Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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CBC Brewers Reception

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The BA hosted a Brewers Reception at Stubbs Bar-B-Que in downtown Austin Wednesday night before the official start to the annual Craft Brewers Conference. There was great food and beer from local breweries. Some highlights were the Rye Pale Ale from the Real Ale Brewery here in Austin and a nice barleywine, though I can’t recall who made that one.

A local sign proclaims Austin as Beer Land, Texas.

The reception was held outdoors in this great open space with a stage on one end and bars and buffet tables ringing the area.

Brian Dunn (owner of Great Divide) and his new director of brewing operations, Brit Antrim, with Joanne Carilli from White Labs.

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Steve Hindy (Brooklyn Brewery), Kim Jordan (New Belgium), Dave Keene (The Toronado in SF), Eddie Friedland (former owner of Philadelphia’s Friedland Distributing) and Vinnie Cilurzo (Russian River).

Ralph Olson, the Big Cheese from HopUnion. If you look carefully in between his “Sponsor” and “Exhibitor” badge you can see his officially “the Big Cheese.”

Horst Dornbusch and his wife, Ralph Olson and Jeannine Marois, who puts on the Le Mondial de la Bière.

Charlie Papazian leads a toast the memory of Linda Starck.

Daniel and Julie Bradford and Amy from All About Beer magazine.

The Rolling Boil Blues Band took the stage in the last hour of the reception.

Which got the crowd up and dancing.

Tom Dalldorf does his Pete Townsend impression.

Victory for Families

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Excellent news from Oregon: the OLCC will allow minors to attend the Oregon Brewers Festival with their parents. Here’s the press release:

The Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF) is pleased to announce that, as in the past, minors under age 21 will be allowed all-hours access to the 20th annual Oregon Brewers Festival, provided they are accompanied by a parent. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission granted permission for minors/parents to attend after receiving a new OBF compliance plan. The internationally-recognized craft beer festival will be held July 26-29 at Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

“After thoroughly reviewing the Oregon Brewers Festival’s amended proposal, we believe it meets our licensing and enforcement concerns regarding minor patronage at the 2007 festival,” explained Rudy Williams, OLCC deputy director. “We appreciate the OBF’s willingness to work with the OLCC to help satisfy the public safety interests of Oregonians.”

“We are thrilled that the OLCC has made this decision,” said Art Larrance, founder of the OBF. “The festival has a long-standing history of being a family-friendly event. We promote responsible drinking, and as a result, we have responsible attendees who come together to celebrate our local culture.”

Minors will only be allowed at the OBF with a parent; guardians are not acceptable. Minors are informed of and encouraged to attend the root beer garden, in which complimentary handcrafted root beer is served in cups (no mugs allowed) for all minors and designated drivers.

Fill ‘Er Up, Please

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The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), Great Britain’s beer advocacy group has just completed a survey of pubs and how full they fill your pint, and it doesn’t look good. They’re calling for people to sign an online petition and asking the Prime Minister to fix the problem. In addition to CAMRA’s figures, a Telegraph story today has additional details.

New figures from CAMRA show that a whopping 26.6% of pints served in pubs contain less than 95% beer. CAMRA is taking its campaign for a full pint straight to the top by launching a national petition calling on the Prime Minister to put an end to short beer measures.

Full Pints Key Facts

  • 26.6% of pints are more than 5% short measure
  • Short measure costs consumers £481 million a year, or over £1.3 million a day
  • Pubs serve customers 208 million more pints than they buy in

CAMRA needs your help to ensure you receive a full pint of beer every time. Please sign CAMRA’s National Full Pints Petition calling for an end to short beer measures.

Skinny Dipping Returns

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New Belgium’s seasonal Skinny Dip, which debuted least year, is returning this month through September as their summer seasonal. From the press release:

Skinny Dip, New Belgium Brewing’s summer seasonal beer, is back for an encore. Skinny Dip received an overwhelmingly warm reception in 2006, second only to the launch of Fat Tire.

The summer brew, with only 108 calories in each 12-ounce bottle, is an alternative to traditional “light” beers, with a unique and satisfying flavor. New Belgium Founder and tri-athlete Jeff Lebesch asked brewmaster Pater Bouckaert to formulate a beer that would quench his thirst after outdoor athletic endeavors – but have high-quality taste and body. Bouckaert responded with a bright blend of kaffir lime and sterling hops that makes Skinny Dip the full-bodied, figure friendly choice for the flavor-minded.

The result was a blazing success. In the summer of 2006, Skinny Dip sales grew 385% vs. prior year seasonal sales and positioned Skinny Dip as one of the top 15 craft brands in the entire U.S. (per IRI 13-week scans, 13-Aug-06), although it was distributed in only 15 states. Skinny Dip was one of the top three hottest craft brands in 13-Aug-06 IRI data, gaining 0.8 share within the blistering craft segment.

Skinny Dip is positioned to have another incredible year, as most markets placed orders early and for above-average stock

“Skinny Dip hit the mark in satisfying the need for a summertime beer that was low in calories but full of flavor,” said Bryan Simpson, spokesperson from New Belgium. “Last year we’re pleasantly surprised by its popularity and we’re looking forward to another great season.”

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

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The second of BridgePort’s new seasonal series will be out shortly. From the description, it sounds like it may be a good candidate for Lew Bryson’s “Session Beer Project.” We’ll know more, of course, when the samples start arriving.

BridgePort Brewing Co. is encouraging beer lovers to “Make hay while the sun shines,” an adage meaning to take advantage of any good opportunity that comes along. There’s no better truism for BridgePort’s new summer seasonal, Haymaker Extra Pale Ale: Haymaker is an ideal beer with which to take full benefit of the long summer days. Haymaker will appear on shelves and on draft the first part of May.

A refreshing extra pale ale, Haymaker features a distinct blend of four malts and three varieties of hops that create a slightly complex ale with a light body and a crisp finish. Its alcohol by volume of 5.3% complements the low bitterness — 15 bittering units — and original gravity of 12.8 degrees Plato. Bright golden in color, it can best be described as “sunshine in a glass.”

“We were looking to expand our seasonal lineup, and an extra pale ale was the ideal choice,” explained head brewmaster Karl Ockert. “We couldn’t be more pleased with the resulting color and flavor profile of the beer.”

Like the other two products in the BridgePort seasonal series, Haymaker’s packaging is a divergence from the BridgePort brand family. The beer’s label and six-pack carrier focus on a whimsical red rooster with a fiery crown standing upon a weathervane, set against the backdrop of a round sun bursting forth with rays of light. The rooster is tossing back an outline of a pint, which is filled with the golden sunlight. The blue sky and hay-colored fields evoke the warmth and imagery of summertime.

Haymaker is the second seasonal in a three part series, following BridgePort’s popular Beertown Brown. Haymaker will be available May through August, followed by Ebenezer Ale. The beer will be distributed in eight Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Washington.

Chronicle Critiques Cantillon

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After so many horribly abysmal crimes against beer, I’m very happy to be able say that a San Francisco Chronicle article on Friday, “Cantillon, a brew for wine lovers,” was actually a very good overview of the historic Brussels brewery. It was written by freelancer Derek Schneider, who also writes a food (and wine) blog, An Obsession with Food. He provides a nice introduction to Cantillon’s methods, what makes them unique and even provides some tasting notes.

My only criticism is that the Chronicle sells the piece through its title where they can’t let Cantillon stand on its own two feet. They have to make it a beer that winos will love, too, which I find a little annoying. Cantillon is a beer for beer lovers, too, as well, and can be enjoyed by anyone with a developed palate who likes complex flavors. Always having to compare everything to their revered wine seems to me to distort reality into a world where all grapes are good and barley is bad. I suspect that was the only way Schneider could sell the piece to the Chronicle, if wine was somehow still central in a beer article.

But that criticism aside, it was certainly good to see an otherwise positive beer article in San Francisco. Now if we could only get their management to actually like it, too, now that would be something.

Oskar Blues Expands

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Got the following press release today from Oskar Blues and thought I’d pass it along unadulterated.

Oskar Blues Brewery — the nation’s first microcanning craft brewery and makers of Dale’s Pale Ale — is expanding its brewhouse for the fourth time in four years.

This week the brewery is finishing the process of replacing four 60-barrel tanks with four 120-barrel tanks. The new tanks will allow Oskar Blues to double its brewing capacity. (A barrel equals 31 US gallons.)

“More and more are retailers and beer lovers are asking for our beer,” says Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis. “So we’re doing all we can to give them what they want.”

Last year the microcanning craft brewery (and creator of the Canned Beer Apocalypse) enjoyed its fourth straight year of significant growth, increasing its revenues 121% and its beer production by 64%.

In 2006 Oskar Blues produced 8219 barrels of Dale’s Pale Ale, Old Chub Scottish-Style Ale, Gordon and its other canned and draft beers. In 2005 the company produced 5000 barrels. (A barrel of beer equals 31 gallons.)

Since it began hand-canning its beer (two cans at a time on a table-top machine) in November of 2002, Oskar Blues’ production has grown by about 1200%.

Now that’s a tight fit. New tanks being installed at Oskar Blues in Lyons, Colorado.

More from the press release:

The company’s flagship, Dale’s Pale Ale, is the nation’s first hand-canned craft beer. A robust American pale ale (with 6.5% abv and 65 International Bittering Units) its honors include Top American Pale Ale from the New York Times, Top Colorado-Brewed Beer from the Rocky Mountain News, World’s Best Canned Beer from Details magazine, three “Top-Five American Pale/Amber Ale from Ratebeer.com, and gold and silver medals in the Stockholm Beer & Whiskey Festival.

About two dozen US microbreweries now brew and can their own beer. Oskar Blues’ beers are now canned five cans at a time on equipment from Cask Brewing Systems in Alberta, Canada.

Oskar Blues Brewery is located in Lyons, Colorado (pop.1500), a small mountain town 18 miles northwest of Boulder, Colorado. The brewpub and music venue was opened in 1997 by Katechis and his wife, Christi Katechis. Dave Chichura is the head brewer for Oskar Blues Brewery.

One of the new tanks upright in the brewery.

So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut’s Beer Heritage

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Sad news indeed was the passing of Kurt Vonnegut yesterday. Besides being one of America’s finest minds and literary talents, he was a favorite author of mine since I first read Breakfast of Champions at around age 14 or 15. Over the next few years I read Slaughterhouse Five, Cat’s Cradle, Player Piano and Welcome to the Monkey House, along with most of his other early books. Till the end his mind remained as agile as ever, evidenced by his searing appearance on Jon Stewart last year.

kurt-vonnegut

Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers Association, reminded me of a story I’d almost forgotten about Vonnegut’s family and their association with beer. His grandfather, Albert Lieber, was heavily involved in the brewing industry in Indianapolis, Indiana. Albert’s father, Vonnegut’s great-grandfather, was Peter Lieber and he owned P. Lieber & Co (a.k.a. City Brewery) which later joined with two other Indianapolis breweries to form the Indianapolis Brewing Company in 1887. And in 1904 they won the grand prize gold at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Apparently one of Vonnegut’s short story collections also recounts this story, possibly “Palm Sunday.”

There’s a nice history of this at Indiana Beer, so let’s pick up the story with their account.

Kurt Vonnegut’s grandfather was Albert Lieber. The recipe for a dark lager beer that Peter Lieber devised was brewed by Wynkoop Brewing, Denver, in 1996 to celebrate the new library there. It was called Kurt’s Mile-High Malt. A “secret ingredient” of the brew was coffee.

I also recall someone telling me the father of Wynkoop’s founder — and current mayor of Denver — John Hickenlooper was a friend of Vonnegut and that he, too, is mentioned in one the novels, but I can’t for the life of remember if I ever knew which one.

One of the more personal tributes I’ve read was by Denver Post staff columnist and sports writer Woody Paige, a self-avowed fan, and entitled “My muse, more or less.” In it, he tells an undoubtedly more accurate tale of how Kurt’s Mile High Malt came to be.

Vonnegut came to Denver in 1996 to show two dozen of his sketches at a gallery and to introduce a new short story he had written for the label of a beer bottle. As he might say, most of what I’m telling you is true, except the parts I’m making up.

The owner of a LoDo microbrewery had the grand idea of producing specialty beers with famous authors writing stories for the labels. The brewpub owner, a disheveled sort, worked up the courage to ask Vonnegut to contribute, and he agreed, under the condition that the beer’s recipe be the same as his grandfather’s, brewed commercially in Indianapolis before Prohibition.

It turned out that the brewpub owner’s father lived down the hall from Vonnegut, and was his fraternity brother, when they attended Cornell. (Vonnegut later attended Tennessee, which is my school, and you’re thinking I’m making all of this up.)

The secret ingredient in the beer – called “Kurt’s Mile-High Malt” – was coffee. Vonnegut’s story on the label was entitled “Merlin,” about a golden knight with an automatic weapon.

Vonnegut documented his Denver visit in his last biographical novel, “Timequake,” and told of meeting his friend’s son — the brewpub owner.

The barkeep’s name: John Hickenlooper.

“Ting-a-ling,” as Vonnegut would write.

Hickenlooper knew of my idolization of Vonnegut and invited me and my daughter to spend time(quake) with Vonnegut. My daughter sat on a bus bench with him and talked about colleges, and I later had a beer with him.

Does anybody have a copy of the story or the label? I’d love to include it here if anyone does have it. Thanks. We’ve lost one of this country’s literary treasures, IMHO. Let’s all raise a glass to his memory with Vonnegut’s own words.

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

So it goes. (from Slaughterhouse Five, 1959)

UPDATE: Craig Hartinger from Merchant Du Vin sent me this photo of a reproduction poster of the Indianapolis Brewing Co. from around the same time as they won the gold medal in 1904. There’s also one of these hanging in the Celebrator’s offices, too. Thanks, Craig.

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Is The Tipping Point In Sight?

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There was an excellent article in today’s Dallas Morning News entitled “What beer geeks know,” that details a number of the finer points of enjoying better beer, such as the importance of the glassware, how to pour it, the head, temperature, etc. It’s a really nice overview of several concepts that generally only a beer geek would get right or even care that much about, so it’s especially promising to see them spelled out in so useful a manner.

Feargal McKinney of The Old Monk in Dallas.
(photo by Evans Caglage, Dallas Morning News)

 I’ll be in Dallas in two weeks, visiting some friends the week after the Craft Brewers Conference. It’s actually not a bad place for beer, but it’s also not on my top ten list. But the fact that an article this good shows up there is a very good sign indeed. You’d never see something like it in my local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, because their management is very hostile to craft beer, preferring California wines to ales and lagers. But by and large, it seems the tide is indeed beginning to turn. The mainstream media is definitely paying greater attention to craft beer again, and if these sales trends continue it will be harder and harder for the segment to be ignored.

Then there was also the excellent news yesterday that craft beer was up in grocery store sales an astonishing 17.8% for 2006. As Stan Hieronymus so elegantly put it, it’s like there’s “no news here.” As he points out, we’ve been reporting strong sales growth for craft beer now for six straight years, hardly making it newsworthy anymore. I think at this point we can safely identify it as a trend. Having sat through years of depressing, despondent conferences where all the bad news seemed a shared failure and any glimmer of hope was disproportionately shouted out just to keep everybody positive and give us something to hold on to during those darker times, it’s such a relief to see everyone so giddy as the good news just keeps getting better.

So it occurs to me that we may be witnessing Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” at work. It’s been several years since I read it, but Gladwell has a nice summary on his own website, gladwell.com. My own memory about what I took away from the book is that things that were formerly quite small or underground suddenly hit the big time when they reach a certain point in society’s collective conscious. Nobody’s sure exactly where that point is for any specific thing, movement, idea, meme, etc. but once it reaches that peak, it “tips over” and what once moved relatively slowly suddenly moves like wildfire, and I believe Gladwell gives the example of how a virus moves through the body. With craft beer, those of involved with it often forget that our passion is shared by only a tiny fraction of the world’s population. But lately it feels more and more like we’re slowly crawling up to the top of the roller coaster. With every new year of growth, increasing attention, and positive mention in the media you can almost hear that steady click, click, click as the car nears the crest of the ride. Are we there yet? I don’t know, but I’m certainly ready to stop being such a curmudgeon and just enjoy the ride.

 

UPDATE: I also stumbled upon this piece, “Understanding beer can make it better,” on a Virginia television station. It’s not as thorough or in-depth as the Dallas article — it is TV after all — but it’s very positive and seeks to educate its audience, which seems yet another good development.

Dos Equis New Ad Campaign Not Very Interesting

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Since 2004, Dos Equis and all of the Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brands, which also include Bohemia, Carta Blanca, Sol and Tecate, have been marketed in the U.S. by Heinken USA through an agreement they signed with FEMSA, a multi-billion dollar beverage company in Latin America.

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CLICK HERE TO VIEW A COMPILATION OF THE ADS

The latest ad campaign Heineken is just launching and the plan is to position Dos Equis as a premium product through a nationwide push using spots called the “Most Interesting Man in the World” and with the tagline, “stay thirsty, my friends,” whatever that means. The advertising agency that created the ads is Euro RSCG, which is apparently the fifth largest global ad agency in the world and headquartered in New York City. If you click on the ad to the left, it will open a new window at AdWeek where you can watch the first commercial. This first one is something of an introduction, setting the tone for four more that will begin airing next week. Here’s how AdWeek describes the commercial.

It opens on a bearded, tuxedo-clad gentleman bench-pressing two comely nurses. A narrator intones oddly intriguing descriptions of the man, e.g., “His blood smells like cologne,” as the character continues to do implausible things, like freeing a bear from a trap.

Ultimately, we see a more mature MIM, with a touch of gray in his hair, seated at a table surrounded by beautiful women. He says, “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.” The spot ends with the tagline, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”

There will also be radio spots, print ads in Stuff magazine and the MIM is featured on the Dos Equis website along with a separate website, staythirstymyfriends.com. You can also see all four commercials at that website.

Now the ad is well-produced and are not without some humor, but they don’t seem very different from almost any other beer ad created by a big name ad agency. What did strike me as odd and a little interesting was the following about just how Euro RSCG sees the ad campaign.

From the AdWeek story:

For Euro RSCG, the spot is a conscious attempt to elevate the often-lowbrow imagery associated with beer ads. “The stain of the Swedish bikini teams still lingers. Those kinds of ads are targeted at beer-drinking morons,” said Jeff Kling, ecd at Euro RSCG in New York. “We saw this as an opportunity to talk to people a little differently. It portrays a different kind of drinker.”

Raise your hand if you know what’s wrong with that. The “Most Interesting Man in the World” (MIM) is not low-brow? It can be distinguished from the Swedish Bikini Team? This is not aimed at morons? It displays a different kind of drinker? So let’s look at those statements.

  1. Not Low-Brow: The MIM is Ricardo Montalban without the Corinthian leather and sporting a beard. He’s classy with a capital “K.” This is every cliche of sophistication and in my opinion lacks any authentic portrayal of it whatsoever. It looks like what a drunken frat boy might consider high-brow.”
  2. No Lingering Babes: Uh, exactly what do you call the two Asian nurses in tight white uniforms in the beginning or the two babes in low-cut black cocktail dresses at the end? They may not be wearing bikinis, but they’re cut from the same cloth.
  3. Not Aimed at Morons: Because arm wrestling is the way intelligent people settle their political differences or spend an evening of fun. Worse than that, at the website you can “test your skills” by arm-wrestling a “deceased head of state.” They get bonus points for not realizing that Winston Churchill was not a head of state, but Prime Minister. The Queen is head of state in Great Britain. Another non-moronic game you can play at the website is a “Test of your resilience and fortitude” that involves holding down the spacebar on your keyboard as long as you can or want to. Now that’s sophistication.
  4. A Different Kind of Drinker: Freeing bears from traps and fishing for Marlin. Frankly I’d be worried about liability for all those different drinkers who had themselves a 12-pack and then actually tried to free a bear. I don’t see how this is in any way a departure from the same inanity that’s graced our TV sets for decades.

The ads aren’t really any worse than any other bad beer ads, but what I find troubling is how the ad agency speaks about them. Is it just me, or do their statements seems completely divorced from reality? Because if they were really setting out to show beer in a different light instead of how it’s been portrayed for a very long time, I think they utterly and completely failed in that regard. I for one, plan to not stay thirsty. Perhaps a nice beer with do the trick.