Pliny Proves a Point

What dreadful timing, and how annoying: a bottle of Pliny the Elder made itself available to me today. This is sincerely not good.

The reason I'm probably the least excited beer drinker ever to anticipate his first taste of what some people consider to be the finest IPA (indeed, beer) currently made, is because of my last blog post. In it, I whined about the lust for exclusive, exotic beers that drives many to ignore the quality and potential of their local breweries.

And here I am, staring at the one beer that might send me weak at the knees and make me look like a proper prick for getting on my high horse about localism: this thing was brewed 1,400km away and took ten weeks to arrive here (brewed 02.24.2011 according to the label). It is among the most coveted of North American beers that are regularly produced (probably losing out to Dark Lord with its freakishly over-attended launch parties). And to rub it in further, this most fetishized of beers arrives as a direct result of the trade made by Dave that inspired me to complain in the first place.

No sense beating myself up about it, let's drink this thing.

All right, I know it would be convenient for my argument to give a less than stellar review, but I have to say this is not as incredible as I hoped it would be. Yes, yes … vindication has touched my lips and its taste truly is sweeter than Russian River's finest. This beer is good, very tasty in fact. As expected there is a strong grapefruit flavour and a stewed pear sweetness, maybe a little coconut — quite my favourite style of IPA. But it is not explosive, not zingy, not particularly sexy.

I sip it slowly as Dave (bless him for sharing this with me) and I hammer some baseboards into the walls and it improves with warmth: a little spiciness from the 8% abv opens the flavour up a bit. I almost get giddy, but it is oddly muted, as though I am drinking it through a muslin gauze.

I have no reason not to believe all the people who rave about this beer, but I think this one has probably deteriorated somewhat. It is likely the storage or transportation — possibly a less-than-perfect batch — because Dave has heard on good authority that the brewer himself prefers this beer after 2 months in the bottle (which this is). There are probably ten IPAs that shook me more forcefully than the beer in my hand, and all but a few of them were from closer to home.

Beer Miles

I was round Dave's house the other day and he handed me a parcel containing several beers he was planning to mail in a trade arranged with a remote beer drinker.

"Do you think this will be OK to send?" he asked.

What Dave meant was "are my bubble-wrapping skills sufficient to prevent the recipient of this parcel from having to mentally reconstruct from the aroma of stale hops and soggy paper what this bottle of Driftwood Singularity might have tasted like whilst plucking shards of shattered bomber glass from his fingers."

"No, you'll probably need to buttress the ends with a wedge of cardboard," I said.

But it occurred to me just then that it might not be OK to send it for another reason...

Permit me to generalize, but beer lovers tend to wear on their sleeves a strong social conscience and eco-friendly credentials. Ask a "crafty" why they eschew macro breweries and they are likely to cite unethical business practices, environmental disregard and crummy working conditions — not just the piss-poor quality of the product.

Here lies a hypocrisy most of us share: we expect to be able to — and frequently do — drink beers from hundreds if not thousands of miles away. One fallout from the so-called "craft beer revolution" (let's not flatter ourselves) is that certain beers, the rarer and more remote the better, have become ludicrously fetishized. Many drinkers feel compelled to try them all, whether for the experience, to boost their BeerAdvocate Beer Karma rating, or to earn a pointless Untappd badge. Should we do it? And is it worth it?

The biggest issue is that the environmental cost of transporting beer — a product with a high weight:value ratio — is significant. I'm fairly green-minded; not because I am particularly morally virtuous, but because any other stance in the face of current evidence seems to be grossly irresponsible. I drink my fair share of imports, but I'm very pleased when local brewers produce previously unavailable styles so that I don't feel the need to. The green beer point has been made on several other websites already.

But there are other reasons to stick to local where possible that have nothing to do with the environment but everything to do with improving the quality of the beer you drink. Here are a few I can think of:

• The beer is almost certainly going to be fresh. This is critically important for many styles of beer. How on earth can people expect to evaluate and review a cultish double IPA from the US, for example, if it has been sat in a warm warehouse at customs for six weeks before you get anywhere near it?

• Supporting local producers is not just a kind thing to do, it will also put money in their pockets that they can use to expand their offerings — meaning a local source of quads, sours and imperial pilsners is much more likely to emerge.

• You will usually get better value.  I recently came across a bottle of Phillips Amnesiac going for $16 in a bar in Ontario where local (and better, in my opinion) equivalents were sold for under a tenner. There are exotic imports selling for a packet in your local beer store that are considered to be very ordinary by those who live near the breweries — bear that in mind.

• Finally, I don't know about you, but I get a shed-load more pleasure drinking a beer made by a guy who I either know or am likely to bump into in a local pub on any given night.

All I'm saying is don't get too caught up on acquiring the hard to come by at all costs. The grass is greener at home. And if it really isn't, then bloody water it.

Sumpin's Up with the Wacky Hops

Last time I had a Lagunitas it was the weird Brown Shugga — kind of a schizoid beer with a mess of hops and malts and no real character. I was ready to call foul after the first bottle, but as it came in a sixer I had five more to get through. By the end of the pack it had grown on me. It was a similar experience to listening to Soulfly or Merzbow or some other thrashy, distortion artists — blunt and unapproachable until you let your inhibitions down and go with the madness.

The Little Sumpin' was a refreshing contrast. Billed on the bottle as a straight out "ale", this is a zingy fresh IPA with a lemony backbone. Recipe is very close to Central City's Red Racer, I'd guess. Just the right thing for my homemade beef and chocolate chili. I wouldn't usually be concocting such a sledge-hammer of a meal this time of the year, but Victoria seems to have forgotten what season it is. Here are a couple of pictures of young T pouring me a perfect Lagunitas to go with dinner.

Lovely stuff, but I'm a cantankerous type and I'm going to whine about the label. There's a trend these days to add a jaunty twist to ingredient lists, and it is cheesy and boring. "Hops, Malt, Hops, Hops, Yeast, Hops, Water, and Hops" reads the label. Haha. How WACKY! It would be fine if it were just a few guffawing brewers pulling each others' fingers at the back of the classroom, but the temptation to add a cheeky riff to an otherwise worthy bit of packaging is proving too much for today's brewer.  Even the generally dignified Driftwood recently felt the need to add "Shwack 'o Hops" to their cute ingredient icons.

I understand that beer labels are important, especially in a saturated craft market increasingly fuelled by hipsters, social media bandwagoners and other image-receptive types. Sure, the need to stand out has prompted some beautiful label designs (the awesome pourcurator.com knows). But I get tired of the pun-ridden names, derivative graphics, and particularly the pornographization of the humble hop.

Hops really are the double-D tits of beer these days. If there's a beer in a brewers' stable that has a ker-azy label or a hyperbolic name — it's generally the IPA. Some of them are pretty well-done, but for every Perpetual IPA there's a dozen that are less-than-inspired: Hop Circle,  Total Eclipse of the Hop (I'm sorry Howe Sound, it just makes no sense!), Hop-a-Doodle-Do (oh please). For any brewery marketing types hunting for an easy selling name, might I suggest a few ideas from my own inner-Loaded Magazine-reader "Hopic of Cancer", "Bilbo the Hoppit", "Hop Killah", or, my personal favourite, "A-Hop-Bop-a-Loo-Hop-a-Hop-Bam-Boom" — unless these are already taken. I mean it's just so completely childish and unoriginal and cheapening and...

...Woah, hang on. I just saw this.

I take it all back.

Get yer hops out love.

Is this wrong?

#1

#2

#3

On right: plain 50/50 Pothole Filler vanilla ice-cream smoothie.
On left: smoothie floated on top of half glass of stout using back of a spoon.

I'm going to repeat this with a handful of black cherries and a splash of port. It's a way of hedging my bets: If the liver doesn't finish me off, the coronary will.

M for Innovation

Just watched the Oscars, so awards are on my mind. Winners are mostly of two categories: flatly predictable and staggeringly unjust (see A Beautiful Mind, Scorsese's Taxi Driver losing to Rocky, and Braveheart FFS). How could a Colin Firth period drama featuring a disability not win an oscar? Winning an oscar is so easy, you could do it on concept alone, watch:

Title: Marie

Synopsis: Marie Curie is a fiercely committed woman who endures the accidental death of genius husband Pierre, and a progressive illness caused by exposure to radiation during her nobel-award-winning research, to invent radiation therapy and X-rays that save the lives of street urchins with shattered legs etc. 

Critical scene: Aware she is dying, Curie stoically keeps working, you know, for the children. The camera fades out as Curie glances at her dead husband's photo, illuminated only by the blue-ish light given out by the lethal polonium isotopes in Curie's tireless hands.  

Starring: Kiera Knightley (young) and Meryl Streep (Old) as Marie Curie; Javier Bardem as Pierre.

You know I've just won an oscar, right?

This year, however, the Oscars got something right. Black Swan is an innovative movie perfectly executed, and Natalie Portman thoroughly deserved the oscar. 

Now, I don't know about you, but when I think about "Innovation" and "Perfect execution", I also think about Molson's M beer (sorry, that link was as convoluted and unnecessary as Inception). Mostly because someone recently gave me a can of M for free, and the label boldly proclaims its innovative qualities. The beer is "Microcarbonated", which means one of two things:

1. the bubbles are smaller

2. the carbonation process is managed at the "micro" level to be precisely consistent

The result is, in their words, "a lager with an exceptionally drinkable taste". Now, putting aside for a moment the niggling fact that "taste" is a metaphysical concept, and can therefore not be "drinkable" (beer is drinkable, Mr Molsons' marketing copy-editor, and I bet you earned a bucket for that blurb), I'm wondering what this all means and whether the beer is actually really that good. Thankfully, I can test the latter first hand, and I'll get to that in a bit. Not the former though, as it is "patent-pending", so we don't know exactly how (or why) Molson's invented a process that makes smaller or more consistent carbonation. But we can talk about the science of carbonation itself. 

First off, nobody puts bubbles into beer. Beer is carbonated by natural or artificial means, which means that beer is partly a carbon dioxide (CO2) solution. Some beers have more CO2 in them, which means they produce more bubbles and feel fizzier when we drink them. Large disruptions (e.g. shaking) and smaller ones (e.g. imperfections in glassware) disturb the delicate equilibrium of the CO2 solution, and bubbles form. All bubbles form the same size: small. However, other factors determine whether they grow larger or remain tiny:

1. liquid agitation: shaking produces more bubbles which join as they bump into each other, producing bigger bubbles.

2. surface tension: as a bubble forms, CO2 from the surrounding liquid will naturally tend to join the bubble as it causes small agitations in its path through the beer. Proteins in the beer determine how tough the skin of the bubble is, and therefore how likely it is to accept more CO2.

3. atmospheric pressure: drinking a beer up a mountain makes a bubblier beer (probably, I did no research for this bit).

"Perfect" carbonation

Now, we can be fairly sure that Molsons are not taking very careful steps to ensure that we all drink our beer in the calmest environment possible, so we can rule out #1 as a factor. Plus, altering the protein makeup of beer is part of the brewing process itself, and therefore in no way innovative. So I presume Molson's have just figured out a way to accurately carbonate their beer to a very specific concentration of CO2 (I'll be cynical and guess it's just some sort of clever gas pump) Now, I'm not sure if Molsons' are aware, but Sodastream has been doing this for years. Trust me, my brother and I drank enough experimentally-carbonated substances (e.g. "Fizzy Tea!", "Fizzy Milk!" and "Fizzy Heinz Baked Beans!") as kids to know that you have a great deal of control over the fizz-factor with one of these babies. Plus, this all raises the obvious question: "just because you can consistently produce X level of carbonation, why the hell does that entitle you to claim that that level of carbonation is better than any other?"

Microcarbonation in action, I guess

So I am confused as to what exactly Molsons have done that warrants patenting. It's not even that innovative; not like breast-milk ice-cream, for example. Maybe the genius of this innovation just has to be sampled. Here goes...

(Minutes later...) I just finished it. It tastes pretty much like any other adjunct lager. It is about as fizzy as a fountain coke at McDonalds, which I have always found to be a perfectly lovely level of carbonation. I'm extremely pleased with this lager because it was free. In any other circumstances, I'd pass. It's not great, but hardly terrible either, and the slightly grim aftertaste is nothing like as bad as that left by the Academy's shameful failure to award the outstanding 10-nominated True Grit a single damn statue.

---

Afterword: I asked the fine folk of #beer chatroom to name some recent genuine beer production innovations. If they ever get beyond suggestions like "vortex bottles" I'll actually produce a post on the subject...

How Big is a Victoria "Pint"?

Two recent articles have reminded me of that great bone of contention for anally-retentive drinkers and tightwads the world over: the size of a "proper" pint.

The first article was Pete Brown's take on the possible introduction of a beer glass somewhere between the pint and the half pint in British pubs. I buy his argument: given the variety of alcohol content in contemporary beers and various levels of inebriation we seek out for medical, practical and hedonistic reasons — it makes perfect sense to allow us to binge drink in increments of our choice.

The second article hit closer to home and raised more irk in me: the OnBeer blog article about the interpretation of "pint" in Canada. The argument in this article is that, unlike in Britain "serving sizes are not regulated in Canada – a bartender can serve beer in whatever size glass suits their fancy."

Now Jason from OnBeer is not endorsing this sorry state of affairs. He is making the astute observation that Canadian pubs are not obligated to serve beers in specific sized glasses (fair enough), but also that some of them may actually offer "pints" or respond to orders of a "pint" with a serving that is anything but a pint (not fair enough).

Most Canadians seem to have bought into this conspiracy that "pint" just means "big glass". Most probably don't know that the Canadian Weights and Measures Act explicitly defines a pint as 1/8th Gallon (568ml = 20 imperial fluid ounces), which is the same as a British pint (as opposed to a US "pint" which is only 473ml = 16 US fluid ounces). Most don't care, they just drink the stuff. But you'd expect a barman to know, wouldn't you?

Being a smartass, smallbeer conducted an experiment to see how knowledgeable and scrutable our city's fine publicans are when it comes to selling stuff to drunk people.

Aim
To discover whether Victoria publicans know what a pint is, and whether they sell pints that are actually non-pints.

Method
a. I put on a telemarketer's voice and phoned 16 of Victoria's pubs
b. I asked to be put through to the bar manager or a member of bar staff
c. I asked these three questions:

1. What serving sizes do you sell your beers in?

(If any of their answers were "pint", then:)

2. How many millimeters or ounces is in your pint?

(Finally:)

3. Are you aware of the legal definition of a pint?

Missing data: Now, some of the bar staff either refused to or could not answer 2 or 3. Some also just said "16oz" or something other than "pint" in answer to question 1; god bless them for their honesty, but they ruined the rest of the research design. Some of them got upset when I said the word "legal" and hung up on me. Chillax people!

I decided therefore to keep the pubs' identities anonymous, as my intention was not to embarrass or annoy anyone. (However, if you're interested in the sample range, all but two of the pubs are listed on this site).

Results
Here are the answers from each pub. (Just to be clear, a legal Canadian pint is 568ml = 20oz)

[[[ Before I discuss the results, I should remind you of one TOTALLY CONFUSING FACT: serving a federal legal pint (568ml) in BC is ILLEGAL, as the maximum allowable beer serving size in BC is 500ml (17.5oz). 

Isn't BC fucking WEIRD?

Only it isn't… it appears that is either an old rule or pure lies, as the new guide for primary liquor licensees actually states (p. 26):

Draught beer: You may serve draught beer in single servings
of no more than 24 oz (680 ml) or smaller servings of multiple
brands, provided the total served at one time is no more than 24
oz (680 ml).  For reference, a Canadian pint is 568ml.  Pitchers
or other multiple serving containers shared by two or more
patrons may contain no more than 1.5 litres of draught beer. 

But that doesn't deter many BC publicans from thinking that 500ml is the maximum they can serve, as this study partly shows…

Oh, and the same document clearly defines "sleeves" (that other massively variable measure of beer) as 14oz, so go figure. ]]]

Discussion
Serving a "pint"
Well. Bearing in mind that the legal "pint" is 568ml=20oz, Victoria pubs do a fairly poor job. Of the 7 pubs who claimed to serve a "pint", only 2 served a legal pint. In a Victoria pub, a drink that is described openly as a pint may be as small as 14oz, or as large as a 20oz. Both pubs that claimed to serve sleeves (14oz) are guilty of under-serving (both serve 12oz).
Defining a "pint"
Out of 16 pubs, only 10 pubs agreed to guess what the legal definition of a "pint" is. 2 Pubs got it correct, but one of those pubs admitted to deliberately serving 2oz less than a pint. One pub thought that a 20oz serving was illegal, although I'll put that one down to the alleged older guidelines in BC pertaining to a 500ml upper-limit.

Conclusion
Draw your own… I'm not one of these die-hard Englishmen who insists on a "real" pint of beer. But I'd like to get a pint if that's what's being sold to me. OnBeer are correct — the size of a pint is legislated, but it probably isn't regulated too actively, judging by the scope of serving sizes that are passed off as a pint in Victoria.

Of course, the saddest and most upsetting part of this whole study is that I have learned over the last two hours that I am almost completely incapable of operating a spreadsheet program, and most certainly crippled in my ability to publish a spreadsheet to the internet in any sort of readable form.

I blame the BC Liquor Board.

Kidnapped by CAMRA

I went to my first CAMRA meeting on Tuesday. I've always been vaguely opposed to the organization. Not for any mature, rational reason, of course. But because I used to read the "Real Ale Twats" Viz comic strip, and because Pete Brown's observations of his local CAMRA members portray them every bit as arrogant and anally-retentive as the comic.

This blogging lark has brought me into contact with many a member of Victoria's CAMRA and I've found them all to be disappointingly pleasant and fun. I suppose that some CAMRA chapters defined themselves during some real struggles with the imminent death of cask ale, and are rightly very proud of their successful revival of the craft. But pride sours into self-importance in many of us, which probably explains Brown's anecdotes of deplorable CAMRA capes.

CAMRA Victoria is no stranger to success. Constant campaigning and promotion has  certainly contributed to the thriving cask scene on the island. But our chapter comes across as a much more easy-going club for beer-lovers, providing a passable excuse for board members to duck out of the house once a month and get plastered in the name of a good cause. I'm all for that.

I attended the Victoria Annual General Meeting mostly in the capacity of a wannabe journalist, hoping to score a story for our BeerOnTheRock website or our monthly Monday Magazine article. I also suspected (correctly) that, seeing as it was hosted at Swan's, there'd be a free beer or two in it for me. Little did I know how the evening would end...

I sat with maybe 40-50 jocular CAMRA members, including Dave and a handful of other beer friends, and watched the yearly report and election of board members with interest. It was nice when President Glen Stusek gave us props for our blog and Monday article. I sat there with a pseudo air of journalistic objectivity, but I found myself getting into it. The talkers were charming, the mood was great, and that Swans Yuletide Ale was going down very well indeed.

After the first round of presentations, we were given a ten minute break that warped into twenty-five minutes of swift drinking and talking with home brewers, brewery reps, and flirtatious septuagenarians. We got a lot of interest for Ian's proposed Vancouver Island beer tour. Armed with a Swans Extra IPA each Dave and I sat down for the membership vote.

CAMRA's membership in Victoria is up to the high 200s — which is fairly impressive for a city of our size, and marks a steady increase. That said, as the voting progressed it became apparent that a few members had stepped down after long periods on the board, and there were one or two positions left to be filled. "How are CAMRA going to pull this one off?" I thought, as the president repeatedly appealed for someone to step forward as Secretary. But soon enough someone volunteered. I'm not sure he'd operated a computer before, but raised his glass with confidence and the crowd roared their approval.

After a few more votes, they were calling for Directors-at-Large — the final positions needing to be filled. Dave, who had been out drinking for a good two hours longer than I, told me to nominate him. Drunker than I realized I was, I shouted "Dave!" — possibly before the president had finished asking for votes. Dave was hilariously voted in.

I rocked back in my chair and laughed a bit. How had Dave got himself into this mess? I thought. I drained my IPA and heard my name being called out. I was being asked to be a Director-at-Large as well. It was flattering, but I have my journalistic integrity to think about. So of course, I declined gracefully. Besides, I have no idea what a Director-at-Large actually is.

Somewhere inside me the booze-fueled self-destruction pixie shouted "fuck it".
"I'll do it!" I heard myself say.
They voted me in.
I'm officially a twat.

I suppose I had better get a membership now.

A twat