Monday beer links: The smell of beer, pubs & controversies

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 04.03.17

A Beer Lover’s Pregnancy, Part VI: The Smell of Beer
There’s a reason breweries employ so many women on their tasting panels: On average, women detect odors at lower concentrations, are more likely to rate smells as more intense and unpleasant, and are better able to identify them by name. But there are times that’s not such a good thing. [Via Hop Culture]

Hardnott past present and future
Here’a a dose of reality anybody thinking of starting a brewery should read. “In reality, the most obvious thing to do would be just to wind up our operation. Ditch the dream of making a successful competitive, exciting and unique craft brewery as just a ridiculous idea that cannot work commercially from where we are. The market information does not make it look great; with the increasing competition, dropping wholesale pricing and increasing costs like no tomorrow. Stopping production that actually costs us money to keep doing, selling all our equipment and binning Hardknott often seems the only logical thing to do.” [Via HardKnott Dave’s beer and stuff blog]

Finding Tropicália, Atlanta’s Most Difficult Beer to Track Down.
This story doesn’t seem quite up to date, given that Creature Comforts announced in January it was expanding into a second location. But there is something quaint about the idea that a brewery might struggle keeping up with local demand for a type of beer (IPA) that has eased its way into the mainstream. Daria was in Atlanta last August for a conference and called me from a liquor store when she couldn’t find Tropicália (on the “look for these” list I had given her). It turned out that they really did keep six-packs under the counter, doling them out one at a time to customers who asked. [Via Thrillist]

PUBS

What Happens When Craft Beer Replaces Your Neighborhood Bar?
[Via Porch Drinking]
Hungover in Hanover.
[Via Zythophile]
Martyn Cornell puts is perfectly: “I want a craft beer bar that doesn’t look as if it could be anywhere, in any city, I want it to have a beer selection that reflects the local scene more than it nods to the wider world. And I don’t want to feel its pricing policy takes the Michael.”

Yanks Love It: irish Pubs at Home and Abroad.
If the point of the Guinness/Brand Studio project (linked last week) was to entice readers into falling in love with Irish pubs they should have recruited Ann Friedman. [Via Good Beer Hunting]

CONTROVERSIES

Fieldwork’s Vermont Farmhouse Ale sparks feud with state of Vermont.
[Via SFGATE]
Flattery or unfair? ‘Vermont’ beer pops up out of state.
[Via Burlington Free Press]
Apparently Vermont-Northeast-New England-cloudy-hazy-murky IPAs aren’t contentious enough on their own.

But, goodness. That’s nothing compared to the ruckus the “Cork Dork” story in the New York Times in last week’s links raised in the wine world. Just a few of the posts that followed:

– Boom times for wine media! Now if only we have something to say.
– Should wine be natural or democratic? An Internet wine controversy.
– A Rebuttal: Drink what you like. And celebrate wine’s diversity.
– The Article About Wine We All Hated, And The One You Need To Read.
– Cork Distort.
– Acceptance, But Not Love, For Plonk.
– “Ignore the Snobs, Drink the Cheap, Delicious Wine.”*

FROM TWITTER