Beer’s past, future, Grodziskie, farmhouse yeast, the Gaia concept . . .

Marcin Ostajewski of Browar Grodziskie in line for breakfast at the 2024 Craft Brewers Conference in Las Vegas.

That’s Marcin Ostajewski of Browar Grodziskie in line for breakfast at the 2024 Craft Brewers Conference in Las Vegas. In a little more than two weeks he and brewery president Krzysztof Panek will be talking about all things Grodziskie in Utrech, the Netherlands, during Carnivale Brettanomyces. The “yearly wild beer festival dedicated to deviant fermentation of all kind” is, in fact, about more than oddball fermentation.

The headline here hints of how diverse the talks will be, so I will leave you to explore the entire list on your own. These sorts of gatherings and exchanges of ideas are how beer culture avoids turning into the monoculture American beer seemed to be headed for in the 1970s.

One example, Aiden Jönsson’s examination of beer and the Gaia hypothesis: “Take a sip of beer and you will notice aromas and flavors that remind you of the world around you. Some of these play crucial roles in our physical environment by interacting with the atmosphere, oceans, and geology. We will explore some of the ways common compounds in beer reflect natural processes in our environment and climate, and how life could have evolved to use those compounds to regulate the environment to its benefit in Gaian ways.”

Bet you wish you could be there.

6.02.25 beer links: True Beer vs Big Craft & very bad news

The news Sunday that Martyn Cornell has died was a gut punch. Friends filled Bluesky with small stories, including links to many of his blog posts. Rereading one of my favorites — “In which I give more badly written beer history a good kicking” — I couldn’t help but smile for a moment. It was a sentence after sentence takedown, and should have made any writer happy to have Martyn not review their work.

JUST WONDERING

ABI’s Years of Craft Strategy Whiplash Are Catching Up With It details Anheuser-Busch InBev’s failures over the years to sell enough beer that customers would rather drink than the ones their closer-to-home breweries back. In the story, Dave Infante mentions “big craft” (which he puts in quotation marks). If I read it correctly, I think he means “craft-like” (my quotation marks) beer from breweries that do not meet the Brewers Association’s definition of craft brewery.

Which I think is different than the big craft Alan McLeod has been referring to for at least a dozen years (scroll to page 7). McLeod might correct me, but he has been referring to breweries such at Sierra Nevada (1.1 million barrels produced in 2024), and perhaps even ones such as Fiddlehead Brewing (108,143 barrels).

This raises several questions. ABI big craft, after all, is made up of breweries that used to qualify to be members of the Brewers Association. How is Goose Island pre-2011 different than Goose Island today? Do they have more in common with ABI or Fiddlehead? More important to me, personally, as a brewery visitor, does Sierra Nevada have more in common with the ABI group as a group or with Liquid Mechanics Brewing (1,369 barrels) in Lafayette, Colorado, where I had a terrific Helles Friday afternoon?

Forty years ago, Vince Cottone, a beer columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer who contributed to numerous publications, first used the phrases craft-brewing scene, craft brewery and craft brewing in the manner they are thought of today.

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5.26.25 beer links: Calibrating, ticking on TikTok & murk

It is Memorial Day in America, so get outdoors, drink a beer if you want. If you missed these posts last week, read them Tuesday.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Me, if I have a SNPA (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) in front of me, I am really only concerned with the taste of the thing in front of me, not whether it has hit the bullseye on the shifting dart board of style.”

                    — Alan McLeod

From Your Beery News Notes For The Start Of The Last Month Of Spring. Context follows.

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We’re as Confused as You Are.

and

Is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale an ESB?

Alan McLeod’s quote comes from his reaction to these stories about Sierra Nevada Pale Ale winning gold medal in the ESB category at the World Beer Cup. I cited it at Bluesky, adding, “Let these be the last of many words.” So even though I have thoughts, I will honor what I wrote. Instead, consider this photo from a conference in Ecuador in 2022. Here, Gordon Strong, president emeritus of the Beer Judge Certification Program, answers the question, “Why beer styles?” Be sure to notice what guidelines are not.

Why Have Beer Styles -- a presentation by Gordon Strong

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YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY

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Beer links 5.19.25: Radlers, stubbies, skulls & calories

I may have exceeded my monthly quota for words last week, so showing more restraint . . .

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Kolsch at Fritz Family Brewing in Niwot
Speaking of culture, it is Kölsch service season (each Wednesday) at Fritz Family Brewing in Niwot, Colorado.
CULTURE

Cask. This is a story about cask Ale’s bid for UNESCO cultural heritage status, but within there is a “hey, did you see this?” fact. “For all the headlines about American-inspired craft beer, about four times more traditional cask ale is served in the UK.”

The ink link. Jeff Alworth writes, “Credible, accurate journalism may not seem like an essential component to healthy beer culture, but I suspect it plays a bigger role than we imagine.” The importance seems obvious to me, although, granted, I am biased. I’d also suggest we should not overlook the role “brewspapers” — such as Celebrator, Ale Street News, and the Brewing News family — played in the growth of regional beer cultures.

In the woods at the edge of the city. “The bucolic setting is one thing, but what makes the Kugler Alm special is its place in the history of beer garden beverages. This beer garden is, by many accounts, where the Radler was invented. (For those who don’t yet know what a Radler is, it’s a mix of beer and lemon-lime soda—à la Sprite— that’s meant to quench your thirst without getting you too shlamboozeled. The word itself means cyclist.)”

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5.12.25 beer links: Generations and cultures

Buckwheat Zyedco Jr. and his son playing on the Fai Do Do stage at Jazz Fest

That’s Buckwheat Zydeco Jr., son of the late Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Dural), above, playing accordion, with his son on the frottoir at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Below, C.J. Chenier, son of the “King of Zydeco” Clifton Chenier, fronts a celebration honoring his father. That’s two more generations on the frottoir. Other members of the band included Marcia Ball (on the keyboard), David Hidalgo (in the background) and Sonny Landreth (not in the frame). A tribute album to Chenier will be released June 27, two days after what would have been his 100th birthday.

CJ Chenier and bandmates (including Marcia Ball and David Hidelgo) during a tribute to his father, Clifton Chenier, at Jazz Fest

Now, let’s get to it . . .

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LEAD OF THE WEEK

March’s second day this year was a Sunday. My brother and I walked the Sussex South Downs. Almost three months since midwinter, the freshly peeled air drenched the leafless woods and hills with pale light. Yellow crocuses quietly exploded in the grass; the first larks unspooled their ribbon of song above. At lunchtime, we dipped down to the Ram in Firle. We sat at a bare table in its dark, womb-like dining room with our beloved hatchlings: two pints of Harvey’s.

I have lived in a thorny, stone-strewn Mediterranean biotope for 15 years, and visitors to my home in France sometimes ask what I miss about the UK and its latitudes. Broad-leafed woodland, birdsong and the British landscape, for sure: its endless seasonal costume changes; its soothing sweetness; the quiet nourishment of its rises, falls and folds. And with it, at the end of the path, cask-conditioned ale. Glorious and tragic.

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