The English version of the Chinese newspaper, The People’s Daily, had an interesting article about international breweries investing heavily in the world’s biggest beer market: China. Entitled, Big Brewers Fermenting Deals in Southwest, it details, for example, how MolsonCoors has “recently spent $40 million to buy a 51 percent stake in a new joint venture with the Hebei Si’hai Beer Company.” Coors Light “now accounts for 10 percent of China’s premium beer market.” Carlsberg is making similar investments, and Anheuser-Busch InBev “started work on a new brewery in Ziyang, Sichuan province, this year.” And that’s just in the southern part of China. It’s a big market.
New Hopyard Planted In Wisconsin
Matt Sweeny, from Fatty Matty Brewing, a homebrewing and craft beer website, announced yesterday that he’s started a small hop farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin, named Simple Earth Hops.
From the press release:
Simple Earth Hops is a new 1/4 acre hopyard located at Greenspirit Farm CSA in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. The hopyard was founded with the idea of providing a much needed agricultural product for local craft brewers. Simple Earth Hops was established to demonstrate that local farmers can produce a consistent, sustainable supply of ultra high quality hops by working directly with local craft brewers while still maintaining a focus on ecology, the land and the people involved.
“Craft beer producers have made it clear that they desire a local source of hops. Simple Earth Hops will address this need for a local sustainable supply of hops by small locally owned craft beer producers.”
Raising the trellises.
Look for Simple Earth Hops to elaborate more on the details of a Grand Opening hopyard tour/beer tasting event in late July, 2010 and for the hopyard harvest tour & beer tasting in early Fall, 2011.
Funding for Simple Earth Hops is provided in part by a 2009 NCR-SARE (USDA) grant. This small-scale commercial hopyard has been established by the Sweeny family of Dodgeville, Wisconsin who slowly grow earth friendly hops for local brewers with similar locavore ethics.
The hop trellises on Greenspirit Farms.
Ontario Declares Santa Claus Only For Kids
According to the Canadian National Post (sent in by an alert reader — thanks Brian S.), the LCBO — the Liquor Control Board of Ontario — has banned the Christmas beer Samichlaus, from Schloss Eggenberg. Here’s the reason, if you can even call it that.
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has decided the beer’s label contravenes rules against advertising to children. It features the name of the beer, Samichlaus, a Swiss-German nickname for the saint behind the Santa Claus legend, and a small black-and-white bearded figure.
It’s apparently a violation of “section 1(4) of the commission’s advertising guidelines, which prohibits liquor packaging aimed at children.”
But the notion that Santa Claus, and by extension Christmas itself, is exclusively the domain of children is absurd on its face. But set that aside for a moment, and look at the label. Have you ever seen a less kid-friendly label? Nothing pulls in kids like a brown label, almost devoid of holiday colors. And the image of Santa Claus they believe puts children at risk? As the article suggests, the label’s image looks more like an “old fisherman [o]r a weather-beaten hobo.” I just see an old man with a beard and a nondescript hat; anything but someone kids would be drawn to the dark side over. How could any reasonable person look at that label and conclude it’s “aimed” at marketing to children?
Of course, Santa Claus — or St. Nicholas — is also the patron saint of brewers and the brewery only makes Samichlaus once a year, on December 6, which is his saint’s feast day.
I’m not sure why this issue keeps coming up, apart from some people seem to have some very strange ideas about who Christmas is for and who gets to decide. And that brings us back to this idea that Santa Claus somehow only appeals to children and is not for adults. I don’t know who the adults are who feel this way, but they must be some of the least empathetic, most stingy, unfeeling curmudgeonly people on the planet because for me the spirit of Santa Claus is about giving, regardless of age. I’m 51, a devout non-believer, and I love Christmas and especially the idea of Santa Claus. And I know I’m not alone on this one.
What’s perhaps most unsettling, is that the entire province has been mobilized to eradicate this scourge of Samichlaus based on a “single complaint from a private person.” Yes, that’s right. One person didn’t like the label and now the rest of the people in the province will be deprived this great beer. Nice going, jackass. This seems to keep happening — in the UK, Philly, San Diego and elsewhere — where the opinion of one person seems to matter more than the collective sensibilities of a whole community or society.
In an earlier post, I referred to this as the “tyranny of the minority,” but perhaps the better question is why government agencies spring into action over just one complaint? With a large population and just a single (or even just a few complaints) shouldn’t the silence of the many be taken into account, too? Ontario has an estimated population of just over 13 million people (as of last year) yet access to a (very good) product has been removed from the entire population because one guy didn’t like it. This is not how decisions should be made in a democracy or even in a “federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.”
Beer In Ads #118: Schlitz Move Up To Quality
Thursday’s ad is for Schlitz, I think from the late 1950s. The slogan, “Move up to quality — Move up to Schlitz!” Is it just me or is that hand the reason they now use hand models? And check out the swanky cuff link of a fish the guy is wearing.
New York Times Features Beer Stores
Today’s New York Times has a great little article extolling the virtues of beer tasting bars, beer stores with tasting licenses allowing them to have limited taps and sample customers on the beers they carry. The story, Tastings With Craft Beers, features two Bay Area beer stores, Beer Revolution in Oakland, and City Beer Store in San Francisco, both terrific, relatively new, additions to the Bay Area beer scene. City Beer Store opened in 2006, while the Beer Revolution began this past February, during SF Beer Week.
If you haven’t been to either, now would be a good time to go. City Beer Store was founded by Craig Wathen, who formerly was with Pete’s Wicked Ales, and his wife Beth. They’ve created a cozy space on Folsom packed with over 300 beers, many of them hard-to-find elsewhere, and also managed to make the space comfortable and inviting.
Oakland’s Beer Revolution was started this year by Rebecca Boyles and Fraggle (a.k.a. Mark Martone — I didn’t even know Fraggle’s real name until just now!). I featured the pair in a long article I did on “Beer Geeks” for beer Advocate magazine several years ago. For them, this is a passion realized, a dream made real. In a larger space than their city doppelganger, Beer Revolution has a dozen taps and many, many bottles for sale. Both stores are constantly doing small, intimate in-store tastings and events.
The other three stores mentioned are all in Oregon, including the iconic Belmont Station in Portland. Only a few years ago, stores like these were a rarity, but their presence has been growing by leaps and bounds lately, and that’s great news for beer lovers.
Beer In Ads #117: Pabst Good Old-Time Flavor
Wednesday’s ad is for Pabst, since they’ve been in the news lately. Since the ad is so retro, trying to evoke an earlier time, I can’t be sure when exactly it was created, though my wild guess is sometime between the 1950s and 70s. But it’s certainly meant to mimic the ads of the later 1800s.
A-B InBev To Sell Off British Beer Brands
The Times of London is reporting that Anheuser-Busch InBev is looking for buyers to sell off some of its most iconic British beer brands, including Bass, Boddington’s and Flowers. In the article, Buyer Sought for Beer That Britain Forgot, it appears the asking price for Bass is £10-15 million ($15-21 million in dollars), though that apparently “excludes both the trademark and international rights.”
But it doesn’t look good, overall. From the Times article:
Despite its fame and longevity, Bass is now a minuscule part of the world’s biggest brewer, with volumes equating to a tiny fraction of the amount sold in its heyday in the 1980s. The brand, now brewed under contract by Marston’s, a rival brewer, which owns Pedigree ale, has suffered from a combination of lack of marketing investment and falling consumer demand as its multinational owner has focused increasingly on its global lager brands.
Boddingtons, too, has declined under AB InBev’s hands. The brand was once a leading part of the old Whitbread Beer Company, but its fortunes have dwindled since the closure in 2005 of the Strangeways brewery in Manchester, where it had been brewed since the late 18th century.
Despite the long history of the brands that AB InBev is looking to sell, finding a buyer could prove tricky. Obvious suitors including Marston’s, Wells & Young’s, Molson Coors and C&C Group are understood to have ruled themselves out.
Pabst Sale Update
Additional information about the recently announced sale of Pabst Brewing by billionaire C. Dean Metropoulos is seeping out, and again primarily the information is coming from Harry Schuhmacher, from Beer Business Daily (proving once again everyone in the beer business should subscribe to his daily newsletter).
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the sale price to Metropoulos is $250 million. They also claim that the “deal is ‘in its final stages’ and is being backed by GE Capital. MillerCoors will presumably continue to brew the beers for Pabst, since their contract isn’t up for renewal until 2015.”
Perhaps most frightening, and clear proof that Pabst won’t become a more sophisticated brand under the new management:
The Journal says that Metroupoulos’ two sons, Evan 29, and Daren 26, “are expected to play key roles at Pabst.” These two guys are men about town for sure. The New York Times society columnist describes meeting them at a party where they were lounging on a couch. When the writer didn’t know who they were, Evan reportedly said, “Where you been, man? I’ve been on David Letterman and Howard Stern … I’ve been with more chicks than any fat guy you know, except Pavarotti.”
Wow, classy. But then again, it is PBR. Beer Business Daily also had a lengthy update with more information yesterday that’s worth taking a look at.
Beer In Ads #116: Birra Metzger
Tuesday’s ad is for an Italian brewer, Birra Metzger, from Torino. They were founded in 1848 but closed in 1975. The ad is from the 1920s.
Beer Sophistication
Chris Ballard, a beer blogger, has an interesting piece up that he wrote for Blog Critics, Beer is More Sophisticated Than Wine, where he brings together many of the arguments that people have made over the years to showcase beer’s sophistication, especially as compared with wine. I’m not sure it’s necessary to take on wine. That beer is more complex is at this point almost a given. But still, it’s a nice little rant. The only thing I disagree with is his assertion that Plato is an I.P.A. man. Everyone knows Plato preferred whisky. “Plato, they say, could stick it away—Half a crate of whisky every day.”