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Craft Breweries Have Tipped The Dominos

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australia
An interesting international perspective was expressed in The Shout, an Australian trade publication covering “hotel, bar, club & liquor industry news.” The short piece, entitled “… as Specialist Hails Craft Beer Revival,” is about the International Beer Shop, a specialty beer store in Perth that carries 850 beers from around the world.

The shop’s manager, Cameron Stewart, has some great quotes about American craft beer’s influence on the rest of the world, to wit:

“Experimental US Craft Breweries have tipped the dominos, and they are falling throughout the Western World.”
…

“Cutting-edge modern breweries constantly expand their ranges, developing and reinterpreting various beer styles to provide beer lovers with their next beer experience,” he said.

“These guys are constantly refining their art. They are the magicians of the beer world.”

Nice.

Beer In Ads #181: Hurlimann Bier

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Thursday’s ad is for the Swiss brewery, Brauerei Hurlimann. It was founded in 1836, and moved to Zurich thirty years later, in 1866. They’re still brewing beer today, though I don’t know when this ad was done, though I suspect it was shortly after World War 2 ended, as “Kriegs Zeit Friedens Zeit” translates roughly as “postwar peace time period.”

hurlimann-bier

Brewers Association Power Hour Reveals New Craft Numbers

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If you’re a member of the Brewers Association, a trade organization for small breweries, you have the opportunity to listen in on the bi-monthly Power Hour, an on-line, interactive teleconference series. This morning’s topic was “Craft Brewing & Mid-Year Category Sales Review.” I didn’t listen in to this one, but happily Ray Daniels, he of the Cicerone program, was kind enough to tweet a number of the statistics quoted in the talk by Dan Wandel, with the Symphony IRI Group, and better still, Todd Alstrom, posted Ray’s tweets on Beer Advocate where they can live forever instead of being lost in the ether. Below is just a few of the more interesting tidbits.

  • First half of 2010 sales data — Craft volume up 11.9%!
  • Symphony IRI Group show craft beer being 8.7% of the total beer market in H1 2010
  • Sales of craft beer 22 oz bottles up 28% in 2010 vs. 2009 in supermarkets.
  • 3 of top 10 new brands are IPAs
  • 8 of the top 15 new craft brands this year are IPAs.
  • What recession? First half craft sales showing best growth of any year since 2007.
  • Top 10 major brewer brands DOWN more than 5 million cases so far this year.
  • 511 craft beer UPCs (products) being sold in California.
  • More households in the US now purchasing craft beer versus a year ago—better than any other segment.
  • Dan Wandel from SIG says craft beer the “shining star” of US beer market, on track for 6th (I think he said) year of >10% growth.

You can see the rest of Ray Daniels’ tweets here. Thanks again to Todd for saving me the trouble of having to go back and grab Ray’s tweets individually.

Red Lobster On Beer

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This was originally mentioned in a Beer Advocate thread, started by Will C. of Virginia, and then spread out via Twitter as a worthy topic by Todd and Jason. I found it interesting, as well, as it concerns one of the national restaurant chains attempts to promote beer to their customers. The chain is Red Lobster, a seafood restaurant I haven’t eaten at since maybe the early 1980s, and even then only once or twice. I’m not a big chain restaurant patron, less so when it’s seafood, which I’m also not a great fan of.

But I have to at least give kudos to Red Lobster for trying to educate their customers about beer. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but my sense is that regular Red Lobster customers are generally not hardcore beer geeks. Most of the people I know who love great beer, are at least somewhat passionate about the food they eat, too. So that suggests that the average Red Lobster patron could probably use a little beer edumacation. So they’ve set up an interactive Beer Tasting Guide showing each of the main year-round beers they carry on a chart with beer color on one axis and “flavor” on the other. When you move you mouse over each of the beers, a window pops up with additional information about that beer. It’s one of the better uses of Flash technology I’ve see involving beer.

redlobs-beer-guide

The downside, of course, is that of the seventeen beers on the chart, only the five Samuel Adams beers, and possibly the Guinness (depending on which one it is) are worth ordering, at least to my taste. The biggest blunder, though, is equating flavor with IBUs as the Y-axis seems to suggest. Obviously, they’re not remotely the same thing, and none of the beers on the list could really be considered hoppy by any stretch. There would obviously be numerical differences between the beers, but from a taste point of view, not so much. They also seem to suggest all dark beers are malty and light beers are also “crisp,” which is likewise not exactly true, at least not all the time.

Red Lobster did, however, buy the new proprietary Samuel Adams beer glass and put the Red Lobster logo on them for all their restaurants, which is a plus. And according to their beer page, they have some regional beers in select areas, though those choices, too, are nothing out of the ordinary. Still, this is the sort of thing that’s to be encouraged, I think. I’m not a great fan of misinformation — of which there is certainly some here — but it’s a start. Perhaps it will at least inspire Red Lobster’s customers to ask more questions, a move which could ultimately lead them to better beer.

Deep-Fried Beer!?!

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I’ve often used the proverb “frying makes every thing taste better,” and people who’ve eaten with me know I take that seriously. I live for French fries and potato chips, and my favorite sandwich is the Monte Cristo, essentially a deep-friend sandwich. I’ll fry pretty much anything, and indeed have tried frying many an unusual foodstuff. There’s certainly a rich tradition of using beer in batters and other sauces that food is cooked in, but I confess I’ve never considered frying the liquid itself, for what I thought were obvious reasons. But then I don’t have Mark Zable’s experience and wherewithal. His father Norman has had a Belgian Waffle concession stand at the Texas State Fair for 47 years, and several years ago his son Mark began tinkering with a number of new food ideas, such as Chocolate Covered Strawberry Waffle Balls and Sweet Jalapeno Corn Dog Shrimp.

But it’s his latest creation that made me sit up and take notice: Fried Beer, which they’ve trademarked and the process they use is also being patented.

fried-beer-2

To me they look a bit like ravioli with beer inside. Three years in the making, the Dallas Morning News has the story:

For three years, Zable has been on a mission to concoct Fried Beer. He remembers staring at a bar menu in a restaurant. Calamari. Nachos. Fried cheese.

Bor-ing.

“Someone needs to figure out a way to fry beer,” he thought.

Zable started experimenting. But the beer-and-dough concoction kept exploding once it hit the fryer. He kept getting burned.

So he consulted with a food scientist — still, no luck.

Then, earlier this year, he finally found the recipe for success. Now Zable keeps the process shrouded in secrecy and has applied for a Fried Beer patent and trademark.

Mark Zable figured out how to fry beer by sealing it in dough. He had to persist because early efforts blew up.

I’m certainly willing to give it a try. Apparently when you bite into it, the beer squirts out into your mouth to mix its flavor with the dough. How bad could that be? It will debut at the Texas Fair and is also one of eight finalists in the Sixth Annual Big Tex Choice Awards.

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Mark Zable with his fried beer. [photo by Vernon Bryant, Dallas Morning News.]

And here’s Zable talking about what he went through to come up with it:

They’ve also set up a website, where they further describe Fried Beer:

People said it could not be done; impossible is what we were told! When you put beer into a fryer, it will cause a violent reaction with the oil…

We took that challenge and did everything we could to prove naysayers wrong! As a result of three years of research and development, we are now excited to present Fried Beer™ to the world! In such a revolutionary way, we are able to put beer inside dough that is shaped like a ravioli and deep fry it. The process is so unique, we have a patent pending on the manufacturing process!

By using our patent pending process, we are able to place beer inside a salty pretzel like dough, and deep fry it. When you take a bite, beer pours out of the inside pocket of dough. We even had to get the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to rule on our new product. The verdict… You have to be over the age of 21 to purchase Fried Beer™.

CBS also did a video report on Zable’s Fried Beer:The only other food I’ve seen that’s even similar is a Korean dish also called “Deep-Fried Beer” at the Korean Food website ZenKimchi’s Korean Food Journal. ZenKimchi even includes the recipe, though it seems more like a deep-fried batter that includes beer as an ingredient, so I’m not quite sure if it’s misnamed or it is similar at all. Though I may have to give the recipe a try one of these days.

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Korean Deep-Fried Beer

Going Green For Charity

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Each year, Stone Brewing does a fun charity event where employees and fans dye their hair a particular color and ask people to pledge money to their charity — The Boys & Girls Club of San Marcos, Looks Like Me!, The Palomar Family YMCA and the Palomar Pomerado Health Foundation. I’ve considered it every year but each year I prove how lazy I really am, because I never do. But I like to at least support the efforts of those who do step up. This year the color was green, the color of hops. I could have given to a number of friends at Stone, like brewmaster Mitch Steele (who’s been my roomie for GABF judging) or co-founders Greg Koch and Steve Wagner. But instead I chose Dave Hopwood, who’s Stone’s northern California sales rep. I’d like to say it’s because he’s most deserving, but the reality is I saw his plea for donations on Twitter first a few weeks back. That being said, he certainly is deserving, and so is the charity. I see Dave a lot at local events and he’s a member of my Philopotes Society, too. Today he tweeted that’s he’s still short of his modest goal so I’m posting this in the hopes of helping him reach that goal. C’mon people, it’s for the kids. Anyway, to donate to his cause, visit his Stone Dye-Hards page. If you’d prefer to donate to another Stone Dye-Hard, check out the full list of Dye-Hards. But hurry, donations must be in by August 30.

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Dave Hopwood, gone green for charity.

Beer In Ads #180: Birra Dicitura

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Wednesday’s ad is for another Italian brewery, Birra Dicitura. It seems like it has to be later than the 1920s, because the art is less well-defined, more abstract. It almost seems unfinished, a rough sketch. And I can’t help but wonder; why the five of hearts? Dicitura, by the way, is Italian for “wording.”

birra-maquette

Yuengling Phasing Out Returnables

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returnable-carton
I wrote about this last week, where the focus was on the Straub Brewery, in The Extinction Of Returnable Beer Bottles, but they did mention the decision by Yuengling to discontinue offering returnable bottles. Today my old hometown newspaper growing up, the Reading Eagle, picked up the story but centered instead on Yuengling. In Returnable Bottles Leave Beer Drinkers Cold, Dick Yuengling explains the reasons for discontinuing returnables.

Yuengling said returnable bottles still make great sense ecologically. He said that at one point 60 percent of his business was in returnable bottles.

“Now, if you showed a 16-ounce returnable bottle to a 22-year-old, he wouldn’t know what the heck it was,” Yuengling joked. “I like the idea. I installed a bottle washer at our new (Pottsville) location. I was going to try to revive the returnables but the customer just doesn’t want them anymore.”

According to the Beer Institute, in 1981 about 12% of beer sold was in returnable bottles. Today it’s just under 0.3% … and dropping fast. As I opined last week, even though I understand the rationale for this, I still can’t help but lament it. It just feels like a lost opportunity in our current obsession with being green. I did a lengthy feature article for All About Beer magazine a few years ago about brewery’s green practices, and I was astounded by how much most breweries, both big and small, were doing.

It seems like going back to returnables, while undoubtedly difficult and expensive, would be a great way to keep local beer local and show the craft beer industry’s leadership in recycling and being ecological. It may be nearly impossible to ramp up by any national company, but the smaller the brewery, the more manageable it could be, giving an advantage to local brewers. Oh, well, I know it’s not going to happen, but I can still dream.

Next Session: New Kids On The Bock

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Our next Session is fast approaching, ten days away to be exact. This month’s host will be Carla Companion, better know as The Beer Babe. Her topic is 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!

Join the welcome wagon on Friday, September 3, and tell us about your favorite new brewery.