musing

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 04.10.17

FRESHNESS: Can we stop?
“Except it is nonsense; unrelenting nonsense. Suddenly we’re drinking beers unprepared, unconditioned and unfit for consumption. And we’re lapping it up; exclaiming the virtues of de-malted hop water as if the Ancient Babylonians had it wrong from the beginning. It is as though beer only needed one added ingredient aside from water – those green leafy cones – and that the fermentation stage was never an added necessity. Alcoholic leaves became the future of beer; as if yellow bananas were now no good and the bitter skin tasting unripened green variety were preferable.” [Via Beer Compurgation]

In Praise of Budweiser.
This is not click bait. “I didn’t want to be challenged, I didn’t want to prove my craft credentials and feel worthy of drinking a beer, I didn’t want to wrap my head round a muddle of flavours and aromas that may or may not have been intentional. I wanted a lager that was expertly brewed, technically solid, and through which quality brewing science shone, and this was that beer in that moment.” [Via Fuggled]

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The rate at which exotic, artisanal, expensive beer sales are growing may have slowed, but it’s not clear when brewery openings may. Bart Watson’s string of tweets Monday made that clear, beginning with this: “The new TTB license data has all sorts of jaw dropping stats. Take NY – now has 420 licenses (#3 in absolute terms), more than US until ’93.”

Licenses do not always translate into operating breweries (of course). The final 2016 numbers are not in, but in 2015 there were 208 craft breweries in New York and they brewed 1,086,718 barrels. Folding in production at Genesse/North American breweries triples the total, but it still doesn’t match production almost 140 years ago. In 1879 New York’s 365 breweries produced 3,980,716 barrels. At the time the state had a population of not quite 2 million; now it has 20 million residents.

George Ehret’s Hell Gate Brewery in New York City was the largest brewery in the country in 1879, selling 180,152 barrels. Missouri and Wisconsin would soon become brewing centers, but at the time New York ruled.

In fact, New York City breweries produced more beer than any other state, with 78 breweries making 1,894,668 barrels, and 45 Brooklyn breweries 544,896 more barrels. NYC had 13 breweries that sold more than 50,000 barrels and an additional 21 that brewed at least 20,000.

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 04.03.17

A Beer Lover’s Pregnancy, Part VI: The Smell of Beer
There’s a reason breweries employ so many women on their tasting panels: On average, women detect odors at lower concentrations, are more likely to rate smells as more intense and unpleasant, and are better able to identify them by name. But there are times that’s not such a good thing. [Via Hop Culture]

Hardnott past present and future
Here’a a dose of reality anybody thinking of starting a brewery should read. “In reality, the most obvious thing to do would be just to wind up our operation. Ditch the dream of making a successful competitive, exciting and unique craft brewery as just a ridiculous idea that cannot work commercially from where we are. The market information does not make it look great; with the increasing competition, dropping wholesale pricing and increasing costs like no tomorrow. Stopping production that actually costs us money to keep doing, selling all our equipment and binning Hardknott often seems the only logical thing to do.” [Via HardKnott Dave’s beer and stuff blog]

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MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 03.27.17

18 Defining Moments in the History of Craft Beer.
[Via VinePair]
I pass this along simply to show you how grown up I’ve become. There was a time I might have written 714 words about how friggin’ stupid many of these choices are. Instead I read it, hummed quietly and listened to the accompanying lyrics in my head.

When it’s time for you to board the train
There are two ways you can go
You can ride the wheels into the sun
Feel the wind upon your face
Or you can laugh into a loaded gun
and you’ll likely lose your place
So I shot ’em down
One by one
Then I left ’em ‘long the rails
– Robert Earl Keen