When an economist analyzes brewery names

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING, 07.11.16

Hopportunity Cost: Craft Brewers Brawl Over Catchy Names as Puns Run Dry.
Maybe, maybe not. But this story does present an opportunity to show this slide Lester Jones, NBWA economist, displayed during his presentation at the Beer Bloggers Conference in Tampa. Photo courtesy Sean Jansen. (Disclosure: As the keynote speaker I had my way to the conference paid.) [Via Wall Street Journal]

Brewery names

How Craft Brewers Advance Science, and Make Better Beer.
The blurb on Twitter that pointed me to this story mentioned hop genome sequencing (which Hopsteiner and others have been working for some time), so I headed there expecting something in the way of new information about that. Didn’t happen. So perhaps it is my disappointment typing, but to write Paul Mathews — who is scary smart — “is to hops what John James Audubon was to birds” is ludicrous. How hard would it have been to discover what E.S. Salmon accomplished a century ago? [Via The New Yorker]

Bits we Underlined In… How To Run a Pub, 1969.
This book “is a product of its time: it is addressed entirely to men, women are a problem to be dealt with, and the language around race might shock some modern readers.” Of course, that it offers such a candid look at its time is what makes it so interesting. [Via Boak & Bailey’s Beer Blog]

‘Heaven’s water’: the launch of Amsterdam’s first rainwater beer.
I feel like I should have known this: “It seems like a disruptive idea, but when we researched it, in the Middle Ages, [Dutch] breweries set up near churches and cathedrals to catch rainwater runoff from their roofs.” [Via The Guardian]

The Foundations of a Great American Brewery: The Early Architecture of Anheuser-Busch.
The first installment in what apparently will be several posts. For additional reading I recommend ordering a copy of Brewery History 155: “Approaches to the history of American brewery architecture.” [Via St. Louis Magazine]

Ich bin ein Berliner (Weisse) – A beery tour of Germany’s capital.
And more suggested additional reading: Joe Stange writes about Berlin in the current issue of DRAFT magazine (in print, no link). [Via Beeson on Beer, h/T Matthew Curtis]

This brewery is using cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence to engineer the perfect beer.
Not intended as a political statement, but were I to come up with a beer brewing algorithm I would not call it ABI. [Via Digital Trends]

FROM TWITTER

Yes, this is my tweet, but several of the responses were delightfully clever (click on the date to see them).

2016 hop crop still looking good & other lupulin news

Catching up on hop news from various outposts:

– The Barth-Haas Group has released its 2016 Hop Market and Crop Development Report, and the news continues to be pretty good.

“Growing conditions in all regions has progressed as planned, with most countries expanding their hop acreage for 2016. Specifically, Australia alone has increased their acreage from 488 ha in 2015 to 545 ha in 2016. A total change of 57 ha (an 11.7% increase). [1 hectare=2.47 acres]

“The US has now become the largest hop producer in the world, adding a total of 3,110 ha in 2016. China is the only country amongst the larger hop producers with a declining acreage, estimated to be down by 324 ha from 2015 due to local industry conditions.”

– Hopslist founder Julian Healey sent me a copy of his Kindle book, The Hops List: 265 Beer Hop Varieties From Around the World. It is astonishingly comprehensive, including varieties I had not heard of. It’s going to take me a while to get through it. As Healey explains at his website, he’s “not a hop farmer and he’s certainly not an agricultural scientist. He’s just a 32-year-old guy that really loves brewing his own beer.” He’s a digital marketing consultant and writer by trade who has mined the internet for a surprising amount of information about these varieties. He also keeps a list of the most popular varieties at his website.

Because it is a Kindle book he’ll be able to update it more easily. You may be thinking “new varieties” but I am thinking additional information, like 4MMP content and the percentage of geraniol, linalool, etc. (once, of course, hop scientists better understand which of the 500-plus compounds in hops are a precursor to various aromas and flavors).

– This would appear to be a sign of how interested brewers are in finding just about any aroma new and different. YCHHOPS is selling eight varieties of experimental hops. One of these, previously known as HBC 291, recently got a name. Expect to see a lot more of Loral by the end of the teens.

– Michigan hop scouting report. Remember, growing hops is agriculture. Reacting to Michigan State University Extension’s report that “Japanese beetles have begun emerging in hopyards as far north as west central Michigan” is all in a days work.

– One of the challenges for would-be hop growers outside the Northwest is infrastructure. Michigan, New York and Wisconsin reached that tipping point a few years ago. Now Minnesota is as well.

– Hydroponic hops? Beer Advocate had a story on this as well. It works for marijuana, but isn’t that more of a cash crop?

Happy 4th of July beer links

NO HOLIDAY FOR MONDAY BEER LINKS, BUT PERHAPS FOR MUSING, 07.04.16

An Open Letter to Beer Nerds.
Pick a paragraph, any paragraph. I’ll take this one.

The labels explain how this unique, captivating brew came into existence. Often there’s a “journey” involved, which displays excellent creative skills on the part of the marketing team involved, and no flagrant embellishment or anything. Beer is important and political and life-altering.

[Via McSweeney’s, h/T James Schirmer]

How Big Will Craft Get? Oregon’s Numbers are Suggestive.
There was more sky is falling speculation last week, but also this. [Via Beervana]

Burned Boise beer brewer back on job, wins awards.
“Sometimes, you don’t realize how dangerous your job is, because you do it every day. We work around chemicals and batters, slippery floors, heat. There’s so many different hazards in the brewery and you just take them for granted when you’re around them all the time.” [Via Idaho Statesman]

Beer essentials: The craft beer boom in Japan shows no sign of running dry.
“Ichiri Fujiura, proprietor of Watering Hole and soon to be brewer at Tharsis Ridge Brewing, notes that homebrewing and craft beer are ‘totally unrelated in Japan.’” And this story suggests that is one thing that slow the advance of in craft beer. [Via Japan Times]

MSU’s century-old barley revived to make Michigan beer.
“The whole idea of locally grown barley to make your brew is resonating very well with the microbrew industry.” [Via Lansing State Journal, h/T Jeff Alworth]

So many oral histories, such wonderful women!
It’s really important to collect this history. [Via Oregon Hops & Brewing Archives]

Categories of grisette and grisette strength.
“As usual there are still questions, but hopefully this helps to make the identity of grisette a bit more clear and helps you choose what strength to make your grisette.” [Via Hors Catégorie Brewing]

MOVING ON TO WINE

10 questions to ask about any wine appellation.
Granted, I think in terms of beer and appellations more than most, but there are some parallels here. [Via The Gray Report]

FROM TWITTER

The Session #113: A few pub observations

The SessionThis is my contribution to this month’s Session, “Mass Observation: The Pub and The People.” Now that I have read host Boak & Bailey’s post I would give this a C-. I already knew that I would receive a lower mark because I did not anonymise (or with a z) the pub, but their report makes it clear I could have collected much more data that would be of use to a twenty-second century athropologist. They also raise the question of how the presence of an observer may affect what is being observed. For instance, there are questions I would have liked to have asked Will Gilbert, but that’s not what I was there to do.

*****

This was not the best time to observe what might be called typical at Riley’s Pub in the Tower Grove East neighborhood of St. Louis.

During a commercial break for the Jeopardy, the TV game show everybody had come in to watch, a man found an opening at the bar and squeezed in to order two more glasses of Urban Chestnut Zwickel. “This is the busiest I’ve seen this place, like busier than the World Cup,” he said.

Urban Chestnut beers, Zwickel and STLIPA, as well as Guinness (because it was Thursday) were just $3.50 a pint, and Riley’s set out free snacks. That’s not why both rooms of the pub were full. Friends and neighbors had come to see Will Gilbert, like them a regular at Riley’s, compete on Jeopardy. Of course he was at the party, because the show is taped in advance.

A bartender at Riley's Pub tends to the tapsAt 4:15, 15 minutes before the program would start, there were still seats at the bar. They quickly disappeared by the time the bartender poured a Zwickel, a Zwickel, a Harp, another Zwickel, opened the Guinness tap, slid a can of 4 Hands City Wide across the bar and filled two glasses of water before returning finish the Guinness pour.

“Do you know Will?” one man asked as they made their way toward the less crowded second room. “I’ve played trivia with him,” said the second.

Sometimes trivia means the same thing in St. Louis as in most cities — something bars offers on a week night to attract customers. But St. Louis also has a unique trivia culture, found in churches on Saturday night (and beer is welcome). So it was a big deal when Gilbert landed a spot on Jeopardy.

Although Riley’s is sometimes grouped with other “Irish pubs” (like seemingly everywhere, St. Louis has plenty), I’d simply call it a neighborhood tavern. It’s the only commercial establishment in the immediate neighborhood. It’s the kind of place that holds fundraisers for the local high school and invites customers to sit quietly during televised political debates.

Last Thursday the draft choices were Civil Life American Brown, Civil Life Rye Pale Ale, Guinness, Smithwicks, Harp, UCBC STLIPA, UCBC Zwickel, and Schlafly Pale Ale. They don’t change very often.

When Gilbert’s picture appeared on the screen (there were two televisions in the bar area, another in the adjoining room) at 4:24 a cheer went up. The place went silent when the competition began, but low level conversations returned quickly enough. Mostly cheers followed, sometimes when he got an answer right, other times when one of his competitors got one wrong. Once in a while a chant — “Will! Will! Will!” — broke out. Wearing a T-shirt decorated with a St. Louis city flag and holding an Urban Chestnut ceramic mug Gilbert settled at one end of the bar, a step outside most of the madness.

He commented occasionally, without raising his voice, like any other afternoon when he and friends were watching the show, as they do often at Riley’s.

“This is the one, Patrick. It is your fault I didn’t know this.”

“I knew this one. I was pissed.”

He led going into Final Jeopardy (for those unfamiliar with Jeopardy, this is how it works), but got the final answer wrong. It took a moment for his friends to understood what he knew long ago. “Will! Will! Will!” they chanted, then applauded long and hard.

In the 45 minutes between the time I got a seat at the bar and Jeopardy ended I saw the bartender, sometimes with a bit of help, pour 18 glasses of Zwickel. Perhaps the price was a factor, but it was also a Zwickel sort of day, the temperature hitting 97 degrees and the heat index topping 100. She drew five glasses of Guinness, two of Schlafly Pale (plus a pitcher), two Civil Life Browns and two Rye Pale Ales, one UCBC STLIPA, and one Harp. She also handed out six bottles of Stag, three cans of City Wide, one bottle of wine (chilled in a Bud Light bucket) and one single glass, and mixed (about) six drinks made with spirits.

Categories (beer styles) help us like things more

Tom Vanderbilt’s You May Also Like:Taste in an Age of Endless Choice is an absolutely fascinating book, although it likely won’t leave you satisfied if you expect an answer to the question of why we like what we like. But he introduces so many ideas, like this one from an article in The Guardian: “With the internet, we have a kind of city of the mind, a medium that people do not just consume but inhabit, even if it often seems to replicate and extend existing cities (New Yorkers, already physically exposed to so many other people, use Twitter the most). As Bentley has argued, ‘Living and working online, people have perhaps never copied each other so profusely (since it usually costs nothing), so accurately, and so indiscriminately.'”

He gets around to discussing beer late in his book, and that might make its way into something I write. Meanwhile, a non-beer-specific thought from the final chapter, which is made up of a series of messages—a sort of “field guide to liking” in a world of infinite variety.

We like thing more when they can be categorized. Our pattern-macthing brains are primed to categorize the world, and we seem to like things the more they resemble what we think they should. Studies have found that when subjects look at pictures of mixed-race people and are asked to judge their attractiveness, the answer depends on what categories are used; a Chinese-american man may be judged more attractive than men in general but less attractive than Chinese men. Things that are “hard to categorize” are hard to like—until we invent new categories. We like things more when we can categorize them, and categories can help up like things more, even things that aren’t as good as we might like.

You could read this as an argument for more beer styles. Please do not show it to anybody with the power to make that happen.