musing

Three faces of authenticity (and the diddley-bow)

Today’s post is part of #BeeryLongReads2020. Look for the hashtag on Twitter or visit BoakandBailey.com to find more long reads. Also, note that I’ve embedded tweets, but also included the words in the story for those who may not see the embeds.

About a week ago, Jenny Pfäfflin—a beer, baseball and Danish hot dog enthusiast who happens to be exam manager for @cicerone—tweeted, “I pretty much lean into tradition when it comes to beer and brewing—because it’s what I’m interested in—but the discussion around ‘authenticity’ is often exhausting. That somehow, if it isn’t ‘authentic,’ it isn’t good. And who bears the right to deem something authentic anyway?”

Perhaps authenticity is worth considering within the context of music.

*****

Lonnie Pitchford, who was listed among the artists who would be playing Delta blues on this steamy 1992 August night, slid himself onto a barstool somewhat unsteadily and ordered a cocktail. A fan approached him cautiously to ask what time he expected he’d make it to the small stage at the Rivermount Lounge in Clarksdale, Mississippi. R.L. Burnside has just finished and The Jelly Roll Kings were setting up.

“Nah. Can’t. I’m messed up,” Pitchford said. “Tomorrow.”

Read more

Significant beer digits V (and some Monday links)

The longest-ever bull market ended last week. When it began — March 9, 2009 — there were about 1,550 breweries in the country. (About because the Brewers Association count at the end of 2008 has been revised a few times, and the official total is now 1,523 at the end of 2008 and 1,600 at the end of 2009).

Since then about 7,500 have opened, and about 1,300 have closed. (About because the BA has not released final 2019 totals.)

That’s 7,500, or so, breweries that have only sold their beer while the economy was expanding . . . and, of course, before social distancing.

Almost 3,000 of the country’s 8,000-plus breweries are brewery-restaurants. A good portion of the others are breweries with taprooms, in some cases earning most of their income from what they sell across the bar. Social distancing was not in their business plan.

Further reading:

– What COVID-19 Means for the Beer Industry’s Frontline Staff

– Beer industry watches and waits as coronavirus epidemic unfolds

– Coronavirus Impact on Beer Industry: Taproom Closures, Event Cancellations

– ProBrewer Wants To Help In This Crisis — Let’s Talk

– Brewers Association’s Bob Pease Discusses The Road Ahead for Small Brewers

– The Coronavirus Cost to Business and Workers: ‘It Has All Gone to Hell’

– The Dos and Don’ts of Social Distancing

– “A single person’s behavior can cause ripple effects that touch faraway people”

– Game Theory of Social Distancing in Response to an Epidemic

AND FROM TWITTER

Why look for reasons not to like a beer?

In Drink Better Beer, author Josh Bernstein writes about spending a day with the sensory panel at Allagash Brewing in Maine, acting briefly as a panelist himself.

I ponder my sample of White, the brewery’s flagship witbier, which should taste slightly sweet and sour, mildly bitter, and faintly of minerals. “Tastes overly harsh,” I write in the iPad set up with sensory software from DaughtLab, which collects data on panelists’ impressions. “Too astringent.” I move on to the Belgian-style Tripel, a beer evocative of honey, bubble game, grapes, and green apples. “This is a sourness I don’t love,” I write. The coffee-infused James Bean, a triple aged in bourbon barrels, has a “drying sourness that turns me off,” while the smoothly malty House Beer hits its pear and grapefruit notes.

Whow, that was a lot of flawed beer, I think.

Except, it turns out only the Tripel was adulterated, dosed with acetic acid.

Later Bernstein tastes three different samples of White, and documents the flaws in each. Except, it turns out two are flawless, and in fact, the same beer. “It’s a combination that I use often with guests and new tasters to show when they are overly critical,” says Karl Arnberg, who manages the sensory program as Allagash.

Think about it for a moment. Why look for reasons not to like a beer? No doubt, quality is important. That’s why Bernstein invested a day in Portland, Maine. There’s good reason for those in the beer business to learn to identify what are classified as off flavors, and it useful to some to understand what causes them.

Read more

A few words about words about beer

The Unicode Technical Committee recently announced it would not add a white-wine emoji to Unicode’s standard emoji mix, despite a 19-page proposal and well-organized petition campaign supported by winemaker Kendall-Jackson.

“If certain news outlets are to be believed, white-wine drinkers everywhere were devastated,” Stephen Harrison wrote in Slate. He doesn’t particularly care one way or another, and instead poses a question “. . . more philosophical in nature, namely, whether emoji are supposed to represent broad emotions and concepts or something more specific.”

Coincidentally, last week Jonny Garrett traced “the origins of beer language, from Michael Jackson to emojis” at Good Beer Hunting.

So what changed since Heinrich Knaust wrote Funff Bücher, von der Göttlichen und Edlenn Gabe, der Philosophischen, hochthewren and wunderbaren Kunst, Bier zu brawen in 1573? (Plenty was written about beer centuries before that, but this is a blog not a complete history of beer writing, and Richard Unger calls Knaust’s book the first extensive and comprehensive work on brewing.)

Read more