This year, Avery Brewing celebrates its fifteenth anniversary, and as they’ve done for the last five or so years, they’re releasing a special anniversary ale, this one named “Fifteen.” The last few I’ve had have been quite wonderful and this year’s beer promises more of the same. According to the label, it’s a “refreshingly tart, fruity funky farmhouse ale brewed with black mission figs, hibiscus flowers and white pepper” and “fermented with 100% brettanomyces.”

From the press release:

For the past couple of years, we’ve been working with several strains of brettanomyces (wild yeast). We found one and deemed it the best for its tart flavor and funky, fruity aroma. Adding black mission figs for a subtle jammy aspect, hibiscus flowers for an herbal bouquet and hazy sunset hue, and white pepper for a bit of spicy twang, we’ve created FIFTEEN — a unique drinking experience inspired by the wild farmhouse ales of Belgium. Though immensely complex today, more flavors will emerge with time, so throw a few bottles in your cellar for future celebrations.

It will be available beginning May 5 in 22 oz. bottles, but you can get some before that by attending the Fifteen Release Party at the Avery Tasting Room on Wednesday, April 30th from 4-7 pm. Tickets will be $10.

 

The Oregon Brewers Festival is a mere three months away, but already tickets are on sale for the Oregon Brewers Brunch and Parade, which will take place the morning of the first day of the festival. This year, the brunch will be held at PGE Park, 1844 SW Morrison, on July 24 beginning at 9:00 a.m. The brunch is limited to 300 people. An order form for tickets to the brunch and parade are available online. It will be sponsored by Widmer Bros. Brewing.

From the press release:

Tickets are $20, which includes brunch, Widmer beer, a parade t-shirt and an OBF festival mug (good all weekend long). It’s the deal of the century! The event is limited to 300.

At 11 a.m., brewers and beer lovers will set out for an old-fashioned parade, accompanied by marching band music. The parade will wind its way for approximately one mile through Portland sidewalks to the opening ceremonies and the tapping of the inaugural keg of the 21st annual Oregon Brewers Festival.

 

Here are some photos from last year’s parade, which began at Rogue.

Portland Mayor Tom Potter with festival organizer Chris Crabb as the parade begins.

The parade wound its way through Portland’s downtown until everyone massed across the street from the festival grounds and crossed the street to enter the festival and tap the ceremonial keg, signaling the opening of the festival.

Perhaps I’ll see you there this year.

 

Jon, from the Brewsite, predicted at the beginning of this year that 2008 would be the Year of the Beer Blog. He may be onto something. Charlie Papazian just started his own beer blog, the Beer Examiner; named not so much for what he hopes to write about, but because it’s hosted on the Examiner chain of newspapers website (with print editions in 3 cities and local news online in 57 cities). Papazian, of course, founded what is now the Brewers Association way back in 1978, and has naturally been paying closer attention to the brewing industry far longer than most of us. So it should certainly prove illuminating to follow along with his near-daily “examinations” of what’s going on in the beer world. Charlie’s perspectives are always worth hearing, and I was pleased I got a chance to sit and chat with him, and a few others, during one of the trade show buffet lunches last week. I must confess I was initially surprised that his new blog wasn’t associated with the BA, but he should be able to reach a much wider audience this way so I think it does make sense. Plus he can write his own personal opinions without having to worry about speaking for the Brewers Association.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Charlie. We’re glad to have you with us.

 

During the trade show at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego last week, my good friend JoAnne Carilli, who’s with White Labs, came up to me excitedly, telling me she had something special for my kids. And she really did, as you can see these wonderful pink and blue hoodies are pretty awesome. Thanks JoAnne, I can hardly wait for winter so they can wear them all the time.

 

Sam Calagione, the founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Delaware, is legendary for many things, not least of which is his energy. He could probably tire out my six-year old, Porter. Sam is also a consummate marketer, showman and storyteller. Ask him about walking through Chicago’s O’Hare Airport with a brick of hops. I’ve known Sam for a lot of years. He’s a terrific person, makes great beers and is a wonderful asset to the beer industry. So I was pleased when the Chronicle asked me to do one of their “Uncorked” articles on Sam. Ironically, I got the call from my editor while driving to the Lost Abbey beer dinner near San Diego where I would see Sam and be able to ask him in person about scheduling.

So before an event Monday night at the Toronado introducing, or should I say re-introducing (there used to be some Dogfish Head beers available in Southern California), Dogfish Head beers to California, I sat down with Sam and asked him a series of questions. The article should most likely run in the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday, May 9.

Afterwards, the event was a rousing success with standing room only throughout the evening. Three Dogfish Head beers will be available throughout California: 90 Minute IPA, Midas Touch Golden Elixir and their new Palo Santo Marron, which means literally “Holy Tree Brown.” They were also serving three specialty beers that won’t normally be available: Chateau Jiahu, Immort Ale and the Olde School Barley Wine. These were well paired with three different artisanal cheese; stravecchio, gruyere and a cantal. There were also local distributor folks in the back room for a chance to learn about the beers they will start selling directly from Sam. But Sam was his usual ball of energy and bounced around the bar like a bottle uncorked, shaking hands, handing out cheese and sharing his beer with the crowd. In retrospect, I’m surprised I got him to sit down for as long as I did, but it sure was fun.

 

The “Five Guys and a Barrel” beer dinner Sunday night at the Cathedral Hill Hotel in San Francisco featured five, count ’em, five, brewers and their beers. Rob Tod (from Allagash), Adam Avery (from Avery), Sam Calagione (from Dogfish Head), Tomme Arthur (from the Lost Abbey) and Vinnie Cilurzo (from Russian River Brewing) all got together for one special evening of food and beer. We were all a little tired after nearly a week in San Diego for the Craft Brewers Conference, but the wonderful food the beer chef, Bruce Paton, put together certainly lifted our spirits and enriched our souls.

After the dinner, a toast was offered with Isabelle Proximus, the Collaborative Sour Ale made by blending beer, which was made by Adam Avery, Rob Todd, Sam Calagione, Tomme Arthur, and Vinnie Cilurzo; with food, of course, by Bruce Paton.

 

For more photos from Five Guys and a Barrel Beer Dinner, visit the photo gallery.
 

Here is the second half of the photos I took at the 2008 World Beer Cup Gala Awards ceremony, which was held last Saturday in San Diego, California.

 

Brendan Moylan and Arne Johnson, from Marin Brewing, picking one of the three medals Arne won.

The hard-working staff of the Brewers Association who put on Craft Brewers Conference and the World Beer Cup competition. For many more award photos, go to part 1 of the photo gallery, followed by part 2.

 

For many more photos from the second half of this year’s World Beer Cup Awards, visit the photo gallery.
 

Leave it Sierra Nevada Brewing to figure out a way to release their fresh hop beer, Harvest Ale, not once, but three times throughout the year. The regular harvest ale, which they’ve been making since 1996 — and which was released in bottles for the first time last fall — will continue to come out seasonally right after the harvest in Yakima, using Cascade and Centennial hops. But in May they’ll release another Harvest Ale, known as Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale made with freshly picked hops from New Zealand. Then, at some point during harvest season, they’ll also do a separate bottling of Harvest Ale, using hops grown in the hopyard adjacent to the brewery. This version will be called Chico Estate Harvest Ale and will only be available in very limited quantities, determined by the yield from their own hops.

From the Press Release: Sierra Nevada, the pioneer of fresh hop ales in America, has expanded its Harvest Ale Series with the release of another ground-breaking product introduction, Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale. This marks the first time in known history that a fresh hop ale has been available in America in the spring since hops are harvested in the fall in the northern hemisphere. The inaugural ale will debut in early May. To make this project happen, Sierra Nevada traveled to New Zealand to harvest fresh hops, and then transported them from the southern hemisphere to Chico where they were immediately used in brewing. Like their award-winning Celebration Ale, the fresh hops in this beer are dried right after being picked then shipped immediately to Chico for brewing, so that they retain their peak aromatics and flavors. Freshly harvested hops are richer in hop oils so they impart more hop aroma and hop spiciness into beer. “We love fresh hop ales, but until now fresh hops were only available here once a year – during the fall hop harvest,” said brewery owner and founder Ken Grossman. “So we journeyed to the southern hemisphere to catch their hop harvest, which occurs during our spring.” The result is the North-by South fusion of fresh-picked New Zealand Pacific hops with the finest North American malts. Southern Hemisphere Harvest will feature fresh Pacific Hallertau, New Zealand Motueka and New Zealand Southern Cross hops, all from New Zealand. The introduction of Southern Hemisphere Harvest gives Sierra Nevada three fresh-hop ales in their Harvest Series. In addition to Southern Hemisphere Harvest, Sierra Nevada produces Chico Estate Harvest in late summer and its original Harvest Ale in early fall.

Chico Estate Harvest is one of the very few estate harvest ales produced anywhere in the world today. All the hops in the beer are grown organically on the premises at the Chico brewery. The brewers pick the hops themselves and then take them directly to the brew kettle, without being dried, just after picking so they retain nearly all of their natural oils and resins. It is made with Cascade, Centennial and Chinook hops. Until now, this beer has only been available in draft. Starting this year, Sierra Nevada will bottle it on a very limited basis (Chico only this year) with plans to expand its availability as they expand their Chico hop field in the coming years. The cornerstone of their Harvest Series is the beer that started the modern-day fresh hop ale phenomenon in America, the original Harvest Ale. Created in 1996, Harvest Ale features Cascade and Centennial hops from the Yakima Valley in Eastern Washington. These hops are harvested and shipped as “wet,” i.e., un-dried hops—the same day they are picked—to their brewery in Chico where the brewers eagerly wait to get them into the brew kettle while their oils and resins are still at their peak. Representing the journey following the hop harvest around the globe, the Harvest Series includes hops sourced from new regions and brewed using new methods in an effort to maximize the oily, resinous qualities of the hops from each harvest as they transported them to the brewery in Chico, California.

 
It will be fun to compare the two that come out around the same time. It’s too bad we won’t really be able to compare all three, but the Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale will not be fresh at the same time as the other two, but ces’t la vie. That’s the point of fresh hop beers; here today, gone tomorrow.
 

The 2008 World Beer Cup Gala Awards ceremony was held last Saturday in San Diego, California. 2,864 from 644 breweries in 58 countries competed for medals in 91 categories. In each category, usually a distinctive beer style, a gold, silver and bronze is awarded, though on occasion one medal within a category is not given if none of the beers meet the written criteria for the style. Approximately 268 medals were awarded (91 x 3 = 273, minus 5 awards not given).

Of the 91 categories, an average of 32 beers was entered in each, with IPAs getting the most (77) followed by German-style Pilsener (72). Of the 58 countries entering, beers from 21 won medals, with the US winning the most (158), Germany in second (25) and Belgium in third (11). Beers from the State of California itself won 35 medals, with Colorado winning 22 and Oregon 16.

 

Bas and Hildegard, from Urthel, accepting their award. For many more award photos, go to the photo gallery.

 

For many more photos from the first half of this year’s World Beer Cup Awards, visit the photo gallery.
 

Alan over at A Good Beer Blog has a post today entitled More On That Code Of Conduct Idea, itself prompted by something written by Andy Crouch at his Beer Scribe website, called Media Draft: Anheuser Busch, Paid Travel, and the Ethics of Beer Writers…. Start with Andy’s thoughts and then read what Alan responded with before launching into what’s below here. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

This is clearly an issue that’s not going away. Not everybody seems able to agree on what is acceptable behavior for a beer writer and as with most things involving morals and ethics, there really aren’t any hard and fast rules that can be applied to every situation. There can be guiding principles, of course, but they have to conform to the day to day working realities, otherwise they’re meaningless. Ethics is defined, according to my OED, as “the moral principles governing or influencing conduct.”

To me this debate is important because I had an idea last year to start up another Beer Writers Guild to replace the North American Guild of Beer Writers. This time around, I felt the right way to do it was to have a guild that was by writers, for writers, so I enlisted as founding members the help of five colleagues to get us off the ground: Stephen Beaumont, Lew Bryson, Stan Hieronymus, Lisa Morrison and Lucy Saunders. The idea was to set things up and then invite all of our fellow writers to join us. We’re all pretty busy, of course, and things have been moving forward, but at a snail’s pace due, at least in part, to my own lack of spare time to work on the project.

One of the things I noticed early on, talking amongst the six of us (and other writers as well) was that it is very difficult to agree on what rules of conduct should be set out for the group. Some wanted almost no rules, others some loose standards and I suspect from talking with Andy more generally about this in Germany that he would lean toward having some very rigid rules, possibly involving a prohibition or disclosure of any received from a brewery or beer company. The way he explained his position to me in Bavaria has softened somewhat in his recent blog post, but I still felt the same frustration when I read “[a]re you absolutely convinced the person wasn’t influenced by the free plane ride, shuttles, hotel room, day trips, beer, meals, and other activities?” (Full Disclosure: we had this conversation at an Anheuser-Busch beer dinner during an all-expense paid trip to Bavaria sponsored by the Bavarian Brewers Federation, an Agricultural Trade organization whose exact name now escapes me, and others.) I tried to persuade Andy then that his position was too rigid and unrealistic given that beer writing doesn’t really make anyone a comfortable living all by itself, but I don’t think I got very far.

In Andy’s post he quotes Ray Daniels from his own disclosure of paid travel, suggesting that if anyone had a problem with that, they didn’t really understand the reality of writing about beer for a living, as follows. “If you think that beer writing pays enough for anyone to bring you this kind of information without brewer support then your perception of the beer world is twisted like some M.C. Escher block print. Either that or Mad Cow disease has finally become manifest in America. In either case, you need to have a beer, read the piece and then decide for yourself what you actually think. Jumps to conclusion, knee jerk reactions and other un-pondered perspectives need not apply.” Amen, brother, and I credit Andy for sharing that perspective, too.

But as Ray so cogently points out, beer writing doesn’t pay the bills, for most of us it’s a labor of love. No one I know actually makes a living writing “only” about beer. Even ones that come close, Beaumont for example, also write about travel, food and spirits (and he also has a restaurant). Michael Jackson (who we know accepted travel and such) also wrote about whisky, and in fact was better known for that in his native England. It’s simply too narrow a topic to sustain a cadre of writers all by itself. So that means it’s utterly impossible for anyone to live up to a standard where no one ever accepts anything and also can make a living. To me, it’s academic ivory tower thinking that ignores reality. It may look good on paper or as a theory, but out in the trenches it just doesn’t work.

And I can’t help but think that trying to discredit everyone who does accept freebies does no one any favors, either? If everybody does from time to time accept a press junket or a free beer dinner, who then is left above the fray? I hate to suggest that something is acceptable just because everybody is doing it, but perhaps everybody’s doing it because it already is acceptable? Under such circumstances, to not ever accept would put a writer at a disadvantage in terms of stories he or she has access to. No one has ever insisted what I write about, only that I am encouraged to write about the experience.

At what point do we draw the line? Most would agree receiving samples to review is acceptable. But what about a case? And what about press credentials for attending events? I just got back from the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego. As a member of the press, I could attend any number of seminars that brewers had to pay for, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t cheap. Should I have had to pay my way to every event, to avoid the appearance of bias or being compromised in my opinion? As media credentials are also a time-honored tradition for getting news coverage, should they likewise be thrown out, too, since they might bias the journalist? My point simply is where does it end? Where do you draw the line between the legitimate and the unethical? And who gets to decide? Has getting into movies before they’re released for free made movie reviewers unable to pan a horrible flick? When I was a record buyer for the now defunct Record Bar chain, headquartered in North Carolina, a record label flew me to Chicago for the weekend to see a new band whose record they wanted me to buy. The band sucked and so did the record. They wanted end caps; I think I put in one record per high volume store. Was I influenced by the fact that they flew me to the windy city? Not one iota. I had a job to do, which was to make the best buying decision based on how many I believed the chain of record stores I worked for could sell. That’s no different from being a professional journalist. I believe I can separate the job from the perks. I’m an adult. That’s what the job requires. If I muck it up enough times, saying something bad is good, my readers will stop paying any attention to me. If I’m continually out of step with popular opinion, I’ll stop getting writing assignments.

So what to do? My wife, who’s an attorney like Andy Crouch, picks up the tab for me and my two children. In exchange, I take care of the kids and do stuff around the house, which is where I work from. In my writing, I personally don’t ask for anything beyond a sample I may need. I pay my own way almost all of the time, and on my taxes show a loss every year with more expenses than income from beer writing, primarily because of the high cost of air travel. I hope that will improve and change, but for now that’s the way it is. If someone offers me a sample, a t-shirt or yet another keychain, I will often graciously accept. If someone invites me on a trip or to a dinner, etc., if I’m available I will also generally accept. I take the position that I won’t ask for something, but if offered I will usually accept, provided there are no obvious expectations created that I find personally troubling. To hear Crouch talk about it, I may as well not bother writing about it because apparently I’ve sold my soul to the devil of bias, especially if I don’t follow his requirement that all disclosures must be in full and up front. Perhaps every beer writer should just start every article they write with a standard boilerplate disclosure, that will sure make for some entertaining copy guaranteed to really draw in the reader. I know in his blog post, Andy’s just raising the question and saying it’s something to be aware of and watch out for, but since I already know where he falls on the debate and what even raising it says, I think we can move past that to what he’s really suggesting, which is that he strongly dislikes the practice and appears suspect of anyone not walking the road as elevated as his own.

But unless you’re independently wealthy, why say no? Why create an ethical standard that only the wealthy can adhere to, especially when no one else is terribly concerned about it? According to Lew Bryson, Crouch told him “if you can’t afford to write about beer, you should do something else.” The full quote, from a comment posted on the Appellation Beer Blog is as follows.

I think I’ve been pretty clear that I acknowledge not having to make this entire leap due to an outside, full time job. And I’ve acknowledged that said full-time job allows me the fiscal freedom to follow a certain set of guidelines that I have described here and elsewhere. To those who say they cannot make a full-time living without crossing some ethical lines, I’m sorry to say, you should not be writing full time. Just as a lawyer (to take my trade) who cannot fiscally operate a solo practice without breaching a few conflict of interest rules should get a different job (either with a larger firm, a non-profit, or out of the legal trade). I think it’s better practice to write part-time and get a second or different job rather than cross certain standardized ethical guidelines in order to make an extra few bucks.

As Andy himself admits, his law practice far outweighs his beer writing in terms of income. Knowing that, how can that statement not be taken as class politics? Here’s what’s wrong with what he’s saying, at least in my opinion. Crouch suggests that a lawyer who can’t make a living, shouldn’t be a lawyer. I’m okay with that statement, since there are numerous examples of lawyers able to make a comfortable living. There are many, many people and organizations willing to pay substantial sums for legal services. Can the same be said for writing about beer? Of course not, and for that simple reason I don’t think you can compare the two. The occupational opportunities are vast indeed, especially when set side by side with that of beer writing. Even with the in roads made over the past few decades, the profession of beer writer is a struggling one with no clear career path, specific schools or recruiters waiting to snap one up. There is nobody that’s making a living writing full time only about beer. Give me one name of someone, anyone, who makes a living, decent or otherwise, ONLY writing about beer, with either no additional topics or a second or day job? Stumped? Me, too. That’s because there aren’t any. Even if you could find one, somewhere, that still suggests it’s a very difficult thing to achieve, impossible or nearly so. Beer writing simply is not a well-paid job. No one’s clamoring to get into the field as their ticket to fame and fortune. And quite frankly, this inflexible prohibition on accepting things would also deal one more blow to people writing about beer. It would make it much harder for new writers to enter the field or for part time writers to be able to compete with the more established among us. And that, I believe, would be bad for not only the writing community, but for the industry itself. There’s room for many more voices to talk about better beer. We should be making it easier for beer writers, not more difficult.

I really don’t want to sound insulting (and Andy I’m really not trying to be) but it seems easy to take such a black and white position with regard to accepting free trips and the like, when you already have a decent income that allows you to afford to pay your own way, and I acknowledge that you’ve said so. But it just feels a little like class superiority. I really don’t think that’s your intention, but I can’t help but hear this voice in the back of my head every time this argument comes up, saying “why don’t those commoners know their place, this profession is for reserved for those of breeding.” When you try to impose your ethics on the rest of us, suggesting no one can accept something of value as a part of doing their job, despite your acknowledgment that it’s a time-honored tradition (albeit one you disagree with), it’s like you think you get to decide who can actually DO that job by making rules very few people can afford to live up to, and I don’t think that’s realistic or, quite honestly, very fair. When you say writing about beer can only be done by those that can afford it, pip pip, you need to be wearing a monocle and top hat. The poor need not apply. That just fries my lower middle-class upbringing into a frenzy.

Andy, I think I can speak for the six of us in saying we hope you’ll be a part of the new Beer Writers Guild (once we get our shit together) but I can guarantee you that our code of conduct will not include a prohibition on accepting travel or other items of value, nor will we require a specific type of disclosure for any article we write. I believe that has to be a decision made by each individual writer. Perhaps you’ll think that will make our fledgling group a nonstarter from the get go, but I would argue that there are more important issues to tackle than a practice as common as the press junket, such as raising the quality of writing and getting us all better pay, more work and contracts that are more fair. That will go a long way toward creating an environment where beer writers could actually make a decent living. As Lew puts it, “give me fair pay for my work, and let the readers be a bit more demanding, and you’ll GET quality writing, and ethical writing.”