I just learned that the California Senate earlier today passed AB 1245 by a vote of 26-7, which gives you some indication of how Anheuser-Busch threw around their political weight. Not only did they sponsor the bill, along with eight Bud distributors in lock step, but they were in fact the only brewery in California not to oppose it, and that includes MillerCoors, who operates a facility in southern California. Even Heineken USA officially opposed the bill. So essentially your elected officials, or at least 79% of them, turned a deaf ear to the concerns of every single small and large beer business in the state, except one. Anybody think this sounds like the Senate was listening to the will of the people? This bill was the very definition of special interest legislation and you can see how it played out. The will of the multi-national corporation was the winner today, and the people be damned.

The only silver lining in all this is that there were any “no” votes at all. That was something of a surprise, and may be attributable to calls made by people like you and me. At least Id like to believe that’s the case. Some nay vote Senators did argue on the floor for the interests of craft brewers, and that’s certainly a sliver of good news. There’s possibly one more shot at stopping this, if the bill goes back to the Assembly GO committee before reaching Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk for signature. Otherwise look for A-B to begin buying customer loyalty beginning in January of next year, when phase one of the bill takes effect.

There is, however, one more irony worth pondering about this bill which may make it all moot in the end, or at least not benefit A-B as much as they believe. InBev, assuming their buyout of A-B is approved, will more than likely not be in a rush to use giveaways to build their business. InBev is notoriously frugal, particularly when it comes to swag. InBev, if they were aware of this bill, would more than likely be as opposed to it as everybody else. Since they know they don’t want to spend as much as $5 per customer, but if they believe their competitors might, it seems likely they would have no choice but to see this as a competitive disadvantage and not in the interests of the newly formed company, ABIB. If so — and I freely admit I’m out on a limb right now — is it inconceivable that InBev might be able to quietly obtain the ear of the governor and whisper that four-letter word into it: veto? And that would ultimately mean A-B wasted the political capital they spent getting the bill this far, and pissing off their new masters in the process. Stranger things have happened in the beer business.

This might sound like a frivolous question, but I’m deadly serious about asking it. It’s something that’s been on my mind off and on for years, at least since web browsers first started appearing and breweries starting putting up web pages. I understand that drinking alcohol is prohibited if you’re under the age of consent — 21 here, but lower almost everywhere else that it’s not illegal — but is reading about something illegal likewise illegal?

I know there are plenty of books that people have censored and continue to censor because they believe that young people reading them might be corrupted by the ideas expressed in such books. I also generally believe such people to be backward doofuses, no matter how well-intentioned they pretend to be. But here in cyberspace, the ether that has no geography, things seem a little trickier. Anyone can access any website, any time. And that tends to worry people convinced that ideas are dangerous and that impressionable minds should only be exposed to things their parents deem to be safe. I know I’m over-simplifying, but overall the notion that ideas can corrupt I find highly specious. If an idea can’t hold up to a child’s scrutiny, maybe it’s not such a great idea after all. Kids tend to have very natural, well-defined bullshit detectors.

But censorship in the protection of childrens’ virtue is one of America’s most peculiar cherished institutions. We may not have burned books — though we did stupidly ignite some Beatles records once upon a time — but we certainly have done almost as much harm by trying to ban them. I tend to believe that ideas that challenge the status quo or people’s dogmatic beliefs are not only important to a functioning society but downright necessary. A society that can’t question its own values becomes a form of dictatorship. But when the censorship is self-inflicted by ordinary people trying to foist their own set of morals on everyone else, that’s far more dangerous than a government ruled by a single tyrant. A dictator can be overthrown and the will of the people restored, but when we do it voluntarily, that’s harder to fight. It’s the difference between Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. In the latter’s vision of a dystopian future, they censored one another voluntarily, believing it was for their own good. I find that view much closer to how our modern world functions, where private citizens devote their time to protesting other peoples’ morals “for their own good,” so convinced are they that what they believe must be correct. This is why I find neo-prohibitionists so frightening. They exude ignorance and moral superiority, believing forcing other people to believe whatever they believe and wanting to force us to behave as they do is all simply for our own good. They seem to believe a difference of opinion is not something to be tolerated, but squashed. The ends do justify the means, in their minds.

But back to the internet. Anyone, young or old, can look up how to build a bomb, smoke marijuana, do cocaine or any number of dangerous and illegal acts. Tobacco, insofar as it’s also illegal for minors, is very accessible on the web. Go to any popular tobacco company, like Phillip Morris or R.J. Reynolds and you can waltz right on to their website. But with alcohol, it’s another story. Most larger beer companies have a splash page where you have to certify that you’re over 21. Why? There’s no beer coming out of the computer using a USB tap, there’s nothing illegal you can obtain at a brewery’s website. All you can do is read about the brewery and their beer. So why is that more dangerous than reading about cigarettes, drugs or bomb-making, all of which — and who knows how many more I can’t think of — can be accessed without first confirming that you’re an adult? I’ve written over and over again about how important I believe alcohol education is to fostering more reasonable behavior among young adults, but if they’re presumably not even allowed to read about alcohol, then that’s yet one more way in which educating people is maliciously thwarted. Can I be the only one that finds that infuriating? Why should we restrict young people from even reading about alcohol? Why is reading about beer considered so dangerous that it alone is singled out for special treatment. As usual, my favorite comedian, Bill Hicks, has some salient thoughts on this subject:

“I’ve been traveling. I’ve been noticing an anti-intellectualism sweeping our world, I find quite frightening. I was in Nashville, Tennessee last year, after the show I went to a Waffle House, I’m not proud of it, I was hungry. And I’m alone, I’m eating and I’m reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me, “Tch tch tch tch. Hey, what you readin’ for?” Is that like the weirdest fucking question you’ve ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading for. Well, goddammit, you stumped me. Why do I read? Well… hmmm… I guess I read for a lot of reasons, and the main one, is so I don’t end up … being a fucking waffle waitress.

But then… this trucker in the next booth gets up, stands over me, and goes, “Well, looks like we got ourselves a reader.” What the fuck’s going on here? It’s not like I walked into a clan rally in a Boy George outfit, goddammit, it’s a book! Am I stepping out of some intellectual closet? I read. There, I said it. I feel better.”

What’s more than a little frightening about his rant is that it was done over ten years ago (Hicks died in 1994) and the anti-intellectualism he refers to seems even more acute today than ever. Pop culture is rapidly becoming a celebration of dumb and dumber. Anything witty, intelligent or thoughtful is branded elitist, and will never last on primetime. Idiocracy may not have been as good a film as Office Space, but Mike Judge was just as prescient with the movie’s take on the direction our culture is headed. For further evidence, read Morris Berman’s The Twilight of American Culture, in which he argues persuasively that we’re entering a new dark ages.

Think I’m alarmist? Take a look at these recent statistics concerning the state of reading in this country. “58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school and 42% of college graduates never read another book. 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year, 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years, 57% of new books are not read to completion.” Before I had kids, I read an average of 2-3 books every week, including audiobooks I listened to in the car. That I’m so far in the minority is quite scary. How do we as a society address complex problems when reading a book is beyond our ken? If knowledge is power, no wonder we’re so helpless. Is it any surprise then that so many people still believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and Barack Obama is a practicing Muslim.

Undoubtedly, the best way to keep people ignorant and susceptible to superstition and propaganda, is to keep information away from them. The less people know, the more they can be manipulated and the easier they can be controlled. That’s the basis of early propaganda studies that were first tested on the American population before and during World War I. The pioneer of the field, Edward Bernays, successfully used the techniques he developed in the Ministry of Information, an ominous sounding branch of our government that manipulated support for going to war and squelched dissent on the grounds of national security. His basic principles are still being used today for the same purposes, and have also expanded into virtually every aspect of our lives.

So why is it a big deal that you have to click an extra box so you can visit a beer website, especially when anyone could simply say they were an adult to gain access? I think it has to do with the perception this extra step sends, which is that alcohol is so dangerous that even reading about it is illegal. It’s not, of course, but the intolerant neo-prohibitionists have created such a chill on our civil liberties and freedoms that huge companies are loathe to cross them and so voluntarily censor themselves to avoid their churlish wrath. That in doing so they might possibly keep information out of the hands of adolescents who need it the most, thereby adding to the problem of underage drinking, is typical of the mis-guided nature of the anti-alcohol movement. Because when reading is outlawed, only outlaws have beer books.
 

Let me say first that I love Salon. My wife and I happily pay to be premium members and have done so for several years to access a wealth of diverse topics tackled by quality writers. The weekly column Ask the Pilot alone is worth the modest annual fee. Written by a working pilot, Patrick Smith, it has given me more insight into the airline industry than any ten other sources. Plus, he’s witty and curmudgeonly in a way that reminds me of a certain beer writer. But I’m getting off topic, as usual. [NOTE: it’s possible that you may have trouble with the links if you’re not a member and/or you may have to watch a commercial first before gaining access for the day.]

Today’s Salon featured in the Eat & Drink section, an article entitled And the next great American beer will be…? with the subtitle Pabst may be worshiped by hipsters, but can it replace Budweiser as the best classic domestic brew? The author is Edward “Ted” McClelland, who also wrote two books about — wait for it — nothing remotely close to beer! He’s written about horse racing and travel and has done articles for a variety of mainstream publications, just the sort of resume that so many mainstream publications will hand out a beer assignment to, because apparently beer requires no special knowledge whatsoever. In fairness, that appears to be slowly changing, but it’s still a disappointment to see, especially when it’s by a publication I have great respect for otherwise.

The gist of the article is that now that Budweiser is about to become a foreign beer, what will be the next great American beer, and more specifically will it be Pabst? While he gets his facts mostly correct and overall it’s not terrible, the main premise that we need to find something similar to replace Budweiser is in my opinion not even the question that we should be addressing.

McClellan does acknowledge that the weakest part of Pabst’s claim to the throne is that they’re not actually brewing their own beer but heaps praise on them for their recent success, saying Pabst “demonstrates both the power of its red-white-and-blue image, and its success at marketing, even when that was achieved by barely marketing at all.” He also reference’s Rob Walker’s new book Buying In, but in a 2003 New York Times column, The Marketing of No Marketing, Walker himself makes clear that Pabst wasn’t “barely marketing at all” but instead was employing a very deliberate strategy of appearing not to be marketing while marketing the hell out of it, just in a different way than traditional marketing. Pabst is currently in the process of trying to repeat that success with other nostalgic brands like Primo and Schlitz.

McClelland goes on to speculate that if not Pabst, who should the crown go to, throwing out such brands as Genesee Cream Ale, Iron City, Narragansett, Shiner Bock and even Yuengling. I suppose what I really don’t understand is why finding a “cheap buzz” is a worthy goal at all. What’s the point of trying to replace one bland macro beer with another one that tastes almost exactly the same? Shouldn’t a lack of bland, interchangeable industrial light lagers owned by American brewers provide an opportunity to spotlight the 1400+ small craft brewers making beer with full flavors? Wouldn’t this be the perfect time to re-educate all those macro drinkers that beer can be so much more that any of the brands McClelland mentions? But not once does he mention Samuel Adams Boston Lager or any of the literally hundreds of wonderful lagers made by craft brewers around the country.

McClelland also interchanges his goal between finding the next great American “beer” and the next great American “lager,” but perhaps he’s confused about the difference. While there is a preponderance of ales among craft-brewed beer, there are still plenty of spectacular lagers to choose. But if it’s all beer, there are also plenty of ales that could fit the bill.

He also never explains why the next great American beer has to be national. Despite not mentioning national brands, he seems to imply that’s a condition, especially with questions like this one. “So can a patriotic American — or an Americana-loving hipster — still get a cheap buzz off a classic, domestic lager? Yes, but only if he lives in the right place.” But Boston Beer, Sierra Nevada, Anchor Brewing and several others are all brands available nationally.

Back in what’s considered the Golden Age of American brewing — the late 1800s — the number of breweries topped 4,000, meaning they were all primarily very local breweries. Now that we’re in the Silver Age (IMHO), most Americans live within 10 miles of a craft brewery. With so much good beer so close, why on Earth should we be wasting time trying to find another national brand to replace Bud? Maybe it’s time to finally stop being duped by propaganda marketing convincing most Americans that beer is something worthy only to swill that must be cheaper than water. Why is that notion so pervasive? The obvious answer is the onslaught of marketing and advertising by the former big three and the similarly tasteless imports like Heineken, Corona and their ilk.

But beer is, as I’ve said so many times, so much more than that. The country has been filled with hundreds, possibly thousands, of ales and lagers worthy of the title “next great American beer” for decades. That so many in the media have on beer blinders and miss that simple fact says a lot about our basic values. Financial success is always more highly valued in our culture than other ways in which success can be measured. So the amazing, high quality craft beers that have been part of the American beer scene for thirty years go largely unnoticed, despite being the next great American beer, right here, right now.

After the Bistro’s IPA Festival, I stopped by the Toronado for their 21st anniversary party. Last year, for their 20th, they pulled out all the stops. This year things were more subdued but great fun nonetheless.

Owner Dave Keene opened special bottles throughout the evening.

Like this special bottle of Duvel, which he poured for a toast.

Which everyone lucky enough to get a glass used to raise a toast to the Toronado’s 21st Anniversary.

Betsy and Melissa Myers share a festive squeeze.

Here’s a perfect illustration of why we desperately need alcohol education for our nation’s youth. I’m sure that neo-prohibitionists will read this story and view it as a vindication of their draconian policies of abstinence and keeping the minimum drinking age the highest in the civilized world.

Yesterday in Boulder, Colorado, a dozen college students from the University of Colorado gathered at a local residence with cheap beer and other alcoholic beverages to wile away the late summer weekend. They put up a sign on a pole facing a busy thoroughfare that read “You honk, WE DRINK.” Cars passing the group honked en masse, causing police to show up because of complaints about the noise. Their response was interesting. As one member of the group, Lauren Boyd, described what the police said, they told us. “I like your style, just be more quiet.” They were also told they were on the “edge of legality” because of their proximity to the sidewalk. The group was instructed to back up and quiet down. They complied, changing their sign from “You Honk” to “Give Us the Finger.”

The brouhaha continued another five hours with passersby flipping them off with glee the entire time. The police did not return because, in their words, “they were on private property and of legal drinking age, [so] the party was allowed to continue — sign and all.” Surprisingly enough, I’m probably in agreement with the neo-prohibitionists that this is not a responsible way to use alcohol. We part company, I suspect, on why. To me it points out the need for education about alcohol before young adults are set loose in the world, often for the first time in college. If children were allowed to sample alcohol under the supervision of their parents in the home (which in most places is illegal), with other responsible adults (ditto) or were allowed to begin legally drinking earlier, by the time they were living on their own, the taboo associated with suddenly being free would be far less likely to lead to this type of binge drinking.

Boulder is also, ironically, the home of the Brewers Association, a trade group that looks after the interests of the nation’s small brewers. For this somewhat embarrassing display of youthful exuberance to have occurred in their backyard makes it doubly clear that the current policy regarding youth and alcohol is not only not working, but is more than likely exacerbating the problem by using a foolhardy all or nothing approach and ignoring the value of education. Once kids reach college age knowing absolutely nothing about the effects of alcohol it’s easy to explain such binge behavior because they’ve never seen responsible drinking and are completely unfamiliar with it, thanks in large part to the efforts of the anti-alcohol elements of our society. A little knowledge might go a long way to raising more responsible children into adulthood but as long as that’s not permitted, we’ll continue to have college binge drinking. And not coincidentally, neo-prohibitionists will continue to have something to point to in furtherance of their agenda of keeping the minimum drinking age at 21, ignoring the likely cause that it’s their own efforts that continue to make binging a problem.

The 11th annual Bistro IPA Festival took place yesterday in Hayward, California. The niche festival is one the must-attend festivals in the Bay Area. Vic and Cynthia put on a great festival with over 50 IPAs.

In the tent at the festival, outside of the Bistro, during the event.

For more photos from this year’s Bistro IPA Festival, visit the photo gallery.
 

My friend and colleague Rick (thanks, Rick) sent me the first one of these and the second one just called out to me. They’re not strictly about beer, but are really about foods that go quite well with beer. But they were just too damn funny not to share.
 

The BBQ Song

The Cheese Rap

Someone from Time sent me a link to a story from Fortune magazine on CNN’s Money website (if you ever needed an illustration of how concentrated the mainstream media is, this is it). The story itself is short, but quite interesting.

1. 24 are somewhat independent (though few are owned by very large companies, like Foster’s)
2. 21 are Miller or Coors owned (19 by MillerCoors & 2 by SABMiller)
3. 18 are Pabst owned
4. 9 are InBev owned (and after the merger’s approved, this will be 16)
5. 7 are Anheuser-Busch owned
6. 2 are Carlsberg owned
7. 2 are Diageo owned
8. 2 are Heineken owned
9. 14 are no longer brewed

There are also some other interesting statistics there, too, such as Anheuser-Busch’s market share over the past five decades. In 1970, A-B had a 17.&% share, which grew 10% to 27.7% by 1980. In 1990, it had risen steeply again to 43.3% but growth slowed by the year 2000, where it essentially leveled off at 48.3 and then began sliding back very slowly. By last year it was 48.2%.

In 1970, Miller wasn’t even in the top five, but thanks to the phenomenal success of Miller Lite by 1980 they enjoyed a 20.6% share of the market, but never got much higher than that and by 2007 had even dropped to 18.4%. Coors, likewise, wasn’t in the top five in 1970 and wasn’t even a national brand at that point. By 1980 they’d just cracked the top five, with 7.6% and continued to grow very slowly until by 2007 they were 11.1% of the total beer market.

There’s also an Q&A with Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Company, who is now the largest remaining American brewer, depending on how that’s defined. Pabst and Yuengling also have claims to the throne. Pabst makes more beer than the other two but owns no brewery of their own. Boston Beer brews more beer than Yuengling, but contract brews a little over half of their production. Fortune describes the maker of Samuel Adams “as the country’s largest, independent, publicly-traded brewery.”

California State Bill AB 1245, better known as the Trash & Trinkets Bill, comes up for a vote in the state Senate early next week, possibly even on Monday. To re-familiarize with what’s at stake, please read my earlier post about the bill, which managed to make it through committee at the end of June. The California Small Brewers Association has issued an Action Alert in an effort to let state Senators know that craft beer lovers are not in favor in this bill, because it will give large breweries yet another competitive advantage and will make it more difficult for small breweries to get their product to market. If you live in California, please consider helping today, if possible, or as early Monday as you can. Here’s what you can do, from the CSBA Action Alert:

It is important to take just a few moments right now to pick up the phone and call your state Senator this afternoon and ask them to vote NO on AB 1245. This will only take a few minutes but will help our cause.

This phone call DOES make a difference. You can find the number to your Senator’s office here

Please call their Sacramento office and ask to speak to the Senator. If they cannot take your call, ask to speak to the chief of staff. If they can not take your call, talk to any staffer and ask them to be sure your message gets to the Senator.

Simply let them know that AB 1245 is a special interest bill that only one brewer supports — Anheuser-Busch. ALL other brewers are opposed to this bill. This bill is highly detrimental to the viability of craft brewers, it is anti-small business and will affect access to market for craft brewers.

Background: This bill will increase the spending limit on give-aways to consumers from $0.25 to $5.00. What A-B can buy in large quantities for $5.00 would cost a craft brewer $10-20.00. Imagine this; an A-B sales rep goes into a retailer and asks to do a Monday Night Football promotional night and will give away to all of the patrons a free mini cooler backpack. It is suggested that it might be a good idea to take off the three independent craft beers on draft and replace them with A-B brands. This is not far fetched. This bill could decrease access to market for the craft brewers of California.

If you love craft beer, please help the cause by contacting your elected Senator as soon as possible. Thank you.

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Yesterday, 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant launched their Brewer Outreach Program, where co-owner/brewer Shaun O’Sullivan will invite brewers to the 21st Amendment and have them brew whatever beer they like. The first guest brewer was Mitch Steele, brewmaster at Stone Brewing, who brewed his Imperial English IPA with Shaun and Jesse Houck.

In the brewery: Mitch Steele and Dave Hopwood (both from Stone) and Shaun O’Sullivan.

For more photos from Mitch Steele’s guest brewing at 21st Amendment, including a short movie of the boil, visit the photo gallery.