{"id":16631,"date":"2021-10-18T06:35:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-18T12:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/?p=16631"},"modified":"2021-10-18T10:08:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T16:08:36","slug":"monday-beer-links-courtesy-in-part-of-the-town-crier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/monday-beer-links-courtesy-in-part-of-the-town-crier\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday beer links, courtesy (in part) of the Town Crier"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thinking<\/p>\n

True? Not true? Has hard seltzer brought us to this?<\/p>\n

In his substack newsletter Fingers<\/a>, Dave Infante reaches this conclusion:<\/p>\n

\u201c[Flavored Malted Beverages] aren’t just changing drinking habits. They (will) also swing beer business\u2019 collective center of gravity away from brewers (\u201call about the liquid\u201d) and back towards marketers. Or, to put it another way: from craft back to commodity.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, collective center of gravity<\/em> leaves room for beers left of the dial, but how much?<\/p>\n

Also last week, I pointed to a podcast\/transcript about \u201cHow Hops Got Sommified<\/a>.\u201d In it, there is some discussion about brewers prominently listing hop varieties. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is done under the guise of giving the drinker more information. In fact, you\u2019re kind of making people feel dumb because they don\u2019t know what to do with that information,\u201d says Zach Geballe. \u201cTo me, it is analogous to this thing in wine that I find incredibly frustrating, when you go to a winery or event and all the person talking to you about the wine can do is recite the technical data of the wine.\u201d
\n<\/p>\n

Fairly or not, at a point during the conversation I thought of a brewery (Flossmoor Station) blog post from long ago (2008) written by an actual brewer (Matt Van Wyck) about \u201cOver Analysis Syndrome<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the risk of being part of that problem, I\u2019ll simply disagree with the idea that providing drinkers with information about the raw materials used to make their beer is a bad thing. As I wrote last Wednesday, when a consumer knows a hop by name<\/a> she is less likely to be considered a commodity \u2014 as is the beer to which she adds aroma and flavor.<\/p>\n

Hard truths<\/strong>
\n\"T-rex
\n[From DC Beer<\/a>.] <\/p>\n

Boak & Bailey nicely summarized<\/a> the \u201ctussle over the attendance of breweries at a festival organised by Danish brewing company Mikkeller.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is, as they say, an \u201congoing story.\u201d You\u2019ll find the list of breweries<\/a> originally scheduled to attend or pour beer here, and see the breweries that have withdrawn<\/a> here (scroll to the bottom).<\/p>\n

Hard truths II<\/strong>
\n\u201cKnowing what I know now, I wouldn\u2019t do it. A brewery is a black hole you throw money down. Advice for someone opening a brewpub is: Expect to work long hours. Be determined and have patience. It may take years to establish your brewery and make a profit.\u201d
\n– Lost Coast Brewery founder Barbara Groom, interviewed in Los Altos Town Crier<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A mission<\/strong>
\nJust your typical brewery origin story<\/a>: An orchestra conductor and businessman meet coaching their sons\u2019 baseball team, solidify their friendship while homebrewing and decide to open a brewery. The profits will go to paying for music lessons and instruments for Minnesota kids whose families couldn’t otherwise afford it.<\/p>\n

Kernza<\/strong>
\n\u201cKernza<\/a> is a potentially revolutionary grain \u2014 a self-sustaining, climate change-fighting wheat that can boost soil and water health and keep carbon locked in the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how long before a brewery will use it to make beer? Wait. That\u2019s already happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hazy beers=Disco?<\/strong>
\nGo for this sentence \u2014 \u201cIn other words, Sierra Nevada launching a hazy IPA<\/a> was like the Rolling Stones getting down with the kids and turning to disco at the end of the \u201870s\u201d \u2014 and stay for the rest of the story.<\/p>\n

RIP<\/strong>
\nEd visits the (soon to be former) Eldridge Pope brewery<\/a>. Plenty of pictures. Plenty to be sad about. <\/p>\n

Daria and I visited the brewery in 1994, and by a bit of luck spent a late afternoon rambling in the nearby countryside with brewery chairman Christopher Pope. According to the Wayback Machine<\/a>, “As the sun set, the sheep actually glowed. ‘Very Hardy-ish,’ Pope said. <\/p>\n

Not beer<\/strong>
\nAnother 900 pages, another \u201cOxford Companion,\u201d this one about spirits and cocktails<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that you\u2019re taught if you hang around master distillers is that distillation is extremely precise work. Then you read a description of someone in the mountains of Peru in 1900 making a still out of a clay pot, the broken bottom of another one, a bamboo tube and some mud and making a perfectly acceptable sugar-cane spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Always for pleasure<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

The beautiful four country region Lake Constance!? pic.twitter.com\/kzhTX1lHPJ<\/a><\/p>\n

— J\u00fcrgen Weishaupt (@Hopfendoldi) October 11, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n