BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING 06.25.18
The Art of Repeal: Exploring America’s Post-Prohibition Beer Labels.
Save this link, and any time you need a smile this week feel free to click and scroll.
Can’t Think Straight.
Wearing my optimist hat while reading this. “Slowly but surely, the beer world is becoming safer for anyone who struggles to feel like they belong somewhere, anywhere. To be seen, heard, and valued. To be themselves, without judgment, expectation, or assumptions. It’s a change that’s made me proud to be both a woman and an LGBTQ individual in beer.”
The Rise and Decline of the “Sellout”
Takeovers: Another Football Analogy.
Up close, the Heineken/Beavertown news last week was as devastating as the Anheuser-Busch/10 Barrel news was once in Oregon. That these two are no longer unique — after all, it has been seven years since A-B take control of Goose Island (see below) — does not make them less painful for those involved. But right now, and by that I mean since the Goose Island deal, we are in the moment. Give this some time before suggesting what history will have to say.
Not every beer has to be special : in defence of average pints.
This: “Sometimes when you walk into a pub you just want a flipping drink, not the final exam on a sommelier course.” And this: “There are good drinkers and bad drinkers in this Brave New World, the good will be feted with schooners and cheese pairings, whilst the bad will be battered with minimum pricing and the closure of more local pubs.” And there’s more.
A French (and Belgian) beer for factory workers and farm hands.
Several takeaways here. But I’m going with this: “The French-speaking part of this world has a lot of beer history yet to be discovered.” There a lot more beer languages other than English or German, and cultures beyond Europe, to be discovered.
Is South Africa’s craft beer scene in a slump?
What happens when craft beer is no longer new and shiny?
Meet Bill Stein, longtime illustrator of the Hamm’s beer.
Just so you know, the link takes you to a MillerCoors (i.e. Big Beer) blog. This is a guy who painted the back of flight jackets for fellow pilots during World War II, and the community built around around Hamm’s bear breweriana that remained strong while the brand, now enjoying a bit of a revival, withered. “He was Mr. Bear. He didn’t have a name. Somehow the bear was a brown bear, but then we came to the horrific realization that there were no brown bears in Minnesota, so he had to become a black bear.”
Who are you, @Goose_Island_PR???
Seven years later, the mystery remains. Perhaps it is best that way.
WINE
Terroir: Nature & Nurture.
Here’s the important question: “Can innovation and creativity exist if they constantly run up against the fixed construct of terroir?” The beverage does not need to be wine and the fixed construct does not need to be terroir.
The Devil Seeks Forgiveness from Merlot.
In the year after the movie “Sideways” came out sales of Merlot dropped $77 million. And the guy who wrote “I am not drinking any fucking Merlot!” has made almost nothing from the book.
FROM TWITTER
I get a similar experience at a craft beer tasting room to the record stores of old. New experiences, curated by those who are passionate about what they do. https://t.co/4vL6ZtZQmC
— Darryl Wright (@punksteez) June 20, 2018
MORE LINKS
Alan McLeod most Thursdays.
Good Beer Hunting’s Read Look Drink most Fridays.
Boak & Bailey most Saturdays.