Photos start here with what I captured inside the Expo Hall on days 1 & 2 of the Summit…..
California Craft Beer Summit – photos (@ the Summit)
Day 2 – California Craft Beer Summit
Saturday rolled into the State Capital with a really busy day ahead at the California Craft Beer Summit.
Let’s get rolling with the quick notes:
Who doesn’t like beer and cold brew coffee at 9am? The cold brew tasted weird and of celery. Julian Shrago of Beachwood and Jeff Duggan of Portola Coffee gave a detailed talk of what they thought was the best way to utilize coffee in beer. The takeaway? Coffee is not something you just drop in at the end. You build a recipe and coffee is integral.
Next was the NE seminar. Call it hazy, juicy or turbid. It causes consternation. This was a fun session. Swear words came out. Digressions were made. All in front of Vinnie and Natalie from Russian River. My appreciation for Fieldwork Brewing grew hearing the off the cuff remarks from their brewer. Plus I always enjoy hearing Henry from Monkish when he gets animated.
From there a quick walk to Fieldwork. Shower Beer with Mosaic hops then Sea Wall their sea salt IPA. Both really shone. Loved the vibe of the spot too. Then the opposite. Needing food and a check in on college football, we headed to the TV full University of Beer where we were promptly served a really old IPA. Then when we complained, customer service went bye-bye. No, “we are sorry” at all. Live and learn.
Then the festival on the Capitol Mall. Hot was it. As Yoda would say. Too many choices. Rare Barrel brought the thunder with Gifted Branch and Arrows of Neon. LA was at the far end with Tower Bridge in the background. A well laid out event. Nicely spread out but the sun really baked some areas. Did pick-up some swag sunglasses though.
Then it was nap time. Short nap though before checking out more spots in Sacramento. Capitol Beer first. Nice little bottle shop and really nice people behind the bar. Had my first Moonraker beer and tried another Track 7 IPA as well. As the Lyft flies, we went next to New Glory where I had a cucumber lemon Pilsner that was strong in the the cucumber. Really strong.
From there a quick stop at the seriously loud and packed LowBrau for some food before walking back to the hotel.
Day 1 – California Craft Beer Summit
Today and tomorrow, I will give some quick notes on the California Craft Beer Summit.
(A full-er recap and more photos to come in a day or two’s time)
Arrived in Sacramento late on Thursday and then prepped for a busy pair of learning and beer. And there was a lot of both. I did hold off drinking until after 10am but when Sierra Nevada pale ale is offered. Hard to resist.
The day started with Bart Watson talking economics then went to Sierra Nevada talking Beer Camp. From there it was on to the Expo floor to taste beers from all over California. Starting with L.A., of course.
Then it was a history lesson. 21st Amendment, AleSmith and Firestone Walker all unspooled their stories. There was also beer and food demos that gave you examples of how to pair sour beers from Rubicon and IPA from Pizza Port with food. Both worked really well.
From there, it was time to breakout of the convention center. I headed over to one of two locations for Track 7 Brewing in West Sac. The brewery was busy and the Sukahop IPA was really good. Then it was a quick hop to Panagea Bier Cafe for food and bier. Lots of of Temescal beers on tap plus a mega busy ice cream shop across the way.
Then back to the hotel via Lyft. More to come.
Benefits
Sometimes you need the bargaining power that a group can bring. And seeing as how, I am in the seat of California power, Sacramento, it seemed fitting to talk a bit about how the California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) has used it’s weight to to get health care benefits for member breweries (if they so want). Thus helping small businesses gain access to coverage that nna have been too costly on a single brewery basis.
I tout the community of craft beer and I usually mean between brewery and customer. But that community extends to brewery to employee as well. Per Tom McCormick, the executive Director of the CCBA, there are over 15,000 people working to make beer. And I, selfishly, want them in top health and making me beer.
To learn more visit right HERE.
Polling Down Under
The Beer Cartel polled 6,500 craft beer drinkers in Australia over a wide ranging set of preferences and came up with some results that you can see summarized below:
It is great to know what the top three breweries in Australia are so I can be on the lookout for them. I understand that it is a bit of a popularity contest but it makes for a good starting off point for the beer traveler that may be heading there.
This link will send you to the full results and though nothing leapt out as an outlier or statistically questionable, it is interesting to look at each question and theorize how the survey would come out if answered by American craft beer drinkers.
The questions that I wish would get asked to a group (maybe by the fine number crunchers at FiveThirtyEight) are the following:
The Best State for Beer – I am so done with the meaningless Best Beer City interwebs vote
The Best Country Brewing Beer – I assume that we would vote ourselves # 1 but who would win the horserace for the silver and bronze?
Can vs. Bottle preference – bottles won comfortably but 40% expressed no winner.
In addition to hoping that a similar survey can be done here, I hope the Beer Cartel will do this again next year to see if anything has changed.
Traveling to Oregon
What happens when a Portland native works the beer industry in SoCal and then moves back to Portland?
Well, in the case of Robby Roda, who spent time at both Monkish Brewing and Beachwood BBQ and Brewing, you open up a distribution company in Portland to bring select beers from L.A. to the NW.
And to make the L.A. connection tighter, name it after the El Segundo Brewing special Day One IPA releases. Day One Distribution has scheduled to get El Segundo Brewing onto Portland taps already with Monkish Brewing, Smog City Brewing and Phantom Carriage planned to roll out too.
Day One will begin weighted to California but will add other breweries in a slow and small fashion. In a move that seems counterintuitive to traditional distribution the amount of beer will be kept purposefully small and will make the effort to sell out within thirty days of delivery.
That is a market that could work if kept small and tightly controlled. Might even be a template for what future distribution can be.
You can read more about the new distributor at The New School. I hope to hear how our beers are received up north.
California Craft Beer Summit – Seminars
Less than a month from now I will find myself in Sacramento for the California Craft Beer Summit and though the staggering amount of breweries in attendance might be the main draw for most. I will be going primarily for the seminars and to report back on Sacramento breweries.
The Art of the Pitch is oft discussed in our entertainment driven world of Los Angeles but not so much in the world of craft beer. But beer needs to be sold which is why one of the most interesting sections of the California Craft Beer Summit is the “Meet the Distributor” sessions.
Here is what a fly on the wall can expect from this “Select distributors will host a table during a three hour “Meet a Distributor” educational session, allowing brewery owners and decision makers to collect information, pitch their brand or gain information about the distributor’s sales process. After the session time ends, distributors will still be able to access the private room to host one-on-one meetings with sales staff or suppliers as needed, providing a quiet, separate space for new business conversations and relationship building.”
Thorns
Continuing with the L.A. needs this theme, 2 Towns Ciderhouse in Portland has teamed with the Portland Thorns FC for a special Thorns collaboration cider.
The National Women’s Soccer League team’s cider is a portmanteau of sorts, “Two Thorns”, which the cidery explains is “a specialty cider made with whole Northwest raspberries and rose petals.”
Two Thorns will be on tap at the home pitch, Providence Park, “will also be available in the 2 Towns Tap Room, which is an official pub partner, and will be showing all Thorns matches.”
Now the City of Angels does not yet have a NWSL team but there is a brewery in Carson which is the same city where the Galaxy play. Hint. Hint.
Want this? Stop That.
For the mega-brew merger to go forward, along with divesting certain properties, it looks like the Federal Government also added some much needed assistance for smaller brewers. Whether it will be enough is another question.
1. The “Voluntary” AB Incentive for Performance plan is now shelved. This plan incentivized distributors who shut out brands that ABInBev did not want competing. The Department of Justice, in the settlement, wrote that it “prohibits ABI from instituting or continuing practices and programs that disincentivize distributors from selling and promoting the beers of ABI’s high-end and other rivals.”
2. Buying distributors is now capped as well. With ABInBev owning somewhere in the neighborhood of 7%, they will be barred from going over 10%. Which they more than likely will do.
Rest assured that the Brewers Association will be closely monitoring the situation. The group has been opposed to the merger of ABInBev with SABMiller from the get-go but, at least, there was some help given by the DOJ.
I have been of the opinion that if any of the industrial foreign owned breweries wanted to buy up little craft ones that it was sad to me personally but also part of the evolution into a new world of craft beer business. They could buy a brewery a month for years and not dent the overall numbers.
What I was worried about was that the beer that I wanted could be blocked from shelves or poorly handled by a distributor who was beholden to ABInBev or SABMiller. That blockage could seriously hamper the growth of a brewery.
Now we will see how well the rules are followed.
4,656
Here are the latest stats from the Brewer’s Association : “As of June 30, a record high of 4,656 breweries were operating in the U.S, an increase of 917 breweries over the same time period of the previous year. Additionally, there were approximately 2,200 breweries in planning.”
917 breweries in a year! That is a big number for a maturing marketplace. If my scratchpad math is right, that is right around 20% more.
The other positive number is that there are still way more openings than closings. Even with a decrease in growth to 8%, there hasn’t been any major bloodletting.
Next, onto the “in planning” number. I would like to know specifically the criteria for this one. Are there tiers to it? Long-term in planners who have been on the list for years or are these all new since the last number? I would like to see a breakout of this category because closing numbers are one negative indicator but the first one will be the drying up of the pipeline. But if the pipeline numbers are wonky, well then we may not know till later that the tide has turned.
Anyhoo, check out the video. If nothing else, with Bart Watson on board, we are getting a steady stream of data to parse.