musing

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 06.16.14

Ten vital commandments for localism in beer. The list itself is from 2012, so start with the preface.

[Via The Potable Curmudgeon]

Local ingredients, but not so local drinkers. Belgian brewer André Janssens grows his own barley and some of his own hops. But he ships 90 percent of his beer to America. How do you think these first two links fit together?

[Via Larsblog]

If You Want To Know What’s In Your Beer… I tweeted once on the way to the National Homebrewers Conference and once from the conference (a picture with a fictional caption some people seem to have believed), an indication that I’m not all that good a social media, and — the point here — a reminder how insular such events can be. Thus when I briefly noticed considerable fuss related to the latest blathering from the Beer Food Babe I shrugged. It’s amazing how one of Jeff Carlson’s sublime ciders can change your perspective.

But as I was catching up with my feeds on Sunday I was struck with the questions Alan McLeod raises. Transparency is good, be it brewery operators revealing what’s in the beer they sell and how they make it or or others who may have a vested interest selling, boosting, writing about, litigating for or against, whatever. Ever since Frank Prial at the New York Times let Jack McAuliffe say that he his made his beer without preservatives and other chemicals that Big Brewers employed smaller (and not so small anymore) breweries have benefited from the notion the beer they sell is more pure. In a sense, lack of transparency on the part of larger breweries makes this easier. When Anheuser-Busch — or Yuengling or Boston Beer or Lagunitas — details all the ingredients they use and all the chemicals (and things like chemicals) that are involved in the process of growing ingredients, brewing beer and so on (it is quite the list) then it is easier to ask the brewer at your local just which of those were also involved in the production of your beer.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

[Via A Good Beer Blog]

Evangelise Jolly. Adrian Tierny-Jones writes, “It’s your sacred duty to evangelise about beer, someone said to me recently, drunk of course, both of us drunk …” A sacred duty to evangelise about beer? Quite a question. Adrian has quite an answer.

[Via Called To The Bar]

If we were starting a new blog tomorrow. Each Saturday, Boak & Bailey post a variety of links, often longer reads, that may even overlap with the ones I’ve collected (thus “scooping” my Monday links). This weeks’s examples address the current state of beer blogging, at the end offering a bit of advice. Don’t skip straight to the finish — read the links along the way.

[Via Boak & Bailey’s Beer Blog]

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 06.09.14

Can You Taste An Old Growth Forest In This Beer? Adventures with Eric Steen of Beers Made By Walking. I’d answer the question in the headline, “Yes, if you’ve tasted it before.” I’m goofy enough that were I doing this I’d want to spend the summer tasting the same “parts” over and over, mixing and matching, learning which work together, which suit my taste.

[Via Oregon Public Radio]

Do We Owe a Debt to the Regionals? Do breweries deserve to be supported just because they managed to remain in business when others were closing? This isn’t exactly the question Boak & Bailey are asking — “real ale” is involved, CAMRA, a smaller country — but that’s the question their post had me asking myself.

[Via Boak & Bailey]

You won’t believe this one weird trick they used to fly beer to the D-Day troops in Normandy. As all dispatches from Martyn Cornell, thoroughly fascinating.

[Via Zythophile]

Bill’s UK Adventure: American Craft Beer Across the Pond. I’m not sure I believe Bill Covaleski of Victory Brewing visited five towns in the UK, top to bottom, over nine hectic days (while his family grew frustrated and his lawn turns into a jungle) just so we could read about it. But he writes, “… really, I did. You’d only be reading this if a) you are interested in beer and its future, or b) you live vicariously through the internet.”

[Via Victory Brewing]

Could Rising Costs Mean the End of Craft Beer Brewers? Just to answer the question in the headline: “No.”

[Via Entrepreneur]

That’s Ron Pattinson, above, having a beer at In de Wildeman in Amsterdam, where he lives but hardly seems to have time to drink these days. He’s returning to North America for another whirlwind tour, beginning Sunday in Toronto.

I’m not sure he appreciates what he is in for once the National Homebrewers Conference begins in Grand Rapids. First official event will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Perrin Brewing Company. But the real fun is likely to come at Club Night and the Beer City Social Club late each night.

I already know about one homebrewed Grodziskie we should get a chance to taste Wednesday at Perrin.

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 06.02.14

What does it mean for a beer to be local? Jeff Baker on what’s involved in putting local ingredients in local beers in Vermont. Although I’m a fan of using local grains, hops, fruit, whatever, I continue to think that the people who make beer (and, in a way, even the drinkers) are an essential ingredient in making a beer local.

[Via Burlington Free Press]

Strange Brews: The Genes of Craft Beer. Hope you read to the finish of this New York Times article and this from a yeast geneticist: “Until recently, the brewing industry has been remarkably resistant to using the techniques of genetics and molecular biology to improve their brewing strains.” I’m all for better beer through science. (Quick aside: It’s a lot easier to write for brewers when there’s science to back up statements, particularly when those statements contradict what’s been written before.) But it’s good to be a little be wary of science, or at least scientists (and maybe brewery owners/bean counters) who don’t appreciate the bit of alchemy involved in brewing.

[Via The New York Times]

O’Fallon Brewery, Urban Chestnut aiming to take their beer global. But not exactly global in the same way as another St. Louis brewery. However, O’Fallon is shipping a bit of beer to Italy and company president Jim Gorczyca hopes exports becomes a bigger part of the brewery’s business when its new facility is up and running). And why did an Italian distributor contact O’Fallon? Because he’d heard of O’Fallon Pumpkin Beer.

Following the call, O’Fallon Brewery shipped beer samples to Italy and then signed an agreement to export six-pack glass bottles affixed with an extra label listing the beer’s ingredients in Italian, and the Italian word for beer: birra. Each label was painstakingly affixed by hand.

[Via St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Would You Pay $1,000 Once to Get Free Beer for Life? This is a real question. Just one more reason to visit Minneapolis (and pay for the beer). That is all.

[Via Atlantic Media]

Bottoms up! Brew pub Paulaner celebrates relaunch. It opened just last November and closed in March, redesigned and with a new menu. It would seem if you think the German beer culture is portable that it is best if you understand that culture.

[Via Crain’s New York Business]

Twenty years ago the annual “numbers” issue of The New Brewer (“The Journal of the Brewers Association”) weighed 12 ounces. This year it weighs 22 ounces. Perhaps that is another way to measure the growth of craft beer.

The magazine includes all the big picture numbers already reported — craft beer volume up 18% in 2013 — but the real weight comes with the details, lists of breweries that opened and closed, a few words stories surrounding the numbers, and information about production from almost every Brewers Association member (some don’t get around to it, others prefer not to see the numbers in print). Lots of numbers, lots of fun. Sales at Blue Tractor BBQ & Brewery in Michigan grew from 754 barrels in 2012 to 797 in 2013, while production at Blue Pants Brewery in Alabama ramped up from 520 barrels to 1,910.

I wrote the story about brewpubs, which are by definition mostly local and mostly relatively small. Although many package some beer and sell it away from their doors — Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland sold more than 10,000 barrels in 2013 and nearby Double Mountain Brewery almost 9,000, for instance — the average brewpub made 800 barrels. Which means the story had to, at least in passing, address the “how many it too many?” question.

Church Brew Works founder Sean Casey had some interesting thoughts. His Pittsburgh brewpub has been around since 1996, sold 2,800 barrels in 2013, and has seen plenty of other small breweries come and go.

“There are going to be more and more and more boutiques, more like coffee shops, more ubiquitous,” he said. “You’ll see more nano-pubs making it. The public is becoming more accepting of these smaller venues.”

He also had another thought related to coffee.

“A cup of coffee at 8 in the morning still sells for more than a glass of beer that takes a lot more energy, a lot more time, and a lot more ingredients.”

*****

The schedule here calls for a post today about a particular beer. Alas, it’s been a while since I had a Church Brew Works beer, but the memory of its Maibock lingers in my memory, bready with a hint of umami. That will have to count for a tasting note today.