WEIRD STUFF:

ANARCHIST AMBER ALE:

The other week, while cruising the local liquor store in search of anaesthetic, Molly's beady little eyes set fast on the product pictured to the left. Yup, that's right, 'Anarchist Amber Ale', complete with the circle A and a black can. Gotta get me some. Well, I ended up buying an 8 pack and taking them down to the 'Christmas mixer' where the local IWW and the Trots got together. Molly, being more civilized than she has been in months, only drank one can and donated the rest. It was actually quite a hit according to an email I got back from the organizers of the event.

The stuff is actually not bad at all. It's brewed by a microbrewery out BC way called Cannery Brewing Company. Just exactly the right amount of hops for my taste. Apparently it has been brewed since 2000, but its distribution here to Manitoba is so recent that it isn't even mentioned on their website that. It was mentioned by (who else) 'Mr BeerN'Hockey' on his blog last spring, but I thought he was spinning a yarn. The company site states that the beer is only available in BC and Alberta. Not anymore.

So, here's my little plug for the guys who make beer in an old cannery in Penticton BC. Wanna spice up that next incredibly dull political meeting where the speaker in front drones on and on about dialectics, intersectionality, praxisology and many other words that they barely know the meaning of-including many that have no meaning ? Well...it's obviously "cash bar time", and you can put a little fizz in the dry, dull, dreary business of leftism by flogging 'Anarchist Amber Ale'. Just get on the tails of your local liquor store to start ordering it in. Believe it or not those guys do listen to customer requests. I don't know how well it might go trying to import it to the USA however. I have a vision of a whole truckload being intercepted and "rendered" by a midnight flight to some prison in Bulgaria as a threat to the "natjunal sekurty" of the USA. Ah well, at least it will keep the jailers too drunk to get around to torturing anyone. Be the first on your block to drink the "beer with meaning" on your front stoop and fling the empties at passing police cars. Where else are you going to get a "statement in a can". Fun for the whole family I'm sure.

CANADIAN LABOUR-NEWFOUNDLAND:

MOLSON RETIREES PROTEST BEER CLAWBACK:

Finally, here's a labour cause that every right thinking, patriotic Canadian should be able to get behind. Beer, of course, real beer that is as opposed to the dilute urine sold south of the border, is definitely one of the things that define this country. Retired Molson workers in Newfoundland are protesting a claw back of one of their retirement benefits on the part of the company. The clawback involves the company saying that it will no longer supply its retirees with the traditional 6 twelve packs of beer per month. See the end of this post for further Molly comments on this matter. For now all that I can say is that any Canadian who doesn't recognize this for the atrocity that it is should be hung by a lamp post at dawn for the crime of treason. The story from the CBC...

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N.L beer protest still brewing
CBC News
Retired brewery workers gathered outside a Molson plant in St. John's for the second time this year to protest the company’s plans to cut back the amount of beer pensioners receive every month.

Right now, retired workers get six dozen beer per month from the company but Molson plans to reduce that to one dozen beer per month, as of Jan. 1, 2010.

The company says it will drop the allocation altogether in five years.

This is the second time retirees have protested the change. They also protested last June when Molson retirees across the country received a letter from their former employer outlining the planned changes.

The letter says the changes are necessary because of "competitive pressure and the current economy" which have forced the company to "monitor costs and look for innovative ways to control and reduce them."

At the time, the pensioners union representative spoke out against the new policy.

"There's been no consultation with the members, and they've taken beer from them, which is a taxable benefit," said Greg Pretty of the FFAW/CAW, which represents approximately 45 Molson retirees in St. John's.

"The people who brought this company to where it is today … are now being discriminated against based on their age," he said.

There are about 50 retired Molson workers in the province.

A Molson representative told CBC that supplying 2,400 retirees across the country with free beer was costing the company over $1 million a year.

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MOLLY NOTES

The whole idea that Molson's is "suffering" under the present "economic conditions" is, of course, absurd. If there is one business that is recession proof it is booze. Check it out yourself if you don't believe me. Glance up to the photo that accompanies this article. Note the sign about the Montréal Canadiens. Molson is "suffering" so much that they were only able to clinch a deal to repurchase the Habs earlier this year for a paltry $500,000,000. That's half a billion dollars. I wish I could suffer so badly.

But there's another indication of the degree of Molson's suffering beneath the surface of what the above article says. Here comes your math test kiddies. Let's assume the round numbers supplied in the above of 2,400 Molson pensioners and about 1 million in expenses to be about right. If this is true then the cost to Molson's of the 12 pack that they supply to the retirees is about $5.78. the cost of a Molson's 12 pack to the general public varies across Canadian provinces, from a high of up to $24.95 in some outlets in Alberta (where privatization was supposed to work its magic via competition and reduce prices) to a low of $19.25 here in Manitoba. As I wish to be kind and generous to the poor suffering, ill fed managers of the Molson Corporation I will take the price here in Manitoba, the lowest in the country, for the following calculations. Here in Manitoba the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) applies the following markups to domestic beer: $0.122 per liter and 75%. With good old high school algebra this works out to a buying price of $10.71 paid to Molson's. Before you get too frothy and libertarian about the evil government monopoly consider that 75% is less than the 85% profit margin that Molson's makes from selling its beer at the lowest price in Canada. Also note that in places such as Alberta where the sacred god of competition rules that prices are higher and that the profit margin is also higher.

Now there are a great many businesses who would think they had died and gone to heaven if their profit margin was 85%, let alone if they were able to swing a half billion dollar corporate acquisition. So think of the guys in Newfoundland the next time you choose what beer to buy.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR:

INTERNATIONAL UNION COOPERATION VERSUS INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS:

The following post is from the IUF site, an international network of unions that hopes to build transnational solidarity in the face of the increasing globalization of corporations today. The subject matter is the increasing concentration in the international brewing industry (yes, beer is a subject dear to Molly's heart) and how workers in the industry will have to respond to this trend. The trend towards international cooperation amongst unions is undoubtedly laudable, and Molly says that it should be encouraged as much as possible---as long as the autonomy of the unions involved is respected and it doesn't become a reason to centralize unions rather than simply coordinate their actions. There is no need for such centralization, and the results would actually be quite detrimental. Coordination does not require central directing bodies, a point that has long been made by anarcho-syndicalists. But coordination is becoming even more important as business becomes even more transnational, as the following makes plain.

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Global Union Co-operation an Urgent Necessity as InBev/Anheuser-Busch Merger Creates World's Largest Brewer:

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Merger creates the world's largest brewer

On 14 July, InBev acquired US-brewer Anheuser-Busch (A-B) for USD 52 billion (USD 70 per share). The deal created the world's largest brewer ahead of SABMiller and the recent Heineken/Carlsberg consortium that took over Scottish and Newcastle. The new company, to be called Anheuser-Busch InBev, will employ about 150,000 workers in more than 50 countries, controlling 31% of the world beer market with a combined turnover of USD 10.7 billion (EUR 7.8 billion). With the merger, InBev secures top performing brands in key markets, such as A-B's own flagship beer Budweiser, Mexican Grupo Modelo's Corona and China's second largest brewer Tsingtao.

North American unions concerned about possible cost cutting/ restructuring

In order to finance the acquisition, InBev has taken on a large amount of debt. Despite its announcement that it does not intend to close any of the 12 A-B breweries in North America, move or diminish the role of A-B's headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, employees are concerned that the sale of A-B's theme park (Busch Gardens), packaging (SeaWorld) and other non-core businesses will not generate enough cash to offset the considerable liability. Shortly before the merger was approved, A-B had announced a workforce reduction of 10-15 percent (about 1,300 jobs) in an attempt to boost share price prior to closing the deal.

Teamsters rally at A-B St. Louis headquarters

The IUF-affiliated Teamsters union representing more than 7,000 A-B workers in the US and Canada is concerned about future restructuring measures and about InBev's continuation of A-B's commitment to quality health care and wages negotiated with the union. Key US employee concerns are the introduction of InBev's "zero-based budget", outsourcing, and the continuation of collective bargaining agreements and their negotiation process. The Teamsters collective agreements with A-B expire on 28 February, 2009. Negotiations started on August 18. Two days before, on August 16, Teamsters rallied in St. Louis to demand that InBev continue the relation with the union, honour existing agreements and keep its commitments to A-B workers, retirees and communities.

Reaching out to InBev workers worldwide

The Teamsters invited union leaders from InBev operations in Brazil, Belgium and Canada to a special meeting in St. Louis with Teamster local leaders at A-B to talk about their experiences with InBev management. InBev's focus on individual productivity is very strong in Brazil, where workers can be penalised for underperformance. In Canada two breweries were closed in Toronto and Vancouver since InBev's takeover of Labatt's, while Canadian workers have seen an erosion in their pension schemes. Belgian unions reported on the deterioration of union/management relations after a change in management following the Interbrew/AmBev merger, on historic brewery closures and consolidation and on the company's introduction of more outsourcing, flexible, part-time and temporary employment.

IUF and affiliates must take the lead in building union power!

The increased consolidation in the beer industry and the newly created beer giant A-B InBev highlight the urgent need for international union co-ordination and concrete solidarity among its employees and their unions everywhere in the world. This is a strategic priority for the IUF that will be tackled in the next IUF global brewery workers' meeting planned for 2009 with the creation of a Global A-B InBev Union Alliance.

BEER:
SHATTERED ILLUSIONS:
While wending our way back to the hotel last night with a comrade from the WSM (more on our enjoyable meeting with these people later) one of my long standing illusions was shattered. The venerable Guinness has a history as dark as the colour of their stout. It turns out that they were basically responsible for destroying the in-house brewing that used to be characteristic of pubs here in Ireland. They enforced their monopoly by various methods. Like in the Czech Republic where a bar serves only a very limited selection of beers from one company only they put supply pressure on the pubs, saying "no Guinness if you sell from the competition". They also used some more strong arm tactics at times, if you get the drift. Not that there aren't a number of microbrewery-like places here where you can get a much wider selection, but most of the pubs have a far smaller selection of Irish beers than you might imagine. Thanks to "Pepe" for this enlightenment.

LES BIERES DE MONTREAL

TAKE TWO:

Molly has commented on how impressed she was with the microbrewery scene in Montreal, particularly as she comes from an area of the country where beer diversity is pretty sparse. Well, in the interest of the sacred icon of "objectivity" she went a searching for a reference about matters beer that could give at least an impressionistic overview of the Canadian situation. She found it over at the Real Beer.Com site. Real Beer is actually a world guide, but you can find references to the situation in a vast number of countries there, including Canada and all of its provinces and territories, excluding Nunavut. The listings will, of course, be somewhat out of date. The microbrewery and brew pubs scene is fluid, maybe not as fluid as the restaurant industry but fluid nonetheless. Some of the liquids that Molly dived into in her degenerate tour of Montreal's scene are not listed on this site.

But Molly was somewhat surprised by the fact that Quebec is only #3 in the Canadian pantheon. Ontario comes first, with 24 brewpubs, 37 microbreweries and 47 "other" listings. My ignorance may be forgiven. Aside from Ottawa, which I visited earlier this year and where I did find some good artisan beers, Ontario is a giant black blob on Molly's mental map of Canada. Northwest Ontario, which lies close to my home province of Manitoba, is a world away from the main centres of population in the south. To a large extent it is more like Manitoba with more trees, less money and even more depressing-if that is possible. It doesn't contribute to the artisan brew industry in any real way.

What is less forgivable is my ignorance of the fact that BC is # 2 in the Canadian brewing scene(19 brewpubs,30 microbreweries, and 19 "others"). I visited Victoria only last year, and found many good microbreweries and brew pubs. But the fact that the land of lotus eaters (and lotus smokers ?) might be vibrant across the whole province never settled fully into my mind. Perhaps this is because I am a confirmed francophile, and am more than willing to praise Quebec over other provinces without searching out the facts. As to whether Quebec beers are better than those of BC I will leave to more experienced connoisseurs than myself. I liked both. The yeast content of many of the brews that I sampled in Montreal threw me not a whit. The taste was not overpowering. I can't remember this sort of experience in BC.

What was not surprising was that Manitoba ranked second from last amongst Canadian provinces. Only PEI, with perhaps 1/5th the population of Winnipeg ranked lower in total listings. This place is not the centre of the universe in too many ways to count. We do have the highest concentration of dollar stores and payday loan shark outlets of any city that I have ever seen anywhere in the world, but that may not be something to be proud of. It's great if you want to buy cheap Halloween decorations for $1 each, but has little else to recommend it. What did astonish me was how much further ahead Saskatchewan was as compared to Manitoba. Closing in on Alberta as a matter of fact, despite the fact that Alberta has two real cities and Saskatchewan has none. The last time that I disgraced Saskatchewan with my presence, for the marriage of one of my grandnieces last summer, I did find a brew pub in Regina where I spent some happy times. At the time I put it down to yet another example of Saskatchewan's rather pathetic attempts to appear "trendy" and thought little of it. For all I know the place that I visited in Regina is the one and only, and all the others are located in Saskatoon, a city that has always been more pleasant in so many ways than Regina. Yet from what I saw there and what I see on the Real Beer site Saskatchewan is indeed far better than Manitoba in this regard.

Anyways, the microbrewery and brew pub phenonenum is always refreshing anywhere you go. It is the opposition to the standardization and corporate consolidation of far too much of the brewing industry today. Think of the fate of Molson's. It offers an alternative to we epicures that realize our time on earth is brief and want to spend it in pleasure and variety. Go to the Real Beer.Com site for the international listings, as dated as they may be.

AUSTRALIAN BREWERY WORKERS NEED SOLIDARITY:

AUSTRALIA:FOSTER'S MUST RESPECT YATALA WORKERS' RIGHT TO A UNION AGREEMENT:

Since July management of the Australian brewer Foster's has refused to recognize or engage in negotiations with the unions representing workers at its Yatala brewery near Brisbane. Local Human resources manager John Saliba told workers, "Even if there was 200 percent support of a union collective agreement there would never be a union collective agreement on the Yatala site." Foster's called for a vote on its proposed non-union contract, and on September 3 workers voted overwhelmingly to reject it. The Yatala workers want union representation and a union agreement !

Tell Foster's to respect the Yatala workers' vote for a union agreement ! Send a message to the Foster's corporate and plant management urging them to recognize the unions and enter into good faith collective bargaining negotiations at the Yatala brewery !

To join this campaign go to http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/campaigns/show_campaign.cgi?c=303

OTTAWA'S WATER AND BEER AS WELL:

Molly has a policy when visiting anywhere else. The first thing that she does is get a big slug of the local water. If anything is going to happen might as well get it over with. Now nothing ever has happened because Molly makes it a policy to never go anywhere where she is not the biggest threat to the local water quality.

Of course nothing happened in Ottawa. The water tasted "different", but that was about it. Getting back to Winnipeg Molly turned on the old tap. Phewww ! You have to go somewhere else to appreciate just how bad Winnipeg's water actually is. Sorta like the sludge scrapped off the bottom of the litter box. I guess that that is the City's filter system. So...Ottawa may not have good grass, but it definitely has better water by far. I have no clue about the source or water treatment methods of Ottawa's water, but it's a much better source and/or treatment than Winnipeg has.

Speaking of bad taste the first can of Guiness I had when coming home also tasted "off". Now this may merely be the difference between drinking draft Guiness as opposed to canned stuff, but it's also certain that the stuff I drank in Ottawa had a much better taste. Maybe they shouldn't add that widgit to the can.

If given a choice Molly would definitely choose good water and beer over a green lawn. So Ottawa gets two bonus points over home.

Beer: Czech and Otherwise:
Despite our little experience at 'The Little Stalin Cottage' I have to say that Praha is a much more enjoyable city that either Wien or Venezia. More on the latter two later. Not that it reaches the level of Barcelona, but my anarchist prejudices may be showing there. Before going to the Czech Republic I had spoken to a number of Czechs resident here in Winnipeg. None had anything good to say about their home country. I have now learned that this is as much a "national Czech habit" as disparaging Winnipeg is for Winnipeg residents. No Czech has anything less than a thousand complaints about their country- but let a foreigner express the same things and the hackles are up. I guess that, if I was drunk enough and nobody had annoyed me for two weeks I could find something good to say about Winnipeg too. Besides getting out of it. But speaking about "drunk enough"...
There is something of a "national contest" between the Czechs and their former German speaking oppressors as to whose beer is better. I have to say that my initial response to to side with the Czechs on this and any other matter that they may drag up. But, prejudices aside, I have to admit that I have always had a liking for Czech and Slovak beer. The cultivation of hops, for which the Bohemian climate is ideal, is attested by chronicles dating back to 858 AD ie before the founding of the Czech monarchy. "Good" King Wencelas even instituted the death penalty for anyone caught exporting the cuttings from his domains.
The first Czech retail brewery was established as a workers' cooperative in 1118 AD at Cerhenice. This was a central brewing location from which members took the extract home to finish the brewing process. "Good" King Wencelas abolished the proscription on actual retail "sale" in the 13th century. This act seems to me to be much more deserving of his "sainthood" status than the official Catholic reasons.
Czech beer making later fell on hard times due especially to the 30 Years War. At one point the Czechs used beer to pay off a Swedish army to avoid the sack of the Czech town of Kutna Hora. But the country was generally devastated by said war. Later the industry received imperial patronage under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Emperor even sent a brewmaster to Mexico to "teach the Mexicans how to brew proper beer" (see the short lived 'Mexican Empire'). The Czechs later clung to their beer as a national symbol as part of their "awakening" from the process of Germanization during the later part of the 19th Century. Under Communism the idea of investment in the brewing industry was a no starter. Traditions remained, but the industry stagnated as the ruling class saw the production of cheap beer of doubtful quality as one of their "bargains" with those who they ruled.
Since the end of Communism the industry has flourished. The major breweries have, to a large extent, been bought out by foreign interests, but the result was an improvement in quality as the market for Czech beer is largely an export market because of the reputation of Czech beer. Microbreweries have flourished in the cracks of the multinational market.
Within the Czech Republic beer is incredibly cheap. One source quotes a price range of 20 koruna to 80 koruna for a half liter in Praha. This is about 80 cents to $3.20 Canadian for a half liter. I can testify to this price range having drunken in both the "tourist drag" and "off the beaten track". The problem with Czech beer, from a Canadian viewpoint, is that it is virtually impossible to get properly drunk on it. The alcohol content is usually much lower, and you will burp yourself to death long before getting to the point of falling down. An outside observer might take this as evidence that Canadians have more to forget than Czechs do, but I'm sure that most Czechs would claim preeminence for national depression over Canadians. Let's leave that to barroom conversations.
A weird and unfortunate thing that I observed in Praha was that it was virtually impossible to get a "sampling" of Czech beer at any drinking establishment. Most places had a "sweetheart" deal with a given brewery, and when you asked "what sort of beer do you have ?" the answer was quite short. I found a lack of my favourite type of brew ie a dark ale. I can get the Czech beer 'Baron' a lot easier in Canada than I could in Praha. Capitalism may have come to the Czech Republic, but a "free market" is many years away. The breweries seem to rule the drinking establishments with an iron hand. I ended up drinking a lot of Pilsner,Budvar and Starobrno. Maybe it's the romance of Praha, but they seemed to taste better there than they do in Canada.
In general beer tasted better than our hootch in Praha, and it is one of the many reasons that I loved that city. A google search for "Czech Beer" came up with 184,000 hits, an indication of the popularity of the subject. Anyone interested in looking at the subject further can consult the wikipedia article on Czech beer at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/beer_and_nationality entitled "Beers of the World'. Another interesting source, with more knowledge than I have, is 'The Opinionated Beer Page' at http://www.topb.com .
Both these sources give more than a general outline of both Czech beer and other beers of the world. Speaking about the rest of the world, here in Canada I have yet to meet a beer as good as '1892 Traditional Ale' produced by the 'Quidi Vidi Brewing Company', just out of St. John's Newfoundland. We visted the brewery when we were there last summer. But for sheer joy I can say that Canada probably has the most "humour friendly" brewery in the whole world. This is the 'Unibroue' brewery in Quebec. Their signature beer is '1837', after the Lower Canada Rebellion of the same year, but they are not "politically correct". Some of their other efforts are 'Nom de Dieu', a swear word in joual, 'La Fin Du Monde', loosely translated as either "the end of the world" or "the ends of the Earth", and 'Quelque Chose' ie "something" (or the other). My favourite, however, is the dreaded 'Maudite' (another swear word in joual). Quite frankly this is the absolutely WORSE beer that has ever been produced anywhere in the world. It is foul and vomit inducing and should be used for alcoholic "therapy". The name is very apt. It is "damned" beyond all measure. The Unibroue brewery produces it as a "novelty item", and it fits very well with their light hearted marketing efforts. Try it- you won't like it.
Well that's it for item # 1 about why I loved Praha. More later. Should you ever visit the city avoid the Czech wine. It's plonk in the same sense that Canadian wine is. Both countries are on the very edge of the grape growing climate, with all that that implies. Bohemia makes no wine. It''s a product of the southern reaches of Moravia.
Molly