Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Elysian Pumpkin Beer Festivals Announced

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All throughout the Seattle area, Elysian Brewing will be doing more to promote pumpkin beer than any other brewery in history, or as they put it, “where [they] boldly go where no other brewery has gone before.” At the 2nd Annual Great Pumpkin Beer Festival, they will have ten pumpkin beers available at each of their three locations, some of which sound positively spooky.
 

THE BEER LINEUP:

From Elysian:

  • Night Owl Pumpkin Ale
  • The Great Pumpkin Imperial Ale
  • Dark o’ the Moon Pumpkin Stout
  • Purple Pumpkineater Lavender Saison
  • Kürbitinus-Pumpkindunkelhefeweizenbock
  • Portergeist-Smoked porter with pumpkin
  • Steamy Hollow California Common Pumpkin Beer

Guest Beers:

  • Dogfish Head Punkin
  • Rock Bottom Seattle Punk’in (Cap. Hill & Fields only)
  • Big Time Hop Goblin
  • Snoqualmie Extra Special Butternut (Elysian-Cap. Hill only)

Here are the details for each event:

Elysian: Capitol Hill
1221 E Pike 206-860-1920
Saturday, October 21st, 12 noon – 10pm

Elysian Fields
542 1st Ave S 206-382-4498
Saturday, October 28th, 12 noon – 10 pm

Elysian: TangleTown
2106 N 55th 206-547-5929
Monday, October 23rd through Friday, October 27th

Here is more information from the press release:

Sampler Trays, Pumpkin Carving and (drum roll please), the tapping of the pumpkin conditioned pumpkin beer (at 4pm).

Once again we have filled pumpkins with beer (this year it is the Portergeist) to go through a secondary fermentation in the pumpkin. We will tap the pumpkins with traditional English cask taps at 4pm on Saturday Oct 21st & Saturday Oct 28th

Pumpkin Carving starting at Noon.
Pumpkins will be available on a first come/first serve basis. There will be awards for the best pumpkin carving.

Rainier Brewery Area to be Gentrified

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It was announced today that a local Seattle developer, the Sabey Corporation, has bought the historic Rainier Brewery along Interstate 5 and plans to develop the space into a multi-use area for shopping, business offices, living spaces and light industry. For $9.9 million, they got 5.5 acres, which includes “310,000 square feet in four former brewery buildings: the Brew House, the Malt House, the Bottling Plant and the General Office.”

The Rainier Brewery was built in 1903 by the Seattle Brewing & Malting Co. and Georgetown was originally created as a company town, though annexed by Seattle in 1910. Three local breweries, Claussen-Sweeney Brewing, the Bay View Brewery (a.k.a. Kopp & Hemrich) and the Albert Braun Brewing Association merged together in 1892 to form the Seattle Brewing & Malting Co. Rainier celebrated their 100-year anniversary in 1978, though the brand was not created until May of 1893, when the newly merged company needed a new brand name for their beer. Ten years later it would be the sixth largest brewery nationwide and the west coast’s biggest. After prohibition, Fritz and Emil Sick bought first the brewery (in 1933) and then the Rainier Brand (in 1935). A few years later they installed the 12-foot neon “R” that became a Seattle landmark (which it was officially declared in 1993). Initially, it rotated but after Interstate 5 was built it remained stationary for fear it would distract motorists. After being very popular for several decades, the brand was sold to G. Heilmann in 1977 and then it slipped in and out of other hands until 1996, when Stroh’s acquired it.

They got out of the beer business three years later and brewing of “the Green Death” was moved down the road to Olympia Brewery in Tumwater after Pabst bought the brand name. The Tumwater plant closed in 2003 but Pabst continues to own and produce the Rainier label and last year even started an ad campaign playing upon the nostalgia for “Vitamin R” called Remember Rainier. It was finally removed on July 3, 2000 and replaced with a green “T” about the same size for Tully’s Coffee, who had moved their headquarters to the building. Many saw the switch as a change in Seattle’s beverage priorities. The “R” was donated to Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry, where it remains today.

Under the new development plan, many of the current tenants will be invited to stay, including Georgetown Brewing Co., a small craft brewery that has been in the old building since September 2002. Sabey believes that the neighborhood of Georgetown is ripe for a renaissance and their acquisition of the property may also facilitate growth in the area. Renovations are not likely to begin for at least eighteen months and won’t be finished until at least 2012.

Sabey also owns the Post-Intelligencer building along with several other prominent historic Seattle properties. Some of Sabey’s previous projects have included “converting a chicken-processing plant into the Elliott Park North biotech building and converting the 1910 Sisters of Providence Hospital into the James Tower life-sciences center.” They also own a piece of the Seattle Supersonics basketball team.

My initial sense that while I’m glad that they will preserve the Rainier brewery in some fashion, the look of the planned renovations seem a little too clean to me, a little too thought out. Sometimes too much planning results in an area that’s not organic since it isn’t allowed to be created naturally.

I’m thinking of areas like LoDo in Denver or the Warehouse District in Cleveland where in each case one prominent building was renovated, which led to another and then another until after a period of time the entire neighborhood had been transformed. This looks like the whole area will be done in one fell swoop which may or may not work, depending on how people perceive it. Seattle will either accept it or avoid it for being too Disneyfied, meaning it could seem too plastic, too forced and inauthentic. At least that’s how the drawing of the proposed changes strike me on first blush. Only time will tell. If only they’d bring back the giant neon “R.”

An artist’s rendering of planned development at the original Rainier Brewery site.

(Studio Meng Strazzara, October 10, 2006: Jim Bryant/Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Yakima Hop Warehouse Catches Fire

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On Monday, fire broke out in a warehouse storing baled hops owned by the S.S. Steiner company of Germany. The entire 40,000 square foot warehouse was engulfed in flames and its cause is not yet known. The impact of the fire, if any, on the global hop market is already being discussed among industry leaders.

According to the AP Story:

The United States produces 24 percent of the world’s hops, which are used to brew beer. The vast majority are grown in the Pacific Northwest, in particular central Washington’s Yakima Valley.

Steiner is one of the larger growers in the valley, said Ann George, administrator of the Washington Hops Commission, an industry marketing group funded by member fees.

“They handle a large volume of the crop, but they have multiple warehouses,” George said. “Depending on what variety or varieties were involved in this incident, if it was a variety that was already in short supply, that could have an impact on price and availability.”

UPDATE: CNN has done a follow-up to this story and it seems the hops destroyed in the Yakima fire represent 4% of the total U.S. supply, or about 2 million pounds of hops. The Yakima Herald-Republic has a more in-depth article, along with additional photos, too. According to the Yakima article, “[t]he 10,000 bales weighing about 200 pounds each, were probably worth between $1.75 and $2 per pound, based on average prices this year. That puts the fire’s monetary damage between $3.5 million and $4 million.”

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic

Costco Decision Stayed

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U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman placed another stay on her earlier ruling in the closely-watched Coscto decision she handed down in April. Her earlier ruling essentially dismantled Washington State’s three-tier system without regard to the consequences, including many of the protections that ensure a level playing field for businesses of varying sizes. Costco originally brought the suit because, if successful, they would reap enormous benefit, as would other big box retailers. The losers would include small retailers, small brewers and ultimately consumers once the landscape of the state’s alcohol business has been greatly altered after the changes are implemented. Costco and the business press have continued to spin the story by claiming it will lower prices of beer to the consumer, but that’s simply propaganda as I’ve pointed out before and again in response to a thoughtful comment.

The recent stay gives state lawmakers until May 1, 2007 to change Washington’s beer and wine laws through new legislation. Since her initial ruling effectively makes the current laws invalid, an entirely new system to control the relationships between manufacuters, distributors (if any) and retailers must be created. Whether that can be accomplished in under eight months in a way that’s fair to all concerned, including consumers, remains to be seen. But it seems a Herculean task and fated to fail, at least in my opinion. There are just too many competeing interests for almost any legislature to come up with a workable solution. It seems more likely that if any legislation is passed, it will favor the big box stores and big breweries but will at least appear to balance critics’ concerns, while not actually doing so. That’s been the general pattern of legislation in our business-dominated times. Big business contributes to political campaigns and politicians enact legeslation favorable to their benefactors. And as usual, you and I wll be left holding the empty non-returnable bottle.

Homelessness, Malt Liquor and Social Policy

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Well they’ve gone ahead and done it, legislated away malt liquor for several neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington, effective November 1. The state liquor board yesterday banned “29 drink brands” including, of course, malt liquor. Now I’m not a fan of malt liquor (except perhaps for Dogfish Head’s wacky craft malt liquor, but even that I wouldn’t drink under very many circumstances) but the idea that restricting the sale of certain inexpensive, but high alcohol drinks will in any way cure homelessness is ludicrous.

Apparently, the same or similar items were previously banned in the Pioneer Square area of Seattle. The new ban radiates out from Pioneer Square adding the neighborhoods of Belltown, Lower Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, the Central Area, the University District and the International District. This essentially widens the ban area considerably and adds a new ban area adjacent to the University of Washington. But that simply suggests that the previous ban didn’t work and what many residents fear actually happened before, customers for these cheap, high-alcohol drinks — who are primarily, let’s face it, homeless or low-income — simply bought them elsewhere. So now the areas where they took there business will see a ban, as well. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what will happen next. Attendance at AA meetings will not sharply increase and homelessness will not disappear. Oh, it might be quieter in specific places where drunk homeless people would congregate and buy their vice of choice, but they won’t stop drinking. Heroin is illegal yet thousands and thousands manage to find it.

This will certainly make it easier for authorities to round up and further persecute the homeless. And it may keep them out of “your back yard,” a place nobody seems to want uncomfortable truths to stray into, but without treating the root causes of homelessness, alcoholism and other societal miseries nothing whatsoever will change. Naturally, city officials claim this is “only one step in an overall initiative to curtail homelessness.” When mayoral aide Jordan Royer says “[p]eople think we’re just pushing drunks around,” it shows he knows that’s exactly what he is doing. He goes on to say that the “city will monitor the effect of the new rules to ensure that they don’t simply displace the problems around fortified beer and wines favored by chronic inebriates.” Uh-huh, that’s believable.

The three-member Liquor Control Board defended its actions with such lofty principles as the ban was “needed for the greater good” and “[t]his was a community effort.” Board member Roger Hoen then had this priceless gem. “The fact is it’s a democracy and (the board) kind of went by votes and the majority of the testimony, the majority of the evidence and the majority of the information that came before the board was to support going forward with it.” I’m sure that’s true, but how many homeless people were allowed to speak, I wonder. Without addresses, they rarely vote so I don’t imagine their point of view was much sought after. But if they had, I imagine the more coherent and sane among them would have asked for shelter and perhaps a job. I don’t believe they chose homelessness or alcoholism as a lifestyle. And while this measure may do wonders for the residents who don’t like looking out of their windows and seeing the great unwashed littering “their” streets, it will do absolutely nothing to combat the issue of the homeless themselves, despite the local government’s hollow assurances.

Board member Roger Hoen “acknowledged some businesses would lose money because of the rules. But, in life, there’s a number of restrictions and inconveniences that we have to live with.” Actually, Roger, you won’t be inconvenienced one little bit so by “we,” you actually mean “they.” You should say what you mean or at least know what you’re saying. I think the “restrictions and inconveniences” you speak of will be borne, as usual, by the people with the least voice in our society, the invisible people without homes or a say in their lives.

But that’s depressing. Luckily, Merritt Long, chairman of the board, ends things on an “upbeat note.” “Besides,” he says, “customers can still choose from more than 4,000 other beer products allowed in Washington” Good point, Merritt, albeit cluelessly condescending, I’m sure we’ll see the homeless choosing a nice bottle of Westmalle Triple or a local barleywine. Way to show your compassion.

Pyramid CEO Resigns

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Pyramid Brewing announced today that CEO John Lennon has resigned, effective immediately. The company is reporting that Lennon left to “pursue other business interests,” which is about a vague as you can get. He had been on the job only since last August, and before that he was with Beck’s. It will be interesting to see what finally comes out as the real reason for his departure, because in my mind these sort of things don’t play out like this unless there is a hidden agenda.

He will be replaced by board member Scott Barnum, who previously has worked for Pete’s Brewing and Miller. Barnum is a resident of the Bay Area and will apparently maintain offices both in Berkeley and Seattle.

HopUnion Merges with Yakima Chief Craft Division

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hopunion-globe yakima-chief
HopUnion LLC announced today that they will be merging, effective August 1, with Yakima Chief’s craft division. Yakima Chief will continue to independently run their other divisions. But the craft beer side of their hop business will be folded into HopUnion’s and almost nothing will change there apart from having more hops to offer and the addition of longtime Yakima Chief east coast salesman Jim Boyd.

From the press release:

“We believe this merger will help provide more selection of hop varieties as well as better stability in the supply and demand chain,” said Ralph Olson, general manager and one of the owners of Hopunion Craft Brewing Sales, LLC. “Our ability to take care of the needs and desires of the customer will be greatly enhanced.”

Olson said that by combining the two companies there will be improved efficiencies in pellet plant production with the ability to produce larger volumes of consistent product.

Prior to the merger, Hopunion Craft Brewing Sales, LLC and Yakima Chief, Inc. were providing specialty hop varieties to the craft brewing industry.

Joining Olson in the new company will be Ralph Woodall, Jim Boyd and David Edgar, who together have over 60 years of experience in the hop industry. Support staffs from Hopunion Craft Brewing Sales, LLC and Yakima Chief, Inc. will be located at the Hopunion Craft Brewing Sales, LLC office in Yakima.

Ownership of the new company includes several Northwest growers who specialize in producing premier aroma hops. With these grower partners, the new company will be able to continue to provide the consistency in quality of hops that customers have come to expect from both companies.

“We will now be able to provide greater coverage in North America for the craft brewing industry,” Olson said of the merger. “And, it will allow us to help nurture craft and specialty brewing internationally, a growing segment of the industry.”

I spoke to Ralph Woodall this morning and it sounds like the merger is all positive. According to Ralph, the two can now stop competing in this area and start working together which should be a boon to craft brewers. Both have, as I understand it, great reputations in the industry though HopUnion certainly has the more public face (and puts on the best industry parties — especially when they work alongside Joanne Carilli from White Labs). Gerard Lemmens had been the public persona of Yakima Chief but he left the company last year for Brewers Supply Group and has all but retired to London now. So this merger makes a great deal of sense for both parties.

HopUnion, even before the merger, was the biggest supplier of hops to the craft beer industry with Yakima Chief solidly at number two. Post-merger they will own a sizable share of the market, though the craft beer market represents a fairly small percentage of total U.S. hop production. Best of luck to the Ralphs, David, Jim, Jennifer, Dave and Becky, the Johns and the rest of the wonderful folks at HopUnion.

ralph-olson-1
The infamous Ralph’s from HopUnion. From left: Ralph Olson and Ralph Woodall, with Rob Widmer, of Widmer Brothers Brewing. I took this at the 15th Anniversary Party for the Celebrator Beer News.

Washington State Formally Appeals Costco Decision

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The closely watched Costco decision, which would dismantle the three-tier system in Washington state and would also set the stage to do the same throughout the country, has now been formally appealed by Washington state’s attorney general, Rob McKenna. The Washington Liquor Control Board had earlier indicated that they would appeal, but this now makes it official. Judge Pechman, who made the ruling being appealed, has not yet decided whether to stay her ruling during the appeal process, which could easily take up to two years to wind its way through the legal system.

Founders Buy Back Pike Brewery

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Charles and Rose Ann Finkel were truly two of the prime movers for the beer revolution in America and brought many of the best imported beers to the U.S. via the import company, Merchant Du Vin, that they founded in 1978. They also founded Pike Brewery in Seattle’s famous Pike Place in 1989. The Finkels left the beer business in 1997 to pursue less hectic interests. Perhaps not hectic enough though, because they’re back. The Finkels have reportedly reaquired the Pike Brewery under undisclosed terms. Merchant Du Vin and the Seattle brewery will operate separately going forward.

Charles and Rose Ann Finkel (in front) posing last month during CBC at Pike Brewery with Pike brewers, old and new.

Washington State to Appeal Costco Decision

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The Washingon State Liquor Control Board anounced their decision yesterday to appeal the recent Costco decision that would tear down the three-tier system currently in place in Washington State. This news is according to an article in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer.