More 'Innovative' Shit

Checking through my Facebook news feed this morning, I came across a story on All About Beer concerning Stone Brewing's latest 'innovative' offering as part of their Stochasticity Project, an 8.8% Imperial Golden Stout.

My immediate thought was 'great, more marketing driven bullshit', though perhaps not for the reasons you think.

I have no problem with the concept of a golden stout, for the simple reason that my understanding of beer and its history stretches back beyond the 1970s and the 'craft beer revolution'. You see, the word 'stout' as pertains to beer originally meant 'strong', it didn't necessary mean 'dark, Irish, with nasty nitro cream head'. As such, you could drink stout ales that were pale in the 17th Century, and while they may not have been as pale as we understand them, they were sufficiently pale so as not to be dark.

I noticed in some of the comments on the Facebook post a claim that the term 'imperial stout' was itself a tautology, and again I lament to myself that the word 'imperial', much like the word 'India', has been co-opted to mean something that it didn't originally mean in the context of beer. Imperial stout was those strong dark beers shipped to the Russian Imperial court by English brewers, imperial didn't mean 'strong', stout did.

On the All About Beer story itself, is the following line, which is the one that really got my goat:

One of the great things about American brewers is their willingness to experiment. This is a perfect example of that ingenuity and determination.

A more accurate version of that would be:

One of the great things about American brewers is their willingness to take old forgotten styles, tweak slightly, and flog at a premium price. This is a perfect example of that.

Sure it might be a tasty beer, but let's not imagine that it is actually innovative, or anything new, or that adding cocoa and coffee to a strong pale ale makes it in any way a stout as we understand them today.

If you want a proper Stout Pale Ale, you should try Durham Brewery's White Stout, which I drank in the UK over the summer, it was delicious.

Crafting A Double Standard

In a piece of news strangely reminiscent of last week's, Green Flash Brewing have purchased a small brewery called Alpine Beer.

The press release punches all the right buzz phrase necessities, respecting culture, values, integrity of the beer, blah, blah, blah.

What we have here is a successful business buying another successful business because they think it will benefit their business.

Thus has it ever been, thus will it ever be.

The reaction though among the beer drinking and commenting masses? Crickets, other than a few comments about looking forward to being able to get Alpine Beer outside their heartland market.

Now, if someone could explain to me the difference, in anything other than scale, between Green Flash's purchase of Alpine and A-B's buying out 10 Barrel, or even Duvel Moortgat buying Boulevard Brewing, without resorting to stock in craft trade phraseology (you know the kind of thing, they are buying it because they are passionate about beer, or some such vacuous tripe), I would be seriously impressed.

What we are now seeing is the consolidation of the brewing market, as Big Craft cherry pick small breweries, and industrial scale brewers do likewise with regional brewers. As such, can we please get past the romantic notions and simply accept that the brewing business is exactly that, a business, and businesses will do what is best for them to survive and thrive.

Session 93 - Of Trips and Travels

One of my rare incursions into the world of The Session today, this month hosted by The Roaming Pint, on the theme of beer tourism.

If you take a quick look at my label list, down there to the bottom of this page, you'll notice that 'trips' is the 7th most commonly used on Fuggled, totalling 52 posts, well 53 now I guess. It would therefore be thoroughly reasonable to assume that I go on plenty of 'beer trips'. However, looks can be deceiving, and deceived you would be if you thought that beer trips were something I engage in regularly. I simply do not travel for beer. Heck, I don't even go pubs in Charlottesville just because they happen to have the latest, greatest, imperial black IPA randalised on gorilla snot.

A dig into those other 52 posts would reveal stories about the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, parts of the Czech Republic, and other places that escape my recall at the moment. Practically none of those trips were taken with beer as the driving factor.

Mrs V and I went to Ireland in 2008 because I had always wanted to visit the country, and Mrs V is good friends with Tale of the Ale Reuben's wife (this trip was in his pre-Tale days). We drank excellent beers, in excellent pubs, but beer wasn't the aim of the trip. There are still some of my friends who find it inconceivable that we didn't go to St James' Gate while in Dublin.

When Mrs V and I travel it is to discover a place, and yes that often involves pubs and beer, but they are not the focus. I can't think of any brewery I am interested in visiting, when you work in one and give tours of the stainless steel, you get to point where a mash tun is a mash tun, and a kettle a kettle. Meeting the people that make the beer is a different question altogether, I would love to meet the guys at Kout for example.

Next year Mrs V and I are hoping to get to Prague for the Christmas holidays, which nicely coincides with my turning some daft age. I look forward to sitting around tables in pubs with my friends, the likes of Evan, Max, and Rob, and drinking lots of good local beer. But one thing that will be very unlikely is my having a session on a Czech made American style IPA, simply because I can have that style of beer any time I want, and what is the point of travelling across the globe to drink the stuff I can find in my own back yard? One thing for sure though, that first mouthful of proper Czech pale lager will be worth the cost of the air tickets alone.

Travel for beer? Nah, never going to happen. Enjoying local beer on my travels, yup, all the time.

The Revolution Will Be Purchased

According to news coming out of the Pacific Northwest, Bend's 10 Barrel Brewing has been purchased by Anheuser-Busch.

Now, don't worry, this won't be some hand wringing diatribe on a brewery selling out to the evil corporations. Neither yet is it a lament about another well respected, award winning, brewery going from craft to crafty in the ledgers of the Brewers Association. You see, it really isn't all that important, unless of course you buy into the faux-revolutionary bollocks which is much of craft beer marketing. What we have here is a very successful business buying another successful business because they think it will benefit their business.

Thus has it ever been, and thus will it ever be.

A couple of things though that stood out to me in the press release included the following statement from the CEO, Craft, at Anheuser-Busch, who said:

"10 Barrel, its brewers, and their high-quality beers are an exciting addition to our high-end portfolio"

In that one sentence you have the perception of much of the 'craft beer world', upmarket, high-end, aspirational.

The other was 10 Barrel being excited to benefit from the 'operational and distribution expertise of Anheuser-Busch'. Essentially saying that they are looking forward benefitting from AB's expertise in quality control processes and getting consistently quality beer into the hands of drinkers, which can only be good for drinkers in the long run.