Old habits die hard. One of those habits is ordering draft beer. Look, when I visit breweries, I’m obviously going to order a draft beer. It’s fresh and it’s probably served from a clean draft line. But I forget to code-switch when I make an occasional visit with friends to a dive bar. I remembered this last night when I stepped into a dive bar and instinctively ordered a draft pint of Narragansett, my favorite dive bar beer. I took one sip and immediately remembered why I usually drink cans of PBR at this particular bar — the draft lines are nasty, and I struggled through the off-flavors in the pint I drank.
Maybe this comes naturally for you all, but just a reminder that when you go to a bar of questionable quality, please stick to the bottles and the cans that you’re used to.
Now, on this dog day of summer, let’s crack open the beer time capsule…
The Beer Time Capsule: The State of Beer, 1993
Thirty years ago, beer in the United States was on the cusp of big things. The concepts of “microbrews” and “brewpubs” were on the rise, and a niche audience was starting to recognize that there was something more to beer than the mass-produced stuff from the nation’s three largest breweries. I delved into the New York Times archives for a snapshot of how beer was depicted in the news media thirty years ago, and here are some of the highlights.
Beer Trends: Ice Beers and Wheat Beers
Meet the “newest fad-cum-nascent-trend” in beer, Stuart Elliott notes in a September 1993 column: ice beer. Elliott points out that these higher-test “yuppie version[s] of malt liquor” were crossing the border from Canada, where Molson and Labatt’s ice beers had already captured ten percent of market share within six months of launch. Miller was distributing Molson’s version in the states, and A-B would soon encourage consumers to drink Bud Ice (but, beware of the penguins). What was driving this new trend? The need for a larger brand portfolio among large brewers, as “a specialty beer movement that has become significant” was seen as a potential competitive threat.
Meanwhile, food writer Florence Fabricant saw a beer trend catching on in the states among beer nerds: the novel concept of wheat beers. Celebrating their thirst-quenching character in a summer trend piece in July of 1993, she notes that while none of the large breweries in the US were making them at the time (Blue Moon would come along two years later), nearly half of the nation’s small breweries were now making them. Among them: Manhattan Brewing Company, where then-brewer Garrett Oliver (now brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery) told the Times that “it's taken off like a rocket and we'll be making it all summer.”
Fun fact: this marked only the second time the term “Berliner weisse” appeared in the Grey Lady. It had previously appeared back in 1983 in a piece about summertime drinks where writer Frank Prial lamented a shuttered bar in Times Square called The Blue Ribbon that once served the German beer style in bottles.
Jersey’s beer law struggles are nothing new
While New Jersey struggles to modernize its beer laws thanks to a strong restaurant lobby and a chickenshit governor this year, today’s regulatory system for breweries there looks downright enlightened compared to thirty years ago. There was exactly one brewery in the state in 1993: Anheuser-Busch’s still-standing Newark brewery. In January of 1993, writer Margie Druss profiled five microbrewed brands trying to get their start in The Garden State — none of which were actually brewed in-state, thanks to the arcane laws that existed at the time. Brewpubs, which had operated across the Hudson in New York for nearly a decade and were legal in forty other states, were still illegal in New Jersey in 1993, and homebrewing beer had only become legal in November of 1991.
The emergence of beer snobs
With the rise of “microbrews” in the early 1990s came beer snobs. In a January 1993 piece, Florence Fabricant notes the rise in beer lists in fine-dining restaurants. Even chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is quoted in the piece, noting that some of the twenty-two beers on his menu at Vong, a midtown restaurant that closed in 2009, “need to be explained.” Beer pairing dinners and events were becoming commonplace at spots like Windows on the World at the World Trade Center. And the piece acknowledges that “a certain snobbery is probably inevitable” as Americans become more familiar with beer. By October of that year, FloFab is offering a guide to hosting a beer pairing dinner at home, noting that it’s “more convenient” than creating a wine dinner. She offers two recipes to pair with beer: Veal Shanks cooked in Amber Ale and a Prune Cake made with Porter or Stout.
Beer is agriculture
We’re now more than a decade on from the passage of New York’s Farm Brewery law, but nearly twenty years before that, there were glimmers of hope for beer agriculture in the eyes of Mike and Bliss Zisser, an enterprising couple from Shelter Island who aimed to use locally-grown hops in their beer. In May of 1993, the Times noted that Old Peconic Brewing Company planned to source hops grown in Peconic at Krupski Farms for their Hampton Ale. It would take a generation before hop-growing would take hold on the East End of Long Island, but this move was also a nod to the region’s history — the article noted that hops were grown there in the Colonial era. And indeed, the beer was an English-style ale, brewed at Wild Goose Brewery in Cambridge, Maryland under the supervision of Alan Pugsley, a name synonymous with those styles whose resume included both Geary and Shipyard Brewing in Maine.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 3,165
Total breweries visited in 2023: 270
Total breweries visited in South Australia: 11
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #3077, Crafty Robot Brewing, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia (Visited 22-Apr-2023)
I’ve been replaying some of my weeks-long trip to Australia and New Zealand back in my head recently. Maybe I’ve just been taking in too many of the pretty vistas shown during pre-game, halftime, and post-game coverage of the Women’s World Cup while half-asleep on my couch in the middle of the night. Of the stories that I tell from that trip, this brewery factors into one of them for a reason that has nothing to do with the beer — after nearly three weeks in Australia, Crafty Robot’s patio was the first place where I audibly gasped upon seeing a spider the size of my hand… you know, the ones you hear about in tourists’ horror stories. A guy across the way who saw what I saw and heard me gasp remarked, “aw, that’s just a small one!”
In spite of that, the beer here was memorable for how well dialed-in it was on what was its second weekend in operation. The standout was the Pale Ale among what have become their staple beers — American in style with Cascade and Citra hops with a citrusy front and clean finish. But I also really enjoyed their Ginger Hefeweizen — a mashup of styles that was ideal for a warm, muggy evening in Adelaide.
Here’s a fun fact: this was the fifth brewery I visited with “robot” in its name. The others: Sad Robot in Gothenburg, Sweden; Human Robot in Philadelphia; Wooden Robot in Charlotte, North Carolina; and Good Robot in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Historical Nerdity of the Week
In my digging through the Times archives for this week’s newsletter, I came upon this little bit of New York City brewing history: apparently, I’ve been walking past an historic brewery site in the West Village for years without even noticing. This plaque on the wall at 36 Commerce Street marks the home of Alexander McLachlin, who operated his namesake brewery next door from the 1840s until 1860 on the current site of the Cherry Lane Theatre.
The Weekly Reader
Jersey breweries release IPA to stop Murphy foot-dragging on reform bill [Karen Wall, Patch]
Can anything save craft beer from its stagnation? [Jim Vorel, Paste]
When your local beer is no longer local [Kate Bernot, Punch]
Get to know Australian Sparkling Ale in its most prevalent form: Cooper’s [Rob Horner, Good Beer Hunting]
One More Thing
We’re deep in the dog days of summer, but let’s talk about fall and get ahead of an annual event that celebrates New York City’s beer scene. The NYC Brewers Guild’s Blocktobefest is back this year on September 30th. The autumnal occasion features an afternoon full of beers from breweries across the five boroughs, this year in a new venue: Industry City in Brooklyn. Tickets are on sale now, with early-bird tickets starting at $45.
Cheers,
Chris
"Maybe this comes naturally for you all, but just a reminder that when you go to a bar of questionable quality, please stick to the bottles and the cans that you’re used to." - the last part here made me think of the TLC song, 'Waterfalls', and wonder if the lyrics can be rewritten for this scenario. the chorus, at least.
HI Chris, could not figure out how to buy you a beer on Ko Fi, probably user error on my part. but next pint is on me once I figure it out.