Sean Franklin assessing beers (Seattle, 2006)

In the second paragraph of a profile of Roosters Brewery, Matthew Curtis establishes that Sean Franklin is one of the pioneers of modern British beer.

In the third, he writes, “Caught in a weird limbo that exists between Britain’s heritage-laden family brewers that can claim decades, if not centuries, of brewing tradition, and the slick, self-confident modern beer brands that emerged in earnest around 2010, Roosters is part of a small set of breweries that shares aspects of both camps, but doesn’t quite fit into either.”

This story examines what comes after the pioneer. By chance, the post and news that an announcement the inaugural group of inductees into the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame will be streamed Feb. 15 reached me about the same time. More pioneers and more opportunities to consider what came next.

TASTING NOTE OF THE WEEK

“Who else would be making 90 Shilling? Open Gate’s is 6.8% ABV. This is a heavy fellow, dense with unfermented malt sugars, while also laced by bitterly vegetal hops: serious stuff. There’s a definite Highland Toffee element to the centre, and it’s enjoyably warming and chewable. On adjusting to the bitterness I found a more nuanced red-liquorice side to it. I’m no expert on what 90 Shilling is meant to taste like, either historically or whatever American homebrew culture has since turned it into, but this is quite a good beer, and was well suited to the cold and drizzly evening on which they served it to me.”

          — John Duffy, The Beer Nut
From Arthur’s Last Christmas

SUBHEAD OF THE WEEK

“Every drink takes five minutes off your life.” Maybe the thought scares you. Personally, I find comfort in it.

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Some good reading from the past week after a reminder that Alan McLeod will host “The toe in the water revival edition of The Session.” The topic is “What is the best thing to happen in good beer since 2018?” Participation is welcomed.

LEDE OF THE WEEK

Alcohol research has a problem with pleasure. On the one hand, pleasure is a difficult phenomenon to research, at least from an epidemiological or clinical perspective. On the other, because of its predominating focus on harms, public health-oriented alcohol research and advocacy can appear to find pleasure problematic in the moral sense. Although most people drink because they enjoy it, much public health discourse downplays pleasure as either marginally significant or as a kind of misperception driven by external forces including marketing, custom, social norms and peer pressure.

From Taking pleasure seriously: Should alcohol research say more about fun?

This is something of a cheat. The link is to an academic paper (h/T Phil Mellows). There have been plenty of posts the past week related the surgeon general’s warning about alcohol and risk of cancer. Lots of good, bad and ugly. I am linking to none of them. There is no denying the negative impact alcohol has on your body. It is stupid to claim otherwise. The rest I leave to Mary-Chapin Carpenter.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“When I know I’m lighting the fire, that’s when I love to have (Leann Folláin). It’s a beer to savour and enjoy. I’ll make sure the doors are closed, that I’m not going to be disturbed. It’s something you want to spend a bit of time with.”

          — Ed Cahill, who runs Tully’s pub in Carlow town
From The Irish for Stout — O’Hara’s Leann Folláin and the Making of a Cult Classic

YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY

Rule #1: Beer Is Almost Never About Beer. “The idea of having a beer comes with guilt, obligation, wonder, intellectual curiosity, respect for tradition, desire for novelty, camaraderie, budgetary concern, the potential to do someone a good turn, and the sheer joy of bouncing around the city like a pinball. The promise of an idle afternoon that might be wasted but isn’t frittered away. Hopefully people will be happy to see me.” To which I will add, it’s also OK if at least sometimes it is about beer.

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In their monthly newsletter (available at Substack), Boak & Bailey ask, “Are you feeling Christmassy yet?” I am, and I am also ready to be done with beer-related lists and stories about Guinness and “splitting the G.” At some point, and it has passed, I see no reason to share them. Not today, and not next week. This will be the last collection of links in 2024. See you January 6, 2025.

NEWSWORTHY

– Bart Watson Appointed as President and CEO of the Brewers Association. That’s the news, and this link includes a take on the news.

To this I will add that, by chance, an anecdote from 2015 I chose to include in a story about Watson that seems relevant today. It was part of Beer Advocate magazine’s regular “Will Work for Beer” series, and began . . .

“Bart Watson really does think this way. At 3:59 p.m. on Sept. 10, he tweeted: ‘Flight attendant says flight from SFO to Sacramento is 13 minutes. It’s 37 degrees warmer there. That’s almost +3 degrees per minute.’

“Forty-two minutes later he followed up: ‘The flight took 17m40s – There must have been some serious headwinds.’”

Even then, it seemed as if he was preparing for the challenge accepted last week.

– RateBeer will cease operations as of February 1, 2025. Or not. More than a hundred replies follow, so you are to free to choose what you think may happen Feb. 1.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I will say that for all of the sensory experience, recipe development, and other little skills I’m working on, there are some fundamental pieces – tools in the toolbox – that I still need. Some of that will come with more time, like rebuilding a heat exchanger. What I’m looking for is the bones, the raw physics and chemistry of brewing. It’s like, as a musician I can know chords and scales, and then I can learn theory that increases my capacity to create what I want. Same thing.”

          — Aaron Brussat

From Q & A with Glen Hay Falconer Foundation 2024 Brewing Scholarship recipient Aaron Brussat

YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY

– The Nottinghamshire pubs combating loneliness and encouraging the art of conversation. “Pubs should be and often are the heart of the community. It’s where everyone is welcome. It’s where people who are struggling and are lonely can go and find friendship and companionship.”

– Observations from a dive bar. To which I will add two words, “third place.”

– Humphrey’s world: how the Samuel Smith beer baron built Britain’s strangest pub chain. A very long and very strange story impossible to summarize in a few words. But the part about villages that are left without a single pub is pretty sad.

– London – A Small Cask Snapshot. Might as well throw in a visit to a Samuel Smith pub.

– Texas brewery sells out of $300 bottles of beer. First, a question: How many bottles did they sell? Second, an observation: the bottles are 6-liters, so that works out to $25 for a half liter. Not cheap, but after reading this story I visited a store down the road that had more than a dozen 500 ml bottles selling for more. Third, this story oozes with the gushiness (“a rich and delightful barrel-aged masterpiece’) I think Alan McLeod would enjoy.

– The Colour of Vienna Lager: Somebody Got It Right. Fair warning, this is about style guidelines.