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Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Patent No. D503550S1: Combined Beer Dispensing Cooler And Lawn Chair

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Today in 2005, US Patent D503550 S1 was issued, an invention of Brian Miesieski, Devin Kelly, and Geoff Blanck, assigned to Labatt Brewing Company Ltd, for their “Combined Beer Dispensing Cooler and Lawn Chair.” There’s no Abstract, which is unusual for such a recent patent. The patent application merely lists the seven submitted drawings of the design and the only other text at all is this short claim. “The ornamental design for a combined beer dispensing cooler and lawn chair, as shown.”

USD0503550-20050405-D00000

USD0503550-20050405-D00002 USD0503550-20050405-D00004

USD0503550-20050405-D00003 USD0503550-20050405-D00006

My first thought was this had to be a promotional item that Labatt used for some sales campaign. And, in fact, that’s what it was used for. I found a picture of the finished product, which also included this caption:

This unit was designed to promote Labatt’s “Blueprint” advertising campaign which was centered around a series of beer dispensers. This chair was featured on ABC’s“Good Morning America”, a nationally broadcast television show, as one of the “Best Gadgets For Your Life”. The cooler keeps 12 cans of beer ice cold while storing one can in a chilled holding pen. When the handle is pushed it releases the can in the holding pen and reloads itself.

And the Global Marketing Group of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a marketing display company, currently lists the chair in their catalog under Unique Solutions. So you could still get your own beer can chair, if you really, really wanted one.

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Turkey & Beer Day Tomorrow

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Unlike many people, I always have beer with my turkey dinner. Lately, it’s Anchor’s Christmas beer. I like a good spicy beer with the myriad flavors of turkey, cranberry, stuffing, mashed potatoes and so forth. Pike’s of Seattle used to also make an excellent spicy beer, Auld Lang Syne, which I also liked for Thanksgiving but they stopped making it quite some time ago. But there are almost as many pairings as there are people, and few can really be said to be wrong as long as they’re well-thought out and manage to contrast or compliment the meal.

A survey of the recent news regarding Thanksgiving reveals that a number of sources are finally recommending beer with the Thanksgiving meal. Ten years ago that would have been a veritable rarity but now that suggestion seems to be everywhere and it’s told with a seemingly welcome relief. Relief that people can stop trying to put a square peg in a round hole, trying in vain to force wine to work with a meal it has little business being involved in. The varied tastes in the average Thanksgiving meal yield so much more easily to beer — as in fact does most food, but that’s for another day — than wine that you just know something other than common sense has been driving the wine pairing suggestions for years.

First, the Associated Press (AP) had a story that many outlets picked up under various titles, such as “Craft beers join Turkey Day table,” “Have a beer with Thanksgiving dinner,” and the vaguely insulting “Thanksgiving dinner — and beer?” But the article itself it surprisingly well-done.

There’s also “A Thanksgiving Toast,” a nice editorial in the L.A. Times giving a historical perspective for drinking beer at the Thanksgiving meal. And the Boston Globe has a similar theme in “Ale, ale, the gang’s all here.” Then there’s this piece from Canada called “It’s not Thanksgiving without beer.”

Likewise, Eric Hjerstedt Sharp, writing in the Ironwood, Michigan Daily Globe about Thanksgiving myths, has the following to add:

—Not tee-totalers by any means, the major beverage aboard the Mayflower was beer, primarily because the alcohol kept the bacteria from spoiling the drinking water. However, they continued to brew and drink beer after they landed and settled.

Scripps News has an article entitled “Choosing the best beer for a holiday dinner.” And while I could take issue with some of the author’s ignorance, she also has some good suggestions for the novice, too, so in the holiday spirit I’ll let it pass.

Tim Cotter, writing for The Day in Connecticut, suggests two fine beers to try with your turkey, Ommegang Abbey Ale or Allagash Grand Cru, in his column entitled “Turkey Beers.”

At Epicurious, there’s article called “Thanks for the Brews, Beers for Thanksgiving day,” by Marty Nachel, author of Beer for Dummies.

And there’s also “The beer nut: Giving thanks for good beers” at the Daily News in rural Massachusetts.

This year, the Brewers Association launched its own campaign called “The Year Beer Goes With the Bird” whose aim to show the advantages of pairing beer with your Thanksgiving meal this year. Some of their suggestions:

Traditional Roast Turkey: The roasted and caramelized skin matches well with amber ale, a strong golden ale or an amber lager in the Vienna style.

Smoked Turkey: If your local brewery offers a smoked beer, that can serve as a compliment to smoked turkey as well. Look for a porter, Scotch ale or amber ale in the smoked style.

Cajun Turkey: Celebrated beer writer and New Mexico resident Stan Hieronymus suggests a malty IPA to go with his favorite Cajun turkey recipe. For a malty alternative that will stand up to the heat, try a dark bock or strong Scotch ale.

The recipes on the left are also on the Brewers Association website and are courtesy of my good friend, beer cook Lucy Saunders.

And here’s in an interesting piece of history in itself. It’s an article by Michael Jackson from the Washington Post from November of 1983 called Beer at the Thanksgiving table. And here’s a more recent one on the same subject by Michael’s friend, award-winning beer writer, Carol Smagalski, entitled “Elegant Beer for the Thanksgiving Table.”

And then, of course, there’s my friend Lisa Morrison’s award-winning piece, “This Thanksgiving, Beer Is For The Bird” in which challenges her readers to “Try Serving Well-Crafted Local Beer At The Table, Pilgrim.”

And in case you thought this was a new idea, here’s an ad from 1946 extolling the virtues of beer with turkey by the National Brewing Co. of Baltimore, Maryland.

On Drinking Well

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I got this press release from Diageo and Zagat last week and was only able to glance at it because of some article deadlines, and I also saw that Stan Hieronymus wrote about this over at Appellation Beer. The two companies have launched a new website, Drinkwell, that uses the Zagat survey format but for restaurants serving drinks.

From the press release:

In an innovative industry collaboration, Diageo, the world’s leading premium drinks business with hallmark brands including Smirnoff, Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Baileys, J&B, Cuervo, Captain Morgan and Tanqueray, announced today that it has joined with Zagat Survey, the world’s leading provider of consumer survey-based content, to launch drinkwell(TM) (www.idrinkwell.com), the first online resource guide to restaurants that are dedicated to serving the highest quality drinks and drink service.

“When people go out they often start the evening with cocktails, and that experience — good or bad — can set the mood for the entire night,” said Steve Wallet, vice president of Channel Marketing for Diageo. “At Diageo our leadership and knowledge in the area of spirits, beer and wine is second to none. drinkwell(TM) combines Diageo’s expertise with Zagat’s, and the industry’s foremost mixologists, to create a one-of-a-kind online resource for consumers seeking a complete quality dining and drinks experience.”

Visitors to www.idrinkwell.com will have free access to the ratings that Zagat surveyors have given to the hundreds of drinkwell(TM) establishments across the country, based on the quality of drinks, service, atmosphere and cost.

“Eating is only one part of the consumer experience when visiting a restaurant,” said Tim Zagat, Co-chair and CEO of Zagat Survey. “The creation of drinkwell(TM) gives consumers a new way to make informed decisions about where to find the best drinks and service.”

drinkwell(TM) has partnered with several world-renowned beverage experts including Dale DeGroff, Steve Olson, Paul Pacult, Dave Wondrich and Doug Frost, to develop the drinkwell(TM) Academy Staff Training Program for participating establishments. drinkwell(TM) — accredited establishments are identified by a special black and brushed metal plaque, in the same way the burgundy Zagat Survey decal denotes a Zagat-rated restaurant.

That’s all well and good, but apparently by “world-renowned beverage experts” they mean people who know wine and spirits but precious little about beer. You’d think that would not be the case given that Diageo also owns the Guinness brand, but since acquiring it they’ve essentially squandered away all its respectability. I’ve never been entirely sure why Diageo bought Guinness, because they seem to have little feeling for the original Irish Stout, its history or even its customers. They’ve insulted consumers everywhere with such abominations as the widget-bottle, Red Guinness and Extra Cold Guinness.

Stan knows a lot of the initial fifteen cities that Drinkwell launched with better than I do and he notes that the Chicago listings are missing some of the Windy City’s best beer destinations. His nutshell take on Drinkwell?

The good news is it free. The bad news is there’s dang little beer.

Their listings for my local area include not just San Francisco but the entire Bay Area. Only 61 places are listed — I know they’re just getting started but that still feels like an infinitesimally small number — not one has much of a beer selection, though the cynic in me is willing to bet they all carry Guinness. In California, there are two main types of restaurant alcohol licenses, a Type 41 allows a restaurant to carry just beer and wine and a Type 47 allows beer, wine and spirits. There are others, of course, but for discussion purposes that’s the main difference: just beer and wine or both with spirits, too. All 61 of the Drinkwell’s Bay Area listings are “full bar” places, meaning they sell all three kinds of alcohol.

It would take forever to list what’s missing here but what’s wrong will take considerably less time. It’s not a bad idea to rate drinks selection, service, and the like but “drinks” should really mean all of the drinks, not just cocktail-friendly places. There’s more than a whiff of this being a self-serving promotion by Diageo to sell more of its spirits portfolio, which ends up cheapening Zagat, in my opinion.

Zagat bills itself as “the world’s leading provider of consumer survey based content about where to eat, drink, stay and play. With more than 300,000 surveyors worldwide, Zagat Survey rates and reviews restaurants, hotels, nightlife, movies, music, golf, shopping and a range of other entertainment categories and is lauded as the “most up-to-date,” “comprehensive” and “reliable” guide ever published.” Maybe, but I can’t help but thinking pairing with Diageo makes them much less independent. This “partnership” probably means Zagat is trading on their unbiased reputation for a large fee from Diageo to increase their business. That may be untraditional or even cutting-edge but it still smacks of old-fashioned crass advertising and marketing. Plus, there’s no reason I can think of why Zagat couldn’t include drinks information as a part of its regular survey information without Diageo’s biased assistance. If, as Tim Zagat says in the press release, “[e]ating is only one part of the consumer experience when visiting a restaurant,” why didn’t he conclude they should have added that to their current survey model? Why would they need to “partner” with a company that has such an obvious agenda?

But the real tragedy is beer is once again ignored as a part of a fine dining experience. It may be that many or even most of the 300,000 Zagat restaurant reviewers are biased with regard to their perceptions of beer, wine and spirits and it seems Diageo’s rationale for doing this is perfectly transparent: it’s to increase their business. Zagat had an opportunity to make their ratings more complete and with a broader appeal, including people looking for good beer in a restaurant setting along with wine and spirits. Instead it appears they decided to take the money and run. Maybe I’m overreacting as I’m so often accused and things will improve with time, but with Diageo driving the bus, so to speak, I can’t see how they’ll ever include good beer destinations as one of their stops. And that makes Zagat ultimately less useful to me, and perhaps many other lovers of great beer. In the end, the experience of eating and “drinking well” should be about all of the available choices to enhance that culinary adventure.

 

Fill ‘Er Up, Please

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The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), Great Britain’s beer advocacy group has just completed a survey of pubs and how full they fill your pint, and it doesn’t look good. They’re calling for people to sign an online petition and asking the Prime Minister to fix the problem. In addition to CAMRA’s figures, a Telegraph story today has additional details.

New figures from CAMRA show that a whopping 26.6% of pints served in pubs contain less than 95% beer. CAMRA is taking its campaign for a full pint straight to the top by launching a national petition calling on the Prime Minister to put an end to short beer measures.

Full Pints Key Facts

  • 26.6% of pints are more than 5% short measure
  • Short measure costs consumers £481 million a year, or over £1.3 million a day
  • Pubs serve customers 208 million more pints than they buy in

CAMRA needs your help to ensure you receive a full pint of beer every time. Please sign CAMRA’s National Full Pints Petition calling for an end to short beer measures.

Dos Equis New Ad Campaign Not Very Interesting

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Since 2004, Dos Equis and all of the Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brands, which also include Bohemia, Carta Blanca, Sol and Tecate, have been marketed in the U.S. by Heinken USA through an agreement they signed with FEMSA, a multi-billion dollar beverage company in Latin America.

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CLICK HERE TO VIEW A COMPILATION OF THE ADS

The latest ad campaign Heineken is just launching and the plan is to position Dos Equis as a premium product through a nationwide push using spots called the “Most Interesting Man in the World” and with the tagline, “stay thirsty, my friends,” whatever that means. The advertising agency that created the ads is Euro RSCG, which is apparently the fifth largest global ad agency in the world and headquartered in New York City. If you click on the ad to the left, it will open a new window at AdWeek where you can watch the first commercial. This first one is something of an introduction, setting the tone for four more that will begin airing next week. Here’s how AdWeek describes the commercial.

It opens on a bearded, tuxedo-clad gentleman bench-pressing two comely nurses. A narrator intones oddly intriguing descriptions of the man, e.g., “His blood smells like cologne,” as the character continues to do implausible things, like freeing a bear from a trap.

Ultimately, we see a more mature MIM, with a touch of gray in his hair, seated at a table surrounded by beautiful women. He says, “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.” The spot ends with the tagline, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”

There will also be radio spots, print ads in Stuff magazine and the MIM is featured on the Dos Equis website along with a separate website, staythirstymyfriends.com. You can also see all four commercials at that website.

Now the ad is well-produced and are not without some humor, but they don’t seem very different from almost any other beer ad created by a big name ad agency. What did strike me as odd and a little interesting was the following about just how Euro RSCG sees the ad campaign.

From the AdWeek story:

For Euro RSCG, the spot is a conscious attempt to elevate the often-lowbrow imagery associated with beer ads. “The stain of the Swedish bikini teams still lingers. Those kinds of ads are targeted at beer-drinking morons,” said Jeff Kling, ecd at Euro RSCG in New York. “We saw this as an opportunity to talk to people a little differently. It portrays a different kind of drinker.”

Raise your hand if you know what’s wrong with that. The “Most Interesting Man in the World” (MIM) is not low-brow? It can be distinguished from the Swedish Bikini Team? This is not aimed at morons? It displays a different kind of drinker? So let’s look at those statements.

  1. Not Low-Brow: The MIM is Ricardo Montalban without the Corinthian leather and sporting a beard. He’s classy with a capital “K.” This is every cliche of sophistication and in my opinion lacks any authentic portrayal of it whatsoever. It looks like what a drunken frat boy might consider high-brow.”
  2. No Lingering Babes: Uh, exactly what do you call the two Asian nurses in tight white uniforms in the beginning or the two babes in low-cut black cocktail dresses at the end? They may not be wearing bikinis, but they’re cut from the same cloth.
  3. Not Aimed at Morons: Because arm wrestling is the way intelligent people settle their political differences or spend an evening of fun. Worse than that, at the website you can “test your skills” by arm-wrestling a “deceased head of state.” They get bonus points for not realizing that Winston Churchill was not a head of state, but Prime Minister. The Queen is head of state in Great Britain. Another non-moronic game you can play at the website is a “Test of your resilience and fortitude” that involves holding down the spacebar on your keyboard as long as you can or want to. Now that’s sophistication.
  4. A Different Kind of Drinker: Freeing bears from traps and fishing for Marlin. Frankly I’d be worried about liability for all those different drinkers who had themselves a 12-pack and then actually tried to free a bear. I don’t see how this is in any way a departure from the same inanity that’s graced our TV sets for decades.

The ads aren’t really any worse than any other bad beer ads, but what I find troubling is how the ad agency speaks about them. Is it just me, or do their statements seems completely divorced from reality? Because if they were really setting out to show beer in a different light instead of how it’s been portrayed for a very long time, I think they utterly and completely failed in that regard. I for one, plan to not stay thirsty. Perhaps a nice beer with do the trick.

Four Points Announces CBO

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The votes are in, the interviews are over, and the glasses are empty. Four Points Sheraton announced today that Scott Kerkmans, Beer Director of Phoenix, Arizona-based Draft Magazine, has been named Chief Beer Officer (CBO). He will ring the bell to open today’s New York Stock Exchange. I’m not quite sure what that has to do with beer, but what the heck, I’m sure it will be fun.

Kerkmans beat out finalists Brad Ruppert, an information technology professional from Huntington Beach, California, Chris Nelson, a Web developer from Carmel Valley, California, and Jennifer Talley, research and development director at the Salt Lake Brewing Co. in Utah, Kerkmans along with over 7,500 applicants from more than 30 countries to get one of the most-highly sought after temp jobs in history.

From the press release:

Kerkmans earned a seat at the Four Points boardroom table by impressing not only the brand’s executives, but also the beer-loving public. Nearly half of the 12,759 people from around the world who cast their vote for their favorite finalist felt Kerkmans was the perfect fit for this fabulous opportunity. Since the night his brother gave him a home brewing kit, Kerkmans has been extremely passionate about everything beer, from its production and pairings to sampling stouts and sharing his rich knowledge.

Kerkmans has dedicated both his professional and personal life to beer. This 27-year old Phoenix resident and former Head Brewer / Brewery Manager spent the past year starting and growing DRAFT, a national lifestyle magazine focused on beer and beer culture, in which he reviews this glorious libation on a weekly basis. He is also a certified beer judge who spends much of his free time seeking out new brews.

“It is an honor to be Four Points first-ever CBO,” said Kerkmans. “I look forward to sharing my love for beer with the thirsty public and introducing this fun beverage to those who have yet to discover the joy that can be found in a perfectly poured cold one. Being named the Four Points CBO and working with the brand on its outstanding Best Brews Program is the job of a lifetime.”

Raising a Glass

On Monday, March 26th, Kerkmans will officially pull his bar stool up to the boardroom table and meet his new Four Points by Sheraton colleagues in White Plains, New York. Starwood executives and hundreds of associates will be on hand to lead the Four Points team and its newest chief in a celebratory toast.

Over the next few months, Kerkmans will collaborate with the Four Points by Sheraton team to work on the Best Brews program, host “happy hours” at select Four Points properties across the country, as well as attend high-profile beer festivals as the company’s representative.

“We are thrilled to have Scott join us as CBO,” said Four Points’ Vice President Sandy “Suds” Swider. “We took our search for our newest executive very seriously, and Scott’s passion for beer and brew eloquence is truly unparalleled. We look forward to working with him to further develop the Best Brews program and spread the word about this wonderful simple pleasure in the year ahead.”

Clinking Voyeurism

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Another “Here’s to Beer” effort to try bringing people back into the beer fold is “Clink,” within the social networking website MingleNow. There, members are encouraged to post photos to the site of friends clinking their glasses together. So far, a few hundred have been uploaded, many similar to this one.
 

 

Anheuser-Busch is the exclusive advertiser at the Clink portion of MingleNow, but that of course won’t stop the clinking glasses or bottles being filled with all manner of different beer. In one of my favorites currently at the site, a trio of Oktoberfest attendees enjoy mugs of Spaten.
 

 

Unfortunately, in their drive to entice younger people, most of the photos have a voyeuristic feel to them that I’m not entirely sure brings out the best in beer. Some of the photos do appear to be genuine expressions of friendship and good times shared over a pint, but a majority are exactly what you’d expect, mere titillation, especially as evidenced by the most popular photos which are voted on by MingleNow’s 300,000+ members. There are also contests for submitting pictures, such as one running now where you can win a VIP Trip to the Bud Light Aspen Spring Jam, a four day live concert festival.
 

 

As a recent BusinessWeek article put it, A-B is in “pursuit of the elusive 25-year-old Everyman. There’s the struggle to recalibrate how the brewer sells big brands in stupendous volumes amid the vicissitudes of an uncooperative and fractionalized market.” MingleNow focuses on the 21-35 nightclub demographic, which is ideal for A-B’s purposes though really it’s the 21-25 age bracket that gets most of the attention. ClickZ News and BizReport also have their own take on this story.

So my initial reaction is that this part of Here’s to Beer phase 2 push is much more helpful to Anheuser-Busch in recapturing the youth drinker than to beer as a category. It does little that I can see to realize the supposed goal of increasing beer’s share among all alcoholic beverages. Unless I’m missing something, can’t you clink a wine glass or tumbler of whiskey just as easily? As Silicon Valley business blogger Tom Foremski notes, “beer has helped build social relationships for centuries—maybe online social networks can now help build sales of beer.” Maybe, but I get the distinct impression that nobody thought through how this is really going to help persuade people to order a pint of beer instead of something else. Again, like the new Here’s to Beer website, Clink is not without it’s charms but hardly seems capable of changing anybody’s mind about the respect that good beer deserves.

CBO Job Update

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About six weeks ago, Four Points Sheraton posted a job listing for CBO, Chief Beer Officer. I speculated at the time that it appeared to be more of a promotion than a legitimate job opening, but a fun one all the same. Travel Weekly (free subscription required) is reporting that to date over 5,000 CBO hopefuls from 31 countries on all of the inhabited continents have applied for the position. And people from all 50 states along with D.C. and Puerto Rico have filled out the application.

One curious statistic is that although only about 10% of the applicants have been female, a higher percentage of women got a perfect score on the beer knowledge quiz. What’s odd to me about that is that the quiz was so easy you’d have to be a block of wood not to ace it. I don’t mean to suggest only beer geeks would know the answers, I mean that absolutely anyone with a pulse and just a few synapses of thought should have no trouble getting every one right. The quiz answers are so telescoped that I’m mouth-droppingly amazed to learn that some people actually didn’t get a perfect score on it. But that aside, it still seems like a fun promotion. Who wouldn’t want that for a job title?

If you want to apply and see how easy the quiz is for yourself, there’s still time to apply online before the deadline ends on January 12, 2007.

Ohio Bar Declared “Most Arrogant”

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Out of 46 bars nationwide that signed up for a promotion sponsored by Stone Brewing, Boston’s Bistro and Pub in Dayton, Ohio was declared “The Most Arrogant Bar in America” and will hold the title for one full year. In order to win, they had to sell more of Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Bastard beer than any of the other participants. They took all of the other beers they normally carried off of their taps, and sold over eighteen half-kegs or approximately 2,634 pints to win the prize.


 

UPDATE: Kevin from KevBrews also has a nice update on this story.

Internet Pints

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I got an e-mail from Patrick from YouGotBeer.com about his new website, which allows you to send someone a beer over the internet. It seems like a fairly intriguing, if somewhat wacky idea, to buy someone a pint in cyberspace. It’s a simple enough idea. Using PayPal you send whoever you want a gift card that can be redeemed for a pint at specific locations. It still appears to be in its early stages, because there’s a limited number of places, about fourteen chain restaurants/bars/brewpubs. Although the wesbite claims — and I can’t dispute it — those few chains add up to thousands of locations in all 50 states. But if they get more unique places to sign up, it could really turn into something. Who wouldn’t like to see “You’ve Got Beer!” in their inbox, especially when you really could redeem it for a pint of beer.