Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Bistro 18th Anniversary Tomorrow

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The Bistro, in Hayward, California, has been an institution for … well, eighteen years. They put on four niche festivals each year — Double IPA, IPA, Wet Hop and Wood Aged — plus a hops rhizome event. Tomorrow they’re celebrating their 18th anniversary, not with a whimper, but a bang.

On tap, they’ll have some classic beers, such as Anchor Christmas Ale 1999 and in bottles, such rarities as a vertical tasting of North Coast Old Stock from 2000 until the present vintage, Unibroue’s anniversary ale, from 2004 to 2007. They’ll also have bottles of Russian River Brewing’s first bottling of batch 23 — circa 2007 — and Avery The Beast 2008 to name just a few.

There will be live music at the pub, beginning at 4:30, with The Hipbones, who first played here in 1997, The Travis Larson Band, along with special guest from Canada, Dave Martone.

The festivities start when they open at 10:30. Should be a great time. Happy 18th Vic and Cynthia!

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Bistro owners Cynthia and Vic Kralj announcing the winners of the 2009 Double IPA Festival.

The Toronado Comes To Russian River

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Last night, in the continuing and ongoing celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Toronado, a bus left San Francisco from lower Haight carrying a majority of the pub’s employees (leaving behind only a skeleton crew) along with significant others and friends of the bar. After traffic slowed their progress, two hours later sixty people emerged from the bus — now 18 cases of beer lighter — in Santa Rosa for a Toronado Anniversary Party at Russian River Brewing.

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The dining section of the brewpub was set aside for the private party, while patrons could continue to sit at the bar and use the other sections of the brewery.

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I even got the missus to come out and play, seen here with Brian Hunt, from Moonlight Brewing.

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Toronado balloons hung throughout the place.

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There were many folks at the party who came into town from all over the place; from Philadelphia, Denver, Portland, Seattle, New York and even San Diego. For instance, Jeff Bagby, looking for a location for his new San Diego brewery, and Eric Rose, from Hollister Brewing.

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Our hosts Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo introduced the band, American Dog, who flew in from their native Ohio to play the party (they’re one of Toronado owner Dave Keene’s favorite bands). The last time they were here was five years ago for the Toronado’s 20th.

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Natalie air-guitaring with a giant bottle of Toronado 25th Anniversary.

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Raising a toast, Dave Keene (in the back) flanked by Ian Black (from the San Diego Toronado) and Jen Schwertman (from New York’s Blind Tiger).

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Dave Hopwood sporting his latest for-charity dyed beard. Click here to donate for Dave.

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American Dog played a great 21-song set and we said our good-byes (Mrs. J having a real job, had to get up early the next morning), leaving the assembled guests as they celebrated into the night. Thanks to Vinnie, Natalie and Dave for another wonderful evening of beer, music and camaraderie. Happy Anniversary Dave!

Go It Alone For The Next Session

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For our 65th Session, our host, Nate Southwood writes about more than just beer at his Booze, Beats & Bites. In addition to music and food, his triple crown includes beer, of course, and the topic he’s chosen is “So Lonely,” meaning going to the pub to have a beer alone. Here’s how he describes what he means:

Speaking of fun, going to the pub with a bunch of mates is great… you have a few beers and a laugh, generally a fun time and all.

I love going to the pub with mates but sometimes I go to a pub alone and I enjoy it.

Other people say I’m weird for this as there seems to be a stigma attached to being in the pub alone — alcoholism.

There are many reasons why I go to the pub alone.

  • Sometimes I just want to spend some quality time alone that isn’t at home.
  • Sometimes I’m walking home and fancy a pit-stop.
  • Sometimes my mates are all busy with their girlfriends/wives/children and I want a pint.
  • Sometimes I just fancy going to the pub and observing the bizarre people around me.
  • Sometimes I want to sit down and write blogs on my tableaux while having a pint.
  • Sometimes I just want to play angry birds while having a pint.
  • Sometimes I just want to prop myself at the bar and discuss beer with the bartender.
  • Sometimes I want to explore pubs that I’ve never been to before but my mates don’t want to.
  • Sometimes I’m just a miserable bastard and don’t want to socialise but want a nice pint.

The way I see it is that I love beer and pubs and I don’t see why I should only go to the pub when I’m with other people.

Am I weird for going to the pub alone?

How do you feel about going to the pub alone? Do you feel it’s necessary to be around friends to spend time in a pub?

So that’s “So Lonely.” It’s funny that given the obvious connection to the Police song So Lonely, both Stan and I both instead thought of George Thorogood’s I Drink Alone and its quintessential philosophy “You know when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself.”

So that sounds like an interesting, albeit lonely, task. Besides, given that it’s two days after July 4, you’ll probably be craving some “alone time.” Just remember not to drunk type your blog post on July 6 when you share your isolated drinking experiences.

A Tipping Tutorial

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Hospitality Management Schools sent me this interesting, and helpful, interactive guide to tipping. I confess that while I’m pretty comfortable tipping at restaurants and bars, I’ve never been quite sure how much to tip my barber or the pizza delivery guy.

The embed code for the tip guide doesn’t seem to be working (I keep getting an error code about hot having authorized access despite the graphic having a button giving you he embed code) so here’s a link directly to the guide: Tipping, How To Respond To Hospitality.

Under the notes for tipping waiters, they suggest that even bad service deserves at least a 10% tip. I’m not sure about that one. I understand that sometimes poor service may be out of the hands of the waitstaff, but I can’t abide rewarding certain behaviors. If a waiter is open and tells me there’s a problem with the kitchen, or someone’s out sick and he or she has more territory to cover, I’m happy to take that into account and be understanding. If they’re pleasant in the face of problems and act like decent human beings (the golden rule) then I’ll agree with HMS’s advice. But if they’re simply inattentive, rude, surly or obnoxious, then I don’t see how giving them 10% is fair to anybody.

The last time I was at GBBF, the pub where I was staying was in the old meat packing area of London — Smithfield Market — and Stephen Beaumont (who I was traveling with) and I were excited to get a table at Fergus Henderson’s restaurant (author of “The Whole Beast”). It was very expensive but we thought it was worth checking out. And the food was incredible, but the experience was all but ruined by one of the worst service experiences I’ve ever had. Our waiter could not have been more condescending. He practically dripped sarcasm when Stephen starting exploring beer pairings with him, as if he didn’t even want to deign discussing beer with meat. How gauche. And so I can’t agree that such a person deserves even a modest tip when their actions not only don’t enhance a meal, but actively effect it negatively, such that the experience is made worse directly by their job performance. Service that bad is, mercifully, somewhat rare, but it has happened to me more than a few times. Under most circumstances, I’d agree that service that’s just mediocre or passable does deserve at least 10%. After all, I understand they’re just trying to make a living, and also everybody has a bad day. But truly bad service does not, at least in my opinion. What do you think?

Anyway, enough of my ranting, here’s their introduction to this guide from the school’s blog:

A huge part of the hospitality and service industry is gratuity. Gratuity and how much to tip service workers has always been a highly debated topic as it should be. Many service workers make the majority of their income on tips alone. Becoming a manager at a hotel or a spa, it will be very important to understand how workers get paid and how to structure tipping at your institution to keep your employees happy as well as keeping the company running smoothly.

And with tipping varying so widely from country to country and state to state even, it is hard to have a consistent system of tipping. With all the debate that surrounds gratuity, it seems that most people still don’t know what the correct amount to tip is. Is it 15% or is it 20%? $1 or $2? From airport to take out, this interactive guide will help people determine how much to give to in the service industry and hospitality field.

And interesting, they had this little tidbit under the History of Tipping:

When the custom of tipping made its way to the United States, many people weren’t too happy about it. In the late 1890s, a movement began against tipping as Americans believed tipping allowed service workers to be dependent on the higher class. An anti-tipping bill ultimately failed due to protests from both employers and service workers.

Beer In Art #164: Vincent Van Gogh’s Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin

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Today’s artwork is another painting by one of the world’s most well-known artists, Vincent Van Gogh. This one is a portrait entitled Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin, completed in 1887. Today it hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Holland.

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Here’s how Wikipedia describes the work:

In the painting Agostina, a woman in her forties, can be seen smoking a cigarette while having her second glass of beer, evidenced by two saucers under the mug of beer. In demeanor and style, such as her clothing, make-up and hairstyle, she is a modern woman. She is wearing a fashionable hat. According to the style at the time, her jacket is a different design than her dress. A parasol sits on one of the seats next to her.

Van Gogh used the theme of a woman sitting at a small table, introduced by Impressionists, such as Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet. The table and stools were in the shape of tambourines, befitting the café’s theme. On the wall behind her are Van Gogh’s Japanese prints, which he began exhibiting at the café in February, 1887. The brightly colored painting and confident subject represent a shift in Van Gogh’s attitude, in comparison to his previous subjects, such as were dark, tragic peasants.

And apparently Van Gogh was very familiar with both the Café du Tambourin and its owner, Agostina Segatori, who had also been a model for Edouard Manet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and other artists. More from Wikipedia:

[The Café du Tambourin] was a gathering spot for Parisian artists, a place where their work was exhibited. Van Gogh, unable to pay in cash for his meals, exchanged paintings for meals. The paintings then adorned the restaurant. He held a special exhibit of his Japanese prints in the café as well. His connection with Agostina and the cafe came to a sad end when she went bankrupt and Van Gogh’s paintings were confiscated by creditors. This painting, however, demonstrates an artistic discovery that culminated in his unique, creative style not quite on the brink of being understood and revered.

I can’t tell if she’s trying to relax after a long day, or having a quick smoke and a coiple of beers in order to face her shift behind the bar. Based on the expression on her face, it could be either.

For more about Vincent Van Gogh, Wikipedia is a good place to start, though there’s even more at the Vincent Van Gogh Gallery, which has a complete list of his works. There are also tons of links at the ArtCyclopedia and another biography at the Web Museum.

Beer In Art #155: David Teniers’ Self-Portrait At An Inn

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Today’s work of art is yet another painted by David Teniers the Younger, a Flemish artist born in Antwerp. The painting is a Self-Portrait at an Inn, finished in 1646.

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Here’s how one source describes the painting:

David Teniers the Younger is one of the greatest Flemish painters of the 17th century; he specializes in genre scenes, especially indoor ones, in taverns. This is what his self-portrait shows here, like a manifesto; he has depicted himself, with a pitcher in one hand and a glass of beer in the other. One can note the minute description of the place, the restrained range of colour, the attention given to details which become as many still lifes, and the brushstrokes, precise and delicate, yet not effaced.

To learn more about David Teniers, Wikipedia has a good overview and there’s also a more detailed biography at the National Gallery and the Web Gallery of Art. You can see more of his work at the Web Museum, Olga’s Gallery and the National Gallery. There are also additional links at ArtCyclopedia

Beer In Art #154: David Teniers’ Peasants Dancing Outside An Inn

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Today’s work of art is another painted by David Teniers the Younger, a Flemish artist born in Antwerp. The painting is known as Peasants Dancing Outside an Inn. The painting is in the Royal Collection at Windsor, which I believe means the Queen of England owns it. It was completed around 1645, although the Royal Collection lists the date as 1641.

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The Web Gallery of Art describes the painting:

The painting, which would appear to date from the mid- or late 1640s, is essentially a genre scene of a type that had been pioneered by painters like Jan Brueghel the Elder, Frans Francken II and David Vinckboons. The broad characterisation of peasant types by Teniers is to some extent derived from Adriaen Brouwer, but the squat proportions of the figures, with their large heads and big feet, are typical of the artist’s style. Not all the figures, however, are peasants. The couple in the left foreground, accompanied by a child and a dog, are bourgeois types. So too is the woman nearby being helped to her feet. Dress and coiffure suggest social distinctions that may give the painting extra meaning.

The inn in the left half of the composition occurs again in a painting in Dresden, but the general layout of the composition with buildings on the left, a tree with or without a fence marking the centre, and a distant view on the right is a well-established format in Teniers’s work. Otherwise it is the range of observation and contrasting actions that holds the attention. The bagpiper leaning against the tree, the man vomiting, the man near the centre leaning on his stick, the dancers, the woman looking out of the window of the inn are all memorable figures in a painting of varied emotions and changing rhythms. The figure helping the woman to her feet anticipates Watteau, who was a keen admirer of Teniers. Genre, landscape and still life are all combined in this composition, which provides abundant proof of the artist’s skills.

The second painting of the same Inn they’re referring to appears to have been done around 1660 and is also titled Peasants Dancing Outside an Inn, though it’s often referred to as Peasants Dancing Outside An Inn II

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To learn more about David Teniers, Wikipedia has a good overview and there’s also a more detailed biography at the National Gallery and the Web Gallery of Art. You can see more of his work at the Web Museum, Olga’s Gallery and the National Gallery. There are also additional links at ArtCyclopedia

Beer In Art #153: John Lewis Krimmel’s Village Tavern

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This week’s work of art is by John Lewis Krimmel. He was born in Germany, but emigrated to the U.S. in 1809 to join his brother in Philadelphia. Instead of joining the family business, he took up painting and became well-known for his genre paintings depicting everyday life in the city of brotherly love. One of his most well-known paintings was “The Village Tavern,” painted between 1813-14.

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The painting is also sometimes called “In An American Inn,” and just from searching around, it appears their may be more than one of them, as there seem to be various references to both that are very, very similar, but not quite exactly the same, with slightly different colors and with the size of what’s depicted more or less, as if Krimmel painted the exact same scene more than once.

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Perhaps most curiously, apparently the painting was used by prohibitionists as propaganda. “The depiction of a mother and daughter trying to persuade the drunken father to come home has caused historians of the temperance movement to praise In an American Inn as the first work of an American artist to illustrate this issue.” But that interpretation does not seem obvious to me. Nothing in the woman or the child’s demeanor suggests to me that they’re trying to persuade the man of anything. And the man is raising his glass to her with a smile on his face. And nobody else around them seems particularly alarmed by them being there. In fact, many people in the tavern don’t seem to be paying them any mind whatsoever, as if their presence is not so unusual. It just looks an old-fashioned scene from the TV show Cheers, with several groups in the inn.

The Woodmere Art Museum has in its collection the “Study for ‘Village Tavern,'” oil on wood panel, also done in 1814.

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And the Winterthur Library has two early drawings that would eventually become the painting, done in ink and ink wash over pencil.

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They contain all the elements of the finished work, but you can see the artist trying out different placements for the characters in the painting.

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You can read Krimmel’s biography at Wikipedia or at Terra. There are links to more Krimmel resources at the ArtCyclopedia. You can also see more of his work at the Art Renewal Center, Scholar’s Resource, the Philadelphia Academy and the American Gallery.

Declines Of The British Pub Slowing?

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In September, the British Beer & Pub Association released information regarding pub closures in the UK.

Back in the 1970s more than 90% of all beer consumed in Britain was bought from the “on trade” — pubs and clubs.

According to the British Beer & Pub Association this ratio had fallen to 51% from pubs and 49% from supermarkets at the end of last year. “It will cross over in the near future,” said a spokesman, possibly as soon as this Christmas.

This would be a watershed moment for Britain’s beer industry, a culmination of long-standing change in consumers’ drinking habits as well as confirmation that the recession has caused people to stay at home more.

The figure came as a report from the GMB union highlighted how the high price of beer has caused the destruction of thousands of neighborhood pubs, in turn damaging many working class communities. It said that local pubs, many of which had survived the Blitz and the great depression of the 1930s, were now being destroyed by the recession.

Pub closures hit a record rate of 53 a week at the height of the recession. Last year, 26 a week closed their doors, leaving just 52,500 pubs in Britain, nearly half of the level at its peak before the World War II.

The Beer & Pub Association blamed competition from the supermarkets, which often sell beer as a “loss leader” to drive customers into their stores, and above-inflation increases to beer duty. The GMB blamed large pub companies putting up their prices because they were struggling with too many debts.

Last week, they released a new statement, Sticking to the facts on pub closure numbers, which said, in part:

The BBPA has moved to set the record straight over conflicting analysis in recent days of UK pub closure figures. It is absolutely clear from CGA data, says the BBPA, that free trade pubs have been closing at a much faster rate that tenanted and leased pubs in recent years. The BBPA has published its full analysis of the data on its website, today available from the link below.

From January 2009 to June this year, CGA figures show 3,444 free trade pubs closed, compared with 2,239 tenanted and leased pubs over the same period. As the free trade sector has considerably fewer pubs, their closure rate over the period was almost double that of the tenanted and leased sector, at 16 per cent, as compared with 8 per cent. Taking new openings into account, there was a 9 per cent net reduction in free houses, compared with a 6 per cent reduction in tenanted and leased.

Free trade closures are higher, despite the considerable numbers of pubs being sold into the free trade from the tenanted sector. The reason that there are more free-trade pubs now than there were at the start of 2009 is that companies have sold tenanted/leased pubs to private owners, where this has been deemed appropriate.

“Pub closures are caused by a huge range of issues — the greatest of which we can influence are undoubtedly punitive rates of taxation and the high cost of regulation. And though there is still some way to go to halt the decline, we should all welcome that the latest figures show that the net closure rate has fallen significantly.”

Still, net closures are 14 per week. That’s two a day! But really, it’s 28 pubs closing each week or four a day, which is even more alarming. I’ve been told by Brit friends who know more about this than I do that it’s the bad pubs that are closing, but I have a hard time believing that’s all it is. With that many closing, there must be some good ones, or at least just average ones, that can’t survive as well.

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Overall closures are declining since their all-time high (or low) in 2008, as are openings as well, so you can see why there is some reason for optimism. When things are going poorly, you tend to focus on whatever positives you can. Everyone who was involved in craft beer in the mid-1990s will know what I mean. But I’d still be more pleased if the British pub was to regain its footing by opening more pubs than are closing.

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David Farnsworth From Lucky Baldwins Passes Away

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David Farnsworth, who co-founded the well-known beer bar Lucky Baldwins in Southern California, passed away yesterday. The Full Pint has the full story, and a hat tip to Dr. Bill, who gave them the news. I only met David a couple of times, but used to talk to him on the phone regularly when I was with the Celebrator full-time. He definitely did a lot for the beer scene in California and will be missed. Raise a glass of Belgian beer tonight in his memory.