musing

It’s Monday and these are links, but don’t get used to it

Last week, Alistair Reece wrote that he is stuck in a rut and looking for a way to break a log jam that keeps him for completing writing projects he has started.

His plan? “So here is my crazy idea, I am just going to write whatever random boozy thoughts pop into my head each and every day for the rest of July, including when I am in Florida on vacation.”

A couple of days before, in his twice-a-month email dispatch Jay Hoffman at The History of the Web pointed to a earlier post about the evolution of blogging. He tells the story in terms of generations (somewhat analogous to something Jeff Alworth wrote last week).

– “In their earliest days, webloggers stood as gatekeepers to the web’s ever-growing well of content. Each day, these URL pioneers would post a few new links and sprinkle in their own commentary. Blogs acted as a signpost for web users, and following a few key blogs was enough to keep track of just about everything new on the web.”

– “But on the fringes, a new type of blog was emerging. The personal blog. These sites ditched the curated links and focused exclusively on commentary. Bloggers used their site to chronicle their personal journey, from the almost boring and banal to the weird and wonderful. This new type of blog was less an alternative media source and more akin to an online journal or diary. And these writers saw themselves not as gatekeepers to the web, but as sharers of their own identity.”

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Which one of these breweries is not like the others?

Waiting for food at Side Project Brewing in St. Louis
This sign helps the food truck server find you at the bar at Side Project Brewing.
A press release that the London Craft Beer Festival would include “a spectacular line-up of UK-rare, high quality, sought-after American craft beers” dropped earlier this week.

Sadly, it does not name names, but promises “creative sour and fruited sours, wild and spontaneously fermented beers, classic wheat beers and a plethora of show-stopping IPAs. Audacious flavour combinations include blueberry crumble sour ale, peach lager made with real fruit and Bourbon Barrel-aged stout made with monster cookies, honey glazed coconut, a touch of peanut butter and candy-coated chocolates to tempt the tastebuds of even the most traditional beer drinker.”

After I paused to consider what it means to be a traditional beer drinker, I scanned at the list of 22 breweries and thought about how different some of them are from the others. On the whole, diversity is good. But Side Project Brewing squeezed in there between Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada just looks strange to me.

AleSmith Brewing Co
Allagash Brewing Co
Cigar City Brewing Co
Coldfire Brewing Co
DESTIHL Brewery
Fremont Brewing Co
Hinterland Brewery
Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers
Maui Brewing Co
Mother Road Brewing Co
Montauk Brewing Co
Other Half Brewing Co
Oskar Blues Brewery
Rogue Ales & Spirits
Samuel Adams
Side Project Brewing Co
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co
Sweetwater Brewing Co
Toppling Goliath Brewing Co
The Bold Mariner Brewing Co
The Virginia Beer Co
Urban Roots Brewery & Smokehouse

It’s not beer’s fault, it’s me

Beyond the beer glass -- traffic on a New Orleans street

The headline — Costco Is Coming for Craft Beer — about store brand beers reads like click bait. The story itself, on the other hand, serves interested readers well. But . . . I can’t remember how many version of this I have read. It is a function of knowing that Mission Street Pale brewed by Firestone Walker and sold by Trader Joe’s won two gold medals and a silver at the Great American Beer Festival before purposefully hazy IPA existed.

Every few years there is a story about which Trader Joe’s beers are brewed at what breweries. (I’m pretty certain that shortly 2011, Firestone Walker quit brewing the Mission Street Pale and Trader Joe’s found another brewery to make the beer.)

And almost 10 years ago there was the “Is Walmart Looking to Dethrone Budweiser as King of Beers?” story.

That too many posts sound so familiar to me is one reason you won’t find a list of links here today, or on the Mondays that follow. Another is that a regular Monday posting does not sync the rhythm of life around here (or wherever we are). Random might work better.

But it’s not 2003

Brewers United for Freedom poster for event June 26 in NYC

I did not receive the press release about how Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), Bill Covaleski (Victory Brewing), and Greg Koch (Stone Brewing, now retired) are “bringing their legendary friendship, their boundary-busting brews, and a rock-and-roll spirit that can’t be tamed” to Manhattan later this month. But you may read the basics and the astonishing verbiage here.

I’m sorry, but although these are founders of breweries that make really good beer who have spent decades in the trenches (and, full disclosure, Sam Calagione wrote the foreword for “Brewing Local”) I won’t be booking a flight to be there June 26.

For one thing, that poster is, well, I have no words — particularly because I know the lay of the nearby land and Beer Authority is a short walk from Madame Tussaunds wax museum. From the get go, breweries such as Victory and Dogfish Head, have emphasized “authenticity.” Granted, I’ve been in a Madame Tussaunds once in my life, decades ago, but nothing about it felt real to me.

What does these days? This, for instance.

5.12.25 beer links: Generations and cultures

Buckwheat Zyedco Jr. and his son playing on the Fai Do Do stage at Jazz Fest

That’s Buckwheat Zydeco Jr., son of the late Buckwheat Zydeco (Stanley Dural), above, playing accordion, with his son on the frottoir at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Below, C.J. Chenier, son of the “King of Zydeco” Clifton Chenier, fronts a celebration honoring his father. That’s two more generations on the frottoir. Other members of the band included Marcia Ball (on the keyboard), David Hidalgo (in the background) and Sonny Landreth (not in the frame). A tribute album to Chenier will be released June 27, two days after what would have been his 100th birthday.

CJ Chenier and bandmates (including Marcia Ball and David Hidelgo) during a tribute to his father, Clifton Chenier, at Jazz Fest

Now, let’s get to it . . .

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LEAD OF THE WEEK

March’s second day this year was a Sunday. My brother and I walked the Sussex South Downs. Almost three months since midwinter, the freshly peeled air drenched the leafless woods and hills with pale light. Yellow crocuses quietly exploded in the grass; the first larks unspooled their ribbon of song above. At lunchtime, we dipped down to the Ram in Firle. We sat at a bare table in its dark, womb-like dining room with our beloved hatchlings: two pints of Harvey’s.

I have lived in a thorny, stone-strewn Mediterranean biotope for 15 years, and visitors to my home in France sometimes ask what I miss about the UK and its latitudes. Broad-leafed woodland, birdsong and the British landscape, for sure: its endless seasonal costume changes; its soothing sweetness; the quiet nourishment of its rises, falls and folds. And with it, at the end of the path, cask-conditioned ale. Glorious and tragic.

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