Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Winter Brews Festival In Concord January 25

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The 5th annual Winter Brews Festival, produced by the Brewing Network, will be held this year on Saturday, January 25 from Noon to 4:00 p.m. It will be held again in Concord, at Todos Santos Plaza, just two blocks from the Concord BART station. This year’s festival looks to be their best ever, with over fifty breweries confirmed to attend, including a few that we don’t often see in the Bay Area, such as Societe Brewing from San Diego, Jester King, from Texas, and our own Faction Brewing showcasing their beer at one of the first fest’s they’ve attended. Come give Rodger Davis a hard time; you know you want to!

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Tickets are currently on sale, and can be purchased online through Eventbrite. Here’s all the details from the press release:

The Brewing Network’s Winter Brews Festival returns to Todos Santos Plaza in Concord on Saturday January 25, 2014 from noon to 4pm to celebrate its fifth year as one of the best craft beer festivals in the Bay Area, and the only winter brews fest!

Nestled between the weekend of the NFL Playoffs and the Super Bowl, this event will showcase dozens of craft beer samples from more than 30 world class breweries; most of which call the Bay Area home. Attendees will enjoy unlimited tastings from breweries such as 21st Amendment, Faction, Firestone Walker, Jester King, Heretic, Ninkasi, Sierra Nevada, Societe, and Stone.

This year, the Winter Brews Fest will be bigger than ever—with more food, more music, and more beer! There will even be non-beer options such as world class mead from Moonlight Meadery out of New Hampshire. Sponsors of the event include the 21st Amendment and White Labs, and proceeds will benefit the local environmental non-profit, the Coral Reef Alliance.

Tickets are now on sale and are $35 pre-sale or $45 at the gate and include unlimited pours and a commemorative glass for the first 1,500 tickets sold. Designated Drivers get in free, however this is a 21 and over only event.

The event is conveniently located just two blocks away from the Concord BART station so mark your calendars for a craft beer infused day for a wonderful cause.

If you haven’t been to this festival before, it’s one of the better Bay Area beer festivals. Here’s some photos from last year’s event to give you a flavor for it.

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Food will also be available for purchase.

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Did I mention there will be music? This year Forrest Day and Lucas Ohio & the Shamblers will be performing.

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See you there!

Federal Beer Tax Bills Compared

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Motley Fool has an interesting overview and comparison of the two bills regarding the restructuring of federal beer excise taxes currently before Congress, and likely to be resolved this year. The two bills, known as the BEER Act and the Small Brew Act (which Motley Fool calls the “Small Beer Act”), are both designed to reduce federal excise taxes, but in different ways, benefitting different size breweries differently. Which bill, if any, will pass is anybody’s guess at this point, but check out Beer May Be In For a Tax Break — Why This Could Be Bad for Some Brewers for one financial website’s take on them.

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Pizza Port To Release Their Beer In Cans

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Pizza Port, a.k.a. Port Brewing, announced today through a press release from Ball Corp. that they will be releasing three of their beers in cans this week throughout their home market of San Diego, California. From the press release

For the first time in its 26-year history, Pizza Port will be entrusting its hand-crafted passion to a new, more portable can package. “It was a natural evolution for us,” said Pizza Port co-founder Gina Marsaglia. “Our consumers like to be outside and want to take great beer with them. The can is a portable and sustainable way for them to do that.” Vince Marsaglia, her brother and co-founder of Pizza Port Brewing, adds, “Our highest priority has always been to deliver the best quality beer to our consumers and aluminum cans help us keep our beer fresh by keeping out light and oxygen.”

Beginning this week, three of Pizza Port’s most popular beers will be available in recyclable cans throughout San Diego County. The labels will include Chronic Amber Ale (known as ChronicAle), Ponto Pale Ale and their very “sessionable” Swamis IPA that has the hoppy-ness of an IPA but is still very drinkable.

“By putting their exceptional beer in Ball cans, Pizza Port further confirms that aluminum cans are a premium packaging option for many of the best craft brewers in America,” said Rob Miles, senior vice president of sales for Ball’s global metal beverage packaging business. “Aluminum cans from Ball are helping craft brewers differentiate their products while realizing efficiencies in operating costs and energy savings.”

Here’s the three beers to be released in cans:

Swami’s India Pale Ale
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Chronicale
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Note: Curiously, a number of years ago Lagunitas was turned down when they submitted their amber ale under the label Kronik, which seems awfully similar. They were told it was rejected due to the drug reference, though I remember joking at the time that “Bud” was okay. Today it’s called Censored.

Ponto S.I.P.A.
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Swan Song For Anchor Bock

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Anchor Brewing announced today that his year’s season release of Anchor Bock will be the last. From the press release:

Anchor Brewing Company announces the release and final selling season of Anchor Bock® Beer, a seasonal interpretation of the strong German beers that mark the beginning of spring.

Each year, breweries in Germany celebrate the coming of spring with a strong, flavorful beer. Anchor Bock Beer, a dark satiny brew with rich hints of chocolate, caramel and roasted barley, is Anchor’s interpretation of this long-standing tradition.

Bock beers are believed to have originated in the town of Einbeck, Germany and traditionally feature a goat on the labels. The Germanic term “bock” translates to “billy goat”, but has over time come to mean a beer darker and stronger than a brewery’s “regular” brew. One with, you might say, the kick of a goat.

Anchor Brewing Company will be retiring Anchor Bock Beer in 2014 making room for several new seasonals yet to be announced.

“Anchor Bock has been a beloved seasonal not only by craft beer fans, but by the folks here at Anchor,” said Mark Carpenter, Brewmaster at Anchor Brewing Company. “In an effort to expand and innovate, as we have done for decades, Anchor will be retiring Bock after the 2014 season to allow room for several all-new brews, which we will be sharing with the world very soon.”

Anchor Bock Beer is available nationally from January through March in draught, 12 oz. six-packs, and 22 oz. bottles.

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Check out their short video about Anchor Bock Beer, made last year, featuring Hazel the goat.

GfK Roper Youth Report Examines Influences on Youth Decisions about Drinking

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I mentioned this recent study in another post, but it’s worth highlighting all on its own, especially because it contradicts much of the prohibitionist propaganda about how awful it is for kids to see alcohol advertising and how it corrupts their immature little minds, turning them into raging alcoholics. GfK Roper Consulting, which characterizes itself as “one of the world’s leading research companies,” recently released its annual Youth Report, Influences on Youth Decisions about Drinking. Having conducted the same survey since 1991, they note that parents have the most influence on whether or not kids drink before they’re 21. And not only has that been the case for over twenty years, but it’s actually been increasing steadily since that time, up 33% (one-third). During that entire time, advertising has been at or near the bottom the entire time, and is currently at a mere 1%, down 80% from when it was 5% in 1991. This while at the same time, prohibitionists have been complaining about the danger of underage minors just seeing advertisements for alcohol, and doing everything in their power to limit them to the supposed times when kids won’t see them, which is, of course, never.

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Parents, as has been the case since they began conducting the survey, are the biggest influence by a wide margin. But prohibitionists have even managed to make it illegal in some states for parents to educate their own kids about alcohol, believing that they can do a better job with such programs, in California at least, as Red Ribbon Days and making up scenarios in high schools where one of their fellow students has been killed in order to scare them into not drinking, putting them through the very real emotional pain of dealing with a killed friend.

Second only to parents are best friends, but even their influence plummeted beginning in 2008, and is now only about 8%. So even peer pressure is waning. Third used to be teachers, but they’ve dropped below all media (defined as TV, radio, magazines, and Internet). In fact, all influence other than parents and friends are 2% or less, making them almost statistically irrelevant.

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Going on all during this same time period from 1991 to the present, has been a slow but steady decline in the overall amount of alcohol people are drinking. So not only has the advertising become less effective, especially as younger generations are more media savvy, but people and kids are drinking less and less. But it’s harder to raise money from donations if things are improving from these anti-alcohol organizations’ point of view. So what should be good news like this is virtually ignored by them. Good luck trying to find anything about this survey on their websites. If they really cared about stopping underage drinking or keeping drunks off the road you’d think they’d be arming parents with the tools they need to educate their children about responsible alcohol consumption, but actions speak much louder than words, and their actions are all about sounding alarm bells and raising money.

Archeologists Discover Ancient Brewer’s Tomb In Egypt

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This is pretty cool news. Egypt’s minister of antiquities, Mohammed Ibrahim, is reporting today that a group of archeologists from Japan “have unearthed the tomb of an ancient beer brewer in the city of Luxor that is more than 3,000 years old.” According to Ibrahim, “the tomb dates back to the Ramesside period and belongs to the chief ‘maker of beer for gods of the dead’ who was also the head of a warehouse,” adding “that the walls of the tomb’s chambers contain ‘fabulous designs and colors, reflecting details of daily life … along with their religious rituals.'”

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Inside the brewer’s tomb. [Photo: Supreme Council of Antiquities]

The Luxor tomb “is home to a large and famous temple complex built by Amenhotep III and later by Rameses II. The “Japanese team found the tomb during work on another tomb belonging to a top official under Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who died around 1354 BC.” See the BBC for the full story, though there’s not too much about it yet. Apparently, after it’s fully excavated they plan on opening it to visitors. Now that’s a vacation I’d sign up for.

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A wall inside the brewer’s tomb. [Photo: Supreme Council of Antiquities]

Good News From Monitoring The Future

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Here’s one story you won’t likely see spread by Alcohol Justice or any of the other prohibitionist organizations. Since 1975, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has done a survey of “drug, alcohol, and cigarette use and related attitudes among adolescent students nationwide.” This year, “45,449 students from 395 public and private schools participated” in the annual Monitoring the Future survey, which is conducted by the University of Michigan.

This year’s findings, at least in regards to alcohol, are encouraging, according to the survey’s authors, as detailed in their Monitoring the Future Survey, Monitoring the Future Survey, Overview of Findings 2013.

5-year trends continue to show significant decreases in alcohol use among all grades and across nearly all prevalence periods. For example, from 2008 to 2013, current use of alcohol declined from 15.9% to 10.2% among 8th graders, from 28.8% to 25.7% among 10th graders, and from 43.1% to 39.2% among 12th graders. From 2012 to 2013, decreases were observed in binge use of alcohol (defined as five or more drinks in a row in the last 2 weeks) among 10th graders, with a 5-year trend showing a significant decrease in all three grades.

That, in fact, has been the trend over the past few years.

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They’re more concerned about the use of prescription drugs among our nation’s youth, along with pot and smoking tobacco in a hookah, all of which are on the rise. But I don’t hear the prohibitionists trying to remove prescription drugs from the marketplace on the off chance kids could get their hands on them. I haven’t heard them trying to restrict Viagra or other legal drug ads because kids might see them, or restrict the displays and shelves of drugs because the kiddies might walk by and see them, and in seeing them they would undoubtedly want them, not being able to help themselves. It sounds silly doesn’t it, but that’s the general argument the prohibitionists use to argue against beer ads and beer on store shelves where children might see them.

But while they’ve been incessantly claiming beer ads make kids start drinking and responsibility efforts by the alcohol companies don’t work and all of us in the beer world are the spawn of satan, kids have been drinking less and less, year after year. You’d think that it would be cause for celebration by the groups that are working tirelessly to punish the alcohol companies for their wickedness and claim to want to put a stop to underage drinking. But that might put a dent in their fundraising efforts, so that, I believe, is why you’ll never see a positive story from a prohibitionist organization.

Original Lite Beer Can Coming Back

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These always give me a chuckle. Whenever sales are flagging, one of the strategies employed by the bigger beer companies to reverse their fortunes is to change the packaging. Earlier this month, Miller sent out a press release, “Celebrate Miller Time with the Light Beer that Started It All.” They’re bringing back the original can design for Miller Lite, their unnatural abomination of a diet beer. My thoughts on low-calorie light beer are very opinionated, and none too positive, for example read Disrespecting Low-Calorie Light Beer and No Defense For Light Beer.

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Here’s the press release:

The Original Lite Can features the familiar images of hops, barley and the words “a fine pilsner beer,” which reinforce the high quality ingredients and the unique brewing process that consumers have enjoyed for generations.

“There was a time when all that existed was heavy beer that weighed you down,” said Elina Vives, marketing director for Miller Lite. “The launch of Miller Lite broke this category convention and offered beer drinkers the best of both worlds, great taste at only 96 calories and 3.2 carbs. Miller Lite is the original light beer and this limited-edition can celebrates that innovation and helps inform consumers of the rich history behind our beer.”

In addition to becoming available to consumers in January, the Original Lite Can will appear in the upcoming Paramount Pictures’ release, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. The news team can be seen enjoying the Original Lite in the film, which will be released nationwide December 18.

The limited-edition Original Lite Can will be available nationwide January through March in 12-, 16- and 24-ounce sizes.

All well and good, but sheesh, why not just make a beer that people would want to drink, not one you have to market and advertise to death to create demand? Can people really be nostalgic for that can design? But that seems to be used a marketing tactic every few years, to change the package, the label or something along those lines. It’s indicative of a culture that’s long ago abandoned the importance of what’s inside the package and instead has been concentrating on the external. Sure, how the packaging looks is important, but it’s not more important than the beer, and for big beer companies it surely seems like marketing has trumped any other concerns for many, many years.

MILLER LITE ORIGINAL LITE CAN
Calling it a “Pilsner beer,” of course, strains the notion of what a pilsner is.

Nine Beers In Free Fall

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If you saw my post from this morning about Beer Sales Dropping. The original story mentioned nine brands that have, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights, “declined by more than 25% over the past five years.” 24/7 Wall St. listed the Nine Beers Americans No Longer Drink. They are:

  • 9. Labatt Blue — Sales loss (2007-2012): 28.3%
  • 8. Budweiser — Sales loss (2007-2012): 28.8%
  • 7. Heineken Premium Light — Sales loss (2007-2012): 36.7%
  • 6. Milwaukee’s Best Light — Sales loss (2007-2012): 39.7%
  • 5. Old Milwaukee — Sales loss (2007-2012): 54.0%
  • 4. Miller Genuine Draft — Sales loss (2007-2012): 56.4%
  • 3. Milwaukee’s Best Premium — Sales loss (2007-2012): 58.5%
  • 2. Budweiser Select — Sales loss (2007-2012): 61.5%
  • 1. Michelob Light — Sales loss (2007-2012): 69.6%

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Ouch.

Beer Sales Dropping

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While I don’t normally get my news from AOL (although to be fair it was on the NASDAQ website), this short video “Presented by: The Aol. On Network,” has some interesting factoids contained within it, and begins with the standard line. “Beer is not selling the way it used to. U.S. sales of the beverage declined in four of the past five years. Between 2007 and 2012, beer sales fell by 2.3%, or more than 4.8 million barrels.” More interesting was that sales of the top nine brands have “declined by more than 25% over the past five years,” and that’s according to Beer Marketer’s Insights.