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my occasional rants and raves about what is going on in the industry.
In my usual better late than never style, I ran across this interesting bit of news from the New School Beer Blog.
Portland already has Prost! which is a lovely German beer bar located right next to a food cart pod so this next evolution sounds promising. Maybe the LA area can try this too! Verdugo and Eagle Rock invite trucks in but if you don’t care for that particular truck that night then you are out of luck (plus the lines can get enormous). A group of carts would minimize both problems.
….to pound some sense into some Florida politicians and to keep Cigar City beer flowing to the people of Florida and beyond.
Read this short bit from noted beer writer Sean Nordquist:
“Cigar City Brewing, located in Tampa, Florida, opened a tasting room last year to much success. By being able to extend their hours of operation and sell and serve beer on-premise, this local business was able to increase their employee count from 2 to 22. Serving award-winning craft beer in a comfortable and friendly environment, they have operated without incident, which few other establishments can claim. In a short time, Cigar City has achieved national (and international) recognition for their creative and consistantly excellent craft beer. In a state that has been often referred to as a “beer wasteland”, the fact that their beers are highly sought after is a testament to what owner Joey Redner and head brewer Wayne Wambles have been doing.
Now they are facing a huge problem. For reasons known only to themselves, members of the Tampa City Council have voted to not make the wet-zoning (required to allow the serving of alcohol) permanent, which would essentially force the closing of the Tasting Room. As Joey has said, this means “no more special events, no more limited release parties, no beer for sale – at all – at the Tasting Room.”
So as the citizenry, we have a responsibility to make our voices heard. Tell the Tampa City Council not to vote for killing jobs. Tell them not to vote for limiting growth. Tell them to reward success and not punish it. Tell them that local businesses are watching. And so are those that might wish to do business in Tampa in the future.”
These are the three members of Council who voted against Cigar City:
Gwen Miller
Thomas Scott
Curtis Stokes – Curtis.Stokes@tampagov.net
These are those Council members who voted for Cigar City:
Mary Mulhern – Mary.Mulhern@tampagov.net
Yvonne Yoli Capin – yvonne.capin@tampagov.net
Joseph Caetano – Joseph.Caetano@tampagov.net
Finally, the member who was absent. Let Charlie Miranda know you support CCB and craft beer and are counting on his yes vote on December 2nd.
Here are a couple of creative graphs made by a life insurance company about
strong beers…
strange beers…
Kudos to Jay Brooks for locating these gems
Some days the mailman brings fun stuff. Today I got a package from
That opener is a heavy duty wonder. And who doesn’t love getting a certificate? Especially one that says that I am a “patron” of craft beer!
I just can’t wait to try the beers!
Recently, two beer items popped up at the same time so I took it as a sign that I should talk about it.
First, All About Beer magazine had a blurb about table taps. OK, it’s got the marketing name of DraftMaster. Two tap handles rise out of the center of the table so you can pour your own beer.
I can so see why this would go over well with publicans. Saves time. People will order more because it’s right there. Technology probably hits the credit card whenever a pint is poured. But to me it just promotes the drink all you want culture and speed. I try my best not to race through beers. (Some are so good that I do it anyway). It also eliminates the creation of a rapport with the barkeep. But what scares me most is that it, in the end, promotes a homogenization of beer. You could have different beer at each table (that would be kinda cool). But then some tables would always be vacant while others would have lines going out the door. I would not give up an Upright or Drakes table easily.
To avoid that scenario, either each table would have the same beers or at least one common denominator, usually the lowest. And how do you know your table has a full keg?
The second dispensing system has the inventiveness of the first, plus some. But whereas the DraftMaster is a sure fire economic barnburner. The Biero idea may end up being too costly. I saw this earlier in the month on the fabulous Brookston Beer Bulletin.
Basically it takes bottled beer and puts it into a chilled and light protected tube so that patrons can see the beer. From what I have read on their site, they love beer and have thought of most of the technical issues, which shows how far beer culture has grown. But I don’t know how feasible it is. To compete with great tap beer, you would need a hook. The one I see is rare beers or perhaps blended beers. And that could work if they get the price point right. And I would certainly enjoy trying a rare beer that I normally couldn’t get because of price. But is the public ready for what is basically a cellared beer bar? I know Cascade opened a sour beer bar. But I worry that this a good idea ahead of its time.
Some things in life are too short. Three day weekends for one and this charming history of beer in Portland.
Though only 29 minutes, this is an excellent primer on how Oregon got to where it is today beer-wise.
Thanks to the Celebrator magazine, I saw a great to expand anyone’s beer horizons.
A museum exhibit on BEER!
Here is what the City of Fullerton (in the OC) has to say about it:
“Kegged, Casked, Bottled or Canned: 10,000 Years of Beer
Open to the public through October 10, 2010
This exhibition tells the story of beer with with advertising material, tap handles, metal signs, prints, beer steins, and fixtures from the home brewing industry.
Bottle Cap Treasures: Art Workshop for Adults!
Tuesday, September 14
7:00-9:00pm
Turn old beer bottle caps into fun magnets and jewelry! Bring your own bottle caps or use some of ours for no additional charge.”
$12 general/ $8 museum members
A great way to stay involved and up to date in the world of Craft Beer is to follow (either on FaceBook, if that’s still cool, or on internal blogs) the small brewers guilds and associations that look out for the financial and legislative well being of their members.
Since I am LA based that means following the California beer news from The Small Brewers Association of California. Most people just want beer news. Where is the next festival? What new brewery opened? But part of being a dedicated supporter of well made beer is to pitch in your voice at the non-drinking level too.
I often try to live by the credo, “don’t complain, construct” Of course I just made that credo up right now but it’s a nice little bit of wordplay.
So instead of bashing ABInBev, MillerCoors and the rest of the industrial gang for their insipid tasting water lagers, I am going to lay out how they get back into the game and stop their downward sales spiral.
1. Stop the actual beer talk in your commercials.
Stick with selling beer to guys with ridiculously hot girlfriends. Stick with humor. Hell, stick with drinkability. But stop the hop talk, don’t mention malt or even discuss the brewing process. All you are doing is confusing the people already mesmerized into buying your beer and seriously pissing off beer geeks who know better.
Case in point – Triple hop brewed. The clever person who thought that up should be demoted. Leaving aside technical discussions of how a lot of better beer is triple hop brewed, why even bring hops into it, let alone three times! Your beer tastes NOTHING of hops. My tap water has more hop flavor than your beer. You are a selling machine, what you are selling, in essence, doesn’t matter.
2. Brew local
Each of your mammoth, gargantuan plants should brew a local beer for the area. A beer that is available only in that area. Beer Geeks LOVE rarity. How about actually setting aside the notion that you have to make a billion bottles of your beer. West coast operations should do an IPA, maybe a wheat beer in the midwest, a saison in Florida. It will instill pride for each facility and could be expanded. Each branch could have a stable of local only beers.
It won’t bring back the craft beer fans who have long since abandoned you but you might slow the attrition rate amongst the disaffected and searching.
3. R&D
You have great equipment, state of the art computers, access to whatever ingredients you want, great brewers. And you have them all doing the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, to make a consistent beer all across the world is an impressive feat. But you are not getting the full talent and benefit of your staff. Cut them loose to do special brews for company functions or trade shows. Unshackle your full potential!
Somehow you all have mistaken colorful mountains or vortexes for innovation. It’s not. It’s packaging and each time you chase it you get a bump then a dip back down. It’s like crack to you people. Innovate with the product instead.
There you go! Salvation. Free of charge.
Cool hipster logo. Looks like a brewery to check out. Until you dig further to see that it is a autonomous unit of MillerCoors. Purportedly made up of great brewers that won’t be influenced by corporate drones.
“MillerCoors LLC announced Thursday a new name for the company’s craft and import beer division: Tenth and Blake Beer Co.
The name refers to the company’s Milwaukee brewery, at 1515 N. 10th St., where the Leinenkugel’s craft beers are made, and to Denver’s Blake St., home to MillerCoors’ Blue Moon Brewing Co. at the Sandlot.”
They currently make some pretty good beers Blue Moon, Leinenkugel’s, Pilsner Urquell. They brew the remnants of once great brands competently if not with imagination Peroni, Killian’s, Henry Weinhard’s, Grolsch. And they do the new Colorado Native and Sandlot beers for the Rockies ballpark (Brewmaster’s Special, Ski Brews, Barmen, Championship Amber Ale, Right Field Red, Slugger Stout, Power Alley ESB). None of which I am too inclined to try.
The industrial water lager makers can’t compete on flavor but they aren’t going to sit down and watch market share drip away. They will buy what they can’t make, make poor copies of what they won’t make and if all else fails will distribute good stuff to at least be near the heart of beer.