Beer Watch: Saving a historic home, with the help of beer

How it’s already almost August, I don’t know. I don’t even know how we’re already eight months into 2018, or whether time is linear or circular, or what the meaning of it all is. But I do know it’s the start of a new month, which means it’s time for Beer Watch. Here’s what’s going on in the world of beer.

Brewers and consumers start to feel the impact of metal tariffs

I like to populate these monthly beer updates with stories that are unique and even a little quirky, but while all the talk of 45’s metal tariffs and their potential to raise the price of beer (among other things) is getting kind of stale, it’s definitely still a story to keep an eye on.

Northwest Craft Beer Industry Feeling Bite From Trump’s Metals Tariffs

Craft Canning, Jim Newman The craft brewing industry in the Pacific Northwest is starting to feel pain from the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum tariffs. Those metals are made into beer cans, kegs and fermentation tanks. Owen Lingley runs Craft Canning + Bottling, a mobile canning service that caters to small brewers in Oregon, Washington and Colorado.

In the story above from Oregon Public Broadcasting, Owen Lingley, who runs a canning and bottling business in the Pacific Northwest, says that his aluminum suppliers have raised their prices to match the import tariff and that he and his consumers are taking a hit. And Lingley’s experience isn’t an isolated incident — instead of hiring new employees, a Wisconsin brewery is paying 15% more for aluminum, and Maine craft brewers are predicting price increases for themselves and their consumers in several months time.

It’s estimated that the price of cans will increase 6 – 12%.

Craft breweries incorporated into housing developments?

A “master-planned community” outside Denver, Colorado is getting a brewery and a coffee shop, mapped out alongside the 12,000 homes, a gym and other commercial buildings.

Grist Brewing to Join Sterling Ranch Development | Brewbound.com

DENVER – Sterling Ranch, a master-planned community located in northwest Douglas County just south of Downtown Denver, is pleased to announce two new Colorado-based businesses coming to the community – the Grist Brewing Company and Atlas Coffee. The two companies will soon provide their craft-made products in the community’s first commercial building, the Sterling Center, opening this Fall.

Within the ever-expanding, sometimes a little over-saturated American craft beer scene, obviously not every brewery is going to be an indie, salt-of-the-earth locals joint, but it does seem almost too… commercial?… to build a brewery around a not-quite-complete housing development’s commercial building space. (At least it will provide an opportunity for wine mom McMansion owners to “discover” craft beer.)

Saving a historic home, with the help of beer

Whites Hall, the birthplace and childhood home of Johns Hopkins located in Crofton, Maryland, has fallen into disrepair in the 12 years that it’s been abandoned. In the last decade or so, before the house was boarded up and entry was blocked off completely, kids would sneak in through the back porch and explore all the nooks and crannies of the 18th century Georgian-style mansion. Sometimes they’d graffiti the walls or participate in other kinds of illegal activities, but it was really cool to just walk around, appreciate the architecture, and ghost hunt.

The current owners of the home are looking to demolish it, so a “Save Whites Hall” campaign has popped up in response. Now, every day of every weekend until October (weather permitting), Saves Whites Hall organizers host a beer garden with food and live music right outside the historic home, with proceeds going toward the cause of purchasing and renovating the building.

It’s not a bad fundraising plan — beer makes money, and hopefully it will make enough money to save a truly beautiful historic home.