TWTBWTW: Typicity, beer styles & all that jazz

Jaaz funeral parade at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

In the wine world, when talking about grapes, it is only a “matter of time until the notion of typicity comes up.”

Of course, wine is more dependent on a singular ingredient than beer. D’oh. But there is more to wine than grapes, and talking about typicity gets quickly complicated. Immerse yourself, if you will, or simply consider this, with two suggested changes in brackets.

“There are trends that influence and change wine [beer] styles in every region and with almost every grape [ingredient]; I think the older we get the more natural it is for us to shun new trends when the reality is we have been a part of all sorts of trends, and many have come before us.”

In the revised edition of “The Complete Beer Course” (ships in June), Josh Bernstein writes, “In the beer world, there’s an ongoing hullabaloo about the utility of style. Why do beers have to fit within neatly defined parameters? Short answer: they don’t. To me, styles prove their worth as a general framework, a reference point for discussion and a launch bad for endless future innovation.”

So it seems timely that Jeff Alworth posted this Thursday: “I’ve gone on and on [my note: indeed], so I’ll summarize and end this. Styles are not something actual, they’re a linguistic convenience. Beers are constantly changing, so any term will be a snapshot in time, and the more specific that term is (robust porter versus brown porter), the quicker it will stop describing what we find in the marketplace. And finally, there are far, far better ways to understand beers than as a catalogue of names with their associated stats.”

We spent 30 or so hours during the last four days at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, surrounded by our favorite music genres. Not once in the Blues Tent did I stop to think about the 44 blues sub-genres listed here, certainly not while listening to a zydeco version of “Rockin’ Robin.” Or if the music qualified as traditional or authentic. Or if it had to adhere to tradition to be authentic.

This is a place where “trad jazz” has its own tent. In a city where jazz funerals are an integral part of its culture. (The photo at the top is from the parade at Jazz Fest celebrating the life of Walter “Wolfman” Washington.) And one where there is always something new (that includes food as well as music).

We’ve been coming to Jazz Fest since 1990, although not every year, and change is constant. We’ve never seen anything as spectacular as what Jon Baptiste put together Saturday. He was joined on stage by “30-odd members of his St. Augustine High School alma mater’s Marching 100, the Gospel Soul Children choir, the four members of The Boyz pow-wow band, his own band, four dancers and a couple of dudes painted gold.”

To return to typicity and beer styles, I spend little time thinking about competition categories. I look at them when I judge, and for the record, the BJCP guidelines are much broader, inclusive if you will, than they once were. I’m more interested in the process that results in excellent beer, past and future tense.

Sentences that include “I think the older we get the more natural it is for us to shun new trends when the reality is we have been a part of all sorts of trends” make me stop and think. Saturday, when Jon Baptiste yelled “jump,” I saw plenty of people almost as old as I am leap into the air, raise their hands and sing “freedom” along with him.

Let’s be honest, music has magic powers that beer does not. Still, talking about music, beer, or even Texas barbecue, tradition and categories aren’t what muzzle creativity.

What sets it free? Place seems to play a role.

You might also enjoy

– Nobody Cares About Sustainable Beer. And, just like that, I feel like a nobody. Seriously, I know many brewers who do care. They are waiting for consumers to catch up.

– Craft, or artisanal? “I am perfectly happy to own the possibility that this mindset is purely a VelkyAl thing.”

– Beer’s Most Despised Glasses: Are the Shaker and Teku Really That Bad? Exactly my thought before I even started reading the story: “Neither are worthy of much loathing (I mean, they’re just glasses, people).”

– Cask culture for the future. “Accessible, consistent beers. We’ve never chased the latest faddish trends, with no disrespect to those breweries that do… but that’s just not our style.” Citra and Galaxy hops once screamed innovative, and they still can be used that way. But it seems Fuggle may serve a similar purpose.

– Pub etiquette. The story begins, “Two men get up, put on their coats, and slip out of the door. They leave two pint glasses on the table, each with less than an inch of beer.” Read on.

– Craft Beer Investor Psychology. “It sounds unfathomable to be investing in craft beer right now with the economy such a question mark and breweries having surpassed their saturation point, but that’s exactly how market psychology works.”

– Strange brew: Why negative branding is fueling the craft beer industry. Finally, I missed this last month while traveling. There are some fact issues – “in 2011 there were zero taprooms and 1.4 million micro-breweries in the U.S. and by 2021 those numbers had grown to 2 million taprooms and 4.5 million micro-breweries.” Huh? But it’s amusing to read hypothesizing from outside the bubble.

Australian hop production increases 9.9%

Australian hop fields

Hop Products Australia announced that its farms harvested 9.9 percent more hops in 2023 than 2022. HPA produces most of the hops grown in Australia, including proprietary varieties such as Galaxy, Vic Secret and Eclipse.

Overall, growers picked 1,821 metric tons (about 4 million pounds). For perspective, farmers in the American Northwest harvested more than 45,800 metric tons in 2022, about 25 times more.

(More perspective: Citra production was 17 million pounds despite low yields because of weather conditions, and Citra accounts for almost 17 percent of the Northwest crop. HPA produced about 2.4 million pounds of Galaxy, 60 percent of its crop. Oregon farmers harvested almost as much Strata in 2022; a number that will be lower in 2023 because as much as 30 percent of Strata acreage is being idled).

HPA recently expanded acreage and production capacity, and the 2023 increase reflect plants reaching commercial maturity. Gains would have been greater were it not for a third consecutive La Niña weather pattern. Below average temperatures and above average rainfall early in the growing season slowed plant growth. Record low levels of solar radiation for the fourth straight year also impacted maturity.

A press release states that a portion of this year’s crop will be reserved for commissioning a new production facility in Victoria. “This will allow us to double our current processing capacity while retaining higher average oils in the finished pellets at a lower average HSI.” said Owen Johnston, head of sales and marketing.

HPA expects this will result in an increase in quality, a reduced spread of analytical data, and more consistent performance in beer. Unstated is the fact that some brewers have complained about the inconsistent quality of Galaxy.

Farmers harvested 1,096 metric tons of Galaxy (+8.8%), 320 (+10.3%) of Vic Secret, and 161 (+70%) of newcomer Eclipse. A metric ton equals 2,204 pounds.

Average oil content was equal or above the five-year average for all proprietary varieties. Content increased about 20 percent in Eclipse, to 3.2 mL/100g on average. “Eclipse had a particularly strong showing that should lead to an exceptional year of performance in beer,” Johnston said.

TWTBWTW: Money, money, money

Pliny the Younger Economic Impact

Greetings from New Orleans, where I am much more focused on music (beginning today, beginning Thursday) than beer right now. So right to That Was The Beer Week That Was.

The birth of line culture
The link is to a transcript of the Taplines podcast, where links to the podcast are included. It is an interview with Russian River Brewing co-owner Natalie Cilruzo, talking about the phenomenon of Pliny the Younger. The graphic at the top illustrates the econonmic impact of the release of the Younger. It is a big deal, a success story about hospitality as much as beer.

“Our Windsor Brewery is what we call our new brewery. It’s our dream brewery. It’s really beautiful and we designed it from the ground up. We designed it for this release with the parking lot being oversized for the rest of the year. It’s virtually empty for the rest of the year. Not virtually, but rarely, do we half-fill the parking lot for the rest of the year. It’s huge. The whole front of the brewery has this giant sidewalk that snakes around the front of the brewery, which is designed for the Pliny the Younger line, to go around the whole front of the brewery. Unfortunately, sometimes the line goes all the way out to the sidewalk and then down the street which it did on Saturday. We have bathrooms. They’re on electronic locks and the bathrooms are designed to have an outdoor access that we keep open 24/7 during the Pliny the Younger release. There’s clean bathrooms that get cleaned every day that people can use if they’re here overnight or in the middle of the night or two o’clock in the morning, or whatever. This whole brewery on the hospitality side was designed for these two weeks and I can’t tell you how excited I was the first year that we released Pliny the Younger at both locations, so now we have it at our Santa Rosa location as well as the Windsor location.”

Questions provoked by High End layoffs
“If Stella can be made in breweries that make Budweiser, what’s to come for the much smaller brewers? It would seem inconceivable, but in theory Devils Backbone Vienna Lager could be brewed in other breweries, including those in Belgium.”

Read This Before Shopping for Your Bud Light Replacement Beer
Pair this one with the next. “Despite the passionate claims about its unique identity and its conservative political profile, the only value driving Bud Light, or any other consumer good available on a global scale, is the remorseless logic of shareholder value. That makes it hard to coherently express your politics with your beer preferences.”

If Companies Have Convictions, They Need to Stand By Them
Jeff Alworth writes, “Some years ago, I argued that it’s bad business for companies to take political positions. That was correct then, but it’s not anymore. The very act of reaching out to your own customers has become a political act. Now companies are going to have to define their values and own them, and when they find themselves under attack, be prepared to defend them. Depressingly, we customers are going to have to start paying attention to where our dollars are going in this whole long war.”

And once again I will quote something Pete Brown wrote in “Craft: An Argument.” That is, “(Craft) isn’t just about the things we make; it’s about the kind of people we are. And for this, we get to an unspoken assumption we may be reluctant to admit even to ourselves; we believe that makers and buyers of craft products are morally superior to other people.”

Small breweries that some call “craft” have benefited by what in unspoken; that they are the good guys. Recently, they’ve been asked to prove it. Many have. The rest? We’ll see what happens.

How Consolidation In the Middle Tier Is Impacting The Future of Craft Beer Brands
“As if growing craft beer producers didn’t have enough to contend with these days in the form of rising costs of goods, labor shortages, inflation, and the squeeze from alternative beverage choices in the marketplace, woes like wholesaler consolidation, unfair trade practices, and antiquated beverage alcohol regulations are making the middle tier the next big battleground for craft beer brands.”

On the importance of cask beer
Matthew Curtis has a question: “Instead of trying to modernize cask and turn it into something it very much isn’t, wouldn’t it be better to lean, hard, into its tradition?”

Thai beer fan fined for posting review
“Thailand is a country where it’s illegal for people to drink a beer and say it’s delicious.”

TWTBWTW: A beer business story & a culture war

Miller High Life cans seized by French officials, defending the Champagne domain

Even the Wall Street Journal ran a story about and photo (credit to Associated Press) of cans of Miller High Life – “the Champagne of Beers” – being destroyed because only sparkling wines made in France’s Champagne region can use the name on their labels, according to French laws.

It would seem that beer still holds some cultural cachet.

You might also enjoy (or read without enjoyment in the case of the first one):

– “The controversy surrounding Bud Light is a business story, but one caught in the midst of a culture war.”
This is one of those just go read the dang thing stories. Because . . . “When trans professionals leave careers they enjoy, it not only sets them back professionally but negatively affects the rest of the workforce. This is because people’s biases tend to soften upon developing a close relationship with a member of a marginalized group. It’s why the ‘coming out’ movement is widely credited with advancing marriage equality and other gay rights. Over the course of just two decades, millions of people in the U.S. realized that they had LGBTQ+ siblings, parents, friends, cousins, teachers, and roommates.”

– Do Wild Ales Have a Marketing Problem?
Within the story, Stephanie Grant writes that every person she talked to while reporting it said these beers aren’t meant to be popular. “It’s a long game, for sure,” Lisa Boldt at Primitive Ales in Colorado told her. “It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme by any means.”

– Speaking of mixed cultures . . .
Launched in 2014 by Yumi Shimada, Maíra Kimura, and Fernanda Ueno, craft brewery Japas Cervejaria combines the cofounders’ Brazilian and Japanese heritages. They are brewing and selling their beers in both Brazil and the United States.

– Innovation I
Freeze-dried beer is not new, but Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle managing director Stefan Fritsche says this German version will revolutionize the brewing industry.

– Innovation IIBack in 2009, when the beer blogosphere was broader, this statement from Ron Pattinson led to several other posts about what qualifies as innovation: “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t want innovative beer. . . . Worshipping at the alter of brewers’ egos. It’s not for me. I want something to drink, something that lifts my spirits and makes my heart soar. And, in sufficient quantities, will get me pissed. It’s really not complicated.”

I thought about this last week when I posted what Bart Watson said about craft reinventing itself. As Watson made clear, it is brewers intent on distributing their beer that face the biggest challenges. It becomes a business story, which Jeff Alworth addresses, headlining the post “Structural innovations.”

I chose the pieces of the some-assembly-required post Friday because I was thinking about the power of making connections. It is the super strength of breweries that make their businesseses work without the advantages that come with economies of scale. May not scream innovative, but it works.

Is the (beer) glass half empty or half full?

Half empty or half full?

Chances are that I could plug these elements into an AI tool and generate a blog post. Instead, I am going to leave it to you — not to hand it off to AI, but to assemble it yourself.

1) “To grow again craft is going to have to find incremental opportunities, that’s in terms of both the beers that people make and the occasions customers are looking for in general,” Brewers Association chief economist Bart Watson said during an online press conference following the release of the BA’s annual Craft Beer Production Report.

2) Answering a question about what’s ahead, he said, “Craft is going to have to, as it always has done, reinvent itself for the next generation of drinkers . . . (brewers) will have to find ways to welcome new people into the category.”

3) In 1950, the 10 largest brewing companies in the United State produced 38% of beer. In 1960, that had grown to 52%. In 1970, they made 69%, and in 1980 93%.

4) Twenty years ago the 50 top domestics craft brewing companies produced 78% of (BA-defined) craft beer. Ten years ago, the top 50 brewed 70%. In 2021 (the 2022 figures are still being calculated) that was down to 50%.

5) Stubborn German Brewing in Waterloo, Illinois, population 11,062, is one of those 9,000-plus not-top-50 breweries. They brewed 430 barrels in 2021. They are one of two breweries located on the town square, directly across from the Monroe County Courthouse. It is about a 25-mile drive to Anheuser-Busch’s flagship brewery in St. Louis. Here is a Facebook post from earlier in the week (click to expand).