Remains of the day, or thoughts that probably aren’t worth a post of their own:
– What’s going on with the agricultural ingredients for our beers, barley and hops. This is worth its own lengthy post, but until there’s time for that consider these links. We are talking concerns about quality and certainly higher prices — craft brewers are hesitant to discuss how much because they don’t want to be accused of price fixing, but at least $2 a case to distributors (meaning more to you and I) seems necessary. The links:
Ralph Olson of Hop Union discusses the 2007 hop crop. How grim is it? “The hop world is upside down. In the future we see the possibility of brewers shutting down for lack of hops.”
Sept. 19: An update from Pacific Brew News. Not all the hops news is bad.
The Czech view of the future of barley. Gate2Biotech reports that ongoing problems with growing barley has the brewing and malting research institute in Brno exploring the possibilities of utilizing crops such as chickpea, cowpea or sweatpea.
The Roast Garlic and Sun Dried Tomato Hummus at Chama River Brewing in Albuquerque, one of my locals, is a top-flight appetizer which goes with almost any of their beers you can see through. Chickpeas in hummus = good. Chick peas in beer = I feel no need to find out.
– Great quote from the world of alcoholic beverages. Fred Franzia, the man behind Two Buck Chuck, and how important soil is to the quality of wine: “We can grow on asphalt. Terroir don’t mean sh*t.”
– Maybe it was the campfire, but this food and beer pairing seemed perfect. Not sure when Amazon will start shipping The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing & Cooking with Craft Beer
Achel Extra and s’mores.
Yes, that simple.
Wow, all the fire/brimstone talk about hops really scares me. It feels sometimes like our Texas breweries are just hanging on (except for Saint Arnold, of course, which is reportedly doing very well). We’ve been hearing from a nascent Southern Star Brewing Co. near Houston, which has already declared its first beer to be a very hoppy Pine Belt Pale. I sure hope they can weather what’s coming.
Hops shouldn’t add that much to the cost of a beer, although breweries that hadn’t already signed contracts (and that includes a lot of brewpubs) will feel the pinch more.
Breweries may be looking for more efficient ways to use hops, but they aren’t going to abandon hoppy beers.
The best food pairing I’ve ever had was World Wide Stout and roasted marshmallows around the campfire with friends. Simple=good.
“We can grow on asphalt. Terroir don’t mean sh*t.”
Amazing how people are willing to mock what they should hold dear, simply to excuse their own shortcomings. I had a brewer tell me to my face recently that pasteurisation doesn’t damage the flavour of his beer – of course the reason was that much of his produce is for export, so he would say that.
Stonch – That it is for export doesn’t seem like a good reason for pasteurisation (or pasteurization). Meantime isn’t, correct?