Oakland’s newest beer store is set to open today. Beer Revolution, located at 464 3rd Street in Oakland, just off Broadway. Co-owners Rebecca and Fraggle plan to open the doors today at Noon. Stop by and check it out. Better yet, pick up a few bottles to let them know you support better beer stores.
Thursday’s ad is for Baltimore’s National Bohemian. There’s not much info about the ad, though I’m guessing based on the indistinct background that it’s more late-50s to early 60s. I love the cartoony bartender (The Natty Boh mascot Mr. Boh, from the 1950s to the present) with the clean, empty bar showing the slide down to the unseen patron at the end of the bar.
I don’t recall who originally Tweeted this, but I believe it was one of the Alströms, either Todd or Jason, so thanks to whichever one of you passed along these interesting Super Bowl statistics. The statistics I’m talking about came from the NielsenWire, the same folks that tally who watches which TV shows. While it’s believed by most people that the Super Bowl is a huge revenue generator for alcohol, especially beer, and snack foods, it would appear that’s not actually the case. In fact, the Super Bowl weekend actually ranks seventh. According to Nielsen’s research, 9 in 10 Will Watch Super Bowl at Home; Most will Spend the Same or Less on Food and Beverages. According to the data, 90% of everyone who watches the Saints and Colts vie for the Lombardi trophy this Sunday will be either at home or a friend/relative’s house. Of those, 95% are planning on buying less beer and food. That’s welcome news for grocery stores but not so good for bars, brewpubs and restaurants.
Here’s the breakdown of where people will watch the Super Bowl.
Here’s a chart of football watching spending. Sadly, crackers outsell my beloved potato chips.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, SF Beer Week starts tomorrow. It feels like we’ve been working around the clock — and in the case of a few that’s literally true — to get this party started. I can hardly believe it myself. We’re past 200 events at this point, and all of them are great-looking, not a dog in the bunch. That’s roughly a one-third increase in events. I’ll be doing my best to get to two or three events each day. If see me out and about, please say hello.
Wednesday’s ad is for Carling Black Label and it from 1960. Is it the glass that’s making the beer look somewhat odd, or something else? The tagline is interesting, “People try it … and they like it.” Isn’t that a bit too close to Alka-Seltzer’s famous “Try It, You’ll Like It” slogan that ran beginning in 1971?
Today is another anniversary, this time for beer in Hawaii. The first recorded brewing of beer in Hawaii took place on February 2, 1812. So Tuesday’s ad is for Primo Beer, one from 1958, the year before Hawaii became a state.
You can see more about Hawaii Brewing at the online Hawaiian Beverage Museum. Below, while not exactly an ad, is a cool poster showing the evolution of Primo Beer labels and packages from 1943 to the present.
Click through the image to see the poster larger.
I stopped by Russian River Brewing today, because my friend Pete Slosberg told me last week that he would be there for the first bottling of Consecration in the new proprietary 375ml bottles. Pete was there with a few volunteers, including Peter Estaniel, from A Better Beer Blog.
The new bottle was developed for exclusive use by Russian River Brewing, along with North Coast Brewing and the Lost Abbey. So for now, those will be the only breweries you”ll see using this new bottle.
This is the third beer to be bottled by Russian River in the new bottles. The first two were Supplication and Temptation.
In other exciting Russian River news, the brewery is about to go off the grid, and go completely solar. One-half of the production brewery’s roof has solar panels already installed and the second half has the frames laid down, waiting for the panels. It may go live as early as this weekend and should power all of the brewery’s electricity needs.
Below is a short video of Consecration moving through the bottling line.
Below are some photos from today’s visit to the brewery.
Here is a slideshow of the Consecration bottling. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.
Marin Brewing released their newest beer, an herbal beer made in collaboration with San Anselmo herbalist Dr. Yen-Wei Choong. He runs the Yellow Emperor Natural Healing Center and Zen Garden and has been involved with Chinese herbs all his life. For the last twenty, he’s been working on just the right combination of herbs to improve beer, and make more balanced from the perspective of Chinese medicine.
Brewmaster Arne Johnson started with his E.S.B. as the base beer. To that, he added 38 pounds of the proprietary mix of Chinese herbs that Dr. Choong created. The nose was subtle herbs, almost gruit-like. The flavors were soft and also subtle, in a good way. The herbs were there but never overpowered the beer, and in fact the two integrated together quite well. It was smooth and easy drinking, almost like a session beer, though I believe the beer is around 5.5% a.b.v. A tasty collaboration.
Marin Brewing owner Brendan Moylan, Dr. Yen-Wei Choong and Brewmaster Arne Johnson.
For now, the beer is draft only and will be at several events and places during SF Beer Week. They’ve submitted a label for approval, so it may be available in bottles eventually.
Given that today is the 70th anniversary of Champion Brewing changing their name to Lone Star, it seemed only appropriate for Monday’s ad to be for Lone Star Beer. And it’s an odd one, in several ways. I’m guessing from the art that it was published in the late 50-early 60s. Are the couple at the beach? At night? It looks like a starry background and possibly ocean waves, but it’s awfully bright. Must be a full moon. There are a couple of humorous taglines. First, they’re “now in GLASS cans!” That’s an interesting way to market Stubbies. I knew that Stubbies were created by glass manufacturers to compete with the popularity of cans, but I hadn’t heard that so nakedly admitted in an ad before. And Lone Star claims to be the first “Certified Quality Beer,” with the footnote reading “Certified ‘As Fine A Beer As Is Brewed In The World,'” whatever that means. But the real crack-up is just how happy they seem to be with their food. The main tagline might be “have FUN with your thirst..,” but they’re looking at that sandwich and especially the hot dog way too longingly.
Today begins the 8th annual Strong Beer Month once more, with six new extreme beers each at 21st Amendment and Magnolia throughout February. Try them all, and you get to keep the commemorative glass. To see a list of the twelve beers, check out the Strong Beer Month website. This year’s theme is the wild west and specifically High Noon.
