BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Pilsner Urquell still tastes wonderful under Asahi, so I'm not worried about the future of Fuller's.

There's only so much a sodden socialist can do to make sense of a wayward planet that stubbornly refuses to listen to his rants.

As such, I admit there was a time when news like the Asahi acquisition of Fuller's would have upset me. However, I have adapted to modernity and embraced the reasoning of the Pour Fool, which I'll paraphrase.

As it pertains to the acquisition of one brewery by another (and larger) one, only when the larger one is AB-InBev need we be necessarily alarmed.

In other words, because AB-InBev remains The Great Satan, nothing good can come from its nefarious activities. Nothing. Ever.

On the other hand, a deal like Asahi's takeover of Fuller's, while annoying, does not necessarily doom the latter to irrelevance. The loss of independence is cause for lamentation, and yet the Japanese have a better track record than the Brazilians when it comes to preserving the essences.

Or something like that.

Fight me. 

ASAHI MAKES MASSIVE VOTE OF CONFIDENCE IN FUTURE OF CASK ALE WITH £250M PURCHASE OF FULLERS’ BEER BUSINESS, by Martyn Cornell (Zythophile)

The Japanese beer giant Asahi has made a massive vote of confidence in the future of the real ale sector in the UK with its £250m purchase of Fullers’ beer business.

And if that’s not the angle you took away from the story, you’re not thinking this through properly.

The crux of it is here.

Asahi clearly thinks there is profit to be had in the business of supplying beer to British pubs. With Fullers’ emphasis, still, on cask beer brands it obviously believes buying the rights to brew cask beer is worth a substantial wodge of corporate cash and there is a hearty future ahead. Meanwhile, on the “oh no the accountants will ruin London Pride” front, as part of the fall-out from the AB Inbev-SAB Miller merger, Asahi ended up with Pilsner Urquell and Meantime in London, among other Western beer brands. I’ve heard no moans from either of those two concerns about how the Japanese are treating them. If you pay a lot of money buying a product that sells on its premium image, you don’t mess about with that image.

THE BEER BEAT: The La Chasse-Dauntless beer dinner menu is released, Porter versus Stout, and other beery odds and ends.

Let's begin with an updated second reminder of the Dauntless Distributing beer dinner coming to the acclaimed La Chasse restaurant in Louisville on Monday, December 11.

La Chasse is Isaac Fox's restaurant. New Albanian old-timers will remember Isaac from Bistro New Albany and Speakeasy.

The dinner at La Chasse will feature beers from Dauntless Distributing, which brings some of the planet's finest brands into Kentucky, as well as handling Louisville brewers Against the Grain, Monnik and Akasha. Two NABC alums work for Dauntless: Richard Atnip and Kevin Lowber.

Menu, beers and other relevant details have just appeared on Facebook, and I'd love to see a solid contingent of friends and fellow travelers in attendance. Aside from the beer angle, you owe it to yourself to have a meal at La Chasse, because it is a splendid table.

La Chasse Craft Beer Dinner (with Dauntless Distributing)
Date: Monday, Dec. 11th
Time: 7:00 PM
Cost: $70 Per Person*
Reservations: 502.822.3963

MENU:

First Course: Confit of Chicken with Bourbon barrel-aged smoked peppercorn hot sauce, bleu cheese aioli and chicken skin cracklings
➤ Paired with: Au Baron Cuvee des Jonquilles (Biere de Garde) ... France

Second Course: Brie Beer Cheese Bisque with pickled blackberries
➤ Paired with: Central State Rose (Rustic blonde ale with raspberries) ... Indiana

Third Course: Sautéed Prince Edward Island Mussels in limoncello Maitre d’Hotel butter and crispy pancetta
➤ Paired with: Anchorage Love Buzz Saison (Spiced ale aged in French pinot noir barrels) ... Alaska

Fourth Course: Porter Braised Short Ribs over white cheddar polenta with thyme roasted carrots
➤ Paired with: Nogne O Porter (Porter) ... Norway

Fifth Course: Honey and Ale Spiced Banana Cake with chocolate ganache
➤ Paired with: Kerkom Bink Bloesem (Belgian Ale brewed with pear syrup and honey) ... Belgium

Executive Chef Andrew Welenken
Chef de Cuisine Kristina Dyer

*Exclusive of Tax and Gratuity

Also in Louisville, there's be a third outpost of Against the Grain just yards away from Sunergos Coffee, Nord's Bakery and Zanzabar.

Against The Grain plans microbrewery, beer garden at 'Swiss Hall' property, by Chris Otts (WDRB-41)

Louisville craft brewery Against The Grain plans to turn the Swiss Hall property in the St. Joseph neighborhood into a microbrewery, beer garden and venue for events and concerts.

Against The Grain has the property at 719 Lynn Street under contract pending a rezoning, according to Sam Cruz, one of the partners in the brewery.

It would be the fast-growing brewery’s third location. Against The Grain plans to keep its brewery and smokehouse at Slugger Field and its production facility in Portland, Cruz said.

Far better AtG at Swiss Hall than Swill Hall.

It's been a while since I featured a rant by Steve Foolbody, so the time is right to compensate.

RANT(S): One Beer, One Whiskey, and One Can O’ Whoop-Ass (The Pour Fool)

Nutshell: Pick Your Battles, learn a bit about American Economics 101, research these corporate partners before you climb aboard the Crazy Train. Please. These endless, clueless, feckless cries of “Sell Out!” just waste time and are, frankly, embarrassing for those of us have a Clue and share this culture.

 ... Rant, The First: The news broke, earlier this week, that Avery Brewing of Boulder, Colorado, had taken on the big Spanish beverage maker, Mahou San Miguel, as a partner and people all over the Brewniverse started freaking out. The great Denver magazine, Westword, ran a post in their online edition entitled, “Does “Craft Beer” Definition Go Down the Drain With the Avery Brewing Sale?” ...

 ... I read response after response accusing Avery of selling out; calling Adam Avery a greedhead and a fascist (my favorite)and questioning his values, his manhood, his parentage, his penile girth, and his hat size, all because he brought in a PARTNER – not a buyer or a sugar daddy or a new ownership – to help his company grow. In choosing San Miguel, in fact, Avery showed his respect for his culture, by hooking up with a company which is NOT, unlike AB, trying daily to destroy or at least control the craft beer community.

TRY to get this straight: The ONLY corporate interest about which you need to have ANY worries as a buyer or partner of a craft brewery is Anheuser Busch, aka AB/InBev. PERIOD. They are the only corporation on the face of the planet which combines the toxic mix of the arrogance to truly believe that we don’t need and shouldn’t be allowed to have any choices available to us in beer with the arrogance and deep enough pockets to think that they can really, literally set about pursuing a strategy that will force all of us who drink craft beer back into being just peachy with a lifetime of mindlessly, soullessly swilling tepid, watery adjunct lagers and nothing else.

I've underlined the passage that best reflects my own point of view. What's yours?

We haven't had many chilly days this fall and early winter, but about a month ago stouts and porters started tasting good.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PORTER AND STOUT?, by Ron Pattinson (All About Beer Magazine)

“What’s the difference between a porter and a stout?”

Roasted barley. That’s the usual explanation of what separates porter and stout. Unfortunately that story is total bollocks. The true tale is more complicated, more confusing and much more fun.

Let’s go back to their childhood. Eighteenth-century London with its elegant squares, gin and the birth of industrial-scale brewing. Something that could only have happened in London. Pre-powered transport moving large quantities of beer overland was impractical and expensive. London was the only city in the world with the critical mass of beer drinkers to power an industrial brewing reactor.

The story of porter—the first style to span the world—is one of technology, innovation and taxation. And war ...

It's a wonderful history lesson, leading here.

 ... That’s why they often parti-gyled their stouts with porter. You can probably see where this is going. The recipes for porter and stout were, by definition, identical, as they were brewed together.

Porter disappeared completely from the British Isles in the early 1970s when Guinness discontinued their version. But only for a few years. A couple re-appeared in the late 1970s and since then the style has made a small comeback, with beers like Fullers London Porter leading the way.

The difference between porter and stout? All stouts are types of porter. But not all porters are stouts. Only the stronger ones.

Martyn Cornell quotes Pattinson's research and arrives at a similar conclusion.

The answer to the question: "What's the difference between a stout and a porter" is that originally a stout was simply a strong version of porter: today the difference is whatever you want it to be.

To me, it's another variation on Justice Potter Stewart's thoughts about hardcore pornography: "I know it when I taste it," with more of the roasted malt character in a Stout and less in a Porter. I reserve the right to be contrarian while fully acknowledging those like Pattinson and Cornell, who are far more learned than me.

Anyway, if this is to be one of those questions defying resolution, at least there's considerable entertainment value in repeated taste tests of each style in pursuit of a lasting definition.

In turn, this brings us to an evocative new term: "pastry stout."

Wait ... it's a compliment, right?

Boom in sugary pastry stouts shows craft industry forgetting what beer tastes like, by Josh Noel (Chicago Tribune)

 ... After six hours wandering the aisles of the Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer last weekend, I have concluded that craft beer is betraying itself. It is forgetting what beer should taste like.

Though FOBAB, held this year at the University of Illinois at Chicago Forum on Friday and Saturday, remains Chicago’s most essential beer festival, corners of it have become a showcase for beer that tastes more like dessert than beer. “Pastry stouts,” the industry calls them.

Among the 376 beers poured at FOBAB this year, about 50 were pastry stouts, the largest share of the largest category at FOBAB.

Five years ago, among 194 beers, a measly six could be counted as pastry stouts. Back then, breweries were far more likely to age imperial stout in whiskey barrels to show the character of the beer they’d brewed and the barrels they’d secured. Today, those same beers are overrun with coffee, vanilla beans, coconut, cinnamon, chiles and cacao nibs.

So very many cacao nibs.

At this year’s FOBAB, there was beer named for cake (Barrel-Aged German Chocolate Cake), beer named for milkshakes (Bourbon Barrel Aged Supershake), beer named for cookies (Bourbon Barrel Aged Gingerbread Imperial Stout) and beer that didn’t bother specifying its form of sugary decadence (Beer Geek Mid-Day Dessert). Lil Beaver Brewery, of Bloomington, Ill., poured a beer it described as boasting “enough cacao nibs and toasted coconut to make you think you’re drinking a candy bar” ...

On Monday evening I stopped by The Exchange in New Albany and noticed Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout on the board, priced right where I'd expect such a rare beer to be (circa $14 for a 10-oz pour).

The bartender mentioned its presence, and I told him the most selfless thing I could possibly do was leave CBC alone so others could experience it.

Instead, I ordered a full $6 pour of Left Hand Sawtooth Ale, identified by the brewery as an Amber, but tagged by some other beer geek observers as an Extra Special Bitter.

It was delicious. I made the right choice.

Let there be options.

THE BEER BEAT: The Pour Fool nails it yet again, as "Budweiser Finds Another Sell-Out" -- this time, Wicked Weed.

Like others before it, Wicked Weed Brewing has died.

That's unfortunate, indeed, but from the moment the ownership of Wicked Weed passed to AB InBev, this previously independent brewery was transformed into something else.

Now it's Wicked Trojan Zombie Afterlife Weed. We'll always have our memories.

Speaking only for myself, I wouldn't drink a WTZAW beer with Donald Trump's lips. There are hundreds of other choices, and no commensurate need to deposit money in the coffers of the enemy. It was nice while it lasted, but it's all over now.

Yawn.

At times like this, I turn to the Pour Fool -- because the Pour Fool gets it. In today's agitated WTZAW obituary, Steve Foolbody makes an excellent point, to which I'll confine my quotations -- but be sure to click through to the whole piece, and absorb the beautifully righteous anger.

I can only hope the shoe-gazers among the solipsistic beer narcissist contingent can someday feel some of that anger. The world would be a far better place.

Another One Bites The Dust: Budweiser Finds Another Sell-Out, by steve foolbody (The Pour Fool)

These acquisitions have ZERO to do with wanting to "support ALL breweries, EVERYWHERE". These are all about Influence. Leverage. Insinuating themselves into a culture which is, at least in LARGE part, a reaction to and rejection of everything AB has stood for…

The ugly news broke, just this morning, of the impending sale of Asheville, North Carolina’s Wicked Weed Brewing….to a company which doesn’t give two shits about WW’s beer, P&L sheet or anything else about it…except its LOCATION…

OKAY…here’s a little primer, as we get all set to watch another fine American brewery lose its “Indie Beer” status for good… With these breweries – these, in effect, TOOLS – they can legitimately pry open the doors to state governments in places where Indie Beer is strongest.

The Pour Fool proceeds to list AB InBev's Trojan Zombie Afterlife breweries by state.

Breweries by state: WA: Elysian; 32% of Red Hook / OR: 10 Barrel; 32% of Widmer Brothers / CA: Golden Road Brewing / AZ: Four Peaks Brewing / Texas: Karbach Brewing /VA: Devil’s Backbone Brewing / IL: Goose Island / CO: Breckenridge Brewing / NY: Blue Point Brewing / HI: 32% of Kona Brewing

Then he looks at brewing states by size.

THE LARGEST BREWING STATES, BY # OF BREWERIES:
1. California
2 – 4. Varies between Colorado,Washington, and Oregon
5. Michigan (No AB ownership)
6. Pennsylvania (No AB ownership)
7. New York
8. Wisconsin (No AB ownership)
9. Texas
10. North Carolina
11. Illinois

It's a fairly obvious pattern. AB InBev's acquisitions are about chess, power and shelf space, not necessarily in that order. He notes that breweries in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have been approached ... and among the targets coming into the multinational's cross-hairs?

The HOTTEST UP & COMERS:
1. Florida
2. Indiana
3. Virginia
4. Ohio
5. Arizona

That's right, Hoosierland; for someone, the lottery's about to hit.

Greedhead Brewers in PA,WI, FL, IN, and OH, think fast. Your payday is coming…

When it does, could brewery owners please take the Twitter advice of legendary beer writer Stephen Beaumont ...

... and pop star Steve Miller: No bullshit and fables; just take the money, and run.

THE BEER BEAT: Indie, not craft, because "There is absolutely NOTHING 'independent' about AB/InBev."

It gladdens this curmudgeon's heart to see another principled columnist -- in this case, The Pour Fool -- embrace a personal change in terminology.

I haven't gone cold turkey on the "craft" descriptor, and find myself using the word here and there (usually in quotation marks, as intended to emphasis the escalating irony), but zero tolerance is a worthy goal to which we might aspire.

As an aside: My current desire to get back into the pub business is being predicated toward what I consider to be "better" beer -- much of it "indie," some "craft"; some retro chic and classics.

At any rate, Pour Fool rocks.

“INDIE BEER”: Change is the Best Weapon, by stevefoolbody (The Pour Fool)

... But the term “indie” – short, of course, for “independent” – is a claim that AB/InBev and the BudMillerCoors brands they now control can never plausibly make. There is absolutely NOTHING “independent” about AB/InBev. They’ll work out a rationalization for it eventually, of course; something along the lines of “Hey, we’re independent! Nobody owns any part of our company but us!” But that claim is so patently ridiculous that you’d have to have the IQ of lawn trimmings to even consider it. “Craft” does, in fact, describe the process at Bud’s breweries; maybe not in the same sense as at Dogfish and Stone and Jolly Pumpkin and Lawson’s, but it is inarguable that brewing is a “craft” and that AB does practice that craft, even if it is in a fucked-up, mechanized, soulless, billion-gallon batch, freakazoid manner. “Indie” means what it says: A small, independent, self-perpetuating business enterprise that relies on no corporate sugar-daddy for its survival. It is certainly true that not all of us involved in the “craft beer culture” can agree on what a “craft brewery” is but one thing about which there is NO argument is that a craft brewery is NOT a subsidiary of any larger corporate entity, being kept afloat by their owners’ deep pockets. It’s about the pride in ownership and creativity that has been the hallmark of America’s craft breweries since the whole phenomenon started. It is about not having business and aesthetic decisions influenced by board rooms full of gabardine-clad, Windsor-knotted, bean-countin’ shit-weasels, as is absolutely the case with AB.

A little more than a year ago (February 16, 2016), I was on much the same tangent.

---

Craft Beer is dead. Long live Indie Beer. It's about "supporting local small business rather than a global entity."

To me, "craft" beer's conceptual basis always has been, and should remain, localism.

The inevitable rejoinder: "You're not using local ingredients, therefore you're not local." However, just as there are many styles of beer, there are differing ways of principled thinking.

The finished value of any product can be the result of individualized local creativity rather than widespread, industrialized production; accordingly, a substantial local component is present even if local hops are not. After all, beer doesn't often brew itself.

This isn't the most important point, because an independently-owned local brewery is an independently-owned local business, and the positive economic factors for independent local businesses in their communities are one and the same.

Sorry, but if you're buying Goose Island at Wal-Mart, you might be missing the point in multiple areas. Let's work to make shift happen -- indie breweries, indie middlemen.

Often I've pointed to organizations like AMIBA and BALLE, and asked skeptics to visit their web sites and consider the information therein. My impression is this seldom happens, probably because it takes less time to post a selfie with Bourbon County than read a few pages of economic facts.

Bizarrely, unfamiliarity with the economic realities of independent local business might be expected of consumers in general, but often it's something not understood by folks who own their own small businesses. Must we cut our own throats?

Meanwhile, I like this vibe coming out of San Diego. May it take root, and convince readers to go back to first principles.

Craft is dead. Now we drink Indie Beer: As Big Beer creeps into town, locals want to change the lingo, by Ian Anderson (San Diego Reader)

The term Craft Beer may be in need of a makeover. The Union-Tribune reported this week that Bend, Oregon's 10 Barrel Brewing Co. has proposed a 10,000-square-foot brewpub in East Village. In response, local beer industry podcasters have doubled down on a push to describe independently owned breweries as Indie Beer companies, rather than craft.

A couple of individuals have tried to coin the term Indie Beer before, but they had different reasons.

Not because 10 Barrel hails from Oregon but because in 2014 the company was purchased by AB InBev, the conglomerate responsible for one-third of the planet's beer supply, including core brands Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois. It owns 10 Barrel brewpubs in Oregon and Idaho and recently announced plans for one in Denver.

The podcasters' believe consumers who patronize 10 Barrel brewpubs mistakenly believe they are supporting small business rather than a global entity ...

THE BEER BEAT: "There is not ONE FREAKING IOTA of truth about how AB got started in this beautifully-crafted, button-pushing, faux-sensy-poo, piece o’ trash ad."

For those readers who may be coming late to my beer-related scribblings, know that Stevefoolbody is my hero. He is so awesome that typically I have nothing whatever to add, and merely attach a link and brief teaser to encourage you to go to his page and read.

Today is no exception.

Pure Bud BS: The Shortest Pour Fool Post Ever

I’ve now been asked, by actual count, thirty-seven times in the past four days what I think of the leaked previews we’ve all seen of Budweiser’s new Super Bowl ad.

I suspect everybody who has asked pretty much knows what my response will be, so let’s wrap this up quickly and get back to being horrified by the shit show in DC.