Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished

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haiti
This is one of the many reasons I loathe the neo-prohibitionist groups. Perhaps you saw the press release from Anheuser-Busch, detailing how they, along with many others, are trying to do what they can to help the people of Haiti, who were devastated by the recent earthquake that hit their country. They sent cans of water, hastily filled at one of their breweries, as they’ve done during other similar emergencies (I recall they did the same for New Orleans after hurricane Katrina). They’ve had plenty of negative publicity lately — some even from me — so I wouldn’t think anyone would begrudge them trying to win back some positive vibes for what really amounts to doing the right thing. That’s really what we hope any of us would do under the circumstances.

bud-water

Except that you’d be wrong assume that no one would begrudge them. Those jolly folks at the Marin Institute wasted no time in admonishing Anheuser-Busch InBev, not for sending the water, but for using branded cans and for issuing a press release. In their own press release issued today, Help for Haiti Should Not be Branded, they claim that “most of these generous people are not putting out press releases about their good deeds.” I don’t know if that’s true and frankly, if those same people aren’t putting out press releases, then how can the Marin Institute claim to know about them or that they constitute a majority of the donations to Haiti’s disaster relief? How can they total up the anonymous donations that are, by definition, anonymous?

But they’re not done with their scolding. Next, they say most people making donations (of goods, one presumes) “are [not] branding their donated goods with their personal monikers” and asking the leading question “why does the beer behemoth need to brand the cans of this much-needed water with its corporate logo?” Well, I can think of one very good reason. Who would drink blank cans or cans just labeled “water.” I’d want to know where the water came from, who canned it to know if it was safe, etc. That just seems to be common sense. It would be counter-productive to can water with no information about its whereabouts or origins so people could judge its safety. I don’t want to go too far here, but a logo works better when not everyone speaks the same language, too. That way, even if people can’t read the can, they may recognize the logo and feel safer opening it as a result (though they may be disappointed it isn’t beer).

But the Marin Institute then concludes by saying ABIB’s efforts are “more than a tad distasteful,” calling their simple press release “bragging,” and suggesting that doing so “really does diminish your brand.” Wow. I thought there were no new depths that they could sink to in attacking alcohol, but boy, oh boy, was I ever wrong. So here we have a beer company who switches gears and spends their own money to create and donate much-needed water to Haiti. They have the apparent temerity to tell others what they’ve done, perhaps in part to inspire others to do likewise, and they also had the apparent gall to let the people they’re helping know who the water came from. Um, excuse me, but what exactly is the problem here? They helped. They did something. What exactly did the Marin Institute do to help the people of Haiti, apart from discouraging others from doing likewise, lest they also incur your misguided wrath. Or are you better than ABIB simply because whatever donations the Marin Institute gave were among the anonymous kind, you know, the better kinds of donations.

Do you honestly think the people Haiti give a rat’s ass where the donations came from? As long as they get enough to eat and drink so they can, you know, live, what possible difference could it make to anyone. Unless of course, you’re looking for absolutely any excuse to demonize your enemies and further your agenda. You criticize ABIB for issuing a press release, but that’s exactly what you did, too, using the opportunity to galvanize your supporters. But when you do it, it’s for a good cause, right? When ABIB does it, they’re shameless. This is seriously one of the ugliest and vilest demonstrations of how off the reservation the neo-prohibitionist groups are. Criticizing a good deed because it wasn’t done in the manner you’d prefer, or more correctly, by someone you already don’t like. You ought to be ashamed of yourself and your behavior. As they say, let no good deed go unpunished.

Beer In Ads #31: Estrella Damm’s Waves

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ad-billboard
Wednesday’s ad is a contemporary one for Spain’s Estrella Damm. The illustration was apparently done for an Estrella Damm calendar. This work was done by Alex Trochut, a Spanish artist living in Barcelona. There’s a nice biography and short interview with him at It’s Nice That. I love art with a lot of detail, and this one has it in spades. Look closely at the waves and that alone should keep you occupied for some time. To see it larger, and see even more detail, click through the image and then select “all sizes.”

estrella-damm

Drinking All Over The Map

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world-map
If you’re a regular Bulletin reader, you know I believe that the drinking age in the U.S. is too high, that the age a person can vote and fight and/or die for one’s country should also be the age he or she can drink, as well. I lived through this ridiculous hypocritical double-standard when I was in the military thirty years ago, and I still hold a grudge. It was absurd then, and it’s absurd now.

I think most of us believe that America is a progressive country where freedom is something we take for granted, that it’s the lynchpin of our society with free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion, and on and on. But not when it comes to our puritanical view of alcohol, there we are nearly the most backward country in the world. When you take out the handful of countries that allow no alcohol consumption — which are all in the Middle East — only India has a drinking age higher than ours, and even that’s not nationwide, but on a state by state basis. I could talk about this ’till I’m blue in the face, but nothing shows this inequity better than a visual representation of drinking ages by country. Happily, Drinking Map went to the trouble of creating a world map showing the drinking age by country, where known. To see it larger, click through the image, then click on “all sizes.”

drinking-age-map

As you can see, the vast majority of the world is at a sensible 18, with only a few other nations (all in the Middle East, too) that are 21 like us. Japan and most of Scandinavia set the age at 20 and South Korea along with parts of Canada are at 19.

But perhaps more interesting is the map below, also by the folks at Drinking Map, called Where “Adults” Can’t Drink. This map shows the relationship between a country’s age of majority (when a person is considered an “adult”) and the age at which they are permitted to drink alcohol. Notice that for a majority of nations (in green) that age is the same, as I believe it should be. A few more (in pink), like India and most of Scandinavia, allow some drinking but with certain restrictions. Then we, along with parts of Canada and a handful of other nations (in red), stand out as having a drinking age that’s higher than the age of majority. To see it larger, click through the image, then click on “all sizes.”

age-of-majority-map

Would it not be perhaps a reasonable compromise to allow 18-year olds to drink beer, or wine and beer, but not spirits until they’re 21? Anyway, just some food for thought.

Brewery Porn From Schlafly

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schlafly
I just saw this Re-Tweeted and I can’t pass up brewery porn. The photographs are of the St. Louis Brewery a.k.a. Schlafly Beer and were taken by a woman calling herself Truckey. The slideshow below is from her Flickr account and all the photographs can be purchased. According to her Flickr gallery page, “prices range from $10-$200, and range in size from 5×7 to 24×36. I can do matte, lustre, glossy or pearle paper, or even print on canvas!” There’s some beautiful shots there. They’d look great framed on your wall. But for now, enjoy the porn!

Beer In Ads #30: Budwesier, That Bud … That’s Beer!

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ad-billboard
Tuesday’s ad is for the Budweiser flat-top can from 1964. They’re going for that manly fisherman demographic. I found it interesting given yesterday’s post, Evolution of a Beer Label, just how much importance A-B was placing on its label in 1964. Notice what the ad copy reads. “The story is on every Budweiser label.” But I think the previous question asked by the ad, “[i]s there any real difference in the way beers are brewed,” will have the average beer geek laughing out loud.

images64budflattop

Loud Music Increases Drinking

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volume-green
I found this interesting bit of research at the PsyBlog, run by Jeremy Dean, a Psychology researcher at the University College London. The post is entitled Why Loud Music in Bars Increases Alcohol Consumption, and concerns some recent research conducted into the relationship between volume and drinking patterns. Specifically, Dean cites two studies, one in Glasgow, Scotland and the other in France. In some ways the findings are obvious, but it does tend to confirm what you probably already guessed. The PsyBlog starts with the premise that the average bar traditionally keeps the lights dim and the music loud.

But turning the music up so loud that people are forced to shout at each other doesn’t have quite the same beneficial effect on social interactions. Because everyone is shouting, the bar becomes even noisier and soon people start to give up trying to communicate and focus on their drinking, meaning more trips to the bar, and more regrets in the morning.

Of course this is exactly what bar owners are hoping for. People sitting around quietly nursing their drinks for hours are no good for profits. Talkers aren’t the best drinkers. At least that is the received wisdom in the industry.

The first study, Sound Level of Environmental Music and Drinking Behavior: A Field Experiment With Beer Drinkers, was published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Their results indicated “that high level volume led to increase alcohol consumption and reduced the average amount of time spent by the patrons to drink their glass.”

The second study was published in the journal Popular Music & Society, and was titled Alco-pop? The Use of Popular Music in Glasgow Pubs.

volume-to-11
Here’s a bit more as to how the research was conducted.

The level of the music was randomly manipulated to create the conditions of a true experiment. It was either at its usual volume of 72dB or turned up to 88dB. For comparison: 72db is like the sound of traffic on a busy street while 88db is like standing next to a lawnmower.

Sure enough when the music went up the beers went down, faster. On average bar-goers took 14.5 minutes to finish a 250ml (8 oz) glass of draught beer when the music was at its normal level. But this came down to just 11.5 minutes when the music was turned up. As a result, on average, during their time in the bar each participant ordered one more drink in the loud music condition than in the normal music condition.

The observers even measured the number of gulps taken to finish each drink — the level of the music was found to have no effect on this. So the faster drinking was as a result of more gulps rather than bigger gulps.

The conclusions from both studies seem to validate one another, suggesting a universal application. The results do seem to favor a causal connection between louder music and increased drinking, but what they don’t answer is why this is the case. As Dean puts it. “Some think that people drink instead of talking while others have argued that they drink more because the music creates greater levels of arousal, which then leads to more drinking.”

Personally, I prefer a bar where I can hear myself think, where pleasant conversation is encouraged, but then I prefer to sip, not gulp, my beer in almost any environment. So clearly, I’m not the target demographic, nor I suspect are most hardcore beer geeks, but it still is a fascinating peek into what makes us tick — and drink.

UPDATE: The BC Brews Blog also came across this study independently and posted about it in Loud Music = Heavier, Faster Drinking.

Evolution Of A Beer Label

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bud-btl
Below is, as far as I know, the most recent label for Budweiser, updated in 2000. We all know that labels change over time, sometimes dramatically, but usually more subtly with just small tweaks from time to time. But even small changes over a long period of time become dramatic in the long view. So this is a fascinating peak into those changes.

Etiquette Systems, a label manufacturer, has an online gallery showing what they call the Evolution of America’s Most Famous Beer Label. It shows a dozen different versions of the Budweiser label, from the first 1876 version up to the 2000 latest one, with all of the changes in between.

budlabel

More Sober Statistics

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no-drinking-pint
Yesterday, I had a post about some sober statistics that came from CDC — and specifically their Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System — by way of an article in U.S. News & World Report. The statistics from the article concerned the most sober American cities according to their (questionable) data.

But there were two additional data points from two other questions asked in the poll conducted by the CDC. So I thought I’d see what those questions were all about. Here are some more lists based on that data.

1. Alcohol Consumption: Adults who have had at least one drink of alcohol within the past 30 days

In this one, pollsters asked people if they’d had a drink of alcohol in the last 30 days. The list below is the cities (which the CDC classifies as “Metropolitan Statistical Areas”) which had the most people who have not touched alcohol in the month before they were polled. The number is parenthesis is the percentage who answered no.

  1. Provo-Orem, UT (88.3)
  2. Ogden-Clearfield, UT (75.3)
  3. Kingsport-Bristol, TN (72.3)
  4. Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH (71.1)
  5. Idaho Falls, ID (71.0)
  6. Charleston, WV (67.9)
  7. Tuscaloosa, AL (64.6)
  8. Chattanooga, TN-GA (64.0)
  9. Okeechobee, FL (63.1)
  10. Memphis, TN (62.6)
  11. Salt Lake City, UT (62.5)
  12. Hickory-Morganton-Lenoir, NC (62.1)
  13. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX (61.6)
  14. Lake Charles, LA (61.2)
  15. Louisville, KY-IN (59.6)

Not many surprises again from what you might guess, all the states are from the south plus nearby West Virginia and Utah, where Mormonism holds sway.

So here’s the opposite list, the metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of people who have had alcohol in the last month.

  1. Cambridge-Newton-Framingham, MA (69.5)
  2. Nassau-Suffolk, NY (69.4)
  3. Barnstable Town, MA (69.0)
  4. Burlington-South Burlington, VT (68.8)
  5. Boulder, CO (68.7)
  6. Barre, VT (68.7)
  7. Concord, NH (68.7)
  8. Denver-Aurora, CO (66.2)
  9. Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, MI (65.6)
  10. Fargo, ND-MN (65.5)
  11. Essex County, MA (65.4)
  12. Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT (65.2)
  13. Portland-South Portland-Biddeford, ME (64.8)
  14. Boston-Quincy, MA (64.5)
  15. Worcester, MA (64.3)
  16. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA (64.2)

stay-sober

2. Alcohol Consumption: Binge drinkers (males having five or more drinks on one occasion, females having four or more drinks on one occasion)

The second question asked people if they’d had a drinking binge (by their ridiculous definition, of course) but curiously it doesn’t say within what period of time. So without the actual question asked, we have to conclude that there was no time period (because it would almost certainly appear in the statistical data). That means this is an expression of who’d had five or more drinks at one session … ever. Hmm.

Here’s the ten metropolitan areas with the fewest binge drinkers. The number in parenthesis represents the percentage of people who have never had five or more drinks at one sitting.

  1. Provo-Orem, UT (95.7)
  2. Wauchula, FL (94.6)
  3. Charleston, WV (92.2)
  4. Chattanooga, TN-GA (92.0)
  5. Fort Smith, AR-OK (91.8)
  6. Louisville, KY-IN (91.6)
  7. Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH (91.3)
  8. Idaho Falls, ID (91.3)
  9. Ogden-Clearfield, UT (91.3)
  10. Asheville, NC (91.0)

I must live in truly decadent places because I can’t even imagine a place where 9 of the 10 people you meet on the street have NEVER had five drinks at one time.

But here’s my people, the areas where the most binge drinking takes place. I should hasten to point out that I don’t believe for a second that binge drinking is a good idea, but that the CDC definition is complete and utter nonsense.

  1. Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI (21.4)
  2. Fargo, ND-MN (21.2)
  3. Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA (21.2)
  4. Austin-Round Rock, TX (20.6)
  5. Burlington-South Burlington, VT (20.5)
  6. Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN (20.4)
  7. Boulder, CO (20.3)
  8. Key West-Marathon, FL (20.3)
  9. Gainesville, FL (20.2)
  10. Greeley, CO (20.1)

The numbers themselves still seem a bit low. The percentages are for people who said yes, they’ve had five drinks at one sitting. Even the highest percentage are would be roughly 1 in 5. But it may simply be a factor of people under-reporting what they perceive to be bad behavior.

Beer In Art #62: Steven Kozar’s Wisconsin Craft Brews

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art-beer
Today’s works of art is another modern one, painted in a style that’s known as Photorealism or, more likely, Hyperrealism (the two are similar), although the artist doesn’t characterize his work in that way. The artist is Steven R. Kozar and his painting is titled Wisconsin Craft Brews, featuring bottles of beer from three Wisconsin breweries, Capital Brewery, New Glarus and Sprecher.

Kozar_wisconsin-beer

The painting is 18 x 24 in. and is a watercolor. The original has been sold, but prints are available for $25 at his online store. Most of the works in his gallery are landscapes, and they’re spectacular.

Kozar’s a Wisconsin native, living in McFarland. Here’s a short biography from his blog:

Born 1964 in Lake Zurich, IL. Studied at ISU from 1983 to 1984, and at The American Academy of Art in Chicago from 1985 to 1986. At age 23 moved to rural Wisconsin and began full-time painting. Kozar’s paintings have been exhibited along side most of the artists he admired as an art student, including Midwestern artists Harold Gregor, James Winn, and James Butler. He has also exhibited with many of today’s contemporary masters, such as Andrew Wyeth, Gary Ernest Smith, Ralph Goings. John Stuart Ingle, Burt Silverman, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Peter Sculthorpe and Nelson Shanks.

You can see more of Kozar’s work at his website and his blog also has a few videos during the painting of this work, which are interesting to watch.