Archives for January 2017

Baby Beer Names

January 22, 2017 By Jay Brooks

A few years ago I wrote an article for the Brewer’s Association I called Papa’s Got A Brand New Beer that was for Father’s Day. It featured a number of names that beer people have given their kids, celebrating their love of beer. My old friend, Adam Lambert — who I’ve known since he was in college and working part-time for SLO Brewing — recently tweeted “I think we need a blog for beer related kid names.” While setting up an entire new blog on that topic seemed too much, at least for me, I figured a page of People’s Beer Names could work.

I can only assume there are more that I haven’t run across. If you know of any to add to this list, please let me know by commenting here. I’m especially interested in names that parents have already given, so if you know a name that’s already been bestowed on a child, please let me know who (I don’t need exact name, just something like “employee at x brewery/bar/distributor/etc.”) so I can refer to without naming names.

Here are the names I already either know of, or seem possible.

Boy’s Names

Brett: confirmed — Brett Porter is head brewer at Goose Island/ABI, and formerly with Deschutes
Brewer: theoretical — appears in baby name books
Bud: fictionally confirmed — Bud Bundy, character on Married… with Children, named after Al Bundy’s favorite beer
Cooper: confirmed — son of a man with 20 years in the draft dispensing business
E.S.B. initials: unconfirmed — rumored story told to Jay R. Brooks for a name like “Ethan Sebastian Brown”
Flanders: possible — for the Belgian beer style, Flanders Red
Porter: confirmed — son of Jay R. Brooks, and also the son of Chris Graham, COO of MoreBeer
Stout: confirmed — A Facebook friend knows one

Girl’s Names

Abbey: possible — for Abbey-type breweries
Amber: confirmed — daughter of Geno Acevedo, El Toro Brewing, and middle name of the daughter of Colorado beer write Dan Rabin
Burton: possible — for the beer-brewing city in England
Cascade: possible — for the hop variety*
Crystal: possible — for the malt variety
Genny: possible — for Genesee Cream Ale, nicknamed “Genny”
Heather: possible — for the shrub used in brewing
India: confirmed — A Facebook friends knows a couple whose daughter got her name at least in part because they love IPAs and homebrew
Iris: possible — for Cantillon Iris
Kate: possible — for Portsmouth Kate the Great
Mara: confirmed — daughter of British beer writer Martyn Cornell, Hebrew for bitter
Matilda: possible — for Goose Island Matilda
Sierra: confirmed — daughter of Ken Grossman, Sierra Nevada Brewing
Sofie: possible — for Goose Island Sofie
Vienna: confirmed — daughter Jennifer Talley, Auburn Alehouse

NOTE: * – I’ve seen many suggestions for different hop variety names, but most seem somewhat forced. Understanding that a name could conceivably be anything, I only want to list names that seem reasonable or have actually been given to a kid by his or her parents. For another example, I’ve seen several mentions suggesting “Bock” or “Lambic” as names, but unless someone’s actually named their kid those, they don’t really seem that likely to me. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of suggestions like that out there on the internet. really more bad suggestions than good ones.

Beer In Ads #2163: Charles Laughton For Pabst

January 21, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Saturday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1949. In the later 1940s, Pabst embarked on a series of ads with celebrity endorsements, photographing star actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people in their homes, enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. This one features Charles Laughton. He “was an English stage and film character actor, director, producer and screenwriter. Laughton was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and first appeared professionally on the stage in 1926. In 1927, he was cast in a play with his future wife Elsa Lanchester, with whom he lived and worked until his death; they had no children.

He played a wide range of classical and modern parts, making an impact in Shakespeare at the Old Vic. His film career took him to Broadway and then Hollywood, but he also collaborated with Alexander Korda on notable British films of the era, including The Private Life of Henry VIII. He portrayed everything from monsters and misfits to kings. Among Laughton’s biggest film hits were The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Mutiny on the Bounty, Ruggles of Red Gap, Jamaica Inn, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Big Clock. In his later career, he took up stage directing, notably in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, and George Bernard Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell, in which he also starred. He directed one film, the thriller The Night of the Hunter.

Laughton has been seen by one actor as one of the greatest performers of his generation. Daniel Day-Lewis cited him as one of his inspirations, saying: ‘He was probably the greatest film actor who came from that period of time. He had something quite remarkable. His generosity as an actor, he fed himself into that work. As an actor, you cannot take your eyes off him.'”

In the ad, Laughton’s relaxing, up against a tree, at the Ojai Valley Inn and Country Club. Beer in his hand, he’s in Southern California but still wearing a wool jacket and tie, even though it’s most likely on the warm side. Hopefully the beer will help keep him cool.

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Beer In Ads #2162: Gladys Swarthout

January 20, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Friday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1948. In the later 1940s, Pabst embarked on a series of ads with celebrity endorsements, photographing star actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people in their homes, enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. This one features Miss Gladys Swarthout and her husband Mr. Frank Chapman. She “was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer and entertainer.”

In the ad, Swarthout and her husband, also an opera singer, are in their “Connecticut Home,” in what looks like a den or music room. They’re sharing a bottle of beer, although they are two full glasses.

PBR-1948-gladys-swarthout

Beer Birthday: Chris Nelson

January 20, 2017 By Jay Brooks

beergeek
Today is the 51st birthday of Chris Nelson, better known as The Beer Geek. Chris and his wife, Merideth Canham-Nelson, recently completed an around the world beer festival tour, but are still traveling the globe searching for great beer. A few years ago his wife also published Teachings From the Tap, her account of the year they spent circling the globe visiting beer destinations. Join me in wishing Chris a very happy birthday.

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The first “official meeting” of the Bay Area Beer Bloggers. From left: Merideth Canham-Nelson, me, Chris, JJ (the Thirsty Hopster), and Gail Ann Williams and Steve Shapiro, both from Beer by BART.

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In front of the Rocky statue in downtown Philadelphia during our trip to the first Philly Beer Week.

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At the OBF media tasting: Rick Sellers, from Pacific Brew News, Merideth and Chris Nelson, The Beer Geek, and Meagan Flynn (at right) with her assistant, Annalou, former publishers of Beer NW during the 2007 Oregon Brewers Festival.

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Chris, at right, with Shaun O’Sullivan, Merideth, and Jeff White in Pub Talk Radio in Monterey in September of last year.

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Chris and Merideth at Pangea in 2012 (photo “borrowed” from Facebook, by Virginia Vasquez)

Beer In Ads #2161: Jonathan M. Wainwright For Pabst

January 19, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Thursday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1948. In the later 1940s, Pabst embarked on a series of ads with celebrity endorsements, photographing star actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people in their homes, enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. This one features the “Hero of Bataan, Defender of Corregidor,” Joseph M. Wainwright. He “was a career American army officer and the Commander of Allied forces in the Philippines at the time of their surrender to the Empire of Japan during World War II. Wainwright was a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his courageous leadership during the fall of the Philippines.”

In the ad, Wainwright is at “Fiddler’s Green,” holding a gun while “relaxing in the den of his Texas home.” On a tray in front of him, there’s two bottles of Pabst and two glasses. Another man, who appears to be talking to, has already started drinking his beer, or is at least holding it in his hand. If I were him, I’d be waiting until after Wainwright put down the gun to begin drinking.

PBR-1948-jonatham-m-wainwright

What Can Brown Do For You?

January 19, 2017 By Jay Brooks

For our 120th Session, our host will be Joe Tindall, who writes The Fatal Glass of Beer. For his topic, he’s chosen Brown Beer, which sounds simple enough, but I’ll just let Joe explain what he means:

The colour brown has certain connotations, some of which I won’t dwell on. But used in reference to beer, it can signify a kind of depressing old fashioned-ness – to refer to a traditional bitter as ‘brown’ seems to suggest it belongs to a bygone corduroy-trousered era. As breweries who pride themselves on their modernity focus on beers that are either decidedly pale or unmistakably black, the unglamorous brown middle ground is consistently neglected.
So for Session 120, let’s buck the trend and contemplate brown beer. This might be brown ale, or the aforementioned English bitter; it could be a malty Belgian brune, a dubbel or a tart oud bruin; even a German dunkel might qualify.

In mid-2015, I was Thinking About Beer Color, so it could be fun to restrict that to just one family of color, the browns. There certainly are a lot of beers that fit into that range. What’s your take on the narrow band on the beer color rainbow. To participate in February’s Session, on or before Friday, February 3, 2017, post your thoughts on what brown has done for you. Just comment on the original announcement or via Twitter. Joe’s Twitter handle is @FatalGlass.

brown-beer-glass

Beer In Ads #2160: Tommy Henrich For Pabst

January 18, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Wednesday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1950. In the later 1940s, Pabst embarked on a series of ads with celebrity endorsements, photographing star actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people in their homes, enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. This one features Tommy Henrich. He “was an American professional baseball player, nicknamed ‘The Clutch’ and ‘Old Reliable.’ He played his entire Major League Baseball career as a right fielder and first baseman for the New York Yankees (1937–1942 and 1946–1950). Henrich led the American League in triples twice and in runs scored once, also hitting 20 or more home runs four times. He is best remembered for his numerous exploits in the World Series; he was involved in one of the most memorable plays in Series history in 1941, was the hitting star of the 1947 Series with a .323 batting average, and hit the first walk-off home run in Series history in the first game of the 1949 World Series.”

In the ad, Henrich is showing off his “World-Series home run baseball” in what looks to be his study. I think they’re referring to the 1949 World Series, the year before, when “he gave New York a 1-0 victory in Game 1 when he homered against Don Newcombe on a 2-0 pitch to lead off the ninth inning, the first walk-off home run ever in the World Series.” Shortly before the ad ran, on January 19, 1950, he was awarded “Athlete of the Year,” although I don’t really know who gave him the accolade.

PBR-1950-tommy-henrich

Thesaurus Of Beer

January 18, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Peter Roget. He was born in 1779, in London, the son of a Swiss clergyman, and became a doctor, but was obsessed with making lists since at least the age of eight. I can certainly relate. Thanks to several bad incidents in his life — both his father and his wife died young, and a favorite uncle committed suicide in front of him — he suffered depression most of his life, and worked on his thesaurus as a coping mechanism. When it was first published in 1852, the full title was Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition. After his death, both his son and then his grandson continued to work on new editions of what become known as Roget’s Thesaurus, the first reference book of its kind, although there are now dozens of similar books available.

I’m not sure if I’m so fascinated by words because I’m a writer, or if I’m a writer precisely because I love words. I have a long list of Beer In Other Languages, exhaustive lists of Drunk Words, slang terms for over-indulging and puke words, for when you really over-indulge. I’ve also looked at The Language Of Hangovers, but finding Beer Slang has proved far more difficult for some reason (although I should point out, that last one is a work in progress that I’ve only worked on a few times since first posting it in 2011).

As most beer historians will point out, beer as a generic term is fairly recent. Just ask Martyn Cornell or Ron Pattinson. And ale and lager as over-simplified subdivisions below beer is even trickier. But the fact remains, apart from wholly slang terms, there aren’t very many words which also mean beer, apart from beer. You might immediately offer “cerveza,” but that is, of course, in Spanish. So, because it’s Thesaurus Day, I checked out a few, and here’s what I found:

Roget’s Thesaurus

On Roget’s Thesaurus online, a search for “beer” yields this sparse response.

#959 Drunkenness: Nn. beer, barmy beer — beer.

Roget’s International Thesaurus 1922

Roget’s 1922 International Thesaurus is also online, on Bartleby.com, though it’s pretty unsatisfying, too:

thesaurus-rogets-1922-beer

Thesaurus.com

Thesaurus.com, part of the dictionary.com family of reference website, gives this for beer synonyms:

thesaurus-com-beer

Oxford Dictionaries Thesaurus

The Oxford Dictionaries website reveals just this.

SYNONYMS
ale, beverage, brew
informal jar, pint, booze, wallop, sherbet
NZ Australian hop

WordReference Thesaurus

WordReference gives this list of words.

malt beverage, malt liquor, brew, suds, the amber brew, slops, brewskie, the amber nectar (slang), lager, lager beer, bitter, stout, ale, pale ale, alcoholic drink, booze (slang), a pint, a half, draught beer, draft beer, tap beer, cask ale

Curiously, only amber nectar, and booze are listed as “slang,” yet virtually all of them seem like either slang, specific types of beer or modified types of beer, like “draft beer.”

Infoplease Thesaurus

The thesaurus at Infoplease online yields this:

1. beer, brew, brewage

usage: a general name for alcoholic beverages made by fermenting a cereal (or mixture of cereals) flavored with hops

OneLook Thesaurus

The OneLook Thesaurus gives their top 100 beer-related words, though many don’t even make sense. You can even keep going, 100 new words at a time, and not surprisingly they get even less related to beer as you go deeper, some ridiculously so.

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Visual Thesaurus

This is the graph of beer synonyms that the Visual Thesaurus creates:

Graph Words Online Thesaurus

The Graph Words Online Thesaurus gives a very similar answer to the Visual Thesaurus:

Collins Dictionary Thesaurus

The Collins Dictionary Thesaurus gives this list of beer synonyms:

thesaurus-collins-beer

Visuwords

Visuwords created a colorful graph of beer words, though very few true synonyms:

thesaurus-visuwords-beer

Snappy Words

Snappy Words created this similar graph of beer words:

thesaurus-snappy-beer

Also, Wordnik and Power Thesaurus both give extensive answers, pulling from numerous sources, but end up giving almost all of the same answers as everyone else.

The conclusion is pretty much what I expected. There just aren’t many other words that mean beer. Apart from goofy slang and colloquialisms, there’s just no good generic words for it. One strange one that kept coming up was “brewage.” I’ve never heard that come up in conversation, have you? “I’m sitting here enjoying a glass of brewage.” It just doesn’t roll off the tongue. Maybe because it’s too close to sewage. But along with “brew,” it appears to be the most common synonym to come up. How is it possible that one of the most common words for beer is one nobody actually uses? I guess I’ll just have to keep enjoying my beer without any colorful words to substitute. C’est la vie. Happy Thesaurus Day.

Beer In Ads #2159: Lawrence Tibbett For Pabst

January 17, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Tuesday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1949. In the later 1940s, Pabst embarked on a series of ads with celebrity endorsements, photographing star actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people in their homes, enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. This one features Mr. & Mrs. Lawrence Tibbett. He “was a famous American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950. He performed diverse musical theatre roles, including Captain Hook in Peter Pan in a touring show.”

In the ad, Tibbett and his wife, Grace Mackay Smith, are aboard the S.S. Brazil, a “Moore-McCormick Luxury Liner.” They’re looking at something off in the distance, while a server is bringing them a couple of beers.

PBR-1949-lawrence-tibbett

Beer In Ads #2158: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. For Pabst

January 16, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Monday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1949. In the later 1940s, Pabst embarked on a series of ads with celebrity endorsements, photographing star actors, athletes, musicians and other famous people in their homes, enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. This one features Douglas Fairbanks Jr.. He “was an American actor and a decorated naval officer of World War II.” He was, of course, “the only child of actor Douglas Fairbanks and his first wife, Anna Beth Sully.” Mostly for that reason, he was given an acting contract and started in supporting roles, but was elevated to starring by the late 1920s. He moved around a bit, changed studios, and live in the UK, with some of his most memorable parts being in “Morning Glory” (1933) with Katharine Hepburn, “The Prisoner of Zenda” (1937) and “Gunga Din” (1939).

In the ad, Fairbanks is deep sea fishing “off Catalina Island,” which is “located about 22 milessouth-southwest of Los Angeles, California.” Unseen hands deliver him full glasses and bottles of beer, as he smiles during what I presume is a break in the fishing action.

Pabst-Blue-Ribbon-Beer-Endorsement-Paper-Ads-Pabst-Brewing-Company

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