Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 23/24, 2017.

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

Weeks 23/24
4 June- 17 June 2017

• 17 June 2017
  Zach Kosslow of Wilmington, N.C., wins Homebrewer of the Year Award at the 39th annual National Homebrewers Conference —now also known as HomeBrew Con— held in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  This year’s competition saw 8,618 entries from 3,530 homebrewers located in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and 13 other countries. The final round of competition took place at Homebrew Con, where 1,134 entries were evaluated by some of the top beer judges in the country. Over its 39-year history, the National Homebrew Competition has evaluated 134,835 brews. The first competition, held in 1979 in Boulder, Colorado, judged 34 beers.

  —Via All About Beer.


• 16 June 2017
  Online retailer giant Amazon to buy Whole Foods Market in deal valued at $13.7 billion. “This deal should leave no doubt that Amazon is deadly serious about dominating all aspects of retail.”
  —Via Washington Post.


• 15 June 2017
  Carlsberg —the world's fourth-largest brewing company, headquartered in Denmark— has announced its intention to use renewable electricity at all of its breweries by 2022, and to eliminate carbon emissions and halve its water usage by 2030. CEO Cees 't Hart noted that the decision by President Donald Trump to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement is a signal for businesses to reaffirm their commitment to the environment.
  —Via Just Drinks.


• 14 June 2017
  
  • By proxy, Anheuser-Busch purchased beer rating website RateBeer in October 2017. A few month's later, something appears to be fishy with RateBeer's brewery rating numbers.
    —Via Paste Magazine.
  • Dogfish Head asks to be removed from RateBeer.
    —Via Full Pint (5 June 2017).



• 14 June 2017
  Princeton University professor Tracy K. Smith selected as America's newest poet laureate.

  History, with its hard spine & dog-eared
  Corners, will be replaced with nuance,
  Just like the dinosaurs gave way
  To mounds and mounds of ice.

  —Via Washington Post.


• 9 June 2017
  Some American breweries are no longer welcome as sponsors at Great American Beer Festival.

  Effective immediately... only breweries that meet the BA [Brewers Association] craft brewer definition are eligible to be a Featured Brewery sponsor.

  —Via Food and Wine.


• 10 June 2017
  When vintage opportunities have to do with more than wine.

  Don’t think of wine as just a beverage. Wine is a time machine.

  —Dave McIntyre (wine critic at Washington Post).

  To take wine into our mouths is to savor a droplet of the river of human history.

  —the late American intellectual Clifton Fadiman.
  —Via Washington Post.


• 9 June 2017
  America's superhero has left us. Adam West —Batman— has died at 88.
  —Via Washington Post.


• 7 June 2017
  National pushback is growing against perceived excesses of 'craft' brewery taprooms.
  —Via Tara Nurin, at Forbes.



Server to me: "We make our own cocktails."

Me (not said out loud, I think): "Wow! What will they think of next?"

— YFGF (@Cizauskas) June 11, 2017

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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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