Experimental Brewing Podcast 83 - Love Thy Long Beach Neighbor

General Homebrew Discussion
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Happy New Beer! We kick off the new year with a look at how the folks at We Love LB and the Long Beach Homebrewers are using homebrew to build a better neighborhood. First we’ll talk to Scott Jones, the executive director of We Love LB about his mission to strengthen his community and how beer helps and then we talk to Neil Ian Horowitz of the Long Beach Homebrewers about how the club got involved and what beer he provided to the festivities. It’s an interesting model that we think can be duplicated around the world!

But first we’ve got to take your feedback, cover the beer news including what the shutdown means for beer and Teri Farendorf’s take on the “Inebriation” Industry, some foundational numbers and calculations and our favorite brewing experiences of the past year.

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Happy  New Beer back, guys!  Getting through in bits while I sleep off my flu.  The Teri Fahrendorf rant triggered an epiphany.  Maybe some of us beer nerds frustrated with the BA just want it to be what it isn’t.  It’s a trade group, responsible only to its members’ interests,  however those evolve.  In the beginning, the interests of beer nerds and BA members were convergent.  No longer, with Nerd Beer now a diminishing segment of members’ production and an increasing segment of non-members’ production.  What we seem to want is a consumer advocacy group, ensuring nerds access  to their beer, à la CAMRA in its prime.  Though arguably that quickly went off the rails too.  But in the chaotic beverage environment Teri sees on the horizon, independent advocacy for beer and beer drinkers may be increasingly desirable.

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Thanks for your comments, Rob…very interesting!  May be a topic for us to discuss.

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I kind of feel like the BA is, in general, achieving what people wanted. People used to complain about the quality of craft beer. To my mind, the BA has been helping with that (Please correct me if I’m wrong). There’s also over 7000 breweries in the US, and people are making grisette, beer with kveik, & tons of sours. Lagers are coming back. What nerd beer do you feel like you can’t find? I’ve always thought “nerd beer” was always a small percentage of a breweries production. I guess I’m also not terribly familiar with CAMRA and what they do, besides the typical English, real ale, & cranky old men stereotype.

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Wilbur,

(Not a full response maybe, sorry)

First, amid complaints that “craft” has become meaningless and useless, watered down to something like “a warm Coors Light” (love that!) I submit “Nerd Beer” in its place. Beer as consumed and analyzed by us beer nerds, for whom beer is not only (but sometimes may be) a fizzy, fungible commodity interchangeable with any other otherwise unobtrusive but inebriating beverage.  :wink:

Some of what I’m thinking is, people complain about the BA’s serial revision of the definition of “craft brewers,”  perhaps imagining  that this in itself threatens the survival of good beer.  (See Teri’s rant e.g.)  Well, consider the challenges facing distribution, given the astronomical number of SKUs already clogging the market.  (Again referenced  by Teri.)  Now,  as BA members and non-members alike further diversify their product lines,  to the consternation of some (like Teri – I’m not singling her out,  she just encapsulated a lot of the current conversation) surely this diversification will help BA members maintain their share of outlets (meaning shelf space and tap handles.)  But it will not help beer hold its position.  I don’t refer just to the problem of smaller brewers getting shelf space and tap handles in the face of competition from larger brewers, the vagaries of the distribution system, the fall of the 3 tier system,  or what have you.  I mean, as the beverage market diversifies, beer itself of whatever stripe stands to be squeezed (including of course BMC.)  And it’s not the BA’s job to address that.  If some of us want more of the available beverage options to remain beer of some kind, consumer preference has to be made to be felt somehow.  (And FWIW I’m one who doesn’t strictly care what the corporate provenance of a beer is; if it’s good I’ll buy it, if it’s not you don’t get my money just for charity.)  Thus the interests of  BA members (and non-members) do not directly map to those of beer drinkers; we are a shrinking subset of their customers, to all of whom they ought to remain responsive. Hence my thoughts on some kind of advocacy for quality beer and its availability to the consumer who demands it, and this being entirely divergent from advocacy for those who may, as some segment of their operations,  produce that beer.

As for what I can’t find:  how about standard American or British stout, porter, pale ale; American or old world dark lagers and high quality pale lagers without some twist… that is, the sessionable,  flavorful classics.  There’s an increasing unfilled gap between that warm Coors Light and the very big, very innovative, increasingly less conventionally beer-like beers (will these be carried along with, or be threatened by direct competition from,  the new range of “inebriation beverages?” another thought) of the craft and crafty.  If we’re still using those words.  (So I’m almost where I started 30 years ago:  if I want it I’ve got to brew it. )

Didn’t really want to start my own rant, hope it hasn’t come off that way.  But maybe I should have anyway.