The Smithsonian has a story about the Irish Pub Company (link below). We visited Fado, the first pub it built, in Atlanta not long after it opened in 1996, and we were not surprised last September to see that not all pubs in Ireland look like that. Witness Dick Mac’s in Dingle.
This link is not beer related, but it seems appropriate because the topic Friday for The Session #145 is “Critique, not Criticism.” Rolling Stone TV critic saw all of Season Two of Severance before the first of us saw the first episode and raved about it. After it concluded last week, he expressed reservations.
“Then a strange thing happened: as I began writing recaps of each episode, particularly in the season’s second half, I found myself dwelling far more on those hiccups than on the exciting/surprising/funny/distinct parts I’d so highly praised in early January. It got to the point where, in recent weeks, I was wondering exactly why I had been so positive in the first place. A little of this is an occupational hazard of doing weekly recaps, where the more you dig into a series, the harder it is to ignore flaws that may have whizzed by on initial viewing.”
In his post announcing Friday’s topic, Matt Curtis wrote, “When it comes to restaurant, wine, or whisky writing there is an expectation for the writer to levy fair criticism because it’s already established that this is the done thing.” The same is true of movies, TV, theater, books, brands of cereal, and so on. And the more time a critic spends with what is being reviewed the easier it is to spot flaws. Remember New Rule #3, but don’t overlook the total experience. At least that will be my goal Friday.
LEDE OF THE WEEK
When I walk into a near-empty Persevere on a drizzly Leith weekday, its vastness swallows me up like a whale.
Moments later, when I gingerly take my pint of Newbarns Pale Ale to the table and sit in one of the half-boothed banquettes, a feeling of tranquility comes over me. My initial fear of being gulped up by a sea monster, like Ahab or Pinocchio, abates. Instead it feels like I’m resting in a Victorian barque’s cabin, navigating the doldrums.
I glance at paintings that look weathered for centuries and the clutter of barrelled seating and wonder how a pub this size can be so vast, yet so cosy. How can a one-roomed pub segregate my feelings in this way? It’s not exactly an off-kilter liminal space, more like a hidden building in a drowned town.
“A good pub is what you bring to it yourself,” says Edinburgh-based journalist Imran Rahman-Jones. “But it also has to have a community feeling. It’s the mixture of the individual and the collective together that makes the Persevere work.”
From Problems All Left Alone — The Persevere, Leith
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“It was the first beer I ever drank, underage at an Allman Brothers concert, and I threw up. Somehow I still liked it though!”
— A Vermont native
From What Happened to Magic Hat #9?
SIGNS OF THE TIME
Chilling words from Van Havig at Gigantic Brewing. “So long story short, it’s been a very tough five years and I don’t know when it’s going to get any better. I’m most concerned about inflation at this point. That will most likely decrease sales and increase cost pressure, and we’re already struggling. Gigantic isn’t that big, but we may have to downsize to be able to compete. I know that wages are so low in brewing right now, and the time it takes to become a skilled brewer is so long, and young people have no interest in it anymore, that I’m worried that soon we’ll have a major exodus of working brewers. We may see a hollowing out of the small brewing industry soon, with the larger brewers able to compete with their economies of scale, and the very small owner/operator breweries being able to make it on direct to consumer sales, but the rest of the breweries just barely making it or going under. It’s scary out there.”
The Catch 22 of making neighborhoods more desirable. As the “shabby neighborhoods” where small breweries became more attractive higher rents became the norm. Not only for homeowners and apartment dwellers, but for breweries.
YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
Beer in the NY Times crossword puzzle. “‘Pricey flight options, perhaps’ (craftbeers) was one of my favourite clues of the whole year, and ‘Noise at a beer festival’ (glug) just absolutely sucks. There is, I mean to say, a real range in quality on display here. The bulk are fine, my enjoyment mostly coming from appreciating the reference rather than the clue itself. But nitpicking is itself a source of fun, so: alekeg and aletap are clunky and unnatural; a keg isn’t a “dispenser” on its own; pils probably doesn’t need the “informal” or “casual” qualifiers; and the ‘black and tan’ reference is a big yikes, as is the continued use of ‘Imperial ___’ (ipa) — though that one’s on us, as an industry.”
Beer Among Germany’s Highest Peaks. Garmisch-Partenkirchen isn’t a beer destination like Tegernsee or Traunstein. But it’s also no “beer desert,” with a few new breweries cropping up in the past decade to offer something locally crafted. The town’s also home to a vibrant Wirtshaus and tavern scene.
How the Irish Pub Became One of the Emerald Isle’s Greatest Exports. Here’s a thought. It has been almost 30 years since the Irish Pub Company built its first pub in the United States. That makes it vintage, and on the way to antique.
Lagers in the UK. Pete Brown writes about “the rise of British-brewed proper lagers that rival the gods of Germany and the Czech Republic.” (Paywall alert.) Boak and Bailey discuss Craving Czech beer in Bristol. “This brings us to another problem: a glass of Budvar is much less enjoyable when it’s served in a bog standard British pint glass, with no foam, rather than in a branded mug with a good head.”