Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 New Breweries

November 17, 2009 By Jay Brooks

top-10
I recently came upon another interesting group of Top 10 lists by Newsweek about the first decade of the 21st century. It’s called The Decade in Rewind 20/10 and one part of their look back at the aughts includes a new Top 10 list every day. The list that caught my eye was an interesting one, Unknown in ’99, Indispensable Now which picked 10 things that we can’t do without in 2009 but didn’t exist ten years ago. Some things take years to catch on, but these caught on like wildfire. I use over half of them all the time, and couldn’t imagine life without them. Here’s that list:

Wikipedia
YouTube
iTunes
Digital Video Recorder (DVR)
Gardasil
Chipotle
TMZ
Red Bull
Free Credit Reports
Online Airline Check-In

So it got me thinking about the breweries that have been around for less than ten years. With Sierra Nevada coming up on their 30th anniversary, a growing number of successful breweries are older than a decade, in some cases two decades. But many new breweries have seen a phenomenal amount of success in a relatively short time. Undoubtedly, the market has changed considerably from where it was pre-millennium and that probably accounts for more favorable conditions for new craft brewers. But alone that’s not enough to account for it all. Some of these new breweries just stepped up and kicked butt. So for my 20th Top 10 list, here are my choices for the ten most important and influential breweries that began within the last ten years. These are the young Turks, the mavericks and the rookies. Some are here because they make great beer while others have made their mark through their influence. I should stress I don’t think I have a complete list of every brewery that’s opened since 1999. Also, I didn’t include new locations opened by an older, existing brewery, or ones that moved. And I certainly haven’t been to all of them at any rate. So undoubtedly I’m going to miss some worthy places, but I can only pick ten. Let me know who you’d put on the list. Here’s List #20:

Top 10 New Breweries

	Ninkasi Brewing (OR; 2006)
	The Bruery (CA; 2008)
	Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project (MA; 2008)
	21st Amendment Brewery (CA; 2000)
	Surly Brewing (MN; 2006)
	Southern Tier (NY; 2003)
	Captain Lawrence (NY; 2006)
	Tie: Laurelwood Public House & Brewery (OR; 2001) / Hopworks Urban Brewery (OR; 2008)
	Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales (MI; 2004)
	The Lost Abbey (CA; 2006)

It was, as always, really difficult to keep the list to ten, and a great many terrific and deserving breweries were left on the cutting room floor. Here’s a few more that almost made the list:

Alpine Beer Co. (CA; 2006); Bard’s Tale (NY; 2004); City Brewing (WI; 1999); Fifty Fifty Brewing (CA; 2007); Five Seasons Brewing (GA; 2000); Heavyweight Brewing (NJ; 1999); Moon River (GA; 1999); Natty Greene’s (NC; 2004); Nebraska Brewing (NE; 2007); Piece Brewing (IL; 2001); Pisgah Brewing (NC; 2005); Roots Organic Brewery (OR; 2005); Short’s Brewing (MI; 2004); Trumer Brauerei (CA; 2003)

Let me know your favorites, and if there are any that you think should have made the list, please post a comment.

NOTE: It’s a little sad that I have to mention this, but while I encourage a lively debate, that doesn’t mean I enjoy being insulted or attacked. This is meant to be fun and encourage discussion — notice the “Just For Fun” tag? Please stop reminding me it’s “just” opinion. Of course it is. Are you under the impression that I think this list is somehow definitive? Just to clear it up, it’s not. I know it. If you’d read the introduction, which apparently many people did not, you’d know it too. It’s the very definition of subjectivity. But please try to remember, as you type those angry words, that even though you can’t see me, I am a real human being. Honest, I exist. Before you hit send, ask yourself if you’d say the things you’re writing to a person who was standing right in front of you, having a conversation. If not, please take a breath, calm down, and try again. I’ve deleted the worst offenders because, oddly enough, I don’t enjoy being on the receiving end of vituperation any more than you probably do. Let’s try to keep it civil, people. Okay?

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.

Hindenbeer To Be Auctioned

November 10, 2009 By Jay Brooks

My son Porter, being a somewhat typical 8-year old, loves all things that have to do with destruction. But unlike most kids his age, he has a fascination with historical disasters, especially the Titanic and the Hindenburg. He has at least two dozen books about the Titanic and other sea disasters and three about Zeppelins and the Hindenburg, along with several more general aviation books that include airships. So it was with great joy that I told him today that a bottle of beer that was salvaged from the Hindenburg disaster was going to be auctioned this Saturday.

hindenburg

Apparently, on the morning of May 6, 1937, firefighter Leroy Smith fortuitously came upon six bottles of Lowenbrau beer and a silver-plated pitcher. Thinking quickly, he buried them, returning later to dig up his booty. He gave five of the bottles to colleagues and kept one, along with the pitcher, for himself. Most of the rest have been lost, though one ended up in the Spaten museum in Munich (and I saw that one a few years ago when I visited Spaten). In 1966, Smith’s niece inherited the two Hindenburg souvenirs, and will now be auctioned by Henry Aldridge and Son of London. Coincidentally, they also specialize in items from the Titanic.

According to the BBC, the burnt Lowenbrau bottle is expected to fetch around £5,000 (or $8,337). The auction catalog for the bottle has the following information:

Hindenburg memorabilia: An extremely rare bottle of Lowenbrau Beer recovered from the wreck site of the Z129 Hindenburg, May 6th 1937 when it crashed at Lakehurst Naval Air Station. It was recovered by local Fire Chief Leroy Smith of the Matawan Fire Department New Jersey, along with 5 others which he handed out to each of his colleagues. The whereabouts of all of these bottles with the exception of one is unknown. He presented one to the Lowenbrau brewery in 1977 where it remains to the present day. The example being offered for auction is sealed, with some of its original label and shows evidence of heat damage. This lot is sold with a provenance package which include correspondence from the Lowenbrau brewery regarding the bottle of beer donated to their Museum, press cuttings and signed copy of a letter of provenance and an account of how Fire Chief Smith came to acquire the bottle.

hinden-auction
All of the accounts of this story, such as by the BBC, the New York Post and ABC News each claim this will be the highest price paid for a bottle of beer, but in August of 2007, a bottle Allsopp’s Arctic Ale that sold on eBay for $503,300.

hinden-beer
Here’s a better view of the Lowenbrau bottle.

Tragic Or Funny?

November 7, 2009 By Jay Brooks

bud-light
Depending on your point of view, this is either tragic or funny. It happened back in June, but one of the passersby, Scott Bradley, shot a video which he recently uploaded to YouTube, and sent me a tweet. He apparently shot the video on June 17, 2009 as he was driving cross country from New Jersey to California. I guess to him it was tragic as he laments that he “was unable to put any beer in my car because my car was full to the brim with all of my stuff that I was moving.” The incident took place near Dayton, Ohio and here’s the account from the Dayton Daily News, which also includes several photos.

Beer In Ads #4: Thirst Is Only Through Good Beer

November 5, 2009 By Jay Brooks

ad-billboard
Today’s beer ad is from Germany. I saw an original of it framed at the Franconian Brewery Museum in Bamberg when I was there a couple of years ago. It was originally an advertisement for Gaffel Kolsch. The text reads “Durst wird durch Bier erst schon,” which Google translates as Thirst Is Only Through Good Beer. That’s the best-sounding one I came across, though I suspect it’s closer to something like “Thirst Is Only Quenched Through Good Beer.” Other translators came up with “thirst becomes through beer first already,” “thirst becomes by beer only already” and “thirst with beer is just been.” If you’re fluent in German, let me know what a better translation is. Still, I love the idea of being out in the desert and the mirage you see is a giant glass of beer. What better sight could there be under such circumstances?

durst-bier

It was also sold as a poster without the text.

Gaffel_Koelsch_Bierglas_Mann-in-der-Wueste-high

Hey Mabel, Take Me Out To The Ball Game

November 4, 2009 By Jay Brooks

I confess that I’m not much of a baseball fan. When I was a kid I rooted for the Baltimore Orioles and Brooks Robinson was my favorite player. But since heading west, as a young man, I’ve paid little attention to Major League Baseball. I used to attend Giants’ games at Candlestick with friends, though primarily for the tailgating (and in fact occasionally never even went inside to see the game). But since I have so many friends back in Dutch Wonderland — a.k.a. Eastern Pennsylvania — that I’m now in touch with more regularly, thanks to social media, I find myself cheering for the Phillies. But that’s neither here nor there.

Yesterday, you may recall, I listed my top 10 favorite beer slogans, including Carling Black Label’s “Hey, Mabel” campaign. Last night, while visiting a music website I frequent, I chanced upon an interesting tidbit regarding both “Hey, Mabel” and baseball. Here’s what the website had to say about it in a post that included old records sung by both Dizzy Dean and Don Drysdale:

One connection between the days of old [baseball] and today is the persistence of beer advertising. When I was a young fella, too young to drink the stuff, baseball broadcasts in our local market and some others were sponsored by Carling Black Label Beer. Throughout the 50s and into the 60s, Carling used the slogan “Hey Mabel! Black Label” and an associated jingle to sell the goods. “Hey Mabel!” was sung to the “salt peanuts” figure — apt for a beer, I’d say.
This campaign was concocted by Carling’s ad agency, Lang Fisher & Stashower. Sometime in the early 50s, the agency prepared a 78 of the music, containing two instrumental versions of the Hey Mabel theme and the Carling Black Label jingle. One was a dance band version, which combined the Carling material with Take Me Out to the Ballgame, the other a Dixieland arrangement as played by a number of well-known LA musicians. There are no vocals on the record, so my guess is it was sent to the radio stations carrying the baseball games for use as filler before breaks, as was the practice on radio stations at the time.

Here’s the 78-rpm record (remember those?).

hey-mabel-78

And you can hear the medley below. It’s not exactly a cutting edge big band arrangement, even for the mid-1950s, but there are some interesting elements and I like the “Hey Mabel” bridges between the different treatments of Take Me Out To The Ball Game. Enjoy.

brookston-baseball

And Go Phillies!

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Beer Slogans

November 3, 2009 By Jay Brooks

top-10
It’s been several months since I’ve done a Top 10 list, primarily because it’s been too hard to keep up with them weekly. So I think I’ll try once a month instead. I’ve been collecting old beer slogans for a project (more on that later) and so I thought I’d pick my ten favorite ones. I should stress — though it should be obvious — that my choices are about the efficacy of the slogans themselves, regardless of the way I might feel about the beer itself. So for my 19th Top 10 List, I present my favorite beer slogans. Let me know your faves. Here’s List #19:

Top 10 Beer Slogans

	It’s what your right arm’s for. John Courage Beer
	If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer. Miller
	When You’re Out of Schlitz, You’re Out Of Beer. Schlitz
	Guinness Is Good For You. Guinness
	Fresh. Smooth. Real. It’s all here. Bud Light
	The Happiest Taste In Beer Today. Gunther Beer Gunther is an old brand from Baltimore, Maryland that hasn’t been around for decades. But I love the idea that beer can taste “happy.” What exactly does “happy” taste like? Being a west coast guy, I assume they just meant hoppy.
	Hey Mabel, Black Label. Carling Black Label After a lackluster decade of poor sales, in 1951, Carling came up with the now-iconic Mabel the Waitress campaign, hiring New York actress Jean (sometimes spelled “Jeanne”) Goodspeed to play Mabel in TV commercials and print ads. Sales skyrocketed. In fact, they kept using her image long after she left the business in the mid-19500s to start a family and eventually even included an animated version in later ads. The Mabel campaign finally ended in the early 1970s. For me, I think what made the slogan was the whistle that precedes the slogan in television and, presumably, radio spots. Also, Mabel’s wink and a nod at the end of each ad is also priceless, even when they went to an animated version they wisely kept that element. Below are two Black Label ads, one an original live action one followed by a later animated commercial. (Note, the sound starts late in the first one. Also, check out the maniacal look of the third bartender. What’s up with that dude?)
	Here’s to good friends, tonight is kind of special. Lowenbrau This slogan is as much about the song as it is the words. It was sung by Arthur Prysock, an American jazz singer originally from South Carolina. Here are the lyrics and below them is a television commercial featuring the song from the mid-1980s, when the brand peaked. Here’s to good friends, Tonight is kind of special. The beer we’ll pour must say something more, somehow. So tonight (tonight), Tonight, Let it be Löwenbräu (let it be Löwenbräu). It’s been so long. Hey, I’m glad to see ya. Raise your glass. Here’s to health and happiness. So tonight (tonight), Let it be all the best.
	The Friendly Beer For Modern People. Reading Beer I understand most people won’t know this one, because it’s a local favorite I grew up with in Reading, Pennsylvania. But beginning in the 1950s, they started trying to convince people Reading Premium Beer was not their Dad’s beer but was for modern people, a.k.a. young people, and that it was friendly. Like happy, I just love the association they’re trying to make to persuade people their beer is more friendly than other rival beers. To me, that’s just genius marketing. It’s not that other beers don’t taste as good, it’s just that ours is friendlier. Who wouldn’t want to drink a beer that’s friendly?
	The One Beer to Have When You’re Having More Than One. Schaefer What’s not to love about this slogan? Simple, to the point, and with one of the catchiest jingles ever. It would probably never fly today, because neo-prohibitionists would immediately accuse them of encouraging binge drinking since in their addled little minds more than one already is too many. The video below is not the original version of the jingle, but a jazzier, cooler one. Enjoy!

It was, as always, really difficult to keep the list to ten, and a great many colorful beer slogans were left on the cutting room floor, mostly newer ones since I focused on older ones in the list above. Here’s a few more that might have made the list had I gone for more modern slogans:

Always a Good Decision. Samuel Adams; Drink in the World. Sapporo; Hooray Beer! Red Stripe; Life Is What You Pour Into It. Pyramid; Off-Cented Ales For Off-Centered People. Dogfish Head; You’re Not Worthy. Stone

And here’s a few older one I also like but didn’t have room for in the Top 10:

Always Smooth, Even When You’re Not. Keystone; The beer that made Milwaukee famous. Schlitz; Believe. Guinness; The Champagne of Bottled Beers. Miller High Life; For the man who really knows beer. Ortlieb; If I wanted water, I would have asked for water. Labatt Blue; It doesn’t get any better than this. Old Milwaukee; It’s what’s inside that truly counts. Dreher; When you say Budweiser, you’ve said it all. Budweiser; When you see the three-ring-sign, ask the man for Ballantine. Ballantine Ale

Let me know your favorites, and if you see any that you think should have made the list, please post a comment.

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.

Pumpkin Beer On The HuffPost

November 2, 2009 By Jay Brooks

My friend and colleague Gregory Daurer had a nice overview on Pumpkin Beers on the Huffington Post entitled It’s the Great Pumpkin Beer, Andy Brown!

Wacky Packages

October 31, 2009 By Jay Brooks

I kept looking at those four spoof beer labels that I posted earlier today for Hoppy Halloween because they reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then it hit me: Wacky Packages, those weird parody stickers that Topps debuted in 1967. Like most eight-year olds at the time, they were quite popular with me and my friends. What I didn’t realize is that they’ve continued to make them almost ever since. The Wacky Packages Website has a complete listing of all the Wacky Packages put out over the years and Topps even continues to maintain a new “official” Wacky Packages website. Not surprisingly, there have been several beer spoofs done, the first one being the very first year. It was a spoof of Schlitz, then one of the most popular beer brands.

wp-schlitz

Later ones included most of the other popular national beer brands and a few originals, like Long Line Beer, from 1981. A search of the website revealed nine different beer brands, with some variations of Pabst and a few additional beer-related ones for other products.

wp-long-line

Below is a slideshow of all of the beer-themed Wacky Packages I found, including one of port wine just because I liked it and a few that are only beer-related.

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