Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Macro Beer Prices Finally Going Up

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(updated below)

Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABIB) announced a couple of days ago that come fall, their prices would be going up. MillerCoors also made it clear that they would be taking a price increase as well. The Wall Street Journal reported that “Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the largest U.S. beer seller by revenue, and MillerCoors LLC will increase beer prices in the majority of their U.S. sales regions, the two companies said Tuesday.” Bloomberg added that, at least for ABIB, “the plan has met with “general acceptance” from retailers.”

Finally. This will probably end up being controversial — though it shouldn’t be — but I think that’s very good news. For a long while now, the major beer companies have all kept their prices to consumers artificially low to maintain their volume sales. Part of the reason is simply the competition among one another — the big guys that is — and none of them wanting to be the company that blinks first. I’ve watched this for many years, especially when I was a beer buyer for a chain of California stores, when each year the big companies would try to keep their price increases as small as possible. Now obviously, no company wants to raise its prices too much, but in the big beer business the increases over time have not kept pace with inflation and especially with the rise of ingredient costs and other factors, such as transportation, fuel, etc. There are likely several reasons for that, but chief among them is needing to keep sales volume up in order to maintain and increase the share price. And so over the past decade or two, none of the big beer companies have taken prices increases up as far as they otherwise would have if they were just looking at the cost to wholesale/retail price ratio. Even with the economy tanking, eventually someone has to blink. ABIB, with the InBev predisposition toward profit at all costs, seems poised to end this period of artificially low price points.

A side benefit for them, though most likely merely an externality, is that the price difference between the average big beer and a craft beer has widened, giving the impression that the macro beers are a far greater value. That’s because most craft brewers have not had the resources to do likewise and the price of their beer is more realistic, taking into account all their costs for ingredients, transportation, staff, and costs of doing business. A few have tried to keep the price to wholesalers down, but the increase in hops, barley and fuel over the last two years has made that increasingly difficult, even for the larger craft breweries. If ABIB raises their price (and MillerCoors follows suit, as they usually do) to more realistic levels, the price differential between a big beer and a craft beer should decrease, making it more likely that consumers might trade up to a craft beer, if the difference isn’t as great in doing so. Because of the economy, that’s already happening to some extent, with craft beer being seen as an affordable luxury from two directions. One, some people are trading down from more expensive bottles of wine or spirits to more affordable craft beer and, two, people trading up and treating themselves to a nice of bottle of beer, which isn’t stretching their wallet as much as a more expensive beverage. But if the price gap shrinks, we should see an increase in craft beer sales.

On the other hand, although it’s not a popular stance, I’ve long thought that craft beer should be more expensive than it is. It should be priced according to its value instead of against the more popular, but inferior tasting products. Organic food offers a good analogy. Organic food is more expensive to grow for a variety of reasons and thus costs more in the grocery store. But if people aren’t willing to pay a little bit more for it, it will disappear entirely and we’ll have little choice in the food we eat. Luckily, many people recognize that organic food, despite its more expensive price tag, offers additional benefits that make its increased price worthwhile. In a sense, you get what you pay for. If organic food tastes better, is healthier for you, often keeps money in the local economy, and is better in the long run for the planet’s sustainability, paying a little bit more for it isn’t just a good idea, but a moral imperative. I believe the same applies to craft beer.

We all tend to look for whatever is the cheapest and often forget about what “value” even means. I’m as guilty as the next guy, but I try to consider it whenever possible. We’ve all been indoctrinated with the idea — the “Wal-Mart Syndrome” — that value means cheaper, but that’s just not the case. If I pay more for a better constructed (and probably more comfortable) pair of shoes, and they last twice as long as the cheap pair, the expensive ones are the better value. Similarly, if I spend more more for a bottle of good beer, it will taste better and I’ll enjoy it more, making it a far better value.

A motto for this idea could be “drink less, enjoy it more.” That might not work for large companies that depend on volume, but there plenty of small sustainable craft breweries for whom that model would work perfectly. All we have to do is be willing to pay the price.

UPDATE: The L.A. Times ran a story yesterday entitled Is the Price Increase Justified?, citing a supply management expert, Bob Zieger, who took “issue with the idea that “general commodity prices” are behind beer price increases.” He continued:

“After all, beer is not made from a combination of pork bellies, copper and cocoa. Its key price drivers, like hops and barley, are actually not experiencing a serious price increase right now. If there was ever a time to blame commodity costs for a necessary price increase, it was last year,” Zieger said.

As any brewer can tell you, hop prices have not returned to the levels they were three years ago, nor have barley prices, though they have abated a little better than hops. Of course, hops and barley aren’t the only cost increases, as fuel and transportation costs have skyrocketed, too. Naturally, Zieger has a blog — doesn’t everybody? — called Supply Excellence where he expands his criticism. I think it’s unfortunate that the L.A. Times cited him as an expert because while he may know a lot about supply management and commodities generally, he doesn’t know the brewing industry, its particularities and the history of this issue. This gives a bad impression, I think, since it’s the only criticism they cite and in fact his thoughts were the story. While he’s certainly welcome to voice his opinion — and it was interesting to read his full blog post — it seems odd, and perhaps even a little wrong, for the L.A. Times to do a story calling into question one of the reasons given for an increase of beer prices without having any contrary opinion or indeed any person connected with the beer industry who knows anything about it. That just seems like irresponsible journalism to present one man’s opinion as a news story. Isn’t that what the op-ed section is for?

Fan Can Critics Show True Colors

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Just when I thought it was impossible for neo-prohibitionists to be any more idiotic, along comes the fan can controversy to prove me wrong once again. If you missed this one, I’ll recap. Anheuser-Busch created twenty-six different versions of its Bud Light can, each with the school colors of popular universities and colleges. There’s no school names, logos or mascots, just the colors. Here are some examples (you can see them all at Tailgate Approved, a Bud Light website).

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Seems like good marketing to me. Commemorative beer cans are almost as old as beer cans themselves and are one of the most popular collectible items of breweriana. It’s not like these “institutions of higher learning” haven’t been prostituting themselves for decades, licensing literally everything to students, alumni and fans. Many care more for their sports programs then the actual edumacation they’re supposed to be providing students. But, as usual, otherwise reasonable people show their true colors as complete boobs who lose their sense of proportion and logic. Just add alcohol. It would almost be fun to watch if it wasn’t so terribly sad, pathetic and damaging to the enlightened, evolved and reasonable society I wish more people would be striving to create.

The hue and cry this time comes from “concerned people” afraid that a two-color beer can will encourage and promote underage drinking. According to Slashfood:

The cans are being marketed to match the colors of towns with college football teams, a move that has some school administrators up in arms, according to the Wall Street Journal. For example, purple-and-gold cans are being sold near the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La.

The University of Michigan has threatened to sue to make certain “maize and blue” cans are not sold anywhere in the Great Lakes state. At least 25 schools have asked Anheuser-Busch to stop selling the cans near their campuses, the paper said. The company said it would comply with any formal request by a university.

The Wall Street Journal reported that “[m]any college administrators contend that the promotions near college campuses will contribute to underage and binge drinking and give the impression that the colleges are endorsing the brew.” Huh? How exactly does that work? The laws concerning underage drinking aren’t altered in any way by changing the color of the cans, are they? It’s still against the law, isn’t it? This is what drives me insane about these “controversies.” They have no root in logic or common sense. People just fly off the handle without even thinking. I’m sure there are at least a few colleges whose colors are red and white. Is the demand for Coca-Cola greater there because people can be seen drinking a soda with their school colors on it?

The Journal article continues. “Samuel L. Stanley, president of New York’s Stony Brook University and a medical doctor, also objected. In a letter to Anheuser-Busch, he called the campaign ‘categorically unacceptable.'” He then goes on to list some statistics about alcohol-related deaths, which are entirely irrelevant to this issue. Changing the color on a can of beer does not automatically change the nature of the minimum drinking age or how many beers a person might consume in a sitting. Perhaps he’s tacitly admitting that he can’t stop underage drinking on his campus and thinks that this will make it even harder for him to enforce the current laws. Perhaps he should consider supporting lowering the drinking age as suggested by former college dean John McCardell and his Choose Responsibility organization and sign on to the Amethyst Initiative. That might make some headway in reducing drinking problems on his campus, because just banning certain color cans isn’t going to have any effect whatsoever.

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My favorite so far is the ridiculous University of Michigan response, who “threatened legal action for alleged trademark infringement, demanding that Anheuser-Busch not sell the ‘maize and blue’ cans in the ‘entire state.'” Sadder still though is the fact that colors can actually be trademarked. Think UPS brown. That’s trademarked, though of course it’s the specific hue, not any brown. And last year, in a federal court case in Louisiana, Board of Supervisors of the Louisiana State Univ. et al. v. Smack Apparel Co., et al., C.A. No.: 04-1593, E.D. La., the judge ruled that Louisiana State University, Ohio State University, Oklahoma University, and the University of Southern California did indeed enjoy legal protections for their color schemes.

According to the IP Blawg,

In considering whether the unregistered color schemes were entitled to protection under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, the court looked for the requisite secondary meeting needed for a color to be protected, and found that it was present. The four universities had used their color combinations for more than 100 years, marketing hundreds of items with these color schemes, and garnering millions of dollars of retail sales from merchandise bearing these color schemes. The court then found that likelihood of confusion was established under the Fifth Circuit’s precedent where the marks had been in use for decades and were “extremely strong,” the color schemes were virtually identical, and Smack’s shirts were sold in retail outlets alongside plaintiffs’ shirts, and promoted in the same advertising media

The IP Blawg ends by wondering allowed whether or not the court made the right decision. I’d have to say this is almost as ridiculous as patenting seeds. I think what’s really at stake, both here and in the current issue, is that schools aren’t getting any licensing money. By simply using colors that are close to those of the respective schools, they don’t have to pay any licensing fees to the schools, and that’s probably what’s really pissed them off. Because most colleges aren’t exactly shy about hawking all sorts of crap with the school colors, logo and mascot on them. Walking through any university bookstore should convince anyone of that. The higher moral ground they’re flinging around about this is more about not sharing a piece of the pie, I’d wager.

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Perhaps this might be a good time to have a debate on just how ridiculous is blind loyalty that’s reinforced throughout our lives. We wonder why people are so quick to go to war when our entire society is divided up into a million divisions that pretend to compete against one another. It starts with the street you live on, then your neighborhood, your school, your sports team, your college, your company and finally your country. You’re expected to show “support” for all of them, and usually in an unquestioning way that’s deeply damaging to reason or logic. It makes it much easier for things to never change and makes maintaining a status quo that’s unfair to a majority much easier. Did you ever notice that critical thinking is not taught in school? That’s not an accident. Critical thinking would lead to kids asking all sorts of uncomfortable questions and — gasp — thinking for themselves.

People obviously believe that when shown a can of beer in a person’s school colors, they’ll be unable to do anything but buy them and drink them. This idea of blind loyalty will all but force them to in order to be supportive. Frankly, I can’t even remember what my college’s school colors were. But even if I could, it’s such an obviously specious argument, that I’m amazed anyone could be taking it seriously.

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But they know that a company as large as Anheuser-Busch InBev can’t risk appearing to do anything that might be even seen as possibly, maybe encouraging people to buy their products, especially those who are not allowed to buy them. So what exactly are companies supposed to do? Apparently, they all have to come up with packaging and marketing that appeals only to adults and specifically does not appeal to anyone under 21. Exactly what would that look like? Beats the hell out of me. I know cartoons are usually one of things that bother these chuckleheads, as if only kids enjoy them. I’m 50, for fuck’s sake, and I still love cartoons as much as I did when I was a non-person who could only die for his country but not drink in it.

My point is it’s impossible to separate kids from society and create two worlds, one with kids and one without. Yet that’s exactly the only thing that would seem to satisfy the people who make these nonsensical complaints. If they really think all it takes to increase underage drinking and binge drinking is change the colors of beer cans, we have more severe problems than underage drinking. I can’t help but think that placing as much emphasis on entertainment and sports, especially college sports, as we do has to be at least part of the reason that so many are so thick as to swallow such arguments. And worse so, for the pinheads that come up with them. These are people who work in universities and so, one presumes, have a college degree. Never was it more obvious that graduating from college can’t make anyone smarter, only more educated. I’ve cited these before, but here is where we’re at, according to the Jenkins Group:

  • 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
  • 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
  • 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
  • 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

Personally, I’m more worried about that (and not just because I’m a writer) than what color the beer cans are. I know I’ve mentioned this book before, (sigh — sorry about repeating myself) but Morris Berman’s brilliant The Twilight of American Culture suggests that we’re currently heading into another dark ages and that under such circumstances, few people even realize it. I’d offer that worrying about what color the beer cans are and believing that some harm will come to society as a result is yet another sign that Berman is correct. Surely there are more pressing problem’s we’re facing.

A Marketeer’s Take On Bud Light

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Thanks to Anat Baron from Beer Wars, who tweeted this. Laura Ries, one half of the father-daughter Ries & Ries marketing consultants, who together wrote The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding and four other books.

She wrote a piece on her far-too-cleverly named Ries’ Pieces blog about the Bud Light brand. It’s interesting to read the take of someone who knows marketing but not the beer industry’s peculiarities.

Today Show Again Asks Wine Experts To Explain Beer

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For the second time in less than a year, the lazy producers at the Today Show had a segment about beer hosted by someone from Food & Wine magazine. This time it was Gail Simmons, who’s perhaps better known as a judge on the Bravo television show Top Chef. I’ve looked over her biography and I can’t for the life of me find any mention of beer whatsoever.

The advice she gives isn’t terrible, though it’s pretty basic to the point where she couldn’t really go too far off the rails. Most of the beers are fairly pedestrian, but they most likely have to be available for a national audience. It was nice at least to see Lagunitas IPA and Victory Prima Pils highlighted. Although I can’t for the life me understand why they put the IPA in a pilsner glass!?!

I know most people’s take on this is that we should be glad beer is getting any positive attention — and I am — but I’m also enough of a curmudgeon to want it to be on our terms. I know I keep hammering this point, but it just doesn’t seem that unreasonable to want wine experts to talk about wine, food experts to talk about food and plumbing experts to talk about plumbing. For almost any expertise you could name, that’s the way it’s done and most people would agree that makes sense. But when it comes to beer, mass media seems to believe almost anyone can be an instant expert on beer for no better reason than a familiarity with another alcoholic beverage or food more generally. And that’s likely because of their own ignorance, believing that beer is only the commodity it’s portrayed as by the big beer company’s advertising and marketing. That, plus being too lazy to take the time to learn anything different. But for fuck’s sake, there are plenty of beer magazines around these days. Surely they must have run across one of them. Perhaps they’ve heard of Google? A quick search would reveal hundreds, if not thousands, of people who know more about beer and food pairing than Gail Simmons.

Evidence of their ignorance comes out loud and clear when segment host Lester Holt tells Simmons the following. “Thanks for legitimizing beer. I’m one of those beer drinkers that feels funny ordering a beer in a nice restaurant instead of wine sometimes.” First of all, and no offense to Simmons, but she’s done nothing, absolutely nothing, to “legitimize” beer. That work has been done by thousands of dedicated craft brewers, beer writers and aficionados over thirty years of hard, patient work. Her magazine is now addressing craft beer because of the groundwork laid by all those people; she’s reacting to the market, not leading it. That Holt offhandedly gives her “credit” for so many other people’s hard work is deeply offensive and just plain pisses me off.

Secondly, why on Earth would anyone “feel funny” ordering what they want with a meal? How sad that anyone would feel they “must” order wine with any meal in a restaurant. When he made that statement, you could almost hear the collective marketing world patting themselves on the back. When you convince people that wine is the only thing to order in a fine restaurant to the point where they “feel funny” doing anything different, that’s a great victory for advertising. But when any industry persuades society to believe what they want them to wholesale and unquestioning, that can be deeply damaging to the world as a whole. Life becomes skewed, and I would argue that’s our world today. A century of advertising has made us “feel” certain things about brands, specific companies and their products. You have to marvel at the success of it all when you see millions of people voluntarily wear clothing with corporate logos on them, essentially paying for the privilege of advertising for them. That no one thinks twice about it boggles the mind.

With wine, this manifests itself in the way newspapers and other media have “wine sections” or “wine and food sections” that cover all beverages. Even the Today Show’s website has a Food & Wine section. Can somebody explain to my why it can’t be Food & Drink or Food & Beverage? Why is it always exclusive and not inclusive? Of course, like Food & Wine magazine, they all do occasionally include articles about beer, spirits and even coffee, so why not call it by a name that reflects that? Perhaps they’d cover beer more often if wine wasn’t in the title? I’d at least feel better if the Today Show’s “expert” came from, if not a beer magazine, at least a Food & Drinks magazine. That might go a long way to “legitimize beer” and their coverage of it.

Batman On Drinking Circa 1966

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Sunday afternoon I turned on the television determined to find something new that I could watch with the kids. Left to their own devices my kids would watch the same cartoons over and over and over again. Even good ones (we had been watching The Tick and the old Fleischer Superman series) grow old very quickly on endlessly repeated viewings. As luck would have it, we caught the very beginning of the 1966 film Batman, based on the popular Batman television series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. It ran for three seasons from 1966-68 and, needless to say, I was a fan. I was seven the year it began, the same age as my son Porter is now, and it quickly became my favorite TV show.

So I thought this would be perfect for the kids to watch with me, and in truth it was. Porter was particularly thrilled with the ham-fisted acting, the ludicrous plot and the oh-so cheesy special effects. It was fun watching it again through his eyes. But as I’d not seen it in quite some time, it was an interesting time capsule of the Sixties. The way they watered-down Batman as a do-gooder not only authorized by the City of Gotham, but embraced by both the establishment and the citizens seemed almost quaint given the dark vigilante themes explored in later versions of the Batman legend. The characters could not have been more square, establishment and unintentionally funny. In the midst of Vietnam, social unrest and political upheaval, television was escapist fare in way I don’t think it’s managed since that time. But despite adopting the bright, garish technicolors of the younger generation, everything about the show was correct and proper, reflecting not the growing baby boomer sentiments, but the established morals and mores of the generation before that, my parents generation, who were born before World War II. In fact, the way they portrayed young people on the show as hippies, beatniks and other unsavory stereotypes was downright hostile and seems almost laughable were it not such an unsubtle attack on them.

As a first-grader in 1966, I noticed none of this, of course, but undoubtedly this was the reason my parents let me watch the show at all, since it was devoid of any message they didn’t approve of and in fact probably more matched their own moral compass. But all of that is my long-winded set up to a scene in the film which surprised the hell out of me yesterday, though upon reflection it really shouldn’t have.

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Batman and Robin were down at the docks, the place where nefarious types always congregate, and Batman had climbed in a window in some shady building that housed a bar only to discover a bomb. And not just any bomb, but one of those round, black cartoon bombs with a fuse sticking out of the top that burns nearly forever. For several minutes Batman runs around holding the bomb out in front of him looking for a safe place to dispose of it, only to be thwarted at every turn. It’s hilarious, really; every place he runs he finds a baby stroller, a group of nuns, boy scouts, or something along those lines. I can only imagine the brainstorming session that yielded that scene. Eventually, he finds a safe place, and throws the bomb into the water. Robin catches up with him and they discuss what just happened and Batman’s unwillingness to let innocent people die. And in that exchange, Batman sums up what I imagine was the prevailing way that people at that time regarded people who drink too much.

Robin: You risked your life to save that riff-raff at the bar?

Batman: They may be drinkers, Robin, but they’re also human beings … and may be salvaged. I had to do it.

The way he says “human beings,” he practically chokes on the words, like he’s hard pressed to actually believe they could be human, but still knows he should believe it because it makes him a better person. But it’s not even their humanity that saves them, but instead the fact that they may have the potential to change their wicked ways, to “be salvaged.” That Robin seemed surprised that the “riff-raff” bar folk might be worth saving, I think, says quite a lot. Holy propaganda, Batman!

Wow, to be someone who patronized a bar circa 1966 was to be the lowest of the low, only barely redeemable, a belief many neo-prohibitionists still appear to believe. At least most rational people no longer adhere to such nonsense. Happily, bars have changed, people have changed, and the beer they serve in them has, too. In fact, even Batman has changed. I’d bet even he’d drink a nice craft beer when he’s in his alter-ego guise as Billionaire Bruce Wayne. Thank goodness the Sixties are over.

Fishnet Cans

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First there was Nude Beer (in its many incarnations), then Wanker, Skinny Blonde Ale and now comes the latest beer to play to the basest instincts of the male beer drinker: lingerie canned beer with fishnet stockings.

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At least that was my original thought. The Fishnet Cans have been blogged and re-blogged all over that series of tubes known as the internet. But, as it turns out, they are just one of a pretty big series of can designs by Russian artist/illustrator Ramm ND. It’s not necessarily his or her fault that so many chose to highlight the one prurient themed can and ignored the more poignant works. Human nature is what it is. Take a closer look at the Fishnet Cans and you’ll begin to see new details that defy it being simply to titillate. Then take a look at his entire oeuvre of cans. Some are beer and some are soda, but they’re all more interesting than I would have guessed from just seeing the one in fishnets.

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In fact, going through Ramm’s entire portfolio is eye-opening. And I think he’s making some larger points. These aren’t just can designs, they’re works of art using cans as the medium.

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Ramm also has another portfolio on Coroflot.

Good For Your Bones: Beer

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A study recently conducted in Spain revealed that women who drink beer daily, or nearly so, have stronger bone density and have a lower risk of developing osteoporosis later in life. The study, published in the June edition of Nutrition, speculates that “the high level of silicon in beer slows down the thinning that leads to fractures and boosts the formation of new bone. Beer is also rich in phytoestrogens, plant versions of oestrogen, which keep bones healthy.”

According to the Full Text of the Study:

Of the nearly 1700 women who took part in the study, there “were 793 (46.7%) who drank beer habitually. Two hundred fifty-seven (15.1%) subjects drank wine habitually, 374 (22.0%) subjects smoked, and among these 209 (12.3% of total) were beer drinkers. Postmenopausal women drank less beer than premenopausal and perimenopausal women.”

For postmenopausal women, circulating estrogen concentrations have been shown to be positively associated with alcohol intake. Our findings, of higher Ad-SoS in premenopausal and postmenopausal women who drink, support the idea that the bone-enhancing effects of alcohol might be partially due to a promotion of endogenous estrogens synthesis. Although wine at low doses, and in an acute form, has been observed to have an estrogenic effect, there have been no indications of pathways for its effect on bone other than its stimulation of the syntheses of estrogens and, because of its alcohol content, of calcitonin. This may explain the difference in our results, which were positive for the consumption of beer but not significant for the consumption of wine.

Beer is also a major source of silicon in the form of orthosilicic acid. In fact, it has been suggested that beer is one of the most important sources of silicon in the Western diet. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that dietary silicon intake may have salutary effects on skeletal health, especially cortical bone health in premenopausal women, although not in postmenopausal women. Despite a positive correlation also taking place in the postmenopausal group, we believe that this positive effect on bone might be due to the synergic effect of a combination of silicon and phytoestrogen (daidzein, genistein, and others) compounds in beer. These positive effects of silicon on the bone in postmenopause seem to occur when silicon supplementation is given to prevent bone mass loss. In fact, oral silicon is reported to completely abrogate the loss of bone mass.

In this study, we do not recommend the consumption of beer, wine, or any other alcoholic beverage for bone health; nevertheless, we have been able to verify that beer ingestion, a common component within our area’s diet, seems to provide bone mass with beneficial effects for those women who had moderate alcohol consumption. This was a cross-sectional study with certain limitations, which reflects associations but does not reveal causes and effects. A common problem with studies using dietetic questionnaires is the fact that some subjects could have difficulty recalling type and frequency of ingested food. This is a minor problem with respect to beer consumption because its quantification is easy and precise, since it is available only in 200-mL and 330-mL bottles at supermarkets in our area. Our study design did not include the measurements of plasma levels of phytoestrogens.

In conclusion, the consumption of beer, apart from its alcohol content, favors greater bone mass in women independently of their gonadal status. This might be a result of the phytoestrogen content of this alcoholic drink, which requires further investigation.

Despite their chickening out from actually recommending people drink beer for their health, the conclusions of the study nonetheless support doing just that. Another study by Tufts University earlier this year came to the same conclusion.

So why is it so difficult for scientists to just admit what’s right in front of their faces? That the moderate consumption of beer is really good for you. The only reasons I can think of is that they’re either afraid of having research grant money dry up for not reaching the “correct” conclusions or because they, too, have inadvertently drank the Kool-Aid and internalized the decades of prohibitionist propaganda. In the latter case — and I think this is true of many otherwise typical people — years and years of neo-prohibitionist groups having the only voice without dissenting opinions allowed have left many believing a series of premises that are simply not true or at best grossly exaggerated. That seems to me the only rational explanation of why it’s seemingly so difficult for many similar scientific studies to draw the logical conclusion from the data. Of course, it may simply be a liability issue and they’re afraid of being sued when people begin drinking more based on the studies.
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Drink up ladies! A beer a day may keep the doctor away.

The Angry Arm Of Alcohol

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I was outside the news bubble all last week, happily ignorant of most of the goings on stateside. I left just after the infamous Beer Summit, a relatively non-event that was blown completely out of proportion but which allowed the news media to avoid talking about more important issues for a while. The San Jose Mercury News even asked me to weigh in on the beer choices. And I was certainly not the only one, as the Brewers Association had a summary of links about it. Consensus seemed to be that we were all glad beer was in the public spotlight, we just wished it had been better beer. Of course, not everyone was happy about beer getting a moment in the sun, and the usual chuckleheads started complaining even before it took place. But afterward, it got even worse.

The head of the Delaware chapter of the notorious neo-prohibitionist group Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Nancy Raynor, said she “hopes those images don’t send the wrong message to the millions of young people who saw the president drinking on TV” during a radio interview on WDEL Radio 1150 AM. I’m not exactly sure how an adult being shown doing something that’s perfectly legal sends the “wrong message,” whatever that even means, but logic is not apparently her strong suit. She also said that “it’s a well-known fact that young people tend to mimic the actions that they see be adult (sic).” I’d think she might then be more concerned about images on TV of people shooting each other with guns. That would be a greater threat than drinking if indeed young people are mimicking what they see on television.

And that might have been the end of it except that the American Beverage Institute (ABI), a trade organization representing primarily restaurants serving alcohol, issued a press statement taking MADD to task for what Raynor said during her interview.

“MADD is no longer an organization that opposes drunk driving, but an anti-alcohol group that has been hijacked by the modern day temperance movement,” said Sarah Longwell, ABI Managing Director. “That someone in a position of leadership at MADD would criticize President Obama for simply drinking beer, illustrates the neoprohibitionist mentality that now dominates the group.”

Last week, President Obama met with the men involved in the Cambridge police incident in an attempt to diffuse the situation. Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, and Cambridge police Sergeant James Crowley enjoyed cold beers while working out their differences. But in an interview this weekend, the President of the Delaware chapter of MADD, Nancy Raynor, expressed concern that the event could send the wrong message to young people who saw the president drinking on TV.

“MADD’s position on the ‘Beer Summit’ should remind Americans that the group once dedicated to preventing drunk driving has transitioned into leading the anti-alcohol movement,” said Longwell. “MADD has even been denounced by its founder Candy Lightner as ‘very neo-prohibitionist.’”

“MADD should return to its original mission of stopping drunk driving,” said Longwell. “The more time and resources the group spends pushing an anti-alcohol agenda, the more irrelevant it becomes.”

I’d say that the ABI statement is accurate from my experience watching how MADD operates and what they do, say and support. But MADD at the national level chimed in to defend both their position and the organization’s Delaware chapter head. Frank Harris, a spokesman with MADD’s national office in Washington, D.C. (though some accounts label him a “state policy specialist”), “emphasizes that his organization has no problem with safe alcohol consumption” and “is not against responsible drinking of alcohol for those over 21 years of age.” If that were true, of course, there would be no reason for Raynor to have been “concerned” about the Beer Summit sending “the wrong message.” She’s the head of an entire state, after all. She wouldn’t have attained that position without drinking the Kool-Aid. Everything that followed her statements was just damage control. And one of the most common tactics used to is to simply discredit your opponent. Harris attempted to do just that in hilarious fashion, by claiming that the ABI represents “the angry arm of the alcohol lobby.”

After I stopped laughing, it got me to thinking. The real question shouldn’t be that some people are angry, but that why aren’t more people angry? Why shouldn’t we be angry? For many years now, the anti-alcohol neo-prohibitionist groups have set the agenda. The media and politicians more often than not fall into lockstep in letting their side of the story be told, and very rarely give any meaningful time to any contrary position. That’s primarily because neo-prohibitionists pretend to own the moral high ground, forcing everyone into a defensive position. But there’s nothing remotely moral or immoral about alcohol. It just is. Like any other consumable food, it cannot be good or bad, just delicious or unappetizing. Despite our dysfunctional history of puritanical posturing, it can only be a sin to drink if you believe it’s a sin to drink. Not even different religions agree on this point. Not even different denominations of Christian religions can agree on whether or not drinking is a sin. That it’s wrong to decide for everyone through legislation what is essentially just personal preference should be obvious. That it didn’t work here, or anywhere else Prohibition was tried, should be a potent reminder that what they want is already a failed idea. Yet still they persist.

But as much as they wish it were otherwise, alcohol is legal is the United States, and the majority of people who drink do so responsibly and without the societal burdens or problems that are ascribed to alcohol by these groups. So something perfectly legal, used correctly by most people, is under constant attack by a minority who distort facts, prey on fear and will use almost any tactic to stop people from enjoying it. And people aren’t angry? Why not?!? I firmly believe we have every right to be angry — and not just the ABI — but everyone who drinks responsibly, isn’t a burden on society, and whose life didn’t turn into a bad country song the moment alcohol touched their lips should be angry that there are people who just won’t let them be. This is an issue that should have been settled over 75 years ago, but anti-alcohol groups not only won’t just admit defeat but have been fighting just as relentlessly as ever. They’re like that Japanese soldier on the deserted island who didn’t get the word that World War II was over, except that neo-prohibitionists are actually making headway and many people listen to these cranks because of the way they frame their arguments and because people are afraid to stand up to them, especially politicians.

So when they accuse the ABI of being the angry arm of the alcohol lobby, I say we embrace that idea and be angry. I am. I’m angry. Why aren’t you?

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My wife had the wonderful idea that we should make t-shirts, and she’s rarely, excuse me, never wrong. Anyone out there with some artistic skills want to create a logo for the “Angry Arm of Alcohol?” I’m picturing simply an outstretched horizontal arm holding a full pint glass or other beer glass. Perhaps with “The Angry Arm of Alcohol” tattooed on the forearm.

The Teachable Moment

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In a few hours, our President, Barack Obama, will sit down at a picnic table with two men in an event that’s been blown way out of proportion with the even more ridiculous title “Beer Summit.” The idea is to discuss race relations in America after events that unfolded much like the beginning of the Nicholas Cage film Amos & Andrew last week in Cambridge, Mass. I won’t go into all the controversy about the incident, and who was right or wrong, and what can be done about it. That’s been talked about to death. But there’s something else, a bit more under the radar, which has to do, I think, with the “teachable moment” that Obama was hoping to accomplish with his “Beer Summit.”

For me, the over-looked “teachable moment” is that three adults can sit down and discuss an issue, any issue really, over a beer. Sharing a beer is a way people have bonded for centuries. It’s the reason the Tavern was so critical to the success of the American Revolution. Drinking beer, I think, is particularly good as a shared experience and that adults can enjoy having a convivial conversation while responsibly enjoying a beer or two is beer’s power and an underlying reason for its popularity.

That should be obvious, but I’ve noticed a number of odd statements towards the end of various news reports, presumably in an effort to get a balanced perspective. But since having a couple of beers to talk over a problem seems like such an ordinary experience for a majority of people, they’ve had to go pretty far into the fringes to find dissenting opinions.

Take this example, from the Wall Street Journal, where the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union chimes in. I confess, I was unaware of their continued existence. But here’s what they had to say:

Rita K. Wert, the group’s national president, said her organization is disappointed that the president is serving beer at all. “There are so many other beverages he could have chosen that would have served just as well,” she said, mentioning lemonade or iced tea.

Served, maybe, but as well, doubtful. I love Iced Tea more than anyone really should [I drink at least a liter a day, usually more], but neither it nor lemonade is appropriate for a discussion of race relations. They might be fine if you were planning a high school dance. But for the harder issues, you need the harder stuff.

Then there’s this gem, from Politico:

But it wouldn’t be a contrived Washington event without a contrived Washington protest. Already, “Citizens Against the Beer Summit at White House”, a makeshift gathering spearheaded by Baltimore pastor Dr. Emmett Burns, will picket the White House today between 12 and 3 p.m. “The president’s actions are sending the wrong message to our nation’s youth who are becoming alcoholics at young ages,” reads an announcement for the protest. “This pernicious habit is also the reason for the large number of teen motor vehicle accidents throughout the country.”

Burns is not exactly just a pastor, but also a politician, a 4-term Democrat in Maryland’s House of Delegates. And he’s a Baptist minister, a denomination that generally comes out against alcohol, so it’s not too surprising.

But there are two things I just don’t get about what’s he’s saying. How are three adults, legally entitled to drink alcohol, sending a bad message to kids, who aren’t yet allowed alcohol? That makes no sense whatsoever. People allowed to do something, doing it (and doing it responsibly) does not send any rational person the message that it’s alright for anyone to do that same thing, especially if they’re not permitted to do it. A torturous sentence to be sure, but it’s a ridiculous notion, but one that’s often trotted out. “What about the kids.” Well, I’d say they’ll get to see a great model of responsible behavior, and perhaps learn that drinking can be done in a responsible manner instead of the scare tactics employed by Burns and people of his misguided ilk. That’s exactly the teachable moment I see. To say that seeing adults enjoy something legally can be the cause of teenagers having car accidents is so utterly a stretch of logic, that I have to seriously wonder about the mind of the author who included the quote. As I, and literally millions of responsible adults can attest, drinking beer does not always, or even usually, lead to a “pernicious habit” (defined as “highly injurious or destructive”). What does it add to the conversation, except to give voice to the fringe element?

Despite these rather pathetic attempts to admonish the President for doing something perfectly legal, something that’s a time-honored tradition, and take any opportunity to get their crazed anti-alcohol message out there, the real message is just the opposite. No matter what you think about Obama’s politics, having people sit down to talk over a beer is always a good idea. Beer as social lubricant: it bonds people, opens them up to talk more freely and discuss uncomfortable issues head on. If the three men walk away from the “Beer Summit” with a successful result — and how could it be otherwise? — beer will have played the role it’s been facilitating throughout history. This is nothing new. When enjoyed responsibly, like the vast majority of legal drinkers do, beer can have countless positive effects on society. If only all our differences could be tackled over a beer, now that would be real progress. We might actually get somewhere. But the real message is that anybody, from President to average citizen, can sit down and discuss the world, and any issue in it, over a beer in a positive, responsible and effective manner. To me, that’s the “teachable moment.”

All Beer Is The Same!?!

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I try to keep my criticisms of beer coverage by the mainstream media civil, especially since at times I’m one of them. But an article posted yesterday on MSNBC, Will You Drink Beer In A Box?, is so completely riddled with error and ridiculousness that the gloves are off. Author James Dlugosch may know stocks and the world of finance, but when it comes to beer, he’s an unmitigated idiot.

First of all, the premise of his article, taken from a Wall Street Journal article, is that Molson Coors, actually MillerCoors but I’ll try not to nitpick, is testing beer in a box, which he finds as distasteful as box wine. Which is all well and good, but it’s not in a box at all. It’s a small keg that fits in your refrigerator, similar to the mini-kegs the Germans have been selling for decades. See below. You can also see another view of it from the front at Gizmodo. The keg itself is in a cardboard box, presumably for easier carrying, but the beer is in a container no different than any other keg or can of beer. It’s like saying that since a six-pack of bottles are packaged in a cardboard six-pack carrier that the beer is in cardboard, too. What a maroon.

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But it gets better. The reason he’s so opposed to a box has less to do with the container and more to do with his own twisted sense of how things ought to be. Here’s how he sees it:

Now, with beer, the box might be less objectionable since, in my opinion, the quality issue is not really in play. Despite what the microbrewers will tell you, all beer is pretty much the same. Consumers who pay a premium do so more for the experience than the taste.

So apparently an Old Rasputin Imperial Stout is exactly, excuse me, pretty much the same as Miller Lite. In the words of Bill Cosby channeling Noah. “Right ….” At this point, I almost feel sorry for him. Imagine having so little understanding or familiarity with taste and smell or such an underdeveloped palate that you could write those words and, presumably, believe them. It’s not that beer tastes differently, it’s just that we experience them differently. “Right …” Well that will certainly make judging at GABF this year considerably easier since we can just pile them all together instead of having to sit for hours with 78 different style categories and countless sub-categories, each pretending to have their own unique taste profile. Not that there’s much danger of this, but I sure hope I don’t get invited to the White House for a beer summit with this knucklehead.

But as ridiculous as that statement was, wait, this one’s even better:

But for me, the issue is the bottle. I like drinking my suds from a cold bottle. Period.

Put it in a glass, and the experience just isn’t the same.

Wow. I’ve found my complete opposite. I won’t drink beer in a bottle or can, but insist on a glass. I’m frankly quite glad the experience isn’t the same, how could it be? Beer in a glass is so much better that I’m continually amazed that people really will drink directly from a bottle or can and now here’s someone who only does what I find abhorrent and refuse to do. Of course, I do this for a reason. Much of beer’s aroma, an integral component of its overall taste, is locked in the bottle and is released through the head when it’s poured into a glass. That’s not just my opinion, but is backed up by at least a century of scientific research, not to mention the experience of billions throughout history. It also releases excess carbon dioxide and makes your beer much less gassy and filling, too. Then, of course, there’s the pleasure of enjoying a beer from its proper glass, all lost on Dlugosch.

Naturally, Dlugosch is entitled to his opinion but I’m so weary of such ignorance being passed off as expertise. His opinion is obviously the by-product of living in a society that has commodified beer as one thing, interchangeable but for brand names differentiated by marketing and advertising. And, but for a few exceptions, his statement about beer being pretty much the same might have been correct 35-40 years ago, at least with regard to American beer. But saying so today, with over 1500 breweries making craft beer in a myriad of styles and unique compositions, makes Dlugosch a doofus. Period.