Category: Opinion

my humble and correct opinion

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Documentary Conditioned

Beer documentaries are always welcome to me which is why I hope the year in a Lambic life movie, Bottle Conditioned is on my list to find. Below is the blurb from the production…

“This film chronicles an entire year of lambic production, while getting to know the brewers and blenders in the Zenne River Valley of Belgium. Bound by a common passion for lambic beer, their approach and ideologies differ when it comes to upholding traditional methods of brewing and protecting this heritage. Moreover, with the recent rush in demand for this beer, new lambic brewers and blenders are emerging- something inconceiveable ten years ago- and they’re pushing the bounderies of tradition. This leaves the question: what does the future hold for this community, in a region defined by its traditions?”

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Premier Beer

English Football is moving from pre-season to regular season and, as opposed to American stadiums and arenas, the beer prices ain’t bad.

12. Manchester United – £5.10

= West Ham – £5

= Tottenham – £5

11. Brighton – £4.95

10. Leicester – £4.75

9. Aston Villa – £4.60

8. Chelsea – £4.40

7. Arsenal – £4.30

6. Crystal Palace – £4.20

5. Liverpool – £4

= Everton – £4

= Southampton – £4

= Fulham – £4

4. Nottingham Forest – £3.70

= Wolves – £3.70

3. Newcastle – £3.60

= Leeds United – £3.60

2. Brentford – £3.50

1. Manchester City – £3.40

Of course, there are more restrictions to when and where you can drink but a session beer is grand.

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Sewage

NEWBrew from Singapore has a new blonde ale. How is that news, you say? It is brewed using recycled sewage.  You read that correctly.

It is a joint effort between Brewerkz, a local craft brewery, and Singapore’s national water agency.

To keep the all caps NEW going, NEWBrew uses NEWater. According to an article at FoodBeast, “NEWater is made using ultraviolet light to disinfect sewage followed by passing the liquid through advanced membranes and removing contaminant particles. What remains after the process, the brand asserts, is simply clean water.”

Considering that many breweries alter water based on their supply or a particular beer style, if this NEWater is neutral and has proof of no other issues, it might be worth trying.

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The Firkin for July 2022

New Jersey breweries are now limited to the following:

• Hosting only 25 on-site activities per year (Events such as trivia, live music, etc.)
• Host only 52 private parties per year
• Attend only 12 off premises events per year

In addition to the above, this ruling also prohibits breweries from the following:

• Selling coffee on site
• Collaborating/ coordinating with food vendors/ trucks
• Selling food or operating a restaurant
• Selling specialty cocktails using malt alcohol
• Offering a free drink to any guest
• Offer Happy Hour pricing

You can read more about it right HERE and it is not good for beer. And it just seems to be yet another instance where one industry that should be tight with beer seem to want to knock them down a peg.

Why can’t restaurants work “with” breweries? Why can’t a coffee roaster create a special beer with a brewery and sell their coffee at the taproom? How does limiting 12 off premises events help anyone? Especially charities that get funds from beer festivals.

Other beer writing voices have chimed in on this with exasperation and I expect that New Jersey will water down these rules or selectively enforce them. What may also happen is that breweries go into the restaurant business to work around some of these rules.

As a show of solidarity, I will be highlighting New Jersey breweries all next month.

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The Next Movie / TV Tie-In Beer

Where is the next TV or Movie that spawns a beer series instead of just a plethora of branded cereals and logo’d t-shirts.

It seems that Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones beers are hanging on with all their might for prequels and sequels later this year and the next to juice up sales again. To be honest, I am not excited by an Iron Throne beer in 2022.

But nothing else seems to have made enough of a cultural mark to merit a NEW series of beers. The last crafty-ish tie-in that I thought looked cool was a Parks and Rec Scotch. And that is labeled Nick Offerman and not Ron Swanson.

Stranger Things has all sorts of ’80s nostalgia to mine or just use the creature names in a line of chocolate candy styled stouts. Vecna’s #001 Imperial Stout or Mind Flayer Milk Stout. But nothing. Maybe due to the main stars (under)age over the years of the show.

Maybe the new Star Trek could engage on a Brave New (brew) Worlds of beers. Red Shirt Red Ale, Captain Pike’s Old Ale. Anything to bring a bit of creativity to both entertainment and brewing.

There is no shortage of rated R shows. No shortage of shows or movies that people talk about. I don’t think streaming killed this particular golden goose.

I would like a What We Do In the Shadows beer. Anyone up for Gizmo’s Old Workd Grodziskie?

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Novel

Since I am in the Rose City, here is a connected to Portland post from the Beervana blog.

I will wait here for you to read….

Back? Cool.

The Novelty Curve or the similar Live Long Enough to Become the Villain corollary is a tough one to escape. Looking at coffee as an example, Starbucks had 46 shops back in 1989 and were a small part of the Specialty Coffee Association. Now, Starbucks is closer to Folgers than specialty coffee.

To negate this move, some breweries just start sub-brands with distinctive branding like Offshoot Beer with The Bruery or Hello Friend with The Rare Barrel to zig around this trap. Others just change marketing or design at frequent intervals so that consumers may re-notice a beer. Others double and triple down on a beer with long legs and extend out from that point, I am thinking about the myriad Yeti versions in the beer multiverse.

All viable paths but none really treat the root cause, craft beer fans with zero attention spans. I have to admit a preference for buying single cans and justify it with the I am writing about it, trying to keep up with trends excuse.

Once a fickle fan feels something is stale, they move on unless a brewery can dangle another, shinier object in front of them.

What to do? Well, a brewery should not jump at the first signs of being uncool. Instead lean into explaining even more why you brew what you brew. Make your experimental beers taproom specials and keep them to a minimum. It may seem better to crank out new IPAs each week but there leads the path of stale by overdoing it.

The other suggestion is to find the less fickle, work to get more women, more non-whiteys, older folks too. Canvas the blocks around your neighborhood. If the fan is a moving target, look for those who ain’t moving.

I don’t claim to have the best answers but maybe being awkward is OK.

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1/4

Even though Milwaukee is spelled a little oddly to this writer’s eyes since I am from Milwaukie, the cause espoused is in need of attention so I band together for this new collaborative charity beer.

“This October, Third Space Brewing will release an IPA called One In Four to raise funds and awareness for domestic violence prevention.

One in four women and one in nine men have experienced some form of domestic violence, according to the CDC. “We chose this staggering statistic for the name of the beer to help start conversations within local communities about the prevalence of domestic violence” said Matt Cisz, Lead Brewer at Third Space Brewing and creator of One In Four. “When you lose a family member to domestic violence, all you want to do is find a way to prevent it from happening to anyone else,” shared Cisz.

Third Space Brewing is encouraging breweries across the country to join the effort by brewing the One In Four collaboration beer to be released in October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Breweries wishing to join the project may sign up HERE. Third Space Brewing will share the recipe and label artwork with participating breweries. Industry partners Malteurop Malting Company, Yakima Chief Hops and Blue Label Packaging will also join the effort by offering discounts on materials for brewing and packaging One In Four.

Participating breweries are encouraged to donate proceeds to the National CoalitionAgainst Domestic Violence (NCADV) or a local organization of their choosing that supports those who have been affected by domestic violence or intimate partner
violence. Third Space Brewing will donate all profits from the sale of its One In Four beer to Sojourner Family Peace Center, the largest nonprofit provider of domestic violence prevention and intervention services in Wisconsin.”

And don’t claim burnout from charity beers, you have the easy job of buying and drinking.

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The Latest Salvo

Hopsteiner has added to their brand line with the new “Salvo™ is an aroma extract that delivers impactful variety-specific flavor. Bittering acids have been removed to explicitly enhance flavor and aroma with little to no added bitterness.”

This part may be too inside mash tun talk but when everything is costing more nowadays, it becomes a more salient point, “Salvo™ is best used as a late kettle/whirlpool addition to partially replace leaf or pellet hops, and since Salvo™ contains no vegetative matter, our flavor extract can help mitigate beer yield loss.”

I have seen the El Dorado hop advertised as “Salvo’d” but other fruit forward hops are sure to follow.

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Acres and Acres

Just a little advance hop intel…

Acreage up significantly: Strata 30%, Eureka! 28%, Azacca 19%, Chinook 18%, Cashmere 12%, Simcoe 11.5%, Amarillo 11%.

But the big movers of Citra and Mosaic are (only) growing  at  1% each. Though they still are the two most popular hop varieties in the U.S.

Next time you glance at hops used on your next IPA, which will you see?