Taco Bell Introduces Beer

September 15, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Taco Bell announced today the opening of their first Taco Bell Cantina in Wicker Park, Chicago. The new restaurant had a soft opening today, with a grand opening scheduled for September 22. A second one will open in San Francisco later this month. One aspect about the new concept, known as “urban” restaurants, that stands out is they will serve beer, along with wine, rum, vodka and tequila.

From the press release:

“These new urban restaurants are a critical part of our growth strategy in markets where people experience our brand differently,” said Brian Niccol, chief executive officer, Taco Bell Corp. “Today’s consumers are living in more urban settings and our new restaurants cater to their lifestyle in adapting our traditional restaurant concept to fit their modern needs.”

The Taco Bell Urban Concept incorporates five consumer trends that balance relevancy and brand authenticity:

Urbanization: The Taco Bell Urban Restaurant Concept reflects the Millennial trend of seeking more urban environments to live, work and play. These restaurants are ideally suited to fit in with pedestrian areas without drive-thrus.
Digitization: Every point of the customer’s ordering journey is optimized through technology, including digital menu boards, TV monitors and Taco Bell mobile ordering and payment app pick up.
Localization: Taco Bell incorporated the local architecture of the neighborhoods each restaurant serves.
- The Wicker Park restaurant’s brick walls and prismatic glass were restored to help preserve the 100-year-old building. The location also features a mural designed by local artist, Revise CMW, which serves as a nod to the neighborhood’s history as an artistic hub.
- The San Francisco restaurant, located near AT&T Park, features a patio and mobile pick-up window to cater to the quick pace, tech savvy and vibrant community.
Green: The new urban locations will be more energy efficient with systems including LED lighting, use of reclaimed elements where possible and recycling.
Transparency: An open kitchen design and food served in open face baskets gives customers a look inside Taco Bell’s quality ingredients.

Taco Bell Cantina restaurants will be the first and only Taco Bell restaurants to serve alcohol to customers who are of legal drinking age. The San Francisco restaurant will serve beer and wine only, while Wicker Park will serve beer, wine, sangria and twisted Freezes. Cantina restaurants will also feature a new tapas-style menu of shareable appetizers – including nachos and rolled tacos – during designated hours each evening, in addition to the full standard Taco Bell Menu.

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According to the Chicago Tribune:

The menu features three 16-ounce frozen drinks that look straight out of the Kwik-E-Mart; spike your cherry-red Cantina Punch, electric-yellow Cantina Margarita or Ninja-Turtle-green Mountain Dew Baja Blast with your choice of Captain Morgan rum ($6.19), Ketel One vodka ($6.69) or Don Julio tequila ($7.19).
You’ll also find Steelhead wine ($4) in individual-size twist-off bottles, and two taps pouring Dos Equis ($4) and Fat Tire ($4.50).
Toast to the fact you’re drinking in a Taco Bell over a new menu of what the brand is calling Shareables — essentially, appetizer baskets. Choose from regular or chili-cheese nachos, quesadilla triangles, mini taquitos (called “rolled tacos”) and, surprisingly, chicken tenders, which are actually the best of the bunch.
The new T-Bell also comes with exposed brick, an open kitchen and a fancy new name: Taco Bell Cantina.
But give up your dreams of a drink after closing time at your local bar. Taco Bell Cantina will serve wine, beer and liquor until only 10 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, and midnight Friday and Saturday. 1439 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Expect to see Alcohol Justice and the prohibitionists going apoplectic over this news.

Beer In Ads #1678: Thoughts At Quitting Time

September 14, 2015 By Jay Brooks

Monday’s ad is for Molson Export Ale, from 1950s. The man in the illustration does look happy. After all, he’s got a “”deep armchair” and the promise of “quiet relaxation.” All he needs is a beer to make his time off perfect … unless of course he’s got a wife and kids that won’t be thrilled about him spending the evening quietly sipping beer in his comfy chair.

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MillerCoors To Close North Carolina Brewery

September 14, 2015 By Jay Brooks

Thanks to declines in sales volume, MillerCoors announced today that they will be closing their brewery in Eden, North Carolina, winding it down over the next year with plans to finally close in September of next year.

According to MillerCoors’ website:

Opened in 1978, the Eden facility was the first brewery to produce Miller Genuine Draft back in 1986. Today, it’s a state-of-the-art operation with more than 500 employees and an annual brewing capacity of 9 million barrels. The small, friendly community of Eden lies near Greensboro.

Here’s the press release:

“Today we made the difficult decision to close our brewery in Eden, N.C., in order to optimize our brewery footprint and streamline operations for greater efficiency across our remaining seven breweries,” said Chief Integrated Supply Chain Officer Fernando Palacios.
The decision to close the Eden Brewery was due to significant overlap in distribution between Eden and the Shenandoah, Va., brewery, which is approximately 200 miles away. Eden has been a strong performer over the years. However, Shenandoah is better suited geographically in relation to Northeast markets and is also the newest brewery in MillerCoors network.
The Eden brewery employs approximately 520 employees. In 2014, Eden produced 7.1 million barrels of beer, which were shipped to 280 independently-owned distributors. Brands include Blue Moon seasonals, Coors Light, Miller Lite and Miller High Life. Over the next 12 months, products currently produced in Eden will be transitioned to other breweries, including Shenandoah, Va.; Trenton, Ohio; Fort Worth, Texas; Albany, Ga.; and Milwaukee, Wis.
Since the creation of MillerCoors seven years ago, volume has declined by nearly 10 million barrels. This volume loss is due to a variety of factors, including economic challenges, an explosion of choice and fragmentation within the beer business, and a dramatic change in the way consumers engage with brands. As a result of declining volume, MillerCoors breweries are operating at an increasingly inefficient capacity. While MillerCoors is taking steps to strengthen its overall portfolio to drive long-term growth in volume and share, continued volume declines are expected each of the next few years.
“We take great pride in supporting the communities where we live and work,” Palacios said. “We’ve been proud to be part of the Eden community since we shipped our first products in 1978. We will work with community leaders to make sure we continue to support the community while we are brewing beer in Eden.”

The Milwaukee Business Journal added:

Blue Moon seasonal products will be moving to the Milwaukee brewery, which already produces seasonal varieties for Leinenkugel, said Marty Maloney, a spokesman for MillerCoors. Maloney said each brewery receiving work from Eden will evaluate its own hiring needs, but the shift could add jobs or at least support the existing jobs in Milwaukee.
But decreasing sales — volume has declined by almost 10 million barrels since 2008 and the company expects the trend to continue for the next few years — mean MillerCoors’ breweries are operating inefficiently, and future closures or reductions could be in the big brewer’s future.

Miller-Eden
The entrance to the MillerCoors plant in Eden, North Carolina, as close as you can get on Google Maps Street View.

Beer In Ads #1677: The Key To Good Taste

September 13, 2015 By Jay Brooks

Sunday’s ad is for Blatz Pilsener Beer, from 1945. This is the second ad in the last week or so using the “B” in Blatz with the barley stalks. In this ad, the “Key To Good Taste” is both the church key about to open the bottle and “the finest ingredients, scientifically controlled and laboratory tested.” Umm, sounds tasty.

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Patent No. 0472298B1: Keg For Draft Beer

September 13, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1995, US Patent 0472298 B1 was issued, an invention of Yutaka Fujimoto, Takaaki Furuhashi, Katsuoki Kawanishi, and Ryo Sakazume, assigned to Sapporo Breweries Limited, for their “Keg For Draft Beer.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

A keg for a liquid to facilitate cooling of the liquid retained in the keg and to keep the temperature of the cooled liquid in the keg, comprising:
a keg body for retaining the liquid therein and having an upper face (3), a lower face (5), a side face (4) and a mouth piece (2) for providing the liquid into the keg body and ejecting the liquid therefrom, said keg body being formed of a keg inner cylinder (1) for constituting a container for the liquid and a keg outer cylinder (6), said keg inner and outer cylinders being laminated together to form a space and air being removed from the space to form a vacuum adiabatic layer (VL) therebetween; characterized in that the keg outer cylinder (6) substantially covers the keg inner cylinder (1) except one of the upper and lower fades (3, 5) of the keg body, and in that a cooling face (Cz) is formed on said one of the upper and lower faces (3, 5) of the keg body where the inner cylinder (1) is not covered so that the liquid inside the inner cylinder (1) can be cooled through the cooling face and the temperature of the liquid inside the inner cylinder is kept by the adiabatic layer defined between the inner and outer cylinders.

Patent No. 2481897A: Device For Separating Leaves, Stems, And Other Material From Hops

September 13, 2015 By Jay Brooks

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Today in 1949, US Patent 2481897 A was issued, an invention of Zack Anderson, for his “Device For Separating Leaves, Stems, and Other Material From Hops.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes this summary:

This invention pertains to separators and particularly to a machine for separating leaves, stems, and other material from hops.
The present invention relates to a machine for separating the hops from the leaves, stems, and other material more efficiently than has heretofore been accomplished. Due to novel features of the machine the separating action is positive and precise. These novel features also enable the machine to accomplish precise results under varying hop-crop conditions.

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Beer In Ads #1676: All Dressed Up And Going Places

September 12, 2015 By Jay Brooks

Saturday’s ad is for Carling’s Black Label and Red Cap Ale, from the 1950s. I guess they were trying to make it look sophisticated with the castle mansion, Rolls Royce and man in a tuxedo. The tickets next to the bottle read “The International Look.” These were apparently their “modern new labels,” and boy howdy does that make the difference in how a beer tastes. This is one approach that the big breweries take that I’ve never quite understood. I understand that packaging is, and should, be updated from time to time, sometimes in small increments and occasionally a complete overhaul. But it’s not really newsworthy, it’s not what consumers care about. I’m arguably more interested in beer labels and packaging than the average beer drinkers, and I find these ads absurd, so how insignificant must they seem to regular folks? Why would they assume it matters that the label has changed? If people notice and sales go up on their own then the new packaging is a success. Telling them they should notice and care that the same beer inside the bottle now has a spiffy new label is, in my opinion, a pretty tough, and pointless, sell.

Carling-1940s-all-dressed-up

But if they’re going for sophistication, take a closer look in the bottom right-hand corner. What the hell is that character? A weird barrel-shaped man with a flat head wearing all-white, except for a black top hat and a striped shirt. That doesn’t look particularly sophisticated to me.

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