monday links

Many, many breweries and events are showcased in Breweries Are Turning Up the Heat on Winter Beer, including Scratch Brewing in Southern Illinois. The photo at the top is a very hot granite rock plunging into wort when a team from Jester King visited Scratch in August six-plus years ago.

This Imbibe story about winter activities. “To attract more customers to taprooms, festivals, and holiday markets, breweries are turning to longstanding European traditions that turn up the thermostat on beer drinking.”

Primitive Brewing’s Hotbier Fest, here in Colorado is not mentioned. It is Dec. 21, and here are details (scroll down a bit). The photo on the right was taken last year in Lafayette. Or checkout this video on Instagram to see exactly what happens when a hot poker meets beer.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The Lukr [side-pull] faucet comes to mind. Don’t get me wrong, we have three of them [on-site] and we use them all the time. But the faucet worship to me is kinda silly. It assists in foam breakout and makes for softer foam, and you should get one. But don’t worship these things, because they’re a tool, just like many other items in your brewery or bar arsenal. It’s only beer, folks.”

          — Todd DiMatteo, Good Word Brewing
           From What’s the Most Overrated Beer Trend?

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LEDE OF THE WEEK

With summer in the rear view mirror and dry January less than two months away breweries and taprooms are falling off like fresh hop ales in the fall. The turning of the season means change, not all of it is bad news as much as it is metamorphosis of a saturated beer culture always looking to the next thing whether that’s a winter warmer or a non-alcoholic IPA. But while we were distracted by the latest triple double hazy release and brewery pop-up, a few Portland-area breweries and taprooms succumbed to their wounds.

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Proper foam on a proper pint at Hogshead Brewing in Denver (see Quote of the Week I)

This, too, could have been a quote of the week: “We had every intention to be here for another 157 years. However, that was an unfortunate decision. I am just incredibly sorry that this is happening. I’m sorry for our family. I’m sorry for this community, and most importantly, I’m really sorry to the employees who have done so much for us over the past, you know, several decades.”

Molson Coors last week announced it will close the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. main brewing facility in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, which has been operating since 1867.

But, because nostalgia still pays, they will keep Leinie Lodge open. Visitors will still be able to sample beer, browse in the gift shop, and spend time in a mini-museum that showcases more than 150 years of brewing history. Everything they used to do while waiting to take a tour of the expansive brewery and grounds. That, obviously, will also be history.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK I

“[Cask beer] is something that has always been important to me. As soon as I was educated on cask beer, it was something that I knew was special. it’s something that’s not readily available, it’s something unique, that sets us apart from pretty much any brewery in Colorado, not to mention most breweries in the United States.”

— Robert Bell
From And Cask For All — Hogshead Brewery in Denver, Colorado

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LEDE OF THE WEEK
“Here,” says Ken Jauval. “You had a white bar and you had a black bar.”

Jauval is talking about the Breakspeare Arms in Brockley, Lewisham in South East London, which closed around the mid-90s. He is part of a large community in the area with Caribbean origins – Saint Lucian in his case – and is with his friend Kilroy Gladstone, who came to Britain in 1957 from Jamaica. Unlike Gladstone, Jauval has a London accent as you’d expect from anyone who grew up in this country from the age of nine and is aged 60 (he told me he was “nearly 60″ in August last year).

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Back side of Cannonball Creek Brewing T-shirt

First up, two links:
– Deschutes is an Underrated Treasure
– Cannonball Creek is best brewery you don’t know

As the headline on the first suggests, Jeff Alworth has written a tribute to the Deschutes breweries. I’m going to focus, instead, on something else he brings up, winning medals at the Great American Beer Festival. The Deschutes breweries (plural) have won 50 since 1990. Pretty impressive.

And the Portland brewpub won six in the last three years, a time frame Alworth focuses on, comparing what Deschutes has won with awards captured by 20 other “older, established regional breweries.” Also impressive. On the other hand, Deschutes won zero medals between 2015 and 2020 (six years).

Winning medals is not arbitrary, but it is very easy for an excellent brewery not to win. Figueroa Mountain Brewing in California and Cannonball Creek Brewing in Colorado have definitely beat the odds by winning a GABF medal every year since they opened. Figueroa Mountain, which operates multiple breweries, has won 14 years in a row. Cannonball Creek, close enough to our house that we share a ZIP code, 12 years in a row.

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Django Cervecería Artesanal, Quito, Ecuador

First, old business. Following up on “beer-flavored beer,” Jeff Alworth asks, “What Does Beer-Flavored Beer Taste Like?” Alan McLeod also expressed his opinion, in this case about “beer-flavoured beer.”

And now to new business, and the Beer Week That Was.

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LEDE OF THE WEEK

Two weeks after Hurricane Helene destroyed most of his brewery, Jonathan Chassner sat on his back porch and sipped a warm coffee. He also had a lead on where to find a hot shower later that day. Both felt like a balm at a time when his family still didn’t have running water — potable or flushable — at their Asheville, North Carolina, home.

Despite the small comforts, Chassner’s thoughts drifted to beer, and to his ravaged business on the banks of the French Broad River. He founded Zillicoah Beer Company, located two miles northwest of downtown Asheville in Woodfin, North Carolina, with his brother, Jeremy Chassner, and partner Jonathan Parks in 2017. The three built much of it themselves, cutting concrete and finishing bathrooms. The work then turned to brewing beer, primarily lagers, on a relatively low-tech, hands-on system. The trio preferred it this way.

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Thursday, Alan McLeod quoted Boak & Bailey (first paragraph) and then added his own thoughts, as is his habit.

B&B: The news of the return of the Great British Beer Festival did somewhat gladden our hearts, even though we don’t really like beer festivals, and haven’t always had a great time at GBBF. It just felt as if something was missing from the calendar this year when it didn’t happen. All the old problems will no doubt still apply, however: how do you make a big, drafty conference centre feel anything like as pleasant as a pub?

AM: Somehow I don’t believe they were thinking of “Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling and Mechanical Bull Riding” as the solution to that conundrum. Yee. Haw. We shall wait on reports from these events before issuing our final condemnations… err… thoughts.

Not many hours later, Daria and I were at the Great American Beer Festival. We walked by the wrestling, but did not stop. We never saw the bull riding. If you were looking for a specific brewery, the layout was at times confusing. But I liked that the “Fright” area was dimly (very dimly) lit, that the National Black Brewers Association area was much more prominently placed than last year, and the proximity of “Meet the Brewer” to Homebrew Headquarters.

So I thought, maybe they should rebrand the event as the Great American Beer Experience. Looking back at what Boak and/or Bailey wrote, I did not think, maybe even include a pub experience into the festival. That would be foolish. Instead, I considered that one beer experience does not fit all, and I happen to have photos from the weeks since I last posted anything other than an out of office message here.

The basic “Guinness Experience” (there are add-ons) rises through seven floors, finishing with a pint at the top, which offers a 360-degree view of the massive brewery and the surrounding neighborhood.

Some patrons at Helen’s Bar on the Beara Peninsula arrived and left by boat. We came and left by bike, and Guinness Zero seemed like the best option.

Several pubs in Dingle serve more than beer. We particularly enjoyed Foxy John’s Pub & Hardware store, which also rents bikes. This photo is from Dick Mack’s Brewery & Pub, which also sells leather goods.

A sideways few of brewers in the National Black Brewers Association area. Nine breweries were serving beer. A tenth black-owned brewery, Tapped 33, poured beer in the Meet the Brewer area.

YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY

– Because you might have realized there are still stories like this. Why beer is still changing and interesting. The kicker: “All that said, (Sarah) Real says she tries to keep brewing interesting for her across the board. ‘[It is about] where can I cross over [with my creations], or how can I say, ‘All right, I like what’s happening here. Should I tinker with it?’ Because I can absolutely tinker with a recipe forever. But I will also be like, ‘You know what? People like this one [as it is] or they like that one. Good. Let me start working on something else.’”

– “It is really the people here.” Why it makes sense for a brewery pub to close rather than pass into the hands of a new owner.

– Real ale as folk horror. “Beer loosens inhibitions. Beer puts people in touch with their animal instincts. Beer is magic.”

– 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 63. “Arguably the most famous state fair competition entry did not win a medal. It came from FOSSILS co-founder Barrie Ottersbach and was called ‘Smoked Spruce Ale,’ although some of the judges thought they detected Mr. Clean.”

– Un-diversifying. Tilray, the company which has been scooping up breweries that AB InBev and MillerCoors grew bored with, is planning to reduce the number of beers those breweries make. “We’re looking at how to take complexity out of our business.”

– What might Marcus Baskerville be up to? “An elevated bar and lounge experience with affordable cocktails and craft brews,”

* Should you wonder, the question in the title is a reference to a Todd Snyder song.