Beer Wars

Beer Wars is a documentary on the beer industry that looks at the small craft brewer and their hurtles against the big macros breweries. A big focus is the three tier distribution system for alcohol.  The three tier system was put in place after prohibition to protect the consumer from the evil alcohol producers. Now it is mostly controlled by Budweiser and MillerCoors so small craft brewers have a hard time getting their product to the market regardless of demand. 

The movie was created by Anat Baron who helped put out Mike’s Hard Lemonade.  She claimed to be in the beer industry which makes her craft beer audience cringe.  It was an interesting look at the industry from the point of view of the small brewer.  Sam from Dogfish Head and Greg from Stone were featured.  I found the huge size of the beer lobby which represents the distributers and the big two beer companies interesting.  There is more money in beer lobbying than guns and cigarettes combined. 

The cool thing about the movie was the live satellite feeds before and after. Before the movie there was a live feed of Anat who gave a brief introduction. Then we watched the movie. And afterwards she had a live feed of Ben Stein moderating a small panel of industry folks who were in the movie. The panel included Greg and Sam, a guy from the Brewers Association, a former partner of Jim Koch’s who created a caffeinated beer, a guy from BeerAdvocate.com, and some other industry “expert”. Ben asked questions and tried to get a discussion going. An interesting moment was when they showed an outtake from the movie where the BeerAdvocate guy said the caffeinated beer was crap. After the clip they went back to the panel with both the BeerAdvocate guy and the woman who created the caffeinated beer sharing an awkward moment live in front of a large audience.

It was an interesting view in to the industry. It would be good for someone not familiar with the craft beer movement or the three tier distribution system. The size of the macro beer lobby is what I learned the most about. The coolest part of the movie was the live aspect. They should do that for all documentaries and other movie events.

Béla brings back Africa

Béla Fleck is doing a tour for his new album and African project called Throw Down Your Heart. Basically he went to Africa to study the origins of the banjo, met some amazing African musicians, made an album and brought them back for a tour. Robin and I went last night to check it out. 

Back in the day concerts used to cost about $20. Lesser known and regional bands would be between $10 - $20 and the tour of the year might be $25. We used to think $25 was expensive. Then reunion tours started coming around for $30 and $40. Craziness right? That was in the 90’s and now it’s not uncommon for some group to charge $80. Well anyway I was not happy about shelling out $50 for a ticket to see Béla and friends but I figured it was a unique experience and I was curious about these musicians.

It wasn’t the normal scene at the State Theater. I usually show up right before the main act with the place relatively full but a few open tables as most people are standing around the stage. For Béla the old crowd came out and came early. Every table was full and every seat in the balcony was taken. Robin and I had to dance in front of the stage all night and that was OK with us.

Béla played a few songs solo first. His routine was to let a musician come out and play solo and then Béla would join him for a song or two. D’Gary from Madagascar came out first. He has an incredible fingerstyle guitar technique that really impressed me. It was as if he would play a whole scale in one or two beats. He was accompanied by a percussionist who played basic rhythm but was supposed to be a hotshot himself. Vusi Mahlasela played guitar but it was his voice that was memorable. He was all over the place and quite versatile in his range. Anania Ngoglia came out next with some odd thing called a thumb piano. It was basically a small wooden box in his lap played with his thumbs (of course). Anania sung in either a very high or very low voice which was sorta amusing.

Toumani came out last with the most interesting instrument called a kora. This thing was like a sitar but it stands straight up with the strings facing the musician. It has 21 strings on a short neck, they are all different lengths so there is no fretting like on a guitar. You play by plucking the strings with your thumbs and index fingers. Playing 21 strings with four fingers this guy was able to play the bass, melody, and solo at the same time. Toumani apparently is considered one of the best kora players in the world. He would whip through a scale in no time with all those strings.

It was interesting to hear Béla play with each musician. It is not everyday you see the world’s best banjo player jam with the world’s best kora player. There was some good instrumental interaction between Béla and his guest artists. He said the most interesting part of the tour is hanging out with everyone on the bus and getting to know the different musicians from the different cultures.

Phish tix

I scored the much in demand tickets to Phish at Merriweather on August 15th. I did spend double the face value but I consider that a convenience fee. It would have taken me many hours to find them cheaper if that is possible. Craigslist was the middle man. A place where you can get anything for the right price. Having tickets to a local show makes me less likely to want to go to Bonnaroo and deal with that mess. We'll see. Hopefully Merriweather will be a rockin' Saturday night show.

George Will’s baseball party

The place to be in DC tonight if you are a hotshot in politics, journalism, or baseball was George Will’s annual baseball party. He is a big baseball fan so he invites all the DC elite and the Washington Nationals over for drinks at the opening of each season. My friend Sarah is his niece. She invited me to his party last year but she was late getting back in to town and made a late appearance without me. She said Dick Cheney was there (the Secret Service made sure no one stole her bike) and that she upset Alan Greenspan and he walked away from her. This January Obama was over at George’s for dinner.

Sarah told me it was business casual so I wore the same clothes I wore to the office but we didn’t realize business casual meant a tie and jacket with these people. I was the only guy there without a tie although there were quite a few bow ties. He had a valet service out front and a large catering truck in the driveway. The first floor of the house was packed and out the back door was a heated tent. It was an elaborate thing customized to his house and porch with multiple rooms to fit his backyard. 

Sarah and I can’t recognize anyone in politics, journalism, or the Nationals team. We were literally rubbing up against all the whose-who of DC without having a clue who anyone was. I did recognize George Stephanopoulos and Alan Greenspan. Sam Donaldson is hard to miss and he hung out with us for a bit being quite friendly. Cokie Roberts and Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Alito were there. Many of the old faces looked familiar and there were lots of senator lapel pins. Some Capitol Hill staffer would have been in heaven. 

The one beer being served at the open bar was Brooklyn’s Pennant Ale ’55. 

Caps

Having just realized that the hockey season is about over I noticed that the Caps only have three more regular season games left and decided I needed to get on that sooner than later. Being the third to last game and being that the Caps are relatively good this year Wednesday’s game was all sold out. I’ve found StubHub to be a good resource for last minute tickets and found a few for the game. There were about 5 sets of seats in the upper level and one pair in the lower level. Having had season tickets in the second row near center ice I’m a bit spoiled and was all about scoring that one pair in the lower level. They were only $86 each as well which is damn near face value. So I got on the horn and recruited a partner without much trouble. Then back to StubHub to get the tickets. Except they were gone. Sold while I was on the phone. 

They were the only lower level seats on StubHub and I didn’t want to go to my last game of the season sitting with the peons in the nose bleed seats (FWIW the real fans are in the upper level). I decided to take the risk and try the scalpers at the front door before the game. I was a bit worried with a sold out game that prices would not be low. I denied a pair of upper level tix right at the metro exit and found what I was looking for with the regular professional scalpers. I was given a few choices although not center ice. I forgot to familiarize myself with the seating chart beforehand and had to take a pair at random. $60 each was a good deal. They were on a corner at the Caps end. 

It was a great game. It was a brand new team when I saw them in the beginning of the season and it’s a different team now. Ovechkin scored of course; goal #54. It was a come-from-behind win. There were a few fights and some great hockey. The Caps were down going in to the third period. I had a few outrageously priced beers and had a good time.

Afro Cuban Allstars

Robin and I saw the Afro Cuban Allstars at the Strathmore Music Center Tuesday night. They play in DC often but this is the first time I have seen them. Robin was doing a 90 mile ride on the W&OD trail and wasn’t 100% sure she was going to make it back so we didn’t get tickets in advance. We showed up with perfect timing and got decent seats at the back of the floor level. Every seat at the Strathmore is a good seat. They played better than I expected although I didn’t know exactly what to expect. They claim to all have roots from the Buena Vista Social Club and Juan de Marcos, a former member, is the band leader for the Afro Cuban Allstars. There were about a dozen members in the band with a horn section, a couple vocalists, a bassist, drummer, percussionist, and piano player. The piano player was amazing. He put together a few solos with dynamic jams that got you movin’. All of the horn players soloed and they were all very good. They would all thrown down and get a groove on but no one threw down like the piano player. 

Juan de Marcos talked a bit about opening up Cuba but was careful to not get too political. There appeared to be many Cubans in the crowd. The band even got everyone to stand up and dance at the end which is not a normal sight at the Strathmore. 

Cherry Blossom geotag bike ride

I didn’t want to do the normal picture thing at the Cherry Blossom Festival again this year and with all the location based stuff going on these days I decided to do some geotagging.  Tuesday was a sunny warm day compared to the rest of the week so I took the afternoon off to bike around DC and take pics of all the cherry blossoms I came across. Unfortunately my camera doesn’t have GPS so I had to manually tag all the pics with their location. I took pictures of anything remotely resembling a cherry blossom tree. I didn’t realize how many are around town. I guess when they are only blooming for a few weeks out of the year you don’t realize they are there. They are quite nice looking for that small period of time and a big contrast from the winter.

You can tell there are a lot of people in town during the weekends because of the festival but the tidal basin wasn’t crowded on Tuesday. There were people but it wasn’t the normal herd of cattle going around the tidal basin trail. There were no lines at the porto-potties or vendors and there were tables open. Instead of a beer garden they had a Japanese tea garden. Although everyone in it was drinking beer.

I also found trees blossoming around the White House and a few small parks around DC.

map view of photos

UPDATE: It was a windy day today and the air was filled with cherry blossom petals. They even swirl around my 10th floor office window.