januaryisbrittishbeermonth

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GOOOOAAAALLLLLLL!

Warning:  If you are allergic to soccer or any of its ingredients, stop reading now.

We learned earlier in That Sinking Feeling, that Wrexham Lager Beer Co. Ltd. are proud partners with Wrexham AFC which started me wondering if other soccer teams have official beers or partnerships with breweries.  Pretty sure the answer is yes, but it’s January, so time to do some checking.

The only two British football clubs that I can think of are Arsenal and Manchester United.  Let’s start with Arsenal since it is Thomas’s favorite team.  The Gunners inked a deal with Camden Town Brewery in 2019 and in 2024 re-upped with their North London neighbors.

I had a Camden Hells Lager at the Blackfriar in London back in 2017 (see the 2018 edition of JiBBM).  I rated it as 3.25 bottle caps which means it was a solid beer but nothing special.  The Nicholson’s cask conditioned Pale Ale that I also had that night was far superior and rated 4.25 bottle caps which meant that it was veddy nice. 

My usual thorough research did not turn up a beer partner for Manchester United, but it did uncover the fact that there is another Manchester team in the Premier League – Manchester City FC.  Who knew?   I didn’t.  But now you and I know that the official beer partner of Manchester City FC since 2022 is Asahi Super Dry.  How have I not checked-in this beer?  I see it all the time but always figure I’ve had it.  The liquor stores close at 6:00pm today (Sunday) so I’ll have to wait-to-rate.  Anyway, it seems that Man City is making a play for Japanese viewership through this partnership with "the beer with the Karakuchi taste".

A full list of beer partnerships with Premier League teams can be found at:  Beer partners of Premier League teams 2023/24 - SportsKhabri

The only surprise I found in the list is that Carling Brewery is the official beer partner of Newcastle United FC and has been since 2007.  Why is Newcastle Brown Ale not the sponsor of the Magpies?  Maybe because it was sold to Heineken and production moved to the Netherlands and moved again in 2019 to Lagunitas Chicago brewery with a new recipe.  Hmmmmmm….. 

Carling is not exactly a home town darling either – It’s owned by MolsonCoors.   Good god man, who can keep up with all of the beer industry reshuffling? 

Nearly as baffling as the beer industry is the English Football League system, also known as the football pyramid, which is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs.  According to Wikipedia “The exact number of clubs varies from year to year as clubs join and leave leagues, merge, or fold altogether, but an estimated average of 15 clubs per division implies that more than 7,000 teams of nearly 5,300 clubs are members of a league in the English men's football league system.”  Once again, good god man!  For perspective, Statista.com reports that in 2022 there were 2,426 breweries in the U.K.   

Here are the first nine tiers:

And on it goes tier after tier.

The Premier League is at the top of the pyramid, so it makes sense that they are partnering with the big boys in the brewing world.  Fourteen of the twenty Premier League teams have a beer sponsor.  The obvious question is why six do not. 

Spoiler alert for anyone watching Welcome to Wrexham, their team has been promoted from the fifth tier which is the lowest tier with full-time professional players, to EFL League One, which is the third tier.   With nearly 100 clubs in tiers 2-5 there’s plenty of room for sponsorships.  Wikipedia provides this list of teams, team names, the league they are in and name of their stadium:  List of English football teams - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia If your brewery is not partners with a football club then you’re not trying hard enough.

What about you Burton Albion FC?  Your team is named the Brewers for goodness sakes.  You’re located in a town with a rich brewing history including being the birthplace of IPAs.

And how about you Harviestoun Brewery, maker of Old Engine Oil?  Can’t find a partner?  Ach!  There are no teams from Scotland in the EFL.  Maybe because instead of a soccer ball, they kick around a haggis [citation needed].  The Scots, as it turns out, do (or did – oh, this is so confusing) have their own football league, the SLF.  From the list of teams Scottish Football League - Wikipedia Harvisetoun, I have assigned you a team - the Livingston FC Meadowbank Thistle - because I can see this determined mouse living on a meadow bank in a thicket of thistles.

It's only a 44-minute drive between the brewery and the stadium, and each time you make the drive you pass The Kelpies along the M9.  I highly recommend the entertaining video in the link below.

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OLD ENGINE OIL

Today I took a drive over to South Lyndale Liquors in search of fodder for JiBBM.  I left the store with three selections, all from Scotland.  Two were in the Farmhouse range:  Funk Weapon from Holy Goat Brewery (Dundee) and Aiken Drum by Epochal Barrel Fermented Ales (Glasgow).  Could spontaneous fermentation be a trend in the land of cakes?   More research is needed. I also picked up a 4-pack of Old Engine Oil from Harviestoun Brewery out of Alva Scotland, conveniently located between Glasgow and Dundee. 

As I headed out on 121, I saw a cloud of blue smoke up ahead.  I came to the traffic light at W 58th St. and saw, stopped in front of me, a small car that was the source of the old engine oil emergency.  When the light turned green, the car gave out a tremendous puff of smoke and was able to cover the hundred yards to the Valvoline service center there.  I wasn’t able to take a picture, so I recreated the scene below.   

If I had been able to get a picture, you would have seen the bug-eyed expressions on the faces of the people milling around in front.   I'm certain that the unfortunate owner of this car needed a lot more than just new engine oil.  This is another great example of a space/time anomaly that only happens during British Beer Month. 

This triumvirate of breweries along the A91 corridor is officially added to my mythical British beer tour.

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That Sinking Feeling

Did you ever have that sinking feeling that things weren’t going to turn out as planned?  The proof of the pudding is under the crust, and retirement 2024 was a bit crusty.  

The only goal I nearly achieved was clearing the cattails from my shoreline.  After many hours over the summer – I’m estimating somewhere between 60 and 100 – of wading into the muck and pulling the little bastards one-by-one, I managed to clear about 90%.  I would need a drone to get a picture with a good perspective (perhaps a 2025 hobby?) but this is the best picture I currently have.

As usual, I digress.  Today in the Total Wine and More app I stumbled across Wrexham Lager.  The Wrexham brewery in Wales was built by German immigrants in 1882.   Fortunately, they were not deported with the rest of the German criminals, rapists and I assume other fine Germans before they began to brew a lager that is described as subtly hopped with a clean aroma - light, refreshing and easy to drink. 

Before purchasing said beer I decided to check out the reviews.  A couple stood out:

A 5-star review submitted by Wrexham Lager said “Amazing beer.  I bought it today and it’s great.”   Biased?  Perhaps.  Four people found this helpful.

Another 5-star review, this time by Jason Wrexham:

Obviously totally unbiased. 

Eight people, including me, found this helpful. 

The beer served aboard the Titanic!  OMG!!!!!!!!

The can says, “Store in a cool dry place, away from icebergs”  Maybe.  I might need new bifocals. 

I recall that the beer being consumed in the steerage scene in the movie Titanic looked more like a stout than a beer with “a light amber color”.  Maybe it was brought aboard by the Irish rogues in steerage, or maybe James Cameron just thought it worked better.  Chalk it up to Hollywood magic.

Speaking of Hollywood magic, current co-owners of Wrexham Brewing are Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds.  Yes, the same Ryan Reynolds who does the Mint Mobile commercials, and I guess a movie called Deadpool (haven’t seen it). 

As with all things JiBBM, this just keeps getting weirder and weirder.  These guys bought into the Welsh  brewery to help promote the local football team that they purchased, Wrexham AFC.  Apparently there is even a docuseries about it on FX called Welcome to Wrexham.  I guess I’ll have to check it out.

Okay, I’m back.  I just dropped $2.99 on episode 1 of season 1 (on Hulu) and I must say that I was entertained.   The town and the football club are down in the dumps.  The team has already been demoted to the lowest level league and COVID has emptied the stands, but there is optimism because of the new ownership.  I just might watch episode 2 or jump ahead to “free to me” season 3.

The brewery has a similar rocky past.  Although the website bills it as the UK’s oldest lager brewery, it omits the phrase “in continuous operation”.

According to their website:

“Wrexham Lager became overshadowed by other brands. Sadly, commercial production at its Wrexham birthplace stopped in 2000 and total production in the UK ceased in 2002.

The brewery was demolished and a retail park was built in its place, the only vestige of Wrexham Lager being the original Brewhouse, now a Grade II listed building. All documents and brewery artefacts were razed to the ground save but a few treasured items from fans and collectors alike.”

Does this mean that the recipe was lost?  It doesn’t really matter because it’s a decent beer with a timeless taste.  The brewery reboot by Martin Jones and the Roberts family revived the brand in 2011 and subsequent investment by the Hollywood boys is keeping a good thing going.

Will McElhenny and Reynolds do more than just rearrange the deck chairs in their ownership of the football club and the brewery?  Previewing season 3 of the series and the fact that I can now buy this beer in Minnesota hint that the answer is probably yes.

Perhaps the team should consider getting a sponsorship from Adidas.  Afterall, a logo that resembles a ship’s smokestacks slipping beneath the waves would be fitting for this Titanic team.

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Welcome to:

January is British Beer Month

2025

In 2024 I was able to find another place in the Twin Cities that serves cask ale......Bad Weather Brewing on West 7th. Cheers!

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All I Need is a Pint a Day (Reprise)

Today is January 32nd (Feb 1) 2024.  As I was putting together this final post of 2024, I noticed that the 50th anniversary edition of Sir Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run will be available tomorrow Feb 2.  (It’s already Jan 33rd in Liverpool.)  The album is offered in vinyl and CD formats to suit your taste.   

Speaking of different formats to suit your taste, I finally hit the jackpot, or caskpot if you will.  I made it to the Town Hall Tap on the last day of January and had two cask beers – Kevin’s Ale, a mild EPA and Masala Mama, an American IPA – both cask conditioned.  They were also serving a non-cask Masala Mama…..Why?  Well, I guess it’s different strokes for different folks.

Some folks wear their glasses on the tops of their heads.  I don’t. Different strokes for different folks.

Some folks are either not fans of cask conditioned beer, or just are not aware of it, and others, like me are suckers for the creamy goodness of a pint of fresh cask ale. And so on and so on and scooby-dooby-dooby. We got to live together.

The Kevin’s ale didn’t even make it on the signature beers sign, unless it was the cask version of the West Bank Pale Ale, but it was the superior offering; as close to Real Ale as ‘Damn’ is to swearing.    

The only other place to get cask conditioned beer in the Twin Cities appears to be at the affiliated Town Hall Brewery in the 7-Corners area of the West Bank.  I commented to the bartender about this conundrum, and he agreed.  He said that he had worked at Brit’s Pub and people asked him all the time about why there was no cask beer there.  He said you need a separate refrigerated area and special equipment but that it was not that big of an investment to make.  Town Hall doesn’t even advertise itself as a British Pub, yet they have the goods, while Brit’s, The Local, Eagan Arms, etc. offer only a narrow selection of British beers, and none on cask.

Cheers to you Town Hall!  I know where I will be going for my “pint a day” from now on.

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All Along the Ridgeway

Tonight’s British Beer is a Ridgeway of Oxfordshire Foreign Extra Stout.  The brewery is named after the oldest road in Britain, “a road riddled with history” according to Historic UK - The History Magazine & Heritage Accommodation Guide (historic-uk.com)

If Avebury is Porter and Aylesbury is Stout, then I would rate Ridgeway Foreign Extra Stout at about Watlington.  A bit more towards the stout end of the spectrum methinks, but definitely not to the extreme.  To me more roastiness with less malt leans porter.  And spiciness too.  The whole Porter/Stout thing could take up volumes, so let’s leave that for another day.  Any way you look at it, I enjoyed tonight’s exemplar.

A month ago, I savoured a Lump of Coal Stout by this same brewery.  It leaned more stout – not imperial or barrel-aged, or any of that - just stout - with a little smokiness (perhaps from the coal).   As I checked it in, I checked into the history of The Ridgeway, the 5,000-year-old, 137km trail that stretches from Overton Hill near Avebury, Wiltshire, to Ivinghoe Beacon near Tring, Buckinghamshire.  More about this ancient track can be found at The History of the Ridgeway, an ancient pathway (historic-uk.com). What caught my eye was the “hill figure” along the trail on White Horse Hill in Uffington.  The figure of a 374 foot long “chalk horse” is set into the hill.

The figure was made by digging trenches in the shape of a horse, exposing the white chalk bedrock below.  It is suggested to view this figure from nearby Woolstone Hill, but it is even better seen from the air.  One theory is that the people who created it wanted it to be seen by the gods.  Or maybe we should shift into full History Channel mode and suggest that perhaps they received instructions on how to build it from aliens.  Think crop circles made of chalk.   Soundtrack:  Aliens Exist, by Blink 182:

"Hey Mom, there’s something in the backroom, Hope it’s not the creatures from above, You used to tell me stories, as if my dreams were boring, We all know conspiracies are dumb."

"What if people knew that these were real? I’d leave my closet door open all night, I know the CIA would say, 'What you hear is all hearsay', Wish someone would tell me what was right."

If they really want to bring in the tourists, they can put up signs like this along the Ridgeway:

More theories about the creators of the hill figure and their intentions can be found at: The Mystery of the White Horse of Uffington | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

Nearby is Dragon Hill where it is believed that St. George killed a dragon.  Legend has it that grass no longer grows where the dragon’s blood seeped into the ground.   Gnarly!

The Ridgeway is hereby added to my mythical tour of Britian.  George and the Dragon Pub in Minneapolis is added to the list of places to possibly visit in January along with the nearby Town Hall Tap. 

Until next time:  Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the beers.

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All I Need is a Pint a Day

January 2024 marks the end of my 40-year sentence at 3M.  I did time in various buildings with the majority in buildings 223 and 224.

Here’s a picture of me upon my release.

During the last months of my captivity, Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings was playing on repeat in my head; these lines in particular:

If I ever get out of here Thought of giving it all away To a registered charity All I need is a pint a day. If I ever get outta here (If we ever get outta here)

Yes, all of that, minus the giving it all away part. I'm a pensioner now you understand. I'll try to get a proper pint, if not every day, as often as I can in the month of January.  I will add to this post as I do so.

Fullers ESB on draft at Brit’s Pub.  A decent beer, but not as good as I remember it in London. Fun atmosphere, good service, mediocre food.

That is all........ (Simpsons season 3, episode 11. Burns Verkaufen der Karftwerk)

Seriously, finding an authentic British beer in the twin towns is a challenge. I have been able to find a few bottles in the local specialty beer stores such as Bluebird Bitter, Bad King John and Ridgeway Foreign Extra Stout, but the pub scene has been dismal. All "British" and "Irish" bars and restaurants have the same offerings: Guinness, Fullers, Newcastle, Strong Bow (Cider) and Smithwicks (Smit'-iks). My last hope is Town Hall Tap, but with 2 days left in the month, can I make it?

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Tynt Meadow and the Night Soils

I thought the 2023 edition of January is British Beer Month would contain only one entry (Island Time), but as I browsed the shelves at Total Wine I happened across a bottle of Tynt Meadow, an English Trappist Ale brewed at the Trappist Monastery Mount St. Barnard Abbey, which has a rating of 96 on RateBeer.com.  That this happened in January was a sign from on high. 

Here’s a picture of someone posing with a Tynt Meadow Ale, perhaps in the actual Tynt Meadow in the Charmwood Forest area of the British midlands.  Idyllic, no?   The beer was definitely up to Trappist standards; different than Belgian Trappists, but every bit as good.

The monastery of Mount Saint Bernard Abbey was established in 1835 near the town of Coalville, Leicestershire, England, on land that included the Tynt Meadow.  Notable visitors to Saint Bernard Abbey over the years include Sir Alec Guinness, William Wordsworth, Florence Nightingale and perhaps Charles Dickens.

It sounds like the kind of place where the wonders of nature and culture abound. What could go wrong?

In 1844 the abbey’s original premises were replaced by new buildings about 400 yards to the north and the original building was converted to a reformatory for Roman Catholic boys.  Oh God help us, this can't end well!

Mount St Bernard's Reformatory for Roman Catholic Boys, Whitwick, near Loughborough, Leicestershire (childrenshomes.org.uk)

This institution was known variously as St. Mary’s Agricultural Colony, The Colony, or The Bad Lad’s Home, according to Wikipedia Mount St Bernard Abbey - Wikipedia. These lads, rather than coming from the midlands, were mostly from poor Irish families in Lancashire such as Manchester and Liverpool and were perhaps rougher than the monks were prepared for.

This photo of the monks at St. Bernard Abbey looks like a meeting of the High School English Teachers Association.  Do they look like they are ready for 200-300 delinquent teenage boys?

The monks made use of slogans written on the walls, such as “He who keepeth his mouth and tounge, keepeth his soul from trouble.”  I think my 6th grade teacher Sister Doris said it more susinctuly, “An empty pot makes the most nosie.”  By 1859 an official inspection noted that the school had “encountered very serious difficulties arising mainly from the misconduct and inefficiencies of the Brothers"

In April 1863, a mutiny took place at the school.  P.C. Challoner, one of the constables called in, reported that he was climbing the stairs to confront the boys “When we got part of way up, they emptied a bucket of night-soil over us and then threw the bucket.”   This mutiny was followed by more mutinies, riots and escape attempts, until 1885 when the last of the bad lads were gone.   Monastic time moves slowly, which may explain why it took the monks 155 years to figure out that an easier way to make money than housing juvenile delinquents was to make and sell this heavenly brew.  Was this the right choice?  From my perspective, the answer is a resounding “Amen”.

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Island Time

Occasionally for my Untappd check ins I will reference things that happened in the year of the check in number.  For example, for my 1944th check in, I posted this picture of my dad, Edwin M. Lane, in 1944.

In this picture, dad was on the island of New Guinea courtesy of the U.S. Army’s 31st Infantry.   For this check-in it seemed like a good idea to look for a New Guinea beer, so off I went into the night in search of a New Guinea brewed beer.  Unsurprisingly, I came up empty.  It seems that most people outside of New Guinea (and probably a fair share of people in New Guinea) are not seeking out New Guinea beer.  RateBeer.com lists three beers brewed in New Guinea, with ratings ranging from 1.85 to 2.42 (out of 5).  They are basically what I call Equatorial Lagers ™ which are pale corn adjunct thirst quenchers like Corona that are ubiquitous within 30 degrees of either side of the equator.

How is this relevant to January Is British Beer Month?  Well, did you know that the island of New Guinea is split between Western New Guinea, which is part of Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea to the east, which just happens to be a British Commonwealth country?  Ha!  I bet you didn’t, unless you went to Carleton College and added Political Science as a second major at the request of your dad who was paying your tuition and didn’t think you would find a job as an English major.  (Sorry Follower).

Something else that I bet you didn’t know is that New Guinea is the world’s second largest island.   What is the world’s largest island?  Not New Guinea’s neighbor to the south, Australia.  But you knew that if you were paying attention in fifth grade geography class – Australia is a continent.  The answer is Greenland which probably has a lot of ice beer.  Greenland seems obvious as the largest, but how is New Guinea the second largest?  Is it really bigger than Great Britain?  Great Britain ranks as the eighth largest at 209 thousand square kilometers.  Compare that to New Guinea’s massive 785 thousand square kilometers, most of which is inaccessible due to the dense rainforest.  You could fit almost four Great Britians (England, Scotland and Wales) in New Guinea!  Don’t believe me?  Watch this entertaining and informative amateur video

The World's 10 Largest Islands - Bing video

Is Great Britain the island with the most beer production per square kilometer?  Or does that distinction go to an island that didn’t make the top 10?  -  Ireland?  I’m going to have to get back to you on that one.

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The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire

From the 18th until the early 20th century the sun indeed never set on the British Empire, as illustrated by this 1898 Canadian Xmas postage stamp.

The sun is however setting on this year’s installment of January is British Beer Month, and fortunately it is also setting on Dry January…. and not a moment too soon.

With less than a week to go, I can report that I have had nary a drop of an alcoholic beverage (>0.5% ABV), with very little help from British beers. January is a long month, made longer by the darkness and the cold. And don’t get me started on the effect of no alcohol. A slow winter day, a night like forever. It’s the kind of month only Dunbar could appreciate. February is the shortest month and could benefit by borrowing a few days from January. I might have to end January on the 28th so I can enjoy a birthday beer on the 29th, which would actually be February minus-2nd (don’t forget about February 0 on the former January 31st).

While I’m at it, Happy Chinese New Year! Lunar New Year’s Eve is on February 0 this year, so another reason to leave January 0.0 in the rear-view mirror. Gone are the days when the Ox fall down, the year of the Tiger has come back around. Gone are the days when the ladies (of Madison, MN) said please, Gentle Jack Jones have a drink with me.

The non-alcoholic beers from Dogfish Head, Sam Adams and Paulaner were at the top of the heap and were actually drinkable, though I doubt that I will ever drink them again after this month is over. The best value and biggest surprise was Penn’s Best NA at just $2.99 per six pack. It tastes like a cheap light beer – the only NA that I tried which actually tasted like a regular beer, at a very affordable price. I won't be drinking this again either.

Brewdog was the bottom of the barrel – six of eight cans purchased will remain unopened and the two that got opened were drain pours. The avocado-toast eating millennials at Canada’s Grüvi saved the Commonwealth from complete embarrassment with their stout and their sour weisse – embarrassing as that may be.

Today (1/24/2022) is day 4037 in the life of JiBBM. There have been 38 posts over the course of 12 Januarys.

Will the sun now set forever on January is British Beer Month? Tune in next January to find out.

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Your Pub Misses You, Punk

The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) expects 7.8 million pints of low- and no-alcohol beer to be sold this month (presumably in the UK) spurred on by Dry January. The problem they point out is that the vast majority of that will be sold in shops and supermarkets, not in pubs. The BBPA wants your butt in the pub – Covid be damned.

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the BBPA has this to say, “I urge beer drinkers and pub goers taking part in Dry January to still support their local. With such a great range of low and no alcohol beers in pubs – including on draught – it’s the perfect way to still savour a pint this Dry January.” Not only was Covid spiking in the UK as she said this, but the big lie is that there is a great range of no alcohol beers. The range goes from undrinkable to merely really bad. Does Emma think that offering this crap on draught will make it taste any better? Not a chance. The worst offender is Brewdog, which is spreading like Omicron across the UK and has infected the US and is in danger of becoming a global crap-demic.

The two Brewdog NA beers I tried weren't just bad compared to beer with alcohol, they were bad compared to most liquids including cod liver oil and curdled milk.

And they have the nerve to call their near-beer Punk AF. Brewdog is not Punk. This is Punk:

.....A fascist regime….We mean it, man! *kick over drums* *smash guitar*

I’m not going to a pub, bar or Applebee’s where I can’t have a proper beer. And to you Emma McClarkin – if that’s your real name – I won’t be told about what I want, I won’t be told about what I need, no future, no future, no future for you!

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Sober Curious

As mentioned earlier, my first “beer” of the new year was a stout by Grüvi that said “0% Alcohol” on the label, but the back of the can said it contained <0.5% alcohol. So, what exactly is the definition of non-alcoholic beer?

As you may be aware, the mother of all non-alcoholic regulation was the Volstead Act, which called beverages with less than 0.5% ABV non-alcoholic. Here is a picture of the women of Madison, Minnesota who fought for prohibition.

Here is a picture of some men that favored the repeal of Prohibition.

The Cullen-Harrison Act repealed the Volstead Act on March 22, 1933 ushering in a nine-month period when three-two-brew was the strongest beer that could be sold in the U.S. In December 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed, negating the federal government’s power to regulate the sale of beverages, leaving that power to the states.

The states seem to roughly follow the Volstead definition of 0.5%. Beers with low-alcohol content have been called by various names including, near beer, low-point beer, nonintoxicating beer and small beer.

Back on topic, there is less ambiguity when it comes to British beer. According to BeverageDaily.com, the current UK food labeling regulations (in place since 2009) are:

- Low alcohol – product must be 1.2% ABV or below.

- Non-alcoholic – cannot be used in conjunction with a name associated with an alcoholic drink except for communion or sacramental wine.

- Alcohol-free – product must be 0.05% abv or below.

- De-alcoholised – product must be 0.5% abv or lower.

There are some in the UK that would like to raise the alcohol allowed in beers called non-alcoholic to 0.5% which would be in line with most of Europe, but others argue that labeling a drink with 0.5% alcohol as “alcohol free” is “a bit like giving a vegetarian a salad with some thinly cut ham.”

(This salad has no ham, and is therefore considered "Ham-free")

I’m going with less than or equal to 0.5% as my definition, mostly because at this point I would have to scrap my Dry January and start again in 2023.

There are two methods of making “no-alcohol” beers: 1) making beer with alcohol and then removing the alcohol, and 2) preventing fermentation during the brewing process. The first method will more likely result in beers in the <0.5% category, while the second is best suited to the under 0.05% offerings.

Hairless Dog Brewing Company of Minneapolis uses this second method to create the beer in its Dry January survival kits featuring their Citra Lager, India Pale Ale and Black Ale. The kits are marketed to the “sober curious” – my favorite term of the new year.

https://beerconnoisseur.com/news/hairless-dog-brewing-co-reveals-dry-january-survival-kits-remastered-flavors

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The Main Ingredient is Water

It’s obvious that the main ingredient in all beer is water, but Lagunita’s takes this notion to the extreme with “Hop”.  Before we get to that, the British tie-in.

For Christmas, Will got me the book, Alchemy - The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Businesses and Life.  By Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman at Ogilvy UK.  If you want your fill of British idioms, this book is for you.  If you like a fun read with a bunch of interesting insights, ditto.

In an article in the British magazine The Spectator, Sutherland returns to a point he made in the book, about why water has no taste.  He expounds on a lesson he learned from psychophysicist Mark Changizi.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/reducing-activities-to-their-core-misses-the-point

“For a few million years, the most important contribution taste buds made to survival were to detect things in water that weren’t water: the very things, in short, which might indicate that the water wasn’t safe to drink. If we had evolved perception so that water tasted like Rioja or Dr Pepper, the sensory overload might have overpowered that hint of dead sheep from a rotting carcass 100 yards upstream: our taste buds are calibrated with water as the base line, the better to notice things which shouldn’t be in it.”

Photo credit, Jenny Lane  -  Gap of Dunloe, County Kerry, Ireland

Back to Lagunita’s Hop, hoppy refresher.  They don’t even call it beer, instead suggesting sparkling water, NA seltzer or IPA-inspired Refresher.  Hop is made with hops, yeast and water.  Why the yeast, you ask?  They explain that it is to biotransformate the hops and pull out the terpenes (aka, aroma compounds) of bubblegum, lime, lemon, tangerine, and a bit of pine.  They suggest you will taste citrus such as orange and grapefruit, tropical flavors like mango and sulfur compounds which “adds the yummy magic”.  These guys have alchemy (aka, BS) figured out.  

Zero alcohol, zero carbs, zero calories.  It’s almost like drinking sparkling water with a little hint of something funky – dead sheep perhaps?

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Feeling GRÜVI

New Year’s Day at 9:30pm presented me with a limited selection of imported non-alcoholic beer, but I did find one from Canada.   As I have mentioned in previous years, I expanded my scope to include all of the British Commonwealth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

Commonwealth realms are shown in blue, republics in pink and members with their own monarchies are in green. Canada is a member of the semi-exclusive Realms Club!  Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Commonwealth as of this post.  Do the monarchs have their own super-secret club? I googled “monarch club” and found dozens across the US, but none with kings, queens or butterflies as members.  Mostly nightclubs.  Pictured is the Monarch Club in Minneapolis where they are possibly celebrating the anniversary of the signing of the Balfour Declaration.

With equal gusto, prime ministers of five of the members of the Commonwealth, are seen celebrating here:

(L-R) Mackenzie King of Canada, Jan Smuts of South Africa, Winston Churchill of the UK, Peter Fraser from New Zealand and John Curtin of Australia.  

My first “beer’ of the new year was a stout by Grüvi.com.  I checked the can and the website, neither of which referred to Grüvi as a brewery, or explained why there is an ümlaut in their name.  The can does say however that the contents was brewed in Canada (somewhere in Canada – it doesn’t say where).  The label says “0% Alcohol, 100% Beer”.  The back of the can says it contains less than 0.5% alcohol and the ingredients are: Water, Malt, Maltodextrin, Hops and Yeast – Oh so close to complying with the Reinheitsgebot!  

What is Grüvi all about? Their mission, according to their website, is to ”strive to create an inclusive community focused on making better choices within our daily lives.”  Okay…. So Grüvi is a lifestyle company, not a brewery. A picture is worth a thousand words. Here are a few from Grüvi:

The website goes on to say that “Grüvi was created to dispel the common notion that non-alcoholic beer tastes, well, not great.”  Grüvi does not dispel that notion; it does not taste great, groovy, or even good. The roasted malt flavour helps hide the NA taste though, so it’s not terrible.  Hooray!  I’m going to drive to a mountain and crack open a can of Grüvi, just as soon as it warms up a bit so I can wear my yoga pants.

[januaryisbrittishbeermonth]

British AF

When Will told me that Eric was doing Dry January, my immediate response was that I couldn’t do that because January, after all, is British Beer Month.

 Sometime the next day it hit me that there certainly are non-alcohol (NA) or alcohol-free (AF) beers made by British brewers and it is my duty to support them, and Eric, in the noble cause.  (Side note, I had an intern by the name of Eric Noble in the 1980s.)

I have never found an AF beer that is remotely good, or even not bad.  They have all been terrible – drain pours – rubbish - celery water. What makes me think that the British have somehow created a decent beer without alcohol?  I don’t.  So it is with low expectations, and a sense of dread, that I begin 2022’s nonsense.

[januaryisbrittishbeermonth]

Malibu Stacy Has a New Hat

Do you remember these classic book titles from your childhood?  Yellow River by I.P. Daily, Rusty Bedsprings by I.P. Nightly and Every Brewdog Beer by I.P.A.

Seriously this reminds me of Forrest Gump.  Just replace shrimp with IPA:  “There's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it."

I started paging through the list of beers on Scottish brewer Brewdog’s website: 16 IPAs, 4 Pale Ales which, let’s face it, are IPAs with less I, 1 Hoppy Me, which I guess is an IPA, 5 Sours, 1 Stout and 3 Lagers - no description beyond that, just lagers.  I grew tired of that, so I looked at Untappd where they were showing the 10 most checked in styles of beer for 2020.  There were five separate types of IPAs plus Pale Ale, Sour, Lager (pale), Stout and Belgian Triple (there is hope).  Yes, it’s about the same ratio as the BD line-up.

Then it hit me.  Brewdog is a new category of brewer, somewhere between craft and domestic breweries.  There is a really big market out there for IPAs because people want something “different” without getting out of their comfort zone.

When it comes to “different” in this market segment, Brewdog adds tangerine or pineapple to the base IPA.  This reminds me of The Simpsons’ episode titled “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy” (season 5, episode 14) in which Lisa implores the makers of the Malibu Stacy doll to introduce a less sexist doll called Lisa  Lionheart.  The company grudgingly agrees, but counters with a doll of their own - a Malibu Stacy with a new hat.

Lisa shouts to the crowd at the toy store “Wait!  Don’t be fooled, she’s just a regular Malibu Stacy but with a stupid cheap hat.  She still embodies all of the awful stereotypes she did before!”  The crowd pauses, then Smithers shouts “But she’s got a new hat!”.  The crowd then rushes to empty the shelves of the mass market Malibu Stacy dolls, leaving Lisa’s “craft” doll on the shelf.

Brewdog is big business wrapped in an environmentally friendly, “punk” attitude.  They are having great success, having figured out the formula for what the masses are thirsting for.  Good for them, they look like brilliant marketers.  Just not my glass of beer.

[januaryisbrittishbeermonth]

The Year That Was

For the 2-3 million of you that follow this blog, you will recall that at this time last year I was talking about the wildfires in Australia.  Now, 11 months later we look back at a different kind of fire - 2020 was a DUMPSTER FIRE!!!

Trying to get back on topic, I searched for what the British term is for dumpster fires.  It appears that dumpster fire is a universal term, kind of like Power Rangers.  I did however learn some new terms for dumpsters including bins and skips, which were the preferred terms in the British Commonwealth.   I also found a lot of references to what is known as dumpster diving - i.e. the act of searching trash receptacles for food or items of “value”.  Here is a partial list of synonyms  for dumpster diving and those who engage in the practice:  toting, skipping, skip diving, skip salvage, binners, curb shopping, D-Mart, trash picking, street scavenging, and in Australia - skip dipping.  An interesting offshoot of divers are the Freegans whose aim is to reduce their ecological footprint by living from dumpster-dived food, clothing and other essentials.  

As I searched, I also learned that the term Dumpster Fire was added to the Merriam Webster dictionary in 2018, the same year that Narcissistic Personality Disorder was added.  Probably not a coincidence.  

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/05/590919849/a-phrase-for-our-time-merriam-webster-adds-dumpster-fire-to-dictionary

Where was I again?  Oh yes, British beer.  My biggest beer surprise this year was that London was the most checked in city on Untappd and the most checked in brewery was BrewDog.  Is BrewDog a dumpster fire?  Let’s find out, shall we?