News Wrap – February 2016

A day late but it’s February. Famously the worst month and notorious for being difficult and petty when it comes to how many days it has. Some advice February, stop being a jerk and toe the damn line. Anyways, here is the month’s beer news in a series of hilariously witty jabs.

Superbowl

A bunch of beer dorks got all hot about Budweiser daring to do some marketing at the Superbowl or something. They were like “omg they were mean to craft”. Because craft beer is nothing but supportive and friendly towards big beer brands so it’s really mean when they pick on us.

The defence is that it’s probably a power thing but seriously, stop being dorks.

Then the quarterback of the winning team said he was looking forward to ticking a sweet Budweiser after the game and people completely lost their minds to the point where the Brewer’s Association in the USA got together and sent him a bunch of beer. Seriously, if craft beer drinkers weren’t already viewed as the biggest whinging nerds in the world then we are making all the right moves to get to the top spot in 2016. Lookout Men’s Rights Activists. We are coming for you and we are coming in hot.

Speaking of the superbowl, I went along to a pub and ate philly cheese steak, wings and drank a brett fermented black IPA. I wish I was there right now tbh.

Brewdog

Released all of their recipes. All of them. That’s pretty awesome when you think about it. Naturally us beer dorks were upset because… I’m not even sure but it was upsetting. I’m still upset.

Also this cartoon came out. A thinly veiled shot at Brewdog which was pretty funny:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2016/feb/20/stephen-collins-on-craft-beer-cartoon#_=_

ABV cuts to Lion beers

Closer to home, Lion announced it was cutting the alcohol content to three of their beers. I can’t muster the enthusiasm to take an interest in what beers they were and I could google it but so could you. I bet some drinkers will be miffed their beer is being cut by like, .2% abv  or something like that. Probably to avoid tax but this is all so complicated that I don’t even try to care. I also bet us beer dorks are making some awesome jokes like “lol it still tastes like water tho!” and “it worked well for VB”. Hah. Classic stuff.

Indie Beer

I almost forgot this one but there were sincere and genuine calls to rename “craft beer” to “indie beer”. Like, people dropping think pieces on the topic and other dorks going “mmm yeah these are all really good points”. It started in the US but the freight train of “HEY EVERYONE THIS NEW IDEA IS GOING TO BLOW YOUR MIND” soon spread to social media in Australia.

Indie beer. Here is a buzzfeed style series of gifs to show my thoughts on the issue.

MFW I first heard of the initiative:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MFW I realised it wasn’t a joke:

 

 

 

 

 

MRW people wanted me to get on board:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Launch days!

Boatrocker have come out this month with a big launch day for their barrel aged imperial stout known as Ramjet. It’s a US style launch day where you buy tickets and drink a heap of imperial stout than walk away with a bottle and a case. These kinds of releases are pretty par for the course in the US and have slowly turned into a disgusting mess of angry beer dorks.

Look up Huna Day 2014 if you want to learn all about how successful they can be.  Although to be fair I’ve just cherry picked one event and in reality they usually run pretty smoothly. It will be interesting to see how Australia adopts these style of beer releases and if demand rises if we’ll see people camping out overnight, hiring homeless people, and wearing disguises to get more than their fill (these things all happen regularly).

I hope not, and by all acccounts the Boatrocker one looks like it’s going to be a rad day. But be forewarned. BE FOREWARNED.

Queensland  – it’s all happening.

Brewsvegas (the beer week+ in Brisbane) is about to start. Check out our latest podcast for our top tips for the festvial.

Also there were licensing changes to how brewers can sell their beer at festivals and on premise. Weirdly, the changes were positive(!).

Finally there was an announcement that the CBIA will hold their annual conference and awards there later this year.

Good work Brisbane.

Environment is environimportant

Bright Brewery has gone solar and Stone and Wood are on the road holding events centred around beach cleanups. This is awesome stuff. Good work everyone.

Anyway, that’s all I have. I’ll now summarise this wrap in gif form…