musing

Beer writing last week, one paragraph at a time

The question of the week last week was “Has the thrill gone?” The comments when I shared the question on Facebook pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

Jeff Alworth had many thoughts of his own. Many thoughts. They weren’t just about the question Boak & Bailey ssked, but also sparked by a comment by a regular at Beervana that, “Craft beer has very few stories left to tell.” I agree with Alworth that there are many new interesting stories to write about beer and the surrounding culture. But I’m not sure if that was what B&B were asking about.

[Added Monday afternoon (in Colorado): The flatness of beer part 2: the opinions of others]

In any event, there were some lovely drinks-related paragraphs written last week. Here goes . . .

Craft Central offers regular flurries of brightly coloured American tins at exceedingly high prices, largely made up of hazy IPAs in the way that beer these days generally is. I have little interest and usually scroll on past, but . . . maybe I should be checking in now and again to see if there’s value to be had. These, presumably, are the beers that everyone else around the world is copying, right? OK, I’ve convinced me. Here’s two IPAs from the less obscenely priced end of the spectrum, both from New Jersey, a lonely state, lacking a New Guernsey or New Sark to keep it company.

— From The Beer Nut

Making wine is science. Drinking it is not. The amount of time a given wine has spent in a barrel is an unalterable fact, my ability to detect that oak is a skill, but my judgement on whether that oak is well integrated and how good the result tastes is entirely subjective. Confusing facts with opinions is not, unfortunately, restricted to the wine world, but a social activity such as wine tasting that revolves around a very complicated technical process may be especially ripe for misunderstanding. This, surely, is why a liquid that is both a chemical and a metaphysical source of happiness ends up causing so many arguments.

— From Club Oenologique

“I wanted to highlight time and place in both the ingredients and the concept of the beer I brew,” says Josh Chapman. “It’s important for me to be excellent without being exclusive. I don’t want to be perceived as pretentious, especially as the first brewery on the Eastern Shore. There are lots of Bud and Miller drinkers here, and so I wanted something relatable but adjacent to what they are used to.”

— From Pellicle

Scholarship programs are part of a larger push within the beer industry, from individual breweries, trade groups and nonprofits, to increase representation among people of color in beer. Scholarships benefit the recipients, of course, but they also critically benefit the companies and industry that employ them. Repeated studies conducted by workplace consultancy McKinsey & Co. since 2014 show that companies with more diverse leadership financially outperform those with low racial and gender diversity among their leaders. That message has become critical as breweries feel less public pressure to keep issues of race and inclusion front and center.

— From Good Beer Hunting Sightlines

“For the very first Fourth of July, Worthington was a temperance town. One of the temperance people in Tallinn had busted open a barrel — Professor Humiston was his name — some settlers had brought out to celebrate the Fourth of July. Well, they didn’t take too well to that, and so they marched down and got another keg of beer. They took the other keg of beer that he had busted open, and they dug a hole and buried it in his front yard, placed the new barrel on top of where they had just buried that barrel of beer. They proceeded to stand around and guard the barrel so he couldn’t bust it open, and they invited everybody out to have a party on Professor Humiston’s lawn — that’s where we got the name from.”

— The origin story of Forbidden Barrel Brewing in Minnesota, from Dakota News Now

In Memoriam
David Geary, founder of the D.L. Geary Brewing Company in Maine, died last week. There are many reasons to remember him, but his keynote at the 1996 Craft Brewers Conference has to be in the top 10.

You might also enjoy
– Mapping historic breweries in Bamberg

– How London’s First Black Pub Landlords Changed the City’s Drinking Culture

– Big Trouble in Little Kortrijk?

– A musing on menace

– Major new guidance on beer styles for consumers

– Creating Safer Spaces in Craft Beer, Part Seven — Brewing Beers That Make a Difference

Scientists muck with beer & other Monday am reading

Arnold's, Cincinnati, Ohio

The New York Times and Wired magazine posted stories this past week about how science may, as it has for centuries, change beer. In one case, the goal is not to change the flavor. In the other, the goal is both to eliminate an unwanted flavor and to enhance new exotic ones.

“As water sources, particularly in the western United States, dry up from overuse, drought and climate change, supporters of direct potable reuse — the use of treated wastewater in the drinking water supply — are pitching it as part of the solution,” The Times reports. “Increasingly, they are turning to beer as a way of getting people beyond the ‘ick factor’ that has been a hurdle to its broader acceptance.”

There is a “toilet to tap” perception problem . . . even though in Scottsdale, Arizona, the purifying process “involves ozone infusion, microfiltration and reverse osmosis, in which water is forced across a membrane to remove dissolved minerals and other impurities. The water is then zapped with ultraviolet light.”

The Wired story begins with details about how modified strains from Berkeley Yeast eliminate diacetyl. It barely touches upon other products from Berkeley responsible for freeing compounds that add to tropical aromas and flavors top hop-forward beers, be they hazy or clear. And it doesn’t mention Omega Yeast at all, which any story about modified yeast strains should.

I can’t get behind the headline that asserts “Gene-Edited Yeast Is Taking Over Craft Beer” but they certainly point to an aroma/flavor destination that interests brewers and drinkers. It is one that hop growers are certainly paying attention to. “I believe we could see an even bigger push toward hops that work with these new yeast strains,” says Brian Tennis, the founder of the Hop Alliance. “As hop growers, we need to make sure we are growing what the market demands.”

You might also enjoy
Beer lessons learned in Oklahoma. Jeff Alworth admits “parachuting into any region is never going to provide me the nuances of a place,” but nonetheless he shares many thoughts. Also, a) I really want to visit Big Friendly, and b) perhaps this reflects my Midwest heritage, but I do not recall Joe Prichard’s accent being particularly thick.

New Jersey’s Governor Is Screwing Its Breweries. When we were in New Jersey earlier this month, brewery operators I spoke with thought the a bill that would enact changes intended to benefit them would be signed in law by now. It hasn’t been, and the explanation is not simple.

One of Colorado’s ‘brightest risers’ is suddenly closing. How tenuous might things be for some small breweries? Apparently, a rainy June did in Uhl’s Brewing in Boulder. [Additional reading.]

The price of beer. “Super-deals of EUR 9.99 (USD 11) for a crate of beer (10 liters) have become a rare sight” in Germany. And draft half liters cost a heck of a lot more. In the UK, a pint of beer is 127% more expensive than world average of £2.60. The United States is the ninth most expensive country for beer on average, with a pint costing £6.22 ($8) on average. They aren’t that expensive at Arnold’s (pictured at the top) in Cincinnati, even before a $2 discount during happy hour.

Separated at birth

Atriveda Brewing, Colorado Springs, CO
The tap handles at Atrevida Beer Company in Colorado Springs, Colorado, remind customers the brewery is veteran friendly.

Cartridge Brewing, Maineville, OH Cartridge Brewing in Maineville, Ohio, is located in a former cartridge factory. Hence the handles.

TWTBWTW: The non-terroir edition*

Another long holiday weekend (Father’s Day followed by Juneteenth), and another Monday with links and (almost) nothing but.

– De-Platformed: How the Local Brewery Built on Community and Experimentation Lost Its Way in Scaling Up and Selling Out
“It’s always a little bitter to see something that seemed to have such a great concept and so much potential at the beginning fall apart. If it had stayed small and focused on quality and just maintained what made it cool to begin with, then we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.”

– Creating Safer Spaces in Craft Beer, Part One — Why Isn’t Craft Beer More Diverse? Part two posts today.

– Don’t Roll Up – Queue Up. Pub etiquette.

– Britain’s Cask Ale Is Struggling. Is American-Style Craft Beer to Blame?

– From shrinkflation to ‘drinkflation’: Alcohol reduced to ensure prices remain static.

– The grim truths behind Big Beer’s American heartland fetish.

– Beer for elephants: a visit to Okavango Craft Brewery in Botswana.

– Taking mass market lagers seriously.

– Special No More: A Eulogy For Anchor’s Our Special Ale.

– Boundary-breaking craft beer Instagram accounts to follow.

* Almost non-terroir edition, I guess. Because I really did enjoy this cartoon. To understand why, click on the image.

Where have all the rock star brewers gone?

The brewer as rock starBecause the first edition of “The Complete Beer Course” was published in 2013 and this is 2023 and the second edition is about to land, it seems natural to look at how the content of the book reflects changes in beer, in brewing and how consumers may view beer.

In reviewing the book and speaking with Bernstein, both David Nilsen and Courtney Iseman both found their way to the subject of brewers as, well to dig back into a popular descriptor in the aughts, rock stars.

“When I think back to 2012, I mean, it was really this era of the brewmaster-end-all-be-all, you know what I mean?” Bernstein told Iseman. “So . . . all the information and all the beer knowledge came forth from them. It was kind of wild. If you think about it back then, the brewmaster as celebrity, that concept was huge. You almost needed these figureheads, I think, to be able to talk about what was happening . . .”

To Nilsen, he said, “The moment in 2013 was really about the brewmaster being exalted. “Back then we all prayed at the altar of Sam Caligione (Dogfish Head) and Garrett Oliver (Brooklyn) and others.”

As this not totally random post from 2008 illustrates, not everybody bought into this.

But it was a real thing, as an article in 2013 by Alan Moen titled “Craft Beer Rock Stars” for American Brewer magazine illustrates. Featured were Vinnie Cilurzo, Russian River Brewing; John Maier, Rogue Ales; Rob Tod, Allagash Brewing; and Sam Calagione, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery.

In 2023, Bernstein chose to include brewery workers like sensory scientist Rachel McKinney at Fremont Brewing and packaging manager Marcus Crabtree at Kings County Brewing Collective. “I really want to give a voice to these people that are in the industry and show people that beer is more than just one single person, that breweries are miniature factories and everybody has different roles, and getting that beer into your hand requires a lot of hard effort and a lot of [teamwork],” he said to Iseman.

What does that mean for the exalted few?

Tod and Cilurzo are in the index of the latest edition; Maier and Calagione are not (although Dogfish Head makes multiple appearances).

Call it coincidence. Photos posted on Instagram from The Brewers Retreat this week prove plenty of fans are still willing to pay to hang out with their brewing heroes.