Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Napa Smith Brewery Sold

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The Napa Smith Brewery of Napa, California has been sold to Pelican Brands, an alcohol brand management company from Indiana. According to the CSBA, the “purchase includes seven acres of land and 50,000 sq.ft. of production, warehousing and office space.” Pelican Brands plans to make Napa Smith beer available nationwide over the next year.

Brewmaster Don Barkley, who worked for America’s first modern craft brewery, New Albion, and also founded Mendocino Brewing, will be remaining with the brewery.

It appears that Pelican Brands has ambitious plans for the brand. J. Smoke Wallin, Chairman & CEO of Pelican Brands, said, “It is our belief that while a few will become regional brands, a very select few will become national brands. In a press release, the company stated that Napa Smith will be available nationwide by mid 2011.

“In the past three months alone, Napa Smith, through Pelican’s platform, has expanded into eight new states. Pelican Brands will provide the growth capital needed for further expansion. Napa’s winemakers made the Napa Valley into a global name and destination. We are proud to continue this tradition by bringing beer — brewed with the same level of quality and attention to detail — to discerning consumers everywhere.”

California Distributors Against Prop 19

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The trade group representing California beer distributors, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors (CBBD) has reportedly donated $10,000 to the No on Proposition 19 campaign.

California’s Prop 19 is about the control and taxation of marijuana, not legalization per se, but it’s still seen as a step in the right direction by many beer lovers. The 420 Times has part of the story. Because of the CBBD’s donation and opposition to Prop 19, I’ve seen a number of sharp denunciations from many beer enthusiasts, criticizing both breweries who appear on the CBBD’s website and by extension the California Small Brewers Association.

Since I work with the CSBA, I wanted to set the record straight. The CSBA does not take a stand on non-industry related issues and has no stated position on Prop 19. The CSBA is strictly a grass roots organization and does not contribute PAC money to any initiative or make campaign contributions to any candidates.

The CBBD is made up strictly of beer distributors in California. They are independent beverage distributors and are not directly associated with craft brewers. Of course, most, if not all, of the CBBD distributors do business with craft breweries throughout the state. But the CBBD does not represent in any way the political interests of the craft brewing community or individual breweries.

I’ve written about this before, but the interests of distributors and breweries do not always align, and this is yet another example. Presumably, distributors feel that making marijuana commercially available represents competition for the products they sell, and that’s why they oppose it. Most craft breweries, I suspect, do not feel similarly threatened by Prop 19, but regardless of any brewery’s individual stance on it, the CBBD does not speak for them or the CSBA.

SF Alcohol Tax Passes In Initial Vote

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To no one’s surprise, the proposed ordinance to impose a new tax on alcohol sold in San Francisco passed today in a city supervisors’ meeting. The next step (before last week’s postponed meeting) was that it would be voted on a second time at another board meeting on September 14, so now I presume any second vote will be at a later meeting.

It will then go to mayor Gavin Newsom, who has ten days to either sign or veto it. The mayor is on the record saying he’ll veto it, at which point it will be sent back to the Board of Supervisors who can override Newsom’s veto with eight votes. That would most likely be in early to mid-October.

As an aside, I’ve noticed every news report lately, even NPR, that mentions Newsom’s intention to veto the ordinance also brings up the fact that he used to be in the alcohol business, as if that means he’s incapable of deciding anything impartially. It’s more likely he understands the arguments of the small brewers, vintners, distillers, bar owners, retailers, etc. who oppose it. But it’s sure nice to see that unbiased reporting by our local media, way to not take sides.

During the hearing supervisor Chris Daly called those who disagreed with the proposed ordinance “whiners” … excuse, me “f___ing whiners.” Very classy. You can see the stream in the Marin Institute’s twitter feed of the meeting. NOTE: I initially said it was the Marin Institute who was tweeting that, not realizing it was Daly who said it. I apologize for the mistake.

The Politics Of Deception

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I was going to stay away from commenting on a new bill in California, AB 1060, really I was. Something about it bothered me from the start, the problem it seeks to fix never seemed credible, but it seemed inevitable that it would pass anyway. It was actually introduced in February of 2009 and has been winding its way through the state legislature ever since. It was recently passed and is on its way to the Governator’s office for signature or veto.

What AB 1060 does it make it illegal for stores, primarily grocery stores, to sell alcohol using the new self-serve checkout machines that are popping up all over the place. The argument is that underage kids can get around the roadblocks in the system set up to keep underage people from being able to — gasp — purchase alcohol. The bill also tackles the made-up problems of intoxicating people buying booze and theft, though it’s not the theft of the alcohol that worries the state, but the theft of the tax revenue lost in the theft.

The bill was spun so that it’s all about “Alcohol & Teen Drinking Prevention,” as is made clear by the Yes on AB 1060 website. They write:

AB 1060 only requires that customers walk over a few feet to a checkout line with a cashier who can check ID. It’s not too much to ask to protect our youth and our communities.

It is only a matter of time that our youth will exploit a vulnerable system to purchase alcohol without showing ID. We must take action to stop it now.

As they state, “[i]t’s not too much to ask to protect our youth and our communities.” And no, perhaps it’s not, but it is just one more way in which the roughly 80% of the population who is above 21 is inconvenienced yet again in our out-of-proportion drive to “protect” the young’uns. And that’s why I initially just let it go, because I’d sound like even more of a jackass than I usually do if I got worked up about not being able to more quickly check out of the grocery store every time I wanted to buy beer.

One funny thing I can’t help but note is how our nation’s youth is portrayed as being at once naive and in great need of being protected and, of course, not be able to responsibly drink alcohol but yet at the same time they say it’s “only a matter of time [before] our youth will exploit a vulnerable system to purchase alcohol without showing ID.” Wow, we must have a pretty savvy and well-organized generation of kids who can take down the best computer minds who created — you have to admit — the pretty amazing self-checkout machine.

Anyway, what’s changed my mind is that MADD, Join Together and the Marin Institute are all supporting the bill and urging Governor Terminator to sign it into law.

Except, as an aside, I have to mention that the Marin Institute is supposedly a “watchdog.” What are they doing weighing in on this? Their “mission” is “to protect the public from the impact of the alcohol industry’s negative practices.” This has absolutely nothing to do with the alcohol industry, this is about grocery stores and youth access to alcohol (supposedly, anyway). Making it harder for everyone to buy alcohol draped in the protective mantle of “it’s for the kids” is the domain of the neo-prohibitionists, something they assure me they’re not.

But when you look deeper, you find that this bill may not really be about the kids at all, and instead may be about money and unions. The support of the neo-prohibitionists was either a calculated ploy on the part of the bill’s sponsors or a very happy accident. State Senator Tom Harmon, from the 35th District (Orange County coastline) has a very different story to tell. Last month, he wrote AB 1060 is a Solution in Search of a Problem, which is below here in its entirety. It made no difference, of course, in the final vote, because a good story, especially one that’s about protecting the kiddies, beats the truth every time.

When something looks too good to be true, a smart person starts wondering what’s behind it. In the case of Assembly Bill 1060, you don’t have to look very far. Presented as a feel-good law to protect kids, this bill is really about protecting union jobs.

AB 1060 purports to solve a number of “problems.” Minors sneaking alcohol through self-service checkouts, drunken shoppers buying more booze, and the state missing out on its share of sales taxes because self-check out technology facilitates stealing. None of these arguments makes much sense.

The bill theorizes that kids could buy alcohol beverages at self-serve check aisles. In fact, there is already a lock-out mechanism at such stands preventing anyone from buying alcohol without a clerk present to sign off on their age. Next?

Protecting inebriated shoppers from themselves is a real howler. Anybody who’s ever used one of those self-serve check-out stands knows it’s difficult enough for a sober person.

Finally, the bill’s author worries that the state will lose sales tax money if more booze is boosted. Is this about money or about protecting customers? If this were a problem, would stores — who have more to lose than the state if their merchandise is stolen — have instituted self check-out in the first place? Obviously not.

AB 1060 would deny a liquor license to any store “using a point-of-sale system with limited or no assistance from an employee of the licensee.” Read that again. It means a store that sells alcohol beverages could not have any self-serve check stands.

The bill’s true target is Fresh and Easy, a new supermarket chain that features all-self-service check stands. Fresh and Easy supermarkets are designed to provide affordable food choices by holding down costs through automation and energy efficiency. They’re finding a niche in low-income, underserved neighborhoods. Their workers are non-union.

AB 1060 mandates greater employee supervision of self-service check stands, increasingly used in major supermarkets. And it would limit supermarkets’ low-cost, self-service technology.

Instead of helping constituents find accessible, affordable food, this bill by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre will raise food prices for all shoppers in order to protect supermarket unions. It has nothing to do with protecting youngsters, drunks or taxpayers.

But none of that matters to the neo-prohibitionists. They care about restricting access to alcohol for everybody.

A Conversation With Fritz Maytag

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Reason TV, the video arm of Reason magazine (who’ve I’ve written for), was created through a grant from Drew Carey. They’ve done a number of short online videos on a variety of subjects, and have their own YouTube channel. They even did one based on, or perhaps inspired by, the article I did for them a few years ago, entitled Beer: An American Revolution. More recently, they did an interesting 10-minute interview with Fritz Maytag, the godfather of the craft beer movement in America. If you’ve heard Maytag speak before or have been around him any length of time, there’s nothing new in the interview, but with him moving into the role of Emeritus as new owners take over the day-to-day operations, it’s great to have a video record of some of Fritz’s stories.

Trash Talking Prop 26

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This is a great example of what I hate about anti-alcohol organizations and the Marin Institute in particular. Given that they’re trying to impose a new tax on alcohol in San Francisco using a mechanism that came about through case law (the Sinclair decision) where calling what would otherwise be a tax a “fee” allows them to circumvent the normal two-thirds vote needed for a new tax, it’s no surprise that they’re against one of the propositions on the November ballot — namely Prop 26. That’s because Prop 26 seeks to do away with the Sinclair loophole where taxes masquerading as a fee will no longer require a simple majority, but will instead need two-thirds to pass, just like every other tax. That would be a big blow to their efforts to get more taxes imposed in other communities in California. So it’s entirely natural that they’d oppose it. I’d have been surprised to hear any other scenario.

But here’s what I didn’t, but perhaps should have, expected: the low down dirty politics and propaganda by which their opposition has taken shape. In an e-mail blast today, the Marin Institute is blaming “big alcohol” for the proposition and acting as if it’s happening in a vacuum, with no responsibility on their part. It’s shameless spin and as ugly a piece of propaganda as I’ve seen. If I’d had a beer in mouth when I was reading it, I most likely would have spit it out in surprise on more than one occasion.

First of all, they characterize the proposition as one which would “essentially absolve companies that pollute, or otherwise cause harm to the public, from paying for that harm by subjecting fees to the same impossible two-thirds vote that taxes must garner to be enacted.” Horseshit. What the proposition does is subject all taxes to the same standard, in effect closing the loophole that Sinclair opened. Calling them “fees” to get around the 2/3 standard was simply a way to circumvent the state tax law.

A stated by the Yes on 26 advocates:

State and local politicians have been using a loophole in the law to raise taxes by disguising them as “fees” — costing consumers billions of dollars in higher costs for goods like food, gas, and cell phones. Prop. 26 requires politicians to meet the same Constitutional requirement to pass these Hidden Taxes as to pass other taxes — with a two-thirds vote of the Legislature at the state level, and with a vote of the people at the local level.

Next the Marin Institutes note “a review of the Yes on Prop 26 website shows Big Alcohol’s fingerprints all over the measure.” By “all over,” of course, they mean are supporting it and/or have donated money to support it. They go on to add that “August saw an infusion of $800,000 to the Prop 26 campaign by the Small Business Action Committee (SBA). According to an article in Capitol Weekly, the SBA “revealed that it received more than $1 million from alcohol, tobacco and real estate groups. Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris USA, donated $500,000. Anheuser-Busch, which brews Budweiser, gave $200,000 and the Wine Institute chipped in another $50,000.”

Hmm, in August there was infusion of donations to support Prop 26? What might have triggered that? What is the Marin Institute not telling you? July and August is when every company who makes alcohol, distributes alcohol and sells and serves alcohol realized they were under attack by the Marin Institute, who was pushing Avalos and supplying him him with all the resources for the test case to add a new tax to alcohol in San Francisco. That’s when most us even became aware of Prop 26. Before that, I’d wager, hardly anyone in the alcohol industry had paid it much attention. When you’re being attacked, you tend to defend yourself.

But the Marin Institute also makes it sound as if “Big Alcohol” and “Big Oil” are behind Prop 26. They’re not. The proposition was sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Taxpayers’ Association, not exactly radical organizations out to cheat the public the way the Marin Institute spins it. While the Marin Institute focuses on beer and wine companies, there are over 100 organizations who support the proposition, including nearly sixty chambers of commerce and tax organizations. The rest are primarily trade organizations from a wide range of businesses and industries. That alcohol companies seem over-represented is a direct result of the actions of the Marin Institute. So having caused this situation, using it in propaganda against the proposition without acknowledging it seems pretty shiftless to me.

But it’s their conclusion that has me sighing in exhausted frustration. “Instead of spending all that money to get out of paying for the harm its products cause, perhaps Big Alcohol could instead just pay its fair share to offset massive societal costs.” I’m so tired of this mantra of theirs. First of all, the harm isn’t caused by the products — alcohol — but by individual abusers, people who should take responsibility for their actions. And the vast majority of drinkers do not abuse it. Second, every good or service sold in the world has the potential to cost society something, and most in fact do. But the idea that only alcohol has to “pay” the costs that abusers cost society is maddening. Guns, red meat, high fructose corn syrup, oil, cars, fast food, and every freaking other thing gets a pass; economists even have a word for it — externalities. But the insistence that alcohol has to pay for the bad decisions by individual abusers just rankles, especially when that’s characterized as its “fair share.” Either everything — every company, every product, etc. — pays the individual costs to society that can somehow be ascribed to them or no one does. There’s nothing fair about making one pay while everyone else gets a pass.

San Francisco Votes on Alcohol Tax

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For the second time, San Francisco supervisor John Avalos has gone back on his word. As the sponsor of the the new proposed tax on all alcohol sold in San Francisco ordinance, he first told the Small Business Commission that he would delay a hearing on the tax in mid-July. But because of Proposition 26 on the ballet having the potential to do away with the type of tax masquerading as a fee that he’s proposing, he changed his mind and went forward with the hearing anyway. Later, in late August, it looked like it was all but inevitable that he would send it back into committee for more review due to overwhelming opposition by the business community. Well that didn’t last long either, and he changed his mind again and later today, at 2:00 p.m., the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on the new tax. It’s likely that it will get the required six votes to pass and at that point will be voted on a second time at another board meeting on September 14.

It will then go to mayor Gavin Newsom, who has ten days to either sign or veto it. The mayor is on the record saying he’ll veto it, at which point it will be sent back to the Board of Supervisors who can override Newsom’s veto with eight votes. That would most likely be in early October. Why Avalos keeps saying one thing and doing another is pure politics, of course. The strategy now is that “he wants to push for a veto override.” The likeliest reason is that someone — perhaps the Marin institute? — has whispered in his ear that they can flip two supervisors and get him the two additional votes he needs to override the anticipated mayoral veto. The Marin Institute has begun marshaling their base to contact the politicians against the alcohol tax in a web alert. Obviously, that works both ways and I’d suggest that if you’re against the new tax, you should contact them and ask them to continue to oppose it.

If you’re in the city today and want to oppose this tax, please consider attending the meeting and voicing your opposition. I’ll have more on this later on today, but wanted to get this out as soon as possible.

UPDATE: Today’s vote has been canceled due to some sort of mix-up with the clerks office. It has now been rescheduled for next Tuesday, September 14.

Picking Hops In The Moonlight

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Yesterday, we took our annual family-outing to pick hops at Moonlight Brewery in Sonoma County, California. Founder and brewmaster Brian Hunt has a quarter-acre he planted several years ago after Vinnie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewing, had to pull out the hops he had at Korbel when he moved the brewery to Santa Rosa. Russian River’s now growing their own and Moonlight has continued to keep his hopfield going, using the hops primarily to brew his fresh hop beer Homegrown.

I’ve been volunteering to help pick hops for a number of years now, and began taking the family a few years ago, recreating how it would have been done in he later Nineteenth century before hops were harvested using machinery. In those days, the entire community would turn out to pick the hops, with the men working the fields, women putting on lavish picnic spreads (and helping with the picking) and the kids pitching in andalso playing among the hopvines. It’s great fun and really does feel like the community coming together to help out. Everyone does their part, and we all talk and laugh while sitting in the circle and picking the hops.

The Abbey de St. Humulus hop field, a.k.a. Moonlight Brewery
The Abbey de St. Humulus hop field, a.k.a. Moonlight Brewery

Through the hop field
The beautiful green of hops in the field, ripe for the picking.

Alice outstanding in her field ... hop field, that is.
My daughter Alice outstanding in her field … hop field, that is.

Hops as far as the eye can see
Hops on the vine, as far as the eye can see.

Hops flowers on the vine
A close-up of the hop cones, the flowers that will be picked and added to the beer.

The the clipping are bundled up, as demonstrated here by Brian Hunt
Moonlight brewmaster Brian Hunt holding a bundle of hops, freshly cut down for picking.

Picking the hops
The hopvines are placed in the center of a circle, where people work on each vine, pulling the hops off by hand and putting them into a plastic bucket.

My wife Sarah and her hop vine
My wife Sarah showing off her hop-picking skills.

Below is a slideshow of our family outing to pick hops. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.

And below is a short video of cutting down the hops and taking them to be picked.

You Should Know Jack

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Jack McAuliffe may just be the most elusive figure in the short history of craft beer. He was craft before craft beer was cool. The former Navy man and engineer founded the very first modern microbrewery in Sonoma County, California in 1976 (New Albion incorporated October 8, 1976) and began production the following year using a brewery he built from spare parts. His New Albion Brewery was all alone for at least three years until Sierra Nevada Brewing joined him in 1980, essentially doubling the number of new breweries.

But New Albion was a bit ahead of its time and by 1982 was out of business. As I understand it, a disheartened McAuliffe tired of reliving his brewery’s failure, and eventually disappeared from the burgeoning beer community that his efforts inspired. For a number of years, few people knew where he was, but Maureen Ogle managed to track him down living in Las Vegas when she was working on Ambitious Brew and provides one of the fullest accounts of the New Albion Brewery beginning at Page 291. More recently, after a bad car accident landed McAuliffe in intensive care, he moved to San Antonio, Texas to live with his sister. Happily, San Antonio has taken to their adopted son, and the San Antonio Express-News had a nice story about Jack and his new collaboration with Sierra Nevada Brewing, San Antonio’s Jack McAuliffe is namesake of commemorative Sierra Nevada beer.

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Ken Grossman pours a beer for Jack McAuliffe as (I think) Charlie Bamforth looks on.

The latest collaboration beer celebrating Sierra Nevada’s 30th anniversary this year is based on a beer that Jack used to make at New Albion for another annual celebration.

In the late ’70s, New Albion brewed a special beer for annual Summer Solstice parties that didn’t particularly hew to any style, but occupied a space somewhere between a porter and a barley wine.

Using that concept and the ingredients that were available at the time, Ken and Jack’s Ale recipe was born. It contains Canadian two-row and European caramel barley and a combination of Cascade and cluster hops.

Grossman describes the beer as a “dark barleywine that is bottle fermented.” It clocks in at 10 percent ABV, which McAuliffe points out is the upper limit of what conventional yeast can survive. Like any beer, you can drink this one right away, but it will likely improve with age.

It’s certainly great to see Jack McAuliffe in the public eye again. Few people deserve to be more well-known in the beer world than him. It’s a real shame that so few people know Jack and his contribution to the modern craft beer community. We all really should know Jack. Hell, I think October 8 should be considered the birthday of modern craft beer, which in a couple of weeks will celebrate its 34th. Let’s all raise a toast to Jack, every year, on that day.

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Jack & Ken’s Ale, a black barley wine.