Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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National Action Alert: Help Craft Brewers Reduce Taxes

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tax
If you’re a regular Bulletin reader, you’ve already seen me rant about how unfairly taxes are levied on the brewing industry, who has to pay more taxes than any other product sold in America, except tobacco. With the help and support of the Brewers Association, H.R. 4278 has been introduced into thee U.S. House of Representatives seeking a redress of those egregious taxes. The BA has issued a national action alert, asking beer lovers everywhere to contact their elected officials to ask them to co-sponsor the bill. Here’s the press release:

Federal legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 4278 (link opens a PDF), seeks to enact a reduction in beer excise tax for America’s small brewers.

For small brewers brewing less than 6 million barrels annually, this legislation would cut the small brewer tax rate in half, to $3.50/barrel on the first 60,000 barrels, and reduce the upper tax rate from $18/barrel to $16/barrel on beer production above 60,000 barrels up to 2 million barrels.

Of the 1,525 breweries in America, 962 are brewpubs and 470 are the smallest bottling breweries, which produce volumes of 15,000 barrels of beer a year or less and sell their beers in local markets. Once barrel equals about 13.8 cases of beer.

The original small brewer tax rate of $7/barrel was established in 1976 and has never been updated. Since then, the annual U.S. production of America’s largest brewery increased from about 45 million to 107 million barrels and over 200 million barrels globally (or 1,240,000,000 five-gallon batches of homebrew!). Much has changed and the challenges small brewers face as small American businesses have grown dramatically since 1976.

Why is this a good idea?

  1. A tax reduction will help grow small business breweries and provide greater access to the beers you enjoy.
  2. Harvard University’s John Friedman’s study, Economic Impact of Small Brewers Excise Tax Reduction (H.R. 4278), (link opens a PDF), reveals that H.R. 4278 would also help stimulate job creation quickly and at a low cost:
    • The bill would generate more than 2,700 new jobs over the first year to 18 months, followed by an average of 375 new jobs per year over the following four years.

Please contact your U.S. Representative and ask that he/she sign on as a co-sponsor of H.R. 4278.

We have developed a resource page to give you the information and tools you need to make the case to your Representative for supporting this tax relief measure—and by extension, for supporting the small brewery businesses that are such a vital part of our local communities.

On the resource page, you will find a link to a list of current sponsors of H.R. 4278. If your Representative DOES NOT appear on this list, please take a moment and email your Member of Congress to ask them to cosponsor H.R. 4278.

If your Representative is already a cosponsor, please email him/her a brief thank you for their support of small brewers and you, the craft beer drinker and enthusiast.

Here’s some links to help you find out who your elected officials are so you know who to contact:

Okay, people get contacting. Your brewers thank you.

Senator Asks Military To Let Fighting Soldiers Drink Beer

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camo-beer
Since we’ve been in the Middle East and Afghanistan, we’ve struggled with how to keep our soldiers happy and yet respect local laws and customs. In March of 2006, General Abizaid of the U.S. Central Command, signed General Order No. 1 to help clarify and determine how our men and women fighting overseas are permitted to relax and conduct themselves. One thing General Order No. 1 prohibits them from enjoying is a beer, or indeed any alcohol whatsoever.

Under Prohibited Activities:

general-order-1b

According to a Wired report:

In part, the order is out of sensitivity to “host-nation” culture. But it’s also a major safety issue. Alcohol, firearms and heavy machinery don’t mix, and the Department of Defense doesn’t want to have to explain a rise in negligent weapons discharges to angry members of Congress.

Recently, however, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia (Dem.), during a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting, floated the idea that “U.S. military commanders should consider loosening the ban to allow ‘alcohol for stress relief.’”

Now before you jump down my throat, consider that there’s already a problem with the “increased use — and abuse of — of prescription drugs by deployed troops” with “troops popping pills to fight everything from fatigue to depression. The Pentagon is even investigating using pills as a preventive treatment for post-traumatic stress.” So his suggestion that maybe letting the troops have an occasional beer while off duty might have some benefits to the mental and physical health of our soldiers doesn’t seem too outlandish under the circumstances. During my time in the military I was never in a war zone, so I never experienced this kind of prohibition. Hell, we had a coin-operated soda machine in our day room filled with cans of beer.

But beyond respecting the “host-nation culture,” weren’t troops in World War II, Korea and other police actions permitted limited amounts of alcohol? My stepfather was in Vietnam with the Marines in the early 1960s and I know he drank quite a bit while he was there. From time to time, he’d open up about his time “in country” and what they’d do when they were off-duty, and it involved a lot of drinking, much of did in fact seem designed to relieve stress. I can’t help but think the ban is more a sign of the times than about any real danger from soldier’s drinking in moderation.

If soldiers made it through at least WWII, Korea and Vietnam safely while being able to have a drink, it doesn’t seem like they’d fare any worse today. Winston Churchill quipped that his staff should “make sure that the beer — four pints a week — goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop.” And before that John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, said. “No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer.” And before that Frederick the Great concluded that “many battles have been fought and won by soldiers nourished on beer.” But yeah, I understand the argument that war is different now, but I’m pretty sure that argument has been used during every single increasingly modern war. I just don’t agree with it. Given all we ask of our soldiers and how badly our government has treated so many of them, I think we should be doing everything possible to help them relax and unwind whenever they get a little time away from the job.

And even within the scope of respecting cultures, it doesn’t seem too out of line to me that something like the “green zone” or some other spot that’s secluded and separated from the native population could be created where soldiers could relax and have a drink. They did just that for the Super Bowl, where an exception was made and beer was served during the game.

The Wired piece concludes:

Would the military consider lifting its ban on booze? I highly doubt it. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, banned alcohol at NATO’s International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul, after he noticed coalition officers dozing off at a picnic table.

Now I hope I’m not going too far here, but why were officers taking a nap at a picnic (presumably after drinking alcohol) such an Epiphanal moment for the general? What on earth is wrong with a tired, stressed soldier having a drink and catching a little shuteye while off duty? They weren’t belligerent. They weren’t fighting. They weren’t getting into any mischief. They were taking a nap. And this sight made General McChrystal worried enough that he decided, not to figure out how his soldiers could get the rest they needed, but instead to ban the alcohol that helped them fall asleep. Personally, I’m all for letting them have a beer once in a while. At the very least, they’ve earned it.

Beer In Art #65: Mike Massengale’s Beer Thirty

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art-beer
After nine days of eating and drinking through SF Beer Week, I feel like a vacation on a tropical isle would do me a world of good, but with one more day to go, today’s works of art will have to go tropical for me. Its title is Beer Thirty and is by South Carolina artist Mike Massengale.

Mike_Massengale-beer_30

Here’s a short biography of Massengale from Absolute Arts:

Mike Massengale is a professional artist from Greenville, SC. His artistic skills sets have been learned and developed over twenty-five years of on the job experience. His advertising clients have been AT&T, Universal Studio’s and Disney just to name a few. He has also attained many awards from print designs to animation. His skill sets include, but not limited to: multimedia, animation, video production, creative design, illustration and painting. He is also very proud that of his latest accomplishment, which is completion of a MFA degree from the University of Hartford.

You can read a longer biography at the Fine Art America website.

You can also see more of his work at Fine Art America, and all of the art there is available as prints on canvas or paper, framed or unframed or even as a greeting card. You can but the Beer 30 painting, too.

The American Beer Question

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The American beer question, simply put — what is an “American Beer” — has been much debated in recent years, especially in the wake of InBev’s purchase of Anheuser-Busch last year. In The Daily Campus, a Connecticut student newspaper, author Tom Godwin wonders aloud in his essay The American Beer.

What exactly is an American beer? I’ve been asking myself that question a lot the last few days. Is it simply a beer that was first made in America, or is it a beer that is better when made here than anywhere else? What about an old style with a new American twist; does that make it American or simply an imitation?

It’s a question that hasn’t yet been answered with complete satisfaction, and he definitely adds some interesting thoughts to the debate. Most of all, I like that as a young man, he’s proud and supportive of American innovation. He opines that “American brewers are never satisfied with what they are doing, and that is the true ideal of beer in this country.” He gets it, unlike older writers who cling to tradition instead (but more about that in a post later today).

But it’s his conclusion that sticks with me.

American beer, just like its people, is an extreme melting pot of creativity, tradition, capitalism and an unnerving sense of complete disregard for reality. I don’t think I’d have it any other way.

Beer Excise Taxes By State

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tax
I found this nice map of the 50 states with the individual beer excise tax brewers in each state has to pay in addition to the federal excise taxes at Charlie Papazian’s blog, too. It’s originally from Don’t Tax Our Beer, a website maintained by the Tax Foundation.

The map provides an interesting snapshot of all the states. It’s worth noting that all the southern states have high excise taxes on beer, where the idea of drinking being sinful is, I think, more prevalent.

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Beer City USA

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A few weeks ago, Charlie Papazian, at his Beer Examiner blog, launched a poll in conjunction with the upcoming American Craft Beer Week to have people vote for their choice for Beer City USA. The results are now in:

beer-cities

The Top 10 Vote-Getters

  1. TIE: Portland, OR / Asheville, NC
  2. Philadelphia, PA
  3. San Diego, CA
  4. St. Louis. MO
  5. San Francisco/Oakland – Bay Area, CA
  6. Seattle, WA
  7. Denver, CO
  8. Portland, ME
  9. Milwaukee, WI
  10. Fort Collins, CO

It probably goes without saying that the results are hardly scientific, but that doesn’t render them meaningless. They do, I’d suggest, indicate which local communities care deeply about their local beer culture and also have a very well-developed online presence that is able to motivate that community to action. To further clarify, I mean both conditions have to exist, both pride and performance for a particular community to be high in the rankings.

The results were, I’m sorry to say, tainted somewhat by some early ballet-stuffing that somehow got around the one vote protocol in the polling software. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that quite a bit of it came from the Bay Area, after all this is Silicon Valley. But I was shocked all the same, and not a little embarrassed that some bad apples in my region thought cheating was the way to win, not that we were the only ones. I commend Charlie for putting a stop to that early on and decisively. I suspect that some votes that were legitimate probably didn’t get through or were discarded, but that’s what happens when you try to game the system. But I still can’t shake those lingering feelings that cast a shadow on the efficacy of the results, despite the good intentions of all the parties involved.

Still, despite that, it was a fun idea and very interesting to see which communities stepped up with swelling pride for their own local beer scenes. Congratulations to all the winners, but I’d say we’re all winners to have so many great beer destinations around the country. That wasn’t true as recently as two decades ago, maybe less. We’ve come a long way, baby.

But maybe we shouldn’t stop there. Remember all the “All-American Cities” that the National Civic League has been declaring since the 1950s? Actually 1949 was the first year the award was given to ten American communities and they’ve continued to do so each year since. “The award is the oldest community recognition program in the nation and recognizes communities whose citizens work together to identify and tackle community-wide challenges and achieve uncommon results. Since the program’s inception in 1949, more than 4,000 communities have competed and over 500 have been named All-America Cities.” Winning cities get to put up the sign below at the entrance to their community.

all-america-city

So here’s what I’m thinking. It’s a pie-in-the-sky idea, but what the hell. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. How cool would it be if there was an organization like a “National Beer Community League” that each year accepted nominations from communities who believed they were worthy of the title “Beer City USA”? There would have to be some criteria like breweries, brewpub and defined “good beer bars” per capita, the number of local festivals, beer dinners and other events, and things like that. Then maybe five communities each year get the “Beer City USA” award and are allowed to put a sign like this up.

beer-city

The Top 50 Annotated 2008

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ba
This is my third annual annotated list of the Top 50 so you can see who moved up and down, who was new to the list and who dropped off. So here is this year’s list again annotated with how they changed compared to last year.

  1. Anheuser-Busch InBev; #1 last year, no surprises, apart from the name change
  2. MillerCoors; ditto for #2, including a name change
  3. Pabst Brewing; Moved up 1, thanks to Miller/Coors merger
  4. Boston Beer Co.; Moved up 1, thanks to M/C, before that 2 years at #5
  5. D. G. Yuengling and Son; Moved up 1, thanks to M/C
  6. Sierra Nevada Brewing; Moved up 1, thanks to M/C
  7. Craft Brewers Alliance; Widmer moved up 4 & Redhook 5 as a combined company
  8. New Belgium Brewing; Same as last year
  9. High Falls Brewing; Same as last year
  10. Spoetzl Brewery; Same as last year
  11. Pyramid Breweries; Up 2 spots, their 2nd two spot jump in a row
  12. Deschutes Brewery; Up 4 from #16 last year
  13. Iron City Brewing (fka Pittsburgh Brewing); Up 4 from #17 last year
  14. Minhas Craft Brewery; Up 1 over last year
  15. Matt Brewing; Down 1 spot, switched places with Minhas
  16. Boulevard Brewing; Up 2 from #18 last year
  17. Full Sail Brewing; Up 2 from #19 last year
  18. Magic Hat Brewing; Up 4 from #22
  19. Alaskan Brewing; Up 2 from #21 last year
  20. Harpoon Brewery; Same as last year
  21. Bell’s Brewery; Up 3 from #24 last year
  22. Goose Island Beer; Up 3 from #25 last year
  23. Kona Brewing; Shot up 14 from #37 last year, after dropping Down 14 the year before
  24. Anchor Brewing; Down 1 from #23, 2nd year Down 1
  25. August Schell Brewing; Up 1 from #26 last year
  26. Shipyard Brewing; Up 1 from #27 last year
  27. Summit Brewing; Up 1 from #28 last year
  28. Stone Brewing; Up 5 from 33, after moving Up 4 last year & 11 the year before
  29. Mendocino Brewing; Same as last year
  30. Abita Brewing; Same as last year
  31. Brooklyn Brewery; Up 1 from #32 last year
  32. New Glarus Brewing; Up 4 from #36, after dropping 1 last year, but jumping 10 spots the year before
  33. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery; Up 5 from #38, after being Up 4 the year before
  34. Long Trail Brewing; Up 1 #35
  35. Gordon Biersch Brewing; Down 4 from #31, from Down 6 the previous year
  36. Rogue Ales; Down 2 from #34, canceling being Up 2 the year before
  37. Great Lakes Brewing; Up 3 from #40
  38. Lagunitas Brewing; Up 3 for 2nd year, this time from #41 last year
  39. Firestone Walker Brewing; Same as last year
  40. Sweetwater Brewing; Up 3 for second time, this time from #43 last year
  41. Flying Dog Brewery; Up 1 from #42 last year
  42. BJs Restaurant & Brewery; Up 7 from #49 last year
  43. Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants; Up 2 from #45 last year
  44. BridgePort Brewing; Same as last year
  45. Odell Brewing; Up 3 from #48 last year
  46. Victory Brewing; Up 4 from #50 last year
  47. Straub Brewery; Same as last year, after dropping 4 the previous year
  48. Cold Spring Brewery (fka Gluek Brewing); Down 2 from #46 last year
  49. Mac and Jack’s Brewery; Redmond WA; Not in Top 50 last year
  50. Big Sky Brewing; Missoula MT; Not in Top 50 last year

Unlike last year, no breweries dropped off the list, primarily because consolidation in the market cased many to rise a couple of places, making room for two new breweries on the list.

Top 50 Craft Breweries For 2008

By

ba
The Brewers Association just announced the top 50 breweries in the U.S. based on sales, by volume, for 2008, which is listed below here. For the second time, they’ve also released a list of the top 50 craft breweries based on the new definition adopted by the Brewers Association last year. Here is the new craft brewery list:

  1. Boston Beer Co.; Boston MA
  2. Sierra Nevada Brewing; Chico CA
  3. New Belgium Brewing; Fort Collins CO
  4. Spoetzl Brewery (Gambrinus); Spoetzl TX
  5. Pyramid Breweries; Seattle WA
  6. Deschutes Brewery; Bend OR
  7. Matt Brewing; Utica NY
  8. Boulevard Brewing; Kansas City MO
  9. Full Sail Brewing; Hood River OR
  10. Magic Hat Brewing Company; South Burlington VT
  11. Alaskan Brewing; Juneau AK
  12. Harpoon Brewery; Boston, MA
  13. Bell’s Brewery; Galesburg MI
  14. Kona Brewing; Kailua-Kona HI
  15. Anchor Brewing; San Francisco CA
  16. Shipyard Brewing; Portland ME
  17. Summit Brewing; Saint Paul MN
  18. Stone Brewing; Escondido CA
  19. Abita Brewing; New Orleans LA
  20. Brooklyn Brewery; Brooklyn NY
  21. New Glarus Brewing; New Glarus WI
  22. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery; Lewes DE
  23. Long Trail Brewing; Bridgewater Corners VT
  24. Gordon Biersch Brewing; San Jose CA
  25. Rogue Ales/Oregon Brewing; Newport OR
  26. Great Lakes Brewing; Cleveland OH
  27. Lagunitas Brewing; Petaluma CA
  28. Firestone Walker Brewing; Paso Robles CA
  29. Sweetwater Brewing; Atlanta GA
  30. Flying Dog Brewery; Denver CO
  31. BJs Restaurant & Brewery; Huntington Beach CA
  32. Rock Bottom Brewery Restaurants; Louisville CO
  33. Bridgeport Brewing; Portland OR
  34. Odell Brewing; Fort Collins CO
  35. Victory Brewing; Downingtown PA
  36. Mac and Jack’s Brewery; Redmond WA
  37. Big Sky Brewing; Missoula MT
  38. Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurants; Chattanooga TN
  39. Karl Strauss Breweries; San Diego CA
  40. Breckenridge Brewery; Denver CO
  41. Lost Coast Brewery; Eureka CA
  42. Otter Creek Brewing; Middlebury VT
  43. Utah Brewers Cooperative; Salt Lake City UT
  44. North Coast Brewing; Fort Bragg CA
  45. Blue Point Brewing; Patchogue NY
  46. Boulder Beer; Boulder CO
  47. Pete’s Brewing; San Antonio TX
  48. McMenamins; Portland OR
  49. Anderson Valley Brewing; Boonville CA
  50. The Saint Louis Brewery; St Louis MO

From the press release:

“In 2007, 35 of the top 50 brewing companies were small and independent craft brewers. In 2008 there were 37,” states Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers Association. “Craft brewers continue to have success and generate excitement behind the flavorful beer movement, but not without recent challenges including price increases for raw materials and supplies, as well as access to market issues.”

Changes from last year’s list include breweries moving up or down in the rankings based on volume sales. There was one new entrant into the Top 50 Craft list, The Saint Louis Brewery, and two craft brewers have claimed spots in the Top 50 Overall list—Big Sky Brewing Co. and Mac & Jack’s Brewery. Consolidation of MillerCoors, last year’s number 2 and 3 brewers, opened up a slot, and the merger of Widmer Brothers and Redhook into the company now named Craft Brewers Alliance, Inc. opened up another slot filled by emerging small and independent craft brewers.

I’ll have my annual annotated list shortly.

 

Labeling the States

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maps-usa-bl
A custom label maker has on their website a map of the United States with a beer label for each state. For instance, California is Firestone Walker and Oregon is Full Sail. How many can you name? Some are hard to see and some are obscure choices, but it was a fun exercise. Visit etiquette systems for a list of the answers by state or a flash version of the map.

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