You ever wonder why the reference you find after two and a half years took two and a half years to find? Look at this:

Their best Liquors are Fiall, Passado, and Madera Wines, the former are sweetish, the latter a palish Claret, very spritely and generous, two shillings a Bottle; their best Ale is made of Wheat Malt, brought from Sopus and Albany about threescore Miles from New-York by water; Syder twelve shillings the barrel; their quaffing liquorsare Rum-Punch and Brandy-punch, not compounded and adulterated as in England, but pure water and pure Nants.

This is a description of the drinking habits of the Dutch population of the Hudson Valley of New York from page 35 of a journal published in 1670. It was written by Daniel Denton and was called A Brief Description of New York: formerly called New Netherlands, with the places thereunto adjoining. So in addition to the 1649 legal ordinance barring brewing with wheat during a crop collapse and the 1749 reference by a traveling scientist to the malting of wheat, we have not only confirmation that wheat ale was brewed but it was the best to be had. The description by Denton is particularly trustworthy as it is incidental to other cultural references about the Dutch, particularly about their smoking and drinking habits. There is another reference to beer in his writing, too, that is quite revealing. It sits in this passage about the freedoms being enjoyed in the newish New York:

Here those which Fortune hath frowned upon in England, to deny them an inheritance amongst their brethren, or such as by their utmost labors can scarcely procure a living—I say such may procure here inheritances of lands and possessions, stock themselves with all sorts of cattle, enjoy the benefit of them whilst they live, and leave them to the benefit of their children when they die. Here you need not trouble the shambles for meat, nor bakers and brewers for beer and bread, nor run to a linen-draper for a supply, every one making their own linen and a great part of their woolen cloth for their ordinary wearing.

There you go. Freedom loving prosperous newly absorbed New Yorkers making their own wheat ale and bread from good malt grown around Albany over 100 years before the American Revolution.

So who is going to brew some up? Are there any mid-1600 Dutch guides to household management that include brewing techniques?

Last November, I suggested that one intention of the settlement of the Hudson Valley of New York in the first half of the 1600s was to set up an agricultural colony that might supply other colonial efforts with particular products. One of the books I have obtained as part of this idle bit of slow mouldering research is Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York by Oliver A Rink from 1986. In that book, the early settlement efforts of the 1624-25 season are discussed and I came across this reference on pages 81-82:

While the Oranje Boom languished at Plymouth, the main body of the expedition sailed from the Zuider Zee in a four ship squadron under the command of Willem Verhulst. Verhulst's instructions have survived, and they confirm the Company's intention to establish a permanent agricultural colony in New Netherland. The commander was under orders to Transport to New Netherland "divers trees, vines, and all sorts of seeds" and to have them planted and sown in their proper season..."

In terms of agriculture, there was an importation of norms of methodology - in agriculture as well as brewing. And that likely included hops from the earliest date. Just a few years after Verhulst's flotilla crossed the ocean, the economic model was proving itself not what has been hoped and a new system, the patroonships, was created under which local landowners were granted slices of the colony to operate and feed revenues up into the Company by trading in furs and extending farming under a license from the Company. Kiliaen van Renssellaer, patroon of the greater Albany NY area, was the most successful of all the patroons in North America. It was called "Rensselaerswijck", the "-wijck" meaning district related to the suffix in English place names like Berwick. In an article by Jan Folerts, "Kiliaen van Renssellaer and Agricultural Policy in His Domain: A New Look At The New Patroon and Rensselaerswijck Before 1664", there is a description of the state of affairs a bit more than a decade after the settlement of his version of a colony:

For a number of years we are able to reconstruct which crops were grown in Rensselaerswijck. The tithe results of the years 1642 through 1646 give us a fairly accurate picture of the relative importance of the main crops. At least in this period there was a heavy preponderance of oats (50.8%) and wheat (42.7%). Barley (2.8%), buckwheat (1.7%). peas (1.2%) and rye (0.8%) played only minor roles. The prices of wheat and oats generally were in the ratio of 5 to 2, so in fact wheat was the leading crop in the patroonship. It goes without saying that in respect to the crops that were cultivated, Rensselaerswijck in no way resembled the densely populated areas of the Low Counties. There exactly the “non-grains” gradually took up more space. While the Netherlands for their food supply had made themselves almost entirely dependent on the Baltic region, we see in the American colony a one-sided directedness towards the cultivation of grains...The commercial orientation of the agriculture the first patroon envisaged in his domain, is shown by the history of hops and especially tobacco in the colony. Neither of these crops were a smashing success. Here again the patroon was inclined to believe in huge profits that never materialized. Every morgen was to produce about 6000 pounds of tobacco. According to Roessingh in his dissertation on tobacco culture in the Dutch Republic, even the best crop never amounted to more than one third of this. Problems in making tobacco culture pay were the fact that many tobacco planters preferred quantity to quality, which had a negative impact on the market price, and - in connection with this - the lack of cheap labor.

It's is a tantalizing passing reference to hops, isn't it. Yet point is clear. Not only was the colony in a new world and needed to be self sufficient - it had to create surplus to feed the homeland as well as the greater colonial effort elsewhere in the world. But where is that fact about the hops from? It is the only use of the word in the whole article. Footnote 58 states "VRBM, 233." Hmm... "VRBM"? Footnote 17 states "A.J.F. van Laer, ed., Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1909), 530; hereafter cited as VRBM." Bingo. Somewhere on page 233 in the 1909 edition of the Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts published by Albany's University of the State of New York there is a reference to hops at Rensselaerswijck in the 1640s. Gold. We can also see that hops were valued in New Netherlands at the time from this deal at document 47b for a lump of rock:

I, [Jochim Kiersted, acknowledge the receipt] from the hands of Jan Jansen Damen of a piece of armo[zine for which Kiersted is to pay] the sum of ƒ48 if he [sells] it, otherwise he is to return the piece. [The piece] being sold, he, Jochim Kirste[d], shall pay with hops, malt or [barley], at market prices. Done this 30th of March 1643, in New Netherland, Joachim Kierstet

Why is all this of interest? Because the other week, I wondered whether the old North American hop variety Cluster was a "landrace" hop or the descendant hybrid intentionally or maybe created by implication of the Dutch colonization of the Hudson. And if an agricultural colony is set up with species importation and, then, plant and animal husbandry occurs which results in a hybrid hop part Dutch and part native North American ancestors of Cluster, well, that looks a lot like something that could help determine what indigenous Albany ale in its 1600s and 1700s form was like. Plus, Stan asked which is really always a good reason to start digging in a certain direction.

For this month's edition of The Session, the sixth anniversary edition by the way, we are asked to consider "How We Love Beer”:

...think of the phrase, "actions speak louder than words," so I'm not looking for what characteristics beer has that makes us love it, but what we do to show our love for it.

I do not love beer. I love and have loved people in life. The word may also extend to certain things or times when not applied to people but I can think of only certain striking moments in life that have that special quality. Times out in the woods working or hiking when my senses were all alive and engaged. Or unexpectedly noticing sunlight glowing through some particular leaf of a plant you have been coaxing along in the garden patch wondering if it will take and bear fruit. Perhaps even in that drift towards a nap when smoking meat on a lazy afternoon with a baseball game on the radio comes close. But not beer in itself.

I like beer. Don't get me wrong. So, maybe we can give two cheers for beer. That's enough. I have too many issues with it and, frankly, am not even sure yet after all these years of writing whether it admits variety or permits criticism as those two cheers would require. I needn't dwell on what criticism of good beer can earn you but one sort of variety it may lack is only noticed over time. While we may take pleasure in its range of flavours, never as explored as much as today, or maybe think of the sociability it triggers there is still a sameness to good beer. You can look back on your calendar of past beer events and sessions and see it - fatigue or even l'ennui. It's there.

It's good to take a break. Even date some other drinks from time to time. Good for one's health and the pocketbook, too. It's not something one wants to get all monogamous with, is it? When you think about it, considering yourself "in love with" or "passionate about" or "obsessed with" any pleasure drug is a wee bit creepy. So what do I do for good beer? Not often enough I let it go. If in time it comes back it was meant to be. If not, you probably have moved on in life... or have found more meaning in, say, stamp collecting or hard drugs.

Picked this up at the winery a few weeks before Christmas on a cloudy Monday off work. The Riesling and Cab Franc I bought the same day are gone already. The Devil's Wishbone winery is a thirty minute drive west followed by a wait for the ferry followed by a five minute ferry and another five minute drive up the hill and back to the east at Lake on the Mountain just past the park next door in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

As I mentioned recently, I have started a category for Prince Edward County wine because, well, it is tasty and nearby. While we have three actual production breweries, excepting Ottawa, in eastern Ontario there are over thirty wineries in PEC just over that wee ferry. Once I was up the hill and past the park, the sign for the winery soon came into view. Up a lane and past house, there was a parking lot by the barn with rows of grapes stretching out to the south.

Both Hugh Johnson and Oz Clarke mention PEC in their 2013 guides as a newer upcoming wine zone. But not the Cabernet Sauvignon. And Devil's Wishbone is too new for the latest edition of Crush on Niagara, the surely needing renaming guide to Ontario wines by Andrew Brooks from 2009. But it's handy to my place and on the way.

An interesting flurry of ideas on Twitter this afternoon triggered originally by this statement by Halifax, Nova Scotia's Propeller Brewing Co.:

It was a tough decision. We can only sustain 1 brand (full time) at the @lcbo-Our IPA is our best selling brew...

It was part of a conversation triggered by Brian noticing that the brewery's ESB was being de-listed by this province's government store, the LCBO. In my turn, I too noticed as I have been drinking Propeller's ESB for at least 15 years. Two questions popped into my mind. Specifically, I wonder if I was witnessing another example of quotas being applied at the wholesale level. Last year I noticed how an Estonian brewer stated that only one brewer from the country could sell through the system. Despite courageous corporate effort to dissuade me, it was clear that the LCBO's buying principles were geared to a single placement. Does the same apply even to extra-Provincial Canadian brewers?

But more importantly, there was the general observation that an IPA was pushing an ESB off the shelf. Second perhaps to what can reasonably described as EastEuroLagGak - drearily samey "premium" lagers that likely offer a generous markup - craft IPA is making a move to not just take its place but to dominate shelves here and elsewhere. When something becomes mindlessly trendy like IPA has, it is hard to find fault if that's what the transient buyer now of beer (next who knows) wants - but it is also easy to see the unintended effect. There is only so much shelf space and if IPA sells, well, every brewer has to make one. And in a restricted or even, as here, monopolistic retail economy that means the variety of types of good beer gets restricted. In effect, the IPA has bullied others out of the store.

Is variety in the type of beer more important than variety of brewer or nationality. It is to me. I rarely think I want something Belgian or a beer by Beaus - however much I like that brewery. But I do often want a Belgian brown, a mild beer, a low alcohol stout or a nutty ESB when none are available. There are dozens of other sorts of beer I could list, too. The fifteenth IPA holds no charm for me. What I daydream about are the sorts of beer it may have shoved off the shelf.

It is fun having a giggle at the expense of New Brunswick. It's sort of a cultural requirements for Nova Scotians like me. But this news today seems to be pointed stick to any fun one might find in the beery border war taking place in eastern Canada:

A northern New Brunswick lawyer is challenging New Brunswick's liquor rules that restrict how much alcohol citizens can bring back from other provinces. In October, the RCMP in Campbellton set up road blocks and charged 17 people with illegally importing beer from Quebec. In two weekends, the RCMP seized about 5,000 bottles or cans of beer. Those caught had between six and 45 cases of beer with them. The alcohol was seized and the offenders were handed a $292.50 fine. New Brunswick prohibits people bringing in more than one bottle of wine or hard liquor or 12 pints of beer, approximately 24 bottles or cans, from another province.

Check here to catch up with New Brunswick's beery back story. In a nutshell, as illustrated above they have two lower priced jurisdictions filling the whole of their northern and western borders. Steps have been taken like the government monopoly creating a range of beers that are lower priced but not as low as nearby. No luck. So the police are asked to do their job. And it is their job as moving beer across a provincial boundary is actually not OK in Canada. And most of those charged were, as we say, hauling.

The only thing that really irks me is the idea that you are not offered a way to pay your bill for inter-provincial transit to avoid the offence of crossing the border without paying the proper fee. Maybe that's an argument that legal counsel Mikael Bernard of Balmoral, NB might make in court. Funny, though, how the rather Department of Public Safety wants "to remove barriers for the industry" including "better rules regarding enforcement." Seems like responsible drinking means, in large part, buying what you are told. These are the sorts of thing Nova Scotians notice.

By the way, had a delivery from Quebec myself last week. Lovely stuff. The biere de garde 3 Monts. Just $6.39 a 750 ml. Have to grab more soon.

From The Times of India comes this NYT wire story on a new thing if only new to me:

"More people will want to support your business than if you're just doing it to pay for your second home," said Ryan Saari, a minister and a board member of the Oregon Public House, which is preparing to open here as soon as next month in a residential neighbourhood, pledged by its charter to donating all profits to charity. The beer-for-charity movement, like the microbrew phenomenon that preceded it, is different depending on where you look. In Houston, for example, where a group of giving-minded bar owners opened a place called the Okra Charity Saloon last month, patrons get a vote with every drink as to which charity should receive the next month's profits. A project in Melbourne, Australia, plans to put geography into the equation — sale of a beer from Africa, for example, will be linked to microloans or charities in the country of the beer's origin.

There's a lot in there. I am not sure I would move towards buying beer from a place just because it was charitable rather than for profit. I mean the beer would have to be good. And high price matching high principles did not see me rushing to buy a six of Westvleteren when I had the chance recently. I'd still be wanting to make sure the beer was both good and the price matched the market. Don't get me wrong. I have been doing micro loans through Kiva for years, mainly to folk offering beer in small shops in the third world. It is good to do good.

We've had many beer and church stories over the years but is this different? Is this the movement that creates a new breed of craft brewer, less focused on plan to be the rock star who, you know, doesn't rock? Taking a pass on the extreme after party or even the one in the brew house, looking past the kettle at something of a higher calling? Not sure if I could bear adding sanctimony to the charges one might hear being made. Is that unkind? Sure is. Would you go? Would you hunt a brewery out that was based on these principles?

While the LCBO, this province's monopoly, may be still a bit of a head scratcher when it comes to good beer there is no question that it is certainly getting better. There is no doubt about that. Even so, popping in a main outlet just now on a Saturday night an hour before close I was a bit shocked at how the beer aisle had not been recently restocked, how there was not all that much I was really interested in purchasing. I picked up a couple of bottles of Ayinger Celebrator as well as two tins of William, a cider from Quebec. Both well price quality products to stick away in the stash.

But I was mainly there for a couple of other bottles. Bottles of wine. See, the LCBO does not skimp when it comes to stocking the wine or spirits. Good beer is actually catching up to a pretty respectable standard that sees reliable and uniformly priced products on the shelves of stores in every town and most city neighbourhoods throughout Ontario. I said the same thing almost ten years ago in one of my first beer blog posts and I feel the same today. But it really is with the wine that the government store serves the customer best. We have a couple of branches of the premium store, Vintages, which releases new limited run wines every two weeks - as opposed to every three months or so with the good beer. I was after a couple more bottles of a Spanish wine, Borsao Tres Picos Garancha 2010 for a nickel under 20 bucks each. I figure a bottle of wine provides 4 to 5 servings so it's the equivalent of a 4 to 5 dollar pint of beer. More than you would pay for a good Ontario craft beer like Headstock IPA but still less than a pint out per serving. And it's a wine that's for putting away, too.

When we speak of the relative value of decent well made wine and decent well made beer, should we not compare apples to apples? Too often I hear that good beer is under priced. I have even been told that my job writing this blog should include teaching you people that a beer might be worth even twenty bucks for 750 ml or even 500 ml. But that's for one or two servings. That's comparable to a $40 to $100 bottle of wine - well out of most people's normal price point. Aiming at that market is leaving over 90% of your potential clients behind. Not smart.

Jordan wrote a good piece today about a new brewery in rural Ontario and how it would not rock the socks off any beer nerds - but how that is exactly the right strategy. Because it recognizes that the local market knows the value of the product. Is that a lesson some good beer brewers are forgetting? In a pleasure marketplace with a wide range of affordable options - is forgetting such a thing ever in anyway wise?

Bought this. Got a review copy, too. Read through it but pretty sure I can't really give a review. See, it's sitting at a distance from where I find myself.

What do I mean by that? There are many paths, many routes to understanding. Stan is either on another route from me or so far ahead of me on the same one that I can't see him from here. We should be honest about these things. Fortunately, in life belief fills in where there are these gaps in one's understanding. And I believe Stan most times when I don't understand things. You have to believe like that. And I don't love hops. Very rarely have I taken a long drag on a beer and said to myself "Ah, love those new fangled hops." It does happen. Kipling South Pacific Pale Ale by Thornbridge. That was yum. Happens rarely. Your mileage may differ.

So, now that I have told you that it is me not Stan, what can I tell you of worth in a review like this? Ten chapters and an epilogue. Chapter 6 named "The Hop Store" is a good place to start. 105 varieties are described. And it is not comprehensive. Historic ones are not described. Nor future ones. Which means you have to understand 105 varieties or at least have an interest in learning. Before that list, there is a description of the sorts of hop pellets and hop extracts as well as some sense of how each is used. Which gets to a point. While this is a good book for any wee beer nerd to have on the shelf, it is important that any brewer or would be brewer have it on the bedside table. See, this is a publication of the Brewers Association in its Brewing Elements Series and is subtitled a practical guide. A guide for brewers.

Then look at Chapter 4, "A Plant With A Future" in which the modern botany and husbandry of hop breeding is explained. There is a chart on page 76 from the Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture that describes the genetic distance between a whole bunch of hop varieties. Detail. But this is not dry statistics. Stan interweaves the narrative on the development of hops in our culture with quotes and anecdotes from leading brewers and hop breeders from around the world. Full of insight and detail. The book is full of it. Allowing the reader to be brought along with a complex or at least voluminous topic. With command and a certain friendly lilt. The whole thing is like this. A damn fine thing.

Secret time. I have seen and listed well over a million types of bird. Feels like that looking back. It was years ago. During L.B.C. - or life before kids - when you could spend weekend after weekend in the woods pishing and twitting and ticking between drinks around the fire reading birder guides to eastern North America. Once at the fire, a Chestnut-sided warbler almost attacked my face around noon on a June Saturday. I was that good a pisher. It was inches away. I could pick out a warbler from just the proctologist's point of view. Maybe I have no room for more natural science lists in my life. Maybe, like with birds now, I don't care so much for the details or the list as much as sitting back and enjoying the experience. Maxed out on that. But I bet you're not like me all that much in this particular regard. Better not be if you are a brewer. If you want to be any good. The rest of you? Of course, you should buy this book.