Kennett Square Fermentation Festival

Long story, but...I meant to post this in early October, and there was a Blogger screw-up, and it didn't happen. Sorry. This sounded like fun.

The Kennett Square Fermentation Festival is not what you think. The Brewfest is this Saturday, and it's long sold-out, and that's what most of you know about. The Fermentation Festival is this Friday, and it's not just beer (although beer will be there, thanks to Victory and Twin Lakes, and Home Sweet Homebrew), it's yogurt, and kimchi, and cider, and salsa (live, 'probiotic' salsa), and Root. No tickets, pay-as-you-go (bring cash and checkbook, most vendors won't take credit cards), and plenty of music, too. Looks like a lot of fun, and if I wasn't already booked up for tomorrow -- pheresis in the morning, singing in the evening (and maybe over to Earth, Bread + Brewery afterwards for that anniversary evening) -- I'd be seriously thinking about visiting.

You weren't doing anything today, were you?

Because Local 44 just flashed me: Dollar Drafts today...on Southampton Tripel. A better deal than the usual buck-a-beer gig on something like Miller Lite, right? It's on till 5 PM this evening, so better scamper.

They'll never miss you at work this afternoon. (Just kidding; you're a valuable and integral part of your boss's master plan.)

The Session #32: Eastern Beers

It's an interestingly vague assignment for The Session this time, from Girl Likes Beer:

I would like you to pick your favorite beer made east form your hometown but east enough that it is already in a different country. It can be from the closest country or from the furthest. Explain why do you like this beer. What is the coolest stereotype associated with the country the beer comes from (of course according to you)?

December, 2000: my first and so far only trip to Portugal, though I'd happily return. Cathy had a business trip to Lisbon, and talked me into going along because it fell on our wedding anniversary. We walked all over Lisbon with her boss and his wife, in beautiful weather, then took the train out to Sintra on our last full day. We had a great time, though one of the best moments was solitary; I sat in the little square in Sintra, smoking an excellent little Cuban cheroot and drinking a glass of 40 year old tawny port.

But you know... There's the stereotype about Portugal: it's a wine country. It's Portugal, right? Well, aside from the fact that the table wines we were served were pure-D shit, and wine geeks to the contrary, vinho verde does nothing for me, I do love, flat-out adore port, and you can find it most places. But, and here's a big but, Lisbon is a beer town.

I mean, beer is everywhere. People were drinking it at sidewalk cafes, they drank it in the restaurants where we stopped for great fresh fish (mmmm....grouper) and "small dry cheeses from the hills" (a translation on the menu, and they were good, too), we had it in the 'beerhall' we visited, Real Fabrica (which was very cool, and had big-assed tanks of fresh beer that were filled from tanktrucks through ports in the sidewalk, I think), and there was even beer available at the bar inside the national Monument of the Discoveries, down on the Tagus. I didn't see anyone drinking wine except us, and I didn't do it anymore than I had to -- except for port.

But...for the most part, the beer's cold, and fresh, but pretty much uninspiring. There was UNICER SuperBock -- which most definitely was not either -- and Sagres, equally...um...wet. Then, our last night, after we got back from Sintra, we were looking to spend the last of our escudos, and stopped in another cervejaria, Ribadoura (honest to God, this is all from memory). It was a seafood beerhall, it was brightly lit, all the seafood was on offer in chilled display cases (barnacles...yuck. They looked like necrosed fingers), and they were drinking beer! I got a big-assed shrimp omelette that was very good.

But I wanted the dark beer I saw people drinking! Well, you know how you'll say a person in a foreign country "didn't speak a word of English"? That was our waiter. We tried English, German, and Spanish: nothing. Finally, I smiled, stood up, walked to a nearby table, said "Pardon me" (same in Portugeuse and English; different pronunciation -- a phrase I try to learn in the language of any country I visit) to the beer drinker there, and pointed to his dark beer, then nodded, smiling. Ah! Sim!

What I got was Sagres Cerveja Preta, a tasty dark lager that put me in mind of the better Munich dunkels. We were on foot, so I had a few more. It was good with the shrimp omelette, it was good with everyone else's dessert (I had decided to drink mine...), it was good. It was easily the best beer I had in Portugal (although the ridiculously tall pilsner glasses of cold Sagres at the (I'm not kidding) Hockey Caffee in Sintra had a strong situational appeal on a hot day).

And since Portugal is just about exactly due east of here...that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Saude!

More congrats...

To follow-up: the NBWA has recognized Gretz and Shore Point as Craft Beer Distributor of the Year Award finalists. Once again...we're very lucky to have some of the best wholesalers in the country around here. Congratulations to all!

Stephanie's Lounge taps the Hand of Doom

Just a quick note: I just got an e-mail from Lee Kubis at Stephanie's Lounge in Doylestown, PA. They are tapping one sixtel of Founders Hand Of Doom at 6 PM tonight. That's Founders Double Trouble Double IPA aged in bourbon barrels.

I can't make it, but...you all can have my share.

FEMSA Follow-up

Hey, remember we were talking about how well Dos Equis is doing for Heineken USA? Keep in mind that Heineken USA is just the importer; the beer is brewed and owned by Mexican brewer/drinks conglomerate FEMSA (Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A. de C.V.). But I see in the Financial Times today that they are "in talks" to sell off their beer business, to either SABMiller or Heineken, in order to focus on their profitable Coca-Cola business. Here's why I posted, in light of the previous post:

Heineken USA has distributed Femsa's beer in the US since 2005, after Femsa's decision to extract itself from a distribution deal in 2004 with former partner Interbrew. Femsa and Heineken USA, a unit of the Dutch beermaker, signed a deal in April 2007 to extend their relationship for another 10 years.
But the US partnership with Heineken has underperformed, industry insiders say, as Femsa's beers have struggled to compete against fellow Mexican brewer Modelo and its ubiquitous top beer, Corona.
[...]
But the need for consolidation in the Latin American brewing arena has taken on a new level of urgency in the wake of InBev's $52bn deal to buy Anheuser-Busch. As part of that transaction, InBev, the world's largest brewer, gained a 50 per cent stake in family-run Modelo.

In other words...the strong growth FEMSA's Dos Equis and Tecate have shown in the U.S. isn't enough, because they aren't Corona. They have "underperformed." Sounds to me more like FEMSA doesn't have the stomach for the fight.

What it really sounds to me is that the "need for consolidation" is lemming-like, brewers rushing to buy other brewers so they get big enough to fight for market share, when all they're actually doing is fattening themselves for the kill.

And who gets rich? Bankers. Who gets screwed? Brewers, and you, my friends, because huge brewers can and will throw their weight around and have an effect on the entire beer market, including crafts, just like Wal-Mart does in retail.

And what will happen when there are but three or four mega-monster brewers left? I hope someone's standing by Carlos Brito, ready with a videocamera:

When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.

Deschutes Hop Trip

I've been loving the expanded number of fresh hop beers this year, something I remember seeing start very small back in the 1990s and grow like mad in the past couple years; the recent hop shortage has only seemed to accelerate the trend, possibly because of the number of people who decided to grow their own.

Deschutes Hop Trip is on the docket tonight, claiming four hours from vine to kettle. It's a beautiful beer, glowing reddish-copper in the light with a solid cream of foam on top. But...the stuff under the foam falls short once I stop looking and get down to business. The beer's a bit heavy in the body for its flavor and bitterness, and there's not much aroma past a small, fresh grassiness. There's not a lot of hop flavor, either, and a restrained bitterness.

Hop Trip is okay, competent, but it falls far short of two beers from Deschutes I enjoyed tremendously in recent months: Twilight and Red Chair. Fresh, clean, competent, but ultimately disappointing. I really expected more from this one.

Reason speaks truth to power about beer and STDs

"Beer Raped Your Daughter and Gave Her Gonorrhea. Again" is the provocative title of Reason's latest post about the junk science that goes on in the fight against booze. Briefly? The booze-haters are trying to tell us that a 3 cent tax increase per bottle of beer would cause 'youth gonorrhea' to drop by 9%, something that a Washington Post story picked up from a 2000 study done by the CDC that's been widely criticized -- actually 'laughed at' would be better than 'criticized.' Reason points out that this is ridiculous, quoting the Post from a story they ran back in 2000 making fun of this very study!

The Post had the good sense to ask David Murray of the Statistical Assessment Service, a non-profit think tank in D.C., about the study. STATS does yeoman's work pointing out the junk reasoning at the root of so much junk science. This one was a high, hanging curve for Murray, who said the CDC's thinking was on the level of "the sun goes down because we turn on the street lights."

I love that phrase. As someone pointed out in the comments, how is it that a tax can be both inconsequential -- "We're only going to increase the price by three cents! You can afford that!" -- and amazingly effective against 'youth gonorrhea' at the same time? How? I think we already know that.

It's not just October, it's Porktoberfest...

Our Girl Suzanne has posted the first helping in her third annual paean to pigmeat: Porktoberfest. Bravo, babe! Big yum. It's more than "the other white meat," folks: it's sausage, ham, chops, bacon...

Sincere apologies to the vegans among my readers, but...it's not like this should surprise you here...

A few random thoughts

I woke up this morning with my brain buzzing, and coffee hasn't stopped it. Some random thoughts.

• October is my favorite month, has been for most of my life. It probably has a lot to do with living in Pennsylvania; the leaves change, fall crispness is in the air, the light changes. It's also a great month for beer festivals...like the upcoming Kennett Square Brewfest with the Conn-o-Session session beer event!
• Glad to see more fresh hop beers every year.
• Why is it that every time a western journalist interviews Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, they feel that they have to ask him about the Holocaust? Stop asking him, and he won't be able to keep talking about his ridiculous views.
• The Phils are in the playoffs, albeit wounded, after a pretty damned dominant season.
• I've got some great beers and whiskeys lined up to sample.
• Donating blood and platelets is a lot more satisfying than writing a check; even Bill Gates can only give one pint at a time.
• WhiskyFest San Francisco is only two weeks away!
• Pennsylvania Breweries 4 is moving into high gear; time to hit the road in earnest.
• In a year of personal milestones -- my 50th, my dad's 80th so far -- the most happy one is coming up: Cathy and I celebrate 20 years of marriage in December. I am a lucky man.
• The first "Lunch with Lew" at Isaac Newton's went well, and we're setting up the next: a beer and cheese tasting. Look for more info soon.

Okay. More coffee!