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ABI To Buy Modelo This Year

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grupo-modelo
Grupo Modelo is the largest beer company in Mexico, and their most popular beer, of course, is Corona. For many years, Anheuser-Busch has owned a non-controlling 50% share of the company, but after the InBev merger they own 50.2% but only 49.3% voting. And I think they’ve been coveting control for a long, long time and now they may finally get it.

Yesterday, Reuters had an item, AB InBev to Buy Modelo This Year, suggesting it’s likely a deal will go through, and will be completed later this year. The price tag looks to be about $10.8 billion. Earlier this year, Heineken bought FEMSA, Mexico’s second largest beer company. So if ABI buys Modelo, the majority of the country’s beer market will be owned by foreign companies, just like in the U.S.

PLCB Conducts Second Raid On Distributor

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pennsylvania
Pennsylvania’s beer scene appears on the brink of martial law, with the state police last night raiding one of the distributors who carries some of the beer confiscated earlier this week, such as Duvel. Don Russell has posted to his Beer Radar blog what is known so far, and promises to have a fuller account of the shenanigans tomorrow in the Daily News, again with reporting by him and Bob Warner. I’ll update this post with a link when it’s up.

From Beer Radar:

What we’re witnessing isn’t just bureaucratic incompetence or the result of outdated laws. This is an act of unrepentant arrogance. As one local restaurant operator remarked of the BLE [Bureau of Liquor Enforcement], “They don’t answer to anybody. They’re running amok.”

Stay tuned, this is only the beginning ….

Beer In Ads #61: Mr. Magoo For Stag Beer

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ad-billboard
Tuesday’s ad is for Stag Beer, whose original name was “Kaiser Beer” until 1907. In an effort to avoid growing anti-German sentiment, Star Brewing held a contest to pick a new name. A winner was chosen today in 1907, and the beer was renamed “Stag Beer.” It proved a very popular name. The ad below ran in a Pennsylvania newspaper in 1959. It features the popular UPA cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

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Mr. Magoo debuted in 1949 and was voiced by Jim Backus, perhaps most well-known as Thurston Howell III on the television series Gilligan’s Island.

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But being a cartoon, where Mr. Magoo really shined was in cartoon commercials for Stag.

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You have to love the cartoon of an adult character who’s allowed to act like an adult. That would never happen nowadays.

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Here’s an example of one of the Mr. Magoo ads for Stag Beer.

UK Creates New Ministry For Pubs

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pub-sign
How cool is this. The UK government has just created a new Ministry — similar to our cabinet positions — The Ministry for Pubs. Wentworth MP John Healey was named the firs Minister, and he had the following to say about his appointment.

“Pubs are often at the heart of community life. And they are important meeting places for many people. While we can’t stop every pub from closing it’s right we do everything possible to back them. But they need help now so I am determined to have a deal on the table with a package of practical help in the next few weeks.”

The Morning Advertiser has the full story, to which Drinks International added.

Mark Hastings. British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) director of communications said: “This is a clear sign of the strong public desire to see British pubs supported and the success of our campaign over the last year. We hope this means that pubs will now have a strategic place in Government policy making, and we are pleased that the agenda echoes so many of the priorities we have identified.

“We couldn’t wish for a better minister than John Healey as the voice for pubs within Government, and look forward to a positive, frank and constructive relationship with him in order to support this great British institution that is so important to the social and economic life of local communities.”

Can you imagine a cabinet post in the U.S. Secretary of Alcohol? Or Drinks Czar? It would give new meaning to the term, “member of the bar.”

Beer In Ads #60: Schlitz El Toro Bravo

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ad-billboard
Monday’s ad is for Schlitz Malt Liquor. I don’t ever remember the can looking so, well, stylish so I have to guess this is from the 60s? The pull-top is another clue, of course, as Schlitz introduced what they called the “pop-top” in 1963. Plus the stylized art looks rather bachelor pad circa mid-60s, too. Plus, I love those bold reds and blacks.

schlitz-toro-bravo

Beer Waterfall

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humor
In a scene straight out of a deranged adult version of Willy Wonka, the beer waterfall on the belated birthday card below arrived in my mailbox today.

beer-waterfall
The card was primarily the work of my friends Ray and Cornelia, both Beer Drinkers of the Year in separate years. But they took it along with them to Brewvival in Charleston, South Carolina and had a few more friends sign it, which was very cool of them. There were separate notes from Julie and Jason from Brusin’ Ales and also Patrick Rue, from the Bruery. Then there’s another birthday greeting from a name I can’t quite read, though the initials look like G.H. Of course, it’s the thought that counts and I really appreciated getting the card. Thanks guys!

But there was one more note, from the John Hancock of the signatories, big and bold. His (or her) message took up nearly the entire inside left side with the following: “I want to see this in your fucking blog!” So how could I refuse? If only I could figure out the identity of my mystery person. Here’s his signature below. Any guesses?

cheers-unknown

Craft Beer Numbers Up Again For 2009

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ba
The Brewers Association released the 2009 numbers for craft beer today, and I’m happy to report it’s good news again. While mainstream beer recently reported their largest negative sales period since the 1950s, craft beer in 2009 was up 7.2% by volume and 10.3% by dollars over the previous year. According to the press release, that represents “a growth of 613,992 barrels equal to roughly 8.5 million cases. Overall, U.S. beer sales were down approximately 5 million barrels (31 gallons per U.S. barrel) in 2009.”

From the press release:

In 2009, craft brewers represented 4.3 percent of volume and 6.9 percent of retail dollars for the total U.S. beer category. With the total U.S. beer industry representing an estimated retail dollar value of $101 billion, the Brewers Association estimates the actual dollar sales figure from craft brewers in 2009 was $7 billion, up from $6.3 billion in 2008.

The total number of U.S. craft brewers grew from 1,485 to 1,542 in 2009, and they produced 9,115,635 barrels, up from 8,501,713 barrels in 2008. Overall U.S. beer sales fell from approximately 210.4 million barrels to 205.8 million barrels.

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And here’s the BA’s updated fact sheet:

  • Growth of the craft brewing industry in 2009 was 7.2% by volume and 10.3% by dollars compared to growth in 2008 of 5.9% by volume and 10.1% by dollars.
  • Craft brewers sold an estimated 9,115,635 barrels of beer in 2009, up from 8,501,713 in 2008.
  • Overall, US beer sales were down 2.2% in 2009.
  • Imported beer sales were down 9.8% in 2009, equating to a loss of 2.8 million barrels.
  • The craft brewing sales share in 2009 was 4.3% by volume and 6.9% by dollars.
  • Craft brewer retail dollar value in 2009 was an estimated $6.86 billion, up from $6.32 billion in 2008.
  • 1,585 breweries operated for some or all of 2009, the highest total since before Prohibition.

Philly’s Beer Police State

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v-mask
If this doesn’t make you shudder, you’ve got eisbock running through your veins. It appears the Volstead Act is alive and well in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. According to an account of Pennsylvania’s Beer Storm Troopers entitled Troopers Raid Popular Bars for Unlicensed Beers, by Don Russell, with Bob Warner, earlier today in the Philadelphia Daily News. What happened was three Philadelphia bars were raided simultaneously, Swat team-style, looking to confiscate — gasp — unlicensed beer brands. The police raid netted a few hundred bottles of beer, much of it lawfully registered. The cops simply couldn’t find many of the beers on their list because the names didn’t match exactly. For example, they took bottles of Duvel because the bottle reads “Duvel Belgian Golden Ale” but the PLCB (Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board) has it listed as “Duvel Beer.”

Perhaps more unsettling is the raids were prompted by “a citizen complaint,” but authorities are refusing to reveal the complainant. Whatever happened to the right to face one’s accuser as guaranteed by the 6th Amendment? [As Andy Crouch, lawyer by day, points out, the 6th Amendment pertains to criminal proceedings, which this was not.] That aside, what possible motive might someone have? Jealous competitor? Rabid neo-prohibitionist? Annoyed neighbor? I’m perplexed.

From the article:

“No actual investigating was done,” [bar owner Leigh] Maida said in an e-mail to the Daily News. “The police sent a shoddily typed list to the PLCB, some drone fed it into the machine verbatim and returned what came back, without . . . even trying to offer us the benefit of the doubt by double-checking on some of the so-called unregistered beers.”

“My main beef with this whole convoluted situation is that the PLCB is the sole regulator of a set of products that they do not even know the names of,” she said.

The State Police has given the bar owners until this evening to prove the beer was licensed, in effect making them prove their innocence. So in this case they’re presumed guilty unless they can show otherwise. Am I missing something? Isn’t that supposed to be the other way around? Either way, the confiscated beer will be held for 6-8 months. Given that it’s unlikely it will be stored cool, most of it will likely be ruined in that time, anyway.

No matter how you slice this, it sure seems like we’ve stepped into some alternate universe where McCathyism is going strong, only its target is no longer Communism, but beer.

untouchables

UPDATE: Jack Curtin has some more information on this incident in the form of an e-mail from bar owner Leigh Maida with additional details.

UPDATE #2: Lew Bryson has some great stuff about the incident on his No PLCB Blog.

Beer In Art #68: Henry Singleton’s Ale-House Door

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art-beer
Today’s work of art was originally painted around 1790, when the English pub was a very different animal. It was created by Henry Singleton, a British artist who lived from 1766-1839. This painting, The Ale-House Door, is an oil on canvas painting roughly 10 x 12 inches, and the original can be found at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It’s also sometimes known by the title At the Inn Door.

Henry-Singleton_Ale-House-Door

The pub looks like it was probably called The Bell, though I’m just guessing based on the sign. According to my handy Dictionary of Pub Names, the Bell is a fairly common pub name owing to the idea that a “bell speaks all languages.”

You can read more about Singleton at his Wikipedia page and there’s a biography of him from the Grove Dictionary of Art, too. You can see a few more of his works at the Tate and there are more links at ArtCyclopedia.