Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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SF Beer Week Opening Event Announced

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sf-bw-2012
The opening celebration to kick-off SF Beer Week for 2012 has been announced. Having outgrown our space last year, this year it’s been moved to a new, larger location at the Concourse pavilion at the Concourse Exhibition Center in SOMA. Here are the details:

On February 10, 2012, over 50 Northern California breweries will converge on the Concourse in San Francisco for the Opening Celebration of SF Beer Week, which kicks off a ten day marathon of beer tastings, small festivals and food pairing dinners across the Bay Area. From 6-10pm, beer lovers will discover newly minted nanobrewers pouring alongside legendary craft brewing pioneers.

Early bird tickets are now available for $55. Each attendee will receive a commemorative glass and enjoy unlimited samples of new, rare and classic beers. Tickets are expected to go quickly. The event is one of the largest and most anticipated gatherings of the region’s beer community. A complete list of attending breweries will be published in mid January.

This year the Opening Celebration has moved to a larger venue in San Francisco’s SOMA district. The Concourse pavilion will provide a more spacious experience, easier access to the breweries and more food options will be available. Artisan producers from around the Bay will serve up a range of delicious choices for purchase, while live music fills the air.

Tickets are available online, the early bird price is $55. See you there.

sfbeerweek-2012

Beer In Art #153: John Lewis Krimmel’s Village Tavern

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art-beer
This week’s work of art is by John Lewis Krimmel. He was born in Germany, but emigrated to the U.S. in 1809 to join his brother in Philadelphia. Instead of joining the family business, he took up painting and became well-known for his genre paintings depicting everyday life in the city of brotherly love. One of his most well-known paintings was “The Village Tavern,” painted between 1813-14.

Kimmel-village-tavern

The painting is also sometimes called “In An American Inn,” and just from searching around, it appears their may be more than one of them, as there seem to be various references to both that are very, very similar, but not quite exactly the same, with slightly different colors and with the size of what’s depicted more or less, as if Krimmel painted the exact same scene more than once.

Kimmel-village-tavern-2

Perhaps most curiously, apparently the painting was used by prohibitionists as propaganda. “The depiction of a mother and daughter trying to persuade the drunken father to come home has caused historians of the temperance movement to praise In an American Inn as the first work of an American artist to illustrate this issue.” But that interpretation does not seem obvious to me. Nothing in the woman or the child’s demeanor suggests to me that they’re trying to persuade the man of anything. And the man is raising his glass to her with a smile on his face. And nobody else around them seems particularly alarmed by them being there. In fact, many people in the tavern don’t seem to be paying them any mind whatsoever, as if their presence is not so unusual. It just looks an old-fashioned scene from the TV show Cheers, with several groups in the inn.

The Woodmere Art Museum has in its collection the “Study for ‘Village Tavern,'” oil on wood panel, also done in 1814.

Kimmel-village-tavern-sketch

And the Winterthur Library has two early drawings that would eventually become the painting, done in ink and ink wash over pencil.

Kimmel-village-tavern-sketch-3

They contain all the elements of the finished work, but you can see the artist trying out different placements for the characters in the painting.

Kimmel-village-tavern-sketch-2

You can read Krimmel’s biography at Wikipedia or at Terra. There are links to more Krimmel resources at the ArtCyclopedia. You can also see more of his work at the Art Renewal Center, Scholar’s Resource, the Philadelphia Academy and the American Gallery.

Ownership Of Beer Brands & Varieties 2010

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bubble-chart
A couple of years ago, shortly after Anat Baron released her film Beer Wars, people kept asking her which big beer companies owned which beer brands. In December 2009, she put together a list of Who owns what? That inspired to me took take a closer look myself, and that produced my own list, The Bigs Brewers’ Brands. At the time, I had hoped to keep it current, but that’s proved too time-consuming a task and it hasn’t been updated since December 4, 2009.

Now Philip H. Howard, an assistant professor at Michigan State University, in the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies, has created an infographic on the Concentration in the US Beer Industry. The bubble chart seeks to show the major companies selling beer in the U.S. — domestic and imports — and also uses different lines to show arrangements of distribution and partial ownership, where applicable.

BeerOwnership
You can see more detail on the full size image, which can be seen here. You can also zoom in using Zoom.It. Howards also notes “that the graphic above focuses on the top 13 firms, and excludes varieties of malt liquor and non-alcoholic beers.”

His write-up also includes the following:

AB InBev owns, co-owns or distributes more than 36 brands, for example, while MillerCoors controls at least 24 more. MillerCoors also brews Metropoulos & Company’s products under contract (thus the company that controls Pabst and 21 other brands is a “virtual” beer company).

Increasing Concentration after World War II

In 1959 the 10th largest brewery in the country (Pabst) acquired the 18th largest brewery (Blatz), resulting in a combined national market share of 4.5%. Seven years later the US Supreme Court reversed the merger, noting that:

If not stopped, this decline in the number of separate competitors and this rise in the share of the market controlled by the larger beer manufacturers are bound to lead to greater and greater concentration of the beer industry into fewer and fewer hands. [Justice Hugo Black in U.S. v. PABST BREWING CO., 384 U.S. 546 (1966)].

Today, just two firms control more than three-quarters of all sales.
market-share-2010

Howard also quotes Stephen G. Hannaford, writing in 2007, in Market Domination!: The Impact of Industry Consolidation on Competition, Innovation and Consumer Choice. “The beer industry is not only dominated by two firms, it is dominated by a small number of varieties — just six account for more than half of all sales. The result is an ‘oligopoly within the oligopoly'” Howard demonstrates this relationship with another chart.

beershare-2010
You can also explore this one better by using Zoom.It.

New Jersey Beer

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new_jersey
Today in 1787, New Jersey became the 3rd state.

New Jersey
State_NewJersey

New Jersey Breweries

New Jersey Brewery Guides

Guild: Garden State Craft Brewers Guild

State Agency: New Jersey Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control

maps-nj

  • Capital: Trenton
  • Largest Cities: Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Edison Township
  • Population: 8,414,350; 9th
  • Area: 8722 sq.mi., 47th
  • Nickname: Garden State
  • Statehood: 3rd, December 18, 1787

m-new-jersey

  • Alcohol Legalized: December 5, 1933
  • Number of Breweries: 20
  • Rank: 27th
  • Beer Production: 4,775,387
  • Production Rank: 11th
  • Beer Per Capita: 17 Gallons

new-jersey

Package Mix:

  • Bottles: 48.1%
  • Cans: 39.4%
  • Kegs: 12.1%

Beer Taxes:

  • Per Gallon: $0.12
  • Per Case: $0.27
  • Tax Per Barrel (24/12 Case): $3.72
  • Draught Tax Per Barrel (in Kegs): $3.72

Economic Impact (2010):

  • From Brewing: $891,637,336
  • Direct Impact: $2,485,802,018
  • Supplier Impact: $1,719,620,711
  • Induced Economic Impact: $2,086,724,154
  • Total Impact: $6,292,146,882

Legal Restrictions:

  • Control State: No
  • Sale Hours: On Premises: Varies by municipality. Most municipalities have a last call of 2 a.m. Larger cities such as Newark, Hoboken, and Jersey City set their closing time at 3 a.m. Atlantic City and Brigantine serves 24 hours. Some dry towns in the southern part of the state, including Ocean City.
    Off Premises: 9 a.m.-10 p.m., unless bar/restaurant has license to permit Beer/Wine off-premises, then hours must be the same as on-premises hours
  • Grocery Store Sales: Rarely
  • Notes: Some dry communities in historically Methodist and Quaker communities in the southern part of the state.

    Though there is not a ban on selling alcoholic beverages at grocery stores, New Jersey limits each chain to two licenses, so except for a few exceptions, most supermarkets/convenience stores/gas stations/pharmacies do not sell alcoholic beverages. In addition, liquor sales are only permitted in a separate department or attached sister store. Bars are allowed to off-sale packaged goods.

    With the exception of Jersey City and Newark, all municipalities MUST allow off-sales of beer and wine at any time on-sales are permitted. However, since alcoholic beverages are generally only found in package stores, this right is rarely exercised. Alcoholic beverages by the drink as well as off-sales of beer and wine are permitted 24 hours a day in Atlantic City and Brigantine.

new-jersey-map

Data complied, in part, from the Beer Institute’s Brewer’s Almanac 2010, Beer Serves America, the Brewers Association, Wikipedia and my World Factbook. If you see I’m missing a brewery link, please be so kind as to drop me a note or simply comment on this post. Thanks.

For the remaining states, see Brewing Links: United States.

Breweries Per Capita By State 2010

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maps-usa
I recently stumbled upon this nice infographic showing Breweries Per Capita By State 2010 based on data compiled by the Brooklyn Growler. It was created by an assistant professor at Michigan State University, Phillip H. Howard, with help from a Ginger Ogilvie. The size of the circles neatly shows the relative number of breweries in each state, relative to its size, though knowing how populous each state is helps to make it more understandable.

breweries-per-capita-by-state-2010
You can see the map full size here.

Beer In Ads #500: Merry Christmas All Around!

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Friday’s holiday ad — believe it or not, the 500th ad I’ve posted! — is for Schaefer beer. I don’t think it is, strictly speaking, an ad but a display piece, presumably for a bar or a retail store. I’m not sure of its age, but I’m guessing 1950s. I like the subtle double meaning of the slogan “Merry Christmas All Around!” Or maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems like both wishing everyone around a Merry Christmas and buying them “a round” … of Schaefer.

Schaefer_xmas_wreath