Wednesday’s ad is for one of my favorite classic beers, Saison Dupont. I recently saw this ad as a poster framed at a friend’s house. The Saison Dupont Belgian Mussels poster is actually for sale at their importer’s website, Vanberg & Dewulf, though there’s no information about when it was first created.
There’s also another one in the style of one of my absolute favorite artists, Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte. The Magritte poster is also for sale.
Tuesday’s ad ran in Life magazine in 1957. It’s odd to see them mention a hop variety by name in an ad in the 1950s, though they don’t actually identify it as such. The slogan, “Only Ballantine Ale brews Brewer’s Gold into Genuine Golden Ale Flavor,” further suggests they were the only American brewer using it.
The Marin Institute is at it again. Today, they published a shiny color-coded map showing how — and I love this bit of doublespeak — “State Governments Neglect Beer Taxes.” The press release goes on to suggest that “inflation has decreased the value of low beer taxes, while state budget shortfalls have exploded.” Of course, that argument can be made for every single tax in existence, from sales tax to income tax yet they’re not crying about those not being raised. Everything is effected by inflation, yet it’s alcohol taxes that must bear the burden for that. And I’ve said it before, and I guess I have to keep saying it, but trying to make alcohol pay for the state’s shortfalls is not in the least bit fair. Alcohol companies didn’t cause the problems we’re all experiencing, yet these neo-prohibitionists keep insisting they must disproportionally pay to fix them. Whatever fixes are imposed should be paid by everyone, not just the convenient target of an extremist anti-alcohol organization.
This neglect, they claim, has “[l]egislators ignoring a lot of revenue their states could use right now.” They neglect, naturally, to factor in all of the direct and indirect positive economic contributions that the alcohol industry makes to our economy, one of the few industries growing and providing jobs. Instead, they suggest punishing and harming the alcohol industry to, and here’s a telling quote, “prevent future losses.” That presupposes that these taxes are somehow ordained from on high, sacrosanct and absolutely necessary. But are they? Not in the least. The taxes they’re referring to are excise taxes, taxes no other industry except tobacco has to pay. Alcohol companies already pay more taxes than any other goods manufacturing industry in the country. The notion that they have to be adjusted for inflation is something these yahoos just made up because they don’t like alcohol. The maps are very colorful and utterly useless.
These excise taxes are patently unfair and always have been since they were first imposed during the Civil War to raise money for the Northern Army. That they’re taken for granted and most people believe there’s a good reason for them has more to do with anti-alcohol propaganda and decades of ceaseless attacks painting alcohol as a sin. Today’s reason du jour for the continued excise taxes is usually stated as alcohol is somehow duty-bound to pay for any harm caused by people abusing the products they make and sell. This argument, of course, doesn’t stand up to the simplest logic. Not everybody abuses alcohol, of course, and the percentage that do so are in a very small minority of the total number of people who regularly drink.
Still, this notion persists that the industry must pay for a small percentage of alcohol abusers. But if it’s about the harm, then why aren’t soda and fast food manufacturers taxed similarly for the burden they place on our healthcare system. People over-eating surely has made many people unhealthy and their medical bills far higher than people who eat a healthier diet. Why don’t they have to pay for the harm they cause? Why don’t pharmaceutical companies get taxed for the harm caused by people who abuse their prescription drugs? Why don’t gun and bullet makers have to pay for the violence caused by their products? I could go on and on. Almost everything causes harm if abused, but only alcohol has to pay for it, apparently.
What’s most pernicious about these recent attacks by anti-alcohol groups is that they’re simply seizing an opportunity caused by the economic downturn to advance an agenda that has little to do with what caused our economic woes. They’re essentially just stoking people’s fears to further their own agenda of removing alcohol from society by taxing it to death and figuring people will go along with it if they step up their lying to them about it at a time when we’re all worried about the future. It’s quite frankly, disgraceful.
In other recent news, the California state legislature did not approve Jim Beall’s latest attempt to punish alcohol with his nickel-a-drink tax that’s come up several times before and will continue to be brought up until the people of San Jose finally get smart enough to vote him out of office. Jim Beall is like a rabid dog that just won’t quit nipping at alcohol’s heels.
The Marin Institute’s chief flack, Bruce Lee Livingston quipped after its most recent defeat. “How in good conscience … can these public servants vote no or even worse abstain on this bill? It’s a travesty; whose interests are they representing?” Well, listen up, I’ll tell you. A nickel-a-drink sounds like a modest proposal, but it’s not. It would greatly raise the price of alcohol, especially beer, and even though I know that’s your real goal, it harms a healthy segment of the economy at a time when there are fewer and fewer healthy segments left. Legislators understand that. You do not, because you don’t care about the economy if it means alcohol continues to prosper. You only care about causing the alcohol industry harm. So it helps the interests of business, something pretty important if raising money is the goal so everyone in California can prosper. To you, it seems like a fine time to attack alcohol, but to people who really do care about the state’s economy, not so much. You also keep going on about big beer, but this harms 200 small breweries, many of which are Mom & Pop businesses just trying to make a living and feed their families, not giant behemoths.
Voting against it also helps the interests of the poor, who buy a lot of the beer, especially when Beall’s bill exempts 79% of wineries. The fee (or tax) is regressive, meaning it falls disproportionally on the poorest Californians. The bill also funds healthcare facilities to treat alcohol and drug abuse. Drugs, you may not realize, are not made in breweries, so asking alcohol companies to pay for pharmaceutical abuse is not exactly fair. In addition, the $700 million (still only 3.5% of the state deficit) you claim will help the budget won’t do any such thing if all or a portion is being used for these treatment facilities. Those are in addition to balancing the budget.
Sadly, the bill, “AB 1694 will be re-considered in the Assembly Health Committee on April 6.” And so it goes ….
Monday’s ad is a 1955 ad for Schlitz with the oddball slogan “Your thirst can ‘feel‘ the difference.”
File this under news of the weird. According to the UK’s The Sun, the European Patent Office had to reverse their decision denying a company the right to produce a beer called Fucking Hell, when they were able to prove that Fucking is a real town in Austria. Or rather village, since there are only 104 people who live in Fucking, which is just 2-1/2 miles from the German border.
According to Wikipedia,
It is believed that the settlement was founded around the 6th century by Focko, a Bavarian nobleman. The existence of the village was documented for the first time in 1070 and historical records show that some twenty years later the lord was Adalpertus de Fucingin. The spelling of the name has evolved over the years; it is first recorded in historical sources with the spelling as Vucchingen in 1070, Fukching in 1303, Fugkhing in 1532, and in the modern spelling Fucking in the 18th century, which is pronounced with the vowel oo as in book. The ending -ing is an old Germanic suffix indicating the people of the root word to which it is attached; thus Fucking means “(place of) Focko’s people.”
Brewery spokesman Stefan Fellenberg said they plan to brew a Helles style beer. After years of trying on vain to keep people from stealing their town’s sign, and engaging in intercourse either in front of it or in town, the village instead decided to cash in instead. They may have gotten the idea from nearby Wank Mountain residents, who gave them some advice recently. Frankly, I can’t really blame them, though no doubt the U.S. will never give label approval. Guns and violence, yes. Sex, never. Even the Sun piece wouldn’t print either the word Fucking or Wank even though they’re legitimate place names. I’m constantly amazed at how utterly fearful we are about just … words.
Here’s another humorous addition about the signs in the village. “One version of the sign features the village name with an additional sign beneath it, with the words “Bitte — nicht so schnell!”, which translates from German into English as “Please — not so fast!” The lower sign – which features an illustration of two children — is meant to inform drivers to watch their speed, but tourists see this as a double-meaning coupled with the village name.”
Today’s work of art is by a local artist, from nearby Sonoma County, by the name of Tom Payne. He’s embarked on a series of beer paintings, at least one of which has appeared in All About Beer magazine. So far, five paintings in his Beer Series have been completed, with more promised to follow. I think my favorite so far is Jack o’ the Green.
Here’s how Payne describes the painting:
Then came Mad Lloyd’s Jack o’ the Green Summer Ale. A parade festival of sorts, including the Green Man, the Lord of Misrule (whose appearance at a Summertide Festival caused me no end of cognitive dissonance), an alligator playing a trombone and various other parts and parcels.
But a close second has to be Mad Lloyd’s Tumultuous Uproar Imperial Stout, see below.
That was the second beer painting an in essence the one that set Payne down the path. All his work has a great, surreal quality, reminiscent of Max Ernst or the much earlier Hieronymus Bosch. There are lots of mysterious, fun details painted throughout every nook and cranny of each work.
Here’s a part of his biography, taken up starting with his arrival in Sonoma.
I moved to Sonoma County and started oil painting late in 2002, taking a few classes at the Santa Rosa Junior College to get things rolling. I discovered that oil is “where it’s at.” Pen & ink has always been the thing, but oil is the blastocyst, no question.
I am “interested in the spaces between line and form, real and imaginary, accident and purpose, defined and mysterious–figures that turn into landscapes and landscapes that become figures” it says here… how odd. I see things wrong (I also hear things wrong), and that’s what the “deal” is apparently.
I still draw and paint and make wine and wander about. Time continues to become a burgeoning apparatus. The wild turkeys are closing in and there is very little time left of time. So we may as well “do right” and “come about” in the appropriate manner.
Blah blah, crappy crap. And cetera. Aliusque tambien.
There’s much more at Payne’s website, Eyeball Press, where you can see galleries of paintings, and big paintings along with drawings and much else. He also sells his own work and takes commissions, too.
And here’s one more beer painting, Too Many Secrets Porter.
Our eleventh Guinness poster by John Gilroy is another “My Goodness, My Guinness” one, this time featuring a crane about to snatch another construction worker’s Guinness.
Friday’s ad is for Miller High Life from 1952 and features a female golfer and the tagline “The Lady Chooses.” I love the hat with tees in them, and did you notice she’s wearing a golf glove on both hands.
Steve McDaniel and the folks trying to launch Oakland Brewing Co. have some good news. They’ve found a location, finally. It’s the Old Cottonmill building at 1010 22nd Avenue in Oakland. It looks like a great old brick building with some history to it. As Steve is quick to remind me, they still have a very long way to go before the building can be turned into a working brewery, but if their luck holds they hope to have beer in the market by the end of 2010.
The building, I’m told, is located “a short diagonal off Livingston Street (terminating at I-880), which intersects Embarcadero where Quinn’s Lighthouse sits, just northwest from Coast Guard Island. Once you’re on 22nd Ave, drive toward the freeway and the building will be on your right … if you hit Numi Tea at I-880, you’ve gone too far. Irish Monkey Cellars, who make a fine Cabernet Franc, is right in that same area too.”
You can see more photos of the building at their website.
If you’re like me, you don’t know all that much about the beer market in South Africa. In today’s Business Week, however, there was an interesting article about the market and how Heineken is going after the market leader, SABMiller. (Thanks to Anat for pointing this out.) You probably knew the SAB part of SABMiller got its start in South Africa, having been founded as South African Breweries in 1895, with Castle Lager as their best-selling beer. The article, entitled Heineken Targeting SABMiller’s Beer ‘Monopoly’ in South Africa, gives some interesting tidbits about that market. For example: