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Beer In Art #72: Shawn Kenney’s Will Work For Food (& Beer)

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art-beer
Today’s works are from a series entitled Will Work For Food by an artist from Providence, Rhode Island, Shawn Kenney. There’s a story behind the project, and a portion of each sale is “donated to agencies working to end hunger through education, outreach, and food distribution.” All of the beer paintings are already sold, but plenty of food paintings remain available in the food inventory. The first beer painting below is of a can of Narragansett beer, which is Rhode Island local.

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Then there’s this bottle of Red Stripe.

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And finally, a pint of Guinness. There are also a few more beer paintings at the Will Work For Food main web page.

Kenney_guinness

Here’s a portion of Kenney’s biography:

I was tremendously fortunate to study under a stellar lineup of professors during my time at [the Rhode Island School of Design]. Among them: Tom Sgouros, Dean Richardson, Victor Lara, and David Macaulay. They, along with some amazing classmates, opened my eyes to a much larger world.

In the years since, I have worked as an illustrator, designer and art director, never leaving my love of the craft of drawing and painting behind.

You can also see more of Kenney’s work at his Studio Work and his blog. You can also see a few more pieces at the Charlestown Gallery.

Joyeuses Paques

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Easter has to be one of the oddest holidays, a curious mix of religious and pagan traditions. Chocolate, bunny rabbits, eggs, and the newly undead happily mix for a curious stew of fertility rites and resurrection.

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Joyeuses Paques — a.k.a. Happy Easter — with beer-drinking eggs.

There are very few true Easter beers, Het Anker’s Gouden Carolus Easter Beer being perhaps the most obvious exception. Russian River’s Redemption also springs to mind for the name alone. My friend and UK colleague, Jeff Evans, has a great list of Ten Beers For Easter. There’s also the Swedish Påsköl. Carlsberg used to brew Påskeøl and Paaske Bryg, which has been replaced by Semper Ardens Easter Brew, along with Tuborg’s Easter Brew — Kylle, Kylle. And let’s not forget De Dolle’s Boskeun.

But notice how the dedicated Easter beers are all European? That’s hardly an accident as American puritanism seems to bristle at the idea of Easter beer, though wine, as usual, gets a pass for the holiday. When I worked for BevMo I recall that we virtually ignored beer entirely, promoting only wine for Easter. I’m sure there was market research behind that decision, but never understood the rationale underlying it. Plenty of beers go great with ham, yet only wines were given as recommended pairings. I’m probably not even having ham today, but I can guarantee there will be beer.

madelines-easter

The Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Beer Dinner At Anchor Brewery

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Thursday night, April 1, I attended a five-course beer dinner at the Anchor Brewery in San Francisco celebrating Sierra Nevada Brewing‘s 30th anniversary and the release of their first collaboration of the year, Fritz & Ken’s Ale, which is a stout.

The evening began with Ken Grossman & Fritz Maytag

The evening was great fun with terrific company, food and, of course, beer. There was one feature of the evening I haven’t seen at a beer dinner before, but I fervently hope more will adopt. They served in-between-course beers so we had a new beer to sample while waiting for each course. That made the anticipation of each new course far more manageable. Also, between each course, both Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada, and Fritz Maytag, owner of Anchor Brewery, got up and told great stories from their early days. That may have been my favorite part of the night. Below is one round of tales, broken into two parts because of YouTube’s 10 minute max rule.

And here’s Part 2:

Having been at beer dinners and events at Anchor numerous times, they also made the space next to the brewhouse the most comfortable it’s ever been. They added sound-proof panels along the exterior wall, rented a carpet and hung banners of Anchor beer labels. It definitely worked.

Inside Anchor Brewery

But by far, this was my favorite story of the evening.

If you ever have an occasion to talk with Sam Calagione, ask him about a similar story where he had no trouble getting arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport with a brick of hops.

Ken Grossman, me and Fritz Maytag
Ken Grossman, me and Fritz Maytag and the end of the beer dinner.

Below is a slideshow of the Sierra Nevada beer dinner at Anchor. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

Beer In Ads #79: Sodibo’s Blue Lady

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Friday’s ad is for a brand I’m not familiar with, Sodibo, which I believe was a French beer. I love the highly stylized pastel drawing with the sophisticated-looking woman partially obscured by a bright blue fog. It’s from the 1920s and the art is by a Jean Rousseau.

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You can see more of the art in the poster below, but I still prefer the simpler one with almost no text. Below seems cluttered, above, elegant.

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Session #38: Cult Beers

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Our 38th Session is hosted by Sean Inman at Beer Search Party, is cult beers; those beers that are in short supply, high demand and often require going to great lengths to acquire.

Here’s Sean’s thoughts on the cult of beers:

I started thinking about what beer or beers that I would get up at 4:00 in the morning, drive across state lines, stand in a long unmoving line in the cold and rain for the chance to taste with a crowd the size of Woodstock.

So here is my question to you (with a couple addenda).

What beer have you tasted recently (say, the last six months or so) that is worthy of their own day in the media sun?

And to add a little extra to it, how does “great” expectations affect your beer drinking enjoyment?

AND If you have attended one of these release parties, stories and anecdotes of your experience will be welcomed too.

So that’s the assignment, so to speak. While I’m not big on actually standing in lines, if anything might so motivate me, it’s the promise of a truly extraordinary beer for my trouble.

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But what makes a cult beer? Scarcity seems to be a factor. An intangible hype also sees to be part of the legend. Of course, Coors was once a cult beer, at least East of the Mississippi. Some people think of PBR as a cult beer even though it’s hardly difficult to find. So beers that were once cult favorites can lose that peculiar appeal to become more pedestrian beers. Years ago Mendocino Brewing’s Eye of the Hawk was considered a cult beer and its biannual release was highly anticipated, but they foolishly decided to make it all year round. As a result, it’s really lost virtually all its cache.

Of course, it better taste good to back up the hype or it’s going to lose its cult status pretty quickly. All but a couple of the beers on my list were pretty damn good. So perhaps the real question is does having to work to get a cult beer to try bias one toward rating it higher, in effect giving it points just for the effort involved? I think that can be a factor. Human nature being what it is, most of us don’t want to admit that all that effort wasn’t worth it. In a sense, like many quests, it’s really the journey that’s important.

Every geeky discipline has it’s holy grails that its most ardent fans will seek out. I also collect View-Master reels and there’s one reel among the early single reels (before packets — never mind, V-M geek talk) that always commands the highest price in auctions. It’s Reel #1305 and the last time it was auctioned, it fetched over $800. I think it’s title will explain, at least in part, why: “President Kennedy’s Visit To Ireland.” And indeed, the late John F. Kennedy is in several of the reel’s seven pictures. View-Master geek that I am, I’ve had the reel for a number of years and while it’s certainly a highly-prized part of my collection, there are countless reels with more stunning 3-D photography that I like to look at far more often.

But one thing you can say about geeks is that they’re never satisfied, always restless and in search of the next thing, big or small. And so cult beers will always be a part of the craft industry. Making too little beer for demand is something small brewers can easily excel at. All they need to do is make sure the demand is high enough, sprinkle some hype around and a quick sell out is all but assured, which in turn makes its cult status only grow. And, naturally, they need to brew a beer that can live up to the hype, something most seem readily able to do.

I frankly think the scarce beers are great for the industry. They provide a creative outlet for the brewers, beers for the most ardent fans and make reputations for the breweries themselves while simultaneously allowing them to concentrate on their core brands that make the majority of their profits for them. The most successful breweries seem to me the ones that can both have a flagship or stable of beers that everybody loves and a few stand-outs that appeal primarily to the beer geeks. That’s real multitasking, brewery style. Think New Belgium’s Fat Tire/La Folie. Deschutes’ Black Butte Porter/The Abyss. New Glarus’ Spotted Cow/Everything Else. Sam Adams Boston Lager/Utopias. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale/Bigfoot, Celebration and quite a lot more. I don’t think it’s an accident those are some of the most successful modern era breweries.

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Drink the cult beer Kool-aid.

But which beers are cult beers? Which ones belong on a list of cult beers? I’ve made a list below off the top of my head Without putting too much thought into it, these are a few that immediately came to mind.

  • Black Albert (De Struise)
  • Black Tuesday (The Bruery)
  • Cable Car (Lost Abbey)
  • Cuvee de Tomme (Lost Abbey)
  • Dark Lord (Three Floyds)
  • Exponential Hoppiness (Alpine beer)
  • Kate the Great (Portsmouth Brewery)
  • Leviathan Barleywine (Fish Brewing)
  • Local 1 (Brooklyn Brewery)
  • O.B.A. (Anchor Brewery)
  • 120 Minute IPA (Dogfish Head)
  • Pliny the Elder (Russian River Brewing)
  • Pliny the Younger (Russian River Brewing)
  • Poseidon Imperial Stout (Fish Brewing)
  • Raspberry Tart (New Glarus)
  • Sink the Bismarck! (BrewDog)
  • Speedway Stout (AleSmith)
  • Tactical Nuclear Penguin (BrewDog)
  • Toronado 20th Anniversary Ale (Russian River Brewing)
  • Westvleteren Blond, 8 and 12 (Westvleteren)
  • Wisconsin Belgian Red (New Glarus)

These seem like no brainers, for the most part. Of course, I’ve tried all of them. I assume there’s plenty of ones I can’t think of simply because I’ve never tried them, or perhaps even heard of them. What else should be on the list? Anchor’s Christmas Ale? Sierra Nevada Bigfoot?

As it happens, I recently sampled a number of the beers on this list at this year’s Keene Tasting at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle. I’ll have my report from that tasting posted shortly and will update it here with a link.

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The original cult figure Pliny the Younger.

Beer In Ads #78: Genesee’s A Little More Exciting

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ad-billboard
Thursday’s ad is for Genesee Brewing from 1968 since today is their 77th anniversary. It’s a pretty simple time-honored strategy showing a sexy, scantily-clad female atop a giant beer can. I love the arrow pointing to the slogan “a little more exciting …” I guess they worried no one would even read it, what with their eyes unable to look below the dangling foot.

Genesee-more-exciting-1968

The Littlest Big Guy

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Perhaps you’ve noticed the latest television ads from the Boston Beer Co. trying to position Samuel Adams as a small fish in the big beer pond. I understood it immediately, as I’m sure you did, too. As sales of Sam Adams eke north of the 2-million barrels per annum threshold, they want to reclaim their position as the underdog little guy that made them successful. It’s a delicate tightrope walk and Advertising Age has an interesting article about it today entitled Sam Adams Wants to Show You Just How Small It Really Is.

Brilliant Beer Bottles

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While I can’t abide the assertion that in “a market dominated by Anheuser Busch and Miller-Coors [sic], finding beauty in beer is a difficult task,” this post from the Coolist showcasing 10 Brilliant Beer Bottle Designs is still a fun look at some cool designs for beer bottles and cans. While I have no trouble finding beauty in beer, I concede many of these beer packaging designs are a cut above. What are your favorites? And what did they miss?

Prohibition Through Taxation

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Being April Fool’s Day, this might almost seem laughable, if it wasn’t so serious and obvious an attempt to bring about prohibition through taxation. (And thanks to the many people who sent me information about this, you know who you are, I appreciate it.) A San Diego couple, Kent and Josephine Whitney, have introduced a ballot initiative they’re calling the “Alcohol-Related Harm and Damage Services Act of 2010.” If that sounds innocuous, it’s not. If they collect the required 433,971 signatures by August 23, it will be on the California ballot this November. The “Act” seeks to raise alcohol taxes as listed below. If you have a drink in your hand, put it down first. If you’re standing up, sit down. Drum roll, please:

  • Spirits — 2,700% increase [from $0.65 per 750 ml bottle to $17.57]
  • Beer — 5,500% increase [from $0.11 per 6-pack to $6.08]
  • Wine — 12,775% increase [from $0.04 per 750 ml bottle to $5.11]

No, those aren’t typos. The anticipated revenue of $7-9 billion would be used to fund the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, whatever that is. It won’t be used to fix the state deficit apparently.

In the OC Weekly Blog, Dave Lieberman correctly comments that “this is Prohibition through taxation” [a phrase I hope he won’t mind me borrowing]. He continues.

“The armchair libertarians must be having sedentary conniption fits from Yreka to Ysidro. Nowhere does it say that alcohol has to be a zero-sum game, not to mention the fact that the vast majority of those who do drink do so responsibly, which means you’re taxing those who play by the rules to pay for those who don’t.”

Ballotpedia lists a dozen reasons for the ballot measure, each one more fallacious than the last. The Whitney’s blame alcohol for murders, pregnant women drinking, burdens on health care, underage drinking, binge drinking; pretty much everything any neo-prohibitionists has ever thrown up against the wall, while naturally ignoring all of the personal responsibility for any of those actions. It’s as if they’ve drank the anti-alcohol kool-aid and believe unquestioningly all of the propaganda from those groups. To blame the alcohol and not the people who engage in those behaviors is a common tactic lately but ignores logic, common sense and any notion of fairness. It also reveals quite a lot about the mindset of the people who believe such nonsense. Also, if the ballot measure should pass, it would declare all of that nonsensically bad propaganda masquerading as statistics as true!

It also ignores the physical and mental health benefits of responsibly drinking moderate amounts of alcohol. Numerous studies have shown many, many health benefits to moderate drinking, not least of which are the many studies that show that people who drink moderately tend to live longer and be healthier than people who either abstain or overindulge. So in effect, this ballot measure would most likely make people in California less healthy.

Curiously, the State Attorney General’s summary says:

Additional state revenues of between $7 billion and $9 billion annually from an increase in state excise taxes on alcoholic beverages, with the proceeds going to support alcohol-related programs and services. A decrease in state and local revenues from existing excise and sales taxes on alcoholic beverages of several hundred million dollars annually due to a likely decline in consumption of alcoholic beverages.

The Initiative’s Analysis from the state Legislative Analyst’s Office goes into more detail but remains similarly conservative in the negative consequences while swallowing wholesale the notion that it would actually bring in the estimated $7-9 billion in additional excise tax revenue. First of all, the loss of business and company’s going out of business outright would cause that figure to be greatly reduced from the start. If a bottle of wine has at least $5.11 in state excise taxes plus all of the other taxes, plus the costs of ingredients, manufacture, packaging, transportation, etc. even two-buck chuck is going to become ten-buck Ken or worse.

Similarly, if just the state excise tax on a six-pack of beer starts at $6.08, again plus every other cost of doing business, just who in their right mind believes that consumers will continue to merrily drink the same amounts at exponentially higher prices? Don’t even get me started on how many dollars will fly out of California by people driving to bordering states to buy their alcohol. You’re going to see a cottage industry in just-over-the-border liquor stores popping up wherever a road leaves California. It’s absurd to believe the revenue stream would continue at the same rate.

That analysis suggests that only several hundreds of millions of dollars would be lost in decreased consumption seems laughably conservative. Here’s some of their reasoning, from the analysis:

Effects on Existing State Excise and SUT Revenues. The decline in taxable consumption of alcoholic beverages that would likely be caused by this measure would reduce the revenues received for the General Fund from the existing state excise and SUT revenues. We estimate that this could potentially result in a loss of state revenues of several hundred million dollars annually.

Effects on Local Revenues. The likely decline in taxable consumption of alcoholic beverages due to the increase in the excise tax imposed under this measure would also affect local SUT revenues. We estimate that local governments, primarily cities and counties, would experience a decrease in sales tax revenues of approximately $100 million on a statewide basis due to the excise tax increase.

Indirect Economic Effects. If the measure were to result in declines in overall economic activity in California, it could produce indirect state and local revenue losses. Such effects could occur, for example, if businesses were to close because they could no longer remain profitable as the overall economy adjusted to a lower demand for alcohol in the long run. If these lost resources were not redirected back to California’s economy into equal or more productive activities, then it would likely lead to a net loss in taxable income and spending for state and local governments. The magnitude of these potential revenue losses is unknown.

See that last bit? “The magnitude of these potential revenue losses is unknown.” I can pretty much tell you it’s going to be staggering. It would be a near prohibition, with a return to illegal hooch. After homebrewers start selling their kitchen beers under the table, new law enforcement agencies will be created to stop them, every homebrew shop will be watched and anyone with a pair of rubber boots will be under suspicion.

So who the hell are the Whitneys and why are they trying to effect an alcoholic Armageddon? Those are good questions, I think, and there’s at least one very disturbing possibility. The V Bit Set speculates that it may be simply for money. Doing some detective work, internet style, he points out there is a Kent Whitney in the San Diego area who owns the 21st Century Wellness Initiative, and the ballot measure would provide “fifteen percent for the funding of grants for naturopathic treatment and recovery programs for alcohol addiction.” Are the two connected? He admits it’s wild conjecture at this point, but it is compelling nonetheless. If it turns out to be true, how vile and repugnant would this be? On an unimaginable scale, I’d have to say. To attack an entire healthy industry, putting thousands of workers and hundreds of businesses at risk of being removed from the economy for personal gain would be one of the most abominable acts of all time. If they’re sincere, it’s clear they either didn’t think through their actions or are entirely hostile to anyone who enjoys, makes or sells alcohol.