Time for a little history, in video form…
The London Pub
If you do not have plans to sit with a mild in an English pub this holiday season, then I have the next best thing, a photo album / love letter to the old London pub.
Per the publisher, “This collection of glorious vintage photographs is a celebration of London’s best boozers and the people who brought them to life. Without its pubs, London just wouldn’t be London. They are the heart (and liver) of this great city.”
Clubland
Pete Brown is one of my favorite beer and other beverage writers and he has a new book look at the Working Men’s Club, Clubland.
It “is a convivial guide on this journey through the intoxicating history of the working men’s clubs. From the movement’s founding by teetotaller social reformer the Reverend Henry Solly to the booze-soaked mid-century heyday, when more than 7 million Brits were members, this warm-hearted and entertaining book reveals how and why the clubs became the cornerstone of Britain’s social life – offering much more than cheap Federation Bitter and chicken in a basket.”
I hope there is a chapter about what a modern day Working Person’s club could be.
Don’t Read the Comments
First, go HERE to read the furor caused by a questionnaire.
Do not TL:DR.
Now that you are back, I want to say that all the people who commented about CAMRA “caving in” to “wokeness” must be living in a whole ‘nother world.
Part of me wishes that these sexist, racist idiots would just return to the caves from which they crawled out of but then I would be insulting cave people who were more than likely way smarter.
I would like to say that my better angel wishes compassion but I think we are past that. No more carrot for this lot, they need a stick to the ass.
Pete Brown, as usual is more eloquent than I but even he seems fed up and I wish more people were.
Beer by Design
One of the good things to come of 2020 is that Pete Brown wrote two books! The second is all about branding. Beer by Design talks about design from the marketing and appreciation angle. That last part is key because you can have an effective design but it I should just a literal flash in the pan. The examples shown in the announcement post alone are really cool to look at. Put this on your Christmas list.
For the Defense
This is a very thorough dismantling of a word through the lens of marketing, economics, history, philosophy and even social media. And I dug every moment because it did not play favorites or set- up straw men to easily knock down. This is rigorous and since I recently watched Hamilton, it made me think of the Federalist papers a bit.
Brown starts with using a (5) part definition of a craft brewery written by Dan Shelton of Shelton Brothers. Those qualifications were ingredients, methods and equipment, spirit, control and ownership structure. Which is probably too much to have to apply to each and every brewery. By the end, Brown has whittled and refined it into (4) comprised of skill/creativity, quality, autonomy and motivation. Bigger ideas but also simpler to understand in my opinion. With only motivation being somewhat opaque.
Some other cool ideas that I ran across:
Skilled craftspeople are considered less than a typical pencil pusher.
Workers should also spend time thinking and thinkers spend more time working.
Craft is a moving target
The concept of under erasure. Where a word is inaccurate in explaining or describing an idea but is also necessary so it is shown but crossed out.
If you haven’t noticed, I highly recommend buying this. Worth every penny.
The Art of Beer
Regular readers will know that I buy pretty much any book that U.K. writer Pete Brown does, and he has one project about ready for sale and another in the pipeline.
The self-published, Craft: An Argument, will be published on June 25th in England and hopefully the same day or soon after for us in the US.
The next in line is a CAMRA published book, The Art of Beer will be “about beer design and packaging, published by CAMRA Books in October 2020.”
Brown has marketing on his CV so this won’t be just a picture book. Expect some history and marketing insight from someone who has been around the British beer industry for some time now.
Book Review – Miracle Brew by Pete Brown
I Kindle’d up this book with a bit of wariness. The weakest part of most beer books is the discussion of ingredients and how-to brew but Pete Brown has done a well-executed deep dive into historical fact and straight up fun facts in his book, Miracle Brew.
Here’s a couple of the fun facts:
“…in French, wine is masculine and beer is feminine.”
“So there’s a cloud of booze at the centre of the galaxy, just hanging in space…”
There are anecdotes about Michael Jackson, yeast banks and old time hop picking summer “vacations” in Kent that really flesh out the main sections of Malt, Water, Hops and Yeast. You learn about each of the ingredients but not in a stuffy way. It feels like a good museum exhibit where you go from one painting to the next with a guide explaining each one.
I was a bit flummoxed by the ending though which had to alternative takes on the Reinheitsgebot. That and a shooting whilst visiting Munich really put a pall on the book that was not there before. Primarily that is due to me and the shooting and bombing that seem to be nearly everyday here in America. But it seemed out of place. A late tie it up with a bow kind of diminishes that downer but not really.
But overall, this book really delivers. Not more so than in the old adage that Brown relays, “We don’t make beer; we simply gather the ingredients in the right place. The yeast makes the beer.” Brown has certainly gathered the ingredients in Miracle Brew.
A Book & A Beer – The Apple Orchard by Pete Brown
When I hear that Pete Brown has a new book out, it goes on my radar to read as soon as I can. He has the ability to be folksy and technical and to cut through the noise surrounding a topic. Be it IPA history or Shakespeare’s Local.
The history of how apples spread across the country is a fascinating one followed by the fascinating topic of how to graft an apple tree to make sure you get the same type of apple, as is re-creating heritage apples and creating new apple varieties.
I mean who amongst us knew that apples basically migrated from Kazakhstan? I liked that the book was structured to follow the growing season and that each chapter had such tidbits of information. Once I grew accustomed to the fact that this was more of a shallow skim across the world of apples with some deeper dives, the book grew on me more and more.
For someone with little knowledge of apples barring a few trips to Oak Glen here in SoCal, this book provides a lot of fun facts.
To drink, well, it’s obvious ain’t it?
Golden State Cider
“Mighty Dry is a champagne-like cider that pairs perfectly with any moment of the day. It’s just dry enough. It’s perfectly balanced, and crispy (if not crispier) as biting into a freshly picked apple.”
101 Cider House
Scrumpy, the flagship cider is their hazy meets barnyard version
Reverend Nat’s
“My newest release is Revival Hard Apple and I couldn’t be more thrilled to share it with you. I start with a secret blend of Washington-grown apples and add piloncillo, dark brown evaporated cane juice, purchased direct from Michoacan, Mexico. I ferment this dark base to all the way to dry using two exotic yeast strains: a beer yeast known for the round mouthfeel in Saisons and a rarely-used secret culture which produces aromas of pineapple, guava and peaches. This cider is brilliantly golden in color and deeply complex while remaining subtly familiar, with just the right amount of sweetness and acidity to be an everyday beverage.”
What are You Drinking?
Readers of the blog know that I am both a big beer book fan and a big Pete Brown fan. And now he has a story to tell and he has chosen to use Unbound which is basically a book Kickstarter and the premise is simple…
“Beer is traditionally made from four natural ingredients: malted barley, hops, yeast and water, and each of these has an incredible story to tell.”
I am looking forward to this coming out. A layman’s take on the ingredients and the people behind them should have contain some golden nuggets of beer information.