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Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Suma Foods to Brew Organic Beer

June 23, 2006 By Jay Brooks

According to the splash page on their website, Suma is the UK’s largest independent wholesaler and distributor of quality vegetarian, fairly traded, organic and natural foods. There are around 7,000 products listed that they either make or distribute. You can now add one more to their list: organic beer.

Today’s Yorkshire Post gave a few scant details on the project. From the article:

The UK’s biggest independent distributor of organic food, Halifax-based Suma Foods, has launched a range of organic beers. The beers are all CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) approved, certified organic by the Soil Association and are vegan.

The beer is brewed locally by a Dutch master brewer who the company has been working with over the past 18 months to develop the range.

The names for the beers were chosen by Suma’s customers in a competition and reflect local places and folklore in the Calder Valley.

Though curiously the names of the beers were not revealed and Suma’s somewhat sparse website gives no details either. Now that’s good reporting.

Filed Under: Beers, News Tagged With: Business, Europe, Great Britain, Organic

What Makes Beer Organic?

June 3, 2006 By Jay Brooks

Since I’ve been talking about Wild Hop Lager and Stone Mill Pale Ale, and the fact that it’s being sold to an unsuspecting organic customer, I thought it would be worthwhile to examine exactly what makes a beer organic. Unsurprisingly, it’s the ingredients used to make whatever product is going to be called or labeled “organic.” Several years ago, the standards for organic products varied from state to state, but in 2002 the federal government instituted the National Organic Program (NOP) that standardized the requirements for organic labeling nationwide. This made it easier for companies to sell across state lines without having to worry about individual and possibly conflicting standards between states. Some states did complain, of course, because it undermined their own efforts at defining what it means to be an organic product. The standards in Oregon prior to the NOP, for example, were more rigid than the national standard adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But this intervention did make it easier for regional and national breweries to more easily meet the requirements for a larger market.

The USDA does not do the certification process directly, but rather they have “deputized” independent certifying agents, which in some cases do include the former state certifying agencies. Currently, there are about sixty such agencies. Among these are the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and the Oregon Tilth. In addition to the actual certifying, they also investigate noncompliance complaints and check records, monitor label usage, etc. There are now essentially four levels of organic labeling: “100% organic,” “organic,“ “made with organic materials,” and “some organic ingredients.” The differences in these four are listed in the table below:

Organic Labeling Differences

100% Organic

Must contain 100 percent organically produced ingredients, not counting added water and salt.

Organic

Must contain at least 95% organic ingredients, not counting added water and salt.

Must not contain added sulfites.

May contain up to 5% of:

  1. nonorganically produced agricultural ingredients which are not commercially available in organic form; and/or
  2. other substances, including yeast, allowed by 7 CFR 205.605
Made with Organic Ingredients

Must contain at least 70% organic ingredients, not counting added water and salt.

Must not contain added sulfites; except that, wine may contain added sulfur dioxide in accordance with 7 CFR 205.605.

May contain up to 30% of:

  1. nonorganically produced agricultural ingredients which are not commercially available in organic form; and/or
  2. other substances, including yeast, allowed by 7 CFR 205.605
Some Organic Ingredients

May contain less than 70% organic ingredients, not counting added water and salt.

May contain over 30% of:

  1. nonorganically produced agricultural ingredients; and/or
  2. other substances, without being limited to those in 7 CFR 205.605

 
 

While this is undoubtedly a good step, the fact that there are four of these and they sound so similar it seems to me this is still confusing for consumers, especially the casual consumer who is not likely to be familiar with the precise differences. The “made with organic ingredients” designation, for example — which only requires 70% of its ingredients to actually be organic — seems to convey a false impression of how organic the product really is, at least in my opinion. A company could use 30% of complete crap and still make a consumer believe their purchase is organically sound. This undermines the very idea of organic products. It seems to me products should either be organic or not. This slippery slope of degrees is bound to cause nothing but confusion and perhaps even ill will. The FDA has approved some sixty plus chemicals for use in the manufacture of beer. Are they all bad? Certainly not, and even craft brewers use some of them on occasion. But health and beer is all about perception. A brewery could theoreticaly use many of them and so long as it’s less than 30% of the total ingredients say their concoction is “made with organic ingredients.”

All beer is in effect natural, especially those that use only the four basic ingredients. This begs the question of how much better is organic beer vs. a typical craft beer? I’d say in the end it has to do with how it makes the customer feel on an emotional level. I think that’s true of almost all organic products. People buy them because it makes them feel good, like they’re doing something good, both for themselves, the environment and perhaps even society as a whole. They feel like they’re helping out small farmers. This is why the labeling is so important. And not just the organic designation but also the truthiness of the entire package. A customer should be able to feel good about what they’re buying, but if details are left out — no matter how legal it is to do so — then this damages the emotional response that is so central to buying organic.

This is the very reason big companies hide behind dba’s and buy up health food companies. Colgate recently bought Tom’s of Maine. Will that make Tom’s a bad product now? Probably not, unless Colgate takes over production and relaxes standards. But some people will likely still think twice about buying Tom’s knowing it’s just another product line in Colgate’s massive portfolio. It’s all a matter of what perception will be created in the mind of the consumer based on that new information and what the change of ownership means to them. Some may not care at all, of course. But what happens if this information is not disclosed on Tom’s packaging? At that point it goes beyond simple ignorance and becomes a calculated lie-by-omission.

There will almost certainly continue to be a market for organic and healthier products that maintain a small niche within the wider market. What will allow it to grow is directly proportional to the confidence that the market has for the products within the niche market. That’s the exact reason the labeling standards are so important. But doing the minimum required for purely business reasons in order to sell a product is just not enough. Common sense standards will also have to be adhered to as well in order to gain customer confidence. This will vary from company to company but makes sense in relation to the product. For example, an organic farmer who refrains from using pesticides but hires slave labor would not be adhering to a common sense standard, in my opinion.

By and large, I think the majority of organic beers available today do adhere to a good set of standards, both the mandated ones and the common sense ones. But as larger companies begin to compete for these niche markets, the line becomes blurred. Some will leave the smaller companies they’ve purchased alone and some will swallow them whole. New ones created within larger companies will suffer the same problems. And then who knows what will happen to common sense standards.

Below is a list of many of the organic beers and beer producers available today.

Some Organic Beer Producers

Domestic Organic Breweries

  • Bison Brewing; Berkeley, California
  • Blackfoot River Brewing; Helena, Montana
  • Butte Creek Brewing; Chico, California
  • Eel River Brewing; Fortuna, California
  • Elliott Bay Brewing; Seattle, Washington
  • Fish Brewing; Olympia, Washington
  • Laurelwood Brewing; Portland, Oregon
  • North Coast Brewing; Fort Bragg, California
  • Peak Organic Brewing; Burlington, Massachusetts
  • Pisgah Brewing; Black Mountain, North Carolina
  • Roots Organic Brewery; Portland, Oregon
  • Wolaver’s Certified Organic Ales; Middlebury, Vermont
  • Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing; Santa Cruz, California
  • Ukiah Brewing; Ukiah, California

 
 

Domestic Organic Beers

  • Big “O” Organic, Snake River Brewing; Jackson Hole, Wyoming
  • Biologique Dupont Beers (5), Brasserie Dupont; Tourpes, Belgium
  • Kaya Organic Pale, Fitger’s Brewhouse; Duluth, Minnesota
  • Kraftbräu Summer Moon Organic Ale, Kraftbräu Brewery; Kalamazoo, Michigan
  • Mothership Wit, New Belgium Brewing; Fort Collins, Colorado
  • OGA (Organic Golden Ale), Lucky Labrador; Portland, Oregon
  • Organic Amber, Bluegrass Brewing; Louisville, Kentucky
  • Organic Bock, Big Horse Brewpub; Hood River, Oregon
  • Organic ESB, Lakefront Brewery; Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  • Organic Porter, Brooklyn Brewery; Brooklyn, New York
  • Tree Hugger Organic IPA, Redfish New Orleans Brewhouse; Boulder, Colorado

 
 

Organic Breweries Abroad

  • Arkell’s; Swindon, England
  • Black Isle Brewery; Munlochy, Scotland
  • Brauerei Pinkus Mueller; Munster, Germany
  • Crannog Ales; Sorrento, BC, Canada
  • Clarke’s Organic Brewery; Dewsbury, England
  • Founders Organic Brewery; Nelson New Zealand
  • Marble Beers; Manchester, England
  • Mongozo Exotic Beers; Venray, Netherlands
  • O’Hanlon’s Brewing; Devon, England
  • Pacific Western Brewing; Burnaby, BC, Canada
  • Pitfields Organic Brewery; London, England
  • The 4 Elements; Richelbach, Germany
  • Thisted Bryghus; Thisted, Denmark
  • Waedenswiler Bierwelt; Wädenswil, Switzerland
  • Wild Rose Brewery; Calgary, Alberta, Canada

 
 

Organic Beers Abroad

  • Border Gold & Angel Lager, Broughtan Ales; Broughtan, Scotland
  • Brakspear Organic Beer, Brakspear Brewery, Witney, England
  • Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic-Bio, Brasserie Cantillon, Brussels, Belgium
  • Duchy Originals Organic, Wychwood Brewery; Witney, England
  • Eisenbahn Natural, Eisenbahn; Brazil
  • Emerson’s Organic Pilsner, Emerson’s Brewery; Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Golden Promise Organic, Caldonian Brewery; Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Mill Street Original Organic Lager, Mill Street Brewery; Toronto, Canada
  • Organic Ale, Brasserie Rancho El Paso; Hokkaido, Japan
  • Organic Ale & Best Bitter, St. Peter’s Brewery; Suffolk, England
  • Organic Beer Shinshu Sansan, Yo-Ho Brewing; Japan
  • Organic Honeydew, Fuller’s; London, England
  • Samuel Smith Organic Ale & Lager, Old Brewery at Tadcaster; Yorkshire, England
  • Yella Bella Organic Ale, Batemans Brewery; Wainfleet, England

 
 

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: Business, Organic

Festival Announcement: North American Organic Brewers Festival

May 24, 2006 By Jay Brooks

The 2006 North American Organic Brewers Festival will be held June 10 from 12:00-9:00 p.m. at World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon.

I received the following information about the upcoming festival from Roots Brewing, who is putting on the festival.

North American Organic Brewers Festival

At the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon on June 10, 2006, from 12-9pm.

North America’s only organic beer festival will feature over 30 organic beers from the Pacific Northwest and as far a field as Germany, England, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Texas. From pale ales and pilsners to imperial stouts and dopplebocks, organic brewers are taking the craft beer revolution to the next level.

The North American Organic Brewers Festival is a celebration of sustainability and benefits Oregon Tilth, a certification body which supports organic farming, the Oregon Food Bank which feeds the hungry, the World Forestry Center, which is dedicated to sustainable forests, and My Father’s House a local shelter for homeless families. Local sustainability-oriented businesses, including organic produce delivery companies, garden centers, and green builders, will be on hand. Food vendors will include organic and free-range options from a range of international cuisines.

Family Friendly

An indoor children’s area will feature face painting, games and a soda pop garden, and the festival is adjacent to the Children‘s Museum, World Forestry Center, and Oregon Zoo.

Music

Music on the outdoor stage will be provided by Orkestra, the Stumptown Jug Thumpers, Baktune, Vivid Curve, Left Hand Monkey Wrench, Adair Village, and Wow and Flutter.

Cost

Admission to the festival is $4 which includes a mug, tickets for 4 ounce samples of beer will be $1. Attendees get $1 off admission with three cans of food for the Oregon Food Bank, a validated MAX ticket, or a World Forestry Center ticket. The Forestry Center will offer a $1 discount for festival attendees.

Location

The festival will be held at the World Forestry Center, which is located adjacent to the MAX light rail station, and attendees are encouraged to take public transportation.

Portland, Oregon not only boasts more breweries than any other city in the world, it is one of the greenest in North America. The city is a leader in recycling, green building, and livability. The festival’s stunning setting in Washington Park looks out over the fir forests of Portland’s West Hills, and Mount Hood, the source of some of the best drinking and brewing water in the country.

6.10

North American Organic Brewers Festival
World Forestry Center, Portland, Oregon
[ website ] [ e-mail ]

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Announcements, Oregon, Organic, Portland

Anheuser-Busch Organic Beers Out of the Closet

May 17, 2006 By Jay Brooks

After about six weeks or so of being “temporarily down” the Wild Hop Lager website is back online. For those of you new to this story, Wild Hop Lager is actually a beer created and made by Anheuser-Busch though that fact was not disclosed on the package. It also made no mention of this fact previously on the website, though that has changed with the debut of the new (improved?) website. It’s just as slick as it was before and it’s remarkably similar in look and feel to A-B’s sister stealth organic micro, Stone Mill Pale Ale, which also recently changed its website to disclose its relationship (although they claimed it was a partnership).

Probably the biggest change is that the website does now disclose that this is a product of Anheuser-Busch. It’s right at the bottom in fine print, where it says. “Brewed by Green Valley Brewing Company in Fairfield, CA, the organically certified brewery of Anhesuer-Busch Companies, Inc.” And that’s almost the full story, although I’m pretty sure it’s the beer that’s certified, not the brewery. In my mind, they still make it sound like A-B is operating a little separate brewery called Green Valley in Fairfield, California. But unless they’ve set aside a small pilot brewery which I’m not aware of, the Fairfield Plant is a giant behemoth of a brewery that presumably churns out most of the A-B products for the northwestern quadrant of the Western United States (there is also a plant in Los Angeles). A-B operates about a dozen or so plants in the U.S., of which five offer tours, and none of them are exactly little. So while it technically may be full disclosure, it still seems a tad misleading to the majority of non-beer industry people who would not know that.

Also missing from the new website is the promise to make a donation to the Organic Farming Research Foundation of Santa Cruz, California “with every purchase of Wild Hop Lager.” It was actually a couple of days after I did a phone interview with Bob Scowcroft, Executive Director of the OFRF about the nature of the donation they were to receive, that the Wild Hop Lager website went down. And that’s a shame because it seems like a very worthwhile organization. But click on “Product Info” and you’ll see that A-B is still at least supporting the organic farming charity. And they say they’ll “join them to sponsor research relating to organic farming practices,” not that the OFRF does any other kinds of research. So while it appears they’ll no longer be donating a percentage of sales, at least A-B may make additional donations to the OFRF.

 
 

Of course, I doubt if disclosure has been made at the most important level, the packaging in the store. It may be that future packaging either on the label or the six-pack carrier — or both — will state that Wild Hop Lager is a product of Anheuser-Busch, but I’m sure there won’t be a recall. So until they sell through the initial package run, consumers will still be largely unaware of the product’s true affiliation. Until then, nothing much has really changed.

 
 

 
 

A screen capture of the new Wild Hop Lager website that has just come back online after having been down for well over a month. Click on the image to view the screen capture full size.

 
 

 
 

A screen capture of the original Wild Hop Lager website that has been down for well over a month. Click on the image to view the screen capture full size.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Business, National, Organic

Crooked River’s Stone Mill Pale Ale

May 16, 2006 By Jay Brooks

Stone Mill Pale Ale, from Crooked River Brewing Co. of New Hampshire, is the newest organic stealth micro from Anheuser-Busch, not that you’ll find any information about it on their corporate website. That’s because like Wild Hop Lager of Green Valley Brewing Co., the packaging reveals no information whatsoever about who’s behind the beer. Both beers are brewed by Anheuser-Busch at either their plant in Fairfield, California or Merrimack, New Hampshire (although I have no independent knowledge of either beer being brewed anywhere but Fairfield).

Similar to Wild Hop Lager in packaging, marketing and secrecy about its origins, the Stone Mill Pale Ale is targeting high end consumers with folksy, farm-friendly images and its organic certification. The only difference I can see is one is a lager and the other an ale. Both Crooked River Brewing and Green Valley Brewing are not real breweries, they’re dba’s owned by Anheuser-Busch. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using a dba, many businesses use them, including many contract breweries.

Until they bought the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewery in Ohio, Boston Beer Co. was probably the most well-known contract brewery. There were a lot of complaints about them in the early days, especially for Oregon Brewing (their own stealth micro), but for the most part the beer itself didn’t suffer. And by and large the majority of contact breweries are simply one company making their beer at a brewery they don’t own in order to keep capital investment low.

In this case, however, the difference is quite important. Here a giant company is trying to keep that fact a secret as a marketing strategy. They know that many consumers and potential consumers of organic products would likely be reluctant to buy organic beer from America’s biggest beer company. So everything about Stone Mill Pale Ale is calculated to make it appear like a small organic company that cares about organic farming and similar issues.

But another strange thing about this is that there is, or at least was, an actual brewery by the name of Crooked River Brewing in Cleveland, Ohio. They opened in 1994 but stopped brewing in their own facility in 2000. But the label was purchased by Frederick Brewing Co. of Maryland (which itself was just bought by Denver’s Flying Dog Brewery). As far as I can tell, the Crooked River label is still currently being sold. Given the number of attorneys Anheuser-Busch employs, it’s pretty hard to believe they would have missed that their made up name was already being used by another brewery.

In addition, there used to be a Crooked Waters Brewing in Peoria, Ilinois. It was a brewpub that opened in 1996 and closed in November 2000. Then there’s a Crooked Creek Brewery that’s a contract brew made by the Straub Brewery in Pennsylvania. As far as I can tell they’re still in business and making beer, too.

So that’s a strange development. The dba for A-B’s second stealth micro has the same name as a label still being made. I’m no legal expert and I’m not a lawyer but from what I have seen in these types of trademark disputes I can’t see how Frederick Brewing could lose. They appear to own a label that’s been around for twelve years. A-B is using the same name for essentially the same class of goods. That that fact would cause confusion among consumers seems prima facie.

Anheuser-Busch’s Stone Mill Pale Ale.

UPDATE 5.17: The Stone Mill Pale Ale website does now state that they are “in partnership with Anheuser-Busch.” That’s a pretty euphemistic way of saying it is an Anheuser-Busch product. I don’t know the exact nature of the way the dba was set up, but the domain name at least is registered directly to Anheuser-Busch, Inc. Can you have a partnership with a name you made up and created out of thin air? As far as I know, the packaging does not reflect this disclosure, but perhaps new packaging will. Until then, unsuspecting consumers will still not likely know who’s making this organic beer.

Sorry this is hard to read, but this is a full size screen capture. It’s hard to read at the website, too. I guess that’s why they call it the fine print.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Business, Organic, Websites

One Month Later: Wild Hop Lager Website Still Down

May 1, 2006 By Jay Brooks

At the end of March, someone posted a comment that the Wild Hop Lager website was down. This was a couple of days after I did a phone interview with Bob Scowcroft, Executive Director of the OFRF about the nature of the donation they were to receive “with every purchase of Wild Hop Lager,” as the website indicated.

Since that time I’ve been checking periodically and it’s remained down for at least a month now. Today, it still only says “This page is temporarily down. Please check back later.” Now I don’t know the official period of time something continues before it’s no longer considered “temporary” but in internet time, a month is an eternity. I certainly thought there would be something put up in its place by now. Perhaps the strategy for Wild Hop Lager is changing, but what’s taking so long? Who knows?
 
 

 
 

A screen capture of the original Wild Hop Lager website that has been down for a month. If you’re having trouble reading the text, click on the image to view the screen capture full size.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Business, National, Organic, Websites

Green Valley Brewing: Origin of the Name?

April 17, 2006 By Jay Brooks

I ran into a friend of mine last week who’s a sales director for a Bay Area brewery who’d been following the Wild Hop Lager story. He mentioned something I hadn’t realized. Since he travels extensively throughout the greater Bay Area and beyond, he frequently is driving up Interstate 80, which runs past Anheuser-Busch’s Fairfield Plant, which is located at 3101 Busch Drive in Fairfield, California. I’d wondered how much time and money A-B had spent coming up with the perfect name that evoked just the right image for their organic stealth micro. Turns out it may not have been that difficult to come up with, after all. According to my friend, the exit on I-80 just before the Bud Plant in Fairfield is Green Valley Road. That’s pretty funny. While it doesn’t prove they got the name from a nearby road that most of the employees probably drove by twice a day, it certainly is an amazing coincidence. Too coincidental, I’d say.

The red star toward the right is the Anheuser-Busch Fairfield Plant located at 3101 Busch Drive, Fairfield, California. The green arrow toward the left shows Green Valley Road just down the street from the plant. If it’s hard to see, click on the map above for a larger view.

UPDATE: I drove by this exit sign just before passing thre Fairfield Bud Plant on my way to tour the Ball Can Factory, where 21st Amendmet is having their new beer cans made.

Filed Under: Just For Fun, News Tagged With: Business, California, Northern California, Organic

Wild Hop Website Still Down

April 2, 2006 By Jay Brooks

Someone posted a comment on Friday, March 31 at 12:52 p.m. indicating that “if you try to go to the [Wild Hop Lager] website now, you’ll find it’s down.” I checked it again a few hours later and it was still down, which is a little strange. Websites don’t usually go down for maintenance in the middle of the day and if they do, it’s usually for a short period of time. I tried to visit the website again this morning but it’s still down. All you see there now is a blank white screen with “This page is temporarily down. Please check back later.” It’s written in small black text which makes it a pretty sparse placeholder. In internet time, being down almost forty-eight hours is a very long time, indeed. I wonder what it will be like when it’s finally back up? It should be interesting to see what changes they’ve made.

UPDATE (Apr. 3, Noon): The website was still down as of Noon.

UPDATE (Apr. 4): Still down today. That’s four days now it’s been “temporarily” down.

UPDATE (Apr. 5): Day five of the website being “temporarily” down.

UPDATE (Apr. 7): Okay, it’s been seven days now. I’d say a week of being “temporarily” down strains the definition of “temporarily” quite a bit.

UPDATE (Apr. 9): Day nine of the website being “temporarily” down.

UPDATE (Apr. 17): Day seventeen and the website is still amazingly “temporarily” down.

UPDATE (Apr. 20): Day twenty of the website being “temporarily” down.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Business, Organic, Websites

SF Chronicle Weighs in on Organic Bud

March 30, 2006 By Jay Brooks

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle, in the Thursday Wine Section, features an article entitled Brewing Behemoth Sneaks into Organics by staff writer Carol Ness. She begins by musing. “Organic Budweiser. What’s next, the hybrid Hummer?” Overall the article is pretty fair, although is does lean slightly on the side of the organic community. There’s a great quote in it by Ted Vivatson, co-owner of Eel River Brewing in Fortuna, where Ted doesn’t mince words.

In addition to the article, the Chronicle convened a tasting panel which tasted Wild Hop Lager blind against five other beers, three of which were also organic. Wild Hop Lager came in last. I had previously reported hearing rumors of authorization of Wild Hop Lager in Whole Foods, among others, but one of the people on the Chronicle’s tasting panel was Cyrus Kayvan, beer buyer for Whole Foods. After the tasting, Kayvan commented about Wild Hop’s future by saying. “Not in my store.“

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Bay Area, Business, California, Organic, San Francisco

Organic Beer and Organic Farming

March 29, 2006 By Jay Brooks

Regular readers here know I’ve been following the story of Green Valley Brewing Company’s Wild Hop Lager and its true ownership by Anheuser-Busch. One aspect of this emerging story that hasn’t been touched on yet is the beer’s organic pedigree. A-B went the extra mile to have the beer properly certified organic and an insider told me that the label initially met with some problems, but they were ultimately ironed out. Since only a small percentage of beers are certified organic, it bears consideration as to what was the reason for that decision? The answer, I think, revealed itself by Wild Hop Lager’s presence at the Natural Food Expo West last weekend. It now appears likely that the target market for Wild Hop Lager is the craft beer market in general and the organic beer market in specific. Given the relatively small shelf space devoted to beer in the majority of grocery chains and Anheuser-Busch and their distributors’ strong presence on those shelves already, it seems to me the likeliest outcome is that Wild Hop Lager will begin to replace smaller, more local and regional organic beers. I have heard rumors that placement has already been authorized, at least here in California, for Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Wild Oats.

So I thought the most logical place to look next was at the Organic Farming Research Foundation, the charity that Anheuser-Busch mentions on the Wild Hop Lager website. In fact, it’s worth looking at the exact language of the website again. Here is what it says:

[w]ith every purchase of Wild Hop Lager, a donation will be made to the Organic Farming Research Foundation to improve and educate people on organic farming practices. Together we can set a better example for future generations.

So I called the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF), which is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California. In their own words, the OFRF is a “non-profit whose mission is to sponsor research related to organic farming practices, to disseminate research results to organic farmers and to growers interested in adopting organic production systems, and to educate the public and decision-makers about organic farming issues.” To a man, every person in the organic community I spoke with thinks very highly of the organization and nothing has shaken that impression in my communications with them or from the information gleaned from their website. They appear to be very much what they claim, a friend to the small organic farmer with a focus on the family farmer.

I left a message for Bob Scowcroft, Executive Director of the OFRF, as he is also listed as the media contact for the organization. Happily, he called me back in a few hours. On the phone, he was a very affable man and gave straightforward, thoughtful answers to all of my questions. I asked Scowcroft if he was aware that Anheuser-Busch was the organization behind Green Valley Brewing and Wild Hop Lager. He was aware of that fact. I then asked whether there was any concern about accepting money from A-B, given that the product they were selling did not disclose that it was owned by them. He explained that the origin of gifts to the organization has been the “source of much discussion over the years” and that the board has ultimately decided that the mission of the group is paramount and therefore all gifts are gratefully received. Scowcroft further explained that 75% of their gifts come from about 50 donors. They receive an average of 1,000 donations each year, with about 40-45% from family foundations, about 20-25% from corporations — large and small — about 20% from individuals, and 5-10% from a special grant-making arrangement with the EPA. Frankly, after talking to him — and a few others — I’m convinced we should all be supporting their efforts. Seriously, think about a donation to the OFRF.

I then asked Scowcroft what he could tell me about the nature of Anheuser-Busch’s donation. What he told me was quite interesting. He explained that it was for a fixed amount, not percentage based, and stated it was a “modest, one-time of gift of less than five figures.” So let’s go back to the wording on the website, which reads, “with every purchase of Wild Hop Lager, a donation will be made to the Organic Farming Research Foundation.” That seems contradictory, but in all fairness it’s possible that A-B is intending to make further donations based on actual sales of Wild Hop Lager. Bob Scowcroft was not aware of any arrangement whereby they’d be receiving a percentage of sales in the future, but believes that the door is certainly open for future gifts.

It’s also worth considering what Anheuser-Busch got for their donation. It seems to me they got a lot for a little. They got to align themselves with a very reputable organic charity. They got the illusion of credibility and the immediate perception of being part of that community. When you consider the millions and millions of dollars spent on NASCAR sponsorships, Super Bowl ads, baseball stadium banners, sports of every stripe, festivals, events, and on and on and on, then under ten grand is pretty much, as an old friend of mine used to say, “chump change.” It’s a pretty paltry sum in the grand scheme of things.

Many consumers will see their claims of being organic and the charity promise as further proof, along with the farmer-friendly graphics on the packaging, that their product is worthy of purchase based upon shared values and the emotional response that produces. I certainly know from personal experience that when faced with a decision to purchase two almost identical looking items, if one of them is supporting a charity I like, that information will often be sufficient to make me choose the product that appears more altruistic. But knowing a little bit more now about how that works will in the future make me question other claims of charity support on product labels. So does that damage the organic movement as a whole? It seems like it might. One analogy I can draw is giving money to the homeless. I often used to give my spare change to a beggar on the street. But once I discovered that some of them were con artists or scammers, it gave me pause and I found myself giving less often as a result. So in that case, legitimate homeless persons in perhaps great need did not get the help they might otherwise have received, as a direct result of the unethical actions of others.

Food based on organic farming is currently “2% of the food economy,” Scowcroft told me. I know my family does our part, and we buy organic produce and other goods whenever we can, at the local farmers’ market and grocery stores we frequent. There are a lot of similarities between the organic food movement and the craft beer movement, I think, not least of which is that craft beer accounts for only around 3.5% of the total beer market. Certainly a lot of craft beer drinkers enjoy organic foods, too, and vice versa, no doubt. But I wonder how many organic food consumers would be pleased to know that the organic beer they unsuspectingly bought was produced by the world’s largest brewer in a plant the size of several football fields and not by a small craft brewer, as is the likeliest inference one can draw from the label and graphics on the package.

I thought at this point I’d like to hear the opinion of someone who already makes organic beer. So I spoke to Morgan Wolaver, whose Wolaver’s Organic Ales have been around since 1997, making them the oldest brewer of organic ales in America. Personally, I think he ought to trademark that before Yuengling has a chance to complain. The two of us tried to remember who was older, but we could only come up with breweries no longer in business. I remembered Humes and he came up with Perry’s Organic but that was about it. Anyway, as it turned out he was not only familiar with the OFRF but has been donating to them for many, many years. And over the years, he and his brother have donated at least more than five figures to them. He explained that he continued to do so because of their good work and simply because “it’s the right thing to do.”

Wolaver also echoed my concern that Wild Hop Lager is a “stealth micro” (a term coined by Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf to describe a usually contracted beer that effectively hides its true ownership from the general consumer. A prime example would be Oregon Brewing Co., which was owned by Boston Beer Co. and won few friends in the state of Oregon since, despite the name, was not made there.) And that, I think, really is the crux of the issue.

Wolaver explained that in his view the organic market can be roughly divided into two groups of customers, what he calls core consumers and target consumers. Core consumers he defines as essentially hardcore organic product buyers, people who have been buying organic products for years or even decades. They read labels, front and back, and take their buying choices very seriously. Target consumers are more casual about their buying habits, but for various reasons — perhaps philosophical or because it makes them feel better — will make organic purchases whenever practical, convenient or less expensive. So while the average target consumer may or may not be swayed by who owns the product they’re considering for purchase, the core consumer definitely will be. But neither, I think, will be particularly happy if they discover that the organic beer they bought was a stealth micro and the real manufacturer is a giant corporation. I feel quite confident that the core consumer would be outraged but I also think the taget consumer would at least feel conned or deceived. And it is this very fact, I think, that explains A-B’s decision not to label and market this product as one of their own.

In general, the organic and health food market has already been co-opted by large corporations. Tom’s of Maine was recently bought by Colgate-Palmolive, Odwalla is owned by Coke, Kashi and Morningstar Farms is owned by Kellogg, and on and on. But for every one of these acquisitions, another small entrepreneur enters the fray with idealistic vision. So apparently there’s still hope, at least for those us who like to support small and local businesses. Of course, keeping up with the changes in the marketplace is undoubtedly exhausting and probably explains why there are so few core consumers. So it’s into that climate that Wild Hop Lager is being introduced. Will it ultimately be successful? Probably. As H.L. Mencken put it. “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.“

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: Business, California, Interview, Northern California, Organic

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