Monday musing: Getting history right is important

Gose in LeipzigI broadcast a link to this via Twitter when I saw its on Friday because I think Ron Pattinson’s “Fantasy beer history: Gose” post is a) important and b) quite interesting reading.

I’m a fan of Four Peaks Brewing but he’s right to call out their description/history of Gose as “total rubbish.” It’s not only because I’m working on this book about brewing with wheat, that I find Gose a fascinating story, that we what liked what we had in Leipzig, or even that it just plain bugs me when I reads things that are wrong.

Fact is that education has been an important element in the American craft beer revival, that the breweries have taken charge of education — think about what you read on brewpub menus or craft beer labels — and education means getting the facts right.

There’s no need to make up sexy yarns. The basic, historically correct, stories behind Gose or India pale ale or stout make for great marketing on their own.

– Good to be small? From the New York Times, “In New York, No Crisis for Niche Manufacturers.” The point: “There’s quite a market for niche products in New York City,” said Jonathan Bowles, the director of the Center for an Urban Future, a nonpartisan research group in Manhattan, and an author of several manufacturing studies. “For a lot of the niche manufacturers, including those that are broadly appealing to the high-end market, they may be doing O.K.” Is niche beer doing as well in these economic hard times?

– Scum watch. OK, I don’t have a logical beer angle on this but had to pass this along. Daria’s brother spotted it in Sunday’s Sun-Sentintel while looking for things for us to do near his house in South Florida. The description of a Gun and Knife Show at the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale: “Protect yourself from the scum of South Florida with items from this event.”

– Which one would you rather drink? This isn’t new and it isn’t beer, but an interesting post comparing how Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast described and rated, with much different results, what turned out to be the same wine.

 

Strange reasons people make drinks choices

It’s Monday, so muse on this link from Parade magazine. Two bits of drink related information in the same story:

– The birth of the Corona-and-lime ritual. Did this trend really become a trend because a bartender wanted to see if he could start a trend?

– Oom-pah-pah, ein Deutsche bier, bitte. From the story: “British researchers played either accordion-heavy French music or a German brass band over the speakers of the wine section inside a large supermarket. On French music days, 77% of consumers bought French wine, whereas on German music days, the vast majority of consumers picked up a German selection. Intriguingly, only one out of the 44 customers who agreed to answer a few questions at the checkout counter mentioned the music as among the reasons they bought the wine they did.”

I’d have been more impressed if the customers had put back wine on German music days and gone with beer.

 

Monday musing: When the other shoe drops

In fact it is Sunday as I post this, but by the time you read this Monday we should have the RV pointed south. Might not see you until the New Year. If that’s the case celebrate carefully . . .

Will the economic slowdown dampen sales of small-batch beers? Common sense says yes.

So I read Jeff Alworth’s “When Restaurants Die” with particular interest. The story is about the restaurants of Portland, Oregon. But it’s Oregon, and it’s Jeff’s blog, so of course there is a beer ingredient.

I worry that if the best restaurants begin to die off in Portland (we’ve lost 20 this year, including renowned Genoa), the creative minds who founded them will leave. The erosion of talent in the restaurant scene is just generally bad. I don’t know that it will have immediate or long-lasting influence on breweries.

Portland has been the poster city for craft beer success. If there’s a problem there then bigger problems seem likely everywhere else.

I did not write this. It comes from Pete Brown. I’m going to say that twice because while blogs are a wonderful for pointing to well written words sometimes people end up giving the second blog (in this case mine) credit. I wish I’d written this, but I didn’t.

It comes from Pete’s year-end roundup, interesting, though more so if you live in the UK.

Any writer writes because they have a need to be listened to, and whatever that says about our psyches and frail egos, I’m gratified that people read this blog and link to it and recommend it. I apologise to anyone I’ve offended on here – I try not to. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading most of what I’ve written, and wish you a happy and prosperous 2009.

Something of an answer to the question Andy Crouch raises about why we blog. Repeat, I wish I’d written the paragraph. I did not.

Thanks again, to Alan and Jeff for the Yuletide 2008 Photo Contest. Winning a hat was cool, but looking at all those photos was the real fun.

Don’t forget The Session #23 hosted by Beer and Firkins on Friday. Include a drinking note if you can, because we’re back on the road and I’m looking for interesting local beers to try between now and August.

 

Monday musing: What’s the opposite of Zima?

Before we begin Phase III of our grand odyssey we’re holed up in snowy New Jersey through the holiday, leaving me a bit of time for Monday musing.

– I paid little attention in October to the final demise of Zima, and just caught up with the excellent piece at Slate about its long and torturous death. A fine lesson about marketing, and an interesting contrast to the rip-roaring success of small-batch beers focusing on flavor and making sure there is a there there.

– We like year-end lists in our house, and not just because I can make fun of the beer-related ones. Books, best recordings, best movies, that stuff. And when Sierra gets it organized we’ll post our Best of the Trip – Europe Edition at The Slow Travelers.

But I’ve given up trying to assemble a “best of beer” for the year, for the European leg, for Germany, for Liechenstein. I can’t even decide on my favorite beer from Cantillon.

Mahrs BrauInstead I’ll point you to a list done right. It makes me wish we had managed to collide with Boak and Bailey as all of us bounced around Germany and the Czech Republic. They were in Leipzig when we were in Prague. We were in Dresden when they got to Prague. They blogged about Christmas markets, we went to dozens (Berlin alone has 50).

It’s not that I agree on all their favorite beers (had six, but part of the point of these lists is to discover new things, right?). Daria and I really didn’t care for the sourness in U Flecku. However we loved the Mahrs Bräu Ungespundet-hefetrüb, and since we were staying one block from the Bamberg tavern and had no ticking agenda were happy to order more.

– Visit Alan and Jeff to see the winners of the 2008 Yule Beer Blog Photos contest. It seems I have a photo in there. Probably a sympathy selection after I whined about getting my butt kicked in previous years. I probably shouldn’t be so flip, because – amazing as it may be – run a contest, give away a lot of nice prizes and somebody is still going to give you grief.

– Interesting to see in “How many cult wines can dance on the head of a pin?” that the number of cult wines has exploded since the mid-1990s. Can you think of a parallel? Here’s a hint.

– And I’ll finish with a press release from home (yes, a bit sad I missed this):

“Blue Corn Brewery (Santa Fe) celebrates old traditions as well as new beginnings with the release of Aztlán Winter Ale on December 13, 2008. The first commercial beer to feature certified organic, native New Mexican hops, Aztlán Winter Ale also incorporates organic malts from the United States and Canada, and clean, pure Northern New Mexican water. This winter warmer has malt overtones of chocolate and plum with hints of orange and spice from the hops.

“Ralph Olson of U.S. hop supplier, HopUnion, reported to a source he knew of no other brewery having used these hops in the past. Blue Corn head brewer Brad Kraus, said, ‘In all my years of research about brewing in New Mexico, I have not found a single reference to the use of Humulus lupulus var. neomexicana, or New Mexican native hops, in the brewing of beer here. Since these were grown organically, I felt it fitting to use only organic ingredients.’

“Todd Bates and business partner Steve Johnson grew the hops just north of Embudo, New Mexico. They have been growing and breeding native New Mexican varieties for four years on their small organic farm.”

I visited Todd and Steve in August of 2007 (mentioned here) and Todd frequently comments here. Hi, Todd.

 

Discovery gives us another reason to miss Michael Jackson

A couple of minutes into watching Discovery’s Channel’s “How Stuff Works” show on beer last night I was wishing my mother-in-law had Internet access to I could read what was being typed on Twitter and comment myself. Did he really just say Sierra Nevada produced 750 barrels a year (rather than 750,000)? When did Germany and the UK discontinue brewing?

Oh, how the times have changed.

Our family watched the show with particular anticipation because when we were in Prague last month Evan Rail had Sierra nearly falling off her chair in laughter by telling stories about the filming process when he joined the Discovery production team at nearby Pilsner Urquell. It was exciting to see that Evan didn’t end up on the cutting room floor.

But ten minutes into the show Daria announced she was exhausted. Watching the footage at Pilsner Urquell made it quickly apparent how different television is in the Twitter era from twenty years ago when Michael Jackson devoted one of his half-hour Beer Hunter segments to the brewery. What last night’s program lacked in fact checking it tried to make up for with glossy magazine production.

How many times did we see Jim Koch of Samuel Adams sticking his face into freshly rubbed hops or at a brewing kettle? Or footage at Yuengling? Or mugs of Budweiser Budvar being poured? Or Steve Dresler of Sierra Nevada at work? Maybe I got lost in the blur &#151 everything kept moving so fast, I figured if there were a test I was screwed &#151 but I don’t think any of them was ever identified.

Perhaps that’s what happens when you try to do too much in an hour. Or when you are producing for 140-character attention spans. This was Beer 101 and more (“We talk to the experts, brew masters and beer connoisseurs about how they’re innovating new ways to make beer”). It made wish I could haul out my tapes, also from Discovery and packed away at our New Mexico home, of Jackson’s epic series. It’s hard to believe it consisted of just six half-hour segments, because he sure packed in a lot of information. And because, in retrospect, of its impact.

The production quality was plenty hip for the late ’80s — Michael took a particular pride in that — but the pace certainly was different. Maybe it was just Michael’s British accent, but his presentation seemed not only authoritative but educational. And pretty much from the time it aired in the United States until his death he was asked when the next series would come out.

He answered the question at his website in 1999, indicating he was ready to take on the task if somebody offered.

The Beer Hunter meanwhile achieved very respectable ratings, was positively and widely reviewed, sold extensively overseas and won a Glenfiddich Award for Television. Since then, there have been endless discussions with assorted networks, including Channel 4, Discovery, several strands of the BBC and A&E. As none has dismissed the idea, each discussion has lasted for many months before finally fizzling.

Watching the show last night I realized they’d probably never give Michael the freedom he had back then, for instance to devote minutes or even seconds to Anchor Brewing employees sitting around a campfire during a company outing. He’d likely be an on-screen star, but a producer?

There’s a thought. Imagine how he’d present Dark Lord Day at Three Floyds Brewing or German Reunification Day in Neuhaus. Think about how he might “mash up” footage from Pilsner Urquell shot in 1988 and 2008. Or . . . I’ve got to quit, because it ain’t gonna happen.

Dang.

Dang. Dang. Dang.