How strong is a standard beer? Not 8% abv

In some of the many discussions about Session Beers (like here and here) the fact that Utah brewers make a range of great beers containing less than 4 percent alcohol by volume usually comes up.

So it’s nice to see them get a little credit in Sunday’s New York Times: “Brew Pubs Gain an Unlikely Following in Utah.” But — whoa! &#151 when I read this paragraph I don’t know if somebody got confused converting alcohol by volume to alcohol by weight (4% abv equals 3.2% abw) or perhaps had a few beers first.

Utah still has quirky alcohol laws, including one that sets a limit of 3.2 percent alcohol — a little more than half the amount standard in most beers around the world — for beer sold on tap.

Does this mean that Vanessa Chang figures a standard beer contains almost 8% abv?

And how strong would a Session Beer be? Six percent? Lew, there’s work to be done.

 

More on the Miller one-second ad

If you watch as much television as I don’t then you probably haven’t seen the Miller one-second ad that spoofs how much money Anhesuer-Busch is spending on Super Bowl advertising.

Apparently it got posted on YouTube but removed. You watch it by visiting the story Adweek posted. That article concludes, “If nothing else, Miller’s effort implicitly challenges Budweiser’s bona fides as a beer for the common man.”

I’m not sure how much the commercial has to do with beer, and certainly not the beer we’re interested in drinking, but it is sorta funny.

 

Capturing the ‘warm glow’ on the telly

Pete Brown writes about Oz Clarke and James May’s televised journey through Britain in search of the “drink that best speaks for the country.” Really something you need to click over and read, but two excerpts:

You come away with a vague knowledge of brewing ingredients and processes, and that’s it. This is disappointing to those already knowledgeable, because they believe that people just need to be educated about beer and then they’ll love it.

And . . .

I’ve always argued that beer’s cultural role is far more interesting to the average punter than its taste profile, especially if you’re in a situation where you’re talking about beer rather than drinking it.

You can probably sense where he is going, so head there now.

Beer as the star on the newsstands

One thing you notice when you don’t have an address you can have your magazine subscriptions sent to is which magazines, including those about beer, have the best presence on newsstands.

Beer Advocate, for instance, has none — by choice. Brew Your Own and Beer Magazine are particularly strong (with the latter appearing in gas stations across Canada). You can count on finding DRAFT and Imbibe at most Borders and Barnes & Noble, while All About Beer is a little more hit and miss. Which is why I still haven’t seen the AABM with Santa on the cover, but yesterday tracked down the January-February DRAFT.

So a bit of news. After putting a personality such as Leslie Nielsen or Jeremy Roenick on the cover for its first 14 issues DRAFT went with a big old glass of beer. Interesting given yesterday’s reports that brewing giants Anheuser-Busch and Heineken have hired new celebrity spokesmen for their beers.

Good to see beer as the star. The cover says “The Best of Beer” with 2009 in large numbers behind the glass. The words promote “25 Beers of the Year,” “200-plus Top Beer Bars” and “35 Ways Breweries are Going Green.”

I’ve already rambled on enough about the silliness of “best” lists, so do what you want with the link. Instead I’ll confess there is one end of the year best I look forward to. That’s Stephen Beaumont’s Taste of the Year. I don’t always agree but he seems to get it right two years out of three and this is one of them.

The beer? Go look yourself. You’ll see it’s from the same brewery as two other beers on the DRAFT list.

 

Should you, do you, the smell the cork?

Lost Abbey corkI do like the sound of bottle of beer being uncorked, the pop followed by the lively sound of carbonation, or perhaps . . .

“Oh, bleep, we’ve got a gusher.”

Not to harp on the beer versus wine thing but that’s one thing beer has over wine (Champagne excepted). I thought about this a couple of weeks ago when I watched a waiter hand a customer in the restaurant a cork after he opened a bottle of wine. The man sniffed the cork and nodded, then the waiter poured a bit of wine. The man swirled and sniffed, then nodded again. The waiter went on to pour two full glasses.

Was there a point to this? I understand that sommeliers will sometimes smell a cork for a sign that a wine might be “corked” but it is hardly dependable. And beer is susceptible to the same problems with tainted corks.

But I don’t think you are going to catch me smelling the cork next time we have a bottle of Ommegang or Saint Somewhere or some other beer sold with a cork-and-cage top. Just doesn’t feel right.