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The Santa Hypocrisy

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shelton-brothers
Anybody want to venture a guess where our modern image of Santa Claus comes from? It’s not the church. It’s not from literature. It’s not from the art world. The image of Santa Claus that generally springs to mind was created by illustrator Haddon Sundblom in 1931 for the Coca-Cola company.

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Haddon Sundblom’s illustration of Santa Claus for his client, Coca-Cola, painted in the 1930s.

Santa Claus’ origins as we know him today in the U.S. stem from a variety of sources, both pagan and religious. While some urban legends and apparently serious accounts claim that Coca-Cola created Santa, Snopes has debunked that and I want to be clear that that’s not what I’m suggesting, either. Our Santa evolved over time, though most accounts of his modern personage start with Clement C. Moore’s 1822 poem “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” although most people know it by the first line, “Twas the night before Christmas.” Moore fixed the number of reindeer at eight and came up with the names we know today (minus Rudolph, who was added much later in 1938). And like many facets of our melting pot amalgamated society, we freely borrowed from different cultures and Santa continued to evolve as Christmas became increasingly secularized and commercial. Of course, our version of Christmas, including Santa Claus, is now exported around the world.

So look at Sundblom’s image. That is what most of us think of if pressed to picture Santa Claus in our mind. If you look at drawings and paintings of Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle and Father Christmas before that time and in other cultures, you’ll see flowing robes of blue, green and other colors. You’ll see a variety of beards or even no beard. You’ll see different headdresses, staff’s, and other symbolic implements and accessories. My point is that the American version of Santa Claus is our creation and has its roots in crass commercialism, which began at least seventy-five years ago.

Today Santa Claus is used to sell everything under the sun from cigarettes to soda pop. Why bring this up? What does it have to do with beer? I mention this because once again several states will not approve beer labels that depict Santa Claus on them. These states — this year so far it’s New York and Maine — claim that showing Santa Claus on the label “might appeal to underage drinkers,” “the Christmas themes … would appeal to children,” and are “undignified and improper.” That last one, from Maine, is one of fourteen mostly ridiculous standards such as “Advertisements of liquor shall not contain any undignified or improper illustration.”

Setting aside the label itself for the moment, let’s just talk about the hypocrisy in these state’s assertions, that it might somehow make underage kids want to drink beer. First of all, what age group believes in Santa Claus? I know it varies, but let’s assume that it’s under ten, which seems to be pretty common. At that age, when Santa is something a child is drawn to, how many have an interest in beer? I’d say next to none. And if you’ve done your job as a parent, your kids would know the difference between an adult drink and one they’re allowed to have. Alcoholic beverages, when they’re even allowed to be sold where children are — like the more enlightened states that allow them to be sold in grocery stores and other general retail outlets — are still segregated together and kept separate from soda, juice and milk. So unless you choose to take your kid down the beer aisle, then I’d say the average kid will be protected from accidentally seeing a beer label with Santa on it. As for older kids, let’s say an underaged kid is interested in buying a beer with Santa on the label. I’m pretty sure it would still be illegal for him to do so. It doesn’t become legal if the label is cute, does it? Did I miss another meeting? Children aren’t permitted to buy whatever appeals to them, are they? So why the hell are these states wasting their time on such utter non-issues? Beer is intended for adults and it’s labels should reflect that. Period. The fact that a minor might accidentally see the label does not and should not matter one whit. The state has no business trying to turn the world into such a kid-friendly place that no adult only things are permitted to be seen by those of us who are, in fact, adults. We should not all be forced to live like ten-year olds in order to “protect” our children. Not only is it impossible, but it’s not even desirable. Overly protected children grow up to be adults with no idea how to deal with controversy, differences of opinion or offense. We already see the effects of this as every subgroup of humanity cries foul whenever their point of view is not completely tolerated. The amount of insult that has led to fatal retaliation is staggering in the world. We need to live with our differences, not try to erase them or pretend they don’t exist.

And why every time a controversy of this kind surfaces, do the authorities conclude — with no evidence whatsoever — that cartoons are exclusively for children. The first newspaper cartoons were for adults and comic strips remained adult-themed for many years. The first animated cartoons were all made for adults. Back before television assumed its place of prominence as the altar of the living room, people went to the cinema far more often than today. And before the film began, they were treated to a newsreel and a cartoon. All of the early cartoons by Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM and the underrated Flesicher Studios were made for adults. Many adults still love cartoons today. I know that’s true because I’m one of them. In America, as usual, the 1950s saw fringe groups censor the violence and adult themes out of comic books with the creation of the “Comics Code” which made comic books suitable only for children until the 1980s, when companies started ignoring the Code and producing works for adults again. In Japan and France, and undoubtedly many other countries, comics for adults in the form of magazines, graphic novels and manga are a very popular medium for adults. In France, for example, the number one magazine is Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal), which contains ongoing graphic stories for adults. In the U.S., the best-selling magazine is TV Guide. Some of the most popular Japanese films for adults today are animated, films like Akira. Adults there know the best directors and illustrators of anime the way we know football players. The point is that it’s absurd for our government agencies to assume that if it’s a cartoon image that it will automatically appeal to children more than adults, or that kids are the target. Adults love cartoons, too, and we should be allowed to see ones created specifically for us without fear that a child might see it, too.

But I also want to make one more bold assertion about this controversy. All things being equal, and if there were no minimum age to drink alcohol, it would probably be better for kids to drink a beer versus a soda. I know that’s not going to be a popular suggestion, but the fact is beer is healthier than the average soda, which is loaded with caffeine, sugar and all manner of chemicals. Take a look at the label. It reads like a chemistry experiment. I once read that there is so much sugar in a 12 oz. serving of cola that after drinking one, your body will crave additional liquids to dilute all of the sugar you just swallowed in the soda. This leads to you drinking even more soda — a great boon to the companies selling this swill — but a tragic health epidemic for the rest of us. And many schools now accept money from the major soft drink companies to put soda machines right there in school. That’s doing far more harm to our kids than beer is. So why aren’t Maine and New York (and the rest of the states) up in arms over Santa Claus being so closely associated with Coca-Cola or being used to sell cigarettes the way they are with beer? Simple, it’s not really about any concern over the kids. It’s about neo-prohibitionist agendas and the desire to keep alcohol away from everyone, using children as the excuse. [NOTE: I want to be clear that I’m not advocating that we should give beer to kids, just that in terms of protecting them from harm beer is probably less harmful than soda. It’s just an argument. Please, no more misunderstanding e-mails calling me the devil.]

But let’s get back to the labels.

All of the labels in question are imported by Shelton Brothers of Massachusetts. I’ve known Dan Shelton since he first called on me when I was the beer buyer at BevMo around ten years ago. He and two brothers, Will and Joel, import some of the best beers in the world. Just ask them, they’ll tell you. Dan has a much-deserved reputation for speaking his mind. He believes in the beers he sells probably more passionately than any other person I know. Shelton is now suing both states, New York and Maine, over this ridiculous label issue. So I’m certainly glad to see him fighting for his beers.

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He’s had to fight this fight before, so he at least knows what he’s up against. He’s had similar difficulties with Missouri, New York, North Carolina and Ohio. Last year, the state of Connecticut initially wouldn’t approve the label for Seriously Bad Elf, but then backed off. This year, New York state is saying no to Bad Elf, Very Bad Elf, Criminally Bad Elf (a barleywine), Warm Welcome Nut Brown Ale, Santa’s Butt Winter Porter and Rudolph’s Revenge. The first five are all from a single brewery, Ridgeway Brewery in Oxfordshire, England, and the last is from Cropton Brewery in Yorkshire. Shelton Brothers have filed suit seeking a reversal of the State Liquor Authority’s decision along with damages and legal fees.

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Albany’s Times Union has an overview of the conflict in New York. And Stan at the Real Beer Blog has also weighed in, as has Joe Sixpack. Don Russell’s piece also has an excellent list of other Christmas-themed beers divided into those also depicting Santa Claus, local ones (he’s in Philadelphia), and some of his other favorites from around the country.

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But for some reason (no pun intended) the one causing the most trouble is Santa’s Butt to the state officials apparently unaware that a “butt” is a brewing term for a measure of beer. A butt is the equivalent of 2 hogsheads, or 108 imperial gallons (129.7 U.S. gallons). Both New York and Maine are objecting to this label. In Maine, the local Civil Liberties Union has also taken up the fight saying “the beer labels are entitled to First Amendment protection.” According to an AP article, “[t]here is no good reason for the state to censor art, even art found on a beer label,” said Zachary Heiden, staff attorney for the MCLU.

You might at this point be thinking, art? Yes, art, because in addition to Santa’s Butt, the State of Maine is also objecting to two other labels for non-Christmas beers, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus and Brasserie Les Choulette’s Les Sans Culottes because, according to the state, “they show bare-breasted women.” Gasp!

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Cantillon webpage for Rose de Gambrinus

The Cantillon label is from a painting by famous Belgian artist Raymond Coumans, who is a friend of Cantillon’s owners and created it specifically for the label. The subject is the legendary King of Flanders, who was a patron of beer and brewing. For a long while, here in California to be sold legally, the naked woman on the king’s lap had to wear a blue dress printed over her body. I cringe every time I think what prudes we are as a nation and how ridiculous we must seem to the rest of the civilized world.

The Associated Press has an overview of the Maine conflict, as does the more local Bangor Daily News.

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The other beer, Les Sans Culottes from the French brewery, Brasserie Les Choulette, is a Biere de Garde style beer. The label is a detail from the iconic Eugene Delacroix painting Liberty Leading the People that hangs in the Louvre. That the people of Maine might be offended by this image is, in and of itself, offensive to reason and common sense. That they feel their citizens need to be protected from seeing this image on a bottle of beer is ludicrous in the extreme.

This whole episode points out yet another oddity in our nation’s alcohol laws. Most states have this extra layer of the approval process that often denies basic First Amendment rights because the states claim some higher purpose, simply because it’s alcohol. Some of the reasons for the process make a modicum of sense, say, for example, so that labels are not misleading. But to bring in such subjective standards as decency, offensiveness or inappropriateness should never be a part of the procedure. And to pretend to be protecting “the children” is the flimsiest of reasons of all for a product already reserved for only adults. If the rationale is that by using an image that appeals to a child it will create a situation where nothing can stop a minor from obtaining the beer, then fine.

But there are already numerous — I would frankly say too many — impediments to insure alcohol can be obtained only by those adults entitled to buy it. Endless education and programs are created by retailers, distributors and the manufacturers to ensure it never happens, and the penalties imposed to a business when it does are often quite substantially punitive (certainly out of perspective with the actual harm done) so that no business wants to risk selling to a minor. Yet to people in organizations like MADD and other neo-prohibitionists that is still not considered to be enough. Not if there’s even one chance that a teenager might lay his hands on a bottle of beer. That is apparently worse than nuclear war in these people’s minds. I drank alcohol as a teenager, years before it was legal for me to do so. Am I an alcoholic today, a burden on society? Did I ruin my life? No. I am so f*&#ing sick of not being able to buy a beer or it being unreasonably inconvenient to do so just because we’re trying to keep it out of the hands of our kids. Why doesn’t the rest of the world have this problem, or at least doesn’t have it to this degree? Because the rest of the world isn’t quite as preoccupied with controlling the lives of everyone around them, foisting their own set of values on everybody else. Geez, this is pissing me off. Hey Dan, I think it’s time to open up some Christmas beers just so I can relax. Where’s my Santa suit.

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Eugene Delacroix’s famous painting Liberty Leading the People, which is apparently inappropriate for the people in the state of Maine to see.

Ohio Bar Declared “Most Arrogant”

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Out of 46 bars nationwide that signed up for a promotion sponsored by Stone Brewing, Boston’s Bistro and Pub in Dayton, Ohio was declared “The Most Arrogant Bar in America” and will hold the title for one full year. In order to win, they had to sell more of Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Bastard beer than any of the other participants. They took all of the other beers they normally carried off of their taps, and sold over eighteen half-kegs or approximately 2,634 pints to win the prize.


 

UPDATE: Kevin from KevBrews also has a nice update on this story.

InBev and AnBusch Hop Into Bed Together

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There aren’t too many details yet, but it was announced today that the long rumored — and just as long denied — distribution agreement between Anheuser-Busch and InBev will occur. What we do know so far is that A-B will take over distribution of all of InBev’s brands in the U.S., with the exception of Brahma and Labatts. I have already heard from InBev employees I know that they will lose their jobs as of the end of January next year. There’s no word yet how many people will be rendered redundant and how many, if any, will get to keep their jobs.

How this will effect the industry remains to be seen, but rest assured it will have a big impact on a variety of fronts. The deal is effective February 1, 2007.

Here are some early reports on the deal from a variety of sources:

 

From the press release:

ST. LOUIS – Brussels (November 30, 2006) – Anheuser-Busch (NYSE: BUD) will become the exclusive U.S. importer of a number of InBev’s (Euronext: INB) premium European import brands, including Stella Artois®, Beck’s®, Bass Pale Ale®, Hoegaarden®, Leffe® and other select InBev brands, the two brewers announced today.

Effective February 1, 2007, Anheuser-Busch will import these premium brands and be responsible for their sales, promotion and distribution in the United States. These InBev brands, which had sales volumes of about 1.9 million hectoliters (or about 1.5 million barrels) in 2005, will be available to Anheuser-Busch’s U.S. wholesaler network where possible.

InBev’s Canadian brands, including Labatt Blue® and Labatt Blue Light®, as well as Brahma®, are not included in the agreement. Working closely with Labatt Breweries of Canada, InBev USA will continue to market and sell the Labatt and Brahma brands through a separate distribution network.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“This agreement gives us highly-valued brands that appeal to beer drinkers looking for sophisticated imports in their beer choices,” said August A. Busch IV, president and chief executive officer of Anheuser Busch Cos. Inc. “We live in a world with diverse cultures and lifestyles, and this provides additional variety for our consumers. These well-known import brands complement our company’s leading portfolio of American premium beers and enable our company to better compete. This is consistent with our stated strategy of enhancing our participation in the U.S. high-end beer segment.”

“By securing access to Anheuser-Busch’s world-class sales and distribution system, this agreement will enhance opportunities for U.S. consumers to experience the unique values of our premium European import brands, and further accelerate their growth,” said Carlos Brito, CEO, InBev. “This is another step in InBev’s mission to create enduring bonds with our consumers throughout the world.”

Doug Corbett, president of InBev USA, said: “InBev USA remains fully committed to the Labatt Canadian brands and to Brahma. These are great brands with a lot of potential and this agreement will allow us to focus on growing them in their markets.”

Grupo Modelo to Build New Brewery on the Rio Grande

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According to today’s International Herald Tribune, Grupo Modelo, the Mexican brewer responsible for the abomination that is Corona, announced plans to build a new brewery by 2010. The new brewery will be built in Piedras Negras, a city located near the border of Texas, just across the Rio Grande River, in the Mexican state of Coahuila. The new brewery will be built to meet a growing demand for its flagship beer, Corona, and will add approximately 260 million gallons of capacity for the company.

Champagne vs. Beer

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When many people think of champagne and beer, they might conjure up the image of Miller High Life, which used to call itself “the champagne of bottled beer.” But many American craft and Belgian brewers are increasingly putting their high end beers in champagne bottles, with cork, cage and foil, just like the sparkling wine. It was an easy shorthand to convey that what’s inside the bottle is as fine in its own way as any wine and the size and seal and make them ideal for bottle conditioned beers which continue to ferment in the bottle. The small Belgian brewery, Malheur, has taken this idea one step farther and released three beers that evoke champagne in their very names: Malheur Bière Brut, Dark Brut, and Cuvée Royale. All three use what owner Emanuel De Landtsheer calls “à la méthode originale.”

De Landtsheer’s family had been in brewing for generations and he recently took up the family calling when he opened the Malheur brewery in 1997. Michael Jackson has a delightful story about the brewery’s origins at his online Beer Hunter. When he first debuted the Brut line, he also used the phrase, the “Veuve-Clicquot of the beer world” in his marketing of the beers. Veuve-Clicquot sued to stop Malheur from using their name in the advertising, along with the more general terms, “method traditional”, “brut” and “reserve.” The lower court ruled for the champagne maker but on appeal to the European Court of Justice, it appears that they will rule for Malheur. Malheur voluntarily stopped using specific reference to Veuve-Clicquot for their beer, and the high court will likely rule that the other three terms do not imply a specific product or competitor and as such are legal to use for beer. The official ruling has not yet been handed down, but Reuters is reporting that this is now the expected outcome because their rulings generally follow the advocate general’s opinion.
 

Latrobe Tribute

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One of the folks at After These Messages, a new blog created to examine and critique advertising, sent me a link to the following tribute video on YouTube for the town of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. It’s both irreverent and moving, and a nice glimpse inside the brewery itself, too.

UPDATE: For reasons I can’t explain, this video is no longer available at YouTube. If anybody knows if it’s available elsewhere, please let me know.

No. 10 With a Bullet

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I get a lot of e-mails on a regular basis from PR firms pitching one story or another for their clients. Many times they don’t even have anything to do with beer because most firms don’t have a separate category and just lump all beverages, and usually food, together in one category. Today I got one that at first glance seemed destined for the delete key, though it was more interesting than most of the ones I get.

It was titled the “Ten Trends to Watch in Packaged Goods in 2007” and was complied by the market research company Datamonitor. Of the first nine, a few of their predictions could have some relevance to craft beer, but more likely to fringe malt beverages or other kinds of drinks. Those categories are Calorie Burning Beverages, Satiety-Enhancing Foods & Drinks, Local Sourcing of Ingredients, and Immunity Boosting Foods & Drinks.

Number 10, on the other hand, was “Better for You” Beer – Blame it on the “French Paradox.” Here it is in its entirety:

With beer losing ground to wine in many markets around the world, beer makers are beginning to fight back with new products promising new health benefits for beer. Stampede Light is claimed to be the “first ever government approved vitamin beer” for the USA market with its B-vitamins, folic acid and folate. In Germany, Karlesberg Braueri is out with a pair of new functional beers aimed at women. Karla Well-B, for instance, is made with lecithin, folic acid and other vitamins. Karla Balance mixes hops with lemon balm. Both products have just 1% alcohol by volume. Beer may never be the same.

That’s not one of the trends in beer I would have predicted needed watching, but then I don’t have the research apparently Datamonitor does. But I already have prima facie questions about it. Their initial justification is that “beer [is] losing ground to wine in many markets around the world.” But I haven’t seen anything more than polls that only anecdotally support that, and even some of that data doesn’t support that conclusion. Sales of beer are still many times wine (4 to 1 in the U.S.) so how true is that assertion?

I have no problem with the health benefits of beer being touted in beer marketing and advertising. Craft beer without any additives at all has many proven and theoretical health benefits. That the TTB doesn’t permit beer companies to make those claims because it might promote drinking is puritanical nonsense that has no place in a free society. Beer with health additives seem like novelties to me, however sincere their makers may be. Many I’ve tried taste just fine to me, but there appeal seems largely aimed at persons for whom the particular claim of each one resonates in some particular way for that customer. In other words, their appeal is more limited. They are, after all, niche products by definition and many are sub-niches of broader categories like health food products or organics.

So I just don’t see these as trends worthy of our constant attention next year. Far more likely trends to watch, I think, will be organic beers and gluten-free, but only time will tell. What do you think? What will be the hot new trends in beer next year?

Aping Beer

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To start talking about Anhesuer-Busch’s first big ad campaign since acquiring the Rolling Rock brand, you first should see the first volley, this “beer ape” commercial. Go ahead, press play. I’ll wait.

The next commercial on television now features a Ron Stablehorn apologizing for the ad you just watched as being offensive to the “Friends of Rolling Rock.” And you can see why, the ad is about as offensive as any other A-B ad I’ve seen. But if you didn’t already see it coming, the whole thing is a sham, a put-on, a con job — use whatever phrase you like — it’s a fake controversy created as a part of a more complicated ploy. There is no Ron Stablehorn and no “Friends of Rolling Rock” organization. The irony I think is that there truly are no friends of Rolling Rock left after A-B’s controversial decision to not purchase the Latrobe Brewery where Rolling Rock had been brewed since 1939 and move production to Newark, New Jersey. Maybe it’s just me, but a pretend controversy just months after a real one in which the Latrobe Brewery closed and hundreds of workers have been unemployed since late July, seems a tad insensitive to me. I realize the brewery has been sold and should reopen, but that doesn’t change the fact that an entire town was effected by A-B’s decision not to buy the brewery in Latrobe.

Apparently I’m not the only one, either as an article in today’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review makes clear.

From the article:

Kelley Skoloda, a partner at Ketchum Communications, Downtown, said viral marketing generates attention for a company by using outrageous, ludicrous or funny images, which create buzz and give consumers something to talk about. It typically resonates with the coveted Gen Y demographic, and is meant to spread organically, from friend to friend, rather than through a spokesman with an agenda.

But Skoloda and Robert Gilbert, professor of marketing at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, agreed that the beer ape-bumbling executive campaign will get a much different response in Western Pennsylvania, since this summer Anheuser-Busch shuttered the Latrobe brewery, home of Rolling Rock beer for nearly 70 years.

Skoloda also said that “from what she’s seen of the campaign, most people don’t think it’s all that funny. I think the key to creating a viral campaign is transparency,” she said. “It may not be as clear as it needs to be with this campaign.”

Gilbert added that the campaign “is probably a whole lot less offensive than taking their jobs away from them. I’m not sure the people at Anheuser-Busch are getting great joy throwing salt in the wound, I just think it never dawned on them.” It may not give them great joy, but they do seem to do it an awful lot. See for example, my previous rant about that very issue, in which I even used the exact same language.

Tom Marflak, the mayor of Latrobe, Pennsylvania (and now a Coors Light drinker), had this to say:

“They destroyed this city. It was a total slap in the face when they came in here, and just bought everything, even the green bottles.”

It’s funny how good A-B’s advertisers are at doing an ad with no substance that’s designed to be just slightly offensive, just enough so that they’d be convinced it was possible that viewers less enlightened then they are could find it offensive but without finding it offensive themselves. That’s a pretty thin tightrope to walk. Did they succeed? Apparently half-a-million visitors have gone to Rolling Rock’s website to learn more about the supposed controversy, so yeah, people really are that gullible.

Another oddity about the new ad campaign is the way they’re framing the kind of beer Rolling Rock is, which the ads describe as a “classic extra pale lager with a rich tradition.” First, I don’t see how you call something that’s “extra pale” a classic, but perhaps that’s my own prejudice. Pale is defined as “lacking intensity of color; colorless or whitish.” How can something have an “extra” lack of color or be “extra” white? Next, invoking a “rich tradition” is weird when you consider Rolling Rock’s richest tradition is that the beer came “from the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe,” a tradition A-B dismantled when they moved production to the next state over.

Is this a dignified way for A-B to rebuild the brand after buying it? Over the years they’ve used horses, frogs, dogs, lizards and now an ape to promote one of their brands so it’s certainly fits with their pattern of ad campaigns. They’re going after young twenty-somethings, obviously, and I realize the “beer ape” is not really a spokes-animal for Rolling Rock (unless of course, it proves popular) but it’s hardly an audacious beginning. I would have expected something aimed above the level of primates, but maybe that’s the demographic A-B is going after: people who closely identify themselves with apes. Was Jane Goodall at that pool party?