May 4, 2012
I have written before about my iPhone. Every night, using my iPhone, I take a picture of what I am drinking and post the picture to Google + with some irrelevant caption. I then rate the beer on Ratebeer so that I will have a record of what I have consumed, and then, for a reason even I don’t fully understand, I use the Ratebeer function to Tweet the review. Whatever it is I am trying to accomplish with the Tweet, I suppose that I am hoping that my irrelevant Google + captions will attract some attention and increase whatever beer karma I might have online despite never being named Ratebeer’s Star4aDay. The epitome of beer karma (or klout), I tell myself, is the Ratebeer Star4aDay designation. It continues to elude me, despite my usage of the site and significant quantity of ratings. Who will take me seriously, I ask, until I make Start4aDay?
My interest in Google +, then, has been reduced to the craft beer genre we might call “showing off.” In the online craft beer world, showing off is everywhere. It includes all the “shows” we find on YouTube or Vimeo of two guys drinking a beer, telling you how cloudy or not it is, and then explaining how it tastes. Showing off is the review, the Siskel and Ebert imitation where the drinker tells the reader/viewer how great or not great the beer being consumed is. Showing off is taking pride in rating beers. Showing off is visual, textual, oral. But for Google +, and for me, showing off is mostly done in digital imagery. Sometimes showing off appears as “my haul,” “a recent trade or online purchase arrival,” or “my cellar,” or simply “here’s what I’m drinking.” However it appears, the showing off genre is based on the simple gesture of, well, showing off a beer one’s acquired or is currently drinking. And yet, despite the arrogance we display when we show off, we seldom are on the tail end of craft beer wrath when we engage in showing off. Unless your name is Adam Jackson, when one shows off, one typically receives a + sign, a positive comment, or some other shared celebratory gesture. For the most part, in craft beer circles, it’s ok to show off.
When I show off, I typically pull out of my iPhone and take a picture. This post, indeed, is comprised only of iPhone photos. No Instagram. No fancy filters. Just pointing the iPhone and taking a picture. I show off with my blatant disregard for style. I’m also obviously making little effort here. I also made little effort with these Lost Abbeys I’m posting. Most of the beer I moved from Missouri to Kentucky last year was the remainder of my Lost Abbey collection, bought via the Sinners’ club. By making little consumption effort, I’ve had these beers for too long, and in a beer nerd panic, starting consuming some this week. It’s time to go, I thought. It’s time to go before oxygen takes over. I’m ashamed of holding on to these beers for so long. So I ‘m drinking them. Showing these images is not, I tell myself, an act of showing off. It’s embarrassment. Why am I holding on to these beers for so long? I have no reasons. I’m not cellaring to acquire different flavors or to experiment. I’m cellaring because I’ve been neglecting these beers for others. Still, these photos do not represent all the Lost Abbeys I have; there are more. They are not just the Lost Abbey…they are my lost beers. Lost to my collection.
And in saying that, I am showing off. “LOOK AT MY COLLECTION,” I seem to be saying. “IT’S SO HUGE I FORGOT ABOUT MY BIG SHOT LOST ABBEYS.” “These are not my only ones,” I made a point of saying. How is that not a showing off gesture? Even as I point out a serious issue in the online beer world, I, too, participate in its existence. It’s not easy to break this showing off cycle. I may recognize it, but I live it as well. Critique is useless here. I like to show off when it comes to beer consumption. I don’t deny it. I can’t critique anybody, including myself.
Besides posting only iPhone photos, this post is also unique in that the beers featured are not new beers to me. Not only can/do I post pictures daily, I am consuming many bottles of supposedly hard to get beers. Now that, my friends, is showing off. You can’t just buy Captain Lawrence anywhere. And I am making it clear I have some. So what to do? Nothing really. All we can do is show off because the stakes, prices between a few dollars and maybe $20, are so low. We are showing off the high end of the low end of quality consumption. iPhone photos and so called pricy beer – these are small stakes in a big time economy of high priced, artisanal goods. All we can do in light of these small stakes in a big time world, then, is show off.
Posted in beer 
2 Comments »
May 1, 2012
I want to thank Richard Nordquist for citing one of my books in an About.com page on the notion of juxtaposition. It isn’t often one gets cited on About.com. In fact, the mere act of being cited is a humbling one, and in my profession, we take such matters seriously, so seriously that if we are not cited, our colleagues think we are losers. Academia is mostly about faculty thinking that each other is a loser. That is typically how faculty meetings go, with each person secretly tweeting or updating their status on Facebook regarding how much of a loser a colleague is for not getting cited or for thinking that the copy machine quota is too little.
But to be cited on About.com page suggests that I am not only academic but also a part of the ever growing online conversation regarding advice: Anne Landers, the horoscope, About.com. I’m in that circle. People go online all the time for advice. When my wife was pregnant (both times), she went online to various pregnancy forums for advice. Her reaction to each forum was typically something like: What a bunch of losers. Not that all online advice is by losers or people who confuse your with you’re. On the day I recently visited About.com’s front page, great advice was showcased. Such advice included “How to Keep Chickens,” “Start Training for a Half Marathon,” and “10 Best Cars for Teens.” Juxtaposition seems like a natural to include with such tips. Who isn’t looking for juxtaposition advice along with chicken raising advice? When you are done with those chickens, let’s figure out how to juxtapose!
After encountering my cited work on About.com, one could say I have klout, the name of a social media site that tracks one’s online presence and supposed influence. The more klout you have (like Cory Doctorow’s whuffie), the more presence you have. Klout, The New Yorker’s Nicholas Thompson tells us, is all about obsession.
Social media has a fraught relationship with neurosis. Obsessive people are essential to sites like Facebook and Twitter. They add energy and buzz. Their identities get tied up with their avatars, and that in itself makes the sites seem important. They provide much of the content.
I am, no doubt, obsessive. Like most people who read this blog or other so called beer blogs, I am beer obsessive. As I write this, I am sitting in Lexington Beerworks typing this post out because, on Facebook, I saw Against the Grain’s Big Falcon Deal was on tap. I didn’t want to take any chances this time, chances that previously cost me the ability to sample the brewery’s Citra Ass Down when it was on at The Beer Trappe (information I also learned via Facebook). I wanted to try this APA before the keg blows. And I succeeded. This success owes something to Facebook, one place where klout is created. Whatever energy is tied to Facebook – and on my end, I do my part to contribute with updates about things my son throws on the floor or public places my daughter poops – it helps me know, sometimes, what’s on tap at certain places around town. Thus, I knew about Big Falcon Deal and could head over to Lexington Beerworks at an ideal time, say 2pm, when no one else would be there. While I admire klout, I do hate crowds.
Of course, being obsessive, once I accomplished this great achievement of trying another new beer, I was left with a dilemma best described as the “now what” moment. Now what means: NOW WHAT DO I DO SINCE I’VE ACCOMPLISHED MY GOAL? Academics experience this all the time since most of their goals, which revolve around finishing a piece of writing or being employed, are hardly stellar or unachievable. Academia is one long now what moment. The now what moment is the moment we witness at the very end of The Graduate when Dustin Hoffman gets the girl. As he steals her from her wedding, shoves a cross into the door to prevent the family from stopping him, and boards a bus with said girl, the two sit in the back of the bus, look at each other, and seem to say, “now what?” When I finished my Big Falcon Deal, I looked at my laptop, at the empty pint glass, and at the list of beers on the chalkboard I’ve had before, and thought: now what?
With this humble citation I begin with, I experience now what as well. I doubt any of my beer blog writing will make it into About.com. Maybe an entry along the lines of “how to write about something when you aren’t really writing about it…” would be a good bit of advice my blog could serve up on About.com. Still, whether this blog is included or not, I have no complaints about this honor regarding my ideas about juxtaposition. An About.com mention is not a meme, of course, or # trend on Twitter or shared link on Facebook. But it does offer a slight version of the now what moment. Now that I’ve been mentioned on About.com, what do I do? I am up for promotion to full professor this upcoming year, after all. One more now what moment to tackle is there as well (the state of being “full” carries all of its meanings: full belly, full of it, etc.). And with each tick or taste I experience (I prefer taste to tick…tick suggesting that this is all just a routine and not a continuous search for pleasure), the now what sticks its head up proudly and stares me down. Now what. What to do?
After asking that now what today, I headed to The Beer Trappe for the Brooklyn Blast on tap.
Posted in beer 3 Comments »
April 28, 2012
My life revolves around my kids and around beer. This means that the upcoming summer will be the summer of children’s museums for the kids, and the summer of beer for me. Balancing the two summers is not a difficult feat for a family like ours since most cities we visit have at least one of each: a place for kids to run around and get so tired they zonk in the car, and then a place for daddy time. Daddy time usually involves beer, but it could involve as well an out of the way sandwich place, bbq briskett, an outdoor market, or a place that makes hot dogs out of ducks. Typically, and in this case, it involves beer. Some spots I’m hoping to visit as our travels take us around a small part of the country:
- Farmers Cabinet in Philadelphia. Are kids allowed in? I have to hope so. I have to. If not, I’ll be feeling very lonely while I drink.
- Nodding Head in Philadelphia. A brewpub I’ve never sampled. Bring it on!
- Flat 12 in Indianapolis.
- Brugge in Indianapolis (though I’ve been once before…). I’m open to other Indianapolis suggestions that are kid friendly.
- Revolution in Chicago. We’ve been once. Can I refill that growler I have? My last attempt to revisit and refill was not successful.
- Pipeworks in Chicago. I, at least, need to bring back some of their beer.
- Half Acre in Chicago. Maybe I can run in while everyone else sits in the car.
- Barley’s Smokehouse in Columbus, Ohio. This one has very good ratings online. Plus, there is smoked meat. Sounds like a win win situation.
- Westbrook in Charleston, South Carolina. Might not happen. But if we do this trip, I have to see if the hype matches the beer.
All of this is to say I have expectations. As I often write, my beer emotions are directed by expectations. Not matter how satisfied I am, I’m expecting. I’m like a Muddy Waters’ song. For instance, there are releases that I’ve been expecting in Kentucky that still haven’t hit Kentucky:
- Green Flash Palate Wrecker. Every state where Green Flash is distributed seems to have gotten this but us.
- Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA. I received a tweet from DFH saying we would get it. Still not here.
- More Shelton Brothers. Their stuff is now trickling back in to town.
- Lagunitas. When is that 50 state distribution going to take effect?
- New Albanian Black and Blue Grass. Looking forward to this one.
- Schlafly AIPA. Absolutely my favorite Schlafly beer. When we moved here last summer, I worried about its distribution to Kentucky. In Columbia, I remember buying a six pack two days after bottling. Hoping a lot makes it our way this summer. I see a case or two in our future.
I’m all about the expectation. What to Expect When You are Expecting Beer sounds like the title of a book I’d write. Anticipation. Desire. Rock song titles and beer emotions go hand and hand. I’m the kind of nut job who really is thinking about beer and these cities rather than merely visiting tourist attractions or getting away for a few days. Who needs Disney World when it’s less than six hours to Revolution? Who needs Florida, when the Midwest has lovely brewpubs I have yet to visit?
When The Simpsons’ Martin shouts out, “Soon, I will be queen of summer,” I know how he feels. All of this beer talk is making me feel mighty royal. High end. Out of control, even. The summer belongs to me. Or so I think. With every expectation, there is defeat. I still remember with great pain driving into the Lagunitas’ parking lot only to see the “Closed on Monday” sign on the brewery’s door. In this queen/king of summer moment, I must, as politicians and cheesy celebrities tell us all the time, remember the children. This is their trip too, after all. And as they leave crumbs of every imaginable snack in the backseat, in their car seats, on the seats, and as they nap and scream and ask for movies on our iPads, and as they refuse or accept the various lamb and goat dishes I encourage them to share with me while we travel, and as they throw temper tantrums in inconvenient moments, and as they lock themselves in various bathroom stalls, and as they stay up in hotel rooms hours past their normal bedtime jumping on the bed and screaming, I will remember that this is their summer, too. They have their own expectations.
And I’ll have my beer.
Posted in beer 2 Comments »
April 18, 2012
I could use my return to blogging after a short absence to discuss the week long stomach virus I have recently experienced. I could discuss how this virus cost me a few trips to West Sixth and a bunch of new beers waiting to be opened. I could talk about that nausea felt everyday for a week. I could talk about not keeping anything in solid form for a week. I could. I could talk about only recovering on Monday. I could. But let’s move on to something else. Let’s talk about another point.
Language, William Burroughs told us, is more than talking, it is a virus. A virus invades a host. It takes over the host and can induce sickness. Burroughs’ virus was junk, and when he tried to break that bond to junk, he experienced the feeling of loss that leads to intense nausea and sickness. Language, he felt, can create similar feelings. Burroughs also taught us about the algebra of need, the ways consumption multiplies as dependency takes over. “Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control.” The analogy to beer consumption is too easy. Beyond a need, we know no control. Release days have shown us as such. And despite the ease of making this analogy, the almost cliche feeling that comes from making the analogy, there is, indeed, some type of formula at play when we need, whether that need is a simple beer, a rare purchase, or another trade.
Analogies are moments of comparing experience. The way to understand one experience is to compare it to another. Language is a virus. Consumption is like an addiction. And so on. For the next beer session, the question posed is “what is your beer moment.”As Pete Brown writes, “The moment – for me – is relaxation, reward, release, relief and refreshment. It’s a moment to savour, a moment of mateship, potential, fulfilment, anticipation, satisfaction, and sheer bliss.” The comparison is a basic one: a moment of drinking is like being with a friend.
My moment this evening was seeing on Facebook that The Beer Trappe has Against the Grain’s Citra Ass Down on tap, and I’m at home. “But you can get in your car and go there,” you might say. No, I have to reply. I can’t. I’M ALREADY HOME. As a 42 year old misanthrope who hates crowds, the idea of being in a popular bar at night is not attractive. Plus, I don’t like going out again once I’m home (why oh why didn’t I see this update before I left work?). And I’ll feel guilty leaving while my wife has to stay with the kids. And I had already opened the 750 of Funkwerks Dark Prophet when I read the update. My moment was the meeting of all these moments, concerns, neurosis, and thoughts. Dang it, is the best way to describe this moment. Dang it is the only way I can explain this experience.
Dang it. Dang it is the basis of the beer drinker’s algebra of need. Dang it, I have too much beer but I want that new release. Dang it, when are WE going to get that beer in our city? Dang it, I’m been jammering about Against the Grain sending kegs to Lexington, they did, and I’m at home. Dang it, why is a status update making me feel like I’m missing out. Dang it. Dang it is getting a stomach virus for a week. Dang it is throwing up. Dang it is all that. But the beer dang it is a far worse dang it. It is the feeling of loss, of not getting mine, of need, of unreasonable expectations, of being stuck in the wrong place while good beer is served elsewhere, and of nerdiness.
Dang it.
That’s my moment.
Posted in beer No Comments »
April 2, 2012
It’s about time for my annual “no beer for a week” post. For those of you who are not members of the Tribe, no beer for a week is the symbolic gesture of secular Jews who honor the week of Passover by not consuming beer, wheat, grain, and yeast products. For a family who consumes a great deal of bread and pasta, this is a big enough deal. For a beer hunter, it’s even bigger. I look forward to this week as my big chance to shed a few pounds that I otherwise don’t shed in the gym. But I also dread this week because I have such a stockpile of beer in my cellar. Fall behind, and all hell breaks loose. Drinking is a matter of keeping up with the cellar. And the cellar is a beast that seems to grow at its own free will. Trading doesn’t stop. Summer trips don’t stop. New releases don’t stop. Consumption stops for a week.
Passover is the story of liberation. In some ways, beer has liberated me (opened my eyes to flavor) and in some ways, it has imprisoned me (made me a slave to the passion of consumption). I grow as a drinker. I grow as a self imposed prisoner.
I write this year’s post with a nod toward some of the new craft beer growth taking over Israel. That growth doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. I also write this post with the growth occurring closer to home in Lexington. Our second brewery, West Sixth, just opened. On its second day of being opened, we drove down to pick up a growler of the IPA. “Kids are welcome,” we were told. This is music to my ears. I need kid friendly places. I don’t go out at night. I don’t really have beer friends here in town yet to have over and drink with in lieu of going out. I feel too grown up to go out. Going out is for kids. I need a kid friendly place for afternoon consumption. And I like taking my kids with anyway. They don’t stop growing, and I need to take advantage of every moment we have. They are getting a mighty fine beer education as we take advantage of our time together. I plan on taking them back to Revolution this summer. And to some places in Indianapolis. And, if I’m lucky, to Westbrook and Coast in Charleston.
This is all to say that the week ahead is about both identity and losing a few pounds. That is our affair, if not our family affair. Of course, every time I take a picture of a new beer, it’s an affair. First the bottle. Then the opener. Then the iPhone to take a picture and send to Google + and all 250 in my beer circle so that they can be impressed with my selection of the day. Then out comes the Canon to take a better picture for this blog. Finally, I get to taste the beer. Then, of course, it’s off to Ratebeer to nerd out and record the beer so that, heaven forbid, I not forget that I’ve had the beer. Then I write a post such as this one and put it on Twitter and Google +. Consumption is also time consumption.
Good gravy, that’s ridiculous. And yet I still do it. How many members of the Tribe do this beer insanity thing? A few. We are likely as much a minority in the beer world as we are in the everyday world. Even on this week’s Mad Man, the firm got their “Jew.” The beer world has a few of their own as well. At 170 pounds, I may also be a minority among beer drinkers (not overweight). As a father, I am not a minority among beer drinkers. Kids and beer are commonplace items these days. We have been liberated from theme parks and other cheesy adventures. We have beer and food in their place.
When our week is over, I’ll be back at West Sixth. You can bring in your own food, and we will. Maybe a duck confit sandwich from Wine + Market. Or we’ll make a pizza and take it with. Or something. Doesn’t really matter. Saturday or Sunday afternoon. At a brewpub. Being a family. For this, we were once liberated from Egypt.
Posted in beer 1 Comment »
March 26, 2012
The return to St. Louis was a beer awakening. In the year we’ve been gone, so much new beer has been introduced to the city. As in Asheville or Portland, local restaurants are putting local beer on tap. Even an overpriced, serving the most banal food and drink you can imagine downtown hotel such as the Renaissance has Urban Chestnut and O’Fallon taps flowing. Things are looking up.
While I didn’t have the time to hit all the places (or most of the places) I would have liked to, we did get to a couple of new spots. Two things prevented me from going where I wanted to: travel companions who prefer schmoozing with other academics than drinking beer/ the 4pm openings of most places.
It’s not that I can’t go out at 4pm. I can. But by then, most people at a conference are staring to gather and catch up at a hotel bar, and convincing anyone to drive out to Soulard is pretty difficult. If I were home, my excuse would be I have to pick up my kids. When I’m at a conference, my excuse is I can’t drag people away from yet another “how do you like it where you work” conversation over a Stella. 4pm is my nemesis of beer drinking.
We were at Urban Chestnut at noon. Urban Chestnut was the only brewery open before 4pm. Why is 4pm a magical opening time? Country Boy here in Lexington opens at 4pm. Almost every St. Louis brewery opens at 4pm. I’m a professor. I’m one of the 1%. I can actually have a beer before 4pm. And I want to since the brewery will be mostly – if not completely – empty (as Urban Chestnut was). Empty brewery tasting rooms are bad for business, but good for me. I’m not very social. I also have to go pick up my kids at 4.
During the trip, I also made my pilgrimage to Wine and Cheese place, who I haven’t visited in almost a year. Wine and Cheese was always a part of our St. Louis day trip when we lived in Missouri. Kid’s event. Lunch. Wine and Cheese. During this visit, I bought every 2nd Shift, Perennial, and Six Row I had yet to taste. My wallet hates me. And Wine and Cheese went and moved the check out counter since our last visit! And Patric Chocolate now costs $7 a bar! And there was a rack of beer in the middle of a beer aisle! Things have really changed. You can’t go home again.
During UK’s spring break a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I shared a beer locally at The Beer Trappe. It was maybe 1pm, and the place was empty except for a basketball game on the TV. Breweries and beer bars need to embrace the open at 11 am motto. Who can wait until 4? Not a professor such as me. The main benefit of being a professor is being able to go to the grocery store in the middle of the day or visit a brewery before 4pm. We have few other perks. Many universities now have professors give up their office phones. Not that I use my office phone. I don’t even know what the number is. I prefer email. Typically, though, I’m emailing a brewery in a town I’m about to visit, such as St. Louis, asking them to open before 4pm.
Posted in Uncategorized 1 Comment »
March 16, 2012
I would have bought this beer if it were on the shelves. I say “if” not in my typical whiny “COME TO KENTUCKY” kind of emailing/Twitter/Facebook comment way I engage with every other day. Pestering has become my prime method of social networking with breweries across this dear country when I feel disappointed that beer X is not on the Kentucky shelves, or even on the Lexington shelves. Even though there are good beer to be had here, there is always something else I wish were distributed here as well. So, I pester. This was also my strategy when I moved to Missouri in 2007, and I still believe that pestering (plus an undeveloped market) had a lot to do with the current Missouri beer scene. As I might say in a 1960s hippie voice: “Pestering was a movement, man. It changed the scene. It revolutionized everything.” I hope one day to be remembered for my pestering in the pages of well known beer magazines the way Don Younger was memorialized for his work at Horse Brass Pub in Portland:
Rice (a.k.a., Dr. Fabulous), was a great beer pesterer. He pestered us constantly to come to Kentucky. He pestered us constantly to let him know when KBS was available. He pestered us when we only sold certain beers to bars and not to the retail market. He pestered and pestered. Not a day went by when we didn’t get an email or tweet from him telling us what we should do to get our beers into Kentucky. WHAT A PEST! We will miss him dearly. Our email boxes will be less without him.
Pestering aside, I say I would have bought this beer “if” only because Kentucky is listed on the brewery’s website as a state where Shmaltz distributes. For whatever reason, they no longer distribute here even though they can. An email exchange with someone at the brewery (a pestering email!) informed me Shmaltz isn’t sure why they stopped sending beer. They just have. So, when I received a press release for Hop Manna in an email (an email, by the way, that I do not consider pestering at all – I love emails from breweries), I responded by saying, I would buy it, but Shmaltz stopped sending beers to Kentucky. Shmaltz then sent me the beer to sample.
I’m proud to now be in the I’ve Received a Beer Sample club. I’ve marveled at how others receive beer from brewers on a regular basis. Up until now, I’ve felt very ignored despite my beer blogging being fairly consistent since 2007. I’m practically a veteran at this game. I’ve written about many beers along the way, sometimes without really even writing about the beer itself. And I’ve had a few beers along the way. A few.
I want to make the most of this beer sample sent in the mail situation. If I mess it up, if I choke, if I screw this up, the free beer gravy train may come to a screeching halt and like a team that makes it to the NCAA tournament only to be knocked out of the play in game (Iona?), I’ll have missed my opportunity. As Eminem taught us: you only get one shot.
So here goes: I wish this beer were on the shelves here in Lexington, Kentucky. Big hop profile. Lots of bitterness. Nice malt bill. Think of those other big Double IPAs such as Avery DuganA or Moylan’s Hopsickle (a beer, by the way, not in Kentucky). Or Oskar Blues Gubna (also not in Kentucky…must pester soon since it is in next door Tennessee). You are not getting the same thing as these well known beers with Hop Manna, but you are getting a beer in that type of conversation. Too often, we spend our time in online spaces comparing beers as better, worse, the top 20, the best X style, not true to style, not really a session beer, etc. This sense of competition (like who is the best lead guitarist or who is our generation’s greatest actor) is one way to evaluate taste, but it is a limited way because it is purely based on taste. Taste gets us no farther than: I like this. A preferable way is to see a group of beers (or brewers, or brew pubs) as part of a larger conversation of ideas. Four brewers are thinking about Double IPAs in a particular way. Shmaltz is one. Let’s see where Hop Manna fits in the conversation. Not – is Hop Manna better or worse than DuganA. Instead – what is the bigger idea they are both tapping into? What’s the conversation? What do these Double IPAs together teach us about flavor (bitterness) or aggressiveness, or a specific type of consumption or something else entirely? The best stories we tell to ourselves and others, the best conversations we have, are not just about the thing itself (a Double IPA, for instance), but what that thing stands for, teaches, shows, or represents. We discover these “other” things when we engage in conversation, not competition of taste.
And conversation is what this game is about. A big thanks to Shmaltz for letting me into this particular Double IPA conversation. If I had not been let in, I would be without one more reference point, without one more place to consider how the Double IPA develops as a style, and without knowing how, yes how, we in Kentucky have few opportunities to engage with this style, or fewer than we should have. The Double IPA conversation deserves a post of its own, but Hop Manna is absolutely a part of that conservation, a conversation that needs to be about more than a rating or preference.
Posted in beer No Comments »
March 3, 2012
Session #61 of the beer carnival known as The Session asks if local is better. For us, in Lexington, Kentucky, we now have a local brewery, Country Boy and another on its way, West 6th. We have local places to drink at such as The Beer Trappe and Lexington Beerworks. We, too, can finally discuss “local” in a manner that means more than produced at least 100 miles away. Whether or not ingredients are local matters little to me. Local is an experience as much as it is a sourcing.
Local also is a state of convenience. I could say something about sitting at Country Boy and having a local beer, but it opens at 4pm, and that is about the time I have to go pick up one of my kids. I’ve had the chance to pick up a growler over the weekend and completely enjoyed the beer, Snake Bite, I filled. But since Country Boy does not serve food, it’s not a place for kids, and for us, that means fewer local trips for the weekend. I need a beer buddy or “errand” that will get me down there on a Saturday or Sunday for an hour or so. Note to readers: if you live in Lexington and want to be my beer buddy, this is a pretty easy gig to get. Application should read: let’s meet and share some beer.
Thus, given these family constraints, local often means our house. During the storm that passed us by last night, for instance, we crowded next to to a beer source which is about as local as we can get in our house, my beer cellar, conveniently located next to the basement bedroom that serves as our shelter. I drank a very non-local but bought locally Two Hearted to prepare for the storm. I drank a very non-local Fifty Fifty Eclipse Grand Cru with no local purchase or connection to breathe some relief at getting passed over by the storm.
Kentucky Proud is the slogan of local in the bluegrass state. Against the Grain is the Louisville brewery/brewpub I wish were really local (it’s about 70 miles away). New Albanian is the non-Kentucky brewery/brewpub that should be thought of as local (it’s basically in suburban Louisville on the Indiana side of things). Sometimes, though, buying local means buying non-local. If Shelton Brothers would only come back to Lexington as they have done in Louisville, I could spend money locally rather than in Louisville or some other city I’m visiting regularly such as Cincinnati or Asheville. While many focus on local as in “locally sourced” or “locally produced,” local is also that state of keeping money within one’s community. Being able to buy Mikkeller/Cantillon/Anchorage/Fantome in Lexington and not in Louisville is a local act of consumption: a local retail operation can remain in business with additional sales. There are limits to such consumption (distribution is not universal), but there are also opportunities for local business in a city of almost 300,000 people where craft or high quality non-American beers remain a mystery to many who drink locally.
Local is the produce available at the Farmers’ Market. Local is the meat raised and sold in this area. Local is also the act of spending within one’s community and not sending all of one’s income to another country, state, or city. Then wouldn’t all purchasing be local? Not exactly. Walmart dollars (except, in a very minor sense, for salaries) leave the community en mass. Buying Danish beer at a shop owned by someone from Lexington who employs half a dozen people and pays taxes to the city keeps more than salary here. It builds a community of places, connections, events, and atmosphere. Local is community as much as it is sourcing or material.
Posted in beer No Comments »
February 19, 2012
At times, the Lexington beer scene feels like it’s getting a little too insider for its own benefit. First was the Goose Island King Henry/Coffee Stout release in which only bars and restaurants received the beer, thus shutting retail customers out of the picture (shut out, that is, if you spend more time with your family than in a bar). Now, we see a limited distribution of Founders’ Better Half treated as the ultimate insider job: Liquor Barn, the main outlet for beer purchasing, openly denied all week having it or knowing when it would arrive when, in fact, it had arrived and had been sold to a select few. Whoever else got it seems to have left it off the shelf as well. As beer culture starts to blossom here, we also see the rise of buddy buddy culture.
Before anyone lectures me on the limits of limited distribution, I get it. I get that a case here and a case here means not all beer fanatics will get the opportunity to spend money on 750 ml of liquid. We can never try everything. What I don’t like, however, is a system that is basically favoring buddies and the few who want to or can spend their evenings in a bar shelling out a big mark up or even being in a bar all night. I’m not a bar at night person. I’m lucky if I can visit one of the cool places in town a couple times a month. I don’t want to have to take my family to a mediocre restaurant just for the privilege of paying $10 more for a bottle than it retailed for (plus what I’m shelling out for mediocre food). I’m shut out of even the opportunity to spend some money.
Wine and Cheese Place in St. Louis is still a model for how to sell limited distributed beer. Paul, who runs it, is fair. When he doesn’t receive a lot of a product, he takes orders. If people don’t pick up the orders, he puts it back on the shelf. First come, first served. At least, with this method, if you don’t get something you’re looking forward to, it wasn’t because you didn’t know the secret handshake or because you can’t hang out in said bar all night waiting to find out if this is the bar with the release and how much will they charge. At least you have the opportunity to spend money.
In the end, this is a rant about consumption. It is a rant about the desire to consume. Consumption, as today’s NY Times magazine feature on habits reports, is often regulated by algorithms. Some algorithms are computer generated – as in the piece’s Target example – but some are more subtle and are cultural. Associating an establishment with problematic retail practices, for instance, can build in the consumer an unwanted recognition: that place is not the place to spend money. The recognition comes from a cultural pattern – knowing, time after time, how that establishment deals with limited product (gives to friends, doesn’t put on the shelf, makes you come in and consume on site, etc.). The algorithm tells the consumer that the establishment is designed for the establishment’s reputation and presence (when a patron consumes something unique in house, it supposedly increases the establishment’s reputation), not for consumption as a continuing practice (i.e., I will continue to consume via that establishment, not just the rare beers but beers in general, thus I will spend more than the average $17 price for a rare beer). In this sense, we are dealing with two very different attempts at recognizing or creating patterns. In Lexington, I see more of a push for the former; the work toward repeat consumption (and thus long time consumption) seems less important among some outlets who would prefer to be “known” as the place. By being the place, one can sell the rare stuff out easily (as could anyone). But we all know that longevity – for brewer and for retail – is not based on the sales of limited distribution. Longevity is based on repeated consumption at all price points.
Last week, I left a comment on a Beernews.org post on six breweries closing. I disagreed with the idea that these closings represented a trend. The conditions behind each closing – debt, investor relationships, market, quality of product, ability to grow, etc – have not yet been studied; each likely closed for different reasons. And six hardly indicates a trend. Six businesses of all kinds of industries close each week. I called the craft beer community young and accidentally insulted Adam who thought I meant his age. By “young,” I don’t mean a person’s age; instead, I mean a community that, for the most part, has existed 15-20 years. Sierra Nevada may be 30 and Anchor may be older, but many of the industry’s major figures are in the 15-20 year range (many even younger), and much of the attention directed toward craft beer is younger (it took Stone, for instance, a few of those 15 years to gain momentum and attention). Consumption and youth lead to practices that may not always be conducive to development. Retail and distribution, to be frank, are still trying to figure out this industry. They are still trying to figure out marketing, education, growth, and sales as the industry develops tiers of consumption: the everyday consumer (the meat and potatoes of any product), the nerd who balks at prices, the obsessive nerd who still thinks about price, the obsessive nerd willing to pay high prices, and so on. Hoarding and buddy systems can be an unfortunate side effect of such youth, but they do indicate that this industry is still trying to figure itself out.
Posted in beer No Comments »
February 10, 2012
I hate to say this, but I feel some relief that my old stomping grounds still hasn’t received Hopslam. I say that because A. I finished off three six packs about three weeks ago. And B. Those guys can buy Fantome and Cantillon in the grocery store. I am bound to have some resentment that they get Fantome and Cantillon in the grocery store in a big chain, and we get Bud Platinum in our big chain (not that I shop there; I don’t). So, when some folks from Columbia read this (and I think, maybe two still do), don’t take offense. After all, you will get your Hopslam next week (a month after I got mine). And then you will still get Fantome and Cantillon in the grocery story. I won’t get any such thing in my grocery store. I can get milk. Or soy milk, which is what my daughter likes.
Of course, we shouldn’t enjoy others’ beer deprivation. Every time I read someone like Andy Crouch in Beer Advocate or a post on a message board lament how there is too much beer in their market and a crash awaits, I think: You live in BIG NAME CITY. Even in BIG NAME CITY there are enough people to buy the beer available and then some. I live in Lexington – big but not that big – Kentucky. Don’t tell me we have too much beer. We’ve got plenty. But too much? I doubt 1 percent of the local market is craft right now. I’m sorry you feel that there is a surplus where you live. Where I live, there could never be a surplus. Not as long as half the shop is devoted to cheap wine and overpriced dry goods. I’m deprived. No matter what is available, I’m deprived.
Deprivation and frustration. This was the theme of much of Calvin Trillin’s food writing. No matter how great the moment you are in, you still feel the suggestion of what you can’t have and are frustrated about not having. Of course, if you glance at the photos on this blog, you would think I’m hardly deprived or frustrated. But that, you see, is the characteristic of true beer appreciation. No matter how good you just had it this past week, there is something you are not having. King Henry? None in town. Alpha King? Wisconsin gets six packs; we don’t. The love of beer is the acknowledgment of frustration. If someone like me didn’t love beer, there would be the feeling of settling. I would have to say “I’ve settled. I no longer want.” Six pack. Growler. Onward. I’m done. But it doesn’t work like that. We’re always thinking about something else. I’m always thinking about something else. I call that thought process: pleasure.
For some, this is the curse of the geek. But for me, this is what makes this obsession pleasurable. Once we stop wanting, desiring, being frustrated, feeling deprived, we are right back at the level we were when I was a kid in the ’80s: We settle for giant 24 packs of flavored water and the need to get drunk. This is why the Columbia grocery store sticks in my gut. It is the anti-grocery story experience of beer buying in the age of the mass franchise. Fantome? Cantillon? Mikeller? How can you be deprived? These beers don’t come in 24 pack and aren’t drunk for the feeling of being drunk. And they can be bought with a loaf of bread and some local chocolate. Still, I’m sure folks there feel their own sense of deprivation and frustration, and not only over Hopslam. I felt it, too, when I lived there. And I used to buy Cantillon and Mikeller in the grocery, too. I feel that sense of deprivation again, even though I can buy Dreadnaught and Rayon Vert in the Coop I shop at. And I’d feel that sense of deprivation somewhere else, too, if I ever moved from here. All that means, of course, is that I love beer.
Posted in beer 4 Comments »
