monday links

Monday beer links: Because we ask a lot of this drink

BEER AND WINE LINKS 02.26.18

At the end of his mid-week collection of beery links and thoughts Thursday Alan McLeod mentioned “this finite set of stories” that he, Boak & Bailey and I choose from each week. It is one reason I am always excited to see Saturday and Sunday posts, because I get the first chance to comment on them. Conversely, I might delete as story I saved earlier in the week because I expect you to read AGBB and B&B every week and I am already redundant enough.

Keg delivery at Market Porter in London
But some stories deserve to be pointed to time and time again, such as Misogynistic Beer Imagery: Aesthetic, Narratives, Contexts, so we’ll start there. And some kindle a memory. In this case it was casks being delivered at Market Porter in London, which is central to a story about a time when more people visited a pub at the beginning of the day.

Read more

Monday links: Balance, in commerce & community, as well as beer

BEER AND WINE LINKS 02.19.18

The Craft of Balance.
This feels like a Noah’s Ark issue of beer links, with many related stories, mostly in pairs. But before getting to those, in my favorite of the week Pete Brown writes about balance.

My wife Liz has much lower tolerance for chill heat than me. She had a tiny spoonful of it, and just managed to say ‘That’s gorgeous” before the screaming started. ‘Never bring that near me again,” she said between gulps of water. But a couple of days later, when I heated up the last of it for my dinner, she couldn’t resist having another taste. She knew it was going to hurt, but she was compelled to try the incredible depth and layering of flavour once more.’

Ale better: how craft beer found its mission.
The Business of Inclusion — Beer’s Unique Intersection of Community and Commerce.
Craft brewers seek to involve more African Americans.
The headline from Good Beer Hunting (second link) states what seems so obvious that you wonder why more breweries aren’t more proactive about making their businesses more diverse for simple economic reasons. Their responsibilities to communities they expect to support them should be equally obvious.

Read more

Monday links: Real pubs, Southern Beer & under the influence

BEER AND WINE LINKS 02.12.18

Roger Baylor is returning to the publican game. And he is bringing his opinions.

To be honest, I don’t care how much a customer thinks he or she knows following a quick electronic glance at the empty mental calories on Thrillist. Remember: miles wide, millimeters deep. The customer might yet be right, though not until I’m finished framing the options. No single person can know everything, but it is the obligation of all involved in the sale of better beer to possess an ability to explain and conceptualize.

In a story at Insider Louisville Baylor’s partner, Joe Phillips, says, “We’re going to resurrect the spirit of what a real pub is.”

Read more

Monday beer links: Diversity, more diversity, and supertasters

BEER AND WINE LINKS 02.05.18

Diversity doesn’t happen by accident. If you somehow missed this terrific post from Melissa Cole, read it now. Think about how to support change, and the people who have been in the trenches for year. Think about how to initiate change. Nieman Labs points out that a lot of publications are paying lip service to inclusiveness and diversity. Outside is actually doing it.

Read more

Monday beer links: The future of blogs and hops

BEER AND WINE LINKS 01.29.18

Earlier this month, The Awl and The Hairpin — neither of them sites to turn to regularly for words about beer — announced they would shut down. Last week, Eater recapped the troubled state of food media — where we can find words about beer (but only if they stay in business). And over the weekend, Jeff Alworth reacted to a suggestion in The New Yorker that blogging is disappearing by suggesting “Beer blogs are far from dead; in fact, one could argue they’re more indispensable than ever.”

I try to spend zero time thinking about “is that a blog (or something else)?” when choosing what to link to here, leaning mostly on rss feeds and secondarily on Twitter. The raison d’être of the exercise the results in almost regular Monday posts here is point to collections of words, usually somehow related to beer, that are worth your time because they provide as sideways view. If one of them was a beer you might tilt that glass, see how the light catches what’s inside, survey the foam, and take another drink. But Alworth also inserted the suggestion that “Blogs will save us” in the midst of this Twitter exchange, which itself offers much to think about.

Read more