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Boston Globe
4 days ago
- General
- Boston Globe
Jack McAuliffe, who brewed a craft beer revolution, dies at 80
New Albion offered something profoundly different: handmade ales using just water, barley, hops, and yeast. Mr. McAuliffe and his partners, Suzy Denison and Jane Zimmerman, ran the label out of a rundown warehouse in Sonoma, Calif., making just 400 barrels a year, about as much as Coors could produce in a few minutes. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The very idea of small-batch beer was such an anomaly that Mr. McAuliffe struggled to find equipment and ingredients. Instead, he fashioned much of the production line himself from materials he had scavenged from a junkyard. Advertisement Unable to buy traditional hops in small quantities, he opted for a new variety, cascade, whose notes of fruit and pine didn't appeal to the big breweries -- but which, thanks to Mr. McAuliffe, became a prized part of the craft brewing repertoire. His DIY ethic likewise became a defining characteristic of craft brewing, said Theresa McCulla, a former curator at the National Museum of American History who documented the history of beer in America. Advertisement 'He really showed Americans that if you can build it and sheetrock it, and weld it, then you can brew your own great beer,' she said in an interview. Mr. McAuliffe called his brewery New Albion as an homage to a long-closed predecessor in the Bay Area, as well as to the name Sir Francis Drake gave the region when he sailed along the coast of Northern California in 1579. A drawing of Drake's flagship, the Golden Hind, appeared on New Albion's labels. New Albion was profiled in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and demand for its beers grew rapidly. Still, Mr. McAuliffe was unable to secure bank loans to fund expansion, and the brewery closed in 1982. Though New Albion lasted less than six years, practically every craft pioneer who came along afterward has cited the brewery as an inspiration, among them Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada, Jim Koch of Sam Adams, and Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head. 'They say that when the Ramones first played in England, members of the Clash were in the audience, members of the Sex Pistols were in the audience, then away they went,' Calagione said in an interview. 'While the Ramones launched a million bands, Jack McAuliffe launched 10,000 American craft breweries.' John Robert McAuliffe was born May 11, 1945, in Caracas, Venezuela, where his father, John James McAuliffe, was a code breaker for the US government. His mother, Margaret (Quigley) McAuliffe, was a teacher. After World War II, Jack's father joined the State Department. The family lived in Medellín, Colombia, and later in Northern Virginia while his father taught at American University in Washington. Advertisement In high school, Jack became enthralled with welding and worked in a shop as an apprentice. He enrolled at Michigan Technological University but quit to join the Navy. He was posted to a base in Scotland, where he repaired submarine antennas. In his free time, he developed a fondness for British ales -- especially full-bodied porters and stouts -- and began brewing his own at home. After he was honorably discharged from a base in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mr. McAuliffe decided to stay. He received an associate degree from the City College of San Francisco and worked for an engineering company in Sunnyvale, Calif., all the while dreaming of making his beloved British-style ales in the United States. Finally, in 1975, he met Denison and Zimmerman, who each put in $1,500 in seed money to start New Albion. Mr. McAuliffe was a demanding brewmaster, and Zimmerman left the company. But Denison stayed on, eventually running most of the daily operations. 'He totally trusted me,' she said in an interview. 'He might go into San Francisco to pick up hops or something and leave me completely in charge.' After the brewery closed, Mr. McAuliffe sold his equipment to a new brewery, the Mendocino Brewing Co., where he worked for a time as a brewmaster. He soon quit, he said, because after being a captain, he couldn't stomach working as a deckhand. But he continued supporting the craft brewing movement, in one instance working with Fritz Maytag, the owner of the Anchor Brewing Co. in San Francisco, on securing legislation to allow brew pubs to serve food. Advertisement Mr. McAuliffe later lived in Nevada and Texas before settling in Arkansas. Along with his daughter, he leaves his sisters, Cathy and Margarita McAuliffe; his brother, Tom; two grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Craft beer did not take off as a national phenomenon until the late 1990s, and many in the new generation of drinkers had never heard of New Albion. That began to change in 2012. Koch, of Sam Adams, contacted Mr. McAuliffe to tell him that not only had he bought the trademark to New Albion, but he also wanted to resurrect the beer as a limited release. After leading a nationwide tour reintroducing New Albion to craft-beer fans, Koch gave the proceeds from the beer and the rights to the New Albion name to Mr. McAuliffe. And in 2019, the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution, featured items related to New Albion in a permanent exhibit on craft brewing, including an original bottle of its ale and a photograph of Mr. McAuliffe. McCulla, who designed the exhibit, interviewed Mr. McAuliffe for an oral history of craft brewing in 2019. She asked him what he thought of his legacy. 'Damnedest thing I ever saw,' he said. 'It's really hard to believe that this happened.' This article originally appeared in
Times
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Sorry, Boss — I'm just not your biggest fan
Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ. Which will mean more to some of you than others. It's the title of Bruce Springsteen's first album. He played his early gigs with the E Street Band about two minutes from my hotel, at a venue called the Stone Pony. Others who gigged there on the way up: Blondie, the Ramones, Elvis Costello on his first transatlantic tour. Van Morrison shot a video at the Pony because he thought it had a cool atmosphere. But it's the Boss's lingering aura that is the draw, obviously. Making me something of an imposter. This isn't a pilgrimage to the source of the river. I'm not the biggest Springsteen fan. I know I'm probably missing something. There's enough people out there willing to testify to his genius and since he's taken a stand against Donald Trump, his standing in Asbury Park is greater than ever. Supportive signs in the shop windows, defiant messages on white tees, a real hagiography. All wasted. I used to spend a lot of time at tournaments with our golf correspondent, Derek. Absolute Springsteen nut. Golf writers spend a lot of time in the US. Derek had seen his hero dozens of times. The running joke was my lack of appreciation, exaggerated to a regular assertion that Springsteen was rubbish. • This singer is Bruce Springsteen's heir — here's why Actually it was more nuanced than that. If I had just trashed Springsteen, Del could have dismissed me as an idiot. But I always qualified it by saying I liked some Springsteen. Which is true. I like it when he doesn't sound anything like how we imagine Bruce Springsteen. So, not good time rock and roll or Born in the USA. Streets of Philadelphia, I love. And his cover version of Dream Baby Dream by Suicide, New York punks with a cheap synthesizer. And that, I think, made it worse. It's like the old joke about the difference between a dummy and a dummy's dummy. The former believes everything he reads in the Sunday Sport; whereas the latter believes some of the things he reads in the Sunday Sport. By the way, blue-collar Bruce did not actually come from Asbury Park. He played here. Asbury Park is nice, rather posh. Cool, artistic community, very liberal, very gay. Lovely, picturesque, colourful wooden-boarded houses, as many pride flags as there are stars and stripes. You'd be happy to live in Asbury Park. And it's on the sea. I'm here because the tournament I'm covering ends at Meadowlands in New Jersey. The stadium is in the state, the NFL teams that call it home are the two from New York, the Giants and the Jets. Most visitors will stay in New York. But I've done that many times, for work, on holiday. So here I am on the eastern seaboard. And it's America, and quite an important part culturally, so you still get that feeling of being on a film set. You drive the New Jersey Turnpike, like Tony does in the title sequence of The Sopranos; you come off at toll booths like the one where Sonny Corleone is ambushed in The Godfather. Frank Sinatra came from New Jersey; so did rap originators the Sugarhill Gang. Then, on the Garden State Parkway the other day, there it was: the Jon Bon Jovi Service Area. How great is that? Why don't we do this, name mundane road stops after local rock stars? A Johnny Rotten Little Chef just off the North Circular. A Dave Gilmour Drive-Thru Starbucks and Shell garage at the top of the M11. You'd be proud, wouldn't you, in Jon Bon Jovi's shoes? He loves it. Called the naming — it was previously the Cheesequake Service Area — a career highlight. I think I'd turn up there one day a year if I was him, put on a uniform and get behind the counter at Auntie Anne's just to see the look on people's faces. Thinking on it, though, Cheesequake? What a name for a band that would be. Better than Bon Jovi. Although that may have been spoiled for me on discovering there was a tribute act from Yorkshire, called By Jovi. Now they should definitely have their own service station.
Los Angeles Times
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Go Betty Go's 25 years of DIY work ethic helped the group turn up for guitarist's cancer battle
In Los Angeles, few bands stay active long enough to celebrate a 25th anniversary. For the women in Go Betty Go, this milestone came as hard, fast and furious as one of their songs. Imagine a Latina version of the Ramones, with hints of Descendents and Blink-182 thrown in. Though the band hasn't gained major notoriety, its sound has earned the group a cult following. With a newly infused burst of energy and optimism, the band is on cloud nine now that guitarist Betty Cisneros is officially in remission from cancer, which was diagnosed over two years ago. 'When I was first diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer, it was too personal to share,' Cisneros said during a recent studio session with her band at Blue Beach Studios in Redondo Beach. 'I didn't even tell my family right away. I just told people it was Stage 4 cancer and left it at that.' Eventually, Cisneros began sharing her story, not with her close family or her band, but with the world, through posts on social media. 'That vulnerability sparked something powerful. Now I've got to meet so many people who've reached out to me, other cancer survivors, people going through the same thing. We've shared our stories. It's therapeutic for all of us.' Last week, Cisneros received the news from her doctors that her scans were clear, meaning that she's in remission. 'I am so thankful for this great news, but I still have a lot of recovery ahead of me,' Cisneros said. 'I still can't feel my hands or feet. 'Playing guitar again meant relearning everything, since I had a lot of issues with my hands and feet. But, thankfully, we made it happen.' As it turns out, Go Betty Go had begun writing new music in 2018, but when COVID-19 hit, obviously, things were delayed. The band went back to the studio after the pandemic began to wind down, but all noticed something was wrong with Cisneros. 'We knew something was going on with Betty,' bassist Michelle Rangel recalled. 'But we all kept pushing forward. The music gave us something to hold onto, as she went through this.' For a band like Go Betty Go, the music is vital, but so is the sense of sisterhood. 'We consider this band [a] family. So, of course, we all were behind Betty, supporting her during that difficult time,' Rangel said. 'And when Betty had to step away to take care of her health, she held the torch for her while she recovered,' vocalist Nicolette Vilar said. 'But we knew she'd be back. She never gave up.' The power of the music helped Cisneros during her recovery, she says. 'The music helped me focus on something else,' Cisneros said. 'If I stayed at home thinking about what I was going through, that's how you can get into a hole, you know?' As a band with 25 years of history and touring, including tours with bands like Flogging Molly, several appearances on Warped Tour in the early 2000s, and countless Southern California shows and nationwide tours over the years, it's noticeable how humble the musicians still are, sticking to their DIY work ethic. 'We book our shows. We design our merchandise. We don't have a huge team at all,' said drummer/band manager Aixa Vilar (who is also Nicolette's sister). 'Nicolette does our graphics, and Betty's our tour manager. We're running this ship ourselves, and we love it; we wouldn't have it any other way.' Cisneros agreed and laughed when asked how she juggled it all. 'I'm kind of the mom of the group. I like being in charge. Even though life has a way of pulling the rug out from under you, planning makes me feel grounded.' In a quarter-century playing music, the bandmates love the memories they have made and the music they have gotten to share with their fans. They've had the experience of watching fans grow up with them too. 'We have seen parents with their kids coming to our shows, and we love that,' Rangel said. 'It's amazing that fans can share our music with their kids and younger fans. We love that our music can inspire and influence people of all ages.' Cisneros recalled a recent show in Las Vegas and an encounter with a fan that moved her. 'After the show, I had a fan approach me and say, 'I have an ileostomy too.' This created an instant bond between us, and it was moving,' she said. 'We talked like we knew each other; it was very special.' With summer in full swing, and Cisneros' recent good news of remission, Go Betty Go does have plans for tours, but things are still being finalized, so nothing can be announced yet, the band said. But, for now, the band is beginning a weeklong tour of the West Coast, with its friends in the Dollyrots, which will make a stop in L.A. at the Echo on July 3. 'We do this because it's still fun,' Cisneros said. 'We're grateful people care. This all started from passion, and that's still what drives us.'
Miami Herald
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Legendary Rock Star, 79, Performs Punk Classic Following Terrifying Health Scare
A heart attack hasn't slowed Robert Fripp down. Two months after the King Crimson co-founder underwent emergency surgery to have a pair of stents inserted, Fripp, 79, showed his heart was just fine by delivering a fast-paced rendition of the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" alongside his wife, Toyah Willcox. In the YouTube video uploaded on June 29, Fripp sported a Ramones-esque wig while Wilcox, 67, rocked out in a red wig and some dark makeup. The two did a quick version of the Ramones' signature hit, released in 1978 off their Road to Ruin album (the band made a music video for the song in 1988 to promote their compilation, Ramones Mania; it became a staple of late '80s MTV). At the end of the performance, Fripp declared that he did not want to be sedated, but "present, engaged and entirely vigilant for the mayhem and absurdity of this kitchen." And Toyah added, "We now go boom boom." The video was part of the couple's Toyah and Robert's Sunday Lunch, a long-running YouTube series. Willcox-an icon in her own right, who fronted the eponymous punk band Toyah before launching a successful solo and acting career-performs with her husband in a variety of outrageous outfits in a delightful, sometimes scandalous display of rock and roll euphoria. The Ramones cover was the first Toyah and Robert's Sunday Lunch since they performed Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy" in April, right before Fripp's health scare. The prog rock legend revealed in mid-May that, while on a trip to Italy, he started to suffer chest pains. Though Fripp initially thought it was acid reflux, his friends took him to a hospital where the doctors discovered that he had suffered a heart attack without knowing it. He underwent five hours of emergency surgery before going under the knife for a second operation. Ultimately, the medical professionals diagnosed him with a trifurcated artery, and he had two stents put in. A day after going public with his health scare, Fripp expressed "gratitude to all the many good people who have sent good wishes, privately and publicly." Related: Classic Rock Guitarist, 74, Reveals He 'Actually Died' During Recent Operation Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rock Icon Says This 90s Band Is 'Bigger Than the Ramones'
When you think of punk, you think of the Ramones, right? The New York City quartet ushered in the sound we now know as punk in the 1970s. But to of The Smashing Pumpkins, one band has eclipsed the Ramones: Green Day. 'I think it had something to do with the fact that they just got their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,' Billy told Rolling Stone. 'I'm watching them get their star and…I had this moment where I was reminiscing and I was like, 'Wow, I've known these guys for over 30 years, and we just did this tour. Oh my God, they're bigger than the Ramones.'" The 58-year-old alternative icon explained his reasoning in putting his fellow '90s rockers ahead of the band many consider invented punk. 'In the world I grew up in, the Ramones were number one,' he said. 'In a way, they always will be number one because they were first.' "But then I realized, 'Oh my God, Green Day has actually done it. They are bigger than the Ramones. Their influence is greater, their reach is greater, and certainly their success is greater,'' said Corgan. Both Green Day and The Smashing Pumpkins formed in the late 1980s but experienced massive success in the early '90s. The Pumpkins became synonymous with alternative rock with Siamese Dream, released in 1993, and 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Green Day ushered in the punk explosion with 1994's Dookie. A decade later, they experienced a career renaissance with the release of American Idiot and remain one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. The Pumpkins toured with Green Day in 2024. 'It was awesome,' Billy told Rolling Stone. 'Green Day was so gracious. We couldn't have had a better summer. It was one of my favorite tours of all time.' 'They were so gracious in being hosts, not only to us, but to Rancid and the Linda Lindas,' said Corgan. 'It was just the spirit of what it's supposed to be when you put bands together. It was one of the best experiences we've ever had, and we're forever grateful to them.'
