Monday morning musing: Belgian authenticity

I don’t expect many are reading beer blogs this day before Christmas, so not much musing. Just a few links that will be way too old if I wait to pass them along.

Family Brewers Association– Stephen Beaumont recently called the Belgian Family Brewers Association a “brilliant idea.” Indeed.

Beaumont writes: “Given the number of multinational brands on the market today which seek to evoke the Belgian ethos, and the penchant some Belgian brewers have for releasing beers under two or three different labels, the BFB is definitely a step in the right direction. While it won’t guarantee that you’ll like a specific brand, or even that said brand is a stellar example of the Belgian brewing arts, it at least will guarantee authenticity.”

To be an association member a brewery must have been in business for at least 50 years, so a small nit to pick. Surely there are new independent (family run) breweries who would be a perfect match with the older ones.

– The St. Louis Post-Disptach story abuut the distribution deal between Virginia micro brewery Starr Hill and Anheuser-Busch doesn’t make it clear what this deal means, but it’s a start. The lead:

Starr Hill Brewery is housed in a big converted food warehouse near the railroad tracks in Crozet, Va. In nearly every other way it’s tiny: A half-dozen employees make 5,000 barrels of beer a year — about the volume Anheuser-Busch can churn out in less than three hours at its St. Louis brewery.

But if you think the brewery on Three Notch’d Road is too small to catch the eye of the biggest U.S. brewer, think again.

– Following last week’s links about Frankenbeer came the news that the pinot noir grape genome has been sequenced.

More fodder for the wine world’s never-ending debate about the existence of terroir. The Economist even devotes two stories to the topic, in the second asking what sort of traits consumers might ask for.

The answer: “More reliable flavours for one thing. No longer need you doubt whether a wine truly does possess flavours of exotic coffee, chocolate, Asian spice, roast duck and blackberry and prune liqueur. Genes from those very animals and plants could be spliced straight into the grape’s genome. Forget hours spent swilling, swirling, sniffing, gurgling and spitting — it will all be there in black and white, in the sequence data.”

Sounds like a great tasting note. But where’s the soul?

New Beer Rule #7: Beer is not the new wine

Beer For LunchLast night we ate leftover smoked meat and drank Southern Tier Choklat. One, then the other. No pairing involved. Sometimes you just want a beer, maybe even a strong one.

Choklat, an 11% abv imperial stout infused with dark Belgian chocolate, qualifies on both counts. It’s one of the beers I’ll be writing around 85 words about in the next All About Beer magazine Beer Talk.

You’ll notice these days that more often than not Beer Talk panelists suggest a food pairing for the beer they are describing. I tend to be the slacker. I know that Charles Finkel, who tastes the same beers as I, will have terrific suggestions and I try to use the small space alloted to squeeze in something different.

I’m keener than most about the notion beer belongs at the table, but these days the movement hardly seems to need my help. For instance, the Brewers Association yesterday revealed new details about “SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience,” including something called educational salons. These are presentations by “savvy cross drinkers.”

I guarantee you that the words “Beer is the new wine” will be bandied about.

What does that mean? I really don’t know. The phrase doesn’t seem to serve beer or wine well. Wine is the new wine. Beer is the new beer. (And the old beer, which is equally important.)

Beer “styles” have always evolved, with various riffs sometimes turning evolution into revolution. This is nothing new. In the 1930s it was the monks at Westmalle refining the “tripel” style. These days it might be two brothers in a former hardware store in Warren, Mich., inventing something new or an ex-English major in San Diego blending mead, strong ale and sour beer to create Veritas (Latin for truth).

Truth is it’s still beer.

NEW BEER RULE #7: Beer is still beer.

Leading beer trends for 2008: No. 4a*

Beer CollegeWere I inclined to make predictions (not likely) about the Top 10 Beer Trends of 2008 then one would somehow have to include the words “education” and “certification.”

For education, I’d start with Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in Chicago for the Siebel Institute of Technology’s course on Professional Beer Tasting & Styles. More about that in a moment, because the syllabus gets a little long.

Certification I: Ray Daniels posts that the online exam for the first level of Cicerone certification should available soon.

Certification II: The Master Brewers Association of America quarterly newsletter reports the board of governors “approved a new MBAA-sponsored education program targeted at individuals
in the wholesale and retail beer trades.”

The program’s goal is to improve the image of beer and broaden its appeal by better maintaining its freshness throughout the distribution chain and by increasing the knowledge of beer styles and proper serving techniques for those who distribute and serve beer. The Publication Committee is charged with producing a new reference book that will provide the relevant and necessary information to educate applicants to be certified under the program. Individuals applying for certification must demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of beer by passing a rigorous exam based on the contents of the reference book.

Back to the course at Siebel, Randy Mosher (author of “Radical Brewing” and the upcoming “BeerSense: Understanding the Pleasures of the World’s Best Drink”) put it together. The presentations include:

Section 1 – Introduction
* What is Beer?
* Beer in Context: Lifestyle & Diet, Culture, Seasons
* A Little Beer History: Beginnings, Medieval to Modern, The American Beer Story, Craft Beer Revolution

Section 2 – Sensory
* Techniques for Sensory Evaluation:Practical Tips for Evaluating Beer, Sources of Flavor & Aroma
* The Taste of Beer: Beer Aroma & the Flavor Wheel
* The Formal Tasting: Types of Tastings, Competitive Judging, Evaluation Forms
* Informal Tastings: Settings & Methods, Tasting Glasses

Section 3 – Beer by the Numbers
* Gravity / Strength of “wort”, Alcohol, Color, Bitterness,
* A Question of Balance

Section 4 – Common Defects of Beer
* Including tasting of beers spiked with off-flavors: Raw materials, Brewhouse, Fermentation/maturation: Yeast, Packaging,
* Mishandling, Beer Infection: Age, draft system problems, Light

Section 5 – The Process of Brewing (and why you should care)
* Beer Ingredient Analysis: Malt, Other Grains & Fermentables, Hops, Water, Yeast, Other ingredients
* The Brewing Process: Malting, Mashing, Boiling, Chilling, Fermenting, Maturation, Filtration, Storage/Shipping

Section 6 – What Is a style?
* An introduction to the definitions of beer styles, followed by more detailed presentations of the major beer styles. The styles presentations feature a combination of lectures, PowerPoint slides and numerous tastings, giving a thorough overview of the character of the majority of beer styles including:

Section 7 – Ales of the United Kingdom
Section 8 – Lager
Section 9 – European Ales
Section 10 – Belgium & France
Section 11 – New American Classics

Section 12 – Serving & Storing Beer

Section 13 – Beer & Food
* Pairing Approaches: Classic Combinations, Some Surprising Pairs, Beer & Cheese, Beer with Desserts
* Beer Cuisine, Beer & Food Tastings & Dinners

Would Bud plus Bud be win-win?

BudvarWould the beer world be a better place if Budweiser bought Budweiser?

Or put another way, would both American-owned Anheuser-Busch and Czech-owned Budejovicky Budvar be better off if A-B bought Budvar?

In the event you didn’t already answer “no” and move on . . .

Evan Rail explains the ins and out of of privatizing (selling) Budvar in his new Beer Culture blog in the Prague Daily Monitor. Then he asks this question:

Yes, I know that sounds like sacrilege to many beer fans. But if Budvar is privatized, can you imagine that anyone other than Anheuser-Busch would end up owning it? And does anyone out there consider for a second that maybe, just maybe, this might be a good thing — and not only in terms of the reduced legal fees for both companies?

We also have we have this view form the A-B side of the ocean. Brew Blog reported Monday that analyst Stifel Nicolaus published a report titled “On BUD’s Takeout Value.”

It asked whether a buyer would pay “more than a typical takeout multiple for BUD.” Absent a bidding war, Stifel’s verdict was no.

Why? Largely because A-B remains underindexed in imports and crafts.

Although A-B distributes Budvar in the United States, where the beer is called Czechvar, that is different than owning the esteemed brewery.

As Brew Blog points out, we heard plenty of rumors about A-B and InBev during 2007. And if (obviously more like when) the dollar continues to struggle in 2008 and InBev’s stock price grows stronger against A-B’s then the possibility of a less-than-friendly takeover increases.