The Session #111: Round Up (Part 2)

I apologize thoroughly to the writers I left hanging by delaying this second part of the Session round-up. Like I said on Twitter, I have lots of excuses, but none of them are very good, so I’ll just say I’m sorry.

Anyway!

Quick recap: Inundated by politics and petty internet squabbles, beer had me feeling lower than lager yeast. I asked the internet if it was just me, or a larger trend. A bunch of people in the first round-up seemed to think it was just me, but what say the other bloggers?

Tom Bedell, beer and golf enthusiast extraordinaire, writes about his own early beer-life crisis and run in with the dread pirate Ralph Lauren, which lead to him taking off his beer writing hat for some time. A bit like me, he thought the sickness ran a little deeper, affecting his wont to write at all. The good news though, is that he never stopped drinking…er…”researching” beer, as the passion that was temporarily sucked out of his pen, never seemed to get sucked out of his glass. Unlike us whiny millennials, Tom’s got the luxury of perspective to help keep him grounded:

“I have a long view, after all, and remember when things were at a nadir. I’m far from jaded about the existing profusion of choice, although also unlikely to be bedazzled by the next new thing.”

He closes with some musing about being a specialist or generalist, something I think a lot of niche writers struggle with. It’s good to see Tom finding his stride though (he’s writing a book!), as it gives me hope that I’ll find mine. The last line of his post might be the best line of all the entries (no offense to the other wonderful writers), as it speaks to why beer matters, or should matter, or shouldn’t be a chore:

“I find beer more enjoyable placed in a wider context, where it engages, or blends in, with more aspects of one’s endeavors, interests and enthusiasms. I suspect if I ever tire of beer in that sense, then I’ll be tired of life.”

Friend of the program, Doug Smiley, came out of beer blogging retirement to answer my cry for existential help. He describes his own tendency to go all-in on a topic, until he’s had his fill, at which point he quits cold-turkey. That’s not how my brain functions, but I know other people a lot like Doug, and I respect ones ability to know exactly what you want for how long you want it, because the flip side is holding onto worthless stuff and feeling bad that you can’t let go of it. Doug describes the come-down from his beer binge, explaining how he used to keep up with blogs and news site until he realized that a vast majority of it was repetitious and shallow. I can’t disagree with that (seriously, no more articles about cans please please please). I do, however, disagree with the idea that it’s not the writers, but the topic that’s limited:

“And it’s not necessarily a case of the people writing about this stuff being bad writers it’s just that the topic is limited. Salsa bloggers would have the same issue. Maybe we should all take our cue from the Salsa blogosphere and ask ourselves if we really need daily coverage of a food stuff?”

I think this is a matter of lazy or unadventurous writers coupled with publications that won’t take a risk on any article that won’t generate clicks, more so than beer being limited. There are outlets producing wonderful, well researched and written beer stories, but those get lost in the sea of listicles and fluff. Tom Bedell’s quote above resonates with how broad beer can be, with the right context and the right writer. Oh god I just said can. It’s happening to me too.

Regardless, I appreciate Doug’s honesty and candid approach. I think he’s right that we’ve gotten a little carried away with romancing the hops, and that some (most?) people don’t need sociological or scientific analysis to drink and enjoy their beer.

The next entry comes from Draft Magazine, which is awesome in and of itself. Zach Fowle answered my question with a resounding “no, it’s not the industry, it’s you,” suggesting what I was feeling was a “natural stage in the life cycle of a beer geek.” The rest of his piece cleverly outlines the stages, and what one might experience at each stage, which is a great idea and something I really wish I had written. The four stages, Birth, Adolescence, The Crisis (me), and Maturity, are pretty damn apt, and you should really just pop on over to Draft to read the whole thing yourself.

My favorite line, which speaks to this topic directly, comes from The Crisis phase:

“I think you have to approach beer differently. You have to rekindle the love of beer by reevaluating what excites you about it, and generally that’s not driving across state lines to try a few sips of draft-only, no-growler whalez.”

My Montana buddy Alan offers his own mini re-cap of the Session to kick off his exploration of beer burnout. He’s not having a crisis, he says, but admits that he needed a break from writing about beer. I like the idea, as I’ve always found breaks useful, too – a day or two off from running rejuvenates, a day or two off learning a new piece of music somehow helps the melody sink further into your brain. In typical Oliver style, I had over analyzed my sagging enthusiasm, and probably gave it more credence than it deserved, but Alan set me right:

“It’s not so much a midlife crisis as a useful pause. Somewhere in converting from “fan-boy” to knowledgeable, objective observer, there are many choices to be made about how to continue writing about beer.”

Alan goes on to explain that his understanding of beer has changed dramatically since he first started his journey in the 1990s. Which makes sense, because the whole industry has changed, too. His new perspective of the importance of simple quality over hype has brought him back around to writing about beer, and he hopes his readers will respect that his time off will lead to better writing. He’s also looking for help nailing the Belgian character in his homebrew, which leads me to…

…the Belgiany and phenolic Chris Barnes of I Think About Beer! He describes his own issues with the culture that drag his optimism through the mud, mainly cynicism and entitlement (of which, there is way too much to go around in the beer community). I think a lot of my own disillusionment came from interactions with the type of people who would rather condescend than converse, so it’s nice to hear that I’m not the only rampant optimist annoyed by those hop garblers. Chris goes on to describe the niche he found as he settled into consistent writing, and how that niche presented him with some wonderful opportunities, personally and vocationally. He echoes a lot of what other people have said in his closing advice:

“To me, it’s less about each individual beer but what that beer led me to: friends, community, and passion.”

Dave, of AnnArborBeer.com, opens his post with Sam Calagione’s “99 percent asshole-free” quote (which I should also note Alan used, and disagreed with too), but suggests it might need updating:

“Craft beer’s exponentially increasing popularity has brought a host of new people into the fold, and when one takes a look at the larger beer community these days, one has reason to suspect that Calagione’s estimate may need to be adjusted downward.”

His take, which he worries borders on curmudgeon status (I don’t think it does), is a refreshingly honest and candid tirade about how silly a lot of beer trends are. His break down laments the sameness of a lot of “fad beers” and a community who routinely puts rarity and novelty over quality and heritage. Dave and I share at least one of these beliefs: beer is made for drinking, not storing or coveting or using to boost one’s ego:

“All those pictures of your Founders KBS bottles or Alchemist Heady Topper cans you post to Facebook groups? No one cares. It’s beer, not a status symbol.”

Dave’s piece seems to be touching on another common thread: a lot of beer burnout comes from dealing with the worst kinds of people in the community. He worries it’s him (as I did), but maybe, just maybe, it’s actually them. If so, overcoming boils down to having a thicken online skin or rising above the less savory people that will inevitably join the industry as it gets more popular. Either way, Dave, I don’t think you’re an old grouch, and even if you are, I’m starting to think curmudgeon is a synonym for wisdom, not bitterness.

The last entry in this Session comes from Derrick Peterman, of Ramblings of a Beer Runner. He opens with an admission that he’s been through an actual real life crisis, one he couldn’t even resolve with an expensive sports car. He segues into a discussion of the natural waxing and waning of enthusiasm for things you love, in his case, running. I run too, and can very much relate with the off and on love affair of destroying one’s knees while improving one’s heart. Derrick’s description of running (and how even with enhancements in shoes and tech, remains pure and simple) draws a whimsical parallel for my love of the basics of beer:

“the sport still retains it’s simplicity of putting one foot in front of the other and repeating this over and over again to propel yourself as fast as you can over some distance.”

Ultimately, despite any crises or slight down turns in energy, he finds talking to brewers and developing an understanding of the complicated reality of beer as a business drives him and keeps him motivated. I can get behind that idea.

So I understand why lots of people, possibly including our host Oliver, might find themselves less committed to beer than they used too.  And that’s OK.  But as for me, just like running, my relationship with beer is constantly changing, but has never been stronger.

I’d like to thank everyone who contributed to this iteration of the Session, and apologize again for taking so long to finish my recap. I plan to participate in Boak and Bailey’s 113th Session tomorrow, as the topic is equal parts investigatory and voyeuristic. You should join in too!

Beer n’ Books: Gardening for the Homebrewer

Title: Gardening for the Homebrewer
Author(s): Wendy Tweten and Debbie Teashon
ISBN: 978-0760345634
Pages: 208
Release date: September 15, 2015
Publisher: Voyageur Press
Genre: Nonfiction/How to
Format: Softcover
Source: Review copy

As I watch my attempt to grow barley wither into brown shrivels of failure, I prepare for next Spring. Winter means reading, research, and learning from my mistakes. I took a ton of notes and wrote quite a lot about my experience growing my own beer ingredients this year, but as much as I’ve learned, I’m still seeking something more comprehensive.

There’s not a lot out there for the intrepid homebrewing soilophile.

There’s a 1998 book, The Homebrewer’s Garden, by Dennis Fisher, which includes solid information, but spreads itself thin, trying to cover too many grains, herbs, and other sundry ingredients. It’s also 17 years old; a lot has changed in beer and brewing (hop and barley varieties, just as a start, never mind technology), making this guide feel a bit sepia tone when read by a member of the internet generation.

Then come the Brewing Elements series from Brewer’s Publications. These four are a must read for any brewer (home or otherwise) who has even the tiniest inkling of interest in the science behind the beverage. But for the wealth of knowledge contained therein, these books are still fundamentally informational; For the Love of Hops contains a brief section on growing your own hops, but is moreso dedicated to the history and scientific workings of the cultivar. The same goes for the other three; excellent books, but lacking practical lessons.

Anyone looking to (successfully) grow any beer ingredient at home likely has to turn to the internet (or, for you AHA members, old copies of Zymurgy Magazine). That’s not the worse thing ever, but correlating loose content from various websites can be as tedious as weeding an overgrown carrot patch.

Fellow blogger Ed from The Dogs of Beer was kind enough to CC me on an offer for a review copy of Gardening for the Homebrewer. I happily wrapped my dirty little hands around the book, hoping for a spiritual update to Fisher’s work.

Physically, the book is gorgeous: full-color macro photographs that look good enough to scratch and sniff, color-coded text boxes with faux-decoupage flair, near-perfect formatting that organizes the content brilliantly. It’s really a pleasure to read, and the visuals don’t detract from the writing itself. While written by two people, it reads in one coherent voice, offering direct explanation and guidance with little pomp or fluff.

It’s broken into distinct sections over seven chapters, starting with a basic primer on gardening that’s simple enough for a total rookie, but also contains just enough for the journeyman. Chapter 2 covers beer, but only spans 25 pages. The malting process is described across two pages, with no images or sundry information to guide the reader. If you are looking for a book on the basics of beer before it’s even near the kettle, this has some good information. If you were looking for a more comprehensive guide to barley, malting, or troubleshooting the latter, keep on searching.

More than half of the book is dedicated to “other” which in this case means grapes, berries, herbs, apples, pears, and more. Much like Fisher’s book, Gardening for the Homebrewer reads an inch deep and a mile long. Trying to cover all these plants and ingredients is an admirable goal, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and readers like me wanting more.

From their bios on the last page and a quick Google, it’s clear that both Tweten and Teashon are very accomplished gardeners. What is unclear is if they are homebrewers (or have ever homebrewed). While all of the information presented is factually correct, there’s a sort of disconnect in the exposition, as if they are more focused on the plants than their role as an ingredient in the brewing process. That could be my beerish romanticism pontificating and not an actual flaw, but it’s worth noting there’s next to no brewing-related content in this book. Suggestions for what beverage the plant might go best in, but not a lot about when or how to include it in a typical brewing/fermentation process.

Regardless of their identity as brewers, the co-authors do a fantastic job of outlining some of the most practical (and sometimes hard to find, even with a black belt in Google-fu) details of growing. Simple but integral details like appropriate USDA growing zone, spacing, and pruning are included for every plant. Most even have a picture of the mature plant, a surprisingly helpful addition for someone who starts with a handful of seeds and isn’t entire sure what elderberry is actually supposed to look like.

Despite not having what I was looking for, I enjoyed this book, and will continue to use it as a reference. The overview of growing conditions are worth the price alone (there are 52 total, ranging from mint to plums), and the rather thorough section of cider apples taught me a lot I though I already knew (but apparently didn’t).

More a book for gardeners who like brewing-related plants than brewers turned gardners, but well written, edited, and presented nonetheless.

December, 1919 – Chapter 12

Welcome to chapter twelve of “December, 1919″, a serialized novel written by Oliver Gray. New chapters will be published every week. Links to all published chapters can be found here. 

Chapter 12

Wherever I went, the German followed. If I went to the bakery, he was already there, marble rye in hand. Outside the newspaper, he’d loiter on a street corner, near the valets and drivers. Through the steam of coffee dissipating into the frozen air, I could pretty much always see him, a giant half obscured in mist.

He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. He’d drop his hat down to cover part of his face, but rose above almost every bustling city crowd; an oak among saplings. I hadn’t called him. Definitely hadn’t paid him. And yet he persisted, on my tail until the moment I walked back through my front door at night.

I didn’t mind.

Virginia did.

“It’s creepy.” she said, watching him with a side eye as we stood outside the office near the newly paved taxi line. Hot asphalt mingled with exhaust. The stench of modern progress. “How do you know you can trust him? What if he figures out what we’re doing?”

I laughed. “This guy knows what mom made me for lunch, what story I’m chasing, and my exact shirt size. He already knows about the malt, the kettles, that sack of dried hops; I’d guess everything, Ginnie.”

She huffed, not panicked but annoyed. “Well he better be able to keep a secret.” She leaned into my side, jabbing me with her elbow. She locked her eyes to mine. A deep, piercing stare to show she was serious, but all I could see was a sparkling array of emerald.

He had kept the secret, so far at least. I’d done my best to slip and sneak through side streets on our sojourns to the brewery, but this man was a professional. I’m sure he had no problems keeping up with me, even with his massive size. I’d seen him in streetlight shadows when I snuck out the cellar door after a session. Whatever his reason for following me, it had nothing to do with the clandestine brews we’d been boiling in the midnight deep.

We’d produced three barrels in two weeks. Our kettle limited production size; we hadn’t dared fire up the actual brass, not with the news of police already clashing with smugglers and brewers moving south from Canada. Virginia had pawned her gun after she’d realized that it takes a lot more gumption to use the thing than it does to own it. With the money she bought our kettle – an old but sturdy pot from a soup kitchen – and an angry little dagger – white buckhorn handle leading to five inches of potential cuts.

There was plenty of malt to mash for a while, but we had precious few hops to work with. The small garden behind the brewery would produce enough bines to keep us brewing, even if we couldn’t consistently guess the bittering we’d get from the fuggles that my father had dropped into the soil years ago. That didn’t matter now anyway. It’d be at least six months before they’re pop green cones all sticky with yellow dust, spicing the air with pungent citrus and pine.

I’d found some cans of pre-hopped syrup in a dry goods store just outside of Cherry Hill, across the Delaware. The nasty goop compared poorly to real, grain-mashed wort, but the yeast didn’t mind, and I figured beer-starved patrons wouldn’t either. Virginia scolded me for even considering a cheap path, especially when my father had done all he could to keep Philadelphia beer pure and traditional.

“Here, taste this,” she said, holding out a steel ladle. “It’s sour and thin; no one would want to drink this.”

She wasn’t wrong – I’d stretched too little syrup too far – the beer was horrible, if still technically beer. “Beggars can’t be choosers?” I said, raising my voice with my shoulders and tilting my head. She threw the ladle at me.

“I know it can’t be the same as it was, but if we’re going to do this, we should do it right,” she said, her tongue a paintbrush of devotion. “I want to be the best illegal beer in Philadelphia, no, the entire east coast!”

Her zeal made her even more beautiful, even more enticing and alluring like her passion fueled my own. “I agree,” I said, “but if we don’t have any hops, we don’t have any hops.”

“I wonder…” her voice trailed off as she looked up, pensive. “The IRS probably kept all those ingredients, right? And not just ours, but all of the ingredients from all the local breweries.” A grin stole her lips and wrenched them upward. “And I bet they put them all in one place, too.” She rose onto the toes of her boots, as if the climax of her idea was lifting her into the air. “We find that place, find a way in, and take what we need!”

I sighed. Saw it coming, but still faltered as the freight train of crazy came barreling down the tracks. “You’re out of your mind; you do know that right?” I asked her, making sure my mouth wasn’t hanging open.

“It’s not that crazy. All those ingredients…right there. Hops aren’t heavy. We could make off with pounds of them and be set for months. All we have to do is learn where they took it all.” She moved closer. The excitement manifest in a rapid heart beat and ragged breath.

“We’re brewers, Ginnie, not burglars. You think we can just break into a government building? Just jump up to the roof like John Carter of Mars?”

She paused for a moment. “Maybe we can’t.”

Relief prepared to sink in…

“But maybe someone else can.”

…and then disappeared, dashed against the rocks of illogic and insanity.

She paced in a circle around the bubbling kettle, performing her nightly deep-thinking ritual. She stopped, raised a hand high, then brought it back down as and even bigger smile took over her face.

“The German.” She said, triumphantly.

“What? No.” I said.

“Yea, it’s perfect. That’s what he does. Learns things. Gets into places. He’s everywhere,” she said as I sat on my stool, staring at the boiling wort, unsure of what to say. “It really is perfect, Jack. We ask the German to steal us some hops.”

“I could do zat,” said Schweinsteiger, almost silent, like a cat, stepping out from the darkened piping behind two kettles. “But you two will have to do something for me, first.”

To be continued…

Spiking Beer: As Intended, As Brewed?

If the gadgets popping up in the beer world are representative of some growing trend, drinkers harbor a strange desire to “change” the beer they’re drinking. “Change” is usually couched cozily in “enhance” but this time around, I can’t help but read it as “mess with a good thing.”

I suppose modifying already brewed beer started with Dogfish Head’s Randall, a device you pass your beer through to infuse it with the matter you’ve managed to mash into the plastic chamber – coffee beans, fresh herbs, Fruit Loops, Oreos – whatever your depraved, drunken mind can think of. Although some might argue it’s just a product of American cross cultural contamination, the Randall (and it’s home-based Jr. version) might have been the lead catalysts in spawning the “dump random crap in your casks” craze that plagues perfectly good beer engines across the country. Thanks, Sam.

And then came Synek, the “beer Keurig” wanting to change how growlers worked, and how you drink beer at home. Then that baffling OnTap flavor enhancing goo, which we’d all do our best to forget. Then, as if we hadn’t had enough, came Fizzics, a bizarre device with a micro-filter that’s supposed to provide a much better head on your beer. And now we’ve got Hop Theory Sachets, basically tea bags full of hops and other dried ingredients, meant to “improve” your drinking experience with some post-brew modification.

Cool!

I guess.

Right?

Like, it’s cool we have options and can spend a bunch of money and wile away out leisure hours spiking beer with random stuff. Variety is the spice of life, and we’ve certainly got some potent spices to work with these days. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve quite enjoyed some augmented cask beers, even some totally not beer-ish ones like gold ale with orange peel and vanilla. I’d be hypocritical to not agree that the novelty of these gadgets makes for a fun little Saturday after you’re done at Home Depot.

I do get the appeal; brewing is a remote mountain many can’t or won’t climb, and these devices put some control back into the hands of the consumer. But, cultural industry announcement! The consumer is not the brewmaster. No matter how many Reddit articles they’ve read, or how many unique check-ins on UnTappd. I don’t want the norm to slowly be ok with changing beer that’s already finished. Therein lies the less favorable rub of gadgetry; every single one of these devices, despite a positive message of gustatory freedom, carries with it a secret. An encrypted code deeper and more important than just, “change your beer!”

All of these devices suggest that beer fundamentally should be changed – and by the consumer no less! – a concept I find insulting to brewers, and disconnecting for drinkers.

Beer isn’t always perfect. Any homebrewer can tell you some diacetyl laced horror stories. The problems aren’t automatically fixed when scaled up to multiple BBLs either. We’ve got quality assurance and consistency issues in a lot of start-up breweries. A lot of beer coming out of the fledgling “craft” movement sings a song of avoidable defects. There are some beers that downright lack, that need all the help they can get to not scorch or sting the palate.

Acknowledged, appreciated, archived.

That still doesn’t mean we, as consumers, should be willing to or responsible for somehow righting brewhouse wrongs.

Brewing is science wrapped in art. The equipment must be cleaned and the temperatures must be monitored, but the amount and type of malts and hops, and ultimately the flavor of the beers, are up to the brewer’s discretion. Like a chef, the oven and the pans are standard; the ingredients and processes where they create signature tastes. Even the worst production beer is the result of a planned recipe, an entire brew cycle, someone’s missed vision. To brew beer is a difficult labor of love; failures in the brewhouse mean missed intentions, not opportunities to perform first aid.

And that presumes these devices are intentionally marketed at poorly made beer, which I’ll argue they’re not. They’re marketed at all beer, including world class examples of styles. Some of these will be used in or on beer that is already delicious and on-point, already a manifestation of the brewer’s will and skill. To pass even a mainline, year-round beer from an award winning brewery through some random device is to suggest you know better than the brewer when it comes to the flavor of the beer. Unless of course you are a trained brewmaster. Then I guess by all means you crazy bastard.

I know, I know, I sound like a purist beer regressivist, decrying innovation because it’s scary and new. But you don’t take your own sauces and spices to a restaurant, ready to add them to a chef’s dish just because you think you can make it better. Part of paying for a product is accepting that it is packaged how the manufacturer intended it should be. When you pay for a beer, you’re paying for the the expertise, training, and creativity of the brewer, not just the liquid itself. Many brewers have formal educations or have spent years apprenticing to be able to bring you delectable decoctions of fermented flavor, and you should appreciate that every time your pop a top or slip a sip.

If you really must channel your inner Warhol by trying to elevate the existing, I’m not one to stop you. Just make sure you’ve tasted the beer as it is supposed to be, as the brewer wanted you to taste it, well before you introduce it to any gadget de l’amélioration. Drink beer as beer is, as it has evolved from years of trial and error, as the yeast made it through vigorous bubbly labor. You’ll be a better beer citizen, and brewers will thank you for taking the time to appreciate their art.

Left yes, right no.

The Big Beer Conspiracies – If you can’t Beat ‘um, Buy ‘um

Did you guys see that? That jet’s chemtrails totally spelled out my name for a second there. I swear.

Anyways, by now you’ve heard (and are sick of) the news. Blah blah, AB InBev bought Goose Island, and 10-Barrel, and Elysian. It happened. It was no big deal. Or a really big deal. Or sort of bad. Or really good?

Jury’s still out (but not on my case, I’ve been upgraded from “trespassing” to “pending psychological evaluation”).

While news like this always shocks, appearing as if by spontaneous generation from the social media feeds of brewers we’ve long imbibed, it’s an inevitability. AB InBev (and to a slightly lesser extent their conglomerate peers at SABMiller) is losing the beer war one brewery battle at a time. Bud sales continue to roll downhill, and the flat bottom or an upward turn seem impossibly distant. They’ve tried throwing fistfuls of hundreds at the problem, tried marketing, tried gimmicks, tried to tap into a generation that for the most part, doesn’t care at all about their corporate messaging or demographic targeting.

But they’re losing. Slowly maybe, but still losing. And losing money. That has to chap some suit-covered asses.

Every time I think about this situation, my mind wanders back around to the beer itself: if AB InBev concedes ground where it comes down to quality, why don’t they just invest some of their massive resources to brew a beer that appeals to those drinkers cutting into their market? Why not fight fire with fire, dry-hopping with dry-hopping, exotic yeast with exotic yeast? It seems like a no-brainer from the sidelines, and I can never quite lift the baffling fog of why they haven’t at least tried in the modern beer world (we’ll ignore Budweiser American Ale for now because that’s convenient to my argument).

Aside from the obvious image problem AB InBev has with younger drinkers, that’s not how a massive, multinational corporation rolls. Walmart doesn’t really care if Target’s good and services are better, they only care that their prices are cheap enough to get shoppers in the door. TimeWarner doesn’t care if your internet is slow or a jackalope has made a nest in your modem, they only care that it works well enough that you pay your monthly bill. Much the same, AB InBev doesn’t appear to be in the game of making beer people want to drink, they appear to be in the game of making money by producing beer that is 1) “acceptable enough that the consumer buys it” while also being 2) “made as cheaply as possible to meet requirement 1.”

That’s it. They don’t care if we like the beer, they only care if we buy it (as an aside, I think this is the crux of the defintion debate in “craft:” indie brewers let beer drive the money while big brewers let money drive the beer).

Why would they try to compete directly with any of the very highly rated and well-loved breweries in the country when that amounts to a big, risky expenditure of resources and a crap load of work? It’s much easier for them to buy existing large breweries and assimilate their fan base instead, thereby making the previously independent brewery’s success AB InBev’s by managerial association. Way less work, no direct competition with pesky things like “consumer satisfaction,” and all that juicy profit sharing.

But none of this is really news, or part of any conspiracy. It’s Capitalism doing what Capitalism does. No, the conspiracy hides behind the kerfuffle of beer dudes arguing over whether Elysian is still craft or not (guilty as charged), and in clandestine meetings under the cover of public din:

Big beer is buying up large breweries as a smokescreen for changing distribution and manipulating the way beer is sold in this country.

Boom.

Chris Barnes of I Think About Beer notes that AB InBev spends a pretty penny on lawyers and lobbyist, and have snatched up distributors in the states where it’s legal to do so, all to mold how beer is sold and distributed in various states. While Big Beer purchasing a single brewery might cause that brewery to lose some favor, or (potentially) decline in quality over time as ingredients are (potentially) changed, that’s not the end of the world. Sucks for said brewery and its fans, but that won’t spell the end of independent brewing alone.

But if AB-InBev manages to monopolize the distribution chain, or dramatically change how the three-tier system works, they can then control what beers show up in what bars, what bottles on what shelves, and ultimately, what liquid goes down your, my, and everyone’s gullet. They can stymie the growth of smaller, independent breweries by lobbying to keep barrel threshold caps low, and keep breweries from directly selling to their consumers. They’ll twist and mangle the wreckage of the distribution networks so that local breweries can’t sell anything, anywhere without AB InBev having a hand in their business (and their wallets).

That’s where their financial power and underhanded business practices start to get scary. They don’t even plan to fight “good” beer head-to-head, because they know they’ll lose in terms of taste and consumer interest. Instead they’re changing the battlefield, methodically working to make sure consumers can’t even buy “good” beer through wanton destruction of competition. But at the same time, they’re not stupid, and recognize a growing number of people won’t buy Bud, even if it’s the only option. They’ll buy up enough breweries to keep the 10% “craft portion” sedated with a heavy dose of hops, and then do everything in their power to wrestle back the market share they’ve lost by making sure that when any person buys a beer, their only option is to buy an AB InBev beer.

So while we squabble and wail at the defilement of our culture, the gears clunk and shift in the background. We’re being fleeced by the cool and calm Carlos Brito, lead to believe this is a war of philosophy and ethics, of “us vs. them” binaries, when it’s really a war of preserving our freedom of choice. It’s about one player controlling the whole board, but convincing you that Park Place and Boardwalk are still great places to visit while they line their pockets with all those fat tourism dollars.

Pass me my tinfoil hat (it’s over there, next to that cast of the Sasquatch foot I paid $1000 for on eBay because it’s totally legit); I’ll whirl us even further down Alice’s LSD spiked rabbit hole of Dystopian beer future.

If this trend continues, and AB-InBev gets its way, we’ll see a “Walmartization” of all American beer, where the few products they sling are so affordable and so readily available (but just tasty enough) that most people buy them out of laziness and cheapness. We’ll see large, chained, retail stores that sell AB InBev products and nothing else, and they’ll be so successful that any small breweries who want to compete will have to “pay-to-play” to get on the shelves. And then, as we’re all still bickering on Twitter, the beer industry will slip back to the post-Prohibition number of breweries because no little guy can compete, and eventually, given enough time and market control, degrade to a situation where all beer is generic, cheaply made barley-identifiable-as-beer liquid that sells really well because no one knows any better but still want to get drunk.

Wait a second…

Oh, no, we’re OK. I thought I those chemtrails were making death threats.

The next time AB InBev buys up a brewery (and they will buy others), take a look at what else they’re doing. I wouldn’t be shocked if oh so coincidentally, at the very same time, bills were being voted on, people were being elected, or policy was being reviewed. Even if they start to posture, put out commercials that claim they care about beer, remember that in the Brito bubble, beer = money. Don’t be fooled into thinking that AB InBev is going to fight chivalrously. If they ever show up to duel, it’ll be with poisoned spear tips and snipers in the crowds.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go clean a Jackalope nest out of my modem.

How to Transplant Hops

I took the unseasonably warm weather this Saturday as a sign that I needed to get outside and do something. I need that vitamin D.

I toyed with making an impromptu brew day out of the faux-spring revival, but a lack of prior planning and fresh ingredients kept my kettle dry. I thought about washing the cars, but figured I wouldn’t tempt the weather gods with some pristine paintwork to defile. I even considered going for an extended run, but the overindulgence of the holidays still rolled in my belly like an errant skateboard on a halfpipe.

So, instead, I decided to transplant two of my hop plants.

When I’d first planted them, I broke ground in a dizzy revelry, overwhelmed with the idea that I would soon be growing my own delicious nuggets of lupulin. I’d painstakingly prepared an area for the gangly rhizomes; tilled, pH tested, de-rocked and de-rooted. I built for them a nest where they could sprout and grow and be happy. The one sort of definitely major thing I didn’t consider as I buried them a few inches down, was how much light they’d be getting in the rather secluded plot tucked next to my deck beneath two oaks.

Turns out it wasn’t nearly enough. While the bines did grow in the flat, sun-starved dapple, they didn’t exactly flourish. The fatal parallel was finally drawn when some first year hops I planted in a much sunnier spot grew to twice the size and produced dozens more cones. I knew they had to be moved. The problem was, I didn’t know how to move them.

I don’t have a lot of luck moving plants. Two bushes I tried to move last year did very impressive impressions of dead versions of themselves by the end of the summer. I’m also psychologically averse to pulling an established plant out of the ground. It feels like I’m ripping an organ from the earth with crude tools, in some barbaric verdant ritual.

But it had to happen. For the good of the hops! Lack of knowledge be damned. Armed only with a shovel, my hands, and some guidance via Stan Hieronymus, I set to giving my harrowed hops a happy new home.

How to Transplant Hops

Things you’ll need:

• Hops to be transplanted (sort of a no brainer)
• A shovel (given the size of the root networks, you’ll need something big)
• Your hands (they’re gonna get dirty, so plan ahead)
• A new place for the hops (see the first item of the list)
• Some extra topsoil (I had some left over from summer planting)
• A beer (I chose Troegs HopBack Amber because hop back. Get it!? I need help.)

Step 1: Find the Nubs

If, like me, you decided to transplant your hops in the late-fall/winter, you’re going to have to find exactly where you cut the bine down from the previous year. If, also like me, you were dumb enough to winterize your garden by dumping shredded leaves all over the soil before you moved the hops, you’re going to have to do what I like to call, “exploratory dirt surgery.”

Just dig around with your hands for a while until you find the nub where you cut down the bine. Don’t bust out the shovel quite yet; you don’t want to cut through any major roots. And yes, “nub” is the technical term. You can trust me, I’m a scientist.

A hop “nub.” It has been so temperate here in Maryland that the hops are sprouting like it’s April or something.

Once you’ve found the nub(s), you can start to excavate the area around said nub to see where the major roots are. After a little bit more hand-digging, you should reveal what looks like a miniature stump with hundreds of differently sized roots shooting off in every direction.

A hop “stump.” Looks kind of Lovecraftian style terrifying, actually.

Step 2: Dig around the Stump

Now comes the somewhat tricky part: you need to dig around the stump far enough to not accidentally sever any major hop-arteries, but close enough to actually be able to pull the tentacled beast from the ground. It’s a fine art. I started pretty far away and worked in closer until the whole ground heaved when I levered the shovel upwards.

Protip: The roots spread out very wide, but don’t go very deep. Sort of like bamboo, but way less intrusive and annoying.

At one point, I cut a pretty major root off of the rhizome and felt really super bad about everything. Before I was too overtaken with grief however, I remember that when I planted these things, they were barely the size of pencils. Hops are resilient little dudes. Don’t intentionally hack off a bunch of roots, but if you do hit some while you’re digging, it’s OK. Chances are the plant will be fine. Probably. Hopefully.

Step 3: Pull it out of the Ground

I’m not being metaphorical or anything, literally grab a hold of it and pull it out of the ground.

A second year hop plant’s root system, no longer in the ground. Believe it or not, this is all connected and about 60% of it is not in frame.

Step 4: Drink beer and Admire your Green-ish Thumb

And your high school guidance counselor said you’d never amount to anything. Just look at what you grew! You nurtured and loved a living thing! And then summarily ripped it from its comfortable home for selfish reasons. Maybe that counselor had a point.

Anyway, drink some beer and maybe pour some out for your hop-homies.

Step 5: Dig up the new spot

Given that your plant is much, much bigger now, you’ll need to dig deeper and wider than you would for new baby rhizomes (I dug down about 5 inches and out about 10, but this will vary depending on the size of your plant). You’ll also want to position the stump so that the nub is facing up, and planted roughly where you want the bines to grow. Both of my plants seemed to sprout bines from the same part of the plant each year, so there’s a good chance where you place the stump will be where your new growth will pop its little head out, come spring.

Once you’ve placed it where you want it, dump the dirt back on top. Remember that the nub was technically above ground before, so try not to bury it completely in the new spot, either. For good measure, I added a new layer of topsoil and patted it down to create a uniform bed for the hops to sleep in through winter. I then tossed some mulched leaves on top to keep the soil from getting too hard (you obviously wouldn’t want/need to do this if you’re transplanting in the spring).

A patch of ground,
And not a sound,
But worms and roots turning.

Step 6: You’re done!

Pray to Gaia that your plants like their new home, and that you’ll be seeing little reddish-green spears shooting up come the long-thaw. Drink the rest of your beer. Rejoice. Then go clean all that mud off your shoes before you track it into the house and your significant other yells at you.

‘Twas the Night before Beermas

‘Twas the night before Beermas, and all through the house
Not a microbe was stirring, not even in kraus;
The bottles were lined in the kitchen with care,
In hopes that St. Augustine would soon be there;
The beards and the babes all snug in their beds;
While visions of hop bombs danced in their heads;
And mamma with her brown, and I with my brett,
Had just settled our brains for a night of regret,
When out of the stainless there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bar stool to see what was the matter.

Away to the brewhouse I made a mad dash,
Turned open the bright tank and inspected the mash;
The moon on the breast of the flocculated yeast,
Gave a yellowish glow to say but the least,
When what to my glazed eyes did appear,
But a miniature keg-sleigh all laden with beer,
With a little old brewer so making a fuss,
I knew in a moment must be Fermentus.
More rapid than taplines his libations they came,
And he sipped, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Doppel! now, Bock! now Porter and Amber!
On, Stout! on, Pale! on, Saison and Pilsner!
To the top of the silo! And try not to fall!
Now drink away! drink away! drink away all!”

As labels that on the wild bottling line fly,
When they meet with their glue must inevitably dry;
So up from the kegs the beers they did glug
With a cask full of dry hops, and too many a mug,
And then, in a twinkling, I heard with a crash
The clanking and clinking of bottles of glass
As I buzzed in my head, and was turning around,
Down the grain shoot came Fermentus with a bound.
He was dressed all in plaid, like a relic of grunge
And plopped on the floor like a carboy-free bunge,
A sixer of beers tucked under his arm,
And he looked like a Hill, fresh from his farm.

His malts—how they roasted! his adjuncts; all cherry!
His hops were like pine cones, all nasal and airy!
His droll little smile meant he knew best,
And the beard on his chin was as unkempt as a nest;
The old hydrometer he held tight in his teeth,
And the steam, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a red face and a sway in his step
Either from the liquid itself or the amount he did schlep
He was clever and diligent, a right jolly sud slinger,
And I laughed when I saw him, that liquid cheer bringer.

A wink of his eye and a twist of a cap
Soon gave me to know I would like this old chap,
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the shakers; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger across ruddy lips,
And giving a nod, took but only a sip;
He sprang to his keg-sleigh, to his team gave a hollar,
And away they all flew like wind behind a dollar.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he swerved out of sight—
“Happy Beermas to all, and to all a good night!”

(My apologies for the subcultural bastardization. The original poem by Clement Clarke Moore can be found here)

The Session #92 – I Made This

(This bout of beery banter comes to us from Jeremy Short of Pintwell. The topic: how homebrewing changes your relationship with beer.)

To be unfairly simplistic, the world can be separated into two kinds of people: consumers and makers. They form a complicated codependency, always needing each other to exist but in different ways, two dancers caught up in so dramatic and intense a tango that they often forget who is leading who. The same way an oak drinks the rain to make an acorn that becomes a squirrel’s winter dinner, there’s a natural beauty in the cycle of creation and consumption, and at some point in life a person will play both roles, possibly at the same time.

In a topical coincidence, blogging and homebrewing fall under the same umbrella of creation. They’re the hobbyist’s logical steps towards the professional; the sentence and syntax practice on the path to publication, the mashing and boiling on the boulevard to the brewhouse. To be done well, both require relatively large time (and sometimes financial) investments, with little to no return outside of personal satisfaction and some loose concept that all this practice might be beneficial at some ill-defined point in the future. They are, as far as hobbies go, poorly calculated risks that would make any actuary worth his spreadsheets cringe and run in mathematical terror.

But they do have one advantage that makes up for the sacrificed time and energy: creative freedom. A blogger is left to his own editorial devices, free to write anything he wants with only his experience and sensibilities to guide the quality. A homebrewer is free to brew whatever she doesn’t see on tap, let her recipes run wild down the weird and winding paths of unusual adjuncts, hybrid styles, and potentially disastrous ingredient additions. Concerns about commercial viability matter little to the spinner of homegrown tales and bottler of homegrown ales; they’re making for the sake of making, which some might argue, is the purest pursuit there is.

All of this is to say that bloggers and homebrewers are simultaneously consumers and makers, existing in a limbo between the two distinctions, giving them unique perspective on their craft. A blogger with bookish dreams will balance writing with prodigious reading, analyzing structures and themes, just as a homebrewer might sniff and swirl a beer at the bar in a search for potential defects. While mastering the making side, a person has to learn what defines “good” in their field, and imitate, emulate, sometimes downright copy, all to find their own style, which has its roots buried deep in knowing the product and process well. To make, one must first consume. To truly appreciate what you’re consuming, it’s important to know how it’s made.

By transitioning from full-fledged consumer to fledgling maker, you get to see, maybe only briefly, that border where the two worlds meet.

There’s a drawback though. By committing yourself to learning the delicate intricacies of how a product is made, you’re fundamentally altering how you view that topic. After learning to revise grammatically and syntactically, I struggle to read books without trying to analyze the sentences, wondering how and why the author wrote them that way. When I drink a beer, I’m often spending more time considering its constituent malty and hoppy parts as the brewer in me takes over, not just letting it slide down my gullet with simple satisfaction. Once you learn you cannot unlearn, which may (if your mind works anything like mine) somewhat ruin the enjoyment of the product you had when you were only a consumer.

But what you lose in enjoyment, you make up for in the satisfaction of creating something that other people enjoy. It’s a fair trade, I think. The life of a maker is not for everyone, and that’s a good thing, because the aforementioned codependency would fall apart if the maker had no one to make for. Blogging and homebrewing have changed how I approach two of my favorite things in this life, to the point where “I read this” and “I drank this” are less important to me than the simple and inclusive “I made this.”

“Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Of Pints and Prices

Ever stare at a bar’s tap list, letting the myriad bubbly options sink slowly into your brain as you swirl that first potential sip over the phantom taste buds of your imagination? Ever get so excited that you forget to look at the sneaky little number winking at you from the right of the beer’s name? Ever suddenly stop, mid-Pavlovian drool, to say, “Wait, really? $7 for a pint? That’s like 43 cents an ounce! We’re getting dangerously close to printer ink prices, here!”

You’re not alone. The price of a pint has climbed steadily in positive correlation to beer’s national popularity, to the point where many are forced to budget their brew to avoid Chapter 14 (Beer Bankruptcy). At a glance, these upwardly creeping prices seem exorbitant, and out of reach of people without disposable income searing a hole in their Levis. Beer is supposed to be the layman’s drink, the libation of the laborer, that less snotty or less punchy variant to wine or whiskey. It’s not supposed to be expensive, and yet here we are, where the quality of beer in general has improved (for the most part), and can finally be justified in green, paper terms.

The beer pricing discussion often grabs onto and swings around ABV; a lot of the trendy new “session” IPAs boast alcohol in the sub-5% range. By brewing definition, less alcohol in a final beer means less malt used in the recipe, which should in theory, translate to savings for the drinker, right?

If you’re approaching the beer world from a homebrewer’s perspective, you’d be right. Cutting a significant amount of malt from your recipe would lead to a much cheaper final beer. But homebrewers have next to no overhead costs; their equipment is already paid for, they have no property rental cost (a mortgage doesn’t count), and they don’t have to pay any employees for their time.

If you tilt your head and squint your eyes a little bit to look at brewing from a purely business perspective, factoring in the (somewhat, to some people) hidden costs of property rental, staff salaries, and utilities, you find that ingredients account for barely 15% of the total price of a beer. Significantly adjusting the amount of malt might lead to a net difference (per pint) that could be measured in a take-a-penny, leave-a-penny tray.

Higher ABV and aged beers tend to be more expensive not (only) because their ingredient cost is higher, but because of the opportunity cost associated with managing and storing that beer when it could have been sold as is, right away. If an imperial stout sits in barrels for 8 weeks after it has finished fermenting, that’s 8 weeks the non-barrel aged version could have been sold; 8 weeks where the brewery could have turned a profit. When it does finally pop out of the wood, all bolstered by bourbon, the brewery has to charge more for the beer to make up for lost time.

Defying conventional logic, ingredients play but a bit role in the price of your beer. As a rough basis, the following numbers reflect the brewing costs* of a small, local, US brewery for an average, middle of the road beer (per $7 pint):

Malt: $0.21
Hops: $0.06
Other ingredients (spices, fruit, veggies, etc): $0.01
Yeast: $0.06
Total ingredient cost per pint: $0.34

Utilities: $0.06
Rent, employee salaries, other: $1.77
Total overhead cost per pint: $1.83

Total brewery cost per pint: $2.17

So if you’re paying $7 a pint, where does that additional $4.83 you shovel out of your poor wallet onto the ring-stained wood come from? A portion goes to the distributor (as part of the three tier system of beer distribution in the US) who takes a cut to move the beer from brewery to barroom. But if the brewery sells their beer at cost, the distributor only takes ~75 cents, meaning the other $4.08 comes from bar markup.

Before you scoff at that and swear to never drink another beer at the bar again, know that these prices are generally justified. To function properly, a bar has to pay for liquor licenses, staff training, labor in the form of cleaning and hauling and pouring, draft lines and systems, property rental, taxes, and other sundry business related expenses. They’re also probably trying to turn a profit to remain solvent, pay down any business loans, and make the owner some money, which is sort of the whole spirit of capitalism.

Of every beer you buy at the bar, ~25% of the price goes back to the brewery. Beer is a game of scale; the more beer a brewery can sell, the relatively cheaper their overhead becomes, as their static costs are further divided by every extra barrel they can produce and sell. If it wasn’t obvious before, this stresses the importance of the brewery-connected taproom (and should fuel your consumer desire to drink there if you support the brewery). Every beer sold in-house means all the money stays at the brewery, and none is split with distributors or bars.

All of this financial theorycrafting mashes out and boils down to a sweet wort of knowing what you’re paying for. When you slap down $7 for a pint, you’re not paying for the sum of the ingredients, no matter how exotic the hops or rich and decadent the malt profile. You’re paying for the expertise of the brewer, her time and energy, the collective work of a brewery’s staff to deliver a product that you probably couldn’t make yourself.

You’re paying for knowledge, practice, patience; for brewing as a service, not beer as a food.

*These numbers were provided by Jailbreak Brewing company of Laurel, MD, and are representative only. Specific numbers can/will change based on the size and popularity of a brewery, and may also fluctuate by state/region. Please do not quote me or Jailbreak on these numbers, as they’re supposed to be for educational reference purposes only 🙂

A special thanks for the folks at Jailbreak for supplying me with some sample monetary figures!

You Don’t Have to Love Brewing to Love Beer

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of teaching a group of close friends how to brew. We gathered in our host’s driveway like a gaggle of birds flocking to a piece of tossed bread, excited to gorge our brains on malty knowledge, to create and learn all in one very efficient swoop. I’ve taught classes at a corporate level before, slinging SharePoint solutions like a pro, but I’d never taught a class on how to brew. I went crazy with it. I even made a 7-page handout!

You forget, once you’ve fully ingrained yourself in a process, how many aspects of the art you take for granted. As I held up a cylinder full of golden wort to explain hydrometers, sugar density, and original gravity like these were concepts the average person should know about, it struck me how involved and complicated brewing must seem to someone who hasn’t been studying and physically doing it for nearly ten years. I did my best to explain (in less scientific terms) how water, sugar, hops, and yeast eventually become the drink we all immediately recognize, which forced me to reanalyze brewing as an activity, and it’s applicability as a hobby.

At some point, when I was explaining how to troubleshoot a stuck fermentation, and how relatively subtle changes in temperature can result in unwanted off flavors, I realized that homebrewing is a high risk, low reward venture. It requires a significant start up cost, large swaths of free time, and until you’ve done it for a while, results in pretty mediocre beer. It requires a lot of study, a lot of patience, and sometimes, a light sprinkling of luck. It’s clearly not a hobby for everyone.

A strange current undulates deep in the aquifers beneath craft beer culture, an ebb that pulls beer drinkers into production breweries, and a flow that pushes them to gaze upon rows of stainless steel tanks in jaw-dropped awe. The phenomena is unique to beer (from what I can tell); writers do not spend their time inside publishing company warehouses, admiring printers and book binding machines, while comparing and rating fonts. Foodies rarely walk into the kitchens of their favorite restaurants to grab a quick bite with the head chef while admiring his oven. In other fields, such behavior would be bizarre, possibly even ridiculed.

Part of the allure of a brewery comes from novelty; prior to the last few years, the only options you really had to see beer-making in action required generic tours through massive Bud and Miller industrial complexes. Many people who have loved beer for a long time now get to peek behind the curtain, see that the great and powerful is actually the organized and practical, demystify the processes and the people that lead to their favorite drink. General brewery openness to invite the libatious public into their work space shows just how welcoming our little community really is, but comes with an oft overlooked side effect that mars all that generous inclusivity with unintended exclusivity.

The obsession with breweries makes it seem like you have to love brewing if you already love beer. Everyone else seems enamored by the creative side, puppy-love smitten by the idea that beer is crafted by people, not just spawned in bottles and distributed to the masses. So why not you? I’ve heard several friends and colleagues announce, with much dejection, that they “just can’t get into brewing,” or “I tried homebrewing, and didn’t enjoy it,” their voices tinted with frustration and failure. There is an implication that the enjoyment of the product is inextricably tied to the enjoyment of the process, and that you cannot possibly be into one without being into the other. A subconscious malignant trend whispers mean words to the dark, suggesting that people who love to drink beer aren’t “real beer people” unless they frequent every brewery in a fifty mile radius, and homebrew every weekend.

I’m here to tell you that’s all nonsense. In a commercial context, there will always exist two subsets of people: creators and consumers. While there will inevitably be some cross over, in nearly every other modern industry, the lines are pretty cleanly drawn between the two groups. You don’t expect every voracious reader to also be a writer, or study sentence structure and grammar, do you? You’d never suggest someone who enjoys delicious food also learn how to cook every dish they enjoy, Iron Chef style, right? We appreciate the creators because without them we wouldn’t have our products to consume, but trying to culturally tie creation and consumption together will lead to a lot of unreasonable expectations, and possibly some alienating let downs when reality deviates from the prescribed popular path.

It’s OK to not want to try your hand at homebrewing, or to find the process tedious and unrewarding.

It’s OK to love beer for it’s mosaic variety and deliciousness without giving a single solitary shit about how it transformed from raw ingredients to decadent ambrosia.

It’s OK to not want to visit breweries, to not have an aesthetic opinion about stainless steel versus copper, to not really care at what temperature the grain for your favorite beer was mashed.

You can love, respect, and enjoy beer without any of that. You should still maintain a healthy respect for those who do spend their time making beer (as long as they do it well), but feel no shame in not wanting to pack up and move yourself to that side of the beerish world. While it would be pretty difficult to love brewing if you didn’t love beer, never let the culture, or any unspoken trend, suggest the opposite is true.

It’s OK, really, to love brew as a noun, but not as a verb.

“If it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” ― Leo Tolstoy