Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Job Listing: Beer Salesmen for California

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Artisanal Imports, importers of some excellent Belgian and English beers such as St. Feuillien, De Leyerth and Meantime, is looking for part-time/independent salesmen for both the Northen California and Southern California areas. They’re looking primarily for assistance in the areas of the independent off-premise and on-premise.

Check out their portfolio, they have eight imported brands and have recently added Flying Dog Brewery from Denver, Colorado (who recently bought Frederick Brewing — and renamed it Wild Goose Brewery — of Maryland)

If you’re interested or would like to learn more, please call Sean Knoll on his cell phone at 303-564-8841. Serious inquiries only, please.

Anheuser-Busch Organic Beers Out of the Closet

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After about six weeks or so of being “temporarily down” the Wild Hop Lager website is back online. For those of you new to this story, Wild Hop Lager is actually a beer created and made by Anheuser-Busch though that fact was not disclosed on the package. It also made no mention of this fact previously on the website, though that has changed with the debut of the new (improved?) website. It’s just as slick as it was before and it’s remarkably similar in look and feel to A-B’s sister stealth organic micro, Stone Mill Pale Ale, which also recently changed its website to disclose its relationship (although they claimed it was a partnership).

Probably the biggest change is that the website does now disclose that this is a product of Anheuser-Busch. It’s right at the bottom in fine print, where it says. “Brewed by Green Valley Brewing Company in Fairfield, CA, the organically certified brewery of Anhesuer-Busch Companies, Inc.” And that’s almost the full story, although I’m pretty sure it’s the beer that’s certified, not the brewery. In my mind, they still make it sound like A-B is operating a little separate brewery called Green Valley in Fairfield, California. But unless they’ve set aside a small pilot brewery which I’m not aware of, the Fairfield Plant is a giant behemoth of a brewery that presumably churns out most of the A-B products for the northwestern quadrant of the Western United States (there is also a plant in Los Angeles). A-B operates about a dozen or so plants in the U.S., of which five offer tours, and none of them are exactly little. So while it technically may be full disclosure, it still seems a tad misleading to the majority of non-beer industry people who would not know that.

Also missing from the new website is the promise to make a donation to the Organic Farming Research Foundation of Santa Cruz, California “with every purchase of Wild Hop Lager.” It was actually a couple of days after I did a phone interview with Bob Scowcroft, Executive Director of the OFRF about the nature of the donation they were to receive, that the Wild Hop Lager website went down. And that’s a shame because it seems like a very worthwhile organization. But click on “Product Info” and you’ll see that A-B is still at least supporting the organic farming charity. And they say they’ll “join them to sponsor research relating to organic farming practices,” not that the OFRF does any other kinds of research. So while it appears they’ll no longer be donating a percentage of sales, at least A-B may make additional donations to the OFRF.

 
 

Of course, I doubt if disclosure has been made at the most important level, the packaging in the store. It may be that future packaging either on the label or the six-pack carrier — or both — will state that Wild Hop Lager is a product of Anheuser-Busch, but I’m sure there won’t be a recall. So until they sell through the initial package run, consumers will still be largely unaware of the product’s true affiliation. Until then, nothing much has really changed.

 
 

 
 

A screen capture of the new Wild Hop Lager website that has just come back online after having been down for well over a month. Click on the image to view the screen capture full size.

 
 

 
 

A screen capture of the original Wild Hop Lager website that has been down for well over a month. Click on the image to view the screen capture full size.

Crooked River’s Stone Mill Pale Ale

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Stone Mill Pale Ale, from Crooked River Brewing Co. of New Hampshire, is the newest organic stealth micro from Anheuser-Busch, not that you’ll find any information about it on their corporate website. That’s because like Wild Hop Lager of Green Valley Brewing Co., the packaging reveals no information whatsoever about who’s behind the beer. Both beers are brewed by Anheuser-Busch at either their plant in Fairfield, California or Merrimack, New Hampshire (although I have no independent knowledge of either beer being brewed anywhere but Fairfield).

Similar to Wild Hop Lager in packaging, marketing and secrecy about its origins, the Stone Mill Pale Ale is targeting high end consumers with folksy, farm-friendly images and its organic certification. The only difference I can see is one is a lager and the other an ale. Both Crooked River Brewing and Green Valley Brewing are not real breweries, they’re dba’s owned by Anheuser-Busch. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using a dba, many businesses use them, including many contract breweries.

Until they bought the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewery in Ohio, Boston Beer Co. was probably the most well-known contract brewery. There were a lot of complaints about them in the early days, especially for Oregon Brewing (their own stealth micro), but for the most part the beer itself didn’t suffer. And by and large the majority of contact breweries are simply one company making their beer at a brewery they don’t own in order to keep capital investment low.

In this case, however, the difference is quite important. Here a giant company is trying to keep that fact a secret as a marketing strategy. They know that many consumers and potential consumers of organic products would likely be reluctant to buy organic beer from America’s biggest beer company. So everything about Stone Mill Pale Ale is calculated to make it appear like a small organic company that cares about organic farming and similar issues.

But another strange thing about this is that there is, or at least was, an actual brewery by the name of Crooked River Brewing in Cleveland, Ohio. They opened in 1994 but stopped brewing in their own facility in 2000. But the label was purchased by Frederick Brewing Co. of Maryland (which itself was just bought by Denver’s Flying Dog Brewery). As far as I can tell, the Crooked River label is still currently being sold. Given the number of attorneys Anheuser-Busch employs, it’s pretty hard to believe they would have missed that their made up name was already being used by another brewery.

In addition, there used to be a Crooked Waters Brewing in Peoria, Ilinois. It was a brewpub that opened in 1996 and closed in November 2000. Then there’s a Crooked Creek Brewery that’s a contract brew made by the Straub Brewery in Pennsylvania. As far as I can tell they’re still in business and making beer, too.

So that’s a strange development. The dba for A-B’s second stealth micro has the same name as a label still being made. I’m no legal expert and I’m not a lawyer but from what I have seen in these types of trademark disputes I can’t see how Frederick Brewing could lose. They appear to own a label that’s been around for twelve years. A-B is using the same name for essentially the same class of goods. That that fact would cause confusion among consumers seems prima facie.

Anheuser-Busch’s Stone Mill Pale Ale.

UPDATE 5.17: The Stone Mill Pale Ale website does now state that they are “in partnership with Anheuser-Busch.” That’s a pretty euphemistic way of saying it is an Anheuser-Busch product. I don’t know the exact nature of the way the dba was set up, but the domain name at least is registered directly to Anheuser-Busch, Inc. Can you have a partnership with a name you made up and created out of thin air? As far as I know, the packaging does not reflect this disclosure, but perhaps new packaging will. Until then, unsuspecting consumers will still not likely know who’s making this organic beer.

Sorry this is hard to read, but this is a full size screen capture. It’s hard to read at the website, too. I guess that’s why they call it the fine print.

Canadian Craft Beer Mirroring U.S. Market

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According to an article in today’s Toronto Star, craft beer in Ontario is mirroring what’s going on in the U.S. After sales of macro beers have slowed and declined, craft beer sales have risen to take up the slack. Thirty Ontario craft brewers now account for 5% of total beer sales in the province, which represents $100 million and a 17% increase in jobs. That’s an increase of 100 basis points over last year when craft beer in Ontario was at 4% of the total, which is a huge increase in one year.

He’Brew: 2 New Chosen Beers

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Shmaltz Brewing Co., makers of Genesis Ale: The Chosen Beer, has announced two new beers that should be available on or around June 1. Genesis 10:10, for Schmaltz Brewing’s 10th anniversary and Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A, in honor of Lenny Bruce, who died forty years ago this year.

From the press release:

GENESIS 10:10:

“Come my beloved, let us go to the fields. If the pomegranate trees are in flower, then I shall give you the gift of my Love.” -Song of Songs 7:12 Creation, 1996, C.E.: On the floor of a San Francisco Mission District loft, intimate friends squeeze luscious pomegranates by-hand for the first 100 cases of HE’BREW’s Genesis Ale.
Evolution, 2006: Shmaltz Brewing renews this sacred covenant, sacrificing over 10,000 pomegranates for our 10th Anniversary offering, Genesis 10:10.
Revelation, on-going: In Jewish tradition, pomegranates symbolize righteousness, with seeds said to number 613, the total commandments in Torah. In Deut. 8:8, pomegranates, barley and wheat prove the bounty of the Land of Milk and Honey. In Exod. 28:33, G-d orders them embroidered on the robe of the High Priest. Kings 7:42 describes them sculpted on Solomon’s Jerusalem Temple. The calyx atop the fruit inspired the original Jewish crown. One Persian hero of myth consumed a pomegranate and became invincible. Muhammad instructed: “Eat the pomegranate, for it purges the system of envy and hatred.” Newlywed Greeks eager for a family crush one under-heel for fertility. Buddha cured a child-devouring demoness of her evil habit by instructing her to eat a pomegranate. Whether for knowledge or temptation, for virtue or strength, for art or for love — Behold Genesis 10:10, the crowning glory to a decade of brewing …with chutzpah! To Life…L’Chaim!

Also from the press release:

Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A:

“Satire equals tragedy plus time.” – Lenny Bruce
Emmis, Shmuck! 40 years alive. 40 years dead. And shares of Lenny Bruce commodities are still long-term performers – solid! Sure there’s been books, posters, films, plays, a box set of course. But the big Four-O inspires innovation, something hip, modern – unorthodox – a taste that really swings….
Ladies and Gentlemen, Shmaltz Brewing Co. is proud to introduce Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. Brewed with an obscene amount of malts and hops. Shocking flavors – far beyond contemporary community standards. We cooked up the straight dope for the growing minions of our nation’s Radical Beer junkies. Judges may not be able to define “Radical Beer,” but you’ll damn well know it when you taste it. Bruce died, officially declared a pauper by the State of California, personally broken and financially bankrupt simply for challenging America’s moral hypocrisies with words. The memorial playbill read: “Yes, we killed him. Because he picked on the wrong god.” -Directed by, the Courts, the Cops, the Church…and his own self-destructive super ego. Like Noah lying naked and loaded in his tent after the apocalyptic deluge: a witness, a patron saint, a father of what was to come. Sick, Dirty, Prophetic Lenny: a scapegoat, a martyr, a supreme inspiration. From Burlesque to Broadway, Carnegie Hall to the Courtroom, Long Island to Lima, Ohio to L.A., savor the provocative spirit of Lenny’s R.I.P.A, our HE’BREW monument to the richness, the bitterness and the sacred sweetness that is life…L’Chaim!

Spülwasser

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According to an article on today’s online version of the Nation, Germans call Budweiser “Spülwasser,” which translates roughly as dishwater and that seems a fair approximation of the flavor. The article concerns Anheuser-Busch’s being the exclusive beer sponsor for the upcoming World Cup in Germany.

The 2006 World Cup will have eighteen premium sponsors who each paid around $40 million for that designation. A German television station nicely summed up the German reaction at the time of the announcement last year when they said. “A cry went out across the nation.” A-B apparently relented and allowed 30% of beer sales to come from German brewer Bitburger. But then Bitburger protested that the name “Bud” was too close to their “Bit” beer and as a result (along with issues regarding Czech brewer Budvar) Anheuser-Busch will only be able to call their beer “Anheuser-Busch Bud” throughout the tournament, which means for all that money they won’t even be able to use their most popular brandname.

I thought the Nation author’s conclusion hilarious. Here it is:

So Anheuser-Busch has paid all that money for a monopoly that has taken away its name and could trigger a demonstration or even rioting by furious spectators faced with no choice but to go dry or drink dishwater.

On top of that, with the start of the quadrennial soccer tourament only weeks away, the protest is not going away. A new group has just put up an amusing website called Bud Out. The group’s apparent mission appears to be simply to get Budweiser out of the tournamanet completely. I know they can’t possibly win, but I love the idea of them trying. They are asking for people to post their own anti-Bud pictures. So far, there aren’t too many up yet but what is there so far is pretty funny.

Let the games begin.

Beer and Cinema

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According to an article in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune, a movie theater in Oceanside has filed for a license to serve beer at screenings. The ABC is quoted as saying there are currently three other such theaters in the state, two in L.A. and one in Oakland. I’ve been to the one in Oakland, the Parkway Theater, several times when I used to live there a few years back, and it was great fun. They also have pizza and subs to eat and bring your food directly to your seat. You can buy pints or pitchers of about half a dozen craft beers. They also serve a number of wines, too. The theatre itself has sofas, comfy chairs and tables scattered about the hall. If you want a good spot, like a sofa, you have to get there early because it’s very popular. They also have a baby brigade night where infants are welcome and we took Porter there when he was very little. It’s very family oriented that night but otherwise is over-21 only. I really like the place and was unaware of any problems with such a place.

So I was surprised by two things in the piece about the San Diego theatre trying a similar idea. First, supposedly they’ve gotten a lot of protests about it. Apparently the way the place is laid out, it will be fairly easy to make a section of the multiplex adults-only and that’s the only place alcohol will be served. Naturally, that’s still not good enough for the neo-prohibitionists who are coming out in droves to complain. These people will not be satisfied until alcohol is once again made illegal, despite what a disaster it was the last time we tried it. They’re still worried young people might be able to get their hands on it. Gasp. I am so sick to death of these people. If you don’t want to drink, don’t. Stop pretending this is about protecting the children and admit it’s just about wanting to push your beliefs on the rest of us. For a country that was supposedly founded on the idea of freedom, it constantly amazes me how so many people see nothing wrong with trying to restrict their fellow citizens from doing whatever they find personally distasteful. Please, live your own life however you want and leave the rest of us alone.

The second thing I found disturbing was even more troubling. A spokesperson for the local police is quoted as saying the “Oceanside Police Department routinely objects to any new liquor license.” (my emphasis.) What!?! Why would they do that? Is that their job? That would be an emphatic no. It’s the job of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Department to approve or deny applications. The police’s job is to enforce the law, not determine policy or meddle with how a state agency does their job. But to say they object to “any” is the same as saying they object to every single application. And that is overstepping their authority by leaps and bounds, in my opinion. Not only that, “[b]ut in this case, [the police spokesperson] said yesterday, both the police chief and the city manager have asked that the protest be more vigorous.” Huh!?! Are we told why in their opinion a more vigorous protest would be appropriate? Nope, not one whiff of evidence is offered for the police taking such a position. The author of this story seems to just take it for granted that her readers will accept such a position without evidence. She probably knows her audience better than I do, but I’m more than a little frightened that there are places where such a statement can be made and accepted without comment.

So if you live in San Diego and this beer and wine license is approved, please patronize this theater. Not only do we have to be vigilant against the big brewery attacks on craft beer, but also the neo-prohibitionist attacks on all alcoholic beverages. These people are scary, especially when they get an imprimatur from local government and law enforcement. We have to remind these people that beer is legal and that we have the right to openly enjoy it. And that’s a right that needs to be protected.

Chad Kennedy Named Head Brewer

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It’s now official, Chad Kenedy will be the new brewmaster at Laurelwood Brewery in Portland, Oregon, as former brewmaster Christian Ettinger leaves to open his own place. Congratulations to Chad.

New Laurelwood brewermaster Chad Kennedy.

From the press release:

Mike De Kalb, owner of Laurelwood Brewing Company, named Chad Kennedy as his new brewmaster replacing Christian Ettinger who is leaving to pursue his own entrepreneurial venture.

“Having worked as Laurelwood’s assistant brewmaster since January 2003, it’s exciting to step into the leadership role,” enthused Kennedy. “I’ll continue brewing the great beers that have put Laurelwood on the map, and I’m looking forward to introducing new ones.”

Kennedy became an avid home brewer in 1998 while he was working as marketing director for AM Todd Botanicals in Eugene, Oregon. In 2000, he decided to devote himself to his passion for brewing and took a sales position with Aria Imports, a beer distributor in Portland. “I was lucky that my job gave me the opportunity to meet the folks at Laurelwood because when I found out there was an opening in the brewery, I jumped at the chance.”

Since joining Laurelwood, Kennedy has been an integral part of a successful brewing team. In 2004, the World Beer Cup honored Laurelwood with its champion small brewpub and brewmaster awards, two of the most prestigious honors in the craft brewing industry, in addition to two gold, two silver, and one bronze medals. Additional honors include awards from the World Beer Cup in 2006 and the Great American Beer Festivals in 2003 and 2004.

Jessica, former event coordinator for the AOB, Ralph Olson of HopUnion and Chad Kennedy, new head brewer at Laurelwood Public House & Brewery in Portland, Oregon.

Kung Fu Fighting

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Apparently Jackie Chan is a beer person. Who knew? Perhaps it keeps him limber for his fight scenes. A Jackie Chan posted a comment today to my first post about the new cans at 21st Amendment. Jackie also left an e-mail address at goodbeer.com. Now goodbeer.com is the domain name of Speakeasy Ales & Lagers in San Francisco. I spoke to brewery co-owner Steve Bruce this morning and he assured me Jackie Chan does not work for them. I was certainly glad to hear he was still making movies.

Here is the comment from Mr. Chan:

Unfortunately, they [21st Amendment] are not canning the beer with a real canning line; they have an extremely labor-intensive, slow 2-can filler and separate seamer requiring them to physically handle every can and move them around before they are seamed. The air-levels will not come close to that of a real canner (or even a good bottler), there are substantial microbio issues as the system is slow and not sealed, and there will likely be massive variance in carbonation (and probably taste as a result of all the factors I have listed). In a nutshell, these cans will have terrible shelf-stability and it will probably be a crapshoot every time you crack one open.

A real canner is great for beer… but this ain’t that.

So either someone else who works there and wants to remain anonymous is unhappy with the idea of 21st Amendment having beer cans to sell or someone who doesn’t work there wants me to think that. I suppose it could be a coincidence and goodbeer.com was chosen at random but that somehow doesn’t seem likely to me. The commenter certainly sounds knowledgeable and appears to know the basic process, which means he sounds like someone who may be a brewery worker. But Jackie is apparently unaware that I showed the hand canning process in great detail two weeks later, including that it is slow and done by hand. I did pitch in and saw that each can is, of course, sanitized and the process seems as hygienic as any other bottling I’ve seen. There are currently twenty-five small breweries hand canning, three in California, and many more in Canada and abroad. If there really were such a bad sanitary and consistency problem we’d have heard about it by now. And people have been hand bottling 22 oz. bottles for decades. That’s how most microbreweries started offering packages in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many still do. They’d have all the same problems Jackie brings up yet I’m not aware of any endemic problem with hand bottling.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion and it’s not really my job to defend canned beer. I think it’s an interesting trend that’s not likely to go away anytime soon so I personally thought it best to learn as much as I could about it. And I also wanted to keep an open mind since I, too, have long thought the can inferior to the bottle. But through this adventure that’s starting to change. Plus, we’ve all seen so many bottling lines that I thought this was something different and worthy of attention.

When I told Steve Bruce why I was calling him, he didn’t think anyone from Speakeasy would have send that message. And overall, I tend to agree with him. I like Speakeasy and I love their beer. Big Daddy and Double Daddy are two of my favorite big, hoppy beers. I wish them all the success in the world and would do whatever I can to support them in their efforts to bring good beer culture to the masses. So it certainly seemed odd that whoever sent it used their domain name.

In the end it’s hard not to view this comment as sour grapes, regardless of its origin. And that brings me to the point of this dreary post. Infighting. Which from now on I will continue to refer to as Kung Fu Fighting in honor of Jackie. Both Sam Calgione, of Dogfish Head, and Dave Buhler, of Elysian Brewing, in their respective speeches at the opening of this year’s Craft Brewing Conference stressed the importance of the craft industry working together. It’s been a subject we’ve all been talking about at least as far back as Kim Jordan’s keynote address at the New Orleans CBC three years ago, though the idea of course was not original to her. In fact, as long as I can remember one of the things I’ve liked best about the craft beer industry is that it’s like an extended family. Brewers help each other because most realize we’re all in this together. When one succeeds we all succeed.

I know, of course I know, that that’s a romantic ideal that’s not exactly the reality we face. There is Kung Fu Fighting. There always has been and there probably always will be. Even the closest family members sometimes root for or revel in the failure of their siblings. We don’t want to believe it’s true but sometimes it is. But doing so is counterproductive, in my opinion. Otherwise we’ll never reach a tipping point where a majority of Americans realize what we already know: that better beer and the culture of great beer enhance the pleasures of this life. Good beer makes almost everything a little better. The food we eat, the company we keep, and our enjoyment of life are all improved by having a vibrant beer culture. Don’t think so? Imagine your life if all you could drink was American-style lager and virtually nothing else was available, roughly the situation our parents lived through. My father thought Heineken was the pinnacle of what life had to offer. Today, I wouldn’t drink that swill on a bet. Can you imagine a world with no organic food, no slow food movement, no great coffee, no gourmet cheese, no artisanal breads, no fine wine, and no craft beer? So many different kinds of products have evolved over the last few decades that it’s almost unimaginable to think of life without them. How dull would our lives be if reduced to only Maxwell House, Wonder bread, Kraft cheese, Blue Nun and a Schlitz.

But here we are. We have choices that were unthinkable a generation ago. Whole new industries have grown up before our very eyes. But the makers of all the mass-produced foods and beverages have not gone away, nor will they anytime soon. They are huge, massive companies with immense resources. And they’ve been losing market share for decades. They have but one goal in mind: to crush their competition and get back on top. In our case, it’s the big breweries, both domestic and foreign. They’ve turned beer into a commodity, a highly engineered food product. In my opinion, beer is best when it’s a balance of art and science, and the big breweries have raised the science of brewing to such heights that the art has been lost in the process. Technicians work at big breweries, artisans at craft breweries.

But after several years when the industry was losing ground — when the predicted shakeout took place in the late 1990s — craft beer suddenly stabilized and started a slow steady period of growth again that has continued to the present. And it’s been growing slowly now for a number of consecutive years and in fact even the gains have been increasing. We’re still a drop in the barrel compared to the Goliaths. Fourteen-hundred breweries still account for less than 4% of total beer production in the whole country. And now in the last year the biggest Goliath, Anheuser-Busch, has engaged in price wars with the other big breweries and is losing revenue. In fourth quarter last year they experienced a 54.7% drop in income before taxes. To keep their fingers in the dyke, the big breweries have been signing distribution deals (or in some cases trying to) with both import beer and microbreweries. At least one has tried a half-hearted PR campaign to celebrate beer in general. And we’re seeing more stealth micros, products from the big breweries masquerading as craft beer. So despite having a market share the size of a gnat, the giants are coming after us. What will be most important in the coming months is how we respond.

That’s why this morning’s comment rankled me so much. Because whatever prompted it and whoever posted it, at first blush it appears to be Kung Fu Fighting. It appears to be another brewery raining on the parade of another’s good news, throwing water on a fire just as it’s being built, or just trying to spread dirt on a fellow craft brewer. Whatever your metaphor, I don’t think it’s good for the industry to have any infighting, no matter how juvenile. We should be helping one another, not putting each others kegs in the street, so to speak. We need to all stick together and work together toward the common goal of reaching more and more people until we reach a tipping point of critical mass. Where is that point? I don’t know, but I believe we’ll know it when we get there. And in the meantime, no one, not even Sierra Nevada or Boston Beer, is big enough to reach enough people alone. We need each other, now more than ever. I hate war metaphors, but if there is an “enemy,” the enemy is out there. He most definitely is not or should not be among us. We cannot afford to engage in martial arts. We can’t be fast as lightning against each other because yes, it is a little bit frightening. And we’re going to need expert timing for the coming battles. We have to stop Kung Fu Fighting.

As I see it, there won’t be a better time to start working together then right now. This is it. Or at least this could be it, our time. This could be the moment we look back on and say this is when it all began. 2006 was the year when things started to change. The year when the media started paying attention to craft beer, when consumers in ever growing numbers started seeking out beer with flavor. The year when people choose the perfect beer to have with their ham, instead of trying to force wine to do a job it’s not well suited to do. The year people stock their kitchens with several types of beer glasses so they’ll be prepared when friends drop by with a bottle of Cuvee de Tomme or Pangaea to share. But in order to attain a goal of that magnitude, we unequivocally MUST work together as brothers and sisters on a quest, be able to trust one another implicitly and take pride and celebrate the successes of our brethren.

“You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.” Hey, it’s a better song than Kung Fu Fighting.

Let’s eradicate Kung Fu Fighting in our lifetime.