Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Ordering Alcohol Online: More Deceptive Shenanigans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the facts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

— USA TODAY editorial, July 7, 1999

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

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

Blast From the Past: Genny Cream Ale

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Cans of Genesee Cream Ale were de rigueur when I was growing up in Eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1970s. The simple green can design is emblazoned in my memory of that more simple time. It was certainly one of the favorite beers of my youth — at least in my memory — probably because cream ales are such a light, undemanding style. They fell out of fashion for a number of years, but lately several craft brewers are resurrecting the style as their lightest offering. It’s a much better alternative than making a low-calorie beer or American-style lager. High Falls Brewing, who has owned the brand for many years now, abandoned the all-green design sometime in the 1980s and when I carried it at BevMo in the mid-1990s all that was available were bottles with a paper label. Which is a shame. The beer itself I recall wasn’t great but was certainly serviceable and a decent session choice. It was that plain green can that had us all enraptured, though in retrospect I have no idea why.

High Falls is now trying to tap into that nostalgia I feel for the brand with a new retro-styled website at www.geneseecreamale.com. It’s a nice site but I don’t think they went back far enough because they’re still showing that damned paper label and a bottle on the main page. It does suffer the problem I have with virtually all big brewery sites — Flash. They’re so over the top with using flash technology instead of HTML that I hate navigating them. Maybe I’m in the minority here because I started hand-coding HTML back in the mid 90s, but I find it very annoying.
 

Sure, it’s a nice piece of breweriana, made to look older than it is, but where’s the can?

Frankly, this is how I will always remember Genesee Cream Ale. If they really want to tap into nostalgia, they need to bring back this can.

Foster’s Closing Ranks Again

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Back in June, Foster’s announced it was pulling out of its last remaining brewery in China. Now they’re also leaving India and Vietnam. Reportedly, Foster’s wants to concentrate on their domestic beer market and on selling wine.
 

Vietnam

The Vietnam operations are being sold to Asia Pacific Breweries. According to their press release, APB “will be purchasing the Vietnam assets of the Foster’s Group for $105 million. This transaction includes the rights to brew, market and distribute Foster’s Lager, Biere Larue, BGI, Flag and Song Han, in Vietnam.” This acquisition brings APB’s total ownershio to 29 breweries in ten countries.
 

India

Foster’s India is being sold to SABMiller for $120 million.

From the SABMiller press release:

Foster’s India currently operates one brewery based in Aurangabad in the state of Maharashtra with a licenced annual capacity of 350,000 hectolitres. The company produces, distributes and supports Foster’s Lager, Amberro Mild and Amberro Strong beer brands in the Indian market. In the year ended 30 June 2006, total beer sales were 236,000 hectolitres (2005: 209,000 hl) with Foster’s Lager representing 88% of total production and sales (2005: 85%).

India is the third largest market for the Foster’s brand globally and it has achieved a CAGR of 13% since operations commenced in 1998. It has a presence in 19 Indian states and has a substantial share of the mild beer segment in the strategic state of Maharashtra.

SABMiller India will look to extend Foster’s Lager nationally through its network of ten breweries and seek significant cost benefits from brewing and distributing the brand locally. The Aurangabad brewery will also provide additional capacity for SABMiller’s presence in Maharashtra as well as a platform for access to the Mumbai market.

SABMiller India is the subcontinent’s second largest brewer. Its brand portfolio includes Royal Challenge, Haywards 5000, Castle and the recently launched Haywards Black, India’s first stout beer.

The Foster’s Brand

First brewed in 1888 by the Foster brothers in Melbourne, Australia, Foster’s Lager is one of the world’s best beers. As one of only a handful of truly global beer brands, Foster’s in now available in over 150 countries. Foster’s is one of the fastest growing international premium beer brands in the world and has enjoyed international growth of 40% since 1997. Foster’s is brewed in 12 countries, at 17 locations with over 100 million cases of Foster’s sold annually.

Myopic Cyclops

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In the last few days since I first saw the press release for Cyclops, the new system for categorizing the flavor of beer introduced by CAMRA (The Campaign or Real Ale), I’ve been wrestling with the question of whether this is a good idea or not. It’s generated a lot of initial press, especially throughout England, and it ranges from high praise to mild ridicule to being called “perhaps the worst idea ever.” I didn’t want to rush to judgment on this one so I’ve been taking my time trying to weigh the pros and cons.
 

A CAMRA promotional photo showing how coasters with the Cyclops system info might be used.

 
In general the goal of making beer more accessible seems like a positive step. I can only assume many people unfamiliar with the many different beer styles and nearly limitless potential flavors and aromas might feel pretty overwhelmed. Even many craft beer lovers don’t know all of the beer styles and this point was recently hammered home to me when several beer bloggers mistakenly identified Rock Bottom’s Ned Flanders Ale as defective when in fact it was an interpretation of a style — Flanders Red Ale — that was supposed to have sour flavors coupled with unusual Brettanomyces and lactobacillic elements. Sure it was an unusual style but these were people who claim some affinity for good beer and indeed have undertaken to write about it. So if they were confused, it sure suggests a real need for something like this.

 

The Official Position

CAMRA claims Cyclops is an “initiative that has been created to help and educate pub goers that are interested in giving real ale a try for the very first time, or have only tried a few pints and want to find out more!”

More from CAMRA:

Real ale can be a complicated subject as a lot of craft goes in to the brewing of our national alcoholic drink. Some beer experts in the past have used very ‘flowery’ language to describe a beer and some consumers have found this hard to understand.

The new ‘Cyclops’ campaign has been designed to inform new real ale drinkers of what style of beer they are drinking, what its alcohol content is, what the beer should look like, what it should smell like and of course, what it should taste like using very simple but informative language.

According to the press release, the goal of the Cyclops program is to “demystify real ale after research showed that 1 in 3 people would try more real ale if its characteristics were made easier to understand in pubs.” Apparently in designing the system, they took “lessons from the UK wine industry,” which I’m not sure was the best place to look for inspiration. Wine and beer are not the same, of course, so what works well in one may not translate to the other. There are similarities to be sure, but do they work in this instance? I’ll explore that question more fully below.

More from the press release:

Declining beer sales in the UK have brought beer consumers and brewers together to revitalise the market for real ale, Britain’s national pub drink. Following the success of the wine industry to make wine more accessible to all consumers through simple tasting notes Cyclops will use common language to explain what different real ales should look, smell and taste like. Sweetness and bitterness are the two dominant taste qualities of real ale and Cyclops using a scale of 1 to 5 for each enables drinkers to work out how sweet and bitter they like their beers.

The new scheme was the brainchild of David Bremner, Head of Marketing at Everards Brewery in Leicester. Everards pilot scheme aimed to promote its beers to new consumers who may have never tried real ale before or who had only tried a few pints in the past. By using attractive imagery and simplified language, real ales are described on promotional material such as beer mats, posters, tasting cards and pump-clip crowners to inform consumers of what they are buying. This information will also be placed on the back on beer handpulls to keep pub staff informed of what the real ale is like.

So far, only fourteen of Britain’s brewers have signed onto the program, but a few of them are big players and together a large number of pubs will likely see the new promotional material.

 

The System

Okay, let’s assume for now this is something that’s worth doing. Is the Cyclops system that CAMRA came up with a good method to educate consumers about individual beers? Not being a brewery member of CAMRA, I can only reverse engineer how the ratings are created.

Each beer has five essential pieces of information: See, Smell, Taste and then a five-point scale for bitter and sweet. Let’s look at one example to see how this would work. We’ll use Everard’s Tiger Beer.

  1. SEE: See is a rather awkward way to say the beer’s look, it’s color. Of course, it also seems to ignore other factors when looking at a beer like head retention, head color, Brussels lace, bubble size, cloudiness, etc., but I guess the goal is to keep things simple. In the case of Tiger, the SEE is listed as: “AUBURN, CHESTNUT BROWN.” And while that easily translate to give you an idea or impression of the beer’s color from what I can tell the color assigned is arbitrary and based on the individual brewery’s decision on what to call the beer’s color. To be truly useful, it seems like they should have been tied to one of the commonly used color scales. Beer color is represented using either the SRM (Standard Reference Method) or the EBC (European Brewing Convention) color measurement. There’s also an older one known as Lovibonds, but it’s essentially the same as SRM.

    Perhaps if every beer that was 9-11 Lovibonds was called “Copper” every time that would be useful and if brewers wanted to use a more romantic, evocative color descriptor then the second color name could be used for that. I can’t be 100% certain, but from a random sample of color names, it doesn’t appear to be standardized, which renders it somewhat subjective and less useful.

    To illustrate this now, here’s three brewer’s SEE descriptors for their entire portfolios:

    Badger Ales: dark amber, ruby brown / light amber, copper / tawny, light golden brown / pale gold
    Everards: amber / auburn, chestnut brown / tawny copper / gold straw
    Fuller’s: tan / light gold / tawny / auburn / deep ruby red / chestnut

    Just in these three, already there’s conflicts. Everards has one beer described as “auburn, chestnut brown” and Fuller’s has one they call “auburn” and another called “chestnut.” So are the two Fuller’s beers the same color as the one from Everards? It’s not exactly clear, is it? And if the goal is to make it more accesible, then I’m not sure this does the trick very well as it only leads to more confusion.

  2. SMELL: While perhaps less genteel than aroma, smell at least conveys exactly what this represents. But again, trying to encapsulate something so subjective and personal is all but impossible. There’s no real standards here to cling to so I’m not sure this information helps. There are a few beers that have specific signature aromas such as the coriander and orange peel in Wits or the clove and bananas in German-style hefeweizens. But for most beers, the positive aromas are not really universal. In any particular beer, some people may smell one thing, others another and no one is really wrong. Everyone’s olfactory sense is different and/or developed to a greater or lesser degree than another person’s sense. So looking again at our three brewery examples, they all read like someone’s tasting notes. And having been collating tasting notes for years, I can tell you everybody has their own method, style and personal terminology for taking notes.
  3. TASTE: See above. For the most part, what’s true for a beer’s nose is true for the flavors, as well.
  4. BITTER: Using a five-point scale, the idea here appears to be to give at least a range of the bitterness of a particular beer. Personally I like the International Bitterness Units (IBU) scale, but I realize it’s a little unwieldy for the general populace. It’s more useful if you know the IBU ranges of beer styles. It too, has limitations since the higher you go on the scale the less accurate the formula for figuring out IBUs becomes. But by and large, its served the industry well. I’m not sure that a bitterness scale with only a range of five (six if you use zero) gives enough information. It may be enough for the majority of English ales but if you try to go beyond that it may not work. But I suppose of all the Cyclops scales at least this one is easily understood and does give some information that may be meaningful.
  5. SWEET: The sweetness imparted by a beer from either the malt or alcohol (or esters) is like hops, a much broader range than a five-point scale can adequately capture. The problem is, as Stan from Beer Therapy puts so well, there’s “more to hops than bitterness. And there’s certainly more to malt than sweetness.” Stan hits upon perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome in designing such a system to categorize beer, which is that a true appreciation of beer’s complexities cannot be distilled down into a simple series of numbers and universal descriptors.
  6. OTHER FACTORS: All of the examples of the Cyclops system in use also includes the beer style, percentage of alcohol and a short sentence or two description. This is generally the same information currently available for most beers, and it does add to the overall picture, but it doesn’t exactly simplify things.

Here is three ways in which Everard’s Tiger Beer Cyclops system data might be used:

In a festival program.

As a poster.

On a coaster.

 

The Name: Cyclops?

 According to CAMRA’s press release, the name Cyclops comes “due to the one eye, nose and mouth imagery used on the promotional material.” The Cyclops originates, of course, from Greek mythology and “is a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead.”

But as Alan writing on A Good Beer Blog points out, the most “famous Cyclops, Homer’s Polyphemus [in The Odyssey], was blinded for life by drinking strong wine and ate people. This is hardly the making of a good brand. But even when he had one good eye he saw things … like he was born with one eye in the middle of his forehead — as in without [a] particularly strong ability to see things from other perspectives.”

At first I thought perhaps cyclops might be an acronym for something but when I found out it was simply named for the promotional materials, I threw up my hands. What a terribly unthoughtful way to choose a name for something you know will be controversial and which you want to succeed. So the name has absolutely nothing to do with the program itself or what it’s trying to accomplish. It’s likely to confuse most people even more plus a cyclops doesn’t exactly conjure up a warm and fuzzy image that could be exploited by marketing efforts.

 

What Others Are Saying

Roger Protz explained the goal a little better in a CNN report:

Cyclops is partly aimed at raising the respectability of a drink often miscast as the cause of Britain’s social ills, namely the notorious binge-drinking culture that sees city center bars, hospitals and police stations filled with inebriated youngsters.

“Wine is seen as respectable, but to many people beer means thugs. This is completely untrue. What we’re trying to do is elevate beer to a level equal with wine, where it becomes normal to drink beer at a dinner party.

“Brewers are responding to this. Some are even producing beer in elegant wine-shaped bottles, and as most wine writers agree, beer goes much better with food than wine.”

Says Protz, while he was once ridiculed for talking floridly about lowly bitters and stouts, more people are now appreciating the finer points of blending hops, barley and malts.

The London Telegraph, on the other hands, responds to the idea of a pub “where particular ales are suggested for particular dishes” by condescendingly suggesting that “the day of the beer snob cannot be long away.” Now that’s clueless reporting. Firstly, we beer snobs have been simmering in the underground for decades and secondly, food and beer pairings are not exactly a radical idea. If you can pair one beverage with food you can pair another. The author, the aptly named Neil Tweedie, is a wine writer, which doubtless explains his disparaging tone.

 

Conclusion

After writing this all out and thinking about how this might be used, the inescapable conclusion is that while I applaud the attempt it’s essentially an unworkable idea, especially if you try to broaden it to include all beer styles rather than just a narrow range of English ales. It’s a shame, too, because I’m pretty anal-retentive and detail-oriented so I would love a way to categorize all beers using a single, simple method. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is it. I’m not willing to call it the worst idea ever, because however flawed it is, at least it’s attempt. It’s more than you and I have tried. In the end, I think Cyclops might need some glasses, he’s a little myopic. Pint glasses?

Fal Allen’s Archipelago Brewery Opens

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Last year, my friend Fal Allen left for Singapore to open an American-style craft brewery for Asia Pacific Breweries. Archipelago Brewery originally opened in 1931 but by 1941 was sold to Malayan Breweries (which today is Asia Pacific Breweries). Closed since then, it finally reopened July 24 with three craft beers created and brewed by Fal: Traveller’s Wheat, Straits Pale Ale and Trader’s Ale, which is made with “a touch of Gula Melaka (palm sugar) and ginger.”

From the press release:

Combining the best of Western beer brewing techniques and exotic Asian spices, Archipelago draught beers will be created in small, unpasteurised batches to obtain the freshest beers that complement the region’s weather and food – perfectly.

“We wanted to create a craft brew that is distinctly Asian with a strong heritage. With the use of special Asian spices in our beers, the distinctive taste of Archipelago will undoubtedly appeal to beer connoisseurs in Singapore”, said Ms Andrea Teo, General Manager of Archipelago Brewery Company. “With the refined drinker in mind, the signature tastes of the Archipelago Beer range promises both pleasure and adventure with every drinking experience. By introducing specialty craft beer to the market, we also hope to educate the public about the finer points of beer appreciation and beer-food pairing.”

Brewed and crafted in Singapore to ensure maximum freshness and optimal product quality, the new Archipelago Brewery Company is devoted to the art of brewing and the enjoyment of flavour with a unique blend of East and West. Launching the brand are three main variants, Traveller’s Wheat, Straits Pale and Trader’s Ale. All three combine the credibility of Western brewing techniques with Asian ingredients such as lemon grass, tamarind and Gula Melaka, to create what is arguably the first Asian conceptualised craft beer with Asian characteristics.

I can’t wait to get over there and try them for myself. But Fal will be in Denver for GABF in late September. Perhaps he’ll bring some of his new beers with him for us to sample.

Fal at the brewery opening.

Work, work, work.

Beer Remains on Top — This Year Gallup Agrees

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According to a press release from Anheuser-Busch, a recent Gallup Poll indicates that people were more truthful this year about their favorite alcoholic beverage. Last year’s poll appeared to indicate that wine was overtaking beer, despite the fact that beer outsells wine by an almost 4-to-1 ratio, and has for many years. I never believed last year’s poll and this year’s, having put beer once more on top, seems to confirm my earlier suspicions.

Speculation last year ranged from people giving the answer wine as their favorite because of its perception of greater sophistication to problems with the sample taken, such as the one earlier this year by Merrill Research. In other words, asking people what their favorite is may not always produce highly accurate results since the subject itself is so subjective. Sales figures, on the other hand, are more reliable and they have shown beer far in the lead for years and years.

From the press release:

Findings from Gallup’s annual poll on Americans’ alcohol and drinking habits demonstrate adult consumer consumption of wine has decreased, while consumption of beer has increased five percentage points since July 2005.

Of those Americans who drink alcohol, 41 percent most often drink beer. Beer is the largest segment in the alcohol beverage category in both volume and dollar sales, and accounts for nearly 60 percent of all alcohol beverage servings.

A-B also used the press release to tacitly suggest that their Here’s to Beer campaign was responsible for the turnaround by including information about it directly following the Gallup Poll story.

From the Glass-Lined Tanks of Old … St. Louis?

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Now that Anheuser-Busch will be brewing Rolling Rock at their facility in Newark, New Jersey, I expected they’d have to change some of the packaging. But in a press release from last Friday, A-B announced their intention to not change almost anything. I suppose that’s not too much of a surprise since their stated goal is to “produce the same beer and maintain its traditional taste,” according to Doug Muhleman, chief brewmaster of Anheuser-Busch.

Andy Goeler, vice president, Import, Craft and Specialty Group, Anheuser- Busch, Inc. said “[o]ur priority is to honor the Rolling Rock brand and its traditions. One way we’re doing this is through our packaging. The Rolling Rock pledge is an historic part of this brand, along with the mysterious ’33’ and the label’s other features. We wanted to take all steps possible to honor this tradition, so we plan to quote the pledge on the label in a tribute to this rich, proud history.”

Next month, when the beer will begin being brewed in New Jersey, the label will continue to read:

“From the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe,
we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment,
as a tribute to your good taste.
It comes from the mountain springs to you.”

Other items printed on the bottle, including the steeplechase, horse and mysterious “33” will also remain unchanged.

Now is it just me or won’t it be pretty hard to claim that the beer is “from the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe” when it’s brewed in Newark? Does that kind of announced deception spun as “honoring tradition” bother anyone else? It’s one thing to quietly keep the label intact, but to shout that you’re paying “tribute to this rich, proud history” while not, in fact, doing so seems arrogant in the extreme to me. If A-B had really cared about the tradition of this beer, they would have bought the brewery and continued making it in Latrobe. That would have honored the tradition and paid tribute to its history. This is spin and propaganda at its most openly brash. Curiously, this press release does not appear, at least as far as I can tell, on their corporate website where their other press releases reside. Instead, it came through PR Newswire, an online service that disseminates press releases to journalists and other industry watchers. Draw your own conclusions for that, but it seems at least a little odd.

Also from the press release:

Rolling Rock bottles will continue to have a two-color painted label on green glass from the same supplier in Pennsylvania. The front label will continue to recognize Latrobe Brewing Co., along with a required geographic designation. Anheuser-Busch will first brew Rolling Rock in the northeast, but expansion to other locations is expected. Therefore, the company is opting to place its St. Louis headquarters on the bottle.

Well that seems reasonable. A-B will be making Rolling Rock in Newark, New Jersey, stating on the bottle that it’s “from the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe” (Pennsylvania) and listing its origin as St. Louis, Missouri. Let’s review once more the letter A-B sent to All About Beer magazine in response to some labeling criticisms beer writer Fred Eckhardt had made in a 1997 article.

We don’t take issue with contract brewing — we just think beer drinkers have the right to know who really brews their beer. We, along with many other traditional brewers and beer enthusiasts, object to those who mislead consumers by marketing their beers as “craft brewed,” when in fact their beers are made in large breweries.

It may not be a perfect fit, but it still shows the King has an arbitrary sense of moral righteousness and some curious notions of right and wrong, very much in the mold of Louis XIV and other Old World royalty. It’s wrong if they do it but when we do it we’re just “honoring tradition.” Uh-huh. We are not amused.

Barton Beers to Import Corona Nationwide

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When it was announced back in early March that Gambrinus had lost an arbitration and more significantly the contract to import Corona — and other Grupo Modelo brands — throughout the Eastern half of the U.S., speculations ran high as to who would be awarded that lucrative contract. Well, the wait is over and as many predicted, it will go to Barton Beers of Chicago. Barton Beers currently imports Corona in the western half of the U.S. so with this move, Grupo Modelo will have one importer for the entire country. In addition to Corona and the other Modelo brands — Modelo Especial, Negra Modelo and Pacifico — Barton also imports St. Pauli Girl and Tsingtao. Barton in turn is owned by Constellation Brands, a giant in the world of liquor and wine.

The Gambrinus contract ends next year, when Barton will take over Corona nationwide on January 2. The new contract with Barton will last for ten years. According to a press release put out by Constellation Brands, the new relationship between the two companies is actually a joint venture.

Corona is, despite its weak flavor and lack of character, the number one selling import beer in America, having eclipsed Heineken for that dubious honor in 1997.

“It’s For the Kids”

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The neo-prohibitionist organization Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) released a statement yesterday claiming that beer logos on cars, toys and at the NASCAR track “Confuse Young Kids About Drinking and Driving.” Boy these organizations think kids are pretty stupid, don’t they.

Now I’m not a fan of car racing. I follow some sports, but it’s just not a huge part of my life. I have nothing against them per se although I do think our obsession with sports in general distracts people from more important issues, but that’s probably just me. And the strange thing is I don’t really like the big beer companies sponsoring sports and the attendant ads very much, but on wholly different grounds. For me it’s about the message they’re sending about what beer is and how it should be consumed where I believe most of their advertising perpetuates false and misleading information about beer itself. And I think this has done great harm to beer’s image over the last several decades making it harder for craft brewers to compete.

But the one sport I hate with a passion even more is using kids as an excuse to further an agenda. It’s a time-honored strategy and neo-prohibitionists have honed it to a fine art. Don’t like something other people are doing? Claim it’s bad for the kids. It’s always about the freaking kids. This just so frys my bacon. I have kids. Many, if not most, of the hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of people whose livelihoods depend on beer from brewers to distributors to salesman to truck drivers to the ad agency people who come up with the ads have kids, too. I don’t see them coming unglued because a toy car has a Budweiser logo on it. Now I wouldn’t buy my son a Bud car because I don’t like Bud. But he does have a Radeberger Pilsner truck I bought him in Germany. And he has some trucks with craft brewer logos on them and some with other import beers like Murphy’s (before Heineken bought them). Do I think he’s going to be harmed because of this? Of course not. Only someone uninvolved with their children could come to that conclusion. There are plenty of real threats I’m worried about in raising my children. Even just talking about this one is a waste of my time.

But the neo-prohibitionists are serious. They really think this is the problem that needs addressing. Anything, anything that has to do with adults enjoying alcohol must be stopped. It must not be allowed. If anyone can abuse it, then none of us are safe until alcohol is once again outlawed. And we all now how well that worked out the last time we tried it. In fact, it’s never worked out when any body’s tried it. They may dress it up as concern for the kids and even for the public at large but this is just a grubby little attempt at controlling the lives of all Americans in a way the majority of Americans don’t want. That’s supposed to matter in a democracy, what the majority of people want. But minority opinions are increasingly pushing their way to the front of the line with misinformation, propaganda and deep pockets.

And while I’m ranting, how about euphemistic names that neo-prohibitionists use to obfuscate their true purpose. This one cracks me up: “Science for the Public Interest.” Science? Their press release is just anecdotal hogwash with no scientific basis whatsoever. It’s pure opinion, and that would be fine as long as they said so. And who’s public interest are they representing. Not mine. Not the thousands and thousands of brewery and related industry workers and their families. Their mission statement claims they “represent the citizen’s interests” but are all citizen’s interests the same? How could they be? So they’re really pushing a particular, if unstated, agenda. But if they want truth in advertising isn’t it only right that they should begin with their own name? If their very name is misleading and doesn’t really convey their true purpose why should we believe anything they have to say? I have a hard time giving credence to any organization who claims a higher moral ground but can’t even manage honesty in their own name.
 

A couple of my son Porter’s toy trucks. Radeberger, who makes a fantastic pilsner and Anderson Valley Brewing, an environmentally friendly brewery that is a huge part of its local economy. And the problem with these is …? Let’s see, global warming, no universal health care, a war in Iraq, record deficit, secret spying on Americans by our own government, the Patriot Act, AIDS in Africa, the growing scarcity of oil and water, and on and on but no, this is the big problem. Could we please get some perspective?

Miller Strike Looming

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According to UPI, the Teamsters are warning distributors of Miller beer throughout Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Minneapolis that a strike is imminent. Apparently healthcare benefits are the sticking point in negotiations between the union — who represents more than 1,400 employees of the brewery — and SABMiller, Miller’s parent company.

Miller’s union workers voted to authorize a strike back in the third week of June. The Teamsters press release today discusses possible strategies for this potential strike and yesterday they warned that SBMiller was risking US Market share by ignoring healthcare concerns of union workers.