Category: Opinion

my humble and correct opinion

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Not Tickled by Pickled

I was in a fancy cafe and market recently (looking at you Joan’s on 3rd) perusing the rather desultory craft beer choices and the biggest inventory was a pickle beer.  I almost belted out, “stop with the pickles” in the middle of the store. And the dill doesn’t stop with beer, it has invaded spirits as well.

To backtrack a bit, I do not mind savory elements in a beer nor do I hate on experimentation but can it be explained why there are so many pickle beers?  It reminds me of the pepper beer kick way back in the early days where spicy beers were the rage.  Those beers are not around anymore and the peppers are going into hot sauces with horrifying and painful names and I feel that pickle beers are set for the same fate of being a forgotten footnote in craft beer history.

Perhaps this is the zenith of pickle popularity, I have not heard much Pickleball talk either.

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Enter the Hall

A much happier inauguration is coming on Saturday, February 15th, at 12:00pm (PST), when the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame will be announcing its inaugural Inductees into The newly created Hall.

Here is How to Watch:

“The livestream will be available free of charge and can be accessed live online HERE, or recorded following the event on the Craft Beer Professionals YouTube page. 

Who will be the first enshrined?

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The Firkin for January 2025

Just before leaving office, the Surgeon General of the United States, following the lead of officials in Europe has suggested that an additional warning of cancer risk be added to alcohol products.

You can read up on the main points HERE but I have three questions that I would like additional information on…

  • is this for ALL alcohol? are grapes better than malt or apples better than toasted oak? are the botanicals in gin OK?
  • what is the math on amounts? is 16oz of 5.5% beer better than a cocktail with 45abv spirit?
  • what is the research (if any) on people who drink but do not get cancer. we have all heard about the old lady who drank scotch every week for forty years and lived to be 100. what is different about those folks.

This is all bearing in mind that science is ongoing, what seemed obvious now might be much murkier ten years from now.

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Heart

I have not written about the terrible fires that popped up seemingly everywhere earlier this month in the Los Angeles area. Mostly because it is so sad and disheartening to see such catastrophe some of it closer to where I reside in Glendale than wildfire has ever been.

And Los Angeles was already barely able to build enough as it was, especially when it comes to affordable housing for all economic levels. Now rents and home prices will push even higher than they already were.

But this is not a housing blog, though it kind of is, because the more people that can find housing at a price point that isn’t 75% of take-home pay, the more people will go out and buy good craft beer.

Anyway, the preceding paragraphs are prelude to the actual point of the fact that Common Space Brewery has stepped up to rally our remaining L.A. breweries into a special beer to help the rebuild cause, We Love LA will be showing soon up from over 50 California breweries participating and close to 10 from out of state as well, and I will be grabbing from wherever in financial support. I strongly suggest that we make this beer a complete sell-out.

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Follow Z Star

American breweries have done nationwide charity beers but maybe the next evolution as craft beer goes back to basics is for a nationwide Zoigl.

Interested to see if you are near one or do you need to know more of this Z word. Then head HERE first Then follow AmericanZoigl on Instagram for updates.

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Maybe # 3

Over the latter half of 2024, I have been checking Instagram because of the curious case of the account for Monkish Brewing in Echo Park (see below).

I looked again at the start of the new year and still no activity at all.  Perhaps a hoax? Not an official account? Sheer hopefulness and jumping the gun?  

Rest assured that if anything does come to pass, there will be a post about it unless Project 2025 and their neo-prohibition nazi goons take away my right to blog about beer.  (that went from positive to dark quick, didn’t it?)

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Rate No More

The long and winding saga of RateBeer will come to a close as of February 1st. I was a user of the website as many in the halcyon days were. It was a great way to find craft beer information and to hear scuttlebutt about a rapidly growing industry.

Then came Untappd which scratched the itch of those who just wanted to tick and go. That and the sale of rating site to the “disrupter” arm of SABInBev really took the steam out of RateBeer from which it never quite recovered.

Now that story could have been different if said disrupter had put even a tiny bit of effort and money into the site, it could have flourished as a clearinghouse of information from across the globe. But that is not how SABInBev treats the companies that it purchases. It tolerates them at first, then ignores them, then lets them die on the vine and then claim that it was the customer speaking and not their purposeful neglect.

There are still those attempting to resurrect the brand but, to them, I say just start anew. RateBeer has too much baggage at this point. I say find a solid beer pun and let RateBeer be remembered fondly for the good times.

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Bleak San Pedro MidWinter

In the run up to Christmas, Brouwerij West posted on social media that, barring a miracle, they would be shutting down early in 2025.

That “so there’s a chance” led me to check their feed more regularly and the news is still up in the air as of the end of the year. There is a GoFundMe that you can access HERE.

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Also Starting

It is not only the Brewers Association making changes at the top.  The California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA), has announced the choice of a new Executive Director in Kelsey McQuaid-Craig.

McQuaid-Craig is a Certified Association Executive and has over a decade of association management experience most recently with the California Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians which will hopefully help her navigate the political waters of Sacramento and help out the Golden State’s breweries in the coming years.

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Starting Today

Craft beer fans will recognize the name of Bart Watson as the pragmatic numbers guys for the Brewers Association.  But he is currently the vice president of strategy and membership after his stint as the chief economist of the group, Watson becomes president and CEO on January 6, 2025 two days after the retirement of Bob Pease on January 3.

photo courtesy of the Brewers Association

You can get the full scoop HERE.

It is a challenging time in the beer industry but Watson knows the group from the ground up so I expect that good changes and good growth are on the horizon.