Two words: Shiny. Keg. Don’t have one? Well then today could be your lucky day. Hold that thought.
If I had to tell you just one thing I’ve noticed that homebrewers have in common when it comes to beer, it’s this: We share. We share our homebrew, our time, our money, our hard work, our knowledge and our passion. We do it because no matter how simple it sounds, we believe that if everyone drank great beer, people’s lives would be enriched and the world would be a better place- or at least a happier one.
This little idea is why I co-founded and started writing brewing tutorials for BeerSyndicate five years ago. One of the first tutorials I put together was about how to polish a keg, clearly not strictly fundamental to brewing per se, but you gotta admit, there’s something pretty darn sweet about a shiny, blinged out keg. So I wrote it up, put it out there, and moved on.
Last month I got an email from the Social Media Manager at Ali Industries, a company that among other things manufactures Gator polishing discs, the kind I mentioned in my keg polishing tutorial way back when. He said he was trying to solve the mystery of why his company started getting calls on their surface conditioning and buffering discs, and that he tracked the source down to my keg polishing tutorial which apparently google has ranked as # 1 on the subject (cross that one off the bucket list). He wanted to thank me for the positive mentions, even though I never expected anything for it.
I simply told him that “Gator makes good products, and I like the company, so I wanted to give people my honest opinion. I’m glad if that’s generated some business for you- that’s how it should be.”
The Marketing Manager offered to send us some additional polishing products free of charge, and then I thought about you, my fellow homebrewers— now officially 1,000,000+ strong; and that’s just in U.S.!
“That’s really kind of you to offer some of your products. Right now I don’t personally have any polishing projects going on, but I had an idea that might be something- tell me what you think…
I know quite a few homebrewers locally and online. What if instead of giving me products, we could offer some to the homebrewers who want to polish their own kegs?”
I waited. And then I heard back from Gator.
“This is something we can definitely do.”
Remember when I said I liked Ali Industries as a company? Well now I really like them. And you should too. Not just because they make quality products, which they do. And not just because they’re a family business that manufactures Gator products right here in the good ol’ U. S. of A. (Fairborn, Ohio), where they employ about 240 Americans who help to make their products available at Lowe’s and thousands of hardware stores across the U.S. and Canada including ACE, Do-It Best Stores, True Value to name a few.
The thing I really like about Ali Industries? They get the spirit of the homebrewer. The spirit of sharing. And they like shiny kegs.
With that, the good fellas at BeerSyndicate and Ali Industries are reaching out to the homebrewing community to help you turn that dingy old keg into a bright and shiny new one.
What do we got? A combo pack of Gator polishing products for 10 lucky winners.
How do you get it?Just enter to win. Simple. And guess what? If only 10 people enter to win, you have a 1 in 1 chance of winning. Lucky you. [Contest ends 8/31/14]
One last thing: PLEASE show YOUR homebrewing spirit and HELP US spread the word! Share this link with your homebrew club, facebook friends, online forum, or that guy who’s on the fence about picking up the brewing kettle for the first time— you guys might just be the next ones with the shiniest kettles in town.
Almost forgot— this isn’t the last contest BeerSyndicate has in the pipe, so friend us on facebook, follow us on twitter, or just check back in from time to time- you’ll be glad you did.
Big things are a comin’…
Cheers and good luck!
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‘Hey, have you ever heard of a beer called IPA? Apparently it’s a really bitter…’ — And that’s when your face goes dull with that ‘You so 2000 and late’ look and you stop listening. That’s being nice- you’d probably tune out at ‘IPA’.
Just like how Christopher Columbus thought he was the first to discover America, so too are foodies, trendies, and fledgling craft beer enthusiasts of late discovering sour beer. Hipsters heard about them after NPR broke the story on sours in October of 2013, but then promptly gave up drinking them a week later out of principle. My mom even forwarded me a snippet from February’s Bon Appétit magazine¹ where the author dishes out food pairing advice, remarking how the “elegant Champagne fizz and acidic twang” of this sour style, beloved by “beer nerds” [thanks?], “chainsaws through fatty or salty foods, yet is delicate enough for sushi.” Domo arigato Mr. Foodboto, but having an appreciation for sour beer does not qualify one as a “beer nerd” (whatever that means) any more than eating at a food truck makes one a culinary aficionado.
The truth is that if NPR, Bon Appétit, USA Today, the New York Times, and my mom have already heard about them, sours have officially reached critical mainstream mass. Though to be fair to the late comers, sour brews have only gained this new found pop culture popularity over the last two or three years. Prior to that, sour craft beers were something of a rarity stateside, let alone the majority of the modern beer drinking world.
Go back 150 years though, and sour beers weren’t simply a regional specialty or a brewer’s attempt at passion-driven innovation, nor were they altogether uncommon. Even so, it was seldom the brewery’s intention to pour their publicans a sour pint. In fact, in many circles of the brewing industry, sour beer was often referred to as “diseased beer” and was almost without exception considered the bane of the brewhouse. Because once a brewery noticed one of its beers becoming unintentionally sour, to its helpless devastation, it was usually only a matter of time before the rest of the production line followed sour suit, thereby risking the life of the brewery itself. And beer wasn’t the only fermentable becoming “diseased”. Nope, wine and some spirit producers suffered the same fate as well.
That was until 1866 when Louis Pasteur, under the commission of Emperor Napoleon III- nephew to the Napoleon (oh my), published his book Etudes sur le Vin (Studies on Wine) as a remedy to both the economic and reputational loss within the French winemaking industry due to diseased wine. Both brewers and winemakers alike were plagued by “spoilage”, or the unintentional souring of their products, and it was Pasteur, doctor of boozeology, who identified that the culprits responsible for the souring were primarily tiny black rod shaped lactic acid producing micro-organisms presumably introduced into the fermenting beverages via germ-ridden dust in the air (an idea that was largely groundbreaking for the day).
[Lactobacillus bacteria responsible for producing lactic acid.]
What was Pasteur’s solution to these ATDs (Aerially Transmitted Diseases)? Practice safe fermentation. Clean up the winery and the staff, limit exposure of the wine to the souring critters in the air, and last but not least, master the art of Pasteurization, i.e. heating the wine to about 122-144 °F for a specific period of time in order to kill off any potential souring microorganisms. Many of these tactics were soon adopted by the brewing industry along with other methods including temperature control, increased hopping rates, and yeast purification, all of which were prescribed in Pasteur’s follow-up blockbuster (and Amazon Best Seller of 1876) Etudes sur la Bière²; literally “Studies on Beer”, but masterfully translated into English as “Studies on Fermentation: The Diseases of Beer”.
And with this, the days of sour beers appeared to be numbered; however the final curtain call wouldn’t come from Pasteur, but rather a man on an island over 600 miles away.
One Yeast Strain to Rule Them All
Around the time Pasteur was releasing his book Studies on Beer, Danish scientist Emil Hansen was set with the task of separating out unwanted microorganisms in a yeast culture in order to cultivate a pure strain of yeast. But this was no random undertaking in the vacuum of science. No, Hansen was employed by the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, a facility created in 1875 by the founder of the Carlsberg Brewery and established for the purpose of advancing biochemical knowledge particularly related to brewing. It turns out that Hansen was triumphantly successful at his task and in 1883 he was able to isolate one very particular yeast strain that would go on to form the basis of a certain style of beer that quickly dominated the world.
This singular variety of yeast in conjunction with the techniques Hansen used to ensure a pure culture brought about not only the absolute monarchy of a single beer style (which established the reign of at least one King of Beers in the U.S.), but also led to the growth of multi-billion dollar corporations so powerful that it would take a revolution to even slightly loosen their soul-crushing stranglehold on the industry.
The beer style in question is none other than lager.
Hansen’s pure lager yeast was offered to other breweries when their beers turned sour, and eventually this lager yeast made its way around the world, changing the entire landscape of beer along with it. In honor of Hansen’s industry revolutionizing accomplishment, the Carlsberg Brewing consort named this world-famous pure yeast strain after him, calling it “Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis”— wait, umm, well close enough.
But it was to be Hansen who would have the last laugh as S. Carlsbergensis was later renamed, to the delight of Francophiles, “S. Pastorianus”, which of course is Latin for “let’s pretend that Pasteur figured out how to produce pure yeast cultures and give no credit to Hansen”. I guess if you really wanted to get technical, Hansen actually “borrowed” his yeast separating technique from German microbiologist Robert Koch.³ So if I were Germany, I’d throw my vote in for renaming the yeast “S. Kochianus”, but that’s just me.
Brewers became so efficient at isolating and controlling souring bacteria and yeast that with the exception of a number of breweries in Belgium and a few regional ones in Germany, sour beers nearly went extinct.
Certainly some sour styles of beer did go extinct, and perhaps more would have if it weren’t in large part for the craft beer revolution sweeping the globe today. Country after country is walking up from its lager/pilsner saturated slumbers and realizing there’s something else out there. Something better. Something sour. And we want it.
It’s said that a full 70 percent of the production of the world-renowned Belgian sour beer producer, Cantillon, is exported to the U.S. To those who’ve ever had the pleasure of sipping a sour from Cantillon, you’ll know why the U.S., as with other desirable finite commodities, wants as much of it as we can get our greedy little fingers on.
And sours aren’t just the realm of traditional continental breweries or the more specialized Russian River or Crooked Stave types in the U.S. Big names are getting in on the action too. Boston Beer Company, Sierra Nevada, Widmer Brothers, Flying Dog, Magic Hat, Odell, Avery, Anderson Valley, Great Lakes, Bell’s, Allagash, Ballast Point, Deschutes, New Belgium, Goose Island, Three Floyds, and Grand Teton have all brewed sours or have one in the rotation. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a weak, watery pseudo sour in the pipe from one of the mega un-craft breweries trying to cash in on this craze, albeit disguised in the predictable faux-craft fashion as is now the custom (think Bluemoon and Shocktop- brewed by Coors and Anheuser Busch respectively, and both go out of their way to hide that fact on the bottles). Alanis couldn’t have written a better irony.
To be honest, I’m shocked that the last major brewery in Berlin that still brews Berliner Weisse hasn’t gotten the message. As far as I know, the Berliner-Kindl-Schultheiss-Brauerei GmbH (yeah, yeah, German words are long), doesn’t even distribute their sours to the U.S., let alone much outside of Berlin. Talk about missing Das Boot.
Despite the bandwagon, sour beers aren’t universally welcomed. To this day, some breweries are so concerned about the souring boogiemen bacteria, many brewmasters have sworn that they will never brew a sour beer lest their entire brewery become infected. I know of at least one brewery owner who told me that not only will he never brew a sour, but that sour beers will never become popular enough to sell.
I guess only time will tell if sour beers ever catch on.
Ok, Desert Island time:
Santé!
[¹Bernstein, J. M. “Sour Beer Primer: How (and Why) to Drink These Funky Wild Ales” bon appetit 26 Feb., 2014. Web. 10 July, 2014;Pasteur, L. (1879) Studies on Fermentation: The Diseases of Beer, London. Macmillan & Co.; ³Rogers, A. (2014) Proof: The Science of Booze. Boston, MA. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]
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It’s a simple question. Think about it: As Americans, we have a lot of freedom. Freedom to shoot our mouths and guns off, freedom to drink booze, practice any religion we want, criticize our government, and much more. And unlike Germany, we even have the freedom to brew whatever crazy beer we want and call it “beer”.
However there is something that Germany’s got that we don’t: The right to drink in public. And we’re not talking about shamefully hiding your drink in a crinkled up brown paper bag in some shady back alley, cowering under the disapproving glares of others. No, we’re talking about confidently strutting down the street in broad day light, head held high, drink in hand, and no one giving a second thought about it, not even the police. It’s normal. It’s socially accepted. It’s legal.
And it’s not just a thing that teenagers or tourists do. Doctors, teachers, and lawyers do it. Men and women. Young and old. And no, you’re not considered a low life drunk for enjoying a refreshing beer while waiting for the bus. As a matter of fact, in Berlin and many other German cities you can go right ahead and take that drink with you on the bus, or any other public transportation. It’s perfectly legal.
And if you think Germany’s the only country in Europe with lax open container laws, think again. Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, and Portugal do not have any laws against drinking in public. In most other European countries, it’s legal to drink in public with certain minor restrictions. The attitude is so laissez fair that you can even buy beer from vending machines.
I’ll admit it: I’ve got freedom-envy. Why should other countries have more freedom than we do? Land of the free, home of the brave? It’s our freakin’ catch phrase for crying out loud. Freedom is what we do. It’s who we are. It’s our thing. We stick up for other people’s freedom, and we die for ours, so why can’t we have a cold beer on a hot day on the street? Would it really offend you?
Maybe we have our priorities a little mixed up when we as Americans are trusted to act responsibly with guns in public, yet not with a glass of beer. To be fair, there are a handful of places in the U.S. that do allow drinking in public in some form or another including Las Vegas (on the strip), Butte, MT (between 8 am and 2 am), Sonoma, CA (between 11:30 am and dusk), and certain areas in New Orleans (French Quarter), Memphis (Beale Street), Kansas City, Savannah, GA (Historic District), Erie, PA (70 block downtown district), Gulfport, MS, Hood River, OR, and at least two places in Texas: Fredericksberg (beer & wine in a plastic cup) and Fort Worth (The Stockyards area).
Democracy and Drinking
As it stands, there is no federal ban on the possession of open alcohol containers in public, so it is up to the individual states to call the shots. For the states that don’t have state statues making it illegal to drink in public, they pass the decision-making buck to the smaller municipalities or localities.
Which brings us another American freedom I almost forgot about: The Freedom to Petition, or what I like to call The Freedom to Wish for More Wishes. Don’t like not having the freedom to enjoy a tasty brew where you want? You, my imbibing buddy, have the constitutional right to petition to change it. And if one were so inclined to petition to be allowed to say drink in public, it might be helpful to have a list of the states that don’t have state statues banning said drinking in public so that one would know to start with their local governments…
The following states do not have state statues against drinking in public: AK, DE, FL, HI, ID, IL, IN, LA, MA, MN, MT, NV, NH, NJ, NY, ND, OR, PA, RI, TN, WI, and WY. Not to leave anybody out, there’s also no ban in Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In other words, if you’re inspired to make it legal to have a drink while you’re strolling down the street, your starting point is with your municipality, locality, county or town. In these cases, you’ll want to get in touch with your local councilman, supervisor, alderman, mayor, or county executive. To prepare a bit, take a look at current cities/municipalities in the U.S. that allow public drinking to see how their governments handled the issue.
On a funny side note, California’s state statue indicates that it’s only illegal to have open containers of alcohol IF the city or county has an ordinance prohibiting it. Sort of like when Mom used to say, ‘I’m OK with it just as long as your Dad isn’t against it.’ So since the city of Sonoma doesn’t have a ban on drinking in public (you are allowed to drink in public between 11:30 am and dusk), the state of California doesn’t have a problem with it.
Now, if you happen to reside in a state that does have a state statue against drinking in public, your local state senator, assemblyman, or state house representative is the person to talk to. While you’re at it, take a look at what Ohio state is doing with Senate Bill 116 in its attempt to legalize public drinking within “outdoor entertainment districts” thereby promoting tourism and economic development. All the legal language and process is there. Copy, paste, change names, submit. AL, CO, MS, NE, and TX already have what Ohio’s hoping to obtain which are state statutes specifically allowing for public drinking in specified entertainment districts or areas.
In any case, it doesn’t hurt to drop a line to deep pocketed alcohol distributors who have a political arm, like your state’s equivalent of the California Beer & Beverage Distributors political action committee, who might have similar interests as you and the money to support your campaign. Even a coalition of forward-thinking local restaurants and bars could form a lobby for support after seeing the benefit of revitalizing your city center by attracting more dollars and promoting tourism if laws permitted their customers to walk away from their establishment with a cup of an alcoholic beverage with their logo on that they just served you.
Just to be clear, I’m not advocating public drunken disorderliness, or getting loaded and driving. I’m talking about having a drink in public legally and not feeling awkward about it, while at the same time helping struggling towns and cities revitalize and generate some more tourist dollars.
It’s already happening in cities across the U.S. to great success like on Beale Street in Tennessee (now Tennessee’s # 1 tourist destination), so why not run with it and make it happen in your town?
Who knows, maybe they’ll name a park after you— a park you can legally have a beer in.
Cheers!
[Disclaimer Time: The information contained in this article should be used for general informational purposes and not as a legal reference.]
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