Tag: cancelled

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Corporations are Bad People Day – Grinch

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.

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#FWIBF Not Forgotten

Last Friday I just could not shake the feeling that something was off. It wasn’t anything to do with the my little cocoon or the batshit crazy and sad week this country went through.

It was the first time that I really felt the absence of the beer community.

I don’t normally gain energy from being around people. Harsh truth be told, I could live without 45% of this country who think (refuse to have thoughts) in a certain way. And yet, the crowds of people who make the trip to Paso Robles are both fun and fascinating.

The two or three days that I spend at Firestone Walker HQ is like floating on air. I take the tour most years to see how things have changed (always drastically), I find beer to bring back home from their shop, I visit a distillery or winery, enjoy BBQ the night before the fest, get some Negranti Ice Cream and Twisted and Glazed Donuts. My internal battery is charged.

The festival itself, as I have written in the past, is perversely hard to write about. It is so smoothly operated that the only lead some years is how hot it is. You basically just have to write about the beer that you personally drank because there is so much that it is hard to wrap your word arms around it.

I would write up excited posts before driving up the 5 and exhausted post some after driving back down the 101. I don’t know if 2021 will be changed or disrupted by the events of this year but next year, I will return. I need to.

That boost was really missed this year.