Category: Beer in the news

Great articles that you should read.

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Bill 711

While the orange hued vacation SCROTUS had little in the way of actual laws made, the State of California under Jerry Brown has been quite busy the last two years. And one law that was introduced by Assemblyman Evan Low D-Cupertino could prove to make streets safer.

Under Assembly Bill 711, alcohol manufacturers and licensed sellers can offer free or discounted rides through ride-sharing services like Uber or Lyft, or taxi cabs. Codes or vouchers would be allowed to be given by alcohol sellers or directly to consumers. There is a caveat, the discounted ride offers cannot be wink-wink incentives to buy a company’s product.

Currently forty-four other states as well as the District of Columbia this activity making California behind the curve in this instance though wineries had a limited usage proviso for “special events”.

Despite the caveat, Alcohol Justice, a nonprofit based in San Rafael, has been quoted against the bill, “While drunk driving is a serious concern to public safety, and efforts to reduce it should generally be applauded, this bill implicitly allows for beer manufacturers to promote the over consumption of alcohol.” Bear in mind that with a name like Alcohol Justice they are against both words and not just alcohol.

This is the typical, stop all bills quote that you get from certain advocacy groups. Instead of being cautiously optimistic that the measure might decrease drunken drivers, they come out fully against because a bill that isn’t 100% against alcohol. I would wager that if a bar allowed patrons to sleep off a New Years party would be railed against too.

If you have a mind that understands legalese, you can read the bill HERE and make up your own mind.

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Saint Bernard


Look like # 12 is in the works. The next Trappist brewery will be overseen by the monks of Mount St Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire.

This is still way in the early stages of planning though so don’t book travel to England just yet if you are a Trappist completist.

Monasteries in Austria, the US and Italy produce Trappist approved beer currently.

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Stout Day is Back


Seeing as how I will be attending a Guinness 200 event in a couple of days, I thought I would bring up another Guinness related event coming up.

Stout Day is back and bigger (if you happen to be in Dublin) but this is a great chance to turn the calendar page and look to the darker beers and leave the IPA’s and summer beers for a bit.

So, on November 2nd – Sláinte!

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S. 236

Like most people, politics is probably the last thing that you want to read on a beer blog but there is some important news as a collaboration of the Beer Institute, Brewers Association, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, American Craft Spirits Association, Wine Institute and WineAmerica have endorsed The Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act with the littler name of S.236.

Here are the details:
This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code, with respect to the tax treatment of certain alcoholic beverages, to:

1. exclude the aging period from the production period for beer, wine, or distilled spirits for purposes of determining whether a taxpayer can expense, rather than capitalize, interest costs paid or incurred during the production period;
2. reduce excise tax rates on beer and distilled spirits;
3. modify the small wine producer tax credit to increase the amount of the credit, expand the producers that are covered, and specify an adjustment for hard cider;
4. modify the alcohol content limitations that apply to certain wines for tax purposes;
5. specify definitions for “mead” and “low alcohol by volume wine;”
6. modify requirements for records, statements, and returns for certain breweries; and
7. permit the transfer of beer between bonded facilities without payment of tax.

# 2 is obviously the biggie on the list but 6 and 7 could make life a whole lot easier as well. Surprisingly, this is a bill that might actually happen. I know, strange times indeed.

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Pop Down


Every twice-in-awhile you see something on the interwebs and can’t believe it’s true. This post states that Amazon is opening a pop-up bar in Tokyo.

April Fool’s in October, right? But Amazon owns Whole Food’s and is selling Alexa in the produce section and it doesn’t seem as far-fetched.

But other than price, why would one go to an Amazon branded bar? For a robot to make a drink? or maybe selection you can’t get elsewhere. I certainly don’t think it’s for the ambiance.

Maybe Amazon will pop-up in Los Angeles but my suggestion would be to make it part of the community it is in. Have local brewers, distillers and vintners in house. Go ahead and tout some hyper expensive whiskey but also talk about whiskey history and its future. Don’t be some sterile glassed in enclosure.

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GABF17 – LA Recap

Before we check out the medal counts for Los Angeles, some numbers to toss by you and a disclaimer because of those numbers.

There were 7,923 entries submitted for judging this year. Just think about how you would organize that amount of kegs and people to rate them.

2,217 breweries were represented out of 5,200+ total. That means that if you have two favorite breweries. One of them, on average, did not send in a beer to be judged.

That means anything can happen. Even a marriage proposal right in front of Charlie Papazian and the whole crowd.

The LACBG leader, Fran on stage with Ohana’s medal.

Seven medals will be heading back to Los Angeles this week. Beachwood (again) leads the pack with two. One GOLD for their Ghost, the band, inspired Black IPA, Hoppa Emeritus and one BRONZE from their sour side, Dia de los Mangos in the Chili Beer category. Ohana picked up BRONZE for Spa Water Saison, Sanctum won SILVER for their Solar Helles. Also on the SILVER side was Three Weavers for their Seafarer Kolsch and HopSaint for their Pure Intention Pale Ale. Last, but not least, Claremont Craft Ales and their Jacaranda Rye IPA picked up BRONZE.

Congratulations to all the winners and to our L.A. brewers and to all those who watched all 98 categories get medals.

Three Weavers and Seafarer Kolsch

other notes:
Packinghouse Brewing of Riverside picked up a silver and bronze this year. Winning once is hard, twice is a really good year. Saint Arnold of Texas was the big winner with 3 medals and a Mid-Size brewery award.

Speaking of big winners, Figueroa Mountain had another dazzling year with three total medals.

The Firestone Walker folk got a pair of medals for 10 Buck Chuck and for Pivo.

A shout out to Zoiglhaus of Portland and brewer Alan Taylor who took home a Gold for Zoigl-Pils. Is this the first ever GABF medal for a Linfield College alum? I think so.

#QuadGoals was my favorite name from 515 Brewing.

No wins for Hazy. Maybe GABF did not get in line fast enough.

Only one category was deemed not gold worthy. An improvement from 2016.

Check out the full winners list right HERE.

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Prohibited All Day

In less than the span of a week, two beers emerged from some horrible dark place, the Mordor of Beer…

First up is a beer from a non-brewery. A music-focused production has launched 24 Hour Beer. Tabbed as a session ale and sporting the tagline, “the anti-craft, craft beer.”
The horrible word “crushable” is being tossed about as well as “approachable”. Enough to grit my teeth at the jargon used to basically say that the consumer can’t handle much but we can’t tell them that straight out.

Will Shelton and his Concrete Jungle Brewing Project seems to be making the actual beer or at least complicit by hosting a Los Angeles launch.

Then there is….

…I cannot wait for the inevitable Shock Top and High End variants that are probably already on the drawing board.

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Barcade to Land in Highland Park


http://barcadenewyork.com/games/
We here in L.A. already have Button Mash for that potent mix of classic arcade games plus good beer and now the venerable name Barcade is planning to venture west from their East Coast hub.

The planned Barcade will be on York in hipster Highland Park. Further details when they become available.