Category: Opinion

my humble and correct opinion

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The Firkin for April 2019

I really, really hope that someone is writing a book about the rise and selling out of Golden Road Brewing because this month saw a screeching left turn in the narrative.  Salacious details aside of what may or may not have happened involving, a-hem, mergers and acquisitions, the one detail that struck me was how ABInBev allegedly had (6) attorneys helping one of their high-up employees in a matter that is clearly personal, divorce.

When people ask why I am dismissive of this corporate giant, I can now point to this as a glaring example of the shady shit that they seem to always do.  Is it illegal?  I don’t know and probably not.  But does it show that they are out to protect their own and their own money?  That would be a yes. 

Let me say, straight away, that small, independent breweries are not inoculated against shitty people and poor behavior.  But what I do know is that with great money power comes great responsibility.  The owner of a small brewery in Los Angeles just won’t have the money and time to pair with vengeance to send a battalion of attorneys out to secure the best deal in a divorce for one of their employees.  But ABInBev can and apparently will.  (probably not if you are a drone in sector 7G though) Heaven forbid that they stay out of the divorce, put someone new in charge of the Golden Road purchase and perhaps re-evaluate their plans.

That would probably not get through all the layers and divisions that make up this corporation the same way that brewing a good beer hasn’t made it through either.

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Money, money

Money.  You need it to grow and to pay off how big you have grown.  Two California beer brands have taken different paths in many different ways and have done so again when it comes to raising cash in 2019.

Cerveceria Calidad who I have interviewed in the past have one beer, they contract brew and they are in the starting phase of getting their beer out into distribution.  They have gone the investor route.  Bringing in 20+ new people from former Dodgers to restaurant founders to an internet underwear CEO to bring in money to increase production and fund more sales and marketing.

On the other side is San Diego’s (Anaheim, Portland and LA’s) Modern Times which has turned to crowdfunding to raise more than $1 million.  Expansion to multiple locations probably being one reason for looking to the internet and fans for funding.  The money received would be earmarked for operations, “minor efficiency projects” and equipment purchases.

I am on record as saying that crowdfunding has lust the luster.  It was fun in the beginning to get a shirt or pint glass for a small donation but then I heard that some of the funding was done as a form of advertising (as well as operational money).  And as a growing niche, craft beer needed to get moving by all sorts of financial means.  But craft beer is grown up now, it is not easy but raising the cash for your brewery can be done via the traditional route of banks, or financial partners (silent or loud). 

Finding an equity partner for a secondary, tertiary round of funding may not have the ESOP cache for Modern Times but it would have brought much less scrutiny from the internet for sure.

Calidad has always been a puzzle to me.  It seems to be a piece of a beverage company profile but it seems built for the Fyre / Coachella influencer set as opposed to beer geeks.  Personally, I think the beer is good enough to be set in front of beer geeks but now more marketing seems to be where the money is going even though for a well branded beer, a tap room or bar would seem the play to make.  Putting them next to the Alfred coffee shops might be one idea.

How this money gathering plays out is part of the fascinating economic portrait being drawn.

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For the Price of 1

It seems like once a year, I advocate for a shared taproom.  Kind of like a food hall but with beer.  Now comes news from Chicago about a 3-Way agreement that is new to their city.

One brewery, with two co-tenants.  They each get 10 taps and can stay as big or as small as they need to, to make their economics work.  I can think of a newly free space in DTLA that would be perfect for a situation like this (minus the self-pour, still not sold on that). 

Call it an incubator or co-working space or contract but the point being that this can (if the breweries involved communicate well) be a great way to lower the entry cost and maximize the marketing.  In big cities where rent is high it can really work.  And if the barrier to leave is at a reasonable spot, it allows for new blood to be added on a rotating basis.

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It’s No Good

It is a bold marketing plan to say that your product is bad…..

…even if it is, you have to explain why you let your product go to crap and then re-gain the trust of people who have your beer in the ‘fridge already. That is a tough ad line to follow and probably really affects people delivering the beer who have to drop off “not” good beer to customers who are a bit upset.

Add in an environmental push and this becomes a whole re-booted Carlsberg.

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The next GoT

When Ommegang teamed with HBO and Game of Thrones for Westerosi ales, I thought of it as a cool novelty and I was excited about the first few releases and even went to a few GoT themed beer events.

But instead of one beer per TV season, the line grew and I could not really keep up and you may have noticed that I haven’t even posted about what appears to be the final beer in a fancy large format bottle.

For the Throne is a beer/wine hybrid with Champagne yeast that sounds like a fun, experimental beer. One that I will probably pick up when I binge the final six episodes later this year.

Ommegang has handled this tie-in admirably from a beer standpoint and it got me to thinking, what is the next franchise (Movie or TV) that will have such a long and fruitful relationship. Avengers as a franchise is still going but is geared more to teenage boys and comic book geeks. The Rising Skywalkers is one movie from completion with hesitant spin-offs. Hellboy might make a leap but that is even more of a niche than GoT.

It would need to be a newly established show, something with hints to wine and beer drinking but nothing firmly canon. It would need to be something R rated otherwise any drink that are product placed will be of the pandering to the teenage boy crowd and you end up with weird approximations of ButterBeer. I would take the not long leap that it would need to be something in the fantasy / SciFi realm as well to allow for creativity, though a long shot might be a comedy where the main characters have a favorite beer.

I do think that we will not see the like of the Ommegang Throne beers anytime soon though.

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Needed or Not? – Hardened Coffee

After my experiences with “hard” sodas, I have pretty much sworn off the whole Hard –Insert Beverage Here—trend.  I am sure that “hard” grape juice is just around the corner.  But no, next up is “hard” cold brew?

I give Angel City the benefit of the doubt and I am glad they didn’t just add a Sam Adams spiked seltzer to their line-up and instead went a new route.  That being said, if I have the choice a beer made with coffee or heading to a roaster and getting cold brew, well, those are the two choices that I am going to make.  Having an alcoholic coffee that isn’t a cocktail doesn’t even register on my list.

Verdict – NOT needed.

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New Model – Comments

The above is from G’Morning / G’Night from Lin Manuel Miranda who is among the many who bring joy to Twitter. The above sentiment seems appropriate to any beer Reddit’er, Facebooker, Instagrammar and Twitter-er.

I think we all need to turn off the comments either with a toggle of a social media setting or in our minds. It is way too easy get bogged down in the comments and comments of comments and not experience beer. If a comment is more important to you than looking at the shelves of a good, local beer shoppe, then maybe you should be an influencer of comments and not beer.

Here’s the new model: do not write a disparaging comment or a sarcastic one for a week each month. Then during the second week, add new people to your feed with different worldviews. Someone from Ireland maybe or someone whom you would disagree with and read their posts without commenting. Just try to understand.

Maybe this could be a step towards making social media a touch more friendly.

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Let’s Do the 2018 Numbers

Let’s break this into (2) parts….

The two numbers that most people are going to obsess over are the big 4% and the 7% (Slightly more hidden) but since Bart Watson and the Brewers Association put a number at the top of the graphic, I wanted to focus on the .1 2016 to 2017 was .5% share of the market and 2017 to 2018 was .6% If you are looking for a silver lining then that is the big one. In a down market for beer overall, craft is still picking up share of mind.

The number that I find most important are the opens vs closes in this section of the graphic. We need to follow this number and see when column A dips below 1K and when Column B goes up and over the 500 mark. I won’t guess at what is the perfect number of breweries for the US but if pressed, I would say around 7K seems good with some churn still going on.

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Seek the Seal, Simply

Don’t know if I missed this or it is new but the above handy Google-esque tool can be just the thing to send to your friends that don’t know who owns who. Just start typing the name and you will have an answer in seconds. Check out this tool HERE.