Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Brewery Openings Surge

By

copper-kettle
The Brewers Association had an interesting little item yesterday, A New Brewery Nearly Every Day, in which they detailed the recent numbers of new brewery openings. It’s a pretty remarkable jump.

  • Last Year: 110 confirmed openings
  • So Far This Year: 155 confirmed openings
  • Total U.S. Breweries Now: 1,625

If that pace continues, we’d see roughly 250 open this year, which is more than in any other year I can recall. From the work of brewery detective Erin Glass, most of these are not nanobreweries, either — not that there’s anything wrong with nanobreweries or even picobreweries.

This is made even more impressive given the state of our economy. I’d be curious to know where the financing for these new businesses is coming from, whether traditional small business loans or from more creative sources.

Here’s where that leaves us:

Where does that put us for brewery counts? We believe there were 1,625 U.S. breweries as of the June 30 count. While the brewpub roster is climbing a little, up to 993, as we see some closings to offset the growth somewhat, the number of microbreweries is at 520 now.

Will it continue for the rest of the year? Here’s a stat. One year ago we had 260 projects on our breweries-in-planning list. Today we have 389.

open-comein

Beer In Ads #152: Phoebe Cates For Asahi

By

ad-billboard
Friday’s ad ends Bud week early and is a bit of a departure for what’s usually featured here. I try not to use overtly male-oriented ads but today is an exception. We all have celebrities, male and female, that we’re more attracted to than others. For me, one of my most enduring starstruck crushes has been on Phoebe Cates, most famous for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Gremlins. But many actors also did ads in Japan, which during the 1980s was quite lucrative so many who wouldn’t do ads in the U.S. just couldn’t turn down doing them in Japan, and Phoebe Cates was no exception. She did a series of ads, usually in a bikini, for Asahi Breweries sometime during the 80s. Also, I should point out that the reason for all this is today is Phoebe Cates’ 47th birthday.

phoebe-cates-in-bikini-autographed

The campaign also included television spots, like this one on YouTube. Since it was for their Asahi Draft Beer, they used the slogan “Live Beer” in the TV spots and on branded beer glasses in the print ads, such as the ones below.

phoebe-beer-2

Sometimes in a big floppy hat, sometimes not.

phoebe-beer-1

Most of the ads I’ve seen have been cropped and don’t show the full ad, sad to say.

phoebe-beer-4

Beer In Ads #151: Budweiser, What An Acorn Needs Is Management

By

ad-billboard
Thursday’s ad continues Bud week and is from 1937 and uses an odd bit of logic, equating an oak tree’s management of its seeds — or acorns — with the growing barley for making beer. I’m all for the idea that quality ingredients are necessary to brew a quality beer, but the analogy seems stretched a bit. There’s also an impassioned thank you from Adolphus Busch III for supporting American barley farmers and hop growers through buying Budweiser, the nation having just come out of the Great Depression. Finally, I love the reference to Shakespeare in the tagline at the bottom; “As You Like It .. In Bottles … In Cans.”

oak-life-09-13-1937-997-M

Small Businesses Ask For Alcohol Fee Postponement

By

postponement
If you’ve been following the Marin Institute’s efforts to have San Francisco enact an alcohol fee, then you know that there was a Small Business Commission hearing last night at City Hall. Item 5 on the agenda:

Discussion and possible action to make recommendations to the Small Business Commission on Board of Supervisors File No. 100865 [Establishing an Alcohol Mitigation Fee.] Ordinance amending the San Francisco Administrative Code, Chapter 106, by adding Sections 106 through 106.28, to impose a fee on alcoholic beverage wholesalers and certain other persons who distribute or sell alcoholic beverages in San Francisco to: 1) recover a portion of San Francisco’s alcohol-attributable unreimbursed health costs, and; 2) fund administration costs. Presentation by representatives of the Marin Institute. Explanatory Documents: BOS File No. 100865 and report titled, “The Cost of Alcohol to San Francisco: Analyses Supporting an Alcohol Mitigation Fee.”

Yesterday, the Marin Institute also issued a press release, ‘Charge for Harm’ Alcohol Mitigation Fee Deserves San Francisco Small Business Support, in which they demonstrated how out of touch with reality they are by suggesting small businesses must support higher taxes, higher prices and the very real possibility of a loss of revenue. In case you missed it, I also wrote about that yesterday, too. Presumably, the Marin Institute thought last night’s meeting was a mere formality, but San Francisco business owners were a lot smarter than the Marin Institute gave them credit for.

The result of the hearing was that the Small Business Commission strongly asked supervisor John Avalos (sponsor of the alcohol fee ordinance) to delay a vote on the AMFO until after the August break, which is after Labor Day. Avalos has agreed and so we’ll all have more time to build our case against the AMFO and the faulty nexus study that does not support it. It will also afford an opportunity to spread the other side of the story and correct the propaganda, since so far most of the mainstream media coverage has been very one-sided, giving most people a false impression of the AMFO and its impact.

While it’s far from over, this is a great first round victory for the forces of reason and common sense. It will interesting to see how the Marin Institute spins this. Drink a toast tonight, perhaps in San Francisco or at least with a beer brewed in San Francisco.

Beer In Ads #148: Budweiser, There’s Absolutely Nothing Like It …

By

ad-billboard
Monday’s ad is for Budweiser from most likely the 1950s, or possibly post-war forties. Fishing is the theme and the tagline is “There’s nothing like it … absolutely nothing.” She looks like she’s ready for fishing, even with the bamboo rod. The dude, on the other hand, looks like he’s dressed for a nightclub, or bowling maybe.

bud-nothing-like-it

Less Than 300 Chronic Drunks

By

san-francisco
Presumably to bolster his support for the proposed alcohol fee in San Francisco, Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius’ newest column, Chronic Drunks’ Treatment Costs S.F. Big Bucks, highlights the use of emergency and health services by the city’s chronic drunks. And it totals a lot of money and understandably frustrates the city’s service providers.

But here’s the thing. A five-year study of the problem revealed that there are only around 225 people — these “chronic inebriants” — that are high ambulance users, and “fewer than 300 individuals account for 80 percent of the ambulance runs for alcohol treatment.” There are around 809,000 people living in San Francisco, meaning less than 3/100th of a percent are chronic drunks abusing the city’s healthcare system, and that’s not including all the people who flock to the city in order to drink. I’d be frustrated, too, but since those fees are already borne in the taxes that every person pays (at the local, city, county, state and federal level) I don’t quite see how further taxing just those people that also drink alcohol is a reasonable remedy to this problem, as supporters of the AMFO (Nevius included) have argued.

The stories Nevius tells are tragic and detail real abuses, but never does he use the phrase “personal responsibility.” Clearly, these are people with problems. But alcohol didn’t cause their problems, something in their personality, life, etc. did. I grew up with a psychotic, alcoholic stepfather who abused my mother and me both emotionally and physically, but even as a child I knew the alcohol didn’t make him that way. There were deep-seated problems that caused his illness and alcohol was just one of the ways he tried to cope. He was responsible for his own behavior, it couldn’t be dismissed or blamed away because he got drunk.

By the statistics in Nevius’ own column, at least 99.97% of San Francisco residents are not abusing emergency services, but he and the other supporters of the new alcohol fee think that all drinkers should be punished for their own good behavior to pay for those who are irresponsible. What could make less sense than that?

Marin Institute Declares Small Businesses Deserve To Go Out Of Business

By

marin-institute
In a press release issued today, the Marin Institute — who’s pushing a mandatory alcohol fee in San Francisco — stated that their bogus ‘Charge for Harm’ Alcohol Mitigation Fee Deserves San Francisco Small Business Support. Yes, by all means, every business should support more taxes and higher prices, that’s just good business.

A hearing is scheduled for this afternoon at 5:30 by the Small Business Commission and will take place at San Francisco City Hall. If you own or run a small business that involves alcohol, be sure to tell them what you think you deserve. Do you deserve to pay more taxes, even though roughly 46% of the price of every beer goes to taxes, which makes it the most heavily taxed product in America? Do you deserve to have higher prices than the rest of the state? Do you deserve to make less money? Do you deserve to have fewer customers? Do you deserve to lay off good employees?

Here’s another brilliant piece of logic from the press release:

The proposed ordinance is supported by a “nexus study” commissioned by the San Francisco City Comptroller’s Office. The study found $17.7 million in direct city and county unreimbursed expenses for alcohol-related problems addressed by community behavioral health services, fire department emergency medical transport, San Francisco General Hospital, and the Sheriff’s department.

Bullshit. The nexus study is titled The Cost of Alcohol to San Francisco: Analyses Supporting an Alcohol Mitigation Fee. It’s whole purpose is to present only one side of the story, ignoring anything and everything that might oppose it or show it for the farce it is. It didn’t “find” anything, it just totaled up some questionable expenses and claimed they were due to alcohol. You can read more detail about the truth of nexus study here.

More tortured logic:

“All San Francisco residents and small businesses unfairly bear the burden of government costs for alcohol-related problems,” said Michele Simon, JD, MPH, research and policy director for the alcohol industry watchdog, Marin Institute. “This relatively small fee will ensure alcohol wholesalers and importers — not bars, restaurants, or retailers — will pay their fair share to mitigate the tremendous economic costs of alcohol harm in San Francisco.”

If, and that’s a big if, “All San Francisco residents and small businesses” share these costs supposedly, but not proven to be, attributable to alcohol, then why shouldn’t all residents and businesses pay for them, equally, like all other taxes? Why single out out alcohol manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, bars, hotels and the people who drink alcohol. Because the fee as it’s been proposed targets alcohol, and by extension the people who drink it. But the vast majority of people who legally drink alcohol do so responsibly and in moderation, and do not burden the city’s resources.

And it’s not a “relatively small fee” because they conveniently keep ignoring the fact that it will be marked up before being passed on to consumers.

And here’s how much they care about the small businesses they think deserve to support the fee:

The alcohol mitigation fee will not be allowed to exceed the costs as outlined in the nexus study, and will be imposed primarily on regional wholesalers and the portion of local brews consumed locally. Most beer is produced by foreign corporations who could easily bear some of the fee.

“[P]rimarily on regional wholesalers?” First of all, what about the distributors in San Francisco? I guess they don’t count. And the regional wholesalers, those are California businesses that would be targeted if they plan to do business in the city — which many of them do — and are located just outside the city in the Bay Area. And going after the foreign beer corporations — forgetting for a moment that they employ tens of thousands of American workers — ignores completely the more than 225 small family-owned breweries in California (eight of which are in San Francisco), along with the hundreds of small wineries and micro-distilleries.

And lastly, this:

“Small business in San Francisco should not let Big Alcohol scare them into opposition,” said Bruce Lee Livingston, executive director of Marin Institute. “We ask small businesses to be supportive, as the policy will charge alcohol wholesalers for harm instead of taxpayers and all taxpaying small businesses.” Livingston added, “We’ve all been paying for the emergency, detox and treatment costs of alcohol, but this smart fee shifts the costs to the Big Beer corporations and their wholesalers.”

Please, what planet does Livingston live on? How could he not realize that the fee will be passed along to “taxpayers and all taxpaying small businesses?” They will be paying. We all will be. He can’t possibly think otherwise, can he? He wants businesses to support their own demise? Because even businesses that don’t sell alcohol, but that benefit from it, will also be harmed by a loss of business in San Francisco. This stupid fee doesn’t shift any burdens whatsoever, though I suspect the Marin Institute knows that.