Category: Beer Industry

my occasional rants and raves about what is going on in the industry.

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A New Price

Brewer movement is now an accepted fact of life in craft beer world but even with that foreknowledge, some departures still hold the element of surprise.

Evan Price leaving Noble Ale Works behind is one such move. Price and his staff displayed such an outward fun dynamic and created such goofy beer names that to my eye, it would take something huge to separate.

That huge event is Price going for his own brewery. Kudos to him for taking that plunge and kudos to Noble for being gracious about it.

Because of the crew that Price built up including new head man Brad Kominek, I doubt Noble will skip a beat as it expands into cans with their new logo and it will be great to see what comes next for Price (whatever and wherever that may be)….

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Baja Rebrand


The Donkey is taking center stage as Baja Brewing (friends of the blog) have done the ten year refresh of their label design. Now the donkey will be walking after a beer on all the labels and not just the Cabotella.

Looks good, and I do hope to see more of their beers (with reservations about the raspberry) around L.A.

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Top Hops 2016

For all of the Citra this and Mosaic that, the classic “C” hops are the ones with a stranglehold on the Top 3 in production according to the latest 2016 figures from the Brewers Association (the 2015 rank is in parentheses). Despite the rise of wild hops and hip new ones like Idaho 7, there is only one newbie to the list and I was happy to see that Hallertauer the Noble was still up there (even though it is the biggest dropper of the year)

1. Cascade [1]
2. Centennial [2]
3. Chinook [3]
4. Simcoe [4]
5. Citra [5]
6. Amarillo [7]
7. Mosaic [not ranked]
8. Crystal [8]
9. Hallertauer Mittelfruh [6]
10. CTZ [10]

What will 2017 bring in the hop fields?

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Once it Leaves the Brewery

When a keg leaves a brewery and is loaded onto a delivery truck, it cannot be pampered like it was when it was inside the building. And since craft beer is based, in large part, on being crafted and crafted well, what happens once the truck starts rumbling away from the brewery cold box is very important.

Unfortunately, the brewery is probably too small or too busy to keep track of each keg, can and bottle and can’t ensure that a keg is connected to a clean line or that product doesn’t sit on a shelf (lookin’ at you BevMo!).

Which is why I am heartened to see that that a business like Craft Quality Solutions is starting. Helmed by Neil Witte a nearly 20 year veteran of Boulevard Brewing they plan to audit and service all three tiers of the distribution.

You can read more about it on the ever excellent Good Beer Hunting and remember to tell beer sellers if they have beer on the shelf that shouldn’t be there. Enlightened customers are the best defense until more people like Witte are up and running across the country.

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You Can Only Use…

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http://simplyhops.co.uk/news/the-underdog-project/?SID=jdvvjtoqsrabvlhlr9rpurs6d0
What would a brewer do if they were restricted from using the most popular hop varietal when designing the recipe for an IPA?
That is the question asked by the Underdog Project from Simply Hops. First, what if there isn’t enough of the “cool” hops and it becomes an agricultural imperative since a bad crop in a hyper-used hop could create a ripple effect.

Now the second year of the contest is upon us. Last year’s winner, Ben Howe, from Danish brewery Ebeltoft Gårdbryggeri with his winning beer “Straight Outta Boston”

Here are the (abridged) rules for the competition (sorry, US brewers, this is limited to: breweries in UK, Ireland, European mainland, Scandinavia and South Africa.

• The beer must be brewed to a recognisable IPA style including “American”, “Belgian”, “English”, “Session”,
“White”, “Red”, “Black”, “Imperial”, “Double” and ”Triple”.

• The Summit variety of hop must make up a minimum of 50% of the total hop addition used when brewing
the beer.

• Amarillo, US Cascade, Centennial, US Chinook, Citra, Galaxy, Mosaic or Simcoe varieties of hops cannot be
used to brew the beer.

• Natural adjuncts may be used as part of the brewing process but remember the tasting is blind.

• The beer will be judged purely on the flavour, aroma. The appearance of the beer (colour and clarity) will
not be a judging criteria.

• All entries will be judged by a panel of independent judges using the blind tasting method during January
2017.

• Winners will be announced on or before the 30th January 2017.

This might be a good task for our L.A. Brewers group to attempt.

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Fill the C.U.P.

macleodales
Beer fans in L.A. have become all too familiar with the acronym C.U.P. But having to really support your local brewery by attending a hearing or writing your support also connects you to the beer.

So, you can help MacLeod Ale’s stay open longer, add an outdoor spot and get a live entertainment license by writing a letter of support.

Either click this LINK or write to the CCU at the address below:

CCU
Attn: Jose Elias
Re: [ZA-2016-3245-CUB]
201 N. Figueroa Street, 5th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Eventually the city might come to understand the power of craft beer.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1n0C0Z5uzEq1ITA9jkxg3z6ysZ3cxgCqP3rqmy9F7pws/prefill

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Storied Financing

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As breweries are sold (or partially sold), to whom they are sold becomes a big topic of discussion. Some prefer EOPs (employee owned), some venture capital, or some favor combining craft with craft.

Each has its upsides and downsides and the size and future growth plans of each individual brewery will dictate which fit is right. Now a new variant is entering approximately the same area that Greg Koch’s True Craft occupies.

Storied Craft Breweries in the Chicago area will be pursuing investments in breweries that need growth capital, in both terms of money and operating knowledge. How many breweries they will team with, what size they are targeting or geography they prefer is not known now.

Will this form of financing be amenable to craft fans? We will see when the first brewery signs up.

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Growing Operations

There is a hop fueled boomlet in the world of Wet Hop beers and festivals, to the point where even the Great American Beer Festival has added it into judging consideration. Category # 20 to be precise.

But what if hops could be grown year round? I will skip over the technical bits (you can read about the details HERE) but maybe the future will include the use of LED grow lights which could lead to (with enough production) wet hop ales any month of the year. It could also lead to more breweries actually growing hops in regions that normally wouldn’t really sustain quality growth.

Something to think about as our industry moves forward.

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RIP – Artisan Ales

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Well, this is shocking news to me. And sad as well. Artisan Ales was the subject of a couple pieces that I wrote in the past including a fun ride-along, day in the life of a sales rep.

Aside from those fond memories, we are left with more of a hole in the craft beer landscape now. The one vital and extremely hard link in the chain is getting the beer to consumers. You can self-distribute but that takes resources in equipment and people. With LA being so spread out and hard to navigate in a timely manner, we need more independent (call them boutique) distributors not less. Where Craftsman and Noble Ale Works go from here will be important in the near future as is the distribution fate of Oregon breweries Logsdon and Double Mountain.

I do not know the reasons why Artisan Ales closed up shop and to me that is water under the bridge because the long term implications are bigger because what we need are two types of distributors for two sizes of breweries in Los Angeles that most need help.

1) for the small breweries that are wanting to create a wider footprint
2) for the medium/small breweries that are getting into packaging

We need steps up, so that a brewery can grow in a logical and linear way. Maybe we will get that needed infrastructure in the wake of this.

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Strong State

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Three out of the top seven Top Markets are here in the Golden State but what really pops out of this graphic is that percentage for Los Angeles. 15.75%!  Lower than Houston!  And the lowest on the list. I assume that our large population is what has propelled L.A. to the dollar title.

But this furthers my point that if a bubble does occur, it isn’t going to hit equally.  That range of 15% to 44% shows how disparate each market is and that aftershocks are not going ripple the same way.