Monday beer links: The changing writing game

BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING 06.04.18

Beer in the Shadow of War.
This is a lovely story you would have expected to read in print at All About Beer magazine, but AABM has discontinued its print edition for at least the rest of 2018. Daria and I first wrote for the magazine in 1993, contributing pretty regularly (including the travel column for seven years) until recently. But the news is also saddening because print and pixels feel different.

Talking ‘craft beer sellouts’ with the guy who wrote the book on them.
Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out: Goose Island, Anheuser-Busch, and How Craft Beer Became Big Business has raced to the No. 1 spot among beer books at Amazon and posts about it have filled by rss feed (I don’t think author Josh Noel can keep up with them.) John Holl writes that with the release of this book “the writing game will change. I firmly believe that folks will look differently at how beer should be covered.” You might want to advance directly to Go and read the book, but before or after Kate Bernot’s interview covers new territory.

Ten years ago next week InBev submitted its first formal offer to acquire Anheuser-Busch. Little more than a month later the deal was done. Not quite three years later ABI acquired Goose Island. There are dots to be connected, and Barrel-Aged Stout makes that easier.

Brewing in Hardanger.
I’m going to Norway in August to talk about hops — and see some of the things Lars Garshol writes about so beautifully. I hope I don’t feel as cold as people look in some of the pictures here.

Fight the Power — Could Consumer Beer Organizations Work Stateside?
A fact: “In Europe, more than 20 consumer beer organizations are working to represent the interests of actual drinkers, rather than the breweries who sell beer to them.” Given the size of the United States, beer drinkers here might be better served by at least 20 consumers groups. Volunteers definitely needed.

Reflections on a year in beer – When did this stop being fun?
I’m not sure readers empathize with any shit drinks writers might endure, given that perks of the job include “free” beer and travel. Nonetheless, give this a thought. Seymour Hersh’s memoir, Reporter: A Memoir, ships tomorrow and it will be my next bedside book. He is a longtime critic of access journalism and self-censorship. Not to equate a discussion about New England IPA and Instagram culture with reporting on the My Lai massacre, but when reporters choose not to report what they discover because of the shitstorm that might follow then we all lose.

Foraged brewing.
It’s a niche, but Ed’s report from the London and South East homebrewing competition is a reminder that interesting things happen when you don’t put limits on what beer can be.

WINE

Should Wine Criticism Strive for Objectivity?
The value of, and limitations imposed by, disinterested attention.

Why amateur wine scores are every bit as good as professionals’
Because “enthusiasts actually do a better job of agreeing with the experts than the experts do with each other.”

Your Next Glass of Wine Might Be a Fake—and You’ll Love It.
I love the science of fermented drinks. Where scientists might take fermented drinks scares the poop out of me.

FROM TWITTER

If you just had your first Sierra Nevada and thought "this is nice and interesting" and picked up a beer magazine and it was full of chat about "foeders" and "Burton snatch", would you persevere?

— robsterowski (@robsterowski) June 1, 2018