musing

The archives indicate that on Nov. 17, 2005 I posted this:

Does it matter where beer is brewed?

Yes. At least that’s one of the premises behind Appellation Beer. Some of the others:

– It matters what the ingredients are and where they come from.

– Wines and cheeses aren’t the only products that can claim terroir.

– Beer should be considered in context. That context might be the food it’s served with. That context might be where the beer is enjoyed and the company it is shared with.

Basically a link to the “About” (or “Mission”) page. There were no comments.

There seem to be seven posts in December, and one comment (a grammatical note from Stephen Beaumont). Three posts in January, seven in February.

I might have had more common sense when I was younger.

First the disclaimer. Lew Bryson is a friend. He didn’t send out a press release or otherwise suggest a blog post about “American Beer Blogger.” I post it here because next time I mention Lew’s laugh you’ll know what I’m talking about. Plus I have an observation.

The KickStarter information is here and Lew’s explanation is here.

I promise you that this is going to be the real thing, not infomercial, or silly-scripted, or “oh, look who I just happened upon today!” It’s going to be me, calling a brewer, or bar owner, or beer store owner/manager, and setting up a visit — just like I do all the time — going to their place and looking around and asking questions and tasting some beers and having some fun — like I always do. The only thing I may do differently is some of the stuff they had me doing in the teaser: actually working, if only for a little bit, because that’s fun, and it’s something I’d like to do anyway. But we’ll talk beer, we’ll get our facts straight, and it won’t be boring.

I’m pretty sure it will be more interesting than following me around.

The observation. Interesting that Green Leaf chose to call this “American Beer Blogger.” Does this mean being a beer blogger is cool?

Last week Boak & Bailey offered a list of Ten signs of a craft brewery, interesting in itself and also because of the comments that followed. It got me thinking that “craft beer” can be one of those “you know it when you see it” things. Which is why a snapped this photo Saturday.

I don’t know if this is a one-time feature or there will be more.

The makeshift tap markers belong to 2nd Shift Brewing in New Haven, about an hour west of St. Louis. They were pouring beer at the STL Hops 4th Anniversary Party, held at Perennial Artisan Ales.

Wendy Littlefield took a few seconds from her busy schedule getting ready for Tuesday’s Coast to Coast Toast to drop me a link to a story about what brewers in Belgium think of AB InBev’s Belgian Beer Cafes OPENING SOON IN AN AMERICAN CITY NEAR YOU! For that I thank her.

A few paragraphs into the story I was thinking it would be better if the author talked to Yvan De Baets. I’m biased, because Yvan made important contributions to both Brew Like a Monk and Brewing With Wheat (including the foreword). I try not to go back to the same experts for every book, but he’ll also be contributing to For the Love of Hops because nobody makes more sense to me when we are talking about the integrity of beer.

So as I scrolled down into the story and first saw the top of a photo of Brasserie Verschueren, which is located in the neighborhood where he lives, I smiled. Two more clicks and there he was in front of it. Of course, he totally nailed it.

He says he understands and supports In-Bev’s Belgian Beer Cafe idea from a financial point of view, but not from a human one.

“You don’t build create a Belgian beer cafe in five minutes,” De Baets says. “It’s generations of owners and customers that build the place, and then give a soul to it.”

De Baets likens In-BEV’s Belgian Beer Cafes to the “Irish pubs” that sprung up around the world in the 1990s. It’s a gimmick, he says, it’s kitsch, and he wonders how outdated they will look in a few years.

The beer menu, he notes, features well-known InBev heavy-hitters like Stella, Hoegaarden, and Leffe. It also has Westmalle, and Chimay, two beers still brewed by Trappist monks.

And while those beers are part of the Belgian brewing heritage, Da Baets says, he thinks the Belgian Beer Cafe could do better.

“It’s beers in which all the angles have been rounded. There is no character, no real personality. I hope this is not the real image of Belgian beer,” says De Baets.

It’s not 10 a.m., but I find myself suddenly thirsty for a Brasserie de la Senne Zinnebir.

Let’s cut directly to the press release.

The Weeping Radish, North Carolina’s oldest micro brewery, will debut its first beer produced from all locally grown hops and malt.

A year ago, the brewery began producing the first beer dry hopped with the first commercially available hops grown at Ecoview Farm in Weaverville, NC. Named IPA 25, in order to celebrate 25 years of micro brewing in NC, this beer has a unique fruitiness which comes from the young hops plants grown in the North Carolina mountains.

Now the Weeping Radish has expanded the local ingredient list of its annual Christmas Beer to include malt grown at Chris Hoffner’s dairy in Mount Ulla, NC. This would not have been possible without the groundbreaking work of Brent Manning and Brian Simpson, the founders of Riverbend Malt House in Asheville.

“We are proud to have received the malt with the ‘Invoice #1’ from Riverbend,” says Uli Bennewitz, owner of the Weeping Radish. “The 20 barrels of Christmas Beer are currently aging at the brewery’s cellar.”

This very special batch will be launched at the Carolina Farm Stewardship Conference in Durham on Nov. 12. “This is the most appropriate place to launch this beer” according to Uli. “This organization has been in the forefront of the sustainable farm movement for over 20 years, growing from obscurity to being one of the leading organizations in the country.”

“We did not limit ourselves to 20 barrels because we wanted to be coy, we had to because that was all the local malt which we could get at this time,” said Nick Williams, the brewer.

The trend towards a more “local” based economy is catching on all over the United States. From an explosive growth in farmers markets and local food systems, to “made in the USA” stickers on manufactured goods to a doubling of members of the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service’s “Goodness Grows in NC” program. All of these signs point to the fact that consumers are seeing the value of local products.

The micro brewing industry has also received a boost by the fact that the two brew giants, controlling by far the largest share of the U.S. beer market, are now in foreign hands.

And the truly “non planned” twist of the story: Chris Hoffner, who grows the barley, also works with the Weeping Radish’s Master Butcher, who turns some of the beef from Hoffner’s dairy into delicious local hot dogs and beer brats. What a story: Christmas Beer and Beer Brats with ingredients from the same farm in North Carolina! The local movement has truly arrived!

Goodness, I’m all for local beer. I even own a related domain name, drinklocalbeer.com (don’t bother, you’ll just end up back here). I appreciate when a brewer allows his or her beer to express a bit of terroir. And part of the reason I started this blog was to rag on the importance of ingredients.

The Weeping Radish — now officially Weeping Radish Eco Farm & Brewery — had been around 25 years, so obviously is not in the gimmick business (my bullshit antenna start twitching when the word trend creeps into the conversation). A few more details about the ingredients, other than they are “local” would make that clear. For instance . . . I’m ornery enough to want to know all sorts of things about growing conditions and processing. But a good place to start would be a press release that includes descriptions of the varieties of barley and hops in the beer.