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It is a bold marketing plan to say that your product is bad…..
…even if it is, you have to explain why you let your product go to crap and then re-gain the trust of people who have your beer in the ‘fridge already. That is a tough ad line to follow and probably really affects people delivering the beer who have to drop off “not” good beer to customers who are a bit upset.
Add in an environmental push and this becomes a whole re-booted Carlsberg.
In case you missed it on your Facebook feed, this was posted last month…
Almost makes me want to get a barn. I expect to hear about some interesting beers coming from BarrelWorks with this coolship in place.
Yesterday it was reported that Iron Triangle Brewing was looking for a buyer. If I was macabre enough to have a list of Los Angeles breweries that would make such an announcement, Iron Triangle would have been on it from the beginning.
Not that the beers were bad. They were fine. Their Belgian Pale was my favorite due to the relative Hefe shortage in a time of IPA. And that is where I think they stumbled and fell. Mumford has the collabs and the hazy’s. Boomtown has the artist series of IPA’s. Angel City has Sunbather. IT had?
Blame can be laid at the turbulent start. A brewery that encounters roughness out of the gate with the beer nerds will be a step behind but I think that it is very telling that the reason being given for selling is that as told to The Full Pint was, “The owners have decided that their capital would be better invested in their other businesses.” That reads as we thought craft beer would make us money but it is still costing us money three years in and we are getting out while there is still a window of opportunity to sell.
It is a great space on the inside. Foot traffic, nearby condos and location aren’t horrible. They are nowhere near Arts District levels but other breweries have nothing. It is large but with reconfiguring it could be used for multiple events
Let’s hope the next chapter is a longer and fruitful one for this location.
The Derwen Arms sounds like a historic English pub but it is historic in a different way. This bar is inside the Cefn Coed Hospital in Swansea. It is part of an all-male wing called the Derwen Ward for patients suffering from dementia.
Since most of these men would head to pub after work, not having that familiar touchstone can lead to what is called Sundowning. Described basically as patients who without anywhere to go after the sun goes down become cranky and ticked off because they lack access to what they used to be able to do.
Enter the pub. Non-Alcoholic only with darts with plastic tips but otherwise similar to where these men may have gone back in the day. And now they can again without going off the grounds and in a controlled environment.
We need more of this type of thinking because beer culture can be of use when used like this.
The Gruit-y world of strange beers from SoLArc Brewing looks to have found a home. The brewery will be at the Southern end of Eagle Rock Boulevard in a building that other tenants will be joining including a bar and a restaurant. Good news for a brewery that was staying under the radar. No ETA on when to expect an opening date.
Looks like Heineken is using it’s Lagunitas purchase to kick start the traditional brown ale of Newcastle….
I don’t know if with all the mergers and acquisitions if this is still a Flagship but certainly is news for this month.
Dope & Dank are taking a big step. With assistance from BrewDog and the Scottish brewers Development Fund, the duo of Teo Hunter and Beny Ashburn who many of us in Los Angeles have run into at festivals or had their collaboration beers with the likes of El Segundo Brewing, are going into the beer business.
Crowns & Hops will be their new beer brand based in Inglewood but with BrewDog brewing their roster of pilsner, stout and (of course a dank) IPA. The line-up will be produced in both the Columbus, Ohio facility (the closest BrewDog is to LA) and oddly in Scotland as well.
D&D are also going to crowdfund $75,000 with a campaign set to premiere on March 6th. It is an interesting time to enter the brewing game with growth slowed and even more interesting to enter in Inglewood which is experiencing some real real estate problems with the forthcoming NFL stadium project making land expensive and scarce not to mention two breweries already in town, one of which has Canarchy Collective ties to draw on.
Now they just need to make beers as dynamic as they are and I am sure that will draw crowds.
UPDATE: The crowdfunding has started and seems to be more slow and steady climb. Perhaps crowdfunding fatigue is real. Will be interesting to see how this campaign unfolds over the next 31 days.
The newspaper and journalism scene in Los Angeles is a bit rosier now. The Times sits in new offices in El Segundo with a new owner and a brand new food writing staff as well as a new food stand-alone section coming this spring.
A new quarterly, The Land has sprung from the dumpster fire of the L.A. Weekly imbroglio and has released their initial issue filled with pieces about a Los Angeles that may be hidden from normal view.
And while there is no word on beer or wine and spirits as part of the domain for either, there is hope that the stories of beer can be woven into both. I would have loved one less rap article in The Land and would have heartily read more about little known beer culture instead.
Maybe there are plans for both to cover the issue because I believe as we grow (even in slower percentages) that there are stories to be told.
Looks like the takeover of RateBeer is now complete. SABInBev now fully owns the rating website. Technically ZX Ventures owns them but co-founder Joe Tucker is not in charge any more. Tucker is now in a “community” ambassador role.
And while it may be true that users are up overall, how those new users came to join is probably more due to advertising budget from the parent company.
Which is fine. Spin this as a positive or “road bump” or write them off completely for making this deal. Either way, beer ratings sourced from the masses are never going to be the same force that they were in the early days. I don’t know of people that use the site (or their new-ish app) when making buying decisions. I certainly don’t. I don’t expect people to make those type of choices based on my reviews.
I haven’t used the site since the partial sale because that is the line that I have drawn in the sand but from what I remember, it didn’t have the fun, game aspect that Untappd has unless their app is completely changed.
I believe that at some point, if RateBeer doesn’t make money or doesn’t draw a minimum amount of eyeballs to the site that it will be slowly shut down. Remember the “Beer Necessities”? The ratings may get shunted into another website (possibly October or a new version).
It has been offered up that the data was the draw for the deal but what is ABInBev gonna do with data on thousands of beers that they won’t make themselves? Perhaps the High End might use the information? But I would guess that the breweries themselves already know most of the trending information already. My RateBeer data is now way out of date and probably of little use at all, I know that.
I think this full sale marks a time where we can look forward and dream of what may be the next big thing. Is there a game-changing new app on the horizon?
Looks like the forward progress is back for Whittier Brewing Company. A new brewery project with a chef led background. Hopefully we will see more tank photos on their Facebook page.