Monday beer links: Adjective-juggling courtiers in action

BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING 08.20.18

There is no solution. This should be a concern for all.
Spoiler alert. That’s not the headline on this story, but the last line. An absolutely fascinating, and damning, essay about how money changes everything about wine, including the stories about it. Leaving those who write about the beverage in a not so great place.

This makes those writers, at best, outside observers of a world to which they will never belong (there’s honour, if little insight, in that). At worst, they become a set of adjective-juggling courtiers, fools and jesters, there to lubricate the relationship between wine-making kings and queens and their luxuriously wealthy global public.”

I may have to find space for “adjective-juggling courtier” next time I order business cards.

BEER

First, a couple calls to action:

Brewery compensation survey.
At least it is a call to action if you work for a brewery. There are plenty of people looking forward to reading the results.

From Twitter


“Tapgate” – is Devil’s Peak trying to monopolise South African craft?
It seems that the business of beer is different in every country (and sometimes in different parts of the country). So buckle up and work your way through Lucy Corne’s in depth report, which concludes with this disclosure: “I know that a lot of people think that I shill for Devil’s Peak. It’s true that I have known the directors for many years, and that I occasionally get drunk with the head brewer. But I also have long term relationships, if you will, with many other breweries in South Africa. The reason I tend to wax lyrical about DP and their associate brands is because, to put it bluntly, they produce fucking good beer. For me, that’s the key to craft. I absolutely love to support the small, local guy. But if the small, local guy is producing chlorophenolic, acetic or diacetyl-ridden beer, then I’ll order a pint of Castle instead.”

Sam Adams is the latest brand with a Trump problem.
This as much of a story about brands as it is about Jim Koch and Boston Beer, so it doesn’t ask questions like, “How would the reaction be different if Carlos Brito had thanked Trump?” However, I do love this line: “The Pillsbury Doughboy doesn’t have this problem, because he doesn’t go to dinner with Trump.”

On the Dotted Line, Pt. 1 — Contract Brewing Sheds its Negative Reputation.
This is the first of a four-part series and you’ll find links to the others at the end of any of them. It’s about the business of beer. Quite clearly there are differences between 1988 and 2018, and that many of the founders of more of the brands without breweries (a line stolen from Good Beer Guide Belgium) who have chosen the contract route don’t simply consider brewing another business opportunity. But I’d like to read a Part 5 that includes more from consumers. There is a truth in labeling element that seems worth investigating.

Wild, wild beer.
“This beer writing isn’t easy.”

And that leads me to explanation of why when I opened up Pocket this past weekend I found plenty of non-beery items saved for myself and damn few beery ones to share with you. Most of what I saw during the week, including at “mainstream” sites, were stories I feel like I’ve read a dozen — make that one hundred — times. Sorry. In a cheerier note, subscribers received the the summer of issue of Beer Advocate at the end of the week. It’s the travel issue. And there’s some wild, wild beer from the Sacred Valley of Peru to read about.

FROM TWITTER

MORE LINKS

Alan McLeod most Thursdays.
Good Beer Hunting’s Read Look Drink most Fridays.
Boak & Bailey most Saturdays.