Stan Hieronymus

What if Conan O’Brien were a beer?

January 12, 2010

If you don’t already think that Conan O’Brien can be brilliant go back and watch Season 4 of The Simpsons. He was the producer for some of the very best episodes. But perhaps the Simpsons aren’t for you . . . and perhaps you’re still pissed off at O’Brien because he twice seemed less than cordial to Michael Jackson when Jackson appeared on his show (here’s Jackson’s account of the first).

But let’s agree that O’Brien is a popular niche product. So are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but they’ve earned a spot in our culture at least equal to “microbrews.” I didn’t have a beer in hand the other day read David Carr’s analysis in The New York Times the mess NBC has made of “The Tonight Show” franchise, but I might have had my beer goggles on.

In the old paradigm, networks operated from Olympian heights, but with cable outlets multiplying, a network’s size and mass audience are not always an advantage. While cable networks can pick and choose their spots, building discrete successes while living off a combination of fees and advertising, broadcast networks are at the top of a huge ecosystem where their every move lands forcefully on affiliated locals.

In a country this size a niche can be pretty big. Big enough that large companies, some of them breweries, will start to covet that share. They need to be careful how they go after it.

The message to the younger talent is one thing — wait for a turn that may never come or may be taken back at any second — but the message to younger audiences is even clearer: a legacy industry will default to legacy assets and ride them down to the bitter end . . . .

Twitter nation was livid, of course. “Nice work NBC. Take out the only late night host my age range and younger will even consider watching,” said @MatthewJBrown, Tweeting the sentiments of many.

Based on the times Jackson appeared on O’Brien’s show it seems he might not understand this analogy:

He clearly isn’t Miller Lite. He might not be Blue Moon White or Samuel Adams Boston Lager. But he’s bigger and more real than Duff.

New Beer Rule #10: Beer is food

January 11, 2010

Need I add more?

OK. Beer is food for thought. Beer is food for the soul.

But I’d rather keep NEW BEER RULE #10 that simple: Beer is food.

(Full disclosure: The idea for this rule was inspired by Alan McLeod’s question — “Why Does That Word ‘Pairing’ Make My Temples Ache?” — in response to Mark Dredge writing about the oft-mentioned topic of food and beer pairings. Excellent reading.)

Drie Fonteinen to stop brewing, keep blending

January 8, 2010

Joe Stange has the scoop.

Drie Fonteinen to Stop Brewing, Keep Blending, Start Distilling.

Go read it at the Thirsty Pilgrim.

I’m posting it here simply because Armand Debelder and Drie Fonteinen represent artisanal at its finest, and Joe has the details about how Debelder will keep his beer from changing (much).

Session #35 rounded up; #36: Cask-conditioned

January 8, 2010January 7, 2010

Beer for Chicks has posted the round up for Session #35: New Beer’s Resolutions, a combination of 2009 highlights, occasional lowlights and actual resolutions . . . and already it is time to think about Session #36 on Feb. 5.

Because host Tom Cizauskas expects us to take it seriously. The topic: Cask-conditioned ale.

Above all, let’s have perspective folks, perspective! Cask-conditioned ale is not a matter of life and death; it’s much more.

The Session He means it. There will be no showing up for class Feb. 5 and telling the teacher you couldn’t come up with an idea related to the topic because he’s supplied a long list of potential topics: make it about lifestyle, culture, ale vs. lager, saison (really!). . . “Make it a sad story. Make it a love story.”

Did I mention my first beer of 2010 was cask-conditioned Big Sky IPA Papago Brewing in Scottsdale? If you’d told me in 1996 at the first Real Ale Festival in Chicago that 13-plus years later I’d be sitting in a bar in Arizona drinking a cask-conditioned beer from Montana (you might know Big Sky Brewing better for Moose Drool) I’d have suggested that chances were better somebody would invent something called Facebook, where festival cellarmaster Steve Hamburg and I would be friends.

This is going to be fun.

Pete Brown giving away a trip to Budvar

January 6, 2010

British beer writer of the year Pete Brown is giving away the trip to Ceske Budejovice, where Budvar is brewed, he won last month. He’s been twice and figures the trip would not give him as much value as it could someone else.

Working in conjunction with Budvar UK and The Publican, we’re launching a mini-competition to encourage new beer writing talent.

This is open to anyone who is passionate about beer, wants to write about it, but has not yet had anything published in print media. We can’t and don’t want to exclude bloggers because most people who are keen to write about beer have started doing so electronically, but we want to offer someone the chance to break into being published offline for the first time.

It’s simple. You need to write a thousand-word piece on the subject of ‘Why Beer Matters’, interpreted in whatever way you see fit. You need to send this to me at petebrown@stormlantern.co.uk by 29th January, remembering to include your real name, postal address and contact telephone number.

Two weeks left for breweries to enter the Brewing News National IPA Championship. Don’t know if you’ve followed this in the past — Green Flash Brewing from southern California and Laurelwood Brewing from Portland, Oregon, won the first two — but beers are seeded in a bracket, then meet head-to-head in actual tasting/judging. Here’s how it went last year.

Stephen Beaumont has been rolling out holiday-end-of-the-year-old-best lists for the last three weeks, so I apologize for pointing to one where he points back this direction. But skip past that to this:

“5. Beer Is Not the New Wine: But wine might just be the new beer!”

Think about it, he writes. Please do.