beer & wine

TWTBWTW: Quick, name 3 flagship beers that are thriving

Where have all the beer brands gone?

The lead gets right to the point: “The ground is shaking under some of the most important beer brands for a trio of California’s largest brewers.” The breweries are Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Firestone Walker Brewing Company, and 21st Amendment Brewery.

Why should this matter to us beer drinkers?

You will have to answer that yourselves. I am writing zero words rather than 1,000. Instead I will point you at Flagship February. (At least, I hope the link takes you to one of the pages in the Flagship February website and you can make your way around. Simply typing in flashipfebruary.com will not get you there. Nothing seems to be going right for flagship beers right now.)

You might also enjoy

Could an ancient, climate-friendly crop be the future of beer?
Fonio sounds too good to be true.

“Growing a pound of malted barley has a 327-gallon water footprint while a pound of wheat requires 219 gallons of water, and a pound of white rice requires 400 gallons of water.

“Meanwhile, fonio can thrive with just 600mm annual rainfall, and none of the irrigation, pesticides or fertilizers needed by other grains. Brewing with fonio follows the same process as making beer from other grains.”

In fact, this could be a problem: “Cleaning the sand out of fonio is a time-consuming, manual process that requires beating the grassy fonio paddy to release the grain, and using a lot of water to rinse out dirt and sand.”

Something to watch.

How Far Will Salmon Swim for a Craft Beer?
It appears that salmon prefer yeast trub to extract of shrimp, tincture of watercress, skin of steelhead, or bile of minnow. The beer connection aside, really fascinating stuff going on at the Oregon Hatchery Research Center.

The Inextinguishable Appeal of Draught Bass
Lyme Regis. 1994. As soon as we were checked in at the Angel, publican Ed Bignal took time to point out the sights, such as the Leper’s Well a block away. Lepers once lived along the Angel’s street, Mill Green, a narrow alley on which monks had led horsedrawn carts centuries ago.

First off, we went to the Volunteer because Bignal assured us the Bass would be in as good of condition as we could find anywhere. He did not lie. “Bass is a beer that lodges in the mind” was flat out true that day.

(Early in the evening, we saw him step from behind the bar and go outside to check a tire because one of his female customers was worried it was going flat. After dinner, the place was bustling. Patrons constantly paraded between the skittles alley out back and the back door to the pub, where they refilled their pints. When the skittles shut down, the singing began.)

Craft brewery boom in Switzerland draws to a close
“Boom draws to a close” means a period of hyper-growth has ended, not that the Swiss suddenly abandoned fancy beer. It is not surprising that 90 percent of all breweries are nano-breweries. They are “often run as a hobby.”

Pairing seasonal beer and seasonal produce
Not new, but it hit my feeder aggregator this week. Some specific suggestions: LAGER: Grilled corn-on-the-cob with chili and lime; WHEAT BEER: Watermelon and tomato salad; IPA: Pico de gallo and chips.

Gummies Beer
Tantalizes the taste buds. 19.2 ounces at a time.

House beers
“This latest iteration of house beers has proven successful because they’re not a novelty.”

Maggie Harrison’s War on Wine
Now, this is a tasting note. Something you’d expect to hear in “Drops of God.”

“First, it made me see colors: the inkiest indigos and the bluest blacks, streaked with fissures of silver. Then I pictured something lurching out of a cave on a moonless night during a thunderstorm, which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”

Do the beers you drink make you see colors? Asking for a friend.

Monday beer links: Dark secrets, dive bars (again), styles (again), bubbles (again)

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING, 08.22.2016

Yesterday Alan McLeod commented, “there is not much out there to read.” I cannot agree. Certainly many of the links that follow lead to topics already discussed at length, but that does not mean there is not new thinking or that there are not new things to think about.

definition of craft (beer)

How The Hipster Somms Could Get Away With Murder And How We Can Stop Them.
[Via Grape Collective]
When it comes to cocktails, is it time to kill the word craft?
[Via Charleston City Paper]
Last Friday I collected a bunch of headlines that use the term craft beer to illustrate people are not going to quit using the word no matter how useless some people find it. As frustrating and repetitive that some of the discussions can be (such as when we dig into various definitions of craft, like the entry from ORIGINS: A short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, shown above) maybe they are good because they have us talking about what is in the glass, and sometime more. Stuart Pigott’s amusing rant in Grape Collective may not seem directly related, but give it some thought.

You Can’t ‘Open’ a Dive Bar.
Yes, it was just a couple of weeks ago that the topic of dive bars came up. But here’s a view from a different angle. There’s this: “What are you going to do, open a brand-new bar with a busted urinal?” And plenty more. Including a question you might want to ask yourself. “(Owner Dave) Meinert describes the clientele of the 5 Point as prostitutes and politicians, drug dealers and Amazon employees: ‘A mix of people you don’t see at most places … a mix most places don’t try to appeal to.” When you are waxing romantic about dive bars consider if they are places you really want to hang out. [Via CityLab]

Death of a Brewery Salesman.
Just in case you’ve been thinking selling beer is a “dream job.” [Via DC Beer]

Craft Beer’s Dark Secrets, According to an Insider.
I abhor stories with anonymous sources, but this one that will get talked about. Many of the points are valid. That some are less valid does not invalidate the story. [Via Thrillist]

Read more

The vernacular of vernacular brewing & other Monday beer links

MONDAY BEER & WINE LINKS, MUSING 2.29.16

According To Me: How Brewing Cultures Develop.
“Scientific brewing represents a refusal. A refusal to accept what vernacular brewing teaches us.” If you Google “vernacular brewing” you get this post, which is kind of impressive on several levels. But you need to read the post to figure out just what Alan McLeod means. It is worth your time. I don’t agree that “scientific brewing” represents a refusal, but that is likely because I would define “scientific brewing” differently. I think part of scientific brewing should be understanding, and accepting, what vernacular brewing teaches us. [Via A Good Beer Blog]

Tenth Anniversary Blogging: All Beer is Local.
Local,       [Via Beervana]

Craft Beer Goes Hyperlocal With Plow-To-Pint Movement.
local,       [Via Zester Daily]

5 Beers From Across the Nation That Are Redefining Local.
and local.       [Via Civil Eats]

Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children?
“With beer becoming more popular, you become more accepting and guiding to those discovering good beer for the first time. But, alas, as good beer expands and becomes more inclusive, it will open doors to the Kids.” [Via Beer Compurgation]

Matt Kramer’s ivory tower and the ‘credentialization’ of wine culture in America.
[Via Do Bianci]
An Open Letter to Wine: Matt Kramer, Can You Hear Me Way Up There?
[Via William Whelan]
Unfortunately, you need to have a paper copy of Wine Spectator or really good eyes to read the article that started this, but it isn’t really necessary.

AND FROM TWITTER

ALSO THIS:

(Clink on the date to read the responses)

Loose ends, beery and otherwise

Some short items that don’t fit neatly into Monday beer links or that, oops, I overlooked.

  • When I pointed to Ron Pattinson’s “The Haight” last week and suggested you might find his travel books of interest I had no idea a new one was in the works. “Tour!” chronicles his travels through the United States during the last year-plus. I sure hope somebody at the Beer Bloggers Conference later week this points to the book (or the posts it represents) as the kind of blogging it would be nice to see more of. Because Pattison combines an actual point of view with clever writing.
  • The downside to “hands on” brewing: brewers get hurt. Kerry Thomas, the brewmaster at Edge Brewing Company in Boise, Idaho, suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 30 percent of her body while brewing Friday. Her friends and family have set up a relief fund at GoFundMe. Accidents involving burns are more common that most drinkers realize. Teri Fahrendorf has written about her own experience, an accident that occurred in 1989. (h/T @scratchbeer)
  • Lagunitas founder Tony Magee is now blogging. Longer posts from a guy already adept at raising a ruckus 140 characters at a time.
  • Jamie Goode has done the math and it works out that the grapes in a bottle of wine that sells for £3328 (about $5,154) cost £5.32 each (about $8.24). I tried to come up with some analogy that included hops or bourbon barrels or something and beer, but there really isn’t one that makes sense. Which is a good thing.
  • Ingredients of the month: Cattails and rhubarb.
  • Overlooked: pricenomics analyzed the beer listings of 6,000 bars and restaurants across the country and lists which beers predominate menus in which states. All this data must have left Bryan Roth in tears. Shocked Top Belgian White No. 1 in Idaho? Sierra Nevada Pale Ale tops in New Mexico but not California (Stella Artois instead)? And why does the PBR distributor in Houston still have a job?

From deep in the belly of craft beer

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 04.20.15

During the opening session of the Craft Brewers Conference last week Brewers Assocation board chair Gary Fish said that, at least for the week, Portland, Oregon, was the “epicenter of craft beer.” I can neither confirm nor deny that. I spent my week among the trees, specific trees as a matter of fact, because I was in information collecting mode. And, I figured out over the weekend as I tried to catch up with Twitter and Feedly, pretty disconnected from the rest of the beer world.

Amidst all the high-fiving about how terrific beer in Portland is and what a fine job the city did hosting the convention there was this:

Trying to provide context via Twitter can be maddening. My suggestion is to visit Carla Jean Lauter’s Twitter feed (@beerbabe) read through her tweets and also the replies that followed. Here’s an essential one:

And in the midst of this Heather Vandenengal added more context with “A quick note on sexism and the beer industry.”

Twenty years ago, when Daria and I first visited the Oregon Brewers Festival, that a group of brewers assembled after a day’s work to head off together to a local strip club that had scores of beers on tap was pointed to with a sense of pride. It was another sign how far ahead of the beer curve Portland was — even the strip clubs have better beer. Maybe it is because strip clubs are as much a part of the Portland culture as beer variety, but nobody seemed to be bothered that not all of us are comfortable with treating women as objects.

To be clear, this isn’t a discussion primarily about strip clubs in Portland. All About Beer provided a guide to spots to look for before CBC began. And in the midst of the conversation Lauter started there was this from @SamuraiArtist:

This is a discussion about awareness. There’s been an ongoing conversation about sexism in beer and it needs to continue. In the midst of all those tweets somebody suggested “someone will still find a reason to be upset” and that is true. But some things should be obvious. “I sell beer. I want more women to buy it. I’d like more women to feel comfortable working in my industry.” The next thought should not be “Benjamin Braddock got the girl in the end, so I’ll ask these women to join me at a strip club.”

What do these exchanges on Twitter, and in actual one-on-one conversations, tell us about this entity broadly labeled craft beer? That it is as flawed as society itself? Or that we expect to it be somehow special, less flawed?

Vandenengal wrote, “The reality is that dealing with casually and overtly sexist men who don’t respect women is something that all women of all industries and backgrounds deal with all the time, in both their personal and professional lives. It’s no different in craft beer.”

Not a cheery thought to begin Monday with, but a fact. [Via Twitter, Heather Vandenengal]

Returning to our regularly scheduled program . . .

Critical Drinking — The Craft Brewers Conference + Getting Weird — Good Beer Hunting.
Later this weeks I’ll post some thoughts from the view from 20 feet (in other words, all about hops), but if you’d like more big picture thinking (the view from 20,000 feet) start here. [Via Good Beer Hunting]

Popularity, personal tastes and beer culture.
Is it possible that “local beer cultures do not exist, that they’re only a myth; something artificially preserved for tourists and romantics?”
[Via Pivní Filosof – Beer Philosopher]

What do you really think of that wine? Ask your brain.
If you are going to call somebody a hophead, or hop head, then an MRI kind of makes senses, doesn’t it? [Via Palate Press]

Science Has Not Really Spoken (On The Study Of Big Flavor Wines).
A discussion about wine that is just as relevant to beer. [Via 1 Wine Dude]

And to finish off with a smile, back to Twitter.