Porter: the drink that launched thousands of ships.

And if [the pint of Plain] is all drawn properly, the way it should be done, then the [contented] cream is borne majestically above to form the clerical collar that proves the goodness in its heart. And the true porter drinker would look upon such a glass with great reverence, indeed.

A brewer in Virginia, USA, recently posted a dark lament to Facebook.

"IPA, IPA, IPA! I think it's time that 'real beer' drinkers and brewers (not the Instagrammers and Untappd abusers) take beer back. When was the last time anyone saw a brown ale or a porter or stout that wasn't flavored or imperial? There is nothing quite like a nice, unflavored porter. DARK BEERS MATTER!"

A few days later, it just so happened, British beer authors Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey —in their eponymous blog's year-end list of top beer tweets— linked to a tweet from the archives of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

At the end of April 1973, then-Irish brewing company Guinness ceased production of all its porter. A few days later, on 11 May 1973, BBC presenter Larry McCoubrey drank one of the last draught pints to be had. As the BBC tweeted on 11 May 2017, the forty-fourth anniversary of that Belfast broadcast:

Larry McCoubrey's panegyric to porter was pure pub poetry. Pint of plain, please, publican.

Yes, brew (more) Porters again. Yes, make (more) beers dark again! Malted serendipity, indeed.

[A grandfather clock can be heard ticking.]

Porter, an old established tradition in Irish drinking history. Why, we've even got songs about it.

[Folk-singer sings.]
If you want your child to grow,
Your child to grow,
Your child to grow,
If you want your child to grow,
Give him a jar of porter.
Sing Toora loora loora lay,
Toora loora loora lay.
Sing Toora loora loora lay,
Give him a jar of porter.

It's an acquired taste, of course. But, at least, it comes easier than the bitter thickness of stout. But just as England produced beer that was mild and bitter, so we developed porter and stout. This is the 'mild.' "Plain" they call it. You would always call for a pint of Plain. That was just part of the mystique that grew up around this drink.

The more essential part of it was the way in which it was drawn. Barmen could rise and fall on their ability to draw a pint of Plain.

You see, it's drawn from two barrels. A high one, first, to give it a bit of life. A good glass full of gushing good cheer that settles slowly towards the bottom of the glass into a thick, contented cream.

It takes several minutes for that cream to substantiate towards the bottom of the glass, when it's ready for the muscle and the sinew, the real body of the drink itself. And that comes from the other barrel...of flat.

And if it's all drawn properly, the way it should be done, then the cream is borne majestically above to form the clerical collar that proves the goodness in its heart. And the true porter drinker would look upon such a glass with great reverence, indeed.

If work was the curse of the drinking classes, then porter was their salvation.

And, yet, you know, it was not the traditional drink of Ireland the disciples would have you believe. This was a city drink; there were definite centers for it. It was the liquid lunch of countless working men in Dublin, and Derry, and in Belfast, where the shipyard drew most of its strength from the dark substance.

It was the drink that waited for the men as the horn blew in the evening and pubs up in Newtownards rolled around the station and up Ann Street, Short Strand, the pints of plain used to be standing in rows on the counter, waiting for the onslaught from the yard.

Used to be...for pubs progressed. Bottle beer broke through; gin and tonic took over; and porter became impolite. Lately, there have been less than a hundred pubs in Ireland selling it.

And, now, these are probably the last pints of Plain you'll probably ever see in Belfast. For on the thirtieth of April 1973, they stopped making it altogether.

This was more than a way of drinking. This really was a way of life. Porter: the drink that launched thousands of ships.

[A grandfather clock ticks...and then stops.]

-----more-----

Washington, D.C. news organization rewrites local beer history.

Washington, D.C. brewery, DC Brau, will celebrate its fourth birthday next month. It was April 2011, when the brewery would deliver its first ever keg of beer —The Public, a hoppy, yet firmly malted pale ale— to a local restaurant. And, a big celebration, that day became.

WTOP —a Washington, D.C. all-news radio station and website— honored the upcoming anniversary with a story that began:

It may be hard to believe, but just a short time ago, there were no breweries in D.C. There hadn’t been one since 1956, when Christian Heurich Brewing Company closed its doors.

But the District’s 50-plus-year dry spell ended four years ago, when friends Brandon Skall and Jeff Hancock opened DC Brau. And the business ignited Washington’s brewing boom as others soon followed.

Well, yes to DC Brau, but hell, no, to that comment about "no breweries in DC [...] since 1956." It's just plain wrong.

Nearly nineteen years before DC Brau ever even began operations, the Capitol City Brewing Company —a brewery within a restaurant— would open, in August 1992, in downtown Washington, D.C., making it the first brewery to operate in the city, brewpub or otherwise, since the Heurich brewery shut down in 1956.

It would be a solitary one until a few years later when joined by Dock Street Brewing Company, John Harvard's, District Chophouse, and Gordon-Biersch. All were brewery-restaurants. Several of their resident brewers would go on to brew elsewhere, some still in the area, and some with great success.

Why ignore them?

• Dock Street was a local offshoot of the pioneering Philadelphia brewery and brewpub of the same name that opened in the City of Brotherly Love in 1985. Its D.C. brewpub, located in the basement of the Warner Theater, would, unfortunately, remain open for only a year. (1996)
• John Harvard's would then open in the same space, but would itself shutter just short of a decade later. (1997-2006)
• The original Capitol City location at 12th & H Streets NW, is still open but only as a restaurant. In 2002, brewing operations were moved to the brewery/restaurant in the Shirlington district of Arlington, Virginia.
• District Chophouse opened in 1997. Its Bourbon Stout might very well be the second-longest continuously brewed bourbon stout in the nation, after Goose Island's. ¹
• In 2013, Gordon-Biersch opened a second brewery/restaurant in the city, near to Nationals Park (in addition to its still open original location in what is now known as Penn Quarter).

To gloss over the history and beers of these breweries solely because they were also restaurants (albeit without distribution) seems capricious. In fact, both Right Proper (opened 2013) and Bluejacket (opened 2013) — both mentioned in the WTOP article as new breweries— are themselves brewery/restaurants. ²

To be fair, at the end of the article, WTOP adds a qualifying comment. But it's appended with an asterisk, as if the reporter or her editor had added it, cover-your-arse-like, after the story had first been posted.

* While some restaurants/breweries were making beer in D.C. prior to 2011, there were no production breweries canning/kegging/bottling their beer for distribution/offsite sale.

This isn't the first time that the Washington, D.C. non-beer press has re-written local-beer history. Take for example, a July 2013 story in the Washington City Paper. The writer, in rooting for the quality of the 'food scene' in Washington, D.C., managed to explicitly 'disappear' all three brewpubs then operating in the city (District Chophouse and both Gordon-Bierschs).

Now, nothing against DC Brau. In fact, for me, just the opposite. I was there that day they first shipped beer in 2011, and I continue to enjoy DC Brau's beers today. I applaud their upcoming fourth anniversary ³ , and I wish them continued good fortune.

But "facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." ⁴ Whether writing on beer or something less profound, reporters for news organizations (and don't forget about us bloggers!) shouldn't be so cavalier.

As fact-checking assistance for any future local-beer story, WTOP, I offer this for the record: today, there are ten breweries in our Nation's Capital.

And, that's worth reporting.


***************
UPDATE: I reached out to Rachel Nania, the author of the piece, for comment, via Twitter, and she responded:

@Cizauskas My article referred 2packaging breweries. I love all the places you highlighted & appreciate their contributions to DC beer too

— Rachel Nania (@rnania) March 29, 2015

I stand by my comments. Re-read those first two paragraphs of Ms. Nania's story, as quoted at the top of this piece. There's no "packaging brewery" modifier, and, in fact, there is none in the entire story until the conclusion, asterisked. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, “A brewery's a brewery, no matter how small,” or even if it's in a restaurant.

-----more-----

A-B deal off; no, wait, it's back on

The St. Louis Business Journal, quoting a business analyst, warned yesterday that the Wall Street turmoil threatens InBev’s takeover of Anheuser-Busch.

The turmoil on Wall Street has some analysts wondering whether InBev can finance its $52 billion takeover of Anheuser-Busch. Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo lowered his rating of A-B from “Hold” to “Sell,” and told investors “we are concerned about InBev’s financing package for the BUD merger,” according to a Sept. 16 research note.

In the next sentence Mr. Russo hedges his bets.

“While we still see it as probable that the deal closes as planned at $70 in an all-cash offer, fragile credit markets increase the risk that financing falls through, gets delayed or gets restructured.”

St. Louis Business Journal
Thursday, September 18, 2008

In other words, he first said no, then he said yes, and then he said maybe. (Does that have a familiar ring from the past year?)

I'll offer my market analysis (and without getting paid the big bucks): wait and see.

Big O and Dukes

Chad Dukes, co-host of the Big O and Dukes radio program on WJFK-FM in northern Virginia, holds a bottle of Clipper City Brewing's Small Craft Warning Uber Pils.

Go here to listen to the Friday radio interview with Hugh Sisson, General Partner of the Clipper City.

Caveat: I sell this beer. Regardless of that, here're some trenchant comments during the broadcast from Sisson concerning beer styles and beer stylistas:

There are alway people who tell me that my beer is very good but it doesn't fit the stylistic parameters that they were looking for. There are only a couple of things you need to know: Did you like? Would you buy it? Would you pay that price for it? If all three of the answers are yes, I won. Don't be pedantic.

Uber crab

The July issue of Washingtonian Magazine is always the "Best of" issue.

This year they asked the beer directors of two Washington-area restaurants, Bill Catron of Brasserie Beck and Greg Engert of Rustico, to select the best beers to accompany lobster, steak, burgers, and crabs.

In other words, Brews for Summer Food.

Baltimore's Clipper City Brewing has done well with the editors: best overall local brewery in July 2006, for example. And this summer, Bill and Greg have selected Clipper City's Small Craft Warning Uber Pils as a quenching beer when eating Chesapeake crab.

The rounded, rich, malty center contrasts with—and cools—the spice of the Old Bay seasoning, while the snappy, floral hop finish balances the sweetness of the crab.

Why, and what were the other selections?

You'll have to buy the issue! p. 83. [UPDATE 2008.07.24: Article posted on Washingtonian website.]

Caveat: I work for Clipper City Brewing Company.

AP relents - a little - on bloggers' rights

There's a non-resolution resolution to the recent flap caused when the Associated Press attempted to crack down on what it considered un-fair use of its published stories.

In a statement Friday, Rogers Cadenhead said he is "glad" the dispute over his site, the Drudge Retort, has ended. He said a larger conflict remains between AP's view of acceptable use of its content and the practices of many bloggers. Cadenhead declined to comment further, referring all questions to his attorney.

An AP statement Thursday night said the company had provided additional information to Cadenhead about posting its material online, and both sides considered the matter closed. It also said the AP was having a "constructive exchange" with a "number of interested parties in the blogging community" about the relationship between bloggers and news providers, and intended to continue the dialogue.

Earlier this month the AP sent a legal notice ordering Cadenhead to take down seven entries on the Drudge Retort, his takeoff on the Drudge Report. The news agency said the postings were violating the AP's copyright.

Cadenhead highlighted the disagreement in his personal blog, http://www.Cadenhead.org, and prominent bloggers rallied behind him, saying the posts in question were protected under the "fair use" provision of copyright law. That allows quotation of copyright material for commentary and certain other purposes without asking permission.

In response, the AP said it was working to develop guidelines for what it considered permissible use of its content by bloggers.

AP, blogger resolve dispute over copyright
By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer Fri Jun 20, 4:59 PM ET