Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Beer Sales By Style Through Thanksgiving

By

sales-chart-up
MC Basset, publishers of the Beer Bible — better known by its official title, “The Essential Reference of Domestic Brewers and Their Bottled Brands” — in their monthly e-mail blast, Style Trends, “provided a snapshot of (YTD) beer sales by beer style.” The data they use was compiled by the Symphony IRI Group (IRI), using “a data set that includes 15,000+ US grocery retailers.” The two charts below graph beer sales for calendar year 2011, through November 27th.

It’s also important to remember that by “beer styles,” they don’t mean styles in the ordinary sense used by homebrewers and judges in beer competitions, where the goal is to categorize beers of like characteristics together for ease of comparison. As IRI uses the term, they’re more of a loose arrangement of how they’re sold, since that’s their main focus. They also define what is “craft” beer differently than, say, the Brewers Association does, again because their goals are different. In their world, there are less “styles” than we’re generally used to, but what is “craft” is more loosely defined, allowing almost any beer that’s not a mainstream beer to be included.

In the first chart, it shows sales through Thanksgiving of the Top 15 craft styles based on dollar sales. There’s actually very little that’s surprising in this chart, as the category “seasonals” has been the top category for some time now, and IPAs, in second, is likewise how things have been for some time now. It basically shows that current trends are continuing as they have been lately.

craft-$sales-11-11-27

The second chart, however, I find more interesting. It’s showing the same fifteen categories, but by how their sales have changed, by percentage, over the same period of time from last year. In essence, this chart shows which kinds of beers are doing better this year than they did last year.

craft-$change-11-11-27

The second best recorded change, India Pale Ales — at just over 40% — has been trending up for a few years now, and hoppy beers continue to sell well. But what came in at number one is more surprising. Belgian Ales (really Belgian-style ales) are up around 50% over last year. Sure, it’s on a smaller base, but it’s still great to see more complex beers registering such a big increase. Undoubtedly, part of the reason for this is probably due to more outlets beginning to recognize customer demand and adding these beers to their set; but that, too, is a welcome development.

The other surprise is “stouts,” which are also up around 40% over 2010. And five of the beer styles are up over 10%, including “brown beer,” “pale lagers,” “porter,” “seasonals,” and “strong ales.” Only one style is down over last year, and that’s “craft light beer.” I presume that’s mostly Sam Adams Light, though there are a few others, such as Genny Light, Point Honey Light, Shiner Light and Yuengling Light that probably are included in that category.

Of all fifteen categories, all but three of them show fairly healthy growth. In addition to “craft light beer’s” slide, both “amber lager” and “wheat” grew only very slightly in 2011. Every other category grew by at least 5 or more percent from 2010 to 2011. Not bad in a recession.

North Carolina Rebuffs Sierra Nevada

By

sierra-nevada
Sierra Nevada Brewing sells its beer in all fifty states, and has sold increasingly more over the last few years. Not surprisingly, there have been rumors circulating for some time about them building a brewery farther east, in such places as Tennessee and Virginia. It seems they had also identified a site in Black Mountain, North Carolina, which is near Asheville. Sierra Nevada had been considering building there “a beer facility and retail outlet that would employ as many as 140 people.” According to ABC Channel 13 in Western North Carolina, “[t]he company requested an interchange at Blue Ridge Road and Interstate 40. The Black Mountain town board asked the state to build it in hopes of luring the business but, it was not approved by the North Carolina Department of Transportation.” No word as to why the state would turn down the request.

Top 8 Beer Sales Days

By

sales-chart-up
This two-year old SlashFood article showed up in my Paper.li today, retweeted by a brewery I follow. The article, Super Bowl Sunday — The 8th Biggest Beer Day of the Year? questions the list of the top eight “Holidays/Events for Beer.” The list was complied by Nielsen, and as he points out is “combined beer sales from all U.S. outlets (including food, liquor, convenience and drug).” He’s initially is skeptical about why sales for the week following the holiday/event are also tracked, but eventually figured out that’s just how the weeks are tracked. If you want to include a week in which the holiday falls on a Sunday, you have to include the week prior and the week of to get all the relevant sales data. Author Mike Pomranz drew many of his conclusions from his correspondence with Nielsen executives, who naturally have a healthy bias in favor of their own data. As a result, Pomranz may not fully appreciate two additional tidbits about those statistics.

First, Nielsen’s data is almost entirely chain store sales. The big supermarket chains, drug stores, big box stores, convenience stores. As such, it’s a big slice of the pie, but it’s still nowhere near the whole pie. Missing from its numbers are thousands of small independent outlets that sell beer. It works because the sample is the same from period to period and so comparisons and trends can be confidently teased out of the data, and it’s certainly useful, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. What most people outside the industry forget, IMHO, is that it isn’t intended to be all-inclusive. It’s purpose is to identify sales trends and big picture activity. When I was the beer buyer at BevMo, I’d see an endless parade of Nielsen data from various breweries, and each would tell a different story, simply because of the way the information was massaged. There’s so much data that it can be drilled down in endless ways, with each business doing it in a way that was most favorable to their purposes, to show their sales in the best possible light. So it should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s most useful when comparing the same set of data over different periods of time; weeks, months, quarters, years, etc.

beersales

But it tends to break down when comparing different time periods, as in this list, because there are so many more factors that the raw numbers can’t capture. Pomranz certainly gives seasonality its due, concluding that “[i]f you were to normalize sales to account for weekly seasonal changes in overall beer sales, the often beer-centric celebration of the Super Bowl would most likely move significantly up the list.” That’s because climate — the weather — plays a HUGE part in beer sales that can’t be overstated. When the thermometer ticks up, beer sales go up. When it’s time to put on a sweater, beer sales plummet. It’s always been very seasonal that way. But even my old bosses at BevMo failed to recognize its importance and would routinely blame me for poor beer sales (or at least not hitting sales goals) when forces out of my control would hurt the amount of beer people bought. I even had one person tell me I was essentially not allowed to blame the weather, which is a bit like saying you can’t explain getting wet by pointing to the rain.

So not surprisingly, the top four holidays all take place during warm months of the year. And while you don’t normally associate Father’s Day with big beer-soaked picnics, just the fact that it’s in June may account for increased sales. Frankly, Easter is likewise one of those holidays that few people have been able to tie in with beer, but as it usually comes in the spring, it could also be a coincidence of the season.

Second, the Nielsen data is for “Case Sales.” In other words, not kegs. And a lot of holiday or event parties include kegs. For example, every year I was with BevMo our number one weekend for keg sales was Halloween. But in the Nielsen data, it doesn’t even crack the top eight. To me, that suggests another one of the limitations of their list. It’s just common sense. You can’t tell me more people drink beer for Easter than Halloween. Again, that’s because the data is imperfect and not comprehensive. It’s just a snapshot of one particular portion of the beer market.

And in fact, one year later, in 2010, the very same Nielsen chart for the subsequent year has the Super Bowl now in 7th place, with Halloween in 6th, and Easter and Father’s Day no longer registering.
nielsen-top-beer-holidays-jan-2010
So while I think we can mostly agree on which holidays or events are the biggest in terms of beer drinking, even if the order they’ll fall in will vary slightly, it’s best not to rely too heavily on incomplete data that’s not intended to be all-encompassing of the total beer market in America.

Jennifer Talley Going To RedHook

By

squatters redhook
Here’s some surprising news. Jennifer Talley, the award-winning brewer from Squatter’s Pub Brewery in Salt Lake City, Utah, is moving to Washington to take over brewing for RedHook at their Woodinville brewery. Specifically, her title will be “brewing operations manager.” Talley had been with Squatters for at least 20 years. According to Pro Brewer, who broke the news yesterday, “Squatter’s produces about 1,250 barrels of beer a year. Redhook? About 170,000 barrels of beer annually.”

More from Pro Brewer:

When Squatters opened a microbrewery in 1994, Talley became head brewer when the previous head brewer moved over to Salt Lake Brewing’s sister company, Utah Brewers Cooperative, which makes Wasatch Beers.

Talley got her first award — a gold medal at Denver’s Great American Beer Festival for a Vienna lager — in 1997. She proceeded to name her daughter Vienna when she was born two years ago. Since then, she has won numerous awards at the GABF, including another gold last weekend for Squatters’ Fifth Element ale. Squatters will search nationally and locally for a new head brewer.

Congratulations to Jennifer on the new gig.

gabf07-35
Jennifer Talley (2nd from the left) after a panel discussion at GABF on women in brewing in 2007. From left: Carol Stoudt (from Stoudts Brewing), Talley, Natalie Cilurzo (from Russian River) and Teri Fahrendorf.

Moonshot Grounded

By

moonshot
Ever since the FDA absurdly went after drinks that combine alcohol and caffeine, the future of New Century Brewing’s Moonshot Beer was uncertain. Founded by Rhonda Kallman in 2001, after she left the Boston Beer Co., New Century Brewing created a craft light beer, Edison Light, along with the caffeinated Moonshot, which debuted in 2004. Kallman was at Samuel Adams at the very beginning and helped to get their business off the ground and saw it through its first 16+ years before turning to something more personal.
moonshot
Unfortunately, last year the FDA bowed to the pressure of neo-prohibitionist groups, who persuaded several state attorneys general to petition the FDA to make alcoholic beverages that include caffeine illegal based almost entirely on anecdotal evidence and despite the fact that people have been combining the two on their own for decades, if not centuries. While Moonshot was essentially not one of the products that anti-alcohol groups most objected to, the way in which it was produced pulled her into the list of brands made illegal by the FDA’s misguided ruling.

Thanks to the FDA, at least in part, the Patriot Ledger in Massachusetts is reporting that “Kallman is shutting down New Century Brewing for good this month.” Kallman was also recently featured in Anat Baron’s documentary film Beer Wars to much controversy. Many craft beer purists felt she should not have been part of the film because of the novelty nature of Moonshot, so I suspect many will not mourn the passing of her company or Moonshot itself. And that’s a shame to my mind, in a world in which beer is under near constant attack, I always felt we should have been more charitable to one of our own, even if we didn’t always agree with the choices Kallman made or even like the beer itself. I’ve always been of the opinion there’s plenty of good beers to talk about without running down those we don’t care for, and that the market will ultimately decide which beers succeed and which ones fail. We certainly should have opposed the FDA more strongly than we did as an industry, at least in my opinion. But c’est la vie, it’s water under the dam at this point. So I’ll just wish Rhonda a fond farewell and the best of luck on her next endeavor.

royce-12
Rhonda Kallman with Todd Alström at the Blue Palms Brewhouse in L.A., the evening of the premiere of Beer Wars.

The Economy’s Down, But Alcohol Sales Are Up

By

sales-chart-up
According to a short item today in CNN Money, “[a]lcohol sales climbed with little interruption throughout the recent recession, and have continued to expand in recent months.”

Over the last, for the period ending May 31st, “[a]lcoholic beverage sales grew by nearly 10%,” according to the financial information company Sageworks. During that same period of time, “the average unemployment rate during that time exceeded 9.3%.”

Sales expanded more than 9% in 2008, the first full year of the recession, when the average unemployment rate was 5.8%. Sales slumped dramatically the following year, but were still 1% higher, as the unemployment rate shot up to about 9.3%.

In 2010, sales jumped more than 9% as unemployment grew to 9.6%.

The only other industry showing similar growth is apparently health care. Sageworks analyst Sam Zippin quipped that apart from “going to the doctor, [alcohol] is another need to have.” By which I assume he means there are only two certainties during a recession, that people will either get sick or drink. And the article concedes that the old saw about beer being recession-proof “appears to be true.”

Except that Esther Kwon, who’s identified as “an alcohol industry analyst for Standard & Poor’s, says just the opposite, stating “I wouldn’t say it’s recession proof. People will buy less and they will move to different venues, meaning moving to home instead of a bar. But people will continue to drink, regardless.” Um, maybe she’s been misquoted, but isn’t that contradictory? I’m not trying to pick a fight with Kwon, but I just don’t quite understand her point. I agree with her statement that “people will continue to drink, regardless,” and that to save money, many will choose to drink it at home. But concluding from that information that alcohol isn’t recession-proof doesn’t seem to logically follow or make any sense to me.

Where they buy their alcohol, or where they drink it, has no bearing on how much people buy, apart from the price they pay. And if it’s cheaper to drink at home, that would mean they could actually buy more, doesn’t it? And if the sales growth of all alcohol companies is up nearly 10% that would likewise suggest that people are not just continuing to drink, but are drinking more. It’s a simple ipso facto, isn’t it? There’s a recession. People are drinking (or at least buying) more. Ipso facto. What am I missing that would cause a so-called “beverage analyst” to conclude otherwise?

That confusion aside, this is more good news for the craft beer industry, as within the beer industry, that’s the segment that’s showing the most growth by a very wide margin. In fact, it’s practically the only segment showing strong growth.

Deborah Carey: Champion Of Change

By

new-glarus
Congratulations to New Glarus Brewing co-founder Deb Carey, who was selected as a Champion of Change by President Barack Obama and the White House. It’s great to see someone from craft brewing honored.

Here’s the write-up for Carey on the White House website:

Deborah Carey’s decision to start New Glarus Brewing Company was rooted in doing what was best for her family rather than becoming the local woman who broke down barriers to start a brewery. As she worked on a business plan, her husband Dan, a master brewer, gathered the materials, grains and equipment needed for start-up. In 1993 they negotiated to rent a warehouse in New Glarus, exchanging the lease for stock in the New Glarus Brewing Company.

They sold their home and raised $40,000 in seed money, yet still needed more cash to fund the startup. Deborah pitched her story to local newspapers, and the media attention brought $200,000 from investors. In the early days, the couple worked hard to establish the brewery’s reputation for consistent quality beers. Deborah’s marketing plan was to develop a very loyal customer base. She set up beer tasting classes along with offering brewery tours. Beer distributors started noticing the little brewery that was developing a strong consumer following.

New Glarus Brewing Company has grown to 50 full-time employees, has registered growth in profits of 123 percent from 2007 to 2009, and is Wisconsin’s number one micro-brewery relative to sales volume.

Rare Beer Prices On eBay

By

ebay
A GT Wharton posted an interesting survey that he conducted about the prices people will bay for rare beer on eBay. His article, entitled Market Behavior for Rare Beer: eBay Auction Prices in Review appeared today on Rate Beer’s Hop Press. It appears to be a quite thorough look at auction prices realized over a one-month period. His dataset included 887 auctions. The average price was $122 ($137 w/shipping included). $9.50 was the low price and $999 the highest.

The five most expensive auctions by 12oz volume were:

  1. Midnight Sun M: $544.77
  2. Cantillon Don Quijote: $312.40
  3. Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus 1992 Vintage: $284.00
  4. Russian River Depuration: $265.07
  5. Flossmoor Station Wooden Hell: $260.12

And here, for example, is a chart showing “Average Value of Three Floyds Dark Lord by Vintage.”
Wharton-Ebay1

Interesting stuff. He doesn’t go into the moral dilemma of selling beer on eBay and the fact that most brewers decry the practice, but from a merely numbers perspective it’s worth a read.

The Top 50 Annotated 2010

By

ba
This is my fifth annual annotated list of the Top 50 so you can see who moved up and down, who was new to the list and who dropped off. So here is this year’s list again annotated with how they changed compared to last year.

  1. Anheuser-Busch InBev; #1 last five years, no surprises
  2. MillerCoors; ditto for #2
  3. Pabst Brewing; ditto for #3
  4. D. G. Yuengling and Son; Same as last year
  5. Boston Beer Co.; Same as last year
  6. Sierra Nevada Brewing; Same as last year
  7. New Belgium Brewing; Same as last year
  8. North American Breweries; new entity
  9. Craft Brewers Alliance; Moved down 1 for 2nd straight year
  10. Spoetzl Brewery (Gambrinus); Moved down 1
  11. Deschutes Brewery; Up 2
  12. Independent Brewers United (IBU); Same as last year, with a new name
  13. F.X. Matt Brewing; Moved down 1, after moving up 1 last year
  14. Minhas Craft Brewery; Down 2 over last year
  15. Bell’s Brewery; Up 4 from #19 last year
  16. Harpoon Brewery; Up 1 from #17 last year
  17. Boulevard Brewing; Down 1 from #16 last year
  18. Goose Island Beer; Up 2, for 2nd straight year, from #20 last year
  19. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery; Shot up 5 from #24, after being up 9, 5 and 4 the three previous years
  20. Alaskan Brewing; Down 2 from #18 last year
  21. Long Trail Brewing; Leapt up 14 from #35 last year
  22. August Schell Brewing; Up 4 from last year
  23. Stone Brewing; Same as last year, though they were up 5 each of last two years
  24. Abita Brewing; Up 4 from #28 last year
  25. Brooklyn Brewery; Up 2 from #27 last year
  26. Lagunitas Brewing; Jumped up 10 from #36 last year
  27. Full Sail Brewing; Down 5 for the 2nd straight year
  28. Shipyard Brewing; Down 3 from #31 last year
  29. Summit Brewing; Same as last year
  30. New Glarus Brewing; Up 2 from #32 last year
  31. Great Lakes Brewing; Up 2 from #31 last year
  32. Anchor Brewing; Down 2 from #30
  33. Iron City Brewing; Down 8, after dropping 12 last year, after a Chapter 11 bankruptcy and moving production out of Pittsburgh
  34. Kona Brewing; Fell 13 after being up 2 last year, and 14 the previous year
  35. Rogue Ales/Oregon Brewing; Down 1, after being up 2 last year, canceling being down 2 the previous year, and up 2 the year before that, essentially hovering
  36. Firestone Walker Brewing; Up 4 from #40 last year
  37. Winery Exchange Inc. / World Brew; Novato CA; new to the list this year
  38. Sweetwater Brewing; Up 1 from #39 last year
  39. Mendocino Brewing; Down 2 from #7 last year, after falling 8 the previous year
  40. Flying Dog Brewery; Up 2 from #42 last year
  41. Victory Brewing; Same as last year
  42. Gordon Biersch Brewing; Down 4 from #38 last year
  43. BJs Restaurant & Brewery; Down 1 from #43 last year
  44. Stevens Point Brewery; Up 6 from #50 last year
  45. Odell Brewing; Down 1 from #44 last year
  46. BridgePort Brewing (Gambrinus); Up 1 from #47 last year
  47. Cold Spring Brewing; Not in Top 50 last year
  48. Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants; Down 3 from #45 last year
  49. Oskar Blues Brewing; Not in Top 50 last year
  50. Straub Brewery; Down 3 from #46 last year

Some new companies made the list, two from mergers — North American Breweries and Independent Brewers United — along with Winery Exchange Inc. as a result of doing a contract private label beer for the Walgreen’s pharmacy chain, Big Flats.

Two breweries are new to the list this year, Oskar Blues and Cold Spring Brewing again, who fell off last year but had been on the list the year before that under their former name, Gluek Brewing. Two more are off the list, Big Sky Brewing and Lost Coast Brewing, who had just cracked the list last year.

If you want to see the previous annotated lists for comparison, here is 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006.

Top 50 Breweries For 2010

By

ba
The Brewers Association has also just announced the top 50 breweries in the U.S. based on sales, by volume, for 2010. This includes all breweries, regardless of size or other parameters. Here is the new list:

  1. Anheuser-Busch InBev; St Louis MO
  2. MillerCoors; Chicago IL
  3. Pabst Brewing; Woodridge IL
  4. D. G. Yuengling and Son; Pottsville PA
  5. Boston Beer Co.; Boston MA
  6. Sierra Nevada Brewing; Chico CA
  7. New Belgium Brewing; Fort Collins CO
  8. North American Breweries; Rochester, NY
  9. Craft Brewers Alliance, Inc.; Portland, OR
  10. Spoetzl Brewery (Gambrinus); Spoetzl TX
  11. Deschutes Brewery; Bend OR
  12. Independent Brewers United (IBU); Burlington, VT
  13. F.X. Matt Brewing; Utica NY
  14. Minhas Craft Brewery; Monroe WI
  15. Bell’s Brewery; Galesburg MI
  16. Harpoon Brewery; Boston, MA
  17. Boulevard Brewing; Kansas City MO
  18. Goose Island Beer; Chicago IL
  19. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery; Lewes DE
  20. Alaskan Brewing; Juneau AK
  21. Long Trail Brewing; Burlington VT
  22. August Schell Brewing; New Ulm MN
  23. Stone Brewing; Escondido CA
  24. Abita Brewing; New Orleans LA
  25. Brooklyn Brewery; Brooklyn NY
  26. Lagunitas Brewing; Petaluma CA
  27. Full Sail Brewing; Hood River OR
  28. Shipyard Brewing; Portland ME
  29. Summit Brewing; Saint Paul MN
  30. New Glarus Brewing; New Glarus WI
  31. Great Lakes Brewing; Cleveland OH
  32. Anchor Brewing; San Francisco CA
  33. Iron City Brewing; Pittsburgh PA
  34. Kona Brewing; Kailua-Kona HI
  35. Rogue Ales/Oregon Brewing; Newport OR
  36. Firestone Walker Brewing; Paso Robles CA
  37. Winery Exchange Inc. / World Brew; Novato CA
  38. SweetWater Brewing; Atlanta GA
  39. Mendocino Brewing; Ukiah CA
  40. Flying Dog Brewery; Frederick MD
  41. Victory Brewing; Downington PA
  42. Gordon Biersch Brewing; San Jose CA
  43. BJs Restaurant & Brewery; Huntington Beach CA
  44. Stevens Point Brewery; Stevens Point WI
  45. Odell Brewing; Fort Collins CO
  46. Bridgeport Brewing (Gambrinus); Portland OR
  47. Cold Spring Brewing; Cold Spring MN
  48. Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants; Louisville CO
  49. Oskar Blues Brewery; Longmont CO
  50. Straub Brewery; Saint Mary’s PA

Here is this year’s press release.