Newcastle Brown Ale, which happens to be my favorite beer, may have to lose either their name or their hard-to-get EU protections according to this article. They’ll still have the right to make the beer, and they still own the name Newcastle Brown Ale, but they may lose the EU protection which they themselves sought. The protection states that Newcastle Brown Ale Beer may not be produced outside of Newcastle. Now they’ve decided to move to Gateshead. Doesn’t seem like a big deal since the beer itself won’t change, but it clearly violates the EU protection. But is the EU protection necessary? I personally don’t think that Newcastle will become a generic style of beer like Pilsner is. Even Miller calls itself a “Pilsner beer,” even though I don’t think they brew it in Pilsen, Czech Republic (Bohemia).

On the contrary, it’s somewhat understandable why the EU protection was put in place. How would you feel if you bought cheese that was labeled ‘Wisconsin Cheddar’ and found out it was made in Florida? We’re talking about small producers (for the most part) with a specialty product, and the laws are designed to keep the greedy and unscrupulous from profiting from a name earned by others through craftsmanship.

So maybe the name should change if they want to move. Call it what you want. Hell, you can shrink the font and fit ‘Newcastle-Gateshead Brown Ale’ onto the label if you like. I love my Newkie Brown, and will drink it no matter what it’s called, so long as there isn’t any kind of scatalogical reference in the name of course.

Over time I’ve grown out of the “drinking to get drunk” phase and have started enjoying beer for the flavor and notsomuch the “buzz.” I guess I’m lucky I got past that phase, I know quite a few people who weren’t able to. Since I’ve embarked on my mass taste test to find which beer I enjoy the most, I can’t seem to go back to the cheap domestics like Bud Light. It just tastes awful to me. So I’ve been trying a lot of beers and have landed on a personal favorite, Newcastle Brown Ale. If I had to pick a lower priced domestic beer I’d say Miller Genuine Draft. Local microbrewer Leinenkugels is pretty good, too. For a little while I enjoyed Heineken and Sam Adams, but eventually they just started tasting kind of “skunky” and I grew tired of them.

Today I was doing a little reading/researching out of pure curiosity and learned that the “skunky” taste found in beers like Heineken is due to bottling and UV rays. Interestingly, UV rays can ruin the flavor of a beer in less than about 20 minutes. Some suggest that you shouldn’t ever buy beers that come in clear or green bottles because only brown bottles prevent light from getting in. However, a better source suggests that this isn’t necessarily true.

Yes, UV rays do ruin beer causing skunky flavors in beers like Heineken, Corona, Rolling Rock, etc. But how do beers such as MGD, Miller High Life, and Newcastle Brown Ale get away with being bottled in clear bottles without getting a skunky flavor? The answer is that they are “brewed with reduced iso-alpha-acids, which are impervious to cleavage by UV light,” says Malcolm Forbes, a chemistry professor at UNC who comments in the article I linked to above. So why don’t all beers do that to prevent skunkiness? Apparently there are some beer purists – particularly brewers in Germany – who suggest that after brewing beer this way it’s technically no longer considered beer.

I guess that’s a debate I’m not qualified to argue, but it doesn’t bother me. I still love Newcastle and it still tastes like beer to me. I’ve tried a few other brown ales and I’ve pretty much found that although I like Newcastle the best, I like brown ales better than most other beers. I’ve tried Rogue Hazelnut Brown Ale, Boyne River Brown Ale, Ipswitch Dark Ale, Pete’s Wicked Ale, Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown Ale, and some others. They’re all pretty good, but it’s the sweet brown ales of England I seem to enjoy the most.

Enough about beer, I’m getting thirsty. Plus, it’s way past dinnertime and I’m starving so I need to get out of here. But before I go, I should probably update you on what’s been going on around here. Well, not much actually. Things at work have started to straighten out, in case you were wondering what’s been going on since my last post where I indicated I was having some problems.

Lizzie started her new job today and it sounds like that went very well, except that now she has a long commute just like me. Eventually after she goes through her management training she will be moved to a different branch somewhere and it sounds like it should be closer to home. I wish I could get closer to home, there was a crash on 494 today and I was stuck in traffic for about an hour and a half. That kind of thing happening regularly gets so tiresome, but I just keep reminding myself it won’t last forever.

Not much else is new. Planning a trip up north for Memorial Day, hope to see some old faces during that weekend, but I probably won’t as my hometown seems like a ghost town every time I go there. I never seem to run into anyone there anymore.

See you next time.