Today’s beer video is a short film about prohibition and its effects. Entitled Prohibition: The Forgotten Crusade, it was created by Jared K. Productions. They originally uploaded it in 2007 but because it uses old footage, it looks much older than that, so when it was actually produced I can’t say.
ABI To Buy Back Korea’s OB
In a strange turn of events, Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) has agreed to buy back the South Korean Oriental Brewery (OB) for $5.8 billion, about three times the $1.8 billion that they sold it for in 2008. OB is South Korea’s largest brewery with approximately 60% of the market.
From the press release:
KKR and Affinity Equity Partners (“Affinity”) today announced that an agreement has been entered into whereby AB InBev will reacquire Oriental Brewery (“OB”), the leading brewer in South Korea, from KKR and Affinity for 5.8 billion USD.
This agreement returns OB to the AB InBev portfolio, after AB InBev sold the company in July 2009, following the combination of InBev and Anheuser-Busch, in support of the company’s deleveraging target. AB InBev will reacquire OB earlier than July 2014, as it was originally entitled to under the 2009 transaction.
Since KKR and Affinity entered into partnership with OB in 2009, OB has grown to become the largest brewer in South Korea, driven by strong growth of the Cass brand. OB and AB InBev also remained long-term partners through OB’s exclusive license to distribute select AB InBev brands in South Korea such as Budweiser, Corona and Hoegaarden.
Carlos Brito, Chief Executive Officer of AB InBev, said, “We are excited to invest in South Korea and to be working with the Oriental Brewery team again. OB will strengthen our position in the fast-growing Asia Pacific region and will become a significant contributor to our Asia Pacific Zone.
Bloomberg Businessweek also has more on the story.
Beer In Film #20: Is Beer In Your Career?
Today’s beer video is an hour long panel discussion at UC San Diego last April, part of their Career Channel programming for UCTV, University of California Television. Entitled Is Beer In Your Career?, and panelists include Stone Brewing’s Greg Koch, Lost Abbey’s Tomme Arthur, Ballast Point’s Yuseff Cherney, and White Lab’s Chris White. They talk about “why San Diego has become such a nationally renowned region for craft beer production, and where the professional brewing industry is headed” during the hour-long discussion.
An Overview Of 2013 In Beer Law
The Pennsylvania law firm Komlossy Law, who has a craft beer practice area, posted a comprehensive overview of the major legal tussles that craft brewers went through last year, entitled the Year in Beer(law).
Hamm’s In San Francisco
A friend and regular reader sent me this old photograph of the Hamm’s brewery sign at night, taken in San Francisco around 1954, the year the Hamm’s Brewery opened. It’s a nighttime shot of the iconic Hamm’s sign on the roof of the brewery that was located at 1550 Bryant Street. When it was built, “it was the largest commercial sign on the West Coast.” The brewery closed in 1972, and sign taken down three years later, in 1975. According to Wikipedia, it was a “20-by-80 foot sign, with a 3-dimensional 13-foot beer chalice on top, [and] appeared in the first Dirty Harry film. In the early 1980s, the beer vats were first squatted and then rented out to punk rock bands. Known as “The Vats,” the brewery was a center of San Francisco punk rock culture with about 200 bands using individual vats as music studios. The building was renovated in the mid 1980s and converted into offices and showroom space.” In 2012, the Chronicle did a piece about the sign’s fate, What happened to the Hamm’s Brewery sign?, that included additional photos taken during the day, but the sign looks most impressive at night, and it was even animated, with neon rings of beer turning on and off in sequence, so the glass of beer looked like it was emptying and then filling up again.
Spencer Trappist Brewery Is Bizarre?
By now you’ve probably seen the news that the Spencer Trappist Brewery, America’s first Trappist brewery is selling beer, their Spencer Trappist Ale. I didn’t feel the need to write much about it since the news is just about everywhere, from the Boston Globe to L.A. Weekly, from NPR to CBS News.
But here’s one I don’t quite get. When ABC News, specifically the affiliate station out of Fresno, California, KFSN Channel 30, covered the story, they ran the headline US monks move into Trappist beer brewing business, but used essentially the same AP Story that most news outlets are using for this story. But ABC News also tagged the story with “Massachusetts,” which makes sense, and “bizarre,” which does not. Could somebody please explain to me what’s “bizarre” about this story? Other headlines in ABC’s bizarre topics include stories about devil babies, atomic wedgies and anal probes. But monks brewing beer, something they’ve been doing since the middle ages, possibly as early as the 6th century, is lumped in with what you’d normally only find in the pages of the Weekly World News when you’re checking out at the grocery store.
Maybe I’m overly sensitive, but that seems like beer getting a slap in the face to me. It was probably just some ignorant intern who didn’t know what to do with the story and didn’t want to have to think about it very much, and so just threw it in the catch-all category. But surely this story should have been characterized differently. Is that really too much to ask?
You can also see additional photos at their Facebook page. And below is a video of the Spencer Trappist monks from St. Joseph’s Abbey.
A day in the life of a monk at St. Joseph’s Abbey from Spencer Brewery on Vimeo.
Beer Film #15: How Stuff Works
Today’s beer video is from the long-running series How Stuff Works that originally appeared on the Discovery Channel.
Number Of Breweries In America Reaches 2700
The Brewers Association released preliminary numbers for how many operating breweries there were in the United States as of the end of last year. That number, the highest since America’s peak in the 1870s, was 2,722. That’s nearly 400 more than at the end of 2012. Those are broken down as follows.
- Regional breweries: 120
- Microbreweries: 1376
- Brewpubs: 1202
- Large breweries: 24
- Total: 2,722
From the press release:
98% of these breweries were small and independent craft breweries. It is interesting to note that 2013 marks the first year since 1987 that microbreweries outnumbered brewpubs in the country.
The total of 2,722 brewing facilities is the highest count since the US in around 140 years, more than when the country celebrated her centennial birthday. In 1876, the Register of United States Breweries lists 2,685 breweries. It is not however, the highest number of all-time, as the Register lists 3,286 in 1870.
In addition to the 2,722 brewing facilities, there were an additional 1,744 breweries in planning at the end of December, the highest year-end number in the BA database.
Beer Film #14: Craft Beer — A Hopumentary
Today’s beer video is by Jeremy Williams and was made in the Bay Area. Craft Beer — A Hopumentary is just under 15 minutes and was shot in early 2013.
Beer Film #12: The American Brew Extras, Pt. 5
Today’s beer video is part five, the final one in a series of extras from the film The American Brew that was produced by Anheuser-Busch’s Here’s To Beer campaign in 2008. The DVD is still actually available from Amazon. Enjoy.