I’m on team cassava, so was happy this is finally being considered.

When we look back on 2022, or earlier, what we are really looking for is clues about what beer will be like in 2023 and going forward, right? Beer has long been shaped by what we know about its history, by our culture, and even by what we choose to call beer.

That doesn’t stop now.

You might also enjoy

– ‘Treated like a chump’: Wild Beer Co’s collapse leaves bitter taste for backers

– He’Brew-maker Shmaltz Brewing relaunches with rabbi-to-be at helm

– The Culture War Has Come to Craft Brewing. Time to Pick a Side.

– Exploring Mexican Craft Beer

– A list. (I contributed to this one.)

– Another list.

– And one more.

 

This.

Looking forward to next year’s Innovation of the Year: New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger Cold Force IPA, a 9.9% Below Fahrenheit Imperial Cold IPA pic.twitter.com/LGBnq4Z2gL

— Nostradouglas ? Veliky (@beercruncher) November 30, 2022

I wish the thread (if you click about you’ll find a few more replies) had grown into a larger conversation, one that discussed what counts as innovation in beer.

I don’t know how Voodoo Ranger Juice Force IPA is produced, that is if the brewers at New Belgium have come up with a new magic process for pumping flavor into beer. But I do know that they were way ahead of the curve a dozen years ago. Which is why then-brewmaster Peter Bouckaert sat in on a panel about dry hopping at the 2010 Craft Brewers Conference. “If you’d asked me 10 years ago if I’d be on a dry-hopping panel I think you all would have been laughing,” he said at the time.

How and how brewers hop beer has changed more than a little bit during the twenty-first century. Does simply using more hops qualify as innovation? How about changing when in the process the hops are added?

And what about the form of hops that brewers use? The latest Hop Queries has a bit about SubZero Hop Kief from Freestyle Hops in New Zealand. SubZero is produced by New River Distilling in North Carolina. I wrote about New River four-plus years ago for Good Beer Hunting, should you be interested.

The process is innovative, but also . . . oh, that name. It speaks to brewers, and they are Freestyle’s customers. In “Cultural Strategy: Using Innovative Ideologies Breakthrough Brands,” the authors write, “A cultural innovation is a brand that delivers an innovative cultural expression.” Freestyle is marketing a better mousetrap — that is signaling that its hops are better than the competition’s — but visit their website to see they are signaling something beyond that.

(The same may be written about several hop growers; making connections is just as important for them as making connections with drinkers is for brewers.)

Back to New Belgium and Voodoo Ranger. The authors of “Cultural Strategy” (published in 2012) present “Fat Tire Beer: Crossing the Cultural Chasm” as a case study in Chapter 11. New Belgium had hired them as consultants in 2003. That was a while ago, when Fat Tire accounted for a ridiculous percentage of sales and Sunshine White and 1554 were second and third.

It is a fascinating chapter that reveals much about the thinking of niche breweries in the aughts, concluding:

“Crossing the cultural chasm requires moving from a marketplace dominated by insider customers, who often hold considerable expertise in the category to what we call follower customers, who simply want an accessible way to tap into a valued cultural expression that the product can credibly represent.”

Fat Tire is still important to New Belgium — here in Colorado many of the trucks that distributors use to deliver beer advertise the beer — but the Voodoo Ranger family does the heavy lifting. Perhaps somebody needs to write a book about re-innovation.

More That Was The Beer Week That Was . . .

After the meme
“I never imagined being the C.E. muthafucking-O owner of a brewery, but here I am. If I can do it, anyone can.”

B minus
“BrewDog is no longer a Certified B Corp. B Lab does not comment on companies that are no longer in the B Corp community. I’m afraid I cannot share any further information.”

Hops
– Use them or lose them. That’s the conclusion of this love letter to English hops.

– A list.

– I’m confused. The headline says two decades ago, but the story states, correctly, that a great (and short-lived) hop shortage began in 2007. The headline contends that Boston Beer “saved craft brewers from a catastrophic hop shortage.” Certainly, Boston Beer deserves credit for offering 20,000 pounds of hops to other small breweries at a very fair price. But the story also links to still another story that reveals Sierra Nevada sold 150,000 pounds “without much fanfare.”

Pubs
– I wonder if there are pubs at the end of the mysterious once a month train line and how one would get back if I got on it?

– The Samuel Smith empire.

– Informal neighborhood gathering places.