Wednesday’s ad is for Coors, from 1970. This is from the time when Coors was still only sold in the Western states, and as a result enjoyed a certain cult status in the East. I remember they had a lot of these minimalist ads, beauty shots, showing simply the Rocky Mountains, a stream of Rocky Mountain Spring Water, and a glass of beer. BUt is it just me, or does that pilsner glass have some odd bumps on it?
Today’s beer video was created by the Brewers Association and is entitled Craft Beer Tasting at Home and Beer Whispering Too! It’s a nice little “how to” for newbies on how to have a tasting in your home.
Earlier today there was an interesting infographic tweeted by the Wall Street Journal, by their WSJ Graphics division, entitled Offline Sales, showing how “retailers rely heavily on consumer products to drive store traffic.” In the top spot was “food and alcohol,” with 99% of $884 billion in sale made in stores, and only 1% online. That’s not too much of a surprise, as it’s somewhat a pain in the neck to order food or alcohol online, and in some states it’s even illegal (for the alcohol, at least). Even where it is, it’s prohibitively expensive for most beers. The majority of beers bought online, I’d guess, are of the rarer, hard-to-find variety. But the chart also suggests that beer is therefore very important to retailers trying to persuade customers to get off their laptops and drive down to their brick and mortar stores.
Tuesday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1959. One of their “Know the Joy of Good Living” ads, this one features a couple skiing — is that cross country skiing? — wearing what looks like it may be matching outfits, at least based on a red sleeve. One of them is holding up a glass of beer, and all we can see is a white glove and a sleeve of red. But the bigger question is how did they get a glass of beer and pour it in the middle of Rocky Mountain nowhere? Or is the lodge right behind our view and they haven’t even left yet, or done anything to deserve a beer break yet?
Today’s beer video is an animated commercial for Rheingold Beer using stop motion, from around 1956. As an animation buff, an ex-marching band geek (and with a train for my son Porter), this commercial has everything I love.
Climate Progress, the section of the website Think Progress devoted to the issue of climate change and related topics, had an interesting piece about the recent California drought and how it will effect the water needs of breweries. Entitled California’s Water Crisis Is Becoming A Beer Crisis, if you care about whether California’s breweries will make it through the coming drought, give it a read.
The last time I saw the Tax Foundation look at beer excise taxes was in 2009, but recently they updated their map of Beer Excise Tax Rates by State, for 2014, taking into account several states who changed their rates over that time.
Tax treatment of beer varies widely across the U.S., ranging from a low of $0.02 per gallon in Wyoming to a high of $1.17 per gallon in Tennessee. Check out today’s map below to see where your state lies on the beer tax spectrum.
A few state rates changed since we released last year’s data. Namely, North Carolina’s tax per gallon increased by nine cents, and there were slight increases in Arkansas (+2 cents), Kentucky (+2 cents), and Washington, D.C. (+2 cents). Washington’s tax decreased by 50 cents, and Minnesota’s number was one cent lower than last year. (See the 2013 edition of our Facts & Figures booklet for last year’s numbers.)
There isn’t much consistency on how state and local governments tax beer. This rate can include fixed-rate per volume taxes; wholesale taxes that are usually a percentage of the value of the product; distributor taxes (usually structured as license fees but are usually a percentage of revenues); retail taxes, in which retailers owe an extra percentage of revenues; case or bottle fees (which can vary based on size of container); and additional sales taxes (note that this measure does not include general sales tax, only those in excess of the general rate).
The Beer Institute points out that “taxes are the single most expensive ingredient in beer, costing more than labor and raw materials combined.” They cite an economic analysis that found “if all the taxes levied on the production, distribution, and retailing of beer are added up, they amount to more than 40% of the retail price” (note that this may include general sales tax and federal beer taxes, which are not included in the estimates displayed on the map). Last year, we did a podcast with Lester Jones, Chief Economist at the Beer Institute on tax treatment of beer, which is worth a listen.
Monday’s ad is for the United States Brewers Foundation, from 1941. This is one of a series of pro-industry ads that the brewer’s trade group engaged in post-prohibition to show the brewing industry in a positive light. This one shows an older farmer resting after, presumably, a long day in the fields tending to the crops. His wife, however, is still hard at work pouring him a beer. I guess it’s not yet the end of the work-day for her.
Today’s beer video is another animated film about Craft Beer, done as a student project by Michael Jolly, from St. Louis.
Craft Beer from Michael Jolly on Vimeo.
Here’s an interesting piece of data. There’s not a lot of background for it, but from what I can tell it’s an interactive map showing the “Top Beers In The US By State 2008-2013,” by Perlinnoise. Since it was tweeted by RateBeer, I can only assume it’s based on their ratings over that six year period of time, from their top 100 list. Only 18 states had beers that made the list, and from the interactive map, holding your cursor over a colored state brings up a list of the beers that made their list. It also includes the number from each state. California has the most, by a wide margin, at 128. Second is Michigan, with 46, followed by Indiana (24), Florida (19), Colorado (18) and Oregon (17). Unfortunately, one glitch with the interactive map is that you can actually scroll down and see the whole list of beers from California.
