Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Ads #529: Go Ahead. Say It. Everybody Else Does.

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Thursday’s ad is another one for Schlitz, this one from 1967. Using their iconic slogan “When you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of beer,” it’s presumably meant to be humorous. Showing an interesting contrast, with the patron in a black suit with a red tie while the serve sports a red suit, or at least jacket, with a black tie, they’re both looking longingly at the empy glass and bottle between them. Unfortunately, I don’t feel too badly for them, as I can see several taps in the foreground that undoubtedly have beer that is at least the equal of Schlitz.

And one other interesting tidbit stands out. “The beer takes 1,174 careful brewing steps.” Wow, that’s some very busy brewers. I’d love to see an itemized list of all those steps.

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Lagunitas IPA Brewed At Anchor

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If you were following the twitterverse closely on Tuesday, you might have noticed an interesting story developing, as relayed in tiny bites by Lagunitas owner Tony Magee. I’ve rejiggered the twitter stream, re-ordered it, uncompressed abbreviated words, and added additional ones for clarity in an attempt to make it a more coherent story.

“We had a crazy strong 4th quarter 2011 and are nearly MAXED! out right now. This could cause SERIOUS supply problems as Spring approaches.” As you may recall, “our new brewhouse,” specifically the “Lauter Tun, was savagely attacked by a crane in the mid-Atlantic and that has delayed the start-up by a about a month. Working on the new brewhouse installation and all the plant improvements have been my whole life for the last year, so, for me, it’s personal!” I “don’t want to disappoint friends, customers, retailers, or distributors” and “since the cool new owners of Anchor have become our friends,” and “since their brewers are totally the most experienced Craft Brewers anywhere on Earth, I asked them if they could help us somehow.” They magnanimously said yes, “so we’re working with them right now to brew some IPA draft for us. Can you dig that? Anchor Brewing! Its’a STRAIGHT-UP honor that Anchor is willing to help us through this two-month hump. It is great to have such friends on this crazy competitive left-coast! I love this career. Imagine; working with the brew-co father of us all.”

So that sounds intriguing, right? Lagunitas brewing in the cooolships at Anchor?!? I spoke to Anchor co-owner Keith Greggor, who confirmed that’s exactly what happened. He stressed that we shouldn’t read too much into it, it’s just one brewery helping out another, which is great, I think. So for the next couple of months, head brewer Jeremy Marshall will, from time-to-time, be overseeing Lagunitas IPA being brewed in San Francisco.

They’ll be brewing IPA for draft only there, at least until the new brewhouse in Petaluma can be completed. That also means that shortly, when you an order a Lagunitas IPA from a keg, it could have been brewed at Anchor. As far as I know, this is the first time a non-Anchor beer has been brewed on Anchor’s system at their present location. Now this is a great example of our community, where a brewery can set aside any competitive impulse and help out a fellow brewer in need. As Greggor said. “It just felt like the right thing to do. You help your friends.” How cool is that?

Sierra Nevada Chooses Asheville North Carolina Site For New Brewery

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After scouting numerous sites in North Carolina and neighboring states, Sierra Nevada Brewing announced today they have selected a location near Asheville, North Carolina to build a new brewery to supply their beer throughout the east coast.

From the press release:

The site, approximately 90 acres in the Henderson County town of Mills River — along the French Broad River, 12 miles south of Asheville — will be home to the new production facility, as well as a proposed restaurant and gift shop.

“We are thrilled to have found an ideal location in western North Carolina for our second brewery,” says Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada. “The beer culture, water quality and quality of life are excellent. We feel lucky to be a part of this community.”

The new facility will add much needed capacity for Sierra Nevada, and will allow for the quick shipment of brewery-fresh beer to consumers in the east. The East Coast brewery will start with a capacity around 300,000 barrels, with room to grow. The added barrelage will accommodate wider production of the myriad of seasonal beers and bottled specialties Sierra Nevada has produced in recent years, as well as an expansion of the brewery’s well-known flagship product: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Sierra Nevada began the search for a new location several years ago. The brewery looked at hundreds of potential sites, eventually narrowing the search down to a handful of locations. The list of criteria was long and included quantifiable factors such as ease of shipping and water quality, as well as quality of life issues for its employees. Sierra Nevada has a reputation for a laid-back brewery culture and a love of the outdoors, and the new facility will retain this same tone. The Asheville area offers Sierra Nevada Brewing the perfect confluence of community, recreation and craft beer culture.

Sierra Nevada’s eastern brewery site is expected to employ approximately 90 workers, with additional staff in the restaurant to follow. The brewery anticipates being operational by early 2014.

That’s one more great reason to visit Asheville. I took a family vacation there a couple of years ago and it’s one of the best places I’ve been to for beer, food and culture. They have an amazing beer community. I’m sure not everyone will be thrilled by the news, but it’s been my experience that Sierra Nevada has been a good steward to the beer community as a whole, and has acted honorably in every instance I’m aware of, and I wouldn’t expect that to change as they expand their operations.

UPDATE: Asheville’s Mountain Xpress had photos and a report of the ceremony today at the site of the brewery that included North Carolina governor Bev Perdue and Ken and Brian Grossman, from Sierra Nevada.

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Ken Grossman, Governor Perdue and Brian Grossman raise a glass of Sierra Nevada beer at today’s ceremony in Mills River.

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A drawing of the proposed site.

Fun With Beer Cans & Photography

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In honor of today being “Beer Can Day,” the anniversary of the first beer can’s introduction by the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Co. of Newark, New Jersey on January 24, 1935, here’s an amazing use of a beer can. Now this is recycling, or perhaps more correctly repurposing.

For many years, people having been making what are called “pinhole cameras” out of a variety of materials, really anything that keeps out light can be used. Essentially, they’re a very simple, homemade camera. Here’s Wikipedia’s definition. “A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture – effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box.” But they’ve become very popular again in the last ten or so years, a kind of backlash as a result of the rise of digital photography. There’s as simple and low-tech as possible, yet still create interesting images.

At least two photographers have been in the news lately, making time-lapse photographs with pinhole cameras made from beer cans. The first, a student at the University of Hertfordshire — Regina Valkenborgh — put her beer can camera “next to the university’s radio telescope at its Bayfordbury Observatory.” According to the Daily Mail, the pinhole camera recorded the sun’s movements over a six-month period of time, “[f]rom solstice to solstice, this six month long exposure compresses time from the 21st of June till the 21st of December, 2011, into a single point of view.” How cool is that?

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The second, photographer Justin Quinnell, was featured on the Discovery Channel’s website. He’s captured a variety of time-lapse pinhole images using “emptied beer cans and about 50 cents worth of other supplies, such as duct tape and regular photography paper. While the cameras only took about five minutes to build, they had to withstand six months of ‘wind, rain, hail, and being thrown in the trash.'”

When asked which beer cans he preferred, Quinnell responded. “My choice would be lager or Guinness although often, when I teach larger groups, I have to rely on what is left in my neighbors recycling boxes.”

This photo is of Saint Mary Redcliffe Church, in Bristol, England, from December, 19 2007 to June 21, 2008.
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This one is of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, also in Bristol, from December 17, 2007 through June 21, 2008.
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And this last one was taken by the gravestones of Blance, Grace and Dorcus, over three months in the spring 2008 in the Eastville Cemetery, Bristol, England.
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You can many more of Justin Quinnell’s work at his website, pinholephotography.org, including a galley of more from the Slow Light Collection, which is where the above photos came from.

Now that’s a pretty cool use of beer cans. Happy Beer Can Day!

Danny Williams R.I.P. 1959-2012

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It was with a heavy heart that I received the news this morning that Danny Williams lost his battle with cancer last night, and passed away peacefully in his sleep. Ben Spencer sent me the word, and had this to say about his friend. “Danny was a great man. He was loved by many. This is a sad day for his family and friends. He will be missed.”

Ben added that “all Danny wanted out of his friends and family in his remembrance was no teary ceremonies, just ‘good people drinking good beers and smiling.'” There will be some sort of gathering of people to remember Danny, though the details, of course, are still being worked out. There was already a fundraiser scheduled for February 11 at Back Country Pizza in Boulder, and that will go forward as planned.

Danny’s family and friends want to thank everyone who donated generously to help make his remaining time more comfortable. Great progress was made toward saving the mine and keeping Danny’s home in the family, but additional donations are necessary to complete that work. If you haven’t already done so, please consider helping out Danny’s family as they struggle through this difficult time. As before, PayPal makes it easy to make a donation, and for larger amounts, there is a fund set up at First Bank in Boulder, Colorado under the name the “Danny Williams Fund,” where anyone can make a deposit. Their phone number is 450-120-3112.

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Danny Williams: March 1, 1959-January 23, 2012

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Danny was rare person, passionate and giving, especially when it came to beer. Dip into your own beer cellar tonight and pull out a rare beer to toast the memory of Danny Williams.

Anchor Zymaster #1 To Be A California Lager

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Yesterday Anchor Brewing announced their new line of beers under the “Zymaster Series,” with the first to debut during SF Beer Week in February.

This morning I spoke to the Zymaster himself — Mark Carpenter — who told me a bit more about the beer. It sounds like it will be a pretty interesting beer, and one I’m definitely looking forward to trying.

Carpenter told me they wanted to do something distinctly Californian, and they searched brewing logs and records that they could find from early California brewers. Reasoning that as soon as brewers had the technological ability to brew lagers, that’s what they did, so they turned their attention to lagers. In California, Boca Brewing is believed to have made the first lager in the state, around 1875 (according to American Breweries II). The town of Boca was located in northeast California, roughy 6.5 miles from Truckee. In 1880 it had a population of around 200 people, though today it’s literally a ghost town. The brewery was founded in 1875 and closed in 1892, four years before the Anchor Brewery opened.

So Anchor set about to recreate the first lager brewed in California. They used California-grown malt and California cluster hops. Clusters were the first hop variety grown in the United States. Though their origin is unknown, it has been “suggested that they arose from hybridization of varieties, imported by Dutch and English settlers and indigenous male hops.” They weren’t able to find enough cluster hops actually grown commercially in the state, but they did find cluster hops growing in Washington using the same bines that used to grow in California, before the hop-growing family took their rhizomes with them when they moved north from California to Washington.

So the first Zymaster Series beer from Anchor is also the first true lager they’ve made (with Steam beer being essentially a hybrid) and was brewed to try as best they could to replicate the first lagers brewed in California. It’s 5% a.b.v. and is a single-hop beer, using only Cluster hops. Because of quality issues in the late 19th century, lagers here tended to be more highly hopped then they are today, and Anchor’s new beer will also reflect that, though they have not yet calculated the IBUs, so no one can yet how hoppy the lager will be. Only one thing is certain, I can’t wait to see what it tastes like.

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Beer In Ads #526: That Bud … That’s Beer

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Monday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1964. The ad features a fisherman holding a flat-top can, with his rod over his shoulder and flies stuck into his cap. But it’s really the copy that stands out in this ad, staring with the tagline “that Bud… that’s beer!” But look to the left, here’s a gem. “Is there any real difference in the way beers are brewed? Sure, and one is brewed to be the King of Beers.” Sure? Well, that sure tells us a lot about how Bud was brewed differently from every other similar-tasting American lager in 1964. Nice.

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Big Changes At A-B InBev

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Wow, there’s a lot going over at Anheuser-Busch InBev, and besides the slip in sales of their core brands. Last week, rumors abounded that ABI was planning to roll out some version of 100% Share of Mind, which had been the “unofficial” policy until a few years ago, when it became unworkable. I wrote about it four years ago as it started to wane in Losing Their Share of Mind, and you can get the history and background of the policy there, assuming you’re unfamiliar with it. In a nutshell, A-B insisted that their distributors focus ONLY on A-B and A-B-related brands, and there were ways they had for dealing with those distributors that didn’t toe the line. And it worked well enough while A-B brands were selling well, but when they began to slip, it became harder to enforce and harder for distributors to remain profitable without taking on non-A-B brands, especially craft brands.

According to Beer Business Daily, ABI “is again turning up the leverage with Sales Opportunity Teams starting next week.” Apparently “Sales Opportunity Teams” (SOT) is the new buzzword for it this time around. They continued:

The SOTs, which A-B chief Dave Peacock has repeatedly said are not punitive in nature, will certainly be uncomfortable for distributors with growing competing brands in the house, as they try to explain this or that competing display or tap handle on the floor.

It’s got to be even harder this time, with craft beer riding a wave, with great growth, higher rings and consequently more profits. Sell less, make more. Hard to walk away from that, but of course having the best-selling brands is also pretty attractive, too. So what’s a distributor to do?

Today, the other shoe dropped, as Anheuser-Busch President Dave Peacock — and the last of the pre-InBev top executives — resigned effective today. According to ProBrewer

Peacock was one of the few remaining high-level holdovers who had stayed with the company after it was acquired in 2008 by InBev. He was only one of two non-Busch family members to hold the title of CEO.

Peacock is well liked by wholesalers and is known as reasonable, fair and an advocate for the second tier. The latest pressure on wholesalers by InBevAB may certainly have prompted Peacocks departure.

Peacock began his career at A-B in 1992 and was promoted to president in 2008 in the wake of the acquisition after serving as VP-marketing since late 2007. Many U.S. executives departed after the InBev takeover, but Peacock was handpicked by the new owners to lead the U.S. operation.

Harry Schuhmacher, in his Beer Business Daily, broke the news this morning, calling it “a watershed moment in the history of A-B since its acquisition by InBev.”

Coincidence? Hard to imagine the two developments are completely unrelated, especially since Beer Business Daily, presumably working from a press release, states he’s leaving “to spend more time with his family and pursue other business interests.” I’m always more than a little suspicious when that’s the official reason for leaving, as it so often is in circumstances like this one.

Peacock is succeeded by Luiz Fernando Edmond, who until today was the Zone President of North America. Oh, and Bud Light Platinum is coming soon, in the cobalt blue bottle, and should be on store shelves as early as this week. They’re calling it a “game changer,” but I tend to think these other two developments will change the beer landscape far more than a Bud Light line extension.

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