Monday beer links: Tipsy animals and other drinking companions

Cannonball Creek Brewing T-shirt

Back side of Cannonball Creek Brewing T-shirt

First up, two links:
– Deschutes is an Underrated Treasure
– Cannonball Creek is best brewery you don’t know

As the headline on the first suggests, Jeff Alworth has written a tribute to the Deschutes breweries. I’m going to focus, instead, on something else he brings up, winning medals at the Great American Beer Festival. The Deschutes breweries (plural) have won 50 since 1990. Pretty impressive.

And the Portland brewpub won six in the last three years, a time frame Alworth focuses on, comparing what Deschutes has won with awards captured by 20 other “older, established regional breweries.” Also impressive. On the other hand, Deschutes won zero medals between 2015 and 2020 (six years).

Winning medals is not arbitrary, but it is very easy for an excellent brewery not to win. Figueroa Mountain Brewing in California and Cannonball Creek Brewing in Colorado have definitely beat the odds by winning a GABF medal every year since they opened. Figueroa Mountain, which operates multiple breweries, has won 14 years in a row. Cannonball Creek, close enough to our house that we share a ZIP code, 12 years in a row.

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Monday links: Big beer, Indie, craft; it’s all about u

Django Cervecería Artesanal, Quito, Ecuador

Django Cervecería Artesanal, Quito, Ecuador

First, old business. Following up on “beer-flavored beer,” Jeff Alworth asks, “What Does Beer-Flavored Beer Taste Like?” Alan McLeod also expressed his opinion, in this case about “beer-flavoured beer.”

And now to new business, and the Beer Week That Was.

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LEDE OF THE WEEK

Two weeks after Hurricane Helene destroyed most of his brewery, Jonathan Chassner sat on his back porch and sipped a warm coffee. He also had a lead on where to find a hot shower later that day. Both felt like a balm at a time when his family still didn’t have running water — potable or flushable — at their Asheville, North Carolina, home.

Despite the small comforts, Chassner’s thoughts drifted to beer, and to his ravaged business on the banks of the French Broad River. He founded Zillicoah Beer Company, located two miles northwest of downtown Asheville in Woodfin, North Carolina, with his brother, Jeremy Chassner, and partner Jonathan Parks in 2017. The three built much of it themselves, cutting concrete and finishing bathrooms. The work then turned to brewing beer, primarily lagers, on a relatively low-tech, hands-on system. The trio preferred it this way.

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Cyril Neville

Cyril Neville looking good at Mission Ballroom in Denver

Random Friday post that has nothing to do with beer. This is what happens when you are taking a picture that your phone says will take 3 seconds and somebody behind bumps in to you. Cyril Neville on the bongos during “Life is a Carnival: The Last Walz Tour ’24” at Mission Ballroom in Denver.

Monday beer reading: Brewing flavors, describing them

Schell's Peanut Butter Chocolate Porter

You should read all of“Beer-Flavored Beer Can’t Save the Category on its Own,” but I am focused on the term beer-flavored beer and Dave Infante’s kicker:

“People like to drink stuff that tastes good, and beer can taste good even if it isn’t marketed as such. Convincing people to want beer-flavored beer is a vocation; brewing them the flavors they want in a beer is a business.”

I confess to typing beer-flavored beer in the past, and perhaps speaking the words out loud. And 13-plus years ago I when I hosted The Session I made the topic “Regular Beer,” a synonym for beer-flavored beer. (Those were the days. Three dozen bloggers chimed in on the topic. Warning: clicking on a link within that post often leads to a broken link.)

I was wrong to use the term. It can be used to exclude, wielded as a weapon by drinkers who imply they know something others do not. “I can appreciate beer-flavored beer, the complex flavors that result from the interaction of malt and yeast in a simple helles. You are not worthy.”

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Global history of brewing . . . times 2

In the introduction to “Hopped Up,” author Jeffrey Pilcher begins, “In 2009, the PureTravel website imagined a United Nations of brewing on a map titled ‘Around the World in 80 Beers.’” I’m going to pretend that instead he referred to another book about beer new to the market, Martyn Cornell’s “Around the World in 80 Beers.” Both offer a “global history of brewing,” but, no surprise, in different ways.

"Hopped Up" book coverFirst up, “Hopped Up.” Pilcher uses the “Around the World” map, which features each country’s most iconic brand, to illustrate the ubiquity of pale lager. In his words:

– In narrating the history of beer’s commodification and the triumph of pale lager, “Hopped Up” takes a global perspective.

– “Hopped Up” explores the social patterns of gender, race, and class that shaped the commodification of beer.

– The book examines taste as an agent in shaping the commodification of beer, both as an independent sensory experience and as an instrument of social distinction.

– The book examines taste as an agent in shaping the commodification of beer, both as an independent sensory experience and as an instrument of social distinction.

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