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Here’s everything that’s grabbed our attention in the last week in the world of pubs and beer, from drunken monkeys to the soap opera of brewery takeovers.


Lars Marius Garshol found himself in a town ‘Where the Mayor Makes His Own Malt’:
When Martin, Amund, and I were invited to visit Roar to explore the local beer style stjørdalsøl, Roar figured that he might as well make use of the three visiting beer* ‘experts,’ and have us do a set of talks for the local home brewing association… They’d set it up as a rather grand affair, and the mayor himself came by to open the evening. I was a bit surprised by this, until the mayor started talking. He said a few words about the cultural importance of the local brewing, and then added that ‘Usually, when I do something like this I give the organizers flowers. But in this case I thought beer would be more suitable.’ At which point he took out a bottle and handed it to the chairman of the brewer’s association. It turned out that the mayor is also a farmhouse brewer, and since this is Stjørdal, he of course makes his own malts, too.

Painting by David Teniers (1610-1690) via Res Obscura.For*Res Obscura*Benjamin Breen looks into why so many 17th Century paintings feature drunk monkeys:
The most simple answer is that these paintings are the early modern version of searching for “dog who thinks he’s a human” on YouTube. They’re funny. Paintings of intoxicated monkeys were actually a sub-set of a larger genre of paintings known as*Singerie,*which poked fun at occupations ranging from drunkard to painter by portraying the participants as frivolous simians… [But]*I think that what we’re missing when we simply see these as a form of social satire is that these are also paintings about addiction.
(Via @intoxproject)


Jessica Mason, AKA The Drinks Maven, has written a passionate argument for choosing pubs over restaurants:
Great atmospheres are created with our ears as much as our other senses. Conversation and laughter emit from secluded seats, across bars and around rickety tables. Why is this? The simplicity of the everyday – the nicks and scratches and bare wood – isn’t trying to be more or any better. As such, more honest and heartfelt and open conversations are debated around pub tables… Informality and a certain lack of posturing put people at ease. If you want to hear the truth from someone, talk to them in the pub. The point they put their drink down and say: ‘Look, the truth is…’ you’ve figuratively helped them remove their armour.


The*Ultimate London Pub Crawl this week reached Chorleywood at the Hertfordshire end of the tube network:
We were regaling the bar staff about our quest to explore all 270 London tube stations when a bystander sauntered over:
‘I used to do a similar thing, but on the national rail network,’ he boasted nonchalantly.
We made noises of the noncommittal variety, half impressed and half mistrustful.
‘Yeah, me and the lads would stick a pin in the rail map on a Friday night and go out boozing all weekend. Glasgow was a great one – I had to buy myself some new clothes there mind you.’

Since working on*Gambrinus Waltz we’ve been itching to taste an authentic recreation of a 19th century Vienna beer — what were they*really*like? Now Andreas Krenmair, who is working on a book about homebrewing historic styles, has some new information from close to the source:
I visited the*Schultze-Berndt library located at VLB and curated*by the Gesellschaft für Geschichte des Brauwesens… [where] I stumbled upon a Festschrift regarding 100 years of brewing Vienna lager, aptly named ‘Schwechater Lager’. While not having that much content, it still had some bits and pieces that gave away some information, including the beautiful water colour illustrations… One image in particular contained something very interesting: pictures of huge stacks of hop bales… These hop bales clearly show the marking ‘SAAZ’.

Brewery Takeover News

It’s been a busy week in the US: AB-InBev swooped in to acquire Wicked Weed of North Carolina.*Good Beer Hunting partners with AB-InBev on various projects and takes a broadly positive line to such acquisitions these days but its story covers the key points well: Wicked Weed is a niche buy for AB; fans have reacted with particular irritation to this one; and other breweries are responding in various ways, including withdrawing from Wicked Weed’s*Funkatorium Festival.
Then the following day Heineken picked up the part of Lagunitas it didn’t already own. This story*was covered at*Brewbound which generally takes*an editorial line which seems to us moderately*critical of big beer and AB-InBev in particular. Its editor seems to spend quite a bit of time bickering about disclosure and propriety with*Good Beer Hunting on Twitter, too.
Remember, news isn’t neutral.

Brewery Takeover Commentary

Jeff Alworth*at Beervana*(sceptical of big beer, pro indie, but not a screaming fundamentalist) is troubled by the way another AB-InBev acquisition, Ten Barrel, seems to be obfuscating its connection with the global giant:
Two Saturdays hence (May 13), AB InBev is hosting a massively expensive party in Bend. They’re promoting it the way only one of the largest companies in the world can–with prizes, a big music lineup (including De La Soul!), and the kind of overheated marketing gloss the finest agencies supply. The occasion celebrates the founding of a brewery AB InBev purchased in 2014. Shockingly enough, this is not the way they’re talking about it… Indeed, the entire event is an exercise in disguising this detail.
Counterpoint: in no other sector would we expect a subsidiary to loudly state the name of their parent company in marketing material, says*Good Beer Hunting*on Twitter.
But we’re with Jeff: a brand built primarily on the value of Independence is being dishonest, even exploitative of consumers, if it doesn’t actively disclose its change in status for at least a few years after acquisition.


Meanwhile,*Draft magazine has a bit of a coup, convincing a senior employee at a brewery taken over by AB-InBev to discuss what the experience is like:
There’s more paperwork and bureaucracy to work through now, but not a lot more. I’ve worked in this industry for a while, and the biggest thing I learned during that time is how jaw-droppingly loosey-goosey most breweries are and how little structure there is with most craft breweries. You’d be surprised how many craft breweries don’t even know their real margins. It’s just basic business things. So to answer your question about whether there’s more bureaucracy and oversight now, I’d say no more than your average company; it’s just that most breweries have so little.
The only problem with this anonymous account is that it’s exactly the kind of thing we’d authorise if we worked in PR for AB — broadly upbeat*with the only negatives, like the one above, actually being backhanded boasts.
But maybe this is really how it is and all this intrigue is just making us paranoid.

And, finally, this seems like a good advertisement for the Tour de Geuze which is underway in Belgium at this very moment:
ARE YOU READY FOR THE LAMBICAPOCALYPSE pic.twitter.com/Q6Li8SDPkX
— Ms Toer de Geuzey (@msswiggy) May 4, 2017
News, Nuggets & Longreads 6 May 2017: Malt, Monkeys and the Daily Mail originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog


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