Pacific Coast Brewing’s 20th annual holiday beer tasting will be held at the brewery in downtown Oakland on December 13, from Noon until 4:00 p.m. Tickets are $50. Call 510.836.2739 for reservations. If you’re planning on going, make your reservations to be there now, because it will sell out quickly.
12.13
Pacific Coast Brewing’s Tasting of Holiday Beers (20th annual)
Pacific Coast Brewing, 906 Washington Street, Oakland, California
510.836.2739 [ website ]
There was an interesting item in BrandWeek last week, giving the results of a survey by YouGovPolimetrix about what brands consumers feel offer them the best value. Not surprisingly, overall the survey revealed that consumer perception is clearly affected by what they refer to as a “slumping economy.” The survey took place for the two months of September and October. YouGovPolimetrix chose these months on purpose, to see what the results would be like during an economic downturn. In general, “budget” brands like Wal-Mart and Old Navy ranked highest, while financial services companies were at the bottom of the list “reflecting the loss of consumer confidence in those brands.”
The Top 5 Brands With the Highest Consumer Perception Value
The Bottom 5 Brands With the Lowest Consumer Perception Value
Additionally, the survey found that over the past two months, value perception scores have increased for Microsoft, Starbucks, Verizon Wireless, Folgers, Bath and Body Works, but the scores decreased most for AIG, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, Foot Locker and Merrill Lynch.
BrandIndex also measured the brands with the best and worst value perception in 19 categories, and here are the results for beer:
The Top Beer Brands With the Highest Consumer Perception Value
The Bottom Beer Brands With the Lowest Consumer Perception Value
Okay, Sam Adams I get, but Corona? I’ve never felt particularly good about Corona … well, ever. A triumph of marketing, a disaster as a beer.
Unless you’ve traveled with me, you probably didn’t know that one of my other geeky hobbies is art. I love going to art museums, especially obscure local ones, whenever I travel. And while I naturally check out what breweries there are wherever I go, I also consult Art Across America, a great reference book of art museums that tells you where they are, their hours and other basic information. So I’ve been thinking lately that I should share that passion and highlight the countless times when beer and art intersect. So once a week, I’ll bring you another work of art that has something to do with beer, alternating between old classics and modern interpretations. If you know of a piece of art featuring beer, please drop me a line or comment here and I’ll work it into the queue for future artistic posts.
We’ll start today with an undisputed masterpiece. Started in 1882, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, by the French painter Édouard Manet, is a favorite of mine, not least of which because it features prominently bottles of Bass Ale in the painting with their distinctive red triangles.
Click on the image above for a larger view. From Wikipedia:
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, painted and exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1882, was the last major work by French painter Édouard Manet. It depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris.
The painting is filled with contemporaneous details specific to the Folies-Bergère. The distant pair of green feet in the upper left-hand corner belong to a trapeze artist, who is performing above the restaurant’s patrons.
The beer which is depicted would have catered not to the tastes of Parisians, but to those of English tourists, suggesting a British clientèle. Manet has signed his name on the label of the bottle at the bottom left, combining the centuries-old practice of self-promotion in art with something more modern, bordering on the product placement concept of the late twentieth century.
But for all its specificity to time and place, it is worth noting that, should the background of this painting indeed be a reflection in a mirror on the wall behind the bar as suggested by some critics, the woman in the reflection would appear directly behind the image of the woman facing forward. Neither are the bottles reflected accurately or in like quantity for it to be a reflection. These details were criticized in the French press when the painting was shown. The assumption is faulty when one considers that the postures of the two women, however, are quite different and the presence of the man to whom the second woman speaks marks the depth of the subject area. Indeed many critics view the faults in the reflection to be fundamental to the painting as they show a double reality and meaning to the work.
The increased use of the new technology of photography began to free artists such as Manet to do more than merely imitate life. At any rate, Manet was confident enough to take liberties with literal transcription for the sake of composition.
For this great painting, the Getty has some good info, too. If you want to learn more about the artist, the Art Archive or the ArtCyclopedia are both good places to start.
Those nattering nabobs of negativity, the Marin Institute, are gleefully spreading the word that the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is proposing to raise the tax on beer in order to get California out of the mess that he and the rest of the gang of idiots — collectively known as politicians — got themselves into, dragging us down with them while constantly trying to figure out how to make us pay for their mistakes. So no, I don’t feel too strongly about this issue.
Naturally, they’re characterizing it as a “modest” proposal and continue to justify it with faulty arguments and no understanding of history. But you’ve got to love how they feel about those of us in the beer business. “Despite the whining by industry about a tax increase, the time has come for Big Alcohol to pay its fair share of the cost burden of problem drinking in California. They’ve dodged the bullet for too long.” So I think it’s fair of me to point out that I’ve been quite correct in saying that they’ve been shooting at us, gunning for us, trying to bring us down. They chose the perfect way to phrase that, some old-fashioned honesty for a change. The neo-prohibitionists have been attacking our industry, and we’ve been dodging their bullets. But responding to those premeditated attacks, and trying to defend ourselves, that they consider “whining.” Really? For Schwarzenegger it may be about the money, but for these chuckleheads it’s moral indignation.
So here’s the lie. The neo-prohibitionists talk about how little taxes are paid on beer, as if breweries are getting away with something. Or that it’s the responsibility of alcohol companies to pay for how a minority of drinkers abuse it and exercise incredibly poor judgment. They don’t seem nearly as quick to make gun makers responsible for a crime committed using one of their guns. They’re not suggesting fast food companies be held accountable for their role in creating an obese, unhealthy populace and placing a huge burden on medical facilities. They want beer companies to pay for medical expenses supposedly caused by a minority of their customers abusing alcohol. Please explain to me how that’s different from the health risks posed by fast food, soda, red meat, and all manner of overindulgences? And what industry does the most harm and places the biggest costs on our society? That would be the automotive industry, along with the the related oil interests.
But let’s assume, just for talking about it, that beer should pay those taxes. Le’s get back to that notion that the industry is getting away with something, underpaying our “fair share,” as it were. The state excise taxes that they’re talking about bumping up a nickel, and saying that they haven’t been raised since 1992 is, of course, nowhere near the whole story.
In addition to those taxes, breweries pay many other taxes on the beer you enjoy. It’s not just that one tax. In fact, about 44% of the cost of your beer goes to taxes of one kind or another. That’s nearly half! Here’s a list of many of the taxes that go into that 44%.
Taxes Paid On Beer
But wait. Don’t other businesses pay all of those taxes, too? Why yes they do, all except the excises taxes, state and federal, and the taxes on the excise taxes. Those are unique to alcohol (and also tobacco) and are, I think, at the heart of what’s wrong with the neo-prohibitionists argument. But I’ll go into that later. For now, what do those additional unique taxes add to what other businesses have to pay in order to do business. “According to a 2005 study by Global Insight and the Parthenon Group, more than 40% of every beer sold in the United States is consumed by taxes. In fact, the total tax burden adds up to nearly 70% more than the average amount of tax paid in the U.S. on all other purchases. That represents well above $10 billion in extra taxes paid on beer.” So much for the beer industry not paying its fair share.
But where did that excise tax come from? Why do brewers pay it now, when no other industry, save tobacco, has to? Well the history of excise taxes stretches back to the Civil War, or War Between the States for my southern readers. During Lincoln’s first term, the North had to raise money to finance the Civil War and they turned to the beer industry, among others, to help finance the war effort. I just wrote about this, shortly before the election, so I’ll just quote myself and pick up the story here.
In Brewing Battles, by Amy Mittleman, she details how in July of 1861, the US Congress (or a least what was left of it in the north) levied the first income tax on the remaining states in order to raise money to fight the war with the southern states. By the end of the year, Congress realized it wasn’t enough and they needed a way to raise more funds for the war. In a special session in December 1861, Congress reviewed a request by the Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, to raise the percentage of income tax slightly and levy excise taxes on a number of goods, including beer, distilled spirits, cotton, tobacco, carriages (the automobiles of the day), yachts, pool tables and even playing cards, to name a few. The amendments passed, and Lincoln signed them into law July 1, 1862. They took effect September 1. Several weeks later, the first trade organization of brewers, the United States Brewers Association (USBA), was founded in New York.
Excise taxes are a “type of tax charged on goods produced within the country (as opposed to customs duties, charged on goods from outside the country).” The excise taxes were intended to be “temporary” but it was the beginning of temperance sentiments in the nation, and many people objected to alcohol on moral grounds. In the decade following the war, most were rescinded, but the taxes on alcohol and tobacco were the only two to remain in force, and in fact are still in effect today.
The only reason these excise taxes remained after the Civil War was primarily on moral grounds, coming from prohibitionist organizations. And I think that’s still relevant in 2008 because today’s neo-prohibitionists are also trying to use a moral sledgehammer to raise taxes on alcohol in an effort to put beer companies out of business and/or bring about another national prohibition. In state legislatures in many states, neo-prohibitionist groups are trying a variety of tactics to further their agenda. Usually it’s couched in propaganda that pretends they’re concerned for the children, or people’s health or some other hollow claim that hides their true aims.
I still find the argument strange that there should be higher taxes on products some people find morally objectionable. I find soda morally objectionable because it’s so unhealthy that it’s contributing to a nation of obese kids (and adults) — not to mention that beer in moderation is much healthier for you. But I wouldn’t argue pop should have an excise tax. The very concept of a so-called “sin” tax seems antithetical to the separation of church and state. Sin is a religious concept, and should play no role whatsoever in our government. Making people pay a higher price for goods that other people don’t like seems not only a little cruel, but also contrary to freedom of religion, because those are the morals people are using to deny people getting (or making prohibitively expensive) certain goods that not everyone agrees are sins. By using one set of morals as the basis for a particular law (in this case an excise tax) it ignores other sets of morals that differ from the prevailing one. That’s how a theocracy works, and we’re not one yet, despite recent efforts to make religion a central issue in government.
That’s the federal excise tax, and there’s an interesting part of that story, too, which we’ll get to. After Prohibition ended in 1933, most states imposed a new state excise tax as a part of allowing alcohol back into society legally. Today, each state’s excise tax is very different, with Alaska being the highest and Wyoming the lowest. California’s in the middle, tied at 21st (see this chart of State Beer Excise Tax Rates). And it’s that particular tax that California wants to raise a nickel now. So let’s return to the neo-prohibitionist argument that the California excise tax hasn’t been raised since 1991. What they don’t mention is that around the very same time, the tax burden for breweries jumped up considerably, when Congress doubled the federal excise tax in 1991, jumping from $9 per barrel to $18!
Here’s what happened, from Roll Back the Beer Tax:
In 1990, Congress raised taxes on luxury items like expensive cars, fur coats, jewelry, yachts, and private airplanes and doubled the federal excise tax on beer. This was the largest single increase in the tax on beer in American history and resulted in some 60,000 people losing their jobs in brewing, distributing, retailing and related industries.
Today, all of the other luxury taxes have been repealed, but the beer tax remains in place. The tax burden on beer is far higher than the average consumer good in the American economy. Astonishingly, over 40% of the cost of every beer sold is comprised of taxes. This means working Americans continue to reach into their pockets to pay the beer tax … at the rate of $5.2 billion a year.
And here’s why excise taxes are such a bad deal for the economy:
A tax is considered regressive if it falls more heavily on lower- and middle-income families than on the wealthy. And this is certainly true with beer taxes. This has long been recognized, but perhaps underappreciated. Analyses based on recent data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey clearly show that beer taxes are very regressive, as a percentage of income, costing lower- and middle-income households many times more than those with more comfortable incomes. A recent Beer Institute analysis found that beer taxes are actually 6.5 times higher as a percent of income for lower-income households (those earning less than $20,000 per year) compared to higher-income households (earning $70,000+ per year). As a result, the tax on beer is one of the most regressive of all taxes in the federal and states’ tax codes.
Viewed another way, 50% of all beer, is purchased by families with incomes of $50,000 or less, though these households account for less than one-fourth of all income earned in the U.S.
Sadly, the fact that beer taxes are very regressive has been known for quite some time, yet they continue to persist. A strong case can be made for rolling back or reducing beer taxes, based on the simple fact that research has exposed – notably, by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) – that the overall tax systems in many cases are already disturbingly regressive with many becoming decidedly more regressive in the past decade or more. According to the report, “sales and excise taxes are the most regressive element in most state and local tax systems.”
But let’s get back to California’s proposal. Here’s the language from the budget proposal (it’s an image because the pdf is locked for copying the text. If you have trouble reading this, download the original pdf for the Budget Proposal):
So let’s go the Funding Realignment, as they suggest. This is undoubtedly what the Marin Institute is crowing about when they say revenues from the new tax will be “providing critical support to programs that deal specifically with alcohol-related problems.”
But take a closer look at that language. What is says is that “[r]evenues generated from these taxes will be used to fund drug and alcohol abuse prevention and treatment services.” [my emphasis.] Hmm, why is the brewing industry also funding drug abusers? The argument being advanced to justify all of this is that beer industry is supposed to fund the problems neo-prohibitionists insist they created. Well, I’m pretty sure you can’t pin that on the monkey on your back, that “H” problem or your crack addiction on beer. Even using their own logic, such as it is, that seems incredibly unfair.
This isn’t the first time, even recently, that beer has been tapped to fix budget problems not of their making. For the morally indignant, it apparently fits some weird moral compass to punish an industry they don’t agree with in order to to fix the shortcomings of our politicians. Earlier this year, state congressman Jim Beall proposed raising beer taxes 1400% for “health reasons” and in June the Sacramento Bee weighed in with their own nonsensical proposal, though that time the bogeyman was specifically alcopops. Here’s what I said then, modified slightly:
The idea that beer drinkers should have to pay for our state’s fiscal irresponsibility is so ridiculous that I’m amazed the argument can be made with a straight face. But that’s what many have proposed, in effect, the Sacramento Bee weighed in with their own absurd idea, that goes like this: “Psst! Hey, legislators — looking for some fast cash to ease the budget crisis? Think booze.” The faulty logic, downright incorrect statements and tortured reasoning are in virtually every sentence. It’s as if up really were down in the Bee’s worldview.
The Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watch group [who originally floated this idea], estimates that raising taxes on all alcoholic beverages just 25 cents per drink would raise $3 billion. That’s money the state desperately needs from an industry that has not paid its fair share for a long, long time.
As a colleague of mine put it, “saying the Marin Institute is “an alcohol industry watch group” is like saying the Taliban is a cultural and morality watch group.” The Marin Institute is nothing so grand. They are quite simply a neo-prohibitionist group who wants to return to a time when all alcohol is illegal and they will use any means necessary to achieve that goal. But that aside, saying that taxes should be raised because “the state desperately needs” it is not a valid reason. It may be a result, but what kind of world would we have if every time we needed money, our government looked around for somebody they didn’t like and decided to target them for higher taxes. That’s not a world I’d want to live in. That’s certainly not the high-minded ideals we should be aspiring to.
Where the taxes on any good or product made should be a policy decision based on a variety of factors, none of which should include manufactured hysteria, the agenda of a misinformed and misguided minority, or an opinion based on a lack of truthiness by an apparently biased newspaper.
So no matter how you look at this, it just makes no sense, has no internal logic, and just feel like as an industry we’re being attacked once again. Apart from raising the tax on oil found in California and the sales tax on certain goods that weren’t subject to it in the past — like appliance and furniture repair, automotive repair, amusement parks, sporting events and veterinarians — beer has been singled out for special assessment again. That so many feel that it’s fair to do so, I find remarkable, especially since proponents do not see how they’re using morality to solve political problems. But perhaps they do know full well what they’re doing but just don’t care about fairness. What’s important is their agenda, and the real consequences to those who disagree with them are inconsequential. I sometimes feel like they don’t consider their opponents — you and me — as fully human. Or perhaps they see us as children who need their moral guidance, though meted out with a bludgeon — tough love indeed.
From a purely pragmatic position, placing a burden on a not insignificant part of the state’s economy seems misguided at best. Of California’s $1.6 trillion economy, the beer industry represents $24,646,539,216 or just over 1.5%. In difficult economic times, why would you try to harm such a large percentage of it? For those of us who can look past the moral arguments, it feels a little like shooting oneself in the foot.
The Marin Institute doesn’t see that, of course, and wants to shoot everybody in the foot. They claim “[a]t least 38 other states also face serious budget deficits, totaling more than $60 billion dollars, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. ‘A nickel a drink — It’s the change we need to fix budgets around the nation,’ said Bruce Lee Livingston, executive director of Marin Institute, the California-based alcohol industry watchdog. ‘The largest states, such as New York and Florida can avoid cutting essential programs through long-overdue alcohol tax increases,’ Livingston added. California’s proposal accomplishes exactly that.” Don’t you believe it. The California budget deficit is $11.2 billion. The Governor’s proposal estimates raising only $293 million from the beer industry. That comes nowhere close to “fixing” our budget, and simply unfairly harms an industry already struggling to recover from record increases of crucial ingredients, like hops and malt.
There’s no doubt we need to fix the budget deficit gripping California, and in the many other states where it’s an issue. And let’s not forget the record federal deficit that eight years of Republican neocon rule have run up, the same folks in favor of us returning us to a national prohibition. As of this morning, it was $10,636,486,383,932.04. According to the U.S. National Debt Clock, the “estimated population of the United States is 305,064,289 so each citizen’s share of this debt is $34,866.38. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $3.99 billion per day since September 28, 2007!” Our economy is obviously in serious jeopardy. But this is a problem that affects us all equally, and any solutions should likewise be distributed evenly among the citizenry. Any other result is simply patently unfair.
Here’s as quirky a piece of modern art a I’ve ever encountered. It’s by German artist Hannes Broecker, whose recent installation was exhibited in Dresden, Germany. The work is called “Drink Away The Art,” and is a series of flat, glass containers hanging on the wall filled with various colored cocktails, wine and beer. Drinking glasses were a part of the work, and gallery visitors were invited to each drain some of the drinks from off the hanging containers into a glass via a pressure-sensitive tap at the bottom of each one.
Drink Away The Art, a series of nine glass containers of alcoholic beverages.
Here you can see the taps protruding down at the right-hand corner of each container. Throughout each evening at the gallery, the levels of the liquids became lower and lower at varying intervals, creating new patterns every few minutes.
You placed your glass below the framed artwork, and drained some of whatever was in that particular container into it.
The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, finally comes of age as this month it’s our 21st Session. Hosted by Matt C., from A World of Brews, the topic this month is What Is Your Favorite Beer? He frames the question like so.
No one has asked the one question that I am guessing all of you have heard. This question has probably come from friends, family, strangers from the bar, etc. every time you bring up you are really into beer.
That question is: What is your favorite Beer and Why?
Before you say I don’t have a favorite beer or how do I pick just one. I say BS everyone has a favorite. There will always be a beer that you would grab above all others, your go to beer per se. The one beer you will almost always choose over the others. When I get asked that question I almost always say I don’t have one but then when I came up with this topic I realized I did and I know you do too.
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Actually, I’m afraid I must disagree not only that “everyone has a favorite,” but also with the notion that having a favorite is even desirable. In fact, this is one of those questions that quite frankly drives me to madness, and has done so for almost as long as I can remember. A moment’s thought about your own drinking habits will likely reveal that you’re like most craft beer enthusiasts; you like to drink a variety of different beers, and in fact will seek out the new, the seasonally new, the unique, the different. Last week, I interviewed Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery for an article I just finished, and in it he said much the same thing, citing “how promiscuous the beer industry is, where we all share secrets with one another, where the consumer is generally catholic with their drinking habits, celebrating the breadth of styles available in the world.” |
And demographic data collected by IRI and Nielsen, among others, seem to bear that out. Back in March, I wrote about Anheuser-Busch’s own market analysis, when they were announcing the debut of Budweiser Ale. They referred to craft beer drinkers as “experimenters,” which they elaborated as follows.
“They love beer, they just try a lot of different things,” said Dave Peacock, vice president of marketing at A-B’s domestic beer subsidiary. Although Peacock acknowledged that some craft beer enthusiasts won’t try a Bud-branded ale, the company expects that a sizable portion of the market will have no problem with the concept.
I wasn’t particularly thrilled with that characterization, but had to admit that, as I said at the time, “[m]ost craft beer enthusiasts do like to sample the many different flavors that brewers come up with, or taste new versions of existing styles. That’s part of the better beer culture, trying new and different things. But when I’m out with friends and just enjoying an evening out, I don’t suddenly start drinking one, and only one kind or brand of beer. The reality, at least for myself (and I’m going to hazard a guess that I’m not alone on this), is that people simply don’t just want one kind of anything, not all the time.”
And then there’s that question — sigh.
Whenever people I meet discover that I’m involved in the beer business, invariably the question they can’t help but ask is “what’s your favorite beer?” This question just exhausts me — I hate answering it — but I put on my brave face and try to explain why I don’t have one, and why I never will. My wife insists that it’s an “opportunity” to educate someone and I suppose she’s right (she usually is), but I can’t help but view it as someone asking me if I have a favorite child. I know they mean well, but just asking this question says more about them than they realize. That so many people think there is — or should be — just one favorite anything shows how notions of brand loyalty and marketing have worked their way into our thinking. Do people have a favorite food, one food they’d eat every single meal? Of course not, so how is this any different? That so many people find it a reasonable question to ask about beer tells me that not only do they expect that I will actually have one but also that they see nothing wrong with limiting oneself in the face of such diversity. Corporations whose marketing has created such ideas must be absolutely giddy with their success in planting this idea so deeply into our collective psyche.
That’s what I said then, what I’ve believed for many years, and what I continue to believe. I don’t even have one favorite beer style, much less a particular favorite beer. And here’s the thing. I don’t think you should have one, either. This is not what we should aspire to. |
The whole pint .. er, point, IMHO, is that craft beer is meant to, or at least should, encourage the notion that different beers are appropriate for different scenarios, be they food choices, time of the season, weather, mood or whatever.
I’d accept that you could have a few different favorite styles that you think go well with something particular, such as wheat beers are refreshing in hot weather or hoppy beers go nicely with spicy foods. I can even see having a favorite beer for a particular scenario. For example, I loved pairing Pike’s wonderfully spicy Auld Acquaintance with Thanksgiving dinner, before they stopped brewing it (though they have announced they’re bringing it back again this year). For the last decade or so, I’ve enjoyed Anchor’s Christmas Ale, Our Special Ale, though the last few years they appear to have restrained he spicing more than I’d like (though I know I’m in the minority opinion). Those kind of favorites seem perfectly reasonable to me, but trying to pick one all-purpose beer does not seem so. And beyond that, I just don’t want to. I constantly want something different in a beer all the time. Life’s just too short to drink only one beer.
Ever wonder what to do with all those bottle caps amassed from opening your beer bottles? Well artist John T. Unger has figured out at least one thing to do with them: make beautiful fish art. Talk about taking trash and turning int o treasure. He takes varying used beer bottle crowns and uses them like tiles to make mosaics. Below is just a sample of his work, which can be purchased online, though they are a bit spendy (about $450 per fish). But they are very cool looking.
This fish is made from a mixed palette of blue bottle caps with a white face of Becks caps.
This fish is made from Bud Light, Heineken and Becks bottle caps.
And inspired by Unger’s work with beer bottle crowns, the craft website Instructables has posted step-by-step DIY instructions to make a dragon wall-hanging using 540 beer bottle caps (170 Michelob Amber Bock, 206 Killians, 68 Budweiser Select, 96 Budweiser).
540 crowns is 90 six-packs or 22.5 cases of beer.
And here’s a close-up of the dragon.
For those of you tired of all the politics here lately, don’t worry; it will all be over soon. Today is the day. Get out there and vote! Regardless of which beer … er, candidate you prefer, the important thing is to participate in the process. If you do nothing else today, at least cast your ballot and register your choice for the future of your country. Vote!
Tomorrow we’ll return to our regularly scheduled program.
Back in August, I called one of my posts The Audacity of Hops. It was about Oskar Blues taking the iconic Barack Obama poster and turning it into one for Dale’s Pale Ale. It turns out a homebrewer in Washington DC, whose day job is as a paralegal at the Department of Justice, brewed a homebrew by the same name. Sam Chapple Sokol also writes about beer online at the Humble Gourmand, where he tells the story of his new homebrew, The Audacity of Hops, The Beer of the American Dream.
From the Humble Gourmand:
How to represent Barack Obama through beer? Well, it was obvious that it had to have malt, the backbone of beer, so I added even amounts of dark malt and pale malt to give it a beautiful brown color. Victory malt, a specially-kilned variety of barley, also had a place. For good measure, I threw in a couple of pounds of corn sugar, from Kansas and Illinois. There had to be hops, so Challenger and Progress seemed like logical choices.
Then, how to symbolize Obama’s global origins? A blend of coffees from Kenya, Indonesia, and Hawaii, roasted by my own dad (Beans From My Father?) The water is all filtered tap water from the District of Columbia, my home and that of the future president.
There are 51 bottles in all, representing the 50 states plus DC. Yes, each label is numbered, and yes, I will be drinking #14 (Vermont, what?). [Sokol is originally from Vermont.]
And guess what? It’s ’08 percent alcohol.
The Washingtonian also did a story on his beer, and mentions in an update that if there’s enough interest after the election, he may do a commercial batch for sale, though this time named InaugurAle, or something like that.
Label art by Drew Art Carlisle.
Happy Halloween! I just put the kids to bed, a real challenge given that they were still on a sugar high from sampling their booty for trick or treating earlier this evening. Some family came over for dinner and we all went out around the neighborhood — six kids and six adults — and watched the kids load up on candy. Here are some random Halloween things I wanted to share.
Is it just me, or does it look like the pumpkin is smiling while he’s being stabbed it in the eye?
See what happens if you make poor choices.