Category: Opinion

my humble and correct opinion

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2021

As much as it pains me to write these words, I do not see myself attending a beer event until at least March of next year. It also pains me to think that 2020 might not be the only year called a dumpster fire either.

The reason I say this is because, as I work the timeline backwards from February would require a workable vaccine to be found about, oh, now. Why? Because to ramp up vaccine production and get it distributed and then get the remaining Americans to get the shot is going to take time, three months or so is my eyeball reckoning. If we can get the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers to participate.

Then breweries who have not already pushed their events will need to quick time hustle to safely hold a festival and have all the special beer glass made, tickets sold, beers brewed with a diminished post office and airline and hotel industry. Oh and no one wanting to Lyft in or out.

And if all the timing breaks right, you now have to convince fans to come out to what will be a smaller festival because there will be some breweries who will be reluctant to attend.

I don’t see it.

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A Red Engine

You nevertheless know what bit of info you can glean from a beer label, I learned about a new brewery coming to Santa Clarita from one….

…Red Engine Brewing Company is slated to open in 2021. Here is the website copy, “Red Engine Brewing Company will be the newest brewery and taproom in Santa Clarita, California – a bedroom suburban community located in north Los Angeles County. We are currently conducting research to identify the best location, likely to be near a newly-developing area of Santa Clarita. We plan to open in the summer or fall of 2021.”

I think it is best to look long and hard when it comes to location and put 2020 way, way in the rear view mirror. Watch this space or their social media for further info.

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How Many?

At one point in my beer blogging career, the following might have impressed me…

…but now. Those beers probably should have been drunk by now. They are live things and should not be embalmed. A better idea would be to drink the beer, save the bottle and tuck the recipe inside.

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The Firkin for September 2020

These are unprecedented times that make us wish for the previous, simpler “precedented” times.  Gone is the gathering at a taproom as more craft beer is being delivered in California now than at any other time that I can remember. With that surge comes the need for serious website skills to make the process of safely delivering beer from brewery to residence as seamless as possible.

I have ordered online from multiple sources in during this Stay at Home time.  Both from brewery and bottle shop.  Those experiences have led me to come up with my Pandemic Online Craft Beer Ordering requirements:

  1. Update, update, update – Data entry is a slog.  Automating inventory and tying it to your online beer shelf helps but breweries are not stopping adding SKU’s which means your site needs constant updating. Having to send a We’re Sorry, out of stock e-mail could impact future sales. A fancy site with label photos and long beer descriptions looks great but a simple and constantly updated site is better. 
  1. Make it Easy – Your website should be easy to navigate and even easier to add items into a shopping cart. If your customer has to run a gauntlet of sign-in’s and passwords and gets passed from your website to a third party, it will cause some potential buyers to stop.  That being said, your site doesn’t need to be Amazon One Click easy but it should have all focus on ensuring that items get placed in the cart.
  1. Newsletter Sign-Up – Let me now contradict myself. Either of the opt in or opt out variety is crucial. You can use the newsletter in many different ways.  To track what content generates more sales. You can use it to promote early bird buys because Craft beer fans love exclusivity or you can use it to promote any specials you have. 
  1. Clear Rules – If you sell by the case or by dollar amount.  If you deliver only on Friday and Saturday.  If you have purchasing limits.  Lay those out clearly and succinctly and most importantly, early in the process. You can always have a link to an FAQ for more details but a summary is needed too.
  1. The Customer is not always right – There are far too many anti-maskers out there which is why we are in the online ordering world that we are.  But that is not the only outrageous customer demand. They are legion.  For the business, that means that you stick to your rules. Keep the playing field level.  If customers find out rules can be skirted more will ask for that special treatment. 

Don’t think for a minute that I don’ have suggestions for the consumer during the online ordering process.  I certainly do.

  1. Tip and tip hard – Breweries are hurting.  Sales are not what they were obviously and one way to bridge that shortfall is through tips. 
  1. Give constructive criticism – First, thank them for the beer, then if you see a possible improvement, let them know. It may be something that they had not thought of.  Once given, don’t expect your pearl of wisdom to be put into action.  
  1. Practice patience – The entire beer buying experience is totally different now. Expect delays because breweries are not a delivery business. Keep your expectations in line. 

This set of suggestions are not written to lay blame or wag a disapproving finger but rather to improve the whole beer buying process for both sides because this may become how we buy beer not just now but going forward. 

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Virtual Hop – Week 4

More hop news from Yakima Chief via the interwebs and the virtual hop season… plus some extra tidbits from perusing what competitor Hopsteiner has going…

  • Hop blends were initially created to mimic single hops that had low supply but now tend towards charity or group blends such as Pink Boots or Falconers Flight
  • The next blend evolution may be in Cryo
  • The employees who seam up bales are really good at what must be a loud and repetitive job with high throughput pressure
  • Sad comment on fires, one of the Carpenter clan made the rueful joke, “had to light up a cigarette to get a breath of fresh air”
  • Will hop extracts be celebrated like fresh hop and whole leaf. Just doesn’t seem to have the It Factor.
  • Hop scientific research seems to be a growing field
  • Weird fact, there have been studies that show music has an impact on flavor perception
  • I really want to visit this magical Sports Center bar I never Yakima
  • Hop selection may seem fun but having two or three days where you smell nothing but hops is tiring
  • Why are there no fresh hop Festbiers or Kolsches?
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N/A Haze

The next round in the Non-Alcoholic beer game has begun with Boston Beer Co. adding a Hazy IPA to their roster but with no-low alcohol. The question remains, will this boost the category? Either because of limited distribution or bad taste, the niche hasn’t burst hard like seltzer’s. Personally the lows of N/A are bad while seltzer seems uniformly m’eh. Maybe tackling the style most popular will help. Just in case, they should do a non-alcohol pastry stout too.

I would recommend not getting a full sidereal until you have tried one.

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Virtual Hop – Week 2

More hop news from Yakima Chief via the interwebs and the virtual hop season… plus some extra tidbits from perusing what competitor Hopsteiner has going…

  • Be on the lookout for HBC 630 with a cherry candy aroma and HBC 638 with a lime focus amidst other citrus
  • survivalable compounds is something we are going to hear more about. It will make timing and choice of hops more exacting
  • Yakima Chief Ranches grows blueberries too and Gascony bison!
  • Hopsteiner has a way cool video about their picking operation. No bringing in full bines. They strip the hops off right in the field
  • the amount of smelling that goes on to collect data is amazing. 100s of hops are give s sensory analysis
  • a hop might go to market because it has a different picking window than the other hops in the field
  • there was a really cool hour long video about Russian breweries. Makes me want to go to St. Petersburg.
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Aftermath – Labor Day

Breweries in Los Angeles have been put through the ringer by the County of Los Angeles. On this Labor Day, I want to share the more dystopian look at what the landscape of beer will be here.

Breweries will close. Sad and entirely preventable but clearly ahead of us at this point barring some fast action. This will mean that suppliers won’t get paid, loans won’t get paid, rent won’t get paid and the effects will ripple outward.

That storefront will now be empty, boarded up in an economy where new breweries are not going to rush in. Yes, new breweries have opened during the pandemic but all were in planning well before it struck California. Who is going to have the money to enter the brewery business and who will want to after this governmental cock-up.

That empty building means empty tax revenues from company and employees alike. It means a drain on City, County and State financial resources for unemployment and safety net programs. It means whatever momentum was built to create economic opportunities will stall out because people will leave for jobs elsewhere, anywhere.

If the scuttlebutt is true, half of the 90+ breweries are at risk of closing. That means 45 empty breweries who instead of being a net positive to the economy will be a negative drain. That is on top of closed restaurants and shuttered bars and numerous other industries that will be memories only.

Think of it this way. The Los Angeles Lakers are forced out of business. Sure LeBron and Anthony Davis will find new jobs. But some of those players won’t and neither will a host of people who work for the team. Would the City of LA let that happen? Doubtful is the answer. But they seem more than willing to let that happen to 45 other teams in the city. That is a lot of lost Labor and lost beer.

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Altus

Hopsteiner has introduced a newly named hop to the world, “Altus™ is dank with spicy tangerine and herbal, grassy notes.  Booming with high alpha and oil content, Altus™ is the perfect dual-purpose flavor-forward bittering hop and has changed the way we typically look at high alpha varieties. From a Mexican Lager all the way up the pike to a triple IPA, Altus™ can repurpose itself in many recipes for those who dare to explore the creative potentials behind this variety.”

Altus™ is derived “from an Apollo and Wye Target cross.”

Notice that the graphic includes a pepper along with the fruit.  That is where my interest is piqued. Will it add the effects of heat?  Or will it spin as something lighter?  Spicy tangerine are not a pairing I have seen before. 

And if any other names are unveiled, I hope they aren’t forced to use the same five letters as Talus and Altus.

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For All

It can be easy to fill with rage or despair when it comes to the blatant racism out in the world. But I would say it is better to channel that emotion into education. And the beer world is lucky to have the Learning Center website to turn to.

There are paid courses, a reading room and a blog to gather information from. Once you are an ally, you can get your friends to be allies and then the momentum can start rolling into policy and law and then we can move to the glorious point in time where there is no inequity in taprooms or anywhere.