Two Beer Stories, One Great, One Not, In This Week's Beer News
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One of the best stories about a Chicago brewery you’ll read all year graced our feeds from Block Club this week. Do yourself a favor and read every word of “The Barrel That Launched A Sour Beer Movement Is Now At Chicago’s Off Color Brewing” for writing like this:
Wildly occurring yeasts dance inside towering oak vessels that once aged red wine back in Laffler’s ancestral Italy, creating beers that crackle and zip with notes of fruit or flowers. Many are later married with ingredients like pomegranate, peppercorn, herbs or Japanese cherry blossoms.
This sounds like someone who actually likes beer, writing about beer! What a concept. The whole story traces the lifespan of one incredibly influential beer barrel, from a winery to New Belgium to Russian River and Side Project and now to Off Color, with tons of sourced quotes and just an overall fun narrative in beer. It’s even got a great tease: What beer is going to come from this?1 And where’s the barrel going next? We’ll see!
Anyways, you should go read that.
And you should shudder at this “story” on a site called Lagrada Online. This popped up in my inbox thanks to FoGBD Bill who flagged this AI-fueled garbage that’d be laugh-out-loud funny if it wasn’t such an indictment of the current state of the journalism industry.
Here’s the lede:
“The city of Howell in Michigan, United States, is mourning the closing of one of its most emblematic establishments in the brewing industry. It is Anchor Brewing. It is a family-owned establishment specializing in craft beer. “
Wait … what? Anchor Brewing moved to rural Detroit? And only just closed recently? And it’s both 100+ years and 14 years old? Huh?
Yes, some dingdong screwed up the story of the closing of Eternity Brewing so badly that they let an AI somehow hallucinate its way to San Francisco and the shuttering of Anchor.
Here’s some other things I learned from this garbage story:
On beer’s origin: “Its origin goes back to the Sumerian people, the first great civilization of the Middle East. It was the most common drink, and against all odds, it was brewed by women.”
On beer types: “There are many types of beers depending on their flavor, bitterness, hop flavor, aroma, color, and a long etcetera.”
On craft beer: “It offers a wide catalog of beer, but the most successful is undoubtedly the local and craft beer.”
At least they didn’t make up the quotes out of whole cloth since they only had to copy and paste from this Facebook post. Still, pretty awful. Beer journalism as a whole has never been very well-respected as a whole but this strikes me as a new low. Not sure why this stuff gets to coast on Google News results but so many actual writers don’t. Thanks, AI overlords. I hate it.
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FOX-32 and ABC-7 both shared news about Sam Adams recently awarding Moor’s Brewing Company the “Brewing the American Dream” victory.
Smile Politely drank through a couple flights at Riggs Beer Co. and came away pretty impressed, especially by the Citraweizen.
Decorah News wrote up the annual Dreaming of Fields Day at Pulpit Rock Brewing Company, which features beers made with local grains “including corn from FLOLO Farm near West Union and a heritage variety of Ukrainian wheat.”
Brewbound has the press release for the new foeder-aged Dragon’s Milk IPA from New Holland. Premium Subscribers: Remember when we showed you this all the way back in January? 😀
If you start seeing a lot more about “Michigan Crafted” it’s because there’s a new campaign out there now from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Michigan Craft Beverage Council intended to “connect consumers to world-class, locally made beer, wine, mead, cider and spirits.”
Griffin Claw brewed a new hazy IPA to celebrate the release of season 4 of “The Bear” - it’s naturally called Yes Chef.
Axios listed the top 10 breweries in Michigan by volume, with a huge year-over-year jump for Eastern Market Brewing Company.
RacketMN has a list of five beers you should try for a Pride-filled June, including a beer from Hammerheart that they describe as a “charismatic Kristin Stewart-esque lesbian fuckboi of a beer” and just like that I have another new favorite beer writer.
Axios also listed the top 10 breweries in Minnesota by volume, and there were some big swings in size since last year for a few of them - Fair State especially.
Coon Rapids’ Alloy Brewing announced that they’d be closing in mid-July at the end of their lease, citing “rising costs, supply chain hurdles, and an incredible decrease in sales over the last three years.”
What’s going on at Urban Chestnut, post-Chapter-11 restructuring? St. Louis Magazine found out here.
In September, Side Project is planning on releasing a For Friends lager in support of Friends of Kids with Cancer.
John Christ Winery recently reopened under new ownership … which we mention here because they opened a new brewery alongside it, called Laughing Bomb.
Cleveland’s Noble Beast Brewing came up with their own take on the “spaghett” beer cocktail, no High Life needed.
If it’s midway through the year, that means it’s time to announce the annual Christmas Ale in July party from Great Lakes Brewing Company.
Roofers started a fire at Rocky River Brewing Company that did over $3 Million in damages. Yikes.
More coverage about the closure of 1840 Brewing Company came from the Journal-Sentinel, and Milwaukee Magazine spoke with one of the owners about the decision to shutter. WTMJ stopped by on the final night of service; nice to see so many people coming out to show their support.
The Journal Sentinel also takes us on a walk down memory lane through all 50 years of Miller Lite, which is worth a click just to look at the branding through the years and to remember that vortex bottles were briefly a thing.
Menominee Falls may have a new brewery soon in the form of Clockwork Brewing & Blending.
Barrel One Collective, the company that runs Harpoon, Smuttynose and Long Trail, acquired another brewery last week: Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company, dedicated to all-imperial-style beers.
Last week’s most-clicked link: The Block Club story about Lake Effect opening their taproom. A nice bookend to our first story this week.
In addition to this Monday beer news roundup, we also provide a deep dive into the week’s TTB-approved beverage labels on Wednesdays (for Premium Subscribers only) and an events listing on Fridays (Premium Subscribers also receive a roundup of social news shared by beermakers).
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If something from this barrel doesn’t pop up at FoBAB this year, I’m going to be bummed.