I don’t expect many are reading beer blogs this day before Christmas, so not much musing. Just a few links that will be way too old if I wait to pass them along.
– Stephen Beaumont recently called the Belgian Family Brewers Association a “brilliant idea.” Indeed.
Beaumont writes: “Given the number of multinational brands on the market today which seek to evoke the Belgian ethos, and the penchant some Belgian brewers have for releasing beers under two or three different labels, the BFB is definitely a step in the right direction. While it won’t guarantee that you’ll like a specific brand, or even that said brand is a stellar example of the Belgian brewing arts, it at least will guarantee authenticity.”
To be an association member a brewery must have been in business for at least 50 years, so a small nit to pick. Surely there are new independent (family run) breweries who would be a perfect match with the older ones.
– The St. Louis Post-Disptach story abuut the distribution deal between Virginia micro brewery Starr Hill and Anheuser-Busch doesn’t make it clear what this deal means, but it’s a start. The lead:
Starr Hill Brewery is housed in a big converted food warehouse near the railroad tracks in Crozet, Va. In nearly every other way it’s tiny: A half-dozen employees make 5,000 barrels of beer a year — about the volume Anheuser-Busch can churn out in less than three hours at its St. Louis brewery.
But if you think the brewery on Three Notch’d Road is too small to catch the eye of the biggest U.S. brewer, think again.
– Following last week’s links about Frankenbeer came the news that the pinot noir grape genome has been sequenced.
More fodder for the wine world’s never-ending debate about the existence of terroir. The Economist even devotes two stories to the topic, in the second asking what sort of traits consumers might ask for.
The answer: “More reliable flavours for one thing. No longer need you doubt whether a wine truly does possess flavours of exotic coffee, chocolate, Asian spice, roast duck and blackberry and prune liqueur. Genes from those very animals and plants could be spliced straight into the grape’s genome. Forget hours spent swilling, swirling, sniffing, gurgling and spitting — it will all be there in black and white, in the sequence data.”
Sounds like a great tasting note. But where’s the soul?
Well, I’m one who’s reading beer blogs instead of wrapping gifts (gotta get to that eventually). Nevertheless, a fellow Richmond-area beer enthusiast who checked out my blog posted a link to an article in C-VILLE, a Charlottesville weekly publication, about the distribution deal between Starr Hill and Anheuser-Busch.
The article claims that after talking with Brewmaster Mark Thompson, they discovered that A-B would have a minority stake in Starr Hill. Not sure what the future holds in that regard, but I found it to be rather interesting that they’ve also bought into the company.
Happy Holidays, Stan!
Thanks. It makes more sense if A-B has bought a stake. Particularly when you read quotes about some serious expansion down the road.