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Stone To Seek Brewing Opportunity Abroad

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stone
Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, the founders of Stone Brewing after tweasing (twitter teasing) the news for weeks have announced a bold, audacious plan. After resisting sending their beer overseas, they’ve decided instead to consider opening a brewery there instead. So they’re initiating an open call from municipalities or even nations abroad to see what they might propose to entice them to take over an existing brewery or build a new one somewhere in Europe, Asia or wherever. In the video below, Greg and Steve explain the idea.

Stone to open a Brewery in Europe? from stonebrew on Vimeo.

This is a very exciting project for Steve and me…and all of us at Stone Brewing. We’re going to be learning quite a bit with this endeavor, first and foremost: Will we be welcome? We’re approaching this with no assumptions other than we’d like to consider any and all options (other than having our beers contract brewed by another brewery, as that’s simply not our style). Many of the countries of Europe have great brewing traditions. Some countries are also currently experiencing a bit of a resurgence of small, independent (and independent thinking) breweries. As anyone knows that has visited the Stone Brewing Co. and our attached restaurant – the Stone World Bistro & Gardens – where we have more Guest taps than we do of Stone, we enjoy sharing the camaraderie of great craft beers. We look forward to joining in the fight in Europe by doing our part to add to the growing trend towards unique, flavorful artisanal beers, as opposed to the mass-blandification efforts characterized by megabrand sameness!

-Greg Koch, CEO

Beer In Art #57: Kelly Murphy’s Wassailing

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art-beer
After a few more mature works recently, today’s work of art is more playful and child-like. It’s by Kelly Murphy, who primarily write and illustrates children’s books, along with freelance work in similar fields, like toys and film. In 2007, on her blog, Murphy shared her work, Wassailing.

Kelly_Murphy-wassail

Wassailing is, of course, a traditional English and European custom that took place around the holidays, sometime around Christmas and in other traditions into mid-January. To read more about it, there are interesting accounts at the Hymns and Carols of Christmas, About.com, Time Travel Britain and White Dragon.

There also the drink Wassail, which I wrote about a couple of years ago after the release of Full Sail’s Wassail at Here We Go a-WASSAIL-ing

As for Kelly Murphy, here’s some more info from her biography.

Kelly Murphy is an award-winning illustrator and animator working predominantly with traditional and mixed media. Born and raised in southeastern Massachusetts, USA, she studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. Since earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1999, Kelly has been actively freelancing across the various fields of editorial illustration, picture books and poster illustration as well as character design for both the film and toy industry. An accomplished children’s book author and illustrator, Kelly’s books have been published by America’s leading publishing houses and her tenth children book is already due to be available in the Fall of 2009.

And there’s a good overview of her other illustration, art and books at her website and her blog, Who the Sh*t Drank My Beer.

Beer In Art Special: Lefebvre’s Chloe

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This Saturday edition of my Beer In Art series is a little different, which is why I’ve decided to call it a series “Special.” The work of art itself does not depict beer but its story is inseparably connected to beer. Thanks to Australian Bulletin reader Geoff (Thanks, Geoff!) who sent me the story of Chloe, a painting in search of a home, who finally found it in a Melbourne pub, the Young & Jackson.

The work was painted by the famous French artist Jules Joseph Lefebvre in 1875, and it’s title is Chloé

Lefebvre-Chloe

The painting quickly won Lefebvre fame and numerous awards including “gold medals in the Paris Salon in 1875, the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879 and the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880.”

But the story of the painting was far from over. Here Doomed Damsels picks up the story:

In 1883, after three weeks of exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, scandalized citizens objected to this unseemly display of the naked female form and Chloe disappeared from public view until 1908, when she was purchased by Henry Figsby Young, an ex-digger turned hotel proprietor, for £800, a very large sum in those days. Henry took the painting back to his home above Young and Jackson’s Hotel and his outraged wife banished it to the public bar, where it charms the patrons to this day.

The fate of Chloe’s model, a young Parisian artist’s model named Marie, did not, sadly, have a happy ending. Little is known about Marie, “except she was approximately 19 years of age at the time of painting. Roughly two years later, Marie, after throwing a party for friends, boiled a potion of poisonous matches” (made at the time with phosphorous) — drank the concoction and died. The reason for her suicide is thought to be unrequited love. Some accounts speculate that she had a love affair with Lefebvre which he ended, others say she developed a crush that he refused, while still others suggest that “he seduced both her and her sister.” There are various stories about Chloe — the painting and the girl — at Australian Beers, the BBC’s h2g2 and at Young & Jackson’s website.

In 1973, John Larkins wrote of Chloe in Australian Pubs. “[D]ear Chloe, soft and naked, withholding nothing and temptingly virginal.” And beer historian Rafal Zakrzewski wrote in 2001, “Sweet things do not go well with a bitter Aussie lager — Chloe is an exception.”

Young&Jackson-inside

Young & Jackson’s is one of Melbourne’s oldest pubs, having opened in 1861, though it’s only been known by its present name since 1875, when new buyers, Henry Young and Thomas Jackson, bought it. You can read about the history of Young & Jacksn’s at Wikipedia or the Chicago Bar Project.

Young&Jackson-Melbourne
Outside the Young & Jackson, in Melbourne, Australia.

You can also see more of Lefebvre’s art at Jukes Joseph Lefebvre: The Complete Works, and also at ArtMagick.

In addition, to serving local and imported beers, the Young & Jackson also has a beer contracted for them in honor of Chloe. The beer is called Naked Ale.

Young&Jackson-naked-ale

Fact: Geologists Love Beer

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Beginning with the bold pronouncement, “Fact — Geologists Love Beer,” Wired magazine explains Why Geologists Love Beer.

This week in San Francisco, the American Geophysical Union is having their annual convention at Moscone Convention Center. According to Wired:

“Every other convention assumes that if you have a beer, your brain goes soft,” said Kathy Sullivan, who has been serving beer at the AGU meeting for 26 years. ”But not the geophysicists. They think if you have a beer, you can still learn things. So they do.”

At the Thirsty Bear, the closest brewpub to the Moscone Convention Center where the annual meeting is held every December, the waitstaff claims this is the busiest week of the year for them. I heard from the Borehole Research Group at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory that one server at the Thirsty Bear said the staff can’t take vacation days during the AGU meeting ”because the geologists are coming.”

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Betsy Mason, the author of the article — and a geologist and beer lover herself — polled the 16,00 convention attendees to try to figure why a love of rocks translates to a love of beer. Her results make entertaining reading. And, this insight is personally good news, because it explains yet another one of my own peculiar obsessions. I, too, love rocks. From childhood, I’ve been fascinated by them and to this day always pick up interesting rocks during vacations to bring back home as souvenirs. Throughout my house, I have jars and plates displaying the rocks I’ve found all over the world. Before now, I just thought it was another one of my odd obsessions, but I’m happy to learn it’s just part and parcel of my love of beer, the two apparently go hand in hand.

Watch the video below, bartender Kathy Sullivan is my new favorite person. Listen to what she has to say about the geologists drinking beer at their convention.

“It’s the only convention that thinks adults know whether they can drink and pay attention or not. Every other convention assumes that if you have a beer your brain goes soft, but not the geophysicists, they think if you have a beer you can still learn things … It’s treating people like adults as opposed to children.”

British Hypocrisy On Beer & Health

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I take no pleasure, though a certain perverse comfort, in the fact that America is not alone in its hypocrisy when it comes to alcohol policy and its government heath organizations. Today in the BBC News is another example of this phenomenon. (Thanks to Pete Brown for pointing this one out.)

In a title no doubt intended to inspire fear and paranoia, Parents Giving Children Alcohol Fuels Binge Drinking, Sir Liam Donaldson, England’s chief medical officer, warned parents that “letting children taste alcohol to ready them for adulthood was ‘misguided'” and claimed “[e]vidence showed that this could lead to binge drinking in later life.” Curiously, he offered no support whatsoever for this so-called evidence apart from saying it. You’d think the reporter might have asked him for that evidence, but no. Way to probe for the story, Marty.

Donaldson also claimed, again without any support, that “[t]he science is clear – drinking, particularly at a young age, a lack of parental supervision, exposing children to drink-fueled events and failing to engage with them as they grow up are the root causes from which our country’s serious alcohol problem has developed.” The problem with that statement is that what he’s complaining about is that some parents give their children alcohol in a controlled environment, specifically NOT with a “lack of parental supervision,” etc. that he then claims is the problem. That makes it a problem that’s effectively the opposite of the one he starts out fomenting about and is indicated in the article’s headline. I should also mention that unlike most U.S. states, UK parents can legally “give their children alcohol at home from the age of five onwards.”

But, they continue, “[r]ates of teenage drunkenness are higher amongst both the children of parents who drink to excess and the children of parents who abstain completely.” So read that again. Kids drink more later in life if their parents either drink too much or not at all. That suggests that children of moderate drinkers do not, and the only way those children would know their parents are moderate drinkers if if they actually saw them drinking, something neo-prohibitionists are decidedly against.

Then again, as if forgetting that he began with the premise that parents giving their kids alcohol was the problem, he acknowledges. “Whilst parents have a greater influence on their children’s drinking patterns early on, as they grow older their friends have a greater influence. It is therefore crucial for parents to talk to their children about alcohol and its effects.” Talk, apparently, but not model responsible behavior or educate their children about alcohol.

But the upshot at the end is another opinion altogether, and one that contradicts everything that’s come before it.

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians and chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, said: “We know that adults who drink sensibly tend to pass these habits on and that some families choose to introduce alcohol to their children younger than 15 in a supportive environment.”

Well, if moderate drinking parents pass their responsible habits to their children — which I also believe they do — and some accomplish that by introducing alcohol to their kids successfully, then how exactly is this the problem that Dr. Donaldson seems to think it is? I tend to put my faith in the doctor who specializes in alcohol and health — Gilmore — rather than the administrator at the top, but perhaps that’s just me. I may simply be responding to the most reasonable position, and the one I happen to agree with.

So essentially, this article starts out with a bold headline and scary quotes from one of the country’s top docs, offered with no support whatsoever, and yet it turns out if you read all the way through it, that what they started out trying to scare people about isn’t even really true, settled or consistent. Of course, I learned in my college journalism classes that many readers tend to read the headline and maybe a paragraph or two, before their interest wanes and they move on. That’s why I was taught to put all the pertinent information in the early paragraphs and not leave it for a trick ending that contradicts the premise. (To be fair, I often ignore that advice, too, but not when I’m writing for a newspaper.) To me, that suggests an agenda on the part of either the author or the publisher. Surely an editor would have noticed the article wasn’t even internally consistent. But whatever the reason it was written this way, it certainly did beer or the truth no favors.

Bone Density & Beer Redux

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Just yesterday I wrote about beer and bone density and a recent study confirming the positive benefits in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Today yet another unrelated study appears to confirm the findings of the first, as reported in today’s Burton Mail. In the article, Dr. Jonathan Powell, head of a bio-mineral research department in Cambridge, said the “key to beer’s benefits is silicon — a chemical more commonly associated which enhancing chests than fattening stomachs. Historically, silicon has not been seen as an essential nutrient, but our research suggests that it could play an important role in bone health. We have shown that silicon appears to have a beneficial effect in increasing bone mineral density.” Beer of course, is rich in silicon. “The combination of the silicon and alcohol intake from moderate beer consumption appears to promote both bone and connective tissue health.” This study’s results will be presented at a conference here in California. The article goes on to mention a third study, “published earlier this year which showed that moderate ethanol consumption has an acute, specific effect in reducing bone loss.” It seems pretty clear at this point that all the science is indeed finding a positive correlataion between moderate beer drinking and increased bone density. I’ll drink to that.

Beer In Ads #10: Boris Vallejo’s Michelob Man

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ad-billboard
Today’s ad was painted by one of the most famous science fiction/fantasy artists of all time, Boris Vallejo. If you don’t know who he he is, then you’ve never read the genre, because he’s worked for nearly everybody and has also done a number of album covers. His most famous characters include Conan, Doc Savage and Tarzan.

According to the biography at his home page:

Born in Lima, Peru, Boris attended the National School of Fine Arts in his native country before immigrating to the United States in 1964. He has since done a great volume of work for the Fantasy field, having worked for virtually every major publishing house with a science fiction/fantasy line. Boris has also illustrated for album covers, video box art and motion picture advertising.

You can also see a lot of his art at his official website (along with his wife, artist Julie Bell) and chronologically at the Boris Vallejo Gallery.

If I had to guess, I’d say this may have been for something internal at A-B because notice that the man in the painting, who may or may not be August Busch III, is crushing a can of Heineken, undoubtedly a primary target of Michelob’s marketing efforts. There’s also a strange triangular-shaped object between the two beers that resembles a Toblerone package, but I can’t figure what that might be. Anybody have any ideas?

Boris_Valejo-michelob

Brewing Network Announces Winter Beer Fest

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bn
The Brewing Network has just announced their first beer festival next month. It’s going to be a Winter Brews Festival and will take place January 30, 2010 from 1:00 to 8:00 p.m. The event will be held at the Linden Street Brewery in Oakland.

From the press release:

While Bay Area residents commiserate in a collective shiver at current winter temperatures, the East Bay based craft beer radio company, the Brewing Network, is finalizing plans for its first annual Winter Brews Festival to revive listeners, locals, and brewers from their wintery slumber to enjoy seasonal brews from more than 30 world class breweries.

The Brewing Network Winter Brews Festival will be held at the newly opened Linden St. Brewery in Oakland on Saturday, January 30, 2010, and will feature a wide variety of winter warmers and unique innovations from some of the best brewers in the Bay Area and beyond.

Partnering with Linden St. Brewery in Oakland, this festival combines the love of seasonal beers with the enthusiasm of the local craft beer scene. With barrels from breweries such as Russian River, Firestone Walker, the 21st Amendment, Speakeasy, Linden St., Moonlight Brewing, Magnolia, and many more, this Winter Brews Fest promises to provide big, malty beers to ignite the taste buds of beer lovers, new and experienced.

Hot food (will be available for purchase) and live music will round out the festival, which will run from 1pm to 8pm. For more information on the event, please visit www.brewingnetwork.com/ontap.

Tickets will most likely be $25, which will include a commemorative glass and five tastings, with more available for purchase. Details are still being worked out and the price is subject to change.

bn-winterfest10

Bud Light Wheat Vs. Blue Moon

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I confess that when Bud Light Golden Wheat first appeared in the market, I gave it almost no notice. It was yet another line extension in an increasingly crowded portfolio. If I had noticed that it also included citrus and coriander it might have been more apparent that it was conceived, at least in part, to attack Coors’ Blue Moon. Given Anheuser-Busch’s track record of going after literally every product on the market — no matter how small the niche — what’s more surprising in hindsight is that it took so long. Blue Moon first debuted in 1995.

Crain’s Chicago Business had an interesting article on Monday about the battle, entitled Budweiser Takes On MillerCoors’ Blue Moon In Craft Beer Brew-Haha.

crafting-a-plan

But since its debut last October, Bud Light Golden Wheat has made significant progress, showing just how important distribution and access to market can be.

Anheuser-Busch showed last month that it has the marketing muscle and distribution wingspan to make up lost ground quickly. It sold 263,000 cases of Bud Light Golden Wheat in November, nearly equaling Blue Moon’s total, IRI data show.

It’s an interesting read, and to me the takeaway is Harry Schuhmacher’s thoughts, as quoted in the article:

“It’s very important because craft beers are the only growing part of the business,” says Harry Schuhmacher, editor of San Antonio-based trade publication Beer Business Daily. “This is where the future of beer is going, and they want to make sure they are well-established in the category.”

Bone Density Strengthened By Moderate Beer Drinking

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skeleton-2
Although Reuters only recently wrote about this new study, Moderate Drinking May Help Build Bone Density, it’s based on a study published in February in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. According to the journal abstract:

Goal: Our aim was to determine the association between intake of total alcohol or individual alcoholic beverages and bone mineral density.

Design: Adjusting for potential confounding factors, we examined alcohol intakes and BMD at 3 hip sites and the lumbar spine in 1182 men and in 1289 postmenopausal and 248 premenopausal women in the population-based Framingham Offspring cohort (age: 29–86 yrs.).

Results: Men were predominantly beer drinkers, and women were predominantly wine drinkers. Compared with nondrinkers, hip BMD was greater (3.4–4.5%) in men consuming 1–2 drinks/d of total alcohol or beer, whereas hip and spine BMD were significantly greater (5.0–8.3%) in postmenopausal women consuming >2 drinks/d of total alcohol or wine. Intake of >2 drinks/d of liquor in men was associated with significantly lower (3.0–5.2%) hip and spine BMD than was intake of 1–2 drinks/d of liquor in men. After adjustment for silicon intake, all intergroup differences for beer were no longer significant; differences for other alcohol sources remained significant. Power was low for premenopausal women, and the associations were not significant.

Conclusions: Moderate consumption of alcohol may be beneficial to bone in men and postmenopausal women. However, in men, high liquor intakes (>2 drinks/d) were associated with significantly lower BMD. The tendency toward stronger associations between BMD and beer or wine, relative to liquor, suggests that constituents other than ethanol may contribute to bone health. Silicon appears to mediate the association of beer, but not that of wine or liquor, with BMD. Other components need further investigation.

There was nothing ambiguous about the results of the study, “it’s very clear,’ said Dr. Katherine Tucker of Boston’s Tufts University that the positive effect on bone density from beer and wine is “larger than what we see for any single nutrient, even for calcium.”

From the Reuters article:

Men who had a glass or two of wine or beer daily had denser bones than non-drinkers, the researchers found, but those who downed two or more servings of hard liquor a day had significantly lower BMD than the men who drank up to two glasses of liquor daily.

The women who drank more than two glasses a day of alcohol or wine had greater BMD than the women who drank less. Nonetheless, this finding shouldn’t be seen as meaning that the more a woman drinks the better it is for her bones, Tucker noted; there were simply not that many women in the study who drank much more than this.

Beer is an excellent source of silicon, a mineral needed for bone health that has become increasingly rare in the modern diet, the researcher noted. Beer’s silicon content accounted for at least some of its bone-building effects in men, she added; there were too few women who drank beer to draw conclusions about how the mineral affected female bone density.

Sounds like you your bones will thank you for drinking beer moderately. A beer a day keeps the bone doctor away?