Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 45/46, 2016.

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

Weeks 45/46
6 November - 19 November 2016

• 18 November 2016
  The 2016 hop harvest in Washington State 2016 is reported to have increased 16% over last year; the state is now the world's largest hop producer of hops, even more than the nation of Germany, the former top global producer.
  —Via WSU News.


• 18 November 2016
  Big-voiced soul-revival singer Sharon Jones dies at 60 of pancreatic cancer.
  —Via Washington Post.



• 15 November 2016
  

  Keg loss cost craft brewers in the United States upwards of over $33 million in 2015. [...] The bottom line is, whether you’re an account or a consumer, that keg you cut up amounts to stealing—plain and simple.

  —Via Andy Sparhawk, at [U.S.] Brewers Association.


• 15 November 2016
  The World Meteorological Organization announced that it expects 2016 to be the hottest year on record, surpassing 2015, which had been the warmest. The average global temperature was 2.16 °F above pre-industrial levels.
  —Via New York Times.


• 15 November 2016
  Jazz songwriter, singer, and pianist Mose Allison has died, at 89. "He was someone who generated his own joy."
  —Via Associated Press.


• 15 November 2016
  No free beer tomorrow. Anheuser-Busch cuts off free-beer-for-life benefit for retired workers of its Labatts plants in Canada.
  —Via New York Times.


• 14 November 2016
  Gwen Ifill, a groundbreaking journalist who covered the White House, Congress, and national campaigns during three decades for The Washington Post, The New York Times, NBC and, most prominently, PBS, has died from complications of uterine cancer She was 61.
  —Via New York Times.



• 14 November 2016
  On Monday (Nov. 14) at 6:15 a.m. EST, the moon will arrive at its closest point to the Earth in 2016: a distance of 221,524 miles (356,508 kilometers) away. It will also be a full moon and thus, a so-called 'supermoon, when the full moon occurs as the moon is at its closest point of approach in its orbit around Earth. The full moon won't come this close to Earth again until Nov. 25, 2034.
  —Via Space.


• 12 November 2016
  Anheuser-Busch InBev announces its 2020 Dream Incentive Plan. By the year 2020, the company wants (plans) to nearly double its annual revenue from $55 billion to a cool $100 billion and awarding it top executives $5.4 million apiece if ti is reached. Analysts speculate:

  Having hoovered up many of the big targets in brewing, including its biggest rival, the company may be forced to look further afield to other parts of the drinks industry. A move into soft beverages, which could use the same manufacturing plants, distribution, and suppliers, is the obvious next step. [Anheuser-Busch InBev and Coca-Cola] are a match made in heaven financially. Combine Coke’s annual sales of $45bn to the $55bn InBev makes, and that elusive $100bn is suddenly reached. Who said don’t mix your drinks?

  —Via The Telegraph.


• 9 November 2016
  Repurposing! A Sunoco ethanol plant in New York state, which was once a Miller brewery, will now also become (in part), a 'craft' beer malting house. When it becomes operational in 2017, the plant will be able to supply more than 2,000 tons of barley malt each year, making it one of the largest suppliers of barley malt to the craft brewing industry in the United States.
  —Via Syracuse.com.


• 8 November 2016
  Republican Donald Trump defeats Democrat Hillary Clinton; is elected 45th president of the United States.
  —Via NPR.



• 8 November 2016
  Oklahoma voters have voted in favor of State Question 792 (66% to 34%) to allow grocery and convenience stores to sell wine and "full-strength beer" (defined as beers of not more than 8.99 percent by VOLUME). The measure goes into effect in 2018. Colorado already plans to do away with 3.2 beer in 2019. Will AB InBev, Pabst, etc., even continue to make 3.2 beer for the three remaining states —Utah, Kansas, and Minnesota— that restrict higher alcohol beer under varying circumstances?
  —Via YFGF.


• 7 November 2016
  Leonard Cohen, a Canadian-born poet, songwriter and singer, whose lyrics explored themes of love, faith, death and philosophical longing, and whose song “Hallelujah” became a celebratory anthem recorded by hundreds of artists, has died at age 82.
  —Via Washington Post.


• 7 November 2016
  Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as attorney general of the United States, has died at 78, from complications of Parkinson's disease.
  —Via NPR.

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• Clamps and Gaskets is a bi-weekly wrap-up of stories about beer (or wine, or whisky) and other things.
• The Clamps and Gaskets graphic was created for YFGF by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.


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