Category: Beer Industry

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

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Clean Beer Project

As part of my continuing (and probably annoying) series, Why is This NOT a Thing in L.A., we head to New York City to highlight the Clean Beer Project.
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The mission statement: “Your Beer Deserves Better. We’re here to let consumers know what they’re consuming. Let’s make sure that the beer you’re drinking is just as the brewer intended and praise the NYC bars that serve through clean lines into clean glassware.”

And Sean Lynch is not just proselytizing, he is actually doing it. He comes to bars and cleans out the gunk and residue from not only the lines but the faucets as well. He breaks it all down and gives it a deep clean and then in a really savvy move, tweets about the bar when he is done. That way you can head to the bars that care knowing that your Saison won’t taste of schwarzbier. Unless that was the goal of the brewer.

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The Ag Desk

From the Agriculture Desk comes a couple pieces of news. We start in the Hill Country of Texas where Jester King has bought up land around their brewery (58 acres to be exact) to supply them with fruits, grains and generally make their farmhouse beers even more authentic by adding a farm.

Peaches, blackberries and melons along with a test plot of wheat have been started and will eventuallygrow to be larger parts of the beers they make. It also fits with their eco-ethos tha values the terroir over uniformity and very local over long distance shipping. What caught my eye more is that it puts the control of a percentage of their ingredients in their hands. They won’t have to vet each piece of fruit. They know the chain of travel that it took.

Stone tried and stepped away from farming but I hope this works and I hope more take it up or at least create brewery co-ops as it were to supply a portion of the ingredient list.

The 2nd news brief comes from the fine folks at the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Their hop report for Washington, Oregon and Idaho shows acres harvested in 2015 and acres strung for harvest in 2016 and it is a good barometer for what hops are being used and what is coming.

Starting negative, it Columbus/Tomahawk took the biggest dive in acres more than doubling the decreases for Nugget and Super Galena. Predictably Citra surged again, adding over 1,400 acres. Other non-surprises include large growth for Equinox and Simcoe as well as Mosaic. All adding over 900 additional acres.

Overall acreage crowns go to Cascade which is up to 7,371 approximately with Centennial in 2nd place with just over 5K. The numbers that jumped out for me was that Experimental hops had a healthy leap upwards as did Azacca. Plus Cashmere hop is now out of the other/experimental category and on it’s own along with Tahoma and Pekko.

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Hawaiian Re-Brand

Looks like the re-brand bug is more infectious than Zika. Maui Brewing is now unveiling a new look to their cans and while they are cleaner and easier to read, they seem much more generic now. Less Island and more about color coordination.
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I like the band across the neck of the can and the easy to find ounces and ABV area near the bottom but instead of a generic whirly pattern, I would have kept the logos and designs of the beers already there so that people could see what they have bought before and not have to stop and think about it.

Thumbs down from this blogger.

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Hops of Invention

In a recent piece in the New York Times magazine, writer Chuck Klosterman went through a hypothetical exercise about which musician would be remembered and revered in the distant future. Nowhere was Frank Zappa mentioned but maybe that is because a hop breeding group is named after the artist and the hop, FZMR2 has already been bought up by Sierra Nevada and used already in one of their Beer Camp 2016 beers, Pat-Rye-Ot.
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Characterized as a mixture of “peppery citrus and melon”. It is a cross of two wild plants Neo-Mexicanus, Medusa and Rio. Zappa has been quoted about beer but it is unknown if this hop would have had him writing music about bitterness.

I do like more particular names in hops. Equinox and Mosaic are pretty words but don’t really convey much. They have that pharmaceutical name feeling to me. A Prince hop though, would really convey meaning.

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Brew City Documentary

There are probably quite a few documentaries that could be made about the past, present and future of craft beer in Portland. And I certainly will try to watch them all but the trailer for the upcoming
Yes, interviews with the people behind the beer, the beer writers and enthusiasts is all well and good, the 77 Portland Breweries crawl that producer John Lovegrove accomplished in one day (and filmed!) seems the much more fascinating facet of the film. I can’t imagine what he felt like halfway through the day let alone the next day, even if he drinks just one taster at each.

Oh and the logo and title needs to go.

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HVG

There are some great websites with hop information on them but recently Hopsteiner the large hop grower/distributor has refreshed its website and added a really helpful snapshot of hop data.

The Hopsteiner’s Hop Varieties Grid has brand new hops photography which helps to visually differentiate the hops, multiple sort levels including by Experimental or Aroma and a handy sheet of information that to this beer blogger was just right without getting too overboard in technical terms. You get an aroma graph, genetic origin, similar hops and other facts. It is easy to use and share which is key.
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I would have liked to see them add what blends are normally used with each hop so that you could gain a knowledge of what pairs well but that is a small quibble in what is an excellent website revamp.

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Positive Legal Steps

In case you missed this on Facebook last week (considering the weird Facebook-ian algorithms, that could be a lot of people), I just wanted to post this up as a reminder to stay involved in legislative activities, especially when it comes to beer.
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Eco Holders

That connective tissue that holds six cans together is getting an eco-upgrade. Now, I generally prefer the boxes for holding cans since it can be made of recycled material and can eventually compost away and not last forever like plastic.

But this solution born from a collaboration between Saltwater Brewery in Florida and We Believers—an advertising agency in New York might be even better. The pair have created rings using spent grain from the brewing process. Basically a bio-degradable ring that is also edible unless fish are gluten-intolerant. Cost and manufacturing might be an issue but since there is a ton of spent grain out there and only so many cows, this could be another avenue if a certain scale can be achieved.

Saltwater Brewery "Edible Six Pack Rings" from We Believers on Vimeo.

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A Bigger Yard

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Brooklyn Brewery has made brewing moves in foreign countries but is now looking in its own backyard for its next big project. They will be building a 50,000 barrel brewery at the Brooklyn Navy Yard by 2018. It will be the primary destination for beer fans with the new brewery, corporate offices and a rooftop beer garden that looks out onto the waterfront.

The plans for Navy Yard’s newly-renovated Building 77 will add to their presence since they barrel age in Building 269. The original location will stay in the fold as well plus there is development of a new production facility in State Island as well.

Maybe a precursor to L.A. getting some of their beers?

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The Rebel Alliance

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There seems to be a clustering effect when it comes to breweries in the Los Angeles area. Be it in Westlake Village or Torrance or Downtown L.A., breweries seem to set-up shop within walking distance of another.

Even closer and wide ranging is the The Bridgeworks Beverage Alliance in Pennsylvania. A trio of craft beverage manufacturers are right next to each other in a renovated Mack Truck Factory.

It is part of a manufacturing incubator program, and it includes three different types of alcoholic beverages Colony Meadery – County Seat Spirits – HiJinx Brewing Co..

Incubators seem to be on the downswing, at least, from a news perspective. There was a time, years back, when you would hear about one or the other in the tech world but maybe it is something that should be re-examined when it comes to beer. Because of equipment costs, rental costs and permits and dealing with the various cities, might encourage investor groups to pool money and knowledge.

I have heard brewers speak about how other brewers helped them out with a permit here or how-to deal with the city. So there always seemed to be an informal type of mentoring but there is a need for starter space. Somewhere to legally brew and sell your beer in that in-between space of home brewing to running your own brewery. That happened out in Riverside where Polymath Brewing, Delicious Science and Seven Brothers were working co-op style.

The hunt for the “just right” location could be undertaken at a less fevered pace if a brewer could be making and fine tuning beer and building a brand in the meantime. Maybe L.A. could have a sake house, next to a brewery, next to an artisanal food court?