The decline of the British pub has been much lamented in the UK press recently, with statistics thrown about on the order of 36 pub closings each week. A British publican friend tells me, however, that he thinks those numbers are overblown and that it’s the badly run ones that are closing — and then reopening a month later under new ownership. Whatever the reasons, the English pub is certainly in decline, with many reasons given for the current state of affairs.

“Tax hikes, combined with the ban on smoking in public places and supermarkets selling beer as a significant lost leader — to the extent that it is cheaper than bottled water — have all had a negative impact on a struggling industry.

“While pubs have served a historic role, off-trade has always existed alongside, providing consumer freedom of choice. However, economically, off-trade — thanks to the supermarkets — is now clearly a serious challenge with an annual turnover of about £13 billion almost matching pub sales. The Government must address these issues before further harm is done to the battered pub trade.”

More than 50 MPs have backed a Commons motion criticising supermarkets for selling alcohol cheaper than bottled water.

If American bars were closing at a similar rate, I doubt very much our government would lift a finger to do anything. But unlike on our side of the pond, the UK government actually seems to care what happens to English pubs. Some 400 MPs of all parties belong to the APPBG, with another 60 honorary MEP members. The APPBG is the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, and has been in existence for many years. It’s somewhat similar to our recently formed Small Brewers Caucus (which boasts only 34 members). The chair of the group is John Grogan, a member of the Labour party. The APPBG’s charter states the group’s purpose is as follows.

To promote the wholesomeness and enjoyment of beer and the unique role of the pub in UK society; to increase understanding of the social, cultural and historic role of brewing and pubs in the UK, and their value to tourism; to broaden recognition of the contribution of brewing and pubs to employment and to the UK’s economy; to promote understanding of the social responsibility exercised by the brewing and pub industries; to support the UK’s brewing industry worldwide, and to promote a positive future for beer and the pub.

Yesterday, the APPBG published the results of their Community Pub Inquiry, a two year study of pubs in the UK. Effectively, they discovered what everyone already knew; that “the ability of big stores to offer beer or lager for as little as 90p for four cans — while a pint in a pub often costs drinkers seven times as much — [is leading] to a decline of the pub as a social center where drinking [can] be controlled.”

The panel is recommending that the UK government change the tax structure on alcohol, lowering it significantly for draught beer in order to protect the pub trade, which they characterized as “national icons.” Taxes currently constitute at least a third of the price of a pint, giving supermarkets a big advantage because they can absorb the taxes in other high profit items they sell, using beer as a loss leader to get people into their stores.

Other suggestions the panel made included “legally enforceable minimum prices for beer,” which many U.S. states have. In California, for example, it is illegal to sell beer at below cost precisely to avoid the problem the UK beer market is experiencing.

In the UK’s Guardian newspaper, they elaborated on the panel’s goals.

“This side of the pub trade has been largely overlooked in media coverage of licensing hours, law and order and binge drinking, and other problems more typically associated with large town centre pubs and bars… action taken in response to problems with perhaps 5 or 10% of the trade have caused further problems for the other 90 or 95%.”

Nigel Evans, the Conservative MP for Ribble Valley and co-chair of the inquiry, said: “We cannot sit back and let these gems disappear. They are the heart of the community. It is where all community life in some rural areas takes place.”

CAMRA endorsed the study’s findings and suggestions, adding.

A cut in tax on draught beer would reduce the price gap between pubs and supermarkets leading to more people enjoying a drink in the regulated environment of the community pub and not at home or in the street,” said Camra chief executive Mike Benner.

“The report is a big step forward and has many positive suggestions for Government. I hope it will be the catalyst for a change in approach, which struggling community pubs so desperately need.”

It’s nice to see a government actually embrace the positive aspects of alcohol in people’s lives instead of the incessant attacks we get here in the U.S. It’s obviously a complicated issue and it’s hard for me to say whether their recommendations have a chance of being implemented or not, or even if they are, whether they will do any good. But I certainly appreciate the effort, and more importantly that politicians can see pubs as more than something to simply demonize. I’d love to see some of our politicians be brave enough to do the same, but in our climate of zealotry and fanaticism, I imagine coming out in favor of alcohol, even the responsible kind, would be political suicide.

I know it’s incredibly unfair of me, but I don’t normally think of Nebraska as having more common sense than my own liberal state, but the proof is right there in a decision handed down today by the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission. Of course, my only experience in Nebraska was driving through it on a cross-country trip over twenty-five years ago, but it’s clear to me I have to rethink my left coast bias.

The neo-prohibitionist group Project Extra Mile had petitioned the state to reclassify alcopops as spirits in an effort to raise the taxes on them 1200%. California did the same thing earlier this year, though they were successful in lying to our state Congress and misleading them into believing that there is any appreciable amount of spirits in alcopops. They are now, and always have been, malt-based beverages and properly considered a part of the beer family. Any other story is pure propaganda. That’s the way the federal government classifies them, and that’s who Nebraska cited in refusing to bow to the neo-prohibitionist group’s demands to reclassify them in their ruling released today.

Congratulations to reason. Score one for common sense.

I was catching up on some periodical reading this morning, looking through this month’s Playboy. The October issue featured the Big 10 and I came upon a blurb that included a tailgating recipe for a beer sauce for bratwursts inspired by Wisconsin’s love of sausages. The recipe itself comes from Bratwurst Pages, a Wisconsin-centric food website. Their two pieces of advice for enjoying bratwurst to the fullest are 1) use Sheboygan hard rolls, and 2) “never, ever defile them with yellow mustard.”

From the beginning, though, there are three steps to this method — simmering, grilling, and holding. Playboy leaves out the grilling and simmering part, and only lists the sauce recipe, which is referred to as a holding sauce. So first read his specific directions on what to do before the sauce comes into play.

The holding sauce recipe is enough for ten bratwursts and sounds pretty tasty to me. Here is the BratwurstPages Savory Beer Sauce:

For 10 brats, put the following ingredients in a pot:

• 2-14.5 ounce cans stewed tomatoes
• 2 bottles or cans beer
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

Mix ingredients and bring to a simmer. Hold grilled brats in sauce until ready to eat. Do not let sauce boil.

Still, my favorite part is the way he ends the instructions. “In Wisconsin, nearly everyone drinks beer while grilling brats. Hey, it’s part of the culinary technique, so just do it.” Now that’s advice I can follow.

Senator Barack Obama holds a commanding lead over Senator John McCain – 10,238 votes (55 percent) to 8,411 votes (45 percent), as of October 21 — in The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium’s 2008 Presidential Election Poll.

Sixpoint Craft Ales in Brooklyn, New York has released an IPA called Hop Obama, though at 42-44 IBUs it doesn’t sound like too much of a hop bomb, at least not to my extreme west coast hop sensibilities. But perhaps a more centrist IPA is in keeping with Obama’s political leanings.

The Beer Chef, Bruce Paton, hosted his first cheese and beer dinner October 20, with Sheana Davis providing the cheese knowledge portion of the dinner, with beers from San Francisco Brewers Guild. The dinner was sold out and began with four San Francisco beers and a variety of cheeses and other appetizers made using cheese, such as lamb cheeseburger sliders and tomato soup with a wedge of grilled cheese sandwich in each cup.

After the cheese and beer dinner. From left, Arne Johnson (Marin Brewing), Aron Derosey (Beach Chalet), Bruce Paton, Sheana Davis, Ben Spencer (Magnolia), Ron from 21A, Brenden Dobbel (Thirsty Bear) and Rich Higgins (Gordon Biersch).

For more photos from the cheese and beer dinner, visit the photo gallery.
 

Leave it to Alec Moss and the folks at Half Moon Bay Brewing to come up with a unique way to decide the election. Coincidentally, their beer line is named Maverick’s and they’ve come up with two new tap handles and labels for their popular Harbor Light Ale, which their website describes as “a light colored beer brewed with European malt and hops. Lager-like flavor and a light, clean aftertaste.” Though the beer is the same, they’ve labeled one beer for Barack Obama and another for John McCain. At the bar, the tap handle on the left features Obama and the tap handle on the right has McCain.

Half Moon Bay’s alection is then tracking sales of both the draft varieties and also 22 oz. bottles, which likewise feature two different labels for each of the candidates. Bottles can be found at the brewpub and also at select bay area retailers (and can be purchased online, but only in California).

So far, Obama has outsold McCain 5,048 to 1,336. I’m not sure how often it’s updated, but there is a tally online. As the Half Moon Bay alection puts it, vote early and often.

It’s no secret that I used to be a Star Trek fan. From the time I was a kid in the early 1970s, I watched the original series most afternoons after school. Once it hit its stride in season two or three, I thoroughly enjoyed The Next Generation, too. Nut I stopped there and never really watched the series that followed afterward, at least not beyond a few disappointing episodes of DS9. So overall, despite having owned a stuffed Tribble as a 10-year old, I was more of a Trekker than Trekkie, a small but important distinction in the world of fandom. So when I stumbled on this website earlier today, it made me want to dust off my old VHS copies of Star Trek. The only thing that prevented that was the fact that I got rid of them several years ago because I hadn’t watched them in many, many years.

Beer Trek is, of course, a drinking game. It’s hosted by Planet of the Geeks and bills itself as “The Greatest Star Trek Drinking Game in the Universe!” And while such boasting may be hard to prove, I certainly don’t know of a better one. It’s a standard enough take on the TV/movie watching type of drinking game, where everybody drinks whenever a certain action takes place on screen or whenever a character says a particular phrase. But with Beer Trek there appear to something on the order of 350 or more separate rules, not including footnoted rules and advanced rules, which even include meta-rules. Plus, the rules can be filtered for rules that are only good for the original series or one of the newer ones. It looks like the game has been up on the web for over ten years, but I never came across it until today. If you need a reason to drink while watching Star Trek, and lord knows it can’t hurt, this may be the perfect vehicle to make it through another viewing.

The Saturday night session of GABF always used to be the most crowded, most crazy night of the week, at least on the floor of the festival. With sold out crowds for every session, it’s no longer the most crowded, but it still retains the title of the craziest night. After a short break after the afternoon session, where the awards are handed out, the evening session begins right on time, at 5:30 p.m. Many brewery attendees don’t even go to the Saturday night session, because of its reputation, but I usually stay for as long as I can manage the crowds.

Waiting for the train to crazy town.

A sextet from San Francisco. From left: Adrienne McMullem, with 21st Amendment, Ben Spencer, from Magnolia, Sean Paxton, the homebrew chef, Ben’s wife, Shaun O’Sullivan, from 21sr Amendment, and Dave McLean, from Magnolia.

For many more photos from this year’s Great American Beer Festival Saturday night, visit the photo gallery.

People keep calling me names (or at least disparaging the things I keep writing) for pointing out the connection between John McCain and Anheuser-Busch, as if business and politics together is merely coincidental. Sorry boys and girls, but I will never believe that business intruding into politics is good for ordinary citizens or that it ever makes our lives any better. Its obvious ubiquitousness doesn’t make it any more right and is hardly a reason to give up and stop talking about it.

The problem is the contradiction between statements and actions. As Balko describes it:

McCain has never been shy about laying into what he feels are the excesses of capitalism, including the way lobbyists can bribe lawmakers to jigger the system to their liking. The problem for McCain is that the fortune he married into came by way of alcohol wholesaling, an industry that isn’t remotely free market, is awash in excess, and that wouldn’t exist were it not for rigorous system-jiggering from high-powered lobbyists.

Now I probably don’t have to tell you that I think the three-tier system does have some merits, though it has problems, too, and Balko goes on to highlight a number of those. I have many friends who work for beer distributors and most of the ones I know are hardworking, good people who have done much to raise the status of and, most importantly, the accessibility to craft beer.

The article spends most of its ink on detailing the history of how beer distributorships came into being and how they function. Many large retailers, notably Costco, would like to dismantle the three-tier system, and in fact they sued the State of Washington recently in a much-watched test case. Eventually, the court ruled against Costco in all but one of their arguments, citing a compelling state interest to regulate alcohol sales. But the fight is hardly over. Costco — and Balko — see the three-tier system as merely a way to keep a stranglehold on the pricing of alcohol and gouge customers, but that’s not entirely true, either.

The three-tier system, for all its flaws, does at least keep a relatively level playing field for all sizes of retailers, from the smallest mom and pop corner liquor store to the Costcos and Walmarts of the world. Dismantle it without a coherent new plan to regulate alcohol, as Costco vs. Washington sought to do, and a massive advantage will be given to large retailers, as well as the biggest beer companies. This would have enormous negative consequences for small, local craft brewers in gaining access to market and would likely put the brakes on thirty years of progress in re-invigorating America’s beer market, taking us from laughingstock to world leader in terms of quality and diversity in three short decades.

So what does this have to do with politics, again? Balko concludes by answering that question thusly:

But let’s get back to John McCain. What does the candidate lecturing Wall Street about greed think about the alcohol wholesaling industry? Is it fair? Should government be subsidizing (if not outright creating) an industry by forcing consumers to pay more for alcohol—for which they get little to no added value in return? And who’s greedier, the family who exploits that system to amass a small fortune, or the brokers and traders McCain derides for pursuing profits in a free market?

So is it “silly” or “unrealistic” (which are some of the gentler epithets lobbied at me) to worry that putting a President in the white house with ties to Anheuser-Busch specifically and the big alcohol lobby generally will not result in a boon for their interests? After all, businesses don’t donate money just to be good corporate citizens. There’s always some sort of quid pro quo. As Balko mentions obliquely, as a senator, McCain has usually recused “himself from federal legislation pertaining to alcohol regulation.” But if John McCain is elected President next month, he will no longer have that option. Does anybody really think his ties to A-B won’t matter under such circumstances? If not, your Kool-Aid must be better than mine, and well above 5% ABV.