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Montana’s Victory & More

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There’s a nice round-up on Charlie Papazian’s blog about some current state legislation around the country, for example some good news out of Montana, similar to Alabama’s news two weeks ago:

Montana just passed a law which will allow beer to be up to 14% alcohol by volume (before it was max at 7% by weight, about 8.75 % by volume), effective in October. That new limit is conditional.The beer must be built 75% from malted cereal grains, if above 8.75% by volume. If over the 8.75% and less than 75% from malted cereal grains, the beer must be sold in liquor stores.

That’s followed by a summary of pending issues at various states and some interesting tax information, too.

 

World’s Worst Beers

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Well, at least according to Rate Beer these are the world’s fifty worst beers as rated by their members. Here’s the introduction to RateBeer’s list:

Below is a list of worst beers in the world as rated by the thousands of beer enthusiasts at RateBeer.com. Dare to try them? We don’t advise it. We provide this list in the name of beer education. We aren’t picking on the fat kid as much as we’re making a few big brewers accountable for their products that are more about beer hype and marketing than substance.

So one has to assume that by worst they mean ones that people generally don’t like drinking, worst in the sense of their popularity among beer geeks, worst in the sense of having very little flavor or worst in the sense of being made by very large companies with bad reputations among the fans of small breweries and specifically not in the sense that they aren’t well made. Because like it or not, most of the beers made by the big breweries are technically very well made, it’s just that a majority of people who are passionate enough about beer to go to RateBeer and rate the beers that they try tend not to like American-style light lagers and similar styles.

And most, if not all, of these beers were not sampled blind, meaning there was more than likely strong bias against them in rating them. Because also, like or not, many of the beers on this list are also some of the most popular beers in the world. No. 36, Bud Light, for example, is the highest ranked brand in the world according to the 2009 Millward Brown Optimor Top 100 and the second most popular beer brand in the world according to Plato Logic. I’m no fan of these beers personally and I’m certainly not trying to champion any of the ones on this list, but I do want to put this into perspective.

The World’s Worst Beers

  1. Halsnæs Poulsen / Halsnæs Bryghus (Denmark)
  2. Busch NA / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  3. O’Douls / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  4. Gluek Stite Light Lager / Cold Spring Brewery
  5. Olde English 800 3.2 / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  6. Pabst NA / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  7. Hurricane Ice / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  8. Sleeman Clear / Sleeman Brewing & Malting Co. (Canada) (Sapporo; Japan)
  9. Black Label 11-11 Malt Liquor / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  10. Natural Light / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  11. Natural Ice / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  12. Tooheys Blue Ice / Tooheys (Lion Nathan Co.; New Zealand)
  13. Michelob Ultra / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  14. Milwaukee’s Best / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  15. Coors Non-Alcoholic / Coors Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  16. Diamond White Cider / Matthew Clark Cider (England)
  17. Miller Sharps / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  18. Tuborg T-Beer / Carlsberg Brewery (Denmark)
  19. PC 2.5 g Low Carb / Brick Brewing Company (Canada)
  20. Jacob Best Ice / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  21. Coors Aspen Edge / Coors Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  22. Bud Light Chelada / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  23. Molson Kick / Molson Breweries (MolsonCoors; Canada)
  24. Bud Ice Light / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  25. Genesee NA / High Falls Brewing Company
  26. Busch Ice / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  27. Rockman High Gravity Lager / Sleeman Brewing & Malting Co. (Canada) (Sapporo; Japan)
  28. Molson Ex Light / Molson Breweries (MolsonCoors; Canada)
  29. Old Milwaukee Ice / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  30. Labatt Sterling / Labatt Breweries (InBev; Canada)
  31. Blue Ice Beer / San Miguel Brewery (Hong Kong)
  32. Hek Original Lager Blonde Beer (Blue label) / Groupe Geloso (Canada)
  33. Pabst Ice / Pabst Brewing Company
  34. Tooheys Blue Bitter / Tooheys (Lion Nathan Co.; New Zealand)
  35. Fosters Light / Fosters Brewing (Australia)
  36. Bud Light / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  37. Busch Light / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  38. Camo Silver Ice High Gravity Lager / City Brewery (Melanie Brewing Co)
  39. Tooheys Extra Dry Platinum / Tooheys (Lion Nathan Co.; New Zealand)
  40. Milwaukee’s Best Light / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  41. Pabst Extra Light / Pabst Brewing Company
  42. Molson Ultra / Molson Breweries (MolsonCoors; Canada)
  43. Camo 900 High Gravity Lager / City Brewery (Melanie Brewing Co)
  44. Matt Accel / Matt Brewing Company
  45. Adelskronen Mix Alsterwasser/ Radler / Feldschlößchen Braunschweig (Carlsberg; Denmark)
  46. Lucky Lager Force 10 / Labatt Breweries (InBev)
  47. Busch Beer / Anheuser-Busch InBev
  48. Schlitz Red Bull / Miller Brewing Company (MillerCoors)
  49. Molson Exel / Molson Breweries (MolsonCoors; Canada)
  50. Fosters Light Ice / Fosters Brewing (Australia)

There are some obvious problems with the list. For example, six of the beers are non-alcoholic (I marked them in blue). I know they’re trying to duplicate the taste of beer, but with less than 0.5% alcohol, I’m not sure they should be a part of this list. They’re designed for a very specific purpose, that is for people who can’t tolerate alcohol for whatever reason. A casual drinker would never choose one of these beers absent some specific need. For that same reason I’d argue that gluten-free beers should also not be on such a list, but there aren’t any on the list surprisingly enough. Also one of the items on the list, No. 16, is hard cider, not a beer at all. In the original list, Nos. 33 and 41, Pabst Ice and Pabst Extra Light, respectively, are attributed to MillerCoors, though they only brew them under license for Pabst, who owns the labels.

 
Also, just as a matter of curiosity, here’s some additional interesting data I gleaned from the list:
 

Company Distribution

  1. Anheuser-Busch In Bev = 12 (24%)
  2. MillerCoors = 11 (22%)
  3. MolsonCoors = 4 (8%)
  4. Carlsberg = 2 (4%)
  5. Fosters = 2 (4%)
  6. Labatt/InBev = 2 (4%)
  7. Pabst = 2 (4%)
  8. Sleeman/Sapporo = 2 (4%)
  9. Toohey’s/Lion Nathan = 2 (4%)

Country of Origin Distribution

  1. United States = 31 (62%)
  2. Canada = 9 (18%)
  3. Denmark = 3 (6%)
  4. New Zealand = 3 (6%)
  5. Australia = 2 (4%)
  6. England = 1 (2%)
  7. Hong Kong = 1 (2%)

Style Distribution

  1. Light Lagers = 28 (56%)
  2. Ice Beer = 11 (22%)
  3. Malt Liquor = 7 (14%)
  4. Non-Alcoholic = 6 (12%)
  5. Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer = 3 (6%)

Session #27: Beer Cocktails

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This month is our 27th monthly Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday. The topic this month is “Beer Cocktails: Beyond the Black & Tan,” hosted by Joe Ruvel & Jasmine Smith at Beer at Joe’s. By cocktails or mixed drinking that include beer as one of the ingredients, here’s what Joe has in mind:

Most people have had a black & tan, which is a combination of two kinds of beer and think it’s pretty tasty. Most people have heard of a Shandy, beer with lemonade or soda added, and think it’s not so tasty.

But beer cocktails go far beyond these two famous examples. Many countries have their own versions, and many new chefs and bartenders are getting creative with beer as an ingredient, not just a standalone drink.

What’s your favorite beer cocktail (and yes, despite the title of this post, it can be a black & tan or a shandy)? Find a recipe for that or a new one, try it, and tell us why you did or didn’t like it–even if you think beer cocktails are nothing but a good way to waste a beer. Have fun and try something new!

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While I’d wager that the idea of mixing beer with other liquors and liquids strikes most as a bad idea, I’ve actually had some very good experiences with mixed beer drinks, though I suppose the majority of those are guilty pleasures. I have, for example, very fond memories of Spotie Oties (or possibly Spodie Odies), a drink I first learned about at tailgate parties at Penn State, where several good high school friends of mine went to college. A Spotie Otie is simply a mix of equal parts cheap beer and cheap Sangria. I know, I know. But it sounds much worse than it tastes. Its flavor actually reminds you a lot of a fruit punch and it’s very easy drinking, or in A-B parlance it had great “drinkability.” And don’t forget that this was at a time before craft beer so it was far more necessary than it might be today.

Another favorite beer cocktail is another very simple one, though I don’t now if it has a name. Take any dry Irish stout and add a few drops of Crème de Cassis. It just gives the beer a certain something, just a nice hint of fruitiness.

So I’m not opposed to mixed drinks with beer per se, but it seems it was a better idea when it was harder to find a decent beer.

Even when I wrote my guidebook to Silicon Valley, in 1991-92, it was often difficult to find a bar with anything different on tap. So having an appendix with Beer Cocktails made sense. If I wrote it again today, I might not include them, but looking back there are some fun recipes all the same.

I know that cocktails have their origin in the 17th century and the first mention of them in print was 1803, April 28th to be precise. And I know that the word “cocktail” itself was once a specific drink that included any distilled spirits mixed with sugar, water, and bitters. Over time it became a generic term for any mixed drink, but I think my original sense of it stems from Prohibition, when it took on a new importance to mask bathtub gin and other homemade alcoholic drinks’ imperfections. I’m probably wrong about this (Maureen? Bob?) and I’m in a field in Boonville — not the middle of nowhere, but you can see if from here — but I seem to recall that the number and creativity of cocktails exploded during that period precisely because the need was so great to cover defects in the homemade spirits served at speakeasies and elsewhere.

That was certainly my initial experience with beer cocktails, they always used cheap beer that was lacking in flavor as the base liquid for mixing. For that reason, I never felt too bad about mixing with them, since I wouldn’t want to drink those beers anyway. It always seemed like finding a home for an orphaned beer that otherwise would just be left alone to go bad. Effectively, it was adulteration with purpose. And that’s probably where it would have ended, an old idea whose time had passed. But recently my mind was changed by my friend Sean Paxon, the Homebrew Chef, who made me a special mixed beer cocktail for my birthday party in March of this year.

cocktails

Whatever Sean named it (I can’t recall), it used Westmalle Tripel as the base liquid. I confess my first reaction at the time was revulsion at what I perceived was ruining such a fine beer. But that was before I tasted it. To the Tripel, Sean added a foam made with coconut, ginger and something else, and I think Mango juice may have been involved somewhere. I’m pretty sure we were all guinea pigs for an upcoming article in Beer Advocate magazine, so the full recipe will most likely be in the next issue. Whatever was in it, it was delicious, and it definitely changed my mind that a beer cocktail can use a decent beer without fear of death threats. So I obviously need to rethink my bias against the mixed beer cocktail. Cheers!

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Session #25: Love Lager

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March comes in like a lager for our 25th monthly Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, thanks to John Duffy, a.k.a. The Beer Nut, whose theme this time around is “Love Lager,” by which he means the cheap stuff, the mass-produced swill, the … well, let’s let him tell us:

It’s the world’s most popular style of beer and can be found in abundance in almost every corner of the globe. For millions of people the word “beer” denotes a cold, fizzy, yellow drink — one which is rarely spoken of among those for whom beer is a hobby or, indeed, a way of life.

So for this Session, let’s get back to basics. I’m sure I’m not the only one whose early drinking career featured pale lager in abundance, so consider this a return to our roots as beer drinkers. Don’t even think about cheating the system: leave your doppelbocks and schwarzbiers out of this one: I want pilsners, light lagers, helleses and those ones that just say “beer” because, well, what else would it be?

I want to know what’s so great about them, and what’s awful. Are we talking just lawnmowers, barbecues and sun holidays here, or is there a time for some thoughtful considered sipping of a cold fizzy lager?

session_logo_all_text_200 Well, I suppose there’s some truth to what he says. I assume like most people of my generation, at least, I did grow up on interchangeable light-bodied lagers, in my case mostly regional brands that are no longer with us from where I hail from, the southeastern area of Pennsylvania that I refer to as “Dutch Wonderland.” There’s no real area that’s been given that name, except in my mind. Dutch Wonderland is actually a C-rate amusement park in Lancaster. But to me, that seems the perfect appellation because it was a wonderful place to grow up and the Dutch refers not to the Netherlands, but to its German heritage. It’s Dutch like Pennsylvania Dutch, a corruption of Deutsch, meaning German. And I grew up near the heart of Amish Pennsylvania. In fact, my relatives emigrated there in the early 1700s from Bern, Switzerland, which is in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. They were Anabaptists and settled on a farm in what today is Bernville. My relatives were essentially Mennonites, which are like reformed Amish. Or perhaps more correctly, the Amish are conservative Mennonites who rejected certain technologies and, unlike most immigrants, managed to avoid assimilation.

By the time I came along, the family farm was sold, and the relatives of my grandparents’ generation had scattered. I grew up just outside of Reading, and that’s “red-ding,” NOT “reed-ding” for all you Monopoly players who remember it was the first railroad on the board. My hometown, from age 5 up, was Shillington, a one-square mile plot housing around 6,000 people. Its most famous son was author John Updike, who recently passed away. It’s about a one and a quarter-hour drive northwest from Philadelphia.

All over Eastern Pennsylvania in the 1960s and 70s, there were quite a number of regional brands that were either still going, or which were still being brewed under license by someone bigger who’d acquired the brand name. Just off the top of my head, there was Carling, Fyfe & Drum, Ortlieb, Schaefer, Schmidt’s, Sunshine and Yuengling. Who knows how many names are lost due to the systematic killing off of my brain cells.

But it was hometown favorite Reading Beer that I remember so clearly. Advertising for the brand was everywhere throughout town. Actually, it still is in many of the old corner bars that continue to dot the city. They had those concentric circles on the cans that really made them stand out. My memory, actually, is that the beer wasn’t very good. They went out of business in 1976, when I began my senior year of high school (though I think Schaefer continued brewing it in Fogelsville). At that age, my friends and I weren’t terribly picky about our beer. But because Reading Premium was fairly ubiquitous and pretty cheap, it was not unusual that that’s what we’d end up with. Even to my untrained palate and at an age when I’d drink whatever I could manage to get my hands on, I don’t remember the taste of Reading Premium all that fondly.

 reading-circle

I don’t recall great variation in the many different regional beers that were available at the time. We had our favorites, though I believe now they must have been all based on perceptions created by marketing and advertising. For us, it was about image. We all had relatives who had their particular brands they were more or less loyal to. My stepfather gravitated toward Carling Black Label, my Mom — when she drank at all — liked Sunshine, and I had an uncle who drank only Schmidt’s. Why? Beats me, I couldn’t really see the why they were loyal to their brands; they were virtually indistinguishable as far as I could tell.

reading I have great nostalgia for the brand, but almost entirely for their image, the cool graphics, the slogan: “Friendly Beer for Modern People,” and the fact that it was my hometown.

Given Anheuser-Busch’s rise to prominence, it’s curious to recall that when I was a youth, it was a brand that had almost no presence in my area. In fact, it was generally perceived, especially as I entered the teens as a new beer, as a brand with rebellious overtones because it was new to us and was definitely not our father’s beer. In fact, the marketing of that perception was so successful that I once wore a Budweiser t-shirt to church one Sunday, for which my Mother later went apoplectic when she learned of my immature act of rebellion.

But in the end I suppose it was that sameness that made me so receptive to new beers when I left home and lived in New York City in the late 1970s. The only beer that tasted any different than almost every beer available when I was a teenager was Genesee Cream Ale, and even then it was a favorite simply because it was different; a little less bitter, a little more sweet, a least in fond memory. So when I encountered newly imported beers like Bass, Guinness and Pilsner Urquell in jazz clubs throughout New York City, they were a revelation. And that’s what led me down the beer-soaked path I’m on now.

The commodification of beer, like so many other foods and beverages, is ultimately a doomed idea. It may be, and in this case has been, successful for a long time. But eventually people will rebel against that kind of conformity. It happens in music, in fashion, in everything. No matter how popular, diversity will eventually win out over bland sameness. That’s in part what fueled the microbrewery revolution; a desire to drink beers that didn’t all taste the same. The same thing happened in bread when people tired of Wonder bread; in cheese when Kraft individual slices ceased to be the height of sophistication; and when fast food hamburgers were no longer the highest purpose put to cows.

But in an apparent contradiction, nostalgia is also a potent draw for beer these days. It speaks volumes about just how effective and successful marketing and adverting has been in creating positive associations and connections to brands. Witness the recent success of Pabst, and the re-introductions of Rheingold, Narragansatt, Primo and Schllitz, to name just a few. Happily, Reading Premium also made a comeback in 2007, brewed once again in Reading by a small brewer, Legacy Brewing. (And by coincidence, the Berks County Historical Society is currently having an exhibition called Beer and Pretzels, about Reading’s rich history of brewing and pretzel-making.)

I had a chance to try the beer last year while I was in Philadelphia for the first Philly Beer Week, which as it happens begins again today for the second years’ festivities. And it tasted pretty good, I must say. Certainly, it’s better than when I was a teenager. Like virtually all of the re-introductions, it’s formula has been updated to modern sensibilities, thank goodness. It no longer had the harsh aftertaste I associated with it as a kid. Now it’s just a simple, well-made but inoffensive beer. It’s not complex or rich with big flavors. But it has as much “drinkability” as any other light-flavored lager macro brand, probably a little bit more, since it’s all-malt, at least.

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So what’s the takeaway in all this meandering? It was light lagers that I first loved, like almost everybody, when I had an immature, undeveloped palate. Their inoffensive character wasn’t necessarily what initially drew them to me, since that’s all that was available at the time, unlike today. (Which I guess is my curmudgeonly way of saying young people are better off today, beer-wise, then when I was first 21. We had to walk to the bar, uphill, both ways.) But eventually, that sameness made me want more, and once I found that beer could be so much more, I never looked back, except through the eyes of nostalgia. Not everyone makes that leap, sadly, as evidenced by 95% of Americans still drinking mostly swill, well-made swill perhaps, but still largely unchanged in the fifty years I’ve walked the planet. That’s the power of the big company’s access to market, their juggernaut of marketing and advertising, and most people’s apathy in choosing what to eat and drink.

There are certainly more flavorful lagers than the macro-ones masquerading as pilsners, but they’re as rare as ales, at least in terms of market share. Bland lagers are the worldwide favorite it would seem, and more’s the pity. It’s hard to love that fact, no matter how much nostalgia I can muster.

Albion Don In the Temple of Beer

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Yesterday the first five events of SF Beer Week were all “Albion Don” Barkley and the recreation of the original beer that started the modern craft brew movement. New Albion’s Pale Ale, dubbed Napa Smith’s Original Albion Ale was tapped every hour, on the hour, for five hours at a different location in San Francisco. Beginning at the Temple of Beer, the Toronado, Don arrived, beery scepter in hand to christen the day (and the week’s) activities.

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Don Barley, with the scepter of St. Gambrinus in hand.

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The first pints poured of Napa Smith’s Original Albion Ale.

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Don’s first sip.

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By the power of St. Gambrinus, he declares that it is good.

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Less impressive than it looks, I got to hold the magical scepter while Don availed himself of the facilities.

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Next stop on the tour was Magnolia. Here Don poses with Dave McLean, owner of Magnolia and fellow SF Beer Week organizer extraordinaire.

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And again, the scepter declares that the beer is good.

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I missed the next two tappings at Monk’s Kettle and City Beer Store due to having to do some prep work for SF Beer Week, but caught up with them at 21t Amendment, where Shaun O’Sullivan was on hand to greet Don.

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And again, it was good.

My Beer Predictions for 2009

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I keep seeing ads on television for Nostradamus and others’ predictions that the world will end in 2012, so I guess it’s time to get cracking on my own vague, hare-brained predictions. First of all, I do not believe the world will end on December 21, 2012 so you can stop planning your end of the world blow-out parties and put away that R.E.M. CD. It’s time once again to look into the crystal malt ball and try to divine the future. Let’s see if anything that happened last year can be used to predict what might happen in the beer industry in 2009. Here are five things I think will happen this year. Let’s see how I do a year from now. What are your predictions?

 
Collaboration Beers: 2009 will be the year of the collaboration beer, a trend that’s been building for the past few years. But this year I think you’ll see a steep rise in the number of breweries pairing up with one another to do a special beer together.

 
Food & Beer Goes Mainstream: Last year I predicted 2008 would be the year of the beer dinner, and I think that was largely correct. I was invited to more beer dinners in the first quarter of last year than the entire year before that, and not because my popularity as a dinner guest grew. More restaurants discovered just how well beer and food work with one another and, perhaps more importantly, some culinary schools finally started including beer in their curricula (it’s a sad fact that most only teach students about cooking with wine and pairing it, a decidedly narrow-minded, elitist philosophy). With so many successful experimenters last year, it seems almost inevitable that we’ll see beer pairings on menus, special dinners and an increased use of beer as an ingredient from not only more fine stand-alone restaurants, but also some chains, too.

 
Merger Shakeouts: Many people have been putting their heads in the sand, saying that the recent mergers will have no effect whatsoever for consumers or small brewers. This year they will finally be proven wrong. For some time now, distributor consolidations have been on the rise and have been making it tough for some smaller breweries to gain access to market or to have their brands adequately represented in the marketplace. With the Coors/Miller merger and the InBev acquisition of Anheuser-Busch, this will be the year what that means will come dramatically into focus as the distributor adjustments, mergers, closings, etc. settle out. I believe this will continue to make things difficult for small brewers trying to bring their beer to market or increase their distribution to new areas, but time will tell. It may, of course, create opportunities for self-distribution or new boutique distributors to be created with small portfolios of craft beers.

 
Beer Prices Will Continue To Rise: Access to most hop varieties and all malts seem secure, though prices will continue to remain high, causing additional price adjustments throughout the year. It will be two more years before acreage newly planted last year will be at full yield. Between that and rising energy costs and price going up for virtually everything, it’s inevitable that the price of beer will go up again. I think the major companies will try their best to keep prices down as best they can, but it’s going to be difficult for them to continue with rzor-thin margins, especially with the rising costs plus at least one having to pay of the largest cash-buyout in history.

 
New Drys’ Attacks Will Be More Aggressive: As we saw in 2008, Neo-Prohibitionists will use almost any tactic to further their agenda. They really ramped up their attacks on drinking society and showed just how far they were willing to go to remove alcohol from society. I think we’ll see that played out more and more and no doubt we’ll see many states tax structures targeted as the economy tanks, with alcohol used as a convenient scapegoat to pick up the tab for years of fiscal irresponsibility not of their making. Beer will again, as usual, take the major brunt as the New Drys perceive it the greater threat because of its popularity. As the backlash of their failed policies continue with new common sense suggestions of returning the drinking age to 18 to be in line with the rest of the civilized world will expose them to more and more criticism, and hopefully more and more politicians will be emboldened to ignore their bullying tactics, but sadly that may still a few years in the future.

 

Session #23: The New Year of Beer

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The new year brings our 23rd monthly Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, crashing into being like a newborn. The previous year is often portrayed as an old, decrepit man and the new year a bouncing baby, filled with the infinite possibilities that youth brings with another 363 days of 2008 stretching out in front of us. And that essentially, is what this Session is about. Hosted by Brewmiker (a.k.a. Beerme) at Beer and Firkins, he wonders aloud what the new year will bring to the world of beer and what lessons you may have learned in the year just past, though I’ll let him tell you what he means.

It seems that change is a theme the entire world is dealing with at the moment. Hope for a better future seems also to be on the minds of many. The topic for the next edition of The Session, hosted by [Brewmiker], will be a New Year theme. I would like to write about the yearly mix of the hope for the new rising out of the ashes of the old, as it relates to … beer.

Specifically, what will you miss about 2008 (feel free to list your tasting notes, if that item is a particular beer) and what do you expect will excite you most in 2009, in the “Beer World”? (again, if that is a beer, what about it is special and worthy of being excited about?)

I confess that I’m not entirely certain how to even approach this question. I don’t think I ever consider the transition from one year to the next in terms of what beers I had last year or which I think I might like to try the next. I tend to take them as they come. Unlike wine and some spirits, they’re aren’t very many beers that are vintage dated. So I rarely find myself lamenting the loss of some vintage beer, though it does happen. I wouldn’t mind a few more bottles of Russian River’s Damnation Batch 23, or a Thomas Hardy 1977, for example. But by and large, beer doesn’t change that much from year to year. In fact that consistency is what most brewers strive for.

Of course, there are plenty of small batch one-off beers, that is beers that are only made once and are very limited. Some are anniversary beers, some are collaborations and some are just for the hell of it. While I very much enjoy the opportunity to try one of these, and will often go out of my way to track them down, there are very few I anticipate unless I’ve heard about one from someone else or from a press release (which are notoriously absent for limited edition beers).

While I am eternally fascinated with calendars, dates and anything, really, to do with time, I just don’t think of beer in those terms.

Is there a mood of phoenix-like hope this year? Probably for some people, as the words “hope” and “change” have been thrown around politically for the last several months leading up to our most recent Presidential election. For me, I can only muster cautious optimism. As pleased as I am with the change in administrations looming — and I am pleased — I also fear that the problems our new Prez will be facing are too daunting to respond to quick or inexpensive fixes. The outgoing regime left behind a nation in shambles (including many 11th hour parting gifts). Has there ever been a greater eight-year swing from surplus to deficit? And no matter what he does to raise money to reduce it, Conservatives will say Obama is the tax and spend liberal they’ve always accused him of, contracting a severe but convenient case of political amnesia as to who caused those problems. That’s my prediction for the new year’s political landscape; things will get worse before they get better, assuming that they will in fact actually get better. I’m hopeful, but only in the classical sense of Pandora’s Box. When all the evil has been unleashed into the world, hope is all that remains. For some reason I’ve always been drawn to that story. As cynical as I am (and have almost always been) the concept of hope has usually allowed me to avoid sinking into abject nihilism. But the very fact that hope is essentially at the forefront of political thought I find oddly discomforting, precisely because it’s an emotion of desperation. When there’s nothing left to cling to, hope is all there is.

Or perhaps that should be “hops” is all there is. One possible positive effect of the economy bottoming out is beer will become the affordable luxury for millions of people looking for a little temporary joy in otherwise bleak times. If craft brewers can seize the opportunity and work to present and persuade people that their hand-crafted artisan beers are the equal of many wines — but at a fraction of the cost — then perhaps small boutique brewers can increase their market share. It may seem counter-intuitive but selling less at a higher price (and at higher margins) will yield higher profits. That’s what wine and spirits have been doing for years, while big breweries who rely on volume have convinced most people that beer is a cheap commodity unworthy of true premium pricing. But now the conditions may be ripe for the rise of craft beer in the time recession, a.k.a. 2009.

There’s little I’ll miss personally from 2008, a miserly little year that took more than it gave. I still have a garage full of beer that needs to be sampled before summer begins baking it. That should keep me busy for a few months and I’d certainly rather be writing about the beer than the politics, business and neo-prohibitionist issues that seem to be occupying so much of my time lately. I suppose that’s my overall resolution for the coming year. More beer, less not beer.

 

Session #22: 75 Years Demonizing Alcohol

By

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This is our 22nd Session a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday and today’s topic is quite relevant for the day, as this is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ending thirteen years of our national prohibition. Our host today, naturally, is the 21st Amendment Blog, written by Shaun O’Sullivan and Nico Freccia, co-founders of the 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant in San Francisco, California. Here’s how they put their approach to this month’s topic:

In 1920, there were thousands of breweries across America making unique, hand-crafted beer. The passage of Prohibition wiped out this great culture. On December 5, 1933, the states ratified the 21st Amendment, repealing the 18th Amendment, thus ending 13 years of Prohibition in America. At the 21st Amendment Brewery, the repeal of Prohibition means we can celebrate the right to brew beer, the freedom to be innovative, and the obligation to have fun.

What does the repeal of Prohibition mean to you? How will you celebrate your right to drink beer?

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I confess I’ve been struggling mightily for something to write about Prohibition, as I feel like I’ve written about it so much lately that there’s really not much left to say. But then my friend and colleague, historian and author Maureen Ogle sent me a link to an Op-Ed piece she did for U.S. News & World Report. Her unique and fresh take on the ramifications of Prohibition’s end was a revelation for me. It was like getting in the bathtub of cheap hooch with Archimedes himself. It was a real “Eureka,” “a-ha moment” and “epiphany” all rolled into one. The wheels started turning. Maybe there’s another way to look at this.

Most of us have taken it as a given that the repeal of Prohibition was a victory for the pro-alcohol majority and a denunciation of the anti-alcohol sentiments that had brought it about. But maybe not. Despite its obvious failures on many fronts, it was the depression that really hastened its end. The economy needed a shot in the arm, and legalizing alcohol created jobs, tax revenue and good will. In the end, it was money, not morals that brought down Prohibition.

For just one example of how bad Prohibition was, check out Prohibition and the Rise of Crime, a blog post by J. Michael Jones, a retired police chief.

That’s not to say I won’t be celebrating today. I will. I’ll be in downtown San Francisco later marching in a Repeal Day parade. I’ll be enjoying some legal beer and toasting how good the American beer scene is today. And I won’t be alone, of course. There are numerous celebrations throughout the country today. But I wonder if we’re celebrating the right things? Or celebrating the right way?

The NBWA (National Beer Wholesalers Association) released a press release today extolling the virtues of the three-tier distribution, a system created out of whole cloth as a way to return alcohol to the public arena after passage of the 21st Amendment.

“This anniversary is a great time to recognize the success of the past 75 years of effective, state-based alcohol regulation since the ratification of the 21st Amendment,” said NBWA President Craig Purser. “A ‘one size fits all’ approach to alcohol regulation during Prohibition was a failure. The 21st Amendment allows individual states to regulate alcohol as their citizens see fit.”

Their celebration is understandable, of course, since after Prohibition an entirely new segment of the beer industry was created — The Distributor. But while understandable, it’s hard not to view their celebration as little too self-serving. They’re not really celebrating alcohol being legally available again so much as their own success in creating a new business model. This new system created a lot of wealth for a number of people and organizations. I’m not saying they haven’t worked hard for it or that they don’t deserve to celebrate their success, but it just feels a little too much like self-congratulatory patting themselves on back. To be fair the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States had a similar press release.

Many other mainstream writing about today’s anniversary is likewise self-congratulatory. Many gave very standard accounts, such as the Illinois Telegraph, the San Francisco Chronicle (which also has some interesting local info and photos), USA Today and even the UK’s Independent. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with any of these or the countless other similar articles that will be published around the world today.

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In the Independent, author Rupert Cornwell reflects on the fact that in America “the mindset that produced Prohibition lives on. The cocktail, it is said, is enjoying a new golden age. But a third of American adults don’t drink at all, and the country ranks only 40th in the international league table of alcohol consumption. Indeed, since the late 1970s, consumption per head in the US has been falling steadily.”

The great “war on alcohol” between 1920 and 1933 may have ended in resounding defeat. But an American belief that human vices can be eradicated, and human nature perfected, persists, visible in the continuing, scarcely less futile “war on drugs” declared by Richard Nixon in 1971 and, who knows, maybe in George Bush’s “war on terror” as well. But don’t let such somber thoughts spoil the party tonight.

He’s not the only one to notice the comparison between Prohibition and our current drug policy, such as Stop the Drug War. Even the Wall Street Journal has an article today entitled Let’s End Drug Prohibition. Are we finally starting to realize as a culture that regulating is better than outlawing? Sadly, probably not. The neo-prohibitionists are still running amuck.

But as Maureen Ogle points out in yet another Repeal Day article, this one in the Philadelphia Inquirer, it’s really our Constitution that was saved by ending Prohibition. As she details, Prohibition led to corruption, conspiracy and contempt for the law by not just citizens, but which also — and I just can’t put it better than Ogle — “oozed into and out of every level of government, from Washington to the smallest municipality.” And that’s not just hindsight, a report in 1931 by federal commission that had studied Prohibition for two years, concluded that it was an abject failure and as “the more flagrantly authorities disregarded citizens’ rights, the more cynical Americans became. Young adults in particular — the very people who would become “leaders in the next generation” — demonstrated overt ‘hostility to or contempt for the law.'”

As the Patriot Act (not to mention our current lame duck administration) similarly disregards the Constitution and the rights of American citizens, and we appear to be heading into another protracted recession (if not an actual depression), the conditions seem eerily similar to those of seventy-five plus years ago. As they worried then, what might a continuing disrespect for the Constitution lead to? I’m worried. Aren’t you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that “change” may be on the horizon, but I can’t help but continue to be apprehensive that our swing to the right and the threats to democracy that that entailed will so easily be undone by good intentions. Movement Conservatism may be in a weakened state right now, but it’s hardly on life support.

And speaking of beer and elections, did you know that in seven states, it’s still illegal to sell or serve alcohol on Election Day? Weird, huh? In Alaska, Kentucky, Indiana, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia alcohol and voting apparently still don’t mix. According to TriState, these [s]o-called “Blue Laws” date back to the 1930s and make it illegal to sell alcohol on certain important religious or political days. Blue laws were meant to protect the integrity of the voting process in a time when many saloons also served as polling places. In the past 70 years, most states have either relaxed their Election Day bans or repealed them altogether.”

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But finally, back to Maureen Ogle’s devastating insight into what the end of Prohibition has wrought. Though she finds the term clumsy, I like it. She asserts that repeal “institutionalized the demonization of alcohol.” For some, that may be hard to swallow (yes, intended) but for me it made perfect sense and made me look at the issue from a different perspective.

To summarize what Ogle means by that, here’s her introductory paragraph:

Prohibition ended on Dec. 5, 1933, not with a bang but with the thud of thousands of pages of new city, state, and federal laws that dictated when, where, and how Americans could make, buy, sell, and drink alcohol. Ratification of the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition, was neither a green light to drink nor a victory over the “dry” crusade that had produced Prohibition. Seventy-five years later, we’re still captives of that crusade.

Indeed, the 21st Amendment heralded the age of regulating alcohol like never before. It created new rules and regulations, label approval procedures, licensing requirement, all manner of new taxes and previously unheard of restrictions on all aspects of how alcoholic beverages could be made, sold, marketed, packaged and even consumed. At every step from grain to glass, there was the watchful eye of the government to tell everybody what role they were to play and within what parameters the game would take place.

I can only imagine that people were so happy to have alcohol back that it was scarcely even noticed by the ordinary public. I’m sure the breweries were keenly aware, but they were undoubtedly thrilled to be back in business under any conditions and more likely figured being regulated in business was far better than not being in business at all.

Before Prohibition, there were around 1,500 breweries, but less than half reopened afterward. And for a variety of reasons, the number of breweries continued to decline sharply. By the year I was born, 1959, there were only about 200 left. At least one of the reasons that the re-opened breweries struggled was the maze of new federal and state regulations imposed on how alcohol companies operated their businesses.

After Prohibition, the original message of the temperance movement was not only alive and well, but became internalized and institutionalized — essentially set in stone — by the very laws created to regulate it. That message is still with us today. Simply put, it is this:

Alcohol is evil. No one can be trusted with it.

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That message permeates all discussions of alcohol policy and any “issues” about alcohol. That message has been communicated by the laws passed seventy-five years ago and generations of new adults have soaked up that message almost completely. That’s it’s thoroughly untrue goes not only unchallenged but the notion isn’t even considered as a topic for discussion, so embedded is it in our collective psyche. Every aspect of how we treat alcohol has this false message looking over our shoulder, refusing to go away.

Alcohol is not inherently evil, we just treat it as if it were. People can be trusted with it, and in fact most people who drink alcohol are responsible adults, we just treat them like children in our over-paternalistic society. And we do this because we’ve assumed the temperance propaganda message to be true and we’ve created alcohol laws under that same mistaken assumption.

Ogle sums up:

It’s a vicious, and lethal, cycle: As long as we remain addicted to demonization, we avoid serious discussion about those values. The longer we avoid that conversation, the longer we pass on the booze-is-bad message to our kids, who grow up to pass the message on to their kids. And as long as we teach children to fear rather than respect alcohol, we’ll interrupt the silence with periodic spasms of hand-wringing and finger-pointing about campus drinking, binge drinking, underage drinking, and the like. But here’s the truth: The “alcohol problem” is of our own creation. We’ve got the drinking culture we deserve.

I agree with everything Maureen says with the possible exception of that last sentence. I’m not entirely persuaded that we “deserve” the drinking culture we have today. If our present “drinking culture” had been arrived at by an ongoing open, fair and honest public debate about alcohol, then I’d wholeheartedly agree that we got what we deserve. But I believe that what we’re stuck with today is the result of subterfuge, conspiracy, propaganda and out and out lies by people and organizations with a Carrie Nation-style axe to grind.

I prefer an image of prohibitionists having slunk away to lick their wounds in defeat but the truth is they’ve never really gone away. They’ve never stopped trying to keep their message alive. That they’ve been so successful while at the same time convincing us they’d lost is deviously clever. They’re like the tortured, evil protagonist in every horror movie who refuses to die, no matter how many times he’s shot, sliced or garroted. They always come back, don’t they? To me, that’s the unfortunate message of this 75th anniversary. It’s certainly worth celebrating 75 years of beer in America. But it’s perhaps more important to recognize that the battle didn’t end December 5, 1933. It merely changed the terms of engagement from above ground prohibition to underground demonization. Happy Repeal Day everybody. Drink up.

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The Demon Alcohol, by Robert Steven Connett.

This is a nicely imagined vision of how we view alcohol today, in a Hieronymus Bosch sort of way.

For a lot more great information about Prohibition, check out Prohibition Repeal.
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