Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Target: Alcohol

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I happened upon this item from across the pond at Zythophile, who appears to be a soul mate when it comes to disliking neo-prohibitionists and their attendant propaganda. The UK’s Times Online made a rather startling, if not altogether surprising, revelation that the Department of Health in Great Britain, in defining what it means to be a “hazardous drinker” in 1987 did so by essentially just making it up and pulling the numbers out of thin air. I’ll let that sink in. As the Times’ article puts it, the “guidelines have no basis in science. Rather, in the words of a member of the committee that drew them up, they were simply ‘plucked out of the air’.” The twenty year-old standards by the Royal College of Physicians set “safe limits” at 21 units of alcohol a week for a man and 14 for a woman, apparently without regard to weight so far as I can tell. Britain defines one unit of alcohol as “8 grams of pure ethanol.”

In the article, a doctor involved in creating the standard, reminisces:

Richard Smith, the former editor of the British Medical Journal and a member of the college’s working party on alcohol, told The Times yesterday that the figures were not based on any clear evidence. He remembers “rather vividly” what happened when the discussion came round to whether the group should recommend safe limits for men and women.

“David Barker was the epidemiologist on the committee and his line was that ‘We don’t really have any decent data whatsoever. It’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t’.

“And other people said, ‘Well, that’s not much use. If somebody comes to see you and says ‘What can I safely drink?’, you can’t say ‘Well, we’ve no evidence. Come back in 20 years and we’ll let you know’. So the feeling was that we ought to come up with something. So those limits were really plucked out of the air. They weren’t really based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee.”

Well how scientific. And I’d think all well and good if it were just a guideline, some advice to tell a patient. But, of course, that’s not how the government used these numbers. They instead not only endorsed the numbers — and indeed why shouldn’t they having come from a supposedly reputable health organization — they essentially set them in stone, terrorizing citizens with them the same way America’s health bureaucracy does likewise by defining binge drinking at a ridiculous “five or more drinks in a row.”

Not only that, but they continued to cling to the numbers as gospel, despite numerous subsequent studies that contradicted those numbers. For example, here are the results of a 2000 study by the World Health Organization:

The WHO’s International Guide for Monitoring Alcohol Consumption and Related Harm set out drinking ranges that qualified people as being at low, medium or high-risk of chronic alcohol-related harm. For men, less than 35 weekly units was low-risk, 36-52.5 was medium-risk and above 53 was high-risk. Women were low-risk below 17.5 units, medium between 18 and 35 and high above 36.

Government bureaucracy has a habit of becoming entrenched even in the face of contrary evidence. At least one blogger I respect sees this as no big deal, that everyone simply knew the numbers were made up. Perhaps I wouldn’t be so bothered by that if I didn’t strongly believe my own government, in collusion with Big Pharma and much of the guilt-ridden medical community, has been lying — and continues to lie — to my face about my own son Porter’s autism. I think it’s a mistake to take lying so cavalierly, especially when it comes from an area of society that we’re conditioned to place great trust in: the medical community. The Hippocratic Oath was undoubtedly a good start, but the more I learn about the way doctors, their protectionist professional groups, along with medical insurers, pharmaceutical companies, hospital administrators and the like manipulate patients and society at large for their own purposes, the more that oath seems hypocritical and largely an anachronism in our modern world that medical science seems quick to ignore whenever it doesn’t suit them.

I think it’s precisely because people tend to trust doctors and so-called medical science that they often can’t conceive of it being used as propaganda or to support an extreme agenda. And that’s why I find this sort of lying so dangerous. We may take for granted that our government will lie to us or that people trying to persuade us of something might do likewise, but I don’t see how that makes it acceptable or something we shouldn’t get worked up about. Have we really all been lied to so much that we no longer recognize it? That it becomes acceptable if it’s for our own good? I can see how telling a fib to a child to keep him or her safe as a temporary solution has some merit, but if we don’t fess up when they get older, that’s an entirely different matter. Though personally, I think nowadays we overprotect children and go too far in trying to keep them from experiencing any adversity. As a result, they are incapable of dealing with even the smallest slight as young adults. This also makes it easier for our own government to continue becoming more and more paternalistic as each successive generation becomes increasingly comfortable with being told what to think and within what narrow range is acceptable. We’re all adults and yet more and more governments treat their citizens like children to be taken care of instead of allowing everyone to have a real say in decisions made on our behalf. That’s a classic example of a slippery slope. If you accept one lie because you believe it’s for your own good, then it becomes easier for you to accept the next one, and the next one after that, etcetera. I find this whole subject fascinating, and if you want to read more about it, I recommend Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, by Sissela Bok, and The Liar’s Tale, A History of Falsehood, by Jeremy Campbell.

As usual, I’ve veered off on a tangent, so let’s hear from another British doctor who also conveniently believes that the specific limits are superfluous.

Christopher Record, a liver-disease specialist at Newcastle University, suggested that “it doesn’t really matter what the limits are”. “What we do know is, the more you drink, the greater the risk. The trouble is that we all have different genes. Some people can drink considerably more than [the limits] and they won’t get into any trouble.”

Well that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. That means using a standard that doesn’t work is useless and counter-productive for predicting how a person will react to a given amount of alcohol. And if government continually uses false statistics to manage its population, it does them great harm, both psychologically and possibly physically. It would be one thing if for the last twenty years health officials told people that drinking too much had dire consequences and advocated that people take care in that regard. That would be quite sensible and without question in the public interest. But that’s not what the health agencies did. Instead, they made up a number and told people not to drink more than this amount or there would be dire health consequences, knowing full well that the the levels they set had no basis in science whatsoever.

I’m confident that our own definition of binge drinking had a similarly unscientific genesis and I know how that definition has been used to skew statistics toward a specific agenda by neo-prohibitionists. I would be shocked to learn that our British cousins never did likewise. When you officially and purposely set what it means to be a heavy drinker at a level you know to be too low, you can claim with a straight face that there are many more alcoholics plaguing society than there really are. Armed with these false statistics, committed anti-alcohol organizations can do a lot of harm to society.

I’m not entirely sure why governments tend to embrace neo-prohibitionist agendas, but Zythophile’s hypothesis bears examining.

My personal guess is that too many politicians — and members of public health committees — are in the game because they want to control others, and they associate drinking with loss of control, and therefore want to stop it: except they know, after the failure of prohibition in the United States, that stopping people drinking is impossible, and so they try to make us feel as guilty as possible about one of life’s best pleasures.

But whether they meant well or were being maliciously manipulative, this sort of lying by those entrusted with the public health is pretty hard to swallow.

Guinness’ Latest “What Were They Thinking”

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. What the hell is Diageo doing with the Guinness brand? Are they trying to kill it, make it a mockery of its former self, or insult their customers even more than they already have? If so, they’re succeeding brilliantly. Diageo was created out of the merger between Grand Metropolitan and Guinness ten years ago. The new name was chosen for reasons passing understanding. Why take two recognizable names and trash them in favor of a new one nobody knows? The word Diageo came from the Latin word for ‘day’ and the Greek word for ‘world’. Apparently they couldn’t even make up their minds about what language to create the new company name from.

At any rate, over the last decade Diageo has displayed no respect whatsoever to the legacy, history or taste of the original Irish stout. Guinness had been brewing beer at St. James’s Gate in Dublin since 1759, with stout production beginning several years later, and now they’re even considering closing the brewery. Then there’s the $13 million widget bottle abomination that in 2001 tried to convince people to drink out of the bottle after all, setting the cause of better back again in the process. More recently, they’ve introduced “Extra Cold Guinness,” another useless novelty, and the test marketing of “Guinness Red” in England last year. The latest assault on their brand is “a plate-shaped device called the ‘Surger.’”

For a mere $25, Guinness wholesalers can stop selling Guinness on draft. Instead, they’ll pour it into a pint glass and put in on the “Surger.” Then “the bartender pushes a button to activate sound waves, which course through the liquid creating gas bubbles and ultimately the familiar cascading effect typical of a Guinness pint poured from draught.” One east coast distributor liked the idea, saying. “It gives me a new talking point that I can bring to my customers which is good for us.” Yes, forget about the beer itself, we need more talking points. This same guy “foresees the Surger eventually becoming available to consumers so they can drink a draught-like Guinness at home.”

Brandweek is spinning it like this. “One facet of marketing these days is to create an experience for the consumer. So Diageo will marry its new “Alive Inside” advertising message about the Guinness pour with a plate-shaped device called the ‘Surger.'” Given that there’s another, more important “surge” going on in the middle east involving more American soldiers fighting, was “the Surger” really the best Diageo could come up with? I always marvel at how the large companies strategize over their advertising and marketing messages. I suspect it’s embedded into the culture of big business, and in particular marketing, that nobody says “no” if the boss likes it or if a committee came up with it, once more proving that “group think” is a terrible danger. I always assume there’s some lone voice in the back, not being heard, saying “but what about the beer?” That guy will undoubtedly be fired within the week.

Here’s one of the new “Alive Inside” television spots:

Again, I must be the most out-of-step, uncool guy in the universe, because I find that ad more than a little creepy. Oh, I’ll grant you the music is slick and the effects are cool. But I can’t get past the idea that when I take that first sip, a million tiny men in white suits will be swimming down my throat. Yuck. It’s alive inside! What a terrible allusion to make. Isn’t that going to make the beer crunchy? Yeah, I know I shouldn’t take it so literally, but that’s how I roll. See, uncool to the bitter end.

 

Budvar Not For Sale

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The Prague Daily Monitor reported today that the Czech Republic government has changed its mind for the time being about privatizing Budejovicky Budvar brewery. Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek was quoted as saying there’s “no privatization,” adding that it would take at least 12-18 more months before Budvar would become a joint-stock company. He also laid to rest rumors that Marek Dalik, Topolanek’s advisor, was in negotiations with Anheuser-Busch to purchase the Czech brewery, as had been widely reported in the business press.

 

Paris Banned from Munich

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I’m not much for celebrity gossip, but my wife uses it to decompress from her detail-oriented, stressful job — she’s an attorney. She finds that the mindless entertainment helps her unwind after days spent reading complex contracts and the like. So she was the one who came across this gem that seems too priceless to be true, but it is. According to the UK Sun, society parasite Paris Hilton is banned from Oktoberfest for the outfit she wore last year to the festival to advertise a canned wine brand. Oktoberfest officials believe last year that Hilton “cheapened” their event. “Munich tourism chief Gabriele Weishaeupl announced yesterday that celebrity promotions ‘are completely prohibited by the new festival rules’.” You just can’t make this kind of stuff up.

Paris Hilton’s offending costume at the 2006 Oktoberfest which led to her being banned from this year’s festival.

 

Bière de Manger

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Most people don’t think of France as a place for great beer, but there are several very fine, world-class small — tiny really — breweries in Northeastern France, not coincidently near the border of Belgium. Back in the mid-1800s this region of the world was home to 2,000 breweries. By the advent of the first World War it was half that, but during the German occupation their equipment was dismantled and sent back to the Fatherland. Between the two wars after after it, things stayed pretty much the same and today only around 25 breweries remain in the region.

So last night’s dinner themed “The Beers of France” may not have been as big a draw as some of the Beer Chef’s other beer dinners, but that a shame because the people who stayed away out of ignorance or prejudice missed a wonderful dinner and some fabulous beers.

Our salad course: composed salad of wild mushrooms, summer vegetables, duck ham and watercress.

All of the beers were courtesy of Shelton Brothers, a beer importer who brings in some of the finest beers from all over the world to the U.S. Here’s the Beer Chef, Bruce Paton, with Dan Shelton.

 
Since I believe these beers do deserve to better known, here’s some more information about the French beers that were part of the beer dinner. Seek them out and try them for yourself.

 

St. Droun French Abbey Ale

From the Brasseurs Duyck, founded in 1922, whose brand Jenlain is probably better known, St. Druon was re-named (the original name was Sebourg) in 2000 “as a tribute to Saint Druon and the little church in Sebourg, the next village to Jenlain. Druon, a homeless but pious orphan, wandered the roads until he settled in the village, and is still honoured and revered by pilgrims each year.” It’s been run by the same family for four generations.

From Shelton Brothers website:

Jenlain is the second largest independent brewery in France, and by far the largest one making bière de garde – France’s only original, traditional beer style. Jenlain is credited with reviving the style, and encouraging countless smaller bière de garde breweries in Northern France.

It’s a 6.0% abv Bière de Garde that uses a distinctive yeast that different from Duyuck’s other beers. it’s a very clean, refreshing beer and worked well with the diverse hors d’oeuvres.

The other beer we had with our appetizers was one of only two beer at the dinner that I’d had before, the Thiriez Extra. It’s a surprisingly hoppy beer, though not in a west coast sort of way. In France, the beer is known as “Les Frères de la Bière,” which means “The Friends of Beer.” It’s a collaboration of sorts between brewers in England, France, and Belgium. The beer uses an relatively unknown English hop called “Brambling Cross.” It’s really something of a session beer at 4.5% abv.

The second beer from Thiriez was their Blonde, which is a little spicier than the Extra in the way of a saison, and a little stronger, too, at 6.0%. It was paired with our first course, sea scallops in fennel nage.

From Shelton Brothers website:

Daniel Thiriez’s rustic little brick-and-beam brewery graces the village of Esquelbecq, plunk in the middle of the rolling farm country of French Flanders. With a brewing degree from a Belgian university, and decidedly ‘Belgian-oriented,’ Monsieur Thiriez makes ales with an earthy, slightly wild character that recalls the early days of farmhouse brewing, before there was a border between France and Belgium.

Thiriez Extra and Blonde

La Choulette Le Sans Cullottes and Ambree

The “no pants” beer, which is what “sans cullottes” refers to was the other beer of the evening I’d had before, and it’s a great Bière de Garde style beer. It’s 7.0% abv and quite effervescent, like a good champagne. This wonderful beer was paired with a composed salad of wild mushrooms, summer vegetables, duck ham and watercress.

From Shelton Brothers website:

La Choulette is a charming farmhouse brewery whose beers are classics of this French style. The brewery dates back to 1885. Alain and Martine Dhaussy bought it in the 1970’s and revived traditional brewing there. This, the brewery’s masterpiece, proudly pays homage to Les Sans Culottes – the “trouserless” craftsmen who could not afford uniforms but unflinchingly did the handiwork of the French Revolution. A number of brewers were included in their ranks.

The other beer from La Choulette was their Ambree, a slightly stronger Bière de Garde at 8.0% with a deeper amber color. I found it quite sweet, which nicely cut through the heavy meat course, loin of rabbit with bone marrow ravioli and onion apple gratin.

The last beer, Garvroche, is from St. Sylvstre, who is better known for their 3 Monts. The Gavroche is a bottle-conditioned amber ale, and at 8.5% was the strongest beer of the evening. The name comes from one of the characters in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, the generous and rebellious Paris urchin. It was divine with our dessert of poached pear with flan of fromage explorateur.

From Shelton Brothers website:

Serge Ricour is one of those guys – probably a genius, but it takes one to know one, and we’re not really sure we can meet that standard – who just produces fantastic beer, but doesn’t seem to know it himself. The Brasserie Ricour, or Brasserie St-Sylvestre (you use either one and everyone in town knows what you’re talking about) makes, arguably, the best beer of France: 3 Monts. We Shelton Brothers would probably argue with that, since we’ve found so many nice beers in France and brought them to the U.S. for your inspection, but you can’t really argue with the proposition that 3 Monts is, at least, one of the very best beers of France.

St. Sylvestre Gavroche

 

Oktoberfest O’zapft is!

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Today is the first day of Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, one of the world’s most famous beer festivals, though the German consider it a folk festival. I confess I’ve never gone and while I’d like to go at least once in my lifetime, I suspect it’s one of those experiences where once will be enough. As has been the tradition since 1950, today the Mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, tapped the first keg signaling the start of the festivities. In German, this tradition is called “O’zapft is!” meaning “it is tapped.” The first liter of beer poured was consumed by German premier Edmund Stoiber.

The festival will last sixteen days, ending, as it does each year, on the first Sunday in October. Since 1990, a modification has been introduced into the schedule so that is the first Sunday is either October 1st or 2nd then the festival will end on October 3rd, which is a holiday, German Unity Day, celebrating Germany’s reunification. This year, Oktoberfest ends on October 7. Unlike most beer festivals, it’s all day affair, with beer first served during weekdays at 10:00 am with last call not until 10:30 pm, and on the weekends things get started an hour earlier at 9:00 am.

There are over 100,000 seats in fourteen tents on just over 100 acres. About 72% attending are from locals from Bavaria with about 15% from outside Germany. Many of these aren’t used to handling a lot of alcohol and some pass out as a result of over-indulging. Locals call those who pass out “Bierleichen” (or if female, “Bierleiche”), which means “beercorpse.” Over the sixteen days of the festival last year the more than six and a half-million people attending Oktoberfest consumed an astounding:

  • Beer: 6.9 million litres (1.82 million gallons, or over 14.5 million pints)
  • Roasted steers: 102
  • Sausages: 144,635 pairs
  • Roast chickens: 494,135
  • Knuckles of pork: 43,492

Undoubtedly even more will be enjoyed this year.

 

One of the many Oktoberfest waitresses in the traditional “dirndl” dress (from the BBC’s Oktoberfest in Pictures) though the steins of beer are covering her bow. According to an AAP account, “[t]he dirndl has in any case become a fashion item this year. The knot in the bow reveals key information to potential suitors – on the right means the woman has a partner; on the left indicates she is available.”
 

Though the first Oktoberfest took place in 1810, it didn’t become an annual event until 1850. Here’s a history of the event, from the official website:

The Royal Wedding

Crown Prince Ludwig, later to become King Ludwig I, was married to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on 12th October 1810. The citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities held on the fields in front of the city gates to celebrate the happy royal event. The fields have been named Theresienwiese (“Theresa’s fields”) in honor of the Crown Princess ever since, although the locals have since abbreviated the name simply to the “Wies’n”.

Horse races in the presence of the Royal Family marked the close of the event that was celebrated as a festival for the whole of Bavaria. The decision to repeat the horse races in the subsequent year gave rise to the tradition of the Oktoberfest.

The Oktoberfest continues in 1811

In 1811 an added feature to the horse races was the first Agricultural Show, designed to boost Bavarian agriculture.
The horse races, which were the oldest and – at one time – the most popular event of the festival are no longer held today. But the Agricultural Show is still held every three years during the Oktoberfest on the southern part of the festival grounds.

In the first few decades the choice of amusements was sparse. The first carousel and two swings were set up in 1818. Visitors were able to quench their thirst at small beer stands which grew rapidly in number. In 1896 the beer stands were replaced by the first beer tents and halls set up by enterprising landlords with the backing of the breweries.

The remainder of the festival site was taken up by a fun-fair. The range of carousels etc. on offer was already increasing rapidly in the 1870s as the fairground trade continued to grow and develop in Germany.

174th Oktoberfest 2007

Today, the Oktoberfest is the largest festival in the world, with an international flavor characteristic of the 21th century: some 6 million visitors from all around the world converge on the Oktoberfest each year.

And since the Oktoberfest is still held on the Theresienwiese, the locals still refer to the event simply as the “Wies’n”. So “welcome to the Wies’n” means nothing other than “welcome to the Oktoberfest”!

 

 

Budweiser Negotiating to Buy Budweiser

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No, you read that right. In April it was announced that the Czech Republic, who owns and operates Budejovicky Budvar — from the Bohemian town of Budweis — was considering selling it to the highest bidder to help with the country’s budget woes. Naturally they used the gentler word privatize, but the result is the same. Forbes is reporting that Anheuser-Busch has been in negotiations for some time now.

A-B and Budvar have been bickering over the Budweiser trademark for over a century, though recently A-B agreed to distribute Czechvar (Budvar’s trade name in the U.S.) in the American market. Buying the Czech brewery would make good sense from a business point of view, because the still numerous pending trademark disputes would simply vanish, saving untold millions in legal fees. Plus A-B would be able to market its own Budweiser uniformly throughout the world. Currently there are a number of nations where Budvar has prevailed in litigation and the American Budweiser must be sold in those countries under a different name. Buying the brewery then seems like it would be worth its weight in gold. Of course, the Czech government is apparently not one to let an opportunity pass it by and is exploiting the situation. They’re asking $1.5 billion, even though that’s twelve times its annual sales of just over $125 million. Most valuations use a formula of around 2.5 times annual sales, making a pricetag of $300 million or so a bit more reasonable, at least to prospective buyers.

A-B began selling beer under the name Budweiser (admittedly taking the name from the Bohemian town of Budweis) in 1876 (registering the trademark in 1878), whereas the present brewer, Budejovicky Budvar, didn’t begin brewing until 1895. But as the Czechs are quick to point out, beer was being brewed in the town of Budweis since the 13th century, since 1265 to be exact. And in that time before trademarks and brand names per se, beer brewed in the town was called Budweiser to distinguish it from beer made in other towns, it just wasn’t made by the same company. To a number of people, however, the dispute is about more than just who used the brand name first. To the Czechs it’s understandably a matter of national pride. How do you tell someone they can’t use the name of their own town on their own labels with a company name that also includes the name of the town?
 

 
Well if you’re Anheuser-Busch, you rely on the fact that you’ve spent millions and millions of dollars building a brand name and some upstart company shouldn’t be able to just waltz in and trade on all that hard work. And while I do understand A-B’s position, I’d be more sympathetic to it if this dispute just started recently after they really have created a worldwide brand name over many, many years spending untold dollars to do so. But that’s not exactly what happened. This dispute began early in the 20th century, only ten years or so after the modern Budvar was formed and only 30-odd years after Anheuser began using the Budweiser name. At that time they were certainly a successful company, but nowhere near the international behemoth they are today. Looked at today, it’s much easier to accept A-B’s arguments, but not when the dispute began. The vast majority of the effort and resources that A-B has spent building up the value of the brand name took place after Budvar began complaining that A-B was using their town’s name. I’m not sure that matters from a legal standpoint (though perhaps it should) but it just feels wrong. I know that’s idealistic and isn’t how the world really works, but I’m not convinced that most people want to live in a world where the bully with the most money usually wins. A-B may have even figured out a way to market Budweiser in the Czech Republic, by buying another local brewery, Jihocesky Pivovary, which is currently located in southern Bohemia. But in 1997 they found documents indicating they were the first brewery in Budweis, having been founded in 1795.

But buying Budejovicky Budvar would finally and forever put this dispute to bed. I just don’t know if that’s really the right result. It certainly doesn’t feel like it would end the controversy or really answer the question of who really should be entitled to use the name “Budweiser.”

 

Gourmet Gaul, Fermented France

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Usually the beer dinners that the Beer Chef, Bruce Paton, puts on involve one or two specific brewers. But this next one will feature the beers of a single country, and one that you don’t ordinarily think of — France. But while largely unknown, there are some very good beers there made by some very small brewers. Here’s a chance to try some of them, and have some great food to boot. It will be a four-course dinner and well worth the $80 price of admission. It will be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on Saturday, September 21, 2007, beginning with a reception at 6:30 p.m. Call 415.674.3406 for reservations by September 13.

 

The Menu:

 

Reception: 6:30 PM

Beer Chef’s Hors D’Oeuvre
Beer: Thiriez Extra and Jenlain St. Droun

Dinner: 7:30 PM

First Course

Sea Scallops in Fennel Nage

Beer: Thiriez Blonde

Second Course:

Composed Salad of Wild Mushrooms, Summer Vegetables, Duck Ham and Watercress

Beer: La Choulette Le Sans Cullottes

Third Course:

Loin of Rabbit with Bone Marrow Ravioli and Onion Apple Gratin

Beer: Ambree

Fourth Course:

Poached Pear with Flan of Fromage Explorateur

Beer: St. Sylvstre Gavroche

Les Sans Culottes from Brasserie Les Choulette, is one the beers that will be served. It’s a Biere de Garde style beer and the label is a detail from the iconic Eugene Delacroix painting Liberty Leading the People that hangs in the Louvre. Late last year, the State of Maine tried to ban it because they thought the label might offend the delicate sensibilities of its citizens.

 
9.21

Dinner with the Brewmaster: The Beers of France

Cathedral Hill Hotel, 1101 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California
415.674.3406 [ website ]
 

Session #7: The Brew Zoo

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This month’s Session, hosted by Rick Lyke at Lyke2Drink, is another clever one. The theme is the Brew Zoo, meaning beers with animal names or labels, of which the beer world is replete with examples. Today was my son Porter’s birthday party (his actual day is Monday) and so I wasn’t able to blog yesterday because there was just too much to do to get ready for the party. So instead I decided to have something furry today.

In honor of Porter’s birthday, I decided on an English Porter I picked up somewhere during my recent travels. It’s from Nethergate Brewery, which is in Suffolk, England. It’s called Old Growler and is, of course, a porter. I tried it with my friend Sean Paxton, The Homebrew Chef, who was at the party to help celebrate Porter’s birthday with his wife and new baby girl, Olivia.

The beer had a beautiful color, black with reddish purple streaks, a very appropriate color which I’ll explain later. It also had a thick tan head with great lace and silky rich aromas of milk chocolate and dry powdered cocoa. Silky smooth and rich, thick with milk chocolate flavor and just a touch of vanilla and hazelnut. The hops are nicely restrained. They’re like finding a black hole, we can’t really perceive them but know they’re there by the obvious balance. The finish is very dry. There’s a lot going on in this complex porter and it would make a wonderful dessert beer.

Here’s how the brewery describes the beer:

Our famous porter has won at the CAMRA winter festival twice, the only brewery to do so, first in 1998 and again in 2003, also winning the highest accolade Supreme Champion in 2003. Also Supreme Champion at the Chicago International Beer Festival in 2004, in the porter category. A complex, satisfying porter, smooth and distinctive. Roast malt and fruit feature in the palate. The finish is powerfully hoppy with a hint of liquorice.

But back to the story of the reddish purple color.

Before my son Porter was born, my wife and I came up with a list of five boys’ names and girls’ names that we both liked. We had to do both since we didn’t know whether we were having a boy or girl. As perhaps the most anal-retentive couple on the planet we went through months of perusing baby name books and compiling lists, which we would then compare and knock each other’s out until at long last we came up with ones we could each live with to name our child. The idea was that armed with a few names we both liked, we’d see which one best fit after he or she was born. At one point, I even tried to get Bullwinkle on the list, but that didn’t last long. Brewer also made the short list, and I still like the sound of it for a name. Porter, of course, was on the final list, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be the winner. But then my son was born. At our Lamaze classes and in my reading, somehow I missed the information that there’s a point in the birth where the baby isn’t getting any oxygen before it takes its first breath.

So I was quite alarmed when my new son was a dull purple when he first made his entry into the world. As the doctor carted him off for his initial testing, I didn’t even know if he was breathing and was very nearly panicking. My first thought naturally was “is he okay?” After being assured that this was normal and that he was just fine, I began to calm down and drink in the sight of my first born child: the wiggling fingers and toes, the bleating cries and gasps of first breaths, and odd purple discoloration on reddish pink skin. My second thought then was “wow, he’s the color of a nice robust porter.” Later, after we were moved into a room, I was recounting these thoughts to my wife. She just looked at me, smiling, and said “well … I guess we know what his name is.” And that’s how my blond-haired, blue-eyed boy became a Porter.

Porter at his 6th birthday party, in the midst of his own zoo.

 

Michael Jackson Passes Away

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NOTE: An updated version of this post, and one which I’ll continue to update with new information, photos and links, can be found at my new tribute page: Michael Jackson 1942-2007.

I just got word from a friend and colleague that Michael Jackson passed away early this morning in his London home. He got the news from Roger Protz, a beer writer in England, that he had been found in his tub. It now appears that the cause of death is a heart attack. This is very sad day for the beer world. Michael was larger than life and his influence cannot be overestimated. To say he will be missed seems a grand understatement.

After getting the news early this morning, I’ve just spent the last eight hours flying home from Yakima, Washington, where I’d been attending Hop School. In that time, a little more information has come to light and some memorials have already been created. Here are a few from around the beer world:

News Reports:

 

Memorials & Remembrances:

 

Photos:

  • Tom Dalldorf went through some of the Celebrator’s older photo archives and dug up some great pictures of Michael, which he’s posted at the Celebrator.
  • Mark Silva, from Real Beer, posted some great photos on his Flickr page from an event at the Beach Chalet in San Francisco from 2001.

 

Video:

    Interview in Michael’s London home with Dan Shelton of the Shelton Brothers beer importers (on YouTube).

 
Stan Hieronymus has now set up a special blog as a memorial entitled Michael Jackson The Beer Hunter In Memoriam

 
Here are some of my own memories:

I first became aware of Michael Jackson at about the same time I discovered different, more flavorful beers while stationed in New York City in the late 1970s. I was in a U.S. Army Band at the time, stationed under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on Fort Hamilton, which is on Staten Island. My bandmates and I went into Manhattan whenever we could and spent a lot of our time in the many jazz clubs in the Village and other parts of the city. Beers like Bass Ale, Guinness and Pilsner Urquell were often served in these clubs and they were vastly different from the local pilsners I grew up drinking in southeastern Pennsylvania. I was smitten with them at once, and wanting to learn more about them, chanced upon Michael’s World Guide to Beer at a bookstore and devoured it whole.

Fast forward around 13 years later and I’d just published The Bars of Santa Clara: A Beer Drinker’s Guide to Silicon Valley and treated myself to my first trip to the Great American Beer Festival. This was 1991 or 92. Michael was signing books at a table and I was thrilled to finally meet someone who had been such an inspiration. I told him about my book and explained how grateful I was for his books and how helpful they were to me in writing a summary of beer history and styles for my guidebook’s appendices. He gave me his card and asked me to send him a copy, which I happily did.

My next encounter with Michael was at the Great Divide Brewery in Denver during a later GABF. At this point I was the beer buyer at Beverages & more and had been invited to one of the first of Great Divide’s annual Thursday morning open houses because I had recently started selling Great Divide in our California stores. I asked Michael if he had received my book, fully expecting him to have no recollection of it given that several years had passed. He told me he remembered it and particularly liked my appendix with historical events, birthdays etc. for every day of the year, a lifelong passion of mine that you can still see in the upper left-hand corner of the Bulletin every day.
 

 

A few years later I joined the Celebrator Beer News and saw Michael more and more at events around the country. I loved hearing him talk about beer, of course, but I figured out early on that it wasn’t the only thing he loved. As a result we started discussing literature, politics, music — especially jazz — and topics decidedly non-beery whenever we saw one another. He recommended many books and authors to me over the years, including ones I now cherish such A.J. Liebling. I think Michael liked being able to relax and not have to talk about beer constantly and I just enjoyed his company, he was insightful and a great storyteller.

But I think my favorite Michael memory took place at the Craft Brewers Conference when it was in San Diego in 2004. One night everyone was around the central pool area enjoying the many San Diego beers there. I was feeling hungry and thinking about getting dinner even though it was later in the evening. About that same time, Michael declared he was hungry and it turned out we were the only peckish ones in our group standing around chatting. I volunteered to take Michael to dinner so his people could stay at the party. We walked slowly over to the closest restaurant in Town & Country, the self-contained resort where CBC was being held, talking amiably about nothing and everything. But we arrived too late and a rude maitre’d would not seat us and suggested we try the last remaining open restaurant in the complex, though he wouldn’t guarantee it was open either. Outside the restaurant, I persuaded a Town & Country employee to take us to the other restaurant, Kelly’s Steakhouse, in his electric golf-cart because Michael was visibly tired. Kelly’s Steakhouse was open and we sat at a corner table, before spying Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo out to dinner with some friends. They had just sat down, too, and invited us to join them and we all re-situated ourselves at a larger table. It was a great night of wine, beer and conversation. And there are a few funny stories I can’t tell here.

The outpouring of memories and reminiscences in the last 24-hours are a living testament to the influence Michael had throughout his thirty-plus-years writing about beer and spirits. It’s hard to imagine a single soul who did more for an industry. It’s a remarkable achievement that reminds me of one of my favorite stories, Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees. It’s a French tale about a solitary man living alone in the hills of a desolate part of rural France as a sheepherder. Every night he hand picks fifty acorns and the following day he plants them. He does this for years and then decades, totally changing the landscape. The trees flourish which brings back birds, animals, plants and water, which in turn brings life back to an entire region, including countless people who begin moving back into the area. It was made into a wonderful animated film several years ago which won an Academy Award for short animated feature (you can watch the video on Google Video). The story is about how the dedication and perseverance of one man — which could be you or me — can really make a difference. So often we feel like nothing we do can or will make much of a difference, but people like Elzéard Bouffier (the fictional tree man) and Michael Jackson prove that it is possible for an exceptional person to have a profound effect on peoples’ lives. It’s almost impossible to imagine what the American craft beer industry would be like today without Michael Jackson. He wrote with such passion and enthusiasm — and so beautifully — that he inspired countless brewers and beer enthusiasts. Without his voice, where would be today? He was a giant among men. Try as we might, none of us writing today are in his league. A few are very good — you know who you are — but there is no one as clearly gifted. Of course, through his work Michael will live on and continue to inspire us, as well as future generations of beer lovers.

 

Michael and Carolyn Smagalski at a recent Pilsner Urquell event. (Thanks for the photo Carolyn.)