Monday beer links: History and dive bars

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 5.23.16

Mega-merger? How About No?
As the headline suggests, Lew Bryson makes his position clear. “One company. Thirty percent of world beer sales. About half of world beer profits.” [Via All About Beer]

Budweiser and the Selling of America.
About those cans labeled “America” … “Today the difference (you might call it an innovation) is that this newer imaginative product sells us—some of us—to ourselves, not to the rest of the world, and is maybe, in this way, evidence of an increasing confusion over our national identity.” [Via The New Yorker]

Remembering the forgotten (and then drinking it).
[Via DRAFT]
A Beer Museum Could Open In Chicago With A Brewpub & Rooftop Bar.
[Via Eater]
The Sensible Regulation Of Beer In New Netherlands.
[Via A Good Beer Blog]
History. Lots of it in the first link. The second link is to a project that will “launch a fundraising campaign this year” so some skepticism
is OK. And the third is an example of history done right. To return to the first and re-configure one of Joe Stange’s sentences: “Many (amateur historians) are shedding light on primary sources and questioning the validity of others—and, I believe, that’s what historians are supposed to do,” but “their rigor varies widely.” I apologize for coming across as a curmudgeon. However, even though there is arguably more well-documented research into the past being posted on blogs than in print publications (“Journal of the Brewery History Society” excluded) there’s something to be said for peer and technical review. Been there, made those mistakes.

What’s Happened to the Great American Dive Bar?

Walking through any city center, however, residents might be led to believe that dive bars are still alive. These faux-dive bars, where imbibers have the option of sipping on a $6 Lagunitas draft, can easily deceive transplants and tourists looking for a real down-and-out drinking experience. From a visual appraisal, they have the cliché signs: neon Budweiser signs, an LCD electronic jukebox on the wall, and maybe some specials for $2 PBRs. But Jeremiah Moss, author of the blog “Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York,” describes them as harbingers of fabricated cookie cutter sameness that derives from the neo-liberal, winner-take-all mindset permeating cities (see: yuppies shrieking with glee at the opening of an artisanal coffee shop, cocktail lounges playing Top 40 hits, kitschy diners serving $13 alcoholic milkshakes).

[Via Easter]

The Bar Where Nobody Knows Your Name.
Related. [Via Punch]

FROM TWITTER

@jeffreyjohnbell @drcrasch I wonder what @carlsberg spent to fly out a bunch of writers to taste a beer that tastes like beer.

— Joe Stange (@Thirsty_Pilgrim) May 18, 2016

If you click on the date you’ll see a longer thread. I pass this along for two reasons. First, as a bit of disclosure. I was one of the journalists who attended at the expense of the Carlsberg Foundation (a plane flight, two nights lodging, a fancy dinner that the crown prince attended).

Second, Joe Stange asks an interesting question. Is have this little calculator in my head. In this case, the foundation conducts research in all aspects of brewing. Much of this is shared. I know how expensive it would be for a laboratory to do research about the biotransformations of various hop compounds that result from different yeast strains. (In other words, what different hop aromas occur in beer fermented with a yeast used at Fuller’s than one used at Lagunitas? And what changes when you replace Centennial with Mosaic?) I doubt I can find out the total cost of the project, but I will ask. Because I am pretty sure it would pay for a chunk of hop/yeast research.

We all have our priorities.