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Against the Ropes

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Part of me breathes a sigh of relief when someone else I respect reacts the same way I do to something, case in point being the recent Slate beer slam that I wrote about yesterday. Not only did Food & Wine editor Nick Fauchald take offense, but so did fellow beer writers Stan Hieronymous and Jess Sand. On one hand there’s a certain comfort to know I’m not off the deep end, which is a place I often find myself, but on the other hand these sort of attacks on beer seem to be coming with an alarming frequency here of late. Increasingly, they seem calculated to cause offense in order to increase web traffic, ratings, exposure, etc. It’s what I’ve called the Coulter-effect since incendiary pundit Ann Coulter is a master at the ridiculously offensive statement that’s crafted just for that purpose of keeping herself in the public eye as an object of media attention without which presumably she’d whither and die (figuratively, I mean). There have been quite a few of these lately against beer that have caused quite a stir, but I won’t mention them by name so as not to give them more of what they crave — attention.

This latest one on Slate is heating up again, thanks to a Q&A with author Field Maloney that the Washington Post hosted yesterday at 10:00 a.m. I’m sorry I missed the live version, but there is a transcript, thoughtfully sent to me by a Bulletin reader (thanks Sean). Maloney answered a baker’s dozen of questions, most of which were asking for advice on what to drink, but a few were more illuminating, both for the questions themselves and Maloney’s answers.

Question #4 was from a wine blogger in the D.C. area, Winesmith, and he displays a great deal of ignorance (I don’t mean that derisively BTW, just that he doesn’t seem to be aware) about how well food and beer work together when he writes the following in his query. “More people are beginning to realize (consciously or not) that wine and food enhance each other, but beer is a refresher that washes food down.” To his credit, Maloney disagrees with this, and says he “think[s] [beer’s] flavors can play off the flavors of food nicely.” But the wholesale statement that wine is so self-evidently better with food than beer is remarkable in what it says about perception and how the self-avowed wine lover can become myopic in pursuit of a narrow range of tastes. Wine goes quite poorly with a wide range of foods, such as Barbecue, Cajun, Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Mexican, to name a few. As Garrett Oliver put it in his wonderful book, The Brewmaster’s Table, “spices distort wine flavors, turning white wines hot and red wines bitter.” And the caramelized flavors from roasted grains work perfectly with the similar caramelized flavors you get when you cook meat. I could go on and on, but the point is simply that I’m always surprised at what people don’t know and so surmise or presume to be true based on propaganda. It’s understandable but deeply troubling.

Question #7 concerns the much-discussed 2005 Gallup poll that was the basis for some of Maloney’s conclusions. The question, from Philadelphia, was that “despite the Gallup Poll in 2005 (the 2006 poll put beer back on top, by the way, but it didn’t get anywhere near the press attention the 2005 one did — more evidence of a wine-wing media bias…) beer continues to handily outsell wine, both in volume and dollar sales. What’s that indicate?” Maloney responds with these gems.

Some of the beer people pointed this out in 2005. Even though more Americans said they preferred wine in that pool, beer still outsold wine 6 to 1. So either a very few people drink a whole lot of beer, or people are more stuck on beer than they let on. I think because wine has become more of a “lifestyle” drink, people might be more likely to say they “prefer” wine in a poll, even though they actually drink more beer. But who knows? The unpredictable psychology of polling behavior is fascinating to me.

Also, I think the American media loves stories that indicate a shift in the status quo. In this case, with wine vs. beer, it was a shift in the status quo that seemed to reinforce some larger cultural trends. That kind of stuff is catnip to journalists.

Now this is just plain odd. Maloney actually admits “beer still outsold wine 6 to 1” along with his fascination with the “unpredictable psychology of polling behavior.” He then went on to explain why so much of the media pounced on the 2005 poll. So not only did he know that the poll was bogus and not indicative of a real trend, he even speculated on why it was so over-reported. So maybe this is just too obvious a question, but then why on Earth did he use the poll as support for his theory that suddenly wine is ascendant and beer is in a nosedive. Acknowledging that here is a bit like getting away with murder and then later saying offhandedly, “oh sure, I knew I killed her, but ….” To me, this makes Maloney a first class wanker, because it means everything that flowed from this first incorrect statistic (in paragraph two of his article) that he knew was incorrect is all malarkey. It makes the whole hatchet job more malicious somehow. I could more easily forgive using a faulty statistic if I thought it was an innocent mistake or that he genuinely believed it to be true. But writing falsehoods that you know to be false to support an already questionable conclusion is really hitting below the belt.

Finally, in Question #10, a person from Cleveland asked him to justify his position given the terrific growth that craft beer has experienced lately. Maloney’s answer was the same as in the sidebar of the original piece, and points out what I suspected, which is that many people who read the article didn’t even know there was a sidebar since to view it you had to click on a link in the middle of the story. Basically, Maloney dismisses the entire craft beer industry with a wave of his hand because it doesn’t represent a big enough piece of the pie. It’s a stunning piece of logic which in my opinion requires balls the size of kegs to even say out loud. It’s just so condescendingly insulting. It reminds me of the way some people treat children, the ones that refuse to take seriously anything they say until they reach a certain age. But 100 million cases of beer seems like a plenty big enough kid. To keep the analogy going, craft beer is in its mid-twenties, and has been showing signs of maturing for several years now. Pretending we don’t exist or that we don’t matter seems necessary only because our continued existence and health makes impossible the notion that beer is dead and wine victorious. It’s irresponsible journalism, in my opinion, to so nakedly ignore facts that do not support your conclusion.

Of course, Coultering doesn’t require facts, only that you be as outrageous as possible. Here Maloney excels. As he correctly points out in the beginning of his answer to Question #2, he states “I’m not a beer authority.” He just plays one in the press. Slate should have been wary of letting someone whose only apparent beer expertise is that he drinks the stuff declare an entire industry to be in its death throes and the healthiest portion of it irrelevant. Then again, maybe Slate was in on the Coultering. “But who knows?” Like Maloney, I too am nostalgic for a pastoral bygone era, but mine is for a time when journalists and the news media had standards and ethics. Maybe such a time never really existed, who knows? But I’ve decided that I won’t let facts get in my way, either. Apparently that’s not how it’s done anymore.

 

Spinning the Beer Business

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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

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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.

Style Trends Through April 2007

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Here is a chart of the latest style trends broken out by the top 10 selling styles, based on a year’s worth of sales as of April 22, 2007, courtesy of DBBB, the Domestic Brewers Bottled Brands. They publish the book, “The Essential Reference of Domestic Brewers and Their Bottled Brands” and have a website, which offers monthly online updates of the book.

The chart is based on IRI Data showing sales of beer for the previous twelve months through April 22nd of this year by beer style. IRI is short for Information Resources, Inc., a company that surveys sales of beer (and everything else) from over 15,000 retailers (mostly groceries) in the U.S. As a result, their data is invariably skewed toward the national and regional brands since it doesn’t take into account direct sales and sales from small mom & pop stores. I used to get IRI data from almost every medium to large brewer who called on me when I was a beer buyer for BevMo. And while it’s not accurate for craft beer in specific, it does give you a general idea of certain trends, especially when you follow it over a period of time.

 

Mainstream Beer Still Suffering

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According to yet another business article in Forbes, the reason for Anheuser-Busch‘s sales declines are the result of a lack of focus on their core brands, principably Budweiser and Bud Light. And while wine, spirits and craft beer’s rise has been credited with A-B’s decline, this AP article also claims Molson Coors — the #3 American brewer — has also gained ground against their nemesis, largely because they’ve continue to push their core brands. A-B has already suggested they’ll be increasing marketing by at least 8% and the details of this and a renewed focus on their flagships are expected to be revealed at A-B’s bi-annual Investor Day this Tuesday.

Goldman Sachs analyst Judy Hong further advised that what A-B needs to do to remain competitive is “either purchase a large craft brewer or work with distiller Fortune Brands Inc. to buy the Swedish state-owned liquor group that makes Absolut vodka, V&S Vin & Spirit AB, to gain access to the growing spirits market.” On the other hand, William Pecoriello, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, thinks A-B is on the right track, spending more marketing dollars on their core brands. In a memo to clients, he stated “[i]t seems unlikely that Anheuser-Busch can overcome the challenges for its core brands without significant increases in marketing, distribution and administrative spending.”

The troubling pronouncement in of all of this is Hong’s suggestion that A-B “purchase a large craft brewer.” It’s not like they haven’t been trying to do just that for some time now, but when Wall Street raises the spectre of it as a worthwhile idea, people tend to sit up and take notice.

Bud Sales Still Slipping

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With August Busch IV poised to deliver his first big “State of the Company” address to investors next week, he may have to do a little dancing to satisfy the concerns of shareholders and the financial analysts. According to Wall Street, profits from beer over the past two years have fallen an average of 1%, while Anheuser-Busch‘s profits have dipped around 12% during the same period.

Despite efforts to get the numbers on core brands up, sales did not rebound as hoped, with revenue up only 5%. Goldman Sachs analyst Judy Hong laid the blame on imports and craft beers, though recent reports have indicated that import sales are suffering the same declines and slowing as mainstream beer, leaving the craft segment as the only shining star in an otherwise dismal beer industry snapshot.

Hong also said that “Anheuser-Busch largely sat on the sidelines as the global brewing industry underwent a massive consolidation, and prospects of capturing significant growth abroad appear limited,” which seems strange since they appointed Bob Lachky last fall to specifically manage their international business and snapped up new import brands for their portfolio — including beers from international brewing giant InBev — yet a Forbes article echoed similar worries, suggesting that “the company has focused on operations abroad, though the chance to gain real exposure to international beer markets may have passed.”

A separate Forbes article, meanwhile, placed the blame for A-B’s woes on a “shift in consumer tastes to wine, spirits and microbrews” — there’s the craft beer segment again figuring heavily in business analysis. Staff writer Tom Van Riper also indicated A-B was struggling to overcome its “passé image” by spending wildly to reach a younger customer, presumably on such projects as Here’s to Beer, Bud.TV and Mingle Now.

Not Just Age and Taxes

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Science Daily asks “When Are Minimum Legal Drinking-age And Beer-tax Policies The Most Effective?” in reporting on a new study about to be published in the May issue of “Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.” The study, “The Joint Impact of Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Beer Taxes on US Youth Traffic Fatalities, 1975-2001,” was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a government agency and branch of the N.I.H. Their mission statement is to “provide leadership in the national effort to reduce alcohol-related problems.”

The study looked at the two most common ways in which government has tried to reduce alcohol-related societal problems: through the minimum drinking age and raising taxes on beer (notice how wine and spirits get yet another pass?). Most significant is the finding that “[w]hen it is illegal for youth to buy and consume beer — as it is now in all 50 US states — higher beer taxes are less effective.” Hear that Oregon legislators (and every other state official trying to extort money from small brewers)?

“Our findings suggest that some of the varying results across past research may simply indicate that a given public policy may not have the same effectiveness in all places and times,” said William R. Ponicki, one of the study’s authors. What that doublespeak means is essentially that for any given policy decision, many other factors determine whether the policy will work as intended or not. It’s not just a simple matter that raising the drinking age will cure underage drinking or that making beer more expensive will either. And that’s just looking at two very broad factors. Imagine all the others at work but not examined, such as peer pressure, alcohol’s perception in our culture, accessibility, and on and on.

What that suggests to me is that MADD and the other neo-prohibitionists were and are misguided in pushing for a higher minimum drinking age, tougher access for legal adults, higher taxes for alcoholic beverages and all the other harebrained ideas on their agenda without having any real notion of how they’ll effect society or even if they have a chance of working. There’s absolutely no reason that legal adults should have to pay more for legal products or have a harder time legally buying them, especially when such measures have not been shown to be effective in reducing any perceived problems. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of being in their petri dish of experimental legislation to mold society to their wishes. It’s my world, too. And yours, as well. We should try to remember that, I think, when fanatics try to remake it for their own benefit and worldview.

$190 Billion Poured Into U.S. Economy by Brewing Industry

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Each year, Beer Serves America, a joint venture by the National Beer Wholesalers Association and the Beer Institute, put together statistics on just how much money and jobs the brewing industry directly and indirectly pumps into the U.S. economy. It’s a pretty staggering amount, really, and is broken down in a variety of ways to give you a good idea of just where the contributions to the economy come from.

It’s an excellent rebuttal to the neo-prohibitionist position that alcohol does nothing for society, and I’ve rarely seen any of their groups address these positive statistics that show year after year how much is contributed to our society by beer and brewers.

Here’s the press release:

New Study Shows Beer Industry Contributes Billions Annually to U.S. Economy

Report Tallies Jobs, Wages, and Overall Economic Impact

WASHINGTON, D.C. – America’s beer industry, made up of brewers, beer importers, beer distributors, brewer suppliers, and retailers, directly and indirectly contributes nearly $190 billion annually to the U.S. economy according to a new economic impact study. The industry’s economic impact includes more than 1.7 million jobs—paying almost $55 billion in wages—as well as more than $36 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. The study of 2006 data was commissioned by the Beer Institute and the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).

“This study shows that more than ever, America’s brewers play a pivotal role in promoting strong and robust economic growth throughout our country,” said August A. Busch IV, president and chief executive officer, Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., and chairman of the Beer Institute. “Brewers in all 50 states have been supporting the economy in their communities for generations, creating jobs for their neighbors, tax revenue for public services, and promoting alcohol awareness responsibility initiatives for retailers, schools, and families.”

According to the study, the direct output of brewers, importers, beer distributors, and retailers into the American economy is almost $90 billion each year. The beer industry directly employs more than 900,000 Americans, paying them more than $25 billion in wages. Large and small brewers and beer importers employ 47,000 people, and the nation’s 2,750 beer distributors employ approximately 91,000 individuals across the country. Beer is a key driver of profitability for the more than 531,000 licensed beer retailers, according to TDLinx, a service of The Nielsen Company and the recognized leader in location information management. Beer sales help support roughly 800,000 jobs at these retailers, which include supermarkets, convenience stores, restaurants, bars, and other outlets.

“Beer distributors are independent family businesses like mine that provide a wide selection of fresh, quality beer to the nation’s retailers and strengthen the U.S., state, and local economies. Over 90,000 hard-working men and women across the country are employed by America’s beer distributors. These people do not work for minimum wage. They earn quality wages and benefits,” said Betty Buck, NBWA board chair and president of Buck Distributing Co. in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

The production of beer helps support other segments of the economy as well. For example, the study showed more than $4 billion in economic contributions for the agricultural sector, including malting barley ($537.8 million), hops ($280.7 million), brewers rice ($222.9 million), and brewers corn ($58.4 million).

“These figures demonstrate that the beer industry extends beyond those who make and distribute our products,” said Jeff Becker, president of the Beer Institute. “As the single largest purchaser of rice in the country and one of the leading purchasers of other agricultural goods, the beer industry’s contributions to America’s farm economy are helping support rural families and small businesses coast to coast.”

“Millions of hard-working Americans earn their livelihood in brewing or beer distribution. This is an industry that takes great pride in the fact that its employees have good wages, employer-provided health care, and good benefits,” said NBWA president Craig Purser. “America’s beer distributors also work within a framework of individual state laws to ensure their products are sold only to licensed retailers who in turn are responsible for selling only to adults of legal drinking age.”

In addition to strengthening the U.S. economy, the industry plays a significant role in promoting responsible consumption of its products. Brewers, importers, and independent beer distributors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in communities across the country to develop and implement numerous programs to promote responsibility and help fight alcohol abuse. These efforts, along with those of parents, law enforcement, educators, federal and state alcohol beverage regulators, and other community groups, have contributed to declines in illegal underage drinking and drunk driving over the past two decades, according to a variety of independent and government data.

The complete Beer Serves America Economic Impact study, including state-by-state and congressional district breakdowns of economic contributions, is available at the Beer Serves America Web site, www.beerservesamerica.org.

If There’s a Will …

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The San Francisco Chronicle reprinted one of George Will’s editorials, “Licensed to Drink,” from the Washington Post. In it, he critiques Choose Responsibility, the new advocacy organization founded by John M. McCardell Jr., the former Dean of of Middlebury College in Vermont. Having watched young people at his college, he decided that the drinking age of 21 was making the problem worse rather than helping it, which was the goal of raising it. I don’t often agree with George Will and in my opinion he’s sometimes a right wing nutjob, albeit more articulate than most, but he has some thoughtful ideas expressed in this piece, and surprisingly he isn’t against it. Given that he was a speech writer for Ronald Reagan, who gave in to MADD and came up with “Just Say No,” that was a something of a surprise to say the least. But this is a debate that’s not going away, and it’s interesting to hear about from so unlikely a source.

Bound for Texas

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I’m flying to Austin with the family this morning for the Craft Brewers Conference. It will a pretty busy few days, but I’ll try to post photos and a little narrative from the conference. The week after I’ll be taking some time off and taking my son, Porter, to Mission Control and the Space Center in Houston, then on to Dallas to see some friends. We’ll find time to stop at a few breweries on the way, of course.
 

First stop Austin and the annual Craft Brewer Conference.