Big Words: Sesquicentennial and Zwickelmania

Tomorrow the state of Oregon turns 150. The Oregon Historical Society is hosting the biggest party, devoting the weekend to free admission and scads of events. Weathermen say it will be a sunny day, and I expect the joint to be hoppin'.

Breweries are throwing their own fetes as a part of the Guild-organized "Zwickelmania." The event is similar to the open houses held by Oregon wineries over Memorial Day and Thanksgiving weekends--apparently the inspiration (?) Thirty-five breweries from around the state will be offering free tours and tastings. I won't post the entire list of participating breweries and their events, but you can find it here.

I'd like to add a historical slash beer note. Breweries are closely linked with the history of this state. In the years between 1856 and 1900, pioneers founded scores of breweries across the state. The pattern was similar in most cases: Early settlers had put up a few buildings and started working (or mining or fishing off the coast of) the land. Within months or at most a few years, an immigrant--in nearly every case one of the wave of Germans of that era--had set up a small brewery. It was the time before refrigeration, and the only way to get fresh beer was to brew it. Some of those breweries lasted just a few years, others until prohibition shut them down. But they all played some role in the founding of the state--in some cases, a large and important role.

I've got a wonderful book called Brewed in the Pacific Northwest by historians Gary and Gloria Meier. They sifted through town records across the region, unearthing fascinating stories of some of our pioneering brewers. Over the next few days or weeks, I'll celebrate our sesquicentennial by relaying some of these. So look for that.

Raise a Pint for Loose Women!

A couple days ago, I caught the story of an Indian feminist uprising on the BBC and it has been fascinating me since. It was only today that I found a hook beery enough to include on the blog. The backstory:

Susan launched her campaign after a posse of hard-line Hindu activists barged into a pub in the south Indian city of Mangalore last month and roughed up young women clients who were enjoying a quiet drink.

This assault — by members of a little-known organization called the Sri Ram Sena, or Lord Ram's Army — caused outrage among many Indians. It also triggered a national debate about the rights of women in a fast-changing society where traditions still run deep.

The hard-liners justified their pub attack — which they deliberately publicized — as an effort to stop "un-Indian" and "loose" behavior and to prevent India from falling prey to "Western deviations" such as allowing women into watering holes clearly meant for men.

This is not a new phenomenon. Fundamentalist Hindus have been employing violence against women and Muslims for decades. Far from fringey, these groups started seizing power in the 1990s and ruled and ruled with an overtly religious agenda from 1998-2004 . (In a moment of poetic justice, Indians in 2004 threw them out of office and a minority Sikh and an economist became their PM.) Indian society, as it grows ever more multicultural, urban, and educated, becomes more liberal in social outlook--fueling the rage of the Hindu fundamentalists.

But in a sign that the times they are a changin', Indian women are now standing up against the medievalists.

With several associates, [29-year-old journalist Nisha Susan] launched a group on the social networking Web site, Facebook. They called it the "Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women." And they unveiled a plan to dispatch piles of pink knickers to the leader of Sri Ram Sena in a nonviolent gesture of defiance.

The women chose Valentine's Day. This day particularly rankles right-wing Hindu extremists, who consider it an immoral commercialized Western import.

Susan's plan has produced a huge response. Within a week, the Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women accumulated 25,000 members. It has set up collection centers in several Indian cities to handle the bundles of pink bloomers — or "chaddis," as they're widely known in India — that have poured in. (The choice of "chaddis" is a poke at the radical Hindu paramilitary group, the RSS, whose members stride about in baggy khaki shorts. In some areas,"Chaddi-walla" means right-winger.)

And now we arrive, after mammoth backstory, to the beer-related portion of the narrative. In addition to sending pink chaddis to pinch-faced Hindu men, the ladies are making a separate call for women around the globe to go to a pub and raise a pint in solidarity. Because, as their Facebook tagline says, "the Sri Ram Sena needs us loose and forward Indian women."

Here in Beervana, it's hardly a transgressive act for women to go to pubs. Let's all raise our pints tomorrow in solidarity for those for whom it is. You have your marching orders--to arms!

The Opposite of Beervana

Stealing profligately from Maureen Ogle, I point you to a fascinating document in the Salt Lake Tribune about what beer drinking is like in their (un)fair city.

A plan to do away with Utah's private club law and replace it with electronic identity checks has the backing of Utah bar owners.

(Before we go on with the story, it's worth noting that the "private club" is a draconian Sharia-like containment law designed to shield practitioners of the dominant religion from witnessing anything as unsavory as a gent sampling Laphroaig 12 15. It could be worse. When I spent 2 1/2 years in high school there in the 80s, you needed a private club to sell coffee. No joke. Now, continuing on....)

But they're troubled that the card scans could gather thousands of names and addresses of their patrons and dump them into a law-enforcement database....

Under [State sen John Valentine's] plan, everyone entering a club, whether they're 21 or 101, would have to swipe their identification to verify it is genuine. The patron's name, address, driver license number and date of birth would be logged into the database, along with the time and place they were drinking.

That information would be saved for somewhere between 10 days and 30 days -- Valentine hasn't decided yet -- and then be purged.

Valentine said the scanning would help cut down on underage drinking and could give investigators a tool, if a patron leaves the bar and causes an accident, to show where and when the person was drinking.

It could also be used in traffic stops. If an officer suspected a driver might have been drinking, the officer could run the license and determine if the driver was coming from a bar

The database and its management would be paid by a fee assessed to bar owners, which they could recoup through a cover charge or by raising prices, Valentine said.

Did I mention the phrase Sharia-like?

Laughing Buddha - High Concept Brewing

We can only guess at the conversation that led Chris Castillo and Joe Valvo to found Laughing Buddha Brewery:

Joe: We're pretty badass homebrewers, let's start a brewery!
Chris: Problem is, there are 297 breweries in the Northwest.
Joe: We can't just brew another IPA.
Chris: Right, we have to distinguish ourselves.
Joe: You mean like brewing double IPAs?
Chris: No, man, I mean--
Joe: Black IPAs?
Chris: No, no, I mean something really different.
Joe: Ohhhhhh, I get it. You mean, like brewing with purple yams and pandan leaves?
Chris: Exactly!

That's not an exact transcript, mind you, just a rough approximation.

Actually, having now sampled the three most exotic Laughing Buddha beers, it seems more likely that the conversation didn't start with beer at all, but food. Northwesterners have really taken to Asian cuisine--in addition to the myriad Thai, nouveau Chinese, Malay, Korean, Cambodian, and Indian restaurants now festooning our neighborhoods, the techniques and ingredients of Asia are also drifting, as if by osmosis, into non-Asian dishes. It was only a matter of time before they drifted into the brew kettle as well.

Laughing Buddha, founded less than two years ago, has already garnered a lot of press for their fusion brews--and rightly so. We don't actually need another brewery making a flight of pale ales and IPAs. Valvo and Castillo have taken a chance on a new idea, and the early results are intriguing. I tried the Purple Yam Porter, Mango Weizen, and Pandan Brown, and indeed, they represent something original in brewing. Let's start out with a basic description.

• Purple Yam Porter, 7% abv. Brewed originally for Oktoberfest (“Instead of a pumpkin ale, we’re giving our fall seasonal an Asian-fusion spin”), it's a dark ale brewed with purple yams and vanilla beans. The aroma has less roasty malt than you'd expect; it's more like cola with a note of squash. It's thin on the palate, and with the mild vanilla note, again suggestive of a soda. But it's also earthy and autumny, a quality that must come from the yams. Strangely, there's also a slightly minty or menthol note I can't account for looking at the ingredients.
• Mango Weizen, 5% abv. The Indian mango lassi inspired this beer--and it's evident in the finished product. Lassi is a traditional Indian drink made of yogurt; it's very crisp and cooling. Mango lassis are sweeter and full of mango flavor, but remain light and crisp, also with the intention of cooling. This beer manages the quality by adding a small enough amount of fruit so that the aroma and flavor suffuse the beer without adding much sweetness. It is a perfect summer beer.
• Pandan Brown, 6% abv. The base beer is a traditional brown ale--it looked and smelled relatively predictable. Added to this are pandan leaves and palm sugar, two ingredients I know nothing about. The pandan leaves are distinctly herbal, but having no basis for comparison, I'm not sure how to describe them. I'd like to drink this beer a few more times to calibrate my palate to it.

So what to make of the beers? Two pieces of advice: forget the style names. We're off the normal grid here, and "porter," "brown," and even "weizen" are misleading. I've read a bit of the commentary by other bloggers (of course, they're mostly Oregonians: Angelo, Bill, Da Beers), and this is a common criticism: they're not really porters or browns. Second, it's probably best to try these with as little expectation as possible. I'd like to buy another round of the beers and acclimatise my tongue to the flavors. They're disorienting at first, and one's initial reaction is to reject them. But this is the thing with change--it's always going to seem weird the first time you try it.

I hold this idea that brewing will naturally evolve and incorporate strange and unexpected ingredients. No doubt when the first Belgian wit ale was made, people thought it was bizarre, too. Maybe we'll ultimately regard purple yams as a misstep, but maybe not. Laughing Buddha is less than two years old, and they're learning as they go along, too. I'm delighted to see something new emerge, and I will be a happy supporter of their experiments.

Beer Tax Hearing

The Oregon Brewers Guild just put out an email announcing a public hearing of the proposed beer tax hike in Salem. If you have a business that will be affected by this legislation, consider going down and telling our representatives how it will affect you. This is an opportunity to shape the legislation and avoid a brutal battle down the road, so pack your goodwill with you if you plan to go.

Monday, Feb 23, 8:00 AM
House Bill 2461 Hearing, Oregon State Legislature
House Revenue Committee
Oregon State Capitol
900 Court St. NE
Hearing Room A

Incidentally, if you want to follow this more closely, there's a Facebook page and Twitter feed devoted to the bill.

Beer Taxes: DC versus Salem

As you know, Salem is considering raising the excise tax on beer. Strangely, in Washington, they're considering exactly the opposite:

Washington, DC- The Beer Institute and the Brewers Association today applauded members of the United States House of Representatives for the introduction of H.R. 836 the Brewers Excise and Economic Relief (BEER) Act, which effectively returns the federal beer excise tax back to its pre-1991 level of $9 per barrel [from the current rate of $18].

Today, there are over 2,053 brewing companies in the United States operated by national brewers, regional brewers, regional craft brewers, microbrewers, and brewpubs. These job-creating businesses are in every state in the nation. In fact, a majority of Americans live within 10 miles of a brewery. In addition to reducing the tax burden on large brewers and beer importers the legislation introduced today provides specific relief to small brewers by reducing their tax burden from $7.00 to $3.50 per barrel.

The 1991 doubling of the federal excise tax remains the only so-called "luxury tax" still in place. All of the taxes on luxury products such as yachts and jewelry that were increased that same year have since been repealed due to the devastating consequences they had on jobs, the economy and the industries impacted. Today, more than 40 percent of the retail price of beer is comprised of various taxes, and beer taxes at all levels of government add up to more than $36 billion annually.

And important note. Jim Parker informs me that there's a provision for small brewers in the '91 legislation. Breweries producing less two million barrels (essentially every craft brewery) only pay half the tax--nine bucks--on their first 60,000 barrels. So this wouldn't affect smaller craft breweries unless the Brewers Association is able to preserve the deal and reduce the tax on small breweries to $4.50 a barrel for the first 60k. And they're working to do that.

An interesting wrinkle in the whole excise tax debate. Stay tuned.

[Update: In comments, Jim added a clarifier to his earlier piece. "The small brewers rate is actually $7 on the first 60,000 barrels. The differential actually dates back to 1976 -- before the 1991 increase. Henry King of the U.S. Brewers Association got the small brewers' tax dropped to $7 from $9 for the first 60,000 barrels. In 1991 when the excise tax doubled, the small brewers' rate stayed the $7."]

News

In the last 24 hours, John Foyston has posted 16 items on his blog. So many, in fact, that they don't all appear on the front page. Lots of good stuff there, and rather than just steal it, I'll let you go navigate around for yourself.

(John: pacing, my friend. Pacing.)

They Loves Us

I've been trying to figure out a way to mention that erstwhile Seattle P-I beer writer Geoff Kaiser has a new blog. (His old one, hosted by the P-I, went kablooey with their troubles.) He was in town recently and got two posts out of the deal. Shorter Kaiser: Portland good!

Longer Kaiser here.

The Future of Willamette Hops

Via Rooftop Brew, we have some potentially disturbing news about a mainstay of craft and home-brewing, Willamette hops:

I received word from the Hop Growers of America Conference that ABI (Anhuesher-Busch InBev) is going to stop using whole hops in their product and start using extracts. Additionally, they are going to stop using Willamettes, something they have spent the last year and a half touting on billboards in our region. This could have some major ramifications for local growers (who are being paid not to grow the varietal) as there are some limitations on what can be grown here because of susceptibility to downy mildews (guess what, it’s wet here.)

Willamettes are an older American cultivar that come from Fuggles--a classic English hop dating back 150 years. A decade ago, it accounted for a fifth of American production. I've used it regularly for my own homebrew. It's a wonderfully versatile hop, equal measures of herb and spice with a tiny bit of NW citrus/fruitiness.

I'd like some confirmation on this, though. It doesn't quite square with what I heard when I visited Hopsteiner in Yakima now more than a decade ago. At that time, they said the macros used extracts exclusively made from high-alpha hops. The reason is obvious--since hops are only used to balance malt, not contribute flavor, you want the highest level of alpha you can extract, thereby reducing the number of hops you have to use. At that time, craft breweries were worried their flavorful, lower-alpha hops were endangered by this trend. Maybe that was just at Hopsteiner, though--or maybe I misheard. Anyway, some confirmation would be good. Still, a worrisome rumor.

(Hat tip Maureen Ogle.)

What's "Good?"

The post about Guinness below has provoked some philosophical consideration. No one doubts Guinness's place in history, but as to whether their signature pint of plain is a good pint--well, that depends on the meaning of "good," doesn't it?

I was amused to see our resident economist's take. File this under the "you can take the boy out of his discipline of economics, but you can't take the econ out of the boy."

Is Bud a 'good' beer, is Wonderbread 'good' bread, is Velveeta 'good' cheese. Most would say no but the market appears to say yes.

Do crowds have wisdom or collective stupidity?

Does quality mean only appealing to the few enlightened consumers or does it mean appealing to as many as possible.

We've discussed this before, on this blog and others, but it does bear periodic reconsideration. Patrick applies a market test to the question--can't "good" be whatever's most popular? It's a framework that works for business and politics, and is clean and easily measured. The best beer is Bud, the best candidate is president, and so on.

Well. I studied the arts and humanities, so my framework is aesthetic. In this mental framework, we identify quality based on subjective judgments. It's not as clean as Patrick's but it has other virtues. (For example, what happens when a product is no longer the best-seller; do we rethink its status? Are we prepared to consider that the nature of something is not fixed? It wasn't very good two years ago, but strong sales made it good last year, but now it's weak sales make it bad again. And what about politicians? Truman was despised when he left office, but we look back and say, "Our bad, you were actually doing the right thing." Are we prepared to leave the judgment to others?)

Aesthetic judgments require tolerance of ambiguity, but they may more ably probe a thing's true nature. Aesthetics have two major components--the superficial and the contextual. The superficial is obvious: in the case of beer, for example, we have ready access to the appearance, scent, and flavor. The contextual is the more important, though, because it lays out the rules for judgment. You sample the appearance, scent, and flavor of a beer, but before you can answer the question "is it good?", you need to ask: compared to what?

Some beers are supposed to be sour; in others it's a fatal flaw. Of those that are sour, some are sweet-sour, some tart-sour, some dry-sour. The more we know about the entire pantheon of sour beers, the more we are able to judge how well a given candidate balances its aesthetic elements. Everyone will not agree about a given beer, but the exercise of trying to understand the beer's nature--how it tastes in context, what the brewer was aiming for and how well he accomplished it--can't be answered any other way.

Patrick wonders if the masses have collective wisdom or stupidity. But clearly, their insight is not correlated to quality. If you look at Oregon's ten best-selling craft beers, no doubt you'll find some exceptional examples of craft among them. But you'll also find uninspiring beers. The reasons for this are probably many and in some cases contradictory. To judge "good," though, you have to rely on more finely-tuned palates (starting with your own!).

More Macro: Schlitz

Someone just put a comment on an old post referencing the "new Schlitz recipe." New Schlitz recipe? What the hell? How did I miss this?

Chicago, IL (April 2008) - Schlitz®, long known as "The beer that made Milwaukee famous" and once the best-selling beer in the United States, makes a comeback today on the 75th anniversary of its return to Chicago following Prohibition. Pabst Brewing Company in Woodridge, Ill., which now produces the iconic brand, is re-launching Schlitz "Classic 1960s Formula" based on the original recipe and packaged in traditional "Brown Glass" - a packaging innovation that Schlitz introduced in 1912 to prevent light from spoiling beer before it can be served. Chicago is third in a phased re-launch of Schlitz that included Florida and Minnesota markets late last year. The initial roll-out of six- and twelve-pack varieties, priced comparable to other premium domestic brands, will be to select Schlitz accounts with a citywide expansion slated for 2009.

Anyone tried this beer? Is it any good?

Guinness Anyone?

Guinness is celebrating an anniversary this year--the 250th since Arthur signed the lease at St. James Gate. It's not a bad year to have something to promote, and Guinnie's going all out, including the rumored release of a new beer. Yet not everyone is pleased. Some chafe under the fame of what they describe as an inferior beer. Those in the know will, head tilted forward didactically, argue for Beamish.

I am a snob, and I do find the draft product thin and uninteresting. The pedants are right--Beamish is better. But hey, it's a force of nature, and perhaps the most widely-available beer on earth. So what do you think, Does Guinnie live up to the hype? Let's hear what the verdict in Beervana is.

Portland International Film Fest

Man cannot live on beer alone--he requires movies as well. (And she, of course.) My favorite non-beer event every year is the Portland International Film Fest, which kicked off on Thursday. I caught a very grim Italian movie last night (Cannes Grand Prix winner Gomorra) and have tickets to a Belgian and Austrian movie this evening. If you're a film fan, do yourself a favor and catch one or two (or 17) of the offerings. Filmmakers in other countries don't think the way we do, so the narratives unfold differently; the effect is mood-changing and wonderful.

Now, if you're the kind of person who can't live by movies alone, you're in luck. Take your ticket to BridgePort the night of the showing and they'll sell you a pint for a buck and a quarter. An honest pint, at that. You'll find no better deal in town.

"Action!"

Slow Beer Day

Not a lot going on....

Update. If you're looking for content, youd could do worse than this post by Lew Bryson. Bell's recently rolled out a beer called Hopslam, and by the reaction, you'd think all four of the original Beatles have reunited for a concert tour. Lew's response is amusing.

Update on the Beer Tax (HB 2461)

Based on the reaction to my first post and the storm gathering on the Brew Crew email list, I'd say the outrage to a proposed Oregon beer tax is already well-fueled. I was going to hold off on further posting until we knew more, but given how many of you have asked what we can do, I thought a comment on that point might be useful.

The best campaigns are those with some coordination, and I'm going to follow the lead of Brian Butenschoen, the Brewers Guild Director. He has been very good about assembling facts and key talking points. While I can imagine a number of immediate actions we might take, like sending letters to our legislators or setting up Facebook pages, I personally would like us all to be singing the same song. We don't want to inadvertently work at cross-purposes.

The legislative session won't end for several more months, and so far as I know, this isn't even on the radar yet. My recommendation: hold your fire for now, but be prepared to jump into action when the call comes. This thing is such a dud that I'm not too worried about its prospects. We can afford to see how things develop.

Sasquatch Redux

To Hopworks last night for a tipple of the new Sasquatch Strong Ale, a revival of Glen Falconer's old recipe from the now-defunct Wild Duck. It is exactly as I remember it--which I recognize isn't the same as saying it's exactly as it was. Many years intervened between the two most recent pints. I recalled it as being burly, resinous, but welcoming, like a slap on the back from a good friend.

I have to say I was filled a bit with melancholy as I drank it, though. The loss of good beers is sad enough, but the loss of Wild Duck and Glen Falconer are far worse. In the six plus years since his death, what might Glen have brewed? How might his brewing have evolved. In a way, Sasquatch is a beer from another time--it was rivetingly strong in the late 90s, but now in the age of gigantism, seems quaintly gentle. I was surprised to see the bartender pull a full pour, but in fact, at 7%, it's hardly a monster. Just a regular IPA these days.

Glen had incredible range. When I visited Wild Duck in the summer of 1998 to do a story on Eugene breweries for Celebrator Beer News, he had a peach ale that was something like Ron Gansberg's Apricot ale--the fruit was perfectly fresh and fragrant and present in the beer. It was a very light summer beer--the opposite of Sasquatch--but perfectly brewed.

For those of you who remember this beer, I do recommend the trip down memory lane, but be advised--it's a little bittersweet.

Fallen Friar

BridgePort bottled the latest in the line of BridgePort's "Big Brews" series today. Here's the skinny:

Fallen Friar, the newest 22 ounce BridgePort Big Brew is one sinister temptation. With an ABV of 8.2%, don’t turn your back on this Tripel. An Abbey Style Ale, it demands the respect from Brewers of the Highest Order. Fallen Friar packs the ultimate punch of spicy Belgian yeast flavors. Aged in bourbon and pinot noir barrels, it’s a fallen angel you will admire.

Fallen Friar combines German pilsner malt and PNW wheat malt with German Hallertau and Czech Saaz hops. But the secret lies in the cloves, banana and spice attributes found in the yeast strain. BridgePort has brewed a miracle of malt. And this very special brew will have you blowing graciously in no time.

So far, the brewery's got a pretty good batting average with this series, and it's one of the bigger bargains of the beer world. Of course, there was the Stumptown Tart experiment, so I'll go ahead and try it before I make any final decisions.

Slightly tangentially, it's interesting how different the labels for the big beer series have been. I recall when the brewery was trying to create a coherent brand image by making all the labels the same (ridding themselves of some of the prettiest labels in brewing). That was some time ago, apparently long enough to have run the experiment: a "unified family" look apparently has its limitations. Below the fold I'll include some of the iterations of BridgePort branding.

Click to expand and continue reading...

The original look.


The current, regular line-up look.


Big Brews series - Stumptown Tart


Big Brews series - Hop Czar


Big Brews series - Raven Mad

Lessons From the (Secret) Twitter Experiment

[Note: I cleaned up the post for coherence and grammar. Why I wait until the day after I post something to clean it up rather than, you know, beforehand, remains a mystery.]

I am a dinosaur, roaming the sauna-warm mesozoic era of technology where html code is cutting edge and blogs are revolutionary media in communications. I note with some concern, however, that my extremities are growing cold as the chilly winds of change blow. New-fangled, warm-blooded creatures with hair and feathers now roam cyberspace; they have names like "Facebook" and "Twitter." Unwilling to go the way of the diplodocus, I have tried to adapt, building a Facebook page while simultaneously beginning to tweet ("tweet" is the act of communicating via Twitter). I may not be attractive, but like the sturgeon, I hope to survive the ice age. In service of this modest goal, I've been running an experiment, the process of which has enlightened me a great deal about the technology. For those other dinosaurs out there, here are my results.

The Technology
Twitter is bizarre technology. Superficially, it looks like a way for you to put extremely brief comments into the ether on the off chance someone happens to care. In 140 characters, you might say something like:

Going to Starbucks to work on my novel.

Twitter is described as a social-networking site, but it's more like a river of conversation. Imagine all these little tweets as buckets of water. Pour them into a funnel, and what flows out is a stream of chatter. You control the chatter by selecting other twitterers to "follow." Once you designate a person, his tweets start flowing into your river. In this way, no two people see the same flow of conversation, yet at the same time there's quite a great deal of overlap. (Remember party-line telephones? It's sort of like that, except ... oh, never mind.)

The Experiment
For the oldsters the act of tweeting seems both unnecessary and self-indulgent. You find yourself saying, repeatedly, "what the hell are you telling me for? I don't care what you're doing." In the process of trying to understand the phenomenon, I spun vast theories like: it's a technology for the youth, those who lived such fantastically scheduled lives they are used to reporting back to overweening parents about their every move. Reflexively, as they enter adulthood, they imagine someone gives a damn. The diplodocus's call can be heard across the cooling marsh: "Well I got news for you, whippersnappers, in the real world no one cares what you do!"

Yet instead of submitting to calcification, I began tweeting. Who knows, I thought, maybe the youth know something. The first experiment was with BlueOregon, where we had a network of Twitterers reporting from the DNC Convention. That seemed to work due to the symphony of our single notes--we played a mean tune when we worked together. But after the convention, my interest--and tweeting--waned. I failed to consider the lessons. Instead I noticed that the beery types all had Twitter feeds, so I joined in. Example:

Finally made it to the Victory. Enjoying a RR Salvation. Cool place, small crowd. Feels like a speakeasy. Great music.
9:05 PM Jan 5th from mobile web

And lo, I got followers! Dutifully, I tweeted my activities, ashamed and embarrassed to be joining the crowd who assumed others care what I do. But here's the weird thing. Aside from getting followers, you really don't have any other feedback mechanism. The damn thing is too brief, fragmented, and evanescent to support real communication. So you might respond to someone, hoping that they see your tweet before the river carries it away. Or that others would forgive you for responding to someone not in their streams.

Since there's no real feedback, I decided to just post random comments and see what happened to my list of followers. So I went with stuff like this:

The newest fashions: clothing made from pet hair. Stylish!
3:18 PM Jan 20th from web

And my number of followers ... didn't change. What does that mean?

Inadvertent Lessons Learned
In running an experiment, one opens the opportunity to examine one's assumptions, the rarest of all gifts. I began to pay a lot closer attention to the fragments of information that flowed by and I realized that my frame was totally wrong, at least where my beer-stream was concerned. People don't tweet to alert you to their world, they tweet to give you a snapshop of the larger world. This should have been evident from the BlueOregon experience, when, working together, we brought a rather interesting men-on-the-street perspective. But no.

Your stream becomes a source of information, dependent on the small contributions of each Twitterer. The Oregon beer world has way too many moving parts to keep track of. Events, new beer releases, news, tap lists--the details are almost infinite. The stream fills in a lot of these holes, and in fact, itself has become like a little blog, with lots of contributors. Here's a sample of the most recent tweets in my stream:

belmontstation Full Sail Black Gold Bourbon barrel aged Imperial Stout in bottles goes on sale at 5PM today. Limit two per person

RogueAles Tonight is SF Rogue Ales Public House movie night. Tonight Monty Pythons the Meaning of Life starts at 7:30pm

Beer_Goddess Survey: Have you ever paired oysters and stout? Did you like it? http://www.kxl.com/KXLShows/ItsBeerOClock/tabid/85/Default.aspx

BREWPUBLIC Here's a look at some of the best afterwork beers around town http://tinyurl.com/d6hk57

In a sense, I had it exactly wrong. It's not self-indulgent, but rather a community effort to keep each other informed. It's like pointillism, wherein we all agree to be a dot, knowing that the net effect will create a coherent image.

The dinosaur has evolved! He may now survive the glacial encroachment by laying at the bottom of a river, in a pocket yet unfrozen, where tasty muck will sustain him through the next million years. (Or until a new technology arrives.) Joy!

Sasquatch Returns

In the era before Pliny the Elder (BPE), there was Sasquatch Strong Ale. Brewed by Glen Falconer at the now-defunct Wild Duck Brewpub in Eugene, this was one of the first of the extreme beers to gain widespread following among Northwest hopheads. Wild Duck opened in 1996, so Sasquatch must date back at least a decade. Glen died in 2002, and this glorious beer's legend has mainly lived on in the form of the annual Sasquatch Brewfest in Eugene (in June the fest turns six). So it was with some shock that I read this news, from Hopworks:

Beer Release - Sasquatch Strong Ale
On Tap Tuesday, February 3

This America Strong Ale was brewed in collaboration with the Eugene area brewers to celebrate the life of our fallen brewing brother Glen Falconer, otherwise known as the “Sasquatch.” The recipe was his flagship brew during his career at the Wild Duck Brewpub in Eugene, Oregon.

Sasquatch has a deep mahogany color and a body that is toasty-sweet. Outrageous quantities of (Willamette, Cascade, Centennial, Chinook and Saaz) hops give an incredibly rich and complex herbal flavor and crisp bitterness that remind you that this is “beer.”

17.5 Deg Plato OG 6.9% ABV 65 IBU

Hopworks will contribute 10% of the proceeds from the sales of Sasquatch Strong Ale to the Sasquatch Legacy Project, a non-profit which raises money to send deserving brewers to brewing school.

Holy moly! I figure a trip to Powell Boulevard is in my near future.

The Beer Tax is Back (and It's Worse Than Ever)

Every couple years, the beer tax rears its ugly head, and every couple of years sense prevails and it's killed. This year, however, is a whole different ball game:

1. The economy is in free-fall, and targeted taxes will be raised on minority constituencies. Across-the-board tax hikes may not be in the cards, but taxes on beer and cigs are very likely.

2. The GOP can't stop Dems from raising taxes.

I railed against this in the last session (see here for a general discussion, here for a philosophical discussion, and here for a rant against Steve Duin), so I'll skip that for now. I mainly want to alert you to the salient points that distinguish the horribleness of this year's harebrained scheme from last sessions (comparatively elegant and well-reasoned scheme).

1. This iteration does not have an exemption for barrelage. Last session's exempted breweries that sold less than a certain number of barrels in Oregon (125k jumps to mind), but this tax would apply to every single barrel of beer sold in Oregon.
   
2. The tax would represent a 1900% increase, the largest in American history, raising the excise tax on a barrel of beer to $52.21. The national average is $7.87.

In a nutshell, it would wipe out the Oregon microbrewing industry. Oregon Brewers Guild head Brian Butenschoen is on the case, so I'm sure we'll have more to discuss. Feel free to panic.

[Update. The text of the bill is here.]