Beer in the news

[canuck]

Awesome news Jeff, congrats man!

[jeffsmith]

Congrats, Jeff!

[mr x]

Excellent work! You really need to get the cat onto one of your labels lol

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

[Jimmy]

Excellent work! You really need to get the cat onto one of your labels lol

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

Congrats, Jeff!

[HPhunter]

Thanks Guys!

[JohnnyMac]

That's awesome. Congrats HP!

[canuck]

I love Exit 6's response!


http://beerpulse.com/2013/12/exit-6-pub ... tter-2107/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

Garrison Brewing's Christmas tree beer in high demand

A Halifax brewery is using one of Nova Scotia’s biggest exports to make a traditional, if not entirely conventional, beer.

Garrison Brewing Company has released a limited edition batch of spruce beer, a brew made using Christmas trees.

Brian Titus, president of Garrison Brewing, said when the idea of making the beer was first proposed, he was not a fan.

"Not gonna to do it. No," he said. "This is not going to be the beer that takes this brewery down."

spruce beer

Spruce beer is a Canadian tradition that has had Canucks snipping trees back to the days of our earliest settlers, a tradition that our neighbours to the south also embraced. (CBC)

Garrison brewmaster Daniel Girard had heard stories about his grandfather’s spruce beer.

"So then I decided to work on it and see how I would have made a spruce beer myself if I were a first settler, like years ago," he said.

Spruce beer is a Canadian tradition that has had Canucks snipping trees back to the days of the earliest colonists, a tradition also embraced to the south.

"I know that the Americans would do it because George Washington made spruce beer," Girard said.

'How Canadian can you get, eh?'- Brian Titus, company president

To make the traditional brew, Girard harvests spruce sprigs, as well as some fir twigs, and puts them into a large boiler. After a good soaking, he takes out the branches, adds some malt, blackstrap molasses, dates and hops.

Eventually, he asked his boss to crack one open.

"You know, just some wonderful aromas... that come off it. It feels like you're out in a winter evening, walking through the woods. It's pretty wonderful. You just can't feel your toes any more cause it's starting to kick in a little bit," Titus joked.
Strong brew

At 7.5 per cent alcohol content, the beer is not for the faint of heart.

Tracy Phillippi of Garrison said the brewery has seen a lot of demand for spruce beer.

"Maybe a month ago, the emails started to come in, you know one or two a day or Facebook messages saying, ‘When is spruce beer coming? We need to mark it on our calendar, we’re going to take off work,’ " Phillippi said.

Once the batch was ready for sale, customers showed up bright and early to nab some of the beer made from Christmas trees.

"How Canadian can you get, eh? We like to say, 'Party like it's 1749,' " Titus said.

The brewery's Marginal Road location still has some of the specialty beer in stock, though supplies at NSLCs may be harder to find.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot ... -1.2476904" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

Wisconsin Ushers in 'Pedal Pub' Law for 2014

Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill that legalizes drinking on pedal pubs. Pedal pubs accommodate up to 16 riders that sit across from each other, using peddles underneath their seats to slowly power the quadracycles across city streets.

While a driver steers the multi-pedaled vehicle, riders sit in seats and can rest their tasty alcoholic beverage on the bar mounted in front of them. Although passengers continue to pedal the vehicle, they are still able to raise their glasses and toast each other or citizens that wave to them as they roll by.

The bill was signed by Walker in December and had earlier been passed by the Wisconsin State Assembly and the Senate. The bill allows drinking on pedal pubs unless a municipality adopts ordinances against the activity. Prior to the new law, Wisconsin prohibited drinking alcohol in vehicles.

Although the pedal pub riders are free to imbibe alcoholic beverages as they pump away to their next watering hole of choice, the law requires that the “pedal pub navigators” (drivers) keep their blood alcohol content at .02 percent or below.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... w-for-2014" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[LeafMan66_67]

I can see it now "Pedal Pub fails to navigate hills in downtown Halifax. Four pedestrians injured as Pedal Pub rolls backward across Hollis!"

[Keith]

I can see it now "Pedal Pub fails to navigate hills in downtown Halifax. Four pedestrians injured as Pedal Pub rolls backward across Hollis!"

or end up in the harbor after leaving the Ale house!

[Keith]

Not sure if this was posted or not. Great publicity for the pub.

http://twentytwowords.com/2013/12/31/sm ... he-f-word/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[gm-]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... vationists

Will have to try to get my hands on this one, will ask my brother to buy some for me

[mr x]

Beer Store has us over a barrel on wine bottles: Cohn

http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/ ... _cohn.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Happy New Year — unless you’re staring at a stash of empty Champagne or wine bottles.

Another year, another schlep to The Beer Store — but not because you’re keen to stock up on suds from that foreign-owned monopoly. No, you are compelled by government fiat to trudge like a drudge across town with your trunk full of glass, merely to retrieve your LCBO bottle deposits.

Welcome to Ontario, where cartel meets collusion — courtesy of our elected government.

It’s a bizarre form of triangulation that has us all going in circles: Take your booze home from the LCBO, drive your empties over to the Beer Store for refunds, then return once again to the LCBO for a refill.

In the world of stubby bottles and opaque glass, let us be crystal clear: Recycling is good, and re-use is even better.

But it is unfair and downright un-Canadian to dragoon holiday-spirited, wine-swilling Ontarians and shunt them to a place they’d rather not patronize: The Beer Store, which hides behind its humble name to camouflage its cartel operations and foreign ownership.

As noted last month, an Angus Reid poll shows a mere 13 per cent of Ontarians — that’s barely one in eight people — realize The Beer Store monopoly is not a government-owned enterprise, but is instead controlled by three giant foreign brewers: Anheuser-Busch Inbev, Molson Coors and Sapporo.

Headquartered in Belgium, Brazil, the U.S. and Japan, they control 80 per cent of Ontario’s beer sales. The remaining 20 per cent is held by the LCBO (which stocks primarily six-packs of foreign and craft beers in its regular stores).

Judging by readers’ letters after my last pre-Christmas rant on this topic, the polling hits the mark: Most people remain in the dark — but are even more determined to dismantle its monopoly once they discover the surprising ownership structure.

Recycling is a recurring irritant: Many readers ask why the government is complicit in forcing every single drinker to visit a dilapidated, dank Beer Store in order to return their wine bottles for a refund.

Six years ago, the McGuinty government revisited the recycling issue and opted to fob it all off on this foreign-owned beer monopoly — which now profits handsomely from all those involuntary LCBO walk-in customers. In return, the LCBO now pays The Beer Store more than $30 million a year for the service (if you can call it that).

It remains a puzzle as to why the ruling Liberals didn’t just order the LCBO to take care of its own customers in-house. After all, if convenience stores can recycle milk jugs, and if a local Staples outlet will collect old appliances, surely our Crown-owned LCBO can take back its own empties. Possibly the McGuinty cabinet was taken over by mind-controlling space aliens. Or perhaps it fell under the sway of even more powerful beer industry lobbyists who contribute lavishly to Liberal campaigns.

Now, with customary monopoly arrogance, The Beer Store thinks it has us over a barrel on bottle recycling: “Some might say The Beer Store’s deposit return system is the greatest thing since sliced bread,” its website boasts.

Yes, The Beer Store is a ruthlessly efficient recycler. But recycling and retailing are two distinctly different tasks, and being good at one doesn’t automatically make one expert at another.

While the rest of the world embraces modern retailing techniques that put the customer at the centre, Ontario still clings to a centralist-Leninist mentality that withered away with the old Soviet command economies. Perhaps there is something in Ontario’s water (or wine, or beer) that makes us so docile and deferential to authority that we quietly wait in line with our wine bottles at a Beer Store when our government so commands.

Why should the great unwashed be soaked for their suds and bamboozled over their booze bottles? So that The Beer Store can greenwash its consumer marketing sins with environmental propaganda?

Ontario’s hodgepodge recycling construct belongs on the scrap heap of history. It is the last refuge of an ossified monopolist and an out-of-touch government.

Time to make the LCBO give wine drinkers the customer care they deserve, by taking back empties onsite. And it’s long past time to give the foreign-owned Beer Store a run for its money, by allowing competition from private retailers.

[mr x]

Titus was on the CTV national news tonight in a segment about the falling dollar. Talking about exporting into the US if/as the dollar stays low....

[CorneliusAlphonse]

if that helps them be price competitive in the states and get their product out there, fantastic! And not just for them.

[mr x]

It would be interesting to see what they would export, and the price comparison in the US to peers, and also to what we are paying here....

[chalmers]

I'm curious about the US market too, as bottle prices there are less than half of what we pay here. I'm sure taxes make up a significant portion of the final price we pay, but after factoring in distribution/delivery, I wonder how realistic is would be.
With US beer fans used to paying $5 or less for a bomber of beer, it might be tough to get Garrison beer on (and off) the shelf for that.

[mr x]

I'll try to find that clip, but I doubt i can.

I know the Government is concerned that exports in general have not been picking up lately as they had predicted. Maybe there is/are programs in the works to help with this. Is the Canadian market saturated for their new capacity? Hard to believe the American one would be less so. Maybe breaking ground as a Canadian craft import would be a nice marketing angle. I guess there's not much risk at any rate.

[Keith]

Looks like they finally found a viable use for Coors Banquet....

http://news92fm.com/405800/houston-fire ... p=trending" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

Thai beer loses esteem after remarks by heiress

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wor ... e16290745/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It was probably inevitable in a country so obsessed with food and drink that Thailand’s political turmoil would spill over into beer.

Singha beer, made by the oldest brewery in Thailand, is a national icon and a staple of Thai restaurants around the world. But in recent weeks it has also become a target of an informal boycott by Thais who are angry that a member of the wealthy family behind the beer company is one of the leaders of anti-government demonstrators who are trying to scuttle elections planned for next month.

Further unrest in Bangkok could dent investor confidence in 'Teflon Thailand,' while the new year brings fresh listings to Southeast Asia's exchanges. Sareena Dayaram reports.

Thailand’s political turmoil defies concise explanation, but the beer boycott is emblematic of one striking division in Thailand today: the chasm between middle- and upper-class protesters in Bangkok, and the millions of voters in the provinces who are bewildered and angered at the protesters’ attempts to oust the government and to stop the elections that seem almost sure to return the government to power.

Chitpas Bhirombhakdi, 28, the beer heiress and a major player in the Bangkok protests, was quoted last month in a widely circulated article saying that many Thais lack a “true understanding” of democracy, “especially in the rural areas.”

The remarks incited palpable anger here in northeastern Thailand, a vast and formerly impoverished rice-growing region that has seen sharp improvements in living conditions and education in recent decades, partly because of the policies of Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire tycoon and former prime minister who is the focus of the protests.

For decades, northeastern Thailand was the region that supplied the country with domestic servants, construction workers, taxi drivers. Now, with one-third of Thailand’s population, it also delivers the votes that have been instrumental in electing the governing party - which includes Thaksin’s sister, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra - that the protesters are so determined to oust from power.

To detractors in the northeast, Chitpas, an aspiring politician who is a direct descendant of a 19th-century Thai king, is a symbol of a Bangkok upper class holding onto vestiges of feudal power and not trusting rural voters to make the right choice at the ballot box.

“She’s rich, and she lives in rich people’s circles - she knows nothing about rural life,” said Patsadaporn Chantabutr, 45, a teacher at an elementary school in a village outside of Udon Thani, who like many people here has followed the protests closely. “We reject the idea that we are just hillbillies.”

As the boycott was spreading in the northeast, mostly through social media and word of mouth, Chitpas wrote on her Facebook page that she was fighting for the country and had no intention to “infringe” on other people’s rights. She did not deny the words attributed to her about Thais lacking an understanding of democracy, but she added, “I would like to inform you that I’ve never looked down on rural people at all.”

She did not respond to a request for further clarification.

Kwanchai Praipana, the head of a group in the northeast of so-called red shirts that supports the government, says the point of the beer boycott is to send a message to companies that have links to the protesters that rural people vote in elections - and with their wallets.

“We want to tell the businessmen who are supporting these protesters that they have chosen the wrong side,” Kwanchai said. “They have to understand that their revenue comes from villagers.”

Boon Rawd Brewery, the company that makes Singha and Leo, a cheaper beer that is popular in the northeast, declined to reveal the extent of the damage caused by the boycott. But some shopkeepers say sales of Singha and Leo around New Year’s, traditionally a time of heavy drinking, were down sharply.

Kittisak Srichan, the owner of Khrua Khun Nit, one of the most famous restaurants here, said he removed Singha beer and Singha bottled water from the dining area last month. “I don’t want to anger the customers,” Kittisak said. “Customers said to me, ‘Why are you selling this? The only thing this beer should be used for is pouring on your feet.’”

Facebook pages have been filled with images of just that: bottles of Singha and Leo being poured onto feet - a disparaging gesture in Thailand.

Chitpas - who ran unsuccessfully for Parliament in 2011 - and other protest leaders argue that Thailand’s democracy has been subverted by the governing party, especially the powerful Shinawatra family that has dominated Thai politics for the last decade. They remain unsatisfied by Yingluck’s decision to call new elections after the protests began - an election analysts say the governing party is almost sure to win.

Instead, the demonstrators want a hiatus from democracy, replacing it with rule by a “people’s council” selected from various professions in the country. Many say they yearn for a return to the absolute monarchy because Thailand is not ready for democracy.

In recent weeks the protesters have become more aggressive, trying to sabotage the election registration process. Starting on Monday they plan to “shut down” Bangkok by blocking major intersections, prompting the U.S. Embassy to advise American citizens to have plenty of cash and a two weeks’ supply of food and water on hand. There are persistent rumors of an impending military coup.

Chitpas’ political activity appears to have caused considerable anxiety within her family’s company. A memo by Santi Bhirombhakdi, the brewery’s chief executive and the family patriarch, leaked to the Thai news media last month expressed disappointment about Chitpas’ role in the protests. In it, he said he had discussed her political career “many times” within the family and warned of consequences for the company.

A few days after the memo leaked, Chitpas’ father, Chutinant Bhirombhakdi, announced that he, his wife and Chitpas would change their surname in an apparent attempt to create separation between political activities and the family business. He did not specify the new name, but Chitpas now appears to use her mother’s maiden name, Kridakorn.

Chutinant also said, “I am well aware that all Thais deserve equal rights and freedom and should respect each other’s different thoughts.”

For Charuwan Thanom, 53, a shop owner in northeastern Thailand, the change of surname did little to temper her anger.

“There’s nothing she can do to restore her image now,” said Charuwan, who made sure that there was no Leo beer at her extended family’s New Year’s celebrations.

“We had been drinking this beer for many years,” she said. “The taste has not changed. My feelings have changed.”

But Kittisak, the restaurant owner, is betting that the boycott will fade away and he will soon drag the cases of Singha beer out of the storeroom.

“Thais have short memories,” he said. Nearby, two customers enjoyed a meal of northeastern specialties, washed down with bottles of Heineken.

[BobbyOK]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/gov ... one-chart/#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;!

American focussed, and largely full of shit, but I thought one thing was interesting - people who drink microbrew of any sort are far more likely to vote than any other of the macros they included.

[mumblecrunch]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/gov ... one-chart/#!

American focussed, and largely full of shit, but I thought one thing was interesting - people who drink microbrew of any sort are far more likely to vote than any other of the macros they included.

Thereby proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they've been putting the mind control juice in the BEER!!

[mr x]

5 German breweries fined for price-fixing

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1 ... ice-fixing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

BERLIN — German antitrust authorities have fined a group of beer brewers a total of 106.5 million euros ($145 million) for illegal price-fixing between 2006 and 2008.

The Federal Cartel Office said Monday that the companies fixed price increases for draft and bottled beer. Five firms were fined — Bitburger, Krombacher, Veltins, Warsteiner and Barre — along with seven people deemed to be “personally responsible.”

Cartel office chief Andreas Mundt said the breweries involved, some of Germany’s most prominent, agreed to raise draft beer prices in 2006 and again in 2008 by between 5 and 7 euros ($6.8o-$9.5o) per 100 litres (26.4 gallons). In 2008, they agreed to hike the price of a 20-bottle case of beer by 1 euro.

The investigation was launched on the basis of information from the German branch of Anheuser-Busch Inbev SA, which wasn’t fined as a result of its co-operation, the office said.

Authorities then reached a settlement with the five breweries that were fined, a move that reduced their punishment. Investigations are ongoing against another six brewers, which the cartel office didn’t identify, as well as the regional breweries’ association in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state.

Mundt said in a statement that the price-fixing was based “largely on purely personal and telephone contacts.”

Germany boasts some 1,300 breweries and 5,000 brands of beer. Beer is a national institution, and German brewers are bound by the so-called “purity law” dating back nearly 500 years that allows nothing but water, barley malt, hops and yeast for brewing.

[LeafMan66_67]

http://www.mooseheadbeeracademy.com/tal ... r-brewing/

Hammond River Brewing