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George Washington’s Small Beer

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George-Washington-L
Today is the day we celebrate the birthday of George Washington, though he probably celebrated it on the 11th, because that’s what day the calendar read when he was born. That’s because when Washington was born in 1731, the British government still used the Julian calendar, but the British Calendar (New Style) Act of 1750, implemented the Gregorian calendar in 1752, and that’s the calendar system we still use today in the U.S. When it was adjusted, eleven days were added, and George went from having a birthday of February 11, 1731 to February 22, 1732, which is the one we use today.

I did a column several years ago for the San Francisco Chronicle, before I started working for rival Bay Area Newsgroup, about Washington’s love of Porter and his efforts making small beer. Washington’s handwritten recipe has famously survived and can be seen at the New York Public Library. It was in his “Notebook as a Virginia Colonel,” from 1757. And below it what it looks like.

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Luckily, his penmanship has been translated:

To make Small Beer

Take a large Sifter full of Bran Hops to your Taste. “” Boil these 3 hours. Then strain out 30 Gallons into a Cooler, put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler & strain the Beer on it while boiling Hot. Let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold, cover it over with a Blanket & let it work in the Cooler 24 hours. Then put it into the Cask “” leave the Bung[hole] open till it is almost done working “” Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.

Most people agree it probably wasn’t the best tasting beer, and I believe that there were efforts a few years ago to recreate it faithfully, but I don’t recall hearing those experiments turned out. Still, it’s nice to remember that our founding fathers were beer drinkers and, in some cases, brewers, as well.

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I love this illustration of Washington throwing back a cold one, by Canadian artist Scott McKowen, which he did for a Wired article about Tom Kehoe, at Yards Brewing in Philadelphia, recreating some colonial beer recipes.

Two Beer Companies, 210 Beer Brands

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Today’s infographic is an interesting one, created by NPR. Entitled Two Beer Companies, 210 Brands, it shows all of the beer brands owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller across the globe. Below the map, there’s also a list of brands by country, color-coded by which beer giant owns or controls them. How accurate is it? Hard to say. It doesn’t appear to include line extensions, which would balloon the chart to many times its current size, but glancing at the list for the United states, it looks like it may be missing some, though to be fair I didn’t do a line by line comparison.

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Click here to see the chart full size.

Beer In Ads #807: Beer By The Swimming Pool

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Thursday’s ad is yet another one for Schlitz, this one from 1949. It, too, is part of their “I was curious” series that always features three panels. This one features two couples around a swimming pool. Despite the fact that at least one of them has been in the pool, all of their hair remains perfect. And I always thought that one of the advantages of cans was so that you wouldn’t accidentally break them in a place where people might be barefoot, like a swimming pool. But there folks got the cans, but are pouring them into what looks like glass, though perhaps they’re plastic glassware.

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A Bud Is A Bud Is A Bud

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Oh, I hate to pick on the mainstream media as they cover the world of beer, but this is too delicious not to point out. In a story about the proposed buyout of Grupo Modelo by Anheuser-Busch InBev, entitled The Great Beer Monopoly Deal May Be Back On, the Atlantic features the following photo, which I downloaded in case somebody gets wise and replaces it. And a hat tip to Tom Dalldorf for sending me the link. I guess one Bud’s as good as another. Can I assume I don’t have to draw a diagram?

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What Is Addiction?

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In my experience, people who don’t like alcohol, and especially hate the people who do enjoy it, often tend to blame the alcohol as being addictive. I’ve always found that odd, since not everybody who takes a drink automatically becomes an alcoholic, unable to stop drinking. In fact, it doesn’t work that way for most people, and certainly nobody I’ve ever met. It should be obvious to everyone that some people have more addictive personalities than others. Whether that’s genetic, learned or some combination of the two is still an open question, but what’s clear is that it effects different people differently. That alone should let alcohol off the hook, but it never does. Many people remain convinced that addiction is confined to the traditional instruments of sin: booze and drugs.

But gambling can be an addiction, can’t it? And there’s certainly food addictions, in part foisted on society by unscrupulous processed food companies who add sugar and salt and fat to everything. But the point is that as the list of accepted addictions grows, it confirms what I’ve believed all along. That addiction has to do with the addictive personality — the person — and not the object of the addiction. There are, of course, substances which have addictive properties. Tobacco springs to mind, but even it doesn’t effect everybody the same way. Over the course of my life, I’ve had the odd cigarette, and even enjoyed the occasional cigar, but have never felt like I *had* to have another one. That may just be because I don’t have an addictive personalty for such things, or it may take more repeated use before it kicks in, though I doubt it. It seems more likely it’s the former. So while I have no doubt that cigarettes are bad for me, I don’t fear they’ll grab hold of me and I’ll be unable to stop smoking.

So why is it that the neo-prohibitionists seem so reluctant to include personal responsibility as a factor, if not the factor? It boggles the mind. They seem far more interested in blaming the alcohol companies for trying to “hook” people in with advertising, as if people have no choice but to fall prey and begin binge drinking. Some anti-alcohol groups have gone so far as to portray alcohol in a syringe in an attempt to paint heroin and beer as the same.

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With the publication this May of the new DSM-5, the bible of psychiatric disorders and treatment that’s put out by the American Psychiatric Association, “compulsive gambling” will be added to the list of accepted “addictions.” The DSM-5 also replaced the term “dependence” and goes back to using the term “addiction” again instead. Why that’s the case is a fascinating story in and of itself, which you can read an overview of in Blinded by Biochemistry. Oddly enough, compulsive “binge-eating” and “hypersexuality” are both not considered addictions, at least not yet. As Stanton Peele, author of Love and Addiction, writes, “Binge-drinking can bring on addiction, but not binge-eating? How come?”

I’m convinced that’s because of the social acceptability of eating, as contrasted by the demonization of alcohol. Drinking has been treated as a sin and a moral failing by alcohol’s opponents for so long now that the very concept has been absorbed into the culture at large. The DSM-5 is merely reflecting that prejudice in our society.

But as Steele points out in a more recent article, What Is Addiction? Addiction isn’t what it used to be, the New York Times recently identified new trends of addiction, that of being addicted to “junk food” and playing “mindless games.” (How those can be considered “new” is also quite puzzling, frankly.) But as I can’t quite shake the notion that it’s not the substance of the addiction that’s at fault, but the individual’s reaction to it that makes it addictive, Steele offers some confirmation that I’m not off my rocker.

What makes such a thing an addiction? And it is no more the existence and consumption of junk food, repetitive games or other video stimulation, or placing a bet that makes it so; it is the way the individual interprets and reacts to the experience of the thing in the context of his or her life that creates an addiction (think of heroin addiction in Vietnam, soon left behind by most vets on their return home). When a powerful experience is welcomed for its reassurance and as a life solution, when it become preoccupying and detrimental to the consumer, and — finally — when the individual him or herself comes to see and to believe that the experience is addictive — voila!

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But as Steele wrote earlier in Psychology Today magazine:

Addiction is the search for emotional satisfaction — for a sense of security, a sense of being loved, even a sense of control over life. But the gratification is temporary and illusory, and the behavior results instead in greater self-disgust, reduced psychological security, and poorer coping ability. That’s what all addictions have in common.

As he points out, we can never agree on a exhaustive list of all of the stuff one could become addicted to, because it’s not about the object of addiction, but the addictive person’s reaction and relationship to his particular obsession. And that’s where, in his opinion, the new DSM-5 is still taking the wrong approach by “viewing the nature of addiction as a characteristic of specific substances,” because it doesn’t recognize the basic truth that addiction is more complicated than just banning anything that someone might become addicted to. Steele continues.

[T]hink about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): People are not diagnosed based on the specific habit they repeat — be it hand-washing or checking locked doors. They are diagnosed with OCD because of how life-disruptive and compulsive the habit is. Similarly, addictive disorders are about how badly a habit harms a person’s life.

And that is, or should be, the point. How a person reacts to anything, and alcohol in particular, is almost as individual and unique as they are. Most people can drink beer responsibly and without their lives falling into ruin. A few can’t. But can we please stop targeting the beer and use those same resources to get the minority of people who can’t some help?

Beer In Ads #806: Horseshoes and Beer

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Wednesday’s ad is another one for Schlitz, also from 1950. It, too, is part of their “I was curious” series that always features three panels. This one features a backyard picnic where horseshoes are being played. I love how in the 1950s people dressed up for a picnic. The fellow in the yellow shirt even has matching socks.

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Beer In Ads #805: Schlitz Snapshots

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Tuesday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1950. It’s part of their “I was curious” series that always features three panels. This one features a scrapbook that, despite the fact that it would appear to be from a picturesque location, shows the person on vacation and his beer, but not the vistas they would have been looking at. Good thing whoever he was travelling with captured the moment he first saw Schlitz, and then the moment he first tasted it. Funny, that’s what my vacation shots look like, too.

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More on Anchor’s Pier 48 San Francisco Brewery

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With the San Francisco Chronicle breaking the news last night about Anchor Brewery building a second, and much larger, brewery near the waterfront at Pier 48, I was immediately keen to find out more. I knew from my earlier discussions with the new owners, and especially Keith Greggor, that they wanted to build the business but were dead set on keeping the business in San Francisco. But since they’re already the largest manufacturer within the city limits, that prospect must have been a daunting — and ultimately very expensive — task.

The new proposed brewery is being built in partnership with the San Francisco Giants and their 27-acre Mission Rock development project. Here’s more information about it from the press release released this morning.

Anchor will continue to operate its facility in Potrero Hill, but will greatly expand its operations with the development of the Pier 48 facility. The two facilities will allow the company to quadruple its annual production capacity from 180,000 barrels to 680,000 barrels.

Pier 48, the southern-most structure of the Port’s Embarcadero Historic District, will be fully rehabilitated and re-established as an industrial hub of the central waterfront. The new Anchor facility will feature production facilities for brewing, distilling, packaging, storing, and shipping; a restaurant, museum and educational facility in the headhouse of Pier 48; and a restored walkway around the entire pier apron that will connect pedestrians to the Portwalk and allow views into the Anchor brewhouse. Anchor will offer tours of the facilities and educational seminars with a focus on the history of craft beer, the art of craft distilling and Anchor’s history in San Francisco. The construction project beginning late 2014 will feature the use of green and sustainable materials, setting the standard for a modern urban brewery.

The Anchor expansion will create approximately 200 new jobs, 75% of which are production-oriented positions that employ a diverse work force.

“We are making things in San Francisco and creating a magnet for jobs for thousands of people from every background in our thriving local manufacturing sector,” said Mayor Ed Lee. “Making sure our homegrown companies stay and grow right here in San Francisco remains my top priority and I want to thank Anchor Brewing and the San Francisco Giants for driving the engine of economic growth, bringing jobs and revitalizing our world class waterfront.”

The Anchor Brewery expansion project also represents the first major tenant of the Mission Rock Project — a new, mixed use urban neighborhood currently being developed by the San Francisco Giants. The Anchor Brewing facility will cover 22% of the overall project site.

“As a longtime partner of the Giants, we are delighted to welcome Anchor Brewing to the waterfront and to partner with them on what will become an exciting place for San Franciscans to live, work and play,” said Larry Baer, Giants President and CEO. “Given the rich history of the Giants and Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, it is only fitting that we work together to help transform this historic part of the City’s waterfront.”

In addition to Anchor Brewing’s new facility, the Mission Rock Project will include more than eight acres of parks and open space, 650-1,500 residential units, 1-1.7 million square feet office space, parking structure to serve ballpark and Mission Rock patrons, and up to 250,000 square feet of retail, restaurants, and public amenities. In total, Mission Rock is expected to create 4,800 construction jobs and 6,400 permanent jobs.

Mission Rock Park will include Seawall Lot 337 (SWL 337) & Pier 48.

Misson-Rock-Park

Last April, SocketSite began showing artist drawings of what the proposed site might look like with their post Mission Rock Plans Dusted Off With Giants Swinging For A 2015 Start and last month’s Giants Moving Forward With Massive “Mission Rock” Development.

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Here’s an overview of the 27-acre site, of which approximately 22% will be the Anchor Brewery complex. It will apparently be 212,000 square feet and will ultimately allow total beer production to be increased to an impressive 680,000 barrels annually. “The new Anchor facility will feature production facilities for brewing, distilling, packaging, storing, and shipping; a restaurant, museum and educational facility in the headhouse of Pier 48; and a restored walkway around the entire pier apron that will connect pedestrians to the Portwalk and allow views into the Anchor brewhouse.” As you can see in the drawing below, there will also be a substantial outdoor beer garden.
Anchor & Pier 48 Exterior

The interior of the proposed restaurant portion of the Anchor Brewery project, with the brewhouse visible in the background.

Anchor & Pier 48 Interior

This afternoon, I had a chance to talk with Anchor co-owner Keith Greggor, who was kind enough to fill me in on some of the other aspects of the project. Here’s what I learned.

Anchor has been talking to the Giants about the Mission Rock project for at least the last year and a half, and the city and Mayor Ed Lee are especially thrilled that a deal could be done. Apparently, it’s a perfect expression of Mayor Lee’s “keep and grow” concept for keeping businesses from leaving San Francisco as they succeed and grow larger. In fact, the mayor apparently suggested Anchor as a tenant, not realizing at the time that it might actually work. The Port is also very happy to have only one tenant, and it has to be a day and night difference having the city, local politicians and the landlord all very supportive and happy to have a brewery there, which is not the situation that often occurs.

Anchor will eventually take over all of Pier 48, but will begin renovating Shed A, and will later take on Shed B, too. The two sheds are essentially different buildings with what they call a “valley” in between. Most of the design work is done, and the first order of business will be to spruce up the building. They expect to move in during the 3rd Quarter of 2014 and be open by the 4th Quarter of 2015.

Perhaps the most amazing news is that they already have a brewhouse for the new location. About twenty years ago, a nearly exact duplicate of Anchor’s current copper brewhouse came on the market in Germany, and Fritz Maytag bought it, hoping to use it when Anchor expanded. But later Maytag decided against moving the brewery and instead had been storing the equipment ever since. The only difference between the two is that the newer one is over twice as big, and is a 270-barrel brewhouse. In addition to brewing at Pier 48, they will also have a working distillery there, but will also continue to make gin and whisky at the Potrero Hill location, too.

The museum portion of the project will include Anchor’s massive brewing book collection and breweriana, including a recent purchase of another collection from a gentlemen who’d been collecting his entire life and recently decided to sell it all. There will also be an educational component, and will be similar to their original concept of having a “Center of Excellence” that the Griffin Group talked about when they first bought Anchor. Greggor had been talking about the Mission Rock project with Fritz Maytag the entire time during the negotiations, and Maytag is reported to be very happy with the new brewery plan.

Still undecided is the restaurant, which will not be a brewpub. They may yet partner with someone to do the food, but since the restaurant will be one of the later parts of the project to be completed, they’re still weighing their options. The current estimate is that the restaurant won’t open until 2017.

Looking at it from all the angles, it really seems like an elegant solution to the thorny problem of how to grow the business without sacrificing what makes Anchor such a great brand. They’ll have a more public space, perfect for tourists, locals and baseball fans, and will be able to make even more Anchor beer right in San Francisco. It will create jobs, help with the economy and should attract more tenants to the Mission Rock development project. What’s not to like?

And finally, below is ABC 7’s coverage of the news: