Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Get Your Freak Out

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Tony Magee, the iconoclastic owner/brewer of Lagunitas Brewing has been a big Frank Zappa fan most of his life and this year marks the anniversary of the release of Zappa’s first album, the Mothers of Inventions’ Freak Out. Tony spoke with Frank Zappa’s widow, Gail Zappa (who runs the Zappa Family Trust), and obtained permission to use the colorful album cover on the beer label for their new Freak Out Ale. Very different in appearance from most Lagunitas labels, the beer nonetheless is in keeping with their rebel chic ethic. And as mentioned on the label, let’s not forget Frank Zappa’s most famous beer quote:

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline — it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”

— Frank Zappa

Click on the label for a larger view.
 

Shangy’s Sues Goliath InBev

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Emmaus, Pennsylvania is a pint-sized town (of just over 11,000) a few miles south of Allentown and about 45 miles from Philadelphia. It’s a seemingly unlikely place for a beer store of this magnitude, but there it is. Tucked away on Main Street in Emmaus is Shangy’s, one of the best beer places in the state. (Side note: Emmaus is also the home of John Hansell’s fine Malt Advocate magazine.)

Started in 1980 by the Hadian family, their son Nima is now at the helm and the 35,000 square foot store carries over 3,000 brands, about double what the average BevMo did when I was there and three to four times the average BevMo store now. And Pennsylvania is a case state which, for those of you unfamiliar with that curious institution, means you can only buy beer by the case. This makes getting customers to take a chance on a new beer very difficult, but Pennsylvania’s liquor laws and state agencies seem to care very little about how its citizens are affected. I grew up there and I can tell you the system is messed up beyond belief and should be overhauled. Every state has its own set of peculiarities when it comes to alcohol laws, but Dutch Wonderland (my personal name for the state) got more than its fair share.

But Shangy’s managed to prosper in that environment for a number of reasons, not least of which is that they honestly care about the beer they’re selling. The word “Shangy,” by the way means “happy” in Nima’s native Farsi language, and it is his father’s nickname.
 

Inside Shangy’s during a trip I took there several years ago during a trip home.

Aisles and aisles of cases of beer at Shangy’s.
 

For the past decade, one of the many beers Shangy’s has done well promoting is Hoegaarden, a wit or white beer created by Pierre Celis in the 1960s when he single-handedly resurrected the style. Over time they have become the largest Hoegaarden wholesaler nationwide, moving as many 2,000 kegs each month. Hoegaarden is owned now by InBev, the world’s largest beer company (by volume of beer sold), with such brands as Beck’s, Brahma, Franziskaner, Labatt’s, Stella Artois, St. Pauli Girl, among more then 75 other local and national brands. They recently sold the Rolling Rock brand to Anheuser-Busch. Since InBev was formed by a merger in 2004, they have enjoyed a 14% share of the total world beer market.
 

 
In 1998, Shangy’s settled a lawsuit that “affirmed that Shangy’s was the exclusive wholesale distributor of Labatt products in 17 Pennsylvania counties,” which at the time included Hoegaarden. But with the 2004 merger, Labatt became an InBev subsidiary. Now Shangy’s contends that InBev, who recently gave distribution rights to another of its brands, Stella Artois, to a different beer distributor thus violating the eight-year old agreement. Shangy’s filed a lawsuit in Philadelphia this month seeking monetary damages along with a “court order compelling InBev to abide by the terms of the 1998 agreement.”

As we all know but few will say, “Hadian, who takes glee in ridiculing the mass-market beers, warns that consolidation will ultimately reduce the number of specialty brews on the market. Why? Because wholesalers will inevitably concentrate on selling mass-market, high-volume brands and neglect the craft brews, reducing their chances of survival, he says.”

I’m sure we’ll hear much more about this case as it proceeds. For now, there are more details on this story in an AP Story and a more local take by Lehigh Valley’s The Morning Call.

Photo Gallery: 9th annual Bistro IPA Festival

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The 9th annual IPA Festival was August 12 at the Bistro in Hayward, California. It was another fun time with many excellent India Pale Ales to choose from. Judging was great fun though the final four led to much heated debate in trying to determine the final rankings.

 

Vic Kralj, co-owner of the Bistro, with Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River and Shaun O’Sullivan of 21st Amendment.

Out back at the IPA festival.

Matt Salie with Big Sky and Dave Hopgood with Stone.

Tony Magee, owner of Lagunitas, with me.

Darnell and Paul Marshall, who headed up the festival beer judging.

Shaun and Vinnie with Brian Hunt from Moonlight.

Melissa Myers and Rodger Davis from Drake’s join Shaun, Brian and Vinnie.

Angie Wagner, Celebrator writer, shows off her cycling leg with the help of Melissa Myers out in front of the Bistro.

Vic and Cynthia, Bistro owners (at left), pose with many of the brewers and beer people at their 9th annual IPA festival.

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.