Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Sapporo to Buy Canadian Sleeman

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Sleeman Breweries, of course, has had a for sale sign around it since May so this announcement came as no surprise. Only who had an element of surprise to it. Late Friday, the Japanese company Sapporo announced it has offered $17.50 a share in cash, which works out to $400 million (though some reports say $300 million), for the purchase of Sleeman Breweries.

If the sale is approved and completed, the three largest Canadian breweries will be owned by foreign companies. Molson Coors in number one and number two, Labatt’s, is owned by the Belgian company InBev. Sleeman is currently in the number three spot.

 

John Sleeman, CEO of Sleeman Breweries, holding a bottle of Trois Pistoles from Unibroue, the best brewery in Sleeman’s portfolio.

Bistro IPA Festival Winners

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Blind Pig IPA was chosen best in show at the 9th annual IPA Festival today at the Bistro in Hayward, California. The full list of winners is below.

 

 

Ecosteep Saves 30% Water During Malting

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Holland’s Bavaria Brouwerij, the same brewery that was briefly in the international spotlight during the World Cup because of their orange leiderhosen, has installed a new malting system developed by the Swiss company Buhler. The new malting system, dubbed “Ecosteep,” will reportedly save as much as 30% of water consumption during the malting process. The process uses a flat-bottomed, steeping system developed by Buhler, along with several universities in an operation called “The Holland Malt Project.” Buhler also claims Ecosteep will produce improved uniformity of malt quality. Food Production Daily of Europe has a story about the new system and the Buhler Group’s website has additional information on the project.

Bavaria Brouwerij’s new malthouse towers, seen from above.

Icons of England: The Pub and a Pint

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I’ve always been fascinated by symbols, so I was immediately drawn to the Icons of England Project, a project to identify and select the symbols that are instantly recognizable as being a part of England and England’s heritage. Throughout the course of 2006, people are invited to nominate icons for England and they will be chosen in four waves, three of which have already been selected. That quintessentially English establishment, the Pub was selected earlier this year, along with such other stalwarts as tea, Big Ben, the FA Cup, the miniskirt and Alice in Wonderland. The third wave was just announced and it included a Pint, along with the perfect pairing of pub food, Fish & Chips. The latest wave also included Monty Python, bowler hats, Robin Hood and the OED. A total of 53 icons have been chosen so far with one more round of icons to be selected. A staggering 667 nominations have been made online and my favorites so far are cheddar cheese, cider, James Bond, real ale, the red phone box, shepherd’s pie, the tube map, and Wallace and Gromit. What great fun.
 

Two of the Icons of England, the pub and a pint.

Blast From the Past: Genny Cream Ale

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Cans of Genesee Cream Ale were de rigueur when I was growing up in Eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1970s. The simple green can design is emblazoned in my memory of that more simple time. It was certainly one of the favorite beers of my youth — at least in my memory — probably because cream ales are such a light, undemanding style. They fell out of fashion for a number of years, but lately several craft brewers are resurrecting the style as their lightest offering. It’s a much better alternative than making a low-calorie beer or American-style lager. High Falls Brewing, who has owned the brand for many years now, abandoned the all-green design sometime in the 1980s and when I carried it at BevMo in the mid-1990s all that was available were bottles with a paper label. Which is a shame. The beer itself I recall wasn’t great but was certainly serviceable and a decent session choice. It was that plain green can that had us all enraptured, though in retrospect I have no idea why.

High Falls is now trying to tap into that nostalgia I feel for the brand with a new retro-styled website at www.geneseecreamale.com. It’s a nice site but I don’t think they went back far enough because they’re still showing that damned paper label and a bottle on the main page. It does suffer the problem I have with virtually all big brewery sites — Flash. They’re so over the top with using flash technology instead of HTML that I hate navigating them. Maybe I’m in the minority here because I started hand-coding HTML back in the mid 90s, but I find it very annoying.
 

Sure, it’s a nice piece of breweriana, made to look older than it is, but where’s the can?

Frankly, this is how I will always remember Genesee Cream Ale. If they really want to tap into nostalgia, they need to bring back this can.

Elevating Beer and Food in Florida

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Somewhat surprisingly, this is the second article from a Florida newspaper in recent weeks about pairing food with beer. Today’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel has a short article entitled The right foods can elevate beer by Food Editor Deborah S. Hartz. The focus of the story is a monthly beer dinner put on by Trina, a Fort Lauderdale restaurant in the Atlantic Hotel.

There Goes Traveling with Beer Samples

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I know I should be thinking of the potential victims saved and the fact that terrorism is on most people’s minds every day, but I confess that when I heard the news this morning, my first thought was how it affected me. If you haven’t looked at the news yet this morning, British police foiled a terrorist plot to blow up more airplanes, apparently ones to New York, Washington and California targeting American carriers United Airlines, Continental Airlines and American Airlines. The method uncovered this time was to use “liquid explosives disguised as beverages.” So if this goes the way things did the last time with the shoe bomb, we can kiss taking beer samples home from trips goodbye.

I realize this doesn’t impact very many people, but I usually carry 6-9 bottles of beer home with me from almost any trip. Sometimes it’s samples I’ve been given to try and other times I just pick up beers I can’t get where I live. So far, I’ve been lucky. I’ve only been hassled in the City if Brotherly Love — Philadelphia. The security guard I got didn’t know you could travel with beer and started giving me a hard time until a supervisor stepped in and asked me one simple question. “Are they open?” “No,” I replied. “Then please go ahead.” As I walked along, relieved, I could hear the supervisor explaining something to the newbie, presumably that I was well within my rights and a bottle of beer posed no security threat. Well I can all but guarantee that will be changing soon. The airlines will rush to impose a new prohibition to include beverages of all kinds: beer, wine, soda and probably even bottled water. I’m sure they’ll cry security, but you know they make a lot of money selling drinks on the planes now. Imagine if they suddenly have a monopoly?

My friend Stephen Beaumont recently told me he never travels with samples anymore. He finds it’s just too much of a hassle in a post 911 world. I can only imagine what a hassle it’s going to become now. My big problem with all of this — apart of course from the personal inconvenience — is that the increased security they keep heaping on us isn’t really producing the right result. It’s not making us any safer, it’s just giving us the illusion that we’re safer. And for most people, I don’t think it’s even doing that. How is it escaping so many people’s attention that turning America into a police state one new security measure at a time is not making us safer but instead is making us less and less a free society?

I wonder if there’s a train I can take to GABF this year?

Bohemian Beer

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A couple of days ago, Evan Rail had an interesting travel piece in the New York Times entitled The Ultimate Beer Run in the Czech Republic. The focus is naturally more travel-oriented but Rail speaks a lot about the beer there. Happily, Garrett Oliver is on hand (via phone) to lend a hand and give the beer info some context and history.

Bohemia is the western part of what today is known as the Czech Republic.

The Next Big Little Niche

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Well I’ve known it’s been coming for a while now and have been sitting on it, because I’ve been researching a story about gluten-free beers. Today, Miller’s BrewBlog broke the story that Anheuser-Busch is readying a gluten-free beer for the market.

From the BrewBlog:

The brewer [A-B] on July 31 filed a brand label registration with the state of Missouri for a product called Red Bridge Sorghum beer. A-B previously had filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

A-B appears intent on jumping on a small bandwagon of brewers making beer with sorghum instead of barley. The dominant industry leader already has demonstrated its commitment to attacking tiny niches by rolling out organic beers.

Beers made with sorghum can be consumed by people with a condition called celiac disease. Exposure to gluten — a protein found in barley — triggers digestive problems in people with the disease.

Several craft brewers currently produce gluten-free beers. Unfortunately, because of ridiculously puritanical labeling restrictions that forbid any health claims on alcohol labels along with the fact the FDA has been criminally slow to adopt any standard of what gluten-free means (Europe by contrast has had a standard in place for years), they can’t really be labeled as gluten-free. Here’s a sample of gluten-free beers currently available from U.S. craft brewers:

In addition, brewers in Australia, Belgium, France, Italy and the United Kingdom are all producing gluten-free beers. The gluten-free seminar at this year’s Craft Brewers Conference was surprisingly well-attended. When I queried several brewers there, I got the same response from all of them. “We get a lot of customers asking about this.”

My interest in these beers comes originally from my son, Porter, who is autistic. In reading about Autism Spectrum Disorder, I’ve discovered that a common symptom among the constellation of autistic indicators is stomach problems and often times a gluten-free diet helps immensely. Like much about autism, scientists and doctors aren’t exactly sure why this happens but I’m glad so far Porter doesn’t show signs of having this problem. But there are also millions of Celiac sufferers worldwide, and the number is growing. People with celiac disease, likewise, must also abstain from gluten, a part of most grains like barley and wheat. One out of every 133 people in the U.S. has celiac disease.

Here’s a short description of celiac disease from the Celiac Disease Foundation:

A lifelong autoimmune intestinal disorder, found in individuals who are genetically susceptible. Damage to the mucosal surface of the small intestine is caused by an immunologically toxic reaction to the ingestion of gluten and interferes with the absorption of nutrients. Celiac Disease (CD) is unique in that a specific food component, gluten, has been identified as the trigger. Gluten is the common name for the offending proteins in specific cereal grains that are harmful to persons with CD. These proteins are found in all forms of wheat (including durum, semolina, spelt, kamut, einkorn, and faro), and related grains, rye, barley, and triticale and must be eliminated.

It seems obvious to me that this is the next big small niche beer. I know that last statement was oxymoronic, but hear me out. Gluten-free beers aren’t going to be as popular as light beer or even porters, but with 1-in-133 Americans with celiac disease combined with thousands, perhaps millions, of autistic kids on gluten-free diets who will begin reaching the age of majority in the coming years, and you’ve got a sizable little market that’s likely to emerge. Now that A-B is entering this market, more attention will surely be focused on it. And A-B, regardless of anything else you can say about them, doesn’t take any action without first having thoroughly researched, tested and studied the market. So look for many more gluten-free beers in the market soon.

Foster’s Closing Ranks Again

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Back in June, Foster’s announced it was pulling out of its last remaining brewery in China. Now they’re also leaving India and Vietnam. Reportedly, Foster’s wants to concentrate on their domestic beer market and on selling wine.
 

Vietnam

The Vietnam operations are being sold to Asia Pacific Breweries. According to their press release, APB “will be purchasing the Vietnam assets of the Foster’s Group for $105 million. This transaction includes the rights to brew, market and distribute Foster’s Lager, Biere Larue, BGI, Flag and Song Han, in Vietnam.” This acquisition brings APB’s total ownershio to 29 breweries in ten countries.
 

India

Foster’s India is being sold to SABMiller for $120 million.

From the SABMiller press release:

Foster’s India currently operates one brewery based in Aurangabad in the state of Maharashtra with a licenced annual capacity of 350,000 hectolitres. The company produces, distributes and supports Foster’s Lager, Amberro Mild and Amberro Strong beer brands in the Indian market. In the year ended 30 June 2006, total beer sales were 236,000 hectolitres (2005: 209,000 hl) with Foster’s Lager representing 88% of total production and sales (2005: 85%).

India is the third largest market for the Foster’s brand globally and it has achieved a CAGR of 13% since operations commenced in 1998. It has a presence in 19 Indian states and has a substantial share of the mild beer segment in the strategic state of Maharashtra.

SABMiller India will look to extend Foster’s Lager nationally through its network of ten breweries and seek significant cost benefits from brewing and distributing the brand locally. The Aurangabad brewery will also provide additional capacity for SABMiller’s presence in Maharashtra as well as a platform for access to the Mumbai market.

SABMiller India is the subcontinent’s second largest brewer. Its brand portfolio includes Royal Challenge, Haywards 5000, Castle and the recently launched Haywards Black, India’s first stout beer.

The Foster’s Brand

First brewed in 1888 by the Foster brothers in Melbourne, Australia, Foster’s Lager is one of the world’s best beers. As one of only a handful of truly global beer brands, Foster’s in now available in over 150 countries. Foster’s is one of the fastest growing international premium beer brands in the world and has enjoyed international growth of 40% since 1997. Foster’s is brewed in 12 countries, at 17 locations with over 100 million cases of Foster’s sold annually.