Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Latrobe Rallys to Save Brewery

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According to local Pittsburgh television station, WPXI Channel 11, a rally will be held today in downtown Latrobe, Pennsylvania by local leaders to build support for the Latrobe Brewery and “find a buyer for the Latrobe brewing company plant in an effort to save 250 jobs.”

Anheuser-Busch announced last week that it was buying Rolling Rock and would be moving production of the brand to Newark, New Jersey. A-B also plans to sell the Latrobe Brewery, which was founded in 1883. It will most likely close this summer, sometime in mid-July seems likeliest.

Channel 11 plans on running a live report on their five o’clock report by news reporter Katrina Owens.

The Latrobe Brewer in downtown Latrobe, Pennsylvania, seen here in 2001.

Heavyweight Brewing Down for the Count

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In two articles posted Saturday and this morning, the BeerYard is reporting that New Jersey’s iconoclastic Heavyweight Brewing will be throwing in the towel sometime this summer, most likely in mid-July. They have three more beers to brew and that’s it, according to the report. They’ll also be selling off their remaining stock of bottled beers.

In the BeerYard’s exclusive interview, owner Tom Baker indicated that he and his wife (and business partner) Peggy will most likely be looking to open a brewpub/good beer bar in the near future, probably in the Philadelphia area. So the news is bittersweet. While it’s sad news indeed that a craft brewer who made such interesting and delicious beers — I don’t think I ever had one of Tom’s beers I didn’t like — is closing, it sounds like there will still be a forum for Tom’s great beers, which is cause for great joy.

Heavyweight Brewing’s owners, Peggy Zwerver and Tom Baker.

Alaskan Brewing Finalist for Business Awards

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Okay, I admit it. I’d never heard of the American Business Awards or the coveted Stevie Award — Greek for “crowned” — before I received the press release from Alaskan Brewing Co.

But out of 1,500 companies who entered, Alaskan Brewing is a finalist in four categories: Best Marketing Team, Best Creative Team, Best Marketer and Best Corporate Communicator. That last one made me chuckle, because my friend Kristi Monroe is the person nominated for that award and she’s also the person who sent out the press release telling me about it. But she deserves to win, so I’ll be rooting for her to win. Founders Geoff and Marcy Larsen are great people and they’ve managed to assemble a great group of people.

Oh, and they make great beer, too. Geoff, who also literally wrote the book about smoked beers, makes one of the best smoked beers in the world. The Alskan Smoked Porter is one of those rare beers that continues to improve dramaticially with age. I did a great lateral tasting of four vintages of the Smoked Porter a number of years ago put on by All Saints Brands at GABF.

From the press release:

The Alaskan Brewing Company is a finalist in every category it entered in its first year competing for the coveted Stevie Awards. Winners will be announced at the Fourth Annual American Business Awards in New York on June 12.

Citing innovative marketing programs and collateral materials, Alaskan Brewing is a finalist in four categories: Best Marketing Team, Best Creative Team, Best Marketer and Best Corporate Communicator.

“Our Brew Crew put together a series of highly effective marketing programs that catapulted Alaskan Brewing growth, making it the leading West Coast craft brewer during 2005,” said Sales and Marketing Director, Fred Hees, finalist in the Best Marketer category.

Hailed as “the business world’s version of the Oscars” by the New York Post (April 27, 2005), the American Business Awards are the only national, all-encompassing business awards program honoring great performances in the workplace.

“With 1,500 nominees submitted for consideration, we are so excited to be recognized with the likes of Microsoft and other large corporations,” said Kristi Monroe, finalist for Best Corporate Communicator. “Despite being a small business on a conservative budget in a remote location of Alaska, we are producing quality programs and obtaining successful, measurable results.”

“Among the work recognized are our partnerships with the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, Alaska Airlines and Alaska Seafood,” said Brand Manager Cindy Burchfield, a key member of the Creative and Marketing teams, both of which are finalists. “We are thrilled to share this honor with these friends of Alaskan Brewing and our longtime supporters.”

Good luck guys, I’ll be rooting for you.

A-B Buys Rolling Rock

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Last week it was just a rumor, today it’s now official. Anheuser-Busch, in it’s drive to pick up new brands, has agreed to purchase the Rolling Rock brand from rival brewing giant InBev for $82 million.

Since Rolling Rock is not technically a craft brewer, buying them is perhaps a little more curious than their courting of other craft brands. But Rolling Rock was sold, nationally at least, beginning in the 1980s as if it were a microbrewery. This was done quite successfully and it did in fact create a pretty good image for itself when their weren’t very many national micros. Those of us who grew up in Pennsylvania weren’t fooled but generally speaking the unsophisticated beer consumer believed — and perhaps still believes — Rolling Rock is a craft beer. And I think it’s that very quality, it’s status as essentially a faux micro, that makes it ideal as an A-B product. A-B is very good as selling brands as much more than they are in reality so this will, I think, be a marriage made in heaven, albeit a heaven with no real beer.

From the press release:

Introduced in 1939 by Latrobe Brewing Co. and acquired by InBev’s Labatt U.S.A. in 1987, Rolling Rock is an historic American lager that is well-known for its distinctive, full-bodied taste and painted green bottle. Rolling Rock has established itself as an authentic, iconic American lager with a loyal following.

Anheuser-Busch acquires the Rolling Rock brands and recipes with the transaction, and will now start to work with the existing Rolling Rock wholesaler network and Anheuser-Busch wholesalers to define plans for the future. Anheuser-Busch will begin brewing Rolling Rock and Rock Green Light in August using the brands’ same time-honored recipes, maintaining Rolling Rock’s craftsmanship and heritage that its fans expect and appreciate. Internationally, Rolling Rock will continue to be sold in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

“We have an ideal opportunity to grow this historic brand,” said August A. Busch IV, president of Anheuser-Busch Inc. “This beer is not like others, and its consumer following is equally distinctive. We live in a diverse world where consumers are hungry for variety. Acquiring Rolling Rock enables us to reach a new audience and to continue building our broad portfolio of products that meet the wide-ranging needs of consumers.”

InBev plans to sell its brewery in Latrobe, Pa., separately to focus its U.S. business on imported beers. It is in discussions with potential buyers to determine the best available options for the brewery and its employees.

“The decision to sell the Rolling Rock brands was based on InBev’s strategic approach to the U.S. market, which is to focus on the high-growth import brands in our portfolio,” said Doug Corbett, president of InBev USA. “Our sales and marketing efforts will emphasize our leading imported beers, including Stella Artois, Bass Pale Ale, Beck’s, Brahma and Labatt Blue.”

Samuel Adams Brings Back the Longshot

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Back in the mid-1990s, Boston Beer Co. sponsored a contest for homebrewers. For a couple of years, homebrewers submitted their efforts in the hopes of seeing their beer in a six-pack. That’s because the two winners for each year’s contest would have their beer commercially brewed and sold under the Longshot label by Boston Beer. Some of them actually sold fairly well. When I was the beer buyer at Beverages & more, the Hazelnut Brown did okay, as did the Pale Ale. It was a fun promotion and did a lot to publicize homebrewing and brewing in general, I thought.

So I was happy to see that they’re bringing back the Longshot contest this year. Three lucky homebrewers will have their beer brewed and released commercially in a six-pack. The top five beers will be available to taste at the Great American Beer Festival this September. Festival attendees will choose the three winners by voting for their favorite. In February 2007, six-packs will be available for sale with two bottles each of the three top vote-getters. Beers must be submitted between August 1-18. For more details, there is additional information about the promotion on the Sam Adams website.

 

SABMiller Reports Drop in Profits, Rise in Earnings

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The Associated Press (AP) indicated today that “SABMiller reported a 5.3 percent drop in full-year profits.” Though confusingly, only a 4% drop in pre-tax profits is listed in the press release from SABMiller. The decline is blamed primarily on Miller’s price wars with A-B and Coors.

Reuters take on this story, in contrast, was that “SABMiller posted an 8 percent rise in annual earnings.” It’s interesting to see how the same story is framed by two different mainstream news services.

Job Listing: Beer Salesmen for California

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Artisanal Imports, importers of some excellent Belgian and English beers such as St. Feuillien, De Leyerth and Meantime, is looking for part-time/independent salesmen for both the Northen California and Southern California areas. They’re looking primarily for assistance in the areas of the independent off-premise and on-premise.

Check out their portfolio, they have eight imported brands and have recently added Flying Dog Brewery from Denver, Colorado (who recently bought Frederick Brewing — and renamed it Wild Goose Brewery — of Maryland)

If you’re interested or would like to learn more, please call Sean Knoll on his cell phone at 303-564-8841. Serious inquiries only, please.

Anheuser-Busch Organic Beers Out of the Closet

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After about six weeks or so of being “temporarily down” the Wild Hop Lager website is back online. For those of you new to this story, Wild Hop Lager is actually a beer created and made by Anheuser-Busch though that fact was not disclosed on the package. It also made no mention of this fact previously on the website, though that has changed with the debut of the new (improved?) website. It’s just as slick as it was before and it’s remarkably similar in look and feel to A-B’s sister stealth organic micro, Stone Mill Pale Ale, which also recently changed its website to disclose its relationship (although they claimed it was a partnership).

Probably the biggest change is that the website does now disclose that this is a product of Anheuser-Busch. It’s right at the bottom in fine print, where it says. “Brewed by Green Valley Brewing Company in Fairfield, CA, the organically certified brewery of Anhesuer-Busch Companies, Inc.” And that’s almost the full story, although I’m pretty sure it’s the beer that’s certified, not the brewery. In my mind, they still make it sound like A-B is operating a little separate brewery called Green Valley in Fairfield, California. But unless they’ve set aside a small pilot brewery which I’m not aware of, the Fairfield Plant is a giant behemoth of a brewery that presumably churns out most of the A-B products for the northwestern quadrant of the Western United States (there is also a plant in Los Angeles). A-B operates about a dozen or so plants in the U.S., of which five offer tours, and none of them are exactly little. So while it technically may be full disclosure, it still seems a tad misleading to the majority of non-beer industry people who would not know that.

Also missing from the new website is the promise to make a donation to the Organic Farming Research Foundation of Santa Cruz, California “with every purchase of Wild Hop Lager.” It was actually a couple of days after I did a phone interview with Bob Scowcroft, Executive Director of the OFRF about the nature of the donation they were to receive, that the Wild Hop Lager website went down. And that’s a shame because it seems like a very worthwhile organization. But click on “Product Info” and you’ll see that A-B is still at least supporting the organic farming charity. And they say they’ll “join them to sponsor research relating to organic farming practices,” not that the OFRF does any other kinds of research. So while it appears they’ll no longer be donating a percentage of sales, at least A-B may make additional donations to the OFRF.

 
 

Of course, I doubt if disclosure has been made at the most important level, the packaging in the store. It may be that future packaging either on the label or the six-pack carrier — or both — will state that Wild Hop Lager is a product of Anheuser-Busch, but I’m sure there won’t be a recall. So until they sell through the initial package run, consumers will still be largely unaware of the product’s true affiliation. Until then, nothing much has really changed.

 
 

 
 

A screen capture of the new Wild Hop Lager website that has just come back online after having been down for well over a month. Click on the image to view the screen capture full size.

 
 

 
 

A screen capture of the original Wild Hop Lager website that has been down for well over a month. Click on the image to view the screen capture full size.

Crooked River’s Stone Mill Pale Ale

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Stone Mill Pale Ale, from Crooked River Brewing Co. of New Hampshire, is the newest organic stealth micro from Anheuser-Busch, not that you’ll find any information about it on their corporate website. That’s because like Wild Hop Lager of Green Valley Brewing Co., the packaging reveals no information whatsoever about who’s behind the beer. Both beers are brewed by Anheuser-Busch at either their plant in Fairfield, California or Merrimack, New Hampshire (although I have no independent knowledge of either beer being brewed anywhere but Fairfield).

Similar to Wild Hop Lager in packaging, marketing and secrecy about its origins, the Stone Mill Pale Ale is targeting high end consumers with folksy, farm-friendly images and its organic certification. The only difference I can see is one is a lager and the other an ale. Both Crooked River Brewing and Green Valley Brewing are not real breweries, they’re dba’s owned by Anheuser-Busch. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using a dba, many businesses use them, including many contract breweries.

Until they bought the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewery in Ohio, Boston Beer Co. was probably the most well-known contract brewery. There were a lot of complaints about them in the early days, especially for Oregon Brewing (their own stealth micro), but for the most part the beer itself didn’t suffer. And by and large the majority of contact breweries are simply one company making their beer at a brewery they don’t own in order to keep capital investment low.

In this case, however, the difference is quite important. Here a giant company is trying to keep that fact a secret as a marketing strategy. They know that many consumers and potential consumers of organic products would likely be reluctant to buy organic beer from America’s biggest beer company. So everything about Stone Mill Pale Ale is calculated to make it appear like a small organic company that cares about organic farming and similar issues.

But another strange thing about this is that there is, or at least was, an actual brewery by the name of Crooked River Brewing in Cleveland, Ohio. They opened in 1994 but stopped brewing in their own facility in 2000. But the label was purchased by Frederick Brewing Co. of Maryland (which itself was just bought by Denver’s Flying Dog Brewery). As far as I can tell, the Crooked River label is still currently being sold. Given the number of attorneys Anheuser-Busch employs, it’s pretty hard to believe they would have missed that their made up name was already being used by another brewery.

In addition, there used to be a Crooked Waters Brewing in Peoria, Ilinois. It was a brewpub that opened in 1996 and closed in November 2000. Then there’s a Crooked Creek Brewery that’s a contract brew made by the Straub Brewery in Pennsylvania. As far as I can tell they’re still in business and making beer, too.

So that’s a strange development. The dba for A-B’s second stealth micro has the same name as a label still being made. I’m no legal expert and I’m not a lawyer but from what I have seen in these types of trademark disputes I can’t see how Frederick Brewing could lose. They appear to own a label that’s been around for twelve years. A-B is using the same name for essentially the same class of goods. That that fact would cause confusion among consumers seems prima facie.

Anheuser-Busch’s Stone Mill Pale Ale.

UPDATE 5.17: The Stone Mill Pale Ale website does now state that they are “in partnership with Anheuser-Busch.” That’s a pretty euphemistic way of saying it is an Anheuser-Busch product. I don’t know the exact nature of the way the dba was set up, but the domain name at least is registered directly to Anheuser-Busch, Inc. Can you have a partnership with a name you made up and created out of thin air? As far as I know, the packaging does not reflect this disclosure, but perhaps new packaging will. Until then, unsuspecting consumers will still not likely know who’s making this organic beer.

Sorry this is hard to read, but this is a full size screen capture. It’s hard to read at the website, too. I guess that’s why they call it the fine print.