I type Andy Tveekrem is headed home and you know the city.
Drum roll, please. The link to the news that includes the answer. It’ll be a new brewery. One of the owners was backpacking in Thailand when he learned Tveekrem would be available and immediately e-mailed his partners. Amazing what happens when you can get wi-fi in Bangkok.
Bonus points if know where Bill Morgan (formerly brewer at the former Diamondback Brewing in the same city) might be.
If you don’t already think that Conan O’Brien can be brilliant go back and watch Season 4 of The Simpsons. He was the producer for some of the very best episodes. But perhaps the Simpsons aren’t for you . . . and perhaps you’re still pissed off at O’Brien because he twice seemed less than cordial to Michael Jackson when Jackson appeared on his show (here’s Jackson’s account of the first).
But let’s agree that O’Brien is a popular niche product. So are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but they’ve earned a spot in our culture at least equal to “microbrews.” I didn’t have a beer in hand the other day read David Carr’s analysis in The New York Times the mess NBC has made of “The Tonight Show” franchise, but I might have had my beer goggles on.
In the old paradigm, networks operated from Olympian heights, but with cable outlets multiplying, a network’s size and mass audience are not always an advantage. While cable networks can pick and choose their spots, building discrete successes while living off a combination of fees and advertising, broadcast networks are at the top of a huge ecosystem where their every move lands forcefully on affiliated locals.
In a country this size a niche can be pretty big. Big enough that large companies, some of them breweries, will start to covet that share. They need to be careful how they go after it.
The message to the younger talent is one thing — wait for a turn that may never come or may be taken back at any second — but the message to younger audiences is even clearer: a legacy industry will default to legacy assets and ride them down to the bitter end . . . .
Twitter nation was livid, of course. “Nice work NBC. Take out the only late night host my age range and younger will even consider watching,” said @MatthewJBrown, Tweeting the sentiments of many.
Based on the times Jackson appeared on O’Brien’s show it seems he might not understand this analogy:
He clearly isn’t Miller Lite. He might not be Blue Moon White or Samuel Adams Boston Lager. But he’s bigger and more real than Duff.
Beer for Chicks has posted the round up for Session #35: New Beer’s Resolutions, a combination of 2009 highlights, occasional lowlights and actual resolutions . . . and already it is time to think about Session #36 on Feb. 5.
Because host Tom Cizauskas expects us to take it seriously. The topic: Cask-conditioned ale.
Above all, let’s have perspective folks, perspective! Cask-conditioned ale is not a matter of life and death; it’s much more.
He means it. There will be no showing up for class Feb. 5 and telling the teacher you couldn’t come up with an idea related to the topic because he’s supplied a long list of potential topics: make it about lifestyle, culture, ale vs. lager, saison (really!). . . “Make it a sad story. Make it a love story.”
Did I mention my first beer of 2010 was cask-conditioned Big Sky IPA Papago Brewing in Scottsdale? If you’d told me in 1996 at the first Real Ale Festival in Chicago that 13-plus years later I’d be sitting in a bar in Arizona drinking a cask-conditioned beer from Montana (you might know Big Sky Brewing better for Moose Drool) I’d have suggested that chances were better somebody would invent something called Facebook, where festival cellarmaster Steve Hamburg and I would be friends.
This is going to be fun.
Questions to consider on a Monday morning: Is there life after beer blogging? What trend did Rock Art Brewery set?
See you in 2010, but since you stopped by I’ll leave you with a few beery links.
I had planned to riff a bit on “world classic” and “world class” beers, but that’s going to have to wait until a few days into the New Year. I decided to give my brain an early Christmas present: no thinking today (don’t say it, Alan). Then we’re traveling for a bit after Christmas. While I’ll give it a shot to have a post Jan. 1 as part of The Session regular blogging won’t resume until at least Jan. 4.
Happy holidays, don’t drink too much too often, and stay safe.
The links:
The reaction in the U.K.? Pete Brown loves the idea, but Woolpack Dave would rather support BrewDog (a partner with Stone in brewing collaborations). Check out the whole conversation.