Last year I did an annotated list of the Top 50 so I could see who moved up and down, who was new to the list and who dropped off. Four breweries dropped off the list and there are three new ones who weren’t on last year’s list. The reason that math doesn’t work out is because last year the combined breweries of Gambrinus were listed together but this year they were separated again, with two of them making the top fifty. So here is this year’s list again annotated with how they changed compared to last year.
 

1. Anheuser-Busch; #1 last year, no surprises
2. Miller Brewing; ditto for #2
3. Coors Brewing; And #3, too
4. Pabst Brewing; And #4, too
5. Boston Beer Co.; Second year at #5, having moved up 2 spots the previous year
6. D. G. Yuengling and Son; Same as last year
7. Sierra Nevada Brewing; Same as last year
8. New Belgium Brewing; Up 1 spot from #9 last year
9. High Falls Brewing; Up 1 spot from #10 last year
10. Spoetzl Brewery; Split off from Gambrinus, which last year was #8
11. Widmer Brothers Brewing; Same as last year, after shooting up 6 spots the previous year
12. Redhook Ale Brewery; Same as last year
13. Pyramid Breweries; Up 1 spot from #14 last year, having moved up 6 spots the previous year
14. Matt Brewing; Up 2 spots from #16 last year
15. Minhas Craft Brewery; Same as last year
16. Deschutes Brewery; Up 1 from #17 last year
17. Iron City Brewing (fka Pittsburgh Brewing); Down 4 from two years at #13, just coming out of bankruptcy
18. Boulevard Brewing; Same as last year
19. Full Sail Brewing; Up 2 from #21 last year
20. Harpoon Brewery; Same as last year
21. Alaskan Brewing; Down from #19 last year
22. Magic Hat Brewing; Up 2 from #24
23. Anchor Brewing; Down 1 from #22
24. Bell’s Brewery; Up 2 from #26 last year, after moving up 9 the previous year
25. Goose Island Beer; Up 6 from #31, the second year in a row they’ve moved up 6
26. August Schell Brewing; Up 2 from #28
27. Shipyard Brewing; Up 2 from #29
28. Summit Brewing; Down 1 from #27
29. Mendocino Brewing; Up 1 from #30
30. Abita Brewing; Up 2 from #32
31. Gordon Biersch Brewing; Down 6 from #25
32. Brooklyn Brewery; Up 2 from #34
33. Stone Brewing; Up 4 from #37, after moving up 11 the previous year
34. Rogue Ales; Up 2 from #36
35. Long Trail Brewing; Down 2 from #33
36. New Glarus Brewing; Down 1 from #35, after jumping 10 spots the previous years
37. Kona Brewing; Down 14 from #23
38. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery; Up 4 from #42
39. Firestone Walker Brewing; Up 1 from #40, after rising 7 the previous year
40. Great Lakes Brewing; Up 1 from #41
41. Lagunitas Brewing; Up 3 from #44
42. Flying Dog Brewery; Up 3 from #45
43. Sweetwater Brewing; Up 3 from #46
44. BridgePort Brewing; Split off from Gambrinus, which last year was #8
45. Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants; Down 6 from #39
46. Gluek Brewing (now known as Cold Spring Brewery); Not in the Top 50 last year
47. Straub Brewery; Down 4 from #43
48. Odell Brewing; Down 1 from #47
49. BJs Restaurant & Brewery; Not in the Top 50 last year
50. Victory Brewing; Not in the Top 50 last year

The following breweries dropped off the list, meaning they were on the 2006 list but are not on the 2007 list of the Top 50 breweries.
 

• Stevens Point Brewery
• Mac and Jack’s Brewery
• Big Sky Brewing
• Otter Creek Brewing
• Gambrinus; Last year the combined totals of their breweries, Spoetzl Brewery, BridgePort Brewing, Pete’s Wicked, and Trumer Brauerei were #8; this year they were considered separately

At 12:01 a.m., 75 years ago, beer became legal for the first time in thirteen years, but in only 19 states. Though it would be eight more months until Prohibition officially ended (on December 5), President Franklin D. Roosevelt kept his first campaign promise by encouraging Congress to modify the Volstead Act and they passed the Cullen-Harrison bill, which FDR signed into law on March 23. The bill allowed the sale and manufacture of low-alcohol beer (3.2% alcohol by weight/4.0% by volume), along with light wines, too. For brewers, it represented a return to brewing and those that had remained opening making non-alcoholic products quickly retooled. Those that had been shuttered for over a decade had a harder time re-opening, but some did manage it. Ultimately Prohibition did irreparable harm the industry as a whole and less than half of America’s breweries did not survive.

The Brewers Association this year cleverly called the celebration “75 Years of Beer” since this year is the 75th anniversary of 3.2 beer being legalized in 19 states. But that won’t work next year, because “76 Years of Beer” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. From their press release:

Historians note that Prohibition officially ended on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. But earlier that year, newly-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt took steps to fulfill his campaign promise to end the national ban on alcohol. He spurred Congress to modify the Volstead Act to allow the sale of 3.2 percent beer in advance of the Twenty-first Amendment being ratified. Thus on April 7, 1933, Roosevelt himself received newly legalized beer at the White House to toast what was the beginning of the end for Prohibition. In the 24-hours that followed, more than 1.5 million gallons of beer flowed as Americans celebrated.

“April 7th is a day to recognize the past 75 years of beer and the beer community’s contribution to American’s quality of life. The explosion of creativity and innovation by those who make beer is an American success story,” said Charlie Papazian, President of the Brewers Association.

“As we celebrate this significant day in the history of beer, we also recognize the incredible contributions beer has made to our nation and the economy over the last 75 years,” added Jeff Becker, President of the Beer Institute. “Today, our industry contributes nearly $190 billion annually to the U.S. economy and provides more than 1.7 million jobs to our nation’s workforce.”

“April 7th is the perfect time to highlight the entrepreneurial spirit and economic contributions America’s beer industry brings to our country. Americans now have access to nearly 13,000 labels of beer — within the safest alcohol distribution system in the world — because of the state-based regulatory system that was established 75 years ago,” added Craig Purser, president of the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).

See, that’s a lot of angles that have little to do with repeal or the specific history of the event but which capture the spirit of the celebration, namely a holiday talking about beer’s virtues.

Another historian that I greatly admire, Maureen Ogle (author of Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer) tells the true story of the events surrounding April 7 in an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times.

She writes:

Today, we look back on Prohibition as an exercise in temporary insanity, but the 13-year experiment in sobriety was rooted in our quintessentially American faith that we can perfect the world. A broad cross section of people — men and women, urban and rural, young and old — supported the ban on alcohol because they believed that it would reduce crime, alleviate poverty, strengthen the family and nurture a more perfect union.

That lofty vision collapsed under the weight of reality. Prohibition spawned an underground economy devoted to making, shipping and selling booze. The officials trying to enforce it earned more from bribes, kickbacks and the resale of confiscated alcohol than from their meager salaries. The poison of such corruption permeated daily life. It undermined respect for the Prohibition amendment and, by extension, for the Constitution itself. Worse, Americans realized that in banning the production of alcoholic beverages, one of the nation’s largest and most heavily taxed industries, they had closed the spigot on a significant source of both jobs and revenue.

Maureen also has a number short stories having to do with April 7, 1933 on her blog that are worth reading.

Bob Skilnik also sent out his own press release in an effort to make sure the right story is told.

April 7th is Not the 75th Anniversary of the End of National Prohibition

“What was was once a trite beer history canard has become an outright lie,” says beer historian Bob Skilnik. “I can only hope that the apparent rewriting of U.S. brewing history is either an innocent result of poor research and not a shameful display of industry greed, just for the sake of a bump in beer sales.”

Bob Skilnik, author of “Beer & Food: An American History” (ISBN 0977808610, Jefferson Press, Hardcover, $24.95), argues that industry embellishments and poor research have distorted the true date of Repeal on December 5, 1933, which signified the revocation of the 18th Amendment and the enactment of the 21st Amendment and brought back the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic beverages.

“Congressional events leading up to April 7, 1933 allowed only the resumption of sales for legal beer with an alcoholic strength of no more than 3.2% alcohol by volume (abv), weak by today’s standards. Congress had earlier passed the so-called Cullen-Harrison Bill which redefined what constituted a legally ‘intoxicating’ beverage. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the bill on March 23, 1933. The bill’s passage took the teeth out of the bite of the Volstead Act of 1919 and raised the Prohibition-era legal limit of alcoholic drinks from .05% abv to 3.2% abv.”

“Bringing breweries back online on April 7, 1933 in states whose legislatures agreed to go ‘wet’ again gave a tremendous shot in the arm of an economy in the throes of the Depression. In just forty-eight hours, $25,000,000 had been pumped into various beer-related trades as diverse as bottling manufacturers to the sawdust wholesalers whose product lay strewn on the floors of saloons. For the first day of nationwide beer sales, it was estimated that the federal tax for beer brought in $7,500,000 to the United States Treasury.”

In the next few months, scores of states held constitutional conventions which led to the passage and enactment of the 21st Amendment, the first time a constitutional amendment had nullified another. It also gave municipal, state and federal governments the time to sort out the taxation and regulation of the entire drink trade, a legacy that continues.

On December 5, 1933, the true end of National Prohibition became a reality when Utah signed on to the Repeal amendment, satisfying the requirement of needing at least 36 states for the enactment of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

I certainly admire his tenacity in trying to set and keep the record straight. As a history buff myself, I’m keenly aware that a lot of our history that we take for granted is simply wrong, for a variety of reasons. It’s quite remarkable to contemplate, but much of what was in our history textbooks is simply not correct, not exaggerations or off a little, but completely fabricated or with most of the facts incorrect. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me is a fascinating study on just how wrong is so much of what we were taught in school.

But I’m also a calendar geek (I guess we need a new word for that, too — perhaps holiday head or time bandit?) and the way holidays come about has almost nothing to with reality or the truth of when the events that are being celebrated took place. Christmas is the classic example, with their being no actual certainty when Jesus’ birthday was, and I’ve read accounts placing it in the spring, as well as other times of the year, too. Thanksgiving, if it ever really took place at all, was not when we celebrate it. The Declaration of Independence was actually adopted on July 2, and both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson believed that would be the date we celebrated American independence. It took two more days of making changes to the document which was then ratified with the modifications on the fourth. The rest is, well, history. You get the idea.

But there’s no law or ethic or whatever preventing a group of people from celebrating whatever they want whenever they want. What’s tricky is merely reaching a tipping point where enough other people agree to recognize the date as well. Mother’s Day, for example, is a relatively modern invention, with our version of it originating just after the Civil War, even though its roots are ancient. But different countries celebrate it on very different days. The actual date doesn’t really matter in the end nearly as much as the spirit of what is being celebrated. If we keep alive the notion that prohibition was a failed experiment that exacted a terrible cost on our nation, that legislating morality is a bad idea and you can’t really stop people from doing something that they find pleasurable, then who among us should be bothered by whether it’s remembered on April 7 or December 5? I realize the difference here is that we know with historic certainty that repeal did not take place on April 7, so we should definitely avoid calling it Repeal Day; that honor should go to December 5. But I see no reason not to also celebrate on April 7. With the neo-prohibitionists nipping at our heels once more with the vigor of a junkyard dog, setting aside two days each year to remind our critics that Prohibition will not work and celebrate how much beer enriches our lives, our economy and our society in positive ways seems like a good idea to me. Since it is the day that beer once more legally flowed after thirteen years, we can justifiably called it “The Return of Beer Day” or “3.2 Beer Day” or “Back to Beer Day” or even “New Beer’s Eve” as it was originally known.

To learn more about the history of Prohibition, here are some interesting links:

• Alcohol Prohibition Was A Failure, Policy Analysis from the Cato Institute
• Alcohol, Temperance & Prohibition, from Brown University
• April 7 is NOT the 74th Anniversary of the End of National Prohibition 2008, by Bob Skilnik.
• April 7 is NOT the 74th Anniversary of the End of National Prohibition 2007, by Bob Skilnik, with an excerpt from his wonderful book Beer & Food.
• Prohibition: A Lesson in the Futility (and Danger) of Prohibiting, from the book Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do
• Schaffer Library of Drug Policy History of Alcohol Prohibition
• Temperance & Prohibition History, from Ohio State
• The Day Beer Flowed Again, by Maureen Ogle
• Thinkquest’s Prohibition — The “Noble Experiment”
• Wikipedia

The beer that made Milwaukee famous is set to try and do it again. Pabst Brewing, who owns the label, re-released Schlitz today in the brown longneck bottles using what they claim is the original recipe. Having had phenomenal success with Pabst and also recently re-released Primo, Pabst is looking to recreate that success with yet another nostalgic beer.

Pabst Brewing Company (PBC) is partnering with Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. in Lincolnwood, Ill. to distribute the classic Schlitz formula and has a longstanding and rewarding relationship with the beer distributor, based on Schlitz and other brands within the PBC portfolio.

Founder Louis Glunz I first supplied Schlitz for the 1893 World’s Columbian Expo in Chicago and 40 years later, his eldest son and successor, Louis Glunz II, tapped the first kegs of Schlitz when they arrived by train in Chicago on April 7, 1933. On that date, the Volstead Act was modified allowing the sale of 3.2 percent beer in advance of the ratification of the 21st Amendment which repealed Prohibition. The Brewers Association reports that over 1.5 million barrels of beer was consumed nationwide in the 24-hours following what was the beginning of the end of Prohibition!

Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. has since served as a Schlitz bottler for many years and has continued to distribute Schlitz in spite of the brand’s losing its “Gusto” along the way to keep up with beer trends. General Manager, Jerry Glunz, attributes the steady decline in sales of Schlitz to a changed formula in the mid 1970s and packaging that was converted from a full package line to only cans in 1998. “We’re confident that a return to the original formula and the classic ‘Brown Glass’ longneck bottles will revitalize the Schlitz brand,” said Glunz.

Borrowing a page from their 120-year history, representatives of Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. will deliver the first coveted cases of Schlitz “Classic 1960s Formula” this afternoon from a replica of its original horse-drawn wagon. The route through Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood includes two old Schlitz tied-houses, Schubas Tavern and Southport Lanes & Billiards, as well as Cardinal Liquors, 1000 Liquors, Chicago Brauhaus, Sheffield’s Bar, The Long Room, Simon’s Tavern, the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, and Glunz Bavarian Haus. The product will also be available at Louis Glunz’s original shop, since renamed The House of Glunz, at Wells and Division Streets in Chicago’s Old Town.

“Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. introduced Schlitz to Chicago and we’re excited to work with them to re-launch the original formula,” said Brad Hittle, chief marketing officer of Pabst Brewing. “Their heritage with Schlitz is unsurpassed among beer distributors across the country.”

“We are delighted about the comeback of Schlitz, the brand that brought us to the dance,” said Jack Glunz, president of Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. “The ‘Classic 1960s Formula’ is just as we remember from the heydays, a perfect balance between full-flavor and easy drinking with ‘just a kiss of the hops.’ This re-launch is a tribute to my grandfather’s legacy!”

According to Kyle Wortham, senior brand manager for Schlitz, the classic taste profile of Schlitz “Classic 1960s Formula” is the result of research by Pabst Brewmaster, Bob Newman, who was named the 2006 and 2007 Brewmaster of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival. “Bob tracked down and interviewed retired Schlitz brewhouse employees and others to recreate the classic taste,” explained Wortham. Mr. Glunz, who also provided access to Schlitz marketing materials in his company’s archives, was among those interviewed.

In addition to a return to the original taste profile, dedicated to those who miss the full-bodied Schlitz as they knew it, Wortham said that the classic formula will feature heritage-inspired packaging and old-school attitude to reinforce the values that resonate with guys who remember the 1960s. A new print and outdoor advertising campaign includes imagery from that era and suggests that the intended drinker go back to a formula from a time when values mattered: “the cars were cooler, the athletes didn’t cheat, and the beer was better.” Marketing support also includes a new website, www.schlitzgusto.com, public relations, and tasting parties.

“Schlitz coined the phrase ‘Go For The Gusto,’ and we intend this campaign to reach beer drinkers where they live and remind them of some of the best times of their lives when even the beer tasted better,” said Wortham. “We’re setting the stage for a significant comeback.”

According to a story by my friend and colleague, Brent Ainsworth, in today’s Marin I.J., Iron Springs Brewery in Fairfax will be shutting down operations on August 15 of this year, due to a protracted struggle with their landlord in which the rent was to be raised by 53% in this down market.

The Brewers Association just announced the top 50 breweries in the U.S. based on sales, by volume, for 2007, which is listed below here. For the first time, they’ve also released a list of the top 50 craft breweries based on the new definition adopted by the Brewers Association last year. Here is the new craft brewery list:

1. Boston Beer Co.; Boston MA
2. Sierra Nevada Brewing; Chico CA
3. New Belgium Brewing; Fort Collins CO
4. Spoetzl Brewery (Gambrinus); Spoetzl TX
5. Pyramid Breweries; Seattle WA
6. Matt Brewing; Utica NY
7. Deschutes Brewery; Bend OR
8. Boulevard Brewing; Kansas City MO
9. Full Sail Brewing; Hood River OR
10. Harpoon Brewery; Boston, MA
11. Alaskan Brewing; Juneau AK
12. Magic Hat Brewing Company; South Burlington VT
13. Anchor Brewing; San Francisco CA
14. Bell’s Brewery; Galesburg MI
15. Shipyard Brewing; Portland ME
16. Summit Brewing; Saint Paul MN
17. Abita Brewing; New Orleans LA
18. Gordon Biersch Brewing; San Jose CA
19. Brooklyn Brewery; Brooklyn NY
20. Stone Brewing; Escondido CA
21. Rogue Ales; Newport OR
22. Long Trail Brewing; Bridgewater Corners VT
23. New Glarus Brewing; New Glarus WI
24. Kona Brewing; Kailua-Kona HI
25. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery; Lewes DE
26. Firestone Walker Brewing; Paso Robles CA
27. Great Lakes Brewing; Cleveland OH
28. Lagunitas Brewing; Petaluma CA
29. Flying Dog Brewery; Denver CO
30. Sweetwater Brewing; Atlanta GA
31. Bridgeport Brewing; Portland OR
32. Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants; Louisville CO
33. Odell Brewing; Fort Collins CO
34. BJs Restaurant & Brewery; Huntington Beach CA</li
35. Victory Brewing; Downingtown PA
36. Mac and Jack’s Brewery; Redmond WA
37. Lost Coast Brewery; Eureka CA
38. Big Sky Brewing; Missoula MT
39. Pete’s Brewing; San Antonio TX
40. Otter Creek Brewing; Middlebury VT
41. Karl Strauss Breweries; San Diego CA
42. Breckenridge Brewery; Denver CO
43. Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant; Chattanooga TN
44. Anderson Valley Brewing; Boonville CA
45. Boulder Beer; Boulder CO
46. North Coast Brewing; Fort Bragg CA
47. McMenamins; Portland OR
48. Utah Brewers Cooperative; Salt Lake City UT
49. Capital Brewing; Middleton WI
50. Blue Point Brewing; Patchogue NY

From the press release:

The Brewers Association, which tabulates industry growth data, announced its annual list of the top fifty brewing companies. Released are both a Top 50 Craft Brewing Companies list and a list of the Top 50 Overall Brewing Companies. Statistics are based on sales in 2007.

“The majority of breweries in the U.S. are independent craft brewers who continue to push the envelope in flavor and diversity and who continue to set the pace for the beer category,” states Paul Gatza, Director of the

The Brewers Association has just announced the top 50 breweries in the U.S. based on sales, by volume, for 2007. Here is the new list:

1. Anheuser-Busch; St Louis MO
2. Miller Brewing; Milwaukee WI
3. Coors Brewing; Golden CO
4. Pabst Brewing; Woodridge IL
5. Boston Beer Co.; Boston MA
6. D. G. Yuengling and Son; Pottsville PA
7. Sierra Nevada Brewing; Chico CA
8. New Belgium Brewing; Fort Collins CO
9. High Falls Brewing; Rochester NY
10. Spoetzl Brewery (Gambrinus); Spoetzl TX
11. Widmer Brothers Brewing; Portland OR
12. Redhook Ale Brewery; Woodinville WA
13. Pyramid Breweries; Seattle WA
14. Matt Brewing; Utica NY
15. Minhas Craft Brewery; Monroe WI
16. Deschutes Brewery; Bend OR
17. Iron City Brewing (fka Pittsburgh Brewing); Pittsburgh PA
18. Boulevard Brewing; Kansas City MO
19. Full Sail Brewing; Hood River OR
20. Harpoon Brewery; Boston, MA
21. Alaskan Brewing; Juneau AK
22. Magic Hat Brewing Company; South Burlington VT
23. Anchor Brewing; San Francisco CA
24. Bell’s Brewery; Galesburg MI
25. Goose Island Beer; Chicago IL
26. August Schell Brewing; New Ulm MN
27. Shipyard Brewing; Portland ME
28. Summit Brewing; Saint Paul MN
29. Mendocino Brewing; Ukiah CA
30. Abita Brewing; New Orleans LA
31. Gordon Biersch Brewing; San Jose CA
32. Brooklyn Brewery; Brooklyn NY
33. Stone Brewing; Escondido CA
34. Rogue Ales; Newport OR
35. Long Trail Brewing; Bridgewater Corners VT
36. New Glarus Brewing; New Glarus WI
37. Kona Brewing; Kailua-Kona HI
38. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery; Lewes DE
39. Firestone Walker Brewing; Paso Robles CA
40. Great Lakes Brewing; Cleveland OH
41. Lagunitas Brewing; Petaluma CA
42. Flying Dog Brewery; Denver CO
43. Sweetwater Brewing; Atlanta GA
44. Bridgeport Brewing; Portland OR
45. Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants; Louisville CO
46. Gluek Brewing (just changed its name Cold Spring Brewery); Cold Spring MN
47. Straub Brewery; Saint Mary’s PA
48. Odell Brewing; Fort Collins CO
49. BJs Restaurant & Brewery; Santa Ana CA</li
50. Victory Brewing; Downington PA

From the press release:

Twenty-one states are represented in the top 50 brewing companies list, according to the Brewers Association. California hosts eight top breweries. Colorado and Oregon each host five, and Pennsylvania hosts four top producers. The remainder of the top 50 operate from Minnesota (3), New York (3), Wisconsin (3), Illinois (2), Massachusetts (2), Missouri (2), Vermont (2), and Washington (2). Alaska, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas each host one.

The 5th annual Bay Area Firkin Gravity Festival was held yesterday at Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley, California. Some of the stand out beers for me included Pizza Port’s Imperial Red, 547 Haight St., that Jeff Bagby brewed for the Toronado’s 20th anniversary, 21st Amendment’s Rye, Drake’s Wheatwine, Speakeasy’s Stout, Half Moon Bay’s authentic English-style brown and an interesting California Common from Oakland’s newest brewery, Linden Street Brewing.

This year, nearly thirty casks of real ale were available for sampling.

Triple Rock GM Rachaal with Ken Kelley from North Coast Brewing.

For many more photos from this year’s Bay Area Firkin Gravity Festival, visit the photo gallery.
 

For our 14th Session, the topic has turned decidedly personal. Our host, Stonch, has chosen the topic “beer people” with the knowing wisdom that “enjoying beer is as much about people as it is malt and hops.” It seems great minds do think alike, because I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately, but more on that later on.

I’ve been involved with beer since I was a kid, really, and I started thinking about it in a more studied way when I lived in New York City in the late ’70s. My involvement grew again after moving to California in the mid-80s, but became much more serious for at least the last twenty years sometime after I started homebrewing and wrote a bar guide to Silicon Valley in the early 1990s. Since then, I’ve been a beer buyer, contract brewer, festival volunteer, judge, tasting organizer, magazine manager and writer. In all those pursuits, I’ve encountered great swaths of people from all walks of life, socio-economic groups, ages, etc. all thrown together by one commonality: beer.

Having been on the business side of beer for a number of years, I got to know a lot of the folks at distributors, along with brewery sales representatives, brewery owners, merchandisers, marketers. In many ways, it’s a different world from craft world, the big companies have so many layers of people each doing one small part of the whole. And even though I often criticize the big brewer’s products and especially their business practices, for the most part the on the ground employees are usually pretty terrific people. It’s especially true at Anheuser-Busch, where I’ve met enough fine people to be impressed with their hiring methods. And Miller and Coors have some great people working for them, too. Seriously. You might not think so for all my complaining, but notice I’m rarely ranting against the employees, only the policy and decision-makers, and more often the consequences of those decisions.

With the small companies, as you’d expect, there’s a lot of multi-tasking with most employees (and usually the owner/brewer) doing all of the jobs. With them, there aren’t many layers from top to bottom, and as a result there’s much more transparency, warts and all, with the way they operate. But surprisingly, even with being so overworked, most still manage to have a positive outlook. It’s actually quite amazing to me. I’m sure they must be as busy, stressed out and pulled in many directions as any other overworked, underpaid segment of the economy. But for some reason, they manage to be enjoyable company, too, somehow. Not surprisingly, most are someone you’d like to have a beer with, and it’s remarkable to me that this is nearly universal, at least in my experience. It’s the primary reason I’m so supportive of the industry and generally will do whatever I can to extol the virtues of good beer. It may have been the beer that got me involved in the beer world, but it’s the people that keep me passionate about it and make it a joy to be a part of.

Eight days ago, it was Michael Jackson’s birthday. It would have been his 66th. One of the things I always liked about Michael’s writing was how much of the brewer’s story he liked to tell. Oh, there was always a lot about the beer itself, the process by which it was made, and so forth, but at the heart of his writing was always the personal story about the men and women who made the beer. I’ve always thought knowing the back story about the beer and the brewery adds something intangible to enjoying the beer, too. I suppose the more you know about anything, the more or better you’re able to appreciate it. I know there are a lot of people who insist “it’s all about the beer,” but I strongly disagree. Like anything crafted by the hand of man, the beer did not magically appear in a vacuum. The blood, sweat and tears of the brewer are what brought the beer into existence. His experiences and the decisions he made up to the point he made that beer you love has a lot to do with how he made the beer, why he decided to make it that way, and how it tastes. To deny those factors is like trying to appreciate Van Gogh’s Starry Night without knowing anything of his life, his trials and tribulations, his challenges with mental illness, his relationship with his caring brother and so on. For a fascinating illustration of how knowing more about the artist adds to your appreciation, rent the DVD collection the Power of Art by Simon Schama. He takes eight well-known artists’ most famous pieces and give them context, by telling the story of how each painting came to be. It’s an amazing glimpse into the creative process and brewers are no less artists for using a palette of hops, malt, yeast and water.

I’ll post and send out details later this month and I’ll create some graphics and put up a website for everybody to use and link to. If you like the idea, consider helping to spread the word about it. But in the meantime just think about a brewer you’d like to profile. The idea, in my humble opinion, would be to tell their story in whatever fashion you feel comfortable with, be that an interview, essay, video or what have you. Hopefully, over time it will grow. Perhaps one day there will be events honoring the best brewers out there at breweries, bars and restaurants all over the planet. We probably won’t see cards at Hallmark anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Brewers have given so many of us the pleasure of their artistry and enriched our lives with their beer since civilization began. So I think it’s time we recognized their efforts by celebrating their lives, their commitment and their craft. We’re all beer people, but without the brewers what would we be drinking?

As the old Czech saying goes:

“Blessed is the mother who gives birth to a brewer.”

To turn to a less controversial subject than autism (believe it or not, I was attacked by a few people for expressing my opinion about the mercury issue) let’s switch to politics. This morning’s San Francisco Chronicle has a very interesting article about republican presidential hopeful John McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, whose family owns one of the largest Anheuser-Bush distributor in the United States, Hensley & Co. It’s believed to be worth about $250 million, with annual revenue of at least $300 million. From the AP article:

As heiress to her father’s stake in Hensley & Co. of Phoenix, Cindy McCain is an executive whose worth may exceed $100 million. Her beer earnings have afforded the GOP presidential nominee a wealthy lifestyle with a private jet and vacation homes at his disposal, and her connections helped him start his political career — even if the millions remain in her name alone. Yet the arm’s-length distance between McCain and his wife’s assets also has helped shield him from conflict-of-interest problems.

The article claims that not only was the Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. Political Action Committee one of McCain’s earliest political donors, but James Hensley (Cindy McCain’s father) and his company “gave so much money that the Federal Election Commission ordered McCain to give some of it back.”

As a longtime executive with the beer wholesaler, Cindy McCain is thought to be a multi-millionaire many times over, though the McCains have thus far refused to say exactly how much she’s worth and have kept all of her finances separate from his. “In government records, McCain is permitted to describe his wife’s salary at Hensley as simply ‘more than $1,000’ and, when listing her major assets, say only that they are worth ‘more than $1 million.'”

I’m going to stay away from commenting too much and just point out something about beer distributors and the way they’re usually characterized. It turns out the Chronicle only printed roughly half the story, probably for space reasons, whereas the Baltimore Sun, has much more about the beer angle. To wit:

Cindy McCain is Hensley’s chairwoman and holds at least a 20 percent stake in it, according to Arizona corporate records. She works mostly on strategic planning and corporate vision, said Hensley spokesman Douglas Yonko. The company is family owned, but Hensley won’t say whether Cindy McCain is a majority shareholder.

Family owned, yes, but remember that the NBWA last year campaigned against changes to the estate tax, basing their argument on beer distributors being small, family owned businesses who were being treated unfairly and couldn’t pass their companies on to their sons and daughters. As this makes clear, the real truth is most beer distributors — even the ones that really are family-owned — aren’t that small. The industry is dominated by beer wholesalers that have become increasingly consolidated and very rich.

Of the top 25 beer distributors in the U.S., only three of them (all in the bottom five) are single location wholesalers. The vast majority are multi-location chains of distributors. Hensley may describe itself as the No. 3 A-B house, but they’re 5th (and 8th overall), according to a Beverage World report of the top twenty-five it published in September. The largest, Reyes Holdings, has revenue in excess of $800 million and more than three-fifth of them have annual sales above $200 million.

McCains’ Bud wholesaler is also one that is still on board with the “100% share of mind” program A-B instituted several years ago offering incentives to distributors who sold only A-B products. If McCain is elected, our First Lady will be a Bud Girl.