Stan Hieronymus

Three faces of authenticity (and the diddley-bow)

Today’s post is part of #BeeryLongReads2020. Look for the hashtag on Twitter or visit BoakandBailey.com to find more long reads. Also, note that I’ve embedded tweets, but also included the words in the story for those who may not see the embeds.

About a week ago, Jenny Pfäfflin—a beer, baseball and Danish hot dog enthusiast who happens to be exam manager for @cicerone—tweeted, “I pretty much lean into tradition when it comes to beer and brewing—because it’s what I’m interested in—but the discussion around ‘authenticity’ is often exhausting. That somehow, if it isn’t ‘authentic,’ it isn’t good. And who bears the right to deem something authentic anyway?”

Perhaps authenticity is worth considering within the context of music.

*****

Lonnie Pitchford, who was listed among the artists who would be playing Delta blues on this steamy 1992 August night, slid himself onto a barstool somewhat unsteadily and ordered a cocktail. A fan approached him cautiously to ask what time he expected he’d make it to the small stage at the Rivermount Lounge in Clarksdale, Mississippi. R.L. Burnside has just finished and The Jelly Roll Kings were setting up.

“Nah. Can’t. I’m messed up,” Pitchford said. “Tomorrow.”

Read more

The Session: Quarantine edition

Being There

I like to watch.

Daria and I spent much of July 3, 1995, at Seaside Heights, N.J., on the beach and on the boardwalk. On the way back to Daria’s mom’s house we stopped at Antones in Cranford. It was (was being the operative term, because it was sold in 2008 and converted into an Irish theme pub) a tavern with a wide range of beer and frequented by people who lived and worked nearby.

The regulars played NTN (trivia) and we once saw a couple in a booth picking out wedding invitations. On this pre-holiday Monday these regulars filled almost every stool at the horseshoe bar. They were watching the 6 o’clock news and the weatherman was warning viewers of the danger of sunburn under clear Fourth of July skies.

“What’s UV-9?” one drinker asked.

“It means I have to wear my sunglasses in here tomorrow,” another answered.

Three years ago, I spent a couple of hours in Riley’s Pub, a St. Louis neighborhood establishment, taking notes for a gathering of The Session hosted by Boak & Bailey, scribbling down observations, speaking nary a word other than to order beer.

It’s what I do. I miss it.

The SessionWe said goodbye to The Session a year ago December, but Alistair Reece has summoned us for a special Quarantine Edition. He poses several questions, including “what has become your new drinking normal?”

Normal, what a concept. We live in Atlanta, Georgia — Georgia undoubtedly being the seven letters your eyes focus on. Things are not going to end well for many people in this state. That doesn’t mean everybody has to act stupidly. Most restaurants and brewery taprooms in Atlanta chose not to reopen at this time. Monday Night Brewing shared the results of a poll that indicated that three quarters of beer drinkers would not consider heading to a taproom before June.

Shadows on a wallFor Daria and I, the old normal on a Friday was to eat and drink at a locally owned restaurant, quite possibly a brewpub or taproom. The last time we did that eight weeks ago we had dinner and beer at Best End Brewing, then stopped at nearby ASW Distillery for an after dinner drink.

The windows there look out on the fire pits at Monday Night Garage, one of two brewery taprooms flanking the distillery. We watched people come and go, some with children who dashed happily about outdoors. We saw animated conversations, although we couldn’t hear what was being said (eavesdropping makes observing better). It was a good normal.

This Friday, as we have every Friday since, we’ll continue to eat local and drink local. I will walk to Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q to pick up dinner and on to Wrecking Bar Brewpub, which recently canned a pilsner made with hops from the Seitz Farm in Germany. We’ll dine on our back deck, listen to music (as well as the occasional train rumbling by, though MARTA is running less often now) and watch the shadows track across the bricks on a neighbor’s house.

The new normal is also a good normal, but I’m ready for another normal. One that looks more like the old normal.

Significant beer digits V (and some Monday links)

The longest-ever bull market ended last week. When it began — March 9, 2009 — there were about 1,550 breweries in the country. (About because the Brewers Association count at the end of 2008 has been revised a few times, and the official total is now 1,523 at the end of 2008 and 1,600 at the end of 2009).

Since then about 7,500 have opened, and about 1,300 have closed. (About because the BA has not released final 2019 totals.)

That’s 7,500, or so, breweries that have only sold their beer while the economy was expanding . . . and, of course, before social distancing.

Almost 3,000 of the country’s 8,000-plus breweries are brewery-restaurants. A good portion of the others are breweries with taprooms, in some cases earning most of their income from what they sell across the bar. Social distancing was not in their business plan.

Further reading:

– What COVID-19 Means for the Beer Industry’s Frontline Staff

– Beer industry watches and waits as coronavirus epidemic unfolds

– Coronavirus Impact on Beer Industry: Taproom Closures, Event Cancellations

– ProBrewer Wants To Help In This Crisis — Let’s Talk

– Brewers Association’s Bob Pease Discusses The Road Ahead for Small Brewers

– The Coronavirus Cost to Business and Workers: ‘It Has All Gone to Hell’

– The Dos and Don’ts of Social Distancing

– “A single person’s behavior can cause ripple effects that touch faraway people”

– Game Theory of Social Distancing in Response to an Epidemic

AND FROM TWITTER

How much do ‘we’ need to know about beer history?

Last week, Jeff Alworth struck a chord when he posted a list of “five breweries every serious beer fan should visit.” Lots of interest on Twitter and Facebook. No surprise, I agree that, “Even if you’re just into the standard American craft lineup, your appreciation for those beers will deepen if you visit the breweries that inspired them.”

This got a little more complicated for me: “An insularity is settling in among American craft beer fans, and it is cutting them off from the roots of their own tradition.” I agree that appreciating tradition enriches us. But I don’t know that today’s drinkers are any more insular than drinkers have always been.

That’s just an aside. Because the post turned out to be a prelude to a family of questions.

By chance, the next day on the Music Exists podcast Chris Ryan and Chuck Klosterman discussed, “How much do you really need to know about music history?” Not really all that timely because they were talking about the December dustup that began when Jimmy Kimmell asked Billie Eilish to name any member Van Halen.

Read more

First comes the e-nose, then the beer algorithm

Researchers in Australia have developed an “electronic nose” they say will help craft breweries monitor beer quality. Seems like it would work for other breweries as well.

This e-nose is a small circuit board that measures gases emitted from beer. It uses machine learning (magic words which we’ll get back to soon) to determine if a beer has unwanted aromas. The gases include carbon dioxide, ethanol, methane, hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and benzene.

The electronic nose has also been used by the researchers in conjunction with biometric indicators such as heart rate, body temperature, brainwaves and facial expressions to gather more information from consumers while tasting a product.

Basically, it is good at warning brewers there’s something about a beer that consumers won’t like. That’s a positive. However, directing consumers to a beer they will like or providing an idea of what it will smell and taste like is a different challenge. Aroma, and therefore flavor, remains something of a black box.

Kevin Verstrepen and Miguel Roncoroni at the laboratory at the University of Leuven’s Institute for Beer Research and VIB Center for Microbiology head up a project intended to match compounds that can be measured with sensory preferences. One result is a book, Belgian Beer: Tested and Tasted.

Read more