In trying to catch up with everything going on in the world, here’s one that fell through the cracks. Drew Beechum, of the Maltose Falcons homebrew club fame sent me this over the holidays and it’s still relevant. It appears law enforcement is monitoring social media like Facebook to catch crooks … well, not crooks, exactly, but underage drinkers. And not just monitoring Facebook, but according to the LaCrosse Tribune, police actually created fake Facebook profiles then tried to friend underage kids (with or without probable cause, it doesn’t say) to look for mentions and photos of underage drinking. They’ve even made arrests. Beechum wades into the questions raised by this practice in a post titled We’ve Always Been At War With Eastasia. There are a lot of privacy issues raised by this, I think, and it bears watching IMHO.
Sober Statistics
Here’s an interesting list. Usually, we hear about the top drinking cities, but this is the top ten (or bottom ten, depending on your perspective) cities for NOT drinking, that is the cities and towns that don’t drink very much. I found the list in a U.S. News & World Report article but the data comes from the CDC (and is for communities of 10,000 or more people). The first four are pretty clear, but then it’s a four-way tie for fifth followed by a two-way tie.
- Provo-Orem, UT (99.4)
- Idaho Falls, ID (97.9)
- Hickory, NC (97.8)
- Ogden, UT (97.5)
- Brownsville, TX (97.2)
- Fayetteville, NC (97.2)
- Raleigh, NC (97.2)
- Wichita, KS (97.2)
- Cheyenne, WY (97.0)
- Farmington, NM (97.0)
Not many surprises from what you might guess, except that when you look deeper at the statistics, something odd emerges, at least to me. Those parenthetical numbers represent the percentage of people surveyed who said they don’t drink “more than two drinks per day” (if adult males) or “more than one drink per day” (if adult females). Otherwise — get this — they’re considered “heavy drinkers.” That’s right, have more than two drinks on the same day ever and you’re a heavy drinker. It’s hard to imagine a more useless way to define this, unless you’re trying to inflate the numbers and make it appear that problem drinking is more of a … well. problem, than it actually is. Defining heavy drinkers as “adult men having more than two drinks per day and adult women having more than one drink per day” undoubtedly accomplishes that, especially when you consider that the CDC defines binge drinkings as five or more drinks during one session (4 if you’re female). This is how to create a problem that doesn’t exist. (Note: I don’t mean that there aren’t problem drinkers, I only question that it’s as epidemic as these statistics suggest.) The way it is now, drink one or two beers a day, you’re fine. But have a third and you’re a “heavy drinker.” Have two more for a total of five and you’re — gasp — a “binge drinker.” Really?
Using the same data from the CDC survey, the top 10 heaviest drinking cities are:
- Reno, NV
- Palm Bay-Melbourne, FL
- Boulder, CO
- Austin, TX
- Charleston, SC
- McAllen, TX
- Naples-Marco Island, FL
- Riverside, CA
- Cape Coral, FL
- Barnstable Town, MA
That’s a strange list, too, and not what I would have predicted. Three in Florida and six total from the southern states. You just have to wonder how truthfully people answer a question like this when it’s posed.
Falling Beer Sales?
I meant to comment on this more fully before now, but my friend and colleague Stephen Beaumont beat me to the punch with his post, A Victory for Boire Moins, Boire Mieux. He had nearly the exact same thought I had, too, though not in French. Boire Moins, Boire Mieux translates as Drink Less, Drink Better, the unofficial ad hoc motto of craft beer.
I’m referring to a Wall Street Journal article published Thursday, Falling Beer Sales Have Brewery Mergers Over a Barrel, where they detailed how beer sales have fallen 2.2%, the first year since 2003 that showed negative growth in total beer sales volume (and the highest negative number since the 1950s). And sure that’s what the numbers say, from one perspective, at least. The Journal, an unabashedly pro-business paper, lost no time decrying the terrible implications for big business and especially the on-going merger-mania the big beer companies are engaging in. There’s also a handy chart.
And sure, they all show declining volume, except for two near the bottom, Boston Beer and Yuengling. And that’s the tip of an iceberg that tells a very different story than the one the Wall Street Journal is telling. As Beaumont notes, “nearly every craft brewer I speak with is sounding quite happy with their sales figures from the preceding year and optimistic about 2010.” And that’s exactly what I’ve been hearing all along the hopvine, too. The 1500+ breweries that didn’t brew more than 2-million barrels a year, are doing quite well, thank you very much. Not all of them, of course — some brewpubs have been struggling with less people eating out — but overall they’re trending positively. And that’s a very different story than the Journal is telling.
So I’ll leave you with Stephen’s conclusion:
The BBC and Yuengling numbers are important because they represent what I believe is really going on, which is not so much a literal “worsening” of demand, but rather a shift in demand, coupled with a growing endorsement of the old French axiom boire moins, boire mieux, or “drink less, drink better.” Simply, the battle is between style and substance, and right now, substance appears to be winning!
The WSJ doesn’t see this because they’re used to looking only at the large, public corporation side of things, rather than the successful entrepreneur side. Then again, weren’t they the ones who years ago predicted that the craft beer craze was finished?
Beer To Flow Again In Belgium
I’ve been avoiding this story over the last few weeks, mostly because I’ve been busy with other work and it’s a complicated one. I’ve sure you’ve seen it and pieces of it, though. It’s even gone mainstream, with Time magazine wading into it, mostly because of the big business angle. In a nutshell, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced more layoffs despite having also recently announced just over $1.5 billion in profit for Q3 2009. The latest proposed layoffs, about 800 jobs at ABIB’s European breweries included about a third in Belgium. But unlike here in the U.S., labor unions still have a bit of actual power in the EU. And they decided to fight back. At several breweries in Belgium — Stella Artois, Jupiler and Hoegaarden — workers have barricaded the breweries, and even took management hostage overnight at one plant.
After two weeks, supplies of Stella Artois and other beer brands owned by ABIB were running low, though most headlines seemed to suggest that beer itself was almost out in the nation. Obviously, with hundreds of breweries still open there was hardly a shortage of beer, just a shortage of a few popular ones, but none that true beer-loving Belgians would even miss. But on Friday, the union agreed to stand down and enter into negotiations, for the time being “they struck a deal that postpones the brewer’s plans to reduce 303 jobs in Belgium — some 10 per cent of its work force there. It says it will also create 40 call centre sales positions, bringing net job losses to 263.” According to the AFP, “‘After the blockade is lifted, the unions and management will start from scratch with meetings of the works council that will deal with problems site by site,’ union representative Tangui Cornu told AFP.” Reuters also had an update.
Guinness Ad #2: There’s Nothing Like A Guinness
The second Guinness poster on our John Gilroy odyssey is also one of my favorites. The tagline is “There’s Nothing Like A Guinness” and features the personified pint of Guinness opening its mouth for the last drop from the bottle.
And here’s another version, a square one, of the same basic artwork.
Beer In Ads #28: Vivator
Friday’s ad is for Brauerei Münchner Kindl, a German brewer. As far as I can tell, Vivator was a brand of beer sold by the brewery. There’s a small signature block in the lower right corner that appears to be where the artist’s signature would be, but I can’t find a large enough version of the ad to read it. I love how exuberant the man is, stein in hand, singing in what looks like it could be snow, with the Munich skyline behind him.
Balls Beer For Health Care Reform
This is hilarious, especially so depending on which way you lean on the issue of health care reform. My wife found it on Daily Kos, but apparently it’s popping up everywhere on political blogs.
Beer Birthday: Pat Hagerman
Today is the 46th birthday of Pat Hagerman, co-founder of ReelBeer.com, one of the first beer portals to establish a presence on the internet. I’ve known Pat for a lot of years in a variety of enterprises. Pat also has a son, Jack, who’s a little older than Porter so we’ve seen him at birthday parties from time to time, though it’s been a little while. These days, I usually run into Pat at beer events, though I suppose technically he’s also my boss since for a while I’d been filling in for Stan writing the Real Beer Blog, though happily now Stan’s back. Join me in wishing Pat a very Happy birthday.
Pat (at right) with Tom Dalldorf in New Orleans for the Craft Brewers Conference in 2003.
A self-portrait of me and Pat at Falling Rock in Denver at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival.
Beer In Ads #27: Hugo Laubi’s Braustube Hurlimann
Thursday’s ad is for a Swiss brewer, Braustube Hurlimann in Zurich. It was created by Hugo Laubi, a Swiss illustrator who lived from 1888-1959.
Stone To Release Collaboration Video
Stone Brewing, at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time, will be releasing their latest video project, Stone Skips Across the Pond, a record of their collaborations with two breweries. [NOTE: the video, once released at 1:00 p.m. PST, will be available at Stone’s Blog.] If you just can’t wait to see some of it, check out the trailer.
The first collaboration is with Nøgne Ø, the Norwegian craft brewery. After brewing there, the Stone team heads to Scotland to brew yet another collaboration with BrewDog.
I had an opportunity to screen the video last night, and it’s a fun short film at just under 30 minutes. It was filmed again by Redtail Media, the same team that created I Am A Craftbrewer. The production values are amazing. The film stars not just Greg Koch, but also his business partner Steve Wagner and head brewer Mitch Steele, some amazing landscapes, terrific looking food, some beer you’ll be jealous you didn’t have along with the brew crews at both Nøgne Ø and BrewDog. Looks like it was a fun time. It’s a great window into the camaraderie among brewers, regardless of national boundaries, in the craft beer world
Next Thursday, Part 2 will be released, followed by parts three and four on each subsequent Thursday. For now, enjoy part one.