According to yesterday’s Worcester Telegram (Massachusetts), the Sixties band The Standells are suing Anhueser-Busch for copyright infringement. Apparently A-B used their 1966 hit Dirty Water in advertising without first obtaining the band’s permission. Dirty Water is usually assosciated with the Boston Red Sox because the song is played at Fenway Park every time the Red Sox win. The Standells filed a federal lawsuit on May 31 claiming that Anheuser-Busch used their song Dirty Water “without permission in commercials to try to tap into the song’s connection to the team.”
North American Brewing Awards 2006
At the 12th annual Mountain Brewers Beer Fest, which was held in Idaho Falls, Idaho, last Saturday June 3, the 2006 North American Beer Awards were announced.
Bud Goes for Silver
Currently being test-marketed in Scotland, Anheuser-Busch, will be rolling out Bud Silver throughout the United Kingdon beginning next month. Bud Silver is a “European-style beer with a fuller premium flavor,” according to the UK trade magazine “Checkout.”
It comes in a blue and silver can and is 4.1% abv. According to A-B’s UK managing director, David Dryden, “Bud Silver represents an exciting opportunity for us to compete in a growing category.” Since the UK is Bud’s third-largest market outside the U.S. and Budweiser is the number one premium packaged lager in bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants, I’m not sure what “growing market” he’s talking about. I presume he means beer with flavor — or “fuller premium flavor,” as he put it — is the category that’s growing. But back up a second, how sad is it that marketing is so effective that Britain’s youth has abandoned the country’s rich heritage of ales and made Budweiser their number one drink? But I digress.
New Bay Area Brewfest This Saturday
This Saturday in San Mateo, a new Bay Area beer festival will take place at the County Expo Center, aptly named the Bay Area Brewfest. The Expo Center a good, centrally-located spot for a beer fesitival with plenty of parking, and the Bay Area could really use a good annual beer festival. There’s plenty of good small ones here and there but there hasn’t really been a good big one in the area since the KQED Beer & Food Festival and the Berkeley Beer Festival both stopped pouring for good several years ago. So it’s with high hopes Jeff Moses, who is also the GM for Coast Range/Farmhouse Brewing in Gilroy, has organized this new event. I’ll be there to offer my support along with fifty breweries who’ll be pouring samples of their beer from 12-6 p.m. Tickets are $25.00 at the gate and include admission, entertainment, and tastings.
Please think about coming out and supporting the festival so it can be an annual event. The first year’s turnout will go a long way to insuring future festivals.
6.10
Bay Area Brewfest (1st annual)
County Expo Center, 2495 South Delaware Street, San Mateo, California
[ website ] [ tickets online ] [ map ]
Fowl Ball?: Widmer Buys a Piece of Goose Island
Well this one certainly came out of left field. I’m not quite sure what to think about it. I really like Kurt and Rob Widmer. I like them a lot, in fact, both personally and professionally. They pioneered American-style hefeweizen, in fact invented the style. They co-founded the Oregon Brewers Festival to support and promote the craft beer industry as a whole. They brew many great beers — their potato beer is still the best of its type I’ve ever had — in many diverse styles. And they’re both very affable and down to earth people who make the beer community a better place for their having been a part of it. So I originally greeted the news of their arrangement with Anheuser-Busch somewhat suspiciously. But in the end they’ve been able to make it work for them, a trick few have been able to pull off. Which makes Widmer Brothers all the more impressive for having been able to walk that fine line between craft and business so successfully.
So does buying a minority interest in Goose Island Brewing of Chicago make sense? In some ways, yes it does. From a distribution point of view, it seems to make very good sense for both parties. If each begins making the other’s beer for their own markets, that too makes good business sense. So why does it give me pause? I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with A-B buying a 35% stake in Goose Island and then Widmer buying a presumably much smaller piece, when they themselves are are part-owned by A-B (39.5%). I can’t put my finger on what bothers me about this, perhaps it is just simple paranoia on my part. For now, I’ll try to concentrate on the positive aspects of this and try to silence that voice in the back of my head and wish Kurt, Rob and John and Greg Hall all the best.
Senate Votes Against Abolishing Estate Tax
I realize this is not, strictly speaking, beer news, but given the NBWA’s unrelenting efforts to help their rich members avoid paying taxes, and my diatribe about it two days ago, I wanted to update the story. Today, the Senate voted to “reject a Republican effort to abolish taxes on inherited estates during an election year with control of Congress at stake,” according today’s San Francisco Chronicle. The vote was three short of the votes needed to advance the bill.
Also from the Chronicle article:
“The estate tax is an extremely costly tax for a wealthy few that comes at the expense of every other American born and yet to be born for decades to come,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Under current law this year, the first $2 million of a person’s estate or $4 million of a couple’s, escapes taxation. The remainder can be taxed at rates up to 46 percent.
According to the most recent statistics available from the Internal Revenue Service, 1.17 percent of people who died in 2002 left a taxable estate.
“Repealing the estate tax during this time of fiscal crisis would be incredibly irresponsible and intellectually dishonest,” Sen. George Voinovich (R) of Ohio said.
Unsurprisingly, the NBWA wasted no time expressing their displeasure with the Senate vote. From their press release:
“We are disappointed about today’s vote regarding a permanent solution to the death tax which hurts small family-owned businesses. Make no mistake about it. Those Senators who previously supported death tax repeal and today opposed this effort to proceed to H.R. 8 are standing in the way of a permanent solution. Those Senators that voted “no” on cloture have essentially voted “yes” to increase the death tax to 55 percent in 2011.
“On behalf of America’s beer distributors, we will continue to work with Congress on a permanent solution to the death tax that will allow small business owners to plan for the continuation of their businesses with certainty and without fear of a looming death tax threat that could mean the death of the family business.”
Oh, those poor rich families. They may be family-owned, but small they’re not. But I guess money makes people do and say crazy things. So the spin machine is again in high gear. I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of this issue.
Keg Disaster Averted in San Diego
Yussef Cherney, intrepid Ballast Point brewer in San Diego, California, acted heroically yesterday to save a 100-keg batch of Ballast Point beer. In the middle of the brew, a water main broke leaving the brewery without water, according to a report by NBC San Diego. Rather then have the batch ruined, a brewery employee drove around the area and discovered the spot where the main had broken and alerted local water officials. Within hours it had been fixed and the water was flowing again to the brewery, effectively saving the brew. Way to go go guys!
Beer School is Back at 21st Amendment
21st Amendment brewpub’s beer school, which was monthly but has been on sabbatical lately, is returning.
From the press release:
Join us Tuesday, June 13th at 6 pm on the mezzanine at the 21A for an evening of Summer Brews. Beer and brewers from all around the Bay area will be pouring as we discuss the history and styles of summer beer.
$25 for beer samples and appetizers.
6.13
21st Amendment Beer School: Summer Brews
21st Amendment Brewery – Restaurant – Bar, 563 2nd Street, San Francisco, California
415-369-0900 [ website ]
John Hickenlooper Finalist for World Mayor Award
John Hickenlooper, the current mayor of Denver, Colorado is one of 50 finalists for the 2006 World Mayor Award, although he’s among only ten finalists from North America and a mere seven from the United States. Anyone apparently can vote, so go cast your vote for John now. John founded the Wynkoop brewpub in Denver’s LoDo area (Lower Downtown) when there was nothing there but a jazz club (El Chapultepec) and abandoned warehouses. Today it’s one of the busiest areas there boasting great restaurants, clubs, and Coors Field, the Colorado Rockies baseball stadium. John’s a great guy and by all accounts has been doing a phenomenal job as mayor. It would be fun and great press for the craft brewing industry as a whole if John won. So go vote now!
Before his mayoral days, at GABF with Joanne and Jessica (both formerly of the Brewers Association). Joanne Carilli is now with White Labs and Jessica left the BA last year to pursue teaching.
House Resolution 753 Passes
After only about two months, House Resolution 753 passed unanimously, with 70 co-sponsors, including twelve house members from California. H.R. 753 was the brainchild of the Brewers Association and “commend[s] America’s craft brewers for their many and varied contributions to our nation’s communities, economy, culture and history.”
The resolution was spearheaded by Representatives Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR), and with over 70 additional Congressmen cosponsoring the measure. The following California house members co-sponsored the bill: Ken Calvert, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Jane Harman, Mike Honda, George Miller, Linda Sanchez, Loretta Sanchez, Hilda Solis, Ellen Tauscher, Mike Thompson, and Lynn Woolsey.
From the press release:
“This is an important and significant first step in our effort to raise the profile of craft beer and brewing in Washington,” said BA president Charlie Papazian. “The amount of support we received from Members of Congress was extremely gratifying and was due in large part to the efforts of individual professional Brewers Association and American Homebrewers Association members calling and writing their Congressman to ask for their support of the resolution.”
The resolution, which also recognizes the establishment of American Craft Beer Week, was a featured element of a Capitol Hill Congressional reception held on May 16th which featured BA member beers from across the country paired with a variety of artisinal foods. At this event, Congressmen Boehlert and DeFazio were publicly recognized and thanked for their outstanding support of America’s craft brewers
From left: Brewers Association president Charlie Papazian, Representatives Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR).