Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 12/13, 2015.

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

Weeks 12/13
15 March- 28 March 2015

• 2015.03.27
  (U.S.) Brewers Association creates position of Executive Chef, "to promote the value and compatibility of craft beer and cuisine." Hires Adam Dulye, of Abbot’s Cellar of San Francisco, California.
  —Via Brewers Assocaition.
  
  
• 2015.03.27
  The masterful acoustic guitarist John Renbourn, a founding member in the 1960s of the folk-rock band, Pentangle, has died at his home in Scotland. He was 70.
  —Via Associated Press.
  
  
• 2015.03.27
  Washington, D.C. news organization rewrites local beer history, excising any mention of the city's brewpubs.
  —Via YFGF.
  
  
  
• 2015.03.27
  Remembering the late Michael Jackson, the beer and whiskey writer, on what would have been his 73rd birthday.
  —Via YFGF.
  
  
• 2015.03.26
  Indiana Governor Mike Pence signs controversial measure that would effectively legalize discrimination against same-sex couples by those who object on religious grounds. National backlash ensues.
  —Via Daily News.
  
  
• 2015.03.26
  Rising oil inventories in the U.S. could lead to sharply lower prices at the pump this summer, possibly under $2 a gallon. In 2014, the oil industry pumped 8.7 million barrels a day, and despite low oil prices the U.S. Energy Information Administration is expecting production to increase to 9.3 million barrels a day in 2015 and 9.6 million barrels in 2016.
  —Via Daily Finance.
  
  
• 2015.03.26
  England's King Richard III, exhumed from an undignified grave beneath a car park, was finally buried with honour at Leicester Cathedral in central England, 530 years after his death at the Battle of Bosworth, in 1485, aged 32.
  —Via Agence France-Presse.
  
  
• 2015.03.26
  Co-pilot of Lufthansa's Germanwings Flight 9525 deliberately slams plane in Alps; kills 150 people. European airlines to to require at least two employees in cockpit at all times, as American airlines already require.
  —Via AP.
  
  
• 2015.03.25
  Kraft and Heinz Ketchup merge, creating 3rd largest food and beverage company in North America.
  —Via Market Watch.
  
  
• 2015.03.23
  Gary Dahl, creator of the Pet Rock, dies at 78. http://ow.ly/3xGp3Q
  —Via USA Today
  
  
• 2015.03.23
  "California is now heading into its fourth year of record-breaking drought, with no liquid relief in sight. High temperatures, little precipitation, and historically low snowpack have left the state with dwindling water reserves. [...] The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million people (that’s one out of every two Californians), has stored water reserves that can only last three years, with prudent conservation."
  —Via Wired.
  
  
• 2015.03.23
  Anheuser-Busch InBev may be pressuring its distributors to sell only its 'craft' beers.
  —Via Jack Curtin's Liquid Diet.
  
  
• 2015.03.23
  "Mainstream media falls for California wine arsenic HOAX story. [...] In truth, the arsenic levels are extremely LOW. Far lower than you'll find in many other foods."
  —Via Natural News.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 2015.03.21
  "Thousands of people gathered on beaches in northern France and south west England on Saturday to watch what is being called 'the high tide of the century.' The exceptionally high spring tide, swollen by a 'supermoon' effect linked to the solar eclipse on Friday, sent huge surge waves crashing onto beaches and along estuaries on both sides of the English Channel. The most dramatic effects of the day’s supertide were witnessed at the picturesque island of Mont Saint-Michel, off the coast of Normandy, where a wall of water as high as a four-storey building momentarily cut it off from the mainland."
  —Via The Telegraph.
  
  
• 2015.03.22
  U.S. sales of mainstream beer down, -0.6% in 2014; total U.S. beer sales up slightly, +0.4%. Sales of canned beer up significantly; bottles trending down; draft beer down slightly.
  —Via National Beer Wholesalers Association (at YFGF).
  
  
  
  
• 2015.03.22
  U.S. 'craft' beer sales up +18% in 2014; capture 11% of total U.S. beer market: 22.2 million barrels, produced by 3,418 breweries.
  —Via Brewers Association (at YFGF).
  
  
• 2015.03.22
  Sixteen fables of beer history debunked.
  —Via British beer historian Martyn Cornell (at Zythophile).
  
  
  
  
• 2015.03.22
  The word's most popular beers, region by region. Global map infographic.
  —Via Vinepair.
  
  
• 2015.03.21
  A definition of 'craft' beer from British beer writer, Pete Brown:
  "For the more mainstream audience, who don’t really care about the relative merits of cask and keg, or the size of the brewery that made their beer, craft is a useful shorthand for quality, flavour and integrity. It’s something a bit different from the normal, mass-produced homogeneity; something worth paying a bit more for. And that’s all the definition it needs."
  —Via The Guardian)
  
  
  
  
• 2015.03.20
  China's per capita alcohol consumption for people who actually drink is more than 15 liters per year. That's more than the amount seen in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, France, and more. Only drinkers in Tajikistan and Russia drink more, per estimates by the World Health Organization.
  —Via Washington Post.
  
  
• 2015.03.15
  Altbier vs. Kolsch: touring Dusseldorf and Cologne, in Germany, for their beer.
  —Via Washington Post Travel

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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.