First up, this is not a place for breaking beer news. I like to think the RSS feeds I subscribe keep me in touch without paying much attention to social media. Thus I was surprised Sunday to come across the news, from several days earlier, that co-founder Marcus Baskerville is stepping away from Weathered Souls Brewery in San Antonio. So surprised that I did a quick search on X and saw only a single mention.
Here’s the news. The co-founder and head brewer who was the force behind the Black is Beautiful beer initiative that has raised millions of dollars will be doing something else soon. He told MySA “he’ll open up about his next steps, once he’s ready.”
LEDE OF THE WEEK
In 2010, U.S. craft beer was hurtling fast toward the mainstream. Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione had a reality show on the Discovery Channel, New York Magazine was writing about saison, and the Brewers Association was shifting its outreach into high gear with new advocacy campaigns. But as it gained popularity, craft beer remained a mostly white, mostly male business. In Chicago, a small brewery was a decade ahead of its time in trying to change that.
. . .
But 14 years after the dream of 5 Rabbit was born, its beers are just a memory.
— From “Chasing Rabbits — What Happened to the Latin American-Inspired Brewery in the U.S.?”
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I have a theory about hip-hop, which is that you have to keep coming up with new theories.”
— This is actually a line from Questlove’s new book, “Hip-Hop Is History,” but let’s treat it as if he said it and then replace “hip-hop” with “beer.” Something to talk about next session at the pub.
DID SOMEBODY SAY CASK?
It appears that many words were spilled after Jeff Alworth asked What if CAMRA Had Valued Quality Over Romance? The nut:
“One decision in particular was pivotal in driving the industry away from technologies that would have elevated quality above romantic stories: defending at all costs the method of drawing cellar air straight into casks, causing the beer to lose its pep in mere hours, and spoil in a few days. Would cask be a robust market today if they hadn’t been wedded to a romantic story?”
I missed what followed on social media. Instead, I turned to Peter Alexander for the final word.
PUB CRAWLING
– Psychogeography? “There are few better ways to get to know a town or city than to go on a pub crawl with your eyes and brain engaged.”
– Boston. And the last beer of every evening should be?
– New York. 19th century, 20th century, and 21st century.
YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
– West Coast IPA RIP? “Craft beer drinkers have a short memory, so perhaps only a handful would remember when the West Coast-style IPA ruled America.” Shouldn’t the story be that WCIPAs are making a comeback? Maybe a little lighter in color and IBU than in the aughts, and often a little fruitier. But I’m having no problem finding ones with the bite that Industrial Arts founder Jeff O’Neil calls “grippy.”
– Maine’s 10 oldest craft breweries. Not the new kids in town any more.
– Beer Data Wars – Episode 3. Doug Veliky announced earlier the week that some of his insights will now be part of a subscription package. He’s still offering interesting observations for us more causal readers.
The Chasing Rabbits article I couldn’t make it through the first paragraph. Having grown up in the Southwest, if you use a term that 99.9% Hispanic/Mexican people find offensive I am going to doubt the author will have keen insights, but perhaps that’s just me.
Definitely not something you would hear in New Mexico.
I mean, you hear the term in Chicago and it is or was a Chicago brewery… But I assume you should be angrier at the style guide than the author.