Pic(k) of the Week: 2016 retrospective

Every Saturday, I post a photo to this blog. (Yes, today is Wednesday, but bear with me.)

Cleverly (to my mind), I call this practice the Pic(k) of the Week. Each week, it's a photo (or, should I say, digital image) usually taken (or created) by me, and usually (but not always) with a good (or bad) fermentable as subject. That is some significant hedging. I am not a photographer; (to paraphrase the old pharmaceutical ad campaign) I only play one at YFGF.

Today at YFGF, I've posted, in thumbnail fashion, the entire fifty-two-entry rotogravure for 2016.

Thirty-two of the fifty-two photos I selected were of beer in some fashion: ten were at breweries, of which five were brewpubs. Three of the photos were brewers working. Another one was a smart-dressed Pabst man at a minor-league baseball game. Only four were of beer-and-food. One of those was of beer IN food; another was a beer lunch in a hop field in the U.K.: an example of a photo not taken by me, but of such a stellar scene that I secured permission to re-post it.

Five photos were nostalgic: from my former bailiwick. Three photos were baseball related. One photo was taken at a jazz performance, and tangentially baseball-related. A few went to the dogs. One was vehemently vegetarian.

I selected no pictures of cask ale for inclusion last year. That's a sad first for me, a cask ale nut. Over the year, I simply didn't encounter any good cask ale in Atlanta, Georgia (other than a few imported UK-produced pints at a local cask ale festival). That's a topic for another day.

So, take a look, below. Click on a thumbnail to view the image in its full size accompanied by its backstory. (By the way, all of my photographs and images, whether anointed for inclusion here or not, can be seen at Flickr, all thirty-five thousand of them.)

This Saturday, 7 January, I'll post a new Pic(k) of the Week, and the series will begin anew for 2017.

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Pic(k) of the Week: 2016 retrospective

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

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My 'craft' beer wish for 2017

When a brewer doesn’t build quality into process, the consumer pays for bad beer. Bad craft beer shines an ugly light on good craft beer because the rest of us are working day and night to make best beer possible. Quality needs to be in every piece of process. It says something when breweries spend so much on vessels and piping and aren’t spending as much, or even a fraction, to build quality. There are a lot of homebrewers and noneducated brewers who are starting up, aren’t classically trained and are putting a product out into market. They are using exotic ingredients that aren’t vetted, they don’t know how beers will age, taint lines, and the consumer pays for the brewer’s learning curve. There’s no guarantee, no work to support that the beer will be as good as the brewer intended it to be.

—Rebecca Newman, Quality Manager, Summit Brewing (at All About Beer).

My beer wish for 2017? That more 'craft' brewers would recognize that, without practice and education, innovation is an empty boast. Becoming a craftsperson is a different thing than immodestly self-proclaiming it.

LiKewise, brewing beer and packaging beer. Buying a canning or bottling line is only a first step. Making good 'craft' beer requires an understanding of its science, technology, and processes (such as !!#$%^ air pickup!) from start to finish and out the door.

Again, Ms. Newman:

If you're going to be a package brewer, put the effort into quality package equipment. It doesn't have to be a bajillion dollars, but it does have to be effective. And then do the sensory work behind it to prove that you have the shelf stability.

'Craft' brewers: when we purchase your beer, we are, in effect, subsidizing your education. For 2017: please learn!

See you back here in 2018.

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