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The First Month At InBev’s A-B

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Jeremiah McWilliams, writing in his St. Louis Post Dispatch’s online presence Lager Heads, revealed on Friday that things are not going too smoothly for the current and soon-to-be former employees of Anheuser-Busch. In Rough times at Anheuser-Busch he details what anonymous insiders are saying the mood is like at One Busch Place, and it doesn’t look pretty. Having lived through mass layoffs at a former company, I know how anxiety-inducing and unpleasant it can be, and it must be doubly so in this case while employees are waiting to find out what kind of Christmas it’s going to be this year. I know business is business, but really; can InBev be blind to the fact that Christmas is less than two weeks away? Can this honestly be the best way to swoop in take care of business from a public relations point of view, or do they figure they’re already so vilified that they may as well play the part?

 

Ah, the “good old days.”

 

Running From Santa

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It seems to happen every year at this time of the season; Santa Claus comes out and neo-prohibitionists can’t help themselves in believing that he belongs to them exclusively. The latest salvo is from Join Together who wrongly targets MillerCoors for sponsoring the Running of the Santas, a charity event taking place in several cities on the East Coast. That these events are raising money to fight pediatric cancer is mentioned, but the events are nonetheless characterized as “binge drinking events.” The Running of the Santas wesbite characterizes the events as “a national pub crawl scheduled for December 13th across 25 cities.”

According to Join Together, “MillerCoors is getting a lump of coal in its Christmas stocking this year. The beer producer is sponsoring binge drinking events in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, and several other cities.”

“The Running of the Santas” may ostensibly raise money for charity, but using Santa to promote beer-soaked pub crawls? Bad idea. And it clearly violates the beer industry’s own marketing code, which bars Santa from selling beer.

Santa’s too busy these days to be dragged into this. So let’s get MillerCoors’ attention: file a consumer complaint with the Beer Institute and copy the Federal Trade Commission.

Yes, by all means let’s undermine an effort to raise money to combat children with cancer if it’s done in a way we don’t like. I just want to scream epithets at these people and try to shake them loose from their myopia so they’ll focus on something bigger than themselves and something bigger than a few young people having a pub crawl to raise money for a worthy cause. Surely, there must be more important issues these people could spend their time pursuing?

One thing that really galls me is Join Together’s characterization that the charities being helped out by these events are only doing so “ostensibly,” that is “outwardly appearing as such” as if it was a front of some kind. If you can look at the two specific charities — Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation and Ellie Koerner Leukemia Fund — and not be touched by the sadness of these childrens’ stories and moved to action, then by all means sign up to be a member of Join Together.

The Running of the Santas breaks no laws, and in fact looks like a pretty fun event for those with an open mind. The organization describes the events thusly:

The Running of the Santas is an annual bar tour. What started with 40 Santas in Philadelphia has turned into a national phenomenon. The goal is to raise money for a local charity while getting a lot of Santas together for one big party. In Philadelphia, over 5,000 Santas are expected at the event in 2008. Live bands, great beer specials, a Hottest Santa Contest, and a short “RUN” (two blocks) is what makes the Running of the Santas something special.

If I were twenty years younger, I’d certainly participate. What doesn’t sound fun about that? Oh wait, I forgot, some people think they own the idea of Santa Claus and believe it can only be shown one way. In fact, one of the bludgeons Join Together is attempting to use is the following.

But the beer industry’s own voluntary advertising and marketing code (Guideline #3) explicitly bans the depiction of Santa Claus in beer marketing materials. And though the events are aimed at adults, many of them start in daylight or early evening hours — when children may well spot St. Nick dashing through the snow … getting drunk.

Holy crap, first of all they’re right about one thing. The Advertising and Marketing Code Guidelines on the Beer Institute’s website really does say that. It’s right there at 3b. “Beer advertising and marketing materials should not depict Santa Claus.” That has to be the stupidest rule they’ve ever agreed to. But let’s get back to that later.

The rule says the “depiction of Santa Claus in beer marketing materials” is banned for the beer companies. Running of the Santas is not a beer company. That Coors is a sponsor is an entirely different matter. They’re sponsoring an event, not advertising or marketing a beer using Santa Claus. Join Together obviously hates the idea of Santa being used in an event involved with alcohol, but they can’t complain to the event itself since they’re not doing anything illegal, so instead they turn their attention to someone they can try to intimidate.

A stooge from the neo-prohibitionist Center for Science in the Public Interest, George Hacker, is quoted. “How realistic is it to let the beer industry’s lobbyists write and enforce the rules if not even Santa is safe? Besides, everyone knows Santa prefers milk — skim, actually.” Dude, leave the jokes to the professionals. These beer advertising guidelines don’t even come close to applying in this situation. You just want to rail against this, reality and logic be damned.

If you want to get technical about is, Saint Nicholas (who we call Santa Claus, among other names) is the patron saint of brewers, for fucksakes. According to many different churches and denominations, St. Nick counts brewers among his many, many occupations, afflictions and places for whom he’s the patron saint. For more about this, see my earlier post from December 6, St. Nicholas’ Feast Day. So it’s not at all out of line that Santa Claus would drink beer. In many other countries, because of this, Santa Claus is often used on beer labels. Only here in the U.S. is this considered a taboo.

Beyond their bullshit pretense that Coors is violating an advertising guideline, Join Together and the CSPI are simply out for publicity. The CSPI already filed a complaint with the Beer Institute and Anheuser-Busch withdrew their support from an event in Atlanta. It’s the threat of bad press that has beer companies spooked, not any violation of the guidelines. These neo-prohibitionists know how they can manipulate the facts to get favorable treatment in the press. Using Santa Claus to garner sympathy for their cause is becoming the neo-prohibitionists holiday gift to society each year, an opportunity to use dishonesty and propaganda in a most unsavory fashion.

This notion that Santa Claus can’t be associated with anything having to do with adults just fries my bacon. The spirit of Christmas is not restricted to children. When Join Together asserts that “children may well spot St. Nick dashing through the snow … getting drunk” I can’t help but think simply “so what?” I’m so tired of some elements of our society that are constantly worried that children might see something that’s adult in nature and believing we have to create a sanitized world where there’s no possibility of that ever happening. Like it or not, this is a world for everybody, not just children, and we can’t create a world that’s only for kids and expect that adults can live full, mature, adult lives. They’ve been trying that on television for years now, making every show appropriate for a fifth grader. And guess what, most of the shows on network television suck, especially the ones that embrace that lowest-common denominator ethos. Personally, I don’t want to live in a child’s world, and I really don’t understand why neo-prohibitionists do, either, but then I really don’t get where they’re coming from at all.

Another disaster of their efforts is that these charity events specifically draw in younger people to participate. People under 30 statistically give less money to charities (though they give as much of their time as other age groups). That the neo-prohibitionist groups are targeting these events suggests to me that they care more about their agenda than kids with cancer. And the (perhaps) unintended consequence of their actions is that less money will be raised to fund research into pediatric cancer. And they think MillerCoors deserves a lump of coal this Christmas?

 

 

An Open Letter To “The Session”

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Dear Session,

We’ve been going steady now nearly two years, and it’s probably time to start seriously considering taking our relationship to the next level. Unfortunately, I think you’ve changed and I think perhaps it’s time to “talk.”

When Stan at Appellation Beer first proposed The Session back in January of 2007, he started out with “Stouts,” writing:

There aren’t many rules. Simply pour yourself a stout (or stouts) and post on the topic March 2, looking ahead to St. Patrick’s Day or not and writing about any stout that isn’t Guinness, Murphy’s or Beamish (the Irish old guard – good beers but we’re writing about others). Should you worry about style? About getting the opinion of friends, about writing an official tasting note, about food? About the history of the beer or how its made? All optional.

In fact, the first three Session were particular beer styles. Five of the first ten were likewise beer styles as were four of the second ten we’ve done but none since we passed our teens and entered our twenties. So that means of 22 completed Sessions, only 9 (or about 40%) have been about beer but only 2 of the last ten (20%) have been about a particular kind of beer. And Session 23 will likewise be more of the same, though I want to be clear I don’t want to single anyone out for criticism. Most of the topics have been interesting on their own, I’m just starting to feel like we’re all trying to be too clever and veering away from our original purpose or vision.

As for me personally, it was my hope that with The Sessions, “a record will be created with much useful information about various topics on the subject of beer.” But lately it seems as if we’ve been spending more time talking about ourselves than the beer. Not that we’re not all incredibly interesting, but I’d like to suggest that we return to the subject that brought us together in the first place, our common interest: beer.

One of the strengths of doing something without a clear leader or overarching plan is that it allows for much creativity and individual writers’ personalities to shine through. That can also be a weakness, too, if we don’t keep our eyes on the prize. I don’t really know if there was an actual “goal” when we started or how many people will agree with me, but I’m going to throw this out there and see where the prevailing winds blow us.

So I’d like to suggest that beginning with February’s Session (our two year anniversary) and going forward, we all follow a few simple rules when choosing a topic for a Session. I’m also going to be so bold as to suggest that we do come up with a goal for The Sessions. While not strictly necessary, having a stated purpose I believe will make it easier to not stray in the future and keep us all focused on what we’re trying to accomplish with The Sessions. Here’s my first draft then. Feel free to join the discussion and offer your thoughts, criticisms (civilly, please) and suggestions.

Goals For “The Sessions”

  1. Encourage a lively discussion about beer.
  2. Educate people about some aspect of beer.
  3. Have fun.

Though not necessarily a goal, I think it’s important to remember that our audience isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be) just one another, but people we’re hoping to draw into appreciating beer more fully and each topic more specifically. If each post is written in such a way that it causes the reader to seek out more information on the same topic and that extended story is there for the taking throughout the other Session posts, then that I would consider a successful Session. That is to say, anything that ignites the passions of a reader to read more on a particular subject should be the measure of success for this project, at least in my opinion.

But that’s it, simple and concise; encourage, educate and have fun.

Rules For Choosing A “Session” Topic or Theme

  1. Review past topics to avoid duplication.
  2. Closely review the last three Sessions to avoid choosing a topic too close to those recent ones.
  3. Restrict topic types, to the following per calendar year:
    (if limit is reached, choose something different)
    1. Philosophical Topics (2 per annum)
    2. Memories & Nostalgic Topics (1 per annum)
    3. Beer & … (e.g., food, music; 1 per annum)
    4. Beer styles, type of beer, or beer-related (no limit)
  4. For Topic Types a, b & c above, they should never follow one another, that is they should always be bookended by a more beery theme.
  5. Consider the audience.

It is not my intention to stifle creativity in any way with trying to propose a few simple rules to follow. I’d like them to make each Session more meaningful. Hopefully, these rules should encourage all of us to simply think carefully about our topics when we try to come up with a theme. And my goal with trying to limit certain types of topics is merely to keep them diverse throughout the year and also maintain an interesting mix for anyone who happens by to see what the beer blogging community is up to. But the upshot is, I’d really like to see us talk about beer more often than not. If nothing else, that should be a goal in and of itself.

So that’s it, have at me. What do you all think? Goals? Topic Rules?

Captain Al Cohol

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Add to the list of things about which I’m a self-avowed geek, Comic Books, which I read as a kid, of course, but started reading again as an adult about thirty years ago when I was living in North Carolina. I was one of the music buyers for a chain of record stores headquartered there called Record Bar (now defunct) and as a result got virtually every new release LP (remember albums?). After I listened to them, the ones I didn’t keep or give to co-workers I traded in at a local used book store to feed my reading habit. The store also carried comic books, which were just coming back into vogue with independent publishers that produced more mature and adult-themed story lines, and it reignited my passion for graphic storytelling. I still read a few titles today, and there are some wonderful writers that every bit the equal of print, such as Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Scott McCloud and Terry Moore, to name just a few.

Of course, some comic books, especially those in the 1960s and 70s, just plain sucked — bad writing, hokey plots, bad drawing and even worse publishing on cheap newsprint quality paper. There was a whole genre at that time (perhaps there still is) of comics books with “messages” for young people trying to use a child’s medium to teach them life lessons. I guess the idea was that they would want to read a comic book no matter what its content or quality and would fall for getting it’s message, be it stay off drugs, STDs or other “health” issues. Many used fake superheroes made up just for the message comic. There’s a great archive of these in Canada called Comics With Problems. Some of them are just hilarious, and they all remind me of Reefer Madness-style propaganda in comic form. But one stood out, and that was the exploits of Captain Al Cohol. Capt. Al Cohol, or “Al” to his friends, was produced in 1973 by the Canadian government of the Northwest Territories and targeted the Inuit (or Eskimo) people to teach them the dangers of alcoholism. It’s typical of genre, and unintentionally hilarious in places where it’s not supposed to be. Whether or not it was effective it doubtful, in my opinion.

That’s not to make light of the very serious alcoholism that was common with Native Americans since we invaded their shores and our ancestors committed genocide. There’s actually a recent theory to explain why alcoholism percentages are higher among Native Americans, and it has to do with evolution and when man began to settle down in the fertile crescent. Alcohol — a crude form of unhopped beer — was more than likely the initial reason that civilization sprang up and man began cultivating grains. As it was often safer than the water, people who could tolerate larger amounts of beer tended to survive to pass their genes along. Simply put, you and I are here because our distant relatives could tolerate alcohol. But some archeologists believe that Native Americans did not have the same line of ancestry and therefore did not build up a tolerance for alcohol that the descendants of Europe and the Middle East did. And it’s thought that it’s for that reason that many Native Americans have had difficulties over the centuries with alcohol.

Captain Al Cohol is a being from another world who crashed on Earth and was frozen in ice for one million years, until some Inuit peoples from Fish Fiord [sic] defrosted him. He’s so strong he makes people “shiver in their Kamiks.” After being subdued, a doctor gives him so medicinal rum and it turns out that alcohol is his Kryptonite.

One sip and Capt. Al Cohol goes stumbling around the Arctic until frozen again, he’s captured by the leather-skinned Billy Vermin, the “diabolically cruel, rum-running, fur snatching enemy of the people of Fish Fiord.” The comic portrays a single glass of rum as having the power to enslave a person while even their own rhetoric explains that alcoholism “creeps up on its victims and grows slowly but surely worse.” But is has that Reefer Madness vibe of danger from just one sip that’s common to all this type of propagandist literature.

A second story, “The Tale of the Fiery Tomb” then has Capt. Al recount his origin story. He’s from the planet of Barkela, millions of light years away. Their society was nearly Utopian with no wars … “but try as [they] might — [their] civilization could never learn to control the use of alcohol!” Gadzooks! Al ashamedly continues how “after dark one day [he] returned home drunk to find [his] wife and children …” — it’s too terrible to tell, I can hardly re-type it, oh the humanity — they were “already in bed!” So Al decided he needed another drink and headed out to the “space van” — where else would stash your booze? — but on the way accidentally blew up his house, killing everyone inside. Wracked with guilt, he volunteered for a 10-year space exploration mission that crash-landed him in the Arctic. But then then the evil Ravenmen (bird men looking suspiciously like the Hawkmen in DC Comics) appeared as he was having his tea.

Apparently more issues were planned, but I can’t tell if they were ever published. Anybody have an idea what the symbol on Capt. Al’s costume is meant to be? I’m stumped. It appears to be a yellow chevron with a line at the bottom, but it doesn’t really look like anything alcohol-related.

Again, I’m not intentionally making fun of alcoholism, it is a terrible problem for many people (and one I’m intimately familiar with in my own life), but I’m pretty sure the transformation depicted here is not really how it works. I know their hearts were in the right place and were only trying to help, but propaganda this naked is too obvious to do any good, at least in my opinion. When you exaggerate the problems and effects of something to further an agenda or make a case, you damage that message. This is what neo-prohibitionists have done and continue to do in their efforts to convince the public that the worst case scenario is the average, ordinary result of alcohol consumption. It rarely is, of course, but you can’t scare people with the realities of moderate consumption by showing that problem drinkers constitute only a small minority of all people who consume alcohol. The vast majority drink responsibly but you never hear their stories. Moderation isn’t destroying our society, so neo-prohibitionists have to invent and embellish for effect and create imaginative fictions like Captain Al Cohol.

 

Anheuser-Busch Announces Layoffs

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Anheuser-Busch announced today (though the press release is on the InBev website, not A-B’s nor the new ABIB website). The plan is to cut around “1,400 U.S. salaried positions in its beer-related divisions, affecting about 6 percent of the company’s total U.S. workforce,” three-quarters of which were at A-B HQ in St. Louis. Also, 250 vacant position will now not be filled and 415 independent contractors will also be terminated.

From the press release:

“To keep the business strong and competitive, this is a necessary but difficult move for the company,” said David A. Peacock, president of Anheuser-Busch. “We will assist in the transition for these employees as much as possible. The people of Anheuser-Busch dedicate themselves to the business, and we appreciate all of their contributions.” The company will provide employees severance pay and pension benefits based on age and years of service. Employees also will be offered additional benefits during the transition, including outplacement services.

The announced workforce reductions are in addition to the more than 1,000 U.S. salaried employees company-wide who accepted the company’s voluntary enhanced retirement program, which closed November 14 and provided special benefits for eligible employees retiring by the end of 2008. The retirements were part of planned cost reductions of [$1 billion dollars US], called project Blue Ocean, announced by Anheuser-Busch in June 2008. At that time, the company announced plans to reduce its company-wide U.S. full-time salaried workforce of 8,600 by 10 to 15 percent before the year end. The company’s other Blue Ocean cost reductions remain on track. Bargaining unit employees at the company’s 12 U.S. breweries are unaffected by the reductions announced today.

“Managing our costs is important in building and maintaining a successful business, especially in a challenging economy,” said Peacock. “We are pleased with our U.S. beer sales, we will continue to invest in growing our brands and we will always look for ways to become more efficient. Decisions like this are never easy, but they will ensure the long-term success for
Anheuser-Busch and our employees.”

The company anticipates that the aggregate pre-tax expense associated with the reduction will be approximately 197 million USD. Approximately 150 million USD of this expense will arise from severance arrangements with terminated employees and the remainder will arise from enhancements in the pension benefits required by the terms of the defined benefit plan because the terminations are occurring within three years of the change of control of the company. The company anticipates that cash expenditures from the reduction will be approximately 213 million USD. The plans announced today are an integral part of the at least 1.5 billion USD in annual synergies identified by InBev when it announced its combination with Anheuser-Busch in July. The company is confident in its ability to achieve against this synergies projection by 2011.

No surprises there, but with a mere 17 days until Christmas, it certainly feels like scrooge has arrived a little early this year.

 

Beer in Art #5: Leger’s Still Life With A Beer Mug

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Today’s work of art (& beer) is decidedly more modern, with bold colors and an abstract vision. Still Life With A Beer Mug, by the French artist Fernand Léger, was painted around 1921. Léger is generally considered a cubist painter, like Pablo Picasso, who’s probably the most famous cubist. He was born in France and was originally trained as an architect. During World War I he served in the military and was gassed during the Battle of Verdun, which greatly effected his later art, which would include this work.

The painting, Still Life With A Beer Mug, is at the Tate Museum in London, and there’s a transcript describing every aspect of the painting, but there’s also a shorter summary there.

This vibrant, bold oil painting has a strong visual impact, largely because it is painted using predominantly black, white and the three primary colours – red, yellow and blue. Dominating the centre of the painting is an overly large German style beer mug with a handle seen in profile on the left. It dwarfs the small, square table on which it sits. The table has exaggeratedly long thin legs that disappear off the bottom of the canvas and it stands on a black and white chequered floor. Surrounding the beer mug are what appear to be two plates of fruit, some small pots of butter and an object that could be a cork-screw. The objects in this painting are quite hard to read, because Léger has radically simplified their forms, reducing them to simple shapes. He has also used several different viewpoints at once and filled every inch of the canvas with a riot of highly coloured, contrasting geometric patterns. Some of these seem to correspond to surfaces in the painting, like the chequered floor, but most seem to be used simply for bold decorative effect. Finally, running down the right hand side of the canvas is a blue curtain tied back half way down its length.

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Here is Waldemar Januszczak’s take on Still Life With A Beer Mug, from Techniques of the Great Masters of Art

“In Still Life with a Beer Mug,…the shaded modelling of the curtain, objects on the table and the interior view of the mug contrasts with the flatly painted geometric shapes and the patterned rendering of other forms. This illustrates Leger’s preoccupation with plastic contrasts, which he described as follows in 1923: ‘I group contrary values together: flat surfaces opposed to modelled surfaces; volumetric figures opposed to the flat facades of houses . . .; pure flat tones opposed to grey, modulated tones, or the reverse’. Leger did not want simply to copy a manufactured object, but felt that its clean, precise beauty should be accepted as a challenging starting point which would, if necessary, be distorted to achieve the final desired result.

Leger found his source material in what he described as ‘the lower-class environment, with its aspects of crudeness and harshness, of tragedy and comedy, always hyperactive’. Leger’s work can thus be seen as a response to a view of the world as being in flux and opposition on which, through its being rendered in art, order is imposed through the methodical preparation and execution of the work. The canvas of Still Life with a Beer Mug was divided into 24 squares, some of which can still be seen on the canvas. Leger’s rather aggressive statements about his work should not obscure the fact that Still Life with a Beer Mug is an outstanding example of sensitive and subtle handling of the oil painting medium. Leger took vast pains to achieve exactly the result he wanted. In this work slight adjustments were made in the final paint layer even after the work had been photographed at the Galerie Simon in Paris.

“Still Life with a Beer Mug shows an extremely subtle handling of oils. The strong color contrasts show a range of carefully worked tomes. The black tones are played against white. The warm colors, vermilion, cadmium orange and yellow, are played against the cool tints and shades of Prussian blue, and these intense areas are relieved by the delicate interaction of almost creamy washes of pale lemon yellow and pale blue-green in the diamond pattern below the table. The picture retains the fine but emphatic canvas pattern which shows through the ground. Indeed, the ground itself makes up much of the white background.”

For more about Fernand Léger, Wikipedia is a good place to start. There are also tons of links at the ArtCyclopedia.

 

Repeal Day 75th Anniversary Parade

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Today was, of course, the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the 18th Amendment with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. The 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant in San Francisco, California held a Repeal Day Parade that marched from Justin Herman Plaza, near the ferry Building, to their brewpub on 2nd Street, near the Giants’ ballpark in China Basin.

Frequent stops were made along the parade route, such as Nico and Shaun dancing with a pair of flappers.

There were two messages on the day: “Repeal Prohibition” and “We Want Beer.”

 

For exactly 21 more photos from the 21st Amendment Repeal Day Parade, visit the photo gallery.
 

UPDATE: 21st Amendmet now has some more photos from the parade, too.

 

Session #22: 75 Years Demonizing Alcohol

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This is our 22nd Session a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday and today’s topic is quite relevant for the day, as this is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ending thirteen years of our national prohibition. Our host today, naturally, is the 21st Amendment Blog, written by Shaun O’Sullivan and Nico Freccia, co-founders of the 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant in San Francisco, California. Here’s how they put their approach to this month’s topic:

In 1920, there were thousands of breweries across America making unique, hand-crafted beer. The passage of Prohibition wiped out this great culture. On December 5, 1933, the states ratified the 21st Amendment, repealing the 18th Amendment, thus ending 13 years of Prohibition in America. At the 21st Amendment Brewery, the repeal of Prohibition means we can celebrate the right to brew beer, the freedom to be innovative, and the obligation to have fun.

What does the repeal of Prohibition mean to you? How will you celebrate your right to drink beer?

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I confess I’ve been struggling mightily for something to write about Prohibition, as I feel like I’ve written about it so much lately that there’s really not much left to say. But then my friend and colleague, historian and author Maureen Ogle sent me a link to an Op-Ed piece she did for U.S. News & World Report. Her unique and fresh take on the ramifications of Prohibition’s end was a revelation for me. It was like getting in the bathtub of cheap hooch with Archimedes himself. It was a real “Eureka,” “a-ha moment” and “epiphany” all rolled into one. The wheels started turning. Maybe there’s another way to look at this.

Most of us have taken it as a given that the repeal of Prohibition was a victory for the pro-alcohol majority and a denunciation of the anti-alcohol sentiments that had brought it about. But maybe not. Despite its obvious failures on many fronts, it was the depression that really hastened its end. The economy needed a shot in the arm, and legalizing alcohol created jobs, tax revenue and good will. In the end, it was money, not morals that brought down Prohibition.

For just one example of how bad Prohibition was, check out Prohibition and the Rise of Crime, a blog post by J. Michael Jones, a retired police chief.

That’s not to say I won’t be celebrating today. I will. I’ll be in downtown San Francisco later marching in a Repeal Day parade. I’ll be enjoying some legal beer and toasting how good the American beer scene is today. And I won’t be alone, of course. There are numerous celebrations throughout the country today. But I wonder if we’re celebrating the right things? Or celebrating the right way?

The NBWA (National Beer Wholesalers Association) released a press release today extolling the virtues of the three-tier distribution, a system created out of whole cloth as a way to return alcohol to the public arena after passage of the 21st Amendment.

“This anniversary is a great time to recognize the success of the past 75 years of effective, state-based alcohol regulation since the ratification of the 21st Amendment,” said NBWA President Craig Purser. “A ‘one size fits all’ approach to alcohol regulation during Prohibition was a failure. The 21st Amendment allows individual states to regulate alcohol as their citizens see fit.”

Their celebration is understandable, of course, since after Prohibition an entirely new segment of the beer industry was created — The Distributor. But while understandable, it’s hard not to view their celebration as little too self-serving. They’re not really celebrating alcohol being legally available again so much as their own success in creating a new business model. This new system created a lot of wealth for a number of people and organizations. I’m not saying they haven’t worked hard for it or that they don’t deserve to celebrate their success, but it just feels a little too much like self-congratulatory patting themselves on back. To be fair the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States had a similar press release.

Many other mainstream writing about today’s anniversary is likewise self-congratulatory. Many gave very standard accounts, such as the Illinois Telegraph, the San Francisco Chronicle (which also has some interesting local info and photos), USA Today and even the UK’s Independent. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with any of these or the countless other similar articles that will be published around the world today.

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In the Independent, author Rupert Cornwell reflects on the fact that in America “the mindset that produced Prohibition lives on. The cocktail, it is said, is enjoying a new golden age. But a third of American adults don’t drink at all, and the country ranks only 40th in the international league table of alcohol consumption. Indeed, since the late 1970s, consumption per head in the US has been falling steadily.”

The great “war on alcohol” between 1920 and 1933 may have ended in resounding defeat. But an American belief that human vices can be eradicated, and human nature perfected, persists, visible in the continuing, scarcely less futile “war on drugs” declared by Richard Nixon in 1971 and, who knows, maybe in George Bush’s “war on terror” as well. But don’t let such somber thoughts spoil the party tonight.

He’s not the only one to notice the comparison between Prohibition and our current drug policy, such as Stop the Drug War. Even the Wall Street Journal has an article today entitled Let’s End Drug Prohibition. Are we finally starting to realize as a culture that regulating is better than outlawing? Sadly, probably not. The neo-prohibitionists are still running amuck.

But as Maureen Ogle points out in yet another Repeal Day article, this one in the Philadelphia Inquirer, it’s really our Constitution that was saved by ending Prohibition. As she details, Prohibition led to corruption, conspiracy and contempt for the law by not just citizens, but which also — and I just can’t put it better than Ogle — “oozed into and out of every level of government, from Washington to the smallest municipality.” And that’s not just hindsight, a report in 1931 by federal commission that had studied Prohibition for two years, concluded that it was an abject failure and as “the more flagrantly authorities disregarded citizens’ rights, the more cynical Americans became. Young adults in particular — the very people who would become “leaders in the next generation” — demonstrated overt ‘hostility to or contempt for the law.'”

As the Patriot Act (not to mention our current lame duck administration) similarly disregards the Constitution and the rights of American citizens, and we appear to be heading into another protracted recession (if not an actual depression), the conditions seem eerily similar to those of seventy-five plus years ago. As they worried then, what might a continuing disrespect for the Constitution lead to? I’m worried. Aren’t you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that “change” may be on the horizon, but I can’t help but continue to be apprehensive that our swing to the right and the threats to democracy that that entailed will so easily be undone by good intentions. Movement Conservatism may be in a weakened state right now, but it’s hardly on life support.

And speaking of beer and elections, did you know that in seven states, it’s still illegal to sell or serve alcohol on Election Day? Weird, huh? In Alaska, Kentucky, Indiana, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia alcohol and voting apparently still don’t mix. According to TriState, these [s]o-called “Blue Laws” date back to the 1930s and make it illegal to sell alcohol on certain important religious or political days. Blue laws were meant to protect the integrity of the voting process in a time when many saloons also served as polling places. In the past 70 years, most states have either relaxed their Election Day bans or repealed them altogether.”

demon-beer

But finally, back to Maureen Ogle’s devastating insight into what the end of Prohibition has wrought. Though she finds the term clumsy, I like it. She asserts that repeal “institutionalized the demonization of alcohol.” For some, that may be hard to swallow (yes, intended) but for me it made perfect sense and made me look at the issue from a different perspective.

To summarize what Ogle means by that, here’s her introductory paragraph:

Prohibition ended on Dec. 5, 1933, not with a bang but with the thud of thousands of pages of new city, state, and federal laws that dictated when, where, and how Americans could make, buy, sell, and drink alcohol. Ratification of the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition, was neither a green light to drink nor a victory over the “dry” crusade that had produced Prohibition. Seventy-five years later, we’re still captives of that crusade.

Indeed, the 21st Amendment heralded the age of regulating alcohol like never before. It created new rules and regulations, label approval procedures, licensing requirement, all manner of new taxes and previously unheard of restrictions on all aspects of how alcoholic beverages could be made, sold, marketed, packaged and even consumed. At every step from grain to glass, there was the watchful eye of the government to tell everybody what role they were to play and within what parameters the game would take place.

I can only imagine that people were so happy to have alcohol back that it was scarcely even noticed by the ordinary public. I’m sure the breweries were keenly aware, but they were undoubtedly thrilled to be back in business under any conditions and more likely figured being regulated in business was far better than not being in business at all.

Before Prohibition, there were around 1,500 breweries, but less than half reopened afterward. And for a variety of reasons, the number of breweries continued to decline sharply. By the year I was born, 1959, there were only about 200 left. At least one of the reasons that the re-opened breweries struggled was the maze of new federal and state regulations imposed on how alcohol companies operated their businesses.

After Prohibition, the original message of the temperance movement was not only alive and well, but became internalized and institutionalized — essentially set in stone — by the very laws created to regulate it. That message is still with us today. Simply put, it is this:

Alcohol is evil. No one can be trusted with it.

demons-three

That message permeates all discussions of alcohol policy and any “issues” about alcohol. That message has been communicated by the laws passed seventy-five years ago and generations of new adults have soaked up that message almost completely. That’s it’s thoroughly untrue goes not only unchallenged but the notion isn’t even considered as a topic for discussion, so embedded is it in our collective psyche. Every aspect of how we treat alcohol has this false message looking over our shoulder, refusing to go away.

Alcohol is not inherently evil, we just treat it as if it were. People can be trusted with it, and in fact most people who drink alcohol are responsible adults, we just treat them like children in our over-paternalistic society. And we do this because we’ve assumed the temperance propaganda message to be true and we’ve created alcohol laws under that same mistaken assumption.

Ogle sums up:

It’s a vicious, and lethal, cycle: As long as we remain addicted to demonization, we avoid serious discussion about those values. The longer we avoid that conversation, the longer we pass on the booze-is-bad message to our kids, who grow up to pass the message on to their kids. And as long as we teach children to fear rather than respect alcohol, we’ll interrupt the silence with periodic spasms of hand-wringing and finger-pointing about campus drinking, binge drinking, underage drinking, and the like. But here’s the truth: The “alcohol problem” is of our own creation. We’ve got the drinking culture we deserve.

I agree with everything Maureen says with the possible exception of that last sentence. I’m not entirely persuaded that we “deserve” the drinking culture we have today. If our present “drinking culture” had been arrived at by an ongoing open, fair and honest public debate about alcohol, then I’d wholeheartedly agree that we got what we deserve. But I believe that what we’re stuck with today is the result of subterfuge, conspiracy, propaganda and out and out lies by people and organizations with a Carrie Nation-style axe to grind.

I prefer an image of prohibitionists having slunk away to lick their wounds in defeat but the truth is they’ve never really gone away. They’ve never stopped trying to keep their message alive. That they’ve been so successful while at the same time convincing us they’d lost is deviously clever. They’re like the tortured, evil protagonist in every horror movie who refuses to die, no matter how many times he’s shot, sliced or garroted. They always come back, don’t they? To me, that’s the unfortunate message of this 75th anniversary. It’s certainly worth celebrating 75 years of beer in America. But it’s perhaps more important to recognize that the battle didn’t end December 5, 1933. It merely changed the terms of engagement from above ground prohibition to underground demonization. Happy Repeal Day everybody. Drink up.

demon-alcohol

The Demon Alcohol, by Robert Steven Connett.

This is a nicely imagined vision of how we view alcohol today, in a Hieronymus Bosch sort of way.

For a lot more great information about Prohibition, check out Prohibition Repeal.
celebrate-repeal

Sapporo’s Space Beer Almost Ready For Tasting

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Back in May I mentioned that Sapporo Breweries was “planning to brew a beer made from barley descended from seeds grown in space, specifically in the Russian section of the International Space Station two years ago.” Back then I wrote.

According to Reuters, Sapporo said in a statement. “By pursuing the infinite possibility that space has, we wish to present our customers with rich and enjoyable proposals to enjoy a new beer culture.” Sapporo will not sell the initial results, but instead will sample select consumers on the new space beer, which should be — ahem — launched this November. Working with Okayama University scientists, they will produce just over 166 gallons of beer (630 liters). I doubt anyone will be able to taste any difference, but I’d still like to be one of the lucky ones chosen to try it.

Well, it’s December now and still no sign of a tasting. But wait, there’s more news. Sapporo announced yesterday that in January the tasting will take place. According to Japan Today, “[a] total of 30 couples, who have been selected through a lottery, will be invited to the events at the company’s six plants from Hokkaido to Oita Prefecture.”

Presumably the barley she’s holding is the third-generation space barley they used in making the beer, named Sapporo Space Barley. The original plants were sent into space and grown in the International Space Station for five months.

Showing off the bottles at yesterday’s press conference.

Only 100 liters of the beer was made, far less than originally announced, and initial reports say — not surprisingly — that it tastes the same as any other beer.

My favorites quote from the press: From Technovelgy, “I’m guessing “out of this world” will be the most common response.” And from Dvice, “[u]ntil then we’ll stay tuned to see if the space grown beer microbes yield any gamma ray-like super powers.”

 

Craft Beer in the Funny Papers

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My friend Pete Slosberg noticed something different in a comic strip and sent it to me yesterday. It’s a recent Non Sequitur cartoon by Wiley Miller. Read it all the way down the last panel. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Meet you at the end.

 
That’s the first I know of a craft beer being mentioned in a nationally syndicated comic strip, in this case specifically Shipyard Ale from Shipyard Brewing in Portland, Maine. That’s pretty cool, in my humble opinion.