musing

Miller promotes ‘The Craft’

Miller beer musicMiller Genuine Draft is partnering with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to sponsor music artist interviews and performances. The series is called “The Craft,” which should get the attention of small breweries, and particularly their fans, who figure the word craft belongs to them.

“The Craft” series of interviews, developed in conjunction with promotional agency Arc and executed by GMR Worldwide and digital agency Digitas, aims to explore the experiences that shaped the songs written by popular musicians. (The Craft refers both to songwriting and brewing beer.)

“People got the connection between making music and making beer,” said Jonathan Sickinger, associate manager for sports and entertainment marketing at Miller. “And they wanted to know more about both.”

For years we’ve appreciated that Miller supports live music. I’ve got a poster of Terence Simeon from an MGD-sponsored tour above where I store grain for homebrewing.

But I also know when you ask “What is craft beer?” you get passionate responses. Witness the 67 comments at Seen Through a Glass or a shorter discussion here. No need to revisit that topic.

Instead a short story from Tony Simmons of Pagosa Springs Brewing that I used in the little essay about if your brewer is an artist.

Simmons was once in a class at Siebel Institute with a woman who worked at Miller Brewing. Out of curiosity, not intent, he asked her what it would take for him to get a job brewing at Miller.

“You couldn’t,” she told him. “We hire engineers and train them to brew our way.”

So you think that is the way a great guitar player interviews drummers?

Don’t blame Congress for bad beer

Gotta love that headline. It appeared at Earthtimes.org in what was basically a pointer to a longer story in The Hill, a Washington newspaper, about the House Small Brewers Caucus.

The 35 members of the caucus (they hope to have 100 by the end of the legislative session) promote small breweries, trade beer-making advice and drink a few beers together. They even have a website with information about brewing and tips on pairing food with beer.

Not surprisingly, legislators from Oregon head the caucus. The story begins with the fact that Democrat Peter DeFazio brews at home. Both he and co-chair Greg Walden, a Republican, display a link to the caucus website on their home pages.

Just another sign of a different attitude about beer gaining traction with (some) lawmakers.

Malt (and barley) matters: Part II

The SessionAnd now – taking a break from our swim in the pool of listmania – we return to our regularly scheduled conversation about what makes the beer we drink different.

So time for Barley Part II (you knew I had another old image I was itching to show you).

In his Great Beers of Belgium, Michael Jackson writes about how Brother Thomas – then the brewing director at Westmalle – favored malts from Beatrice-Gatinais in France because of their softness, but the varieties he chose each year varied. That would indicate he was more concerned with quality than consistency, but that is another conversation. The point would be that he recognized that not all two-row pilsner malt is created equal.

Jackson describes how important this was to Brother Thomas: “In discussing a malt from elsewhere, widely used by other brewers, I asked whether he thought it was perhaps a trifle harsh. ‘It’s brutal!’ he replied, thumping the table.”

Brother Thomas may have been a little harsh himself, but the fact is that two different varieties of barley – let’s say Optic and Scarlett – kilned to the same color and then used precisely the same way in a recipe may produce beers that taste noticeably different. One might showcase hop bitterness, another a richer malt character. One isn’t necessarily better (or the other “brutal”) but they are different.

Weyermann Malting® in Bavaria proved this to a panel of industry members, including many brewers, a few years ago. Weyermann brewed four pilsners on its pilot system, each with malt produced from a different barley, and in a blind tasting the panelists had no trouble telling them apart.

As a result, some breweries have since begun ordering pilsner malt made from a specific barley. This isn’t necessarily realistic for your average small brewery and certainly not for the local brewpub you should be stopping by tonight.

So maybe I don’t have a point, but it seems like information you should have.

Barley Part I (in cased you missed it).

Canadian craft brewing’s most influential

This just in from up North . . .

Stephen Beaumont gives us the Canadian Craft Brewing’s Influential Top Ten.

– John Mitchell
– Paul Hadfield
– Kevin Keefe
– Jim Brickman
– Charles McLean
– Alan Pugsley (I do have to inject he might be in my U.S. Top 10)
– John Sleeman
– Mitchell Taylor
– Ed McNally
– Andre Dion

I like comments, but they will make more sense there. Registration is easy (I’ve done it at least twice because the brain cells that remember passwords seem to be the first to go when I drink beer).

Another Top 10: Most influential people

Rick Sellers of Pacific Brew News Blog has taken our ’10 Most’ conversation another direction:

Ten People Who Shaped the US Beer Scene.

Certainly a conversation I plan to jump into in his comments section after I get a little work done. (OK, I had to leave one right off – Michael Jackson.)

Here’s his list:

1 – Fritz Maytag
2 – Jack McAuliffe
3 – Fred Eckhardt
4 – Charlie Papazian
5 – Bert Grant
6 – Garrett Oliver
7 – Jim Koch
8 – Ken Grossman
9 – Tie Vinnie Cilurzo & Sam Calagione
10 – Empty. “I would like to see . . . someone who makes the beer bar a great place to be today, those who have redefined what a Beer Bar can be.”

Go comment.