Today’s Honolulu Star Bulletin has a nice profile and interview with Rich Tucciarone, Director of Brewery Operations for Kona Brewing. Rich is a great guy and it’s nice to see him — and the brewery — getting some much-deserved ink in the mainstream press.
Rich Tucciarone (at right) with fellow Kona brewer Britt Antrim (at left) at last year’s GABF.
Last night Michael Jackson appeared on the Conan O’Brien Show. I’d like to say it was a rousing success. Unfortunately, I can’t. Michael was his usual self, soft spoken, a little hard to understand but with a wit still razor sharp. Though it was largely lost on his audience and the host and other guests who continued to lob insults at him throughout the segment. My guess is that someone on Conan’s staff is a fan of better beer and lobbied to have Michael Jackson on the show. Though it came out later in the interview that he had been on before, so who knows. Conan O’Brien seemed very unprepared for the interview, and showed a great deal of ignorance. I don’t think I was expecting too much here. Lucy Liu was the first guest and Conan had obviously seen the new movie she was shilling, was aware of other recent incidents in her life and generally seemed quite at ease and prepared for her. The next guest, Jon Lovitz, went equally smooth, in its way. They appeared like old friends, which they professed to be, and Conan again fielded Lovitz’s barbs with practiced ease and steered the conversation to his new movie, which Lovitz was plugging. Conan also appeared to have seen Lovitz’s new movie, so it didn’t seem too much to ask that he be somewhat familiar with his last guest. But Conan and the two previous guests were, I thought, quite rude at times to Michael and the entire segment could be seen as a metaphor for the general ignorance of the public about beer.
Michael came out wearing, I was happy to see, a new tie and even a new, unrumpled suit. But he had barely settled into his seat before Conan’s first embarassing question oozed out. “Did you ever think of becoming a wine taster instead?” To me, the question inferred that beer is not worthy whereas wine is superior to it. So let’s think about that question. The previous statement had been by way of introducing Jackson to the audience. “You’ve devoted your life to tasting beer.” He began. So basically, Conan said you’ve devoted your life to beer but maybe you should have chosen wine instead. It was like saying his life perhaps had been wasted. Now I may be overreacting here, but I don’t think so. The question, I think, showed a great deal of ignorance and was, on reflection, a mite insulting, especially as a way to begin an interview. Beginnings often set the tone for what’s to come and that was true here, as well.
The next question was equally witless. “How much beer would you say you have in a day, on average?” As if quantity was the hallmark of beer drinking. A moment later, the first decent question was asked. “And what is it you’re looking for in a beer?” To which Michael replied simply. “Taste.” For reasons passing understanding, this made Conan roll his eyes and remark. “I’m sorry I asked.” But Michael continued. “You know there’s so many people out there that drink beers that just taste of nothing whatever and they think ‘this is a great beer.’ Tastes of nothing.” But Conan appeared fixated on something the rest of us couldn’t see. It was clear he wasn’t really listening because he next told him that he believed that Michael’s fly was open. Now if this had been a celebrity who’s fly was open, common sense would dictate that they would have handled it more delicately. They would have panned away from him or zoomed in on a tight shot of Michael or Conan’s face while the embarassing open fly was zipped. It would have gone smoothly. But here they kept the camera on a wide shot the entire time and let us watch him squirm and zip it up, milking it for comedic value. Then Jon Lovitiz couldn’t keep his mouth shut and made a joke of it.
But Michael recovered nicely and asked Conan if he wanted a golden shower, by which he meant the first beer, Dogfish Head’s Golden Shower Imperial Pilsner. While he was pouring the beer into a glass, Conan asked, somewhat awkwardly. “You don’t like people drinking out of a bottle, is that right?” As if it was Michael’s personal crusade. Nobody thinks you should drink wine out of a bottle, but suggest the same thing for beer and people think you’re crazy. Michael’s reply went to the most practical reason for not drinking from a bottle. “It’s a waste of money if you do that. You don’t get the taste if you drink out of the bottle because so much of the taste is in the aroma.” Conan tried Sam’s Imperial Pilsner and declared. “Yeah, that’s beer.” Well, geez, Conan, how discerning. You were able to tell it wasn’t wine or a soda. Was that really the best you could come up with?
Then it turned surreal as Conan asked. “What’s your least favorite beer?” To which Michael immediately replied. “Corona.” Conan sat up in his chair, his eyebrows raised, appearing greatly surprised. “Really!” He exclaimed. At this point the audience actually booed! Now I don’t want to seem like an elitest here, but since I more than likely am, I’ll go out on a limb. Even if you’re unfortunate enough to actually like Corona and drink it willingly, I can’t believe you’d really think it was a fine beer. Think about it this way. You may like Wonder bread, but you know it’s not a fine bread. Or you may like fast food burgers but you know it’s not gourmet food. But apparently the audience was seeded with Grupo Modelo employees last night. If not, then my weeping for our country’s state of beer continues. Conan next turned to his producer, asking. “Does Corona advertise on this show? Oh, they do.” Then, turning back to Michael said. “I disagree with you.” Eliciting a laugh from the crowd. But it shows how his mind was working and just how closely advertising is aligned with a show’s content.
The next topic Conan brought up was malt liquor and whether or not Michael liked it. Apparently he brought this up the last time Michael Jackson was on Conan and he still didn’t like them. But apparently Conan still did and the reason he gave was because they were so cheap. Because when buying beer, price is the number one factor. Maybe Conan really does know his audience, but I found this also insulting. Plus, I’m thinking Conan could probably afford to spend a little more than $1.49 for a bottle malt liquor you could soak your foot in, as he described it. He may be on at 12:30 in the morning, after most sane people are in bed, but I’m thinking he’s still making a bit more than most of us. To bring up malt liquor when there were so few minutes remaining and so much else to talk about, seemed like a complete waste of time.
Next, Michael poured an English beer, Meantime Brewing’s Old Smoked Ale and attempted to explain smoked malt. Then Conan asked to try the Black Chocolate beer from Belgium but they never did identify it. Again, Michael tried to talk about the roasted malt. Conan was disappointed because there was no actual chocolate in it. Michael then recommended he try Brooklyn Brewery’s Chocolate Stout. At that point they mercifully ran out of time. There were three more beers sitting on the table, untried, including Tomme Arthur’s from Port Brewing, which was unfortunate.
I know television isn’t really the best medium to extoll beers’ many virtues, especially in so short a time frame and in front of a seemingly hostile host and audience. But I confess I really was hoping for more. I expected the host to be at least minimally prepared, to have some interest in the guest’s expertise. Conan’s audience, I imagine, is largely a younger one and this might have been a golden opportunity to educate them about better beer. Instead, the Conan O’Brien Show squandered that chance by behaving insultingly toward Michael and better beer in order to get cheap laughs. I know it’s all about ratings and entertainment, but there’s no reason the show couldn’t have been both more educational and entertaining. Michael Jackson, of course, has a wealth of knowledge at his fingertips and could have talked intelligently about any beer questions posed to him but Conan instead wasted his time talking about Corona and malt liquor.
Before this, I was largely ambivilent about the Conan O’Brian Show. I almost never watch talk shows unless there’s someone on I really would like to see, and that, quite frankly, is rare. It’s usually just a parade of overprivileged celebrities hawking their latest project in the hopes of parting you from your money so they can continue their extravagant lifestyle. But after this, I’ll certainly think twice before tuning in again.
UPDATE: Michael Jackson posted his own reflections on doing the Conan show on his Beer Hunter website.
Mark your calendars again and reset your Tivos. After last night’s debacle where the pinheads at KPIX decided to bump Eye on the Bay last night when the NCAA final went long so we could endure the full hour of mindless talking about a basketball game over and over again. Then instead of showing Eye on the Bay after that, a show which KPIX paid to produce, they instead showed a repeat of the pathetic sitcom Two and a Half Men. But I learned today that the program has been rescheduled for April 24 at 7:00 p.m. So let’s try this again:
On Monday, April 24, CBS’s affiliate in the Bay Area, KPIX Channel 5, will be featuring Bay Area Beer on its show Eye on the Bay. The show will feature home brewing with Homer Smith at the Oak Barrel in Berkeley, beer news with Tom Dalldorf at the Celebrator Beer News office in Hayward, segments from Buffalo Bill’s, The Bistro, Drake’s Brewing, and Beer Chef Bruce Paton. The website listing indicates a start time of 7:00 p.m. but it’s still after a basketball game, so you never now.
Mark your calendars and set your Tivos. On Monday April 3, CBS’s affiliate in the Bay Area, KPIX Channel 5, will be featuring Bay Area Beer on its show Eye on the Bay. The show will feature home brewing with Homer Smith at the Oak Barrel in Berkeley, beer news with Tom Dalldorf at the Celebrator Beer News office in Hayward, segments from Buffalo Bill’s, The Bistro, Drake’s Brewing, and Beer Chef Bruce Paton. The program will come on immediately following the NCAA Final Four Championship Game so consult your local listings. The website listing indicates a start time of 9:30 p.m. but because of the game it could be slightly later.
UPDATE (Apr. 3): It appears the pinheads at KPIX decided to bump Eye on the Bay last night when the NCAA final went long so we could endure the full hour of talking about the game over and over again. Then instead of showing Eye on the Bay after that, a show which KPIX paid to produce, they instead showed a repeat of the pathetic sitcom Two and a Half Men. I imagine it had something to do with advertising commitments, but it was very frustrating. Eye on the Bay is also shown every morning at 9:30 a.m. so it’s still possible it wll be shown then.
UPDATE (Apr. 4): They did finally air the show this morning at 9:30 a.m.
Regular readers here know I’ve been following the story of Green Valley Brewing Company’s Wild Hop Lager and its true ownership by Anheuser-Busch. One aspect of this emerging story that hasn’t been touched on yet is the beer’s organic pedigree. A-B went the extra mile to have the beer properly certified organic and an insider told me that the label initially met with some problems, but they were ultimately ironed out. Since only a small percentage of beers are certified organic, it bears consideration as to what was the reason for that decision? The answer, I think, revealed itself by Wild Hop Lager’s presence at the Natural Food Expo West last weekend. It now appears likely that the target market for Wild Hop Lager is the craft beer market in general and the organic beer market in specific. Given the relatively small shelf space devoted to beer in the majority of grocery chains and Anheuser-Busch and their distributors’ strong presence on those shelves already, it seems to me the likeliest outcome is that Wild Hop Lager will begin to replace smaller, more local and regional organic beers. I have heard rumors that placement has already been authorized, at least here in California, for Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Wild Oats.
So I thought the most logical place to look next was at the Organic Farming Research Foundation, the charity that Anheuser-Busch mentions on the Wild Hop Lager website. In fact, it’s worth looking at the exact language of the website again. Here is what it says:
[w]ith every purchase of Wild Hop Lager, a donation will be made to the Organic Farming Research Foundation to improve and educate people on organic farming practices. Together we can set a better example for future generations.
So I called the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF), which is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California. In their own words, the OFRF is a “non-profit whose mission is to sponsor research related to organic farming practices, to disseminate research results to organic farmers and to growers interested in adopting organic production systems, and to educate the public and decision-makers about organic farming issues.” To a man, every person in the organic community I spoke with thinks very highly of the organization and nothing has shaken that impression in my communications with them or from the information gleaned from their website. They appear to be very much what they claim, a friend to the small organic farmer with a focus on the family farmer.
I left a message for Bob Scowcroft, Executive Director of the OFRF, as he is also listed as the media contact for the organization. Happily, he called me back in a few hours. On the phone, he was a very affable man and gave straightforward, thoughtful answers to all of my questions. I asked Scowcroft if he was aware that Anheuser-Busch was the organization behind Green Valley Brewing and Wild Hop Lager. He was aware of that fact. I then asked whether there was any concern about accepting money from A-B, given that the product they were selling did not disclose that it was owned by them. He explained that the origin of gifts to the organization has been the “source of much discussion over the years” and that the board has ultimately decided that the mission of the group is paramount and therefore all gifts are gratefully received. Scowcroft further explained that 75% of their gifts come from about 50 donors. They receive an average of 1,000 donations each year, with about 40-45% from family foundations, about 20-25% from corporations — large and small — about 20% from individuals, and 5-10% from a special grant-making arrangement with the EPA. Frankly, after talking to him — and a few others — I’m convinced we should all be supporting their efforts. Seriously, think about a donation to the OFRF.
I then asked Scowcroft what he could tell me about the nature of Anheuser-Busch’s donation. What he told me was quite interesting. He explained that it was for a fixed amount, not percentage based, and stated it was a “modest, one-time of gift of less than five figures.” So let’s go back to the wording on the website, which reads, “with every purchase of Wild Hop Lager, a donation will be made to the Organic Farming Research Foundation.” That seems contradictory, but in all fairness it’s possible that A-B is intending to make further donations based on actual sales of Wild Hop Lager. Bob Scowcroft was not aware of any arrangement whereby they’d be receiving a percentage of sales in the future, but believes that the door is certainly open for future gifts.
It’s also worth considering what Anheuser-Busch got for their donation. It seems to me they got a lot for a little. They got to align themselves with a very reputable organic charity. They got the illusion of credibility and the immediate perception of being part of that community. When you consider the millions and millions of dollars spent on NASCAR sponsorships, Super Bowl ads, baseball stadium banners, sports of every stripe, festivals, events, and on and on and on, then under ten grand is pretty much, as an old friend of mine used to say, “chump change.” It’s a pretty paltry sum in the grand scheme of things.
Many consumers will see their claims of being organic and the charity promise as further proof, along with the farmer-friendly graphics on the packaging, that their product is worthy of purchase based upon shared values and the emotional response that produces. I certainly know from personal experience that when faced with a decision to purchase two almost identical looking items, if one of them is supporting a charity I like, that information will often be sufficient to make me choose the product that appears more altruistic. But knowing a little bit more now about how that works will in the future make me question other claims of charity support on product labels. So does that damage the organic movement as a whole? It seems like it might. One analogy I can draw is giving money to the homeless. I often used to give my spare change to a beggar on the street. But once I discovered that some of them were con artists or scammers, it gave me pause and I found myself giving less often as a result. So in that case, legitimate homeless persons in perhaps great need did not get the help they might otherwise have received, as a direct result of the unethical actions of others.
Food based on organic farming is currently “2% of the food economy,” Scowcroft told me. I know my family does our part, and we buy organic produce and other goods whenever we can, at the local farmers’ market and grocery stores we frequent. There are a lot of similarities between the organic food movement and the craft beer movement, I think, not least of which is that craft beer accounts for only around 3.5% of the total beer market. Certainly a lot of craft beer drinkers enjoy organic foods, too, and vice versa, no doubt. But I wonder how many organic food consumers would be pleased to know that the organic beer they unsuspectingly bought was produced by the world’s largest brewer in a plant the size of several football fields and not by a small craft brewer, as is the likeliest inference one can draw from the label and graphics on the package.
I thought at this point I’d like to hear the opinion of someone who already makes organic beer. So I spoke to Morgan Wolaver, whose Wolaver’s Organic Ales have been around since 1997, making them the oldest brewer of organic ales in America. Personally, I think he ought to trademark that before Yuengling has a chance to complain. The two of us tried to remember who was older, but we could only come up with breweries no longer in business. I remembered Humes and he came up with Perry’s Organic but that was about it. Anyway, as it turned out he was not only familiar with the OFRF but has been donating to them for many, many years. And over the years, he and his brother have donated at least more than five figures to them. He explained that he continued to do so because of their good work and simply because “it’s the right thing to do.”
Wolaver also echoed my concern that Wild Hop Lager is a “stealth micro” (a term coined by Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf to describe a usually contracted beer that effectively hides its true ownership from the general consumer. A prime example would be Oregon Brewing Co., which was owned by Boston Beer Co. and won few friends in the state of Oregon since, despite the name, was not made there.) And that, I think, really is the crux of the issue.
Wolaver explained that in his view the organic market can be roughly divided into two groups of customers, what he calls core consumers and target consumers. Core consumers he defines as essentially hardcore organic product buyers, people who have been buying organic products for years or even decades. They read labels, front and back, and take their buying choices very seriously. Target consumers are more casual about their buying habits, but for various reasons — perhaps philosophical or because it makes them feel better — will make organic purchases whenever practical, convenient or less expensive. So while the average target consumer may or may not be swayed by who owns the product they’re considering for purchase, the core consumer definitely will be. But neither, I think, will be particularly happy if they discover that the organic beer they bought was a stealth micro and the real manufacturer is a giant corporation. I feel quite confident that the core consumer would be outraged but I also think the taget consumer would at least feel conned or deceived. And it is this very fact, I think, that explains A-B’s decision not to label and market this product as one of their own.
In general, the organic and health food market has already been co-opted by large corporations. Tom’s of Maine was recently bought by Colgate-Palmolive, Odwalla is owned by Coke, Kashi and Morningstar Farms is owned by Kellogg, and on and on. But for every one of these acquisitions, another small entrepreneur enters the fray with idealistic vision. So apparently there’s still hope, at least for those us who like to support small and local businesses. Of course, keeping up with the changes in the marketplace is undoubtedly exhausting and probably explains why there are so few core consumers. So it’s into that climate that Wild Hop Lager is being introduced. Will it ultimately be successful? Probably. As H.L. Mencken put it. “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.“