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my humble and correct opinion
Weathered Souls Brewing Company have a Black Is Beautiful sequel coming out this summer and it is a Hazy IPA which will benefit the NB2A (National Black Brewers Association) The label mock- up is below. Hopefully we will see lots of breweries jumping on board for this initiative.
If you are a sports fan, your favorite team just might be owned by an asshole. Not saying that all people who own teams are but there does seem to be a preponderance of assholes amongst the super-rich who can swallow clubs whole.
The English Premiere League is riddled with fan groups trying to push owners out. The NBA had the delightful Donald Sterling around for what seemed like forever before he finally became too toxic. And the NFL’s version was Dan Snyder who will forever be linked to the Washington Redskins and not their new era Commanders name.
There are articles, and probably podcasts aplenty, about Snyder and his mis-management of the Washington Football Club. His stubborn death grip on the Redskins name being first on the list despite the known fact, that changing the name made any Redskin emblazoned gear more pricey and you would double dip by selling all new gear to diehard fans.
What made it all the more egregious was that he didn’t listen. Not to fans or even fellow owners. When you get to a point where your delusion field blocks out your fellow richie rich’s, well that is a red flag.
Which is why it is hilarious that there was an anti-Dan beer brewed. Makes me wish there were more beers that take on the 1%.
Time to talk agriculture AND business. One intersection point is the planning of which and how many hops to grow. It is hard to make such estimates into the future but with craft brewing slower than the past, the amount of hops needed is lower.
The USDA is forecasting that, in the Northwest, hop acreage for harvest will be down 8% from 2023. The biggest hop varietals, Citra and Mosaic were reduced the most as growers are trying to balance out their portfolios.
Might be more reductions and varietal shifts coming. It is serious logistical work being a hop grower.
The 16oz can is the de rigeur format and has been for a few years now taking the packaging crown from the 22oz bomber and the six-pack with it’s 12 ounces. Though the 19.2oz stovepipe can is pushing for the throne currently.
This article in Punch talks briefly about why it is as well as the good and bad about it..
…but I firmly believe (and have expressed on this blog many times) that more sizes should be in the packaging arsenal. I would like to see more big ABV beers in 10 ounce bottles or heck, 12 ounce cans. I love the extra large format of some Belgian beers with the corks and one of these days, I will buy one of those jereboams that you sometimes see.
The packaging format should be as creative and unrestricted as the crazy beers that are inside them.
Here is another patented BSP, read THIS, then come back here post.
Thanks for tapping the back button.
Here is the thing about sped up beverage technology, same goes with AI in all applications, the depth of texture will be lost. Sure you might get close to a generic adjunct big business lager but how do you re-create a pastry stout or Phantasm and its tropical thiols or the slight bit of extra something from a double decoction? Answer, you don’t.
Bourbon has had techies try to create fast barrel aged and most, if not all, get reviews that range from it tasted weird to it tasted bad. Because you just can’t replicate time.
Two more additional points: I very much enjoyed how they glossed over the water part. Your test tube beer will taste different depending on the soft water of one city compared to the ultra hard water where I am at in Glendale. And point three, how much does this cost? Even $24 4-packs will be cheap in comparison.
So, I am not worried.
Two weeks ago, the news started to leak that the owner of Anchor Brewing, Sapporo was re-trenching the distribution of the beer back to California.
An understandable move and one that might have blipped into a news feed and then been pushed aside by a politician saying something stupid or the latest Tik Tok craze.
But that was not all that was announced. There will be no Christmas Ale in 2023. After 48 years, there will not be a beautifully drawn tree on a label during the holidays.
Did I expect that there would always be an Anchor Christmas Ale, yes. Was that realistic? No. But you think that Sapporo would have given the beer an epic send-off. Or brewed it for two more years to reach the 50 year mark. Are there no marketers left?
Economics is not just demand, it is supply and demand. You could bring back Christmas Ale and say it is the last year for it and you will probably sell it all and probably sell it at a higher mark-up. I will not believe that Sapporo doesn’t have enough loose change in the couch cushions to do a final bottling run. Even a small one for magnums only.
If I was a smaller brewer, I would start working on a replacement Christmas beer. I can imagine some pointed names for the beer would practically write themselves.
Last month Appalachian Mountain Brewing bought their company back from the SABInBev Craft Brew Alliance and I my first wonder was if more would follow that lead.
It is one possible benefit of the slowness of the craft beer industry is that breweries who had sold out to the big beer barons, might see that their treatment at the hands of their overlords wasn’t great and the price is now right to get their company back into their hands.
My second wonder was that maybe the people that sold already moved on? But then Funky Buddha and Four Corners were reverted back to their OG owners from Constellation who bet ever so wrong on craft beer.
I think more will follow.
Now Apple is not one of my current streamers so I can’t vouch for the show but hey, in the trailer for Platonic, we learn that Seth Rogen’s character is a brewer! Maybe that is referenced just the once and the only actual scenes are behind a bar pouring a beer but a rare brewer in a movie is a progress.
At the start of this month, the Craft Brewers Conference was held in Nashville, Tennessee. There was a bit of dismay at both the choice considering the hostility towards, well anyone not a white male, in that state as well as disappointment at the Brewers Association for not either moving it (may not have been feasible) or at least using their voice to condemn recent laws.
Let me preface the next bit by saying that I am an over 50 white guy who is trying to be more aware each day and who tries to keep rose colored glasses and blinders away from my face to see the world as it is.
There are some steps to be made that I think will help.
It is easy to sweep things under the rug. It is easy to just say craft beer is broken. The truth is in the middle. There are great people in craft beer and there are shitty people in it. No one in this country is doing well by women, minorities or anyone not a rich white male. To expect that craft beer will be an exception is naive. But, we can all push the ball forward. Might only be a yard and a cloud of dust but we can all enjoy our beer and make good change.
With another Trappist brewery closing, this time Stift Engelszell in Austria, it may be that craft beer fans will see both the high and low water marks of the protected trademark associated with brewing in a monastery.
At Stift Engelszell, the last four monks made the move to another monastery. It is probably both a victim of changing tastes in not only beer but also in religion. Second sons are not forced into a career path in theology as in the ye’ olde days and even the term primogeniture isn’t used outside of the odd coronation, here or there. It is actually surprising that monasticism has lasted as long as it has.
Hopefully the Trappist organization can find a way to save these recipes and maybe revive the brands under a less stringent set of productions.