Beer writing last week, one paragraph at a time

The question of the week last week was “Has the thrill gone?” The comments when I shared the question on Facebook pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

Jeff Alworth had many thoughts of his own. Many thoughts. They weren’t just about the question Boak & Bailey ssked, but also sparked by a comment by a regular at Beervana that, “Craft beer has very few stories left to tell.” I agree with Alworth that there are many new interesting stories to write about beer and the surrounding culture. But I’m not sure if that was what B&B were asking about.

[Added Monday afternoon (in Colorado): The flatness of beer part 2: the opinions of others]

In any event, there were some lovely drinks-related paragraphs written last week. Here goes . . .

Craft Central offers regular flurries of brightly coloured American tins at exceedingly high prices, largely made up of hazy IPAs in the way that beer these days generally is. I have little interest and usually scroll on past, but . . . maybe I should be checking in now and again to see if there’s value to be had. These, presumably, are the beers that everyone else around the world is copying, right? OK, I’ve convinced me. Here’s two IPAs from the less obscenely priced end of the spectrum, both from New Jersey, a lonely state, lacking a New Guernsey or New Sark to keep it company.

— From The Beer Nut

Making wine is science. Drinking it is not. The amount of time a given wine has spent in a barrel is an unalterable fact, my ability to detect that oak is a skill, but my judgement on whether that oak is well integrated and how good the result tastes is entirely subjective. Confusing facts with opinions is not, unfortunately, restricted to the wine world, but a social activity such as wine tasting that revolves around a very complicated technical process may be especially ripe for misunderstanding. This, surely, is why a liquid that is both a chemical and a metaphysical source of happiness ends up causing so many arguments.

— From Club Oenologique

“I wanted to highlight time and place in both the ingredients and the concept of the beer I brew,” says Josh Chapman. “It’s important for me to be excellent without being exclusive. I don’t want to be perceived as pretentious, especially as the first brewery on the Eastern Shore. There are lots of Bud and Miller drinkers here, and so I wanted something relatable but adjacent to what they are used to.”

— From Pellicle

Scholarship programs are part of a larger push within the beer industry, from individual breweries, trade groups and nonprofits, to increase representation among people of color in beer. Scholarships benefit the recipients, of course, but they also critically benefit the companies and industry that employ them. Repeated studies conducted by workplace consultancy McKinsey & Co. since 2014 show that companies with more diverse leadership financially outperform those with low racial and gender diversity among their leaders. That message has become critical as breweries feel less public pressure to keep issues of race and inclusion front and center.

— From Good Beer Hunting Sightlines

“For the very first Fourth of July, Worthington was a temperance town. One of the temperance people in Tallinn had busted open a barrel — Professor Humiston was his name — some settlers had brought out to celebrate the Fourth of July. Well, they didn’t take too well to that, and so they marched down and got another keg of beer. They took the other keg of beer that he had busted open, and they dug a hole and buried it in his front yard, placed the new barrel on top of where they had just buried that barrel of beer. They proceeded to stand around and guard the barrel so he couldn’t bust it open, and they invited everybody out to have a party on Professor Humiston’s lawn — that’s where we got the name from.”

— The origin story of Forbidden Barrel Brewing in Minnesota, from Dakota News Now

In Memoriam
David Geary, founder of the D.L. Geary Brewing Company in Maine, died last week. There are many reasons to remember him, but his keynote at the 1996 Craft Brewers Conference has to be in the top 10.

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– How London’s First Black Pub Landlords Changed the City’s Drinking Culture

– Big Trouble in Little Kortrijk?

– A musing on menace

– Major new guidance on beer styles for consumers

– Creating Safer Spaces in Craft Beer, Part Seven — Brewing Beers That Make a Difference

This is what ‘after the thrill is gone’ looks like

After the thrill is goneAs seen at Coors Field in Denver.

A question and a request from UK bloggers Boak & Bailey arrived Monday in their monthly newsletter.

The question: Has the thrill gone?

The request: You tell us.

The newsletter includes a white board intended to examine what might make beer more exciting. You really should take a look.

I shared their questions on Facebook. Forget AI. I had intended to answer the questions with this post, but outsourcing them provided most of the answers I was thinking of.

I’m still considering the last question—What beer experience last gave you a full-on thrill?—and trying to decide if I want beer to thrill me, or if I expect something more.

Scientists muck with beer & other Monday am reading

Arnold's, Cincinnati, Ohio

The New York Times and Wired magazine posted stories this past week about how science may, as it has for centuries, change beer. In one case, the goal is not to change the flavor. In the other, the goal is both to eliminate an unwanted flavor and to enhance new exotic ones.

“As water sources, particularly in the western United States, dry up from overuse, drought and climate change, supporters of direct potable reuse — the use of treated wastewater in the drinking water supply — are pitching it as part of the solution,” The Times reports. “Increasingly, they are turning to beer as a way of getting people beyond the ‘ick factor’ that has been a hurdle to its broader acceptance.”

There is a “toilet to tap” perception problem . . . even though in Scottsdale, Arizona, the purifying process “involves ozone infusion, microfiltration and reverse osmosis, in which water is forced across a membrane to remove dissolved minerals and other impurities. The water is then zapped with ultraviolet light.”

The Wired story begins with details about how modified strains from Berkeley Yeast eliminate diacetyl. It barely touches upon other products from Berkeley responsible for freeing compounds that add to tropical aromas and flavors top hop-forward beers, be they hazy or clear. And it doesn’t mention Omega Yeast at all, which any story about modified yeast strains should.

I can’t get behind the headline that asserts “Gene-Edited Yeast Is Taking Over Craft Beer” but they certainly point to an aroma/flavor destination that interests brewers and drinkers. It is one that hop growers are certainly paying attention to. “I believe we could see an even bigger push toward hops that work with these new yeast strains,” says Brian Tennis, the founder of the Hop Alliance. “As hop growers, we need to make sure we are growing what the market demands.”

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Beer lessons learned in Oklahoma. Jeff Alworth admits “parachuting into any region is never going to provide me the nuances of a place,” but nonetheless he shares many thoughts. Also, a) I really want to visit Big Friendly, and b) perhaps this reflects my Midwest heritage, but I do not recall Joe Prichard’s accent being particularly thick.

New Jersey’s Governor Is Screwing Its Breweries. When we were in New Jersey earlier this month, brewery operators I spoke with thought the a bill that would enact changes intended to benefit them would be signed in law by now. It hasn’t been, and the explanation is not simple.

One of Colorado’s ‘brightest risers’ is suddenly closing. How tenuous might things be for some small breweries? Apparently, a rainy June did in Uhl’s Brewing in Boulder. [Additional reading.]

The price of beer. “Super-deals of EUR 9.99 (USD 11) for a crate of beer (10 liters) have become a rare sight” in Germany. And draft half liters cost a heck of a lot more. In the UK, a pint of beer is 127% more expensive than world average of £2.60. The United States is the ninth most expensive country for beer on average, with a pint costing £6.22 ($8) on average. They aren’t that expensive at Arnold’s (pictured at the top) in Cincinnati, even before a $2 discount during happy hour.

Separated at birth

Atriveda Brewing, Colorado Springs, CO
The tap handles at Atrevida Beer Company in Colorado Springs, Colorado, remind customers the brewery is veteran friendly.

Cartridge Brewing, Maineville, OH Cartridge Brewing in Maineville, Ohio, is located in a former cartridge factory. Hence the handles.

TWTBWTW: Take that, ‘Judgment of Paris’

As you likely know, the big story in The Beer Week That Was was Sapporo giving up on Anchor Brewing. I have nothing to add, and you’ve probably read enough already (including the stories I would link to), so I will simply point to one about the property the brewer is sitting on.

Otherwise, here goes:

– Mike Royko’s 1973 Foreign Vs. Domestic Beers Test Will Be Restaged
A pretty good way to pass a summer Sunday afternoon in Chicago. Here are the results from 30 50 years ago.

Mike Royko's beer taste test 1973

– Kölsch Night in the Boonies
It’s a story about beer and community. Give it a read. My comment as only tangentially related to beer. First, I cringe when I see “boonies” in a headline, or story, for that matter. Fairbury is located along U.S. 24 in Illinois. I know this because I used to live along U.S. 24. I’ve been to Fairbury, and I’ve also been to Havana, which is located along another stretch of U.S. 24.

People who live in such smaller town don’t take kindly to having the places where they live described as the boonies. I was once hung in effigy in Havana because I wrote a story, one meant to praise the “big city” confidence their high school team played with, in which I rattled off the way others viewed small towns.

Anyway, Prairie Central High School is situated in Fairbury. It was formed in 1985, combining Fairbury-Cropsey High (a 1951 consolidation) and Chatsworth and Forrest-Strawn-Wing. Prairie Central’s sports teams are nicknamed the Hawks. Fairbury-Cropsey’s nickname has been the Tartars and F-S-W’s was the Eskimos. Two great nicknames wipe out in one consolidation. Consolidation is not only bad for brewing diversity.

– The death of the beer festival is jolting the craft brewing industry
Todd Alström posted a link to the story in a Beer Advocate forum and a discussion much more interesting than anything similar that would occur on Twitter (or Threads or, sadly, Mastodon) followed.

– How hazies changed West Coast IPAS
It feels like a humble brag to point a post that starts with an observation I made 14 years ago, but Jeff Alworth turns it into something more modern. “The freedom to be indifferent in these after-hazy days has gone. … A whole new generation of beer drinkers has come along with no memory of beer BH (before hazy).”

– Down on the Farmhouse
“Folks can come here, order a pawpaw beer, and then wander down to the orchard and read about pawpaws, look at pawpaws, while they’re drinking a beer,” says co-founder and brewer Todd Boera. “You know, that’s just kind of something that sticks with people and is meaningful. You can’t do that anywhere else.”

Wine specific, but beer related

– The latest alcohol advice ignores the value of pleasure
“A pleasure-agnostic approach to health advice is now in vogue even outside the domain of alcohol, and is filtering down to the general public with sometimes absurd results. Recently, a reader asked me: Is there any data on health benefits to orgasms? I am not aware of reliable data from randomized experiments suggesting that having more orgasms improves health. That isn’t the point of orgasms, anyway. The point of orgasms is that they are fun. We do not need to prove health benefits to want to have them.”

– Profit-Sharing is Taking Root in the Wine Industry
“Profit-sharing is still far from the norm in the wine industry — and agriculture, generally — a sector that is notoriously asset-heavy, cash-poor, and has long relied on a low-paid migrant workforce to turn a profit or just break even.”