Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Next Session To Clear Up Wheat Beers

By

session-the
Our 45th Session will be hosted by Bruce Tichnor, who runs the Canadian BeerTaster.ca. He’s taking us back to our roots, to spend a cloudy afternoon with wheat beers, or has he describes it:

We wanted to get back closer to the roots of the Session and pick a topic which was simple and yet gives a wide range of interpretations so we chose, simply (or perhaps not so simply), Wheat Beers.
Feel free to take this topic in any direction you like, specific reviews, historical information, or any other twist you’d like to use. Wheat beers are a pretty wide topic and actually cover German style Weizen, Heffe Weizen, etc. along with Belgian style Witbier and even Flavoured Wheat beers.

There are very few guidelines here, just have some fun drinking Wheat Beers in the fall instead of the summer.

So see if you can clear up the cloudy subject of wheat beers with your own post for the next Session, on Friday, November 5.

Beer Drinkers Are Normal, Study Derisively Claims

By

pint
In yet another hatchet job by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a new study they sponsored declares “Alcohol Consumers Are Becoming The Norm,” as if that’s a bad thing. The longitudinal study using data almost two decades old from the NIAAA’s 1991-92 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey and the 2001-02 National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions was conducted by researchers at the UT Southwestern School of Health Professions. The results are being be published this month in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, a journal of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. To say the study is most likely biased, without even having to look at it, is something of an understatement.

The press release for the study begins with this eye-catching pronouncement. “More people are drinking than 20 years ago.” But that’s not correct. A more accurate statement would be that more people are drinking eight years ago than were doing so twenty years ago. Not quite as sexy, or alarming, but correct based on the actual data the study examined.

But really, even if true, if more people are indeed drinking today than twenty years ago, so what? The statement completely ignores context. We know mass-produced beer is down. We know craft beer is up. Couldn’t an equally valid explanation be that more people are drinking less, but better beer. That would mean more moderate drinking, which has shown to cause people to live longer than either abstaining or over-drinking. Shouldn’t that be considered be excellent news? But when the people studying the data owe their careers and paychecks to the study of “alcoholism,” it’s always bad news. The glass is quite literally, always half empty.

half-empty-2

Just look at how they define drinkers vs. non-drinkers. For purposes of the study, someone who has had twelve drinks of at least “0.6 ounces” in the last year is considered a drinker. That’s a total of 7.2 ounces in an entire year and you’re a “drinker.” That’s less than half a pint in a year, for chrissakes. Less than that and you’re a non-drinker. Talk about just saying no. But an increase in the number of people who’ve had less than a half pint is on the increase, apparently, and that’s cause for alarm? Are you kidding me? That would be laughable if lead researcher Dr. Caetano didn’t sound so serious. He thinks “that continuous monitoring of alcohol consumption levels is needed to understand better the factors that affect consumption. Monitoring also would help to detect as early as possible signs that rates of risky drinking behaviors such as binge drinking or drinking to intoxication may be increasing.” And he’s worried about people who’ve consumed as little as 7.2 oz. in one year. Is it just me, or is that the proverbial tempest in a pint glass?

But wait, it gets better. Based on what any reasonable person would consider almost no drinking at all, he has the following recommendations.

“This suggests to us that a variety of public-health policies such as restrictions on alcohol advertising, regulating high-alcohol-content beverages, increasing taxes on alcohol, as well as treatment and brief interventions may be needed to reduce alcohol-related problems,” he said.

How? How does that suggest these draconian measures? To them, the “reasons for the uptick vary and may involve complex sociodemographic changes in the population, but the findings are clear: More people are consuming alcohol now than in the early 1990s.” But that’s not even true from their own findings. First of all, as I said before, this compares a study from 1991-92 to another one conducted in 2001-02. That was eight years ago, not “now” as he states. Then with such flimsy increases using as their base amount less than 8 oz. of alcohol consumed in an entire year, they think it’s appropriate to make recommendations calling for more regulation, higher taxes and more medical intervention. That’s completely absurd and utterly disproportional to the findings.

This seems so obviously an agenda in search of a study. The suggestions were already in place. It’s the same nonsense that neo-prohibitionist groups have been pushing for years. This study was just shamelessly shoe-horned into that agenda.

But again I think part of what bothers me about these type of studies is that they take the view that any drinking is bad, no matter how small or moderate. They don’t take into account the context of the drinking. Is it with food? Is it with friends over a long period of time? Is it a few times a week or all at once? Even the Federal government increased their recommendations of safe drinking from two to four drinks a day, assuming the weekly intake stays below their recommendations. And they’ve acknowledged the numerous studies that show moderate drinking is part of a healthy lifestyle and will also most likely mean you’ll live longer. But these anti-alcohol funded studies just add up the amounts people drink and say it’s all bad for you, no context necessary. It’s just self-serving propaganda. If an alcohol industry group had sponsored this, it would have been dismissed immediately. But anti-alcohol groups get no such scrutiny. Their studies are embraced by the medical community, such as Medical News Today, which ran the study’s press release as a news story almost verbatim. Also, Science Daily reprinted the press release as news, disclosing its source at the bottom, well after the average reader stopped reading it. They also provide a link to the press release and the original journal article, something that Medical News Today can’t be bothered to do.

Though the headline is Alcohol Consumers Are Becoming The Norm, the title of the study itself is Sociodemographic Predictors of Pattern and Volume of Alcohol Consumption Across Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites: 10-Year Trend (1992–2002), the headline bears very little resemblance to the study itself.

Here’s the abstract:

Keywords: Ethnicity; Race; Binge Drinking; Drunkenness; Intoxication; Whites; Blacks; Hispanics

Background:  There have been limited trend studies examining variations on the patterns of alcohol consumption among Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics in the United States. The current paper reports national trends in drinking patterns, volume of drinking (number of drinks per month), binge drinking, and drinking to intoxication among Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics over a period of 10 years and identifies sociodemographic predictors of these behaviors across the 3 ethnic groups.

Methods:  Data are from the 1991 to 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (NLAES; n = 42,862) and the 2001 to 2002 National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; n = 43,093). Both surveys used multistage cluster sample procedures to select respondents 18 years of age and older from the U.S. household population.

Results:  Trends varied across different dimensions of drinking and ethnic groups. There were no statistically significant differences in the mean number of drinks consumed per month among men and women in any of the 3 ethnic groups between 1992 and 2002, but there was a significant rise in the proportion of current drinkers in both genders and in all 3 ethnic groups. Multivariate analysis indicated that, compared to Whites in 1992, Blacks and Hispanics did not increase their volume of drinking, but Whites did. Drinking 5 or more drinks in day at all did not increase between 1992 and 2002, but drinking 5 or more drinks at least once a month was more likely for all groups in 2002 compared to Whites in 1992. Drinking to intoxication at all was more likely among Whites in 2002 than 1992, but drinking to intoxication at least once a month was more likely among Whites and Blacks in 2002 than 1992.

Conclusion:  The only common trend between 1992 and 2002 across both genders and 3 ethnic groups was a rise in the proportion of drinkers. There was also a rise in drinking 5 or more drinks in a day (Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics) and drinking to intoxication (Whites and Blacks), but this was limited to those reporting such drinking at least once a month. The reasons for these changes are many and may involve complex sociodemographic changes in the population. It is important for the field to closely monitor these cross-ethnic trends in alcohol consumption.

I don’t see a reference to the headline, Alcohol Consumers Are Becoming The Norm, anywhere in either the press release or the abstract. Nothing in the abstract addresses normalization of any kind. After the headline, it’s never mentioned again. I don’t understand what it even means, becoming the norm? Alcohol has been consumed since the beginning of civilization. It hasn’t suddenly become anything. It’s been perfectly normal for adults to drink alcohol since at least 1933, when it became legal again in the U.S. It’s pretty hard to take the whole thing very seriously, when the headline itself is nothing but sensationalist propaganda.

Original AA Bible More Religious

By

bible
I’ve been somewhat suspicious of Alcoholics Anonymous for many years. I grew up with an alcoholic stepfather, and had some experience with AA when I was younger, which you can read about in an earlier post. One of my big issues has been the idea of powerlessness and giving yourself over to a “higher power.” Though AA has been careful to use the non-denominational “higher power,” it always felt like a thinly veiled religious god, and more specifically one of the monotheistic sky-gods (of Christianity, Islam and Judaism).

But the idea that you can’t rely on yourself, your own will, has always troubled me. I know it seems to work for a lot of people, but it never felt like a cure, just a lifelong band-aid over a wound that never heals because the wound itself is never even treated. And I know I’m not the only one. There are treatment centers in Japan whose patients are able to drink in moderation without immediately becoming “alcoholics” after one sip. And a controversial book last year by Harvard psychology professor Gene M. Heyman, Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, punched further holes in AA’s insistence of powerlessness in alcoholics.

Why that matters, I think, is for this reason. As Science-Based Medicine reminds us, that makes AA a faith-based treatment, not a scientifically sound method of treating anyone. They write: “Alcoholics Anonymous is the most widely used treatment for alcoholism. It is mandated by the courts, accepted by mainstream medicine, and required by insurance companies. AA is generally assumed to be the most effective treatment for alcoholism, or at least “an” effective treatment. That assumption is wrong.”

And there are plenty of other critics out there, such as Sober Without Gods, Stinkin’ Thinkin’ and this particularly interesting essay, I Was An AA Nazi, at When they tell you to ‘Keep Coming Back’, run for your life!!! Escape from Alcoholics Anonymous. And there’s at least two Yahoo groups, Escaping the Cult of AA and 12-Step Free. And that, I assume, just skims the surface. Reading some of those, AA comes off more like a cult than anything else. As many of its critics also point out, many former alcoholics replace their addiction to booze with an addition to AA or religion more generally. I realize many people will argue that the latter is safer and healthier than the former, but isn’t obvious that trading one addiction for another is no cure and does nothing to address any underlying causes?

Now, more evidence is coming to light that even the “higher power” dodge in AA wasn’t always there. As a recent article in the Washington Post reported, founder Bill Wilson’s original manuscript from before 1939, which is being published for the first time, shows that the original document was nakedly Christian in its tone. But before it was published, Wilson had a number of people help him edit his manuscript, and how to characterize religion in it became a hotly debated topic. Eventually all references to a specific god were generalized and changed so they could be essentially anything. That was a calculated decision.

According to the Post, “AA historians [whatever that means] and treatment experts say” claim the edits were made to “adopt a more inclusive tone was enormously important in making the deeply spiritual text accessible to the non-religious and non-Christian.” Frankly, that sounds like apologetics. The changes were largely semantical, the tone of the program remained deeply religious, only the names were changed so it could be claimed it was not. That allowed it to be spread farther and wider than if it had remained true to its roots, and I’m even willing to believe that in 1939 their heart was in the right place. The idea of religious freedom has been in our Constitution almost since the beginning, but we’ve been a mostly-Christian nation for the majority of our history. It’s really only been in recent decades that the promise of the First Amendment is beginning to be addressed and enforced.

But in 1939, they decided not to address the role of religion in treating addiction, instead opting to essentially try to hide its “spirituality” or at least tried to couch it in non-denominational platitudes.

But the crossed-out phrases and scribbles make clear that the words easily could have read differently. And the edits embody a debate that continues today: How should the role of spirituality and religion be handled in addiction treatment?

They also take readers back to an era when churches and society generally stigmatized alcohol addicts as immoral rather than ill. The AA movement’s reframing of addiction as having a physical component (the “doctor’s opinion” that opens the book calls it “a kind of allergy”) was revolutionary, experts say.

Maybe, but today AA’s Big Book (a.k.a. its “Bible”) has changed little since those initial edits. It’s remained almost exactly the same, only a few of the stories have been updated. But the world has not stayed the same as it was in 1939. People’s approach to religion has changed dramatically. We’re a more diverse nation spiritually than we were then, I’d wager, and more tolerant (I continue to hope) of other points of view. I’m sure AA seemed revolutionary at the time, 70+ years ago, but remaining the same while the world changed around it has turned it into an antiquated cult. Not to mention, much more has been learned about addiction, much of contradicting AA’s original premises and methods. And while some claim AA has incorporated these newer insights into the program, it seems to me it’s remained largely unchanged at its core. Certainly its bible has remained the same, as religious as the day it started.

aa-2nd-ed

The 4th edition of AA’s Big Book, which is the most current, is available online.

The Beer Vault

By

beer-tower
I’m not quite sure what to make of this gadget. It was created by a design firm in Australia, JonesChijoff, working with Edwin Koh and Iqbal Ameer for their Melbourne bar, Biero. It’s called a Beer Vault, and takes bottled beer and transfers it into a draft environment, cooled by glycol and kept under pressure to preserve it using carbon dioxide which they claim maintains its freshness as if it was still in the bottle. It was also designed so the bottle itself can be displayed just below a clear UV-protected tube that stores and dispenses the beer. (Thanks to Andrew M. for sending me the original link.)

beer-vault-2

And here’s the finished product, behind the bar at Biero bar.

beer-vault-1

The website at Biero has some additional information.

beer-vault-4

And there’s also a blueprint there, too.

beer-vault-3

The website anthill, where ideas and business meet, describes the project like this:

Be able to offer premium beer to punters in a way that hasn’t previously been done. Any beer is now available on tap! But not displayed in an industrial tin-can hidden away, but out ‘n’ proud, showcasing the varying hues of amber.

Syphoning the bottled beer into the BeerVaults and keeping it under the same pressure as was in the bottle before the lid was cracked. It is also chilled via a clear volume of liquid glycol surrounding the beer, which reticulates through a chiller. At JONESCHIJOFF we put simplicity above all else, and this was the simplest yet most effective solution.

Apparently it will keep the bottled beer fresh for about three days, meaning more people could theoretically buy a small amount of a rare beer, without having to open and potentially even waste a whole bottle. So maybe it’s a good idea? I guess time will tell.

And here’s a wider shot of the Biero bar.

biero-1

Most Complete Beer Proteome Found

By

science
The American Chemical Society has announced that the most complete beer proteome has been found. The journal article in the ACS publication Journal of proteome Research, The Proteome Content of Your Beer Mug was conducted in Milan, Italy by two area university departments from the Politecnico di Milano and the Universit degli Studi di Milano working together.

According to the press release:

In an advance that may give brewers powerful new ability to engineer the flavor and aroma of beer — the world’s favorite alcoholic beverage — scientists are publishing the most comprehensive deciphering of the beer’s “proteome” ever reported. Their report on the proteome (the set of proteins that make beer “beer”) appears in ACS’ monthly Journal of Proteome Research.

Pier Giorgio Righetti and colleagues from say they were inspired to do the research by a popular Belgian story, Les Maîtres de l’Orge (The Brew Masters), which chronicles the fortunes of a family of brewers over 150 years. They realized that beer ranks behind only water and tea as the world’s most popular beverage, and yet little research had been done to identify the full set of proteins that make up beer. Those proteins, they note, play a key role in the formation, texture, and stability of the foamy “head” that drinkers value so highly. Nevertheless, scientists had identified only a dozen beer proteins, including seven from the barley used to make beer and two from yeast.

They identified 20 barley proteins, 40 proteins from yeast, and two proteins from corn, representing the largest-ever portrait of the beer proteome. “These findings might help brewers in devising fermentation processes in which the release of yeast proteins could be minimized, if such components could alter the flavor of beer, or maximized in case of species improving beer’s aroma,” the report notes.

I’m not sure about those findings, the statement about the “ability to engineer the flavor and aroma of beer” sounds a bit too Frankenstein-like for my tastes. Though to be fair, I don’t remember much about Proteomes from my time taking the short course on brewing at U.C. Davis.

j-of-proteome

At any rate, the whole article is online. Below is the abstract, see if it makes sense to you:

The beer proteome has been evaluated via prior capture with combinatorial peptide ligand libraries (ProteoMiner as well as a homemade library of reduced polydispersity) at three different pH (4.0, 7.0, and 9.3) values. Via mass spectrometry analysis of the recovered fractions, after elution of the captured populations in 4% boiling SDS, we could categorize such species in 20 different barley protein families and 2 maize proteins, the only ones that had survived the brewing process (the most abundant ones being Z-serpins and lipid transfer proteins). In addition to those, we could identify 40 unique gene products from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, one from S. bayanus and one from S. pastorianus as routinely used in the malting process for lager beer. These latter species must represent trace components, as in previous proteome investigations barely two such yeast proteins could be detected. Our protocol permits handling of very large beer volumes (liters, if needed) in a very simple and user-friendly manner and in a much reduced sample handling time. The knowledge of the residual proteome in beers might help brewers in selecting proper proteinaceous components that might enrich beer flavor and texture.

Interesting ….

proteome-2010

A New Justification For More Beer Taxes

By

rwjf
Ugh, here we go again. Three researchers at the University of Florida, led by epidemiologist Alexander C. Wagenaar, have just released a new study which they claim shows that raising alcohol taxes — in fact doubling them — will reduce consumption and cure society’s problems.

The study, Effects of Alcohol Tax and Price Policies on Morbidity and Mortality: A Systematic Review, is to be published in the November issue of the American Journal of Public Health, but was released online last week, as is common for academic journals.

As I don’t have the resources to buy a subscription to every related academic journal, I have to make do with the abstract and what other news outlets write about it. Here’s the abstract:

Objectives. We systematically reviewed the effects of alcohol taxes and prices on alcohol-related morbidity and mortality to assess their public health impact.

Methods. We searched 12 databases, along with articles’ reference lists, for studies providing estimates of the relationship between alcohol taxes and prices and measures of risky behavior or morbidity and mortality, then coded for effect sizes and numerous population and study characteristics. We combined independent estimates in random-effects models to obtain aggregate effect estimates.

Results. We identified 50 articles, containing 340 estimates. Meta-estimates were r=–0.347 for alcohol-related disease and injury outcomes, –0.022 for violence, –0.048 for suicide, –0.112 for traffic crash outcomes, –0.055 for sexually transmitted diseases, –0.022 for other drug use, and –0.014 for crime and other misbehavior measures. All except suicide were statistically significant.

Conclusions. Public policies affecting the price of alcoholic beverages have significant effects on alcohol-related disease and injury rates. Our results suggest that doubling the alcohol tax would reduce alcohol-related mortality by an average of 35%, traffic crash deaths by 11%, sexually transmitted disease by 6%, violence by 2%, and crime by 1.4%.

Those are some pretty specific promises and some pretty specific recommendations, something most academic papers assiduously avoid. To me that’s a red flag about the intentions of this study.

Science Daily covered the study in an article today (thanks to Richard S. for sending me the link) entitled Increasing Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages Reduces Disease, Injury, Crime and Death Rates, Study Finds. Obviously, I’m as predisposed to question such a study as the average anti-alcohol wingnut is to swallow it unquestioningly. And I confess something doesn’t smell right with it. My alky sense is tingling.

Having not seen the full article, I’m left wondering exactly what the “50 published research papers containing 340 estimates” means. What is being “estimated?” It reads like it’s the supposed harm that’s being estimated, because I can’t for the life of me understand how you could ever say there’s definitive causation for such a complex relationship as the price of something to “other misbehaviors,” or indeed any of the laundry list of issues the researchers believe are caused by people drinking alcohol. In my experience at looking at these studies, any event in which there was alcohol present is usually sufficient to consider the incident alcohol-related, but that’s nowhere near the same as having been caused by the alcohol. And so these statistics tend to be inflated and, consequently, misused.

But the key insight into the study came in the very last paragraph of Science Daily’s coverage of the study, where they reveal that the funding for the study came from the notorious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the godfather of neo-prohibitionist groups. The RWJF funds many other neo-prohibitionist groups, and also sets the national agenda in the anti-alcohol community. That they funded this, and other similar studies, suggests that the answer preceded the study, that is it was designed to support their agenda, its conclusions a fait accompli.

To me this also explains professor Wagenaar’s statement. “Results are surprisingly consistent.” Of course, they would be if you’re looking for a correlation. The same team did a similar study in 2007, Raising Alcohol Taxes Reduces Deaths, Study Finds where they examined alcohol-related deaths in Alaska after beer taxes were raised in the state. That study was also funded by the RWJF. Predictably they found the correlation they were looking for, but this is playing with statistics for incredibly complex relationships. Their simple conclusions seem absurd. They ignore any underlying causes for alcohol abuse or suicide or anything else, for that matter. As almost every study like this I’ve ever seen, “alcohol-related” is a thinly veiled attempt to paint any alcohol use, however responsible or moderate, as dangerous and life-threatening. Beer is not a syringe of heroin, despite these same groups’ attempts to portray it that way.

Mark my words, we’re going to see this study used by groups all over the country in renewed efforts to raise beer taxes in state after state. But the only thing I remember happening when the federal excise tax on beer was doubled in 1990 was a loss of jobs and long term economic harm visited on the brewing industry. I don’t recall seeing any victory parties by the anti-alcohol groups once that doubling cured all the problems they previously ascribed to alcohol. They went right on complaining about all the supposed damage caused by the industry. That’s a real world example of what they want to do having none of the outcomes this new study claims would occur under the exact same conditions.

Postal Service Considering Beer Mail

By

usps
You’ve probably heard that in the age of e-mail, FedEx and UPS the U.S. Postal Service has been losing money. A lot, and for a long time now. According to the Washington Post, on Thursday, Senator Tom Carper (Democrat-DE) introduced legislation to save the post office, the Postal Operations Sustainment and Transformation (POST) Act of 2010. The bill includes a laundry list of changes designed to help stop the fiscal bleeding and turn things around. It would eliminate Saturday deliveries, for example, and as Postmaster General John E. Potter explains it, “it alleviates our retiree health benefit burden while bringing resolution to the pension overpayment dilemma we’ve faced.” I don’t know what that means, but it’s not important for my purposes.

The most important part of the POST Act is that it would also “revise current prohibitions against USPS shipping wine and beer.” Opening up the post office to shipping beer seems like a great idea to me, especially given the problems with UPS and FedEx in that regard. The Postmaster General is in favor of the bill, as many of the items contained in it are apparently ideas that have been suggested before. Curiously, William Burrus, president of the American Postal Workers Union, is against allowing beer and wine shipments, but I can’t really understand why. He just wonders aloud if “allowing the Postal Service to ship beer and wine and closing small post offices while the organization is losing billions really the answer?” To which I can only answer yes, why not? What can it hurt, and it would most certainly give the post office a competitive advantage. Why would he be against trying anything reasonable? The Postmaster General stated the bill seeks “to more closely align our costs and the needs of our customers.” Well speaking as one of their customers, I need to get beer so it would make my life simpler if beer could be legally and reliably shipped through the USPS. I’m certainly willing to give up Saturday deliveries in exchange for the potential to have my mailman bring beer the other five days of the work week.

Canadian Brewing Awards 2010

By

cba
Last night, Friday September 24, the 8th annual Canadian Brewing Awards were presented at the Cool Brewery in Etobicoke, Ontario. At the CBA Gala and Medal Presentation, 93 medals were awarded in 31 style categories.

This year, there were 390 entries from 76 Canadian breweries, “making the 2010 edition the largest brewing competition ever held in Canada.”

Congratulations to all the winners.

CBA

North American Style Lager

Gold: Red Baron Premium Blonde Lager, Brick Brewing Co. (ON)
Silver: Laker Lager, Brick Brewing Co. (ON)
Bronze: Molson Dry, Molson Canada

North American Style Premium Lager
Gold: Molson M, Molson Canada
Silver: Premium Lager, Muskoka Cottage Brewery (ON)
Bronze Island Lager, Vancouver Island Brewing (BC)

European Style Lager (Pilsner)

Gold: King Pilsner, King Brewery (ON)
Silver: Pilsner, Mill Street Brewery (ON)
Bronze: Okanagan Spring 1516, Okanagan Spring Brewery (BC)

North American Style Amber Lager

Gold: Red Leaf Lager, Great Lakes Brewery (ON)
Silver: Barking Squirrel, Hop City Brewery (ON)
Bronze: Clancy’s Amber Ale, Moosehead Breweries Ltd.

North American Style Dark Lager

Gold: Dark 266 Lager, Cameron’s Brewing (ON)
Silver: Waterloo Dark, Brick Brewing Co. (ON)
Bronze: Hermann’s Dark Lager, Vancouver Island Brewery (BC)

Light (Calorie-Reduced) Lager

Gold: Brewhouse Light, Great Western Brewing Co. (SK)
Silver: Great Western Light, Great Western Brewing (SK)
Bronze: Moose Light, Moosehead Breweries Ltd.

Bock – Traditional German Style

Gold: Captivator Doppelbock, Tree Brewing Co. (BC)
Silver: Amsterdam Spring Bock, Amsterdam Brewing Co. (ON)
Bronze: Centurion, Le Saint-Bock (QC)

Kellerbier

Gold: Denison’s Dunkel, Denison’s Brewing Co. (ON)
Silver: Kellerbier, Les Trois Mousquetaires (QC)
Bronze: Bohemian Pilsner, R&B Brewing Co. (BC)

Porter

Gold: Coffee Porter, Mill Street Brewery (ON)
Silver: Two Fisted Stout, Amsterdam Brewing Co. (ON)
Bronze: Nutcracker Porter, Black Oak Brewing Co. (ON)

Strong Porter (Baltic)

Gold: Porter Baltique, Les Trois Mousquetaires (QC)
Silver: Brewmaster’s Black Lager, Okanagan Spring Brewing Co. (BC)
Bronze: Grand Baltic Porter, Garrison Brewing (NS)

Cream Ale

Gold: Sleeman Cream Ale, Sleeman Breweries
Silver: Cream Ale, Muskoka Cottage Brewery (ON)
Bronze: Cream Ale, Cameron’s Brewing Co. (ON)

Kolsch

Gold: Lug Tread Lagered Ale, Beau’s Brewing Co. (ON)
Silver: High County Kolsch, Mt. Begbie Brewing Co. (BC)
Bronze: Harvest Moon Organic Hemp Ale, Nelson Brewing Co. (BC)

North American Style Amber/Red Ale

Gold: Yukon Red Amber, Yukon Brewing Co. (YT)
Silver: Fire Chief’s Red Ale, Pump House Brewery (NB)
Bronze: Irish Red, Garrison Brewing Co. (NS)

North American Style Blonde/Golden Ale

Gold: Molson Export, Molson Canada
Silver: Red Cap, Brick Brewing Co. (ON)
Bronze: Natural Blonde, Amsterdam Brewing Co. (ON)

Brown Ale

Gold: County Ale, Wellington County Brewery (ON)
Silver: Naramata Nut Brown, The Cannery Brewing Co. (BC)
Bronze: Stonehammer Dark Ale, F&M Brewery (ON)

Scotch Ale

Gold: Squire Scotch Ale, The Cannery Brewing Co. (BC)
Silver: Wee Angry Scotch Ale, Russell Brewing (BC)
Bronze: Scotch Ale, Pump House Brewery (NB)

English Style Pale Ale (Bitter)

Gold: KLB Pale Ale, Amsterdam Brewing Co. (ON)
Silver: Red Devil Pale Ale, R&B Brewing Co. (BC)
Bronze: Wisharts ESB, Clocktower Brewpub (ON)

North American Style Pale Ale (Bitter)

Gold: Canuck Pale Ale, Great Lakes Brewery (ON)
Silver: Hopyard, Garrison Brewing Co. (NS)
Bronze: Duggan’s #9, Duggan’s Brewery (ON)

Wheat Beer – Belgian Style White/Wit

Gold: Dominus Vobiscum Blanche, Microbrasserie Charlevoix (QC)
Silver: White Bark, Driftwood Brewing Co. (BC)
Bronze: Paresseuse, Le Saint-Bock (QC)

Wheat Beer – German Style Hefeweizen

Gold: Hefeweizen, Tree Brewing Co. (BC)
Silver: Duggan’s #13 Weiss, Duggan’s Brewery (ON)
Bronze: Summer Wheat, Bushwakker Brewing Co. (SK)

Wheat Beer – North American Style

Gold: Sungod Wheat Ale, R&B Brewing Co. (BC)
Silver: Silver Wheat, Wellington County Brewery (ON)
Bronze: Dooryard Summer Ale, Picaroons Traditional Ales (NB)

Strong or Belgian Style Ale

Gold: La Fin Du Monde, Unibroue (QC)
Silver: Trois Pistoles, Unibroue (QC)
Bronze: Gros Mollet, Microbrasserie du Lac St-Jean

Barley Wine

Gold: Thor’s Hammer, Central City Brewery (BC)
Silver: St. Ambroise Vintage Ale, McAuslan Brewing (QC)
Bronze: Barley Wine, Mill Street Brewery (ON)

Stout

Gold: Dark Star Oatmeal Stout, R&B Brewing Co. (BC)
Silver: Malediction, Le Saint-Bock (QC)
Bronze: Timber Hog Stout, Picaroons Traditional Ales (NB)

Imperial Stout

Gold: Black IPA, Garrison Brewing Co. (NS)
Silver: Russian Imperial Stout, McAuslan Brewing (QC)
Bronze: Imperial Russian Stout, Wellington County Brewery (ON)

English Style India Pale Ale

Gold: Nasty Habit IPA, Mt. Begbie Brewing Co. (BC)
Silver: Brockton IPA, Granville Island Brewing (BC)
Bronze: India Pale Ale, Mill Street Brewery (ON)

American Style India Pale Ale

Gold: Red Racer IPA, Central City Brewery (BC)
Silver: Hop Rock Candy Mountain IPA, Hart & Thistle Brewpub (NS)
Bronze: My Bitter Wife, Great Lakes Brewery (ON)

Imperial India Pale Ale

Gold: Red Racer Imperial, Central City Brewery (BC)
Silver: Cuda, Benelux brasserie artisanale et café (QC)
Bronze: Ten Bitter Years, Black Oak Brewing Co. (ON)

French and Belgian Style Saison

Gold: Farmhand Ale, Driftwood Brewing Co. (BC)
Silver: Saison, Black Oak Brewing Co. (ON)
Bronze: Blonde de Chambly, Unibroue (QC)

Fruit & Vegetable

Gold: Coconut Porter, Swans Buckerfields (BC)
Silver: Quelque Chose, Unibroue (QC)
Bronze: Frambozen, Mill Street Brewery (ON)

Special Honey/Maple Lager or Ale

Gold: Enigma, Le Saint-Bock (QC)
Silver: Holiday Honey, Old Credit Brewing (ON)
Bronze: Mackroken Flower Grande Reserve, Bilboquet Microbrasserie (QC)

Two additional medals were bestowed during the CBAs Gala and Medal Presentation — Canadian Brewery of the Year and Canadian Beer Of The Year awards. Rob Engman, President of TAPS Media, was thrilled with the announcement that first time participants, Central City Brewery from Surrey, BC, won both of the prestigious awards. “I am extremely excited for Central City Brewery,” stated Engman. “This is the first year that the brewery has competed in the CBAs and they wowed the judges with their submissions.”

Beer of the Year: Thor’s Hammer Barley Wine, Central City Brewery (BC)

CBA-brewery

Brewery of the Year: Central City Brewery (BC)

1 In 5 Americans Driving After Drinking

By

steering-wheel
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released the results of their latest National Survey of Drinking and Driving Attitudes and Behaviors, done in 2008.

That headline grabbing statistic, that one in five have driven after drinking (actually within two hours of drinking) is not about driving “drunk,” but simply after having had any amount of alcohol. That seems a little alarmist and misleading. If I have one beer with lunch and then drive, I’m included in that statistic even though at my size and appetite, it’s unlikely I’m anywhere near 0.08% BAC. It makes for a great headline, but that’s about it. It’s also the statistic featured on the home page for this survey. Here’s the abstract from the NHTSA.

One Out of Five Are Drinker-Drivers

Twenty percent of the public 16 and older had in the past year driven a motor vehicle within two hours of drinking alcohol. About two-thirds of these, or 13% of the total population 16 and older had done so in the past 30 days. The survey produced an estimate of 85.5 million past-month drinking-driving trips, up from 73.7 million trips in 2004 and reversing a declining trend in such trips since 1995. More than three-fourths (78%) of the trips were made by males.

Those who reported driving within two hours of drinking in the past year tended to be more frequent drinkers than did other drivers who drink but do not drive afterwards. More than one in four (28%) drinking drivers usually consumed alcoholic beverages 3 or more days a week, compared to 10% of drivers who drink but do not drink and drive. While few 16- to 20-year-olds reported drinking and driving, those that did averaged 5.7 drinks per sitting during the times they drink alcohol (inclusive of all drinking occasions, not just drinking and driving). For 21- to 24-year-old drinking drivers, their average alcohol intake was 4.2 drinks per sitting. The average number of drinks dropped sharply again for 25- to 34-year-old drinking drivers (3.0), then declined more slowly across ensuing age groups.

But when you look at this same statistic since 1993, when the first survey was taken, it’s been almost exactly the same, changing no more than a percentage point or two in nearly twenty years. The point is that all of the efforts to lower the standard of what it means to be drunk, the scare tactics and increased penalties have done little to change people’s behavior.

As for people driving after meeting our arbitrary definition of being drunk, that’s roughly 17.2 million people (in the last year) or about 8%. That’s more like one in twelve. And though I couldn’t find a companion chart for this stat since 1993, I’d be willing to guess it’s been similarly static.

I should say at this point — though I shouldn’t have to — that I don’t think people should get drunk and drive, so please don’t write and accuse me of that. I’m simply questioning the statistics and the effectiveness of current policy based upon them. As I’ve written before, I tend to think that all that lowering the standard of intoxication from 0.1% to 0.08% has accomplished is to criminalize more people while doing nothing to stop the true problem drinkers from driving.

To me, the real scandal is that not one organization that’s against drunk driving is actively lobbying for a mass transit system that actually works in the U.S. It seems to me that the most obvious way to curb drunk driving is provide an alternative. If history has taught us anything, it’s that we can’t effectively stop people from drinking alcohol. It was illegal for thirteen years, and that didn’t stop anyone. And if this recent study shows us anything, it’s that, right or wrong, people still drive after drinking despite years of increasingly criminalizing that behavior. In short, what we’re doing now isn’t working. Isn’t that obvious?

Many people who want to lower the BAC even further note that in Europe it’s often 0.05% or even lower. But what they fail to point out is that in every country in Europe I’ve ever visited, there are real, viable alternatives to get around using public transportation. But we’re a car country thanks to the actions of the oil and automobile companies in the last century, when they bought up and dismantled public transportation systems. Not to mention the greatest corporate giveaway in history is the public highway system. Imagine how expensive cars would be if the automobile companies had to build the roads, too, like railroads did. So if we want to use Europe as a model, then we have to build an effective public transportation system here, too. And that would have all kinds of positive benefits beyond reducing drunk driving. So let’s get on that.

nhtsa

You can read the whole survey, in three parts at the NHTSA website, where you can download the pdf’s.

Next Up For San Francisco’s Alcohol Tax? The Voters

By

vote
Politicians are used to getting their way, and so are powerful non-profits, so they tend not to look at defeat as losing, but as an opportunity to try to win a different way. Certainly they’d never openly admit they’re wrong or have lost. If one strategy doesn’t work, they try another. The will of the people or common sense rarely matters, what matters is winning.

And so the new alcohol tax for the city of San Francisco, as proposed by supervisor John Avalos, was vetoed by mayor Gavin Newsom. But that’s hardly the end of it. I’m sure that Avalos and his backing organization, the Marin Institute, are still trying to strong-arm the three supervisors who voted against the new tax in the hopes of an override, but in the meantime, they’re also looking at others ways to realize their agenda. The determination of the minority who claim the moral high ground will not be stopped so easily. Their dream of punishing the majority of lawful, responsible drinkers for the excesses of the few will not go gently into that long goodnight. Likewise, their dream of punishing the big alcohol companies with a scheme that will barely register on their radar while at the same time causing real harm to the local economy, to local restaurant and bar owners and employees, and to hundreds of small family-owned breweries, wineries and distilleries will also not stop, but will instead just veer off in a different direction.

Just hours after Newsom’s swift veto of the alcohol tax, “supervisor John Avalos says the measure might be taken to voters to override Mayor Gavin Newsom’s veto.”

Unfortunately, every news outlet keeps repeating the lie that the tax would only add “a few cents per standard serving of beer, wine or hard liquor.” Don’t any of these news outlets fact check? As the business community has tried to explain — and any person with a functioning brain should understand — the initial tax (like all costs of doing business) will be marked up along the supply chain from wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Seriously, how hard is that to comprehend? This won’t be a “nickel a drink,” more like a buck a drink. Okay, maybe not that much for most, but if I have to keep hearing it’s only a nickel, I think I’m within my rights to engage in a little hyperbole, too. At least I’m up front about it. I feel like if I turn around, I’ll see Upton Sinclair shaking his head behind me. As he observed, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” And so it goes.

And what also doesn’t get talked about — but should — is that alcohol is already the most taxed consumer product on planet America, with the possible exception of tobacco. But tobacco, you may recall, has no health benefits whereas the moderate consumption of alcohol has plenty, not least of which is that you’ll most likely live longer if you drink a little instead of abstain.

Every state and community is having trouble paying for the services its citizens feel entitled to, and that’s undoubtedly a real problem. I personally believe politics has led us down this path, but regardless I don’t believe politics can save us from it, either. Everybody wants the services, but curiously no one is willing to pay for them. No one wants their taxes to go up, even though that’s probably the fairest way to get us out of this mess. Instead, politicians keep trying to find a solution that doesn’t seem like a tax, in most cases just so they can continue to say they’re against more taxes, for no grander purpose than they want to keep their jobs. So when the Marin Institute whispered in the ear of John Avalos, “psst, have I got a ‘fee’ for you,” … he listened.

And in the end, that’s why I’m so vehemently opposed to this type of tax. It’s dishonest at its core. It argues from a false premise. I don’t really care how much the tax is, it’s patently unfair at any amount. It takes the all too familiar position that drinking alcohol is somehow a sin and therefore people should have to pay to enjoy it. Bullshit. I don’t believe that and neither should you. The concept of sin is a religious “belief” and last time I checked the Constitution guaranteed that I can believe otherwise and that in any event religion, where the idea of sin flourishes, should have nothing to do with the governing of alcohol policy or any other damn law.

What we have is decades of demonization working its way into a discussion it should have no part in. It’s utter nonsense to suggest that alcohol “made” people abuse it and further that the people who make it and sell it share that blame, too. When we start taxing ammunition and gun companies for the crimes people commit using their products then come talk to me about charge for harm. When we start taxing soda companies, high fructose corn syrup makers, fast food chains and red meat companies for the obesity epidemic and the burden it places on our healthcare system then come talk to me about charge for harm. When we start taxing the oil companies and car manufacturers for the loss of the ozone layer and other natural disasters from their dismantling of mass transit and people driving too much then come talk to me about charge for harm. Virtually every human activity does some harm to someone or something. Trying to calculate all of them and figure out who owes what is a fool’s errand. And that’s why we don’t, except when it comes to alcohol. Alcohol has been a convenient scapegoat for well over a century now, and there’s no end in sight for the ills of society it can be blamed for.

My biggest fear if this does go to a vote, is that the mis-information and propaganda out there has created a populace that believes one thing when another is closer to the truth. One of the most potent takeaways from the quasi-debate that KQED aired a few weeks ago, was how frighteningly uninformed many people are about this issue. So many have let emotions, inflated statistics and one-sided reporting inform them on this issue that I think a lot of people will happily pull that “yes” lever, blissfully ignorant of how unfair it is and how their emotions have been manipulated by propaganda and fear. And that’s a direct result, I think, of our local media just uncritically parroting propaganda in favor of the tax and all but ignoring any meaningful opposition.

But long term it’s also because we allow the debate to start from the premise that alcohol is bad in and of itself. It’s not. All the evidence you need to disprove that is your own behavior and those of almost everyone around you, easily able to responsibly drink moderate amounts of alcohol. You’re the majority. You’re the norm. You’re doing something good; good for you and for society. Drink up. Enjoy yourself. Don’t let fear and propaganda win the day.