It’s not perhaps the worst thing about being blind, but it would be problematic to figure out exactly what’s inside that can of beer you just picked up if you can’t read the label. According to the Inventor Spot, Kirin Brewing has solved this dilemma by putting braille on the top of their beer cans. The braille on the cans apparently spell out “alcohol” on some and “Kirin Beer” on others. But until more breweries take up the cause, all anyone will be able to distinguish is Kirin from everything else. And what if you prefer a bottle? Oh, well, it’s the thought that counts, right?
 

Yesterday, the San Francisco Brewers Guild held its 2nd annual Slow Beer Festival on March 1, 2008 in the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. The event was co-sponsored by Slow Food San Francisco. The idea was to pair San Francisco’s local brewers with locally made foods and explore different tastes from pairing each together in a variety of ways. It was fun event and we lucked out with some gorgeous weather to help enjoy the day. A sold-out crowd enjoyed beer from a dozen breweries and food from at least ten.

Food and beer mixed happily and deliciously throughout the day, as evidenced here by Ian Marks (from Hog Island Oyster Co.), Taylor Boetticher (from the Fatted Calf), Dave McLean (from Magnolia), John Tucci (from Gordon Biersch San Francisco) and Shaun O’Sullivan (from 21st Amendment).

For many more photos from this year’s Slow Beer Festival, visit the photo gallery.
 

This doesn’t have anything to do with beer, but someone sent me a link (thanks, Cindy) correctly believing I’d enjoy it. In fact, it’s surreal, weird and perversely hilarious. Food Fight is simply the history of warfare since World War II told through food fights, with national foods representing each country, or as the Food Fight website put is.

Food Fight is an abridged history of war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression.

They’ve also thoughtfully provided a cheat sheet listing all of the foods in the film and which nation they’re associated with. And since it’s war, expect a lot of ketchup. Enjoy.
 

On Tuesday, my friend Pete Slosberg and I headed up to Russian River Brewing to take a look at how the construction of the new brewery was coming. He had just returned from four months living in Buenos Aries, Argentina, but now that he was back he wanted to enjoy some good beer. So he picked me up and we drove to Santa Rosa to visit Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo.

Natalie took us over to the new facility, which is about three weeks away from completion. I took a bunch of photos at the construction site, as I’ve done in a few other breweries lately. I thought it was just me who likes to see pictures of brewing equipment, but based on the comments and links I’ve gotten whenever I post brewery photos I think I’m not the only one after all. I’m starting to think it’s a perverse kind of brewery porn that we ooh and ahh over brewing equipment in all it’s magnificent glory. I’m just glad to know I’m not the only deviant.

Pete Slosberg and Vinnie Cilurzo in the old brewery.

At the new brewery, used wine casks stacked in the barrel room.
 

For more photos from our visit to the new Russian River Brewery still under construction, visit the photo gallery.
 

I confess that when the e-mail came across my screen from Forbes inviting me to take a look at their choices for America’s Best Beer Bars that I was more than a little skeptical. Forbes has managed to mangle beer stories a number of times since I’ve been monitoring the mainstream media’s beer coverage, but this was from Forbes Traveler, a subdivision that, according to their e-mail, “focuses on the ultimate travel experience and [for which they] create features to keep [their] users up to date on the best vacations and newest travel trends around.”

In their latest feature, they set out to pick “The Best American Beer Bars,” no small feat. So there was a certain amount of schadenfreude that made me check out their list, expecting the worst. What I found was a pleasant surprise. I’ve been to seven of their ten choices, and was very familiar with all but one of the remaining three. And by personal knowledge or reputation, I’d say they put together an astonishingly good list, as these things go. And while there is plenty of personal bias that might cause any of us to wish they’d substitute this one or that one with a personal favorite, it’s hard to really quibble with any of these bars as being deserving. The one I would personally substitute is Monk’s Cafe (Philadelphia, PA), with which I’d replace the Brick Store Pub, but only because I’ve never heard of that one. It may very well be a fine place. It does appear as #16 on Rate Beer’s Best Beer Bars 2008 and #49 on Beer Advocate’s list of the Top 50 Beer Bars from 2005. And it came in at #2 on the Beer Mapping Project’s Highest Reviewed Locations, though it’s worth noting that #1 was Monk’s. There are also plenty of other great places that I’d wrestle with, too, like O’Briens or the Liar’s Club (both in San Diego), Lucky Baldwin (in Pasadena) or the Standard Tap (in Philly).

The Forbes’ choices are also accompanied by a nice story about the recent gains craft beer has been making in terms of both success and respect. The ten bars are listed below in the order they appear in the slideshow, which has photos of each bar along with what makes them special and useful contact information. I’m not clear if they’re meant to be in any particular order or not, but all in all a good list.

1. Blind Tiger Ale House (New York, NY)
2. Brickskeller (Washington, DC)
3. Publick House and Monk’s Cell (Brookline, near Boston, MA)
4. Brouwer’s Cafe (Seattle, WA)
5. Brick Store Pub (Decatur, GA)
6. Great Lost Bear (Portland, ME)
7. Falling Rock Tap House (Denver, CO)
8. Spuyten Duyvil (Brooklyn, NY)
9. Toronado (San Francisco, CA)
10. Hopleaf Bar (Chicago, IL)

Propaganda is, of course, not a new development and has been around as long as there have been people to manipulate and public opinion to shape. And while propaganda the word has taken on derogatory connotations, the concept itself is largely neutral, though personally I tend to be skeptical of propaganda’s higher purposes. I’d say as a general rule if we agree with the position being pushed by propaganda than we tend to view it as benign whereas if we disagree with it then we similarly view it as being dangerous.

I bring this up because the Society of Independent Brewers, a trade organization in England that appears to be similar to the Brewers Association here and represents over 400 small brewers, is reviving and updating some very old propaganda by English painter William Hogarth. Hogarth was a painter, printer, satirist and above all social critic during his lifetime, which was from 1697 until 1764. He has also been credited with pioneering sequential art, paving the way for comic strips. In 1751, he created two contrasting works of art, Beer Street and Gin Lane.

The poems below each print appeared on the originals and were written by Reverend James Townley. Click on Beer Street (on left) or Gin Lane (on right) to see larger, more detailed versions of each print.

Essentially the pair of prints were intended to make the case that beer is a reasonable, healthier alternative to hard alcohol, in this case gin, which had become very popular at that time. The poems are classic examples of propaganda, appealing to jingoism and emotional but ultimately irrational arguments. Much as I’d like it to be, beer isn’t the answer to all of life’s problems any more than gin is the cause of them. But according to the basic accounts of that time period, by 1750 something like one-quarter of all homes in one area of London’s West End known as St. Giles Circus were gin houses. Imagine any neighborhood where every fourth place was a bar or brewery. That would probably seem like a huge problem, then or now.

From Wikipedia:

Beer Street and Gin Lane are two prints issued in 1751 by English artist William Hogarth in support of what would become the Gin Act. Designed to be viewed alongside each other, they depict the evils of the consumption of gin as a contrast to the merits of drinking beer. At almost the same time, Hogarth’s friend Henry Fielding published: An Inquiry into the Late Increase in Robbers which dealt with the same subject. Issued with The Four Stages of Cruelty, the prints continued a movement which Hogarth had started in Industry and Idleness, away from depicting the laughable foibles of fashionable society (as he had done with Marriage à-la-mode) and towards a more cutting satire on the problems of poverty and crime.

On the simplest level, Hogarth portrays the inhabitants of Beer Street as happy and healthy, nourished by the native English ale, and those who live in Gin Lane as destroyed by their addiction to the foreign spirit of gin; but, as with so many of Hogarth’s works, closer inspection uncovers other targets of his satire, and reveals that the poverty of Gin Lane and the prosperity of Beer Street are more intimately connected than they at first appear. Gin Lane shows shocking scenes of infanticide, starvation, madness, decay and suicide, while Beer Street depicts industry, health, bonhomie and thriving commerce, but there are contrasts and subtle details that allude to the prosperity of Beer Street as the cause of the misery found in Gin Lane.

The poems below each of the modern prints appear to echo the spirit of the originals though I haven’t seen any information about who wrote them, though a Peter Amor is credited for something at the bottom right-hand corner of each. And I must confess I don’t know what some of idiomatic words mean, such as I-Diess kids, ASBOs or CSO’s. Click on Pub Street (on left) or Binge Lane (on right) to see larger, more detailed versions of each print.
 

The idea with the new contrasting prints is to contrast and encourage people drinking in pubs (something SIBA has a pecuniary interest in, of course) with being drunk on the street and buying cheap bargain beer at grocery stores. They also hope the updated works will help raise awareness of the problems with binge drinking that have been in the news of late in Britain. The new prints are by UK artist Enoch Sweetman. As the BBC put it, “[i]n Pub Street, people are seen as relaxed and happy” whereas “Binge Lane shows youths fighting and drunken schoolgirls.”

Both are finely detailed and there’s a lot to look at that’s not immediately apparent at first. There are many little events going on throughout each illustration, which makes it fun to keep looking at it as you keep discovering new stories and symbolism.

SIBA’s own press release spins it like this:

In the new pictures, Gin Lane is renamed Binge Lane, a scene of violence, unconsciousness and under-age drinking in the midst of shops selling cheap beer, alcopops and Vin de Toilette.

Beer Street becomes Pub Street, a peaceful environment of real ale, good food, bar games and live entertainment, according to one of the pub signs in the picture.

Rhymes beneath Hogarth’s originals speak of gin as a “cursed fiend, with fury fraught”, which “cherishes with hellish care theft, murder, perjury”. But beer is praised as a “happy produce of our isle”, which “warms each English generous breast with liberty and love”. SIBA chairman Peter Amor says: “The gin of the 18th century may have been replaced by a whole trolley of cheap drinks, but the message is the same.

“The pub is practically the only place where you can drink draught beer and people’s behaviour there is subject to strict controls by the licensee and by the presence of mature, well behaved regular customers who wouldn’t stand for any kind of trouble. “The real source of the problems that are being sensationally highlighted by the media at the moment is cheap liquor sold in bulk and, in a minority of supermarkets and off-licences, without much regard to the age of the people buying it.

“In the circumstances, it is totally unfair to lump pubs in with the real perpetrators of the problem.” SIBA’s campaign will include lobbying MPs and peers, to make them aware that pubs are not in the main the culprits of the current perceived rash of binge drinking, and working with other trade and consumer organisations with interests in the brewing and licensing sectors to form a broad alliance in support of the positive aspects of the British pub.

So what I take away from all of this is that what SIBA’s trying to do is preemptively head off the neo-prohibitionists who have been getting horror stories of binge drinking into the news with increasing effectiveness. If memory serves (and I’m sure the historians out there will confirm or refute it for me, —Bob? —Maureen?) our own brewers did the same thing prior to Prohibition trying to distance themselves from the social problems associated with whiskey and other hard liquor and portray beer as a healthful alternative. But it was too little, too late, and the prohibitionists continued to paint all alcohol with the same broad brush. The cynic in me thinks this won’t be terribly effective either, especially since, unlike in Hogarth’s time, there are many more diversions available that will make it more difficult for two black and white cartoon prints to have much of an impact.

In the updated version they seem to splitting the hairs even finer, trying to distinguish good drinking behavior from bad, and distinguishing it by where it’s taking place. A worthy endeavor, to be sure, but one which the average neo-prohibitionist seems predestined to not consider for even one nanosecond. But perhaps I’m mis-reading their intentions, which they state are to separate good pub drinking from bad binge drinking. That may be a tough sell. Some people can drink in their home without incident and I suspect that at least from time to time a binge drinker may go on a bender in a pub. In the end, I’m not sure it’s only the location where someone drinks that determines his or her behavior. It may be a factor, of course, but it doesn’t seem as black and white as Pub Street and Binge Lane pictures it.

William Brand is reporting that Don Barkley will be opening a new brewery in Napa, which will be called Napa Smith Winery & Brewery. Supposedly beer from the new brewery will debut in late March at the Napa Valley Mustard Festival, which suggests things must be pretty far along at the new brewery.

Barkley was the the assistant brewer at New Albion Brewing back in the late 1970s. New Albion was, of course, the first modern microbrewery in America. When they stopped brewing in the early 1980s, Barkley bought the brewing equipment and used it to found Mendocino Brewing.

Don Barkley last summer reminiscing about working at New Albion with Jack McAuliffe, while accepting an award for lifetime achievement on behalf of McAuliffe, who started New Albion Brewery.

In a story related to the news that craft beer growth was up 12% last year over the previous year, the southeast region of the country — including the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina — showed sales growth of almost 32%, the highest percentage in the nation. The sales figures used are from five types of retail locations: grocery stores, drug stores, convenience stores, big box retailers (warehouse stores, club stores, etc.), and liquor stores. The data was complied by Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) for a presentation to the Brewers Association last week.

Another interesting tidbit: seasonal beers are now the best-selling segment of beer, having eclipsed that of Pale Ale, which previously held the top spot.

Here are the geographic areas listed by their growth rate:

1. Southeast = 31.6%
2. Great Lakes = 28.1%
3. Mid-South = 25.6%
4. Plains = 20.8%
5. Northeast = 19.1%
6. South Central = 16.5%
7. California = 13.7%
8. West = 7.2%

 
Some additional observations.

1. Notice that there are seven states where beer cannot be purchased at grocery stores and the like.

2. What happened to Hawaii and Alaska?

3. Three of the regions showed growth of more than 25%

4. Only one region, the West (excluding California) was below 10% which suggests that craft beer is growing virtually everywhere and is not limited to small pockets of the country.

The Brewers Association in Boulder, Colorado today released the preliminary numbers for beer sales in 2007. Craft beer is again showing double digit growth for, I believe, the fourth consecutive year. Craft beer growth was 12% last year, as compared to 1.4% for imported beer and 1.4% for non-craft beer, primarily the major domestic beer companies. The craft beer industry eclipsed 8 million barrels of craft beer produced for the first time last year, as sales grew to 3.8% by volume and 5.9% by dollars. But perhaps the most impressive statistic is that the microbrewery segment (defined as a brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels per year) grew a staggering 21% in 2007.

From the press release:

In what has become a true American success story, the craft beer market again grew by double digits in 2007, leading all other segments in the beer category. The Brewers Association reports estimated sales by independent craft brewers up 12 percent by volume and 16 percent in dollars for 2007. Craft brewers’ share of the beer category is 3.8 percent of production and 5.9 percent of retail sales.

The Brewers Association annually polls the country’s craft brewers to estimate the total volume of beer sold by brewpubs, microbreweries, and regional craft breweries in the United States, and uses scan data to estimate sales. Results show that the U.S. had 1,449 total breweries in operation in the U.S. during 2007, including 1,406 small, independent, and traditional craft brewers. Nearly 70 percent of craft breweries are brewpubs that sell most or all of their beer on-premises.

“Since 2004, dollar sales by craft brewers have increased 58 percent,” said Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers Association. “The strength of this correlates with the American trend of buying local products and a preference for more flavorful foods and beers.”

The Brewers Association estimates the actual dollar sales figures from craft brewers at more than $5.74 billion, up from $4.95 billion in 2006. Sales in barrels equaled 8,011,141 (one barrel is 31 U.S. gallons) up from 7,147,050 barrels in 2006. The 2007 increase totals 864,091 barrels, which is the equivalent of 11.9 million cases or 285 million 12-ounce bottles of beer.

Using the recently redone definition of craft breweries, below is the breakdown of American breweries currently operating.

A little over a month ago, I stopped by Lagunitas Brewing in Petaluma, California to see how the installation of the new brewhouse was going and took some photographs of the new equipment. I had an opportunity earlier today to stop by again on my way back from an impromptu trip to Russian River Brewing with my good friend Pete Slosberg (but more on that tomorrow). Pete had never been to Lagunitas, whereas I have been there many, many times, so I figured a quick detour to see the brewery was in order. They’re about a week away from the first water test and it looks far closer to completion than my last visit.

The new kettle door adorned with an etching of one of the brewery logos.

All of the pipes are now attached, which includes seven miles of wiring.

Owner Tony Magee shows off the new hop dosers to Pete.