MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 03.20.17
This Brewer Hired Women Illustrators to Remake the Cringingly Sexist Ads It Used to Run.
There’s a right way. [Via Adweek, h/T Carla Jean Lauter]
‘Pinup versus pin her down’’: Indiana beers stoke controversy.
And there’s a wrong way. [Via Indianapolis Star]
Earthbound Beer’s renovation of the old Cherokee Brewery reveals a lot about 19th-century St. Louis.
When Ron Pattinson drops by St. Louis next month to talk about Scottish ale history the presentation will be at Earthbound Brewing (picture at the top courtesy of St. Louis Magazine). History meets history. [Via St. Louis Magazine]
China’s New Craft-Beer Bully.
So here’s the nut graph: “The leviathan is turning to China, the world’s biggest beer market, to compensate for a catastrophic mistake it made in the U.S.—missing out on the craft revolution. … ‘Craft beer would never have become as big under independent ownership if [AB InBev’s] Anheuser-Busch had not more or less ignored the sector.'” Probably not that simple, but do doubt it was easier for local, independent entrepreneurs to stake out their territory because they offered beer with flavors BMC was not. But back to China, AB InBev has brought new meaning to the term “tap takeover.” [Via Fortune]
Why It’s Not The Purity Law That Should Be Protected.
“At the end of 2014, a key opportunity was missed. The bid to UNESCO that was orchestrated by the German Brewers Association (Deutscher Brauer-Bund e.V.) failed. According to Dr. Christoph Wulf, the Vice President of the German UNESCO Commission responsible for reviewing the applications, this German application was rejected, because rather than celebrating positive beer culture, regulation of the food industry was too much in the foreground (i.e. via the purity law resp. the real law named ‘Biersteuergesetz’) and modern industrial brewing practises were emphasised over manual brewing practises by human beings.” [Via Mixology]
‘Drunkards’! How an anti-Irish stereotype began.
Read it now or file it away for St Patrick’s Day next year. [Via Boston Globe]
How a Michelin-star brewpub presages the future for craft beer.
I would qualify this with the thought it presages one future for beer. The impact of food trucks should not be underrated. [Via MarketWatch]
MEDIA
The Food World Pays Its Respects to Beloved Mag ‘Lucky Peach’
After six years and nine James Beard Awards, a double-issue this fall will be the magazine’s last. Geez, if a “beloved and pioneering periodical” (as the Washington Post describes it in a “what happened” story) about an overarching subject that includes food can’t make it . . . [Via Eater]
CRITICISM & DO WE NEED IT?
The Fate of the Critic in the Clickbait Age.
“The trouble is, once you accept the proposition that popularity corresponds to value, the game is over for the performing arts.” If you ask me to find a single beer to compare to the movie “Moonlight” I have no answer, but I think there are aspects of the (I apologize in advance for this broad term) “beer category” that merit cultural criticism. “The role of the critic, (A.O.) Scott says, is to resist the manufactured consensus—to interrogate the successful, to exalt the unknown, to argue for ambiguity and complexity.” [Via The New Yorker]
Ignore the Snobs, Drink the Cheap, Delicious Wine.
It’s wine, but for the “I only care what’s in the glass” beer drinkers there is this: “Where was the artistry? The mystery? But the more I learned, the more I accepted these unnatural wines as one more way to satisfy drinkers and even create new connoisseurs.” And, “this technological revolution has democratized decent wine. Thanks to pumps and powders, drinkers who can’t splurge no longer have to settle for plonk. The gap between fine wine and commercial wine is shrinking as producers use chemical shortcuts not only to avoid blatant flaws, but also to mimic high-end bottles.” [Via The New York Times]
The Death of Experts.
Just piling it on now. [Via Meinenger’s]
Tidefall.
I still love this Kenneth Tynan quote: “A critic’s job, nine-tenths of it, is to make way for the good by demolishing the bad.” So here’s an example of a job well done. [Via The Beer Nut]
FROM TWITTER
I use hops as foundation stones, not as mere perfume and prettiness that blows away with the first spring breeze.
— Pierre van Klomp (@brouwervanklomp) March 16, 2017