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The If You Were A Beer Test

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I’m a sucker for quizzes of all stripes, be they tests of trivia, intelligence or knowledge. To me, the best pubs are the ones that host a trivia night once a week. My local when I lived in Cupertino, California, many years ago, the Britannia Arms, had a trivia league Tuesday nights with regular teams and season standings leading to a grand prize winner. It was great fun, and my only point is that I love to take tests. Weird, I know, but I even like to take those mostly meaningless personality tests. Case in point, there are a number of these that claim to determine what kind of beer you are based on a few questions about your personality. The latest one I stumbled upon, The If You Were A Beer Test, is on OK Cupid, an online dating website and was created by a 25-year old female member living in New York City, Gwendolyn Books.

There are nine simple questions, and she’s divided the quiz results into dark & bitter, working class, and genuine, presumably three questions apiece since my own score was 66% dark & bitter, 33% working class, 100% genuine and my own beer was Guinness, which the quiz claims as follows:

Okay, we all know Guinness is the best possible score on any “What Kind Of Beer Are You” test, so you can just go on and pat yourself on the back now. Like the world’s most famous brew, you’re genuine, you’ve got good taste, and you’re sophisticated. What else can I say, except congratulations?

If your friends didn’t score the same way, get ready for them to say: Guinness is too heavy; it’s an acquired taste; it’s too serious — and they probably think those things about you at times. But just brush ’em off. Everybody knows Guinness is the best. Cheers.

I don’t who she means by “everybody” but, of course, I don’t consider Guinness to be anywhere near the best. It’s not a bad beer per se, but it’s certainly lost its iconic status in my eyes, though I realize quite a number of people do still revere it. My wife, sadly, got Corona which, to her credit, she finds every bit as disgusting as I do. And in the end, that’s why as much I love these kinds of things they always tend to disappoint, because the range of beer in these things is decidedly narrow, despite the following cute little ditty that appears just before your beer personality is revealed.

If you were a beer, which would you be?
A Guinness, Sam Adams, or Old Milwaukee?

Do you have a thick head? Are you dark, are you skunked?
Aged at the hands of obscure Trappist Monks?

Are you stout, are you bitter, oaky like Fall,
Or like most of my coworkers, with no taste at all?

However you are, here’s one test you can’t flunk,
All beers are okay, so long as you’re drunk.

At least she’s aware of Trappist Monks, Samuel Adams and the fact that beer can be skunked (especially popular brands like Corona and Heineken), and that put this quizmaster above most, if not all, of the other similar quizzes I’ve taken in the past. Still, I only have myself to blame. I guess I’ll have to add to my growing list of things I’d like to do in my copious free time making a quiz that’s more geared toward the many different styles of beer and the many different personality types. That could be fun. With my personality, though, I’d probably end up a sour beer.

What kind of beer are you? Not much here you’re fond of? I feel your pain.

Spinning the Beer Business

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On Tuesday, August Busch IV addressed investors at the biannual “Investor Day” and unsurprisingly recent company woes were played down and the future looked so bright they probably should have passed out sunglasses to investors to reinforce the point. Given the less than enthusiastic analysis by Wall Street the week before, it’s not a stretch to consider the rosy predictions to be pure spin to mollify jumpy investors.

As usual, the business press went along with it, mostly reporting the spin without questioning it or even analyzing it to much of a degree. As reported in the New York Times, Busch boldly told investors “that profit would rise more than forecast this year on higher sales of imported beers and fewer discounts of Bud Light and Michelob.” Despite dismal sales gains and worse profits, A-B told its investors that the 1% gain realized in the second quarter was proof enough that things were finally looking up.

More curiously, Busch IV told shareholders “the company [this February] started to import beverages, including Stella Artois and Bass from InBev, to fend off rivals like SABMiller.” What’s odd about that statement to investors is that most conventional wisdom, both internally and externally, doesn’t blame SABMiller at all for A-B’s troubles, but craft beer, wine and spirits.

Busch IV also stated that “Anheuser-Busch is much better positioned for growth than we were just eight months ago,” but neither he — nor the Times — offers any explanation as to why that might be. All A-B said was that “[p]rofit will increase slower than forecast in the second quarter but accelerate in the second half of the year” and “[e]arnings on a share basis will increase this year more than the long-term growth of 7 percent to 10 percent that the company targets.” To me that sounds like code for don’t sell now, don’t bail on us, things will get better … eventually.

CNN Money reported that A-B did indeed see a 1% rise in sales this month, calling that a “rebound” after a poor showing the previous month. That’s a far more optimistic connotation of the word “rebound” than my dictionary allows, but that’s spin for you. In a related CNN Money article, “Anheuser-Busch profit disappoints,” A-B CFO W. Randolph Baker further spins the reasons for poor sales and even blames the weather. It’s this last one that produced in me a rare guffaw. Certainly there is a close and well-documented correlation between the weather and beer sales. The warmer the weather, the better the sales — it’s hardly rocket science. But when I was the beer buyer at Beverages & more and was expected to hit sales targets it was the one excuse for falling short, no matter how legitimate, that I was all forbidden to use. Apparently, I was expected to predict the weather and plan for it — I never quite understood how I could be held responsible for factors outside my control but such was the pressure cooker of retail. Anyway, to hear the CFO of the biggest beer company in the world blame the weather for not hitting their own sales targets strikes me as pretty funny and suggests that A-B doesn’t really have a good idea as to what exactly is causing their sales to remain mostly flat. Baker claims to be “uncomfortable saying it’s only a weather story,” which says to me he’s not supposed to use that excuse any more than I was.

Dow Jones’ Marketwatch also predictably spins it A-B’s way, titling their take “Anheuser says back on growth track.” The MarketWatch take begins accepting Bud’s pronouncements. “Citing a bigger and better beer portfolio [the InBev imports – failing to mention distributor issues], favorable pricing trends [unilaterally deciding not to discount their own products hardly constitutes a trend], international opportunities [despite everyone saying it’s the core brands at home that are the issue] and a modest rebound in domestic sales [the 1% rise in the first half of May], Anheuser-Busch said Tuesday that it is back on a growth track, but perhaps not so much right away [yes, in the future, always the future].

“Busch said that consumers are increasingly ‘active’ rather than ‘passive’ and added that ‘we have to evolve how we do business … to combine our supply-side strength with a new and equally powerful demand expertise.'” While that may be true, Bud.TV (rumored to be shut down shortly), MingleNow and even Here’s to Beer have not exactly taught A-B about the “powerful demand expertise” many consumers are looking for. They didn’t even mention Raymond Hill, their curious new venture with a faux or stealth “craft beer” that’s made by A-B.

MarketWatch lastly detailed A-B’s forays into making spirits, with mixed results:

But with beer continuing to lose share in the alcohol market, he said that the company needs to move beyond the category and into “high-margin segments with exceptional potential. … We will target products and categories where we can drive growth.” That is a not-so-veiled reference to hard liquor, which has been booming just as domestic brew fades. A-B has made some baby steps — and missteps — in that direction, developing both distilled spirits and higher-alcohol malt beverages in a small way.

Last year, the company launched “Jekyll & Hyde,” two “nesting” bottles of spirits meant to be mixed together and downed as a shot. It also rolled out Spykes, a 12% alcohol malt-based product sold in tiny perfume-like bottles. That experiment was a disaster and the company announced it would stop making the stuff last week due to poor sales and attacks by advocacy groups that claimed it appealed to underage drinkers.

It was a little strange that craft beer’s gains were not addressed — at least not by the media as far as I can tell — since they’re the only category of alcoholic beverages that’s showing significant growth at the present time. Perhaps we’re still too small to bring up at investor meetings.

All of this emphasis on international markets, non-beer products and their “packaging and entertainment businesses” as a way out of the morass seems odd given that everybody and their mother cites inattention to their core brands as the biggest problem A-B is facing. A-B’s Tuesday press release does mention the core brands, but it all sounds like doublespeak and gobbledegook to me. Here’s what they had to say about their core product lines:

Senior managers from Anheuser-Busch’s U.S. beer company presented their plans to grow the company’s core trademark brands and actively pursue high-end growth opportunities. The company is making good progress in digesting the series of new growth initiatives recently undertaken and managing the added complexity associated with an expanded portfolio. In citing incremental revenue growth as a key objective, the executives stated that the pricing environment in the U.S. beer industry is favorable.

Now I speak jargon, in fact I’m relatively fluent in it, but “actively pursue high-end growth opportunities,” “making good progress in digesting the series of new growth initiatives recently undertaken,” “managing the added complexity associated with an expanded portfolio,” and “the pricing environment in the U.S. beer industry is favorable” are tortuously vague and unnecessarily convoluted to me. They all sound impressive but don’t really seem to say very much. It’s the same old hackneyed platitudes gussied up in fancy dress words to confuse the hoi polloi. In English, all they’re planning is “to sell as much as they can,” “figure out which new brands are selling and which aren’t,” “rolling out the new import and domestic brands they gobbled up last year,” and “not discounting their prices to wholesalers and retailers as much as in previous years.” Now was that so hard to say?

At the same time Anheuser-Busch is trying to persuade shareholders that everything’s fine and that their stock will be up again, they’ve also announced that they’re “looking to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in costs over the next few years,” according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That’s the sort of thing investors and Wall Street tends to applaud but generally isn’t too great for all the unemployed that such measures leave in their wake. A-B is looking to “trim $300 million to $400 million in costs over the next four years,” and you now that’s got to include layoffs. The increased high-tech robotics that A-B is using in its operations certainly doesn’t suggest more hirings, but less, despite the fact that they’re asking current employees to slash their own throats by submitting ” ideas under a productivity plan called ‘Project Blue Ocean.'”

Also somewhat scary for those of us who don’t relish the idea of A-B buying out craft brewers is the announcement that new guidelines A-B approved last year will allow them to take on more debt, with an eye toward getting “more involved in mergers and acquisitions.” So look for another round of rumors on who might be up for grabs later this year.

None of this spin doctoring is unique to A-B, of course, it’s the stock in trade of all large modern corporations. But this was Augie number IV’s first time in front of the investors since taking over the family business last year so it’s worth noting that things haven’t changed very much under his leadership. I’d say we’re in for more efforts at maintaining the status quo as the year continues to unfold. Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Best Bars in America, According to Esquire

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In the lastest issue of Esquire magazine, they list their choices for the “best bars in America,” 51 in all. There are some good places to be sure, but I must question any list of great bars that doesn’t include the Toronado — especially one that seems to favor dive bars. And perhaps more curious than that obvious oversight is the fact that last year’s list not only also overlooked the Toronado but contains none of the same bars as this year’s list.

And while there are certainly other quibbles with the list — Rick Lyke details quite a few — to me this is the crucial fact that makes it impossible to take seriously. Any bar worthy to be considered the best in America would undoubtedly have become so over time and would also be great year after year. You’d expect that a bar that made the list this year was probably pretty damn good last year and one on last year’s list still decent this year. The notion that none from last year are on this year’s list and vice versa makes this purely a literary exercise. Esquire explains it by saying that it’s not an “overhaul of last year’s list. Those bars are still great, and we still drink in them. Think of the list [from last year] as a Hall of Fame.”

So I understand that Esquire wants to have new places to write about each year and their readers likewise would want to read about new places to try, too. But then it can’t possibly be considered a list of the “best” bars, just a collection of good bars that they believe are praiseworthy. That’s not a bad thing, I looked over the list with considerable anticipation and interest. The sensational title did set me up for certain expectations that went largely unfulfilled. And I suspect I’m not alone. A quick Googling of Esquire’s best bars in America reveals that local community websites, forums, etc. all over the country are discussing it, lamenting omissions, bitching about whole cities missing and questioning the choices. And I think it’s that provocative rubric that sparks such a furor. It’s likely that Esquire not only counted on that but actively designed the list, at least in part, to be debated. Because it’s becoming increasingly obvious that getting people talking about your article, magazine or website is the real goal and anything that stifles that, such as accuracy, full disclosure, or calling it by a less volatile name would all not create the same amount of buzz. Personally, I loathe this trend. It creates a situation where it’s more advantageous to be outrageous than truthful or reasonable. Ann Coulter, for example, is a master of this technique. It’s a reminder that the goal of modern journalism is not informing the people, accurate reporting or even keeping an appearance of impartiality. It’s all about selling advertising and making money. And without standards, the easiest way to do that is simply by being provocative and outrageous. Of course, picking the best bars in America is an inconsequential exercise when compared to the many more important issues that the press misleads us about on any given day, but the technique and goal is the same — and the subject is my stock in trade, which is why I’m talking about it at all.

But even with all of that, the Esquire effort is rife with problems. Despite using several writers to compile the list even they admit there are issues with their method.

We haven’t patronized every bar in America, though we’re working on it. For the parts of the country we’ve never had the honor of drinking in, we asked our friends — the most knowledgeable and passionate of whom is Esquire drinks correspondent David Wondrich. Despite our connections, we’ve clearly shortchanged some great cities and have no doubt overlooked some great bars.

Obviously with a task as broad and large as trying to declare the best bars in America it’s going to be difficult to consider every bar, but not doing so, or even trying to be somewhat comprehensive, makes it largely a futile effort in the end. But all it really would have taken to make it a valid effort would have been to change the title of the article to “Our Favorite Bars in America for 2007.” But that wouldn’t have created the buzz that publishing a flawed article and declaring the choices to be “the best” has done. To me, that’s the worst kind of tabloid journalism.

Style Trends Through April 2007

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Here is a chart of the latest style trends broken out by the top 10 selling styles, based on a year’s worth of sales as of April 22, 2007, courtesy of DBBB, the Domestic Brewers Bottled Brands. They publish the book, “The Essential Reference of Domestic Brewers and Their Bottled Brands” and have a website, which offers monthly online updates of the book.

The chart is based on IRI Data showing sales of beer for the previous twelve months through April 22nd of this year by beer style. IRI is short for Information Resources, Inc., a company that surveys sales of beer (and everything else) from over 15,000 retailers (mostly groceries) in the U.S. As a result, their data is invariably skewed toward the national and regional brands since it doesn’t take into account direct sales and sales from small mom & pop stores. I used to get IRI data from almost every medium to large brewer who called on me when I was a beer buyer for BevMo. And while it’s not accurate for craft beer in specific, it does give you a general idea of certain trends, especially when you follow it over a period of time.

 

Welcome to the Bulletin’s New Home

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Welcome to the Brookston Beer Bulletin’s new home on the web. Please change your bookmark, rss feed or link to reflect the new address, which is https://brookstonbeerbulletin.com. If you’ve linked to a specific page on the old Bulletin, such as http://www.brookston.org/beer/specific-page/, please simply replace the “”brookston.org/beer” portion of the code with “brookstonbeerbulletin.com” and it should work just fine, since all the old posts have been moved here to the new server unchanged.

There are a few things left to do here to get us back to full strength, so to speak, so please bear with us as I tend to those. All of the links, for example, have not yet been put back due to a change in the way the newest version of WordPress — my blogging software — treats categories. Also, the calendar function needs to be updated so that will take me a few more days to complete, too.

Mainstream Beer Still Suffering

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According to yet another business article in Forbes, the reason for Anheuser-Busch‘s sales declines are the result of a lack of focus on their core brands, principably Budweiser and Bud Light. And while wine, spirits and craft beer’s rise has been credited with A-B’s decline, this AP article also claims Molson Coors — the #3 American brewer — has also gained ground against their nemesis, largely because they’ve continue to push their core brands. A-B has already suggested they’ll be increasing marketing by at least 8% and the details of this and a renewed focus on their flagships are expected to be revealed at A-B’s bi-annual Investor Day this Tuesday.

Goldman Sachs analyst Judy Hong further advised that what A-B needs to do to remain competitive is “either purchase a large craft brewer or work with distiller Fortune Brands Inc. to buy the Swedish state-owned liquor group that makes Absolut vodka, V&S Vin & Spirit AB, to gain access to the growing spirits market.” On the other hand, William Pecoriello, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, thinks A-B is on the right track, spending more marketing dollars on their core brands. In a memo to clients, he stated “[i]t seems unlikely that Anheuser-Busch can overcome the challenges for its core brands without significant increases in marketing, distribution and administrative spending.”

The troubling pronouncement in of all of this is Hong’s suggestion that A-B “purchase a large craft brewer.” It’s not like they haven’t been trying to do just that for some time now, but when Wall Street raises the spectre of it as a worthwhile idea, people tend to sit up and take notice.