Tag: Opinion

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Session # 42

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Beer has been so tightly linked to geography throughout it’s long history, we tend to forget. Many beer styles are named after the cities, countries, and regions they originally came from. Two of the best ways I’ve found to explore a new place are to run around in it, and to sample the beer from it. And like many in the craft beer community, I constantly exhort anyone who will listen to support their local brewery, while simultaneously seeking out beers from distant lands that are new, novel, and exotically foreign. The Session provides a unique opportunity to explore this connection between the beer in our glasses and the place it comes from with perspectives from all over the world

So I ask for this 42nd Session that you write about a special place in your life, and a beer or brewery that connects you to that place. It can be the beer from your childhood home, a place you once lived, your current hometown, a memorable vacation you once took, or a place you’ve always wanted to go to but never had the chance. Please take a few moments to think about the how the beer connects you to this place, and share this with us. Of course, the definition of “place” is rather open ended, and in some cases, highly debatable, so it will be interesting to see the responses on what constitutes a place.

You can either provide the link to your Session contribution with a comment to this post, or you can e-mail it to me at “derrickwp (at) earthlink (dot) net”. E-mailed submissions in text form will be posted on this site with credit given to the author should anyone wish to participate this way.

I look forward to what you all write on August 6th, and will post the summary a few days later. And don’t forget, The Session is always a great reason enjoy a bottle or two from that special place and tell us about it. Cheers!

Whether you are in your hometown or on vacation halfway across the world, there is good beer to be found and plenty of stories about finding an unexpected great beer or getting a bad brew handed to you. This session will trigger many fond memories. It will also lead people to re-create past magic or replicate someone else’s golden times.

For me though, beer is the safe haven wherever I am at. Whether it be at home after work. At the Blue Palms here in Los Angeles for a special tapping. In Gorlitz, Germany on a foggy late night or with my dad at the end of the tour at Brooklyn Brewery.

Beer allows me to slow down, take stock and make sure that I am enjoying all that I can. Because I value beer, I automatically relax and enjoy how I got to that point in time in my life. We don’t get to do that enough in life so I treasure when I can get it.

I wish I could pick just one but I can’t. You can argue (validly) that Asheville is better than Portland or that the Pliny tastes better in Santa Rosa but to me the beer allows me to immerse in the place, if only for a moment. So thanks to the beers that have opened my eyes.

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Flagship

As I have mentioned before (and I will probably mention repeatedly), I cannot possibly keep up with the variety and opinions on the interwebs when it comes to beer writing.

So sometimes, I run across well written pieces that I think, “I have got to share this”. Then I see that it was posted three months ago.

Anyway, that is not going to stop me. This article on Flagship Beers was fascinating in early June and is fascinating now in late July.

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Session # 41

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The chosen topic: Craft Beers Inspired By Homebrewing. How has homebrewing had an affect on the commercial beer we have all come to love? Feel free to take the topic in any direction your imagination leads you.

Write about a beer that has its roots in homebrewing. Write about a commercial beer that originated from a homebrew.

Write about a professional brewer you admire who got their start in homebrewing before they went pro. Write about a professional brewer who still homebrews in their free time.

Write about a Pro-Am beer tasted either at a festival or a brewpub. Write about an Amateur / Professional Co-op you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing (such as The Green Dragon Project).

Write about commercial brewers using “Homebrewing” as part of the marketing. Write about the Sam Adams LongShot beers, whether good or bad.

With this opportunity, I would like to rant about an imbalance that I feel needs to be focused on to keep the craft beer world lively and engaging and most importantly, growing.

We need more female home brewers. Alot more. I know most homebrew clubs have female members, maybe even sub-groups comprised solely of women. That’s great. Keep it up. But this industry is tilted far to the male side and we need to get the percentages rising on the female side of the ledger.

I have my personal reasons why the craft beer community needs to embrace this idea and it stems from a theory of mine.

My theory is that home brewing is the minor leagues for the craft beer world. That means the more women brewing at home means the better the chance that they might go pro. If your club has 20 active members and only two or three are women, the chances that one might start a brewery are not good. But if there is a large and active female membership then the odds become better. And there is no better time than now, there is mentoring available through the Pink Boots Society, there is publicity available through great writers like the Beer Wench, Lisa Morrison and Christina Perozzi, there is even a documentary in the works about female brewers.

I say all this in enlightened self-interest. I love craft beer. Spend way too much money on it. Spend way too much time writing and reading about it. But if we don’t expand our horizons to recipes from a new perspective, new styles or re-imaginings of current favorites then the world of craft beer will crash into the reef of Double IPA’s and Russian Imperial Stouts and not be able to extricate our way out. We might end up, god forbid, stagnating. Not only as an industry as a whole but in individual beers.

We as bloggers need to push, cajole, entreaty as much as possible for more women in home brewing and more women drinking and creating a big craft beer tent as big as a Munich beer Hall in September.

P.S. I just know the best beer of 2011, 2012 and beyond are out there so keep it up homebrewers!

P.S.S. Click HERE to see the Session hosts posting on the topic.

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Session # 40 – Session beer

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Session Beer is the topic for June.

There are a thousand ways to approach this. What is your definition of a session beer? Is it, as Dr. Lewis suggested at the Craft Brewers Conference this year, “a pint of British wallop” or is your idea of a session beer a crisp Eastern European lager, a light smoky porter, a dry witbier, or even a dry Flemish sour?

Is it merely enough for a beer to be low alcohol to be considered a session beer, or is there some other ineffable quality that a beer must hold in order to merit the term? And if so, what is that quality? Is it “drinkability”? Or something else?

What about the place of session beer in the craft beer industry? Does session beer risk being washed away in the deluge of extreme beers, special releases, and country-wide collaborations? Or is it the future of the industry, the inevitable palate-saving backlash against a shelf full of Imperial Imperials?

What are some of your favorite session beers? When and where do you drink them? If you’d like, drink one and review it.

I am generally a positive craft beer guy. There is too much good stuff out in the craft beer universe to drink for me to rant and/or rave about a real or perceived slight.

But, (and you knew that was coming), I keep waiting for the Session beer train to pull into the station but it is the little engine that just can’t quite make it. The trend just can’t get enough momentum. And as much as I would like to blame the “Imperial Imperials”, I think it is another pair of reasons that stall this category.

First is the puritanical streak our country holds onto with a firm grip and that is inadvertently supported by mainstream water lager advertising. Our culture looks down on massive excess in drinking or eating as much as we can’t stop massively eating and drinking.

Sitting around and having not just a beer but multiple beers while watching the big game or for no reason other than friendship on a Saturday afternoon is considered the realm of the frat boy, the obnoxious lout or the falling down drunk.

There will always be a push for moderation and anything that talks about multiple beers will run afoul of the more extreme forces of “anti”. Major advertising reinforces that with sometimes funny but always wild and crazy party life that is enjoyed by people who buy cases and cases of their low ABV, low flavor near beer. Half the country wants to get their drink on while the other half wants them to shut up and behave like adults. Session beer gets tarred with the brush of excess.

This leads me to my second wild theory. The image of the beer guzzling becomes linked to a certain neanderthal beer drinker. Just as cans were considered gauche and too tied to the image of industrial beer, session beers are considered too macro and not craft or artisan.

Maybe this stems from not wanting to compete against such a massive marketing machine and entrenched consumer buying patterns but I think some brewers and beer geeks have tried to distance themselves from session to avoid seeming too mainstream. It’s easier to have one or two hoppy IPA’s and maintain street cred then it is to drink a few rounds of a session beer that has the appearance of big business due to it’s ABV.

To end on a more positive note, cans are well into becoming cool again. So maybe there is still hope for the humble session beer. Maybe the session itself needs to be separated from the session beer to fully blossom. But I am not going to hold my breath, I am heading to the store to get a case of Full Sail Session in the stubbie bottles.

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The Firkin for April 2010

Crazy beer laws that affect what is brewed and where it is brewed are cringe inducing headaches. But if you truly want a whopper of a migraine then the world of craft beer distribution is for you. The only comparable source of hope squelching frustration is the political fillibuster.

Ponder this: Kansas, Nevada, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma are required to sell their beer through a distributor.

Or chew on this: Brewpubs in Texas can only sell their beer in house. A distributor or retailer can’t even touch it.

Lastly: Shipping companies will ship wine any time of day but now seemed scared by someone or something from shipping your favorite brew.

I am not a big fan of a large federal government. What I am a fan of is uniform and level playing fields. Wanna know why you can get Deschutes and Rogue in California but not Surly? Oregon has enlightened (in comparison) distribution laws. Minnesota? Not so much.

Here is my modest proposal:
1. Beer and wine allowed to be shipped anywhere in the country. There is no reason why anybody should not be allowed to buy a beer from any state in the US.
2. Each state can tax it as they see fit. Let’s do the math. No beer shipped X state tax = ZERO. Any beer shipped X state tax = revenue.
3. Breweries should be allowed to choose whatever form of distribution they want. If they want to be small and distribute to a few local stores, they should be allowed to. If they want to Stone it up to national levels they should be given that choice.

Right now distributors and states are getting in the way. The goal is not political viability or creating monolithic distributorships. The goal is for the brewer to get the beer into the hands of the drinker.
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The Firkin for March 2010

Words like green, recycle, envio-friendly are seen alot in the craft beer industry. Primarily because you have to be a bit of a rebel to start a brewery. And, unfortunately, earth awareness, is still a fringe effort.

That is why I am all for ballooning a trend that I have heard about from various beer media sources. Captured by Porches Brewery in Portland charges extra (I believe $1) for their bottles. So you buy their Invasive Species IPA and it costs more. But! You can return the bottle to the brewery (unwashed) and you get your buck back.
The same deal for retailers who buy a bunch of Miskatonic Dark Rye.

Because the bottles cost a bit over a buck, CBP ends up not losing any money on the deal and they help the environment!

I think that any new brewery should be offered a tax incentive to enter this type of program. Or if money is a problem, how about offering speedee service on label approval in exchange for a bottle return program?

Every day we read about new breweries opening. Eagle Rock in California, Revolution in Illinois to name two. Imagine if all the breweries opening in 2010 came on board as a bottle return participant. That is a lot of glass being recycled.

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The Firkin for February 2010

There was an interesting post on Beer Advocate awhile back about buying a spot during the Super Bowl for the “I am a craft brewer” video put together by Greg Koch from Stone Brewing. Some people thought that an opportunity to showcase craft beer to a massive audience was missed since the ad rates were lower this year than last.

Here is my reasoning as to why it would be not an effective use of hypothetical money.

A) You are not targeting the most receptive audience. It is mostly men who are probably not leaving their brand anytime soon. Not exactly the low hanging fruit. I would rather target specific people who could be turned into beer geeks who would then turn the person next to them. Food Network would be logical. NPR as well. Even Sports Illustrated would be a better sell.

B) One time ads don’t register. Unless you follow up with the message, it stands the chance of being trampled. Look at what the Republicans do. Say the same thing over and over, until people believe it. Be it true or not. Say it once and it gets lost.

C) I would rather support local organizations in overturning some of the flat out bizarre liquor laws this country has on the books. As I mentioned in the January rant, there are some outdated ideas that need to be purged.

The main reason why 1 measly 30 second spot no matter how many people view it isn’t enough is because we need to really educate people about beer. 30 seconds does not convey the nuance needed. What about sour beer, the history of Imperial Stouts, proper glassware? Instead of a quick hit, we need sustained informed beer knowledge being passed to receptive minds.

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The Firkin for January 2010

At the end of each month, I will open up the firkin and pour out what I’m thinking about. It may be a rant, it may be a rave, it may be odds and ends. I hope you enjoy…..the First Firkin
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2009 saw Alabama free the hops and raise the ABV limit on beers sold in that state. I say that is about time even more unrational beer distribution and retail laws get phased out if for no other reason than they are economically prohibitive. The City of Los Angeles has 1, that’s right, 1 brewery within city limits. It can’t be a conicidence that there are breweries ringing the outskirts of Los Angeles from El Monte to Torrance. Unfortunately, LA county is not alone in hindering craft beer. Here are some other egregious examples of laws restricting capitalism and our craft beer rights.

In Pennsylvania, no more than two packages of beer at a time may be purchased, unless you are buying from an official “beer distributor”. Great breweries abound in the Quaker state and yet they can’t truly fill a customer’s needs.

There are still some states that ban on off-premises sales of alcohol on Sundays. Tough luck if you want to tailgate and you didn’t buy your beer the day before.

In Kentucky it is illegal to send a bottle of beer, wine, or spirits as a gift to anyone in Kentucky – this can result in a 5-year term in prison. Really? Thanks for ruining Christmas Kentucky Grinch.

It is time to revisit these restrictive laws and find out the true reason they were enacted. What is to gain by restricting sales? or ABV? You are basically telling beer geeks, “nothing to see here, move along”. Is that the slogan you want on your Visit Us in ______
brochures?