Our 33rd Guinness poster by John Gilroy a “My Goodness, My Guinness” ad, with a polar bear having stolen the zookeeper’s bottle of Guinness.
Beer In Ads #187: Rubsam & Horrmann
Friday’s ad is an odd one. It’s for the Staten Island, New York brewery Rubsam & Horrmann. Founded in 1870 in in the town of Stapleton. Piels bought them out in 1953 but closed the brewery ten years later. The ad’s scene is set in Cuba, so I’m guessing the ad is from around the time of the Spanish-American War, which was in 1898. The guy in the brown hat looks like Teddy Roosevelt and the on the right the white-haired man resembles either Buffalo Bill Cody or Mark Twain. But despite the navy parked in Havana harbor, they’re all toasting with Rubsam & Horrmann beer.
Session #43: The New Kids
Our 43rd Session is all about the new. Hosted by Carla Companion, better know as The Beer Babe, she’s tackling The New Kids, by which she means the many, many new breweries that have started up in the last couple of years.
Here’s how she explains it:
Picture yourself starting school, on a cool, crisp September day. Only, you’re not as excited as you usually are because you’re starting at a new school. No one knows who you are, groups of friends are already established, and you have nightmares about getting lost in the hallways trying to find your next class. How will you ever fit in?…
In some ways, there may be a beer-world parallel to this experience: new craft breweries joining an established beer community, or even tougher, breaking into a non-craft beer town.
….With the astounding growth of the number of craft breweries this year, chances are there’s a new one in development, or has just started out in your area. My challenge to you is to seek out a new brewery and think about ways in which they could be welcomed into the existing beer community. How does their beer compare to the craft beer scene in your area? Are they doing anything in a new/exciting way? What advice, as a beer consumer, would you give to these new breweries?
Take this opportunity to say hello to the new neighbors in your area. Maybe its a nanobrewery that came to a festival for the first time that you vowed to “check out” later. Maybe it’s a new local beer on a shelf on the corner store that you hadn’t seen before. Dig deeper and tell us a story about the “new kids on the block.” I look forward to welcoming them to the neighborhood!
She’s certainly right about the sheer number of new breweries. It defies logic, the economy and conventional wisdom about both. At every measure, at a time when most businesses are flat at best, the number of craft breweries continues to rise. In the past four years, over 250 new breweries have opened. How awesome is that? According to the BA’s wonderful brewery detective Erin Glass, roughly one new brewery is now opening every day, with more on the way. Last year, 110 new breweries opened, but in just the first six months of 2010, 155 have opened. According to a July report by the BA, Director Paul Gatza speculated that there could conceivably be 250 new brewery openings by the time the apple drops on Times Square signaling the end of this year.
And according to Gatza, “[i]t isn’t just an increasing number of nanobreweries, either. [Though frankly, I love the trend of Nano- and Pico-breweries.] We are seeing strong growth in the traditional brewery openings—you know, a business plan for a microbrewery or brewpub that gets out of the planning phase and into operation.”
And last year, Erin was tracking about 260 brewery project at various stages of development. Today the number she’s following is 389. Could we hit 2,000 breweries in America in the next few years? It sure seems possible, even inevitable. Imagine what might happen if (or when, trying to sound hopeful) the economy turns around.
Fourteen years ago, in 1996, it felt like we’d hit a wall. After a number of years of remarkable growth, more breweries began to close than were opening. The numbers looked bleak. The Craft Brewers Conference was a far more somber — dare I say sober — affair than it had been in earlier in that decade. But then things began to turn around. Slow but steady growth began in the late 1990s and has not only continued from that time, but even picked up speed.
Given the increases in market share by craft breweries, in both volume but especially dollars — and now a sharp increase in brewery openings over the last few years — it seems clear we’re in the midst of a new wave of craft beer. Like the the first wave, craft is again the subject of media attention, is increasingly taken seriously by the business world and is being targeted more vigorously by the big beer companies.
It certainly feels like this may be our time. Twenty years ago, microbreweries were mostly alone in promoting the idea of artisanal products. Today there’s artisanal cheese, bread, coffee, charcuterie, beef, chicken, pastries, ice cream and on and on, not to mention organic farming, with its produce and fruit. The world has caught on and caught up. More and more people just get it now, and increasingly each year’s newly minted 21-year olds that add to the percentage of craft beer drinkers in greater numbers. It will be interesting to see how the next few decades play out as time squeezes out the older mainstream beer drinkers in favor of younger generations who came of age in a world where craft beer was already established.
And those same generations are and will also responsible for a whole new group of brewers and brewery owners, too, as we’re starting to see right now. Large or small or really small, what a fun time to be drinking craft beer.
Comfort Food & Beer
Friends and regular Bulletin readers will already be aware of my obsession with comfort foods. Almost all of my favorite foods fall into that category: frites, potato chips, bacon, shepherd’s pie, Monte Cristo sandwiches, cheese, peanut butter pie and pretty much anything fried. So a few weeks ago, when I got a call from my friend, brewer Brian Hunt from Moonlight Brewing, I was especially susceptible to an idea he had that craft beer, too, should be considered a comfort food in its own right. I loved the notion immediately and we got together to talk about the idea over a few pints of comfort beer. The result of those discussions — plus some more research and conversations — was a feature I wrote that was just published online at the Brewer’s Association’s new CraftBeer.com, entitled Is Beer Comfort Food?
As a word nerd, I was fascinated to discover that the phrase is actually a fairly modern one, though there’s some disagreement as to its actual origin. The first use of the phrase appears to be in 1966, though it was an isolated occurrence and did not catch on at that time.
In “The Thin Book,” a 1966 work by ‘”a formerly fat psychiatrist’” named Theodore Isaac Rubin. The book’s ad copy read, ‘”Learn about ammunition foods, comfort foods and emergency foods.’” Reached in New York, Dr. Rubin recalls: ‘”I just made it up; I didn’t hear it anywhere. It means food that makes you feel good, that was always available and would help to sustain a diet.’” (“Ammunition foods” never made it into the canon.)
Likewise, Liza Minnelli (and I assume that yes, it was that Liza Minnelli) used the term in “Dieting Is All Well and Good— But Give Me ‘Comfort Food’!”, a piece she co-wrote with Helen Dorsey for Pennsylvania’s “Clearfield Progress’” Family Weekly section in July of 1972. That’s most likely why Wikipedia incorrectly identifies its origin as 1972.
But it appears to be in the latter half of the 1970s that the concept of comfort food began to catch on. The Merrian-Webster Dictionary lists its first use as 1977, making it roughly the same age as craft beer itself. Merriam-Webster added it to their dictionary the same year, although it wasn’t listed in the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary until 1997.
In the May 1978 issue of Bon Appétit, an article entitled M.F.K. Fisher on Comfort Foods appeared, somewhat solidifying the term, though some point to a March 1985 column by New York Times food writer Marian Burros, “Turning to Food For Solace.” William Safire credits her for popularizing the term, writing in 2003:
Burros was largely responsible for the term’s popularization. In a 1985 Times column titled ‘”Turning to Food for Solace,’” she wrote that the restaurateur George Lang, owner of New York’s Café des Artistes, “said his comfort foods ‘are foods I can eat any time, whether I’m full or not…. Comfort foods are the perfect tranquilizer.'” Lang said, ‘’My whole childhood is brought back with goose liver,” and the sophisticated food columnist revealed her own nostalgia for spaghetti and meat sauce or a tuna-fish sandwich.
Word expert Barry Popik disagrees and in his blog The Big Apple has undoubtedly the best account of the various claims to the term’s origins.
But back to the original question, is beer a comfort food? Brian Hunt and I think so, and so did several other brewers I spoke to. To find out why we think so, check out Is Beer Comfort Food? on CraftBeer.com.
Beer From Early 1800s Found In Baltic Shipwreck
CNN is reporting that the World’s ‘Oldest Beer’ Found in Shipwreck in the Baltic Sea off the coast of the Åland Islands. The Ålands are an autonomous group of nearly 6,000 islands near Finland. The cargo ship is believed to have been sailing from Denmark, most likely Copenhagen, sometime between 1800 and 1830 possibly bound for St. Petersburg, Russia. There’s also speculation that t may have been sent “by France’s King Louis XVI to the Russian Imperial Court.”
Initially, divers found bottles of Champagne, but later found additional bottles, some of which burst from the pressure upon reaching the surface, revealing that there was beer inside them. From the CNN report:
“At the moment, we believe that these are by far the world’s oldest bottles of beer,” Rainer Juslin, permanent secretary of the island’s ministry of education, science and culture, told CNN on Friday via telephone from Mariehamn, the capital of the Aland Islands.
“It seems that we have not only salvaged the oldest champagne in the world, but also the oldest still drinkable beer. The culture in the beer is still living.”
It will certainly be interesting to see what further analysis of the beer reveals.
Beer In Ads #186: Bieres De La Meuse
Thursday’s ad is a second French poster with the title Bieres de la Meuse and the less well know of the two, because the other was done by the well-known artist Alphonse Mucha. It doesn’t quite have the majesty of the Mucha poster, but it’s very striking in its own right.
FMB vs. PAB
Did I miss a meeting? The malt beverages that are flavored with something else — fruit, essence of liquor or whatever — have been called by many names. Alcopop is always the one that first leaps to mind, even though that’s supposedly a derogatory term. Why? Apparently adding “pop” makes it for the kiddies, something the watchdogs can’t abide. Because anything that’s meant to be fun for adults but just might also possibly appeal to kids is strictly verboten in their addled minds. Of course, people have been calling beer “barley pop” for decades, if not longer, so I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. It’s like the seasonal beers with Santa Claus on the labels they find so offensive, as if adults aren’t allowed to like St. Nick, too.
Other names they’ve been called include FABs (Flavored Alcoholic Beverage), FMBs (Flavored Malt Beverage), Malternatives and RTD (Ready To Drink), at least in Australia and New Zealand. Sadly, thanks to the anti-alcohol bunch, the industry never uses the fun term Alcopops lest anyone be accused of actually having fun with them. Personally, I’ll keeping calling them Alcopops because I see nothing wrong with that name. I say we take it back. They’re alcoholic and they’re sweet, alco and pop. So what?
In the business world, Alcopops are, or at least were, usually referred to as FMBs, or Flavored Malt Beverages. Though a pretty bland name, it at least fairly describes what they are: malt-based beverages that have been flavored with something.
But in looking through the SymphonyIRI charts for the previous post, I kept noticing a line for PABs. What on earth are PABs, I wondered? How could I possibly have missed an entire new category? It turns out PABs are an abbreviation for yet another new term for Alcopops. A highly unscientific Google search reveals the term’s been around at least since 2007, though mentions of PABs increase dramatically in 2008-2009.
But PAB might be the worst one of all. It stands for “Progressive Adult Beverages.” So yes, they’re beverages and they’re meant for adults, obviously. But what the hell is progressive about them? I suppose it’s no worse than premium or sub-premium, but at least that’s a quality. Even if I laugh at its inaccuracy, premium at least describes where it fits in a hierarchy. Progressive? That’s about as meaningless a name as you could attach to a drink or class of drinks.
And let me stop you before you start. I know this is a silly or stupid or whatever thing to get worked up about. But bear in mind I’m a writer, a language geek, a word nerd and I do believe words have power. What we call things does make a difference. That’s why corporations pay huge sums to come up with new product names, testing them in focus groups, getting the graphics just so, trying to invoke the right response they want from potential customers.
To me, they’ll always be Alcopops.
More Craft Beer Sales Data
Last week I shared some of the highlights from the Brewers Association‘s bi-monthly Power Hour session that Ray Daniels tweeted about throughout the hour, whose topic was “Craft Brewing & Mid-Year Category Sales Review.” As a BA member, I also was able to look at the presentation after the fact and — with the Brewers Association’s permission — thought I’d share some more of the interesting statistics that SymphonyIRI revealed during their presentation.
During the First Half of 2010 …
- Craft showed double-digit growth in all five types of stores that IRI tracks: Grocery (up 11.9% vol./13.2% $), Drug Stores (24.5%/25.3%), Convenience Stores (11.1%/13.3%), Liquor Stores (24.2%
/20.9%) and Big Box Stores (33.3%/34.1%) - Craft 6-pack cans were up 80% and 12-packs were up 49.4%
- 7 of the Top 15 new brands were Alcopops
- Craft is up 13.2% $ vs. total beers sales up only 0.1%
- Total Beer Sales minus Craft was down -1.0%
- The #1 craft brand was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, slightly edging out Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
- The craft mix is more diversified; the top 10 craft brands account for 41% of the craft total, whereas the top 10 imports account for 68% and the top 10 macro brands 73.5%.
- California, by volume, sold more beer than any other state, and in fact sold nearly twice as much as the next highest state, which was Washington.
- Craft has a more than 20% market share of three key markets:
- Portland, Oregon (29.9%)
- Seattle/Tacoma, Washington (24%)
- San Francisco/Oakland, California (20.3%)
And here’s a couple of graphs. The first shows the top ten craft brewing companies, with craft being defined more broadly by SymphonyIRI than the BA’s definition. Significantly, it shows that the purchase of Magic Hat/Pyramid/Portland breweries by North American Breweries catapulted them from #34 to #6.
The second compares sales by dollars between craft beer (in blue) and macro brands (in white) and divided by region of the country. The Southeast (24.6%) followed by the Great Lakes states (20.9%) experienced the greatest growth over last year. The big breweries saw their sales dip the most in the West (excluding California, at -3.7%) followed by the Southeast (-3.3%). Big brands actually had pretty good growth (9.2%) in the Northeast, though craft in that region was 15.9%, making it the third-highest region (along with the Plains states).
Beer In Ads #185: Trinkt Sternenberg Bier
Wednesday’s ad is for another Swiss beer, Brauerei Zum Sternenberg, from Basel. With the tagline “Trinkt Sternenberg Bier” or drink Sternenberg beer, the artwork resembles an illustration from a children’s book. The “king” sits on a throne with brewer’s stars on each arm and there’s one behind him, too. Below the throne, a triple tap fountain spills beer into a pool. The kings seems to be shouting “drink, drink” urging on the kneeling man chugging his beer. Certainly one of the odder scenes in a beer ad.
Beer In Ads #184: Barclay’s Lager, Light Or Dark
Tuesday’s ad is for the London brand Barclay’s Lager. Getty Images claims it’s from around 1900 but the artist, Tom Purvis, was born in 1888 meaning he’d have been 12 then, so it seems more likely it was actually later. The ad reminds me a bit of the Blues Brothers movie, the scene at the bar where the bartenders tells the band they have both kinds of music, country and western. They serve both kinds of lager, “Light or Dark.”
