Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Pete’s Wicked Stout Marinade?

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In today’s North Coast Journal, a weekly alernative rag for Humboldt County, California, in the food section called Talk of the Table, Joseph Byrd has an article titled Texas Chili. The food information looks sound enough, but I’m no expert on chili. He begins by detailing what chili is, where it originated (San Antonio, according to the article), and begins going through detailed instructions on how to make it, all well and good. However, mid-way through his piece he writes the following:

The meat is put into a marinade of dark bitter stout overnight. There is a dark beer called “Pete’s Wicked Ale” which I find nasty and undrinkable, but it’s perfect for this purpose.

Now Pete’s Wicked Ale began its life as an American Brown Ale. Now that the original Pete has left for more chocolatey pastures, my memory is that under Gambrinus these days it more resembles an amber ale. And it’s ironic that Pete’s Wicked Ale today is brewed in San Antonio, Texas, the home of chili. But either way, it’s hardly a stout, and frankly I have a hard time calling it a dark beer. But I suppose if industral light lager is your standard — which is my guess — (with something like 1 lovibond) then I suppose Pete’s Wicked Ale is at least much darker.

I can certainly imagine it would make a fine marinade — after all, many beers do — but to describe the beer as “nasty and undrinkable” seems downright pernicious, and not just to the beer but also to the author’s own reputation. I say that because such a description shows a certain ignorance for the subject matter and calls into question his qualifications overall, in my opinion. It’s one thing to dislike a particular beer — I dislike plenty — but to label it “undrinkable” and confuse it with a stout shows a certain lack of sophistication regarding his beer knowledge. And it begs the question why such an aside was even necessary? What was the purpose of offering how distasteful the author found the beer? It doesn’t really add anything to the story, unless he wanted to be sure none of his readers might mistake his endorsement of the beer as a marinade for actually liking to drink it, too.

At first, I thought the story originated in Texas, before later realizing he’s right here in California, just a short drive up the coast from me. If he’d been a Texas native, I might more easily forgive his apparent lack of beer savvy, but here in California as a food writer it’s an unpardonable sin.

Giving the Bishop the Finger

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Did you know sex sells? Yeah, me neither. The late comedian and social critic Bill Hicks used to say that the advertisement that big business wants to run is simply a photograph of an attractive woman fully naked and the text “Drink Coke” (or any other company’s slogan). Unlike me, he made it sound funny, of course, but the point is that it’s not really a secret that sex is used to sell almost every imaginable kind of product or service. I had a whole semester on this subject in college, where we were even shown the word s-e-x spelled out in an older version of KFC’s Colonel Sanders logo, along with much else.

Among beer advertisements, especially those of the big breweries, sex is a frequent sales tool from the Coors Twins to St. Pauli Girl. A review of older beer ads will quickly reveal that this is not a new phenomenon, either. Many early breweries used attractive women in their advertising. I’m not necessarily opposed to seeing an attractive woman per se, but when it’s used merely to pander to base instincts and outmoded stereotypes then it’s bad for the beer industry, at least in my opinion. Most of the worst examples of this — Miller’s mud wrestling “cat fight” ad was a particularly bad one — essentially take the position that their target audience is all but exclusively male or certainly male enough that they can safely alienate half the total population. And not just any male, but a certain kind of unenlightened male, the ones for whom Jackass, Beavis and Butthead, Dumb and Dumber, and Beerfest are all high art. Does that make me elitist? Maybe, but I’d rather that than see beer’s image continue to be so unceasingly tarnished.

Not surprisingly, that is outmoded thinking, because the demographics of beer are changing and beer drinking among women is on the rise. Some recent studies show that of the total beer consumed in America, women drank 25% of it. And while it may be no surprise that the age group with the most women beer drinkers is 21-30, the number of women drinking beer who are over age 50 is growing significantly.

But I wouldn’t argue that sexual imagery should never be used in advertising (or art or anywhere else). I don’t think that’s the right solution and frankly I don’t think it possible. Despite fundamentalist attempts globally to suppress sexual awareness and expression, it is a potent part of human nature. Without the sexual urge, we might never procreate and continue as a species so it certainly fills a very vital role in the life cycle.

I would suggest, however, that common sense and a sense of perspective and context might be employed in how sexual images are used, not least of which because we’ll never evolve if advertising continues to keep us wallowing (and literally wrestling) in the mud of our basest primal instincts. The people whose products are being advertised in these ways should have a bit more respect for themselves and their product. Why the big beer companies want to associate themselves with mud wrestling, talking frogs, man law, flatulent horses, etc. is beyond me because it does nothing to elevate the image of their product. Interestingly, when Miller tried to change that carefully created image by using the tagline “Beer: Grown Up,” hardly anyone was buying it. USA Today polls showed a majority of people didn’t like the ads and didn’t think they were effective. Despite Terry Haley, the brand manager for Miller Genuine Draft, saying “[w]e believe in what we’re doing, [w]e’re tapping into a true social trend, and we’re going to stay the course,” Miller quickly dropped the ads, and switched ad agencies, who presumably will return to the puerile.

But the other side of this debate is one of easy offense and our willingness to censor should even only a sole complaint be lodged. Advertisers, advertising and the media generally beat a very hasty retreat when faced with criticism, which is a powerful wedge for organizations and individuals with agendas and an axe to grind. (The media, of course, is paid for by advertising — you may think that you are TV, the magazine and the newspaper’s customer but you are not. Their customer is the advertiser.) For years, organizations with a small, minority membership have caused havoc for the rest of us when they cried offense at one imagined slight after the other. The media landscape for a time was (and probably still is) rife with stories of letter writing campaigns from citizen’s groups in which television shows (and other media) were deemed by these yahoos to be too provocative, too sexy, used too much bad language, showed different morals then their own, and on and on. Basically, much like neo-prohibitionist groups, some people cannot rest until the world is remade in their own image, indeed they cannot tolerate any difference of opinion or alternative (to their own) lifestyle being on display, especially if their children might furtively glance longingly at such imagined hedonism. Worse still, entire entertainment programs have been altered, changed or canceled, books have been banned, and songs have been censored all on the basis of a few complaints or even a single complaint. That 299,999,999 people in the U.S. do not complain seems to carry no weight, or at least far less weight than the single whiner who does. This is literally the very opposite of a democracy, in which the desires of the many are circumvented and denied by a tiny handful of individuals, or in some cases a single person.

This is, of course, true of advertising as well. The hue and cry against much advertising is loud and shrill and seems never to cease. And while I may not disagree with all of it — I’m no fan of a lot of advertising — I find truly reprehensible the impulse to inflict one’s beliefs on the rest of society, as if any person could be certain of the one, true moral compass and way to live one’s life. That anyone pays attention to these nutjobs is a sad commentary indeed on the way our world is heading, but that’s a debate for another day and another forum.

What prompted all of what preceded, is an item reported yesterday by the BBC News in an article titled ‘Provocative’ beer ad criticized. According to the report, a complaint was filed with the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority, an organization that is paid for by the advertising industry and which acts essentially as an ombudsman. That means that people offended by advertising may file complaints and have their cases adjudicated by the ASA. In this instance, a print ad for Bishop’s Finger, a popular beer brewed by the Shepherd Neame Brewery of Kent, England had a complaint filed against it. The ad that prompted the complaint has been removed from Bishop’s Finger’s website, but here is a similar one:

In the offending one, which apparently ran in the magazine Time Out, the woman was seated on a bale of hay and the text read, “I love a good session on the Bishops Finger.” And here are all seven print ads, after the offending one was quickly removed. The name “Bishop’s Finger” has it’s origin in the “ancient finger-shaped signposts that showed the Pilgrims the way to Canterbury Cathedral” that are unique to the Kent area of southeastern England.

It is overtly sexual? Sure. Is it offensive? Not to me, I find it mildly amusing. It does play on the origin of the beer’s name and hearkens back to Chaucer’s time. It uses a pretty obvious double entendre, of course, but it is in context. According to the BBC article, Bishop’s Finger is known for running humorous ads. At least it’s not a scantily clad bikini gal holding a beer for no discernible reason other than to titillate.

The ASA examined the ad for four breaches of the UK’s advertising guidelines and only found that they had violated one, and ruled as follows:

We considered that the text “I love a good session on the Bishops Finger” played on the connotations of drinking and sexual activity. We considered that the woman’s pose was suggestive and concluded that, in combination with the headline text, it was likely to be seen as linking alcohol with seduction and sexual activity.

On this point, the ad breached CAP Code clause 56.9 (Alcoholic drinks).

Here’s 56.9 in its entirety:

Marketing communications must neither link alcohol with seduction, sexual activity or sexual success nor imply that alcohol can enhance attractiveness, masculinity or femininity.

Based on their ruling, the the “Advertising Standards Agency told the beer maker in future to adopt an approach that did not link alcohol with sexual activity.” Okay, I’m sure they’ll get right on that. And given that alcohol and sexual activity are, in fact, linked insofar as sexual activity can be linked with practically anything, I’m not even sure how you could possibly enforce such a perniciously vague standard. Right or wrong, alcohol has been called a “social lubricant” for centuries. That’s one of its roles in society, to pretend otherwise seems dishonest.

But here’s the thing, and perhaps the point of all this — finally — only ONE person in all of England complained about this ad. Only One. Out of a population of more than 60 million people, only ONE person was offended enough to complain. That one person being offended by the ad prompted a full-scale investigation involving who knows how many people, a news article in the BBC, and a major brewer to withdraw an ad from the market. Does that seem reasonable? It sure doesn’t seem so to me. Like many issues of censorship, the person who lodged this complaint could have asked a few friends before starting this ball rolling. Perhaps some friend’s support or non-support might have changed or strengthened their resolve. But even if a 100 people had complained, a hundredfold increase, I would still be skeptical that justice had been served. Perspective has to play in role in looking at issues of censorship and people being offended. I’m sorry this person felt as badly as she (or possibly he, I suppose) claims to have, but that doesn’t mean the whole of England should have to sit up and take notice. Is there anything published in the world today that you couldn’t argue might be offensive to somebody? It’s one thing to be sensitive to the views of others, but quite another to insist the world be inoffensive to all. Every time we pander to such an extreme minority view, however well-intentioned, we fan the flames of intolerance and make it harder for all of us to co-exist. Why can’t we all just have a beer and get along?

Drinking in Germany and Nebraska

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My friend and colleague, Lisa Morrison, sent me this provocative essay by a woman who grew up in Germany but has lived in Nebraska since she was 17. Angelika Byorth, writing in the Daily Nebraskan speaks to how alcohol is handled differently in the two countries and wonders in print whether adopting a lower drinking age and introducing alcohol into the home as a natural part of daily life might not remove some of its stigma. She makes some great points and it’s nice see an alternative viewpoint to the one the neo-prohibitionist lobby is always pushing. Angelika Byorth lost her husband at 47 to alcoholism and still argues in favor of changing our country’s alcohol policy, so she may be harder for the neo-prohibitionists to dismiss and rebut than usual. Regardless of your side on this issue, an interesting piece and well worth reading.

Write Your Own Arrogant Bastard Label

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Do It For Humanity’s Sake. Or Your Own… You Arrogant Bastard! (Humanity Will Still Benefit)

Stone Brewing, of course, has a history of doing charity work. And unbeknownst to me, they’ve been auctioning off stuff on eBay all year long to raise money for charity. This auction will benefit one of Stone’s charities, the San Pasqual Academy. There are many others. The take so far just this month totals just north of $130,000!

But this one is a doozy, and I’ll let the press release speak for itself:

This month we have an unprecedented opportunity that we’re auctioning off: You getting to write your own Arrogant Bastard Ale bottle!

This is a “once-in-a-lifetime-don’t-expect-you’ll-get-it-again” chance for you to express your arrogance on a bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale. Try not to screw it up by not bidding enough.

We’ll be taking your writings (either handwritten or submitted as text – your call) and producing at least 60 cases (720 bottles) of your text. Of those 720 bottles, you will personally get 4 cases (48 bottles) and the remainder will be distributed out into the marketplace in your region of the country.

We will not ship beer to your door, but we will work with your closest wholesaler to get the beer to you. (If you wish to pickup the cases here at the brewery, that works too.) Clearly, there’s going to be some guidelines to this. The bottle will need to meet California ABC guidelines, and if we need to ship it out of state it will also need to meet Federal (TTB) guidelines and any other guidelines required by your state. We will make sure it meets with the required governmental approvals. This means that you can’t write any boneheaded thing you want, but a fully Arrogant approach will work! It does for us.

The auction is already up on eBay and will close this Sunday, October 29 at 8:00 p.m. PST sharp. So far there are 10 bidders, and highest at this moment is $760.

Write your own rant for Arrogant Bastard.

Beer Chips

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Also at the Anchor event for Maureen’s book, Ambitious Brew, I had my second encounter with Beer Chips, a new snack food on the market.

I first noticed them at their own booth next to the Sierra Nevada Brewing tent at GABF last month where, at $1 a bag, they were selling like hot cakes. Now I should make yet another confession here from the start. There are few foods I like more than potato chips. I am quite passionate about my potato chips. I can still get worked up about chips that have been off the market for decades; brands like Tommy Dale’s or Uncle Don’s. Where I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, the average grocery store carried at least a dozen local brands of potato chips, and some had many more. My favorite chips growing up were a brand called “Good’s Original Chips,” or “Good’s in the Blue” to distinguish them from a rival brand, “Good’s in the Red.” My “Good’s Potato Chips” could be bought only one day a week and, except for visiting the farm, at only one place on Earth, the Shillington Farmer’s Market, which was open every Friday less than a mile from my childhood home. They were made by Mennonite farmers who appeared to make just enough to sell each week (they never made more for the rush during various holidays) and when they sold out, packed up and went home. You could buy them in bags, but the best way was in a returnable can. Every Friday, I’d pick up a 5-lb. can, pay for the chips and a deposit on the can. The following week, I’d return the empty can and get a new one, this time paying just for the chips inside. It was a beautifully simple system, ecologically as well economically sound.

Sadly, they don’t do the cans anymore, not since the company was taken over by a nephew and moved from the farm to an actual plant. Happily, they still taste as good but I must say some of the magic in them is gone. But I bring this up only to illustrate that potato chips are one of the other things I know something about. So when someone makes chips with beer — combining two of my great loves — then attention must be paid.

The creator of Beer Chips, Brett Stern, who’s a native New Yorker, flew down from Portland, Oregon (where he makes his chips) with boxes of his chips in tow. That gave me a better chance to try the chips, and I must say my first reaction is that they’re very tasty and highly addictive. Of course, that may be the added sugar, itself an unusual ingredient in potato chips. Generally, there are only three ingredients in what I’ll refer to as “craft chips” — let’s call it the spudheitsgebot — which are potatoes cooked in oil (either a vegetable oil or lard, most commonly) with salt added. I’m told the beer used is a bock style that is reduced to a powder and sprinkled on the chips during the cooking phase. And for the most part it works. They do seem to have just a hint of beer flavor and happily it’s not overpowering the way it is in barbecue or some other strongly flavored chip. I brought some home for my wife to try and she loves them, as well, and has become quite addicted. Now if I can only get BevMo to get off their bureaucratic arses and carry them in my neighborhod …

Here’s another review of Beer Chips from Chipworld.

These potato chips had a kettle-cooked texture and were crisp with varying levels of crunch. They earned praise around the chip bowl for being quite tasty. Most of our tasters thought that the chips did taste like beer, though some thought the beer taste was most noticeable on first bite and faded away after that. The chips were generally smallish with wiggly, irregular shapes, some folded over.

The Beer Chips table at GABF.

Lost Abbey Dinner Found

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Last night at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, beer chef Bruce Paton put on yet another delicious “Dinner with the Brewmaster,” this one with Tomme Arthur and the beers of Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey.

Tomme addresses the packed house, a record-breaking sell-out crowd.

Our first course, a Duck Pozole Terrine with Citrus Herb Salad paired with Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale, which is something of a cross between a Saison and a Bière de Garde. I’ve heard Tomme describe it as either and both, and, of course, the styles are quite close. Both are farmhouse styles, brewed slightly stronger, traditionally in March to last through the warm summer. But while Saisons tend to emphasize the hops and spices, Bière de Gardes are more focused on malt character. The Red Barn, on the hand, is a very malty beer that’s spiced with ginger, orange peel, black pepper and grains of paradise. And as Tomme will be the first to tell you, he’s not trying to imitate either style but rather was inspired by both to create this beer, which is an amazing marriage of both.

Dave Keene, from the Toronado, and Jeff Bagby, from Pizza Port’s Carlsbad brewery.

Our dessert was an unbelievably rich Flourless Chocolate Cake with Chile Ancho served with Angel’s Share Barrel Aged Barleywine, an indescribably good pairing. Bruce’s desserts are usually quite tasty, but this one may have been his best ever.

All the brewers in attendance at the dinner, with many of the usual suspects. One surprise, Alan Sprints (on the left), owner of Hair of the Dog in Portland, Oregon was in town for a wedding and joined us at the dinner.

Tomme and me after dinner, relaxing in the bar with Blind Pig IPA.

The other beers of the evening included Cuvee de Tomme served with the soup course, which was a roasted corn soup with gulf prawns and heirloom tomato salsa and a shaved cornucopia of avocado. And the main course was a Duet of Lamb paired with Lost Abbey’s Lost and Found Ale, a Trappist-style abbey ale brewed with a raisin puree.

The next beer dinner with the brewmaster will be November 10 and will feature Sam Calagione and the beers of Dogfish Head. Check out the Beer Chef for more details.

First Stop at The Alembic

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Last night after the Anchor event, a dozen or so of us went over to Dave McLean’s new bar, The Alembic, on upper Haight. The address is 1725 Haight Street and their phone number is 415.666.0822. Dave also owns the Magnolia brewpub a few blocks away. It’s a very small place but also cozy and even a little homey. The have a full bar, all of the Magnolia beers and several guest taps from local breweries. The Alembic’s chef, Eddie Blyden, started bringing us out dishes to sample. What terrific food! Good beer, good food, good spirits, good friends and great atmosphere! I look forward to spending more time at the Alembic.

Cathedral Hill Hotel beer chef Bruce Paton and Alembic chef Eddie Blyden, arguably two the best beer chef’s anywhere.

Me with the delicious lemongrass fries, which are done in a Belgian frittes style. My other favorite of the evening were the lamb sliders. Yum!

From the Chronicle:

Small plates from chef Eddie Blyden (of 21st Amendment and now-closed Sneaky Tiki) include charred Monterey Bay squid, and mushroom and autumn squash cassoulet, which vie for a customer’s attention with bar snacks like sage roasted nuts, jerk chicken wings with yogurt sauce, and lemongrass french fries.

The cocktail menu features stripped-down classics like a bourbon old-fashioned and an “old style” Manhattan, and the bar spotlights many Northern California small-craft artisan liquors, a handful of sakes and a rotating selection of local microbrews.

Even the sturdy bar is locally inspired — it’s made from old Kezar stadium bleachers.

Carlsberg to Import Faux Micros

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Denmark’s Carlsberg Brewery was founded in 1847 by J. C. Jacobsen. It’s the largest brewery in Denmark by a wide margin, with something like 75% of the market, and is the fifth largest brewer worldwide. Carlsberg beers are sold in over 50 countries. In addition to the flagship Carlsberg brand, they also make Elephant, Tuborg and many others. That makes them the Budweiser of Denmark, in terms of size, market share and dominating business practices.

But craft breweries are slowly gaining a toehold throughout the Denmark with over 40 of them currently in operaion plus around 17 brewpubs sharing 2% of the total market. So last year in response, Carlsberg set up the Jacobsen Brewhouse as a separate entity within the main brewery in Valby. As reported earlier this year, by 2008 Carlsberg will be moving all of its production to its Frederica facility, which now mainly brews Tuborg and a few others, and will close the Valby plant. But the Jacobsen line along with the administrative offices will remain in Valby. The new venture is “located in a building dating from 1878 in the old part of the Carlsberg brewery” and part of the Carlsberg Visitors Centre. Undoubtedly this was done to create positive PR for the brewing giant.

So like Pacific Ridge, Plank Road and Blue Moon before them, Carlsberg is making “specialty beers” under the brand name Jacobsen Brewhouse. To their credit, they make no secret of this fact and proudly display the Carlsberg logo alongside the newer Jacobsen one. The unique shape of the bottle is based on the old lighthouse building at the entrance to the old brewery and no expense appears to have been spared on packaging and marketing, which is one of the dangers of these type of beers, in my opinion. Currently four styles are being made: Bramley Wit, Brown Ale, Saaz Blonde and Original Dark Lager. And so far three seasonals have been made under the name “Jacobsen Limited Edition” with more to follow. The initial seasonals were Chocolate Mint Stout, Golden Christmas Ale and Imperial Barley Wine. And according to the website, they “will also produce four beers from Carlsberg’s successful Semper Ardens series: Criollo Stout, IPA First Gold, Abbey Ale, Winter Rye and Christmas Ale.”

Carlsberg just announced that two of the Jacobsen Brewhouse beers, Saaz Blonde and Bramley Wit, will be imported to England this year, and no doubt America may follow. I’ve never tried any of these beers, so I can’t knock their taste. They may very well be fine, well-made and tasty beers.

Here’s how Carlsberg describes these two beers on the Jacobsen Brewhouse website:

Jacobsen Bramley Wit

Jacobsen Bramley Wit is inspired by the Belgian wheat beer tradition, but with a North European touch in the form of Bramley apples for a flesh, sour flavour and Belle de Boskoop apples for a rounded finish. The Belgian wheat beers use dried orange peel, but we have preferred fresh orange peel for a less bitter impression. Jacobsen Bramley Wit has a light colour, an attractive creamy head and a muted bouquet of cloves and coriander.

 Jacobsen Saaz Blonde

Jacobsen Saaz Blonde is brewed according to Belgian traditions for light, top-fermented beers. “Blonde” is the traditional French word for light-coloured beers, while the distinguished Czech malt Saaz with its character of pine needles gives a rounded, aristocratic flavour. Extract of angelica adds a juniper flavour to complement the fruity taste of the yeast. The colour derives from the Pilsner malt characteristic of the Belgian “blonde” tradition, and from a touch of caramel malt to add a slight sweetness.

But all of this brings up the larger issue of big breweries competing with smaller ones on an uneven playing field. Because not only do they try to compete by imitation but also with their larger resources, bigger marketing budgets and a host of other advantages that make the fight anything but fair.

I have no problem with the big breweries making flavorful beers instead of the same old insipid industrial light lagers that dominate the market worldwide, especially when they disclose who’s making them. I have equally no doubt that the big breweries are technically capable of making flavorful beers.

But the heart of the problem is often that the big breweries are big businesses, very big businesses. And all big businesses share a similar ethos and culture that chant the same mantras. Keep costs (ingredients, labor, etc.) low, manipulate the public through advertising and marketing, grow the business every quarter, and the main one (especially for corporations), keep the share price up no matter what.

So it begs the question why in 2005 did Carlsberg feel the need to create a “specialty line of beer” to compete with a handful of tiny breweries catering to very small segment of the market? Why after almost 150 years of making primarily the same products was this decision made now? According to the propaganda, it was “to give people new taste experiences, and we want to challenge and develop beer culture. It’s about making the most of what nature has to offer.” Uh, huh. Sure it is. But let’s assume brewmaster Jens Eiken, head of the new brewhouse (whose quote that is), really believes that — which indeed he probably does — why now? Why not ten years ago, or 50?

In Carlsberg’s the press release when they initially opened the Jacobsen Brewhouse, Nils S. Andersen, Carlsberg’s President, had the following to say:

“In keeping with Carlsberg’s traditions, this is a full and wholehearted venture. This is not some overgrown microbrewery or an exhibition centre — it’s a state-of-the-art brewery where our brewers’ ideas can be brought to fruition with consistently high standards of quality. After all, this is Carlsberg — which means that we have an obligation to maintain the highest quality even when it comes to specialty products and experiments.

“Naturally the Jacobsen brewhouse can draw on all of our expertise at Carlsberg and on the research results from our laboratories, but Jacobsen is to be its own brewery with both the freedom and a duty to create and produce the best and most exciting specialty products in the world — or at least ‘probably the best’, given that these things are always a matter of taste!”

If you’re a regular reader of the Bulletin, you no doubt already know I view large corporations with a great deal of cynicism. I question their ability to make moral or even fair and honest choices when their legal duty to the shareholders is so strikingly singular. They are bound by legal precedent to do only what is in the best interests of the company, and everything and everyone else be damned. Taken to its logical conclusion, that’s how we ended up with so many Enrons, Adelphias, WorldComs and so on. Institutionalized greed with a legal mandate creates environments that cannot tolerate any competition or any erosion of market share. And last year, many larger breweries began to see their customers abandoning their core brands for craft beer, imports (at least here in the U.S.) and even wine and spirits. So as many countries around the world begin to follow the American model and start their own microbrewery revolutions, the status quo big breweries will react in much the same way as they have here in the U.S.

That’s almost certainly the reason why a multi-national company like Carlsberg, with three-quarters of the market in their home country, would feel threatened by 2% of the beer market shifting to craft brewers. They’re incapable of perspective. It’s not permitted any more than losing even an infinitesimal portion of the market can be tolerated. All of the lofty ideals expressed in their marketing is just propaganda, which is what almost all marketing is in reality. In the early days, pioneers like Edward Bernays called it what it was, propaganda. But Hitler had been very impressed with the U.S. War Department’s Office of Public Information (which was headed by Bernays) and its amazing ability to sway public opinion for war just before and during World War One. In fact, so much so, that he adopted many of the same techniques after seizing power in Germany and as a result the term propaganda took on negative connotations and was superseded by the less tainted “Public Relations,” of which marketing is just one part. But as they say, “a rose by any other name …”

So it’s hard not to view the world’s fifth largest brewer waltzing down the same garden path as A-B, SABMiller and Molson Coors (2nd, 3rd and 6th largest, respectively) with anything but suspicion. The beer may, indeed, be good. It may use no adjuncts and be quite delicious. And, if so, I would not hesitate to drink it or support it as I might any well-made craft beer. By the real underlying reasons for making the beer, propaganda aside, are to maintain control and domination of the market and I believe these Goliaths will try to crush every one of their David-like competitors however they can. They may appear to hold out the olive branch of cooperation, tolerance and even support but look behind their back and in the other hand is very large hammer. The only uncertainty is when the hammer will fall.

The Jacobsen Brewhouse at the Carlsberg Visitors Centre in Valby, Denmark.

Elysian Pumpkin Beer Festivals Announced

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All throughout the Seattle area, Elysian Brewing will be doing more to promote pumpkin beer than any other brewery in history, or as they put it, “where [they] boldly go where no other brewery has gone before.” At the 2nd Annual Great Pumpkin Beer Festival, they will have ten pumpkin beers available at each of their three locations, some of which sound positively spooky.
 

THE BEER LINEUP:

From Elysian:

  • Night Owl Pumpkin Ale
  • The Great Pumpkin Imperial Ale
  • Dark o’ the Moon Pumpkin Stout
  • Purple Pumpkineater Lavender Saison
  • Kürbitinus-Pumpkindunkelhefeweizenbock
  • Portergeist-Smoked porter with pumpkin
  • Steamy Hollow California Common Pumpkin Beer

Guest Beers:

  • Dogfish Head Punkin
  • Rock Bottom Seattle Punk’in (Cap. Hill & Fields only)
  • Big Time Hop Goblin
  • Snoqualmie Extra Special Butternut (Elysian-Cap. Hill only)

Here are the details for each event:

Elysian: Capitol Hill
1221 E Pike 206-860-1920
Saturday, October 21st, 12 noon – 10pm

Elysian Fields
542 1st Ave S 206-382-4498
Saturday, October 28th, 12 noon – 10 pm

Elysian: TangleTown
2106 N 55th 206-547-5929
Monday, October 23rd through Friday, October 27th

Here is more information from the press release:

Sampler Trays, Pumpkin Carving and (drum roll please), the tapping of the pumpkin conditioned pumpkin beer (at 4pm).

Once again we have filled pumpkins with beer (this year it is the Portergeist) to go through a secondary fermentation in the pumpkin. We will tap the pumpkins with traditional English cask taps at 4pm on Saturday Oct 21st & Saturday Oct 28th

Pumpkin Carving starting at Noon.
Pumpkins will be available on a first come/first serve basis. There will be awards for the best pumpkin carving.

Dogfish Head: The Return of Four Big Beers

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Dogfish Head announced today the re-release of four of their biggest beers over the next couple of months.

  1. Now: World Wide Stout
  2. Now: Olde School Barleywine
  3. Early November: Pangaea
  4. Late November: Fort

The beautiful label for Fort, “a strong ale brewed with a ridiculous amount of pureed raspberries (over a ton of em!),” by fine artist Tara McPherson.