I promise not to make a habit of posting beer-related, particularly hop-related, holiday greetings (although I always look forward to the card from Bohemia Hop).
However, this one just arrived from Hüll via email and will keep me smiling all day.
On the demise of beer, & your weekly ‘place’ updates
MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 12.08.14
The great beer abandonment: America’s young drinkers are increasingly drinking wine and hard alcohol instead.
“Even the beer world’s coveted corner, craft beers, which has been gaining market share for many years now, might be on the verge of hitting their peak. ‘While we’re not there yet, we’re definitely approaching bubble territory,’ Spiros Malandrakis, an industry analyst at Euromonitor, said this past summer.”
[Via Washington Post]
Craft Beer Report Card: Have We ‘Failed Our Female Fan Base’?
Enough.
The Sexist Nightmare That is Being a ‘Barmaid.
Jessica Miller, who was one of the one of the women surveyed for the “How Craft Beer Fails Its Female Fan Base” story in the 11.24.14 links, offers indepth perspective on the issue. The next two links provide a different sort of persective.
[Via Hey, Brewtiful; Hipster Brewfus; The Vagenda’; h/T Boak & Bailey’s Beer Blog]
Learning to love constraint in brewing, or, Globalization and the terroirs of music, soccer formations, and local beer.
Truly local beer requires a beer culture.
The first was written for Boak & Bailey’s call to “go long” but I didn’t spot it until Monday. It begins with a series of digressions (“I swear this eventually has to with beer”) but they turn into a fine way to introduce the idea of “commitment to restraint.” And it ties directly into what Lars Marius Garshol has to say in the second. You know you should take the time to read something that includes this thought: “Strong forces are pulling the other way, toward drowning everything in the soup of sameness.”
[Via The Brewolero and Larsblog]
Persimmons.
Indigenous ingredient of the week.
[Via Richmond-Times Dispatch]
Fourteen rules concerning wine blogging.
They work just as well for beer.
[Via Via Steve Heimoff]
Session #94: Just another cog in the industrial beer complex
The topic for The Session #94 today is: “Your role in the beer ‘scene’. What it is.”
Host Adrian Dingle provided this guidance: “So, where do you see yourself? Are you simply a cog in the commercial machine if you work for a brewery, store or distributor? Are you nothing more than an interested consumer? Are you JUST a consumer? Are you a beer evangelist? Are you a wannabe, beer ‘professional’? Are you a beer writer? All of the above? Some of the above? None of the above? Where do you fit, and how do you see your own role in the beer landscape?”
Since he first posted the topic, I’ve been trying to decide if I should call myself a “cog” even though I don’t draw a paycheck from any brewery. By writing about beer I publicize beer. And all publicity is good publicity, right? So there you have it. Enough about me. More interesting is what I get to see and write about. Here’s what I saw this morning:
That’s Davo McWilliams pouring a bunch of hops into a brew kettle at the Anheuser-Busch Research Pilot Brewery in St. Louis, and RBP brewmaster Roderick Read in the background. McWilliams won the right to have his IPA recipe brewed at the pilot brewery when a panel of A-B judges liked it best in a competition last month held in conjunction with the Ballpark Village Brew Fest in downtown St. Louis.
The beer will be served next month in the Budweiser Brew House at Ballpark Village. Right now it’s still wort and, like the story, a work in progress
So do winemakers ever become soms?
Ray Daniels announced this morning that Patrick Rue and James Watt passed two rigorous days of testing to become Master Cicerones. They are both brewers by trade — Rue is founder of The Bruery in California and Watt co-founder of Brew Dog in Scotland.
This led to to wonder if winemakers seek similar certification — either as a Master Sommelier or a Master of Wine.
And what does it reveal about beer and/or wine whether they do or they do not?
*****
Not necessarily related but almost seems like it since this discussion was just last week: What do beer writers think of beer certifications?
How to avoid ‘the sameness of craft beer’
MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 12.01.14
The sameness of craft beer. SPOILER ALERT, it is better to start at the beginning, but I’m cutting directly to the conclusion: “So are we necessarily headed for a world where beers taste the same everywhere? Probably we are, at least to some degree, because I don’t really see how anyone today can develop a genuinely local beer culture.”
To “some degree” leaves wiggle room, so I can’t say I simply disagree with this. There is much truth in it, but I see something else happening as well. Friday we were in a newish place in western New Jersey located in a building in which more than one restaurant venture has failed, the last being an “Asian fusion” concept. It was packed. Presumably because it has 40 beers on tap, most of which would be labeled craft, and about as many televisions, all of which were showing various football games. The draft menu included cultish San Diego-style hop-centric beers such as Ballast Point Sculpin IPA and Port Brewing Wipeout IPA (so from 2,700 miles away). There was a handle for Coors Light, a beer I saw plenty of people in their mid-20s drinking. If you wanted a Budweiser you had to buy it by the bottle (and people did). There were also, thank goodness, plenty of regional choices, although none from tiny breweries or beers you’d label “place based.”
So I don’t see beers tasting the same everywhere. Brewers in the Midwest who like hop-centric beers similar to those found on the West Coast are making beers that taste much the same, but there is a difference between exactly the same and broadly the same. The former has a better chance of being boring. One things that struck me at the Beers Made by Walking Festival last October in Denver was the connection attendees seem to make immediately with the beers being served. Granted, people who paid to attend were already predisposed to appreciate these beers. Some were from small breweries, but some were from larger ones. They were delightfully not the same, and most were not scalable. Granted, I’m a cockeyed optimist, but it sure looks like this not-scalable trend has legs.
[Via Larsblog]
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Read it for a measured report on The Brewers Project at Guinness. Or read it for sentences like this: “St. James’s Gate is a totally sterile plant, no beer leaves alive, not even the made-for-destruction test batches.”
[Via The Beer Nut]
What do beer writers think of beer certifications? Chad Polenz polled people who write about beer about the “expect their brethren to have a certification in order to have credibility.” He also posted a link on his own Facebook page and one on the Beer Judge Certification Program page, and between the two there are almost 200 comments. Exhausting reading.
[Via Times Union and Facebook]
Photo Contest 2014: The What, The How And The Why. Here’s another two-for-one set of links. Alan McLeod rambles a bit about Photo Contest 2014 and blogging in general, with enough length to qualify as a #BeerLongRead — the occasional gathering of bloggers hosted by Boak & Bailey. Lots there to add to Pocket.
[Via A Good Beer Blog and Boak & Bailey’s Beer Blog]
Rethinking the tasting note. If it is time to change the way “we” talk about wine, as is suggested here, then maybe it makes sense to reconsider how “we” describe the aromas and flavors in beer.
[Via Grape Collective]