musing

Call it the six degrees of beer. Some days connections seem particularly easy to make.

What beer style would this be? “Yes, it’s true that a lot of rosés—too many, in fact—are insipid. Vacuous. Tasteless. As a category, it’s weak.” Despite the fact he writes for Wine Spectator, I think Matt Kramer asks really good questions. Like this one, respectfully edited, in his column about rosé wines.

“Allow me to take this one step further and ask: Do we now have too many wines [replace with the beverages of your choice] that demand involvement? Do you really want to listen only to symphonies? Is anything less than a symphonic blast of flavor and power somehow intrinsically lesser?”

Advice for the ‘extreme’ brewer?
“If you don’t have those moments where you go too far, then you’re probably not going far enough.” Vanity Fair profiles Andrew Mason, no that Andrew Mason but the founder of Groupon. Where do his ideas come from? He makes Sam Calagione look like he’s on center. How do you master the voice of the Groupon narrator? Lots in this long, long story so in case you don’t make it to the end, the final quote: “I love the idea of dying doing something that nobody cares about. I think that’s a cool idea.”

Mad Dog in the Fog remodeled?
I’m not sure how I feel about this. SF Weekly put the Dog among San Francisco’s “Top Five British Pubs” makes the list but notes “The recent remodel is controversial; it’s less of a dive.” That might not be good. And calling a pub in SF “British” is a little like calling a beer brewed in the U.S. “Belgian,” but that’s a different conversation.

Who do you trust?
Mike Veseth — author of the excellent book, Wine Wars: The Curse of the Blue Nun, The Miracle of Two Buck Chuck, and the Revenge of the Terroirists,” that I need to review — reports from the meetings of the American Association of Wine Economists in Bolzano, Italy. More proof that wine judges at major competitions are not very consistent. What do you think a similar study related to beer judging would show? And would it matter? Because Veseth provides a bottom line: “The research presented in Bolzano suggests that there are limits to how much we do trust and how much we should trust wine critics and judges. The power of critics to shape the world of wine may be overstated or, as Andrew Jefford notes in the current issue of Decanter, simply over-generalized. ‘Opinion-formers are highly significant — for a tiny segment of the wine-drinking population.’ he writes. ‘They remain irrelevant for most drinkers.'”

Blogging tip of the week
If blogging is to be a conversation then readers need to be able to comment. Insisting that comments be approved kills the conversation. Yes, spammers will show up, and as smart at Akismet is, occasionally they’ll sneak a comment through (in June that happened 25 times here, while Akismet shot down 45,351 attempts). But those are usually on old, seldom visited posts and pretty easy to spot; a lot easier that checking every few minutes to see if there is a new comment that needs approving. Rather than picking on anybody in particular I’ll also add it seems particularly strange to broadcast a question via Twitter, then ask readers to jump through assorted hoops to leave a comment and see that comment languish for minutes, hours, days. End of conversation.

The folks at Wikio sent me their latest beer blogging rankings to preview for you, so this seems like a good time to throw together a bunch of stuff about beer blogging and tweeting before getting back to beer and topics more aligned with the alleged mission here.

First, Wikio.* I’ve included the previous month’s ranking in parenthesis, a la Jay Brooks. If I understand the note from Florian Saugues at Wikio correctly Jay will post the rankings regularly beginning next month. Makes sense, since his blog is consistently No. 1 or No. 2 — why not put the list where the most people will see it? — and he always has a bit of interesting commentary.

Ranking made by Wikio

Second, who’s got Klout? Nope, I hadn’t heard of Klout either, but according to Klout itself, it measures overall online influence, using “over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability* and Network Score.”

* “Amplification Probability is the likelihood that your content will be acted upon. The ability to create content that compels others to respond and high-velocity content that spreads into networks beyond your own is a key component of influence.” Duck — here comes some high velocity content.

Anyway, Klout’s list of “Top 10 Influencers On Beer.” I’ve inserted links for Twitter pages. You are on your own with Facebook. The categories are Klout’s.

1   Mariah Calagione (thought leader)
2   Ashley Routson (thought leader)
3   Lee Williams (thought leader)
4   Sierra Nevada Beer (networker)
5   Magic Hat Brewing (broadcaster)
6   Victory Brewing (broadcaster)
7   Flying Dog Brewery (networkers)
8   AbbeyStMartin Beer (specialist)
9   DRAFT Magazine: Beer (thought leader)
10 Beer 47 (networker)

Third, Fred, hops and a few of my friends. Another party I’ll be missing this year would be the 2011 North American Beer Bloggers Conference. I do wish I could be spend August 19-21 in Portland, Oregon. And I know I get no sympathy from you when I explain I’ll be getting up early in Wolnzach, Germany, to begin the long trip home after three-plus weeks of hop-related research in England, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

But, dang, it would be nice to hear what Fred Eckhardt has to tell beer bloggers. And to make the trip down to the hop fields (no, its simply not possible to spend to0 much time hanging out with hop farmers). And to figure out if the PDX Beer Bloggers Twitter feed has any earthly value.

Here’ the scientific study.

Here’s the key finding:

Water consumption had no effect on human attractiveness to An. gambiae mosquitoes, but beer consumption increased volunteer attractiveness. Body odours of volunteers who consumed beer increased mosquito activation (proportion of mosquitoes engaging in take-off and up-wind flight) and orientation (proportion of mosquitoes flying towards volunteers’ odours). The level of exhaled carbon dioxide and body temperature had no effect on human attractiveness to mosquitoes. Despite individual volunteer variation, beer consumption consistently increased attractiveness to mosquitoes.

No, seriously. Because “these results suggest that beer consumption is a risk factor for malaria and needs to be integrated into public health policies for the design of control measures.”

But moving on to a bit of whimsy. What if mosquitoes have some form of quick communication, à la Twitter? You think one might buzz his or her fellow biting buddies that “the one is the red shirt is balanced toward malt” or the “arms of the one nearest the beer cooler taste of citrus and pine”?

And, from a public health standpoint, wouldn’t it be good to know of mosquitoes prefer hoppy beer drinkers, extreme beer drinkers . . .

Some people will actually tell you they hate New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale. It’s complicated, and I really just want to pass along a few numbers, so I’ll simply says it seems silly to me, but it’s their energy.

Fact is that as New Belgium drives deeper into the East Coast this year it will be Fat Tire drinkers ask for first. (Witness this photo taken in South Carolina before New Belgium entered the state. The owners posted the sign in self defense.)

Some interesting figures emerged last week in the run up to the brewery’s twentieth anniversary on Tuesday. Although overall production increased 13% last year, to 661,000 31-gallon barrels, Fat Tire sales grew only 2%.

According to Impact Databank, Fat Tire accounted for 70% of New Belgium sales in 2008, 67% in 2009 and 60% in 2010. The biggest change last year was the introduction of Ranger IPA. New Belgium sold more than 50,000 barrels in 2010, 8% of production, more Ranger IPA than its well known neighbor, Odell Brewing, made in total.

“Everything’s going up.”

Bill Night updates his Portland Beer Price Index. “Two pubs raised their draft prices this quarter, and the six-pack and bomber prices are not surprisingly continuing an upward trend.”

I’m pretty sure it’s not just happening in Portland,Oregon.

* Speaking of beer prices, SaveOnBrew.com is an interesting notion but right now appears to be more useful when shopping for a deal on Stag rather than where to find Goose Island IPA and how much it might cost. What direction will it grow?

* The neighborhood pub. Several worthy ideas at the KC Beer Blog and one comment that I have to pass along: “I haven’t met a bar that managed to infect the bottles yet.” But they can subject them to lighting that skunks the beer inside (even brown bottles) or fail to rotate stock or otherwise keep it fresh.

* The Farmery will be Canada’s first estate brewery. Challenges ahead, as nicely summarized in the Winnipeg Free Press: “They’re betting the farm on estate brewery.”

* A press release announcing a new brewery for Los Angeles, Golden Road Brewing (actually in North Atwater Village), explains it will be laid out in a three-building campus. “The distinctive primary colored buildings are easy to spot, just off Interstate 5 and Highway 134. The blue building will be production, the red building will be barrel room & storage and the yellow building will be for offices, on-site sales, and eventually a pub and beer garden.” It’s supposed to open in the fall. Personally, I figure if you are going to go to the trouble of color coding your buildings you might as well have them change with the seasons.

*Merchant du Vin, one of the first distributors of specialty beers to launch a web site (like maybe pre-Google), has redesigned its site. Pretty easy to find the basic specs on any of it’s beers. More impressive: “Find Our Beer” actually works.

* Yuengling wasn’t already in Ohio? That’s a bet I would have lost. Apparently Ohio residents still drive to the Pennsylvania border to buy the beer.

* Just plain stupid. Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery in Ontario claims Alpha-fornication contains “2500 IBUs (International Bitterness Units) and 13.3% ABV.” That’s about 2,400 bitterness units beyond possible.