The Washingon State Liquor Control Board anounced their decision yesterday to appeal the recent Costco decision that would tear down the three-tier system currently in place in Washington State. This news is according to an article in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Anheuser-Busch to Purchase Rolling Rock?
Forbes magazine reported today that Anheuser-Busch is close to a completing a deal with giant international beer conglomerate InBev to purchase the brand Rolling Rock. Rolling Rock is brewed by Latrobe Brewing Co. of Pennsylvania. The information Forbes cited comes from De Standaard, quoting Caroline Levy, a UBS analyst.
UPDATE: In the earlier Forbes article InBev had declined comment but has now done so, which has generated a new updated article about the future of Rolling Rock.
Rogue Chipotle Ale in SF Chronicle
Linda Murphy, wine editor for the San Francisco Chronicle — and a friend to craft beer — has a short article in today’s paper about Rogue’s Chipotle Ale. Rogue Ales, based in Newport, Oregon also operates a Public House in San Francisco.
Rogue describes the beer as follows:
Dedicated to Spanish author Juan de la Cueva, who, in 1575, wrote of a Mexican dish that combined seedless chipotles with beer: Chipotle Ale is based on Rogue’s Oregon Golden Ale, but delicately spiced with smoked chipotle chile peppers. Deep golden in color with a tight head, rich malty aroma, delicately smooth and crisp flavor, and subtle chipotle chili finish. Formerly known and packages as Mexicali Rogue, Chipotle Ale is created from Northwest Harrington, Klages, and Maier Munich Malts; Willamette and Cascade hops; and Smoked Jalapeno (Chipolte) Peppers. Available in a 22-ounce (12/case), 12-ounce (24 loose/case) screened bottles, and on draft. Blend it with Rogue Chocolate Stout and create a Mole’ black and tan!
Measurements: 12 degrees Plato, IBU 35, Apparent attenuation 82, Lovibond 23
No Chemicals, Additives, or Preservatives
Watermelon Wheat in Cans
I stopped by 21st Amendment yesterday to pick up a six-pack of their Watermelon Wheat in cans for a tasting later tonight. I had some on draft first and then had one out of the can. I couldn’t really detect any difference in flavor apart from the cans having more carbonation. It’s possible that’s because they were only filled a few days before and will settle down some but the cans I watched popped open all had a tendency to foam up out of the can. But that’s the only negative thing I can say, and that’s not much. But out of the can the beer was every bit as flavorful as on draft and I could detect no metallic flavors whatsoever. That evening, my wife and I each had a can with dinner — homemade chicken corn chowder that was a little spicy — and it worked quite well with our meal. My wife commented that since she’d been “trained to drink beer out of a glass” she was having a hard time drinking it straight from the can and she also noted the carbonation. Of course, I swelled with pride since I was the one who taught her that from before we even started dating. So just to see the difference, we poured about half of the beer from our cans into a glass. It produced an excellent pillowy white head and smoothed out nicely once the carbonation dissipated. The color was a clear light golden hue. Light and flavorful, it had that signature subtle but omnipresent watermelon character that defines this unique beer and which has led to its popularity. It’s an excellent thirst-quenching beer, a fruit beer for people who don’t think they like fruit beers. And it has a wonderful ability to cut through spicy food.
If people can get over the hurdle of the bias against beer in cans, they have a sure winner on their hands, I think. But since I share that bias against canned beer myself, I can’t see it happening overnight. I think part of the full drinking experience includes seeing the beer, watching it pour into the glass as the head rises up like a volcano threatening to escape the confines of the glass. Seeing the lace stick to the insides as the carbonation races into the air leaving the head to sink back down like a falling cake is almost magical. So I know I’ve romanticized drinking beer but it’s hard to shake such a potent image, even if I created it myself. But I’m also keenly aware that there are plenty of times when good beer in a can would be a godsend and I’d happily quaff one out of the can on those occasions. Hopefully, enough people will be curious enough about the novelty of it to give it a try. And I think if they do, they’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that beer out of a modern can manages to taste quite delicious and all our prejudice is rooted in remembrance of things past rather than on today’s reality. The technology is pretty amazing, that’s for sure. It’s gotten to the point where the only real criteria is how good is the stuff in the can. And in this case, the beer is quite delicious.
NY Times Highlights Lambics
Today’s New York Times Dining & Wine section (why is it always the wine section and not the beverage or drinks or something else?) has an article today on Lambics. It’s always good to see better beer discussed in a mainstream newspaper.
A Quick Trip to 21A
I made a quick trip into San Francisco’s 21st Amendment brewpub yesterday to pick up their new canned beer for a tasting this evening at the Celebrator offices. I met brewer/ower Shaun O’Sullivan after the Giants game, during which Barry Bonds hit #712, at the brewpub and we sat with some friends for a quick drink.
21A brewer Shaun, Joe, from Eldo’s Brewery, and Jen, from Magnolia Pub & Brewery.
Brewers Shaun and Joe.
Shaun, Joe and Jen drink a toast to the new cans.
The Watermelon Wheat, now in cans.
Coalition of the Willing Shrinks to One
Back in early February I commented that the Here’s to Beer campaign, which was originally supposed to be a coalition of the nation’s breweries, was only Anheuser-Busch and the Beer Institute. Since this propaganda campaign was so obviously an A-B driven effort, I further commented that I felt this tainted the objectiveness of the Beer Institute. It turns out that they agreed, because it was reported today in a Business Week article that “The Beer Institute trade group yanked its logo off the campaign after the first television ad ran during the Super Bowl. The institute would not say why.” Anybody have a guess?
So the Here’s to Beer propaganda is now officially just an A-B effort. A-B “Vice President Bob Lachky said the company is happy to carry the banner for all brewers nationwide.”
From the article:
“The reality of it is, this program really doesn’t need brewer support,” Lachky said. “We kind of always envisioned this thing as being an Anheuser-Busch-led initiative.”
That must be why he spent a great deal of time flying around the country trying to convince other brewers to “set aside their differences and fight the common enemy of wine and spirits” and craft brewers. It’s called spin because that sounds so much better than not telling the truth or saying they were wrong.
As I’ve said before, the funny thing is that the basic idea of promoting beer is a good idea. It’s just that A-B is the absolutely worst company I can imagine to take on this task. They could make decent beer but instead make a highly engineered food product. You don’t ask Wonder Bread to teach people about what great bread is. It’s too bad the Brewers Association doesn’t have the kind of money needed to do television ads, because I can envision a group of regional breweries doing pretty effective PSAs. A concerted effort that taught people what good beer really is would have enormous long term benefits for craft brewers as a whole. But TV is a game only giants can play, so that’s not really feasible at this point.
Also from the Business Week article:
While brewers are sitting out the campaign, Lachky said Anheuser-Busch is focusing its efforts on beer wholesalers. Next week, the company will launch a Web site called http://www.herestobeermarketing.com* that will offer beer wholesalers free promotional materials.
“The thing we learned as we went along is that the real audience of this is the beer distributor,” Lachky said.
I guess going directly to their consumers didn’t work very well, so they decided on the distributors instead. At least they’re already motivated to sell beer, after all that’s their job. But it sure seems like all they’ll accomplish is promoting their own brands. I’m sure all the A-B houses will embrace this program — they’ll probably all but have to — but I can’t imagine the Coors, Miller or independent distributors will have much incentive to use A-B produced marketing materials. But that’s said sight unseen, so who knows. It will certanly be interesting to see what they come up with.
___________________________________________________________________
*Note: the website is not only not up right now, but the domain name has not even been registered. Business Week listed the new domain as herestobeermarkerting.com and I assume they meant herestobeermarketing.com without the errant “r.” Just to make sure, I checked both spellings and neither one has been registered. But it does strike me as odd that a week before its announced launch in a major business magazine, I could still have registered the domain name myself.
Sire, Sire Pants on Fire
It was reported that “on Wednesday, Miller paid for an airplane to tow a banner over Anheuser-Busch’s St. Louis headquarters that read, ‘Sire, sire pants on fire.'” That was the same day a front page Wall Street Journal article appeared in which Anheuser-Busch finally admitted making changes to the formulas for their two most popular products, Budweiser and Bud Light. I just love the idea of this public fracas between the two big American brewing giants devolving to the level of a schoolyard fight. Obviously, Anheuser-Busch has long played the role of bully in this fight and bitter rival (pun intended) SABMiller wasted no time in all but using the “L” word in about as public a way as I can imagine. I presume “sire” is a reference to A-B’s vainglorious claim that they are the king of beers. But it’s still a little odd that Miller didn’t go the extra step to use the “L” word, though of course it was undeniably implied. My only regret is that I haven’t been able to find any photos of the plane flying over the brewery. Surely somebody must have taken a picture of so odd a sight as that.
Two days later Miller ran a full-page ad in USA Today claiming that A-B lied (this time apprently using the “L” word) when it had continually denied that its recipes had been altered over the years.
From the article:
The newspaper story also quoted Anheuser-Busch executives as denying that any changes were made in response to increased sales over the past three years by Miller Lite, Miller Brewing’s No. 1 brand.
The issue first surfaced in November, when Miller began running three TV ads that said Miller Lite has more taste than Bud Light despite changes in Bud Light.
Anheuser-Busch said then it had not changed the beer’s formula, and it complained to TV networks about the commercials.
Miller, however, said last fall it could substantiate its claims through documented increases in “bitterness units,” which measure the amount of hop bitterness in beer.
Advertising Age on Thursday, April 27, the day after the Wall Street Journal expose, ran an article entitled Miller Moves Quickly to Exploit Rival’s Revelation, in which they report that Miller’s ad agency has been challenged to begin using the information revealed in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal article as soon as possible, and perhaps as soon as Friday. Apparently Miller’s ad agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, was up to the challenge given the full page ad in Friday’s USA Today.
From the Ad Age article:
The Journal’s report said that, in August 2003, A-B Chairman August Busch III told hops growers in the Pacific Northwest he intended to increase the proportion of hops used in A-B’s beers in order to give the beers more taste after decades of gradually lightening their flavor to adjust to changing consumer tastes. “I told the growers of our desire to use more hops in our brewing for the purpose of delivering more amplitude and hop flavor in Budweiser,” Mr. Busch told the paper.
While brewers tweak their beers all the time, that admission provides significant marketing ammunition for Miller, the No. 2 brewer behind A-B. Miller ran ads in November 2005 saying it detected a “changed” Bud Light, citing increases in bitterness and carbonation. That attack followed a 2004 campaign by Miller claiming its beers had “more taste” than A-B’s.
Funny stuff. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
UPDATE 5.5: I finally found a photo of the banner.
Photo by Bill Stover, Associated Press
One Month Later: Wild Hop Lager Website Still Down
At the end of March, someone posted a comment that the Wild Hop Lager website was down. This was 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 “with every purchase of Wild Hop Lager,” as the website indicated.
Since that time I’ve been checking periodically and it’s remained down for at least a month now. Today, it still only says “This page is temporarily down. Please check back later.” Now I don’t know the official period of time something continues before it’s no longer considered “temporary” but in internet time, a month is an eternity. I certainly thought there would be something put up in its place by now. Perhaps the strategy for Wild Hop Lager is changing, but what’s taking so long? Who knows?
A screen capture of the original Wild Hop Lager website that has been down for a month. If you’re having trouble reading the text, click on the image to view the screen capture full size.
Lagunitas in Egg & Butter Parade
Today I took my kids, Porter and Alice, to the Butter & Eggs Day Parade in Petaluma, California. My son has been going through a farm animal phase and we though he would get to see a lot of horses and other animals in the parade. What we didn’t count on seeing was a float from Lagunitas Brewing Co. of Petaluma, though I suppose we should have. They had a flatbed truck with a band playing and all sorts of merriment going on. When the parade ended they kept on driving down the street, not stopping until they reached the Buckhorn Saloon, where I finally caught up with them for a drink.
The Lagunitas Float.
Pat Mace, a salesman for Lagunitas at the Buckhorn Saloon after the parade.