What is craft?

I once sat at a beer bar and overheard the manager proudly talking about the beers he was bringing in from everywhere ... everywhere that is except from local breweries. He had neglected to mention even one local brewery.

What of the local small carbon footprint so talked of these days?

I was sitting at another beer bar recently (my job, you see!), talking with a gentlemen from Wisconsin. At the age of retirement, he was proud of his region's local beers, but he was equally enthused about searching out local beers wherever he was now able to travel.

He had recently vacationed in Hawaii. His first day there, his bartender was unable to point him toward a brewpub, and in fact, was ignorant of even what a brewpub was.

But later that day, while driving, he just happened to to see the sign of the Waimea Brewing Company. He didn't quite screech to a halt, but he did change his itinerary for the day! "Wonderful beer," he told me. And fresh and local.

Rob Kasper, columnist for the Baltimore Sun (not the gentlemen with whom I had been talking), recently posted this on his blog:

Like the New England Patriots lineup, the roster of The Boston Beer Co., makers of Samuel Adams, is impressive. A label on a bottle of their Boston Lager puts the brewery's current count at 18 different beers.<...> There was some talk a few years back that Boston Beer was too big to be a real craft brewer. Is that over? Or is it still an issue?

What is the ontological measure of 'craft'? Is it size, automation or not, goals, practices, quality, flavor, 'localness'?

Boston Beer now brews a significant amount of their own beer at their own breweries, rather than at others'. That fact alone could indeed be a measure of 'crafting' beer.

So at what degree does size alone preclude a devotion to craft?

I think that that is an argument of sound and fury, signifying little. (Here, I'm not referring to Kasper, who was simply posing a rhetorical question.)

With the exception of a few burps, Jim Koch and his Boston Beer Company have been fierce partisans, participants, and, indeed, makers of the craft beer movement.

And that is more intrinsic to the meaning of craft than casual dismissals of local beer.

Chili beer

There is a wretched excuse for a chili beer on the market: pallid yellow liquid sold in a clear bottle with a chili pepper at its bottom.

And then there is delicious stuff, such as The Brewer's Art's Green Peppercorn Tripel. When I posted my review, a comment was made that

There's a beer made in Wisconsin called Knot Stock made with black peppercorns - a great base for beer-battered vegetables.

The December issue of Maxim features a recipe for chili from celebrity chef Bobby Flay. He doesn't call for any beer in his recipe, but Lucy Saunders, author of The Best of American Beer & Food, was asked to offer her choices for beers to go with the chili.

She selected three (and offered her flavor reasons why): one for lamb or venison stew, one for chicken or turkey, and one for a basic beef chili.

I shouldn't spoil the fun, but Saunders gives Clipper City's Small Craft Warning Uber Pils the nod with the chili.

Not that I would imagine to be in Chef Flay's league, but here's my recipe for meatless chili. In addition to a good measure of heat, it relies on beer and cumin for flavor. My former father-in-law and I shared a taste for scotch whisky. I introduced him to the use of cumin in his chili; I'd like to think he still uses that.

Of chili, Chef Flay (who calls for cumin) says this:

Timid chili is the mark of a timid man.

"As is a timid beer the mark of a timid man," I would riposte.

Strange brew: craft growth vs. perception

I had an interesting discussion a few days ago with a person in the wine industry. He was wondering how the craft beer industry was doing ... in light of its many closures. Hmmm?

Perception, if not everything, does indeed count for a lot.

Craft beer shipments for the first 6 months of 2007 were up 11%. (Totals for the year are expected to be similar.) And that follows 12% growth last year. Despite such prima facie evidence, the CEO of SAB/Miller has also predicted a craft beer crash.

Huh?

From the Brewers Association:

Growth of the craft beer industry was 12% by volume for 2006.

The craft beer industry eclipsed 6.7 million barrels of craft beer produced in the U.S. in 2006.

The fastest growing craft beer sector in 2006 was microbreweries (up 16%), showing customer support for local breweries.

Craft beer is the fastest growing segment for supermarket scan data. 17.8% growth was stronger than all other alcohol beverage categories.

Craft beer sales share is 3.20% by volume and 4.99 % by dollars.

Craft beer industry sales have grown 31.5% over the last 3 years.

Total U.S. Craft Beer Industry Annual Dollar Volume: $4.7 billion.

Contrast craft's growth with that of Anheuser-Busch this year. Morgan-Stanley had been projecting a whopping 1% growth for A-B in the 4th quarter.

Actual sales were only up 1/2% over the same period in 2006.

Classical downloads done right?

Jazz, blues, avant-garde, classical, some indie-rock and world music... that's what you'll suffer in my car. (There could be stories about me and Mahler's Second!)

"In my car" means mp3s, or more precisely, digital downloads. And there's the rub.

Classical music demands context: information about the composer, performer, composition, etc. Most mp3 retailers don't provide this; most don't even provide a hi-res album cover (front and back). Classical music (and jazz) audio fidelity also requires higher audio definition than the low-resolution 128 or 224 kbps (kilobits per second) often offered.


Now comes Deutsche Grammophon opening up their catalog to digital download. Owned by the Universal conglomerate, DG has often been thought of as the gold-standard of classical music labels. Two reviews of their new on-line store offer this information:

• DG is offering their current in-print recordings and a growing list of their out-of-print recordings: that is wonderful news.
• The music has no digital-rights-management (DRM) restrictions. Translation: you're not restricted to one player, such as the iPod.
• DG is loading up each track with appropriate meta-data: meaning artist, composition, conductor, movement number, etc. will be included in the viewable properties of each track.
• A full pdf file is included of the album front and back.
• Each download will be encoded at the higher quality rate of 320kpbs.
  

I haven't used the store yet, but will - and will post on the experience: ease of use, ability to search for composer/composition/performer, etc. If the store is as advertised, then as Gizmodo put it: Deutsche Grammophon Shows How Digital Music Stores Should Really Work. Yahoo Tech's review here.

DG Web Shop

Forbes does barleywine

A blogger at Forbes.com, David M. Ewalt has posted a brief encomium for Clipper City's Below Decks Barleywine in his Digital Download column:

It's a strong ale, naturally fruity and sweet, balanced by strong bitter malts, with flavors of apple, cherry and licorice. Often this style of beer is so powerful it's too much for some tasters. But Below Decks does a good job balancing the heady flavors and presenting something delicious and drinkable. That's not to say this isn't a potent brew --it comes in at 10% alcohol by volume.

A barleywine that has drinkability: how craft beer drinkers' taste buds have evolved!

Below Decks was brewed to be a barleywine that can be drunk now or cellared a year or more: an accessible barleywine, if you will. (See Celebrator Magazine's comments.) Of course, at 10% alcohol by volume (abv), caution is warranted.

Caveat: I'm employed by Clipper City Brewing Company.