Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Anhesuer-Busch Takes Over Marketing & Sales of Kirin

By

Anheuser-Busch and Japan’s Kirin Brewery annnounced today that their alliance will be enlarged to include marketing and sales of Kirin beers in the United States. Currently, A-B contract brews all Kirin beers for the domestic market at its Los Angeles brewery. That relationship began ten years ago and included distribution, as well, through A-B’s network of 600 wholesalers. Since 1993, Kirin has been contract brewing Budweiser in Japan for the Japanese market.

August A. Busch IV, president of Anheuser-Busch, was quoted as saying. “American consumers have a great interest in high-end Asian cuisine and culture, including Asian beer.”

Now that’s high-end, klassy with a “k.” Anybody want to venture a guess as to how she’s holding that glass? It looks like it’s glued to her hand or was done with Photoshop.
 

Busch continued. “We are aggressively expanding our range of high-end beers to meet the diverse needs of our consumers. The Kirin beers are of the highest quality and have enormous potential, as the Asian influence is rapidly growing. This new agreement enhances a truly global relationship between our two companies. Now, we also share a deeper commitment to each other’s success.”

But the big three Japanese breweries — Asahi, Kirin and Sapporo — are experiencing the same loss of market share the big U.S. brewers are, and for much the same reasons. Japan’s consumers, mirroring their American counterparts, are demanding more flavorful beers. But at the same time, economic difficulties have led to price wars with so many customers shopping on price alone.

This in turn has led to the rise of cheaper beers made with grains other than barley. Because of oppressive taxes on beer in which over a third of a beer’s cost goes to the government, brewers have been making alternative brews using less than 67% malt by using rice, corn or even soybeans as substitutes. These beers can be sold for half of the all-malt beers. But as for taste, most say you get what you pay for. Long term, this is potentially very damaging to the industry.

As for Kirin’s story, American businessman William Copeland and German brewmaster Herman Heckard founded the Spring Valley Brewery outside Tokyo in 1870. For luck they put a “Kirin” on the label. A “Kirin” (Qilin in Chinese) is a mythical beast that is generally considered a sign of good luck. Though it was not necessarily lucky for the Spring Valley Brewery, which closed in 1884 and became the Japan Brewery Co. a year later under new owners from Yokohama. In 1907, the Mitsubishi family bought the brewery, renaming it the Kirin Brewery. Kirin is currently the best selling beer in Japan.

America’s Drunkest Cities! America’s Dumbest Survey?

By

Forbes.com, the online part of the conservative financial organization, announced recently their list of the nation’s “drunkest cities.” Here’s the full list:

  1. Milwaukee
  2. Minneapolis-St. Paul
  3. Columbus, Ohio
  4. Boston
  5. Austin, Texas
  6. Chicago
  7. Cleveland
  8. Pittsburgh
  9. Tie:
    • Philadelphia
    • Providence, R.I.
  10. St. Louis
  11. San Antonio
  12. Seattle
  13. Las Vegas
  14. Denver/Boulder
  15. Tie:
    • Cincinnati
    • Kansas City
  16. Houston
  17. Portland, Oregon
  18. Tie:
    • San Francisco-Oakland
    • Washington-Baltimore
  19. Phoenix
  20. Los Angeles
  21. Tie:
    • New Orleans
    • Tampa
  22. Norfolk
  23. Dallas-Fort Worth
  24. Tie:
    • Atlanta
    • Detroit
  25. Indianapolis
  26. Orlando
  27. New York
  28. Miami
  29. Charlotte, N.C.
  30. Nashville

Setting aside the inanity of such a list, how — one might reasonably wonder — did they come up with such a list and keep a straight face?

Well here’s what they have to say:

Each city was ranked in five areas:

  1. state laws
  2. drinkers
  3. heavy drinkers
  4. binge drinkers
  5. alcoholism

Each metro was assigned a score in each category, based on quantitative data. All five categories were then totaled into a final score, which was sorted into our final rankings. For a fuller explanation, read the methodology used.

But here they are in nutshell, with some of my own commentary.

1. State Laws:

Cities were ranked on a scale of 1 to 8, with states deemed to have the least restrictive laws getting a higher score. They considered such intangibles as whether MADD liked that state’s alcohol laws, whether there was a law banning open containers and if kegs had to be tagged with identifying tags. Well, how scientific. How any of those vague standards can be said to make one state more “drunk” than another is simply ludicrous. The idea that a more permissive society in and of itself causes alcohol abuse or even leads to it is specious at best. Just because open containers are allowed, for example, does not mean citizens will necessarily abuse alcohol. That such a flimsy set of criterion was used and is being reported seriously is astounding.

2. Drinkers:

Cities were ranked from highest to lowest and given a score based on the number of each town’s residents who admitted to having one drink in the last month. One drink! Have we really gone so far down the neo-prohibitionist path that one drink in 30 days is equal to being an alcohol abuser? The idea that the more people who have one drink each month, the more abuse is occurring in a geographic area is so fallacious that it’s downright insulting. They use the seemingly non-judgmental term to describe this as a larger “percentage of [the town’s] population are alcohol consumers.” Well so what? last time I checked alcohol was still legal in this country and I can hardly see how a drink a month rises to the level where any reasonable person would be concerned.

3. Heavy Drinkers:

Scored similar to #2, but this time it was based on “the number of adult men who reported having had more than two drinks per day, and adult women having had more than one drink per day.” Apparently that’s what constitutes a “heavy drinker.” It doesn’t appear to make a difference what type of drink it is which apparently means there’s no difference between three pints of beer and three pints of whiskey per day. Yeah, that seems reasonable. So a beer with lunch and two with dinner and you’re a heavy drinker!

4. Binge Drinkers:

Scored like the previous two, the Forbes survey defined “binge drinking” as five or more drinks on one occasion. Is that ever? Within a year? What? To say that if you’ve ever had five beers at one party makes you a binge drinker is beyond ridiculous. It’s more than a little misleading to suggest that drinking one beer short of a six-pack one time makes you anything bad at all. Take the Super Bowl as an example. With pregame, long commercial breaks, an overblown half-time show and post game analysis it weighs in easily at least as long as five hours. So if you had one beer every hour during that one occasion you were a binge drinker according to Forbes and the CDC. Sure you are. What utter rubbish.

5. Alcoholism:

As laughably contemptible as the first four criteria were, this one takes the cake. Scoring was done “based on the number of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings held in the area, as a proportion of the number of residents over the legal drinking age.” Okay, personally I don’t agree with the idea of AA. To me, people are simply trading one addiction for a more socially acceptable one. But it obviously does work for some people and at least those who go to AA are trying to help themselves. So to measure a town’s relative drunkenness by the number of people trying to help themselves is not only wildly off the mark, it’s highly insulting to those attending the meetings. Is there a calculation or formula that explains how many people are alcoholics but not seeking help through AA. Are there no other methods, perhaps even private ones or clinics, besides AA?

The ways in which these results were calculated is so completely outside the realm of reality that it’s amazing an organization so supposedly respectable would have anything to do with it. I haven’t even scratched the surface on the ways in which these results are misleading and just plain wrong. They’re just too obvious and there are too many ways in which to show how embarrassingly disgraceful this list is.

A report on the survey by television station KPTV Channel 12 in Oregon added the following:

Forbes pointed out some surprising results. Some stereotypically “partying” cities didn’t rank high on the list. Las Vegas came in at only No. 14; New Orleans, home to Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras, only ranked in 24th place. And a town known for spring-break revelers, Miami, was only No. 33 on a list of 35 cities.

Well, perhaps it was the way in which the rankings were created in the first place. Given the amount of alcohol that flows in Las Vegas, couldn’t that fact alone be a clue that the results are erroneous? Saying people drink more in Providence, Rhode Island or Columbus, Ohio than in Vegas isn’t just “surprising,” it’s downright fiction. It could only come out that way if you design the survey to have little or no basis in reality.

So given how obviously absurd this all is, you have to wonder why an outfit like Forbes would put its name on something like this and publish it at all. It’s not exactly obvious what they’re up to. But if you look closely at the other items in Forbes’ “The Business of Nightlife,” of which America’s Drunkest Cities is just one part, there’s a link to an article entitled Cutting Alcohol’s Cost. This article is about the costs that people drinking — not even necessarily on the job — brings to businesses in increased health care and lower productivity. I should have guessed it would return, as things tend to do, to money. And their assertions that people who abuse alcohol do cause those problems may even be correct, but they completely ignore any factors that might cause their workers to drink, as if people generally make conscious choices to become alcoholics. And while there may be a few who are genetically predisposed to drink too much, I’m willing to bet that the stress of their jobs made as many or more drink too much as any other factor.

A study by the George Washington University Medical Center examined the incidence of “problem drinkers” (whatever that means) by different industries broadly defined and found that in the general population for every thousand people, an average of 91 are problem drinkers. The industries with higher than average problem drinking included:

  1. Construction and Mining 135
  2. Wholesale 115
  3. Retail 114
  4. Leisure and Hospitality 109
  5. Repair and Business Services 106
  6. Agriculture 106
  7. Transportation and Utilities 96

At the bottom of the list was professionals with only 54 in every 1,000. But notice the jobs most associated with drinking are also the ones with the highest stress, the lowest wages and/or the lowest respect. Professionals have unquestionably the highest income among the list and so it’s not terribly surprising that the have fewer problems with drinking. But Forbes knows its readers and so is more interested in how to get more productivity out of low-level employees by getting them to stop drinking than addressing the root causes of that drinking. They could just as reasonably suggested that to avoid drinking problems employers should pay them better, treat them with more respect and not put so much pressure on them that severe stress is produced. But sympathy for labor has rarely been considered by big business.

Curiously, but perhaps not surprisingly, big business was generally very supportive of the first temperance movements that agitated for prohibition in the late 1800s and into the early part of the last century. The industrial revolution had recently changed the business landscape and with workers using so many more machines, business owners looked for ways to keep their employees sober. Of course, making the machines safer, having shorter work hours or better working conditions overall might also have been beneficial to the workers, but it would have cost the business owners profits. Better they try to change the workers habits both on the job and more intrusively off the job. So many businesses gave money to support temperance groups and helped usher in a climate where prohibition was possible, all in the name of commerce. Breweries saw it all coming, of course, and tried to counteract the temperance movement with moderation PR campaigns and ads that focused on the tradition and heritage of beer. But it was too little, too late, and Prohibition decimated the industry and probably led to the Great Depression.

Then as now, business didn’t care about why their workers drank. That might focus attention on their own actions and it does nothing for the bottom line. Labor unions were created because so many were treated so unfairly for so long. If it weren’t for labor unions, we’d all still be working six or even seven days a week, far more than 8 hours a day and have far less safe working environments. All of these and more happened because workers fought to improve their lives and business fought these innovations every step of the way.

From the Forbes article:

Each year, alcohol abuse costs the United States an estimated $185 billion, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. But only $26 billion, 14% of the total, comes from direct medical costs or treating alcoholics. Almost half, a whopping $88 billion, comes from lost productivity — a combination of all those hangovers that keep us out of work on Monday mornings, as well as other alcohol-related diseases. People who drink too much and too often are at greater risk for diabetes and several kinds of cancer, according to some studies.

“Alcohol is a worthless drug that affects every single cell in your body,” says Harris Stratyner, director of addiction recovery services at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Even hair transplants can fail because of the damage, he says.

“A worthless drug”? I know millions of people who might take issue with that statement. Anything and everything has the capacity to be abused. You could overdose on aspirin. That doesn’t make it a worthless drug, does it? People drink for many different reasons, of course, but certainly its popularity comes at least partly from the temporary positive effects alcohol has on the body. It allows one to relax, feel a little bit less stress for a period of time, give a feeling of euphoria. That some people might crave that feeling more often than others is directly proportional to how they feel about the rest of their lives. If you have a crappy job, a bad love life, etc. you might reasonably seek ways to feel better, and that might include alcohol. To ignore this, and other reasons why people might drink too much, in addressing alcohol’s impact on society is to overlook one of the most important aspects of the problem.

This series of stories by Forbes, and especially this last one addressing the relationship between worker productivity and alcohol, is startlingly reminiscent of big businesses’ support for prohibition groups over a century ago. And like the Anti-Saloon League, American Temperance Society and the Prohibition Party (among many others) the neo-prohibitionist groups of today are gaining power, especially political power. If business is truly once again supporting neo-prohibitionist causes to increase worker productivity, then we may be in for some dark days ahead. Today’s politics, of course, is very closely aligned with business interests so it doesn’t seem too far a leap to suggest that the conditions are once again repeating themselves in such a way that the possibility of another prohibition doesn’t seem as far-fetched as might have even a decade ago. That news alone might drive me to have another drink.

The Budweiser Film Studio?

By

According to Advertising Age — and they should know — Anhesuer-Busch is creating a new film and TV production division within the company to create original content. Initially at least the new programs will be primarily “humorous shorts and sitcom-type programs to be broadcast over the Internet and to cellphones, according to four people familiar with the matter, and could branch into full-length films.”

They’re also reporting that this venture will draw from A-B’s $1.56 billion marketing budget and will be to date its “most ambitious by far.” Several years ago A-B tried “Bud TV” but nothing much came of its single effort. A-B did its first product placement deal in Wedding Crashers last year and it was apparently a big success, leading to other Hollywood alliances. That experience was undoubtedly the impetus to take things even further but also to keep creative control.

Critics hope the venture will distract them from their core business but that doesn’t seem likely. A-B is too big with too many resources for that to be a reasonably probable outcome. I can’t help but wonder what the upcoming film Beerfest would look like if it was a Budweiser film?

Craft Beer Up 11% for First Half of 2006!

By

It’s been exactly ten years since the craft beer industry has seen double-digit growth. Back in the heady days of 1996 it seemed like a new brewery was opening every week. But that came to a screeching halt and things calmed down, the media turned its attention to the next big thing, and brewers got on with the job of making great beer.

Then a curious thing happened several years ago. Slowly but surely the craft beer numbers began to rise. Slowly at first, but more importantly it was happening consistently year after year. Now more great news today. So far in the first half of this year, craft beer sold looks to be 11% over the same period last year.

Said Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers Association professional division, in a press release today. “The rate of growth in the craft beer segment appears to be accelerating. This is the third straight year we’ve seen an increase in the craft beer growth rate.”

Also from the press release:

The current surge in growth comes on top of strong performance by the nation‚s small, independent and traditional brewers over the last two years. In 2004, the volume of craft beer sold increased by 7 percent and in 2005 it rose by 9 percent.

“This growth represents strong performance by established craft brewers over several years,” said Ray Daniels, Director of Craft Beer Marketing for the Brewers Association. “Unlike the early days of our industry, newly founded breweries do not add significantly to industry-wide production.”

“The current trend in craft beer sales increases demonstrates a growing consumer preference for the diverse and flavorful beers made by craft brewers,” said Gatza.

Now that puts a smile on my face.

Chugging Contests to Promote Brewfest

By

A few weeks ago I opined that the upcoming movie Brewfest was going to do nothing good for the good beer movement, and might even cause further harm to beer’s already beleaguered image. I even argued that position on a recent interview on the Brewing Network. Even though I’ve not seen the movie, everything I have seen has filled me with a growing sense of dread.

Along comes today’s Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the capitol city’s newspaper, with a story about how the co-creators and stars of Brewfest are promoting the film. It seems director Jay Chandrasekhar and “his co-writer/co-star/co-producer Paul Soter, 34, have been touring the country challenging locals to beer-chugging contests.” So to all of you who’ve defended this movie, I ask you. Is that really a good way to promote good beer? Is that good for beer’s image? I can just image how the MADD mothers will use this to their advantage.

“No team has beaten them yet.” The pair of filmmakers told the paper. Well, congratulations. You must be very proud. It’s good to have goals, and such lofty ones at that. That’s exactly what the beer industry needs, high-profile people in the media spotlight with the goal of chugging more beer than anybody else. It may sell newspapers and even the movie, but it does nothing to give beer any respect and in fact even undermines it more that the damage done year after year by the advertising created by the big breweries.

The Patriot-News describes the movie thusly:

The movie “Beerfest,” opening Friday, is most definitely an R-rated comedy that proudly features gratuitous nudity and all sorts of rude behavior, mostly involving imbibing lots of alcohol.

In and out of the movie, chugging beer is a bad idea.

Ordering Alcohol Online: More Deceptive Shenanigans

By

A few months ago, the NBWA in response to an odd query from the Surgeon General tried to blame underage drinking on the Internet in an effort to both seem caring and also continue to fight interstate alcohol shipping as the bogeyman for the 21st Century. To any trade organization who represents monopoly interests, of course, any hint of legislative change that threatens that control will be a bogeyman. In March it was beer distributors, now it’s wine wholesalers in the form of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) who are attempting to further their own agenda with misleading information, at best, and downright falsehoods, at worst.

They’ve released a study that they sponsored that concluded exactly what they wanted it to. How convenient. How manipulative. Of course they call the survey a “landmark.” I call it what it really is: bullshit. Before you dismiss my assessment out of hand, read John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton’s wonderful books Toxic Sludge is Good For You! and Trust Us, We’re Experts! Both go a long way toward explaining how seemingly scientific and unbiased studies are in reality propaganda created by a very sophisticated public relations industry.

The WSWA, like the NBWA, has one function, and one function only. And it isn’t trumped up concerns about our nation’s youth. It’s sole purpose is to advance the agenda of wine wholesalers and distributors. Almost all of these wholesalers enjoy very profitable monopolies that are threatened by direct sales over the Internet. So that’s the bogeyman. It will corrupt our children. It’s always about the children. It’s never about money or business. My child needs their protection. Hooray. I no longer have to worry because the WSWA is on the case. It’s easy, really. All they have to do is make up some statistics and scare parents who are too busy to think for themselves.

Look at the language they employ. The study “confirmed” findings, it didn’t come to any conclusions based on raw data. Instead it went looking to “confirm” that which supported a predetermined conclusion. Let’s examine their so-called conclusions:

  1. 3.1 million minors (12%) ages 14-20 report having a friend who has ordered alcohol online.

    2. Wow, they have a friend. And that friend has a friend, and so on. That’s how urban legends begin … I have a friend who has a friend and …. This is a statistic that says absolutely nothing. First of all, even if accurate there’s no way to know if these 3.1 million friends are all different or all the same. Perhaps there’s only one guy but everybody knows him. That’s just as plausible as trying to conclude 12% of minors are buying alcohol online. Sure, they don’t come out and say that, but that’s clearly the inference.

  2. Two percent (551,000) of those ages 14-20 say they personally have bought alcohol online.

    3. Since when did 2% of anything become significant. Again, let’s assume that the number is correct and no bragging occurred on the part of those surveyed. Should we restrict adult’s access to legal products because some small percentage of the population will abuse them? How does that number compare to other methods minors use to get alcohol? I’m willing to bet fake IDs and over-21 friends far exceed that number. Can we really stop 100% of minors getting their hands on alcohol? Should we even try? Because every barrier we put up also makes it more it more difficult for adults, too. Kids are kids. They’ll try to do whatever they can to grow up too quickly. I did it. You did it. We’re not going to stop human nature. The more we prohibit something, the more attractive it becomes. So what if these kids bought alcohol online. It’s not the Internet’s fault. It’s the same argument the gun lobby uses so effectively. Guns don’t kill people, people do. The Internet is just a vehicle. You don’t restrict access to it for everyone because a few abuse it. Besides, where were these kids parents? What’s their story? Without that information, raw numbers are meaningless.

  3. As exposure and awareness of buying alcohol online increase, even more minors can be expected to purchase wine, beer and liquor online. This is consistent with a 2003 National Academy of Sciences report which confirmed kids are buying alcohol online and that increasing use of the Internet will make this problem worse in the future.

    4. Again, this is not a fact but a flimsy extrapolation based on questionable (and uncited) information.

  4. Nearly one in 10 (9%) of those ages 14-20 have visited a site that sells alcohol.

    5. So what? It’s not illegal for minors to read about alcohol, is it? Minors are allowed in grocery stores that sell alcohol without being corrupted. What’s the difference? And it’s curious that while 9% have visited an alcohol website, 12% have a friend who’ve bought online, while only 2% have actually done so. Is it just me, or do those figures not quite add up.

  5. One-third – nearly 8.9 million ages 14-20 nationwide – are open to the possibility of an online alcohol purchase before age 21.

    6. When I was 14-20, I would have been open to it, too. When this generation of 14-20-years olds are my age, the next crop of 14-20-year olds will almost certainly also be open to it. So what? It’s meaningless hyperbole.

  6. Seventy-five percent say their parents aren’t able to control what they do on the Internet.

    7. Is that a failure of the internet or parents? We have to realize as a society that we can’t protect our kids from everything. We have to raise them to deal with things on their own. Parents can’t really control their kids at school, either, but nobody’s suggesting we should do away with the public school system and home school everybody.

  7. Among those ages 14-20 who have tried alcohol, 75% tried liquor, followed by wine at 64%, beer at 60% and wine coolers at 55%.

    8. Another head scratcher. I’m not even sure what this adds to the picture. I’m not sure why it’s included here.

Happily, I’m not the only one who thinks this false concern for children is anything but a thinly veiled attempt to maintain the status quo. A grassroots organization known as Free the Grapes has released a counter-statement also calling into question the tactics of the WSWA.

Here’s the bulk of their statement, which was titled “Majority of States Allow Regulated Wine Direct Shipping, But Wine Wholesalers Continue ‘Chicken Little’ Strategy“:

The wine wholesaler cartel today trotted out a tired argument already dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Federal Trade Commission, and state alcohol regulators.

The intent of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America’s “survey” on underage access is to deflect attention from their real motivation: economic protectionism. Over the past 30 years, the wholesale cartel has consolidated from 11,000 wholesalers to an oligopoly of two or three per state. The wholesalers, not consumers, have been deciding which wines are available. But now, the courts, Federal Trade Commission, and state legislatures are supporting consumer choice and responding with reasonable regulations and controls.

While the WSWA’s press release quoted that the “survey” results showed a “dangerous trend,” USA TODAY was unconvinced. The newspaper reported yesterday that “It’s unclear how many teens were buying alcohol online before the court’s ruling, but the TRU survey suggests such purchases are rare.”

Here are the facts:

  • Fact: Thirty-three states now allow interstate, winery-to-consumer direct shipments, and several more are in the process of creating the legal mechanisms to do so. No state has ever repealed pro direct shipping legislation based on non-compliance, including underage access. See www.wineinstitute.org for a list of the state laws.
  • Fact: The Federal Trade Commission rebuked the underage access argument in its survey of alcohol regulators in 11 states that allow direct shipments, concluding that states with procedural safeguards against shipments to minors report “few or no problems.” Click the following link to read a summary of the FTC’s July 2003 study, “Possible Anticompetitive Barriers to E-commerce: Wine”: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/07/wine.htm
  • Fact: The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Granholm v. Heald dismissed the underage access red herring, and favored a level playing field and consumer choice in wine via wineries and retailers
  • Fact: The wine industry supports the enforcement mechanisms available to states in the event of an alleged illegal shipment. The “21st Amendment Enforcement Act” was supported by the WSWA and signed into law in October 2000, allowing state Attorneys General to access federal courts to pursue litigation for alleged violations of state law regulating alcohol shipping. No winery or retailer has ever been prosecuted under the 21st Amendment Enforcement Act.

Additionally, alleged violations of state laws governing alcohol shipments can be reported by any state to the Trade & Tax Bureau for investigation. Penalties for infractions can include revocation of a winery’s basic permit to produce wine. Finally, the wine industry’s model direct shipping bill for wine stipulates that the winery or retailer holding a direct shipping license has consented to the jurisdiction of the state issuing the license, and the state’s courts concerning enforcement of the law. A copy of the model bill is located at www.freethegrapes.org.

“Especially now that the courts and capitols support consumer choice in wine, and many more enforcement tools are available, states should be working to ensure that online sellers are complying with all laws,” said Jeremy Benson, executive director, Free the Grapes! “Common sense and the actual experience of state regulators demonstrate that direct shipping is not the common means for illegal youth access to purchase wine, beer or spirits. Underage access is a serious issue, but it won’t be solved by special interest surveys geared to protect their turf by targeting a legal sales channel for adults,” he added.

The Wine Institute also posted a statement questioning the WSWA’s press release and survey findings.

The Wine and Spirits Wholesalers also have another website up called Point. Click. Drink. that is even more egregiously misleading than it’s main website — if you can believe that — which purports to educate young people. Unfortuntately it’s riddled with misinformation and outright fabrications, especially the Fact vs. Fiction section, which is almost entirely creative fiction. I considered going over their so-called facts point by point, but Free the Grapes put up their own counter to it: Point,Click, Think! There’s some great information there. For example, there’s this gem from USA Today, who wasn’t rolling over like NBC as far back as 1999, when they wrote:

“The [wholesaler] industry’s tactics are a civics lesson in how scare stories, lobbying and political money can be used to limit consumer choice through special-interest protections.”

— USA TODAY editorial, July 7, 1999

The WSWA even got NBC to bite on their press release and spread some nonsensical fears in a story entitled “Who is minding the Internet liquor store?” It’s by “Chief consumer correspondent” — whatever that means — Lea Thompson and it tells the tale of some kids who bought a bottle of absinthe online after watching the movie Eurotrip. Like much on the evening news, it spreads fear and highlights breakdowns in security all along the process. But it concludes, of course, by accepting the WSWA survey without question even dismissing the fact that the survey was commissioned by the WSWA by saying simply that “clearly there is a problem.” Not once is it suggested that the problem is with the security systems or other places the process breaks down. It was too easy to order online and the delivery company just gave the alcohol to a fifteen-year old. It didn’t occur to them to examine the breakdown in protocol by the delivery service. They got a free pass. NBC didn’t even mention it as a part of the problem. Yikes. Now that’s hard-hitting journalism.

But even the FTC examined E-commerce and concluded that online alcohol sales “Lowers Prices, Increases Choices in Wine Market.” The report, which was approved 5-0, refutes much, if not all, of the WSWA and NBWA’s ridiculous assertions that not banning the sales of alcohol online will lead to an epidemic of underage drinking. This time around the accusations were leveled by the wine wholesalers but much of it applies similarly to the beer industry. With so much money at stake, this issue isn’t going away anytime soon. The monopolies that constitute our alcohol distributors and wholesalers will defend those monopolies by any means necessary. Sometimes maintaining the status quo does make sense, as it does in certain aspects of the three-tier system, but other times it is clearly bad for consumers. This is one of those times. Direct shipping of alcohol from manufacturers or retailers interstate and intrastate should be legal in every state. That it’s not already shows how powerful the lobbying arms of alcohol distributors and wholesalers really are and how effective propaganda can be.

Bohemian Beer

By

A couple of days ago, Evan Rail had an interesting travel piece in the New York Times entitled The Ultimate Beer Run in the Czech Republic. The focus is naturally more travel-oriented but Rail speaks a lot about the beer there. Happily, Garrett Oliver is on hand (via phone) to lend a hand and give the beer info some context and history.

Bohemia is the western part of what today is known as the Czech Republic.

The Next Big Little Niche

By

Well I’ve known it’s been coming for a while now and have been sitting on it, because I’ve been researching a story about gluten-free beers. Today, Miller’s BrewBlog broke the story that Anheuser-Busch is readying a gluten-free beer for the market.

From the BrewBlog:

The brewer [A-B] on July 31 filed a brand label registration with the state of Missouri for a product called Red Bridge Sorghum beer. A-B previously had filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

A-B appears intent on jumping on a small bandwagon of brewers making beer with sorghum instead of barley. The dominant industry leader already has demonstrated its commitment to attacking tiny niches by rolling out organic beers.

Beers made with sorghum can be consumed by people with a condition called celiac disease. Exposure to gluten — a protein found in barley — triggers digestive problems in people with the disease.

Several craft brewers currently produce gluten-free beers. Unfortunately, because of ridiculously puritanical labeling restrictions that forbid any health claims on alcohol labels along with the fact the FDA has been criminally slow to adopt any standard of what gluten-free means (Europe by contrast has had a standard in place for years), they can’t really be labeled as gluten-free. Here’s a sample of gluten-free beers currently available from U.S. craft brewers:

In addition, brewers in Australia, Belgium, France, Italy and the United Kingdom are all producing gluten-free beers. The gluten-free seminar at this year’s Craft Brewers Conference was surprisingly well-attended. When I queried several brewers there, I got the same response from all of them. “We get a lot of customers asking about this.”

My interest in these beers comes originally from my son, Porter, who is autistic. In reading about Autism Spectrum Disorder, I’ve discovered that a common symptom among the constellation of autistic indicators is stomach problems and often times a gluten-free diet helps immensely. Like much about autism, scientists and doctors aren’t exactly sure why this happens but I’m glad so far Porter doesn’t show signs of having this problem. But there are also millions of Celiac sufferers worldwide, and the number is growing. People with celiac disease, likewise, must also abstain from gluten, a part of most grains like barley and wheat. One out of every 133 people in the U.S. has celiac disease.

Here’s a short description of celiac disease from the Celiac Disease Foundation:

A lifelong autoimmune intestinal disorder, found in individuals who are genetically susceptible. Damage to the mucosal surface of the small intestine is caused by an immunologically toxic reaction to the ingestion of gluten and interferes with the absorption of nutrients. Celiac Disease (CD) is unique in that a specific food component, gluten, has been identified as the trigger. Gluten is the common name for the offending proteins in specific cereal grains that are harmful to persons with CD. These proteins are found in all forms of wheat (including durum, semolina, spelt, kamut, einkorn, and faro), and related grains, rye, barley, and triticale and must be eliminated.

It seems obvious to me that this is the next big small niche beer. I know that last statement was oxymoronic, but hear me out. Gluten-free beers aren’t going to be as popular as light beer or even porters, but with 1-in-133 Americans with celiac disease combined with thousands, perhaps millions, of autistic kids on gluten-free diets who will begin reaching the age of majority in the coming years, and you’ve got a sizable little market that’s likely to emerge. Now that A-B is entering this market, more attention will surely be focused on it. And A-B, regardless of anything else you can say about them, doesn’t take any action without first having thoroughly researched, tested and studied the market. So look for many more gluten-free beers in the market soon.

Beer Attacks Continue

By

Less than two weeks after the newest Gallup poll showed that beer is indeed the most popular alcoholic beverage reversing last year’s poll which suggested wine was more popular, another attack on beer took place. This despite the fact that beer outsells wine 4-to-1, and has for decades if not longer. Today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a story in the business section entitled Beer sales falling flat as wine, other beverages grow in popularity. Business writer Len Boselovic begins by offering that if the term “Sophisticated Beer Drinker” “leaves an oxymoronic aftertaste on your palate, you have an idea of what beer makers are up against.” That’s his knee-slapping way of acknowledging that his paper along with almost every mainstream media source in the country have been doing an embarrassingly bad job of educating their readers about beer. For some reason his little joke just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It’s like he’s saying “ha ha, we suck at covering beer and now breweries are having trouble getting people to take beer seriously. Isn’t that funny?” Not when it’s partly your fault, you sanctimonious halfwit. Yeah, I know I lack perspective on this, but I’m just sick to death of the way the media treats beer so badly time and time again and then wonders why it has a poor image.

For support for the piece’s title, Boselovic offers the following:

U.S. beer shipments last year were flatter than a stale ale, falling 0.1 percent according to the Beer Institute. The industry group says shipments to the U.S. market — which accounted for about 86 percent of overall business — declined 2.2 percent to 178.8 million barrels. The drop was offset by a 7.2 percent increase in imports and an 8 percent increase in exports.

Meanwhile, the Wine Institute reports wine consumption grew 5.2 percent in 2005 while the Distilled Spirits Council says sales rose 2.9 percent based on the volume of alcohol sold.

But Boselovic barely mentions that craft beer has shown positive growth near 10% for the past two years and appears to be on track to threepeat this year.

The article also offers the following chart:

 

In it the author makes the blanket statement that “brewers have been losing customers in recent years,” by which he means the big brewers. Craft brewers have not only NOT been losing customers but have been slowly building their business over the last decade. But to mainstream media, especially the bigger outlets covering national or regional areas, the craft brewers are hardly ever on their radar at all. Fourteen hundred individual brewers in countless markets making 65+ different styles of beer and they hardly even rate a mention and are not even taken into account when discussing the beer business as a whole. But notice how every little boutique winery merits a full page profile as the next “it” business and it’s no wonder I’m pulling my hair out.

Apparently so-called “marketing experts” believe the cause of big beer’s decline is “changing consumer tastes” and they say “[d]rinkers are more sophisticated, willing to try something new, and looking for different beverages that are appropriate for different occasions.” Yet the craft beer segment of the industry is literally filled with complex, sophisticated beers in dozens of distinct styles perfect for the ideal circumstance, weather, food, event, holiday, etc. But the mainstream media repeatedly ignores this fact and turns instead to wine and spirits whenever the talk turns to sophistication. So it’s no wonder people can’t connect the two.

Auburn University professor Michael R. Solomon, who specializes in “consumer behavior” trots out this old saw. “When you drink a lot of wine, you’re refined. When you drink a lot of beer, you’re just a beer drinker.” And while he correctly points out that this problem is a perceptual one, he fails to notice that it was the media itself that helped to create this perception and continues to perpetuate it today.

While it’s certainly true that advertising by the major beer companies has done much of the damage to the perception of beer over many decades, the media has certainly been in collusion through the way they’ve ignored craft beer while embracing wine. So it’s really no surprise when this article does in fact suggest that it’s beer advertising that’s at fault and it’s only now that the big breweries are realizing what craft brewers have know for twenty-five years, that consumers “don’t want to be seen as a guzzler, a dumb guy, six-pack drinker. They want to be seen as a connoisseur.”

Jim Forrest, VP of Synovate, a market research firm, states that wine and distilled spirits producers have done a good job of fashioning strategies around occasions to consume their products.” He even mentions that “craft and import beer producers have done the same” yet neither he nor the article’s author mention that the media has all but ignored these “strategies around occasions to consume” with regard to beer while scarcely a holiday goes by without being inundated with stories on the right wine pairing or spirit needed to properly celebrate.

They all show remarkable restraint at ignoring their own role in the poor perception beer has after decades of neglect by everyone but a small, loyal cadre of connoisseurs.

Toward the end of the article, things turn decidedly rife with the unintentionally funny. To wit:

The industry hopes to capitalize on more discriminating palates through its Here’s To Beer campaign, an initiative spearheaded largely by Anheuser-Busch. Advertising features Spike Lee and other famous people describing who they’d like to share a beer with.

The Here’s to Beer campaign was, of course, solely created by Anheuser-Busch, not “spearheaded largely by” them as the article incorrectly claims. Originally, the trade organization The Beer Institute was involved but removed their support right after the initial ad ran on Super Bowl Sunday. The other brewers A-B approached about participating in the Here’s to Beer campaign all famously declined.

Judy Ramberg of Iconoculture has the following to say:

Anheuser-Busch realizes it has to grow by increasing its portfolio of specialty products, not by getting more people to drink its flagship brands. The danger is that the specialty brands will lose some of their appeal if drinkers realize who’s making them. “If beer drinkers find out they’re involved in some of these craft beers, they’ll lose all of their cachet,” says Ms. Ramberg, a Heineken drinker.

Well Judy, they’re taking your advice with many of their products, most notably their new organic beer, Wild Hop Lager, which fails to disclose it’s an A-B product on the label. But that’s also a problem for A-B since back in 1997 they stated publicly that “beer drinkers have the right to know who really brews their beer. We, along with many other traditional brewers and beer enthusiasts, object to those who mislead consumers by marketing their beers as ‘craft brewed,’ when in fact their beers are made in large breweries.” Oh, and Judy, Heineken is a terrible choice for a favorite beer. I don’t know why you volunteered that information or why the author included it, perhaps it was to show you were no shill for the domestic beer companies. People who like it generally — at least in my opinion — prefer the illusion of sophistication without going through the long, drawn-out process of actually being sophisticated enough to know how bad it is. So that’s at least in part why I have a hard time accepting your version of reality. But it’s interesting to note that their marketing campaign has worked on even a “marketing expert.”

On the other hand:

Mr. Forrest disagrees, arguing many drinkers don’t connect the dots. He says many people in the industry don’t realize Blue Moon Belgian White is made by Molson Coors, the world’s fifth-largest brewer. Protests from diehard Rolling Rock aficionados notwithstanding, the iconic brew should give Anheuser-Busch a buzz. “From a consumer standpoint, as long as they stay true to what that brand represents … they’ll still have the following,” Mr. Forrest says.

Jim, baby, I don’t know who you’re talking to but I don’t know anybody in the industry (including most beer connoisseurs) who isn’t aware that Blue Moon is a Coors product. It’s only been around for over ten years, so you must think the people in the beer industry are all pretty stupid. I’m surprised you’d condescend to speak to us lower forms of life. Oh, wait, you didn’t. You’re just sharing the results of having studied us mere mortals.

And please Jim, please, explain to me how from any point of view moving Rolling Rock’s production to New Jersey while continuing to say on the label “from the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe” yet listing the point of origin as St. Louis is staying “true to what that brand represents?” Perhaps that’s how things look in the ivory tower you’ve constructed for yourself, but here on Earth … not so much, Jimbo.

It’s pretty hard not to read these so-called “business experts” without feeling disgusted. I know market research is like the way sausage is made, the less you know the better. My skin crawls every time one of these yahoos claims some insight into the beer industry after floating a few polls or studying some data points they’ve collected. Time and time again the business press reports on beer as if they actually know what they’re talking about but, rarely, if ever, interviews actual people in the industry preferring instead to use analysts as their sources. And if this is how they report on an industry I have some familiarity with, why should I trust anything they have to say on ones I know nothing about? It’s enough to drive me to drink, if I wasn’t already sitting here with a pint of something yummy. Oh, and it’s not Blue Moon. Did you know Coors makes that?

Beerfest is Coming: Run, Hide & Disavow

By

Listed at the bottom of the poster for the upcoming film, Beerfest, is the tagline From the Comic Geniuses Who Brought You the Phenomenon “Super Troopers.” Super Troopers was a phenomenon? That’s a scary thought. If they treat beer the same way Super Troopers did the police, it’s hard to be enthusiastic for this movie’s release on August 25.

Based on the poster alone, the film seems to be aimed at the same people who enjoy beer commercials about frogs, twins, frat boys, catfights and girls in bikinis. I imagine I’m going to feel about this film the way Canadians must have felt about Bob and Doug McKenzie‘s Strange Brew.

A promotional tour for the Warner Brothers’ movie was in Portland on Sunday, the last day of the Oregon Brewers Festival. Throughout the festival, many people were talking about the film, but nobody had anything good to say about it, and I can’t say I blame them. All of the promotional material, the trailer and the bad puns seem to suggest an embarrasing — at least to those of us who think beer is worthy of respect — cinematic disaster.

This is the plot:

When American brothers Todd and Jan Wolfhouse travel to Germany to spread their grandfather’s ashes at Oktoberfest, they stumble upon a super-secret, centuries old, underground beer games competition – “Beerfest,” the secret Olympics of beer drinking. The brothers receive a less than warm welcome from their German cousins, the Von Wolfhausens, who humiliate Todd and Jan, slander their relatives, and finally cast them out of the event. Vowing to return in a year to defend their country and their family’s honor, The Wolfhouse boys assemble a ragtag dream team of beer drinkers and gamers: Barry Badrinath, the consummate skills player with a dark past; Phil Krundle (AKA Landfill), a one-man chugging machine; and Steve “Fink” Finklestein, the lab tech with a PhD in All Things Beer. This Magnificent Five train relentlessly, using their hearts, minds and livers to drink faster, smarter and harder than they ever have before. But first they must battle their own demons… as well as a bunch of big, blond, German jerks who want to destroy the team before they can even make it back to Munich. Revenge, like beer, is best served cold.

I generally disdain criticism of movies by people who haven’t seen a movie, but here I am doing it myself. That’s because everything I’ve seen so far about this comedy makes it appear that it can only further damage the image of beer in America. There’s some support for that in the write-up at the website Worst Previews. At the end of the trailer itself there is a mock disclaimer saying “no Germans were harmed” and that you should “treat all women with respect.” If you have to tell people to treat women respectfully, that probably signals that the film will do just the opposite, and the trailer does seem to bear that out. Unlike Oregon’s Brewers Summer Games where industry professionals compete in events that have some relation to their jobs, the Beerfest ones appear to be nothing more than juvenile drinking games. These are the sort of games played on college campuses and high school parties with the only goal being to get drunk, and often as fast as possible. I’m sure plenty of people will find that hilarious, because many people seem to enjoy comedies that drag them down to the below slapstick level that appeals to five-year olds and the blissfully uneducated teens and early twenty-somethings. I realize I’m sounding like that old curmudgeon whining about “these kids today,” but I do enjoy the ocassional low-brow teen comedy, especially ones that are smart and witty.

I think what bothers me about everything I know about this film so far is that it appears to be a two-hour beer commercial with all the worst elements that have skewed people’s perceptions of what beer is over the last several decades. Glorifying over consumption, pandering to male sexual urges, misinformation such as the “ice cold” idea or that low-calorie beer has any additional health benefits. The official website even has flying frogs holding a banner.

I realize people can be entertained by all manner of things, and certainly have the right to laugh at whatever they want. I’m sure Warner Brothers knows its audience. They’ve been doing this successfully for a long time now. But I just can’t abide the idea that beer will once again be dragged through the mud in the name of entertainment. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to lift up beer and get it the respect I believe it so richly deserves. A film like this has the potential to undo so much of what so many of us have been trying to do for good beer that I just want to sit down and cry.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I take these things too seriously. Maybe I’m a lone nut shouting at the wind. Maybe this is what America wants, is yearning for. After all, my finger is so rarely on the pulse of America’s tastes. But to me this just has disaster for the beer industry written all over it.

 

 

If you want to see the trailer for yourself, here it is in a variety of formats and sizes:

Quicktime:

  • Super Hi-Res
  • Hi-Res
  • Med-Res
  • Lo-Res

Windows Media Player:

  • Super Hi-Res
  • Hi-Res
  • Med-Res
  • Lo-Res