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Though I eschew the Friend Friday thing on Twitter, I do occasionally send a shout out to a fellow beer blogger who I think more people should read. The BSP Bump (Don’t sue me Colbert).
So, if you would like to add some French flair to your blogroll, check out the Tasting Nitch website to get a view on beer that is refreshing and fun.
And it has thought bubbles in the photos which I think is cool.
From Derek Harrison’s Beer Blog, It’s Not Just the Alcohol Talking, we get another hot topic in the beer world. Will the bubble deflate or is their a bubble at all. The bubble not being housing or internet stocks but our beloved craft beer. From checking out Harrison’s blog and reading his post for Session # 79, it should be a well moderated debate and not just provocative for the pleasure some take in “keepin’ it real.”
Here is the assignment:
Session #80 – Is Craft Beer a Bubble?
It’s a good time to be in the craft beer industry. The big brewers are watching their market share get chipped away by the purveyors of well-made lagers and ales. Craft breweries are popping up like weeds.
This growth begs the question: is craft beer a bubble? Many in the industry are starting to wonder when, and more importantly how, the growth is going to stop. Is craft beer going to reach equilibrium and stabilize, or is the bubble just going to keep growing until it bursts?
You hear the tone and see the head shake and you know you are in the presence of a fatalist. We have all run into the guy who says that we have too many breweries. It is unsustainable for the customer base. So on, ad infinitum. Why would someone be negative when we are living in a golden age of great beer?
Me, I see the pint glass as more than half full though. I am not so naive as to expect double digit growth forever, in fact, I expect a shakeout or two in the next few years but nothing on the scale of the microbrewery implosion that we have already bounced back from remarkably.
I base my non bursting bubble assumption on the fact that there are states in America still playing catch up to craft beer and many countries around the world yet to enter the game too.
The southern states are just now easing laws on brewing. Texas is a big and only partially tapped market. Same with my current city, Los Angeles. We are just now getting a head of steam going in the new brewery department. There is room to grow. It may not be in markets like Portland or Denver but even those cities are creating more beer each year.
Spain, Greece and the Scandanavian countries could easily enter the game as well. Not to mention China and its current wine buying binge that could translate into beer too. Just think if it became cool in China to buy up Black Tuesday from The Bruery. It might end of up $100 a bottle.
Another aspect that craft beer has going for it is that the customer base is strong, vocal and entrenched. Poor quality beer will not be bought out of pity, so some places will have to change or go bye-bye. Just like in any niche market And it means, also, that current craft consumers ain’t gonna buy Bud-Miller-Coors ever again. So even if the momentum completely shudders to a stop everywhere and at once, we will be in a 10% to 15% craft market depending on which stats you want to believe.
And some pundits may mark a certain percentage as the end of the line or the bottlecap ceiling but that says they can tell you that the market will top off at point A is only making a guess. Whose to say that the market isn’t 25% or 30%? I see the Big Brewers losing market share and I don’t see them making craft beer so I see potential in the 85% of America that doesn’t buy it yet. I was just at a bar in North Hollywood that has a good set of regular non-rotating handles. They do occasional special nights but nothing fancy to make a beer snobs heart pitter patter. But two of the bartenders admitted that they drank crap before and that they can’t now. These little leaks of customers will continue as far as I can see.
In the end my slightly educated guess is that craft beer will keep growing.
This month we have a writing “test” from BeerBarBand….
What better way to test our writing skills and remind ourselves of why we do this than to post your elevator pitch for beer.
“Elevator pitch” is a term used by marketers, sales people, film/tv makers and the like. It’s the delivery of a short but powerful summary that will sell their idea or concept to the listener in one swift hit.
Here’s the scenario:
You walk into an elevator and hit the button for your destination level. Already in the elevator is someone holding a beer…and it’s a beer that annoys you because, in your view, it represents all that is bad with the current state of beer.
You can’t help but say something, so you confront your lift passenger with the reason why their beer choice is bad.
30 seconds is all you have to sell your pitch for better beer, before the lift reaches the destination floor. There’s no time, space or words to waste. You must capture and persuade the person’s attention as quickly as possible. When that person walks out of the elevator, you want them to be convinced that you have the right angle on how to make a better beer world.
Here’s the rules:
So here goes……
Tell me about your thought process when you purchased the beer that is in your hand. When you were staring at the shelves of beer choices, what was it about that particular beer that called to you? I ask because if you deliberately chose that beer, I want to know why. I will understand if faced with the dizzying array of craft available you are overwhelmed or if you are “slumming”. But I want to know, if you know, about all the choices you have.
Because you do have choice, you could drink a different beer every day for a year and still have some new beers to try in the next (and the next after). And choice is good, it means that there are no excuses to NOT have a craft beer.
You CANNOT say that you don’t like craft beer. You CAN say that you have not found one you like but that means that you are wasting time with that one in your hand. You CANNOT say that you can’t find good beer. It has invaded every town and city. You just wanted to grab the closest or cheapest.
Would you eat the same meal, night after night? Even the most lazy among us don’t do that. But it is what you are doing by buying that one beer over and over.
Once this elevator door opens, I want you to do some homework and find a better beer. Craft beer is waiting for you.
I know that animated GIFs are all the rage out there on the interwebs but to me it looked like so much bad TV reception. But then I stumbled upon this fun Tumblr site, Beer Labels in Motion.
And they do wonders with a label, like this one….
It’s a fun site to see your labels come to life.
Justin’s Brew Review is the host for the July edition of The Session and he turns the focus to the India Pale Ale….
“For quite some time now, I’ve been wondering what makes the India Pale Ale (IPA) style of beer so popular. Don’t get me wrong–I thoroughly enjoy it and gladly participate in #IPADay. I’m just wondering, why all the hype? What is it about an IPA that makes craft beer enthusiasts (CBE) go wild? Is it because CBEs want to differentiate craft beer from crap beer? I don’t care if a watered-down pilsener is labeled as “triple-hops brewed”; it wouldn’t satisfy someone looking for an IPA.”
At a recent craft beer event that paired brewers with coffee roasters, I had the honor of pouring for Eagle Rock Brewery. Their special coffee tap was called Panama Pale Ale, a Panamanian coffee infused Rye IPA. Call it PPA for short.
By my standards it was not too bitter. More coffee and rye than hops and quite tasty with a lovely coffee bean aroma. And it was one of the more popular beers if the people I was pouring for were to be believed.
So, even at a coffee-centric beer event, an IPA took center stage.
I can see why amber beers were popular once upon a time when it was still called micro-brews. They appealed to a bigger percentage of our small craft beer population. They are usually not over the top in terms of ABV or IBU. They showcase malt and thus have a little more sweetness (and we know Americans like their sweets). They are certainly closer, taste-wise to the lagers that most people know than an IPA ever will be.
It is amazing how fast that the India Pale Ale has grabbed the spotlight in the world of craft beer despite what I would consider pretty major hindrances to that happening:
1. Bitterness is considered by the palate as a bad sign.
2. And even if that is not an impediment, some IPA’s still destroy seasoned hopheads palates
3. Hops (especially popular varieties) can be hard to come by and expensive.
4. The market for IPA’s is now extra crowded.
5. May require extra equipment to dry hop.
6. Really need to be drunk fresh.
7. Sometimes confusing names like Black IPA or White IPA
8. Sometimes confusing IBU levels. A DIPA from one brewery may be a regular IPA to another.
Then add to the mix all the history behind how the IPA “style” became what it is today plus account for all the tiny to large regional American differences, and the rise of the IPA is even more amazing.
And I have no idea why it took off so much except for some half-baked theories:
1. I have heard from many brewery folk that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was a formative beer in their appreciation of craft beer. Maybe that is a root cause for the love of IPA’s.
2. IPA’s are the IBU opposite of the BMC industrial water lagers and doing the opposite of what the big 3 did is not to be underestimated as a reason.
3. America has developed a taste for different coffee’s (some quite bitter) so an appreciation of bitter IPA’s may be a side effect of that revolution.
My hope is that the brewers and drinkers don’t just lock onto mega hop bombs and search out XPA’s and dry hopped pilsners and pale ales that are actually hopped like a pale ale. Because a world with only arrogant palate wrecking bastards is only slightly better than a world with watery lagers.
Thankfully, barrel aged beers seem to be balancing out the craft beer scales amongst beer geeks, so I am not overly worried of an IPA take-over but I do wish there were more cask ales and Czech style pilsners out there and if I get a second wish, I certainly hope to see more non-IPA best sellers. I will always see Fat Tire as the New Belgium flagship. No matter how good Ranger is.
Here is the June topic from Beer is your Friend:
“I want you to write me a blog post on the subject of compulsion as it relates to beer. The idea for this Session topic partially arose from the Beer Audit session Adam at Pints and Pubs hosted a few months ago. In my effort and those of a few other bloggers, idea of buying more beer than we need was touched on. Writing about buying heaps of beer got me thinking about just what it is that compels me to keep buying beer.
Like most beer fans, I tend to buy way more beer than I can drink. I can have a fridge full, plus a few boxes of bottles, plus homebrew and still I’ll walk into a shop and buy some more. Or order some more online. Or do both in the space of a few days.
Why do we do stuff like this? Obviously we’re not just buying stuff to drink because, if we were, wouldn’t we just wait until we were running low and then stock up? What so many of us do is stock up, even though we’re already stocked up. Perhaps we’re expecting the zombie apocalypse to happen soon and don’t want to go through that sober.
Is buying heaps of beer something you worry about? Do you look at your Aladdin’s Cave of beer and feel even a smidge of guilt about how much it all cost you? Or do you just rub your hands together, cackle with glee and say ‘‘it’s mine! All mine!’’.
What lengths do you go to to hide this compulsion? For instance, do you try and sneak beer into the house so your other half doesn’t see it? (Not saying that I’ve done this. Oh, okay, I have done this).
Before my wife and I moved to our current abode, I could not seriously collect beer. Our old and strangely green ‘fridge was too small and constantly needed to be de-iced. And due to the omnipresent heat in Los Angeles and a lack of a cool, dark cellaring area, all I could “hoard” was five to six bottles at any one time.
But did that hinder my buying? Not a bit. There was still plenty of sticker shock when the credit card bill came once a month. I would buy a bomber – drink a bomber. Or in accounting terminology, first in – first out.
But despite the lack of storage and with no rich uncle or aunt, I still kept shopping and buying a tenth of what I wanted in my cart. So you can imagine that once I had a bigger ‘fridge with a dedicated beer spot and a small plot of land in the garage for a cellar, that the acquisition pace would accelerate.
And it did. Partially due to the fact that L.A. started to provide more beer shoppes for me to frequent. But until this topic cropped up, I hadn’t really thought of the why behind the drive to purchase.
I could go with the Everest-ian excuse of “Because, it’s there.” But practically any book, movie and/or piece of Trailblazer basketball memorabilia is available at the drop of a hat thanks to the non-stop shop that is the interwebs. And it is not that I have lost all control and buy stuff by the case. I hunt and peck and price compare where I can and get single bottles (or cans) instead of full sixers. If your bottle is over $15, then I think long and hard before it goes into my shopping cart.
I am also not “hoarding” in the classic sense. Yes, there are untouchable bottles in my cellar but that is primarily because I only have one bottle of a rare item. If a beer geek came over and demanded to open one, I probably would with some hesitation.
So what psychological desire is compelling me to always check the beer aisle at Whole Foods or Trader Joes. And what I keep coming back to is that I really enjoy the thrill of finding that new beer or that beer that I have heard about but not tasted or to see a beer that is newly distributed in SoCal. There is a hit of excitement each time I smile and pick up a craft beer.
And the only thing more potent than that initial rush is when the cap is pried off or the cork popped and that first aroma drifts upward.
From your salad (in this case, kale) course….
…to the full El Segundo beer line-up…
…to dessert, you will read all about Pitfire Pizza in tomorrow’s Food GPS.
Last year my good buddy Mike won this contest the year after I did and now the FOURTH year of the epic Beer Blogger Contest is now a GO.
And now YOU can win! And what you win is “a free trip to the 5th annual CANFEST on August 24th just for writing a blog post. We pay for plane, CANFEST tickets, food, hotel, and will pick you up in a limo.”
Of course there are rules……
1. Write an original blog post about one or more of the following:
– Why canned beer is awesome
– Why you deserve to come to CANFEST
– What you would do in Reno with canned beer
2. It has to feature a link to the CANFEST website, www.canfestbeer.com, and the CANFEST Facebook, www.facebook.com/CANFEST.
3. Be hosted on an established blog; meaning you didn’t just throw up a WordPress site to enter the contest.
“Creativity is good. We’re fans of fun, silly antics, and photos.
Please email it to us NO LATER THAN 5PM PST ON MAY 31, 2013. Entries can be submitted to info@canfestbeer.com (so can questions about the contest).
We are going to compile them in an online voting tool where the most voted on entry will win the prize. Simple as that.”
Good Luck!
The May Session is hosted by allbrews from the San Francisco Bay area. And here is the topic…..
“Like sandlot baseball players or schoolyard basketball junkies, many amateur brewers, including some beer-brewing bloggers, harbor a secret dream: They aspire to some day “go pro.” They compare their beer with commercial brews poured in their local pubs and convince themselves that they’ve got the brewing chops it takes to play in the Bigs. Some of them even make it, fueling the dream that flutters in the hearts of many other home brewers yearning to see their beer bottles on the shelves at City Beer or their kegs poured from the taps at Toronado.
Creating a commercial brewery consists of much more than making great beer, of course. It requires meticulous planning, careful study and a whole different set of skills from brewing beer. And even then, the best plan can still be torpedoed by unexpected obstacles. Making beer is the easy part, building a successful business is hard.
In this Session, I’d like to invite comments and observations from bloggers and others who have first-hand knowledge of the complexities and pitfalls of starting a commercial brewery. What were the prescient decisions that saved the day or the errors of omission or commission that caused an otherwise promising enterprise to careen tragically off the rails?”
Full Disclosure: I have ZERO, NONE, experience with starting a commercial brewery. That being said, I have noticed what separates the successful from the less so.
Of course sucess can be attributed to many factors. A flagship beer that flies off the shelves. Location: both the physical building and the proximity to willing customers. Great branding and marketing. Loud and obnoxious marketing. The beer quality can (and does) vary from great to better than Bud.
But failure, from my safe perch of blogging, primarily comes from being disconnected from your customers. And a brewery has many customers. Their distributor, bar owners, beer drinkers to name the three biggest.
A brewery casually disregards any of them at their own peril. A perfect example of this disconnection is on the crowdfunding website, Kickstarter.
Breweries have been especially drawn to this method for raising funding for equipment, ingredients and other big ticket items. And it provides a case study in how to create and maintain and engage a fan base. All items that I believe are very important to long term success.
Fully funded Kickstarters share fully engaged creators/brewers who do the following:
1. Set a reachable goal
Some projects have set dollar amounts that even a casual / occasional backer can see won’t be reached. It is much better to start small and reach “stretch” goals. Otherwise your backers will lose interest when they see that the percentage towards the goal is inching forward and not running.
2. Do events
Even if you do not have beer to sell, get out and either support the bars that will hopefully be buying your beers. Hand out bumper stickers or pass out questionnaires. If nothing else, spread the word about the brewery.
3. Meet the press
Talk to your local newspaper, the big newspaper in town and then hit up any and all beer bloggers in the area. Give interviews at any opportunity. Post progress on the social media sites that work best for you.
4. Explain your beers
Make sure that your pre-conceived line-up of beers is thoroughly explained on your Kickstarter page and your website and blog and Facebook because in the end it is about the beer.
Then drink a lot of coffee and soda because you will be on the ground running for the duration. Which is great practice for the actual brewery too!
Tomorrow over on FoodGPS, we talk about making a beer for your wedding reception with Enegren Brewing and the Four Points LAX. So I thought I would pass by some wedding themed beers for your perusal that I found on the RateBeer site….
Boring (until made royal)
Bell’s Wedding Ale
Drakes Wedding Wit
Adnams Royal Wedding
for the Bride
Moylan’s Bridal Ale from NorCal
Pelican Bridal Ale from the Oregon Coast
for the groom
Deschutes Bachelor Bitter
Societe Bachelor
for the DJ
Alameda Brickhouse Brown