Sad news to report this Monday. Rob McFerren co-founder of Wolf Creek Brewery and Restaurant in the Santa Clarita Valley passed away at the start of the year. Wolf Creek’s history stretches back all the way to 1997. That is a long time in the Southern California beer history timeline. Both Rob and Laina have been stalwarts in the LA County Brewers Guild. Those are just two reasons that this is a blow to the beer community. You will probably see many heartfelt remembrances from brewers and breweries impacted by his life.
I’m jus going to revel in the fact that Newsom and his buddy are getting sued by what is a pretty benevolent association for the most part. So, you go ahead and read on…
“The California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) and breweries from across the state of California announced today the filing of a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Governor Gavin Newsom and California State Public Health (CDPH) Officer Sandra Shewry alleging constitutional violations, including denying beer manufacturers their equal protection rights by requiring them to serve a meal to operate a tasting room, but not applying those requirements equitably across the entire alcohol beverage manufacturing industry.
Current guidelines for reopening issued by the CDPH on July 1, 2020 permits a gradual reopening of businesses, including restaurants, wineries, retailers and other industries. The recent orders broaden the scope of winery privileges, allowing the state’s more than 4,000 wine makers and winery tasting rooms more generous reopening privileges than the state’s 1,050 craft breweries.
In current reopening guidelines, craft breweries are required to provide a sit-down meal in order to reopen their outdoor tasting areas, but the same onerous requirement is not imposed on wine manufacturers. This split guidance creates an arbitrary and unjust distinction between wine manufacturers and beer manufactures. The complaint alleges that this distinction made between manufacturers in the same industry is not based on any difference between the two businesses or their ability to operate safely and does not directly support COVID-19 mitigation efforts, which are widely supported and followed by craft brewers across the state of California.
“When it is time to begin the reopening of businesses in 2021, we need to ensure that a single industry is not arbitrarily divided based on unfounded assumptions,” said CCBA executive director, Tom McCormick. “We want to ensure that the craft brewing industry has the same privileges and the same pathway as other alcohol beverage manufacturers to reopen, re-employ and re-build next year.”
Wineries and breweries are identical manufacturing facilities that operate with the same “risk factors” as identified by the CDPH. The wine industry, which boasts more than 4,000 wineries located all across the state of California, have very similar if not identical tasting rooms to the 1,050 craft breweries. The sole difference between wineries and breweries is the product they produce: wine or beer. Both winery and brewery businesses are indistinguishable in their processes and privileges and should be assigned the same guidelines for reopening by the state.
“The orders from the CDPH unjustly target the small 1,050 craft breweries operating across the state of California. The CCBA urges the CDPH to reassess the current divisive and confusing reopening guidelines so that these small businesses can find a pathway to survive in 2021,” said McCormick.”
I think it was very smart to position this for 2021 and beyond and to do it as the vaccine is rolling out. Hopefully state government will start making less choices based on expediency and more on common sense.
The California Craft Brewers Association has announced that Tom McCormick who has led the statewide advocacy group will be leaving after 15 years. Hopefully the successor will be able to chart a new path through our new world but will do so with the same vigor. In change comes opportunity.
It is easy to look at our shit-acular situation here in the US and get mired in it like quicksand. But the rest of the world isn’t doing so well when faced with Covid.
Case in point, England is having a new set of restrictions. I am posting before the MP vote but it looks well certain that pubs and bars will be closed for anything but takeaway business.
The economics of beer in Britain is very different from the United States but we as beer fans had better be watching because things aren’t THAT different when you factor in a pandemic. That really just scythes through everything.
What worries me most is that creativity will get stifled. Who knows what new beer trends might have come from “across the pond”. We need the pollination of new ideas from every corner of the globe to keep our niche industry vital and alive.
And selfishly, I want to take trips to London and have a CAMRA approved Ale in a historic pub. 2029 seems to have other plans though.
As much as it pains me to write these words, I do not see myself attending a beer event until at least March of next year. It also pains me to think that 2020 might not be the only year called a dumpster fire either.
The reason I say this is because, as I work the timeline backwards from February would require a workable vaccine to be found about, oh, now. Why? Because to ramp up vaccine production and get it distributed and then get the remaining Americans to get the shot is going to take time, three months or so is my eyeball reckoning. If we can get the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers to participate.
Then breweries who have not already pushed their events will need to quick time hustle to safely hold a festival and have all the special beer glass made, tickets sold, beers brewed with a diminished post office and airline and hotel industry. Oh and no one wanting to Lyft in or out.
And if all the timing breaks right, you now have to convince fans to come out to what will be a smaller festival because there will be some breweries who will be reluctant to attend.
More hop news from Yakima Chief via the interwebs and the virtual hop season… plus some extra tidbits from perusing what competitor Hopsteiner has going…
Hop blends were initially created to mimic single hops that had low supply but now tend towards charity or group blends such as Pink Boots or Falconers Flight
The next blend evolution may be in Cryo
The employees who seam up bales are really good at what must be a loud and repetitive job with high throughput pressure
Sad comment on fires, one of the Carpenter clan made the rueful joke, “had to light up a cigarette to get a breath of fresh air”
Will hop extracts be celebrated like fresh hop and whole leaf. Just doesn’t seem to have the It Factor.
Hop scientific research seems to be a growing field
Weird fact, there have been studies that show music has an impact on flavor perception
I really want to visit this magical Sports Center bar I never Yakima
Hop selection may seem fun but having two or three days where you smell nothing but hops is tiring
More hop news from Yakima Chief via the interwebs and the virtual hop season… plus some extra tidbits from perusing what competitor Hopsteiner has going…
Be on the lookout for HBC 630 with a cherry candy aroma and HBC 638 with a lime focus amidst other citrus
survivalable compounds is something we are going to hear more about. It will make timing and choice of hops more exacting
Yakima Chief Ranches grows blueberries too and Gascony bison!
Hopsteiner has a way cool video about their picking operation. No bringing in full bines. They strip the hops off right in the field
the amount of smelling that goes on to collect data is amazing. 100s of hops are give s sensory analysis
a hop might go to market because it has a different picking window than the other hops in the field
there was a really cool hour long video about Russian breweries. Makes me want to go to St. Petersburg.
Hopsteiner has introduced a newly named hop to the world, “Altus™ is dank with spicy tangerine and herbal, grassy notes. Booming with high alpha and oil content, Altus™ is the perfect dual-purpose flavor-forward bittering hop and has changed the way we typically look at high alpha varieties. From a Mexican Lager all the way up the pike to a triple IPA, Altus™ can repurpose itself in many recipes for those who dare to explore the creative potentials behind this variety.”
Altus™ is derived “from an Apollo and Wye Target cross.”
Notice that the graphic includes a pepper along with the fruit. That is where my interest is piqued. Will it add the effects of heat? Or will it spin as something lighter? Spicy tangerine are not a pairing I have seen before.
And if any other names are unveiled, I hope they aren’t forced to use the same five letters as Talus and Altus.
It can be easy to fill with rage or despair when it comes to the blatant racism out in the world. But I would say it is better to channel that emotion into education. And the beer world is lucky to have the Learning Center website to turn to.
There are paid courses, a reading room and a blog to gather information from. Once you are an ally, you can get your friends to be allies and then the momentum can start rolling into policy and law and then we can move to the glorious point in time where there is no inequity in taprooms or anywhere.
Chalk up another W for pivoting to computer screens. Even the hop picking season, the spring training of the beer calendar has moved online. Here is what I learned from the first week of the Yakima Chief Virtual Harvest…
Hops can combust so hop warehouses have a fire watch system
Newly named hop, Talus has a spa like quality to it
Genetic testing is a big deal
Coconut fiber is used for the bines to climb and the workers who knot it at the top are highly prized and so good at their job that no machine can do the work faster
The logistics of which hops to pick first and when to switch to a different varietal is daunting
Data from this harvest is already being used for the 2021 harvest
I want to work at the Yakima Chief Aroma Dome
A hop delivery can be offloaded, tagged and tested in thirty minutes
There was a hop that had a Hefeweizen aroma to it but it did not make the cut
