monday links

“Well, the first shot I got was in a dynamite truck
The driver kept me telling me his bad luck
As we swerved around the curves I began to shout
I said, hey-ey mister would you let me out?
I had my hopes up high, I never thought that I
Would ever wonder why I ever said good bye
I had my hopes up high

– Joe Ely, “I Had My Hopes Up High” (click to listen)

Another week of beer news and conjecture. Another week of high hopes and dashed hopes.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Even if you have really incredible beer and an incredible space and an incredible community, it’s still very challenging to operate during this time.”

          — Massachusetts Brewers Guild executive director Katie Stinchon
From Why so many Mass. breweries are closing (and what you can do about it)

LEDE OF THE WEEK

One Christmas Eve in the late 19th century, the family on the Hovland farm in Hardanger, Norway, was sitting down for a festive dinner. The food was on the table, the candles were lit, and the big wooden mug was full of beer.

Then, suddenly, enormous hands appeared between the logs from which their house was built, tilting one side of the house into the air. In the gap between the logs, they could see giant eyes staring at them, glittering in the candlelight.

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Early on in this business story about Tilray brands, Dave Infante mentions a third wave of craft beer. I understand. Sales of beer from non-mega breweries surged into the late 90s, backed off, surged again into the teens, and now the hunt is on, as Infante writes, for a new story.

Yes, but, let’s talk about generations rather than waves. How old were you when Sierra Nevada Brewing began selling beer? Dogfish Head? Creature Comforts? Or, put another way, how old was Great Lakes Brewing when Off Color Brewing opened? It’s been more than 18 years since Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione and four like-minded brewers traveled to and around Belgium, sharing their beers.

Each of them began their brewing careers between 1993 and 1996. When they returned I asked them if Anchor Brewing Sierra Nevada Brewing represented the first generation of something new, what generation did they think they were part of. The answers:

Adam Avery, Avery Brewing: “I’d say I was second generation when I started out. Hog Heaven (barley wine first brewed in 1997) really put us on the map, but our sales were still declining between 1998 and 2000. Then we made The Reverend for the first time, we started doing the series of threes (all extreme beers) and now we’ve got 19 beers we’re brewing at least once a year, third generation stuff.”

Tomme Arthur, Lost Abbey Brewing: “I’ve been at this for 10 years now and I have always considered myself to be one of the first third generation guys. I say this because I am very comfortable in my surroundings; I know a ton of the second-generation guys very well (Dick Cantwell, Fal Allen, Phil Markowski, Garrett Oliver, el al.). I believe . . . they would all view me as a younger version of them. So, third generation it is.”

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We left home early last week and are still traveling. The photo above was taken at Structures Brewing in Bellingham, Washington, where we had an excellent lunch and outstanding beers in their waterside restaurant. The tap handles are made of cattle bones.

Things seemed quiet in the beerblogosphere, giving me an excuse to link to this from The History of the Web. Beyond reminding us of the distinction between “free beer” and “freedom of speech” there is a call action.

“Put something on the web. And do it for free.

“This will require, first and foremost, your time. That is no small ask, time is the most valuable thing we have. But I can tell you one thing that’s become readily apparent to me in my decade of research of the web. It is only through people’s time that we’ve gotten to where we are.

“Here’s the thing about you. You know something nobody else does. You have a perspective that nobody else does. Information doesn’t have to just be information, it can be whatever you want it to be. Start a blog. Post an art project. Write a poem. Create a fan page. Contribute to a Wikipedia article you know something about. These little actions, these little contributions, are the best way we have to claw back to a truly free web.”

To this I will add a couple of quotes from “The Freaks Come Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper that Changed American Culture.”

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QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“Malting is about getting the barley to do what it wants to do in the field, but on our terms.”

          — Will Durrant, Bairds Malt
From Some Kind of Wizardry — Malting, Climate and the Future of Barley at Baird’s Malt

People still “miss the good old days of being in a cowboy town where they’re used to having a $5 pint.”

          — Jaime Torres, taproom manager at Silva Brewing
From Why a Famed California Brewery is Going Under

LEDE OF THE WEEK

I remember the first time I went to Banana Jam Café. It was 2011 and we were broke – a freelance writer and a Master’s student saving for a wedding. We used to walk straight past the bright yellow façade of the Kenilworth-based Caribbean restaurant to drink pints of Castle Lager for R12.50 in Hobnobs, the sports pub next door. Then one day we spotted a sign outside Banana Jam advertising free craft beer tastings.

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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.

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?

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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