Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Update On Jamil’s Heretic Brewery

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heretic
I ran into Jamil Zainasheff at the annual CSBA meeting yesterday at Anchor Brewery and I found out a little bit more about his commercial venture, Heretic Brewing. All I knew before is that it would be somewhere in the East Bay. The brewery, I learned, will be in Pittsburg, and in fact he’ll be sharing E.J. Phair’s new 30-bbl brewhouse across the street from their alehouse at the Liberty Hotel in an arrangement known as “alternating proprietorship.” That’s the official term that the TTB uses to “describe an arrangement in which two or more people take turns using the physical premises of a brewery.” So he won’t be contract brewing, but instead the two breweries will remain separate and distinct, in effect taking turns using the equipment.

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Jamil and me yesterday at Anchor.

Coffee Stouts Saved

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Finally some good news out of the knee-jerk ruling by the FDA to ban drinks mixing alcohol and caffeine. To their credit, they’ve put up a Questions and Answers: Caffeinated Alcoholic Beverages page. Question No. 7 answers the concerns of brewers and fans of coffee stouts, along with other craft beers that have caffeine in them as a result of ingredients that add a variety of flavors, too. The question and answer is below in its entirety.

Does This Action Apply to Coffee-Based Liqueurs?

No. These Warning Letters are not directed at alcoholic beverages that only contain caffeine as a natural constituent of one or more of their ingredients, such as a coffee flavoring. The alcoholic beverages that are the subject of FDA’s Warning Letters are malt beverages to which the manufacturer has directly added caffeine as a separate ingredient.

2nd Annual Holiday Beerfest at Fort Mason This Saturday

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christmas
The 2nd annual BevMo Holiday Beerfest will be held at Fort Mason this Saturday, November 20, from 5:30 until 9:00 p.m.

More than 100 local and international breweries will be pouring over 150 holiday, seasonal and special beers, including cider. For the designated driver, they’ll also be serving craft soda. You can see a list of the beers being poured at the festival website.

Tickets are $40 and may be purchased online, and include unlimited samplings of the beer. Food will be available for purchase and three bands will be performing throughout the evening: Con Brio (Funk, Jazz & Soul), Sentinel (Indie Pop Alternative) and the Jugtown Pirates (Acoustic Psychedelic Bluegrass).
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This was a fun festival last year and a great opportunity to try a number of different holiday seasonals at one place. See you there.

Brewers Association To Petition TTB For Caffeine Craft Beer Carve-Out

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On the heels of today’s announcement that the FDA will move to ban caffeine in alcoholic drinks, the Brewers Association announced that it will “formally petition the U.S. Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) to conduct rulemaking on alcoholic energy drinks.”

From the BA press release:

The petition seeks to disallow synthetic and pure caffeine additions to alcohol beverages, but allow incidental caffeine from ingredients that have a long tradition in brewing, such as coffee, chocolate and tea. The petition seeks to clarify that coffee, chocolate, herbs, spices, seeds and fruit are ingredients that should remain available to brewers to make beers for responsible enjoyment by beer drinkers.

Certain alcoholic energy drinks have received significant negative attention from state attorneys general, public health groups and concerned citizens. Many states are taking action this fall before the federal government has responded, leaving a patchwork of different regulatory wording, all with the same intention. The goal of this federal petition is to provide a clear and consistent national standard to assist state-based rulemaking under the 21st Amendment. This standard would remove the products of concern from shelves without creating unintended damage to the hundreds of craft brewers who, for many years, have been using traditional ingredients like coffee, tea and chocolate to responsibly craft interesting and flavorful beers.

Brewers Association President Charlie Papazian stated, “Responsible brewers have successfully used coffee, chocolate and tea to add interesting flavor and complexity to their beers for decades. In fact, the Aztecs brewed a corn, honey and chili-based beer that contained cocoa. Many craft brewers build on these traditions today using coffee, tea and chocolate. On the other hand, the addition of artificial caffeine not from a natural ingredient source has no heritage or tradition in brewing. We support a ban on the direct addition of caffeine.” The Brewers Association invites TTB to open up public comment and rulemaking on whether these products are appropriate for responsible consumption.

It would certainly be great if they can get the regulatory agencies to see that there is a difference between straight caffeine and the traditional “incidental caffeine” that occurs when beer is brewed using ingredients like coffee, tea, chocolate, herbs, spices, seeds and fruit. So often this type of knee-jerk law, that seeks to ban a substance being used in a specific way, has unintended consequences that harm legitimate uses of the substance. But there are dozens, if not more, legitimate ways in which caffeine can appear in a beer as a part of the brewing process. These do not, and should not, be subject to the same scrutiny that many other caffeine and alcohol drinks are being subjected to. They do not appeal to kids in any way, shape or form and should be protected as separate and distinct.

Save the Coffee Stouts!

FDA To Rule Caffeine Unsafe In Alcohol

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caffeine
Harry Schuhmacher, of Beer Business Daily, just issued a news alert that he’s learned from the website of New York Senator Charles Schumer that the FDA “will rule ‘that caffeine is an unsafe food additive to alcoholic beverages, effectively making products such as Four Loko, Joose, and others like them, prohibited for sale in the United States.'”

According to the press release from Senator Schumer:

SCHUMER: FDA TO EFFECTIVELY BAN CAFFEINATED ALCOHOLIC DRINKS; FTC WILL NOTIFY MANUFACTURERS THAT THEY MAY BE ENGAGED IN ILLEGAL MARKETING OF UNSAFE BEVERAGES

After Months of Pressure by Schumer, FDA to Send Notice to Manufacturers of Caffeinated Alcoholic Beverages that Product is Not Considered Safe; Move Will Effectively Ban Products from the Market

FTC to Send Notices to Manufacturers That They Are Engaged in the Marketing of Unsafe Alcoholic Drinks

Schumer: Let This Serve as a Warning to Anyone Who Tries to Peddle Dangerous Beverages to Our Kids, Do it, And We Will Shut You Down

U.S Senator Charles E. Schumer announced today that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will rule that caffeine is an unsafe food additive to alcoholic beverages, effectively making products such as Four Loko, Joose, and others like them, prohibited for sale in the United States. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plans to notify manufacturers that they are engaged in the potential illegal marketing of unsafe alcoholic drinks. These announcements come after months of intense pressure by Senator Schumer to have the drinks banned because of serious risks to consumer health and safety.

“Let these rulings serve as a warning to anyone who tried to peddle dangerous and toxic brews to our children. Do it and we will shut you down,” said Schumer. “This ruling should be the nail in the coffin of these dangerous and toxic drinks. Parents should be able to rest a little easier knowing that soon their children won’t have access to this deadly brew.”

After calls by Schumer to ban the drinks in New York, just this past week, the State Liquor Authority and the state’s largest beer distributors agreed to stop selling these dangerous drinks in New York. In addition to New York’s efforts, Oklahoma, Utah, Michigan, and Washington acted to ban the drinks as did a number of colleges, including Ramapo College, Worcester State University, the University of Rhode Island and the Wentworth Institute of Technology.

Popular drinks such as Four Loko and Joose contain as much as 2-3 coffee cups worth of caffeine and 2-3 cans of beer per container — a potent, dangerous mix that can be extremely hazardous for teens and adults alike. Last month, nine students passed out and were hospitalized after drinking Four Loko, leading states and universities across the country to issue ban, limit, or issue warnings about the drink.

Compounded with its health risks, beverages like Four Loko pose a unique danger because they target young people. The style of the beverages – with a vibrantly colored aluminum can colors and funky designs — appeal to younger consumers, increasing the likelihood that the beverages will be consumed by young adults and creating a problem for parents and business owners who might be misled by the branding. Four Loko is also stocked next to other energy drinks, creating further confusion.

Last week, Schumer was joined in his efforts to ban the drink by Jacqueline Celestino, grandmother of Nicole Lynn Celestino, an 18 year old from Long Island who passed away after drinking the caffeinated alcoholic beverage Four Loko. Nicole, went into cardiac arrest after drinking Four Loko this past August, she had taken a diet pill that day. Nicole’s family has become outspoken advocates for a ban on alcoholic caffeinated drinks like Four Loko.

The dangers of these drinks are well known. A recent study found that young and underage drinkers who combine alcohol with caffeine, which occurs with increasing frequency given the prevalence of beverages like Four Loko and Joose, are more likely to suffer injury, be the victim of sexual assault, drive while intoxicated, and require medical attention than drinkers who consume caffeine-free beverages. In 2008, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and MillerCoors LLC reformulated caffeinated alcoholic beverages under pressure from several states and regulatory bodies, but smaller companies like the manufacturers of Four Loko and Joose managed to remain unnoticed.

According to the statement, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plans to notify manufacturers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages “that they are engaged in the potential illegal marketing of unsafe alcoholic drinks.”

There’s a lot of nonsense in that press release, and no one knows how whatever ruling the FDA makes will effect beer with coffee, tea or caffeine added for flavor.

First there’s this rant: “‘Let these rulings serve as a warning to anyone who tried to peddle dangerous and toxic brews to our children. Do it and we will shut you down,’ said Schumer. ‘This ruling should be the nail in the coffin of these dangerous and toxic drinks. Parents should be able to rest a little easier knowing that soon their children won’t have access to this deadly brew.’”

Did I miss a meeting. People under 21 can’t buy these products now. My kids, your kids, everybody’s kids have no access to these so-called “deadly brews.” If they do find a way to get them (which I have no doubt of) then that’s a failure of another kind. And doing away with them altogether effectively takes them away from law-abiding adults who want to purchase them. That just makes no sense to me. It’s as if they’re saying we can’t control the portion of the population that are under 21 so we’re going to punish everybody because we can’t do our job.

But that aside, there’s absolutely nothing preventing anybody from simply mixing a caffeinated drink with alcohol and making their own drink. That’s the whole reason companies started making pre-packaged RTD’s with alcohol and caffeine in the first place, because people were already doing that on their own. They didn’t create the demand, they responded to it and simply gave the people what they wanted.

This will do virtually nothing to stop people from drinking caffeine and alcohol together. It may make it more difficult and less convenient, but the cat is out of the bag. If anything, going back to people making these drinks themselves will make them less safe, not more, because there will be no standardized ratio for mixing the two.

Toward the end, Schumer claims “[t]he dangers of these drinks are well known.” Really, people have been drinking caffeine and alcohol together as long as the two have existed. Has it become more popular lately? Maybe, but people were doing it pretty regularly as long ago as when I was a young adult, thirty years ago. I’d love to see that study he cites, I’m willing to bet there are holes in it you could drive a truck through.

But the real danger is that undoubtedly craft beers that have beers with caffeine added for flavor, whether coffee or tea, will get dragged under in the government’s zeal to look like they’re doing something to protect people from themselves. Say goodbye to coffee stouts, a drink no underage kid would drink with a ten-foot straw.

Two New Studies Show Benefits For Beer Drinking Women

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Two new studies were presented yesterday at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Chicago. According to the Wall Street Journal, “[b]oth studies, by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and Harvard University, used data from the landmark Nurses’ Health Study, which started in 1976 and involves more than 200,000 women.”

The results of the two studies, and additional ones presented at the meeting, included findings that suggest “women might not have to limit themselves to the [previous] one-drink-a-day guideline.” Also, “[w]omen who have an alcoholic drink or two a day in midlife turn out to be healthier overall in their old age. Another study presented at the conference showed that women who had a daily drink had a lower risk of stroke.”

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From the Wall Street Journal:

The research into stroke risk looked at 73,450 women who were free of heart disease and cancer when they entered the study. They were followed from 1984 to 2006. Women who had up to one drink a day had a 20% reduction in stroke risk compared with non-drinkers. There was no impact on stroke risk among most women who drank larger amounts, such as two or three drinks daily. But women who were also on hormone-replacement therapy and who had two drinks a day had an increased stroke risk.

A third study released at the conference by researchers at the University of Rome in La Sapienza, Italy, showed that two to three drinks daily among male heart-bypass-surgery patients was associated with a 25% decline in the rate of subsequent cardiovascular problems like heart attacks and strokes compared to non-drinkers. But the risk of dying increased among people who had four or more drinks daily and had a particular heart problem affecting the left ventricle. The study involved more than 1,000 patients followed for about 3.5 years.

Women who had about two drinks daily also had fewer cardiovascular problems after bypass surgery but the benefit was smaller than seen in men. The researchers said many patients had wondered if they should stop drinking after bypass surgery so a study was designed to look at clinical outcomes among drinkers and non-drinkers.

While they caution that the jury’s still out on certain diseases that affect women, such as breast cancer, the overall effect of moderate drinking remains a positive force on total mortality. This new evidence, along with the mountain that precedes it, highlights yet more reasons why the Breast Cancer Action organization’s churlish denunciation of all alcohol companies in October was so obnoxious and wrong, which I wrote about at length in Biting the Hand That Feeds You.

One of the studies showed more evidence to confirm the prevailing theory that regular, moderate consumption of alcohol will keep you healthier, increasing the odds that you’ll live to a more advanced age than a person who abstains.

Qi Sun, a Harvard medical instructor, looked at nearly 14,000 women who had survived to age 70. Dr. Sun said he found that 1,499 of the women were free of major diseases like cancer and heart disease and had no physical impairments or memory problems. He looked at the amount of drinking these women had done at midlife, or about age 58 on average. Women who reported having one to two drinks most days of the week had a 28% increase in the chance of “successfully surviving” to at least age 70 compared with non-drinkers. Like other studies, Dr. Sun found women drinking most days of the week were more likely to be healthier than women who drank one or two days a week.

That’s advice my wife follows faithfully. Glad to know she’ll probably outlive me.

Beer In Ads #243: Ballantine’s Moby Dick

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ad-billboard
Monday’s ad is for Ballantine Ale from 1947. The whale may not be white, but it sure seems to play on the story of Moby Dick. Ballantine did a series of diorama ads that featured different stories, some from literature and some from history. I don’t know how many they did, I’ve collected at least a dozen of them, but I’d love to know more definitively what subjects they covered.

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