Month: May 2014

German beers, Latinos & hops

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 05.19.14

Can German Beer Get Any Better? Craft Brewing Spreads to the World’s Mecca of Beer. The grain of salt: This is written by somebody who would like to sign you up for a beer tour in Bavaria this fall. That aside, a much more balanced look at Old World meets New World than the “Oh, woe is moribund German brewing, but perhaps American-style beers will ride to the rescue” stories that pop up periodically. [Via Huffington Post]

Hops across cultures — Latino craft beer makers and Aficionados are transforming the industry. The Latino brewers are on board. Will the Latino consumers follow? [Via Latino Fox News]

Sierra Nevada across the states. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept of “replacement level beer” and will likely keep dropping in a link to these guys once every few months until I sort it out. Or give up. [Via BeerGraphs]

How India pale ale conquered the world The Economists reminds us that not everybody looks at the world through the same beer goggles we do. Beeronomics checks in with his experience, that “it is almost completely nonexistent in Brazil for example.” I’m dispatching this from Brazil. My observation is “yes, but . . .” Homebrewers rather obviously have embraced hops and IPAs can be found relatively easily in the southeast, if you know where to look. More in a few days.

[Via The Economist]

The small business of small breweries

This plum is too ripe!
– Sorry!
Take away the golden moonbeam.
Take away the tinsel sky.
What at night seems oh so scenic
May be cynic by and by.

     – From “The Plum Is Ripe” and the musical The Fantasticks

Yesterday at CNNMoney Rob Sands of Constellation Brands explained why his company it not interested in taking a stake in any craft breweries — for instance, like Anheuser-Busch InBev buying Blue Point Brewing.

“Although the craft beer industry is growing very rapidly, it’s a very local business,” he said. “It’s not clear that these brands can be expanded beyond their locale.”

For Constellation, that’s a negative. For some of us, not so much.

Craft brewers, artisans, fake brewers – you can’t tell them apart without a scorecard

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 05.12.14

As Craft Beer Starts Gushing, Its Essence Gets Watered Down. When NPR speaks, people listen — and so my friends who live blissfully in a world where the question “What is craft beer?” is not debated every day email me the story. It is a reminder that in the real world “craft verus crafty” gets attention and a headline that contends “its essense gets watered down” becomes fact rather than a subject for discussion.

In the story — if you somehow managed to miss it — Dan Del Grande at Bison Organic Beer says he doesn’t think the Brewers Association should have changed its definition of “craft brewery” to include those that use adjuncts and and those that “make more than about 200,000 barrels of beer per year should not be recognized as craft.” (I added the boldface.) If you can’t get enough of the discussion about trade associations, who is on whose side, and the meaning of “craft” then head right on to the next link after this one.

Total aside, you have to smile when a beer geek conversation breaks out rather early on in the comments, beginning with brandon east writing, “Dude, what are you doing? Look to your right and get that four-pack of Bourbon County Brand Stout!”

[Via The Salt]

Brewers, Distillers Wrestling with Meaning of ‘Craft.’ A report from a panel discussion at the Craft Beverage Expo in San Jose last week, the panel including brewers, distillers and a winemaker. I’m not sure which of these words can get you in more trouble: traditional or practical.

So this from winemaker Alie Shaper and you can read the rest yourself: She said winemakers don’t use the “c word” but often refer to themselves as “artisanal” or “family-owned.” “An artisanal winery has a lead winemaker who is there to put personality in their production,” she said. “Maybe that is the real definition of craft. Some people want to stay smaller and some want to get bigger.”

[Via Brewbound]

Belgium’s craft brewers sound the alarm. The discussion here is about real brewers and “fake brewers” in Belgium, although rather obviously this impacts the idea of brewing as craft. A translation of an open letter from a group of Belgian brewers includes this rather shocking nugget:

“These days, thanks to a growing interest in beer at home and abroad, a new ‘brewery’ opens up in this country roughly every 15 days. We estimate that around 75% of these businesses are breweries in name only, and that no beer is actually produced by the businesses themselves.”

It’s complicated and worth your time to read the whole thing. Commenting on it at I might have a glass of beer, Rob Sterowski wrote, “It’ll be interesting to see whether beer geeks in the rest of the world pay any attention to the opinions of the brewers they claim to revere so much.”

Sorry, no link, but the second issue issue of Belgian Beer & Food, a new publication, includes an article by Joe Stange (“When is a Brewery Not a Brewery? And Does it Matter?”) that provides more context.

[Via Belgian Beer & Food]

What’s Oregon’s healthiest beer? Deschutes, Hopworks and other breweries seek an unusual title. And you thought “craft” was tough to define. [Via Portland Business Journal]

Ale brewing in the USA and Canada in 1907. With a pretty bold conclusion from Ron Pattinson: “The cross-fertilsation of ideas from British Ale brewing and Continental Lager brewing seems to be the defining feature of North American brewing.” [Via Shut Up About Barclay Perkins]

Session #88 announced: Traditional beer mixes

The SessionBoak & Bailey have stepped up to host The Session #88 (somehow we were lacking a volunteer), scheduled for June 6, personally noteworthy date for two reasons. First, it will be the 70th anniversary of D-Day, and we were backpacking in England for the 50th, enjoying seeing veterans in old uniforms visit seaside towns. Second, because Amazon says I might have Boak & Bailey’s Brew Britannia: The Strange Rebirth of British Beer in hand by then.

The topic is traditional beer mixes.

How can you not find a question like “are there rules for the optimal Granny?” inspiring?

Friday beer: Why deny the obvious child?

Shock Top Pretzel Wheat tap handle

Last weekend at the St. Louis Microfest — which has been around since 1988, raising money for Lift for Life Gym and not at all self conscious about keeping the word micro in its name — a local brewery, Anheuser-Busch, showed up with one of the more intriguing beers poured.

Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat smells and tastes just like pretzels. You wouldn’t pair it with a pretzel because that would be redundant. You might buy one during the fifth inning on a muggy evening at the ballpark instead of hunting down a pretzel and a beer. Except that’s not really an option, at least right now, because A-B is offering it only at beer festivals this summer.

It’s one of those “how do they do this?” beers. If Short’s Brewing brought it to the Great American Beer Festival people would line up for it just like the do Key Lime Pie and PB&J.

Like other Shock Top beers, for instance Honeycrisp Apple Wheat or Lemon Shandy, Twisted Pretzel Wheat is not subtle. But beyond the obvious pretzel aroma and flavor it tastes like beer. Professional brewers at the festival I talked with about it were impressed, homebrewers not so much. Make of that what you will.