Today’s beer video is an interview with Mark Morvant, professor of chemistry at the University of Oklahoma , by the local newspaper blog The Thirsty Beagle. Morvant is teaching a free online course on The Chemistry of Beer. The class started January 13, but apparently you can still participate and catch up if you hurry and register soon. So far, over 7,000 people have signed up for his class. Watch the video below to see if it’s for you.
British Beer Sales Up Two Consecutive Quarters
Given that craft beer on this side of the pond has seen double-digit growth almost every year for over ten years, the news that sales of beer in Great Britain has shown positive growth in two consecutive quarters may not not seem like something that’s newsworthy. But this is the first time it’s happened in more than ten years, as pub closures and other factors have had troubling consequences for British beer. The latest figures, released by the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA), show total beer sales up 0.8% in the 4th quarter of 2013, with off-trade (primarily retail) up 3.9%, although pub sales were down 2.2%.
The Morning Advertiser article also mentions the announcement concurrently that Marston’s will build a new £7 million bottling plant, which the BBPA believes translates to increased confidence on the part of British brewers. The credit for all this good news is thought to be the decision by the UK government’s Chancellor to “cut [the] Beer Duty in last year’s Budget,” meaning lower taxes on breweries. According to the BBPA’s Chief Executive, Brigid Simmonds. “These figures demonstrate that cutting beer duty helps increase beer sales, stimulates industry investment and saves jobs. We hope the Chancellor takes note and freezes beer duty in his next Budget to give a further boost to British beer and pubs.”
This is important on our side of the world because there are currently two bills before Congress with the same goal, to lower the excise tax of beer to stimulate our economy and create jobs in the brewing industry and related support industries here, too. That it appears to have worked in Great Britain is a promising development that may make it more attractive to legislators in justifying the tax cut.
Beer In Ads #1083: Polka Dots & Swans
Sunday’s ad is again for Rheingold Beer, this one from 1957, and features Miss Rheingold from that year, Margie McNally. This one shows her sitting by the side of a pond next to a birch tree in a striking light blue dress with white polka dots, holding a matching hat in her hand. Behind her there’s a white swan gliding by. Despite the idyllic setting, for the second day in a row there’s not a hint of a beer anywhere to be seen.
Sir John Barleycorn — Miss Hop — (and their only child) — Master Porter
Here’s a pretty cool historical artifact, from the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale. It’s a print that was created in 1808 by London publisher Thomas Tegg. It’s printed on woven paper, an “etching with stipple” and is hand-colored. The “plate mark is 25 x 35.2 cm.,” on a sheet of paper 27 x 28 cm, and the plate is numbered 151 in the upper righthand corner. When new it sold for one shilling, but I’m guessing it goes for a bit more now. It’s title is “Sir John Barleycorn — Miss Hop — (and their only child) — Master Porter” and is further “dedicated to the publicans of London.” Ah, they had a baby and named it Porter, too. Small world.
Beer In Film #26: The Streets Of San Francisco
Today’s beer video is, of all things, an episode of an old television show, The Streets of San Francisco, which was on the air for five seasons, from 1972 to 1977. Tonight’s shows, as always “a Quinn-Martin Production,” was from the last season — Season 5, Episode 20 — and is entitled “Dead Lift.” During its run, many guests stars appeared on the show, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, who’s in tonight’s episode, playing a body builder whose bad temper leads to …. wait for it murder. But he’s not the reason I posted it. What’s cool about this episode is that Schwarzenegger’s character, Josef Schmidt, works at Anchor Brewery, and the brewery can be seen in one of the scenes. At 9:43 we see a close-up of the bottling line, which pulls back to a wider shot where we see Schwarzenegger walking through the brewery with a keg on his shoulder. But after being told he’s working too hard, he goes a little crazy and starts throwing kegs around, and they fire him. Unfortunately, that’s the only scene in the brewery, and there’s no Michael Douglas either, as this was near the end of the show’s run and he’d already left for greener pastures.
Beer In Ads #1082: Spring Flowers In Pink
Saturday’s ad is for Rheingold Beer, from 1956, and features Miss Rheingold from that year, Hillie Merritt. Wearing a lovely pink ensemble, she’s tending quite the colorful garden of yellow tulips and other spring flowers. After filling her basket with freshly cut flowers, I hope at least she’ll be going to get a beer now.
Beer In Film #25: Brewmasters at Google, Sam Calagione
Today’s beer video is a talk given by Sam Caligione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery for the Brewmasters at Google series. Sam gave this hour-long talk in July of 2012.
Pirate Parade To Feature Float Of Recycled Beer Cans
The annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa, Florida also includes a parade as part of the festivities. The parade takes place this afternoon, and usually features the Budweiser Clydesdales. But this year, instead they had local artist Terry Klaaren create a float using nothing by recycled beer cans. Klaaren called his work “re-cycle-dales” and it’s a sculpture of two life-size Clydesdale head figures that took him about six weeks and 3,000 beer cans to construct. According to a local news story:
“Every beer can was hand flattened with a wooden mallet,” Klaaren said. “We punched a couple of holes in it and then sewed it onto the mesh with stainless steel wire. I found beer cans to be a great sculpture medium.”
Gieseking said the vision for the float was Clydesdales emerging from a wave of water collecting recyclables in the wake.
“Just a nice image of taking the garbage out of the water,” Klaaren said.
Unfortunately, this is the only photo of it I can find. Perhaps there will be more views after the parade takes place later today.
Beer In Ads #1081: What The Duchess Saw
Friday’s ad is for Whitbread, from 1965. It seems to be a play on “what the butler saw, ” instead it’s “What the Duchess Saw,” through the keyhole, which is in fact the butler pouring himself a bottle of the Duke’s Whitbread beer. He sure looks happy, doesn’t he? Hopefully he’s off the clock.
Jane Austen, Brewer
I suspect I’m not the only man in the world whose wife loves Jane Austen. And I further would not be surprised to learn that I’m not alone in not feeling quite the same level of joy at every new film or television adaptation of one of her works. (Is that enough “nots” in one sentence?) Oh, I’ve enjoyed a few of the costume dramas, I confess. I thought “Clueless” was quite enjoyable. So I don’t want you to think I’m an irredeemable boor. I’ve suffered through — ahem, I mean seen — most of them, and it’s not been as horrible as, say, “Dallas” or “Knot’s Landing” or any of a number of similar dreck.
But my interest in Jane Austen just shot up 99%, thanks to an article posted by BBC Magazine yesterday, Beer: The Women Taking Over the World of Brewing. It’s a great article all on it’s own, one of the few to treat the subject of women in beer with a decent amount of respect, for a change. But what caught my attention was a sidebar about Jane Austen by alcohol historian Jane Peyton.
It is a truth that should be universally acknowledged — Jane Austen not only drank beer but brewed it too.
As a teenager she would have learned how to make beer by helping her mother in the Hampshire vicarage where she grew up.
Brewing was part of household duties and even the women of genteel 18th Century families such as the Austens would know how to do it, even if the chores were sometimes delegated to domestic staff.
In a letter to her sister Cassandra, Jane wrote “and I that have the great cask, for we are brewing spruce beer again….”
As in most houses small beer (low alcohol) was served at the Austen dining table as a safe source of drinking water for all members of the family — children too — so Jane would certainly have tasted the results of her labour.
It certainly makes sense, though I’d never really stopped to think about it before. Austen apparently mentioned her brewing efforts in letters to her sister Cassandra. In one of them she mentions small beer while in two others she talks about her spruce beer.
Austen also mentions spruce beer in her 1815 novel, “Emma.”
“But one morning — I forget exactly the day — but perhaps it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before that evening, he wanted to make a memorandum in his pocket-book: it was about spruce-beer. Mr. Knightley had been telling him something about brewing spruce-beer, and he wanted to put it down….”
And according to “Cooking with Jane Austen,” when the Austen family lived at Stoneleigh, her mother wrote about the “mansions ‘strong beer’ and ‘small beer’ cellars.” And Mrs. Austen also “brewed beer at Steventon in the last years of the eighteenth century and at Chawton cottage many years later.”
It almost makes me want to read her again … nah. Still, she’s now a bit more interesting.
