Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 39/40, 2017.

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

Weeks 39/40
24 September - 7 October 2017

• 7 October 2017
  The 2017 Great American Beer Festival was held 5-7 October 2017, in Denver Colorado, organized by the [U.S.] Brewers Association. There were 800 breweries represented on the exhibition floor, pouring over 3,000 different beers from 7,100 kegs. In the competition, 7,923 beers (from 2,217 breweries in 50 states plus Washington, D.C.) were judged in 98 categories with gold, silver, and bronze awarded in each (except for the Fruited American-Style Sour Ale category, for which no gold was given). As a comparison, in 2016, there were 7,301 entries from 1,783 breweries, itself, record participation at the time. IPA had 498 entries, making it the GABF's most subscribed category ever. (Hailstorm Brewing, of Chicago, Illinois, won the gold.)
  —Via YFGF (Facebook).


• 6 October 2017
  Tthe North American Guild of Beer Writers has announced the best beer writers, bloggers, and podcasters of the year. Winning for best beer book was Jeff Alworth for his "Secrets of Master Brewers: Techniques, Traditions, and Homebrew Recipes for 26 of the World’s Classic Beer Styles, from Czech Pilsner to English Old Ale." The Guild awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in eleven categories.
  —Via YFGF (Facebook).



• 6 October 2017
  The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to advance the negotiations that led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was preliminarily signed by 128 nations in July at the United Nations, not including the United States.
  —Via New York Times.


• 5 October 2017
  As of 1 September 2017, there were 1,467 new breweries in the U.S. (per U.S. government TTB permits).
  —Via Lester Jones, chief economist for National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).


• 4 October 2017
  "Rå øl" (raw ale) and "gårdsøl" (farm ale): the second year of the Norsk Kornøl Festival (Norwegian Farmhouse Ales Festival) "in Hornindal, in beautiful remotest Western Norway."

  The Lithuanians brought their own brewery with them, in the back of a van, and put on a demonstration in the hall of Lithuanian-style farm brewing, including mashing with hot rocks (filling the air with steam and gorgeous smells), and brewing with a super-fast yeast that produced a drinkable 5.2 per cent abv beer in 15 hours. Go back and read that again: 15 hours from raw wort to drinkable beer. It was still warm as cow’s milk when we tried it the next day, orange and cloudy, slightly tart, but delicious. The Norwegians boggled. The Poles boggled. I boggled.

  —Via Martyn Cornell, at Zythophile.


• 4 October 2017
  

  IPAs are what people want from me, you kind of have to give them what they want.

  —Via Bryan D. Roth, at Good Beer Hunting.


• 4 October 2017
  Judge upholds $2.6 million fine against Massachusetts 'craft' beer distributor, Craft Beer Guild, for 'pay-to-play' violations.
  —Via Brewbound.


• 3 October 2017
  The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Rainer Weiss, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, both of the California Institute of Technology —"architects and leaders of LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory"— for their discovery of ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago but never before directly seen. In 2016, the scientists were able to 'hear' the chirp of the collision of a pair of massive black holes which had occurred 1.3 billion years ago.
  —Via New York Times.


• 3 October 2017
  Isabella L. Karle, chemist who was once told that chemistry was not a “proper field for girls” but went on devise a pathbreaking method for determining molecular structure, with her husband, Nobel laureate Jerome Karle, has died at 95. In 1995, Ms. Karle received the National Medal of Science.
  —Via Washington Post.


• 2 October 2017
  General Motors has announced its plans for an "all-electric future" for its car and truck fleet; to introduce 20 new all-electric models between now and 2023.
  —Via Washington Post.


• 2 October 2017
  Hugh Hefner, who created Playboy magazine and spun it into a media and entertainment-industry giant —derided over the years as vulgar, adolescent, exploitative, and, finally, as anachronistic— died at his home, the Playboy Mansion, in Los Angeles. He was 91.
  —Via New York Times.


• 1 October 2017
  A gunman in a high-rise hotel opened fire on concertgoers at a country music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, killing 58 people (and himself) and injuring more than 500, in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
  —Via Wikipedia.


• 30 September 2017
  An interactive timeline of the acquisitions of craft and independent breweries —by large brewing corporations, venture funds and fellow 'craft' breweries— from 1988 to 2017.
  —Via VinePair.


• 30 September 2017
  Colorado-headquartered craft brewery, Oskar Blues, is sending 91,200 cans of drinking water (8,550 gallons) to Puerto Rico, which is suffering from a severe lack of potable water following Hurricane Maria.
  —Via Brewbound.



• 27 September 2017
  

  For some cask is pinnacle of brewing. For others, an unwelcome distraction.

  In conjunction with Cask Ale Week in Britain, Cask Marque —a cask ale accreditation organization— has released The Cask Report 2017/2018, its annual report on the role and state of cask-conditioned 'real ale' in the U.K., in pubs. Summary:
  
  • —Via Morning Advertiser.
    
  • —Via YFGF (Facebook).


• 30 September 2017
  Twenty-nine of America’s favorite "cheap" wines, ranked, red and white.
  Best:
  • Santa Rita 120 Cabernet Sauvignon 2015, Maule Valley, Chile
  • Woodbridge, by Robert Mondavi 2016, California.
  Worst:

  • Tire rubber. Aged in inner tubes. Like a gym accident when you get strangled by a resistance cord.
  • Smells of sewer gas and is simply unpleasant... “poopy.”

  —Via Dave McIntyre, at Washington Post.


• 30 September 2017
  The [U.S.] Brewers Association has released the 2016 edition of its Economic Impact Report, a biennial analysis featuring the economic contribution of 'craft' brewing for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

  Small and independent American craft brewers contributed $67.8 billion to the U.S. economy in 2016. The figure is derived from the total impact of beer brewed by craft brewers as it moves through the three-tier system (breweries, wholesalers, and retailers), as well as all non-beer products like food and merchandise that brewpub restaurants and brewery taprooms sell. The industry also provided more than 456,000 full-time equivalent jobs, with more than 128,000 jobs directly at breweries and brewpubs, including serving staff at brewpubs.

  • —Press release via [U.S.] Brewers Association.
  • —Analysis via YFGF.



• 27 September 2017
  Don't scorn the corn. Praise the maize. The brewmaster at August Schell Brewing —family-owned brewery founded in 1840 in New Ulm, Minnesota— argues that brewing with adjuncts, such as corn, is traditional to U.S. brewing and was/is done so for valid agronomic and organoleptic reasons, contrary to 'craft' definitions.

  The debate about craft and independence will rage on. But it’s time we put the myths about adjunct brewing to bed. Our focus as brewers and beer lovers should be on the end result, not on the types of ingredients or traditions. Is the beer good? Can it be better? Those are the most important questions moving forward. They were also the most important questions in the past. It’s unfortunate we’ve taken a detour to argue about things that don’t answer either of them.

  —Via David Berg, at Good Beer Hunting.


• 24 September 2017
  Craft Beer Business is reporting good year-to-date results for the 'craft' beer industry, based on data from IRI, which tracks beer sales at supermarkets, chain stores, and convenience-store chains. (Craft Beer Business publishes behind a paywall, but the web-reader service Feedly provided this short summary.)

  Craft has come on strong lately. In the latest IRI, to September 10, the segment's dollars are up 5.9% and volume up 4% YTD in the multi-outlet and convenience channel. Those trends improved in the latest 12-week period with dollars up 6.9% and volume up 5.1%. And things got even better in the latest four weeks, with dollars up 8.3% and volume up 6.2%. That's among its best showing of the year.

  —Via YFGF (Facebook).
  


• 6 October 2017
  "Best quote of the week from @SamuelAdamsBeer's Jim Koch on Big Beer's acquisition of craft brands and calling them partnerships..."

  "If I walk into a @BurgerKing and eat a Whopper, I ate it, I didn't partner with it. I ate it, and it came out differently" - Jim Koch

  — PorchDrinking.com (@PorchDrinkingCO) October 6, 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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