A colleague of mine, Greg Kitsock, has been published a few times in the Washington Post lately, and that’s great news since so few beer writers break through through the wine glass ceiling of most major newspapers. Kitsock is now doing a biweekly column in the Post. And if that wasn’t terrific enough for him and the beer community at large, his column is also being syndicated, presumably by Post-affiliated papers. For example, I just stumbled on an article he did about canned beers and Oskar Blues in the Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky. The original piece ran in the Washington Post a little over a week ago. That’s great news as far as I’m concerned.
Spinning the Beer Business
On Tuesday, August Busch IV addressed investors at the biannual “Investor Day” and unsurprisingly recent company woes were played down and the future looked so bright they probably should have passed out sunglasses to investors to reinforce the point. Given the less than enthusiastic analysis by Wall Street the week before, it’s not a stretch to consider the rosy predictions to be pure spin to mollify jumpy investors.
As usual, the business press went along with it, mostly reporting the spin without questioning it or even analyzing it to much of a degree. As reported in the New York Times, Busch boldly told investors “that profit would rise more than forecast this year on higher sales of imported beers and fewer discounts of Bud Light and Michelob.” Despite dismal sales gains and worse profits, A-B told its investors that the 1% gain realized in the second quarter was proof enough that things were finally looking up.
More curiously, Busch IV told shareholders “the company [this February] started to import beverages, including Stella Artois and Bass from InBev, to fend off rivals like SABMiller.” What’s odd about that statement to investors is that most conventional wisdom, both internally and externally, doesn’t blame SABMiller at all for A-B’s troubles, but craft beer, wine and spirits.
Busch IV also stated that “Anheuser-Busch is much better positioned for growth than we were just eight months ago,” but neither he — nor the Times — offers any explanation as to why that might be. All A-B said was that “[p]rofit will increase slower than forecast in the second quarter but accelerate in the second half of the year” and “[e]arnings on a share basis will increase this year more than the long-term growth of 7 percent to 10 percent that the company targets.” To me that sounds like code for don’t sell now, don’t bail on us, things will get better … eventually.
CNN Money reported that A-B did indeed see a 1% rise in sales this month, calling that a “rebound” after a poor showing the previous month. That’s a far more optimistic connotation of the word “rebound” than my dictionary allows, but that’s spin for you. In a related CNN Money article, “Anheuser-Busch profit disappoints,” A-B CFO W. Randolph Baker further spins the reasons for poor sales and even blames the weather. It’s this last one that produced in me a rare guffaw. Certainly there is a close and well-documented correlation between the weather and beer sales. The warmer the weather, the better the sales — it’s hardly rocket science. But when I was the beer buyer at Beverages & more and was expected to hit sales targets it was the one excuse for falling short, no matter how legitimate, that I was all forbidden to use. Apparently, I was expected to predict the weather and plan for it — I never quite understood how I could be held responsible for factors outside my control but such was the pressure cooker of retail. Anyway, to hear the CFO of the biggest beer company in the world blame the weather for not hitting their own sales targets strikes me as pretty funny and suggests that A-B doesn’t really have a good idea as to what exactly is causing their sales to remain mostly flat. Baker claims to be “uncomfortable saying it’s only a weather story,” which says to me he’s not supposed to use that excuse any more than I was.
Dow Jones’ Marketwatch also predictably spins it A-B’s way, titling their take “Anheuser says back on growth track.” The MarketWatch take begins accepting Bud’s pronouncements. “Citing a bigger and better beer portfolio [the InBev imports – failing to mention distributor issues], favorable pricing trends [unilaterally deciding not to discount their own products hardly constitutes a trend], international opportunities [despite everyone saying it’s the core brands at home that are the issue] and a modest rebound in domestic sales [the 1% rise in the first half of May], Anheuser-Busch said Tuesday that it is back on a growth track, but perhaps not so much right away [yes, in the future, always the future].
“Busch said that consumers are increasingly ‘active’ rather than ‘passive’ and added that ‘we have to evolve how we do business … to combine our supply-side strength with a new and equally powerful demand expertise.'” While that may be true, Bud.TV (rumored to be shut down shortly), MingleNow and even Here’s to Beer have not exactly taught A-B about the “powerful demand expertise” many consumers are looking for. They didn’t even mention Raymond Hill, their curious new venture with a faux or stealth “craft beer” that’s made by A-B.
MarketWatch lastly detailed A-B’s forays into making spirits, with mixed results:
But with beer continuing to lose share in the alcohol market, he said that the company needs to move beyond the category and into “high-margin segments with exceptional potential. … We will target products and categories where we can drive growth.” That is a not-so-veiled reference to hard liquor, which has been booming just as domestic brew fades. A-B has made some baby steps — and missteps — in that direction, developing both distilled spirits and higher-alcohol malt beverages in a small way.
Last year, the company launched “Jekyll & Hyde,” two “nesting” bottles of spirits meant to be mixed together and downed as a shot. It also rolled out Spykes, a 12% alcohol malt-based product sold in tiny perfume-like bottles. That experiment was a disaster and the company announced it would stop making the stuff last week due to poor sales and attacks by advocacy groups that claimed it appealed to underage drinkers.
It was a little strange that craft beer’s gains were not addressed — at least not by the media as far as I can tell — since they’re the only category of alcoholic beverages that’s showing significant growth at the present time. Perhaps we’re still too small to bring up at investor meetings.
All of this emphasis on international markets, non-beer products and their “packaging and entertainment businesses” as a way out of the morass seems odd given that everybody and their mother cites inattention to their core brands as the biggest problem A-B is facing. A-B’s Tuesday press release does mention the core brands, but it all sounds like doublespeak and gobbledegook to me. Here’s what they had to say about their core product lines:
Senior managers from Anheuser-Busch’s U.S. beer company presented their plans to grow the company’s core trademark brands and actively pursue high-end growth opportunities. The company is making good progress in digesting the series of new growth initiatives recently undertaken and managing the added complexity associated with an expanded portfolio. In citing incremental revenue growth as a key objective, the executives stated that the pricing environment in the U.S. beer industry is favorable.
Now I speak jargon, in fact I’m relatively fluent in it, but “actively pursue high-end growth opportunities,” “making good progress in digesting the series of new growth initiatives recently undertaken,” “managing the added complexity associated with an expanded portfolio,” and “the pricing environment in the U.S. beer industry is favorable” are tortuously vague and unnecessarily convoluted to me. They all sound impressive but don’t really seem to say very much. It’s the same old hackneyed platitudes gussied up in fancy dress words to confuse the hoi polloi. In English, all they’re planning is “to sell as much as they can,” “figure out which new brands are selling and which aren’t,” “rolling out the new import and domestic brands they gobbled up last year,” and “not discounting their prices to wholesalers and retailers as much as in previous years.” Now was that so hard to say?
At the same time Anheuser-Busch is trying to persuade shareholders that everything’s fine and that their stock will be up again, they’ve also announced that they’re “looking to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in costs over the next few years,” according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That’s the sort of thing investors and Wall Street tends to applaud but generally isn’t too great for all the unemployed that such measures leave in their wake. A-B is looking to “trim $300 million to $400 million in costs over the next four years,” and you now that’s got to include layoffs. The increased high-tech robotics that A-B is using in its operations certainly doesn’t suggest more hirings, but less, despite the fact that they’re asking current employees to slash their own throats by submitting ” ideas under a productivity plan called ‘Project Blue Ocean.'”
Also somewhat scary for those of us who don’t relish the idea of A-B buying out craft brewers is the announcement that new guidelines A-B approved last year will allow them to take on more debt, with an eye toward getting “more involved in mergers and acquisitions.” So look for another round of rumors on who might be up for grabs later this year.
None of this spin doctoring is unique to A-B, of course, it’s the stock in trade of all large modern corporations. But this was Augie number IV’s first time in front of the investors since taking over the family business last year so it’s worth noting that things haven’t changed very much under his leadership. I’d say we’re in for more efforts at maintaining the status quo as the year continues to unfold. Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Best Bars in America, According to Esquire
In the lastest issue of Esquire magazine, they list their choices for the “best bars in America,” 51 in all. There are some good places to be sure, but I must question any list of great bars that doesn’t include the Toronado — especially one that seems to favor dive bars. And perhaps more curious than that obvious oversight is the fact that last year’s list not only also overlooked the Toronado but contains none of the same bars as this year’s list.
| And while there are certainly other quibbles with the list — Rick Lyke details quite a few — to me this is the crucial fact that makes it impossible to take seriously. Any bar worthy to be considered the best in America would undoubtedly have become so over time and would also be great year after year. You’d expect that a bar that made the list this year was probably pretty damn good last year and one on last year’s list still decent this year. The notion that none from last year are on this year’s list and vice versa makes this purely a literary exercise. Esquire explains it by saying that it’s not an “overhaul of last year’s list. Those bars are still great, and we still drink in them. Think of the list [from last year] as a Hall of Fame.” |
So I understand that Esquire wants to have new places to write about each year and their readers likewise would want to read about new places to try, too. But then it can’t possibly be considered a list of the “best” bars, just a collection of good bars that they believe are praiseworthy. That’s not a bad thing, I looked over the list with considerable anticipation and interest. The sensational title did set me up for certain expectations that went largely unfulfilled. And I suspect I’m not alone. A quick Googling of Esquire’s best bars in America reveals that local community websites, forums, etc. all over the country are discussing it, lamenting omissions, bitching about whole cities missing and questioning the choices. And I think it’s that provocative rubric that sparks such a furor. It’s likely that Esquire not only counted on that but actively designed the list, at least in part, to be debated. Because it’s becoming increasingly obvious that getting people talking about your article, magazine or website is the real goal and anything that stifles that, such as accuracy, full disclosure, or calling it by a less volatile name would all not create the same amount of buzz. Personally, I loathe this trend. It creates a situation where it’s more advantageous to be outrageous than truthful or reasonable. Ann Coulter, for example, is a master of this technique. It’s a reminder that the goal of modern journalism is not informing the people, accurate reporting or even keeping an appearance of impartiality. It’s all about selling advertising and making money. And without standards, the easiest way to do that is simply by being provocative and outrageous. Of course, picking the best bars in America is an inconsequential exercise when compared to the many more important issues that the press misleads us about on any given day, but the technique and goal is the same — and the subject is my stock in trade, which is why I’m talking about it at all.
But even with all of that, the Esquire effort is rife with problems. Despite using several writers to compile the list even they admit there are issues with their method.
We haven’t patronized every bar in America, though we’re working on it. For the parts of the country we’ve never had the honor of drinking in, we asked our friends — the most knowledgeable and passionate of whom is Esquire drinks correspondent David Wondrich. Despite our connections, we’ve clearly shortchanged some great cities and have no doubt overlooked some great bars.
Obviously with a task as broad and large as trying to declare the best bars in America it’s going to be difficult to consider every bar, but not doing so, or even trying to be somewhat comprehensive, makes it largely a futile effort in the end. But all it really would have taken to make it a valid effort would have been to change the title of the article to “Our Favorite Bars in America for 2007.” But that wouldn’t have created the buzz that publishing a flawed article and declaring the choices to be “the best” has done. To me, that’s the worst kind of tabloid journalism.
Profile of Fresno Beer
Today’s Fresno Bee has a nice little profile of three area craft breweries, Brewbakers Family Restaurant, Full Circle Brewing and Sequoia Brewing. There also several cool, artistic photographs of the beer, such as the one below.
Full Circle Brewery’s Red Ale, top, and Cluster-Fuggle.
(Photo by Darrell Wong, The Fresno Bee)
Good Beer Deserves the Right Glass
The Syracuse Post-Standard ran a nice article entitled “Good beer deserves the right glass” by staff writer Don Cazentre, who’s also a homebrewer. He provides a good rudimentary introduction to the importance of drinking beer not just from a glass, but from the proper glass. It’s another good example of better beer coverage by the media.
Chronicle Critiques Cantillon
After so many horribly abysmal crimes against beer, I’m very happy to be able say that a San Francisco Chronicle article on Friday, “Cantillon, a brew for wine lovers,” was actually a very good overview of the historic Brussels brewery. It was written by freelancer Derek Schneider, who also writes a food (and wine) blog, An Obsession with Food. He provides a nice introduction to Cantillon’s methods, what makes them unique and even provides some tasting notes.
My only criticism is that the Chronicle sells the piece through its title where they can’t let Cantillon stand on its own two feet. They have to make it a beer that winos will love, too, which I find a little annoying. Cantillon is a beer for beer lovers, too, as well, and can be enjoyed by anyone with a developed palate who likes complex flavors. Always having to compare everything to their revered wine seems to me to distort reality into a world where all grapes are good and barley is bad. I suspect that was the only way Schneider could sell the piece to the Chronicle, if wine was somehow still central in a beer article.
But that criticism aside, it was certainly good to see an otherwise positive beer article in San Francisco. Now if we could only get their management to actually like it, too, now that would be something.
Is The Tipping Point In Sight?
There was an excellent article in today’s Dallas Morning News entitled “What beer geeks know,” that details a number of the finer points of enjoying better beer, such as the importance of the glassware, how to pour it, the head, temperature, etc. It’s a really nice overview of several concepts that generally only a beer geek would get right or even care that much about, so it’s especially promising to see them spelled out in so useful a manner.
Feargal McKinney of The Old Monk in Dallas. |
I’ll be in Dallas in two weeks, visiting some friends the week after the Craft Brewers Conference. It’s actually not a bad place for beer, but it’s also not on my top ten list. But the fact that an article this good shows up there is a very good sign indeed. You’d never see something like it in my local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, because their management is very hostile to craft beer, preferring California wines to ales and lagers. But by and large, it seems the tide is indeed beginning to turn. The mainstream media is definitely paying greater attention to craft beer again, and if these sales trends continue it will be harder and harder for the segment to be ignored. Then there was also the excellent news yesterday that craft beer was up in grocery store sales an astonishing 17.8% for 2006. As Stan Hieronymus so elegantly put it, it’s like there’s “no news here.” As he points out, we’ve been reporting strong sales growth for craft beer now for six straight years, hardly making it newsworthy anymore. I think at this point we can safely identify it as a trend. Having sat through years of depressing, despondent conferences where all the bad news seemed a shared failure and any glimmer of hope was disproportionately shouted out just to keep everybody positive and give us something to hold on to during those darker times, it’s such a relief to see everyone so giddy as the good news just keeps getting better. So it occurs to me that we may be witnessing Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” at work. It’s been several years since I read it, but Gladwell has a nice summary on his own website, gladwell.com. My own memory about what I took away from the book is that things that were formerly quite small or underground suddenly hit the big time when they reach a certain point in society’s collective conscious. Nobody’s sure exactly where that point is for any specific thing, movement, idea, meme, etc. but once it reaches that peak, it “tips over” and what once moved relatively slowly suddenly moves like wildfire, and I believe Gladwell gives the example of how a virus moves through the body. With craft beer, those of involved with it often forget that our passion is shared by only a tiny fraction of the world’s population. But lately it feels more and more like we’re slowly crawling up to the top of the roller coaster. With every new year of growth, increasing attention, and positive mention in the media you can almost hear that steady click, click, click as the car nears the crest of the ride. Are we there yet? I don’t know, but I’m certainly ready to stop being such a curmudgeon and just enjoy the ride. |
UPDATE: I also stumbled upon this piece, “Understanding beer can make it better,” on a Virginia television station. It’s not as thorough or in-depth as the Dallas article — it is TV after all — but it’s very positive and seeks to educate its audience, which seems yet another good development.
Aussie Beer & Chocolate
Despite the questionable questioning question mark in the title, there’s a good, positive beer and chocolate story on tomorrow’s — damned international dateline — “The Age,” a Melbourne, Australia newspaper. When I saw the title, Beer and Chocolate?, and that damnable question mark, I confess that I flinched, expecting the worst. But happily, the author was merely toying with us and, after a short set up, comes clean that it’s “Belgian truffles and Chimay Grand Reserve or a slice of chocolate mud cake with a foaming mug of James Squire Porter or Coopers Stout” that will be the subject matter at hand. Yum.
Alstroms Profiled in “The Pour”
A Bulletin reader in Hawaii sent me this link (thanks, Doug). Eric Asimov’s New York Times’ column The Pour, is one of the few columns in a big, mainstream paper to write about beer in a respectful tone, without the condescension so prevalent in much of the media’s mis-handling of better beer. I’ve always enjoyed his pieces, and am pleased so prominent a paper as the Times seems to “get it” more often than the rest. Today’s column, entitled “Overcoming a Frat Party Reputation,” features a nice profile of Todd and Jason Alström, the founders of Beer Advocate and their new monthly magazine (for which I have written a few feature articles). Asimov discusses those of us associated with craft beer and better imported beer and our desire for such beers to be treated with greater respect. The Alströms have certainly been at the vanguard of our grassroots movement for ten years now, and much progress has been made here of late. It’s great to see beer celebrated in this way. Congratulations, guys.
Beer Advocate founders Jason and Todd Alström, profiled today in the New York Times.
(photo by Jodi Hilton for The New York Times)
The Blogging Debate
Tomme Arthur from Port Brewing sent me, and a few other brewers, a link to a San Francisco Chronicle article entitled “Food bloggers dish up plates of spicy criticism, Formerly formal discipline of reviewing becomes a free-for-all for online amateurs” by staff writers Stacy Finz and Justin Berton. Now given the internet’s erosion of traditional media like newspapers, it’s not terribly surprising that the Chronicle article, while somewhat balanced, does lean a little on the side of traditional critics like those employed by the San Francisco newspaper. Obviously, this particular story is about food but it’s just as applicable to beer blogs and ratings websites, too. A lively e-mail debate ensued, with many expressing their positive and negative feelings about beer writing on the internet. And that got me thinking once more about this question, which comes up from time to time, about whether blogging is a good or bad thing for the beer industry.
Brewers, quite understandably, view beer bloggers and ratings websites like Beer Advocate and Rate Beer as a double-edged sword. On the positive side, there are thousands (millions?) of passionate fans in the cybersphere talking about, discussing and tasting their products, helping to spread the word about good beer generally and certain breweries specifically. You literally can’t buy that kind of publicity. Of course, you can’t control it either. It’s very organic nature also has hidden dangers, some of which are not always fair. Not every passionate fan is an expert or has a consistent, developed palate for tasting. As a result, no single review can carry much weight without knowing more about the reviewer. Add them all together, and there’s no guarantee that the results are accurate, fair or consistent. The bigger sites with more reviews and more experienced reviewers do often at least seem present a consistent pattern of what’s good and not so good, but there are and always will be problems with how the overall score is effected by the inevitable bad reviewer who may still be learning or has a personal axe to grind. With individual bloggers, unless you know the reviewer’s experience level, knowledge, etc. it’s hard to know how seriously to take what they say about the beer they’re reviewing. It takes a long time to get to know another person’s tastes to the point where you can predict how they’ll rate a beer accurately. That’s true of any critic, be it a movie reviewer, music critic or what have you. And while a good review can be good for a business, a bad one can be devastating and I imagine quite frustrating if it appears mean-spirited, uninformed or inconsistent with other more positive reviews.
I have run across quite a few intelligent, seemingly normal, people who dismiss all blogging and in some cases everything on the internet as completely worthless. I’m not sure why they take this position, but no amount of persuasion or debate will move them from this position. There are few things I can name which have no redeeming value whatsoever, but they seem to take a position that if it isn’t perfect or there is a lot that’s bad they’ve seen personally then everything else is bad, too. Many of these people are media traditionalists who believe newspapers and the print media are the standard to which every other form of media must be held to, which to me seems quite laughable given the state of much newspaper writing I’ve read about beer over the last few years alone. The fact is there is good and bad in every sector of the media, and indeed the world, too. Nothing is all good or all bad. To me such extreme positions are ludicrous and indefensible. I have argued with such people, but have found them intractable and immune to reason, logic or common sense. Which is a shame, because the internet continues to hold much potential and promise. Despite very rapid growth, it’s a very new medium and, as such, is still growing through all the same pains that every media has gone through. There has been much crap on every new media. Not all early television shows were worth saving, nor was everything on early radio a jewel. Were there people who loved newspapers that refused to give radio a chance because some of the shows they listened to were terrible? I suspect there probably were, as many people do not like change no matter what it’s benefit.
If you haven’t read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, I highly recommend you rush right out and buy a copy. Seriously. Although it predates the internet, Postman discusses at length how each new media has changed our society, both for good and bad. How every innovation changes us, as well. It’s quite interesting to learn that before the telegraph, for example, almost all ordinary people read entire newspapers and were generally very up to date on all issues of the day. It was not uncommon for politicians and other famous people of the day to come to town and speak literally for hours on end about complex issues facing people. Ordinary townspeople would know exactly what was being discussed and were not spoken down to or had the subject matter dumbed down for them. Postman relates one typical example where Lincoln was speaking somewhere for something like six hours, excused everyone to go home and eat supper, and then resumed speaking again an hour later. Then the telegraph made the spread of information much, much quicker. But because of all the dots and dashes, information became sound bites overnight. As a result, people’s tolerance for lengthier, meatier writing began to wane. And newspapers at the time who began getting their news from far away over the telegraph began writing shorter and shorter stories.
His point — and mine — is that no one can say that the internet or blogging is all bad. We can say it will change how we view the world, even if we can’t say how. But to ignore it and pretend it is completely unworthy of our time is sticking one’s head in the sand, or nose in the air. Are there problems with how beer is reviewed by bloggers and other internet sites? Of course, nothing is perfect. Should we therefore dismiss everything in the blogosphere? Only at our peril, because like it or not the ease of creating a blog pretty much insures anyone with access to the ether can voice his or her opinion. That may not always be a good thing all the time, but like every media before it, those with something to say will find readers and the shrill cacophony of others will eventually fall by the wayside.
There are some who feel traditional journalists are better suited to report the news because they supposedly have standards and ethics whereas “a blog can lie outright, and there are no consequences” making it little better than “mob rule.” But many of my colleagues, all of whom make at least a partial living writing about beer, have blogs in addition to participating in traditional journalism, as well. If any of us out and out lied about something or someone, I can guarantee there’d be consequences. We may not be as famous as an H.L. Mencken or even Michael Jackson, but in such an insular and incestuous little industry like craft beer people know who we are and would hold us accountable if we libeled one of our own. We’re obviously not all “just some guy” and if that’s true then this argument that all blogging is bad simply doesn’t work. I know that doesn’t change the fact that some of the blogs that write about beer do not do the industry any favors. But I am growing weary of having to defend myself every time someone makes a blanket statement that all blogging or internet writing is inherently bad.
Perhaps I shouldn’t take it so personally or feel that it’s me who’s being attacked. Certainly many people have said good things about what I’ve written and there is much that my colleagues write that I find admirable. It’s not my job to defend this medium, but I do find it hard to keep my mouth shut when someone says something that even inadvertently insults me and my confederates in this rarified trade we call beer writing. Last year, I was discussing the state of beer blogging with a friend who suggested that wine and food blogs were generally better than beer blogs in many respects, due in part to their having been around considerably longer (in internet time, at least). And I think he was onto something, because I’ve watched the quality of beer blogging rise over the last year and there are many more worthy beer blogs today than even one year ago. So it seems to me at least that already the state of beer writing on the internet is improving. Not to mention I’ve seen many more colleagues add their voices to the chorus, making the song all the sweeter.
I think absent some new paradigm shift on the internet, beer bloggers, ratings websites and other beer sites online are here to stay. Like the macrocosm outside, there is both good and bad to be found in a wide range of efforts. Find what and who you like, and support those writers, blogs and websites. Ignore or avoid the ones you don’t, and they will undoubtedly not be here in the near future. Nobody likes talking only to themselves for very long. But please don’t read one bad review, post or article and assume that everything else out there is not worthy of your time. Many of us work very hard at what we do and though you may not always agree with what we have to say, that doesn’t make what we’re saying meaningless or unimportant. Welcome to microjournalism and the 21st century. Word. Or make that words.