Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

New Hopyard Planted In Wisconsin

By

simple-earth-hops
Matt Sweeny, from Fatty Matty Brewing, a homebrewing and craft beer website, announced yesterday that he’s started a small hop farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, named Simple Earth Hops.

simple-earth-hops

From the press release:

Simple Earth Hops is a new 1/4 acre hopyard located at Greenspirit Farm CSA in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. The hopyard was founded with the idea of providing a much needed agricultural product for local craft brewers. Simple Earth Hops was established to demonstrate that local farmers can produce a consistent, sustainable supply of ultra high quality hops by working directly with local craft brewers while still maintaining a focus on ecology, the land and the people involved.

“Craft beer producers have made it clear that they desire a local source of hops. Simple Earth Hops will address this need for a local sustainable supply of hops by small locally owned craft beer producers.”

simple-earth-1
Raising the trellises.

Look for Simple Earth Hops to elaborate more on the details of a Grand Opening hopyard tour/beer tasting event in late July, 2010 and for the hopyard harvest tour & beer tasting in early Fall, 2011.

Funding for Simple Earth Hops is provided in part by a 2009 NCR-SARE (USDA) grant. This small-scale commercial hopyard has been established by the Sweeny family of Dodgeville, Wisconsin who slowly grow earth friendly hops for local brewers with similar locavore ethics.

simple-earth-2
The hop trellises on Greenspirit Farms.

Ontario Declares Santa Claus Only For Kids

By

ontario
According to the Canadian National Post (sent in by an alert reader — thanks Brian S.), the LCBO — the Liquor Control Board of Ontario — has banned the Christmas beer Samichlaus, from Schloss Eggenberg. Here’s the reason, if you can even call it that.

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has decided the beer’s label contravenes rules against advertising to children. It features the name of the beer, Samichlaus, a Swiss-German nickname for the saint behind the Santa Claus legend, and a small black-and-white bearded figure.

It’s apparently a violation of “section 1(4) of the commission’s advertising guidelines, which prohibits liquor packaging aimed at children.”

Samichlaus

But the notion that Santa Claus, and by extension Christmas itself, is exclusively the domain of children is absurd on its face. But set that aside for a moment, and look at the label. Have you ever seen a less kid-friendly label? Nothing pulls in kids like a brown label, almost devoid of holiday colors. And the image of Santa Claus they believe puts children at risk? As the article suggests, the label’s image looks more like an “old fisherman [o]r a weather-beaten hobo.” I just see an old man with a beard and a nondescript hat; anything but someone kids would be drawn to the dark side over. How could any reasonable person look at that label and conclude it’s “aimed” at marketing to children?

Of course, Santa Claus — or St. Nicholas — is also the patron saint of brewers and the brewery only makes Samichlaus once a year, on December 6, which is his saint’s feast day.

I’m not sure why this issue keeps coming up, apart from some people seem to have some very strange ideas about who Christmas is for and who gets to decide. And that brings us back to this idea that Santa Claus somehow only appeals to children and is not for adults. I don’t know who the adults are who feel this way, but they must be some of the least empathetic, most stingy, unfeeling curmudgeonly people on the planet because for me the spirit of Santa Claus is about giving, regardless of age. I’m 51, a devout non-believer, and I love Christmas and especially the idea of Santa Claus. And I know I’m not alone on this one.

What’s perhaps most unsettling, is that the entire province has been mobilized to eradicate this scourge of Samichlaus based on a “single complaint from a private person.” Yes, that’s right. One person didn’t like the label and now the rest of the people in the province will be deprived this great beer. Nice going, jackass. This seems to keep happening — in the UK, Philly, San Diego and elsewhere — where the opinion of one person seems to matter more than the collective sensibilities of a whole community or society.

In an earlier post, I referred to this as the “tyranny of the minority,” but perhaps the better question is why government agencies spring into action over just one complaint? With a large population and just a single (or even just a few complaints) shouldn’t the silence of the many be taken into account, too? Ontario has an estimated population of just over 13 million people (as of last year) yet access to a (very good) product has been removed from the entire population because one guy didn’t like it. This is not how decisions should be made in a democracy or even in a “federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.”

New York Times Features Beer Stores

By

six-pack
Today’s New York Times has a great little article extolling the virtues of beer tasting bars, beer stores with tasting licenses allowing them to have limited taps and sample customers on the beers they carry. The story, Tastings With Craft Beers, features two Bay Area beer stores, Beer Revolution in Oakland, and City Beer Store in San Francisco, both terrific, relatively new, additions to the Bay Area beer scene. City Beer Store opened in 2006, while the Beer Revolution began this past February, during SF Beer Week.

If you haven’t been to either, now would be a good time to go. City Beer Store was founded by Craig Wathen, who formerly was with Pete’s Wicked Ales, and his wife Beth. They’ve created a cozy space on Folsom packed with over 300 beers, many of them hard-to-find elsewhere, and also managed to make the space comfortable and inviting.

Oakland’s Beer Revolution was started this year by Rebecca Boyles and Fraggle (a.k.a. Mark Martone — I didn’t even know Fraggle’s real name until just now!). I featured the pair in a long article I did on “Beer Geeks” for beer Advocate magazine several years ago. For them, this is a passion realized, a dream made real. In a larger space than their city doppelganger, Beer Revolution has a dozen taps and many, many bottles for sale. Both stores are constantly doing small, intimate in-store tastings and events.

The other three stores mentioned are all in Oregon, including the iconic Belmont Station in Portland. Only a few years ago, stores like these were a rarity, but their presence has been growing by leaps and bounds lately, and that’s great news for beer lovers.

A-B InBev To Sell Off British Beer Brands

By

abib
The Times of London is reporting that Anheuser-Busch InBev is looking for buyers to sell off some of its most iconic British beer brands, including Bass, Boddington’s and Flowers. In the article, Buyer Sought for Beer That Britain Forgot, it appears the asking price for Bass is £10-15 million ($15-21 million in dollars), though that apparently “excludes both the trademark and international rights.”

bass

But it doesn’t look good, overall. From the Times article:

Despite its fame and longevity, Bass is now a minuscule part of the world’s biggest brewer, with volumes equating to a tiny fraction of the amount sold in its heyday in the 1980s. The brand, now brewed under contract by Marston’s, a rival brewer, which owns Pedigree ale, has suffered from a combination of lack of marketing investment and falling consumer demand as its multinational owner has focused increasingly on its global lager brands.

Boddingtons, too, has declined under AB InBev’s hands. The brand was once a leading part of the old Whitbread Beer Company, but its fortunes have dwindled since the closure in 2005 of the Strangeways brewery in Manchester, where it had been brewed since the late 18th century.

Despite the long history of the brands that AB InBev is looking to sell, finding a buyer could prove tricky. Obvious suitors including Marston’s, Wells & Young’s, Molson Coors and C&C Group are understood to have ruled themselves out.

Pabst Sale Update

By

pabst
Additional information about the recently announced sale of Pabst Brewing by billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos is seeping out, and again primarily the information is coming from Harry Schuhmacher, from Beer Business Daily (proving once again everyone in the beer business should subscribe to his daily newsletter).

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the sale price to Metropoulos is $250 million. They also claim that the “deal is ‘in its final stages’ and is being backed by GE Capital. MillerCoors will presumably continue to brew the beers for Pabst, since their contract isn’t up for renewal until 2015.”

Perhaps most frightening, and clear proof that Pabst won’t become a more sophisticated brand under the new management:

The Journal says that Metroupoulos’ two sons, Evan 29, and Daren 26, “are expected to play key roles at Pabst.” These two guys are men about town for sure. The New York Times society columnist describes meeting them at a party where they were lounging on a couch. When the writer didn’t know who they were, Evan reportedly said, “Where you been, man? I’ve been on David Letterman and Howard Stern … I’ve been with more chicks than any fat guy you know, except Pavarotti.”

Wow, classy. But then again, it is PBR. Beer Business Daily also had a lengthy update with more information yesterday that’s worth taking a look at.

Beer Sophistication

By

tripel
Chris Ballard, a beer blogger, has an interesting piece up that he wrote for Blog Critics, Beer is More Sophisticated Than Wine, where he brings together many of the arguments that people have made over the years to showcase beer’s sophistication, especially as compared with wine. I’m not sure it’s necessary to take on wine. That beer is more complex is at this point almost a given. But still, it’s a nice little rant. The only thing I disagree with is his assertion that Plato is an I.P.A. man. Everyone knows Plato preferred whisky. “Plato, they say, could stick it away—Half a crate of whisky every day.”

Read This, Not That

By

calories
I started to write about this nonsense last year, when the authors of Eat This, Not That declared Sierra Nevada Stout to be the “worst beer” based almost solely on the fact that it’s 210 calories. This year, they’ve declared Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale to be the “worst beer for 2010,” again based almost entirely on the fact that it is 330 calories. Here’s the entire write-up:

Most beers carry fewer than 175 calories, but even your average extra-heady brew rarely eclipses 250. That makes Sierra’s Bigfoot the undisputed beast of the beer jungle. Granted, the alcohol itself provides most of the calories, but it’s the extra heft of carbohydrates that helps stuff nearly 2,000 calories into each six-pack. For comparison, Budweiser has 10.6 grams of carbs, Blue Moon has 13, and Guinness Draught has 10. Let’s hope the appearance of this gut-inducing guzzler in your fridge is as rare as encounters with the fabled beast himself.

But so what? Avery’s The Beast has 480 calories (and Samael’s Ale has 458 and Mephistophele’s has 434). Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA has 450 (and their Raison d’Extra has 425). Goose Island Bourbon County Stout has 415 calories. Bell’s Expedition Stout has 400 (and their Third Coast Old Ale has 335). Alaskan Barleywine has 373. Rogue’s XS Imperial Stout has 366 calories (and XS Old Crustacean has 346). Sprecher Barleywine has 352 and so does Real Ale’s Sisyphus Barleywine. Fish Poseidon’s Imperial Stout has 338 (and their Leviathan Barleywine has 319). Bristol Old No. 38 Barley Wine has 318. Three Floyds Dreadnaught Imperial IPA has 316. Pike Barleywine has 315 calories. Even McEwan’s Scotch Ale has 295. And the more extreme beers made by Samuel Adams, Utopias has 720 and Triple Bock had 636.

What’s the one thing all of those beers have in common, including Bigfoot? You don’t drink them the same way you do the beers that they compare them to; Budweiser, Blue Moon, Guinness Draught and Leinenkugel’s Fireside Nut Brown Ale. Those are all beers you drink by the six-pack, or at least share by the six-pack. The other beers are all sipping, bottle-sharing beers. Big difference. You can’t really compare them because they’re not made for the same purpose or use. It’s apples and oranges while the Eat This, Not That authors can only see beer as one interchangeable commodity. To them, all beer is the same, only the calories change. They can’t see that some drinks, usually the heavier higher caloric ones, people naturally drink less of. Like heavy foods, you feel full sooner and so don’t eat, or this case drink, more of them.

That the Eat This, Not That folks would have you believe all beers are equal is readily apparent when in their original book from 2008, they recommend that you should drink beers like Carta Blanca and Amstel Light. Their top picks, Michelob Ultra and Beck’s Premier Light, I wouldn’t drink even if they were the only beers on a menu. I’d order water or an alternative alcoholic beverage instead. In the 2009 follow-up, “Supermarket Survival Guide” they continue to recommend almost entirely big, bland beers from national and international companies. Curiously, though Yuengling Light, a recommended beer in 2008, has turned evil a year later and is now on the “Not That” side, because it’s all about calories and carbs. But a close look at the two sides reveals that there’s really very little difference between a recommended beer and the not recommended ones, just like the difference between low-calories light beer and “regular” beer is vanishingly small. That so many people are duped into believing the sacrifice to drink light beer is worth it for their health continues to amaze me and may be one of the greatest lies ever perpetrated my marketing.

But most of the beers on their recommended, as well as their not recommended list, lack one overall, and apparently overlooked, quality: taste. Who cares how many or how few calories or carbs a beer has if it doesn’t taste good, or tastes of nothing, like so many of the beers they’re listing are. And they’re also overlooking the right beer to pair with the right dish, event or occasion. It should be about proportion. I might not recommend Bigfoot as a beer to drink every day of the year. Of course, I wouldn’t suggest any beer for that duty. There’s no such thing as an all-purpose beer. There never should be, despite the mainstream media, marketing “gurus” and even the big breweries attempts to the contrary.

Calorie or carbohydrate-counting may be fine for some people (though I can’t for the life of me come up with a reason why) but applying it to beer is utterly ridiculous and without merit. If following their advice is what passes for healthy living, I’m happy to die sooner having lived a fuller, more enjoyable life. Life’s just too short to drink low-calorie beer.

SierraNevada-Bigfoot
I know what I’m drinking tonight.