Category: Beer in the news

Great articles that you should read.

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Catering

Anytime the craft beer industry can catch a break, that is a good time and here in California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2174 (Aguiar-Curry) into law.  This change allows breweries to sell their beer at events through the use of a new Beer Caterer’s Permit.

Kicking in on January 1st of next year, breweries can use a type 01 or 23 license to apply for a Beer Caterer’s Permit to sell their beer for consumption at events held off their licensed premises.  As long as that event has been approved by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC). The BC permit allows the brewery to sell up to 124 gallons of beer at each event for a maximum of 36 events per calendar year.

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Pouring for NC

The scenes of devastation from Hurricane Helene are incredibly sad but even in an election year with such a yawning divide in the country, one of the things thats has always made the U.S. strong is their response to natural disasters.  

Beer fans can help by heading to the Untappd shop as they will be donating proceeds from sales from their shop directly to the Foundation For The Carolinas who will be financially assisting those left in the wake of the storm.

I also want to commend the North Carolina Brewers Guild who have been quick to add a page of resources for breweries and in getting a Pouring for Neighbors program up and running with a free special tap handle to use. That is some serious boots on the ground work.

We Angelenos come from all over the country so we know helping out may well be helping an actual neighbor who is from NC or someone we work with or are related to.  Combine that with the fact that beer people are fast to help and we can give this rebuilding effort a real jump start.

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Tilray Did What?

Like so much spent grain, Canadian cannabis company, Tilray is dumping a who’s who of Oregon brewing talent from 10 Barrel Brewing in Bend.

Gone is former Barley Brown’s brewmaster Shawn Kelso, former brewmaster Jimmy Seifrit, former Bend Brewing brewmaster Ian Larkin and most notably GABF medal machine, Tonya Cornett.

You can write a book (others have) about the malfeasance of SABInBev but at least they were not stupid enough to cut loose that murderers row of brewing know how.  It would be the equivalent of the Kansas City Chiefs, waiving Mahomes, Kelce and Coach Reid in one fell swoop.

This is, unfortunately, typical corporate shortsightedness.  Keeping talent happy and hoppy is not valued as much as profit.  And what is thought of now as cost savings is going to end up losing them customers in the short term and will also introduce more competition in the long term as those brewers either start their own places or go to a brewery and bring their ‘rizz with them.

It takes a special attitude for a large corporation to grow a small company under its banner and most do not have the people skills or vision to accomplish it.  Tilray has shown their true colors.

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Tick Tock

It is only a matter of time before user of TikTok could be seeing advertising from alcohol companies as their advertising policy guidelines have been recently updated.

Since I have only have bandwidth for Facebook and Instagram, I have never been on the app so I can not gauge the usefulness of it for craft brewery marketing. Also considering the congressional fire it is under, I do not know how or in what form it might be in going forward. But any loosening of Puritanical strings is good in my book.

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New Norwalk

Norwalk Brew House and founder Ray Ricky Rivera are transitioning to a physical location after years of being a little bit of contract brewer and a little bit of distributor too. 

According to Rivera, “Norwalk Brew House you’ll enjoy fresh beer brewed onsite and special one-off batches only available at the taproom. We’ll also offer a rotating selection of guest beer by other Latino owned breweries.”

The crowdfunding campaign launches via Indiegogo Monday 8/5/24 @ 9am. 

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Ozempic & Alcohol

Ozempic has been in the news a lot though coverage was waning a bit to my untrained eye.  But now that drug is back with a new trial focusing on the liver.

The new trial is going to ascertain if Ozempic can improve liver health. How that will be determined is by the medicines’ effects on enhanced liver fibrosis, aka scarring, over a 28 week period.

Obviously, that is addiction adjacent and there are other studies about decreased desire for alcohol or nicotine in progress (and probably more planned).  And also obviously, alcohol and nicotine have big weight effects so being able to curb excess would help in weight loss.

This is another bit of a blow to beer though, since it is a high calorie alcohol. But the question is, are the people utilizing the drug in the beer buying camp?   Or will this hit another spirit or wine harder?  And of course, the main two questions are, does Ozempic work not just anecdotally against addiction and if so for how long? 

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ERB – RIP

When a brewery in Los Angeles calls it a day, it is sad. But when a real path breaker does it, it is doubly sad. If not quadruply sad with it happening smack in the middle of L.A. Beer Week. Such is the case though as Eagle Rock Brewery has decided to end its run at the end of June.

Founded back in 2009 by two really great people, Ting and Jeremy. They have run government gauntlets, brewed many a Unity beer, were there at every early beer festival and so much more.

Who knew that a tiny little brewery in a weird corner side street off a freeway exit with a mild ale as a torch bearer would have such an outsized impact on the direction of craft beer in Los Angeles.

Now only Ladyface Ale Companie stands from the trio of early L.A. breweries. How this will affect The Landing in Burbank or Party Beer Co. who was using the facilities is unknown at this point but this is a real dent and one that I will be processing for a while.

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Fun with Alcohol Law

As we have seen in Arizona most recently, there be a lot of just batshit crazy laws on the books and nowhere is that more true than when it comes to alcohol. Anything with a whiff of fun must be morally wrong for others to do.

Case in point, in the 1950’s if you boarded a plane you probably got a free drink and as many as you needed. But, if you were flying over a dry county or municipality, you could not be served a drink even though you were up in the air.

The rationale being that the dryness extended all the way up into the sky. Even though a few minutes later you could get a drink. Flight attendants then, and now had to deal with oddness.

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Anchor Returns!

Big news from our neighbors to the north, San Francisco came in right at the end of May as, Hamdi Ulukaya, Chobani founder and CEO, announced the purchase of the whole kit and kaboodle of Anchor Brewing.  All of Anchor’s assets, the steam beer recipes, the brewing equipment and the building and warehouses too. The yogurt business must be good.

THIS SF Gate piece has a lot of good bits to it but what struck me was this quote paragraph… “Brands like Anchor don’t come that easy. How do you value something like this? Do you value it because it’s been here 127 years?” Ulukaya said. “Do you value it because of how much love and passion goes into creating something like this? The ingredients and knowledge and tradition and yeast and secrets? Do you value it because of how much loyalty people have for it? Or do you value it for how much money it makes?”

That sounds atypical of most owners, looking at you shady Sapporo, as the focus seems to be the product and the legacy and not financials. It might be too late for beer from Anchor Brewing this year but 2025 is a possibility.

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Boise?

If I had to pick a state that The Bruery would add a location to, Idaho would not have made the list.  But apparently, this summer (or thereabouts) there will be a Bruery in Boise.

I would have thought that anywhere in California might be easier, or Las Vegas but Idaho it apparently is.