By Jay Brooks
To continue the impromptu beer label theme to today’s posts, here are the mock-ups for new labels for five of Boscos regular beers, which I got last week along with the new brewery pictures my friend Chuck sent me. I think they’re pretty cool looking. I like the simple retro look to them. They remind me of vintage travel posters from the 1920-30s. What do you think?
By Jay Brooks
I’m not one to pimp beer commercials very often, but I found this one pretty clever. It’s simply the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, on stage in their tuxedos, performing the theme song for Foster’s most popular beer in Australia, Victoria Bitter. But instead of their normal instruments, the song is played on beer bottles. Believe it or not, when I first started college my major was music theory/comp (composition) and I had aspirations to write classical music, so it was fun to see the inventive ways they found to make sounds from the beer bottles. Simple and with no catch phrases, animals or mud-wrestling. If only the beer was better.
By Jay Brooks
While searching for a generic beer label for my previous post, I stumbled upon the Free Beer organization, a Danish art project applying the open source or Creative Commons idea to beer. The Creative Commons is a more open approach to copyright law, created by people who think copyright law as it exists today does more to stifle creativity than allow it to flourish. If that seems at first counter-intuitive, I would recommend you read Lawrence Lessig‘s wonderful book, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity and/or see the film Revolution OS, which has as much to do with this fascinating idea as it does with the history of computer operating systems (and it details the contributions of Richard Stallman). Anyway, the idea of a looser way to reserve some rights but allow people to build on previous efforts to collectively come up with better solutions and products because they’re designed in the open by dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people working on them is at the heart of this idea. Originally, of course, this notion was applied to software. This blog you’re reading, for example, runs on WordPress, an open source blogging software that is essentially free to use and has been created by untold numbers of programmers who are working constantly to make it better.
From the Free Beer website:
The project, originally conceived by Copenhagen-based artist collective Superflex and students at the Copenhagen IT University, applies modern free software / open source methods to a traditional real-world product — namely the alcoholic beverage loved and enjoyed globally, and commonly known as beer.
It seems to me that homebrewers already share recipes fairly freely, and I know of instances where commercial brewers have all made the same beer (using the same hops or to celebrate Ben Franklin’s 300th birthday, for example) so I’m not sure how novel this is, but it’s still a worthwhile idea to promote, at least in my opinion.
The English version of the Free Beer label.
By Jay Brooks
I’m not entirely sure why this exists, but I did have fun with it — so perhaps that’s enough of a reason — but Strange Brew, a Canadian software company that makes programs for homebrewers, also has an online Random Beer Name Generator. My first beer name:
Flying Squirrel-Mash Oud Bruin
Being a huge fan of Rocky & Bullwinkle, I thought this one was a great name for a beer. But some others were equally intriguing, such as Craptacular Loch Ness Monster Tripel, Barney and Spiderman’s Transgendered Bière de Garde and even The Squid Formerly Known As Winston Churchill’s Unbefreakinglievable Pilsner. I don’t know how many names are in there. I tried quite a few and never got a duplicate. Give it a try. Let me know your best ones.
By Jay Brooks
Apparently, there won’t be any Southern Baptists attending the Highland Vineyard Church of Louisville, Kentucky any time soon, as we’ve recently learned that some of them are literally afraid of beer. That’s because Highland Vineyard’s pastor, Robert Pitman, has been holding “Sunday Nights on Tap” services, which are held at Flanagan’s Ale House, a local Irish-style pub with a great beer selection and pub food.
As Pastor Pitman tells it, in a recent Louisville Courier-Journal article:
“I think there’s a lot of people that want to get close to God, but they don’t connect with the church today,” said Robert Pitman, Highland Vineyard’s lead pastor. “Maybe they either just have never been or they’ve been and had bad experiences, but it just doesn’t seem to connect with them.”
Last Sunday the church held the second of its Sunday Nights on Tap at Flanagan’s. Like the first, it drew about 35-40 people ranging in age from early 20s to late 50s. The events start out with live music — some original, some covers — followed by a message from Pitman and time to hang out and socialize.
For now, the church will be holding these beer bar revivals only once a month, but if successful, who knows? It’s nice to see not every religion is against beer. I certainly know plenty of religious beer-drinkers, but a church that embraces it and even makes it a part of their worship? Now that warms the soul like a good barleywine-style ale.
By Jay Brooks
We’ve had the Big Three — Bud, Miller and Coors — for so long now that it would probably take me a few years to stop using the term. In the UK, once upon a time it was the Big Six; and they included Allied Breweries, Bass Charrington, Courage Imperial, Scottish & Newcastle, Watneys, and Whitbread. Until yesterday, only S&N remained. With the announcement earlier today of Carlsberg and Heineken’s buyout of Scottish & Newcastle, the last vestige of a bygone era will soon disappear, as well. England’s esteemed Financial Times today has a somewhat sad commentary on this entitled Few Crying into Beers at Decline of Big Six Breweries. As they observe, the change in the beer market and the mergers that began around 1989 have now come to a final solution, and with no one left to mourn them.
Here’s a few statistics. Since the turn of the century, imported beer to the UK has increased by 50%. During that same time, the number of large breweries fell by two-thirds. Today, a mere six remain, with 34 more considered regional breweries. Since the 1980s, the number of breweries has actually tripled, but that’s because of the UK’s own microbrewery revolution, which today includes over 500 small breweries whose total production accounts for only 2% of the nation’s beer market. Before today’s buyout, Heineken enjoyed only 1% of the total British market, but after the deal is approved they will have something in the neighborhood of 30%, making them Great Britain’s biggest beer company.
Maybe none of this matters. After all, as the FT’s editorial makes clear, British pub-goers, publicans and pub operators, and even CAMRA’s real ale aficionados will all be dishearteningly unmoved by today’s news. I can’t help but think that’s a mistake. So much of our early microbreweries owe such a great debt to the heritage and history of English ales that it seems a shame to let this dismal milestone pass so cavalierly. Perhaps I’ve romanticized these old breweries too much, but I don’t feel the same loathing for their products or their business practices that I usually do for our Big Three. That may simply be the 1,000-mile expanse of ocean separating me from everyday contact, who knows? But even though the British beer industry is nowhere near deceased, this is just one more wound that will again forever alter its landscape. I, for one, in the words of the immortal Edgar Allen Poe, “am drinking ale today.”
By Jay Brooks
There was an interesting item in yesterday’s USA Today called Frustration Over Liquor Laws Brewing. The story details just a few of the battles around the country to update their state’s antiquated alcohol laws, which in many cases haven’t been updated since Prohibition’s repeal in 1933. I’m sure the neo-prohibitionists will be fighting these tooth and nail, employing their usual bag of dirty tricks, but perhaps it’s finally time to stop playing defense and pick up the ball. In Mississippi, for example, it’s still illegal to sell beer in excess of 6% abv. The argument against raising it, predictably, is, according to William Perkins of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, that an “intellectual argument ignores the ill effects of alcohol.” Well, I’d sure hate for logic or intelligence to interfere with his world view, but you can buy wine and liquor in Mississippi already and, unless it’s some weird watered-down varieties, those are all well above 6% so please tell me how that makes any sense whatsoever? Not to mention there are plenty of positive health claims that can be made not only about beer, but the moderate use of alcohol in general. If Perkins’ thinking shows nothing else, it’s illustrative that logic plays no role at all in the anti-alcohol league’s canon. By any means necessary seems to be the only rule. So perhaps it’s time to mount an offensive. After all, a good defensive very well may be a strong offense.
By Jay Brooks
Boscos, the small brewpub chain with locations in Tennessee and Arkansas, has completed work on their new production brewery in Memphis. The first batch of beer was brewed December 31 of last year by my friend Chuck Skypeck, who also sent along a few photos of the new facility. If you’re like me, you can’t get enough pictures of brewing equipment.
The outside of Boscos new production brewery, where the headquarters were moved about a year ago. The building itself is curved to follow the distinctive path of the road in a part of Memphis south of downtown currently going through a resurgence. It used to be a meat packaging plant with some elements they needed already in place and the rest they remodeled, keeping a number of the retro industrial architectural elements intact, like green tiled walls and chrome swinging doors.
Head brewer Mike Campbell, formerly with Tractor Brewing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who’s been on hand to help build the brewery since the beginning.
The production brewery will be used primarily for off-premise sales of growlers and kegs, which is not permitted from their brewpubs under Tennessee law, and also to provide beer for additional Boscos that will not have their own breweries. The first of these, in Cool Springs, Tennessee (south of Nashville), is slated to open this spring. They’ll also begin distributing their beer to a select number of area restaurants.
By Jay Brooks
It looks like the brewing brouhaha involving several large multi-national beer companies that I wrote about last week is going to be resolved more quickly then anybody had anticipated. The Carlsberg Group and Heineken today agreed to a $15.3 billion buyout of Scottish & Newcastle. The deal is structured such that Carlsberg will get sole ownership of BBH (Baltic Beverages Holding), giving them access to the lucrative Russian beer market, and will also receive S&N’s markets in China, France and Greece. Heineken will gain control of S&N’s markets in Great Britain, India, the United States and a few others. Business experts don’t seem to think there will a problem in getting the deal approved or with any counter-offers.
Note: Portfolio’s online website has a good overview of this story, too.
By Jay Brooks
Beginning on February 1, 21st Amendment Brewery and Magnolia Pub & Brewery, both in San Francisco, will team up yet again to host their sixth annual Strong Beer Month. Each brewpub will create six different seasonal beers — and if you haven’t figured it out yet, they’ll all be strong — that will be available at the two locations throughout February. Many of these dozen beers have been created especially for this month, and will be available only until they run out. Sample them all, and you’ll receive a commemorative glass.
And this year’s poster is hilarious, a near perfect parody of AC/DC’s album cover for Highway to Hell. Compare it to the original below.
