There’s a nice article by the nutrition correspondent for Ask Men, Simon McNeil, entitled The Health Benefits of Beer. There’s no new ground covered, but he does offer a good overview of recent findings showing that beer is healthier for us — in moderation of course — than previously believed. It’s also great to see that message get some play in a mainstream magazine.
Odonata Website Launched
Sacramento’s newest brewery, Odonata Beer. Co. — recently founded by formed Sacramento Brewing’s Peter Hoey and former DRAFT magazine beer director Rick Sellers — has just launched their new website, which for months has been essentially wallpaper. For updates, there’s also the brewery blog, too. You can also get a look at the now-approved label for what they hope will become their flagship beer, Saison Ale. It’s great to see things moving forward. Hopefully there will be beer to fill the bottles with those label very soon.
The Cult of Beers Next Session Topic
Our next Session is a little less than three weeks away, but it’s not to early to start thinking about it. The topic chosen by our host, 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 how our host, Sean Inman, describes the topic:
With Kate the Great Day a recent memory and the day of the Dark Lord fast approaching, 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 get cracking, get yourself a cult beer and start working on your own cult of personality. Then reveal it and get found on Friday, April 2 over at the Beer Search Party.
National Action Alert: Help Craft Brewers Reduce Taxes
If you’re a regular Bulletin reader, you’ve already seen me rant about how unfairly taxes are levied on the brewing industry, who has to pay more taxes than any other product sold in America, except tobacco. With the help and support of the Brewers Association, H.R. 4278 has been introduced into thee U.S. House of Representatives seeking a redress of those egregious taxes. The BA has issued a national action alert, asking beer lovers everywhere to contact their elected officials to ask them to co-sponsor the bill. Here’s the press release:
Federal legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 4278 (link opens a PDF), seeks to enact a reduction in beer excise tax for America’s small brewers.
For small brewers brewing less than 6 million barrels annually, this legislation would cut the small brewer tax rate in half, to $3.50/barrel on the first 60,000 barrels, and reduce the upper tax rate from $18/barrel to $16/barrel on beer production above 60,000 barrels up to 2 million barrels.
Of the 1,525 breweries in America, 962 are brewpubs and 470 are the smallest bottling breweries, which produce volumes of 15,000 barrels of beer a year or less and sell their beers in local markets. Once barrel equals about 13.8 cases of beer.
The original small brewer tax rate of $7/barrel was established in 1976 and has never been updated. Since then, the annual U.S. production of America’s largest brewery increased from about 45 million to 107 million barrels and over 200 million barrels globally (or 1,240,000,000 five-gallon batches of homebrew!). Much has changed and the challenges small brewers face as small American businesses have grown dramatically since 1976.
Why is this a good idea?
- A tax reduction will help grow small business breweries and provide greater access to the beers you enjoy.
- Harvard University’s John Friedman’s study, Economic Impact of Small Brewers Excise Tax Reduction (H.R. 4278), (link opens a PDF), reveals that H.R. 4278 would also help stimulate job creation quickly and at a low cost:
- The bill would generate more than 2,700 new jobs over the first year to 18 months, followed by an average of 375 new jobs per year over the following four years.
Please contact your U.S. Representative and ask that he/she sign on as a co-sponsor of H.R. 4278.
We have developed a resource page to give you the information and tools you need to make the case to your Representative for supporting this tax relief measure—and by extension, for supporting the small brewery businesses that are such a vital part of our local communities.
On the resource page, you will find a link to a list of current sponsors of H.R. 4278. If your Representative DOES NOT appear on this list, please take a moment and email your Member of Congress to ask them to cosponsor H.R. 4278.
If your Representative is already a cosponsor, please email him/her a brief thank you for their support of small brewers and you, the craft beer drinker and enthusiast.
Here’s some links to help you find out who your elected officials are so you know who to contact:
- Contacting the Congress
- Project Vote Smart
- U.S. House of Representatives official website
- U.S. Senate official website
- Who Is My Representative?
Okay, people get contacting. Your brewers thank you.
Food Hates You, Too
Every Sunday I take the kids to the library. I’m a voracious reader, and I’m grateful to an aunt, and to some extent my mother, for instilling in me that passion for books and literature. So it’s very important to me that I try to do the same for my own kids, and so far they both love books. Last Sunday, my daughter Alice picked out a book called Food Hates You, Too and Other Poems by Robert Weinstock.
The cover alone was reason enough, but some of the poems are pretty funny. My kids are also following in my food phobic footsteps and are very picky eaters. I’m better now — not exactly cured — but my Mom would be spinning in her grave if she knew all the foods I’ve eaten since I moved out of her house.
So the titular poem Food Hates You, Too is a pretty funny concept about how some of the food we don’t like might hate us, too.
The opening stanza:
If everyone hates different foods,
Then couldn’t it be true
That creamed chipped beef dislikes Gertrude,
And liver gags on Lou.
And here’s the final two quatrains:
If cotton candy, apple pie,
And french fries looked at you
And said, “Gross! Blecchh! Nope, I won’t try.
I’ll never like it. Ew!I’m sure you’d say, “Hey! That’s no fair!
Give me a chance! You should
Just try me. Pretty please? I swear!!
With sugar on top …? I’m good!”
There are maybe two dozen fun poems for kids in the book, most of them about food. The Cheese Sonnet is great and so is a short one about two pieces of Toast named Ned and Fred. But I’ll leave you with a final poem entitled Doughnuts.
I go nuts for doughnuts,
All tingles from Pringles
And swoony from bacon,
If I’m not mistaken.
Indeed I do.
Beer In Art #69: Alex Caldwell’s Typographic Beer Destinations
Today’s work of art was originally created while Alex Caldwell was still in college, a project presumably for one of his classes at Philadelphia University. It’s called Typographic Beer Destinations and tells the story in type of a journey from home to Philadelphia.
But not just any journey, a trip involving stops at beer destination every ten minutes along the way. And like any great journey, it begins with someone calling “shotgun.” Here’s the story of the work:
This assignment was to simply create a poster with directions from our home (Central New Jersey for myself) to Philadelphia. I themed it around the idea of getting a beer every ten minutes at a different bar along the way. I tried to convey the idea of a drunken night by making it jumbled and somewhat confusing. I also threw in some random things that one might have said in this adventure. All the directions are there though.
Click through to see the image much larger. Especially check out the warning label, which reads:
Government Warning: (1) The artist does not condone drinking and driving. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems. (3) If drinking, get a designated driver and make sure to call shotgun.
You can also buy a copy of the print, in three different sizes.
Caldwell graduated the year after he made this, and freelances at his own Caldwell Designs. You call also see more of his work at his DeviantArt gallery.
Guinness Ad #9: It’s A Poor Fish
Our ninth Guinness poster by John Gilroy features a frustrated goldfish who can’t reach a pint of Guinness just outside his fishbowl. Under the “Guinness For Strength” banner, it also uses the curious tagline. “It’s a poor fish that never has a Guinness.”
Redesign Newcastle’s Label
Whatever your feelings about Newcastle Brown Ale, it is perceived as one of the classic English brown ales and its label is one of the most recognizable.
So I was surprised to see that Newcastle is sponsoring a contest to redesign their iconic label. The contest is known as Your Beer Your Label and gives you two ways to create a new label, either using their online label generator or download a template and have at it with your favorite graphics software (or at least Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop).
The Online Design Tool is actually pretty fun to use and you can do quite a bit of manipulation using it, as evidenced by the many submitted designs.
Unfortunately, the contest ends tomorrow, so if you want to play around or submit your own, you better get cracking.
Though you can still look at the submitted designs and vote for your favorite until the end of March.
Though in the end I wish they were going to do a run of bottles with the winner’s design or, better still, with the top few vote-getters. I think that would have been cool. But instead all the winners get is displayed on Newcastle’s website which seems like a pretty poor payoff for all the effort.
Oh, well, perhaps it’s just as well, as despite some very cool label designs submitted, the label below is currently at the top of the heap with the most votes cast. I guess that either says something about human nature or the demographics of Newcastle drinkers.
Beer In Ads #64: Miller High Life Witch
Friday’s ad is for Miller High Life featuring the “Girl in the Moon,” which was originally created in the early 1900’s by an unknown artist. The beer itself debuted in 1903 and was advertised with the girl in the moon from the beginning, though to me she looks more like a witch. I think it’s that hat. It’s rumored that the model for her was brewery founder Frederick Miller’s granddaughter. But I’ve always liked the stylized, colorful costume she wears.
And here’s another one featuring her.
Backlash Brewing In Pennsylvania
After the furor caused by the state police raids on three Philadelphia bars, and a subsequent raid on a beer distributor, there does appear to be a backlash coming. Several people predicted that was one possible outcome — I believe Don and Lew both mentioned it — and now it may indeed be playing out that way. In a new report posted today by Don Russell and Bob Warner, Beer-Raid Flap Coming to a Head, Hearing Ordered, it appears that the state legislature has scheduled a joint hearing (of the House Liquor Control Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee) for April 13 to look into the matter.
From the article:
“We’re scared,” one bar owner told the Daily News. “I’ve instructed my staff to match every beer we get delivered with the PLCB’s list of registered brands. If it’s not on the list, we’re not going to take delivery.”
Sources told the Daily News that several beer distributors in other parts of the state had been visited by State Police in search of unregistered beer.
As I’ve opined before, this is creating a culture of fear among legitimate business people and that’s not something our government should be doing, especially under the economic duress of today. Lew Bryson has even set up a new Facebook page, Abolish the PLCB-Rewrite the Code. After a few short hours there were nearly 3,000 members. Even if you’re not from Pennsylvania, join it and show the world that we’re tired of arcane alcohol laws and they need to be changed.
There’s also a new separate account by Patrick Walters of the Associated Press, Brew-haha Frothing Over Philly Bar Raids.