Category: The Politics of Drinking

Why is craft beer so white?

Posted on by Ben

Be forewarned: This is a super long post. Like annoyingly long. Like “Really, Ben? Ever heard of editing?” long. But this is a topic with a lot of angles to be covered and a it’s one which I felt required fulsome exploration. Also, it’s my blog and you’ve been reading my shit for free for five years so I can do whatever I want. K, thanks. 

Canada’s craft beer industry is a friendly and welcoming scene.

Spend any amount of time in the company of the people who are making and drinking craft beer in this country and you’ll quickly be drawn in by the engaging events and the comradery that exists even among so-called competitors. Craft beer is fun and this inclusionary atmosphere (along with the interesting beer) is likely a big part of the reason more people are discovering craft beer and why estimates put small breweries’ share of Canada’s beer market at around 10%.

So why then, in an industry that seems implicitly welcoming and inclusive, are almost all those friendly faces white?

Scan a newspaper for news of a brewery opening in your town, check out local website coverage of the latest craft beer festival in your area–heck, just do a stock image search for “people drinking craft beer”–and you’ll see pretty quickly that Canada’s craft beer scene is whiter than a country club fundraiser for sustainable organic mayonnaise.

Toronto in particular, where Canada’s craft beer charge is arguably being led, is ranked among the most multicultural cities in the world, and is the most diverse city in the country with the last available census data stating 47.7% of the city’s population comprises “visible minorities.”

So why don’t any of these people of colour seem to be drinking, making, or selling beer? Continue reading “Why is craft beer so white?” →

Let’s talk about beer awards

Posted on by Ben

Beer Award

Beer awards are kind of bullshit.

They don’t really denote an absolute degree of quality or a level of excellence above all others in the field or category.

What beer awards often actually denote is simply a willingness on the part of a brewery to meet the demands of individual award ceremonies’ rules and style guidelines. That is, maybe a winning beer best met a certain judge’s understanding of the BJCP definition of a certain style or the beer adheres to the individual awards’ strict and often archaic style guidelines, but does that make the beer the “best” example of its kind?

According to the judges who blind-taste-judged the Ontario Brewing Awards, for example, Triple Bogey Brewing Co. brewed the “best” North American Lager in the province last year. But what does that even mean? Taste is subjective, right? You, for example, may prefer the taste of Great Lakes Brewery’s Golden Horseshoe Premium Lager. Who can say how or why those two lagers are different and what makes one better? Continue reading “Let’s talk about beer awards” →

Bigger isn’t better: The philosophical currency of craft beer

Posted on by Ben

beer-bottles

Big beer companies appear to be coming for our beloved craft breweries.

In the United States we’ve seen big brewers buy up Pyramid, Magic Hat, Anchor Steam, Kona, Goose Island, Blue Point Brewery Co, 10 Barrel Brewing, and Elysian. Much closer to home, through Labatt, we’ve just seen AB InBev make what will almost certainly be the first of at least a couple moves into the Canadian “craft” market by buying up Toronto’s Mill Street Brewery.

And while our instincts may be to arm ourselves and barricade the doors of our favourite local brewpub–or worse, take to greasy laptops in our collective mothers’ basements in order to fill the internet with cries of “sell out,”–we really probably shouldn’t panic. Because whatever big beer’s designs might be, I don’t think they’re going to work.
Continue reading “Bigger isn’t better: The philosophical currency of craft beer” →

Ontario’s independent grocers want to support craft beer

Posted on by Ben

grocery beer

Beer is coming to grocery stores.

No, really.

For a number of reasons, it’s been tough to believe that this development, first announced by the provincial government back in the spring of 2015, would ever actually come. Firstly, there’s the healthy dose of cynicism with which we’ve all learned to approach any news about alcohol reform in Ontario, and secondly, there’s the fact that, aside from those early announcements about 450 grocery stores that would eventually be allowed to sell beer, we haven’t actually heard a lot of details about how (or when) exactly this would all happen.

Until now.

In a Ben’s Beer Blog exclusive, I had an opportunity to chat recently with Tom Barlow, President and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers (CFIG).  This chat was exciting for a few reasons: Firstly, I’ve now got some details about what beer in grocery stores might actually look like, and secondly, the fact that independent grocers have been invited to take part in the conversation with Ed Clark and the panel overseeing the reform of beer sales bodes well for Ontario’s craft beer, in my opinion. Continue reading “Ontario’s independent grocers want to support craft beer” →

On selling out

Posted on by Ben

FullSizeRender

You’ll never understand it
Try to buy and brand it
I win, you lose, cause it’s my job
To keep craft beer elite.
This beverage ain’t your fuckin’ industry.

~Fat Mike, if he were a beer blogger, probably. 

As it is with music, there is an important distinction in beer between what we might define as that which is indie and that which we might deem corporate.

Craft beer, you might say, is  something generally akin to your favourite band that’s still playing local clubs, manning their own merch tables, and banging out records on a small record label–or even no label at all. Much like craft breweries, indie bands maintain a devoted local following because they make a quality product and there is a perception that they do what they do because they love it and they’re not just in it for the money, man.

By the same token, we might readily compare big breweries to something along the lines of a boy band or the Spice Girls: a sort of fabricated version of the concept of a “band,” assembled by people with an understanding of the market and a unique ability to create a product that will have mass appeal. It’s often a profoundly successful “product,” but to those who are passionate about the scene, it’s a watered down, passionless version of what should be a good thing.

This is a simplified analogy for sure, but to me there are actually a lot of parallels between craft beer and independent music, the most notable of which is that rather icky feeling we all get when a treasured brewery or band suddenly becomes financially successful. Continue reading “On selling out” →

Changes to Ontario’s beer: The good, the bad, and the WTF

Posted on by Ben

goodbadwtf

In case you are unaware–or you’re like me and were drinking copious amounts of great American craft beer at the annual Craft Brewers Conference in Portland when it happened–last week the province announced some proposed changes to the way beer is sold in Ontario.

Mostly contained in an announcement wherein Premier Kathleen Wynne confirmed that we’d be seeing beer sold in grocery stores (if the Liberal budget is passed, which it will since they have a majority), the full details of the proposed changes were outlined in the report Striking the Right Balance: Modernizing Beer Retailing and Distribution in Ontario. 

Given my Portland sojourn, I’m admittedly a little late to the party analyzing the impact of these possible changes, but better late than never.

If you’re interested, Canadian Beer News has a great round up of the various reactions to the report in the major dailies and some blogs.  I recommend Dan Grant‘s post for NOW Magazine for some reaction from brewers and Jordan St. John published an interesting post in which he takes a look at how we got here (and gets a terrific visit from a trolling Beer Store employee in the comments section for his efforts!)

In considering the report and its impact, I opted to approach the issue as I do most other things: I cracked a beer and first read what every one else was saying–but then I decided to take a critical look at each of the proposed major changes individually.

Here’s why I think the proposed changes are good, why they might be bad, and why they have me asking “wtf?” Continue reading “Changes to Ontario’s beer: The good, the bad, and the WTF” →

Beer goes in your mouth

Posted on by Ben

Hamsterdam

In honour of April Fool’s day today, Jason Fisher, the perennial shit-disturbing owner of Toronto’s Indie Alehouse released a couple of videos staring a handful of Second City alumni regular customers taking shots at some of the more absurd, ridicule-worthy elements of the province’s beer scene.

I particularly enjoyed this video that takes aim squarely at the province’s growing number of Certified Cicerones, Prud’homme beer sommeliers, and know-it-all beer bloggers (ahem) who might consider themselves beer experts.

Let’s be honest, this is hilarious (“Rope?”). And it’s a welcome reminder that maybe we all take beer a little too seriously sometimes.

Well done, Jason. Also fuck you!

Click here for Indie’s other video about their beer store. 

The Ontario Craft Brewers would like their own stores, please

Posted on by Ben

FullSizeRender

“Though this be madness,
yet there is method in’t”

Last night I attended the 10th annual Ontario Craft Brewers (OCB) tasting event at the Ontario legislature.

It’s an event hosted by the Speaker of The House wherein the OCB, a 50+ member group that is currently the only organization advocating on behalf of the province’s small brewers, is welcomed into the Ontario Legislative Building to pour their beers for myriad MPPs and (mostly) their thirsty, bespectacled, pointy-shoed staffers.

I have attended in previous years and wrote about last year’s event in less than flattering terms as a missed opportunity in my opinion given a climate in Ontario that seemed destined for real change to the beer scene.

This year, even more than last, the event seemed rife with potential for some grand statement: the premier of Ontario has made a few opening but vague salvos relating to reforming the province’s beer scene and speculation grows about what might be in the upcoming budget for people who buy and make craft beer–including rumours recently reported by The Toronto Star’s Martin Regg Cohn that we can expect beer in grocery stores soon.

This year, I thought, someone might say something bold that electrifies the crowd.

And I was right.

Sort of. Continue reading “The Ontario Craft Brewers would like their own stores, please” →

Budweiser is now officially marketing to people who already drink Budweiser

Posted on by Ben

IMG_1313
Yesterday, Budweiser released the commercial below. In it, the marketing giant who also happens to sell beer successfully continues their new advertising strategy, which is seemingly an effort to troll hipsters; a strategy that they unofficially launched with their now infamous Super Bowl ad that featured bearded scenesters sniffing mutli-coloured beer flights in small glasses and positioning them as diametrically opposed to people who drink “real beer” “made the hard way.”

This new ad is aimed once again squarely at the hipster set (whom they identify without ever saying the word hipster, only by stating their setting: Brooklyn, a word that probably serves pretty handily as a short hand signifier of “all things pretentious and effeminate” to any macro-drinking, flag waving, fly-over-state-dwelling “real person”). In it, they set up a fake bar, put an actor into some hipster clothing (i.e. plaid), and have said pseudo-cool-guy serve unwitting hipsters some ice cold Budweiser.

The stage is set for an epic burn!

But does it work? I don’t think so.

Presumably the folks at the ad agency Budweiser hired to make this farce will think this campaign is a success owing to what I imagine will be high numbers in the only currency that matters these days, traffic, but it’s hard to view this ad with anything close to a critical eye and not see it as a failure, for a couple reasons. Continue reading “Budweiser is now officially marketing to people who already drink Budweiser” →

Where is your beer brewed?

Posted on by Ben

cool

In the craft beer world, opinions about the merits of contract brewing are pretty varied.

Without wading into the debate (again), I do want to discuss one thing that I think virtually everyone takes a disliking too, and that’s when a contract brewer or brewing company attempts to be dishonest about where it is that their beer is  actually made.

Frankly, I don’t know why people think it benefits them to claim they own an actual brewery when they don’t (whether they claim this explicitly or implicitly), but there is a trend as of late for some “brewers” to be shady about where it is that their malt actually meets water before they slap a label on the beer and try to sell it to the world. Most brewing companies are, of course, happy to tell you where their beer is made (I asked a lot of them for this article and they answered me), but there are still some that are less-than-forthcoming about it. Given that I’m a big proponent of transparency when it comes to the brewing, production, and marketing of beer in this province, I thought I’d add simply a little more clarity to the issue today. Continue reading “Where is your beer brewed?” →