musing

Monday morning: You do the beer musing

Fodder for thought and a photo just for fun:

* The obligatory ST. PATRICK’S DAY IS COMING! ST. PATRICK’S DAY IS COMING! story from The Street delves into the wonders of nitrogen dispense. I’m linking to the third page of the story because of a gem of a concluding quote from Fergal Murray of Guinness: “It’s the greatest beer innovation of all time. It transformed the brand Guinness and made us the lighthouse beer that you have to craft behind the bar.” As I remarked on Twitter when I saw this Saturday morning, glad that’s settled.

* Speaking of innovation. The Chicago Tribune profiles the Goose Island barrel program and John Laffler, who runs it. It’s fair to ask how innovative each of the 285 “innovation projects” really is, given that 285 is a big number. But he says most will never see the light of day. That’s they way it’s supposed to work. Brewers experiment. They dump the failures. Rather than, say, declaring them special and charging a premium. Two gems from Laffler, who previously worked as a psychologist with at-risk youths for 6 1/2 years:

“This is my area. I share it with the barrels. I get really persnickety about people touching (them).”

“I really reject the notion that beer is meant to be collected.”

* Speaking of collecting. If you missed the story about the millionaire fleecing other millionaires out of millions of dollar by selling counterfeit wine the best place to find the latest details is from Mike Steinberger. Money just plain spends different in wine that beer.

Today in Decanter, Andrew Jefford begins what appears will be a two-part investigation into the financial implications of Robert Parker re-scoring the 2009 Bordeaux vintage and declaring it is even better than the 1982.

“I’ve been talking to those who understand the figures more comprehensively than I do, and considered opinion is that Robert Parker’s re-scoring of the 2009 Bordeaux vintage will have added at least £100 million to its ‘value.’ In the two trading days which followed the release of the scores, both Berry Bros and Farr Vintners sold around £3 million’s worth of top 2009 Bordeaux. Some claim that Robert Parker’s influence is waning. They are the wine world’s equivalent of creationists: folk prepared to ignore all evidence because they wish it so.”

Have I showed you this photo before? It was taken in a church in Poperinge, Belgium. You don’t see hop pickers immortalized in stained glass all that often.

Hop pickers, stained glass, Poperinge, Belgium

Where beer is cheaper than gas (revisited)

KegWorks tackles the question “Is beer really cheaper than gas?” with a rather elaborate analysis and infographic.

Made me think, “Hey, I’ve got a photo and a different data set.” So from this post in 2008 (when gas prices had ratcheted up during the summer and were beginning to fall, everywhere, along with the U.S. economy):

Beer in Wertheim, Germany

The photo was taken at a small grocery store in Wertheim, Germany (at the junction of the Main and Tauber rivers, and with terrific castle ruins). Beer was .66 euro (or less) for .5L. That’s 1.32 euro if you bought two (in other words a liter). The cheapest we’d seen gas for at the time was 1.39 for a liter of diesel (the cheapest gas in Germany, as opposed to the silly flip-flop in the U.S. where diesel costs more).

RIP, Mothership Wit

Yesterday’s news, I guess, but I only saw this morning, courtesy of Twitter, that New Belgium is discontinuing Mothership Wit.

New Belgium discontinues Mothership Wit

(If you can’t see the image it says, “Based on declining sales, and making room in the portfolio for new beer, Mothership Wit is getting shelved.”)

In contrast, Blue Moon Belgian White and Shock Top Belgian White continue to outperform almost everything else in the MillerCoors and A-B InBev portfolios respectively. According to Symphony IRI, Blue Moon White climbed into the Top 15 brands in 2011, selling $88 million in supermarkets (by comparison, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale sold $52 million, Samuel Adams Boston Lager $47 million and New Belgium Fat Tire $33 million).

Blue Moon White was one of only two brands (Michelob Ultra was the other) in the top 15 to increase supermarket sales in 2011.

Session #62 announced: What Drives Beer Bloggers?

The SessionAngelo at Brewpublic has announced the topic for The Session #62: “What Drives Beer Bloggers?”

Yes, the obvious answer should be: A designated driver.

But let’s get right to the navel gazing.1

Your mission as a craft beverage blogger reading this post, should you choose to accept it, is to compose a post on the topic of “What Drives Beer Bloggers.” There are no rigid guidelines about how to write about this topic but we’d certainly love to hear about the history behind your blog, your purpose in creating it, its evolution, and/or what your goals in keeping it going.

The date is April 6. I might write about “10 things you might not know about Alan McLeod but I do because I read his blogs (plural).” Or maybe the 10 cleverest lines in the history of Appellation Beer. Except they’d all be comments, and what would that tell you about me?

More seriously, bloggers are an important part of a particular beer niche, one that sociologists will be studying for years to come. This should help them.

1 For the record, references to navel gazing may or may not be intended as snark. But it has become standard in some of the blogging places I hang out to use the phrase to remind ourselves to write about beer rather than, blush, ourselves.

Perfect pitch and beer aroma

I love analogies to music when it comes to describing some of life’s other pleasures. This happens to come from Whiff! The Revolution of Scent Communication in the Information Age and doesn’t mention beer, but you’ll get the point:

As any wine connoisseur can attest, aromas are often described in melodic terms as three distinct notes. In making perfume, top notes, middle notes and base notes are orchestrated like a symphony to tell a specific story in three movements. Top notes are the ingredients that create the first impression of the fragrance on the nose. They are the lightest and briefest of the fragrance on the nose. They are the lightest and briefest in duration, like high notes on a musical scale. In a well-designed fragrance, as top notes evaporate they harmoniously segue into the middle notes that comprise the main body, or second movement, of the fragrance. The middle notes evaporate at an even slower rate than the top notes, and also soften the usually stronger base notes. As the middle notes dissipate, the base notes linger like the finals strains of a cello concerto.

(Additionally, in The Secret of Scent, Luca Turin explains why odor molecules — and thus aroma — arrive in waves, repeating that the lightest are the first to arrive, heavier ones later.)

Before you stick your nose deep in your next beer and decide I’m an idiot, please note I’m not saying this works for every beer. Then the special ones wouldn’t be special, would they? As a general rule, beers you’d file under “less is more” seem to be the best candidates.