MONDAY BEER & WINE LINKS, 01.08.17
My take: There are problems to be solved. And changing the conversation by pointing to a different one does not mean the first (or second or third) suddenly isn’t one. Beyond that, there have already been enough words spilled over what was easily the biggest American beer story of the week and little need for any from me. I’ll simply add that the initial post was particularly ambitious, and as ProPublica points out such things are a lot of work. So here you go:
– It starts with this post.
– The posts that followed included this and this.
– There likely were outbursts in other channels, but Twitter was enough for me. Consider these three threads (and where they might lead you): From @libman37, from @goodbeerhunting, and from @wackfactory.
– And it would seem a discussion about Women and the Wine Industry might be worth our time.
SOME OTHER STUFF
– The one story I saved during our weeks of travel that you really should read: Craft Beer Changes the Math on Healthy Drinking. “As humans, we’re masters at misleading ourselves. In the craft beer world, we’ve begun to justify our ‘neat habit’ in a cloak of appreciation, advocacy, and artisanship.”
– I might am out of touch, but it seems to me that there aren’t as many beer tastings at The New York Times as back in the day. But when they happen beer fans still go, “Whoa! Beer in the New York Times.” So there was excitement when brown ales returned to The Times this past week. Returned? Yep, after almost 11 years. Without looking, can you name the top-rated brown in 2007? Returning to the current tasting, let’s let Melissa Cole comment.
@EricAsimov just read your brown ales piece & there’s so much to like there but the bored quasi-intellectual snobbery intro is the tiredest of journalistic tropes & you are clearly, far better, and more talented, than that so please use that hard earned skill better. Cheers.
— Melissa Cole (@MelissaCole) January 6, 2018
– I’d be more excited about the recreation of Ballantine Burton had I liked the recreation of Ballantine IPA. But I’m as interested in the details about the process as I am in the beer might taste like. And wondering if that makes the new Burton truly authentic.
– It appears every neighborhood may soon have its own IPA. (Warning: the S word appears often in this story.)
FROM TWITTER
My blood type is Hallertau.
— Jason Watkins (@FortHoister) January 5, 2018
I know we should talk it up more, but I don't want to be the white bearded dude telling you all about how it isn't all white bearded dudes.
The voices talking about beer in L.A. are just as diverse as the rest of the scene, I want to help you hear those voices.
— John Verive (@octopushat) January 5, 2018
Scene from Twin Peaks and/or a creepy room in the former Rodenbach brewhouse. You decide. pic.twitter.com/HwjmEK4P5K
— Joe Stange (@Thirsty_Pilgrim) January 4, 2018
Every time I go on twitter there’s some beer drama. This is how you can tell the beer industry is 90% male, because you all didn’t get this shit out of your system at school. You all act like a bunch of year 7 girls who think they saw Lucy take a tampon into the bathroom with her
— Charlotte Cook (@ilikeotters) January 4, 2018
That “snobbery in the intro” thing was one of their odder things I’ve seen in good beer for some time. The upside I suppose was I reread Asimov’s piece over and over to confirm it was a perfectly normal bit of writing. I bet all named breweries are tickled by the coverage.
I tread carefully when it comes to critiquing a very skilled journalist, but it almost felt like he figured he’d used his best lead when he wrote about brown ales back in 2007 and had to come up with something entirely different.