A bi-weekly, non-comprehensive roundup
of news of beer and other things.
Weeks 30/31
20 July - 2 August 2014
- 1 August 2014
August is Virginia Craft Beer Month.
—Via YFGF. - 30 July 2014
Once considered unfit for brewing, wild American hops are making their solo debut on the beer market. "The difference between the American and European varieties is that there are certain compounds in those American varieties, such as geranial, which gives [the American hops] a floral quality, often a citrus quality." The story of the discovery and cultivation of "Humulus neomexicanus" hops in New Mexico. And a beer brewed with them.
—Via Smithsonian.
- 29 July 2014
Beer writer Stephen Beaumont believes that, contrary to warnings from others in the craft beer business, "3,000 breweries are not too many for the United States."- 1) Roughly 92% of the overall American beer market is not 'craft'.
- 2) "That brewery to population ratio, by the way, is about one per every 105,000 people. Which in a global context is actually pretty laughable."
- 28 July 2014
A new Gallup poll finds that 41% of U.S. drinkers report they typically drink beer; 31% name wine, 23% liquor. Americans' current preference for beer is among the highest Gallup has recorded since beer tumbled to 36% on this measure in 2005 -- although still not as highly favored as it was in the 1990s, when nearly half preferred it.
—Via Brewers Assoication.
- 28 July 2014
In the first half of 2014, the 'craft' beer industry sold 10.6 million barrels of beer, an increase of nine million over the same period in 2013. Part of that increase can be accounted for by the inclusion this year of figures from Yuengling and a few other breweries, which the Brewers Association had not considered to be 'craft' last year and before.
—Via Brewers Assoication.
- 24 July 2014
The original 'craft' beer bar in Richmond, Virginia —the Commercial Taphouse— has been sold. Opened originally in 1994, it will remain open.
—Via Richmond.com.
- 24 July 2014
"Wine should not taste like a tree. So why age wine in oak barrels? They contribute structure, body and tannin to the wine, while helping to clarify and stabilize it. They also expose the wine to a measure of oxygen (through the wood, but also when the wine is “racked” from one barrel to another to remove the juice from the lees, or sediment), softening the wine and giving it a fleshier mouth feel. As long as it doesn’t overwhelm the fruit, oak contributes many of the flavors we associate with fine wine."
—Via Dave McIntyre (in Washington Post).
- 24 July 2014
The U.S. cider market continues to grow. Combined data from the U.S. Department of Commerce (imported cider) and Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) wine reports (domestic cider) show year-to-date total volumes at an all time high of 7.5 million CEs (case equivalents), growing 63 percent for the first four months of this year. Domestic volumes are 74 percent higher than last year, while imported cider sales fell by 11 percent.
—Via National Beer Wholesalers Association. - 25 July 2014
Scientists at the State Key Laboratory of Mycology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences say they have discovered the ancestor of Saccharomyces bayanus, a yeast species widely thought to be one of two parents of Saccharomyces pastorianus (also known as Saccharomyces carlsbergensis), used for hundreds of years to make lager. In 2011, an international team found a candidate for lager yeast's ancestor in Patagonia in Argentina, but the suggestion it was the original ancestor was met with arguments over whether the yeast had travelled from Europe over the Atlantic Ocean.
—Via South China Morning Post. - 23 July 2014
A 'craft' beer distributor in Maine has offered potential client-breweries an interesting work-around to the state's 3-tier franchise law, by offering beverage manufacturers fixed-length contracts capable of being nullified at any time. But the consensus from industry experts and other craft brewers is that state franchise laws would be likely to trump even a written contract.
—Via Brewbound.
- 20 July 2014
Growers in Washington state harvested 27,062 acres of hops in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Virginia has about 30 acres in hops this year, said Stan Driver, chairman of the Old Dominion Hops Co-Op. But the yield is increasing as more farmers begin to grow hops in the state.
—Via Lee Graves (at Richmond Times-Dispatch). - 20 July 2014
The United States leads the world in total wine consumption at 29 million hectoliters per year (supplanting France at 28.2 million hectoliters). Per capita, the U.S. ranks much lower, at 10 liters per person of per year (13.33 bottles).
—Via Schiller-Wine. - 20 July 2014
Officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) toured Port City Brewing, in Alexandria, Virginia, to learn more about the removal of 'spent' grains from breweries (and its re-use as feed for livestock).The FDA is currently reviewing comments submitted regarding a proposed ruling included in the Food Safety and Modernization Act that would regulate the use of spent grain as animal feed. As proposed, the ruling could have harmful effects on the small brewing industry.
—Via Brewers Association. - 20 July 2014
A life well-played. New Orleans jazz trumpeter Lionel Ferbos dies at 103. Was still gigging at age 102.
—Via WWLTV.
- 20 July 2014
A tourism official for Loudoun County, Virginia, touted the recent growth of 'craft' breweries in his county by finding brewery visitors to be "male versions of female wine connoisseurs at a lot of our wineries."
—Via WWLTV.
- 20 July 2014
Forty-five years ago, the first humans walked on the Moon. The USA's Apollo 11 landed there, 20 July 1969.
—Via Space.com.
- 20 July 2014
California's Stone Brewing Company to build a new brewery ... in Berlin, Germany. The large 'craft' brewery is using IndieGo Go to crowd-source one-million out of the twenty-five millions dollars expected as necessary.
—Via Brewbound.
- 20 July 2014
As just one example of the rapidly increasing number of 'craft' breweries in the United States: Bristol, Virginia's first brewery - Holston Brewing - opened in May. Three more breweries have announced plans to follow, just in the town of Bristol.
—Via TriCities.com.
- 20 July 2014
"This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and message. I'll get back to you." Actor James Garner —star of movies, but most well know for TV shows, "Rockford Files and "Maverick"— has died.
—Via NBC News. - 20 July 2014
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- Clamps and Gaskets is a bi-weekly wrap-up of stories not posted at Yours For Good Fermentables.com. Most deal with beer (or wine, or whisky); some do not. But all are brief, and many are re-posts from @cizauskas, YFGF's companion Twitter site.
- The Clamps and Gaskets graphic was created by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.
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