Tuesday’s ad is for Blatz Beer from 1948. The ad shows a bottle of Blatz in a crate of raspberries with the slogan “at the peak of flavor.” Proving everything old is new again, inside the small red rectangle in the bottom right-hand corner it reads “Blatz, brewing better beer for the 97th year.” And here I thought the term “better beer” was a more modern term.
Scotland’s BrewDog announced earlier today that they’ll be releasing their popular Punk IPA in cans.
According to the BrewDog blog, the cans will be available for sale beginning in March of 2011.
Monday’s ad is for Falls City beer, a Louisville, Kentucky brand that was founded in 1905 that lasted until 1978. The ad shows a surreal cap-wearing bottle with arms piloting a boat, with the slogan “Falls City gives you more of what beer’s for.” At the bottom of the ad is this gem: “pasteurized and bitter-free.” Classic.
Falls City re-emerged last year and is brewing beer again in Louisville.
Time was when today, the Monday before Thanksgiving, was the traditional day on which Anchor’s Our Special Ale — a.k.a. their Christmas Ale — was released each year. Every year since 1975 the brewers at Anchor Brewery have brewed a distinctive and unique Christmas Ale, which is now available from early November to mid-January.
From Anchor’s website:
The Ale’s recipe is different every year—as is the tree on the label—but the intent with which we offer it remains the same: joy and celebration of the newness of life. Since ancient times, trees have symbolized the winter solstice when the earth, with its seasons, appears born anew.
Until recently, Anchor’s Christmas Ale was not released until the Monday before Thanksgiving each year. A few years ago they bowed to pressure from their distributors, who wanted to have it earlier to compete against all of the other holiday beers that are released much earlier. So while I can’t argue it’s a bad thing to have this wonderful beer both earlier and for a longer period of time each year, I do actually miss it coming later on a very specific date. There was something I really liked about having to wait for it — admittedly vague and unspecific, but the feeling was there all the same. And there was something I admired about their stubbornly refusing to release it until they were damn well ready. I think it added something intangible to the beer’s mystique, making it more special somehow.
I realize I sound like a sentimental fool, but beer (and many other things) used to be ruled by the seasons and their availability was something that created anticipation and deep satisfactions, too. To me fruit is a great example. Wait, hear me out. There was a time when you couldn’t get almost every fruit year round, but now thanks to agreements with growers in the Southern Hemisphere, we can get most of them all year long. But the very fact that they’re around all the time makes them less desirable. How much better did a strawberry taste when you couldn’t eat one all winter and they suddenly appeared each spring?
Of course, I don’t really think Anchor’s Christmas Ale will lose much — or any — of its specialness by being released a couple weeks sooner each year. I know I still wait eagerly to try the new one each year. But I really think there is something to building up demand and the perceived value that artificial scarcity brings. And there are beers that have suffered for going from a seasonal to a year-round beer. Mendocino’s Eye of the Hawk comes to mind. Back in the early 1980s they only brewed it three times a year (for the 4th of July, their annual anniversary and Oktoberfest). They released the strong ale in 22 oz. bottles in limited quantities and it sold out quickly like clockwork every time it was released. That went on for years until around 1999, when they made it available all the time and in unlimited quantities. Sales fell and although it sold steadily, we sold more in three bursts than when it was always there. Let’s also not forget that seasonals are now the number one craft category at mainstream outlets like grocery and liquor stores. It’s clear people like picking up something different. I don’t think we’ll see popular everyday beers going away, but it should be remembered that limited and seasonal releases can have their own cache and sell better in direct proportion to the difficulty in obtaining them.
Today I’m celebrating “Anchor Christmas Ale Day” and picking up some more today, I’ll drink some tonight, and also save some for my Thanksgiving Day meal on Thursday. This holiday will continue to be the Monday before Thanksgiving, to honor the idea that some things are worth waiting for.
But back to Anchor’s “Our Special Ale.”
Each year our Christmas Ale gets a unique label and a unique recipe for the Ale itself. Although our recipes must remain a secret, many enthusiasts save a few bottles from year to year—stored in a cool dark place—to taste later and compare with other vintages. Properly refrigerated, the beer remains intriguing and drinkable for years, with different nuances slowly emerging as the flavor mellows slightly.
This year’s label has one more unique feature that makes it different from the 35 that preceded it. Take a good look at the label, you probably won’t notice it. I didn’t. Every other label included the Latin name for the tree. But this year’s tree was the Ginkgo biloba tree and our intrepid TTB would not allow the words “Ginkgo biloba” to appear on the label for fear that someone might think the beer contained the drug Ginkgo biloba, despite the fact that for the last 35 years having the Latin name has never been a problem. You’d think there might have been some precedent set, but alas, no. I’m told Anchor considered appealing the decision and fighting it, but in the end decided it wasn’t worth the effort. But it certainly feels like a bureaucratic snafu that serves no legitimate purpose. Oh, well.
Over the years, there have been 36 different labels and each year Anchor prints a beautiful poster with all of the past labels plus the current years’ label.
Note: If this sounded familiar, I posted this same rant a couple of years ago, but decided it should be an annual thing.
Our 46th Session will be hosted by Mike R. Lynch of Burgers and Brews. His topic is “An Unexpected Discovery: Finding Great Beer in the Last Place You’d Look,” or as he describes it:
I recently drove out to Colorado for a concert, and realized this was a perfect opportunity to stop at as many “beer destinations” as I could. I researched, plotted routes, looked at maps, and generally planned the entire trip around beer. What I was surprised to find was that despite all the amazing stops I planned, one of the best beer experiences of the trip was completely accidental. I found great beer in the last place I thought to look for it.
Has this happened to you? Maybe you stumbled upon a no-name brewpub somewhere and found the perfect pale ale. Maybe, buried in the back of your local beer store, you found a dusty bottle of rare barleywine. Perhaps a friend turned you on to a beer that changed your mind about a brewery or a style. Write about a beer experience that took you by surprise.
So see if you can get off your armchair and make your own unexpected discovery for the next Session on Friday, December 3.
Chicago Business has a lengthy, but interesting, article online about the beer market in the windy city. It’s entitled Pay-to-play infects Chicago beer market, Crain’s investigation finds, and was written by a trio of reporters: James Ylisela Jr., David Sterrett and Kate MacArthur.
Corruption, of course, infects virtually all business everywhere and while Chicago has an elevated reputation because of its history, it seems to me what is exposed here is happening in many places. When it comes to the smaller breweries, most just understand that they can either go along with it or not, based on their own individual company philosophy. I don’t think it makes any one of them good or bad, it’s just different responses to the markets in which they’re trying to sell their products. In a sense, there’s a trade off with the three-tier system. It has advantages and disadvantages that manifest themselves in different ways in different states. That’s what the film Beer Wars tried to expose, which is simply the uneasy way in which the beer industry actually works.
But give it a read and let me know what you think. Oh, and be sure to read all the comments, too.
In honor of the debut of Sam Calagione’s new Discovery Channel series, Brew Masters, Anat Baron (the director/writer/producer of Beer Wars) posted this short video of Sam and his Dogfish Head Craft Brewery that was originally shown at the “Alamo Draft House in April 2008 as part of the Dogfish Head Off-Centered Film Festival.” In the post, A Star Is Born, Anat reminisces about her first meeting Sam and working with him on her movie. Thanks for sharing, Anat.
The Many Sides of Sam Calagione and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery from Beer Wars on Vimeo.
On the CBS show Sunday Morning yesterday, they aired their annual Food Issue, which included a segment of pretzels and beer.
It was great to see them delve into the history of pretzels in America, especially because I grew up on Pennsylvania pretzels. In fact, one of the companies they highlighted, Tom Sturgis Pretzels, is located in my hometown of Shillington, Pennsylvania. The man who runs it now, Bruce Sturgis, was in my high school class.
For the beer segment, entitled Even the Founding Fathers Loved Beer, it was mostly a positive depiction of beer for a change and featured two friends, my old professor Charlie Bamforth from U.C. Davis and Marty Jones from Wynkoop Brewing in Denver, Colorado.
The only annoyance was when host Barry Petersen had the following exchange with Charlie Bamforth.
Peterson: “Charlie Bamforth teaches brewing and he throws down the gauntlet on wine versus beer.”
Bamforth: “The most sophisticated and complex of alcohol beverages.”
Peterson: “More than wine?”
Bamforth: “Yes.”
Peterson: “Oh, come on.” [said in a tone dripping with contempt.]
Bamforth: “No, absolutely.”
Peterson: “How?” [in a tone barely concealing his disbelief and, again, dripping with contempt.]
Bamforth: “It’s much more complicated to make.”
Peterson cut Charlie off at that point, but he could have gone on and on, no doubt, about the issue of wine vs. beer. After all, Bamforth has written several books on this subject, the most recent of which is Grape vs. Grain. I also just got my review copy of his latest book, Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: Reaching for the Soul of Beer and Brewing.
I don’t know much about Barry Peterson, but it takes a lot of gall to assume you know more about beer and wine than a professor of fermentation sciences. What’s the point of interviewing an expert if you’re just going to assume you know more than they do. Charlie’s pretty used to it by now, I suspect, and just nonchalantly continues. The segment later on talks about how the perception of beer and wine is what keeps better beer in the shadows, which is ironic since Peterson, by his own actions, just proved that point by displaying his own ignorance for the subject he’s reporting on.
But that aside, a nice take on beer overall. You can watch both the pretzel and beer segments below.
This week’s work of art is by contemporary British artist David Hockney. It was painted in August of 2005 and is known as Wheat Field Near Fridaythorpe. It was part of a series of paintings Hockney did entitled “A Year in Yorkshire.”
For more about David Hockney, Wikipedia is a good place to start, and there’s a biography at DavidHockney.com. There are also tons of links at the ArtCyclopedia, the Web Museum and the Art Archive.
I might have ignored this press release from Yuengling Brewery had it not been for one personal detail: my son is a porter. How could he not be “porter worthy,” whatever that means? Apparently it means “good deeds,” so that may leave my Porter out, after all. He’s just mostly good, like any 9-year old boy.
What Yuengling is doing is recognizing that “good deeds happen every day thanks to the selflessness of friends, family and, sometimes, perfect strangers. But most of those good deeds go unrecognized — until now.”
A new campaign from Yuengling seeks to shine a spotlight on the individuals who go above and beyond. The campaign, for Yuengling’s Porter beer (also its oldest beer), is called “Porter Worthy” and is inspired by the porters of 19th century England, who would toil day in and day out transporting travelers’ luggage through the cobblestone streets of London. Each month on Yuengling’s Porter Worthy blog, we’ll recognize a Porter Worthy Person of the Month, who will receive a prize signed by Dick Yuengling himself.
From the press release:
“Depth of character allows ordinary people to do extraordinary things on a daily basis. These are the achievements we call ‘Porter Worthy,’ and we want to give these achievements the recognition they deserve,” said Yuengling Marketing Manager Lou Romano. “That’s where Yuengling Porter comes in. It’s a reward that’s special, yet accessible.”
According to Romano, the Porter Worthy campaign was inspired by the beer’s namesake, the strong, hard-working porters who carried travelers’ heavy baggage through the cobblestone streets of 18th century London.
The blog and Facebook page will feature Porter Worthy persons identified by the Yuengling team but also will recognize a “Porter Worthy Person of the Month” based on reader nominations. Monthly honorees will receive, among other prizes, a personalized award signed by brewery President Dick Yuengling.
Yuengling Dark Brewed Porter is available in 13 states and Washington D.C. The Porter Worthy campaign is scheduled to run indefinitely with Porter Worthy nominations open to people around the world.
As beer promotions go, it’s hard to fault one that tries to find and honor people for doing good in the world, no matter how small the deed. Yuengling describes being “porter worthy,” as “a special tribute for those who have carried a heavy load, picked up extra work or gone out of their way to help.” They continue:
That could be you, or someone you know. Each month, we’ll select a different “Porter Worthy Person of the Month” based on the nominations you send us. Those selected will have their story told here on PorterWorthy.com and will win a limited edition Yuengling Porter hand-signed by Dick Yuengling.
So nominate a friend, family member, co-worker or even yourself. Remember, a Porter Worthy action isn’t necessarily monumental. It could be a small gesture. But large or small, doing something Porter Worthy means making a difference when it matters most.