Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Valley Brewing Loses Brewer Steve Altimari

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valley
I just heard that Valley Brewing in Stockton is being sold and their long-time (and quite talented) brewer Steve Altimari will not continue on with the new owners. Steve posted the following on his blog:

As of 6/12/10 I am no longer working for Valley Brewing Company, my employer for the last 13 years. The brewery is being sold and I am not a part of the new owners plans, so I bid everyone a fond goodbye and see you on the flip side.

Unless the new owners are kick-ass brewers themselves, I don’t see how that’s a positive for the brewery. Hopefully, there will be more details soon.

World’s Strongest Beer Title Changes Hands Again

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After Samuel Adams’ Utopias and the 31% Schorschbräu, the folks at BrewDog beat them both last fall when they came out with Tactical Nuclear Penguin, at 32%. Then Schorschbräu answered back with a 40% version. In February, BrewDog launched Sink the Bismark, again over-taking their German rivals with the 41% hop bomb.

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Schorschbräu has now created a 43% Version, and is again — at least for now — the world’s strongest beer. Gizmag has a nice recap of the whole story.

Pingu

North Carolina To Grow Hops

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The Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer has an interesting article, Brewers Have High Hopes For N.C. Hops, about farmers in the state, centered in the mountains around Asheville, experimenting with planting hops.

Hoping to build on the craft-brewing and local food movements, N.C. State University researchers in Raleigh and a handful of farmers in the mountains are growing experimental plots of hops, the cone-shaped flower clusters that brewers add to beer for bitterness and aroma and as a natural preservative.

Rob Austin, Deanna Osmond, and Jeanine Davis at NCSU got a $28,000, one-year grant this year from the Golden LEAF Foundation to investigate the commercial viability of growing hops here. In March, a couple of volunteers from a soon-to-open Durham brewery called Fullsteam came to help researchers plant a small plot of about 200 plants at a university field laboratory near Lake Wheeler south of Raleigh.

With tobacco demand presumably in steady decline, it would certainly be interesting to see the south rise again with farmers turning to hops.

Short Pour Film Winner Announced

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“The inaugural Short Pour Film Festival on the subject of beer, which was announced last August, was judged last weekend. The films will debut at the Monterey Beer Festival on June 5th, 2010, from 12:30pm to 5pm.” The Winning Film, along with the entire One Hour & Twenty Minute Program, will be shown in the historic ”King City Room”, a 10,000 square foot building at the Monterey Fairgrounds (home to The Monterey Jazz Festival & The Monterey Blues Festival).

The overall winner is “The Swagger Stagger” in San Francisco by Sayre Piotrkowski, which you can watch below.

The runner-up was by the Beer Nation Show and titled “Legend of Craft Beer Bandit” by Mike Winn & Seth Wright.

The winners will also be screened at this year’s Great American Beer Festival in Denver, September 16-18.

I.P.A. Assimilation

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Boston Beer Co. recently announced their new IPA, Latitude 38, previously available only in a variety pack, would be going solo in its own six-pack beginning this fall.

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With that decision, nine out of the ten biggest craft breweries will now have an India Pale Ale as a year-round beer. Only the Spoetzl Brewery in Texas doesn’t make one, and they’re primarily a lager brewery, as is Boston Beer given their flagship Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Of the top ten ale breweries, they all have an IPA in their portfolios.

Top Craft Breweries for 2009

  1. Boston Beer Co.: Samuel Adams Latitude 38
  2. Sierra Nevada Brewing: Torpedo Extra IPA
  3. New Belgium Brewing: Ranger India Pale Ale
  4. Spoetzl Brewery: None
  5. Pyramid Breweries: ThunderHead India Pale Ale
  6. Deschutes Brewery: Inversion IPA
  7. Matt Brewing: Saranac India Pale Ale
  8. Magic Hat Brewing: Blind Faith
  9. Boulevard Brewing: Single-Wide I.P.A.
  10. Harpoon Brewery: Harpoon IPA
  11. Alaskan Brewing: Alaskan IPA
  12. Bell’s Brewery: Two Hearted Ale

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A decade ago or so, hardly anyone had an IPA in their portfolio and fewer still made one all year long. Now almost every brewery feels they need to have one. I’d have to say that’s score one for the hopheads.

SABMiller Eyeing Foster’s?

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With merger mania and big business dealings heating up lately — with Pabst, ABI’s British Brands & China investments — I almost forgot about Foster’s. But the Foster’s Group said Tuesday that it’s splitting up the divisions of the company and is looking for a buyer for the brewing portion. Business Week is now speculating that MolsonCoors is a likely candidate to buy Foster’s, given their desire to “become a top global beer producer.” MolsonCoors currently owns a 5% share of the Foster’s Group.

New Hopyard Planted In Wisconsin

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Matt Sweeny, from Fatty Matty Brewing, a homebrewing and craft beer website, announced yesterday that he’s started a small hop farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, named Simple Earth Hops.

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From the press release:

Simple Earth Hops is a new 1/4 acre hopyard located at Greenspirit Farm CSA in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. The hopyard was founded with the idea of providing a much needed agricultural product for local craft brewers. Simple Earth Hops was established to demonstrate that local farmers can produce a consistent, sustainable supply of ultra high quality hops by working directly with local craft brewers while still maintaining a focus on ecology, the land and the people involved.

“Craft beer producers have made it clear that they desire a local source of hops. Simple Earth Hops will address this need for a local sustainable supply of hops by small locally owned craft beer producers.”

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Raising the trellises.

Look for Simple Earth Hops to elaborate more on the details of a Grand Opening hopyard tour/beer tasting event in late July, 2010 and for the hopyard harvest tour & beer tasting in early Fall, 2011.

Funding for Simple Earth Hops is provided in part by a 2009 NCR-SARE (USDA) grant. This small-scale commercial hopyard has been established by the Sweeny family of Dodgeville, Wisconsin who slowly grow earth friendly hops for local brewers with similar locavore ethics.

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The hop trellises on Greenspirit Farms.

Ontario Declares Santa Claus Only For Kids

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According to the Canadian National Post (sent in by an alert reader — thanks Brian S.), the LCBO — the Liquor Control Board of Ontario — has banned the Christmas beer Samichlaus, from Schloss Eggenberg. Here’s the reason, if you can even call it that.

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has decided the beer’s label contravenes rules against advertising to children. It features the name of the beer, Samichlaus, a Swiss-German nickname for the saint behind the Santa Claus legend, and a small black-and-white bearded figure.

It’s apparently a violation of “section 1(4) of the commission’s advertising guidelines, which prohibits liquor packaging aimed at children.”

Samichlaus

But the notion that Santa Claus, and by extension Christmas itself, is exclusively the domain of children is absurd on its face. But set that aside for a moment, and look at the label. Have you ever seen a less kid-friendly label? Nothing pulls in kids like a brown label, almost devoid of holiday colors. And the image of Santa Claus they believe puts children at risk? As the article suggests, the label’s image looks more like an “old fisherman [o]r a weather-beaten hobo.” I just see an old man with a beard and a nondescript hat; anything but someone kids would be drawn to the dark side over. How could any reasonable person look at that label and conclude it’s “aimed” at marketing to children?

Of course, Santa Claus — or St. Nicholas — is also the patron saint of brewers and the brewery only makes Samichlaus once a year, on December 6, which is his saint’s feast day.

I’m not sure why this issue keeps coming up, apart from some people seem to have some very strange ideas about who Christmas is for and who gets to decide. And that brings us back to this idea that Santa Claus somehow only appeals to children and is not for adults. I don’t know who the adults are who feel this way, but they must be some of the least empathetic, most stingy, unfeeling curmudgeonly people on the planet because for me the spirit of Santa Claus is about giving, regardless of age. I’m 51, a devout non-believer, and I love Christmas and especially the idea of Santa Claus. And I know I’m not alone on this one.

What’s perhaps most unsettling, is that the entire province has been mobilized to eradicate this scourge of Samichlaus based on a “single complaint from a private person.” Yes, that’s right. One person didn’t like the label and now the rest of the people in the province will be deprived this great beer. Nice going, jackass. This seems to keep happening — in the UK, Philly, San Diego and elsewhere — where the opinion of one person seems to matter more than the collective sensibilities of a whole community or society.

In an earlier post, I referred to this as the “tyranny of the minority,” but perhaps the better question is why government agencies spring into action over just one complaint? With a large population and just a single (or even just a few complaints) shouldn’t the silence of the many be taken into account, too? Ontario has an estimated population of just over 13 million people (as of last year) yet access to a (very good) product has been removed from the entire population because one guy didn’t like it. This is not how decisions should be made in a democracy or even in a “federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.”

New York Times Features Beer Stores

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Today’s New York Times has a great little article extolling the virtues of beer tasting bars, beer stores with tasting licenses allowing them to have limited taps and sample customers on the beers they carry. The story, Tastings With Craft Beers, features two Bay Area beer stores, Beer Revolution in Oakland, and City Beer Store in San Francisco, both terrific, relatively new, additions to the Bay Area beer scene. City Beer Store opened in 2006, while the Beer Revolution began this past February, during SF Beer Week.

If you haven’t been to either, now would be a good time to go. City Beer Store was founded by Craig Wathen, who formerly was with Pete’s Wicked Ales, and his wife Beth. They’ve created a cozy space on Folsom packed with over 300 beers, many of them hard-to-find elsewhere, and also managed to make the space comfortable and inviting.

Oakland’s Beer Revolution was started this year by Rebecca Boyles and Fraggle (a.k.a. Mark Martone — I didn’t even know Fraggle’s real name until just now!). I featured the pair in a long article I did on “Beer Geeks” for beer Advocate magazine several years ago. For them, this is a passion realized, a dream made real. In a larger space than their city doppelganger, Beer Revolution has a dozen taps and many, many bottles for sale. Both stores are constantly doing small, intimate in-store tastings and events.

The other three stores mentioned are all in Oregon, including the iconic Belmont Station in Portland. Only a few years ago, stores like these were a rarity, but their presence has been growing by leaps and bounds lately, and that’s great news for beer lovers.

Pabst Sale Update

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pabst
Additional information about the recently announced sale of Pabst Brewing by billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos is seeping out, and again primarily the information is coming from Harry Schuhmacher, from Beer Business Daily (proving once again everyone in the beer business should subscribe to his daily newsletter).

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the sale price to Metropoulos is $250 million. They also claim that the “deal is ‘in its final stages’ and is being backed by GE Capital. MillerCoors will presumably continue to brew the beers for Pabst, since their contract isn’t up for renewal until 2015.”

Perhaps most frightening, and clear proof that Pabst won’t become a more sophisticated brand under the new management:

The Journal says that Metroupoulos’ two sons, Evan 29, and Daren 26, “are expected to play key roles at Pabst.” These two guys are men about town for sure. The New York Times society columnist describes meeting them at a party where they were lounging on a couch. When the writer didn’t know who they were, Evan reportedly said, “Where you been, man? I’ve been on David Letterman and Howard Stern … I’ve been with more chicks than any fat guy you know, except Pavarotti.”

Wow, classy. But then again, it is PBR. Beer Business Daily also had a lengthy update with more information yesterday that’s worth taking a look at.