KegWorks tackles the question “Is beer really cheaper than gas?” with a rather elaborate analysis and infographic.

Made me think, “Hey, I’ve got a photo and a different data set.” So from this post in 2008 (when gas prices had ratcheted up during the summer and were beginning to fall, everywhere, along with the U.S. economy):

The photo was taken at a small grocery store in Wertheim, Germany (at the junction of the Main and Tauber rivers, and with terrific castle ruins). Beer was .66 euro (or less) for .5L. That’s 1.32 euro if you bought two (in other words a liter). The cheapest we’d seen gas for at the time was 1.39 for a liter of diesel (the cheapest gas in Germany, as opposed to the silly flip-flop in the U.S. where diesel costs more).

Yesterday’s news, I guess, but I only saw this morning, courtesy of Twitter, that New Belgium is discontinuing Mothership Wit.

(If you can’t see the image it says, “Based on declining sales, and making room in the portfolio for new beer, Mothership Wit is getting shelved.”)

In contrast, Blue Moon Belgian White and Shock Top Belgian White continue to outperform almost everything else in the MillerCoors and A-B InBev portfolios respectively. According to Symphony IRI, Blue Moon White climbed into the Top 15 brands in 2011, selling $88 million in supermarkets (by comparison, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale sold $52 million, Samuel Adams Boston Lager $47 million and New Belgium Fat Tire $33 million).

Blue Moon White was one of only two brands (Michelob Ultra was the other) in the top 15 to increase supermarket sales in 2011.

Angelo at Brewpublic has announced the topic for The Session #62: “What Drives Beer Bloggers?”

Yes, the obvious answer should be: A designated driver.

But let’s get right to the navel gazing.¹

Your mission as a craft beverage blogger reading this post, should you choose to accept it, is to compose a post on the topic of “What Drives Beer Bloggers.” There are no rigid guidelines about how to write about this topic but we’d certainly love to hear about the history behind your blog, your purpose in creating it, its evolution, and/or what your goals in keeping it going.

The date is April 6. I might write about “10 things you might not know about Alan McLeod but I do because I read his blogs (plural).” Or maybe the 10 cleverest lines in the history of Appellation Beer. Except they’d all be comments, and what would that tell you about me?

More seriously, bloggers are an important part of a particular beer niche, one that sociologists will be studying for years to come. This should help them.

1 For the record, references to navel gazing may or may not be intended as snark. But it has become standard in some of the blogging places I hang out to use the phrase to remind ourselves to write about beer rather than, blush, ourselves.

I love analogies to music when it comes to describing some of life’s other pleasures. This happens to come from Whiff! The Revolution of Scent Communication in the Information Age and doesn’t mention beer, but you’ll get the point:

As any wine connoisseur can attest, aromas are often described in melodic terms as three distinct notes. In making perfume, top notes, middle notes and base notes are orchestrated like a symphony to tell a specific story in three movements. Top notes are the ingredients that create the first impression of the fragrance on the nose. They are the lightest and briefest of the fragrance on the nose. They are the lightest and briefest in duration, like high notes on a musical scale. In a well-designed fragrance, as top notes evaporate they harmoniously segue into the middle notes that comprise the main body, or second movement, of the fragrance. The middle notes evaporate at an even slower rate than the top notes, and also soften the usually stronger base notes. As the middle notes dissipate, the base notes linger like the finals strains of a cello concerto.

(Additionally, in The Secret of Scent, Luca Turin explains why odor molecules — and thus aroma — arrive in waves, repeating that the lightest are the first to arrive, heavier ones later.)

Before you stick your nose deep in your next beer and decide I’m an idiot, please note I’m not saying this works for every beer. Then the special ones wouldn’t be special, would they? As a general rule, beers you’d file under “less is more” seem to be the best candidates.

Matt at The Hoosier Beer Geek has recapped Session 61: What makes local beer better?

I am really happy with all of the writing this month. I tried to keep the question vague on purpose, and many people took it quite literally, while others took a completely different spin. This seems like a pretty divisive subject, but nothing that couldn’t be settled over a few pints.

I agree. Some really interesting points made. This was definitely a “Let’s order another round and talk about this some more” topic. Although I could see a conversation here or there, mostly there, ending in, “Jane, you ignorant slut.”

This month host Matt Robinson asked us to write about “What makes local beer better?” for The Session 61. I found myself staring at his marching orders like a deer in headlights (or a thirsty drinker in front of 62 tap handles). Matt asked a series of questions that left me feeling as focused as his Twitter feed. And 852 words into answering each of them individually I realized I still hadn’t pointed out that we have a St. Louis ZIP and there are six breweries between our house and Anheuser-Busch, and the closest is Schalfly Bottleworks. It’s Schalfly’s production brewery, but the beer to drink right now is Amarillo Session Ale, available only at the attached restaurant/pub. In other words, only locally. 852 words? I’m sure you would have loved the technical discussion about volatile hop aromas, but I hit delete. Instead, one thought.

Beer is a sum of its parts, which include the humans who make the beer and the consumers who drink it. It’s not beer when the ingredients arrive on a truck, wherever that truck might have come from. It turns into beer locally. Magic.

Budweiser has a new “Track Your Bud” campaign that allows beer drinkers to find out, among other things, in which of Anheuser-Busch’s 12 breweries their beer was made.

By scanning the QR code on Budweiser packaging, downloading the free “Track Your Bud” app or visiting TrackYourBud.com, Budweiser fans can enter the Born On Date found on bottles and cans and watch as the brewmaster responsible for brewing their batch of beer takes them on a guided tour of their beer’s production, from the ingredients used, through the Cartersville brewery where it was crafted, and into its drinkers’ hand. (HT RN-T.com)

Telling people just where their beer is brewed is a good thing. A-B InBev seems to be all in on this, building apps, using Facebook, all that good stuff.

But have they considereded all the implications? I’m pretty sure that when some people type TrackYourBud.com and hit return they aren’t looking for beer.

Question 1: What do these hops have in common?

Cascade
Citra
East Kent Goldings
Galaxy
Hallertau Mittelfrüh
Kohatu
Marynka
Nelson Sauvin
Saaz
Strisselspalt
Styrian Goldings
Wai-Iti

Question 2: What seems strange about the picture?

The always interesting Matt Kramer uses the news that Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Starbucks and other coffee vendors are embracing lighter roasts to point out America’s tastes are changing. Not a shocking conclusion, but it goes directly to a wine bottom line.

As the marketing mavens of Starbucks have discovered, the American palate is seeking an alternative to heavy flavors. Are we becoming—dare I say it?–more nuanced? By golly, I think we are.

For whatever reason, this reminded me of something Italian winemaker Antonio Terni said in The Accidental Connoisseur: “I will only say that Americans like too much in the glass. There’s always too much going on. Other than that, if we’re living on Planet America, that’s not necessarily the fault of Americans.”

If you check out the comments after Kramer’s post you’ll see not everybody agrees with him and this seems to piss off the ones who do. (And you thought pettiness was confined to beer blogs.) I’m enough of a fan of Kramer’s writing and way of looking at things to own a couple of his books, but I ended agreeing with some of those commenting. He seems to be saying that outsized is obvious, lighter is nuanced. The implications are, well, obvious to even those of us who are simple.

I’m guessing that Kramer wouldn’t find nuance in a glass of Bell’s Hopslam. In which case I’d refer him to Malcolm Gladwell. Drink 1,000 glasses and get back to me.

We ventured across Missouri this past weekend, where I spent most of my time in the company of the Kansas City Bier Meisters, judging beer, talking about beer, drinking beer, talking excessively about beer, speaking at the awards banquet for their 29th Annual Homebrew Competition (making it older than all but a few American breweries), and talking obsessively about beer.

I didn’t take pictures (other than one of Twitter star Jeremy Danner, a.k.a. “Cookie Bottom”). I didn’t take notes. I did have a great time, and, of course, I learned more about beer. New Beer Rule #9 remains in force.

More practically, I discovered a few things I need to state more clearly when speaking, or writing, about hops. The manuscript it nearly done, but some parts will read different at the end of today than they did Friday. So readers of “For the Love of Hops” will also owe a thanks to the Kansas City Bier Meisters.