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Archives for July 2006

Thursday at OBF

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I arrived in Portland around 3ish after ten and half hours in the Celebrator van, just in time to help set up the booth for the festival which began at four.

Tapping the Collaborator keg at the festival.

Fred Bowman, co-founder of Portland Brewing, Tom Dalldorf, Celebrator publisher and Jack Joyce, owner of Rogue.

Tom with Cathy and Sean, Stephen Beaumont’s sister and brother-in-law.

Chris Crabb, who runs thing for the festival.

Jamie Floyd, whose Ninkasi Brewing is almost open, but the beer is pouring now.

Jamie Jurado, head brewer for Gambrinus.

OBF is Coming, Get Your Watermelon Wheat Early

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Tomorrow the Oregon Brewers Festival begins and will continue through Sunday, July 30. I’ll be driving up early tomorrow morning with Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf. Perhaps I’ll see you there?

If you weren’t planning on going, clear your calendar and get yourself to Portland. It’s one of the best festivals in the country, beautifully situated in downtown Portland along the Willamette River at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park between the Morrison and Burnside Bridges. Each brewery is only allowed to bring one beer and many create a special brew just for the festival.

An inside source at the festival, Chris Crabb, revealed that the most popular beer at the festival is none other than San Francisco favorite, Watermelon Wheat brewed by 21st Amendment Restaurant & Brewery. A thrilled Shaun O’Sullivan, brewer and co-owner of 21st Amendment, was proud as a peacock to learn the news.

You may also want to consider playing a little golf in the 2nd annual Sasquatch Brew Am at McMenamins Edgefield Pub Course Friday morning beginning at 9:00 a.m. (8 o’clock registration). It’s for a very worthy cause and sponsored by the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation. The Bulletin is sponsoring a hole, too, so come out and join us. Check out the website for more details if you’re interested.

Landmark Returns

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Landmark Beer Co., of Syracuse, New York, after a bit of a false start, has switxhed their contract brewery to Wagner Valley Brewing and the first two beers from their new relationship should be out shortly. Brewer/owner Kiernan May reworked the recipe for his India Red Ale (which was previously available beginning in 2004) and re-named it Colonel Hops Red Ale.

From the press release:

The former India Red Ale will be renamed Colonel Hops Red Ale. May’s new recipe has three times as much hops as the old beer, and since those hops are Centennial and Cascade, it will have the citrusy overtones and bitterness of a classic West Coast pale ale. It’ll be about 6 percent alcohol, or about a percentage point higher than a Budweiser.

The second beer, brand new, is Vanilla Bean Brown Ale. It’s an English-style brown ale, with the addition of Madagascar vanilla beans. It’s 4.8 percent alcohol.

Beer Remains on Top — This Year Gallup Agrees

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According to a press release from Anheuser-Busch, a recent Gallup Poll indicates that people were more truthful this year about their favorite alcoholic beverage. Last year’s poll appeared to indicate that wine was overtaking beer, despite the fact that beer outsells wine by an almost 4-to-1 ratio, and has for many years. I never believed last year’s poll and this year’s, having put beer once more on top, seems to confirm my earlier suspicions.

Speculation last year ranged from people giving the answer wine as their favorite because of its perception of greater sophistication to problems with the sample taken, such as the one earlier this year by Merrill Research. In other words, asking people what their favorite is may not always produce highly accurate results since the subject itself is so subjective. Sales figures, on the other hand, are more reliable and they have shown beer far in the lead for years and years.

From the press release:

Findings from Gallup’s annual poll on Americans’ alcohol and drinking habits demonstrate adult consumer consumption of wine has decreased, while consumption of beer has increased five percentage points since July 2005.

Of those Americans who drink alcohol, 41 percent most often drink beer. Beer is the largest segment in the alcohol beverage category in both volume and dollar sales, and accounts for nearly 60 percent of all alcohol beverage servings.

A-B also used the press release to tacitly suggest that their Here’s to Beer campaign was responsible for the turnaround by including information about it directly following the Gallup Poll story.

Latrobe Brewery Workers Approve New Contract

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Union employees of the Latrobe Brewery voted 113-9 yesterday to approve a new -two-year contract with City Brewery of La Crosse, Wisconsin. It was undoubtedly not exactly a level playing field, but the Latrobe brewery workers agreed to pay cuts and reduced vacation time in an effort to save their jobs.

A few months ago when City Brewery was negotiating to purchase the Coors brewing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, Teamsters rejected City’s contract offer expecting them to make a counter-offer. Instead City Brewery walked away from the deal. That fact had to be on the mind of brewery workers when it came time to vote yesterday.

Union officials were quoted as saying that the concessions were relatively minor and not beyond expectations. Of course, City Brewery still has to close the deal with InBev.

Union official George Sharkey indicated that City Brewery is planning a 24-ounce canning line for the Latrobe brewery. Rumors also are floating around about the possibility of Latrobe starting up a new proprietary brand. The plant will close shortly, on July 31, with only a “skeleton crew” remaining to keep the refrigeration units in working order. No word yet on when the brewery might re-open full-time again.

Beer Can Regatta

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Today is the 32nd annual Beer Can Regatta, a boat race in which all the ships are made entirely of beer cans. It takes place in Darwin, Australia, in the Northwest Territories, which looks to be about in the center of Australia on the northern edge.

A couple of beer can regatta boats, made entirely of beer cans.
 

The history of the event is a great example of creative problem solving:

The Darwin beer can regatta started as an unusual by-product of the devastation caused to Darwin by “Cyclone Tracy” in 1974.

Owing to the considerable damage caused by the cyclone, large quantities of materials and manpower from interstate were brought to Darwin to assist in the rebuilding of the city.

As many of the rebuilding work force personnel were from the southern states, and were not used to the humidity, the consumption of canned beer increased dramatically.

This resulted in an abundance of empty beer cans littering the many work sites around Darwin, and as there were no recycling programmes in effect at the time, the beer cans became a litter problem.

A Darwin citizen, Lutz Frankensfeld, came up with the suggestion that they should hold a boat race, with all the boats fabricated out of beer cans. The theory was that this would give the local population and workers alike, an incentive to clear up some of the empty beer cans, and at the same time have a day of fun.

The inaugural beer can race in 1975 was an instant success, and it was decided that it would be an annual event.

Over the years it has developed into a major event on the Darwin social calendar, it is now run by the local Lion’s Club. Organised by various groups over the years it went from success to success, with boat entries ranging in numbers from 15 to 30, and in size from 1 metre to 12 metres.

A beer can boat on the high seas.
 

The race is for four adults in one boat, though there is a junior division for kids using only soda cans. There are six pages of rules but it all boils down to having the right spirit, especially in the funny “Ten Canmandments.” It looks like they’ve added all sorts of fun events over the years and this looks like it would be one great event to attend. Plus I’d much rather be on a beach in Australia than stuck in the heatwave that is California right now.

Hopping in Maine

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When Rick Courcy retired, he wanted to get out of the city and so moved his family from Masschusetts to Oxford County, Maine, known as the “Gemstone Capital of Maine.” He settled on a 90-acre farm in Paris, with a view of Mount Washington.

Mount Washington (along with Mount Madison) seen from the Appalachian Trail.

Courcy was whiling away his time watching television while still trying to figure out what unique crop to grow when he saw a beer ad and was hit by inspiration. So he hopped up and planted organic hops, built the requisite trellises and has spoken to area brewers who are interested in using locally grown hops. He’s called his hop farm Paris View Farm. According to John Harker from Maine’s Department of Agriculture, Courcy is now the only commercial hop grower in the state.

Now that’s great news. I don’t think I realized hops would grow in Maine’s climate but according to Harker, “hops used to be grown in nearly every farmer’s backyard.” I always thought the reason spruce and other plants were common as a hop substitute throughout New England was because hops wouldn’t easily grow there. Oh well, maybe it’s global warming.

UPDATE 7/25: Brendan from Beerdata.org did a really nice more in-depth piece on this story last week.

Connecticut Gives 21st Amendment Thumbs Up

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The Day, an independent newspaper headquarted in, of all places, New London, Connecticut, has a review in today’s paper of 21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat beer in a can. Author Tim Cotter has a nice little story about fruit and spices used in beer and apparently Pete Slosberg gave him a can of Shaun’s Watermelon Wheat during a recent visit to Connecticut. The paper also ran a one of my photos of Shaun and Nico that I took during our Ball Plant tour, which was nice.

Tim’s Tasting Notes:

After popping open the can I passed it around the house to see if anyone could detect a whiff of watermelon. Everyone recognized something fruity but no one was able to nail it as watermelon. I took one sip from the can and then poured it into a glass. The wheat left the beer cloudy in the glass. The taste grew on me, and about halfway through the watermelon flavor was unmistakable. I like my watermelon straight from the fridge — as cold as possible — and I wish I had chilled this can more. All in all, a refreshing summer brew.

Brit Antrim Returning to the Mainland

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Brit Antrim, who was formerly the head brewer and production manager for Anderson Valley Brewing from 1996 to 2003, moved to Hawaii three years ago to take a position as production manager at Kona Brewing. I found out yesterday that he’s not going to be renewing his contract and will be returning to the mainland after he trains his replacement. Brit is a great person and a terrific brewer. If you need an excellent brewer, production manager or both, he’s your man. If you’re interested, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll put you in touch with Brit.

Britt Antrim (at left), Production Manager of Kona Brewing with Rich Tucciarone, Kona’s head brewer, at last year’s GABF.

From the Glass-Lined Tanks of Old … St. Louis?

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Now that Anheuser-Busch will be brewing Rolling Rock at their facility in Newark, New Jersey, I expected they’d have to change some of the packaging. But in a press release from last Friday, A-B announced their intention to not change almost anything. I suppose that’s not too much of a surprise since their stated goal is to “produce the same beer and maintain its traditional taste,” according to Doug Muhleman, chief brewmaster of Anheuser-Busch.

Andy Goeler, vice president, Import, Craft and Specialty Group, Anheuser- Busch, Inc. said “[o]ur priority is to honor the Rolling Rock brand and its traditions. One way we’re doing this is through our packaging. The Rolling Rock pledge is an historic part of this brand, along with the mysterious ’33’ and the label’s other features. We wanted to take all steps possible to honor this tradition, so we plan to quote the pledge on the label in a tribute to this rich, proud history.”

Next month, when the beer will begin being brewed in New Jersey, the label will continue to read:

“From the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe,
we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment,
as a tribute to your good taste.
It comes from the mountain springs to you.”

Other items printed on the bottle, including the steeplechase, horse and mysterious “33” will also remain unchanged.

Now is it just me or won’t it be pretty hard to claim that the beer is “from the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe” when it’s brewed in Newark? Does that kind of announced deception spun as “honoring tradition” bother anyone else? It’s one thing to quietly keep the label intact, but to shout that you’re paying “tribute to this rich, proud history” while not, in fact, doing so seems arrogant in the extreme to me. If A-B had really cared about the tradition of this beer, they would have bought the brewery and continued making it in Latrobe. That would have honored the tradition and paid tribute to its history. This is spin and propaganda at its most openly brash. Curiously, this press release does not appear, at least as far as I can tell, on their corporate website where their other press releases reside. Instead, it came through PR Newswire, an online service that disseminates press releases to journalists and other industry watchers. Draw your own conclusions for that, but it seems at least a little odd.

Also from the press release:

Rolling Rock bottles will continue to have a two-color painted label on green glass from the same supplier in Pennsylvania. The front label will continue to recognize Latrobe Brewing Co., along with a required geographic designation. Anheuser-Busch will first brew Rolling Rock in the northeast, but expansion to other locations is expected. Therefore, the company is opting to place its St. Louis headquarters on the bottle.

Well that seems reasonable. A-B will be making Rolling Rock in Newark, New Jersey, stating on the bottle that it’s “from the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe” (Pennsylvania) and listing its origin as St. Louis, Missouri. Let’s review once more the letter A-B sent to All About Beer magazine in response to some labeling criticisms beer writer Fred Eckhardt had made in a 1997 article.

We don’t take issue with contract brewing — we just think beer drinkers have the right to know who really brews their beer. We, along with many other traditional brewers and beer enthusiasts, object to those who mislead consumers by marketing their beers as “craft brewed,” when in fact their beers are made in large breweries.

It may not be a perfect fit, but it still shows the King has an arbitrary sense of moral righteousness and some curious notions of right and wrong, very much in the mold of Louis XIV and other Old World royalty. It’s wrong if they do it but when we do it we’re just “honoring tradition.” Uh-huh. We are not amused.