Monday beer links: Because this is why we came out of the trees

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 01.30.17

Our 9,000-Year Love Affair With Booze.
So question No. 1. If “people were imbibing alcohol long before they invented writing” how the heck did they blog about it? This is a long one, so set aside some time. Should you not be convinced, consider this, “You could say we came out of the trees to get a beer.” [Via National Geographic]

Three Notable Breweries of the Wasteland.
Fiction. How ’bout that? Perhaps made more relevant because this “post-apocalyptic future, where civilization has been destroyed and is currently in the process of being rebuilt” feels far too imminent. [Via The Thirsty Wench, h/T @totalcurtis]

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Compare and contrast

Late last month I tweeted this compare and contrast after Alan McLeod suggested we could use a “Tree Of Brewing Traditions.” (A fine idea, by the way, so waiting for somebody to step up and do the work.) So you’ll understand why when I first saw the interactive beer wall at Schlafly Bottleworks last week I thought immediately of the ceiling at Strefa Piwa Pub (Beer Zone) in Krakow.

So Bottlesworks at the top, Beer Zone below. The Schlafly map is a work in progress, but right now you can tap one of those circles and details about the beer will pop up on the screen in the center. Wondering what the hops are in American IPA? There they are. Stephen Hale, whose title really is ambassador brewer, says that in a later version customers will be able to tap on any of the hops in that beer, say Amarillo since it is in APIA, and find out what other beers are brewed with that hop.

Of course, I immediately suggested more refinements. Like listing other beers fermented with a POF+ yeast strain when you tap the saison button. This is why I don’t get asked out much.

Interactive beer wall at Schalfly Bottleworks

Ceiling at Beer Zone in Krakow

Monday beer links: Sexism, authenticity, and space beer

MONDAY BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING, 01.23.17

Thank You for Not Putting Down Women.
[Via Not My Father’s Beer]
Beer industry personnel – Come to daddy!
[Via Beer Compurgation]
Wine, Women and Subtle Sexism.
[Via wine-searcher]
Why I spent a weekend brewing with just women.
[Via The Growler]
Meet the Women Bringing Monumental Changes to the MSP Craft Beer Scene.
[Via Thrillist]
Sigh. It never ends, does it? I’m trying to figure out what constitutes progress and how we’d measure it.

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Values, memories, ideals

Flag at Craftsman Brewing, Pasadena, California

This flag appears in black and white on page 22 of Brewing Local. It seems like a good day to think about it in color, or simply to think about it.

It was hanging high on the back wall at Craftsman Brewing in Pasadena when I visited in March of 2014. It used to belong to Craftsman founder Mark Jilg’s grandfather. “He grew up in St. Louis. His father died when he was six years old. Very do-it-yourself kind of guy,” Jilg said. “Like any flag it is a symbol; a placeholder for values, memories, ideals.”

Conversation about authenticity, as elusive as it might be, comes easily when looking up at the flag. “It’s all about being genuine, tied to a place. It can be inspired by the place you live, by the people around here. It can be conceptually about place, not physically about place,” Jilg said. He talked about the symbiotic relationship that develops when beer is consumed locally. Brewers care about what their friends will be drinking, and consumers take pride in consuming beer made by people they know.

“Once you have that genuineness, it fends off the evils of the twentieth century,” Jilg said.

Would you open this bottle of beer?

E&J Burke Guinness Foreign StoutSo if your wife gave you this bottle of Guinness Foreign Stout that obviously is quite old for Christmas would you open it to see what the beer inside it tasted like?

How old might it be?

E&J Burke had the rights to import Guinness going back to 1864, and the “Cat” trademark is almost as old. The Burke family was one of the biggest bottlers of Guinness for export and in the 1930s opened a brewery on Long Island, which they later sold to Guinness.

Martyn Cornell — the first book of his I bought was Beer Memorabilia — was kind enough to compare the label here with those in A Bottle of Guinness Please (a book I don’t have) but couldn’t find an exact match. It is similar to some from more than 100 years ago.

I asked him the same question as at the top. He tactfully pointed out the amount of beer the angels have claimed over the years, but was not altogether discouraging. “If any Brett survived alive you could be lucky.”

So would you?

E&J Burke Guinness Foreign Stout