Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 4/5, 2015.

A bi-weekly, non-comprehensive roundup
of news of beer and other things.

Weeks 4/5, 2015
18 January, 2015 - 31 January, 2015

• 30 January 2015
  "Cider Industry Deserves Equal Regulation" Act (CIDER Act) reintroduced in the U.S. House and Senate. The bill would reduce the tax on cider from the current rate equivalent to wine to that of beer; will allow alcohol-by-volume of up to 8 % by volume without a higher tax rate; will allow up to 3.25 volumes of CO2 (equivalent to 6.4 grams of carbon dioxide, or just a bit less than champagne at about 4 volumes) without the current fifteen times higher tax rate.
  —Via Craft Brewing Business.


• 28 January 2015
  "An employee of a Federal intelligence agency got drunk at a party and crashed his friend’s DJI Phantom aerial drone on the White House grounds. The Chinese drone manufacturer says it’s updating the quad copter‘s software to keep it out of no-fly security zones in future."
  —Via Notions Capital.


• 25 January 2015
  Baseball has a new commissioner, its 10th ever: Rob Manfred.
  —Via Associated Press.
  —Via George F. Will, on the legacy of Manfred's predecessor, Bud Selig.


• 26 January 2015
  Dutch brewer Heineken to remove caramel coloring from English beer, Newcastle Brown Ale, which it owns.
  —Via USA Today.


• 26 January 2015
  President Obama proposes protecting a 12 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a National Wilderness.
  —Via Washington Post.


• 24 January 2015
  Amidst a budget shortfall, Virginia to increase its excise tax on liquor -already 3rd highest rate in U.S.
  —Via Washington Post.
  But, Virginia will liberalize the advertising of 'Happy Hour' drinks (if not their prices).
  —Via Washington Post.


• 24 January 2015
  Jeffry James Hill: a wine tale of larceny and lies along the Silverado Trail, in California.
  —Via New York Times.


• 23 January 2015
  Hershey's forces cessation of export of Cadbury (& other British) chocolates to the U.S.
  —Via New York Times.


• 23 January 2015
  Anheuser-Busch purchases Elysian Brewing, a Seattle, Washington, based pioneering 'craft' brewery.
  —Via Beervana.


• 22 January 2015
  The first-ever beer-in-a-can was released 80 years ago, today, 22 January, 1935, in Richmond, Virginia: Krueger Cream Ale.
  —Via YFGF.


• 21 January 2015
  Virginia now has more than 100 breweries, joining 13 other states.
  —Via YFGF.




Left to right:
Nick Matt (Matt Brewing Company/Saranac); Rich Doyle (Harpoon Brewery); Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head); Jim Koch (Boston Beer); Ken Grossman (Sierra Nevada). Not pictured: Dick Yuengling (Yuengling Brewery).


• 21 January 2015
  Sierra Nevada Brewery's Ken Grossman is 'craft' beer's newest billionaire, joining Jim Koch of Boston Beer and Dick Yuengling of Yuengling Brewery.
  —Via Brewbound.


• 19 January 2015
  What American breweries were producing shortly after repeal of Prohibition.
  —Via Shut Up About Barclay Perkins.

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• Clamps and Gaskets is a bi-weekly wrap-up of stories  not posted at Yours For Good Fermentables.com. Most deal with beer (or wine, or whisky); some do not. But all are brief, and many are re-posts from twitter.com/cizauskas.
• The Clamps and Gaskets graphic was created by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.