Ukraine's Bid to Join NATO

Since I wrote about NATO and international politics yesterday with Sweden's bid to join NATO moving forward, a few months after Finland's bid to join moved forward, it's been in the news that Ukraine is pressing its case again to join NATO. During the NATO summit in Vilnius this week world leaders have paid lots of lip service to supporting Ukraine's defense. Some, like the US, have already put action behind their words with billions of dollars of material support, while other nations have talked big but then found bureaucratic excuses not to follow through. When it comes to NATO membership, all the talk remains positive— but as a future thing, not now. Why later?

Well, under the principle that you can't insure a burning building, NATO is a mutual-defense alliance, and Ukraine is currently in an active state of war with Russia. To admit Ukraine to NATO now would be to commit all 31 of the current NATO members to a military conflict with Russia. That sure seems unwise, doesn't it?

The thing is, maybe not. Imagine what Russia would do if suddenly 31 other countries, with significant armies and massive economies, said, "Hey, you want a piece of Ukraine? You've got to come through all of us." They would stop the war. ...Well, if they were rational, and concerned with self preservation, they would stop. Like when Khrushchev backed off during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. But it took real guts on Kennedy's part to force that confrontation. It's not clear than any NATO member country today has such guts. So instead we'll wait until Russia is finishing wrecking as much of Ukraine as it can, and then consider admitting whatever's left. If anything is left.

Foreign Owners Ruin ANOTHER California Craft Brewery

A foreign beer conglomerate has ruined yet-another California craft brewery. On Wednesday Anchor Brewing Company announced it's shutting down. In business since 1895 (that's 127 years!) it's America's oldest craft brewer. It was bought by Sapporo in 2017 and has seen declining sales since then. Example news coverage: CNN article, 12 Jul 2023.

A few weeks ago they announced they'd discontinue their Christmas ales that were loved by fans and narrow their distribution of other beers from US nationwide to just California. I was ready to write about just those changes as Sapporo running this history American brewery into the ground, but before I got a chance to write that blog they scooped me by completely running it into the ground. 🙄

This loss doesn't impact my own beer-drinking habits that much. As I explained when Anchor Steam was part of the first round of my Beer Tasting 2022 competition, it's mostly nostalgic. Anchor Steam was one of the first craft brews I found when I started drinking beer in the early 1990s. Back then very few microbrews had national distribution. Anchor Steam was one of them, and when I could find it at a bar on the East Coast it was waaaay preferable to the macro-brew pisswater that comprised most of the other options.

RIP Red Tail Ale (1983-2018)

Why do I say yet-another brewery has been ruined? I'm still sore about a foreign company buying a controlling stake in Mendocino Brewing Company and running it into the ground. MBC was best known for their flagship beer, Red Tail Ale. Not only was the logo with great art of a red-tailed hawk something that both Hawk and I appreciated— we still have a set of 6 pint glasses we use daily even though the etched hawk art is mostly faded— but it was a craft beer that shot to the top of my favorite list early on and remained there for years.

Foreign owners forced changes in ingredients and processes, and not always for the better. The last time I had their beers, in 2014, I found that something had been lost in translation. They just weren't as good as years earlier. MBC folded up in January 2018.

Now that I think about it, it's precisely because Mendocino Brewing went downhill then folded up that I was left adrift for a few years in trying to answer the question, "What's my favorite beer?" that I started my Beer Tasting 2022 project— which is still ongoing, here in mid 2023.

Is Stone Next?

It's not just these these two once-great breweries that foreign owners are mucking up, or have completely mucked up. Stone Brewing, another California craft brewery, started in 1996 near San Diego, is also owned by Sapporo now. They bought it in June 2022. In just over one year they've already made two big changes that are worrisome to people who like the actual beer. One, rather than using their international scale to broaden sales of Stone, they're using Stone's US facilities to produce Sapporo. Two, they're diversifying the Stone brand into coffee. Ugh. How much longer until Stone beer gets run into the ground?