Occasionally punctual, sometimes factual, almost never as funny as he thinks,Tony Budny pens SCREAMING INTO THE VOID and looks at the best in writing and social media conversation around the biggest issues in beer. If you feel something should be included, have a tip, or just want to sound off, feel free to look him up on Twitter @DrinksTheThings or email DCBeer.
Welcome back to the Void, which took a brief break for, uh, something. If you have a good reason why I took a break, please let me know.
It is fitting, however, that after a longer than usual hiatus, Quarry House in Silver Spring has announced it will reopen in its original spot. You may remember QH of old basement dive bar fame with good whiskey that was closed due to a fire upstairs. After repair efforts finished in 2016, a water main broke, per the article, forcing four feet of standing water into the bar and damaging it near a point of no return. But, it will be back this week. Silver Spring shall rejoice.
As some establishments open, others shut their doors. Capitol City Brewing's Shirlington location has shuttered. But they will still brew beer for their last location, in downtown DC, in that location, at least for now. This will not be the end of this story.
Northern Virginia’s Ornery Beer Company will close its doors March 12th. Tom Cizauskas sees it off with a nice post about its history.
Phil Runco talked with Perennial Artisan Ale's owner Phil Wymore about how his brewery has changed since opening, and one of DC’s pre imminent beer directors took notice of how they approach their business.
Hang on, before we get to this next segment, we need to purchase some ammunition.
Yeah this person knows we’re about to need large quantities of beer.
Sigh. OK. So we have to talk about this, again, as usual. Avid Void readers know that I have made it a point to help carry the large, cumbersome flag of better representation and branding with regards to gender and race. Here is Scotland’s own PUNK BROS bringing you some PINK PUNKNESS for your facehole. As the article says, this is satire, since pointing out that you have created something in jest is often what is necessary to indicate something is satire, but also bad. I hope you can hear the dejection in my voice, reading this graph.
And BrewDog wasn’t even the first brewery that identifies as counter-cultural to swing and miss at sensitivity. Stone leapt into the Void with reckless abandon with this now deleted tweet. While this humble beer blogger will indeed posit that making a rape joke as part of branding is perhaps a greater offense than a wiff at satire, I will also posit that both of these things are, at the very least, poor attempts at humor that will do more to detract from their brands than promote them. And both could have easily been avoided. And never, for any reason, think that this sort of confrontation is ever an acceptable rejoinder.
Also, please make sure that if your brand is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PUNK APPROVED, that, perhaps, you should consult someone in said marginalized population, or PUNK POP, before attempting something like this. Just one. It will indeed help your PUNK CRED, I promise.
Here is an example of good branding in this regard, from Burning Sky.
Let’s talk about canned beer again.
No no, wait! I promise there’s a reason for this that means something. President Donald Trump said last week he will institute a tariff on imported aluminum and, though he has yet to sign anything official, beer prices in cans will indeed be a bit higher, though not much. The Beer Institute has come out firmly against these restrictions because they will hurt smaller businesses more than larger ones, but prices will go up some across the board. The majority of packaged beer is in aluminum. The price of jooooooooooooce was already pushing $20 a 4 pack in many places, so expect this to increase as well.
Finally, in more industry news, Budweiser has inked a deal to become the official beer of the English Football Association, unseating British best-seller Carlsberg after 22 years.
Should we buy something less pretentious? Nah.
You have reached the end of the Void for this week. That just means a new Void is beginning. No matter your tastes, have a cold one to make it to next week.
