21st Amendment has posted the roundup for Session #22: “What Does Repeal Mean to Me?”
If you are working on a term paper about beer blogging and want examples of the diversity of the beer blogosphere I’d suggest starting with December Session posts.
We’re only talking about a few dozen of the hundreds of beer blogs operating, but a pretty interesting tip of the iceberg.
Do you think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken? Then please leave a comment.
When I started this feature I didn’t mean it to turn into a contest. I simply planned to post a photos I find interesting, sometimes to make a point. I didn’t necessarily expect readers to know where they were taken. But from the get-go you surprised me.
As a result I might have lost my way, trying to post images I figured somebody would know but ones that weren’t “too easy.”
This week we return to Plan A. Maybe you will know in an instant where this was taken. Maybe you will be a bit surprised when I tell you, and I sure hope you’ll find it interesting.
Shawn and Nico have asked us to write about Prohibtion today in Session #22.
Specifically: “What does the repeal of Prohibition mean to you? How will you celebrate your right to drink beer?”
I’ll start with a bit of a confession. My great grandfather ran for local office in the 1890s on the Prohibition ticket. He was a berry farmer and lay preacher who also wrote about community news for two nearby newspapers. A.A. Applegate was no neo-convservative. In a time when graduating from high school wasn’t the norm he reared six children who went to college on state scholarships. Some became artists and musicians. He is one of my heroes.
He didn’t use his newspaper columns as a pulpit so I don’t have any information why he chose to run on the Prohibition ticket. But read any of many histories about taverns and pubs during the final decades of the 19th century and you can see these were not family friendly places. Sometimes they weren’t even people friendly.
In contrast you have what we’ve seen during the past 14 weeks in Europe. This includes teenagers drinking (wine as well as beer) in the company of their parents. This includes shopkeepers getting together right after work at a cafe in Switzerland, some drinking coffee, some wine and some beer. And tables reserved on a standing basis (“Stammtisch”) in Germany. And the way they keep a tab with marks on coasters in Franconia or the simple slips of paper in the Czech Republic. And regulars solving the problems of the world in the back room of a German pension, beers in hand before most of the guests had finished breakfast.
Connect the dots.
I’m sure you will read lots of great posts about why the repeal of Prohibition was important, but it’s a topic I don’t feel like taking more time to write about when I can enjoy drinking beer some place where there was never was Prohibition and I can’t imagine there ever will be. Yes, I understand that might be shortsighted.
Fact is I’m pre-posting this because Friday we’ll be in Munich, and I’ll be focused on how to get from our hotel to Neuhauser Strasse 27.
I give Jeff Allworth credit for bucking the crowd and suggesting the New Yorker feature on Sam Calagione and Dogfish Head Brewery wasn’t perfect in every way.
It wasn’t.
But his post titled “Wrong” is just as wrong when he writes “I see that he [Burkhard Bilger] has done a great injustice to the world of craft brewing” and that “Calagione’s model for brewing seems to be: pull something out of your ass, think it through incompletely, run with it, and sneer ‘neener neener’ at the naysayers along the way.”
In the second case he totally overlooks innovative and terrifically drinkable beers. Later he implies that Dogfish Head’s brewing style is less than disciplined — despite the fact the story documents Dogfish Head’s growing level of sophistication when it comes to quality control.
That’s not my real point, since Sam hardly needs my help defending himself. Instead . . . My initial reaction to the story was “How can you write about ‘extreme beer’ and not mention a brewery whose clock is not set to Eastern Standard Time?” Then I refocused and viewed it as a feature on one brewery (and its founder). It gets a lot better.
Jeff’s post makes me realize others viewed the story as I did on first reading. So he’s right. Even if he’s wrong.
Further reading: The Beer Advocate discussion includes input from the author, Sam and plenty of Garrett Oliver (in case you missed it).
Do you think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
I’m not asking for an exact location. Heck, at the time we snapped this I wasn’t totally sure of the name of the place.
But take a shot at the country and the city, think about what you know about pub culture, and leave a comment.
No hint this week. I thought that my hint last week that the “V” had double meaning would lead somebody to think of Vienna. Obviously I was wrong.