Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
Given recent comments, not just here but from Alan and others, I thought a picture of beer “on sale” might be interesting. You’ll have to decide if you consider $1.50 a deal for a half-liter of “mixed beer.”
That’s the hint – half liter bottles.
I think this and this are related. Bravado is seldom becoming.
If you prefer to know more before you click the second is a brilliant post from Ron Pattinson about brewing innovation. (For the record, I don’t think innovation necessarily trumps tradition.)
Meanwhile . . . please, please don’t feel the need to go vote for the Best Beer City.
It seems that beer is no casual acquaintance of people who read this blog. So were I to conduct a poll — say how much money you send on beer — the results likely wouldn’t necessarily reflect the buying habits of the “average” beer drinker or even the casual “craft beer” drinker.
So it’s interesting to “eavesdrop” on comments posted about beer at a non-beer site.
Yesterday the Chicago Tribune published a story about two new microbreweries in the city. What seemed to get the most attention is that 6 packs of Half Acre beers cost $9. We’re not talking a knee jerk reaction about how that’s ridiculous, but a discussion. Check out the comments.
A bit of culture shock for Daria on Saturday.
We stopped at Parti-Pak Discount Liquors in Indianapolis, mostly to see what sort of beers make their way into Indiana and what they cost. Heard a guy behind the counter say they stocked 2,100 beers and that is easy to believe. Rather complete lines of plenty of Michigan breweries (Dark Horse, Founders, New Holland, Bell’s), for instance. Indiana beers, of course. Largest collection of Italian beers we’ve seen since we were in Oak Tree Liquors in South Plainfield, N.J.
More than once my uncle, Omar Robinson, pointed to rows of bottles from Germany or Belgium and said, “I can’t believe they ship all these beers that far.” But this post isn’t about his cultural shock #– maybe more down the road, since he’s involved with his son, Clay, in starting Sun King Brewing. Key words in their business plan: local and draft beer.
Back to what Daria saw. When you walk in there is a section of shelves with individual beers that have Rate Beer ratings below them. “Did you see that?” she asked when we left. “The top rows are all 100 beers and Rochefort (10) gets a 93.”
While others were watching their brackets get busted in overtime Friday evening I was reading “Six Thousand Year of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History.” Why? Because a book about brewing with wheat should include the role wheat has played in various cultures where people drink beer.
It’s not exactly light reading, so maybe I was looking for a reason to laugh when I came across the explanation of how wheat became the grain of choice in Europe in the nineteenth century. That’s a longer story involving French tastes, but here’s the excerpt that might make you smile:
“In the Middle Ages Europeans were very fond of the taste of rye. Some of the East Germans had called themselves Rugii (rye-eaters) — undoubtedly to distinguish themselves from the ignoble eaters of oats. In Anglo-Saxon England August was called Rugern, the month of the rye harvest. As late as 1700 rye formed 40 percent of all English breads; around 1800 the percentage had dropped to 5.
“Where rye bread was firmly established — in large parts of Germany and Russia — it remained. Physicians and farmers insisted that people who for centuries had eaten the dark bread of their fathers, which gave forth a spicy fragrance like the soil itself, could not find the soft white wheat bread filling. They pointed to the physique of the Germans and rye-eating Russians. The wheat-eaters countered with the claim that rye made those who ate it stupid and dull. Wheat-eaters and rye-eaters eaters spoke of one another as do wine drinkers and beer drinkers.”
Beyond the old beer vs. wine thing I thought first about lager drinkers vs. ale drinkers. Then I recalled a conversation during Zoigl Day in Neuhaus. The local I was talking to asked me about what sort of beers I like to drink. When I mentioned I’d been seeking out weiss beers he quickly explained he didn’t drink those. He had to make too many trips to the bathroom if he did.
Thought never occurred to me to ask if he preferred rye bread to wheat bread.