TRY THE FREE 6 PACK NEWSLETTER HERE

What’s up, beer geek! This is The Beer Scholar 6-Pack weekly newsletter, a short clean email featuring 6 bulleted links with brief descriptions for each.

Howdy beer geek! This week I've mostly completed all the slides for my online course for the CC exam's Food & Beer Tasting + The Food Appendix portions. I'm going to have a lot of recording to do soon. I remain on schedule for releasing the course in about a month-ish. 

Beer of the Week: I have a quite large inflatable kiddie pool in my driveway and it's been ~100ºF in Portland, OR. Needless to say, a lot of friends have asked to come over to chill in the pool recently. They come bearing booze, of course. Therefore, I tried a couple seltzers this week...they were not good. I also tried a THC seltzer that had an unmistakable spoiled milk aroma and flavor. I'm not sure how that's even possible. 🤷🏼 Luckily, they also brought a great beer -- Fort George Suicide Squeeze IPA. At a massive 7.2% ABV this isn't something I'd typically reach for, but it's the type of IPA I'm into -- it has big citrusy hazey vibes but is also balanced bitter (i.e. it's not insipidly sweet like far too many hazy IPAs). A definite winner. 

As always, here are 6 dope links for your Friday 6 Pack. Enjoy.

TBS 6-Pack

THE YEARLY HOP REPORT IS OUT

BarthHaas Hop Report 2021/2022. As usual, the annual BH hop report is full of interesting data that tell us a lot about what’s happening in the global hop market. Most of my readers are US based, our report is on page 20. 2022 will be the 10th consecutive year for hop acreage expansion in the US, which is impressive, but overall global hop supplies are massively outstripping demand, which puts huge pressure on growers by sinking prices for their crops. Also, Cascade hops have now fallen to #4 in the US, which is mind blowing. The data on China is intriguing. I’d like to try their Marco Polo, SA-1, and Kirin Flower hops, which so far as I know are not available in the US or EU. China is making the most beer of any country, which isn’t shocking considering their population size (~1.5B). At #2 the US is producing 57% as much beer for 23% as many people (333M). Impressive. Of course, much of that is exported. Regionally, beer making in Africa grew the most in 2021 at 7.3%. Can't say I've had more than a few African beers, ever. For the big numbers — AB InBev controls 31% of world beer production, Heineken is a distant second at 12%. Ain’t no craft breweries in the top 40. I think Veltins in Germany, at #40, is the only indy on the list. 

HOW TO WRITE ABOUT BEER 

Raise your glasses to four lessons all writers can learn by judging craft beer: A newsman applies core journalistic skills as he brews, sips and rates homebrew by Charles Scudder. I've gotta say, most journalism about beer not written by the small cadre of legit beer writers out there, is f****g abysmal for a multitude of reasons. One is that most journos have absolutely no idea how to describe beer in an accurate way that evokes the senses such that the reader actually feels present. Judging beer BJCP style “…takes careful observation and creative language, skills that all reporters can learn from.” There is great advice for ALL of us writers here. 

THE JOYS OF BEER & FOOD PAIRING 

The Joys of Beer Pairing by Stephanie Grant for The Share. You can feel the passion for cooking and beer pairing in Stephanie Grant’s writing. She’s been sharing her journey on IG over the last several years, you should give her a follow. I couldn’t agree with her more when she says in this IG post, “if you want to take your beer drinking experience to a whole other level, food pairings is where it’s at.” Finding an amazing pairing is legit the best thing about great beer, but it takes skill and practice and a whole lot of knowledge about BOTH food and beer (which is why the higher level Cicerone exams now include questions about food that don’t seem obviously beer related). Check out Stephanie’s advice on how to ramp up your pairing skills.

NOTHING CAN BE COOL FOREVER

Business is hard and no brewery stays cool forever by Jeff Alworth for Beervana. Check out Jeff’s take on the “novelty curve” for breweries, using Stone as an example. I’ve *only* been doing craft beer stuff for 14 years to his ~25, but the trends seem clear with that long a horizon for developing perspective. Individual breweries (and most businesses in most industries) have a life cycle from cool, to established, to awkward, leading to an evolve-or-die period. It can be brutal to observe. With the craft beer industry in a mature phase now and flatlining generally, there has been lots of thoughtful questioning about where things are going. I’ve even seen some “I’m over craft beer” laments (sorry not sorry you got palate fatigue). I stillI feel great about craft beer. Why? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — with craft beer the product is (mostly) great, unlike for competing products like seltzers and RTD cocktails — so the future is bright even though we’re on the boring side of a once-in-history explosive growth phase.

LOL CRAFT MALÖRT

I firmly believe this is the correct take on the creation of a “craft” version of Malort, a liquor that probably wouldn’t exist but for Chicagoans punishing each other by daring their friends to take a shot of it. I'm being judge-y, but I seriously don't think anyone actually *likes* Malört. Am I wrong? Are you the one? 

WHAT TO WATCH

• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Official Trailer. Well this looks fun! Chris Pine as a lute playing bard/Harpers spy on the Sword Coast, Gelatinous Cubes, Displacer Beasts, Mimics, and a Tiefling Druid that can turn into an Owlbear?! I’m in. Seriously, we need a new non-Star Wars, non-Marvel (love you and all, but…) series and the D&D multiverse is just as big as those. Prepare for a decade plus of D&D movies, people. Thanks for making D&D cool, Stranger Things! 
• Fairfax (trailer on YT). Season 2 just dropped. A white nerd from Portland, OR moves to LA and the block is hot. F****g hilarious. 
• Westworld season 4 is absolutely amazing (I haven't finished it but so far, so good). Dystopian sci fi with a dash of Philip K. Dick-ian reality bending at its best. I highly recommend watching from S1E1 if you haven't. Season 1 is SO GOOD. 
• FBoy Island (trailer on YT). This will 100% make you a dumber human. Also, it's hilarious. Also, it makes me want to write a "HazeBoi Island" knockoff show where NEIPA hypebeasts get shot down trying to land IG beer models. 

Have a lovely weekend, y'all!

Chris