Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 49/50, 2016.

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

Weeks 49/50
4 - 17 December 2016

• 10 December 2016
  "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." The 68th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.

  —Via United Nations.


• 9 December 2016
  

  [In the mid-1870s,] the U.S. population was roughly 45 million. So there was one brewery for roughly every 11,000 people. The U.S. population today is 325 million. That breaks down to one brewery per 65,000 people. If we had the same number of breweries per capita today that there were in the 1870s, there would be nearly 30,000 breweries in the country.

  —Via MSN.



• 8 December 2016
  John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, dies at 95.
  —Via NPR.


• 8 December 2016
  According to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, the overall U.S. death rate has increased for the first time in a decade, and that has led to a drop in overall life expectancy for the first time since 1993. On average, the overall life expectancy, for someone born in 2015, fell from 78.9 years to 78.8 years. The life expectancy for the average American man fell two-tenths of a year — from 76.5 to 76.3. For women, it dropped one-tenth — from 81.3 to 81.2 years. The overall death rate in 2015 increased from 724.6 per 100,000 people to 733.1 per 100,000.
  —Via NPR.


• 7 December 2016
  Without citing historical references, a 'craft' beer magazine accuses American brewers of turning to crime, en masse, during Prohibition.
  —Via YFGF.



• 7 December 2016
  The 75th anniversary of the Imperial Japanese attack on the United States naval facities in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
  —Via Smithsonian Magazine.


• 7 December 2016
  Sales of beer and wine on-the-premises were down slightly in 2016. However, dollar sales continued to increase "as consumers gravitated towards more premium spirits, wine, and beer products."
  —Via Craft Brewing Business.


• 5 December 2016
  

  Some breweries are doing [IBU] calculations rather than measurements; they’re calculating 120 IBUs in an IPA but they know, given solubility, that’s not even possible. I felt like as an industry we were lying to consumers, not overtly, but out of ignorance.

  —Kurt Driesner, quality assurance director at Urban Chestnut Brewing of St. Louis, Missouri, as quoted at DRAFT.


• 5 December 2016
  As of the end of November, there were 5,005 active brewing companies in the United States, yet again a record number. Ninety-nine percent of them were 'craft' breweries, i.e., "small and independent."
  —Via [U.S.] Brewers Association.


• 4 December 2016
  

  Summer is peak beer season, but more [beer] is sold in December than any other month. Americans bought more than $5.8 billion worth of beer, wine and liquor last December, about $1.3 billion more than July, the next highest-grossing month. [...] The National Beer Wholesalers Association says craft beers sell better in winter than the traditional lagers and light beers most people drink during summer.

  —Via Augusta Chronicle.


• 4 December 2016
  The Army will not approve an easement necessary to permit the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, given that it would pass very near the reservation of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The decision marked a victory for the Native American tribes and others who had protested onsite against the oil pipeline. Leaders of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe expressed fears that a spill could threaten the water supplies of its people.
  —Via Washington Post.

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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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