Displaying The Movement posts.

Welcome to Squibs 5, the 2012 Tra-la-la edition. I write when the spirit moves me–ok, well, to be perfectly honest, that is a necessary but not sufficient condition.  I also need to have free time and can’t write these on my smartphone, so it’s also critical to have a real computer before me.  It all came together for me last night, and so:

1) We couldn’t be more grateful for the support we received in 2011, and we promise you beer asap in 2012. Delicious, fresh, robustly hopped (remember, Pale Ale out of the gate) beer in growlers to go, even. When? Though it gets wearisome to have to preface the answer to the inevitable question with “well, you know, it’s hard to say…” we know we’re really closing in, too.  January was a deluge of construction, and February for at least making beer seems reasonable.  How much longer it will take to be able to sell it, alas… is really, indeed, far harder to pin down.  Let’s just say we’ve gone at least Rounds 1 & 2 with the NY SLA, and so far, so good.  Let’s see what Round 3 brings.  In the meanwhile, kegs are on their way, all the Kickstarter stuff is in-production, and we are anxious indeed to start playing with our brewing toys.

2) File this under “I read Beernews.org so you don’t have to,” but imagine my surprise–and pleasure–at finding this video from TEDx San Antonio, in which Freetail Brewing‘s founder Scott Metzger discusses a transition from economies of scale to economies of authenticity; a very apt description of the rise of craft beer.  Er, perhaps Craft Beer(tm), that is.  Anyway, the theme of my own talk at Buffalo’s TEDx event back in September was slightly different, but in some ways complimentary or even overlapping. I was arguing for embeerment in Buffalo–or wherever, perhaps San Antonio, right?–as being great for community revival, when done on what I guess he might call a scale of authenticity.  I think we’ll continue to see a lot of creative financing–kicstarter, public stock–as craft beer expands, and I like to think small scale hops farming and malting will also nestle right into that.

3) Squibs Book Review: America Walks Into A Bar, by Christine Sismondo.  I got this book for Yuletide, and devoured it.  Yum!  Actually, it’s a nice segue from the last point, because the book is really a socio-cultural history of the role taverns (and saloons, pubs, speak-easys and grog shops) played in the history of our country.  So, not really a history of beer itself, but fascinating to anyone who considers our relationship with alcohol and beer more generally.  The writer, who teaches English at Reyerson College in Toronto, presents a nicely paced survey of not only the important things that went on in taverns, but also the way our relationship with the institution itself evolved over the course of our history, focused mostly on the pre-Prohibition era.  Indeed, the book seems a little skimpy on the history thereafter, though I totally loved the chapters detailing how women gained acceptance (or didn’t) at the brass rail and the critical role bars played in the Gay Rights movement.  My favorite anecdote, however, was that Mr. Theodore Geisel, whom we tend to better know as Dr. Suess, authored this fine anti-Prohibition poster to the right in 1942 (Yes, the Prohibitionists didn’t just curl up and die after repeal).  Sismondo notes that Dr. Suess’s father was president of the Springfield Brewery, and so put out of work in 1920.  Apparently, Mr. Geisel was not one to forgive and forget.

4) She Blinded Me With Science!  This week’s Economist has a very interesting article on the relationship between flavor (well, aroma really) and music.  Turns out, we’re all synesthetes, at least to some degree.  The research, soon to be published in Chemical Senses and conducted by researchers at Oxford, looked at whether people would agree on the musical tones that paired with various smells, and found that indeed, there was a rather robust patterning of results.  They had 30 subjects go through 20 odors from a wine-tasting kit, smells that ranged from smoke to apple to violet.  For each smell, the subject chose the tone that best matched it from an array of 52 sounds which contrasted not just specific pitches but also timbre: the type of instrument playing the notes varied from piano to woodwind to brass.

The researchers’ first finding was that the volunteers did not think their request utterly ridiculous. It rather made sense, they told them afterwards. The second was that there was significant agreement between volunteers. Sweet and sour smells were rated as higher-pitched, smoky and woody ones as lower-pitched. Blackberry and raspberry were very piano. Vanilla had elements of both piano and woodwind. Musk was strongly brass.

Fascinating.  Even more interesting was some follow-up research, only briefly mentioned, in which the same researchers looked at the impact of background music on flavor perception.  In that study, they found that the perceived bitterness of toffee varied depending on whether the eater was listening to high- or low-pitched music while evaluating.  Note to beer judges: if you’re on an IPA flight, might be a good idea to modulate those hops with some Lustmord over your iPod.

5) Behold! when you search You Tube for “beer twinkie,” of course you get drunk people eating said confectionary treat on web cams.  Exciting!  But you also get Deep Fried Corn Flake Beer-Battered Twinkies, from gardenfork.tv  Brilliant, or Insane?  You be the judge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHmRUxJj54s

Last night, shortly before I went to bed, a friend from my Halo days tweeted a link to a Kickstarter project for a brewery starting up in Austin. This was, as they say, relevant to my interests.

For those unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it’s a great idea: artists, inventors and other creative types can “crowdsource” the funding of their projects. Rather than find a few large investors, a mass of people from around the world can help fund a project in exchange for various levels of rewards (think PBS pledge drives). If the amount of money they need to make the project is reached then everybody’s credit cards are charged and the project moves forward. If not, no harm, no foul and nobody is charged anything. This way the backers of a project know they aren’t contributing to omitting that has no chance of succeeding.

Kickstarter gets all kinds of projects. I’ve helped fund a book on punk mathematics, a series of music videos for a Syracuse band, a statue of Robocop, a documentary, a video game and most recently a board game. I… I like Kickstarter.

Some of the fellows from Rogness

Breweries fit right in with their ethos, I think. If you don’t think brewing is creative then you’ve obviously never made beer. The first brewery to be successfully funded this way was Mystery Brewing in North Carolina. Others had failed before, and since, and others have been funded as well. I’ve been studying the charts using my mind and my imagination, and so I think I have a few things I think I can contribute to those looking to help fund a brewery this way, even though we have not done it ourselves. (Though I have put in a lot of research into this, haven’t I? Hmm…)

The size of your goal matters. Rogness is asking for $60,000. That’s a lot. It’s over $15,000 more than Mystery received, and they’re the most successful Kickstarter brewery to date. Only three have made it over $40,000.

Why is this important? It’s the all-or-nothing aspect of Kickstarter. If you ask for $20,000 and get $60,000, you get $60,000. If you ask for $60,000 and get $50,000, you get nothing. The reasoning for this is so that you have enough money to do what you’re trying to do: if you need $40,000 to record an album and you get 10, well then you can’t record an album (numbers pulled out of my ass). For a brewery, though, no Kickstarter so far has been for the entirety of the money needed: it’s in addition to other, more traditional means of fundraising. That’s because starting a brewery takes a lot of money. If Rogness is fully funded, they still wouldn’t be able to pay for the cost of our brewery buildout alone. That says nothing of our equipment and fermenters — some of the smallest and cheapest you can get — or of how much rent we’ve been paying since we moved in.

Rogness is no different: they say they already have their location, brewhouse and fermenters. It sounds like they’re moving ahead regardless of whether or not the Kickstarter is funded, though, in which case I probably would have aimed a bit lower. How much you get, however, also depends on my next point:

Spread the word. Mystery Brewing is in North Carolina. I know people in Rochester who helped fund it. It’s because the idea was novel, and homebrewers like the idea of living the dream. Some breweries have done a great job of pimping their Kickstarter url, and other not as well. Rogness should be okay on this front if for no other reason than one of the founders is Forrest from Austin Homebrew Supply, one of the biggest homebrewing stores in the country. I think he’ll do okay for himself.

If you don't know Minecraft, these might not seem awesome. But it's a PIGGY BANK shaped like the PIGS.

Incentives are key. Most of the Kickstarter projects I’ve backed have been for a combination of wanting to support the project and because I wanted cool stuff. Two of them have been for $1, which are obviously entirely the former (although don’t think I didn’t want that wind up Creeper toy from the Minecraft documentary). I’m not trying to grade Rogness on their proposal; just use them as a jumping off point. For a brewery, I think you need a combination of tangible benefits — every project ever gives out a pint glass eventually — and more “experience” rewards, like brewmaster dinners. This way you’re not entirely bogged down in having to pay for tangible benefits.

$1. Having a low minimum donation level is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you’ll probably get people who otherwise wouldn’t donate. Do you think I’d have dropped any significant amount of money on helping to build a statue of Robocop in Detroit? On the other, people who may have donated $5 or $10 might be satisfied with a $1 reward. If 10% of the people would, you’re breaking even. This conundrum requires statistics and research, and I have neither. I do have hearsay, which is a kind of evidence. I’m just pointing out the issue, not claiming I have the solution for it.

Right. Well. That’s Kickstarter, as I see it. Chances are this post won’t have been useful to many people, but I love the site and I love breweries, so I’ve thought about their connection probably more than I need to. It’s worth pointing out that in addition to the Rogness Brewing Company there are two other breweries currently seeking funding: Beardedladybeer‘s “open source brewery” in Pen Argyl, PA, and Leisure Sports Brewing, a nanobrewery in Pittsburgh. If you like what they have to say, maybe toss a few bucks one of their ways.

A hearty thanks to everyone who came to see us last Friday at the Buffalo Brewfest. I was a little worried about the reception we’d get: after all, it was an event where people came to drink beer, and we had only our smiles and a pile of t shirts.

Greg and Ethan manning the booth

Our mailing list got close to 150 new subscribers because of the Brewfest. You have signed up for our mailing list, right? The inaugural message will be going out tonight, and I don’t want you to miss out. Collect them all! It’s worth noting, of course, that when 150 people sign up for your mailing list, somebody must then enter their details into a spreadsheet. That’s how I’ll be spending my night, tonight. Sometimes you’re the rock star, sometimes you’re the roadie.

Julia Burke of the New York Cork Report, proud owner of CBW's first women's t shirt

It’s worth noting that the people of Buffalo are awesome. Don’t ever forget that.

Finally, we got an email this week from the Brewer’s Association. You may be surprised to find out that we are not the only small brewery in the process of opening in the country! There are actually quite a lot of us. According to them, there are 725 breweries in the process of starting this year, up from 389 last year. That’s even better when you consider that these numbers are inherently low: they can only go on the number of breweries who have contacted them, and many aren’t yet at that phase. We got our start over a year ago, after all, but 2011 will be the year Community Beer Works will be considered to have been founded.

That nearly double the number of breweries are starting this year than last naturally leads to the question of whether or not their customers I’ll support them. “If you build it, they will come” is only guaranteed in movies starring James Earl Jones.

We think so, obviously. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Buffalo is a great beer town, and has the potential to be one of the best in the country. Luckily for everyone, the numbers support this growth: craft beer sales in 2010 were up 14% by volume in the first half of the year, as opposed to a 9% increase in the first half of 2010. This is a fantastic, but not surprising, trend: people want good beer, and more and more breweries are starting to quench that thirst.

That’s it for this week. Hopefully we’ll see you this Saturday!

I used to consider myself a beer snob.

I don’t anymore, and I think I’ve talked about this in the past. I do still quite like beer, and by that I mean good beer, but I try not to go out of my way to be a prick about it. I have had exactly one bottle of Bud Light and one can of Budweiser in my life, because people have handed them to me and I didn’t want to say “Huff! No thanks.”

Except with pint glasses and hop cones

Even so, places like the Blue Monk and Mister Goodbar are my candyland. The first time I walked into the former, I got a little giddy looking at the tap list. For years when asked where I wanted to be taken out for [insert special occasion], it’d be Pizza Plant because I could get good beer and a pod with jalapenos. I spent $70 on beer for Thanksgiving, entirely due to Rudy’s advice (and, okay, some of those were for my own cellar).

So it was (so it goes) that I read an editorial in Time Out Chicago called “The Contrarian: Has the craft-beer revolution gone too far?” Its premise, essentially, is that beer lovers are ruining beer because they’re too damn picky about things and why can’t we all just drink a beer and be done with it?

Has the craft-beer revolution gone too far? Its beverages are delicious, but its culture can be oppressive. And its most outspoken creators, servers and consumers have become a new generation’s record-store clerks: If a record-store clerk is someone who knows everything about music except how to dance to it, then the craft-beer connoisseur is someone who knows so much about beer that he’s the last person in the world you’d want to drink it with.

Not surprisingly, I disagree with this thesis.

Some of it is self motivated: author Keir Graff argues that bars need fewer taps, so ordering a beer isn’t as complicated. The fewer taps at any given pub, the harder it will be for us to get our beer attached to one. That goes beyond just business, of course: I like having choices. It’s a bit odd that the tagline of the article talks about beer “losing its democratic appeal” when it later argues for bars limiting options.

I also take issue with the idea that knowing more about beer is a bad thing. Graff says that he isn’t saying that, of course, while reiterating the point constantly. The hypothetical situation of a party where the host spends an overlong period of time describing what beer is available while the helpless guest’s “mouth grows drier and drier”? He’s going to the wrong sorts of parties. At every homebrew club meeting, every beer gathering, every time I go to a CBW member’s house, beer is immediately pressed into my hands and then we talk about what to drink next.

“Beer doesn’t have to be fussy, elitist and overcomplicated. That’s what wine is for.” Now I think he’s just trolling me.

Okay, enough of Outraged Blogger Dan. I’m aware of my own ridiculousness. I mean, I have an opinion on the Oxford comma, for Eris’ sake (it’s unnecessary, tedious, and no longer officially supported*). Time for Devil’s Advocate Dan to step in.

Choices can be bad. I admit that I have occasionally run into the paradox of choice, where I have to choose one thing — be it a beer, an entree or something I don’t put into my mouth — and none of the choices stands clearly above the rest, so I feel like I’ll regret it no matter what. The solution to this, of course, is to order a damn beer and be done with it, not to limit the number of options I have.

"You're the one who wrote 'every kind of mustard' on my shopping list!"

Then there’s the fact that 30+ taps, many of them bearing names that are Belgian, German or otherwise, can be intimidating. It’s true. Sitting next to someone who takes a sip and identifies the varieties of hops used, when you’re feeling proud of yourself for trying a “dark” beer that isn’t Guinness, may not be the most welcoming situation.

Yet there’s no way I’m going to say that the straw man I just invented shouldn’t be able to go on about beer to whatever minute level of detail they want. If you’re new to the beer world, I’m going to let you in on a secret. Whenever you feel intimidated by someone who clearly knows more than you? Don’t be.

The beer community is by far the nicest group of people I’ve ever met. They’re absurdly friendly and welcoming, even when you occasionally say something silly that shows you don’t know as much as they do. We don’t care. We just like beer, and want you to enjoy it too. People that are condescending about beer aren’t called beer snobs, they’re called assholes, and we don’t like them either.

Graff’s editorial was not for me: it may have been about me, but I was not its target audience. While I disagree with much of it, I think it raises some very important points: mainly, that if we want to embeer the world that we need to remember the people currently drinking Labatt’s might be interested in craft beer, but not if we force it upon them in an overbearing way.

In the end, I’m an outlier: I brew, I write about beer and I’m devoting my life to the production and propagation of beer and beer culture. One of my favorite books is about the history of the IPA. I’m curious to see what others think of the article, because I may think this isn’t a problem (can’t you just get off the elevator?**) when it is. That would be the real problem, and if us overbearing know-it-alls are getting in the way of your enjoyment of beer then we need to know. It takes a village to embeer.

* Did you catch that delicious irony?
** You are either annoyed by this reference or don’t get it, and either way you don’t need to read up on it.

So, yesterday was BarCamp Buffalo. Now, that might be slightly misleading: yes, it has bar in the title, and it’s being discussed on the blog of a brewery. But it’s not a camp about bars, or a camping trip where you stay overnight at a bar (though doesn’t that sound fun?). No, BarCamp is a series of conferences where a bunch of creative/computery folk get together and give presentations to each other on various topics that interest them.

I did, as it happens give a talk on CBW, nanobrewing and the process of opening a brewery. Elizabeth from KegWorks gave a great talk on writing content that will rank well in Google but not seem too spammy. Also, there was a keg of Flying Bison’s Rusty Chain that we devoured like a cow in a piraña infested river. So, perhaps BarCamp wasn’t as much of a misnomer as it could have been. It was a great time, and the subjects ranged wildly: from an intro to programming to command line tools to run tasks in parallel to how to win at rock, paper, scissors to a guy in Joker makeup giving presentation advice from The Dark Knight. No, seriously.

This makes sense in context, I swear

I’d like to thank everyone who stayed for my talk, which I titled “Fun & Excitement While Opening a Brewery.” The title didn’t have a witty play on words like I’d wanted, but at least it was fairly long. If you’re interested, I’ve posted it on Slideshare. Many of the other talks are being linked to on the BarCamp Buffalo Facebook page, so if you haven’t already you should join the group. There should be another in the fall, and I encourage you all to attend.

But, wait, did someone say Facebook? (Yes, I did, but shut up you’re ruining the segue) Today we reached 1,100 fans on Facebook! That’s absolutely incredible. Thank you, everyone. As I said last night: it’s astounding that we have such a following when we aren’t even producing any beer yet. It’s a testament to how thirsty this town is, and we hope we can be the brewery Buffalo deserves. Er, sorry, that’s the Joker guy coming through again.

One of the things that a few presentations through the night stressed is that people need to develop code and submit it to github. Get it noticed, get feedback on it. Contribute. Don’t be afraid if it’s not perfect. I’ve been meaning to release the code for the progress thermometer plugin displayed above, but hadn’t because there’s still a bug with a certain number of options. So, to hell with that, I say! I put it on github today, so if you think you can use it — it’s been suggested that it might have uses for libraries and nonprofits tracking renovations, fundraisers, etc — have at it. Let me know if you like it!

Finally, the first installment of the Buffalo. For Real TV web series was released today, and it deals with the beer culture and history of Buffalo. It’s a great video, and we look forward to joining in on this tradition. Embeer Buffalo.