September is the traditional end of summer in my part of the world, so I thought that I'd use this month to offer up a few reflections and observations that have come to mind and palate over the course of this past season.

     Whither the Major North American Brewers? -- August ended for me in a flurry of interviews concerning the current position and potential fate of Canada's two biggest breweries, Molson and Labatt. It seems that the business community is unconvinced that all the right buttons are being pushed at the twin behemoths, as also seems to be the case in the United States with the numbers two and three breweries there, Miller and Coors. For my part, I noted that neither craft-brewed beer nor the imports are likely to go away any time soon, and that the big concern of the majors must certainly be to adapt to that new playing field. So far, it would appear that only Anheuser-Busch has been successful in navigating that new territory.

     Hope for Celiacs Who Like Beer -- Over the course of this year, I have received a steadily increasing number of emails from people searching for gluten-free beers for either themselves or friends who cannot digest glutens. (Persons who are gluten-intolerant are known as celiacs.) Finally, there seems to be a few rays of hope for these people, in the form of a nascent company in the US, rumblings about gluten-free, quinoa-based ales in Belgium and a rice and buckwheat ale called La Messagère being brewed in Québec.

     While I haven't heard anything in a disturbingly long time from the American company, Bard's Tale Beer (http://www.bardsbeer.com), and have yet to receive detailed information about the quinoa project of the Proefbrouwerij in Belgium, I have had an encounter with La Messagère. The product of the innovative brewery Les Bières de la Nouvelle France (Beers of New France), La Messagère is a very light-coloured ale with a somewhat medicinal and faintly spicy aroma and a light, thin body that is, again, only faintly spicy, with a few hoppy and fewer flowery notes, and appley fruit in the second half. While I'd love to report that this is a flavourful ale for celiacs and non-celiacs alike, I'm afraid that instead I have to say I was disappointed by its thinness and lack of overall character.

     And on the Cocktail Front -- One trend that seems to be shaping up in North America is a return to traditional cocktails like the sazerac, sidecar and manhattan, ones which emphasize the flavour of their component spirits rather than the sweetness of exotic fruit juices. They may not yet be elbowing aside those sugar-rich faux-martinis that have become so ubiquitous in recent years, but at least they seem to be on the move.

     Back to the Majors -- One beer trend that shows no signs of easing up any time soon is the promotion of major brands through devices that have nothing at all to do with the beer. For example, the big selling point for Labatt Blue this summer was a new case which sits in the fridge and allows the cans to roll down and be dispensed one at a time. Excuse me, but hasn't soda been sold in cases like that for several years already? And isn't selling beer based upon its packaging a tacit admission that pretty much all major label brands tastes the same?

     And What Is It About Beer Anyway? -- Yet again this summer, I was struck by the bizarre attitudes North Americans have towards beer. Unless there's a celebration afoot or it's the end of a long and hard day or a night out at the conclusion of the week, having a can of cola or an overpriced bottle of filtered water is almost always considered more socially acceptable than is enjoying a bottle or pint of beer. Yet the soda contains little more than water and sugar or some artificial sweetener, plus perhaps caffeine, whereas the (unpasteurized) beer offers vitamins and other nutritional content, in a beverage with roughly the same calorie count. Of course, beer also has alcohol, a measly 5% or less on average. And for that sin, we demonize it.

     As I mentioned at the outset, bizarre!

• Spirited Foods June 2007
• The Culinary Beauty of Belgium May 2007
• Considering Oysters & Beer April 2007
• A Country, a Beer, and an Equation Not Necessarily Sound March 2007
• Besting Wine with Beer and Chocolate February 2008
• A Year in Beer & Food January 2008
• Cooking Up My Last Supper December 2007
• The Best of Beer Fests? November 2007
• My First Visit to Oktoberfest October 2007
• So What IS Balance, Anyway? September 2007
• Revisiting the Beer Cocktail August 2007
• Sampling The Ubiquitous Chip July 2007
• Three Stops in Philadelphia June 2007
• Time to Kill the Cold May 2007
• Sahtis and Saunas in Lammi April 2007
• Turning St. Patrick on His Head March 2007
• A Tale of a Tasting February 2007
• Twelve Months of Beer January 2007
• The Year in Beer Blogs December 2006
• The 25th Edition of the Great American Beer Festival November 2006
• Why Can't Somebody Explain this Beer to Me? October 2006
• Ten Years Can Be a Long Time September 2006
• Rethinking the Draught-Bottle-Can Paradigm August 2006
• Light, fizzy beers are losing popularity July 2006
• Beer & Health June 2006
• Tallking Tin May 2006
• Consider the Cocktail April 2006
• The Future of Big Breweries? March 2006
• A Potpourri of Beer News February 2006
• Looking Forward in 2006 Janaury 2006
• Gifts for the Gourmand December 2005
• Beer Tasting 101 November 2005
• The Great Canadian Beer Festival October 2005
• The Passion of Mondovino September 2005
• Belgium Came to Cooperstown ... Again August 2005
• Ten Truly Great Summer Beer Experiences July 2005
• Great News for Good Beer June 2005
• Flogging A Dead Horse May 2005
• Hey Molson-Coors, What Do You Have Against Taste? April 2005
• Beer and Food Pairing Gains Popularity! March 2005
• Bud for the Cocktail Set February 2005
• Looking Back and Looking Ahead January 2005
• Holiday Wishes December 2004
• The 2004 Great American Beer Festival November 2004
• The Empty Words of Beer October 2004
• A Visit to the Griffin Brewery September 2004
• Oh Look, It's Another Major Brewery Merger! August 2004
• Interview with John Sleeman July 2004
• Creating a Blend June 2004
• World of Beer turns 40 May 2004
• Eighteen Ways to Improve Your Beer Life April 2004
• Drinking Old Beer March 2004
• Drink Local or Drink Quality? February 2004
• 2003 - The Year That Was January 2004
• 2004 - The Year of Lambic December 2003
• Perspective on the Premium Beer Market November 2003
• So What Makes a Bar Great? October 2003
• Random Reflections at Summer's End, September 2003
• Why I Drink Beer, August 2003
• American Beer Month: Controversial Again, July 2003
• The Case for the Complexity of Beer, June 2003
• Enough of the Lowbrow Chic Already!, May 2003
• A Beer Called Lambic, April 2003
• Of Snow and Barley Wines, March 2003
• Lament for a Brewpub, February 2003
• What We Didn't Get Done, January 2003
• More Belgian Bliss, December 2002
• Joanna Blythman is an Idiot, November 2002
• Brakspear and the Name Game, October 2002
• Taking a Taste of the Midwest, September 2002
• Oregon Brewers Festival 2002, August 2002
• In Praise of Expensive Beer, July 2002
• Le Mondial de la Bière, June 2002
• Beers that Go to the Dogs, May 2002
• In Praise of the Pub, April 2002
• A Great Restaurant Town, True, But a Magnificent Beer Town, March 2002
• Right Beer, Wrong Weather: Imperial Stouts in New York, February 2002
• What I've Learned About Beer, January 2002
• Deceptive Names, Deceptive Drinks, December 2001
• The Truth About Dutch Beer, November 2001
• A Very Personal Message from Stephen Beaumont, October 2001
• Smell Your Beer, September 2001
• Travel Karma, Great Beer and the Oregon Brewers festival, August 2001
• Switzerland after Samichlaus, July 2001
• A Tale of Three Bus(c)hes, June 2001
• Announcing a New Great Canadian Beer Guide, May 2001
• Beer Belongs at the Table, April 2001
• A Bevy of Barley Wines, March 2001
• Why Craft Beer is Here to Stay, February 2001
• Y2Beer -- The Year in Review, January 2001
• No Age Verification Necessary, December 2000
• A Tale of a Tasting, November 2000
• In Praise of la Belle Province, October 2000
• The Premium Beer Drinker's Guide is Here!!, September 2000
• The Downside of Beer and Brewing, August 2000
• So Why Do You Drink Beer?, July 2000
• The Summer Joy of Wheat, June 2000
• In Defense of Beer, May 2000
• Ten Days in Belgium, Part II, April 2000
• Ten Days in Belgium, Part I, April 2000
• Ten Days in Belgium, Introduction, April 2000
• A World of Stout, Mar 2000
• The Glass From Which We Drink, Feb 2000
• The Year As It Was: Brews, Fests and Damn Foolishness , Jan 2000
• New Years Eve, Dec 1999
• Beer in the Land of Stout, Nov 1999
• Visiting the World's Best Beer Fest, Oct 1999
• The Secretive Charm of the Bière de Garde, Sept 1999
• The Mixed Marriage of a Beer and a Cigar, Aug 1999

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