beers of conviction

Monday links: The culture & business of beer

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 6.27.16

Talking Pride Over Pints
Pride is an important part of what Robin LeBlanc says here, but so is this: “Longtime readers will no doubt agree with the fact that I see beer as exceptional background material to significant social goings-on. It’s the people you’re with that are more important than what you’re drinking, though it helps if the drink is good enough to help enhance the situation from behind the scenes. For the most part, beer should pleasantly accompany the night and not demand your attention if you don’t want it to.” [Via Torontoist, h/T Alan McLeod, among others]

Piero Rodriguez, MIA Beer brewer, killed in car crash.
It makes me sad I never heard of Rodriquez before he died. “And he was punk, through and through, from his tight pants with combat boots and T-shirts with obscure band names, to his taste in music. At MIA Beer, he set up a pair of turntables between the brewery and the tasting room, where he could watch over his gurgling beer boilers and spin everything from the Ramones to the Clash, not to mention a host of insider-only bands.” [Via Miami Herald]

Stout Decline: Guinness Slides in Popularity, Status.
So how are Guinness sales in the United States these days? I’ve recently wandered into several St. Louis taverns/pubs I don’t frequent, trying to settle on what to write about for The Session #113. I’ve seen lots of Guinness handles, and for that matter more drinkers choosing Guinness than, say, Ballast Point Sculpin. But I’ve also been in places that previously had Guinness on tap and it is no longer there. What does this all mean? [Via All About Beer]

What We Mean When We Talk About the ‘Death’ of Flagship Beers.
[Via This Is Why I’m Drunk}
Death of the Flagships: But Why?
[Via Stouts & Stilettos]
Is The Age of the Flagship Beer Over?
[Via Bear Flavored Ales]
And you thought “Brexit” was the story you couldn’t escape last week. This is an important business story if you are in the business. Thus ultimately it has implications for consumers. But as I just mentioned, I’ve recently been looking at draft selections at many taverns I don’t regularly frequent. This is obviously St. Louis specific, and to places where people gather just to talk, or sometimes because it is the best place to watch Jeopardy or the Cardinals or football/soccer or whatever on the TV. It is a small sample, and we’re not talking about what’s going on in grocery stores, convenient stores, and liquors store, where most beer is sold. I wouldn’t claim is represents the “other 99 percent” but it does fall outside the 1 percent that Bryan Roth (first link) writes about.

So what did I see? The Urban Chestnut tap handle is going to pour Zwickel, the Schlafly handle Pale Ale, the Civil Life handle American Brown, and so on. And there may well be buckets full of ice and Bud Light on the table. It’s not exactly the same everywhere. For one thing sometimes these breweries will have a second handle. And a can of 4 Hands City Wide sliding across a bar top is more noticeable than a bottle of Stag being jammed into a koozie. But there’s still a time and a place for the familiar.

Why you can’t get a pint in a beer bar anymore.
Another business/consumer story. If you make it to the end you’ll read Jeremy Danner talking about the Midwest, specifically Kansas City. It’s the same on the other side of Missouri, the neighborhood spots mentioned above almost always serving beer in pint glasses or “cheater” 14-ounce shakers — even beers you’ll get a smaller measure of if you visit the brewery. Jeff Alworth is also quoted at the end, but no mention of his honest pint project. [Via Washington Post]

How the sounds you hear affect the taste of your beer.
Didn’t Pete Brown already tell us this? [Via Washington Post]

11 jobs in the beer industry guaranteed to make you jealous.
Maybe not all 11. I don’t want to be the person “Upping America’s koozie game with one-size-fits-all beerwear.” However, given that Jared Williamson tweeted “Funny, production shift brewer isn’t on this list” a few examples why not: profiles of Jared, Jonathan Moxey at Perennail Arisan Ales, and Andrew Mason of 3 Floyds Brewing. Not the sexiest jobs going. [Via Trillist]

WINE & TERROIR (BECAUSE BEER TERROIR MAY ALSO BE A THING)

The Weird World Of Expensive Wine.
I’d be inclined to cross out the word “weird” and replace it with “terrifying.” “Maybe you can actually taste the money.” [Via FiveThirtyEight]

Demystifying Terroir: Maybe It’s The Microbes Making Magic In Your Wine
Wait, bacteria and fungi may affect the flavor? Have they heard about this in the Senne Valley? [Via NPR]

FROM TWITTER

As usual, click on the date to read the thread.

Who brews the ‘Walmart beer’?

This was a silly headline: “Is Walmart Looking to Dethrone Budweiser as King of Beers?” The story itself does not suggest Walmart will be getting into the brewing business. Instead it is about still another foray the retailer is making into selling beer.

You’ll recall that about three years ago there was chatter about Walmart’s plan to become America’s biggest beer retailer. This included selling brands such as Budweiser and Coors at low, low prices and broadening their overall selection. At the time I visited Walmart to compare both prices and selection. I’m not going to run another price check, but last time I looked (granted, several months ago) the overall selection had shrunk since September of 2013.

But now there are these beers from Trouble Brewing, which is not exactly a brewery (but more on that in a moment). Details are in the “Dethrone the King” story.

We want to bring craft beer to the masses,” said Walmart senior vice president of adult beverages Al Dominguez. He spoke at an event at the company’s culinary innovation center in its home state of Arkansas. Dominguez was quick to point out that due to alcohol laws, it’s not calling the beer “private label” but rather “distinctive label” beer.

But what is this Trouble Brewing in Rochester, New York, they speak of? It must be pretty good size to produce beer for 2,200 of Walmart’s 4,600 stores. It doesn’t take much detective work to figure out it must be Genessee Brewing.

Why don’t they just put that on the label?

What are spruce, dandelions and hibiscus doing in Monday beer links?

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 4.25.16
REINHEITSGEBOT

The Reinheitsgebot – A Personal Voyage.
“Let the brewing traditions of Germany open and grow, to give the beer-drinking public what they want, and see a rejuvenation of German beer culture at a time when the trend has been away from beer.” [Via The Bitten Bullet]

NOT REIHEITSGEBOT

A short history of spruce beer part one: the Danzig connection.
A short history of spruce beer part two: the North American connection.
[Via Zythophile]
Foraging for Fonta Flora’s Appalachian Wild Ales.
[Via Serious Eats]
9 New Floral Beers That Don’t Remind You of Your Great Aunt Esther.
[Via bon appétit]
Spot a theme?

BACK TO REGULAR PROGRAMMING

The True Story Of Milton Glaser’s Best Client
“In the initial consultation, Steve Hindy had a couple ideas of what he wanted the brand to evoke. ‘I said Milton (Glaser), I want the Brooklyn Bridge, I want the Dodgers, I want every guy in Brooklyn to want to get this tattooed on his arm,’ Hindy says. ‘And Milton said, ‘Save something for me to do!”” [Via Fast Company]

Great Story, Shame It’s Not True.
It’s this simple: “Lots of pubs have fascinating stories attached to them but it’s a shame so few of them seem to be true.” [Via Boak & Bailey’s Beer Blog]

The deal that shook craft beer five years ago is still reverberating.
The deal is the sale of Goose Island Beer Co. to Anhueser-Busch InBev and founder John Hall says, among other things: “That’s one reason why there’s the High End today. That’s really equipped to sell a specific product, tell more stories and connect on-premise rather than in an off-premise way. Also, I think the biggest portion was the PR thing. When we said, ‘Trust us, it’s all about the beer,’ it is all about the beer — and the beer is as good [as], if not better than, it’s ever been. There’s more of it, there’s more creativity, and then, if you look at the employees, they’ve done better professionally and financially, those who have stayed. Those who didn’t? That’s their choice.” [Via MarketWatch]

Blogunitas: When Big Gets BIGGAR.
Greg Nagel has lots of pictures from the newest Lagunitas brewery. Meanwhile the story he posted last week (it got squeezed out of links here because there were so many) about what might be a new brewery in LA or might be fiction kept getting stranger. [Via OCBeerBlog]

Genesee becomes local craft’s big brother.
Genesee Brewery invites local (non-Genesee) brewers to sit in on its sensory panel and also opens its laboratory for outside use. Area brewers have borrowed equipment, been trained to count yeast, for instance, and Genny has provided analysis of beers.[Via Democrat & Chronicle]

FROM TWITTER

How original is latest Brewdog prank?

Because links to a story about how 200,000 cans of Brewdog Punk IPA had to be recalled is a result of an employee prank keep showing up in my Twitter feed this smorning I remembered that something similar happened at Sun King Brewing in Indianapolis last year.

Given that we cannot agree on who brewed the first Double IPA — the same thought may occur thousands of miles apart at somewhat the same time — this certainly does not mean what happened at Brewdog was derivative. But it is a reminder that little in beer, no matter what modifer (in this case “craft”) in front of the word, is new.

If you missed the Brewdog story, packing manager Graeme Wallace added “Mother F***er Day” to the time stamp on the bottom of Punk IPA cans. He was not fired. Instead, a Brewdog spokesperson said: “At another company, someone responsible for a prank like this might have been given the heave ho. At BrewDog, Graeme was awarded Employee of the Month.”

And if you forgot the Sun King story, it involved 20,000 cans of Wee Mac Scottish Ale with “Tom Brady Sux” stamped on the bottom. This wasn’t too long after Brady and the New England Patriots had defeated the Indianapolis Colts in the NFL playoffs (the “DeflateGate” game). The message qualified as an obscenity for Patriots fans, and certainly wasn’t “Midwest polite.”

“It wasn’t an idea we came up with at all,” said (co-founder) Clay Robinson, referring to Sun King the company. “Every day, we change the thing on the bottom of our cans. One of the guys running the canning lines had to come up with something. Biscuit is his name. So Biscuit put ‘Tom Brady Sux.'”

Sun King is known for its quirky words next to its born-on dates. During the Indianapolis 500, for example, there will be sayings like “Turn left,” or “Go fast.”

Sometimes, there are movie quotes or one-line quips, such as “Drink and Repeat” and sometimes all the can says is “Yummy.”

Biscuit is real. Robinson didn’t reveal his real name because the brewery received numerous profanity-laced phone calls and, Robinson said, one death threat against Biscuit. A week after the first story appeared, he agreed to an interview with the Indianapolis Star that didn’t include his given name.

In addition, the brewery created this video:

Some bitterness to balance all those hops, please

All About Beer magazine - Please pass the bitternessI should probably wait to comment on Jeff Alworth’s story until our postwoman delivers the latest All About Beer magazine (John Holl tweeted this photo of the cover yesterday), but he hinted at the contents when he posted “How American IPAs Evolved” at Beervana.

At the heart of his blog post you have this: “There has been a shift from very bitter IPAs to IPAs marked by flavor and aroma, but it has happened around the country as brewers each made natural discoveries on their own.”

You’ll notice the cover also says “Trending: Fruit IPAs.”

More data points:

– New Belgium Botanical Imperial IPA.

Straight from the press release (or you can watch the video): “Using the fresh aroma of the spring landscape as inspiration, New Belgium Brewing’s Botanical Imperial IPA uses a blast of essential oils from backyard botanicals. basil, sage and juniper help create the freshest IPA around, with Bravo, Cascade, Sterling, and Willamette hop varieties delivering a potent hop punch.”

“The essential oils intensify the citrusy, herbal and spicy hop flavors,” noted Ross Koenigs, New Belgium pilot brewer. “The idea for a botanical IPA came from our love of both IPAs and gin. So back in 2014, we had our hop chemist run a bunch of gin botanicals alongside different hop varieties and then we started beta testing how those different herbs and spices played with the hops. The result offers notes of citrus, pine, wood, cedar, mint, and a little spice.”

– Hops Oils & Aroma: Uncharted Waters.

It seems a little weird linking to a story I wrote for Craft Beer & Brewing, but it saves me pounding out 1,200 words again to explain some of the science behind what New Belgium is up to.

– YCH HOPS Hop Varieties.

If you take a look at a few varieties (I suggest HBC 291, a hop that really needs a name) you’ll see that YCH HOPS has increased the amount of information itprovides about at least some varieties. It now provides data on linalool and geraniol. This is fun. For instance, notice that New Belgium is using Bravo, a variety with above average oil content and thus more geraniol than the average bear. It’s a hop that brewers can use to create an interesting blend — rather than wasting their time moaning, “Wah wah wah, I can’t get Citra.” Just remember, as the story points out, there’s a lot hop scientists are still figuring out.

Late hopping preserves these oils — about 50% of essentials oil evaporate during just 10 minutes of boiling. Although, as Alworth points out, brewers don’t necessarily need to boil hops as long as previously thought to extract bitterness (technically, they aren’t really extracting bitterness, they are orchestrating a conversion) too often they are creating beers that I find not bitter enough. Part of the reason is those big, juicy, tropical aromas and flavors create an impression of sweetness.

I’m no more interested in fruit bombs than I am bitter bombs.

So I was delightfully surprised last Friday when we dropped by the Virginia Beer Company in Williamsburg after the first session of Ales Through the Ages. I think their grand opening is this Saturday, but they’ve been throwing open their doors for a series of soft openinngs.

Brewer Jonathan Newman’s beers are ready. I didn’t love every one of them. For me, Nelson Sauvin hops and saison yeast may never work together (I am probably in the minority). But the rye saison with Amarillo hops was sublime. Every one of the beers, even the one with Nelson Sauvin, was balanced and nuanced. And, for those of you keeping score at home, even though they are unfiltered every one of them poured bright.

But my favorite moment was after I’d tasted the IPA, Newman asked me if I thought it is bitter enough. It has all the flavor and aroma you expect in a 2016 IPA, but, yes, it is bitter enough.