09.02.19, BEER & FERMENTATION LINKS

Have a good Labor Day holiday.

1) The ‘I was a teenage under-aged drinker’ 50th anniversary pub crawl.
2) What White Claw Obsession Says About Our Changing Relationship to Alcohol.
3) A note on South Africa’s drink driving problem.
4) Goon of Fortune — The Enduring Shelf Life of Bag-in-Box Beer.
5) The Right Way to Bring a Baby to a Bar.
6) Down Times for Upstate NY — Iconic Breweries Face Closure, Financial Hardship.
7) Here’s What’s Killing Craft Beer: Us.
8) Owners Of Philadelphia’s Oldest Homebrew Shop Blame Changing Demographics And Attitudes For Their Closing.

WINE

9) Regarding Wine, Writing and “Influencers”
10) Is The Future Of Wine In The Can?

FROM TWITTER

One of the fiercest points of contention in defining "the Midwest" is the role of state lines, writes @dhmontgomery.

Many people label entire states as either Midwestern or not, while others argue that the region's true boundaries transcend state lines. https://t.co/1r2EcYW1Ur

— CityLab (@CityLab) September 1, 2019

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Alan McLeod, most Thursdays.
Good Beer Hunting’s Read Look Drink, most Fridays.
Boak & Bailey, most Saturdays.

08.26.19, BEER & FERMENTATION LINKS

1) IPA is broken. Can brewers please fix it?
The Beer Nut posted this title on Twitter, and it is the one I am sticking with. Plenty of tweet-size nuggets here, such as, “I didn’t expect to get such a cliché of everything wrong with the concept of ‘milkshake IPA’ but here it is. If this is what you wanted beer to be in 2019, fill your boots.

2) A Conversation with Nicole Erny of Alvarado Street Brewery.
Lots of beer smarts here, but also some life smarts: “I actually have a degree [in what’s] basically journalism—I graduated college in 2007 and it was not a great time to try to enter the journalism field. It was kind of like, ‘If you want to do this, write for free.’ I wasn’t particularly inspired to do that.”

3) Why the Coors Light “bra ad” is groundbreaking.
Kate Bernot was asked if this ad wasn’t pandering. Pick another beer commercial and pick a man. Would you ask him the same question?

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08.19.19, BEER & FERMENTATION LINKS

1) Fresh Fest so much more than a beer fest.
2) Fresh Fest 2019: The Ultimate Family Reunion.
3) Drinking Partners Podcast| Garrett Oliver | Live from Fresh Fest
4) Drinking Partners Podcast #220 – FRESH FEST.
After the festival, Garrett Oliver tweeted: “A beer festival that actually LOOKED LIKE AMERICA. Black folks, white folks, all kindsa folks, queer folks, straight folks, womenfolk, menfolk. Folk folk.” He repeated the thought and added plenty more during a podcast that was recorded live during the festival, and thus immediately became part of what looks like history in the making. When somebody gets around to writing the next big history of craft beer they should not overlook that Dames + Dregs and Beers With(out) Beards also attracted enthusiastic drinkers on Aug. 10, 2019.

5) Brewers Association Report Shows Lack of Diversity in Hires, Offers Path Forward.
It’s going to take more than one festival, or three.

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08.12.19, BEER AND FERMENTATION LINKS, MUSING

1) Why Craft Beer Is Dying.
Simon Nielsen, a brewer in Wisconsin, writes, “To me, that—the loss of originality—is what is killing the heart of our movement. Where have the artists gone? Where have the brewers with something to say gone?” This mirrors the comment from Karl Ockert — “The priority is not to innovate but rather to profiteer. This is not why we started all this.” — that received a lot of attention a couple weeks ago. A tweet pointing to Nielsen’s post seems to have attracted little attention (I’ll admit, sometimes I lose track of threads). But a) sales by breweries the Brewers Association categorizes as craft increased about 4 percent in the first half of 2019; and b) there were plenty of “what is craft?” threads on Twitter. Here is one that went on and on.

2) AB InBev back at it.
Bryan Roth provides analysis of AB InBev’s first American brewery acquisition in, gee, two whole years. I only took a quick look at various social media outlets, but this does not seem to have stirred the emotional pot (and cries about selling out) that previous purchases have. Not sure if that suggests general weariness or lack of love for Platform Brewing. There was a comment on Reddit about how much more painful it would be had Jackie O’s or Urban Artifact been involved.
Related: Breckenridge Brewery Founder Wants to Return Original Pub “to the People”

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08.05.19, BEER AND FERMENTATION LINKS

1) Our idea of luxury has changed dramatically over the last 15 years.
It begins: “Look around. We live in the age of gilded minimalism. In the Bay Area in the year 2019, pop-ups in unmarked buildings draw hours-long lines. Our hottest restaurants are spare, open temples to natural light. We want our butter house-cultured, our grains ancient, our wild ales spontaneously fermented — and we’re happy to pay the premium markup.” The premise is that 2004 was a pivotal year for California wine. What would the pivotal year for American beer be?

2) Of Mad Scientists and Liquid Cocaine — Modern Beer Finds a Way in Budapest.
More thinking about authenticity.

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