Okay, last political post for the next four years. Well, maybe not that long, but I’m probably as tired of the political cycle as you are reading me going on about it. With the election finally over, we can get back to what really matters: drinking beer. So, one final congratulations to the Craft Beer President (with a link to an Indiana student paper article from September), and now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Illustration by Ben Wade, from the Indiana Daily Student’s Weekend in Bloomington.
Beer, The Great Political Leveler
I know I’m beating a dead horse — or is that donkey and elephant? — today, but as it’s election day and I’m of the opinion that most people don’t take politics seriously enough, it can’t be helped. Poking around today, when I should have been working, I found an interesting President’s Day piece from earlier this year on Politico. Entitled For Presidents, Beer is Great Leveler, it was written by Joe McClain, president of The Beer Institute. I wrote a similar article earlier this year, too, All the President’s Beer.
McClain and I certainly agree on beers’ importance to presidential politics. “Beer has come to symbolize the unique connection between presidents and the people they serve. Presidents are charged with bridging divides and finding common ground with citizens from all ideologies and backgrounds. There’s no common denominator like beer.” After dropping Eisenhower’s most famous beer quote, he continues. “Just as Ike used beer as a measure of the average American voter, voters used beer to measure presidential candidates.” But I absolutely love his conclusion.
Beer is a unifier and equalizer. It transcends party and ideology, geography and class, and is enjoyed by young and old, male and female, Democrat and Republican. It leads to common ground in politics and life. When so much in the world pulls us apart, beer has been there to bring us together.
Indeed. As I’ve been saying all day. Vote Beer!
I’m A Craft Beer Drinker And I Vote
A couple of months ago, my friend and colleague, Don Russell — who often writes under the non de plume Joe Sixpack — wrote a provocative article declaring Craft-Beer Drinkers to Decide Election. With the presidential election tomorrow, I thought it fitting to take another look at that.
Russell ranked “the states by brewery density — the number of breweries per 1,000 square miles.” From that, a pattern emerged. Of the 25 states with the highest concentration of breweries, all of them voted for the Democratic candidate in 2008; what statisticians call a “positive correlation.” His interpretation:
The density of breweries in a state is at least partly related to the density of its population; the more people, the more breweries. Obama performs better in densely populated states because urban populations tend to be more diverse and liberal.
Naturally, the reverse is true: States with fewer breweries per square mile overwhelmingly vote Republican.
Another colleague, Jeff Alworth in Portland, Oregon, disagreed with Russell’s analysis and said so in Gerrymandered! Craft Beer Is No Proxy for Political Leanings. He believes brewery density is the wrong metric to use, preferring breweries per capita. I confess that’s a statistic I’ve never warmed to, for no particular reason except that it seems to unfairly favor states with less people in many cases.
Russell doesn’t examine that, but he does also look at states by per capita beer consumption. In that instance, no illuminating trends appear. “Of the 10 biggest beer-drinking states, five voted for Obama in 2008, and five backed Sen. John McCain of Arizona.”
In the end, according to Russell. “What’s really important here is the type of beer voters are drinking.” Whichever way the election goes tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if any of this holds true. I can’t help but like the idea of craft beer deciding elections, however far-fetched. Still, the important thing is to drink craft beer … and vote. I want to see that bumper sticker: “I’m a craft beer drinker and I vote.”
UPDATE: As Stan Hieronymus points out, I was remiss in not including Beer Drinkers For Obama.
Beer Prices By Football Stadium
Given the NFL owner’s wanton disregard for their fans with the labor dispute debacle earlier this year, I’ve been paying much less attention to the football season. I check in to see if my beloved Packers have won, but that’s about it. For a number of years now — since I’ve had kids — I rarely go to a live game, usually because it’s such a time-consuming hassle and so expensive, in part because there’s four of us so costs rise exponentially. That’s especially true when it comes to beer, if you can even find anything worth drinking.
To help find a better deal, and to prove my point, Save on Brew looked at beer prices at the 32 NFL stadiums in a post entitled the 2012 – 2013 NFL Stadium Beer Price Infographic.
Here’s what they found:
Going to the game? It’s gonna cost you. According to FanCostExperience.Com (and the source for our stadium data), prices are rising across the sport. The average beer is up 15 cents from last year at $7.28. In this economy, every cent counts.
Rounding out the price-assault on the American public, the average NFL ticket is $78.38 (that’s a regular ticket, the “premium ticket” average is $243.70), a soft drink is $4.57, a ‘dog is $4.84, parking is $27.35, a program is $4.06, and a cap celebrating your favorite team will set you back $21.38 (on average) and, of course, a few of those $7.28 beers adds up pretty fast. In fact, a family of 4 will spend, on average, $443.93.
So wow, that’s even more expensive than I’d thought. That makes movie theater food and drink look like an absolute bargain. I guess they need to make that much profit so they can pay the referees. I feel so sorry for the owners, that they must be struggling so much that they need to charge close to six times the retail price for a beer. Because if the average price for a beer at an NFL stadium is $7.28 for 17 oz., that’s 42.8 cents per ounce! That works out to be about $5.14 for 12 ounces. A six-pack of Bud Light at my local BevMo costs $5.79, making it pretty close to six times the price. Now that’s gouging.
For a mainstream craft beer it’s almost as bad. A six-pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale costs $8.99 at BevMo, meaning 12 ounces of pale ale will cost you more than half of the price of an entire six-pack outside the stadium.
Notice the average cost for a family of four? $444! Seriously, how many people can afford that on a regular basis? Another similar survey of NFL prices on Visual.ly, entitled The Real Cost of Attending a Game, likewise concluded that the average cost to a family of four is $427.42. In that survey, they found the average price for a small beer to be $7.13, a pretty similar result. Given how much money the owners make, it it really reasonable to charge so much for tickets and other concessions at the game? I understand that in some sense they’re market prices. There are enough people willing to pay that much, and many games are sold out or nearly so. But does that make it right? Especially when owners complain they can’t afford to pay the refs. Every few years they fleece the community in which they live, threatening to move the team if they’re not given free money, or at least tax relief, to build a new stadium they probably don’t need. Don’t believe that? Read Field of Schemes.
It’s really a shame. I love the game. I like watching the games, cheering on my favorite team, especially with my son. I know it’s a business. I get that. But sports is really a part of the entertainment industry, so it’s not exactly like other businesses. As the recent strikes in baseball, basketball and football have shown, team owners really seem to believe that the people who consume their products — the fans — don’t matter all that much. But they could ease up on the beer prices and still make a healthy profit. That’s a decision I could drink to.
C2CT2: Second Annual Coast To Coast Toast November 15
Last year, Vanberg & DeWulf, the beer import company founded by Don Feinberg and Wendy Littlefield, celebrated their 30th anniversary with a Coast to Coast Toast. It was such a great success, that they’re doing it again this year. C2CT2 — Coast to Coast Toast 2 — will take place this year on November 15, which in Belgium is “King’s Day,” a national holiday celebrating their monarchy. So it’s a great date to celebrate Belgian beer and Belgian culture.
Last year, about 350 establishments across the country participated in the Coast to Coast Toast to Belgian beer. This year, Wendy tells me it should be at least 400. If you want to see if there’s a C2CT2 event taking place near you, there’s a list you can download at their website. If you want to consider hosting a toast, you can sign up at Eventbrite.
Even if you can’t make it out — I’m staying in again and toasting with the missus, for example — toast them in the comfort of your home. It should be easy enough to find one of the great beers they import. Any beer from the following Belgian and European breweries will fit the bill.
- Amiata
- Castelain (also St. Amand)
- De Cam
- Dilewyns
- Dubuisson (Scaldis and Cuvee de Trolls)
- Dupont (also Moinette, Foret, Les Bons Voeux and others)
- Ölvisholt BrugghÚs, Iceland
- Slaghmuylder (Witkap Stimulo Singel Abbey Ale)
- V&D exclusive collaborations with De Troch (Lambrucha)
- V&D exclusive collaborations with Et Famille (Lambickx)
- V&D exclusive collaborations with Scheldebrouwerij (Hop Ruiter)
You can also find a list of all of their beers in their portfolio at their C2CT2 website.
Session #69: The Perfect Beer World
Our 69th Session, is hosted by Jorge, who writes Brew Beer And Drink It. The topic he’s chosen is what is the The Perfect Beer World? Essentially, he wants to know what will “lead us into the Perfect Beer World? or how do you describe the Perfect Beer World?” You can see more examples or a fuller explanation at his announcement, but here’s an abridged version of what Jorge is looking for:
I like seeing:
- more people share the wealth of this industry rather than just a few companies
- passionate people brewing because they love the craft more than they care about pleasing the pockets of shareholders, and
- micro-breweries actually getting involved with the community and hold events that benefit non-profits…
The Perfect Beer World… that’s how I picture it…
So with that being said… what is something you would like to see change… something that will take us closer to the Perfect Beer World?
The topic is wide open… even if you think that what you want to change for the better is not important or ridiculous… share it!
I should say at the outset that despite there being many things I’d like to see improve in the state of beer, the fact is that the way things are at present are a lot better than when I was a kid — or young adult — and first starting to love beer. For those of us old enough to have been alive before the rise of craft beer, it’s tempting to say things are near perfect now. And while I don’t believe they are perfect, or indeed nearing it, they are so much better than they used to be, it must be said. In many ways, I’m somewhat jealous of anyone turning 21 today and finding themselves in a world of beer that’s nearly unrecognizable from the world of 1980, the year I could first legally drink (not including trips to New Jersey, New York and Virginia where it was 18 or 19 at different times or on the military base where it was legal at 18).
But, of course, there’s always room for improvement. So what would my perfect beer world look like? I’m not sure there ever will be one, but I’m game to make a wish list. If even some of these eventually came to pass, the world would be a far better place, at least to me, and possibly other beer lovers.
- Craft percentage would be at least 50%. If craft beer was about half, or more, of all beer sold, then we could stop calling it craft beer, or struggling with what to call it, and just call it “beer.” Plus, there would likely be far more choices available.
- Newspapers & magazines will stop calling their drinks coverage, or in some cases their title, “the wine section,” “wine & food,” the “food & wine section” or some such, and either include beer in the title or make it more generic so it includes all alcoholic beverages. They already cover beer, and it’s insulting that they don’t update their headings to match that reality.
- Retailers, especially grocery, liquor and convenience stores, stock a good selection of better beer and stop carrying every package of macrobeer.
- Restaurants start carrying beer lists that are every bit as thoughtful and extensive as their wine lists.
- Waitstaff and bartenders know what they’re selling, at least enough that they can actually help customers decide what to order.
- Chefs get a clue about how well beer and food work together, and start cooking with it and thinking about what to pair their menu items with. This is especially important for the ones who currently continue to be willfully ignorant about beer.
- Thanks to common sense, the good work of small craft breweries in local communities and a sudden breakout of perspective cause neo-prohibitionist and anti-alcohol organizations to lose so many members that they effectively go out of business.
- Beer distributors, in larger numbers, recognize the profitability of craft beer and stop placing as much focus on the bigger brands. This has changed a lot over the past decade, but could still improve in some areas of the country.
- The minimum age for drinking is either lowered to 18 across the board, is lowered to 18 for just beer, or is permitted for active duty servicemen and veterans who are at least 18 but under 21.
- People stop drinking low-calorie light diet beer, and turn instead to session beers.
The Daily’s Foolproof Guide To Picking The Perfect Brew
With tongue firmly in cheek, The Daily posted this chart on Sunday, calling it their Foolproof Guide To Picking The Perfect Brew.
Two Is Better
I’m a fan of the website Woot!, which offers special deals, one each day. They’ve since added additional daily deals, such as tech woot!, sport woot!, home woot!, and even kids woot!. Most days, it’s not something I’m interested in or need, but every now and then it’s totally worth it and I buy the daily deal. They also have shirt woot!, where they sell daily t-shirts, too. Generally, those are pretty interesting, a few funny ones, some clever. Today’s is a beer shirt. I personally wouldn’t wear it, but I thought it was interesting. And it’s nice to see beer shown in a positive light, even if just on a silly t-shirt. The shirt is called Two is Better and shows two full mugs of beer high-fiving with a rainbow connecting them. They’re the twin pots of gold, so to speak. Hard to argue with that.
The Formula For The Perfect Pint
I can only assume that the UK pub chain Taylor Walker is, in the appropriate British parlance, taking the piss, with their commissioning of Mindlab to discover the formula for “the perfect pint.” Though there is a Mind Lab at the University of Sussex, this bit of news is not listed in their news or press section. At any rate, they claim to have “used complex mathematical modelling techniques to discover what conditions are required to enjoy the perfect pint.”
So what is the formula for a perfect pint?
Here goes: E = -(0.62T2 + 39.2W2 + 62.4P2) + (21.8T + 184.4W + 395.4P + 94.5M – 90.25V) + 50(S + F + 6.4)
- E is a factor describing overall enjoyment.
- T is the ambient temperature in degrees Celsius.
- W is the number of days until you are required back at work.
- P is the number of people with whom you are drinking.
- M is related to your mood whilst drinking the pint.
- V is related to the volume of the music being played.
- S and F are related to the availability of snacks and food.
Without the number variants, so slightly simpler, it’s E = -(T2+W2+P2) + (T+W+P+M-V) + 50(S+F+6.4), though it’s hardly E = MC2. Below a presumed “scientist” — he is after all, wearing a lab coat and surrounded by books and beakers — explains it all:
Happy Birthday To The Microbrewery
Today is the 36th anniversary of the day that New Albion Brewery incorporated, which happened on October 8, 1976. New Albion Brewery was the first modern microbrewery, the first small brewery to be built from scratch, mainly from scrap and discarded industrial equipment.
To me, and many others, that makes it the first modern microbrewery and its legacy should be remembered, revered and celebrated. Its founder, Jack McAuliffe, essentially shied away from the brewing community after the brewery closed in 1983, returning to his original profession as an engineer. As a result, few people — except us old-timers and historians — give McAuliffe his due. A lot of young brewers and fans don’t know his name, though that, happily, is changing.
Maureen Ogle managed to track down McAuliffe through his daughter for her book, Ambitious Brew, and in it she gives a great account of New Albion Brewery.
Jack McAuliffe back in the day.
Last year, of course, Sierra Nevada persuaded McAuliffe to come to Chico to collaborate on a beer for their 30th anniversary. Jack & Ken’s Ale, a black barley wine. At that point, more people began writing about him. Here are a few articles from last year:
- John Holl had a great piece he did for CraftBeer.com, New Albion Brewing.
- Eric Braun in the San Antonio Express-News, McAuliffe’s new home, wrote Jack McAuliffe is Namesake of Commemorative Sierra Nevada Beer.
- Greg Kitsock in the Washington Post writes The father of craft brewing comes out of retirement.
Since then, Jack has finally started to embrace his legacy. He came to the Craft Brewers Conference this past May, when it was in San Francisco. He stayed an extra week with a good friend from the old days in Sonoma. He had lunch at Russian River Brewery in Santa Rosa, and the next day gave owners Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo, along with myself, a tour of the spot where the brewery had been originally located.
Below are some photos taken in 1979 and ones I took earlier this year when I toured the old site.
The side and front of the brewery in 1979.
The front in 2011
The back and side in 1979.
The same side this year, with Jack McAuliffe and Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo.
Jack showing us that the brewery used to be … right … here.
The old photos are from a lengthy article about the brewery in Brewers Digest in November 1979. They also did a shorter follow-up in 1980. Breweriana collector Jess Kidden has a page online on the New Albion Brewing, where he has scans from the original articles. He was kind enough to send me the original scans, from which I clipped out more of the photos, which you can see in the slideshow below.
I had hoped to make today an official, or at least semi-official holiday, but alas, politics got in the way. So I’ll have to resort to the old-fashioned way of just celebrating it every year and hoping that eventually enough other people begin to recognize it. Really, that’s all it takes to create a holiday. So as far as I’m concerned October 8 is the “Birthday of the Microbrewery” or perhaps more simply “Microbrewery Day.” To that I’ll raise a glass each year to Jack McAuliffe and his pioneering New Albion Brewery. Thank you, Jack. This one’s for you.
Jack and Jim Koch during GABF last week in Denver.
And finally, my most recent newspaper column was my latest attempt at commemorating October 8, and a tribute to New Albion, entitled Jack McAuliffe, craft beer pioneer, although my original title was You Don’t Know Jack.