Sierra Nevada Brewing is justly famous for their use of big, aromatic hops and helped to popularize Cascade hops in the 1980s. But as palate shift has moved the bar every higher, they’ve never had a packaged IPA, only the occasional draft offering. That’s about to change with the release of Torpedo IPA in six-packs beginning at the end of this month.

Warning: this post has nothing to do with beer. It’s about the media, politics, economics and other mundane stuff that makes the world work the way it does. Those are all subjects I revel in but usually try to restrict to talking about only if they have some relation to beer. But occasionally I stray. This is one of those times, because I found this too interesting not to share. If this isn’t something you’re interested in, please feel free to ignore it. We will return to our regularly scheduled beer posts again shortly.

If you’re a regular reader here you know I’m skeptical that the mainstream media has our best interests at heart or is making any real effort to inform the populace in an honestly open manner. Big media is itself big business and so they tend to report in such as way that serves those same interests. I think the model of how this works, as described in the book Manufacturing Consent, by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is largely correct. But Glen Greenwald, writing on Salon, brought to light another very interesting way of looking at how the media functions. It originally came from a book examining how the media covered the Vietnam War. That book, by Daniel C. Hallin, was titled Uncensored War: The Media and Vietnam. In it, at Page 117, is the Holy Grail, or in this case the Holy Doughnut. Using a very simple diagram, Hallin neatly describes a continuum with three spheres of public opinion and how they affect public debate, especially by the media. Jay Rosen, a professor at NYU’s Journalism School, has written a wonderful analysis of Hallin’s model at his blog PressThink. Entitled Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press. I highly recommend it. It’s slightly different than, but entirely compatible with, Manufacturing Consent. In a nutshell, here’s Rosen’s description.

It’s easily the most useful diagram I’ve found for understanding the practice of journalism in the United States, and the hidden politics of that practice. You can draw it by hand right now. Take a sheet of paper and make a big circle in the middle. In the center of that circle draw a smaller one to create a doughnut shape. Label the doughnut hole “sphere of consensus.” Call the middle region “sphere of legitimate debate,” and the outer region “sphere of deviance.”

Here’s how Rosen explains each of the three spheres.
 

1. The Donut Hole or Sphere of Consensus

The sphere of consensus is the “motherhood and apple pie” of politics, the things on which everyone is thought to agree. Propositions that are seen as uncontroversial to the point of boring, true to the point of self-evident, or so widely-held that they’re almost universal lie within this sphere. Here, Hallin writes, “journalists do not feel compelled either to present opposing views or to remain disinterested observers.” (Which means that anyone whose basic views lie outside the sphere of consensus will experience the press not just as biased but savagely so.)

Consensus in American politics begins, of course, with the United States Constitution, but it includes other propositions too, like “Lincoln was a great president,” and “it doesn’t matter where you come from, you can succeed in America.” Whereas journalists equate ideology with the clash of programs and parties in the debate sphere, academics know that the consensus or background sphere is almost pure ideology: the American creed.

1. The Donut or Sphere of Legitimate Debate

The sphere of legitimate debate is the one journalists recognize as real, normal, everyday terrain. They think of their work as taking place almost exclusively within this space. (It doesn’t, but they think so.) Hallin: “This is the region of electoral contests and legislative debates, of issues recognized as such by the major established actors of the American political process.”

Here the two-party system reigns, and the news agenda is what the people in power are likely to have on their agenda. Perhaps the purest expression of this sphere is Washington Week on PBS, where journalists discuss what the two-party system defines as “the issues.” Objectivity and balance are “the supreme journalistic virtues” for the panelists on Washington Week because when there is legitimate debate it’s hard to know where the truth lies. There are risks in saying that truth lies with one faction in the debate, as against another— even when it does. He said, she said journalism is like the bad seed of this sphere, but also a logical outcome of it.

3. Off the Donut or Sphere of Deviance

In the sphere of deviance we find “political actors and views which journalists and the political mainstream of society reject as unworthy of being heard.” As in the sphere of consensus, neutrality isn’t the watchword here; journalists maintain order by either keeping the deviant out of the news entirely or identifying it within the news frame as unacceptable, radical, or just plain impossible. The press “plays the role of exposing, condemning, or excluding from the public agenda” the deviant view, says Hallin. It “marks out and defends the limits of acceptable political conduct.”

 
To me, this is catnip, fascinating stuff to think about and talk about. The Rosen piece is long, and has plenty of interesting ancillary bits, like the original author, Hallin chiming in with his own thoughts, along with plenty of interesting comments from journalists and academia.

Greenwald, which is where I originally read about this also interviews Rosen on the radio, and there’s a transcript of it if you want to read it. It’s also quite interesting. I know where I am on the donut, nibbling on its outer crust. Off the grid, as usual.

There you are, read on if you like. Otherwise, back to the beer.

Tom Dalldorf, publisher of the Celebrator Beer News, just e-mailed me from the now embarrassingly named Ted Stevens Airport, with the results from the Alaska Beer & Barleywine Festival. Here are the Top 3:

1. GnarlyWine, Lagunitas Brewing, California
2. Old Gander Barley Wine, Sleeping Lady Brewing, Alaska
3. Big Woody Barley Wine, Glacier Brewhouse, Alaska [Note: link is down]

Congratulations to the folks from Lagunitas for their big win.

I wasn’t going to write about the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation spending $400,000 to manufacture a link between the internet and underage drinking, because it’s such a sad burlesque that it’s virtually meaningless. Essentially, nearly a quarter-million dollars will be used to fund a study conducted by UNC-Chapel Hill to test “how easy it is to order alcohol from the Web,” according to the Raleigh News & Observer. The entire article is opinion, paranoia and propaganda, a fitting take given the study’s results will almost certainly be more of the same.

Throughout it they admit that no one really knows if kids are obtaining much booze over the internet at all. They just don’t know, but boy are they worried. But even if there are a few that manage to get some delivered, it’s pretty clear that it’s not the primary way anyone, kids or adults, obtain beer, wine and liquor. Other normal channels are much more convenient, easy and cheaper, especially for minors. But that’s an old story. It’s easier to create attention and buzz by appealing to peoples’ fears about that series of tubes known as the internet.

As I said, I was going to pass on commenting about how this is simply an attempt to further an agenda, not a meaningful attempt to get at the truth. From the way they’re framing the study from the outset it’s an obvious fait accompli what the results will be. I really didn’t feel like going through the wearisome task of examining how studies like this are used increasingly as tools of propaganda (a trend well-documented in the book Trust Us, We’re Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber). Happily, my friend Tomme (thanks, Amigo) sent me a link to a rebuttal to this rubbish from the wine world. In The Tools of Farce, Tom Wark (writing on his Fermentation Daily Wine Blog) gives an appropriately scathing analysis of exactly what the New Drys are up to. It’s worth a read.

In case you’re curious where the title to this post came from, it’s the title of an Elvis Costello song (I’m a huge Elvis fan) that came to me as I started writing this. This Sad Burlesque was on The Juliet Letters, released in 1993. So I fired up the iPod to give it a listen, only to realize that the lyrics are eerily appropriate to this post, so here they are below.

I write in hopes that by the time you get this letter
We may live to see a change for the better
Or are we so devoted to these wretched selfish motives
When the cold facts and figures all add up
They cannot contradict this sad burlesque

This sad burlesque
With miserable failures making entertainment of our fate
Laughter cannot dignify or elevate
This sad burlesque

Now can they recall being young and idealistic
Before wading knee-deep in hogwash and arithmetic
The pitying smirk
The argument runs like clockwork
Will run down eventually and splutter to a stop

P.S. Well by now you know the worst of it
And we’ve heard all the alibis that they’ve rehearsed
The smug predictions
If it’s not a contradiction
Keep faith in human nature
And have mercy on the creatures in this sad burlesque

G. Heilman’s “Old Style Beer” used to be a very popular regional brand since its introduction in 1902. It was first advertised as being “‘fully kraeusened’ and made with pure artesian well water from ‘God’s country,’ meaning western Wisconsin.” That’s because the G. Heilman Brewery was located in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Pabst brand manager Keith Hill is spinning it another way. “That process more thoroughly ferments beer to give it additional flavor, along with a smoother finish.” Pabst is also claiming that this “return to its roots will appeal to 20-somethings who would rather drink ‘a high-quality, local beer’ than a beer ‘from one of the big brewers.'” But the beer, of course, will continue to be contract brewed by MillerCoors so I’m not sure I understand the distinction he’s making or how it will be a marketing advantage for Old Style. I have nothing against contract brewing per se, but I’m not sure I understand how simply changing the brewing process makes it a “local beer?”

This new push follows re-launches of Primo and Schlitz by Pabst, hoping to duplicate their success with Pabst as a retro-hip brand. Will it work? You can’t underestimate the power of advertising to convince people of virtually anything, so perhaps it will. Who knows? Maybe Old Style will end up owing the term “Kraeusening.” Stranger things have happened.

Here’s more worrying bad news in the brewing world, this time from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Iron City Brewing, fresh out of Bankruptcy and still wearing it’s post-reorganization glow announced today that it will “temporarily” layoff 25-30 workers, which represents more than 25% of its work force on March 1, when the brewery closes down its canning line. That aging canning line will then be evaluated to see if it can fixed or must be replaced. In the meantime, they will contract the canned beer at another, as yet undetermined, brewery. This process, they believe, will take from one to three months.

The bottled beer will continue as before. Hopefully this will all work out as stated, but these things have a way of not quite working out as intended, so who knows? New Iron City President Tim Hickman is upbeat, but then he would be, wouldn’t he. “We’re still committed to these products. We’re still committed to Pittsburgh.”

On the plus side, since emerging successfully from a high-profile Chapter 11 Bankrupty, sales are up 20% and sales of one of their brands, Augustiner, have increased threefold. Fingers crossed, let’s hope it all goes according to plan and those layoffs will indeed be “temporary.”

InBev announced yesterday their intention to set up a management office in New York City in order to “better support the needs of the combined global organization. This office would have an operational focus supporting the business in the
implementation of the Company’s strategy under the direction of the Global Headquarters and center of strategic decision making in Leuven” [Belgium].

There’s nothing at all about this at the new AB-InBev website, which though it claims will be “developed over the coming weeks” is still wallpaper several months later. I guess communicating with investors and the public is near the bottom of the priorities list. Breaking the bad news is left to the Anheuser-Busch team which is, at least for time being, still in St. Louis.

More from the Press Release:

The creation of AnheuserBusch InBev will generate significant growth opportunities from leveraging the company’s combined brand portfolio, including its global flagship brands Budweiser, Stella Artois and Beck’s, its leading global distribution network and by applying best practices across the new organization. In addition, over 40% of the newly combined company’s earnings are now generated in the United States, which has become the company’s largest market.

The establishment of an office in New York would enable management to better support the realization of these opportunities and day-to-day management of the business. The office would host functional management heads together with members of their marketing, finance, people, supply and legal teams.

There’s no mention whatsoever of St. Louis in the press release itself, though in the AP Story they’re reporting that “St. Louis, where Anheuser-Busch was founded, will remain the head office for its North American operations.” But InBev had emphatically promised that St. Louis would remain HQ for AB-InBev in the New World, so it seems odd they wouldn’t address those concerns in the press release and leave it to reporters to suss out.

The spin is that St. Louis will remain U.S. HQ for the Anheuser-Busch brands but that New York will be an office for all the InBev brands. Apparently InBev will layoff as many as 89 Belgian workers and Carlos Brito (InBev CEO) and their CFO will split time between the New York and Belgium offices. The Belgian office will become HQ for Western Europe, St. Louis will be HQ for North America with the New York office hosting “management heads and employees in marketing, finance, supply and legal.” But InBev will continue to host shareholder meetings and most Board meetings, too, in Belgium. That sure seems confusing as to where the hierarchy will lie between Belgium, New York and St. Louis. And it sure seems like an end run around their promise to St. Louis. Since this move is being sold as a cost-cutting measure, how inconceivable is it that this is also laying the groundwork to say in the future that some or all of the functions in St. Louis will move to New York to cut even more costs? Sure sounds plausible to me.

Almost every serious beer lover I know also loves wine, at least to some degree. And while you’ll hear folks — myself included — despair that wine gets all the attention from the mainstream media while beer has to fight for every column inch, you rarely, if ever, hear beer writers disparage the product itself. That’s true of winemakers, especially, who often say quite candidly that “it takes a lot of beer to make good wine.” And judging by the sales figures, most consumers seem to happily consume both beer and wine (among much else). So could somebody please tell me why so many wine writers have their heads up their asses when it comes to beer? This is getting seriously ridiculous. Every few months it seems some prominent (and not so prominent) wine writer goes on the attack against beer in some misguided belief that it’s a wine vs. beer world. I just don’t understand the rationale. It’s sad, and not a little pathetic. Are they afraid of beer becoming wine’s equal in terms of public perception? Is that going to make their careers suffer? How is tearing down beer somehow raising the status of wine? And where did this idea that the two are in any way rivals even come from? I mean, seriously, what the fuck?

The latest shot across the self-manufactured bow comes from across the pond. It was sent to me by a Bulletin reader (thanks Glen) who referred to the author as “either a world-class douche bag or the world’s greatest troll, [he] can’t decide which. This tool and his ilk are almost wholly responsible for [his] disdain of wine and all things oenological.” After reading it, I can’t say I disagree with his assessment. Malcolm Gluck is, by all accounts, a well-respected British wine writer who writes a column — Superplonk — in the Guardian newspaper.

Today in the Guardian’s Word of Mouth Blog he spewed out the following in a post entitled Join the Wine Revolution:

50 years ago only 5% of the nation [The UK] drank wine. Now it is nearer six times that, pubs struggle to sell beer, and the amount of wine imported keep on rising. Why? Well, beer is only drunk by losers and sadsacks, unsexy people who care nothing for their minds or their bodies.

That’s point one. Point two is that wine goes with the spicy foods we like (which no beer does), is much more of a communal activity and, when it comes down to it, encourages livelier and more intelligent conversation. When was the last time you heard a beer drinker pass a witty remark? Beer drinkers are also terrible lovers, awful husbands, and untidy flatmates.

Well-known British beer writer Roger Protz has already written a short rebuttal in the Guardian, that’s linked from the original piece. In Let’s Hear It For Beer, he points out that “even wine-obsessed Oz Clarke is enjoying the current renaissance in British brewing.” Protz continues:

I don’t deny that sales of wine have increased in Britain. But we still drink far more beer: wine has overtaken beer in the off-trade but beer easily outsells it in pubs, in spite of the best efforts of Gluck’s much-loved Labour government to knacker the pub trade with the smoking ban and regular hikes in beer duty.

Beer is in fact enjoying a remarkable renaissance. I’m talking of craft beer, quality beer, brewed by craftsmen, not the bland and tasteless Euro-fizz produced by global brewers. Close to 250 new craft breweries have opened in the past three years. There are more than 500 breweries operating in Britain and choice and diversity have never been better. Thanks to the efforts of craft brewers, drinkers have a profusion of choice, with good old mild and bitter joined by genuine India Pale Ales, porters, stouts, old ales and barley wines and new styles such as golden ales and fruit beers.

While sales of mass-produced lagers are in freefall, the demand for craft beers has seen their sales rise by more than 10% a year. This should be welcomed, not decried with the kind of mindless abuse used by Malcolm Gluck. Britain is a country with a proud brewing heritage, a heritage now enjoying a spirited revival. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Malcolm, but beer will not go away.

My friend and colleague Martyn Cornell likewise commented in the Guardian, and also on his Zythophile blog:

How very sad that this could be written in one of the greatest brewing nations in the world, even in jest. Malcolm, you’re badly dissing the thousands of dedicated people who work in Britain’s 550-plus new small breweries, and its surviving family brewers, producing world-beating beers. I can’t understand how any professional drinks writer could write something that appeared to show he knew nothing about what was happening at places such as Meantime in Greenwich, Thornbridge in Derbyshire or BrewDog in Scotland, to name only three.

But let’s look at this another way. It’s obviously meant to be provocative because it’s too absolutely bellicose to be taken seriously. If Gluck means what he writes, he’s an obvious idiot who no one could possibly take seriously and if he doesn’t, well then he’s an irrelevant charlatan who will soon be ignored and no one will take seriously. So it begs the question. Why do it? Can the momentary flutter of the hit count rising and a deluge of angry commenters be worth showing the world you know nothing about that which you claim to be an expert? Because who but the snobbishly effete would continue to hang on his every word about wine, yet that’s not even his core audience. In a review of his book Superplonk, he’s described as a “self-styled champion of the ordinary wine drinker, fighting against the perceived snobbery and stuffiness of the wine world.” What person who fits that description would ever agree with his opinion or indeed, wouldn’t have the occasional beer? The simple answer? No one. I can’t imagine a more snobbish opinion so it’s doubly odd to me that he considers himself a friend of the anti-snob.

I hope I don’t have to make it clear that I’m not speaking about most wine writers, but only a vanishingly small number of them. I know many, many wine writers who don’t hate beer and would never think of attacking it. But the fact remains that I know of not one instance where a beer writer attacked wine. Perhaps a very thorough search might uncover one, but that in and of itself is telling. This is not a war. A war involves two sides. It’s snobbish terrorism. This is certain wine writers deciding for no appreciable reason to pick on beer, to attack it unprovoked.

Toward the end of today’s anti-beer invective, Gluck refers to himself as a “professional booze hack,” which I’d offer is only half right. He’s shown himself to be an obvious hack — I’ll grant him that — but he’s in no way a professional. Hopefully, enough people will recognize that fact and he will indeed become irrelevant. But I’m left wondering why so many wine writers see fit to attack beer. It makes no sense. They’re both wonderful alcoholic beverages that each have their merits. There’s no reason the world can’t include both. It’s not a contest. Almost everyone in the world seems to get that. Too bad the people who don’t often have a byline.

What are your plans for Saturday? Say, around 5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (a.k.a. California time; I trust the rest of you can figure it out from there, it’s 8:00 p.m. EST, for example)? Consider joining me — and as many people around the world as want to — for the first live beer tasting using Twitter by way of Twitter Taste Live! Twitter Taste Live was set up originally to do real time sampling of wine but they’ve discovered a demand for other tastings, such as spirits, cigars, food and, naturally, beer.

As far as I know this is the first simultaneous beer tasting using Twitter, so I’m excited by the possibilities it affords. I’ve been asked to co-host the event so I’ll be right there twittering away and answering any questions as they arise. The first tasting is called an Introduction to Trappist Ales and will feature four beers from two Belgian Trappist breweries, Chimay and Westmalle. Both are widely available which should make it easier for a lot of people to participate. The two Chimays will be Chimay Red and the Tripel (which is the one with the white or cream colored label). Chimay is imported by Manneken-Brussel Imports in Austin, Texas. The two Westmalle beers are the Dubbel and the Tripel. They’re imported by Merchant du Vin in Seattle, Washington.

All four beers should be widely available in most states, though you may need to find a retailer who specializes in better beer. Unless you live in an impressive neighborhood, your corner liquor store will probably not have them.

Essentially, the way it works is like this:

1. Sign up for a FREE Twitter Taste Live account.
2. Pick up the four beers we’ll be tasting. (You don’t have to do all four, of course, you can taste just one of each if you prefer. It’s up to you.)
3. At the designated time, 5 p.m. PST (8 p.m. EST), log into Twitter Taste Live!
4. Drink
5. Tweet
6. Repeat

You could do it alone in your house, or with others in a group, each on their individual laptops, PDAs, Blackberrys, etc. I’d say it’s probably preferable to do it in a small group, but however you want to do it, give it a try. It should be fun. I’d certainly like to get a good turnout of beer people to show that we’re as serious about tasting our favorite beverage as are those who prefer grape juice and other spirited drinks. Stop by if you can, drink in hand. Happy tweeting.

The Beer Chef’s first beer dinner of 2009 will feature the “The Unique Beers of North Coast Brewing Co.” from Fort Bragg, California. It will be a three-course dinner and well worth the $70 price of admission. It will be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on Friday, January 23, 2009, beginning with a reception at 6:30 p.m. Call 415.674.3406 for reservations by January 15, if possible. I’ll see you there.

The Menu:

Reception: 6:30 PM

Beer Chef’s Hors D’Oeuvre

Beer: Red Seal Ale and Pranqster Golden Ale

Dinner: 7:30 PM

First Course

Salad of Peppercress, Peeky Toe Crab. Humboldt Fog Goat Cheese and Satsuma Mandarins

Beer: Le Merle Belgian Style Farmhouse Ale

Second Course:

Coffee Crusted Duck Leg Confit with Caramelized Fennel and Four Cheese Ravioli

Beer: Brother Thelonius Belgian Style Abbey Ale

Third Course:

Molten Chocolate Cake with Old Stock Ice Cream and Smoked Paprika Sabayon

Beer: Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout

Two of the North Coast beers that will be featured at the dinner.

 
1.23

Dinner with the Brewmaster: North Coast Brewing

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