Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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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.

Print

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.

Boycott UPS For Refusing To Ship Beer

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ups
Wow, this is one of those seriously WTF stories (thanks to Lisa Morrison for tweeting it). The Idaho Statesman has a disturbing little story entitled UPS, FedEx Side With Wine in Beer Battle by their beer columnist, Patrick Orr. To work yourself up into the proper lather, I recommend reading the whole column first.

But essentially, an internet beer retailer — Brewforia.com — after 18 months of uneventful UPS shipping asked UPS for a specific contract to ship to other retailers, beyind the regular customers he’d been shipping to all along. Instead, UPS “told him they weren’t going to deliver Brewforia products anymore — no matter if a state allows such deliveries direct to consumers or not — and were not going to offer a contract.”

Their website has an entire page on wine shipments and how they do them. UPS ships wine for countless online wine stores. Beer is mentioned just once, here:

UPS provides service for other alcoholic beverages (beer and alcohol) on a contract basis only. For shipments containing beer or alcohol, shippers must enter into an approved UPS agreement for the transportation of beer or alcohol as applicable, must be licensed and authorized under applicable law to ship beer and alcohol, and may ship only to licensed consignees. UPS does not accept shipments of beer or alcohol for delivery to consumers. UPS accepts shipments of beer or alcohol only among and between selected states.

According to the Idaho column:

“When asked why UPS will deliver wine and not beer, [Susan Rosenberg, a spokeswoman for UPS] said ‘that has just been a policy that we have had. It’s a program where our focus has been working with a number of licensed wine shippers.'” “For right now, UPS has chosen policy where beer contracts are for business-to-business shipments.”

UPS goes on with even more nonsensical gobbledygook:

Rosenberg said the issue is complicated by some states defining wine differently than beer and having different distribution requirements. UPS officials have been working with wine retailers for longer and don’t have any immediate plans to revisit their beer policy, Rosenberg said.

No, heaven forbid thy revisit their beer policy to bring it in line with the world in 2010. So the obvious answer now to “What Can Brown Do For You” is nothing if you’re beer, everything if you’re wine. That they utterly fail to see the hypocrisy in that is baffling, especially since they’re essentially throwing away money by their refusal to treat beer equally. It’s important to remember this is a policy decision, not a reaction to any law. Beer can be shipped to consumers in a majority of states, UPS has just chosen not to.

Personally, I think we need to organize a grassroots response and inundate UPS with just how ridiculous they’re being. Hypocrisy should not be rewarded.

A Beer With The Last Good Kiss

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reading-book
Because I write for a living, I take it seriously and am always trying to be a better writer. For that reason, I subscribe to several twitter feeds that offer suggestions and advice for writers. One recently linked to an interesting list, the 100 Best First Lines of Novels. Number one, of course, is “Call me Ishmael,” from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. It was fun to see what made the list, but I happened upon a book I’d never heard of with a very cool first line. The book is called The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley, written in 1978.

last-good-kiss

It made number 85 on the list, with the following first line:

When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.

One critic described Crumley’s writing as a “cross between Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson,” which puts him in good company as far as I’m concerned. Another account said “The Last Good Kiss has been described as “the most influential crime novel of the last 50 years” and yet I’d never heard of it. I was intrigued enough to order the book.

GoodKiss
For the Vintage paperback edition, Rick Lovell, did this great illustration with the alcoholic dog Fireball Roberts lapping up beer from an ashtray in a seedy looking motel. In case you’re curious, the painting on the back wall is La Grande Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, the original of which hangs in the Louvre. This could easily be included in my Beer In Art series.

Beer In Ads #59: Whitbread’s Here’s Health

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ad-billboard
Friday’s ad is for Whitbread beer, since that’s who I was writing about for this month’s Session post today. This one is from 1930 and fittingly features a boat on the water. “Ashore or Afloat WHITBREAD’S PALE ALE is the best Summer beverage.” The art has the same idealized look as the series that U.S. Brewers Foundation started in the late 1940s, Beer Belongs.

Whitbreads-Pale-Ale-1930

And here’s another from what looks to be the same series, though this one features a lunch setting.

Whitbread-Lunch-med

You can also see a larger, though watermarked, lunch ad and there’s also a third one from the series, this one in a canoe. Lastly, here’s a clearer, but again watermarked, version of the boat ad.