Monday’s ad is either an old ad, or one made to look that way. I can’t be sure. My money’s on old, but who knows. It’s for Artois and is crowing about their new glass designed to keep the beer colder. The glass also has the slogan “Pass On Something Good” across it.
Wednesday’s ad is for one of my favorite classic beers, Saison Dupont. I recently saw this ad as a poster framed at a friend’s house. The Saison Dupont Belgian Mussels poster is actually for sale at their importer’s website, Vanberg & Dewulf, though there’s no information about when it was first created.
There’s also another one in the style of one of my absolute favorite artists, Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte. The Magritte poster is also for sale.
I’ve been avoiding this story over the last few weeks, mostly because I’ve been busy with other work and it’s a complicated one. I’ve sure you’ve seen it and pieces of it, though. It’s even gone mainstream, with Time magazine wading into it, mostly because of the big business angle. In a nutshell, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced more layoffs despite having also recently announced just over $1.5 billion in profit for Q3 2009. The latest proposed layoffs, about 800 jobs at ABIB’s European breweries included about a third in Belgium. But unlike here in the U.S., labor unions still have a bit of actual power in the EU. And they decided to fight back. At several breweries in Belgium — Stella Artois, Jupiler and Hoegaarden — workers have barricaded the breweries, and even took management hostage overnight at one plant.
After two weeks, supplies of Stella Artois and other beer brands owned by ABIB were running low, though most headlines seemed to suggest that beer itself was almost out in the nation. Obviously, with hundreds of breweries still open there was hardly a shortage of beer, just a shortage of a few popular ones, but none that true beer-loving Belgians would even miss. But on Friday, the union agreed to stand down and enter into negotiations, for the time being “they struck a deal that postpones the brewer’s plans to reduce 303 jobs in Belgium — some 10 per cent of its work force there. It says it will also create 40 call centre sales positions, bringing net job losses to 263.” According to the AFP, “‘After the blockade is lifted, the unions and management will start from scratch with meetings of the works council that will deal with problems site by site,’ union representative Tangui Cornu told AFP.” Reuters also had an update.
For today’s artwork we’ve gone almost as far away from the U.S. as possible, to Adelaide, Australia. Adelaide is the capital of South Australia, and is fairly large, with a little over 1.1 million people. It’s also home to the Belgian Beer Cafe Oostende, the interior of which is the subject of today’s work of art by local artist Sharon Hammond.
Although it initially fooled me, the work is actually a photograph that’s been processed to look more like a painting. The photograph is called Belgian Beer Cafe Adelaide and is the interior of what looks like a very large bar.
On the cafe’s website, they describe the bar:
The Belgian Beer Cafe – Oostende is designed to take you back to a simpler time. Belgian Cafes circa 1930 to 1955 to be exact. As you look through the venue you will notice decorative items typical to this period are cleverly displayed. Not drawing attention to themselves per se, but adding to the unique atmosphere as a whole. Clocks, posters and lighting fixtures are all reminiscent of the era.
Consider the panelling and seating made of specially imported European oak, tastefully combined with numerous vintage pieces dating back to the beginnings of last century, and you’ll begin to see why the Belgian Beer Cafe – Oostende is fast become one of Adelaide’s favourite venues. Of course the magnificent Belgian beers and cuisine, along with the service that won the 2002 & 2004 AHA Best Bar Presentation & Service awards certainly helps.
As for the artist, Sharon Hammond, there’s not much biographical information, apart from some mildly revealing journal entries. She lives in Adelaide, as far as I can tell, and she has more of her works on Red Bubble and on Kiss the Frog.
If you’ve ever met me in person then you know I’m not exactly a fashion maven, far from it. I have several friends for whom fashion is a way of life, but for me I’m happy in the most comfortable, nondescript clothes possible. Lots of plain colors, nothing too bright or showy, probably my Mennonite roots showing though. My “look,” such as it is, is probably best described as rumpled.
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But as usual, that places me squarely in the minority, the corner of the world I tend to inhabit where all the out-of-step people congregate. About the only goal I hope to achieve through clothing is not sticking out too much, so my oddness is not immediately apparent; I just hope people can’t judge that by my cover. The same cannot be said for Xenia, who writes a fashion blog called Doe Deere Blogazine, which she describes. “Doe Deere Blogazine is an express ticket to your most fabulous self, delivered to you daily in a hot pink envelope! Daily articles include makeup tutorials, style & fashion tips, tales of living in NYC, as well personal musings from miss Deere.” According to her website, by her “mid-20s [she] had been an owner of a fashion business, a freelance make-up artist and a model, designed websites and released 2 music CDs of different genres to tolerable critic reviews.” Why am I telling you about Ms. Deere? Well, in one of her posts, entitled Fashion Inspired By A Beer Bottle, she was inspired by a bottle of Delirium Nocturnum from Brouwerij Huyghe, located in Melle, Belgium, which is in the Ghent region of the country. It was the bottle here on the left that inspired her. Here’s what she wrote:
Below is the outfit she came up with, or as she put it, the outfit she translated from the bottle. “The trick with red-white-&-blue palette, of course, is not to end up looking like an American flag. So I threw in some gray boots just in case, and a deer necklace.” |
Below is the outfit she came up with. Did she succeed in making an outfit that looks like Delirium Nocturnum? I’ll let you be the judge. What do you think? You can also see more photos, including aome close-up, of her outfit at the Doe Deere Blogazine.
My friend and colleague, Lew Bryson, must have been thrilled when he came up with the title Malt Disneyland for his most recent First Draft column for Portfolio magazine, because in my humble opinion it’s one of the best new names for Belgium anybody has ever come up with. Of course, I love wordplay and the Walt/malt thing cracks me up. I confess I never remember to check out his Portfolio column — sorry about that Lew — but luckily MSNBC reprinted it yesterday and so it showed up in the old, handy dandy RSS Feed Reader. Naturally, it’s a great read, too, but oh that title — now that’s a grabber. Well done.
A day after praising Eric Asimov for leading the way toward detente between beer and wine, his “Ales of the Times” column today is entitled More or Less Pale but All Belgian features a tasting of several lighter Belgian beers suitable for summer. As usual, it’s a reasoned look at several lighter style Belgian ales such as Affligem Blond, Corsendonk, De Koninck and Orval and how they might be every bit as thirst-quenching as an ice-cold industrial light lager but with oodles more flavor and variety. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is what we need more of in order to win the hearts and minds of all Americans toward enjoying better beer.
Brasserie d’Achouffe, located in the small village of Achouffe in the heart of the Belgian Ardennes, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It was August 27, 1982 that Brasserie d’Achouffe brewed the 1st batch of La Chouffe. From August 10-12, they’ll be a big party at the brewery, which they’re calling La Grande Choufferie, and they’ve set up a website just for the occasion, along with slideshow of thirty photographs that shows the brewery then and now, as well as photographs of the local countryside.
Oh, and did I mention their beer is quite excellent. I’ve got a magnum of the La Chouffe I’m holding onto, which I think I’ll open this August for their 25th anniversary.
In his regular column, The Beer Sphere, in the Dallas/Forth Worth Star-Telegram, Barry Shlachter reports that the “long-anticipated collaboration between Belgian brewing legend Pierre Celis and Texas’ Real Ale Brewing Co. has fallen through.”
From Shlachter’s column:
“Just too many obstacles,” said Brad Farbstein, president of the Blanco-based micro-brewery.
Real Ale’s proposed “Brussels” line of ales based on Celis recipes was scuttled because the state interpreted the deal as violating Texas’ contract brewing regulations.
Complicating the arrangement was Celis investing in his daughter’s drinking establishment in the Austin area, Farbstein said. Texas’ three-tiered system — production, wholesaling and retailing — forbids participation in more than one sector.
Well that’s certainly bad news. It would have been nice to see Pierre return triumphantly to the states.
After so many horribly abysmal crimes against beer, I’m very happy to be able say that a San Francisco Chronicle article on Friday, “Cantillon, a brew for wine lovers,” was actually a very good overview of the historic Brussels brewery. It was written by freelancer Derek Schneider, who also writes a food (and wine) blog, An Obsession with Food. He provides a nice introduction to Cantillon’s methods, what makes them unique and even provides some tasting notes.
My only criticism is that the Chronicle sells the piece through its title where they can’t let Cantillon stand on its own two feet. They have to make it a beer that winos will love, too, which I find a little annoying. Cantillon is a beer for beer lovers, too, as well, and can be enjoyed by anyone with a developed palate who likes complex flavors. Always having to compare everything to their revered wine seems to me to distort reality into a world where all grapes are good and barley is bad. I suspect that was the only way Schneider could sell the piece to the Chronicle, if wine was somehow still central in a beer article.
But that criticism aside, it was certainly good to see an otherwise positive beer article in San Francisco. Now if we could only get their management to actually like it, too, now that would be something.