Monday musing: Getting history right is important

Gose in LeipzigI broadcast a link to this via Twitter when I saw its on Friday because I think Ron Pattinson’s “Fantasy beer history: Gose” post is a) important and b) quite interesting reading.

I’m a fan of Four Peaks Brewing but he’s right to call out their description/history of Gose as “total rubbish.” It’s not only because I’m working on this book about brewing with wheat, that I find Gose a fascinating story, that we what liked what we had in Leipzig, or even that it just plain bugs me when I reads things that are wrong.

Fact is that education has been an important element in the American craft beer revival, that the breweries have taken charge of education — think about what you read on brewpub menus or craft beer labels — and education means getting the facts right.

There’s no need to make up sexy yarns. The basic, historically correct, stories behind Gose or India pale ale or stout make for great marketing on their own.

– Good to be small? From the New York Times, “In New York, No Crisis for Niche Manufacturers.” The point: “There’s quite a market for niche products in New York City,” said Jonathan Bowles, the director of the Center for an Urban Future, a nonpartisan research group in Manhattan, and an author of several manufacturing studies. “For a lot of the niche manufacturers, including those that are broadly appealing to the high-end market, they may be doing O.K.” Is niche beer doing as well in these economic hard times?

– Scum watch. OK, I don’t have a logical beer angle on this but had to pass this along. Daria’s brother spotted it in Sunday’s Sun-Sentintel while looking for things for us to do near his house in South Florida. The description of a Gun and Knife Show at the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale: “Protect yourself from the scum of South Florida with items from this event.”

– Which one would you rather drink? This isn’t new and it isn’t beer, but an interesting post comparing how Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast described and rated, with much different results, what turned out to be the same wine.

 

#23 – Where in the beer world?

Where in the beer world?

Do you think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken? Please leave your answer as a comment.

I hauled this one out because Chris B. and Rick were so quick to nail last week’s picture of the Hop Kiln Winery in California.

And that’s what you get for a hint. It’s a hop kiln.

Added jan. 19, the answer: The photo was taken near Wapato, Wash., in the Yakima Valley, almost next door to the Piety Flats Winery tasting room. The tasting room is located in an old country store, and sells a variety of items, including excellent homemade ice cream.

We were told by the woman pouring wine in the tasting room that this was the last hop kiln remaining in the Yakima Valley. The owners of Piety Flats even though about calling their winery Hop Kiln, but then learned about the one in Sonoma County (pictured here).

 

Obamagang? You can’t call a beer that

How’s this for having fun?

Brewery Ommegang in New York’s specialty beer releases include a 6.2% abv draft only release just in time for Barack Obama’s inauguration. A company press release explains it will be called Inauguration Ale because . . .

“The TTB won’t let us call the beer Obamagang on the keg label. So it will be known legally as Inauguration Ale 2009, but the tap handles will be more . . . um . . . direct. The style lies between a porter and stout, with a bit of Kriek and a touch of chocolate blended in. It will be on draft only, beginning with the inauguration – in limited areas including DC, NYC, Syracuse, Philly, Chicago and Boston. We will donate a percentage of sales to charities in the respective cities where the beer is sold, and we’ve asked our distributors to match our donations and pick the local charities. (Also please note that the beer is not an endorsement of Obama.)”

 

Strange reasons people make drinks choices

It’s Monday, so muse on this link from Parade magazine. Two bits of drink related information in the same story:

– The birth of the Corona-and-lime ritual. Did this trend really become a trend because a bartender wanted to see if he could start a trend?

– Oom-pah-pah, ein Deutsche bier, bitte. From the story: “British researchers played either accordion-heavy French music or a German brass band over the speakers of the wine section inside a large supermarket. On French music days, 77% of consumers bought French wine, whereas on German music days, the vast majority of consumers picked up a German selection. Intriguingly, only one out of the 44 customers who agreed to answer a few questions at the checkout counter mentioned the music as among the reasons they bought the wine they did.”

I’d have been more impressed if the customers had put back wine on German music days and gone with beer.

 

Off topic: Songs of conviction

Well I used to run from the past
But the world got to spinnin’ so fast
I run from the future now
I run as fast as I can
Tryin’ to be a simple man
I just want to slow down.

               – Chris Knight

Heart of StoneBest recording of 2008? I spoke too soon.

When Sean Lilly Wilson asked for a few sentences for the Fullstream Brewery newsletter about the best “album” we purchased in 2008 I took the request seriously. Didn’t want to forget something because our long journey has experiences running together. So I re-listened to my finalists — James McMurtry, Billy Bragg, B.B. King, Randy Newman, Mary Gauthier and company.

What I found was a lot of recordings that I’ll listen to forever, dang good, but not quite great. So I picked “Another Country” from Tift Merritt, in part because her songwriting just keeps getting better and because, by a bit of luck in July, we caught a wonderful free concert in Burlington, Vermont. Or maybe just because she is from North Carolina and Fullstream is in North Carolina. A karma thing.

Not until the day after Christmas did I notice Chris Knight had released “Heart of Stone” a few days before we departed for Germany. Easy given the amount of press coverage he doesn’t receive, although his Amazon sales prove he’s got a bit of a following.

I’ve been listening to it a lot since. If you must drink at least two full servings (six is a better idea) of a beer before you evaluate it then you gotta listen to an album ten or a hundred times. Do the easy-to-listen-to-lyrics get cloying? Do you find something new and rewarding (kind of like the stuff in the background of a Simpson’s episode) each time, maybe as simple as the way he delivers a phrase?

This recording (it’s not an album or a CD; I bought a download) keeps getting better. Knight writes haunting lyrics — usually grim and sometimes violent &#151 about less-than-perfect lives. The music is dense whether acoustic (as the “Basement Tapes”) or with a rocking band in this recording. He’s a wonderful story teller, as opposed to telling stories about wonderful lives. Here’s an example from “Hell Ain’t Half Full”:

Get up in the morning
Fall out of bed
Go down to the basement
Cook up a little meth
All the young folks love it
Coming back for more
Ain’t it good to be working
Got your foot in the door

You’ve got to buy the recording to get the full story, and then maybe the five that came before it to begin understand what life lessons Knight has to offer. He’s a working guy from the blue collar town of Slaughters, Kentucky. You figure he might be a beer drinker, one of us, but even if he isn’t there’s a comparison to be made. Nashville and industrially produced beers on one side of the ledger, artists liked Chris Knight and the beers we drink on the other.

Chris Knight writes and sings songs of conviction.