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Happy Repeal Day

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Today is the 74th anniversary of the repeal of national Prohibition in the United States. Bob Skilnik has, naturally, the most complete account at his Beer In Food blog. His piece is called “National Prohibition; Its REAL Anniversary” and goes into great detail about the history swirling about at that time. It’s definitely worth a read.

In addition, Eugene, Oregon bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler has been leading an effort to make December 5 a holiday and he’s also set up a Repeal Day website. And Dewar’s is also running a Repeal Day promotion to celebrate the day (and sell some whisky, of course). Seems like a good idea to me, we can never have too many holidays to remind us what a bad idea Prohibition was, especially with the neo-prohibitionists of today trying so hard to bring about another one.

 

Revelers enjoying the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.
 

Craft Brewers Merge, Too

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The last time I took a trip, that one to Denver for GABF, Miller and Coors merged their domestic operations. Now I’m in Munich, Germany on my last day of a long beer trip and Widmer Brothers and Redhook announce, they too, will be merging. I have got to stop leaving the house otherwise who knows what might happen next.

Maybe it’s because the news reports I read were from Seattle newspapers, but I was surprised that Redhook is the buyer because Widmer has been the much stronger performer ever since Anheuser-Busch purchased minority stakes in both breweries in the late 1990s. Shortly thereafter, Redhook was called “Budhook” derisively by many craft beer aficionados and their reputation, as well as their business, did appear to suffer. Certainly Redhook was not as active in the community as they had been before. Widmer Brothers, on the other hand, seemed to maintain their reputation and sales continued to grow. But perhaps more importantly, the Widmers continued to be active in the brewing community and were out in the public, effectively managing to keep the perception intact that they are a quality-minded small craft brewery.

Redhook reportedly will buy stock in Widmer valued at about $50 million. The new company’s name, with no touch of irony, will be called the “Craft Brewers Alliance.” Both Widmer and Redhook will continue to brew beer as before at their respective breweries.

Their combined output will be approximately 600,000 barrels, enough to catapult them into the top ten, probably around eighth or ninth. The pair separately was number 11 and 12 last year. Kurt Widmer will become the chairman of the Craft Brewers Alliance, which also has a stake in Chicago’s Goose Island Brewing and a distribution agreement with Hawaii’s Kona Brewing. Paul Shipman, who helped found Redhook, will be given the title chairman emeritus, but effectively will be retiring from the day to day operations of the business.

 

Stella Artois’ Take On Their New Web Launch

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Those of you who have been following the online debate among beer bloggers regarding ethics which was sparked by e-mail many of us received regarding the new Stella Artois website launch will no doubt be intrigued by their latest press release, which was about the website re-launch. In it, they claim that traffic has increased twenty-fold since the re-launch.

Here’s the part I think many of you will find interesting:

Both the mainstream media community as well as the social media internet community have broadly praised the website, developed by Lowe Worldwide under the direction of the Global Stella Artois brand team, and it has been awarded ‘Site of the Week’ status by the FWA.

“The interesting thing is that people are also staying on our site much longer than industry average estimates of 45 seconds,” said Neil Gannon, Global Marketing Manager for Stella Artois. “In fact, the main site attracts a viewing time of four minutes, with many people watching the short La Bouteille film, which also serves as the navigation for the site, for well over five minutes. And 30% of visits to our site are through word of mouth, rather than search engines, which is a really nice compliment,”

Reader reactions on industry blog Ads of the World (which advised readers to put aside at least half an hour to view the site) included “Wonderful! Engaging and entertaining”, whilst “Captivating, original and exciting” was the reaction from Welcome to the Future whose readers gave the site 4.8 out of 5.0. Contagious Magazine called the site an “online epic”, whilst Clare Beale, Editor of industry publication Campaign magazine and contributor to The Independent newspaper in the United Kingdom, called the website “cunning” and “with an entertainment value that means that viewers will spend time on the site and return for more.”

My initial reaction is that it clearly shows how they intended to use the beer blogging community as well as the online community generally. But I’ve been drinking seemingly non-stop in Germany for the last two days, slightly sleep-deprived and wanting desperately to go to sleep so I’m in no condition to give this my usual overthinking. So instead I’ll ask you what you think about this latest press release from Stella Artois and whether or not it has any relevance or effect on our earlier dialogues?

 

A Cool, Blonde Drink of Offense

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Since I’m in Germany right now, this item caught my eye. It’s about the National Organization for Women (or NOW) singling out St. Pauli Girl’s new ad campaign as being “offensive to women.” Adrants described the new campaign as follows:

In its new campaign, dubbed “Drop Dead Refreshing,” St. Pauli Girl is playing a little game with us. Front and center in the brewer’s new print campaign is the image of a model Photoshopped to look like beer. As an added twist to the campaign, the model is said to be “renowned and popular” and those who care, can guess the model’s identity on the brewers website. Her identity will be revealed this spring.

St. Pauli Girl’s press release indicated the new ads would begin running this spring and I’m not sure when NOW weighed in with their offense. There are certainly ads at NOW’s website collection of offensive ads which I can understand them finding offensive with and with which I agree with their assessment. BUt I’m not so sire about the St.Pauli Girl ad. Here’s the ad reprinted below along with the caption from NOW’s website.

St. Pauli: A woman presented as a human beer bottle—now that should make you foam at the mouth. Once you’ve finished consuming her, should you just discard her like an empty beer bottle?

Here’s what I don’t understand. What makes NOW think the woman is being portrayed as a beer bottle? If your eyes aren’t enough, the press release makes it pretty clear that she’s not meant to be the bottle. She’s even wearing a dress made of beer, along with her entire body, except for hair which instead is, rather fittingly, the head of the beer. There at least two additional ads which make the case for her being beer rather than a bottle even more ironclad. As a result their analogy of discarding St. Pauli Girl after drinking her falls flat. I don’t think is necessarily the finest beer ad I’ve ever seen and St. Pauli Girl is not an especially wonderful beer, but I don’t see as the most egregious beer ad I’ve seen and it doesn’t rise to anywhere near Miller’s infamous mud wrestling ad.

We know sex sells. Men like it, but so do women. They just respond to its imagery in some starkly different ways. If you want to trigger sexual emotions in men or women you have to employ widely varying techniques to reach each gender. Does using sex in advertising by definition make it bad a priori? It seems to me that our proclivity to respond emotionally to sexual cues is deeply embedded in our nature and advertisers exploit that very human nature precisely because it’s so effective.

Advertisers are not generally speaking the most moral among us. They have a job to do and they do it pretty well but they rarely consider anything beyond their goal. As comedian Bill Hicks was fond of saying. “If you’re in advertising or marketing, please kill yourself. You are Satan’s little helpers and there’s no rationale for what you do. Go on. Kill yourself.” I guess what I always took away from that sentiment is that all advertising is essentially morally questionable because it uses whatever means necessary to achieve a goal and the idea that the ends justified the means was essentially taken for granted as an unquestionable foundation of the industry.

So I think their criticism of this specific ad comes down to the question of whether it’s better or worse than the general state of advertising. It doesn’t seem to me this is even the worst of the many questionable beer ads. First of all NOW seems to have misunderstood the ad by thinking the woman was being depicted as a bottle and then leapt to some self-serving conclusions that don’t really seem to be supported by the evidence. Is a great ad? No, not really. It’s better than some, worse than others. I realize as a man I’m ill-suited to decide what’s offense to women, but I don’t think that means whatever NOW says must be true just because they say so.

Sam to Sam: “Sorry About That”

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Okay, it’s not exactly a full-blown apology, but the words “for that we apologize” do appear in a statement released today by the Boston Beer Co. regarding what they characterize as “clarification” of “what really happened in Portland, Oregon.”

The statement begins:

The Boston Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, wishes Portland City Commissioner Sam Adams the best of luck in his pursuit of higher office. And guess what – Samuel Adams Beer has in no way ever suggested that Sam Adams the candidate cannot use his own name. But, according to recent stories in the media, it sure hasn’t looked that way.

Which I guess is their way of saying Intellectual Property Manager Helen Bornemann never said “she’s willing to discuss Adams’ use of his name on his Web sites “probably for the length of the time the election is being held,” as was reported by the Associated Press. It sure looks like a direct quote. It would nice to have a more definitive answer about that statement, because frankly that’s the one that stuck in my craw. She either said it or she didn’t. Which is it?

Boston Beer continues:

A little history: last week The Boston Beer Company learned that an individual named Dave Anderson of Portland, Oregon had registered two domain names that featured the name Sam Adams. Not knowing his intent, we sent him a letter asking him not to use these sites. Next thing we knew, we had a call from the legal department at broadcasting conglomerate, Clear Channel, at which point we learned that Dave Anderson is a DJ at Clear Channel’s KEX radio and that a man named Sam Adams was indeed running for Mayor of Portland. We wish we had learned a little more about Portland’s race for mayor before sending out that initial letter, and for that we apologize.

Notice how in the statement they use the passive phrase “asking him not to use these sites.” Reread the original letter again and see if that sounds like they’re just “asking?”

The only thing they really admit to in the letter is that they “wish [they] had learned a little more about Portland’s race for mayor before sending out that initial letter.” Amen, that is the problem in a nutshell. And that’s the only thing they’re apologizing for, that they wish they’d “learned a little more.” I hate to keep beating a dead horse, especially over a company I generally like a great deal, but that sure seems like a pretty half-hearted apology. Notice that they’re not actually apologizing for sending the letter, making threats or not using a more measured approach or even for Bornemann’s statement that “she’s willing to discuss Adams’ use of his name on his Web sites ‘probably for the length of the time the election is being held.'”

They go on to say that they reacted so swiftly because they’ve had bad experiences in the past and characterize themselves as “a small company.” Technically that’s correct because the federal standard for a brewery business to qualify as a small business it must have less than 500 employees. According to Google Finance, Boston Beer has approximately 433. Certainly they’re smaller than Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors and even Pabst, but with total revenues last year exceeding $285 million they are the biggest microbrewery in the country, and by a pretty wide margin. The next closest brewery is Yuengling, and while they’re privately held so I don’t know their revenue, I do know they have only 185 employees and are not distributed nationwide. With numbers so much larger than a majority of their peers, calling them small seems a little hard to swallow. I doubt they talk about themselves that way to investors. But if you’re trying to garner a little sympathy, the underdog card is always a good one to play.

They go on to explain their actions:

Why did we ask Clear Channel and Dave Anderson not to use those domain names? In the past we have experienced times when individuals and organizations have tried to use our brand name for commercial purposes or to disparage our good name. We have learned that, as a small company, we need to protect our identity. At the least we wanted to prevent a situation where people looking for our Web site end up linked to a radio station promotional site.

On the other hand, there have been occasions over the years when individuals actually named “Sam Adams” have registered domain names that included the words Sam Adams, and we have had no quarrel with that.

Those are, of course, all legitimate reasons and any company should protect its intellectual property. But as they say, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. When you use a bludgeon, you should expect things might go awry. Would it have mattered if Bornemann had waited another day or even a few hours to send the letter, giving her ample time to figure out the true nature of the situation she was facing? Would such a modest delay have weakened her case? Could she not have called her company’s local field representatives and/or the distributors of Samuel Adams beer working in the Portland area soliciting what they knew? Could she not have looked up the website of the radio station or the name “Sam Adams” along with the modifier “mayor?” I think any of these actions might have been quite revealing and saved her company much grief.

But there’s one more thing I think would make all of this go away, and that’s perhaps the hardest thing for any modern company or person, for that matter, to do: and that would be giving an unqualified apology or just saying a blanket “I’m sorry.” I’m not sure why that’s so difficult for people these days, but it does seem spin always gets in the way. You almost never hear people just simply say they’re sorry. Instead they “regret,” or “wish it had been different” or some other similar device so it sounds like they’re apologizing without actually doing so. There’s a great phrase used in a song by one of my favorite songwriter/singers, John Wesley Harding, and the line is “naked as a true apology.” And I think that nicely captures people’s feelings today about apologizing, that it somehow makes them vulnerable or open to attack. But sometimes it really is the best thing to do, right or wrong. I’ll even start the ball rolling. To all of the people I’ve met over the years and who are my friends at the Boston Beer Co., I’m sorry for having been so hard on the company over the last couple of days.

 

Garrett’s Thoughts (And My Own) on MillerCoors

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On Friday, the New York Times ran an editorial by Garrett Oliver entitled Don’t Fear Big Beer. Oliver is the brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery as well as the author of the seminal book on beer and food, The Brewmaster’s Table. I have a lot of respect for Garrett’s opinions, generally, and he makes some good points here, too. I certainly agree with him when he announces that “today the United States has by far the most exciting beer culture in the world.”

And I love his suggestion that the craft brewing segment has shed its “fad” status after nearly thirty years of ups and downs to emerge as a mature, stable part of the beer industry, or in Oliver’s words — “a welcome return to normality.” Historically, that makes sense. For most of the years since Europeans washed up on America’s shores, the small and regional brewery held sway. It’s only been since the rise of our big, national corporate society that things have gotten so out of whack. The consolidation of countless industries has been bad for everybody, except of course the big corporations and their shareholders, over the last fifty plus years. When I graduated from high school — ahem, thirty years ago — there were only 40 or so breweries left in the entire nation and it looked like the industry was doomed to make insipid caricatures of European lagers in perpetuity.

Then a few things happened. Airfare got cheaper and more people started traveling, discovering diverse beers all over the map. Based on this new demand, a number of the larger import brands started selling their beer in larger U.S. cities. This was the setting where I personally discovered better beer, haunting small jazz clubs throughout New York City that were serving Bass Ale, Guinness and Pilsner Urquell. Then there was homebrewing, which came up and out from the underground, when Jimmy Carter signed a federal law decriminalizing it in 1978. Those three changes to 1970s society, along with others I’m sure I’m forgetting, conspired to create a backlash among a small but thirsty minority who wanted beer that tasted of something more than the watery concoctions the big brewers were — and still are — passing off as beer. Thanks to those cranky few who wouldn’t settle for the beer landscape as it was, the microbrewery revolution forever changed what was possible and as a result, today the diversity of great beer available here in the states is better than anywhere else on Earth. The fact that this was accomplished in the face of an advertising and marketing blitzkrieg sending the opposite message about what beer is makes it all the more remarkable. Their success seems to have prefigured similar returns to quality local and regional renaissances in all manner of goods, such as coffee, bread, cheese, chocolates and organic food generally.

Is “[t]he age of American industrial brewing,” as Garret teases, “over”? Not today, certainly. Even Garrett knows that “it’s not going away tomorrow” but I absolutely love his notion that “there is no future in it.” On a level playing field, I think things would indeed run their course fairly quickly, in perhaps a generation, with flavorful beers gaining the upper hand among anyone taking the time to think about their choices and learn something about what they’re drinking. Unfortunately, real life is nothing like that. Large corporations have almost all the resources, not to mention the ear of a political system that knows that helping the status quo keeps them in office. They’re not going gentle into that good night without a fight. And, sadly, I think they have enough of an advantage that they could hang on a good long time absent a social and economic revolution. Government tends to bail out big corporations and lets small ones die every single day. Which is not to imply Garrett doesn’t know that, but he’s decided to accentuate the positive, certainly a laudable approach.

Oliver ends his editorial with some truly inspiring words:

If we truly want to restore the vibrant beer culture that flourished in this country before Prohibition, craft brewers need to retain the values and goals — creating beers that are flavorful, interesting to drink and made from proper beer ingredients — that put us on the map in the first place. Let’s not undo American beer again.

I wish I could be that sunny and optimistic. I think what he says, while correct, is not really the problem faced by small breweries. Oliver seems to imply that craft brewers hold the keys to their own success and that all they need do is stay true to themselves, that simply making a great product is enough to guarantee continued growth. Maybe I’m mis-reading that, but it seems far more complicated to me, and it ignores the fact that the big brewers will not give up their own hard won market share easily.

That’s why I think Garrett is overlooking something when he says “America’s 1,500 craft brewers are undaunted by the prospect of a juggernaut that would have 30 percent of the domestic market” and that “MillerCoors is not a threat to craft brewers.” He ties that last statement to over expansion, and while that has been a problem for many small brewers trying to grow too quickly, it’s not really the reason Miller or Coors are combining their efforts to challenge Anheuser-Busch’s market dominance. I think craft brewers should feel a bit more daunt about that task. There is a problem that 95% of the market believes the beer they drink is good enough and are either too busy or too ignorant to know the difference. That’s a real problem.

But the more proper question is whether Miller and Coors separately or MillerCoors together makes that problem any different. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought since I first heard the news the morning I arrived in Denver for GABF last week, trying to figure out what it will mean for the marketplace, and especially for the smaller players. I can’t help but think this will change the nature of distribution, especially in smaller markets. All over the place in the last decade, we started seeing markets with three distributors (with each having one of the three big brewers in their portfolio) consolidate down to two, with one Bud house and the other carrying both Coors and Miller. And while I suspect neither Coors nor Miller was particularly thrilled to have to share the spotlight, for distributors it was a boon. But two distributors usually means less places for small brewers to find someone to carry their beer and sell it to retailers, bars and restaurants. If that spreads to larger cities, it would certainly reduce the choices available to a small brewer. In Bud houses that are owned by A-B (where that’s legal) or ones that tow the 100% share of mind that leaves a small brewer with a choice of exactly one, not really a choice at all. San Francisco is like that, to some extent. Cal Bev went out of business five or so years ago, leaving Golden Brands — now called DBI Beverage Distributors (with Miller and Coors) and Matagrano (with Bud). In the City by the Bay, at least two independent distributors, that is ones without a big flagship brand, also bring smaller brands to market, but that’s not the case in many other places.

Will that continue to happen with the consolidation of the two major brands? No one can say for sure, of course, but it certainly seems logical that we’ll begin to see more two-distributor territories in the near future. And that I think could be very bad for some small brewers, especially the ones without the resources to hire a field representative to work with the distributors in markets outside their home. The regional breweries, which are already fueling most of the craft beer segment’s growth, should have no problem keeping a distributor, but it could be problematic for the smaller, more local breweries. It may also make it more difficult for cusp breweries just on the verge of growing larger. With only two distributors to choose from (and effectively one in some places), instead of three, it seems likely some breweries will have a hard time finding a home to sell their wares and that this could effectively keep some breweries from expanding their business.

Also, it seems to me the prices wars among the big three will not go away in a reconfigured landscape of the big two. Those price wars have kept beer prices artificially low for quite some time, and that has also made it difficult for craft brewers to charge a more premium price for their beer, even though it’s warranted. The recent scarcity of barley and hops and the attendant price hikes that will now finally have to be taken will only increase the gap between the big brands and the craft brands, especially if the big two go head to head (which seems likely, doesn’t it?). It’s my feeling that makes it harder to persuade people to trade up to better beer. So while it may be too early to tell if any of this will indeed have an effect on the beer industry generally, it seems foolish to carry on and just assume it won’t.

Perhaps Oliver is correct with his advice not to be afraid, but we can’t ignore them either. Just as they respond to gains by the craft segment and view us a threat to their market share, we have to protect our more modest gains just as vigorously. To me, that’s how we lay to rest the age of American industrial brewing. It’s not merely enough to make a more flavorful product that people want, we also have to work together as a united front. That’s the real lesson of the MillerCoors merger. The two small giants finally realized that fighting each other for number two was a fool’s game and did nothing but help number one. The craft segment, for all its collegial atmosphere, does include ugly examples of infighting for a larger share of our tiny slice of the pie. The only way we win this fight, is if we all win this fight. Not even the largest craft brewer can come close to being anything but a speck of a David to the Goliaths of our industry. It’s only together as an idea and as a movement that we register at all. That’s our strength, that we’re everywhere all at once, a many tentacled benevolent beast. Cut off one, and there are still 1,499 more left to fight the fight. But we must work together to have any effect at all. Can I get an Amen, brewer?

NOTE: Stan sent me two links to posts where my friend and colleague Maureen Ogle has also addressed this issue, the first, Pondering the Fear of Beer, and the second, Pondering Beer’s Future, both address questions raided by Garrett Oliver’s NY Times op-ed piece. Thanks Stan.

GABF 2007: Day 3, Friday

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Friday we finished judging at Noon and I rushed over to a media lunch with Lucy Saunders, Sam Calagione and Marnie Old. Then there was the Alpha King Challenge at Falling Rock along with some other events Chris Black had planned for us, including kegs of Sierra Nevada’s new Harvest Ale. After that, the Friday Night Session resumed at 5:30 and was as crowded as expected.

Past Alpha King winner Brendan Moylan, who owns both Marin Brewing and Moylan’s, downstairs waiting for the results of this year’s contest.

Chris Black also had as his guests the father and son brewers from Bosteels in Belgium.

Back at the Denver Convention Center, John Mallet, from Bell’s Brewing, shows he’s ready to strut his stuff at the disco (at right) with (from left) Bob Pease and Ray Daniels, both with the Brewers Association, along with British publican extraordinaire, Mark Dorber, who do not look quite ready for the dance floor. Though to be fair, Ray looks like he’s leaning into the idea.

 

For many more photos from Friday at GABF, visit the galleries for the Friday Daytime Events and the Friday Night Session.
 

GABF 2007: Day 2, Thursday

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Thursday morning began, not counting judging, with a quick trip to Great Divide Brewing‘s Hospitality Reception for brewers and the media. I’ve been going to their soirée for as long as I can remember. Then the first session began at the Denver Convention Center. The first session is not usually as crowded as later ones, but all four session sold out in advance, which is the first time that’s happened. As a result, Thursday night was every bit as packed as Friday and Saturday. New Glarus ran out of beer in less than three hours.

At the Great Divide Brewery on Arapahoe in Denver, the only couple to have both won Beer Drinker of the Year, Cornelia Corey and Ray McCoy.

At the Denver Convention Center, this year’s festival fittingly included tributes to Michael Jackson throughout, including this large banner that hung in the center of the hall.

The panelists from one of the “In the Brewing Studio” discussions, this one on women in brewing. From left: Carol Stoudt (from Stoudts Brewing), Jennifer Talley (from Squatter’s Pub Brewery), Natalie Cilurzo (from Russian River) and Teri Fahrendorf (formerly with Steelhead Brewing)

 

For many more photos from Thursday at GABF, visit the galleries for the Great Divide Reception and the Thursday Night Session.
 

Coors & Miller To Collaborate?

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Holy Cow! You get on a plane for a few hours and all hell breaks loose. While I was flying to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, SAB Miller and Molson Coors announced that they will “combine their U.S. operations to create a business that will have annual sales of $6.6 billion and be the second-biggest market player behind Anheuser-Busch.” The new venture will be known as MillerCoors. Wow, that’s big news. I’m sure we’ll hear a lot from business analysts and beer people over the next few days about what this will mean for the beer industry, but for right now I need to digest it all and just drink it in. Wow.

 

Greenpeace Asserts GE Rice Used in Bud

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Greenpeace today released the results of an independent analysis of rice at an Arkansas mill which supplies rice to Anheuser-Busch for use in their beer. The lab found genetically engineered rice in 75% of the samples. From the press release:

An independent laboratory, commissioned by Greenpeace, detected the presence of GE rice (Bayer LL601) in three out of four samples taken at the mill. The experimental GE rice is one of three rice varieties that were first found in 2006 to have contaminated rice stocks in the US. Since then, GE contamination has been found in approximately 30 per cent of US rice stocks. This has had a massive negative impact on the US rice industry as foreign markets, where GE rice has not been approved, have been closed to US rice.

“Anheuser-Busch must make a clear statement about the level of GE contamination of the rice used to brew Budweiser in the US and spell out what measures are in place to ensure this beer does not reach the company’s export markets,” said Doreen Stabinsky, Greenpeace International GE Campaigner.

“US beer drinkers need Anheuser-Busch to explain why it is not preventing use of this genetically-engineered rice in the US. If, as the company has informed Greenpeace, all of the Budweiser exported from the US or manufactured outside of the US is guaranteed GE free then Anheuser-Busch needs to state this publicly, and explain the double standard,” said Stabinsky.

Greenpeace informed Anheuser-Busch of the test results prior to their release and sought clear information from the company on the extent of contamination and its global policy on the use of GE ingredients. Anheuser-Busch responded that the rice is approved in the US and is not used in brewing Budweiser destined for export. The full extent of the contamination remains unclear, however.

LL601 GE rice was retroactively granted approval by the US Dept of Agriculture in an effort to reduce public concern and company liability despite 15,000 public objections. The European Food Safety Authority stated that there was insufficient data to make a finding of safety. Greenpeace says that US consumers have a right to know if this GE rice is used to make Budweiser. This GE rice is not approved outside the US so the Budweiser brewed with it could not be sold abroad.

Anheuser-Busch is the largest single rice buyer in the US, buying 6-10 per cent of the annual US rice crop. Budweiser is one of only a few beers having rice as an ingredient. The brand is found in around 60 countries through a mix of exports and local brewing arrangements.

I recently did an article on green breweries and interviewed the Senior Group Director of Environmental, Health and Safety for A-B. I was pleasantly surprised at just how many things they were doing to be “green” so it seems surprising that they’d overlook genetically engineered rice being used in the beer itself. One thing you can say about Anheuser-Busch is that they do care about their public perception, so it will be interesting to see their reaction to this revelation.

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Doug Muhleman, Anheuser-Busch’s Group Vice President of Brewing, Operations and Technology, released a statement yesterday which I think suggests that Greenpeace is not the virtuous one in this story. On closer examination, this may be more about international politics than beer. Here’s Muhleman’s statement:

Greenpeace’s statements regarding our beer brands are false and defamatory. All of our products are made according to the highest quality standards and in complete compliance with the laws in each country where we sell our beers.

We stand in support of U.S. farmers, who are partners with us in the quality of our products. Greenpeace recently asked us to join their advocacy campaign on genetically modified crops. We refused their calls to boycott U.S. farmers, and they are now retaliating.

The use of genetically modified crops in the United States is not new. The vast majority of the commercial corn and soybean supply in the United States contains genetically modified versions that are certified to be safe for human consumption by the U.S. Government.

We use U.S. rice for brewing our products for U.S. consumption. U.S.-grown long-grained rice that may have micro levels of Liberty Link proteins present is fully approved by the U.S. Government, having determined that it is perfectly safe for human consumption. Moreover, the Liberty Link protein, like all proteins, is substantially removed or destroyed by the brewing process. Liberty Link has not been found in any of our tests of our beers brewed in the United States.

We fully comply with all international regulatory standards on the use or presence of genetically modified ingredients wherever our beers are sold internationally, as well. Neither Anheuser-Busch, nor our international licensed brewing partners use genetically modified ingredients, including genetically modified rice, in brewing products sold in any country with legal restrictions.

We talked with Greenpeace, hoping to help them understand the facts. We are disappointed that they instead chose to pursue pressure tactics.

Now I’m no fan of GMO’s, but they have been used here for many years and, like it or not, they’re a part of our massive food system. Short of pulling out every crop in the country and starting over, I’m not exactly sure what would satisfy Greenpeace. Certainly the way Greenpeace is seeking to sensationalize this seems more bullying than anything. I confess I was alarmed when I first read the story but having looked at it more closely in the interim I’m not sure their tactics are entirely warranted.

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Me with Doug Muhleman at an A-B reception at GABF last year.