The 11th annual Bistro IPA Festival took place yesterday in Hayward, California. The niche festival is one the must-attend festivals in the Bay Area. Vic and Cynthia put on a great festival with over 50 IPAs.
In the tent at the festival, outside of the Bistro, during the event.
For more photos from this year’s Bistro IPA Festival, visit the photo gallery.
Hop 15 was chosen best in show at the 11th annual IPA Festival earlier today at the Bistro in Hayward, California. The full list of winners is below.
My friend and colleague Rick (thanks, Rick) sent me the first one of these and the second one just called out to me. They’re not strictly about beer, but are really about foods that go quite well with beer. But they were just too damn funny not to share.
Efes Pilsen is the most popular beer in Turkey. First brewed in 1969, it quickly established itself as a local favorite. The Efes Beverage Group is one of the largest beverage companies in the region, and also contract brews Beck’s, Foster’s, Miller Genuine Draft, Sol, Warsteiner and even Coca-Cola.
But Efes Pilsen is the flagship brand, and is in over 50 markets throughout Europe and Asia. In Turkey, Efes has 82% of the market in Turkey, 72% of Moldova, 23% of Kazakhstan and even 9% of the Russian market. From a recent press release:
I can’t any specific information about the contest below, but based on the signs, it would appear that Efes Pilsen sponsored some sort of competition to create art using their beer cans or other paraphernalia, such as bottle caps. Even though they’re all pretty impressive, I have no idea who might have won. |
Below are some of the entries in the Efes Beer Can Art Competition:
Someone from Time sent me a link to a story from Fortune magazine on CNN’s Money website (if you ever needed an illustration of how concentrated the mainstream media is, this is it). The story itself is short, but quite interesting.
There are also some other interesting statistics there, too, such as Anheuser-Busch’s market share over the past five decades. In 1970, A-B had a 17.&% share, which grew 10% to 27.7% by 1980. In 1990, it had risen steeply again to 43.3% but growth slowed by the year 2000, where it essentially leveled off at 48.3 and then began sliding back very slowly. By last year it was 48.2%.
In 1970, Miller wasn’t even in the top five, but thanks to the phenomenal success of Miller Lite by 1980 they enjoyed a 20.6% share of the market, but never got much higher than that and by 2007 had even dropped to 18.4%. Coors, likewise, wasn’t in the top five in 1970 and wasn’t even a national brand at that point. By 1980 they’d just cracked the top five, with 7.6% and continued to grow very slowly until by 2007 they were 11.1% of the total beer market.
There’s also an Q&A with Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Company, who is now the largest remaining American brewer, depending on how that’s defined. Pabst and Yuengling also have claims to the throne. Pabst makes more beer than the other two but owns no brewery of their own. Boston Beer brews more beer than Yuengling, but contract brews a little over half of their production. Fortune describes the maker of Samuel Adams “as the country’s largest, independent, publicly-traded brewery.”
California State Bill AB 1245, better known as the Trash & Trinkets Bill, comes up for a vote in the state Senate early next week, possibly even on Monday. To re-familiarize with what’s at stake, please read my earlier post about the bill, which managed to make it through committee at the end of June. The California Small Brewers Association has issued an Action Alert in an effort to let state Senators know that craft beer lovers are not in favor in this bill, because it will give large breweries yet another competitive advantage and will make it more difficult for small breweries to get their product to market. If you live in California, please consider helping today, if possible, or as early Monday as you can. Here’s what you can do, from the CSBA Action Alert:
It is important to take just a few moments right now to pick up the phone and call your state Senator this afternoon and ask them to vote NO on AB 1245. This will only take a few minutes but will help our cause.
This phone call DOES make a difference. You can find the number to your Senator’s office here
Please call their Sacramento office and ask to speak to the Senator. If they cannot take your call, ask to speak to the chief of staff. If they can not take your call, talk to any staffer and ask them to be sure your message gets to the Senator.
Simply let them know that AB 1245 is a special interest bill that only one brewer supports — Anheuser-Busch. ALL other brewers are opposed to this bill. This bill is highly detrimental to the viability of craft brewers, it is anti-small business and will affect access to market for craft brewers.
Background: This bill will increase the spending limit on give-aways to consumers from $0.25 to $5.00. What A-B can buy in large quantities for $5.00 would cost a craft brewer $10-20.00. Imagine this; an A-B sales rep goes into a retailer and asks to do a Monday Night Football promotional night and will give away to all of the patrons a free mini cooler backpack. It is suggested that it might be a good idea to take off the three independent craft beers on draft and replace them with A-B brands. This is not far fetched. This bill could decrease access to market for the craft brewers of California.
If you love craft beer, please help the cause by contacting your elected Senator as soon as possible. Thank you.
Yesterday, 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant launched their Brewer Outreach Program, where co-owner/brewer Shaun O’Sullivan will invite brewers to the 21st Amendment and have them brew whatever beer they like. The first guest brewer was Mitch Steele, brewmaster at Stone Brewing, who brewed his Imperial English IPA with Shaun and Jesse Houck.
In the brewery: Mitch Steele and Dave Hopwood (both from Stone) and Shaun O’Sullivan.
For more photos from Mitch Steele’s guest brewing at 21st Amendment, including a short movie of the boil, visit the photo gallery.
The tiny Northern California town of Weed is home to Mt. Shasta Brewing Co., makers of Weed Ales. The town was named for its founder, Abner Weed. Since the other, more notorious kind of weed is illegal, Mt. Shasta had crowns printed up that read “Try Legal Weed.” Sure, it was a bit of cheek, but all in good fun. Of course, the TTB, who approves what goes on beer labels and such at the federal level, didn’t agree and told the brewery they had to remove the offending crowns because it violated a vague policy against referencing illegal drug use. Of course, given a moment’s thought, reason, common sense and a familiarity with grammar should suggest that what they were saying was exactly the opposite: they wanted people to NOT buy illegal weed but instead spend their money on the legal kind, their beer that is. Like most businesses, they’d like to turn a profit and make a living so it’s hard to understand why the TTB would think they were trying to encourage buying a product other than the one they were selling.
| At this year’s Boonville Beer Festival, I listened to Vaune Dillmann chronicle his ordeal with the federal agency in great detail, and marveled at how detached from reality our government can be from time to time. I think that’s the way with most, if not all, bureaucracies. They tend to concentrate their own power in ever narrowing ways so that over time they come to have an internal logic that becomes increasingly detached from the rest of society. There are countless examples at both the state and federal level where oversight on labels has been maddeningly ridiculous. But one thing was clear from listening to Dillmann; he was not going to roll over and intended to fight the ruling. You can read his initial account of the story on their website. |
Countless mainstream news outlets spread the story, which further showed our federal government in an increasingly bad light. Last month, there was an even a story about it in the Libertarian magazine Reason. Author Greg Beato pointed out that there is a perfume called Opium, soft drinks called Coke, energy drinks called Fixx, Bong Water, Buzzed, Speed Freak, and even Cocaine! And not one of those required any federal approval whatsoever. But add alcohol, and suddenly everyone loses their collective minds. Or as Robert Lehrman, an alcohol attorney sees it. “I don’t think they like making all these immensely subjective decisions on every cotton-picking label that comes down the pike. But that’s how the legislature set it up. The government decided that liquor’s taboo and therefore needs restrictions beyond those for food generally.” You have to ask why that should be so, especially when so many other beverages, foods and other goods openly exploit the very subject that TTB want to protect consumers from when it’s associated with beer. But more curiously, the prohibition against drug references came not from Congress, but is the result of a 1994 internal memo that set “new guidelines for socially acceptable labeling.” But it’s entirely unclear how restricting so-called allusions to drugs protects anyone, especially when every other product sold in America is under no such similar restrictions. Not to mention that alcohol can only be legally sold to adults, and why do we need to protect adults from language that might make some passing reference to drugs? I mean, so what? Does the government believe as an adult that I can’t handle it if I read words about drugs? Do they think I’ll be unable to resist actually trying illegal drugs from simply seeing a reference to them on a bottle of beer? If I haven’t done so from seeing drug references on cologne, soda pop, energy drinks and god knows what else, what makes them think beer will push me over the edge into a drug induced lifestyle? I’m simply baffled at the inanity of it all.
Dallimann was prepared to fight the ruling, but his initial appeal was denied. He was in the process of contacting his legislators and consulting with attorneys, but then, late last week, the TTB dispatched a registered letter to Weed, California, telling the brewery they could once more put “Try Legal Weed” on their bottle caps. They gave the following rationale. “Based on the context of the entire label, we agree that the phrase in question refers to the brand name of the product and does not mislead consumers.” I’d like to believe that the TTB honestly thought about their ruling and based their reversal on reason, but it seems more likely that they didn’t count on all the publicity that sprouted up like … well, weeds. Dallimann shared the letter with the Associated Press, who wrote a story detailing the end of the dispute.
Over the 2-1/2+ years I’ve been blogging here I think I’ve revealed a number things about which I’m a self-avowed geek: beer, of course, but also calendars, potato chips, economics and View-Master reels, to name a few. Well, I guess I have to unfurl yet another geeky passion of mine: vexillology. For the uninitiated, that’s the study of flags. Since I was a kid, I’ve loved pouring over books of flags, learning the meanings behind the colors and the symbols on the flags. I find it fascinating while my wife just shakes her head every time we pass a flag unknown to her that I can identify without a moment’s hesitation. I confess it’s not the kind of information that comes in handy very often, but it sure makes watching the Olympics easier.
So I was thrilled when I stumbled across these yesterday while trying to find a picture of Batman holding a beer. An ad agency in Boston, Arnold Worldwide, last December created a series of flags for a beer bar in Boston, the Sunset Grill & Tap. Their website claims they have the best beer selection in Boston with 112 beers on tap and 380 bottled, but given the looks of the site I rather doubt that quality is the driving force, just the quantity of their selection. If I had to guess — and I could be wrong, of course — I’d say they carry things like Stella Artois and not Westmalle from Belgium and Asahi but not Hitachino Nest Beer from Japan.
But the flags that their ad agency did for them are terrific, in my opinion. Simple is often best, I think. They just took the flags from three countries (at least these are the only ones I know of) and altered them ever so slightly to make you think of both beer and that nation in one simple image, their flag. The logo for Sunset Grill & Tap is the lower right-hand corner, but it’s unobtrusive. Now that’s creative, especially to the average amateur vexillologist.
If you’re like me you probably don’t have six-pack abs, but now you can at least wear a six-pack on your abs. Thanks to Urban Outfitters, you can carry a six-pack of bottles (or cans, as far as I can tell) on their new Beer Belt.
If Batman were a beer drinker, his utility belt might look something like this. |
Here’s the description from their website catalog listing:
I can’t say I understand what would need to be “wiped clean.” That frightens me a little, but I imagine there are at least a few instances when this might come in handy. Tailgating leaps to mind. |
Or perhaps hiking through the woods in the hopes of getting drunk enough to get lost and racking up a lot of tax-payer dollars to rescue your sorry ass. It would certainly make a long plane ride more bearable, provided your were seated next to a bathroom and it was before the 21st Century when air travel was still civilized.
|
But back to Batman. If he had a Beer Belt, he wouldn’t need to carry those cans and would be better prepared should the dynamic duo need to perform some feat of daring-do on the way to a birthday party. I can only presume that “life-changing, prayer-answering, best-idea-anyone’s-ever-had invention of the century” is just a bit of hyperbole or what in the sales game is called “puffing.” Hilarious. What’s perhaps even more amazing is that Urban Outfitter’s beer belt is not the only one. There’s also a canvas one that’s designed for both cans and bottles with the website TheBeerBelt.com. The canvas one even has a seventh slot for a deck of cards or, more realistically, a pack of cigarettes. There’s even a zippered money pouch for cash, credit cards and that all-important I.D. card to prove you’re old enough to drink no matter how old you are. Here’s how they describe the canvas beer belt:
|
But can it be wiped clean? |
The only beer belt I’ve ever heard of is the geographic one in Europe that runs from Great Britain southeast to Austria and Slovakia, which separates the wine belt in the southwest and the vodka belt to the northeast.
The Beer Belt on what I can only presume is a real live human being.