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Beer Wars Movie To Debut April 16

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Got some exciting news from Anat Baron, the director of the new documentary film Beer Wars, which is that it will premiere on April 16 in Los Angeles. Baron has invited me to the premiere and I can’t wait. She’s been working on the film for several years now, and judging from the trailer, looks to ruffle a few feathers. It also should be highly entertaining and, hopefully, influential in getting consumers to understand the importance of supporting craft brewers, not just because the beer usually tastes better, but also because it makes economic sense to support local businesses, too.

Baron’s a fan of the Bulletin, and we had lunch in Berkley last year when she was in town visiting her relatives in the Bay Area. I love the message she’s hoping to spread about small beer vs. big beer; it’s a titanic struggle, and one which many people don’t fully understand, even some who work in the industry.

 

 

Here’s how the film’s website sums up the movie.

In America, size matters. The bigger you are, the more power you have, especially in the business world.

Director Anat Baron takes you on a no holds barred exploration of the U.S. beer industry that ultimately reveals the truth behind the label of your favorite beer. Told from an insider’s perspective, the film goes behind the scenes of the daily battles and all out wars that dominate one of America’s favorite industries.

Beer Wars begins as the corporate behemoths are being challenged by small, independent brewers who are shunning the status quo and creating innovative new beers. The story is told through 2 of these entrepreneurs – Sam and Rhonda – battling the might and tactics of Corporate America. We witness their struggle to achieve their American Dream in an industry dominated by powerful corporations unwilling to cede an inch.

This contemporary David and Goliath story is ultimately about keeping your integrity (and your family’s home) in the face of temptation. Beer Wars is a revealing and entertaining journey that provides unexpected and surprising turns and promises to change the world’s opinion on those infamous 99 bottles of beer on the wall.

Cool. Beer Wars should be fun.

 

 

Beer Birthday: Stonch

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Today is the 30th birthday of Jeff Bell, whose alter ego is Stonch, one of England’s best bloggers. He also runs a pub, The Gunmakers, in Clerkenwell, a village in the heart of London. When I was in the UK late last summer, I stopped by to meet Jeff on my way back from Burton-on-Trent, slogging my way from the train station with my rollerbag in tow through the darkened streets of London, weaving this way and that until I finally made my way to his pub. It was great to finally meet him in person since we’d been corresponding for so long, and I had a fun, albeit short, visit, which I thought I’d share on the occasion of his birthday. Join me in wishing Stonch a very happy birthday.

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Jeff Bell, a.k.a. Stonch, at The Gunmakers Pub in central London.

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The pub’s centerpiece mirror opposite the bar.

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I had a wonderful Theakston’s Old Peculiar on cask, an entirely different beer from the bottled version. And Stonch had some terrific cheese to pair with it that was delicious.

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But for Jeff it was a work night, so I left him to it, and set off on the long journey to stay with one of my old best friends near Greenwich, who over ten years ago moved to London after marrying an Englishwoman, Alex.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Least Favorite Defects

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Struggling to finish three articles this week, one of which is about beer defects, I figured I’d make that the topic for my seventh Top 10 list. To me, the curious thing about defects and identifying them for judging purposes is that everyone’s palates are different to some degree. Each person’s tolerances for different flavors and aromas vary wildly, making consensus very difficult, in some cases impossible. For example, I have a very high tolerance for diacetyl. For me to get that butterscotch or buttery character it has to be very concentrated. Other people I taste with regularly are very sensitive to it, making for lively discussions whenever a beer has marked levels of diacetyl. For that matter, some people really like the buttery character of diacetyl so for them it’s not a defect at all, but a desirable quality. Certainly, it worked for Redhook ESB. And of course, there are a few styles for which low levels are acceptable and even desirable. So who’s to say at what level it’s good or bad. While there are standards that have been agreed upon somewhat, the reality is that they can only be a guideline because of the variation in people’s personal palates. So while one might be tempted to believe that all defects are equal, in my experience that’s simply not true at all. Anyway, here’s List #7:
 

Top 10 Least Favorite Defects
 

Vanilla I don’t dislike vanilla per se, just when it’s overdone. That’s a fine line to be sure, but I’m pretty sensitive to vanilla so even a little goes a long way for me. Many barrel aged beers take on that vanillan character and often times it’s too much as far as I’m concerned. The vanilla only works when it’s subtle and restrained.
Catty People who I taste with regularly can usually predict my reaction to certain beers, so averse is my initial reaction to beers with cattiness — which I generally refer to as cat piss. I can appreciate the character in well-hopped beer, but it only works for me if the balance is there. Often, this is less a defect and more the choice of a particular hop or hops that imparts this character. Too much cat, and I scat.
Cardboard Ugh, wet cardboard or paper, whether from age or oxidation, is hard to swallow. I can’t stand the smell when it’s actually wet paper, much less when it’s in my beer.
Plastic I’m pretty tolerant here, so a beer has to be very phenolic for me to pick up on it, so by the time I do, it’s probably bad. Here, I’m referring to the phenolics that comes from the water used which gives it a very plastic, artificial taste.
Vinegar I know people like vinegar on their fish and chips, but I’m not one of those people. I don’t like vinegar in anything. I don’t even like pickles to be even touching my food, that’s how much I hate vinegar. Of course, I had a traumatic incident in kindergarten involving a pickle, so my bias is probably not normal. Don’t ask me for the details if you’re planning on eating within an hour of hearing the story. It’s sort of like swimming after a meal.
Cabbage I can’t stand eating cabbage, so I’m no fan of it in my beer, either. Plus, the idea of the bacteria contamination that usually causes Dimethylsulfide (or DMS) makes me queasy just thinking about it.
Medicinal The band-aid or diaper aromas and flavor, the Chlorophenols of the phenolics family, aren’t always bad, but when they are too strong, boy they’re hard to overlook. It’s their artificial quality that I just can’t abide.
Solvent This can also be described as acetone or laquer thinner, and makes me queasy just thinking about that smell, let alone when faced with it. Finding this strongly in the nose makes it hard to even take a sip of it. I once accidentally swallowed a small amount of gasoline when I was in my early teens — which I don’t recommend. That’s what a beer that’s overly solventlike reminds me of; yuck.
Sulfur Who likes the smell of rotten eggs? Anyone? Bueller, Bueller? A sign of a serious problem of contamination, this is one of those pour-it-down-the-drain beers that usually leaves me wondering how it made it into the bottle in the first place.
Skunky While arguably not as bad as some of the more process defects, lightstruck makes the top spot for me because it’s a problem that’s so easily fixed. All it would take to remove this problem is to use a can or a brown bottle, but marketing concerns are more important for those companies that continue to use clear and green glass. You just have to shake your head at the idiocy.

 

You already know why diacetyl didn’t make my list. What makes yours?

 

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.
 

Beer Memorial For Bill Brand March 1

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An impromptu memorial event has been scheduled to honor and remember Bay Area beer writer Bill Brand, who passed away on February 20, after being hit by a Muni Train the evening of February 8. Though there will be a family event and undoubtedly other events from the other areas of Bill’s rich life, this one is intended to be for the beer community to celebrate Bill’s contributions and impact on the Bay Area beer family. It will take place at The Trappist, where owners Chuck and Aaron have graciously agreed to host it at their establishment. The event will begin at 1:00 p.m. this Sunday, March 1, which is an hour before The Trappist’s regular opening time. The Trappist is located at 460 8th Street in Oakland, near the 12th Street BART station.

Some details are still being worked out, but the format will likely be to provide an opportunity for everyone in the beer community who knew Bill and was effected by his tireless efforts to share their memories of Bill and hoist a pint or two to his memory. I believe Chuck and Aaron are trying to get a keg of Anchor Porter, Bill’s favorite beer for Sunday. I’ve been asked to MC and start the ball rolling and then we’ll open it up to people to take turns sharing their memories and stories of Bill with the assembled party. Think of your favorite story of Bill you’d like to share for a few minutes. Over the course of the day, I suspect an amazing portrait of Bill will emerge as more and more of us pay our respects to his memory. Please join us if you’re able.

Special thanks to Gail Ann Williams and Steve Shapiro from Beer by BART and also Mike Condie for putting this all together; and, of course to Chuck and Aaron for allowing us to use The Trappist.

Dueling laptops; Bill and me at Magnolia on February 6 for the tapping of Napa Smith Original Albion Ale by Don Barkley. Photo by Shaun O’Sullivan.

Bill toasting with a pitcher of Oakland’s Linden Street beer. Photo by RRifkin.

 

Beer In Art #16: Egyptian Woman With Lotus

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The last few works have been fairly recent and modern, so today’s work goes back pretty far into history, to the 17th Egyptian Dynasty, the New Kingdom period of time, around 1539-1425 BCE. It’s in the Brooklyn Museum, an excellent museum that I visited the last time I was in New York. The Brooklyn Museum is one of the largest Museums in the United States and is the second largest in New York State. Today’s piece is part of their world renowned Egyptian collection, considered by experts to be one of the finest in the world. The work, a stone table really, is known as Woman With Offerings, and is described as a “Fragment of a Tomb Painting with Seated Woman Holding a Lotus.” It was found in a tomb in Thebes, Egypt in an area known as the Valley of the Kings.

Click here to hear the Brooklyn Museum’s docent discuss the artwork.
 

The Brooklyn Museum’s website for this work also has the following about this tomb painting.

This fragment of wall painting from a tomb depicts a woman sitting on a green mat, inhaling the fragrance of a blue lotus. Sealed jars of beer and wine rest under a table loaded with other offerings of white and yellow loaves of bread and a dark red calf’s head. A grid of red lines that guided the draftsman in positioning the objects and proportioning the figures shows through where the paint has worn thin.

What’s important for our purposes, is the three jars below the table which more than likely contained beer, a veritable necessity when packing for the afterlife. To me, what this — and the countless others that are similar — point out is that while the Ninkasi tablet may be the most well-known, the ancient world is littered with references to beer and drinking. It was obviously a very ordinary part of daily life for ancient man, given its ubiquity in what they left behind. See, for example, an Egyptian Memorial Stone of a Syrian Soldier Drinking Beer, this one dating from the 18th Egyptian Dynasty; or this painted relief from ancient Memphis, from the 5th Dynasty, the Funerary mastaba of Ti that shows jars of beer.

For more about brewing in ancient Egypt, see Ancient Egyptian Beer, Ancient Egypt Beer Making, and Beer in Antiquity.

 

Beer Can House Makes The List

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I’m having trouble concentrating on work again today, which is bad because I have three articles due. In passing the time unproductively, I happened upon a list of 100 of the World’s Strangest Buildings, displayed in two parts of 50 each. The Beer Can House, in Houston, Texas, made number 23 on the second list, making it the 73rd strangest building.

I visited the house after CBC in 2007 and took a bunch of photos. The house was the hobby of its owner, John Milkovisch, who began working on it in 1968 and kept adding to it for the next eighteen years, using an estimated 50,000 beer cans. Today it is owned by a local arts foundation, The Orange House Center For Visionary Art. They recently renovated it, inside and out, and now it’s open to the public. I visited it before the renovations were complete, so my photos look a little different than the one at the bottom, which is presumably more recent. They even have a new website up, which is new since my visit, too.

But the other strange houses that made the list are cool, too, in fact many are pretty amazing, especially if you’re a fan of architecture. If you love cool and/or unusual buildings, check them out. The beer can house is in Part 2, but Part 1 has some awesome architecture, too. The crooked house in Poland was their choice for number one. Worth a look, in my opinion.

The beer can house at night, presumably after renovation. Photo by J. Smallwood.

 

Liquid Sky

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I spent part of today just staring at the blue sky today, unusual this week, and pondering life and death and what’s it all mean? And by shear coincidence, I later happened upon a very cool series of photographs of the sky with objects held up in front of the sky to comic effect. The series is called SkyPlay and many are cooler than the two below, but these were the ones that were at least beer-related. Good for a chuckle, which I needed. Enjoy.

 

 

 

Dammit. Bill Brand Passes Away In The Night

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According to Bottoms Up, Bill Brand passed away during the night, surrounded by friends and family. The Oakland Tribune has an obituary with a guest book for people to sign. According to a family friend, “a memorial service is planned and details will be announced later today.” This is a dark day for the beer community. Let’s give whatever love and support to his family that we can.

 

Guess The Beer: Silly But Fun

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Loving bad puns as I do, I found that this silly animated gif has some groan-inducing bad puns. And the one universal thing about bad puns, especially the really bad ones, is they cry out to be shared. If I groan, so too shall you. Enjoy.