Breakfast beer via @nytimes

Via @abbeystmartin by @naomimc #beer

A pertinent and humorous analysis of why women are being left out of beer culture. Though her use of the word sister is regrettable, everything else in this article is perfect.

I couldn’t agree more that the punny blonde beer names need end.

Twitter’s Epic Beer Fail

They should know better than to slander the IPA acronym. Tisk Tisk.

That’s What She Said: FemALEs in Brewing

Thanks JWB for pointing this one out.

And your thoughts would be?

Nostalgia At Its Best

My favorite bartender Andy and I at my favorite former haunt, Black Dog in Kaohsiung Taiwan.

Not sure how I feel about this article, but any article that focuses on a large corporation targeting (their defined) demographic for dollars always comes across as a bit D-baggy. But it does raise some interesting points.

suip:

Beer and Islam. Two things that go together like… well, like two things that don’t go well together. Or so I thought.

I lived with a few Muslim guys for a year at university who really liked their beer, and my mates and I used to give them a pretty good ribbing. They said that alcohol was a long-tolerated tradition of many Muslim communities and that we were being narrow-minded by sarcastically giving them the “Good Muslim” award at the end of year fines evening. They brought up how Sufi mystics and poets often wrote about their love of wine, and not only as a metaphor for spiritual intoxication. I also had a few Muslim friends who would never dream of touching a drop of alcohol. It was complicated.

This sounds a lot more serious than it actually was - it was good-natured fun, after all - but it did raise an interesting issue: can beer and Islam co-exist?

The answer it seems is a qualified yes. While devout Muslims usually consider alcohol haraam, that is, forbidden, there exists many others who not only enjoy alcohol but make it too, arguing that alcohol has long been a part of Islamic culture. But how does it actually work in Arabia?

Enter Taybeh Brewery, Palestine’s only microbrewery. Run by Christians, its products are enjoyed by Muslims and secular Arabs alike. I found a very interesting article by the Guardian about this little brewery’s seventh annual Oktoberfest, held in its tiny home village on the West Bank.

To add to the bizarreness of the situation, this Oktoberfest, the seventh of its kind, took place not in hip Ramallah but in the remote village of Taybeh, perched picturesquely at 850m above sea level and with a population of just 1,500. Moreover, readers in western countries may wonder why thousands upon thousands of revellers had trekked all that way to attend a beer festival with only one beer on tap.

Secular Palestinians, expats and even leftist Israelis equipped with glasses of Taybeh beer wandered around food and handicraft stands, watched traditional Dabke dancers, modern music, comedy and theatrical performances.

Despite its remoteness and tiny proportions, Taybeh has earned its place on the cultural and social map as being the location of the only Palestinian beer brewery. It has battled the restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism to become a rare Palestinian business and cultural success story.

This may explain why Taybeh once adopted “Taste the revolution” as its advertising slogan. And, judging by its micro-brewery quality, the revolution tastes pretty good.

For an extremely interesting insight into how beer and Islam co-exists in a country whose largest city, you know, has a religiously-informed ban on all alcohol, this article is recommended reading. It also provides a very interesting perspective into how the issue of alcohol has been dealt with in Islamic cultural and historical writings and how non-Muslims enjoy their tipple while living in Islamic states.

Of course, I’m not going to argue about how a faith that isn’t mine deals with their matters, but from a beer perspective, this is very interesting indeed.

(Source: suip)

Wake up and Smell The…Beer

Josh Bernstein, Mastermind behind the NYC Homebrew Tours - is now on a book tour. And you can hear all about America’s boozy uprising Nov. 1st from the author himself. Details (in his words - which are so much nicer than mine) are below.

Come join drinkers and thinkers at the City Reliquary as we proudly host the release party for Brewed Awakening, Brooklyn author Joshua M. Bernstein’s definitive take on the craft beer revolution. To celebrate, we’ve enlisted expert homebrewers Fritz Fernow and Dan Pizzillo to craft one-of-a-kind ales for the party. In addition, Rich Buceta will debut suds from his forthcoming SingleCut Beersmiths (get a taste before he launches next year!), and Barrier Brewing will have a rare beer on tap too. Want more? Your entrance enters you into a raffle to win beers from Brooklyn Brewery.

Since mankind can’t live on beer alone (oh, how we wish we could!), we’ll also be serving up hors d’oeuvres courtesy of Frankies 457, as well as goodies sizzled on the grill. Come thirsty. Come hungry. Leave with a full belly and a book. Josh will sign it. Heck, he’ll sign anything. Anything.

Tickets: $10 for unlimited food and beer; $25 for beer, food and a hot-off-the-presses copy of Brewed Awakening.

P.S. If you ordered a book online, feel free to bring a copy to get it signed.

good:

Mixing social networking with alcohol can be a recipe for a regretful morning-after, with poorly-worded wall posts and oversharing tweets littering the news feeds of friends and coworkers. But Untappd, a new mobile app, invites users to share favorite beers with friends and “drink socially” online.

What’s better than a social beer?

Read more on GOOD→

我在這裡。後來見你。吸盤。

I thoroughly enjoyed this article and I think you will too.

From this dismal place, the United States is now the most vibrant beer culture in the world. Far from representing the nadir, American craft brewers now inspire bastions like England, Germany and Belgium to re-examine their own traditions and to invent new ones. American brews have kindled craft beer movements in unexpected places like Italy, Japan and Mexico. While the craft beer revolution in this country struck hard in the 1980s and ’90s, the last 10 years have seen an almost rocket-like acceleration around the world. Sales of mass-market beers have been stagnant or declining for years now, while craft-beer sales keep growing. In putting together the “Oxford Companion” now, Mr. Oliver has captured the blossoming of a global beer culture at a thriving moment.

Beer is newsworthy. Does this mean it’s time to change the name of the section to something different than “Dining & Wine” ????????????

Answer: Yes. I think something like “Digress & Digest” or “Chews & Booze” or “Put It in Your Face Hole.” I mean, what’s with the formalities anyways NYT? Get over yourself already.

suip:

I recently found a very interesting thread on Quora (link here) in which a man by the name of Leon Kitain explained how and why the much-derided once-blue-collar brew Pabst Blue Ribbon became the beer of choice for US hipsters during the 00s. 

I thought I should share it with you:

In the late 90s, PBR was doing poorly. Really poorly. They were shutting down its breweries, selling their formula to Miller, and in 2001, they would sell only a million barrels, its lowest in dozens of years, and 90% below its peak in the mid 70s. They believed that their demographic was the 40 to 60 year olds, who were the ones who loved PBR during its peak. But boy oh boy were they wrong. 

Around 2001, there were a couple of interesting things that popped up. Kid Rock wore a PBR belt buckle, and some top snowboarders in Utah adopted PBR as their drink of choice. Most likely these were intentionally ironic actions, but these days, who knows? Also, people in Portland were drinking it too. This was all brought to the notice of a newly hired marketer named Neal Stewart, who was only 27 at the time, and soon rose to be the brand marketing manager. 

So he went around the bars in Portland and he started handing out PBR schwag. He wouldn’t be dressed PBR, and he would never overtly advertise. He’d just sit there, and people would come up to him and ask for the stuff that most other beer companies could never force on people. The people liked PBR because it was scarce, cheap, and plagued with persistent rumors of imminent bankruptcy. Neal saw this, and decided to cash in on it. Under him, PBR’s marketing was to do as little as possible. When Kid Rock came around to ask for an endorsement they told him to shove it, and made it public. When the Pro snowboarders offered for PBR to endorse their competitions, PBR did nothing, but they made sure people knew they were doing nothing with the big guys. 

Instead, who they sponsored were the Portland hipsters. They sponsored skateboarding meets, art galleries, independent publishers, and they did it in such a way as to not appear corporate. And with every little event they sponsored, they built their network, they built brand loyalty among subcultures that hate corporations, hate marketing, and were previously thought immune to such tactics. Having Kid Rock endorse them would have cost 500k, hiring 10 reps per city to go convince small bars and neighborhood institutions to carry PBR cost the same and was much more effective. In 2003, at the peak of these marketing campaigns, half of PBR’s whole workforce was involved in these marketing efforts, and in the end, it was such grass roots marketing that got PBR firmly established as the hipster beer of choice. 

This is crazy. To distill: Pabst Blue Ribbon saved themselves by practically hijacking Portland, OR’s underground sports and arts communities. While many people would assume that PBR organically became hipsters’ beer of choice due to their needs for cultural and economic authenticity in their inorganic identities, it has as much to do with PBR’s desperately smart marketing efforts.

The New York Times Magazine has an excellent long piece up written during the genesis of Portland hip, circa 2003, that explains much of PBR’s rise to hipster ubiquity. It’s well worth a skim whether you are interested in the science of marketing, commercial beer, or just like to check out the hips. Click this post’s headline or this link to view it.

(Source: suip)

Ms. Jensen, My Hero

I’m envious of your profession. Want to trade with me?

I actually like light lagers with bbq-saucy foods. The sauce flavor brings out these sweet toffee notes in the lager. Additionally, if you can get your hands on a potato stout by Blind Bat Brewery in Long Island, it goes great with chocolate cake.

508 Beer

Located on 508 Greenwich St. Drink the Amber Ale. Do it.