Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Who’s Behind The Booze Tax

By

california
James Spencer at Public CEO, a California government-focused blog, has an interesting read today about an e-mail he received from the Marin Institute and what he found when he looked closer at it. It’s entitled Who’s Really Behind the Booze Tax and Why? and it’s certainly great to see more people taking a critical look at San Francisco’s proposed new tax on alcohol and exposing it for what it really is.

His conclusion?

They hate alcohol and don’t want it around. Fair enough, but why weren’t they open from the start? The email should have read: “We are against alcohol and we don’t want you to drink it.” The Marin Institute isn’t looking out for the best interest of the city of San Francisco or its economy. It has its own interests. And if their true goal is to stop us from drinking alcohol, then they must understand that this tax is going to have a dramatic effect on reducing sales, right? Sounds like they are making the argument for why this additional alcohol fee would be a terrible idea.

Beers & Queers

By

rainbow
Drawing on the USA Today article Dry America’s Not-So-Sober Reality: It’s Shrinking Fast, Wayne Besen, the founder of Truth Wins Out, a non-profit organization that debunks anti-gay lies and myths, has an intriguing piece on the Huffington Post comparing anti-gay activist tactics to those of neo-prohibitionists. It’s called Beers and Queers, and is worth reading, regardless of how you feel about either issue.

Dry Counties Dwindling

By

usa-today
USA Today ran an interesting story earlier this month about the dry counties dotting still the landscape, areas within eight states where despite alcohol being legal statewide, it’s still illegal in those counties (along with some specific towns). According to Dry America’s Not-So-Sober Reality: It’s Shrinking Fast, many of the remaining 328 may soon become wet, too.

From the article:

Today, 1 in 9 counties is still dry. But drys are losing ground on all levels, from the state — since 2002, 14 states have ended bans on Sunday alcohol sales — to the very local. In April, a 19-block section of western Louisville (the M-107 precinct) voted 89-41 to go wet.

The number of Tennessee communities that allow sales of liquor by the drink (in bars and restaurants) has increased 56% since 2003. In the same period, 22 of Texas’ 254 counties and more than 235 of its municipalities have gone wet (or “moist,” a nebulous category in which beer and wine might be legal, but not liquor).

Even in Kansas — the state that produced the ax-wielding saloon-wrecker Carry Nation; that passed the first state prohibition law in 1881; and that did not repeal it until 1948 — 16 counties have gone wet since 2002.

One interesting side note is that economics is one of the most popular reasons, with communities wanting the tax revenue from alcohol sales. But that’s also the way that neo-prohibitionists have been going after alcohol, by trying to impose more and higher taxes. An interesting dichotomy, I’d say. Below is a nice chart of where the dry counties are and their number as compared to the total counties in each state.

dry-counties-2010

Home Drinking On The Rise … D’uh.

By

graphchart
Another d’uh study was just released by the Mintel Group, showing that Alcohol Manufacturers Drink in Profits From At-Home Consumption, almost as if the alcohol industry manufactured the recession.

With fewer jobs, less money circulating (at least in the bottom 99% of the economy) and the nation deep in recession, exactly what result would any reasonable person expect but the fact that more people are staying home? Here’s what Mintel’s study found:

Among alcohol drinkers, 90% consume alcoholic beverages at home, compared to 77% who drink outside the home. Furthermore, those surveyed consume almost twice the amount of drinks at home in an average month than they do in restaurants or bars (10 vs. 5.7).

The nearly $80 billion off-premise alcoholic beverage market has grown 21% since 2004 as more consumers cut back on eating out in light of trying economic times. Drinkers are also cutting back in terms of the alcohol they’re purchasing for at-home consumption — 28% of respondents who drink alcoholic beverages at home have traded down to less expensive brands than last year to save money.

“In a price-sensitive environment, consumers may shy away from discretionary expenses, like alcohol, to save a few bucks,” says Garima Goel-Lal, senior analyst at Mintel. “About half of those who report drinking alcohol at home are drinking less than they did a year ago, but the market is still enjoying viability.”

While beer enjoys the largest share of market sales (48%), wine is the most popular alcoholic beverage consumed off-premise, with 67% of those who drink alcohol at home indulging in a glass. Distilled spirits are consumed by 57% of respondents and regular beer by 53%.

To me, the most interesting statistic is that drinking at home is causing people to have almost twice as much when they imbibe. In a sense, it’s like a backlash against people being afraid to drink when they’re out due to the efforts of neo-prohibitionists to create such anti-alcohol atmosphere. I wonder how that registers with their community? In fact, Join Together led with the bit about people drinking more, though you’d think that perhaps they’d be celebrating the fact that less people are driving to do their drinking.

Beer In Ads #153: Today’s Hampden Is The Finest Yet!

By

ad-billboard
Monday’s ad is from 1959 and is for a brewery I’d not heard of before, Hampden Brewery of Willimansett, Massachusetts. The guy at the sparse desk is Karl H. Bissell, Sr., chairman of the board for the brewery, though at that time it was known as Hampden-Harvard Brewing. Eventually Piels bought it but the brewery was shut down in 1975. Curiously, it’s been restarted as a craft brewery earlier this year as Hampden Brewing Co.

Frankly, Bissell looks more like James Carville and I’m not quite sure how this guy with his cueball noggin sitting behind a big, empty desk was meant to inspire brand loyalty or switching brands. And the slogan “New England’s Finest Beer At New England’s Fairest Price” is not exactly Shakespeare, either.

Hampden Beer

They appear to have brewed ales and lagers.

Hampden

Beer In Art #85: John Skelton’s Guinness

By

art-beer
Today’s works of art are by John Skelton, an Irish artist who passed away last year, in 2009. Born in 1925, Skelton studied art in Belfast, Northern Ireland and later at St. Martins School of Art, London, where he began his career in the 1940s. The first painting of Skelton’s I stumbled upon is not part of the works featured in his online gallery, it’s title is Aran Pintmen. There’s a Guinness sign above a half dozen lads at the bar drinking their pints of Guinness that reads “Guinness Is Good For You” in Gaelic.

John_Skelton-aran_pintmen

Here is the Guinness painting. Below is a larger version in a frame on a wall.

John_Skelton-guinness_lg

Several other of his paintings were also set in Irish pubs

John_Skelton-donegal_man-killibegs
Donegal Man. Killibegs, Co. Donegal, from 1999.

John_Skelton-a_corner_in_a_kerry_pub
A Corner In A Kerry Pub, from 2001.

John_Skelton-a_drink_with_brendan
A Drink With Brendan, from 2001.

To see more of Skelton’s work, check out his paintings at Osin Gallery, where you can also read his biography. The artist’s son Michael is also setting up a new website, John Skelton Online, to honor his father’s memory and his legacy.

Beer In Ads #152: Phoebe Cates For Asahi

By

ad-billboard
Friday’s ad ends Bud week early and is a bit of a departure for what’s usually featured here. I try not to use overtly male-oriented ads but today is an exception. We all have celebrities, male and female, that we’re more attracted to than others. For me, one of my most enduring starstruck crushes has been on Phoebe Cates, most famous for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Gremlins. But many actors also did ads in Japan, which during the 1980s was quite lucrative so many who wouldn’t do ads in the U.S. just couldn’t turn down doing them in Japan, and Phoebe Cates was no exception. She did a series of ads, usually in a bikini, for Asahi Breweries sometime during the 80s. Also, I should point out that the reason for all this is today is Phoebe Cates’ 47th birthday.

phoebe-cates-in-bikini-autographed

The campaign also included television spots, like this one on YouTube. Since it was for their Asahi Draft Beer, they used the slogan “Live Beer” in the TV spots and on branded beer glasses in the print ads, such as the ones below.

phoebe-beer-2

Sometimes in a big floppy hat, sometimes not.

phoebe-beer-1

Most of the ads I’ve seen have been cropped and don’t show the full ad, sad to say.

phoebe-beer-4