Monday links: Real pubs, Southern Beer & under the influence

BEER AND WINE LINKS 02.12.18

Roger Baylor is returning to the publican game. And he is bringing his opinions.

To be honest, I don’t care how much a customer thinks he or she knows following a quick electronic glance at the empty mental calories on Thrillist. Remember: miles wide, millimeters deep. The customer might yet be right, though not until I’m finished framing the options. No single person can know everything, but it is the obligation of all involved in the sale of better beer to possess an ability to explain and conceptualize.

In a story at Insider Louisville Baylor’s partner, Joe Phillips, says, “We’re going to resurrect the spirit of what a real pub is.”

Those would be the sort of places Pete Brown describes in The Pub: A Cultural Institution — from Country Inns to Craft Beer Bars and Corner Locals as well as similar, with some obvious differences, gathering places in Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, and perhaps other countries Baylor and Phillips have visited. These places do exist, but as Boak & Bailey wrote this week village inns are changing because villages are changing.

I look forward to getting back to New Albany when Pints & Union has been up and running for a while. I can listen Roger Baylor talk for hours (as a bit of disclosure, I once spent a night at his house en route to a conference in Lexington), but I mostly hope to find a stool at the bar and listen to what everybody else is saying. Then I’ll know how this is working in a southern Indiana outpost.

TERROIR

Bob Townsend asks What Is Southern Beer? in The Bitter Southerner. Words about beer terroir in my new neighborhood. How could I resist?

More and more, that sort of sense of place is being discussed in terms of the unique characteristics of the soil food crops are grown in or the aquaculture of oyster farming.

And all around the South, many breweries have been sprouting up taking a cues from those ideas, while finding inspiration in the Old World farmhouse brewing practices of Belgium and France.”

He mentions Wild Azalea Saison from Southern Brewing in Athens. It was fermented with yeast collected at the brewery before it opened. I drank this beer about a week ago and, sure enough, it has the fruity/spicy qualities you expect in a saison. That’s typical for yeast collected in the wild, and I look forward to trying more beers made with the strain and learning if there is a “taste of Athens.”

MORE BEER; JUST THE LINKS

– Busting Up the Brotherhood of Beer: Time to confront sexism & harassment in the industry.
– How Come Nobody Criticises That Rosé de Gambrinus Label?
– How SAB won the internet on #SANBeerDay.
– Marijuana will be ‘way bigger’ than craft beer, Lagunitas Brewing founder tells cannabis industry leaders.
– Jim Koch on Sam Adam’s New England IPA.
– Mount Crushmore.
– The Portland Outpost of San Diego’s Modern Times Brewery Pours Good Beer, at Very High Prices. Bring back the Portland Beer Price Index.

WINE; JUST THE LINKS

– Controversy Erupts Over Label Laws.
– Some thoughts on wine quality: an intrinsic or extrinsic property of a wine?
– Who’s Influencing Your Wine Choices?

FROM TWITTER