Monday beer links: The future, Belgian woes & Grodziskie

The other side of Marcin Ostajewski, head brewer at Browar Grodzisk

The back side of Marcin Ostajewski, head brewer at Browar Grodzisk in Poland, whose sweatshirt signals how happy he is to share information about brewing Grodziskie. Details in final link below.

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In the final Taplines podcast, frequent guest Maureen Ogle joins host Dave Infante to talk about the future of America’s beer industry. There’s a big picture and a smaller picture. As usual, it is the niche that interests me. So hang around for the final eight minutes.

That’s when Ogle says, “It’s easy to focus on A-B and Molson Coors and so on and so forth, but, in fact, a lot of families, thousands of them, have been able to build small businesses based on alcohol.” And, “A lot of families are raising their kids and paying their mortgages, by owning a small brewery.”

Ogle has been at work for some time on a book about the Marti family and August Schell Brewing, which has been family owned since 1860. It’s a great story, but many breweries with shorter histories (meaning every one in the United States other than Yuengling) have similar stories to tell. I thought about this listening to what Lauren Buzzeo has to say — during the Drink Beer, Think Beer podcast labeled Predictions for Beer in 2025 — about finding stories. There are not many predictions tossed about, but toward the end, Buzzeo and John Hall and Andy Crouch talk about how much they like reading full stop in print. Me too.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“He called me a ‘bitch of a landlady’, to which I said, ‘From you, I’ll take that as a compliment’. He wanted to fight me.” . . . “I don’t take shit. Me and my husband have a rule that if there is an issue with a man, I deal with it – there’s less danger of confrontation.”

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It’s Monday and these are neither beer links nor authorized Golden Pints

I suggested last Monday that there would be no post today. In fact, there are (almost) no links. However, Sunday Boak & Bailey posted their Golden Pints, and on Bluesky Alan McLeod “firmly suggested” that others should as well. Although I’ve already done something similar for Craft Beer & Brewing, I value staying in McLeod’s good graces. (Another) although B&B and McLeod offer templates I’ve chosen to follow my own path, with a minimum of words and a maximum of images (stick around for the tap handles).

Best live music in a brewhouse

Chris Cuzme (the guy with the sax) leads a Wednesday evening jam at Fifth Hammer Brewing in Long Island City.

Regular Wednesday “Brewside Lounge” jam at Fifth Hammer Brewing in Long Island City, N.Y.

Best pub

Foxy John's, a bar and hardware store in Dingle, Ireland

Foxy John’s in Dingle, Ireland, a bar and a hardware store, which is on my Best in 2024 list

Best brewery taproom bathroom trash bin

Bathroom at Dageraad Brewing in Burnaby, BC

The taproom bathroom at Dageraad Brewing in Burnaby, British Columbia

Best afterparty

National Black Brewers Association GABF afterparty at Spangalang Brewery Denver

National Black Brewers Association shindig at Spangalang Brewery in Denver after the Great American Beer Festival Thursday session

Best beer festival

Colorado Collab Fest glass

Colorado Collab Fest (and not only because of the great glassware)

Most modest beer name

“Silver Medal Worthy” from Launch Pad Brewery in Aurora, Colorado, which won Gold at the Great American Beer Festival

Best brewery shadow

A shadow, as seen at Pinthouse Brewing in Austin, Texas

Pinthouse Brewing in Austin, Texas

Best brewhouse entry

Atlantucky Brewing, Atlanta, Georgia

Atlantucky Brewing, Atlanta, Georgia

Best ‘I’ll be home after I stop at the library’ brewpub

Little Library at Colorado Boy in Montrose, Colorado

Little Library at Colorado Boy Pizzeria and Brewing in Montrose, Colorado

Best tap handles

Tap handles at Structures Brewing in Bellingham, Washington

Structures Brewing in Bellingham, Washington

Monday beer links: That’s a wrap on 2024

Happy Holidays: Beer label

In their monthly newsletter (available at Substack), Boak & Bailey ask, “Are you feeling Christmassy yet?” I am, and I am also ready to be done with beer-related lists and stories about Guinness and “splitting the G.” At some point, and it has passed, I see no reason to share them. Not today, and not next week. This will be the last collection of links in 2024. See you January 6, 2025.

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NEWSWORTHY

Bart Watson Appointed as President and CEO of the Brewers Association. That’s the news, and this link includes a take on the news.

To this I will add that, by chance, an anecdote from 2015 I chose to include in a story about Watson that seems relevant today. It was part of Beer Advocate magazine’s regular “Will Work for Beer” series, and began . . .

“Bart Watson really does think this way. At 3:59 p.m. on Sept. 10, he tweeted: ‘Flight attendant says flight from SFO to Sacramento is 13 minutes. It’s 37 degrees warmer there. That’s almost +3 degrees per minute.’

“Forty-two minutes later he followed up: ‘The flight took 17m40s – There must have been some serious headwinds.’”

Even then, it seemed as if he was preparing for the challenge accepted last week.

RateBeer will cease operations as of February 1, 2025. Or not. More than a hundred replies follow, so you are to free to choose what you think may happen Feb. 1.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I will say that for all of the sensory experience, recipe development, and other little skills I’m working on, there are some fundamental pieces – tools in the toolbox – that I still need. Some of that will come with more time, like rebuilding a heat exchanger. What I’m looking for is the bones, the raw physics and chemistry of brewing. It’s like, as a musician I can know chords and scales, and then I can learn theory that increases my capacity to create what I want. Same thing.”

          — Aaron Brussat

From Q & A with Glen Hay Falconer Foundation 2024 Brewing Scholarship recipient Aaron Brussat

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YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY

The Nottinghamshire pubs combating loneliness and encouraging the art of conversation. “Pubs should be and often are the heart of the community. It’s where everyone is welcome. It’s where people who are struggling and are lonely can go and find friendship and companionship.”

Observations from a dive bar. To which I will add two words, “third place.”

Humphrey’s world: how the Samuel Smith beer baron built Britain’s strangest pub chain. A very long and very strange story impossible to summarize in a few words. But the part about villages that are left without a single pub is pretty sad.

London – A Small Cask Snapshot. Might as well throw in a visit to a Samuel Smith pub.

Texas brewery sells out of $300 bottles of beer. First, a question: How many bottles did they sell? Second, an observation: the bottles are 6-liters, so that works out to $25 for a half liter. Not cheap, but after reading this story I visited a store down the road that had more than a dozen 500 ml bottles selling for more. Third, this story oozes with the gushiness (“a rich and delightful barrel-aged masterpiece’) I think Alan McLeod would enjoy.

The Colour of Vienna Lager: Somebody Got It Right. Fair warning, this is about style guidelines.

Monday beer links: High hopes and dashed hopes

As seen at Blue Jay Brewing in St. Louis

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“Well, the first shot I got was in a dynamite truck
The driver kept me telling me his bad luck
As we swerved around the curves I began to shout
I said, hey-ey mister would you let me out?
I had my hopes up high, I never thought that I
Would ever wonder why I ever said good bye
I had my hopes up high

– Joe Ely, “I Had My Hopes Up High” (click to listen)

Another week of beer news and conjecture. Another week of high hopes and dashed hopes.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Even if you have really incredible beer and an incredible space and an incredible community, it’s still very challenging to operate during this time.”

          — Massachusetts Brewers Guild executive director Katie Stinchon
From Why so many Mass. breweries are closing (and what you can do about it)

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LEDE OF THE WEEK

One Christmas Eve in the late 19th century, the family on the Hovland farm in Hardanger, Norway, was sitting down for a festive dinner. The food was on the table, the candles were lit, and the big wooden mug was full of beer.

Then, suddenly, enormous hands appeared between the logs from which their house was built, tilting one side of the house into the air. In the gap between the logs, they could see giant eyes staring at them, glittering in the candlelight.

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Monday beer links: There’s always a next next

Thomas Hardy's Ale cork from 1968

Early on in this business story about Tilray brands, Dave Infante mentions a third wave of craft beer. I understand. Sales of beer from non-mega breweries surged into the late 90s, backed off, surged again into the teens, and now the hunt is on, as Infante writes, for a new story.

Yes, but, let’s talk about generations rather than waves. How old were you when Sierra Nevada Brewing began selling beer? Dogfish Head? Creature Comforts? Or, put another way, how old was Great Lakes Brewing when Off Color Brewing opened? It’s been more than 18 years since Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione and four like-minded brewers traveled to and around Belgium, sharing their beers.

Each of them began their brewing careers between 1993 and 1996. When they returned I asked them if Anchor Brewing Sierra Nevada Brewing represented the first generation of something new, what generation did they think they were part of. The answers:

Adam Avery, Avery Brewing: “I’d say I was second generation when I started out. Hog Heaven (barley wine first brewed in 1997) really put us on the map, but our sales were still declining between 1998 and 2000. Then we made The Reverend for the first time, we started doing the series of threes (all extreme beers) and now we’ve got 19 beers we’re brewing at least once a year, third generation stuff.”

Tomme Arthur, Lost Abbey Brewing: “I’ve been at this for 10 years now and I have always considered myself to be one of the first third generation guys. I say this because I am very comfortable in my surroundings; I know a ton of the second-generation guys very well (Dick Cantwell, Fal Allen, Phil Markowski, Garrett Oliver, el al.). I believe . . . they would all view me as a younger version of them. So, third generation it is.”

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