Beer & wine: The dark side

Ah, yes, the Dark Side.

Hugh Sisson of Clipper City writes in his blog about positive parallels between the craft beer and small winery industries, but also suggests “there are some developments that have taken place in the boutique wine industry that do not, in my opinion, bode well long term for craft beer. Should the craft beer industry follow the wine industry in these areas, I believe we could see some problems down the road.”

Thus the Dark Side.

First and foremost, consolidation in production. Many of the more successful California wine properties have over the years gone from being founder owned and operated to part of much larger corporate entities. This certainly improves marketing efficiency as well as developmental working capital and potential economies of scale in purchasing of some commodities. And with the wine industry, this potentially can work – principally because the “boutique” wine industry is tied to the land, and as long as the managing entity respects the unique character of the property, quality is usually maintained or actually improved upon. There doesn’t necessarily seem to be a problem with XYZ Corporation producing 15 different chardonnays from 15 different microclimates under 15 different labels – the products really are different – and the differences are seen as a “strength” and a marketing positive.

But I am not sure the same kind of approach would be successful for craft beer.

I’m certain it would be bad.

And there are those in the wine community who would be glad to tell us what’s wrong with consolidation, and that nuance is disappearing from everyday (reasonably priced) wines.

Todd Wernstrom of Wine News last year wrote that beers that capture the essence of what once made wine special had become more common than such wines.

Pointing to beers from “micro-size” breweries he wrote:

– They are unique.
– The embrace their terroir – which he defined as a function not of where beer is made but of the choices made by the brewmaster.
– They convey their sincerity and genuineness in their marketing efforts.

Sisson is spot on when he writes “a major factor in the success of craft beer is the broad range of personalities in the industry and the way they interact and enhance one another.”

Losing that range would land us smack on the Dark Side.

Added Sept. 6: There are paths that wine has gone down we know beer shouldn’t, such as beer as an investment. Last night I read The New Yorker’s story about The Jefferson Bottles (it’s a long puppy online, and there’s lots of other good reading in the issue so you might want to grab the actual magazine). It’s an intriguing look into a world where people pay crazy amounts for bottles they’ll never open, have cellars with thousands of wines, and try to overlook the fact that many are likely fakes. Scary, quite scary.

Which of these beer leagues has more taste?

More Taste LeagueAnd the latest advertising for Miller Lite introduces something called the More Taste League.

It features a Commish, played by actor John C. McGinley.

In “Interception,” McGinley catches a non-Miller Lite bottle that one beer-drinking buddy is attempting to toss to another. A podium, women dressed as referees and a large backdrop emblazoned with the words “More Taste League” suddenly appear. As McGinley lightly chastises his pals for drinking “non-sanctioned light beer,” they realize the error of their ways. When they ask which beers are sanctioned, McGinley replies in his trademark faintly exasperated (and sarcastic) tone, “Beer. Singular. Miller Lite.”

Compare, and contrast if you want, this to a GABF Fantasy League being organized on the beermapping.com discussion boards.

Shouldn’t Miller be happy just to call it the Less Filling League?

The saxophonist will have Chimay

New Belgium AbbeyWhat do jazz musicians drink?

Yes, it does sound like a question Michael Jackson would have asked, but this time it was Martyn Cornell in a perfectly delightful post about the Bull’s Head at Barnes, which features Young’s beer on a handpump in the same room where live jazz is featured.

He concludes:

* drummers, being straight-ahead guys, prefer real ale, particularly Young’s Ordinary.
* bass players go for a beer with some (allegedly) perceived style, such as draught Leffe blonde.
* saxophonists are teetotal, at gigs, anyway, choosing mineral water or tea.
* trumpeters drink Beck’s from the bottle (something to do with exercising the embouchure?).
* piano players choose red wine.

And in the comments we get a dissenting vote: “My brother-in-law, a saxophonist, is especially partial to Chimay.”

Anyway, go read about a 30-year-old LP “inspired” by real ale and real ale breweries.

(About the photo: It is one that New Belgium Brewing shipped out in 2000 when the brewery released the “Worthy Glass” for its ales.)

On to the Beer Hunter national toast

Back from a couple of days in the woods – civilized unless you consider cell coverage, a wireless connection and electricity essential – and trying to figure out if anybody on the Internet considers Labor Day a holiday. It is elsewhere. A Labor Day baseball game was under way by 8 o’clock yesterday morning in Red River (N.M.).

Just a few newer links related to the life of Michael Jackson I think you should read, then back to other topics. I’ll still be adding plenty of links and information at The Beer Hunter and the related blog. Tom Peters of Monk’s Cafe in Philadelphia and Sam Calagione of Dog Fish Head Craft Brewery have moved swiftly to organize a national toast to Jackson, and The Beer Hunter site will be a clearinghouse for information.

So bookmark the site or grab the rss feed.

– Roger Protz writes “He broke beer free from the narrow concepts of ale and lager and became its champion” in The Guardian obituary.

– Shelton Brothers has posted a clip from an Aug. 7 conversation with Jackson at YouTube. Powerful. Dan Shelton spent four hours with Jackson that day, so look more more excerpts.

– The obituary in The Huddersfiled Daily Examiner, his hometown newspaper and first employer.

Michael Jackson: Journalist

TypewriterYesterday I wrote: “and I’m sure that news stories and tributes will appear soon enough elsewhere on the Internet.”

Only a bit of an understatement. I have no idea how many billion kilobytes went winging about the Internet yesterday – in blogs, on discussion boards, via e-mail – in which people shared their memories and paid tribute to Michael Jackson. I was going to compile a list of links, to make sure you didn’t miss the best, but it grew far too long. (Head to really simple BEER syndication to be overwhelmed.)

Instead a story as promised, mostly in Michael’s own words, that made me almost smile yesterday.

When he kept his Beer Hunter website active one of my jobs was to add his updates (edit him? silly thought). Sometimes he would send other stories just to amuse me, ones that might or might not make it into print elsewhere. One mentioned the secret pleasures of working for a morning newspaper, putting the paper to bed and heading for the pub having already seen the next day’s news.

The exchange that followed digressed a bit:

“When I was 17 or 18, I worked as a sub-editor (rewrite?) on a small town afternoon paper, The Huddersfield Examiner, in Yorkshire. Being a daily, it followed the usual practice of mixing local stories by its own reporters with national and world news from AP, Reuter, etc. Given the short time available to distribute an afternoon daily, it did not go much beyond the city limits. After publication each day all the national and world stories were dissed, but the local items were kept in metal galleys. They were re-composed on Friday into a weekly paper for the surrounding countryside. So Friday was a long day: first the usual afternoon paper, then the weekly. In stories with the word ‘today’ that had to be replaced by ‘this week’ and everything had to be cut and fitted to new layouts,with new headlines. The chief sub-editor would urge me on: ‘Hurry, lad, you (ie the paper) will miss the milk train’ (which dropped off the bundles at village stations as it headed off towards Manchester in the early hours).

“After that, we walked through the Linotype room, past metal ‘stones’ full of page formes, exuding the smell of hot metal and oil. The building was already rumbling to the roll of the presses. At the far end of the room, a door led directly into the pub, The Prince Albert.”

Later I described the back shop of the first paper I worked at, that the floors were cobblestone and sometimes when a printer would get an assembled page rolling too fast and it would hit a bump and go flying. Metal type went everywhere, but had to somehow be reassembled.

Had we been in a pub we would have laughed mightily and ordered another pint.

A few days later an e-mail arrived about a post he wanted to amend:

“I’m sending you a slight revision in the next half hour. Don’t slip on the cobbles and drop it.

“A compositor at the Huddersfield Examiner once pied the splash story, on deadline for the first edition. Picking himself up, he calmly slid a suspiciously-dusty galley from a drawer. ‘We’ll pop this in for the first edition,’ he reassured me. On taking a look, I saw that it was a story announcing the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb. It had been in the drawer since the 1930s. I pointed out that it was old news, by several decades. ‘Aye, but it fits,’ he grunted, stretching a length of his apron alongside the galley to gauge its length.

“I had better stop these reminiscences before I turn into Mark Twain.”