You’re not really drinking a beard, you’re drinking a great beer that happens to have a yeast that comes from a beard.
Turns out Lemkin|5 came a few days too soon; here we have a bit of follow up that reaches all the way back to dickity-nine. You no doubt fondly recall the sad tale of Kimber VanRy, the man who received a $25 summons for just sitting there, drinking his own beer, on his own stoop, all safely enclosed behind his own gate there in Brooklyn.
Well, they’re at it again. The New York Times (again) reports that this time it’s Andrew Rausa and a few friends that were sitting on a similarly figured stoop behind bars; each received a summons. Even one friend who “was holding a red plastic cup filled with soda” received a $25 summons. This is hardly surprising, in that they made the cardinal mistake of pointing out the inherent foolishness and likely illegality of this sort of enforcement. Gentlemen, to the iPhone:
Holding his phone, Mr. Rausa approached the officer and said that because he was sitting on a private stoop behind a gate, he was not breaking the law.
“I don’t care what the law says, you’re getting a summons,” the officer said before rolling up his window, according to Mr. Rausa.
Frankly, he’s lucky he didn’t get his face used as a door opener for a few hours while the cops made their rounds. At the very least, a savage in situ beat-down would have ensued in various parts of town. Even in the absence of all that, a simmering rage gradually built over the $25 fines:
“We had an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment,” he recalled. “They were like, ‘No way, we’re going to fight this. This is injustice.’”
[…]
“My issue is not some yuppie, I-think-I’m-above-the-law-issue, it’s the fact that I brought to the attention of the police officer that he was not in the right and he was not receptive at all,” Mr. Rausa said.
File that last sentence under “least surprising thing ever reported by The Times of New York.” I’m not even entirely sure Mr. Rausa is still speaking English at that moment. But he’s right about the legality part. And that’s something, isn’t it? Rest assured we’ll be watching for the outcome of this one. If CourtTV hadn’t long ago switched its programming to only Bahrani hard-R independent films, we could all expect extensive coverage. But we can’t. So it goes.
Regarding the mechanics of the piece itself: what beers were they drinking? How many? Crown tops or twist? Where did you learn your trade, Vivian Yee? Clearly not from Clyde Haberman, who I trust is still with us. But, in partial recompense, Vivian does offer up some spicy VanRy where-are-they-now:
Since contesting his summons [and having it dismissed on a technicality], Mr. VanRy has moved from Prospect Heights to a brownstone in Windsor Terrace, but he hasn’t stopped enjoying his beers outside
Thank FSM for that. And godspeed to you, Andrew Rausa. A parched nation looks to you as you defend our freedom to drink a beer quietly whilst safely ensconced on our own property.
The real scandal is that General McChrystal’s favorite beer is Bud Light Lime.
Anchor Brewing Company changes hands:
Fritz Maytag, the washing machine heir who launched the microbrewery movement, has sold Anchor Brewing Co. in San Francisco to a pair of Bay Area entrepreneurs who plan to preserve and expand the iconic brand.
[…]
In 45 years at the helm of Anchor Brewing, Maytag helped spark a revival in the craft of making beer by hand and inspired thousands of entrepreneurs to follow him in creating small, artisanal breweries.
Keith Greggor, 55, and Tony Foglio, 64, two veterans of the spirits industry, say they plan to expand Anchor Brewing’s operations and cement its position as a font of artisanal beers and spirits.
“This is something we want to build on for the rest of our careers and pass on to the next generation,” said Foglio, who will serve as chairman while Greggor runs the operation.
“Combining Keith and Tony’s passion for the Anchor Brewing Co., their industry experience and expertise only means that Anchor will be enjoyed in San Francisco for generations to come,” Maytag, who will serve as chairman emeritus, said in a statement.
Didn’t realize that Maytag was into his seventies. This is a man that, when faced with news that his favorite brewery was about to close, bought it. And, in the course of reinvigorating Anchor’s fortunes, more or less inadvertently set off what became the rebirth of quality brewing in America. Single-handedly saved an entire style (their iconic California Common, or “Steam” beer) from commercial extinction, and went on to essentially create what became known as American Pale Ale (along with Sierra Nevada in Chico, CA) through a beer called Liberty Ale, originally brewed to commemorate Paul Revere’s ride. Along the way, Anchor also carved out a new commercial niche for American style porters (really: robust porter) and stouts, and, most notably to Lemkin, Anchor also produces one of the finest American Style barleywines you will ever, ever encounter: Old Foghorn. Oh, and Anchor happens to be behind a fine winter warmer, typically spiced, whose recipe changes each year.
And it’s through the story of one year’s version of that particular winter warmer (its official name being Anchor Merry Christmas) that you can really get a sense of the whole Anchor story in microcosm by watching Michael Jackson’s Beer Hunter series (the opening scenes of the relevant episode are available here). In the full episode, you can watch as Maytag takes the brewery staff (and Jackson) on an annual pilgrimage to the fields, such that they can follow their beer from harvest through production.
I realize this post is reading like an obituary…but, at least so far, it isn’t.
Anchor is a national treasure. Hopefully these guys realize that. They make the right noises, anyway. Time will tell. Until then: to Fritz Maytag! Your brewery (and this fan) salutes you.
In their respective races for total global domination of the ever-popular bland beer segment, SABMiller and Anheuser-Busch have a natural tendency to clash over events like the upcoming FIFA World Cup in South Africa. And why not? Just the fan parks segment of the operation (not the actual stadia where games are going on, mind you) account for a staggering quantity of beer:
40 percent of the 100,000 extra hectoliters of beer SABMiller expects to sell during and around the monthlong tournament, Hewitt said. That’s equivalent to 8 million half-liter (1.1 pint) glasses of beer or 12 million 340 milliliter cans of the beverage.
So why wouldn’t any brewery that could manage to brew that much want a piece of that action? Well, because it’s being sold brandless. “I’ll have a beer” will, for once, apparently be an entirely accurate way to order. Meanwhile, all the advertising in and around the stadia will be done by (you guessed it):
Anheuser-Busch, said by e-mail that his company decided “more than a decade ago to focus our beer presences in-stadium” during FIFA World Cup matches.
This means that SABMiller has scored the exciting prospect of being the vendor behind 12 million can-equivalents of beer like substance. Well played, well played. AB will surely go broke chasing after the rafts of folks who have a brand preference in their choice of beer-like liquids and who may, in fact, assume that (based on all the signage) they are actually drinking AB beer-like liquids.
Eastbound and down, loaded up and trucking: SABMiller (Coors) is gonna do what they say can’t be done: sell even more AB beer based on the perceived quality of SABMiller’s own products. Burt Reynolds better get going on those sit-ups.
I don’t even watch Lost; love this, though.
Though I never really realized it was gone, the one with Gusto, Schlitz, is making a triumphant return. But not in a Rolling Stones style victory lap…no siree, Schlitz is re-booting like Batman and coming back in his full-on 60s glory. Okay, not like Batman at all. But 60s! The hipsters will totally be off the PBR any day now.
Witness the all-too-familiar tale:
Wortham says that Schlitz fell victim to the industry trend in the 1970s when breweries accelerated the brewing process and used cheaper ingredients – all with the goal of cutting costs.
Turns out “that no one associated with the brand even knew the original recipe anymore. The brewmaster Bob Newman had to track down Schlitz employees and brewers from the 1960s to piece together the formula” and then dickered with the results until something approximating the recalled flavor was achieved. Thus, the “Classic 60’s Formula” was born. The audience seems appreciative:
Kyle Wortham, director of marketing for the Chicago-based beer brand, tells me the old formula has been a big hit among beer drinkers in the Midwest markets where it has already been rolled out, sparking many a trip down memory lane. “They light up when they have this beer that they haven’t had in 30 or 40 years,” Wortham says. “We heard a lot of PG and a lot of R-rated stories from these guys.”
Um: neat? I appreciate the journalistic restraint in not laying any of the PG-13 stories on us. That’s really something to save for the big reveal of 60s-style Busch.
The NYT article linked above describes the “new” old flavor as:
a surprisingly smooth, full lager, slightly sweet with malt and a little bitter with actual hop flavor
Which, to me, doesn’t sound all that different from the high-temperature fermented corn syrup that was Schlitz until not so very long ago. But: time will tell…because (hold on to your hats, boys): Boston is a roll-out city. And, when you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of beer.
If you’re in New England, you’d be well advised to go ahead and say your goodbyes to Buzzards Bay:
WESTPORT – Buzzards Bay Brewing will discontinue production of its eponymous microbrews.
“We’ve had a good run ” owner Bill Russell said, “but we have decided to head in a different direction.”
The surprise announcement Wednesday was influenced by a number of factors, Russell said, primarily a drop in demand. Sales had declined from a high of 5,000 barrels of Buzzards Bay brews in 2002 to a projected sale of around 100 barrels in the next seven months, Russell said.
That’s a hell of a drop in production. Where did it all go? Apparently right into the gaping maw that has swallowed many otherwise successful (but ultimately very small and by definition fragile) regional breweries:
“Our best years were when we distributed it ourself,” he said. “It’s hard to compete with national brands, representing huge corporate interests, that muscle their way into the marketplace.”
The big distributors could give a shit about anything that’s not called Bud/MillerCoors. And, let’s face it, nowadays almost all distributors are “big” (for a good rundown of the near-monopolistic situation, read this). If your beer doesn’t sell itself in business-sustaining volumes (complete with customers screaming for it at every store and bar if and when that tap or rack space goes away because your distributor had some big-assed Bud installations to do that week), you’d better self distribute or you will go out of business. Full stop.
Low volume, regional breweries like this depend on fanatical attention to every detail all the way from the grain to the tap handle. And, to you small regional brewers out there: If you are not on tap with at least one beer at every bar worth entering that’s located within 20 miles of your home brewery, change distributors or self-distribute. You are going to go out of business otherwise. It may already be too late. Seriously. Don’t kid yourself that breweries with good beers won’t fail. They do all the time. Even once mighty Celis was laid low on the altar of “better” distribution, and they had absolutely rabid, Smokey and the Bandit level fans.
But what about this so-called “different direction”; isn’t that just a pleasant euphemism for “closing the brewery”? Turns out it’s not:
“We are now producing a new product line called Just Beer that we can distribute ourselves locally,” he said. The new brands include John Beere, Moby D. and CIA (which the company Web site describes as “mysteriously smooth.”)
Ummm, okay. That sounds like a real winner. Something to base your future on. Nothing more profitable out there than gimmick beers and/or beers that try to out-Bud Budweiser. Newsflash: you will not be succesfull at trying to convert Bud drinkers to your Bud-alike. You cannot compete on price, and there is no bandwidth there to compete on taste. You think your quality is going to be better than a brewery producing a substantially identical yet biologically-derived product to the tune of millions of barrels at twelve very different locations? Why does anyone go after the American Premium Lager space? Even in a brewpub setting it makes no sense at all (time consuming and therefore costly with extremely marginal chance for success in terms of winning a steady and, by definition, choosy customer-base for craft beer).
Fortunately, it turns out they also contract brew for Cisco and Pretty Things, two fine product lines (we’ll forget for the moment some rather, uh, troubling bottles of Cisco I’ve encountered on various occasions and bask in the glory that is Indie IPA). But then comes this:
New ventures are also waiting, he said, including a partnership with an Irish brewer called Strangford Lough to produce and distribute some of their labels in the United States, one of which will be called St. Patrick’s Best.
“It’s very exciting for me since it’s part of my heritage,” he said. “They will ship us the syrup in 300-gallon boxes. It comes in a bladder inside the box. We will reconstitute it and ferment it here. It’s produced in County Down with Irish grain and hops, so it will have that unique taste and we will distribute it here.”
Indeed, reconstituted syrup will have a “unique” taste. Unique to Malt Liquor, that is… But with a name like “St. Patrick’s Best” I guess one should expect to wake up in the gutter (empty 40 nearby, natch) with what seems to be a tomahawk lodged in the front of one’s skull. Part of the heritage.
Sam Calagione, Dogfish Head’s founder and chief ideas-man (check this New Yorker profile for the rest of the story) apparently isn’t satisfied with exotic-wood-aged beers or ancient recipes beers. According to the NYT, he’s after the big banana: saliva-fermented beers. Well, partially saliva-fermented, anyway. Central American custom has one chew corn, spit it into a container, let said corn/spit ferment, and then: enjoy! Witness the true salesman in action:
“You need to convert the starches in the corn into fermentable sugars,” the always entertaining Mr. Calagione said by phone from his headquarters in Rehoboth Beach. “One way is through the malting process. But another way — there are natural enzymes in human saliva and by chewing on corn, whether they understood the science of it, ancient brewers through trial and error learned that the natural enzymes in saliva would convert the starch in corn into sugar, so it would ferment. It may sound a little unsavory. …”
And, of course, Dogfish Head is a reasonably large operation. Even a pilot batch for them requires a lot of, uh, chewing:
“We’re going to have an archaeologist and historians and brewers sitting around and chewing 20 pounds of this purple Peruvian corn,” he said. “You kind of chew it in your mouth with your saliva, then push with your tongue to the front of your teeth so that you make these small cakes out of it, then lay them on flat pans and let them sit for 12 hours in the sun or room temperature. That’s when the enzymes are doing their work of converting the starches in that purple corn.”
[…]
“It’s dismal, I’m not going to lie to you,” Mr. Calagione said. “I’d say everybody is deeply, unpleasantly surprised at how labor intensive and palate fatiguing this stuff has turned out to be.”
The article details the whole chewy denouement. Any homebrewers out there can likely use this important tidbit:
“It’s better if you drink water,” Mr. Calagione said. “I take a drink of water before every time I do it. It’s not as pummeling on my gag reflex.”
Noted.
They churned out a few kegs of this stuff and found some folks familiar with the traditional product to test it out for them:
This is not chicha,” Angel Marin (Ecuador) and two others said, almost simultaneously.
“It tastes like beer,” said Yanko Valdes (Chile).
“It’s supposed to be sweeter,” said Martin Estel (Peru). “It’s not bad though.”
Asked about the chewing and spitting method, Mr. Marin said that it was “old school — in the jungle.”
He also made a suggestion: “You want chicha, you should go to Queens,
Lemkin 