Monday links to beer stories you can hum along to

New Or;eans Jazz and Heritage Festival 2023

With apologies to Steely Dan, Pete Seeger, The Killers, Archie & Edith, The Drifters and Bob Dylan.

Boston Rag
“It’s also worth noting that the places that seem to charge the most exorbitant prices have something in common: they don’t put their beer prices on their menu (let alone on their website or even their Untappd menu as a verified venue). It’s like they’re actually ashamed how much they’re charging and know that if we saw those prices ahead of time, we wouldn’t order as much beer. Take a freaking hint: if you actively hide your prices from customers, you’re probably overcharging them!”

Where have all the draft lines gone?
Gone to cocktails everyone. Well, not everyone. But consider this, “Where there were fewer than 1,500 draft lines in the U.S. dedicated to non-beer products before the pandemic, there are now roughly 10,000, according to Draftline Data, which provides data and analytics for beer distributors.”

Ooh, baby, we’re a dying breed
“Abick’s was one of about a dozen surviving third-shift bars—establishments that open early in the morning to accommodate workers whose shifts typically run from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.—that dot the Detroit area, down from what was likely a few hundred during the 1950s manufacturing boom. . . . With vastly fewer late-night shifts at fewer manufacturing plants across the industrial Midwest, many once-busy early-morning bar owners face the same predicament.”

Those were the days
“When did you last see underage drinkers even try to get served in a pub? It’s what you might call a dying tradition.”

Don’t forget who’s taking you home
Save the last dance style for me. “None of these beer styles are truly extinct or even remotely in danger of going extinct. Why? Simply put, thanks to craft beer. Starting in the US, but now really all over the world, there are countless beer nerds who truly care about these old beer types, some rebrew them at home, others brew them commercially, making these beers that were definitely at the brink of extinction better known to beer drinkers all around the world.”

Gotta serve somebody
Kloster Ettal, a “Benedictine monastery was founded in 1330 by Ludwig the Bavarian, but its present form dates to the high Baroque. Following a fire in the mid-1700s, architects and artists orchestrated a symphony of white, gold, and coral-coloured marble crowned by a frescoed dome representing the skies opened to heaven. Ettal was already one of the Alpine region’s significant monasteries; with its Baroque rebirth, it only grew in stature as a place of pilgrimage. Pilgrims need lodging, food, and drink, and the monks have obliged for centuries. The Klosterbrauerei Ettal was founded in 1609. Monks still helm the brewery, offering a small selection of traditional beers.”

Monday beer reading: Siths, ramsquaddled & lenten beer

Programing note: Plenty of words here this week. You might save some for March 4. It will be quiet here then. Perhaps a few photos from the traventine terraces at Yellowstone National Park here or on Instagram. But don’t count on anything timely. Yellowstone does not make internet service a high priority.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zymurgy magazine, March/April 2024

As soon as I finished listening to John Holl’s conversation with American Homebrewers Association executive director Julia Herz last week Spotify took me back to music and Molly Tuttle singing “Next Rodeo,” which begins “Well, this ain’t my first rodeo.”

First, what Holl and Herz are talking about:

“Homebrewing has been a source of passionate online chatter over the last week after the American Homebrewers Association announced it would put its annual Homebrew Con on ‘hiatus’ in favor of smaller events and demonstrations located within the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.”

Take the time to listen. Now, about what connects the challenge Herz faces to Tuttle’s song. I will spare you the long version. In December, Good Beer Hunting asked, “What Happens When Craft Beer and Homebrewing Decouple?”

In it, Herz says, “One of the biggest things I’m asked from homebrew club leaders is: How do we attract more young people and women to brew? How do we diversify?”

It will be their first rodeo.

ON WRITING

A life in beer: Invisible gods
and
Who returns a half-read book to Amazon?

Jeff Alworth buried the lead in “A life in beer,” waiting until the last paragraph to write, “I’d like to interrogate my life the way I do breweries, trying to figure out where its meaning lies.” I’m not sure what to expect, but I will be there to watch read.

After Jonathan Eig received a “snarky and arrogant and rude” letter critiquing “King: A life,” his friend Jeff Pearlman reached out to a couple dozen other writers and asked them how they would respond. Some fun reading, as well as interesting insights into how writers may respond to criticism (deserved or otherwise).

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Drinking note of the week: ‘Pandora’s box without the hope’
But maybe not the IPA of the week. “A hard, yeasty grit suffuses the flavour in a most unpleasant and unwelcome way. Chalk and boiled vegetables hit first: dry and earthy with a strong and rough bitterness. Some softer peach and banana flashes briefly before the sharp dregs take over once more, seeing us out into a mercifully short finish. . . . Regardless, it’s a poor example of this kind of double IPA, gathering together all the features I dislike and then releasing them simultaneously. Pandora’s box without the hope.”

Lede of the week
“A long time ago, during a time in the craft beer industry that seems far far away, breweries couldn’t keep up with demand. The Sith macro brands were being challenged by rebel start-ups assembling a selling story that included smaller batches, bigger flavor, freshness, and locally made, taking aim at 20% market share by 2020. Camaraderie within this resistance quickly became fractured leading to a period of IPA Wars and many of craft beer’s strongest allies giving in to the dark side. In 2024, the universe remains in a chaotic state of war with craft breweries now seeking out more sophisticated weaponry as they focus simultaneously on attacking the Sith with premium lagers, while improving their own position within the ranks of the rebel craft beer alliance.”

FYI, the post is about beer data, and business oriented. The next is really about business, as well.

Got bacon? Lessons for the wine beer industry
“The product had a long history and was well-loved in America and around the world. But the industry itself was in crisis. Demand was down. Part of the problem was health concerns and part of it was price (its retail price was higher than the most popular substitute). Worse of all, younger consumers were turning away.”

– Lesson One: Re-Education is Difficult
– Lesson Two: The Perils of Generic Marketing
– Lesson Three: Innovation
– The Folly of Complacency

Can any English word be turned into a synonym for drunk?
“Benjamin Franklin got into the act with his 1737 Drinker’s Dictionary, listing 288 words and phrases for denoting drunkenness. By 1975, there were more than 353 synonyms for ‘drunk’ listed in that year’s edition of the Dictionary of American Slang. By 1981, linguist Harry Levine noted 900 terms used as drunkonyms.

“So the sheer number of drunkonyms has been increasing, with BBC culture reporter Susie Dent estimating in 2017 that there are some 3,000 English slang synonyms for being drunk, including ‘ramsquaddled,’ ‘obfusticated,’ ‘tight as a tick,’ and ‘been too free with Sir Richard.'”

A diocese and brewery collaboration – feeding the homeless
“All we need to do is look to the cross. So if the joy of Lent can be found in a beer while feeding the hungry and giving shelter to the homeless, I think God is being glorified in all things.”

Chimay has its own dedicated four tap tower
“It’s 10am on a cold but sunny day in Baltimore, Maryland and I am in line with a few dozen other folks. We are waiting for beer. Modern beer thinking would have you believe we are waiting for the release of a hazy IPA or a barrel aged adjunct stout, but that would be false. We are waiting for Belgian beer.”

A love letter to public libraries
I too have a New York Public Library card, but the real reason I am passing this along to add to the discussion earlier this month about third places.

AND FROM X
A lengthy thread (click on date to open it up) that would have made a fine blog post.

Monday beer reading: The more things change . . .

Craft beer sales- charted

1) Is there a craft beer bubble? Minnesota brewers say there’s room for everyone, but some taprooms face uncertainty

2) How Fair State Brewing Hit Bankruptcy, and How It Plans to Fight Through It

3) Craft Beer Has Been Flat for Eight Years, and Other Notes

4 What we’ve gained and what we’ve lost in a decade of British beer

The first story is behind a paywall, but I found a way around it and you may as well. If not, OK, because in the second, Fair State co-founder Evan Sallee does a better job of answering the question anyway:

“Even talking about a “craft beer bubble” has been a pet peeve of mine. Craft beer is not a bubble; bubbles are a special thing where prices are inflated, and disconnected from the underlying market. Whereas the growth of craft beer has been driven by a consumer demand revolution. There are a lot of breweries competing for limited consumers, but that does not a bubble make.”

The chart at the top draws on slightly different data than Jeff Alworth uses in No. 3. John I. Haas CEO Tom Davis shared it at the American Hop Convention. It tracks production from Brewers Association defined craft breweries plus brands once classified as craft that are now owned by large breweries. The pink on the right represents barrels of beer that would have been sold had sales simply gone flat in 2020, rather than declining, not completely recovering, then declining again. Obviously, that matters a lot to hop growers. When barrels aren’t brewed then hops aren’t used. In this case, about 20 million pounds of them.

Two thoughts. First, indeed, little difference between production in 2015 and 2023. Second, if you draw an arrow from the top of the bar at 2015 to 2019 it looks much different than an arrow drawn from the top of 2019 to 2023. Production might be the same, but something different is going on.

Finally, I haven’t seen figures that compare British craft production in 2015 and today, but Boak & Bailey’s then and now illustrates what happens over time. Additionally, it is a reminder of how beer blogging has changed. This is the sort of post that 10 years ago would have inspired more of the same.

What would you pick from 2014 to pair with thiolized yeast, with hop water, with 19.2-ounce cans?

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How Does a Brewery Move Forward After a Racist Incident?
More out of the Twin Cities. “56 Brewing is still navigating the ramifications of the incident nearly three years on. (Their) story of moving forward with purpose and success in an unforgiving digital landscape is a sound roadmap after a devastating incident.”

Does European beer have an American flavour?
If so, shouldn’t it be spelled “flavor?” Anyway, the premise: “Last year, through a combination of luck, obligation and planning, I managed to visit a random selection of bars and breweries in some of Western Europe’s major and major-ish cities (Copenhagen, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, and Glasgow). In and of themselves, they’re not particularly interesting; as a set, they arguably illustrate some different ways in which craft beer has landed in related but different cultures.”

This Is Senne’s Valley
“I really dislike if your aroma and your body don’t combine together,” says Senne Eylenbosch, talking about blending. “If it’s too fruity in the nose, and it’s too slow-drinking in the body—because body is also one of the reasons that something is very slow drinking—it fights. It’s not good when the aroma is not in character together with the body.”

Homebrew – Cheaper than the Pub?
Plenty of math in this post. “One thing though that is really clear to me from this little exercise is that ingredients are not the bulk of the cost of making the beer, it is a the people, equipment, and place to do so.”

Monday beer reading: Revolution, evolution & education

Craft beer openings and closings

This graph from a presentation at the recent American Hop Convention confirms that a small brewery closes almost every day somewhere in the United States. Last week, Black Narrows Brewing in Virginia used Facebook to announce it will be one of them, next Sunday will be its last day in business.

Alistair Reece writes that this is a loss for Virginia, and also points to a story he wrote for Pellicle.

It feels like it is a loss for all of us. I have had a couple of brief conversations with Black Narrows founder Josh Chapman and longer exchanges via email. Brewing beer that reflected the place it comes from seemed to come naturally to him. Black Narrows was on a short list of breweries I hope to visit, perhaps the coming summer, so I am selfishly sad. The possible good news is a hint from D.C. Beer that “Chapman probably isn’t done brewing on the Delmarva peninsula. Stay tuned . . .”

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First, two headlines. “Fight the Power — How Craft Malt Is Central to Taking On Beer’s Industrial Complex” and “This beer is so popular that brewers are sick of it” read like click bait.

The second is behind a paywall. I get the impression it goes back to a list of overrated beer styles, which was really a list of styles industry members apparently don’t like. I am reminded of the quote usually credited to Yogi Berra although he was not the first to say it: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

When Alan McLeod linked to the first, he added a footnote that, “The whole idea of craft beer is taking on industrial beer like it’s, you know, 2011 or so, is sweet and nostalgic and charming and all.” I signaled my agreement at Bluesky, leading him to add that we should remember that authors don’t write headlines.

I wrote what I had to about craft malting last June. Actually, I let Jeff Bloem at Murphy & Rude Malting Co., who provided malt to Black Narrows, lay the foundation. At the time I asked if craft maltsters are agents of change, without adding my opinion. I think they are, just as brewers like Josh Chapman are. But they aren’t taking down beer’s industrial complex any time soon.

A Creative Boom Led to Many IPA Busts
This was a subhead within a story in which Josh Bernstein confesses his book, “Complete IPA,” serves as “a half-finished time capsule filled with bright ideas gone dark.” I do not miss brut IPA, a “style” so short lived that it did not earn a capital B. I started to type “I do miss bracingly bitter,” but a) I admit there is a difference between bracing and abrasive, and b) to complain when I have no problem finding Russian River Blind Pig, Comrade Superpower and whatever Cannonball Creek is pouring with IPA in the name would be obnoxious.

How much beer did a 19th century farmer-brewer brew?
That’s not the only question Martyn Cornell has. “Given those figures, it is not surprising to find that a fair number of farmers who brewed for themselves and their workers did indeed cross over into commercial brewing,” he writes before posing his question. “What the figures are nationally for farmers becoming commercial brewers I don’t know . . . anyone want to do the research?”

Rogue’s slow, deliberate reinvention
Jeff Alworth points out that Rogue has a flagship beer that is older (at 32 years) than many of the drinkers it hopes to attract. In its early days, the personality of the brand reflected those of founder Jack Joyce and brewmaster John Maier. Now Rogue has a “tighter focus and more conventional approach to beer” and has “started making more accomplished, modern beer, including IPAs, which they had strangely never seriously pursued.” Strange indeed.

#YearOfTheLager
“No style trend in recent memory has unified the highly segmented US beer fan more (than Czech Lager),” Doug Veliky writes. Noteworthy is the fact this post is sponsored by Czechvar (Budvar in Czechia, but not called that here because Budweiser won that court battle). #YearOfTheLager comes with a downloadable guide, an online seminar and more.

This piggybacks with promotions begun in the mid-teens by the Czech government. The Czech Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Ministry of Agriculture have organized a “Brewing Like Czechs Do” project for several years, working in partnership with Czech hop growers. Last month, Alworth wrote, “I’ve always wondered why Americans knew so little about Czech beer.” That’s changing.

Cartoons on an IPA can? Dover NH teens say frothy beer labels need to sober up
“I don’t like being targeted by the industry. I don’t like seeing my peers ruin their brains and their livers at like 14 and 15 because they’re binge drinking. It’s just a problem.”

On the other hand . . . recall Flying Dog won went to court to keep states from banning sales of its beer Raging Bitch or from including the words “Good Beer, No Shit” on its labels.