Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 43/44, 2016.

A bi-weekly, non-comprehensive roundup
of news of beer and other things.

Weeks 43/44
23 October - 5 November 2016

• 3 November 2016
  The Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball team wins the 2016 World Series, ending its 108-year World Series championship drought, the longest such occurrence in Major League Baseball and, in fact, in all major North American sports.
  —Via New York Times.


• 3 November 2016
  The preliminary results of the 2016 hops harvest in Germany show about 42,700 tons produced, 4,600 tons of which would be alpha, that is, bittering hops. If so, it would be a record harvest.
  —Via HVG German Hops.



• 3 November 2016
  The blob! Anheuser-Busch InBev buys another American 'craft' brewery: Texas-based, five-year old, Karbach Brewing (which produced 55,000 barrels in 2015).
  — Via All About Beer.
  — Map of Anheuser-Busch InBev's American 'craft' brewery acquisitions to date, via Jeff Alworth at Beervana.


• 2 November 2016
  Analysis of results of the 2016 Great American Beer Festival.
  • The five states whose breweries won the most medals were: California, at 68; Colorado, 38; Oregon, 21; North Carolina, 17; and Virginia, at 14.
  • Over the last three years, thirty states have entered two hundred or more entries, and none had ever won even 6 percent of those entries until Virginia’s performance this year.
  • The style most entered was American-style IPA. No surprise there, but Watson notes that its entries were down from 4.98 percent to 4.27 percent of all entries.
  • American-Style Sour Ale saw the largest percentage jump of any category, from 1.28 percent of entries in 2015 to 1.93 percent of entries in 2016–a total jump of 56 entries.
  —Via Bart Watson, chief economist at [U.S.] Brewers Association.


• 1 November 2016
  On good beer and character...

  On one side of the equation you have to have quality and consistency and that is balanced on the other side of the equation by flavor and character. There are breweries that specialize in producing high quality, very consistent beer—companies like Budweiser and Carlsberg and Heineken. They produce high quality, very consistent beer, but maybe they forgot about the other side of the equation, which is to have some flavor and some character. [...] What I want from London Pride—or any Fuller’s beer—is that when you order a pint of it, I want you to recognize it as London Pride. Yes, I want it to occasionally surprise you—today it’s a little bit more malty or caramelly or hoppy or fragrant or whatever—so that you are having a dialogue with that beer. You’re noticing things about that beer and it interests you and involves you because of that. And that’s really what we call character.

  —Via John Keeling, 35 years head brewer for Fuller's Brewery in London, England, as quoted at Beervana.


• 31 October 2016
  'Craft' beer demographics.
  • Forty-two percent of all 'craft' beer drinkers are age 35 or older. (Of course, that means that fifty-eight percent are younger than 35, 'millenials.')
  • Women hold a 32 percent share of the overall 'craft' beer market, while women aged 21-34 comprise 15 percent of overall 'craft' drinking volume.
  • Forty-three percent of Hispanic consumers order 'craft' beer in restaurants and bars at least once a month, and 31 percent consume craft beer at home.
  —Via Craft Brewing Business


• 31 October 2016
  Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch Inbev, has suggested that the growth of 'craft beer brands may be nearing an end in the United States saying that consumers "get a bit tired of choice."
  • If, when he refers to "consumers," Brito means retailers, such as when he added this comment —"There's only so much shelf space that you can share and cold box that you can spilt [typo?]" —then there's validity in his observation.
  • But if by "consumers," Brito is referring to drinking consumers who purchase beer, then he appears to be tone-deaf to the situation, to the marketplace, and to what 'craft' beer means and is.
  • As one retailer noted,

    There are signs that retailers have reached their limit as to expanding space for additional brands, but I see no sign that consumers are tired of choice.

  —Commentary by YFGF.
  —Original story, via Just Drinks.
  —Response to the contrary, via Bob Pease, [U.S.] Brewers Association.


• 28 October 2016
  American 'craft' beer sales fell off slightly in the third quarter, vs. the same period in 2015. Beer sales in brewery taprooms (production breweries and brewpubs), however, increased significantly, by sixty-one percent, to 1.2 million barrels.
  —Via [U.S.] Brewers Association, at YFGF.



• 25 October 2016
  In wake of Anheuser-Busch InBev's $107 billion purchase of SABMiller completed on 10 October 2016, Molson Coors has finalized a $12-billion purchase of MillerCoors, thus gaining now all of the former Miller and MillerCoors brewing facilities in the U.S. Moreover, it gains exclusive worldwide rights to all the Miller brands and trademarks; and the royalty-free U.S. licenses for many of former SABMiller's import and license brands, including Peroni, Pilsner Urquell, and Fosters. In doing so, Molson Coors —jointly based in Montreal, Canada, and Golden, Colorado— becomes the third-largest global brewer.
  —Via Financial Post.


• 25 October 2016
  The first-ever successful commercial delivery by a self-driving truck has delivered two thousand cases of beer, Budweiser, in Colorado, over a distance of 120 miles, from from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs.
  —Via New York Times.


• 24 October 2016
  

  For fall seasonals, it’s pretty clear that the bloom is off the pumpkin. Seasonals have been behind trend pretty much all year, culminating over the eight weeks through October 2, when BA [Brewers Association member breweries] craft seasonals were down -8.5 percent in IRI Group scan data versus the previous year. [...] A lot of weakness clearly stems from pumpkin beers, which weren’t ordered by distributors at the same level as previous years and are clearly generating less interest than in recent years.

  —Via Bart Watson, chief economist for [U.S.] Brewers Association.


• 24 October 2016
  In 2015, atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeded 400 parts per million, the first time that that level has been reached on Earth in three million years. Those levels are expected to repeat every year for many generations to come, according to a new report issued by the United Nation's World Meteorological Organization. Atmospheric methane levels are now 256 percent above pre-industrial concentrations, accounting for nearly twenty percent of greenhouse warming. The WMO report warns that forests and oceans which currently absorb roughly half of human carbon emissions, “may become saturated” in the future, accelerating the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
  —Via Gizmodo.



• 23 October 2016
  Ubiquitous in 21st-century 'craft' beer breweries: conical, closed unitanks, the 1908 invention of Leopold Nathan, an unsung hero of modern brewing.
  —Via Beer et seq.


• 23 October 2016
  Brewery taproom sales have become a real thing, dollarwise, nationwide, as many states have allowed breweries to do what wineries already could. Beer blogger Bryan D. Roth dubs this "own-premise(s)" sales.

  From 2006-2015, the number of taxable barrels sold at breweries reported to the TTB [Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau] increased by 179%. From 2014-2015, it jumped from 690,395 to nearly 1.2 million BBLs reported. Through the first half of 2016, sales were projected to go just beyond 1.7 million for the full year.

  —Via Bryan D. Roth, at Good Beer Hunting.



• 23 October 2016
  Tom Hayden, preeminent 1960s political radical and anti-war protester, dies at 76.
  —Via Washington Post

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Pic(k) of the Week: Fog over downtown.

Morning fog dampens and partially obscures downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The photo was taken in spring, March 2016, but selecting it for today seemed appropriate to the current autumn season.

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Make America Drunk Again

A presidential electoral riff, proffered in the unlikely circumstance that you haven't yet decided for whom to vote.

But, decide and vote. Because, in America, you can. Vote, that is.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Things are REALLY gettin' bad.

Clifford H. Baldowski (1917–1999) was the editorial cartoonist for several American newspapers, including the Atlanta Constitution. He went by the pen name, Baldy.

This drawing of his is hung on a wall at Manuel's Tavern, in Atlanta, Georgia. Local politician Manuel Maloof opened his eponymous tavern in 1956; it would become a Democratic Party watering hole and meeting place. And Baldowski drank there.

To my friend Manuel Maloof, one of those rare, perceptive guys who gives a damn.

One of Maloof's children operates the tavern now. In early 2016, he closed it for renovations, which could have been an ominous sign, but not in this case. Manuel's re-opened for business in late summer with, among other things, several new 'craft' beer tap-lines.

This upcoming Tuesday evening, the 8th of November 2016, Manuel's will be a crowded place in which to grab a beer: sorrows diluted or huzzahs celebrated. Things might be gettin' bad, but NOT Manuel's beer prices.

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Anthony Bourdain can't be bothered with good beer; I can't be bothered with him.

Anthony Bourdain —"American chef, author, and television personality"— was flogging his new cookbook on the food, drink, and travel website Thrillist, when this happened:

• Thrillist:
  "I read somewhere that, based on some drinking on the show, you were getting flamed online from beer snobs. Does that happen often?"
  
  Bourdain:

  A lot. I would say that the angriest critiques I get from people about shows are when I'm drinking whatever convenient cold beer is available in a particular place, and not drinking the best beer out there. You know, I haven't made the effort to walk down the street 10 blocks to the microbrewery where they're making some fucking Mumford and Sons IPA. People get all bent about it. But look, I like cold beer. And I like to have a good time. I don't like to talk about beer, honestly. I don't like to talk about wine. I like to drink beer. If you bring me a really good one, a good craft beer, I will enjoy it, and say so. But I'm not gonna analyze it.

  
  
  
• And this, on 'craft' beer bars vs. Bourdain's preferred 'type' of beer bar:

  Bourdain:
  I was in San Francisco, and I was desperate for beer, and I walked into this place. I thought it was an old bar. And I sat down, and I looked up, and I noticed there was a wide selection of beers I'd never heard of. Which is fine. OK, I'm in some sort of brew pub. What's good? But I looked around: the entire place was filled with people sitting there with five small glasses in front of them, filled with different beers, taking notes. This is not a bar. This is fucking Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This is wrong. This is not what a bar is about. A bar is to go to get a little bit buzzed, and pleasantly derange the senses, and have a good time, and interact with other people, or make bad decisions, or feel bad about your life. It's not to sit there fucking analyzing beer. It's antithetical.

  
  Now, hold on a minute, Mr. Bourdain. This isn't the exclusive domain of 'craft' beer. For years, pinky-in-the-air wine fanciers have been mocked, rightly or wrongly. And what of 'foodies'? I'll agree that there are 'craft' beer-ers who have adopted similar supercilious sneers. But not all do, and not most. Mr. Bourdain says he drinks beer only for the buzz: it shouldn't be difficult for him, while traveling about, to find a 'proper' pub to supply his fix.
  
  
  
• Here, at least, Mr. Bourdain does rant against cork-dorks (if not with equal time).

  Bourdain:
  It's the same way -- I've sat at tables where somebody's bringing out one fantastic, life-changing wine after another. But, you know, just give me the name, tell me where it's from, and that's OK. I don't need to know what's out of the fucking hill, or who put the grapevines in, or that they were transplanted. I don't need this. I drank it already, dude. I just -- I don't care.

  
  
  
• Thrillist is really, really trying to bait Bourdin into proving its point:

  Thrillist:
  Are beer snobs more extreme [than food snobs]?
  
  Bourdain:
  I think people's expectations of me, as far as what I'm eating, are already pretty low. They think that I'm a known quantity, that I'm a cheap date, that I like street noodles pretty much more than anything. But I think they somehow expect me to have better taste in beer than whatever generic green bottle I happen to be grabbing.

  
  
  
• When you can't defend your opinion, just repeat it, without defense.

  Bourdain:
  And they see that I'm passionate about food, why am I not passionate about beer? I just ain't. I'm just not.

  
  
  
• Thrillist attempts to lead Bourdain into its point of view, as is its non-journalistic technique. Bourdain doesn't take the bait, and, instead, demeans the visual appeal of beer (and wine):

  Thrillist:
  Also, it's different, because the show is more about going and finding the food, not the beer, right?
  Bourdain:
  Well, beer -- visually speaking, it's why we generally don't do winery scenes or brewery scenes. Because no matter how good it is -- this might be one of only five remaining bottles left on Earth, Napoleon may have put it in the bottle -- but visually, it's red stuff going into a glass. There's nothing to differentiate it from a big box of Gallo Burgundy. It's just not visually interesting. And also, I don't really care. Even with wine, I'm happy, maybe even happier, drinking some local stuff at an agriturismo.

  
  
  And gazing at a kitchen would be any more enthralling? Try hiring a different art director, or maybe looking at this documentary view of breweries, produced in 1989, to see how beer can be interestingly presented.
  
  
  
• Finally: is ignorance really bliss (talking of wine)?

  Bourdain:
  I'd rather order a Burgundy, not knowing what I'm doing. Let's see. They're so unpredictable. I know nothing about them. It's always a surprise. Spin the wheel. Some of them suck, some of them are going to be good, some will be interesting -- that's interesting to me.

  Should we really bother with Mr. Bourdain's opinions if he himself can't be bothered?

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British beer authors, Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey read the interview and wrote, among other things, this:

Thrillist is a frightful den of clickbait, and craft beer types are easily baited, but Mr. Bourdain often has interesting thoughts and in this case, he makes some good points.

I was baited —and Boak and Bailey were— but you don't need to be.

Yes, taking beer too seriously is silly. But Mr. Bourdain goes much further: that beer, itself, should never be part of the experience, but only there for its psychotropic effect. That knowledge is bunk, except when it's of food. Willfully refusing to acknowledge beer's flavor or worth —especially when gastronomy is your profession— is ignorant. Mr. Bourdain does write about taking photos of one's food. But there you go: boring! Like taking pictures of your beer.

I've never read any of Mr. Bourdain's books or essays (rants?) — until this interview. It'll be sufficient.

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