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Everything Old Style Is New Again

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G. Heilman’s “Old Style Beer” used to be a very popular regional brand since its introduction in 1902. It was first advertised as being “‘fully kraeusened’ and made with pure artesian well water from ‘God’s country,’ meaning western Wisconsin.” That’s because the G. Heilman Brewery was located in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Today the brewery is known as the City Brewing, having been purchased by new owners after Heilman went out of business in 1999. Stroh’s originally bought the Heilman brands, but when three years later they likewise folded their tent, Pabst Brewing scooped them up. Miller’s been contract brewing Old Style for sale in Great Lakes area since that time, but using the changed brewing process implemented by Stroh’s. Stroh’s stopped kraeusening the beer and Miller’s continued brewing it for Pabst unkraeusened.

Pabst announced last week that they would begin kraeusening it again and marketing it as “authentically kraeusened.” They’re also planning on raising the price and trying to position it as a a more premium brand. That may be a tough sell, as it’s been a bargain brand for a long time. And as for selling it as being kraeusened, that also seems like a concept destined to fall flat with consumers.

Kraeusening, of course, is hardly unique or magical, but a centuries-old German brewing technique. Many breweries still use the process today, including a large number in the U.S. Here’s one explanation of it, from The Brewer’s Handbook by Ted Goldammer:

“Kraeusen” is the German word used to describe the infusion of a strongly fermenting young beer into a larger volume of beer that has undergone primary fermentation. Traditionally, the wort used for kraeusening is obtained from the high ‘kraeusen’ stage of primary fermentation and added in small portions (5-20% by volume) to the green beer to start a secondary fermentation. MacDonald suggests adding a volume of kraeusen equal to 10 to 12% of the “green” beer, containing approximately 2% (w/w) residual extract with a cell count of between 10 and 15 million (29). Usually, higher gravity beers require a larger proportion of kraeusen. Kraeusen may also be made from wort and a yeast culture, or from a sugar solution together with yeast.

Pabst brand manager Keith Hill is spinning it another way. “That process more thoroughly ferments beer to give it additional flavor, along with a smoother finish.” Pabst is also claiming that this “return to its roots will appeal to 20-somethings who would rather drink ‘a high-quality, local beer’ than a beer ‘from one of the big brewers.'” But the beer, of course, will continue to be contract brewed by MillerCoors so I’m not sure I understand the distinction he’s making or how it will be a marketing advantage for Old Style. I have nothing against contract brewing per se, but I’m not sure I understand how simply changing the brewing process makes it a “local beer?”

This new push follows re-launches of Primo and Schlitz by Pabst, hoping to duplicate their success with Pabst as a retro-hip brand. Will it work? You can’t underestimate the power of advertising to convince people of virtually anything, so perhaps it will. Who knows? Maybe Old Style will end up owing the term “Kraeusening.” Stranger things have happened.

 

Iron City Announces Layoffs

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Here’s more worrying bad news in the brewing world, this time from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Iron City Brewing, fresh out of Bankruptcy and still wearing it’s post-reorganization glow announced today that it will “temporarily” layoff 25-30 workers, which represents more than 25% of its work force on March 1, when the brewery closes down its canning line. That aging canning line will then be evaluated to see if it can fixed or must be replaced. In the meantime, they will contract the canned beer at another, as yet undetermined, brewery. This process, they believe, will take from one to three months.

The bottled beer will continue as before. Hopefully this will all work out as stated, but these things have a way of not quite working out as intended, so who knows? New Iron City President Tim Hickman is upbeat, but then he would be, wouldn’t he. “We’re still committed to these products. We’re still committed to Pittsburgh.”

On the plus side, since emerging successfully from a high-profile Chapter 11 Bankrupty, sales are up 20% and sales of one of their brands, Augustiner, have increased threefold. Fingers crossed, let’s hope it all goes according to plan and those layoffs will indeed be “temporary.”

 

InBev To Open NYC Office

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InBev announced yesterday their intention to set up a management office in New York City in order to “better support the needs of the combined global organization. This office would have an operational focus supporting the business in the
implementation of the Company’s strategy under the direction of the Global Headquarters and center of strategic decision making in Leuven” [Belgium].

There’s nothing at all about this at the new AB-InBev website, which though it claims will be “developed over the coming weeks” is still wallpaper several months later. I guess communicating with investors and the public is near the bottom of the priorities list. Breaking the bad news is left to the Anheuser-Busch team which is, at least for time being, still in St. Louis.

More from the Press Release:

The creation of AnheuserBusch InBev will generate significant growth opportunities from leveraging the company’s combined brand portfolio, including its global flagship brands Budweiser, Stella Artois and Beck’s, its leading global distribution network and by applying best practices across the new organization. In addition, over 40% of the newly combined company’s earnings are now generated in the United States, which has become the company’s largest market.

The establishment of an office in New York would enable management to better support the realization of these opportunities and day-to-day management of the business. The office would host functional management heads together with members of their marketing, finance, people, supply and legal teams.

There’s no mention whatsoever of St. Louis in the press release itself, though in the AP Story they’re reporting that “St. Louis, where Anheuser-Busch was founded, will remain the head office for its North American operations.” But InBev had emphatically promised that St. Louis would remain HQ for AB-InBev in the New World, so it seems odd they wouldn’t address those concerns in the press release and leave it to reporters to suss out.

The spin is that St. Louis will remain U.S. HQ for the Anheuser-Busch brands but that New York will be an office for all the InBev brands. Apparently InBev will layoff as many as 89 Belgian workers and Carlos Brito (InBev CEO) and their CFO will split time between the New York and Belgium offices. The Belgian office will become HQ for Western Europe, St. Louis will be HQ for North America with the New York office hosting “management heads and employees in marketing, finance, supply and legal.” But InBev will continue to host shareholder meetings and most Board meetings, too, in Belgium. That sure seems confusing as to where the hierarchy will lie between Belgium, New York and St. Louis. And it sure seems like an end run around their promise to St. Louis. Since this move is being sold as a cost-cutting measure, how inconceivable is it that this is also laying the groundwork to say in the future that some or all of the functions in St. Louis will move to New York to cut even more costs? Sure sounds plausible to me.

 

Malcolm Gluck: Wine’s Latest Attack Hack

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Almost every serious beer lover I know also loves wine, at least to some degree. And while you’ll hear folks — myself included — despair that wine gets all the attention from the mainstream media while beer has to fight for every column inch, you rarely, if ever, hear beer writers disparage the product itself. That’s true of winemakers, especially, who often say quite candidly that “it takes a lot of beer to make good wine.” And judging by the sales figures, most consumers seem to happily consume both beer and wine (among much else). So could somebody please tell me why so many wine writers have their heads up their asses when it comes to beer? This is getting seriously ridiculous. Every few months it seems some prominent (and not so prominent) wine writer goes on the attack against beer in some misguided belief that it’s a wine vs. beer world. I just don’t understand the rationale. It’s sad, and not a little pathetic. Are they afraid of beer becoming wine’s equal in terms of public perception? Is that going to make their careers suffer? How is tearing down beer somehow raising the status of wine? And where did this idea that the two are in any way rivals even come from? I mean, seriously, what the fuck?

The latest shot across the self-manufactured bow comes from across the pond. It was sent to me by a Bulletin reader (thanks Glen) who referred to the author as “either a world-class douche bag or the world’s greatest troll, [he] can’t decide which. This tool and his ilk are almost wholly responsible for [his] disdain of wine and all things oenological.” After reading it, I can’t say I disagree with his assessment. Malcolm Gluck is, by all accounts, a well-respected British wine writer who writes a column — Superplonk — in the Guardian newspaper.

Today in the Guardian’s Word of Mouth Blog he spewed out the following in a post entitled Join the Wine Revolution:

50 years ago only 5% of the nation [The UK] drank wine. Now it is nearer six times that, pubs struggle to sell beer, and the amount of wine imported keep on rising. Why? Well, beer is only drunk by losers and sadsacks, unsexy people who care nothing for their minds or their bodies.

That’s point one. Point two is that wine goes with the spicy foods we like (which no beer does), is much more of a communal activity and, when it comes down to it, encourages livelier and more intelligent conversation. When was the last time you heard a beer drinker pass a witty remark? Beer drinkers are also terrible lovers, awful husbands, and untidy flatmates.

Well-known British beer writer Roger Protz has already written a short rebuttal in the Guardian, that’s linked from the original piece. In Let’s Hear It For Beer, he points out that “even wine-obsessed Oz Clarke is enjoying the current renaissance in British brewing.” Protz continues:

I don’t deny that sales of wine have increased in Britain. But we still drink far more beer: wine has overtaken beer in the off-trade but beer easily outsells it in pubs, in spite of the best efforts of Gluck’s much-loved Labour government to knacker the pub trade with the smoking ban and regular hikes in beer duty.

Beer is in fact enjoying a remarkable renaissance. I’m talking of craft beer, quality beer, brewed by craftsmen, not the bland and tasteless Euro-fizz produced by global brewers. Close to 250 new craft breweries have opened in the past three years. There are more than 500 breweries operating in Britain and choice and diversity have never been better. Thanks to the efforts of craft brewers, drinkers have a profusion of choice, with good old mild and bitter joined by genuine India Pale Ales, porters, stouts, old ales and barley wines and new styles such as golden ales and fruit beers.

While sales of mass-produced lagers are in freefall, the demand for craft beers has seen their sales rise by more than 10% a year. This should be welcomed, not decried with the kind of mindless abuse used by Malcolm Gluck. Britain is a country with a proud brewing heritage, a heritage now enjoying a spirited revival. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Malcolm, but beer will not go away.

My friend and colleague Martyn Cornell likewise commented in the Guardian, and also on his Zythophile blog:

How very sad that this could be written in one of the greatest brewing nations in the world, even in jest. Malcolm, you’re badly dissing the thousands of dedicated people who work in Britain’s 550-plus new small breweries, and its surviving family brewers, producing world-beating beers. I can’t understand how any professional drinks writer could write something that appeared to show he knew nothing about what was happening at places such as Meantime in Greenwich, Thornbridge in Derbyshire or BrewDog in Scotland, to name only three.

But let’s look at this another way. It’s obviously meant to be provocative because it’s too absolutely bellicose to be taken seriously. If Gluck means what he writes, he’s an obvious idiot who no one could possibly take seriously and if he doesn’t, well then he’s an irrelevant charlatan who will soon be ignored and no one will take seriously. So it begs the question. Why do it? Can the momentary flutter of the hit count rising and a deluge of angry commenters be worth showing the world you know nothing about that which you claim to be an expert? Because who but the snobbishly effete would continue to hang on his every word about wine, yet that’s not even his core audience. In a review of his book Superplonk, he’s described as a “self-styled champion of the ordinary wine drinker, fighting against the perceived snobbery and stuffiness of the wine world.” What person who fits that description would ever agree with his opinion or indeed, wouldn’t have the occasional beer? The simple answer? No one. I can’t imagine a more snobbish opinion so it’s doubly odd to me that he considers himself a friend of the anti-snob.

I hope I don’t have to make it clear that I’m not speaking about most wine writers, but only a vanishingly small number of them. I know many, many wine writers who don’t hate beer and would never think of attacking it. But the fact remains that I know of not one instance where a beer writer attacked wine. Perhaps a very thorough search might uncover one, but that in and of itself is telling. This is not a war. A war involves two sides. It’s snobbish terrorism. This is certain wine writers deciding for no appreciable reason to pick on beer, to attack it unprovoked.

Toward the end of today’s anti-beer invective, Gluck refers to himself as a “professional booze hack,” which I’d offer is only half right. He’s shown himself to be an obvious hack — I’ll grant him that — but he’s in no way a professional. Hopefully, enough people will recognize that fact and he will indeed become irrelevant. But I’m left wondering why so many wine writers see fit to attack beer. It makes no sense. They’re both wonderful alcoholic beverages that each have their merits. There’s no reason the world can’t include both. It’s not a contest. Almost everyone in the world seems to get that. Too bad the people who don’t often have a byline.

 

Twitter Beer Tasting Live Saturday

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What are your plans for Saturday? Say, around 5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (a.k.a. California time; I trust the rest of you can figure it out from there, it’s 8:00 p.m. EST, for example)? Consider joining me — and as many people around the world as want to — for the first live beer tasting using Twitter by way of Twitter Taste Live! Twitter Taste Live was set up originally to do real time sampling of wine but they’ve discovered a demand for other tastings, such as spirits, cigars, food and, naturally, beer.

As far as I know this is the first simultaneous beer tasting using Twitter, so I’m excited by the possibilities it affords. I’ve been asked to co-host the event so I’ll be right there twittering away and answering any questions as they arise. The first tasting is called an Introduction to Trappist Ales and will feature four beers from two Belgian Trappist breweries, Chimay and Westmalle. Both are widely available which should make it easier for a lot of people to participate. The two Chimays will be Chimay Red and the Tripel (which is the one with the white or cream colored label). Chimay is imported by Manneken-Brussel Imports in Austin, Texas. The two Westmalle beers are the Dubbel and the Tripel. They’re imported by Merchant du Vin in Seattle, Washington.

All four beers should be widely available in most states, though you may need to find a retailer who specializes in better beer. Unless you live in an impressive neighborhood, your corner liquor store will probably not have them.

Essentially, the way it works is like this:

  1. Sign up for a FREE Twitter Taste Live account.
  2. Pick up the four beers we’ll be tasting. (You don’t have to do all four, of course, you can taste just one of each if you prefer. It’s up to you.)
  3. At the designated time, 5 p.m. PST (8 p.m. EST), log into Twitter Taste Live!
  4. Drink
  5. Tweet
  6. Repeat

You could do it alone in your house, or with others in a group, each on their individual laptops, PDAs, Blackberrys, etc. I’d say it’s probably preferable to do it in a small group, but however you want to do it, give it a try. It should be fun. I’d certainly like to get a good turnout of beer people to show that we’re as serious about tasting our favorite beverage as are those who prefer grape juice and other spirited drinks. Stop by if you can, drink in hand. Happy tweeting.

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Pub Pet Peeves

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For my second Top 10 list I’m feeling grumpy, due to a nasty cold that’s knocked me for a loop. So my list will reflect that, the things that drive me batty when out in public, be it at a beer bar or restaurant, anywhere really, where beer is served that’s a public space. I know most bartenders are hard-working men and women who deserve our respect — and I have a great many friends in such positions — but there are times when the bad ones really drive me balmy. Likewise, customers are often complete jerks to not only the staff but everyone else in the bar, too. I can’t stand to be around these dim bulbs for very long either. I’m not sure which is worse: that they’re being so incredibly rude and/or stupid or that in most cases they don’t even seem to realize it. Add too much alcohol, and the effect is magnified. Such obliviousness to those around them is perhaps the most annoying feature of immaturity, as children are naturally self-centered. As they grow, they learn to care about people other than themselves. But I find that the very idea of respect for others is becoming an old-fashioned, quaint notion. See, I told you I was feeling cantankerous. And I’m feeling old today. The half-century mark is itself one less than 50 days away, and I’m feeling it. I understand I should be thrilled that I have pain, because it should remind that at least I’m still alive. But it feels as if my body decided to remind me by visiting upon me every ache and pain I’ve ever had all at one go. Oh, the humanity! Anyway, here’s List #2:
 

Top 10 Pub Pet Peeves
 

Smoke I normally don’t care if other people smoke, but it in an unventilated space like the average bar it gets in the way of enjoying the beer and the company. I know this is a controversial subject, but as smoke has a tendency to drift, smoking sections make about as much sense in a bar or restaurant as they did on airplanes.
Mobile Phones I know it’s the 21st century and I’m no technophobe, obviously, since this is written using a computer and I use a crackberry when out, but I don’t want to hear your phone conversation. If you get a call, take it outside, or at least somewhere more private.
Ordering Off-Menu I find this especially annoying at brewpubs, but to me it’s just as odd at better beer bars, too. When you go to one of these places it should be for the beer, if not the combination of beer and food. So why order a low-calorie light beer from a macro brewery (whether foreign or domestic) or even anything from one of those large beer companies. If you’re at a brewpub, you’re at the source, the place where it’s being made. It’s the reason the place was built and you couldn’t get a fresher beer unless you made some at your table. But still, every now and again you’ll see someone in there nursing his Bud Light, usually straight out of the bottle. It’s even more prevalent at better beer bars. If some bar saw fit to carry some of the tastiest beers money could buy, why on Earth would anyone settle for the ordinary? I suppose the likeliest answer is that person got dragged to the bar by his friends, but could he (or she) muster no better imagination than to order one of the most common beers on the planet? Is advertising and marketing that effective? Sadly, it probably is. And don’t get me started on the person sipping their glass of wine at the brewpub. Really, you couldn’t muster the courage to try the house special? I love wine, but if I’m at a beer place, I’m drinking beer.

Lemons If I wanted a lemon in my beer, I would have asked for one. Just because some people don’t mind — or have been persuaded to think it’s a good idea — to have a lemon wedge in their beer doesn’t mean everyone wants one. And once it’s in there affecting the flavor of the beer, it can’t be undone. So the sensible thing to do would be to ask first, or bring it to the table on a plate, thereby leaving the choice up to the customer. Now why is that so difficult?
Poor Selection This used to be more of a problem than it is today, at least where I live. But there was a time when many bars carried just the macro beers along with a few macro imports, and nothing else, not even Samuel Adams, Anchor or Sierra Nevada. Nowadays you’ll usually find at least one of those three in even the seediest bar. But would it kill a bar to carry just a few beers beyond those? Apparently it never occurred to the owners that people might want something else.
Untrained Staff There’s nothing worse than asking the bartender or waitress about a new beer on the menu and finding out they know nothing whatsoever about it. In some cases, they don’t know the first thing about what they’re serving at all, which I find bizarre. I just can’t imagine the lack of ambition or curiosity that would lead to such apathy. But beyond that individual server, I think it reflects most poorly on the owners who obviously didn’t care that the person representing their business knows absolutely nothing about what they’re selling.
Frosted Glasses What I find most amazing about this abhorrent practice is that it is usually presented as a bonus and when turned down, no matter how graciously, appears to completely confound. The bar that serves frosted glassware believes they’re giving their customers added value, a kind of bonus, while in reality they’re actually ruining the beer. I’ve been served Chimay in a frosted chalice and when I asked — politely — if I could have it in an un-frosted glass, my waitress looked at me like a dog who’d just been shown a card trick. Why would I not want a frosted glass?, her expression seemed to convey. She acted as if I’d hurt her feelings, and our service plummeted for the rest of the meal.
Just the Bottle Why do some bars bring just the bottle or can, forcing me to ask for a glass? Bars should always serve beer in or with a glass — and the appropriate one at that — or at the very least ask me if I want one when taking my order. Sheesh.
Beer Gone Bad and/or Dirty Lines Being served a beer that’s gone bad is a worrying sign on several levels. Is the beer unpopular or is the entire bar? Were the lines not cleaned recently? Most better beer bars understand how important this is, but many average ones don’t seem to get this simple fact. Or is it that they don’t realize the beer has gone bad? Either way, the end result is unhappy customers — or at least the ones who can tell the difference.
Too Cold Despite the marketing barrage trying to convince us that ice cold beer is best, I want to be able to actually taste the beer I’m drinking. That’s why I ordered it. And serving beer too cold seems to be the most pervasive problem in American bars, hands down. Beyond a handful of good beer bars that actually care about the beer they’re serving, most just don’t seem to get that their beer is too frigid.

 

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.
 

Braggin’ About North Coast

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The Beer Chef’s first beer dinner of 2009 will feature the “The Unique Beers of North Coast Brewing Co.” from Fort Bragg, California. It will be a three-course dinner and well worth the $70 price of admission. It will be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on Friday, January 23, 2009, beginning with a reception at 6:30 p.m. Call 415.674.3406 for reservations by January 15, if possible. I’ll see you there.

 

The Menu:

 

Reception: 6:30 PM

Beer Chef’s Hors D’Oeuvre

Beer: Red Seal Ale and Pranqster Golden Ale

Dinner: 7:30 PM

First Course

Salad of Peppercress, Peeky Toe Crab. Humboldt Fog Goat Cheese and Satsuma Mandarins

Beer: Le Merle Belgian Style Farmhouse Ale

Second Course:

Coffee Crusted Duck Leg Confit with Caramelized Fennel and Four Cheese Ravioli

Beer: Brother Thelonius Belgian Style Abbey Ale

Third Course:

Molten Chocolate Cake with Old Stock Ice Cream and Smoked Paprika Sabayon

Beer: Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout


Two of the North Coast beers that will be featured at the dinner.

 
1.23

Dinner with the Brewmaster: North Coast Brewing

Cathedral Hill Hotel, 1101 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California
415.674.3406 [ website ]
 

Liar’s Club Closed?

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I heard a rumor last week — almost forgot about it — that the Liar’s Club, which is now located in Alpine, California (east of San Diego, about 25 minutes) has closed. After being one of San Diego’s best beer bars for years, owner Louis Mello decided to move it from it’s beach side Mission Boulevard location to the nearby suburb of Alpine (where he lives) around this time last year. I’d heard business had not returned to pre-move levels and with the economy tanking I imagine things never improved, assuming the rumor is correct. I hope it’s — pun intended — a lie, but I it heard from a fairly reliable source. Bummer.

 

The new Liar’s Club location in Alpine. If anyone can confirm or refute the rumor, please let me know.

 

Beer in Art #10: Robert Carter’s Illustrations

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These are pretty cool. I love finding a new artist I didn’t previously know about. While searching for a newer Beer Advocate logo to use for Todd’s birthday post (see below), I happened upon this painting by Robert Carter. It’s called Beer Advocate and features their old logo on the woman’s shirt. She’s in black and white but the beer and the patriotic background are in bright colors. Looking at other works by Carter, this effect seems to me one he often employs. I don’t know who Robert Carter is but Thumbtack Press has a dozen of his works online for sale, and for $30 you can buy an 11″ x 13.75″ print of Beer Advocate.

According to Wikipedia, he’s a Canadian illustrator living in Ontario. He also has more of his work at his own Cracked Hat website. He’s also done other beer-themed illustrations, including at least one more for Beer Advocate. That one, entitled Beer – A Beacon of Light in the Dark Ages, is below.

If you’re wondering what the difference is between a fine artist and an illustrator, there’s really not much. There are art snobs who look down on “illustration” as an inferior type of art, but they’re elitist idiots. The only real difference between the two is purpose. Art can exist solely for its own sake, for aesthetic reasons. You’ve probably heard the phrase “art for art’s sake.” Illustration, on the other hand, is made specifically to illustrate something else, whether text from a book, and advertisement, or whatever. In it’s earliest meaning, it meant to illuminate or was used to create enlightenment. The definition of what makes something “art” is, of course, somewhat tricky. You’ll likely get as many answers as the number of people you ask. But there’s a nice, workable explanation of the two in How to Grow as an Illustrator by Michael Fleishman.

“Art just is,” Bob Selby [illustrator and teacher] states unequivocally. “A sculpture is. A painting is. There can be no question that these things exist as works of art. Without getting into further qualitative judgment, a work of art is a work of art — it is not a truck or a loaf of bread — it is art.”

Illustration, on the other hand, does not require any such philosophical decisions. An illustration must recognize one certain requirement: Something must be in the condition of illustrating; it is being used to shed light. “There is action,” Shelby says. “In order to have illustration, something must be acting upon something else. Tthere’s no more to it than that, really.”

Still with us here? Ultimately, this act of shedding light that we call “illustration” is a process Selby calls “symbolization.” We are enlightened — that is, we can know something — because illustrations function symbolically to shed light on something else,” Selby explains. “Drawings, for instance, can be tailored precisely to symbolize and, thereby, to highlight, clarify, amplify, complement, or explain something else.”

Many famous artists either began their careers as illustrators or did both types of work simultaneously, like Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper. Personally, I’m a huge fan of great illustration. Some of my favorite books as a kid had amazing illustrations by Arthur Rackham, Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth. As a comic book geek (I used to manage a comic book shop) I tend to think graphically and in a sense comic books represent the purest form of illustration. When books were handmade they were illuminated with amazing doodles and other artwork. These early books are considered priceless. It was only technology that made text king and relegated illustration to children’s works. When the printing press exploded publishing graphics were not able to be included. Even once the technology was developed, it was prohibitively expensive and was used only sparingly. In effect, the technology has caught up in recent decades but the bias persists that serious works do not include illustrations. I think that’s complete nonsense, but, as usual, I’m in the minority here. I don’t now how anyone can read Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale or the Neil Gaiman series Sandman and continue to hold that prejudice, but people I’ve found have a hard time letting go of their cherished beliefs even in the fact of contrary evidence. Anyway, I’ll climb down off my soapbox.

Another beer-themed illustration Robert Carter did is a portrait of Eric Molson for the magazine Canadian Business.

From Wikipedia:

Robert Carter is an award winning Illustrator. Born in St. Albans England he moved to Ontario Canada at an early age. He graduated from Sheridan College School of Art and Design in 2002. Robert combines a strong foundation in portraiture with a unique sense of visual and conceptual problem solving to create striking, vibrant and textured illustrations and portraits with subjects ranging from realistic to the surreal.

There’s not much else about Carter out there, though there is a nice interview online at Design Inspiration, a website for professional and aspiring illustrators.

 

My Beer Predictions for 2009

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crystal-ball
I keep seeing ads on television for Nostradamus and others’ predictions that the world will end in 2012, so I guess it’s time to get cracking on my own vague, hare-brained predictions. First of all, I do not believe the world will end on December 21, 2012 so you can stop planning your end of the world blow-out parties and put away that R.E.M. CD. It’s time once again to look into the crystal malt ball and try to divine the future. Let’s see if anything that happened last year can be used to predict what might happen in the beer industry in 2009. Here are five things I think will happen this year. Let’s see how I do a year from now. What are your predictions?

 
Collaboration Beers: 2009 will be the year of the collaboration beer, a trend that’s been building for the past few years. But this year I think you’ll see a steep rise in the number of breweries pairing up with one another to do a special beer together.

 
Food & Beer Goes Mainstream: Last year I predicted 2008 would be the year of the beer dinner, and I think that was largely correct. I was invited to more beer dinners in the first quarter of last year than the entire year before that, and not because my popularity as a dinner guest grew. More restaurants discovered just how well beer and food work with one another and, perhaps more importantly, some culinary schools finally started including beer in their curricula (it’s a sad fact that most only teach students about cooking with wine and pairing it, a decidedly narrow-minded, elitist philosophy). With so many successful experimenters last year, it seems almost inevitable that we’ll see beer pairings on menus, special dinners and an increased use of beer as an ingredient from not only more fine stand-alone restaurants, but also some chains, too.

 
Merger Shakeouts: Many people have been putting their heads in the sand, saying that the recent mergers will have no effect whatsoever for consumers or small brewers. This year they will finally be proven wrong. For some time now, distributor consolidations have been on the rise and have been making it tough for some smaller breweries to gain access to market or to have their brands adequately represented in the marketplace. With the Coors/Miller merger and the InBev acquisition of Anheuser-Busch, this will be the year what that means will come dramatically into focus as the distributor adjustments, mergers, closings, etc. settle out. I believe this will continue to make things difficult for small brewers trying to bring their beer to market or increase their distribution to new areas, but time will tell. It may, of course, create opportunities for self-distribution or new boutique distributors to be created with small portfolios of craft beers.

 
Beer Prices Will Continue To Rise: Access to most hop varieties and all malts seem secure, though prices will continue to remain high, causing additional price adjustments throughout the year. It will be two more years before acreage newly planted last year will be at full yield. Between that and rising energy costs and price going up for virtually everything, it’s inevitable that the price of beer will go up again. I think the major companies will try their best to keep prices down as best they can, but it’s going to be difficult for them to continue with rzor-thin margins, especially with the rising costs plus at least one having to pay of the largest cash-buyout in history.

 
New Drys’ Attacks Will Be More Aggressive: As we saw in 2008, Neo-Prohibitionists will use almost any tactic to further their agenda. They really ramped up their attacks on drinking society and showed just how far they were willing to go to remove alcohol from society. I think we’ll see that played out more and more and no doubt we’ll see many states tax structures targeted as the economy tanks, with alcohol used as a convenient scapegoat to pick up the tab for years of fiscal irresponsibility not of their making. Beer will again, as usual, take the major brunt as the New Drys perceive it the greater threat because of its popularity. As the backlash of their failed policies continue with new common sense suggestions of returning the drinking age to 18 to be in line with the rest of the civilized world will expose them to more and more criticism, and hopefully more and more politicians will be emboldened to ignore their bullying tactics, but sadly that may still a few years in the future.