Beeronomics

Irish Cap Technology: Better than a Twist-Off

2012-02-13T10:06:00.000-08:00

Which I can say with authority as I am the hand model in this video posted at Beervana. We had only one so I had no practice, but I can say it was remarkably easy and required only a light touch. Plus the seal lasted just fine on the long trim from Ireland.

Irish Bottlecap from Jeff Alworth on Vimeo.

This is fitting as we learned last week that Irish brewers gave us modern statistics, we now learn that this bottle cap technology is continuing the tradition of Irish brewers making the world a better place through science and technology. I guess beer makes you smart.

I call it Irish, but does anyone know the true provenance of said technology (the pull-tab cap)?

Washington Beating Oregon on Cask

2012-02-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

I don't usually concede anything to Washington craft-beer-wise, but this beats anything in Oregon, hands down: the Washington Cask Beer Festival (facebook page here). Over 90 cask conditioned beers. 90! C'mon Oregon, we can do better. The best thing we have going is the Firkin Fest at the Green Dragon, which is good, but could be a lot better.

Good News for a Friday Afternoon: Beer is Healthy

2012-02-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

Well, sort of. There are certain healthy components of beer, but I am not about to introduce the beer equivalent of the Atkins diet. Actually, maybe I should: the Emerson diet - beer and lots of it! I can hear the cash register now....

Anyway another summary of the health benefits of beer, courtesy of Fox News so you know it is fair and balanced (just like the Emerson diet):

Dark beers tend to have the most antioxidants, which help reverse cellular damage that occurs naturally in the body. A recent study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture has also found that dark beer has higher iron content compared to lighter beers. Remember, iron is an essential mineral that our bodies need. Iron is a part of all cells and does many jobs including carrying oxygen from our lungs throughout the rest of our bodies.

Another good choice is microbrews, which are healthier than mass-produced cans, because they have more hops. Hops contain polyphenols, which help lower cholesterol, fight cancer and kill viruses.

Happy Friday night!

Beerometrics: Econometrics and the Science of Beer

2012-02-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: I got my Ziliak's confused. Corrected below. My Apologies to the right one.

We all know beer saved the world, but now we know that it also contributed significantly to modern econometrics (HT: Freakonomics).

Stephen Ziliak from Roosevelt University [not James Ziliak (onetime professor of economics at the University of Oregon)] has a great paper out about the contributions of William Sealy Gosset, a brewer at Guiness, who write under the pseudonym of Student and made major contributions to statistics.

Here is an extended and fascinating quote (footnotes omitted):

A general solution to the problem of random error in small sample analysis was given in 1908, by Student. “Student” is the pen name of William Sealy Gosset (1876–1937), an Oxford-trained chemist and experimental scientist who worked his entire adult life as a brewer and business man for the Guinness Brewery, Dublin (1899 to 1937) and Park Royal (1935 to 1937). Student was experimenting on three of the chief inputs to Guinness stout – barley, malt, and hops – when he made the discovery leading to what scientists now call Student’s t-distribution, table, and test of significance.

But Student’s contribution to experimental science and the theory of errors extends far beyond Student’s t – however permanent and fundamental t is. Between 1904 and 1937, Student innovated – more than two decades before R.A. Fisher – a useful collection of experimental concepts, methods, and attitudes, which were used for doing routine work at cooperating farms and at the Guinness brewery.

As Head Experimental Brewer, a position he held from 1907 to 1935, Student’s main charge was to experimentally brew, and to gradually improve, a consistent barrel of Guinness stout, input by input, from barley breeding to malt extract, at efficient economies of scale. Pounding out more than 100 million gallons of stout in annual sales, the problem Student faced at Guinness was economically motivated and non-trivially large. While endeavoring to control product and reduce costs at the large brewery Student was consistently faced with a small number of observations on new barley to try, at n = 2, 4, or – if he was lucky – 7. In the process, he – though self-trained in statistics – managed to solve a general problem in the classical theory of errors which had eluded statisticians from Laplace to Pearson.

Less well-known is Student’s contribution to experimental design, systematically ignored by Fisher. Student found a method for maximizing the power to detect big economic differences (low Type II error) when the quantitative difference is really there to be detected. Student opposed Fisher’s randomized field experiments on grounds that, as Student proved as early as 1911, decisively so in 1923, and again in 1938, balanced designs are more precise, powerful, and efficient compared to random.

Brewers and economists alike have not noticed as much as they might that Student’s exacting theory of errors, both random and real, marked a significant advance over ambiguous reports of plant life and fermentation asserted by Priestley and Lavoisier down to Pasteur, Fisher, and Johannsen, working at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Denmark.

The experimental concepts which Student used at the brewery to revolutionize science and brewing are outlined here, basically in order of their development by Student in his job as apprentice brewer (1899–1906), Head Experimental Brewer (1907–1935), and finally Head Brewer of Guinness (1935–1937): (1) net pecuniary advantage and the purpose of the experiment; (2) profitable odds versus a fixed rule for the level of statistical significance; (3) small samples of repeated and independent experiments; (4) random error versus “real” error; and (5) the power and efficiency of “balanced” over “randomized” field experiments in economics. The balance of this article illustrates these concepts with experiments designed and/ or evaluated by Student at Guinness’s brewery.

Here is another blog post on the same paper from Wonkblog.

World Beer Market Expands 2.7%

2012-02-09T09:58:00.000-08:00

Reuters is reporting that world beer volume grew by 2.7 percent in 2011. Top four global brewers remain (in order) AB InBev, SABMiller, Heineken and Carlsberg and together they make up one half of the global market.

Sex and Beer

2012-02-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

The text reads: "Stunningly seductive! A voluptuous variety of hops with a fruity, fresh finish."

Sex has been used to sell beer probably since beer was first brewed by the ancient Sumerians. But I tend to associate this practice with the big macro-brewers and their relentlessly suggestive ads for light beer (it is either humor or sex). So it is interesting to see the little kerfuffle about sex and beer from Britain centers around British craft beer.

The issue there is not about using sex to sell beer in general, but whether it is appropriate to display and serve such a beer at a workplace watering hole. In this case it is in a pub in the British Parliament’s Strangers’ Bar - some female MPs objected to its objectionable pump handle which objectifies women. Most craft beer in the US plays it pretty PC, but there are exceptions: Upright's Four Play ignited a little bit of controversy last year for example.

My econo/libertarian bent makes me pretty unmoved by it all. Yes, I think a workplace pub has a right to select products that are unobjectionable to the people that it serves and there is nothing wrong with asking that Top Totty be removed if it offends. But, in general, I say brewers should do what they want and the market will decide. I, for one, am turned off by such appeals to my base nature and am much less likely to buy a beer that uses sex to sell. But not only because I am and enlightened, sensitive, 21st century man: as an economist I take such advertising as a signal that the beer is not good enough to sell without resorting to such base instincts.

Oregon Beer Notes: Widmer O'Ryely IPA, Ninkasi Problems?, Winter Beers

2012-01-31T13:29:00.000-08:00

Some beer notes from Oregon:

One: Widmer. Since I have talked about and polled about the others it behooves me to mention the latest Rotator IPA from Widmer (well, okay not exactly the latest, Spiced IPA is now out, but most store shelves are stocked with O'Ryely). I did not expect to like O'Ryely as my palate and rye do not often get along. I am an outlier - beer geeks rave about Oakshire's Line Dry Rye for example but I find it unpleasantly soapy on my tongue. However the rye in this IPA is very subtle and I quite liked the hint of spice it gave the beer which was a very nice compliment to the Nelson Sauvin hops. Nelson Sauvin divide people, at Thornbridge in England they brew a single hopped Nelson Sauvin beer, Kipling, that is now one of my all time favorites (if you ever have a chance to try it fresh on cask...do so), but the head brewer there dislikes the hops. Interestingly, as used in O'Ryely, they strike me as more Citra like than NS. In fact, if I hadn't known, that's what I would have guessed, it tases very citrusy. I associate NS with more tropical flavor like passion fruit. I would love to try this one along side the X-114 as they both give off that great citrus note and I can't really compare from memory (I am far too old). But whatever the end result, this beer rocks! It seems a perfect IPA for the season, slightly darker and spicier than X-114 but with that characteristic NW juicy hop note that I adore.

As an aside, I bought some Nelson Sauvin hops from Steinbarts the other day and look forward to trying to brew a beer similar to Thornbridge's Kipling. Belmont Station offers a number of Thornbridge beers but as of yet, not Kipling. I hope that changes soon.

Two: Ninkasi. I have had a few bottles lately of quite possibly my favorite beer of all, Ninkasi's Total Domination, that have been bad. In fact I bought a sixer of TD and the first three bottles were fine, but after a couple of weeks in the fridge the last three were almost undrinkable. Fearful that I was imagining it all I had two other people try and confirm the bracingly bitter astringent note. Ah well, my bad for waiting to long to drink it I thought. But then I bought a fresh bomber a couple of weeks later with precisely the same problem. I suspect oxidization and maybe there is a problem with the new(-ish) bottling line but it wasn't an obvious oxidization flavor. No one else I have talked to has experienced this but then I don't talk to people that often. So I wonder if this was just a one-off if if there has been a systematic problem. I can't tell you how excited I get by TD and how disappointing it is to get a bad bottle. I don't care about the money, I just hope there isn't a problem at the mother ship. So, has anyone else had a bad bottle of TD lately or am I just unlucky?

Three: Winter Beers. I had an exchange with Bill from It's Pub Night and the Full Sail folks on Twitter about my struggle to find Wreck the Halls in the store. I still claim it was hard to find, but they also reminded me that it came out in September. I also has a sixer of Jubelale that was unpleasantly alcoholic and raw in the first bottle so I put the rest away in the cellar and pulled them out about six weeks later where they had substantially improved: softened and rounded out. So there are two problems, winter beers should not come out in September and it is being put out too early. I know it is expensive to store, but breweries should care about the product that is consumed and let it sit for a while if it need more conditioning. Also, beers like Wreck the Halls, which are balanced and ready to go from the start should come out in November not September. I have spoken.

As an aside I had some Wreck the Halls on cask at the Pilsner Room which was great, but they also had ESB on tap. Now, c'mon, if you are going to serve only one on cask, it really should be the ESB!

Sierra Nevada: Economies of Scale vs. Transportation Costs

2012-01-26T09:06:00.000-08:00

The announcement yesterday that Sierra Nevada has chosen a site outside Asheville, NC to build a new brewery came as no surprise - they have been looking for a long time for the right place to expand. Other western breweries are also reportedly looking to follow suit, most notably New Belgium, and it has also long been rumored that Deschutes have their sights set on an east-coast brewery as well.

Which of course all begs the question, will these breweries loose some of their sense of craftiness - Sierra Nevada that is not brewed in Chico?!? I hope not, but in a country which has been defined beer-wise by Budweiser and their many regional breweries, I have some trepidation. I hope the punters will still respect Sierra Nevada in the morning. It will help to provide the east coast brewery with a lot of autonomy: letting their brewers do lots of specialties and one-offs that define the east coast brewery as distinct from the mother ship.

But that's not what interests me most as an economist, what interests me most is the economies of scale vs. the transportation costs. As breweries expand there is always a tension between growing big an one site and capturing the considerable economies of scale and getting close to customers thereby reducing transportation costs. In international economics this is known as the proximity-concentration trade off and some interesting empirical work has been done to understand where the tipping points are. It is interesting, then, to see where that tension resolves itself in craft beer. Sierra Nevada is up to an annual production of around 800,000 barrels, New Belgium is up to about 600,000 barrels annually, but Deschutes is still less than 250,000.

Anecdotally it would appear to make sense for breweries to grow pretty darn big on one site before opening a second. Of course, a big factor is how much you currently sell and expect to sell in the future to east coast customers. Also factoring into the equation is the desire to reduce the carbon footprint of the business. Beer is heavy and bulky and it take a lot of energy to get it from Chico California to New York. But this gives us some idea of where the tipping point is 600,000 to 800,000 barrels a year. [As a side note, the Tremblay's in my department have estimates that the economies of scale in brewing accumulate until about 2.5 million barrels a year]

Congratulations to Sierra Nevada! One of my first entries into craft brewing was Sierra Nevada Pale (as it was for so many others) and it remains perhaps the ur-classic American craft beer. Founder Ken Grossman is also known as one of the truly good guys in a business with a lot of them and has opened a lot of doors for future craft brewers. Cheers.

Your Chance to Kickstart More Beer in Portland!

2012-01-25T10:06:00.000-08:00

The Oregonian has the story of a new brewpub, "Stickmen Brewery & Skewery" hoping to open in Lake Oswego in the former Oswego Lake House: a great building and location right on the lake. This is cool: I am always excited to see a new brewery open in Oregon, especially one in prime spots to relax and enjoy the Oregon summers. And Portland's west side is a wasteland for breweries so creating some balance is good for Beervana's feng shui.

But as an economist I am especially intrigued by the fact that they are raising capital through crowd-source funding. They have a Kickstarter page where they are hoping to raise $30,000. This begs an immediate question: why? Fort the owners, $30,000 is small potatoes for a brewpub whose price tags usually run about $500,000 with a brewhouse and all. For the donors, all you get for your contribution is some schwag. So, is this just a gimmick? Can a Kickstarter campaign mostly be about publicity? Perhaps. But what is most plausible in my opinion is that Kickstarter is in some ways free money. People contribute but do not invest. You get nothing but a sticker or t-shirt and the warm glow of feeling like you helped make the project happen. They say the money will go toward the purchase of brite tanks and fermenters. Whatever floats you boat, I say.

I, for one, am happy to support the endeavor with my custom if the beer and food are good, but if it is a good business plan, I'll let the banking system handle the financing. Still, I wish them luck and hope they get their $30,000 because there are probably plenty of people who, for $5 or $10 would feel good about helping buy a brite tank... I suppose.

Given the location in Lake Oswego, I predict a lack of the hipster in-crowd that populates many of Portland's brew pubs but it could become a gathering place for Lake O folks, which is always a nice aspect of pubs in general. If only the LO streetcar hadn't been shelved they might have even drawn a hipster or three.

Bad News For New York Area Imported Beer Consumers

2012-01-24T13:45:00.000-08:00

Photo Credit: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

Customs officials intend to shut down their inspection station at the Red Hook terminal; the closing would force companies to unload thousands of containers a year and deliver the cargo by truck to another terminal equipped with a customs inspection station, either in New Jersey or on Staten Island.

...the Red Hook Container Terminal also accepts 15 percent of all beer heading into the region, which means prices could rise about 75 cents on every 12-pack.

“Basically you’re just taking beer on a ride to Staten Island, and right back from where it came from,” said Greg Brayman, vice president of Phoenix Beverages, which receives 90 40-foot containers of beer like Heineken and Red Stripe each week at Red Hook. “It’s a huge deal.”

Bah, what do you want with Heineken and Red Stripe? There are plenty of quality domestics that don't have to go through customs!

Brazil, Beer and Futbol

2012-01-20T15:07:00.000-08:00

Three of my big passions: Brazil, Beer and Soccer, all come together in one new story:

Beer must be sold at all venues hosting matches in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, football's world governing body, Fifa, has insisted.

Fifa General Secretary Jerome Valcke said the right to sell beer must be enshrined in a World Cup law the Brazilian Congress is considering.

Alcoholic drinks are currently banned at Brazilian stadiums and the country's health minister has urged Congress to maintain the ban in the new law.

Brewer Budweiser is a big Fifa sponsor.

Mr Valcke is visiting Brazil to press for progress on the much-delayed World Cup law.

'Won't negotiate'
Fifa has become frustrated because voting on the legislation has been held up in Congress by the dispute over alcohol sales.

The Brazilian government has also failed to resolve differences with Fifa over cut-price tickets for students and senior citizens, and demands for sponsors of the World Cup to have their trademarks protected.

In remarks to journalists in Rio de Janeiro, Mr Valcke sounded frustrated with Brazilian officials.

"Alcoholic drinks are part of the Fifa World Cup, so we're going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that's something we won't negotiate," he said.

"The fact that we have the right to sell beer has to be a part of the law."

Alcohol was banned at Brazilian football matches in 2003 as part of attempts to tackle violence between rival football fans.

Greene King and A Brief History of British Beer: Part 7

2012-01-20T09:01:00.000-08:00

In the far distance is Greene King's new bottling plant - and yes, that massive pipe bridge carries beer all the way from the brewery to the bottling plant making a stop along the way at the kegging plant.

Which leads us, finally, back to Bury St Edmonds and Greene King. One thing that becomes evident when you are on the roof of the tower brewery is just how vast the Greene King estate really is. Tunnels under roads carry pipes that connect the brewery to the kegging and bottling lines. A new modern building, built on piles to withstand the annual floods that occur in the river on which it sits, houses an ultra modern bottling operation. Greene King trucks Belhaven beer down from Scotland (the rumor that Greene King brews Belhaven in Bury is false: Belhaven is all Scottish born and bred) to be bottled in Bury and then those bottles are trucked far and wide. But though it is vast and impressive, they still brew less beer than Sierra Nevada.

5X in the oak Vat #1. Greene King has some room for another on but they haven't decided if they are going to add another.

And though they still get criticized for being commercial, big and lacking in character, not many breweries have the gumption to brew a special beer, 5X, that sits in giant oak vats for two whole years taking up space and burning profit margins. But Greene King does and is considering doing even more.

To stand on the roof and look out over the impressive Green King empire (from the roof you can even see a Greene King pub close by) one can’t help but feel gratified that the future of real British cask ale is bright. As a style that Americans have not adopted with any gusto, this part of world brewing heritage lives on in Bury, Chiswick, Southwold, Burton, Tadcaster and other British heritage brewing sites.

Greene King Head Brewer John Bexon in front of one of the old coppers.

Descending through the tower brewery (and notice how far the malt is carried by a pipe from the storage building in the distance and up four stories to the milling room) and see equipment starting with old de-stoners and mills and down to the new boiling kettles one has the sense that you are seeing both the past and future of British brewing.

Greene King and A Brief History of British Beer: Part 6

2012-01-19T12:11:00.000-08:00

Thornbridge in the Peaks District

But there is another parallel trend in British craft brewing - one that takes it cues from the American craft beer renaissance. The existence of both makes the ‘craft’ beer scene in Britain a tale of two distinct types: the traditional cask ale producers that are enjoying a resurgence in popularity and the new, typically young iconoclasts that are brewing much stronger, much more hop infused beer that are also starting to gain popularity in Britain.

Dark Star Brewery in Sussex - They are all ~~Dead~~ Hop Heads

The perseverance of the traditional ale brewers probably has a lot to do with the tied pub tradition in Britain. It was only this year that UK customers began to consume more beer at home than in a pub. So the pub network is vital for the sales of beer and maintaining that network has been crucial to the heritage brewers or else they might have gone the way of their American counterparts and died off completely. But until the Beer Orders, access to pub outlets was severely restricted by the preponderance of tied houses. So while good for helping heritage brewers survive, this made it very hard for small, American style, upstart craft brewers to find a market.

As close to an American-style brewpub as I saw - Burton Bridge in Burton upon Trent is exceptional

But that is slowly changing. The renewed interest in cask ale has created openings for smaller, innovative breweries to get into pubs that want to supply the new demand. Brewers like Thornbridge are shattering the mold of low alcohol session beers and surprising punters with robust flavors all the while sticking to cask ales to gain a foothold in British Pubs. [This is not true of all new craft brewers, Dark Star in Sussex, for example, kegs almost all of their beer]. The off trade, beer sold in shops and supermarkets, is still difficult for craft brewers and heritage brewers alike. Green King alone has the scale to be able to turn a profit out of supermarket sales, where beer is often discounted heavily and treated as a loss-leader. Specialty shops are still rare in Britain where craft beer is still seen as simply beer: a working-class drink without the sophistication of wine.

Even in the capital - Meatime in Greenwich

So craft brewers that have had some success are quickly turning too pub ownership. Thornbridge has four, Meantime in Greenwich has two and Marble in Manchester has three. In some respects, then, this a bit akin to US brewpubs - though the idea of a brewpub in Britain is still carries with it the old rural agricultural smell – so most pubs do not have breweries on-site.

Marble in Manchester seemed to have the most buzz among beer geeks in Britain

The heritage brewers have, in general, recognized that they and the new craft brewers are all puling in the same direction. What is good for craft brewers is good for heritage brewers as both are generally focusing on ales and on cask, but even in keg form, craft beer is helping change the perception of beer in Britain. This understanding is turning into outright cooperation. John Keeling, Head Brewer of Fullers in London, for example, has teamed up with Marble in Manchester to brew a collaborative beer. And more tied pubs are bringing in guest beers from the craft sector.

Greene King and A Brief History of British Beer: Part 5

2012-01-18T11:43:00.000-08:00

During the era of precipitous decline in pubs and cask ale consumption in Britain, heritage brewers were struggling to survive. Many breweries had brewhouses that had not been updated for a half-century or more and dwindling markets made it harder and harder to capitalize on economies of scale further cutting into the bottom line. Quite a few breweries were sold off to the more healthy breweries like Greene King. In some instances it made sense to reinvest in the brewery but in most cases the smaller market and the need to maintain scale meant that the brewery was closed and the brand and beer preserved by the acquiring brewery.

In Greene King's tasting cellar - load and loads of real ale...

Greene King was the most aggressive of the acquisitors and bought up a number of breweries on the brink of collapse. But they weren’t the only ones, for example Wells bought Youngs. Greene King has preserved a number of the traditional brands that they acquired like Moreland and Belhaven. In the case of Moreland, the brewery was shuttered but many of the beers continue to be brewed in Bury. In the case of Belhaven, a new brewhouse was built and the brewery continues to make Belhaven been in Scotland. The Green King empire is now expanding and thriving – they have an extensive pub network and are selling more and more real cask ale throughout Britain.

Belhaven Brewery and Head Brewer George Howell

And herein lies the irony. This mix of growth and acquisition that has given rise to criticism of the brewery from the same real ale enthusiasts that started the very wave Green King has ridden to newfound success. To the real ale enthusiasts, it all appears a little too familiar to a time when British beer almost died out entirely thanks to the industrialization of the beer industry. Particularly galling to the CAMRA types is the shuttering of ancient regional breweries. To a businessperson keeping them going didn’t make economic sense and they revitalization of the real ale market has a lot to do with the modernization and quality control that the consolidation has brought. To a CAMRA type, this seems like the very practice they were fighting against in the past and see no reason why beer can’t be made locally.

Greene King is also criticized for the quality of their beer – perhaps unfairly: Green King IPA, their flagship and the best selling real ale in Britain is a subtle yet wonderful beer when fresh. I had a sample right at the brewery and it was fantastic. But I have heard from quite a few Brits that they are not great at quality control once it leaves the brewery. Many complain that Greene King pubs do not treat it well and you are likely to get a pint that is less than ideal. The Moreland branded beers have a bit more character and appear to be an area of concentration for Greene King going forward.

Fuller's Griffin Brewery in Chiswick (London)

And it is not just Greene King that is thriving but other heritage brewers like Fullers in London, Wells and Young, Adnams, Marstons, Samuel Smith and so on are enjoying a resurgence. Fullers, for example brewed about 70,000 barrels of beer annually thirty years ago, but do more than 220,000 today. Their pubs are scattered throughout London and vicinity and their beer is exceptional and attracting a new young and urban sophisticate audience judging from my experience in Fullers’ pubs.

Greene King and A Brief History of British Beer: Part 4

2012-01-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

The Campaign for Real Ale was started in Britain in 1971 in response to the growing dominance of industrial lager and ale. It championed real ale and traditional British beer and for many years was not much more than an afterthought. But through perseverance and by tapping into a strong sense of national identity and pride in British brewing tradition has slowly help revive the market for, and interest in, real British ale. CAMRA also promotes British pubs and their role in the center of British society.

Inside the Coopers Tavern in Burton upon Trent

For many years the identity of CAMRA could probably be described as a bunch of white haired pensioners with little better to do than grumble about the beer in the pub. But over time the identity of real ale has gone from being a pensioners drink to find a new audience among hip young beer drinkers looking for something new, local and authentic. Ale suffered long years of precipitous decline: in the 70s and 80s cask beer was about 40% of the British beer market, ale makes up about 14% of the British beer market and cask ale only about 7 to 8%. But ale is now making a comeback, the market is now growing again and is the only segment of the British beer market for which this is true. Which is why there was a big shake up among the heritage British breweries and helps explain both the growth of and the acrimony to, Greene King.

Greene King and A Brief History of British Beer: Part 3

2012-01-16T21:36:00.000-08:00

By the end of the 19th century the British beer industry was scaling up rapidly – the industrial revolution had made it easier to brew at scale and to transport and distribute beer over ever-larger territories. A strong temperance movement had taken root as well which served to prompt breweries to begin investing heavily in their own pub networks to ensure outlets for their products. Eventually consolidation began as well further up-scaling breweries and pub distribution networks. For example Worthington and Bass of Burton-upon-Trent merged in 1926 and Alsopp’s with Ind Coope in 1933. Overall the number of breweries in Britain shrank from over 3500 in 1915 to just 885 in 1939 and then to 524 in 1952.

The Burton Union System -This one still operates at Marstons in Burton Upon Trent

While big, these were still traditional British brewers: they were mostly brewing and distributing real ale. And, despite the consolidation that was happening, Britain we still a land of a vast array of local and regional breweries – 524 breweries on the small island of Britain is a pretty extensive brewery network.

One Brother went big and industrial...

The first big national beer companies came around the time the Canadian EP Taylor arrived in Britain in the early 50s looking for new markets for his Carling lager. Lager was, up till then, a small part of the market but its popularity soared as punters came to like the lighter, easy drinking lager style. It also became associated with the modern post-war lifestyle. Taylor quickly began a series of acquisitions that led to the first truly national brewery. Eventually, by the end of the 1980s there were six major British brewery companies: Allied, Bass, Courage, Grand Metropolitan, Scottish & Newcastle, and Whitbread. These companies had vast brewing empires along with an equally vast network of pubs.

...the other stayed small and traditional

In 1989 the Monopolies and Mergers commission began to investigate anti-competitive practices in the beer industry and the resulting Beer Orders began a radical restructuring of the British beer market. The Orders limited the number of pubs breweries could own and mandated guest beers. Many companies spun off their pub businesses into separate holding companies in response. Eventually many of the national breweries decided that it was the retail pub business that was the profit center and sold off the brewing side, Bass, for example, sold to Coors in 2001.

In the 21st century the worldwide wave in globalization in beer swept over Britain as well, starting with the purchase of Bass by Coors. Now AB InBev, MolsonCoors, Guiness, Carlsberg and Heineken make up the lions share of the British market. But the market inhabited by these companies is shrinking in Britain as are overall beer sales. Pubs are also closing at a rapid clip – so much so that you might be tempted to think that British beer is in trouble. But after decades of hardship traditional British beer is making a comeback and for that you can probably thank CAMRA.

Greene King and A Brief History of British Beer: Part 2

2012-01-14T18:34:00.000-08:00

The view from the roof at Greene King

The top of the Greene King brewery tower provides a vantage point from which one can survey all of the town and a great deal of West Suffolk itself. Rolling farmland surrounds the town and on the near horizon the towering structure of the local maltery dominates the landscape. It also serves to remind that this is prime beer making territory for both barley and hops are grown locally (the legendary hop fields of Kent are a short drive south).

The brewery has become a symbol of modern British brewing. Greene King has grown to become the largest of the British heritage brewers and inhabits a market that commands a very small but growing share of the overall beer market in Britain. Its sales are growing which is quite an achievement as the overall beer market is Britain is shrinking fairly rapidly.

Greene King brews ‘real’ ale – beer that has been brewed with top fermenting yeast and served via a cask that contains active yeast, which adds a subtle amount of carbonation without the addition of injected CO2. Real ale has been the subject of a concerted effort to bring back this traditional style of beer – a style that was almost completely lost as the large international lager brewers came to dominate the British beer market. How this happened is a story in itself.

Greene King and A Brief History of British Beer: Part 1

2012-01-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

Note: I recently had a chance to tag along to some British breweries with Jeff Alworth of Beervana who was researching for a book he is writing about beer: The Beer Bible. What follows is an essay on my impression of the recent history of British beer and the current state of craft beer in Britain. Unlike Jeff's book this is not meticulously researched but based on impressions, conversations and a few facts gleaned along the way. I think I have got it mostly right, but I am happy to hear comments, corrections and criticisms. Those looking for meticulous detail can go to the Brewery History Society and/or seek out the excellent writings of Cornell and Pattinson. It is a log essay and I have broken it up into seven parts which I will post over the next week.
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To understand the history of the British beer industry, including the new resurgence of traditional ‘craft’ ale, a good place to start is the Greene King Brewery.

Greene King towers above the tidy little town of Bury St Edmonds in west Suffolk, England, about 60 miles to the northeast of London. When you arrive in the Brewery, one of the first things you notice - inlaid into the old stone façade of the old brewery building - is the company crest and the date 1799: the date the brewery began brewing on the site. The old brewery building is quite small but has been added on and enlarged through the centuries and today the whole green King complex is quite extensive, though you don’t realize it immediately.

The brewery itself towers above Bury quite literally: it is a traditional tower design which uses gravity and greatly reduces the amount of pumping of liquid that must be accomplished – a tremendous advantage in the early days of mechanization and steam power. Greene King also towers over the town figuratively: it is the town’s largest employer and occupies an extensive network of properties near the center of town.

How Greene King got to be such a large brewery is a story of perseverance, acquisition and the renaissance in traditional ‘real ale’ in Britain. But is it also a story of resentment and fear that Greene King, the largest keeper of the ‘real ale’ flame, is unworthy to carry the flame forward. And interspersed with the story of Greene King is the story of the influence of the American craft beer renaissance - which has established a foothold in Britain and has created another outlet for craft beer enthusiasts.

Pigovian Taxes and Beer

2012-01-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

Pigovian taxes - those taxes that adjust the private costs of consuming a good with the true social costs - are popular in the alcoholic beverage market. Brewers often complain of excessive taxation: that the current level of taxation adds up to more than the social cost and is, in fact, punitive.

To know if this claim is correct we need to understand the link between alcohol consumption and the deleterious health effects, the additional crime and the traffic accidents that come as a consequence. Well, a new paper uses the sudden increase in the federal excise taxon beer and wine to measure precisely this effect.

Here is the abstract (emphasis mine):

On January 1, 1991, the federal excise tax on beer doubled, and the tax rates on wine and liquor increased as well. These changes are larger than the typical state-level changes that have been used to study the effect of price on alcohol abuse and its consequences. In this paper, we develop a method to estimate some important effects of those large 1991 changes, exploiting the interstate differences in alcohol consumption. We demonstrate that the relative importance of drinking in traffic fatalities is closely tied to per capita alcohol consumption across states. As a result, we expect that the proportional effects of the federal tax increase on traffic fatalities would be positively correlated with per capita consumption. We demonstrate that this is indeed the case, and infer estimates of the price elasticity and lives saved in each state. We repeat this exercise for other injury-fatality rates, and for nine categories of crime. For each outcome, the estimated effect of the tax increase is negatively related to average consumption, and that relationship is highly significant for the overall injury death rate, the violent crime rate, and the property crime rate. A conservative estimate is that the federal tax reduced injury deaths by 4.7%, or almost 7,000, in 1991.

[HT: Greg Mankiw]

Full Sail ESB

2012-01-04T09:30:00.000-08:00

I'm back...finally. Apologies for my long absence which was caused by my losing, in its entirety, a magnum opus on the modern history of the British beer business. Lost due to carelessness on my part, I have had a very hard time getting back on my horse after that blunder. But ride again I shall and eventually get around to re-writing that piece.

In the meantime, you should seek out this little gem of a beer. This is the latest Brewer's Share beer from John Harris's Full Sail satellite brewery, the 'Extra Special Barney.' It is a pretty traditional ESB gone New World, by which I mean big. 6.5% big. Which is my only gripe. At 5.5% this beer would have been a tremendous traditional ESB, but at 6.5% I find it a bit heavy and malty. The same hops with the OG turned down ten notches and it is a world beater.

Don't get me wrong, the beer is still wonderful and probably more of a crowd pleaser in the NW than mine would be. The color is gorgeous and the nose is spot-on perfect. You get the Challenger hop (super prevalent in British beer nowadays - apparently Fuggles is so old that it has become too susceptible to disease and pests so Challenger is taking its place) aroma immediately and the hop flavor is saturated but restrained. Excellent. Oh, and the label is pretty cool too.

British Beer Prices

2011-12-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Look at this list of beers from the Burton Bridge Brewery in Burton-upon-Trent and you'll notice that the price varies by ABV. This is something you almost never see in the US unless it is a huge 10+ percent beer. But why not, after all, higher ABV beers are more expensive to make?

One reason is that customers in the US would be confused, they are not used to thinking about beer this way. But the British are used to it, thanks to a large excise tax that is levied on the final alcohol content of the beer itself. Below you can see the current excise rate. Note that lower strength beer (up to 2.8%) is taxed at half the rate, which is why you'll often see breweries brew a low strength beer in the UK so that they can sell it for much less money (I had a great one at Greene King).

Here is the current excise rate for beer in the UK (the current tax is the last column):

This is big, by the way, there is a VAT tax as well, but the excise tax for a pint of 5% beer is about 50p if my back-of-the-envelope calculation is correct. So for the festival ale at Burton Bridge, about 50p out of the £3 price is for the excise tax alone.

In fact this is such a part of British brewing that apparently the Bass brewery in Burton used to have an entire floor filed with excise agents who tested the beer and levied the tax on each and every barrel that left the brewery.

The Burton Bridge Brewery is exceptional, by the way. You won't find their beers here in the US, so you'll have to go to Burton-upon-Trent to try (which, sadly, is not a big draw - it is a charmless town) but if you are ever in the area, make a point of stopping in, you won't be disappointed. Then, after, you can do as we did and head over to the excellent Coopers Tavern (in the shadow of the enormous Coors plant).

Honest Pints Indeed

2011-12-06T14:36:00.000-08:00

This sign is in the Angel & White Horse, the Samuel Smiths Pub attached to the brewery.

Ahh Britain, the land of the marked glass and the truly honest pint. The 'traditional creamy head' refers to the use of a sparkler - something ubiquitous in the north, but absent in the south of England.

And by the way, there will be much more on this, but Samuel Smith's is so traditional they still deliver their beer in hand made oak casks to local pubs using, yes, white horses that reside just beside this pub (in fact you can see the stables from the side window). And, much to my nose's dismay, they still keep a coal fire burning in the hearth.

Which only makes sense as they have a massive pile of it to fire the boiler for the brewery. Traditional indeed.

Like I said, much more on this later, but the Old Brewery Bitter, cask conditioned in oak, is exceptional.

Holiday Ale Festival

2011-12-02T11:33:00.000-08:00

A generous benefactor (who shall remain nameless but to whom I am indebted) gifted me a VIP ticket to the Holiday Ale Festival going on now at Pioneer Square in Portland, and so I went yesterday to finally check it out. I am slightly ashamed to say that this is the first time I have been but I have to admit that big beers are not my first love and the idea of spending hours sampling big beer after big beer has always been a bit daunting. Plus it is not the cheapest of fests and spending hours under a tent in the cold winter is unappealing. But with the free ticket, a beautiful evening and a few good friends as companions I could not delay another year.

So let's get the preliminaries out of the way: the setting is immensely better than I though it would be - the clear plastic used in much of the roofing keeps the main areas light and airy and the lights of the tall Christmas tree are visible through the roof as well, which adds a nice holiday touch. The tent is heated so it is very comfortable and you can find spots to linger in of varying temperatures to suit your preferences (closer to, or farther from, a tube emitting hot air). There is a lot of stuff inside the tent and it does get a little crowded, but the smell of cinnamon and spices is ever-present and in toto it is a very nice environment indeed.

The beer is, however, big. There was one exception: Breakside's Cranberry Biere de Table which is a very flavorful 3.3% ABV beer. After that, though, you are hard pressed to find a beer under 7% and there are many that hit the double digits. Yikes. There is also an abundance of Bourbon Barrel aged beers. I am not a huge fan of Bourbon beers as I often find the Bourbon overpowering and in conflict with the base flavors of the beer. But I am a minority as far as I can tell and for the Bourbon lovers, you are in luck.

Given my resistance to Bourbon, however, I thought a few of the winners were Bourbon barrel aged beers starting with the Velvet Merkin from Firestone Walker. I didn't expect to like this because of the Bourbon and the fact that I am not a fan of their IPA which I find heavy and over-malty. But this beer is sensational - the Bourbon is almost overwhelming on the nose, but not on the tongue where is its very subtle and gives way to vanilla and has a wonderful creamy mouthfeel. But beware, it is a very drinkable 8.6% ABV.

Another big winner in my book is HUB's Kentucky Christmas which seemed to me a beer that has no right being good: it is, as far as I could tell, a big hoppy NW imperial IPA mixed with Bourbon - ick! But no! It is sensational. I have no idea why, but the citrusy hops dance with the hint of Bourbon in such a way that they are in rhythm and make a nice melody on your tongue. You must try this beer.

Cascade's Sang Noir is great as well and so dry you can blow the dust off the top, but the complex and wonderful sour notes shine though - another Gansberg masterpiece.

Other winners to check out include Oakshire's The Nutcracker, Double Mountain's Chimney Stout and Fort George's Kentucky Girl.

But the champion of the fest for me was Ninkasi's The Little One. When I tasted this after a succession of humongous beers, I said to Jeff "finally, I get to drink some beer!" It is a small beer from the second runnings of their barley wine Critical Hit. It is 5.7% and delightful in every way with a nice Germanic hop note that distinguishes it from their popular IPAs. To me this is a lovely winter beer and I hope that next year they will have some more smaller winter warmers.

But there were some misses as well.

Bear Republic's Old Saint Chongo had an off metallic flavor that went away for me after a couple of sips and revealed a nice beer underneath, but assaulted others. I blamed the equipment, Jeff blamed the beer. Elysian's Bye Bye Frost was one too many byes: at 10.6% it is just stupid-strong. Would have been a great at 7.6%. Lompoc's Cherry Christmas was too much cherry and not enough Christmas. Widmer has been on a roll, but Peppermint Paddy Porter is a mint filled fiasco - think vics vapo rub and you get the idea. Upright's blend of an old ale and Biere de Garde didn't quite work for me but was interesting. And finally stay well away from Rusty Truck - there are off flavors and it is a mess.

So my hope for the next fest is a little less Bourbon and a more lower strength winter warmers. So far the beer I have liked most recently was a fresh Winter Solstice from Anderson Valley - such a lovely and subtle beer with just the right hint of spice. I hope local brewers will back of the big-is-better kick and start to rediscover, once again, the subtle, drinkable winter beer.

Oh and the VIP thing is pretty great, you can walk up to the main area and get any pour you want without waiting (but the same is not true at the smaller bars). Also 20 tickets are enough for about three visits. Worth considering if you are going at the heavy Friday and Saturday night times.

Finally, a word to the wise: even with little tasters, at 7 to 10% ABV, these beers get on you quickly. As the fest is at the heart of the city's public transportation hub, you should not plan on attending the fest and driving home.

Fresh Hop Roundup

2011-11-29T09:29:00.000-08:00

A little late to this, but I have been busy with exploits that shall yield many intersting blog posts whenever I find time to write them - stay tuned. I have been lax with the news of fresh hop beers, one of my favorite craft beer products, but I have now had enough that I am ready to give a short synopsis. It is not a completely useless endeavor, I think there are still a number of them on tap and in the bottle so there is still time to get your fix in quickly before the winter ale season begins in earnest.

So let me start by saying I was a savvy consumer of the fresh hop beers this season and I did not make it to a fresh hop beer festival this year so I have not had a single fresh hop beer I didn't like. But even though my sample has severe selection bias issues, might I be bold enough to suggest that the NW craft beer community is really starting to get it in term of brewing with fresh hops? Perhaps.

While this might be true, my experience is that the best of the best come from the reliable top-quality brewers in the state. In my book, Double Mountain lead the pack: this years killer green was amazing, a real hop bomb that was perfectly balanced (in the NW usage of balance) and yet the fresh hop characeter shone through but not in an aggressive way. I think it is the most accomplished fresh hop beer I have ever had (picture below from the Skamania Celebration of Beers event).

Many beer cognoscenti chose the Deschutes' Fresh Hopped Mirror Pond as their favorite (see, for example, Bill's much more thorough round-up) and though I agree with its excellence, it is not, for me, as transcendent ad Double Mountain's Killer Green (ed. note: I did not have the Killer Red this year).

Other winners: I thought, as always, Full Sails John Harris did an amazing job, this year the one I sampled was the one using Tettenanger hops - fantastic. Another great one this year was Lucky Lab's The Mutt, which was surprisingly complex and well-rounded given the unknown provenance of the hops therein. I think the Lab is getting pretty expert at The Mutt now and I really enjoyed the result.

Once again the good folks at the Great Northern Brewery sent me a sample of their Frog Hop beer and once again it was one of my favorites. They go for a very light body to accentuate the fresh hops which are used gently but to perfection. One reason for my love of this beer is that they use locally grown hops in the Whitefish Valley - which is what the fresh hop beer is all about: local, seasonal, fresh.

In fact, the Frog Hop was my inspiration for the Green Crown, which is what Jeff named our first attempt at a fresh hop beer. We had no idea what to do, so I went for a light pale ale recipe, mostly two-row pale malt, with a little crystal and a hint of wheat for mouth feel. Then it was all Cascade: wet home grown hops in the worth for a dose of first wort hopping, dry cascade for the bitter charge and then a bunch (completely unmeasured - we just dumped a bunch in until it seemed good, and then dumped a bit more...) fresh hops at the end. From the picture below you can see from whence the name Green Crown came. I am usually pretty critical of the beer I brew, but this one was a huge success - a wonderful light body upon which the fresh Cascades dance their little dance on your tongue. Even Jeff, who deesn't think much of fresh hop beers in general, calls it a big winner.

I still have a few in my basement and to my surprise they are aging extremely well: I think the grassy notes have faded just a bit but the rest of the fresh hop sensation remains. A fitting end to the season.

I can also attest to the fact that the fresh hop beer craze has hopped the pond. The Dark Star craft brewery in Sussex did their own fresh hop ale this year with English hops:

This is super cool, unfortunately it was all gone when Jeff and I visited. Note that at 6.5% it is an absolute alcohol monster relative to most English beer.

Let the winter beers commence!

Far and Wide

2011-11-28T09:43:00.000-08:00

If you were to find a far flung Oregon beer what would you think it'd be? For me, it's Rogue hands down. You find them everywhere, including, in my case, on tap at the Rake bar in London's Borough district. What I would not expect to find in my wildest imagination is Caldera. But lo! From a bottle shop in York, England:

A Tale of Two Brewing Businesses: One Macro and One Craft

2011-11-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'd show you a nice glamor shot of their Boston brewery but...

Well, almost. Boston Beer is the one company which I guess you could say straddles the line. But, say what you will about the business model, Boston Beer is built upon quality beer, not light lager volume.

First, the big. Molson Coors is hurting:

Molson slumps in 3Q as economy saps beer money
By SARAH SKIDMORE, AP Business Writer – 1 day ago

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Molson Coors Brewing Co.'s third-quarter profit tumbled 23 percent as high costs and high unemployment among its core customers continued to take a toll on the brewer.

Molson Coors and other major beer makers have struggled in the down economy as young American men have faced particularly high levels of unemployment. The company, which makes products like Miller Lite, Coors Lite and Carling, also saw lower-than-expected sales in the U.K. And the industry is seeing consumers overall shift toward more craft beers, wines and spirits.

The company is also struggling with higher costs for commodities such as barley, aluminum and fuel.

"We have had the equivalent of an earthquake," Peter Swinburn, president and CEO of Molson Coors, said of the recession. "Our core consumer was hit overnight... It is very difficult to recover from that, it takes time to rebuild."

Next, the slightly less big. Boston Beer is not:

Boston Beer 3Q profit rises on higher revenue

BOSTON

Boston Beer Co., which brews Samuel Adams beer, said Tuesday that its profit grew in the third quarter as shipments increased.

The company reported net income of $16.3 million, or $1.19 a share, for the three months ended Sept. 24. That compares with net income of $15.4 million, or $1.09 a share, in the comparable period last year.

Net revenue surged 8 percent to $134.8 million from $124.5 million a year earlier, driven by a 7 percent gain in shipment volume.

Analysts were anticipating, on average, earnings of $1.13 a share on $131.9 million in revenue, according to FactSet.

"We are happy with the health of our brand portfolio and remain positive about the future of craft beer," said Jim Koch, chairman and founder.

Curious that the AP byline is Portland, Oregon. Where better to report about beer, I guess. Anyway, the empirical question that I still wonder about is whether the growth in craft beer is from new converts while those that have already converted reduce their overall consumption in the down economy, or is it the case that even craft beer drinkers are not reducing consumption? I suspect the former.

Pubs Getting in on Brewing and Where to Find Brew Dog

2011-10-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

Here is a little tidbit from the Willy Week: Kells has applied to open Kells Brew Pub in Nob Hill and Old Town Pizza have applied to start brewing at their Vanport location.

This is interesting to me as most brewpubs start as a brewery pub combo or start as a brewery and then add the pub. I wonder if the whole brewpub idea is becoming so ubiquitous that pubs are beginning to find it a necessary selling point? It is one thing to be an avid brewer and figure out a business to support your hobby-turned-profession but quite another to be a successful pub and decide that you need to add on-site brewing. Thoughts?

On another note altogether. After my soccer game last night in Oregon City a few of us stopped in for a quick drink at the wonderful Highland Stillhouse. I had already been eagerly anticipating a draft Bellhaven Twisted Thistle so that is what I got, but the beer selection was fantastic - everything from Ninkasi's fresh hop beer to a great cask offering (which escapes me at the moment). But what really caught my eye was an extensive list of Brew Dog beers. I suspect, though I didn't ask, that these are from the bottle. And they don't come cheap: a glass of Brew Dog will set you back $12! Still, if you want to see if all the fuss is due to genius at self-promotion or to great beer, here is your chance. You can even enjoy you Brew Dog with haggis balls! Yum.

If you are a little more budget conscious, I do recommend the Bellhaven.

On Brewpubs and Economies of Scale

2011-10-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

Here is a nice Washington Post article about Brewpubs outgrowing their breweries:

You can brew only so much beer in a restaurant, and you can shoehorn only so many fermentation vessels among the tables and chairs and deep-fryers.

With thirst outpacing output, several regional brew pubs have been building, buying or renting off-site breweries to keep their own taps flowing and to supply an off-premises market of grocery stores, liquor marts, bars and restaurants.

I have always thought that there are two models for aspiring professional brewers that want to start their own company: packaging brewery or brewpub. The problem (or curse) of the first is that economies of scale demand growth. Unless you can sustain an incredibly loyal following that will pay a premium for your beer, you have to grow to keep prices competitive and survive. I don't think that in the modern era of craft beer you can ever count on loyalty - there is just too much good and new beer out there to grab attention. There is nothing wrong with a packaging brewery per-se, just that your business model must plan for growth (see, e.g., Ninkasi).

The brewpub model is the escape, if you will, from the tyranny of economies of scale. From what I can glean, most brewpubs do about 75% of their business in food, can keep beer prices reasonable by cutting out the packaging, distributing, retailing and associated costs and margins. The brewpub is the model of choice, in my view, for the homebrewer-going-pro in that it allows for lots of flexibility and creativity. The problem with this business model is that you are in the business of a restaurant first, and the restaurant business is incredibly hard and tiring and easy to muck up. Smart owners (see, e.g., Block 15) get experienced restaurant managers to handle the food side and concentrate only on beer.

So this trend of brewpubs getting stars in their eyes is troubling to me. I think the temptations are great, but the business of packaging breweries is hard. It is easy to think of selling in volume as the path to riches and success, but the craft beer world is getting ever more competitive and to leverage a successful brew pub to start a packaging brewery is fraught with danger. As I understand, here in Portland, Laurelwood's great scheme to open an off-site production brewery and expand the brew pub empire is on indefinite hold.

The WaPo article addressed the complications with moving into off-premises sales:

Off-premises is “a different market, no doubt,” says Bowers of Brewer’s Alley. You need to persuade a distributor to carry your beers, then entrust them to retailers who might plop them among dozens (perhaps hundreds) of rival brands. Bowers was cautious: Before sinking thousands into a production brewery, he was able to gauge demand by contract-brewing the six-pack version of several of his brands at the Flying Dog Brewery across town. He found a ready market, selling 4,000 to 5,000 cases per year.

The enticements outweigh the risks. For the first half of 2011, craft beer volume grew by 14 percent nationwide, and sales soared 15 percent higher than in 2010.

There are singular successes, such as Oskar Blues in Lyons, Colo. Nine years ago, it was an average-size brew pub in this Rocky Mountain gateway town of 1,600. Then owner Dale Katechis began canning his Dale’s Pale Ale with a manually operated canner capable of filling two cans at a time. Other U.S. craft breweries had contract-brewed canned beers (mostly amber lagers and golden ales) at bigger breweries, but Oskar Blues was the first to operate its own canner and the first to can an aggressively hopped pale ale.

Today, Oskar Blues operates an off-site plant in nearby Longmont, Colo., which is on pace this year to turn out 58,000 barrels’ worth for shipping to 26 states. In December, the company will take possession of a new canning line able to fill 300 cylinders a minute. That machinery will enable Oskar Blues to begin filling 16-ounce cans with a new brand called Deviant Dale’s IPA, an 8 percent alcohol powerhouse seasoned with pungent Columbus hops.

“It’s been a wild ride,” says Chad Melis, marketing director for Oskar Blues.

And it probably has a lot of pub brewers stroking their chins and going, “Hmmm.”

Enticements indeed. All I can say is brewer beware. Whatever you do, shield the core brewpub business from the packaging brewery in case it all goes wrong.

A Beautiful Day at Skamania Lodge

2011-10-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

With drink tickets you get this stylish mug, here with the incomparable Killer Green from Double Mountain

Last Saturday Skamania Lodge hosted its third annual Cheers to Beers Fest on their front lawn. I went last year and had a blast despite the lousy weather. This year I was invited to return and fortunately the weather was amazing, but the fest was surprisingly subdued. The beer selection was great and I was delighted to see Snipes Mountain back as it is one of those favorites that is impossible to find locally. The beer based buffet dinner was once again great and the brunch is always a treat.

But, as you can see from the photo I took right in prime time fest mode, the attendance was pretty light and was not very beer geeky. Which is too bad. Perhaps one problem was the fact that it was scheduled on the same day as the OBG's Fresh Hop Festival at Oaks Park. Another problem might have been the lackluster effort at publicity this year. I did not do my part - I had intended to post a notice or two here, but life got busy and I just plain forgot. Still, I got no PR blasts to remind me which is kind of what I was relying on as my 43 year old memory is, well, 43 years old. When I asked beer blogger friends about it the were not even aware of the date this year, which is a shame as there a a number of unique things to recommend this fest.

The best setting for a beer fest in the world.

First is the location which, as you can see from the picture above, is absolutely the best setting for a beer fest...ever. Second is the venue which is wonderful itself, the lodge and its restaurants may be a little pricy but there is no reason you can't come for the afternoon and enjoy the setting and the beer. Third is the beer themed dinner which last year was festive and energetic - sadly this year it was subdued and slightly, well, morose. I say this because there is nothing more depressing than a humongous buffet largely going to waste. Pound for pound there was probably more food than punters.

But the single best thing about the event is to get to sample the far-flung beers from Washington that rarely make it across the Columbia. Once again Snipes Mountain was a big favorite of mine, as was Prodigal Son from Pendleton. The beer of the fest had to be Double Mountain's Killer Green which is a phenomenal fresh hop beer made by the most meticulous brewers around.

My gripes are the same as last year: not enough info on the beers and not enough brewers around to with whom to chat. In fact the server at Prodigal Son was serving their wheat beer which is amazing and perfect for those hot sunny Pendleton days, but she thought she was serving their pale ale. Ooops. (At first I thought it was the most wildly radical rethinking of a pale until I realized what must have happened)

So while I enjoyed my stay and the lodge and staff were great, I fear that this fest might already be on the way out. I hope not - it rocks - but I think if they do it again next year they have to get the PR right and schedule it around the fresh hop fests in Portland. Here's hoping that they do.

Poll Results: X-114 is the Winner

2011-10-07T13:17:00.000-07:00

In my ~~scientific and representative~~ random and completely meaningless poll asking which of the two initial Widmer Rotator IPAs you preferred, you have given X-114 a resounding victory.

But I suspect that as random and unscientific this poll was, this is reflective of the general mood. The X-114 is not beloved by all, the Citra hops don't dance on all tongues like they do on mine, but the Falconer's IPA is, I think fairly undistinguished. Which does not mean it is not a great IPA (and worlds above the entirely forgettable Broken Halo) but X-114 has character that differentiates it from other great IPAs - which is about as high a compliment as I can pay.

I'm excited for the next iteration - this whole Rotator business is genius (assuming X-114 comes back regularly).

Wells and Young's Buys McEwan's and Younger's

2011-10-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

Nigel McNally of Wells and Young's

From the BBC:

Leading Scottish beer brands McEwan's and Younger's have been sold to a Bedfordshire-based family brewery.

The ales were bought from Heineken UK by brewers Wells and Young's for an undisclosed sum.

The firm said it would continue brewing McEwan's draught ales at the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh.

So, I wonder if the Scots prefer to have their beer owned by the Dutch or the English... Ach! Just go get a Brew Dog...

Taxes and Beer: The BEER Act is in Trouble

2011-10-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit: Ángel Franco/The New York Times

From The New York Times, an article suggesting that the tax break for brewers bill, now known as the BEER act is probably dead:

Mr. Boehner, along with fellow House leaders like Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California and Mr. [Paul D.] Ryan, who is the party’s leading crusader for spending cuts, were co-sponsors of a 2009 version of the beer tax break bill, which has never passed. Known as the Brewer’s Employment and Excise Relief, or BEER Act, it would halve the excise taxes on the first 60,000 barrels of beer for small brewers.

Steve Hindy, owner of Brooklyn Brewery, said his company stood to save about $400,000 a year if the tax break was approved.

“The tax break would boost our financial situation and allow us to further expand our business,” he said. “We would be able to create more jobs.”

But the bill has stalled, and none of the four Republican leaders are now sponsoring it. But Bob Pease, chief operating officer of the beer industry group, the Brewers Association, in Boulder, Colo., said that Mr. Ryan’s staff had assured the organization in a private meeting that he would continue to support the bill.

Mr. Ryan’s spokesman, Kevin Seifert, said that the congressman had no plans to sponsor the beer tax break, but he did not address the Brewers Association’s assertion about Mr. Ryan’s private support. Mr. Ryan supports “letting individuals and entrepreneurs keep more of their hard-earned money,” Mr. Seifert said.

I have to say as much as I like craft beer, I never supported this. I don't like these specific and targeted tax breaks in general, but even if I did, why does craft brewing need a specific tax break, the craft beer industry is booming?

Kölsch Will Rule the World!

2011-10-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

Deutsche Welle has a nice article on the spread in popularity of Kölsch:

It's relatively easy to find German beer in pubs across the world. Major brands like Beck's have global distribution networks, while the traditional Bavarian brews being served at the Oktoberfest are easily found in major cities like London, New York or Beijing.

Recently, however, a much smaller, straw-colored beer from the western German city of Cologne has been making waves abroad. Exports of Cologne's local brew, Kölsch, have rocketed in the past year, with more and more foreign distributors wanting to get their hands on this light ale.

"The United States has been a strong market for us – we've had a 200 percent sales increase in the past three years," the CEO of the Gaffel Kölsch brewery, Heinrich Phillip Becker, told Deutsche Welle.

"Countries like Russia, China and Brazil are picking up the Kölsch culture too," he added.

It is starting to gain in popularity for American craft brewers as well. It is Flat Tail's first bottled product and is my personal favorite from Double Mountain (and that is saying something).

But, as with everything, the Germans would prefer they didn't call it Kölsch. In the EU only beer brewed in an around Cologne can be called Kölsch. But for now they are laid back about it:

Kölsch's wave of popularity in the US has led microbreweries in New York, Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia and Portland to start producing a Kölsch-style drink – something the Cologne brewers are willing to tolerate as long as the newcomers don't grow too much.

"They are producing Kölsch-style beer in small, small quantities – so it's not really a danger for us and our market. We see them more as ambassadors for the category Kölsch," Becker said, adding that any major brewer who tried the same thing would face a lawsuit in no time.

One note to local beer snobs, Kölsch is properly served in a "Stange," a thin glass that holds only 200ml of beer. But who cares, I am overjoyed at the growth in popularity of Kölsch because I love the style and it is also one of my favorite to brew. The Wyeast Kölsch yeast rocks and I have gotten fantastic results. I even gave some to my Cologne born German friend and he was impressed with how authentic it tasted (of course he could have just said it to be polite). But now I know to call it "Kölsch-style" beer....

Boston Beer Sues Anchor

2011-09-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

And it used to be such a friendly business...

Boston Beer Co. is suing San Francisco-based craft brewing competitor Anchor Brewing Co. and a former Boston Beer marketing executive, alleging the executive violated a noncompete agreement by taking a job with the West Coast firm.

The suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boston, alleges that Judd Hausner knew his move might be construed as a violation of the noncompete, but told his Boston Beer supervisor upon giving notice that an Anchor employee had told him the agreement could not be enforced.

Hausner gave his notice at Boston Beer to take "a key sales and marketing position with Anchor, a direct competitor of Boston Beer," the suit states. Boston Beer brews Samuel Adams beers; Anchor's Anchor Steam beer is another widely distributed craft brew.

I predict that nothing good will come from this. And really, why is Boston Beer so scared of Anchor? Listen big craft brewers, you market share has come largely at the expense of the macros, not each other. Can't we all just get along? I mean, come on, how much special knowledge can a marketing executive have?

OPB on the Potential for a Bend Beer Bubble

2011-09-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

David Nogueras has a story on the many, many new breweries opening in Bend.

Residents of Bend are used to seeing bicycles on their streets, but this is something new.

The Cycle Pub, as it’s called, carries 12 peddling riders, six on each side of what’s essentially a long bar. The contraption carries the riders from brewery to brewery.

And with 10 breweries in a town of under 80,000, Bend has plenty of breweries to visit. But how many is too many?

"Today is brew day it’s a grand day here in the brewery. We always enjoy brew day because we get to smell all the beautiful aromas of the hops and grain," Barnett said.

Indeed, the air is sweet with the smell of wort. That’s the sugary extract or pre-beer yet to be fermented. This batch will eventually become an IPA -- the standard bearer of Northwest Beers. Most breweries in Bend have one. And according to Barnett most of them are really good.

"It’s awesome. You can walk down the street and have a pint of BBC, then two blocks away go to Deschutes and then four blocks away go to 10 Barrel or Boneyard. It’s great beer and we just want to add to the notoriety by brewing beer that is up to that level," Barnett said.

The question the story raises is how many is too many? True Bend is only 80,000 (or actually more like 75,000 these days), but the story points out that there are 2 million tourists that visit Bend annually. I think there is plenty of room at the moment for these breweries - especially the ones going the brewpub route - but that for the smaller production breweries, it might get tough.

On my last visit to Bend last month I spied the Cycle Pub and went to the Northwest Crossing farmers' market where Below Grade had a booth. [No tasting notes - tasters were expensive and I am a cheapskate! Actually it was hot, smoky and 11am so I was not ready for beer] Below Grade is a basement nano-brewery and one of many that are low capital costs, but also low volume. As the name of the game is economies-of-scale I think for a lot of these smaller breweries it is grow or die. It is when all these breweries try to grow at the same time that I expect a shake-out. But heck this is the process of creative destruction that will guarantee Bend as a top spot for beer for years and years to come.

On War and the Strength of British Beer

2011-09-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

Across the pond, The Pub Curmudgeon gives us some stats from the BBPA statistical handbook:

Average strength of beer produced in the UK:

1900: 1054.9 OG
1910: 1053.0 OG
1918: 1030.6 OG (low point during WW1)
1920: 1042.6 OG
1930: 1042.5 OG
1940: 1038.5 OG
1946: 1032.6 OG (1940s low point, actually after the end of the war)
1950: 1037.0 OG
1960: 1037.4 OG
1970: 1036.9 OG
1980: 1037.3 OG
1990: 1037.7 OG
2000: 4.17% ABV
2010: 4.22% ABV

In fact, from 1950 to the end of the original gravity system in 1992, the average OG was always within the range 1036.9-1038.2, although this masked the long-term decline of mild and an offsetting reduction in the strength of bitter.

As Jeff has pointed out, wartime rationing led to the invention and popularization of the relatively low alcohol bitter and mild styles that have this aura of being ancient styles (proabably because they are British and everything British has that slightly musty aura of history turning slightly off...). What is fascinating here is the sharp downturn around the Great War which quickly bounced back, while the low alcohol beers of the WWII era stayed. Still nothing like the beginning of the 20th century. For some perspective, it is hard to find a NW ale brewed below 1050 original gravity. [Alcohol content depends on the difference between OG and the finishing gravity - the sugars converted by the yeast to alcohol - but 1050 generally yields about a 5% ABV beer]

Poll: Widmer's Rotator IPAs

2011-09-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the Oregon-centric nature of this, but as much of craft beer is local these things happen regularly. Actually Widmer is spread pretty far and wide, so it should not be too limiting. Anyway, the Widmer Rotator IPA series is now on its second iteration and I thought I'd get a sense of the relative reaction to the first two offerings: X-114 and Falconer's IPA. So, after a long hiatus, it's poll time!

As a refresher, X-114 is the Citra-infused IPA that has been out all summer. If you have caught the Timbers at Jeld-Wen this year and bought a Widmer IPA, this is what you had. The Falconer's IPA, named after NW brewing legend Glen Falconer and using the eponymous hop, has been out for about a month now.

So the poll is simple: of you had to choose one, which do you prefer?

Is the Weak Dollar Helping US Craft Beer Exports?

2011-09-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting story from the Sydney Morning Herald about US craft beer sales in Australia (yes, I consider Boston Beer to be craft beer) being helped by the strong Aussie Dollar. But the strong Aussie Dollar is due in large part to the very weak US Dollar which might mean that craft brewers have a unique opportunity right now to expand sales overseas.

From the SMH story:

The strong Australian dollar is proving a boon to beer importers, particularly with top-of-the-range brands from Belgium and the US becoming more competitively priced.

''The state of the Aussie dollar allows everyone to receive the margins they are looking for,'' says the owner of Beer Importers & Distributors, Franck Berges. ''Where a six-pack of Sam Adams Boston Lager used to sell for around $24 to $27 in the likes of Dan Murphy's, it's now under $20.''

Berges has negotiated to import more brands from the Boston Beer Company. ''We've imported Sam Adams Boston Lager for years but we're selling a lot more these days,'' he says. ''But they've got an incredibly wide range and there's a growing interest in the whole US craft beer scene.

''We have to fit in with their production schedule but we'll start bringing in their Noble Pils, IPA and Pale Ale - which will arrive in Sydney before Christmas.''

Last year the Brewer's Association reported that US craft beer exports were up 28% by volume. I suspect that this sharp increase is continuing.

Update: Pressed for time I didn't bother to look up currency markets but did make a passing comment about the weak US dollar in general. This is true but a reader e-mailed me to emphasize just how strong the Aussie Dollar really is these days, and he is right (and provided images to prove it - thanks for these). Here is the US Dollar/Euro market where you can see that the USD is pretty much flat over the last three years:

Now compare this to the Australian Dollar/Euro market where the AUD is up dramatically, over 50% since the bottom of the recession in 2008/2009:

Apparently this has a lot to do with strong commodities prices, mineral wealth and close proximity to Asian markets. But the government also pays relatively high rates to borrow money, so purchases of AUD to buy treasuries is also a factor.

I guess what this means is that the time is right to sell down under.

Beer Sales Down in Europe

2011-09-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

More about beer sales and the shift to home consumption and how it affects the recession from a nice post on the New York Times Economix blog:

Europeans are saving money by drinking at home rather than in pubs, which is costing jobs in the hospitality industry and depressing tax revenue, according to the study by Ernst & Young, which was paid for by the Brewers of Europe, an industry group.

The shift to home consumption has a disproportionate effect on unemployment, because 73 percent of jobs associated with the European beer industry are outside breweries. They are found instead in bars, hotels and restaurants.

‘‘Obviously, the crisis has had an effect,’’ said Pierre-Olivier Bergeron, secretary general of the Brewers of Europe.

Beer consumption in Europe fell 8 percent from 2008 to 2010, the period covered by the study. But employment in the beer industry fell by 12 percent, or 260,000 jobs, the study said. That compares with a 2 percent decline in employment for Europe as a whole.

But, never fear, craft beer will save us all:

But not all the news is bad for the brewers. Mr. Bergeron said he saw signs that a long-term decline in beer consumption in Europe, driven in part by health concerns and tougher drunken driving laws, could be coming to an end. A proliferation of microbreweries means that beer drinkers are being offered some of the variety and local character that makes wine appealing, making beer more attractive to younger, more affluent consumers.

When Mr. Bergeron joined the brewers organization a decade ago, he said, there were just 14 members from his home country of France. Today there are 80, with most of the new entrants small breweries.

Not Just in the Colonies...Microbrew Reannaiance is Going Strong Across the Pond

2011-09-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

Fergus McMullen … 'People want quality, and they want to have a taste'. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

From the Guardian a nice piece on the microbrewing revolution sweeping Britain [HT: John Foyston]. There is so much talk about the explosive growth of micro breweries in the US it is interesting to see that the same trend is happening in Britain. There, however, it is a renaissance of traditional English ales, rather than the new-world hop-forward ales we are seeing as the backbone of the industry in the US. Here is an excerpt:

Hunter's is part of a remarkable early 21st-century flowering of traditional British ale. Helped by an increasingly enthusiastic public and a handy excise duty relief that effectively halves your tax bill as long as you make no more than about 3,000 barrels a year (thank you, Gordon Brown), some 50 new small breweries are expected to open around the country this year.

There are now, in fact, more breweries in Britain than at any time since the end of the second world war: well over 800, against half that number, of all sizes, less than a decade ago, and a mere 140 in 1970. And we clearly like what they're brewing: sales of "live", cask-conditioned ales, which ferment a second time in the barrel, have surged by 25% over the past five years.

What makes this more striking is that overall, our national drink is in seemingly irreversible decline. The UK beer market, still dominated by the big keg lagers such as Carling and Foster's – which, for the sake of shelf life, get filtered or pasteurised after brewing to kill off the yeast, then are injected with CO2 in an effort to give them back some semblance of life – shrank by 7% last year. And we're losing 25 pubs a week.

Apropos of my earlier post about british supermarket beer sales eclipsing pub sales:

The big retailers have certainly got it: Sainsbury's is organising a Great British Beer Hunt that will see 16 new British ales, selected in regional heats, battle it out from early September for a permanent place on the shelves in some 300 stores. "We're seeing 7% year-on-year growth in premium bottled beers," says Oliver Chadwick-Healey, its beer buyer. "This is a real phenomenon, driven by choice and quality."

US Beer Sales Down, But Craft Way Up..Again

2011-09-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

From the Sacramento Bee, another story on the beer business:

For the fourth year in a row, the beer industry has continued its declines and lost 1.9% to total 2.8 billion cases. According to the Beverage Information Group's recently released 2011 Beer Handbook, continued declines in the Light segment continue to contribute to the overall losses in the industry. This segment has seen declines amongst its core brands and is only seeing pockets of growth from newly introduced line extensions.

Despite the struggling economy, growth was seen among the Craft segment as well as Imports. The higher-priced Craft segment continued to post solid gains due to consumers' attraction to the interesting flavors craft brewers offer. Imports, which previously have been experiencing declines, gained 0.9% to 362-8 million cases last year, but that is still 11.1% lower than its pre-recessionary levels.

From Monday's post on falling macro sales, the theme was that the big brewers are seeing sales of their regular beers drop, while light beers held steady - however, this appears to be isolated to the beers highlighted as the overall trend is down. Overall beer consumption in the US is falling which suggests that beer is not recession proof, as the anemic economy appears to be having an impact.

But craft beer does appear to be recession proof, but that clearly comes from the cannibalization of the macro market and not from overall market growth.

UK Beer Sales Switching From Pubs to Supermarkets

2011-09-13T08:35:00.000-07:00

Photo: REUTERS

This is fascinating: the Telegraph is reporting in the UK, supermarket beer sales are poised to overtake pub beer sales for the first time. The thing that always struck me about the beer scene in the UK was precisely the fact that almost all drinking happened in pubs and there was very little beer for sale in the markets and little found in household refrigerators. Seeing the 'off license' sign, signifying their ability to sell take-away beer, outside the little markets was a rarity. From the article:

Back in the 1970s more than 90pc of all beer drunk in Britain was bought from the "on trade" – pubs and clubs, with less than 10pc brought from the "off trade" of supermarkets and off-licences.

According to the British Beer &Pub Association this ratio had fallen to 50.9pc from pubs and 49.1pc from supermarkets at the end of last year. "It will cross over in the near future," said a spokesman, possibly as soon as this Christmas.

Why? Well, the pub scene in Britain is in crisis suggesting that the changing lifestyles are leading more and more people to find their entertainment in the home instead of outside it.

Pub closures hit a record rate of 53 a week at the height of the recession. Last year, 26 a week closed their doors, leaving just 52,500 pubs in Britain, nearly half of the level at its peak before the World War II.

The Beer & Pub Association blamed competition from the supermarkets, which often sell beer as a "loss leader" to drive customers into their stores, and above-inflation increases to beer duty. The GMB blamed large pub companies putting up their prices because they were struggling with too many debts.

The GMB has calculated that the average price of a pint of lager cost 93p at a pub in 1987. If it had risen in line with the Retail Prices Index measure of inflation it would now be £2.18, but in fact it has climbed to £3.09, making it unaffordable as a daily staple for many consumers, already hit by rising utility bills, petrol prices and salaries which have been frozen.

Leaving aside the humorous notion of beer being a daily staple of British life, I think the blame is misplaced if it is aimed at pricing strategies of supermarkets. There is always a premium to be paid in a pub, after all, but the sea change we are seeing now has come during a time (until recently) of great prosperity in Britain, so I think the changing lifestyle explanation carries more water.

US Beer Sales: Falling Macros

2011-09-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting compilation of eight beers whose sales have declined precipitously from the blog "24/7 Wall St."

Number 1? Michelob which saw a sales decline from 2006 to 2010 of 72%. This makes sense as it was ABs 'premium' beer which, it stands to reason, was most subject to competition from micros.

From the blog post:

Most of the beers whose sales declined that much have one thing in common — they are “full-calorie” beers, or about 145 calories a can. Instead, beer drinkers have turned to “light beers,” which have 100 calories a can, and “ultra-lights,” which are closer to 90 calories.

Surprisingly, Budweiser, the best-selling beer in America for years has lost 30% of its sales over the five-year period. Given that Budweiser sold 18 million barrels last year, this is a massive loss – more than 7 million barrels less. Sales of Bud Light, on the other hand, held steady at just over 39 million barrels during the five year period. Six products on our list have lost half their sales since 2005.

Other than lighter-calorie beers, drinkers have also turned to imports, such as Corona, and to craft beers, which are produced, and usually also consumed, in relatively small regions, according to Eric Shepard of beer marketer’s INSIGHTS. Overall, sales of beer from 2005 to 2010 rose 1.9 million barrels to 208.4 million barrels. But sales of the top 20 brands dropped 10 million barrels to 149 million, a sign that Americans have turned to craft beers and imports.

Bud is the number 8 beer on the list. Go and see the rest here.

Growing Your Own: Fresh Hop Brewing

2011-09-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

The hops, after a disappointing (but expected) first year with no blossoms, flourished this year and produced a bumper crop. So I finally got a chance yesterday to brew my very own fresh hop ale with my very own (organic!) hops. The problem is, of course, that I have no experience using fresh hops and the whole endeavor is pretty new, so there is not a lot of collective wisdom out there about the use of fresh hops.

Nevertheless, I forged ahead. I am a huge fan of fresh hop ales, but I also know how hard they are to make well. Most fresh hop festivals have as many failures as triumphs. One thing I have settled on is that dry hops should be used for the bitter charge. There are some who would argue that this then makes the beer not a true fresh hop ale, but I disagree. The point of the fresh hops is not the bitterness but the green earthy note they impart to the beer. And bad beer is bad beer, so using the very hard to anticipate fresh hops as the bitter charge increases the risk of a bad beer significantly. In fact, I am confident that my beer will be quite enjoyable no matter what I have been able to extract from the fresh hops.

I decided on a very simple recipe - a light colored pale ale (no, not a redundancy) hopped exclusively with Cascades, both dry and wet. My brewing compatriot came over at 10 and we began the harvest of the hops at 10:30 while the strike water was heating up and by 10:45 we mashed in and continued to pick the hops. Just for kicks I threw a couple of handfuls of wet hops in the mash at vorlauf for some wet hop first wort hopping. Then the dried Cascades at the beginning of the the boil with a big bunch of wet hops at the end. Having no idea how much to add I just grabbed handfuls and dumped until satisfied. Something about that lack of precision - in a process defined by precision - seemed fitting to the whole fresh hop beer ideal. All went well and the beer is now fermenting happily.

It'll be interesting to see how long the beer will last. We will have five gallons of the stuff and I expect the fresh hop note to be ephemeral - I wonder how long it will take for the beer to either lose its character or become stale and unpleasant. Those with experience are encouraged to chime in to prevent me from wasting beer.

The whole endeavor feels very Portland to me - backyard hops cultivating, home-brewing, and making a northwest pale ale. It was also a very cool experience regardless of the outcome.

Beer Arbitrage

2011-09-07T15:54:00.000-07:00

I am going to hop on (get it?) an ongoing debate started by Jeff at Beervana (in fact he egged me on to do so) by talking about beer arbitrage. It all started with a link to this article in the Washington Post. [You should go and read Jeff's post and the very interesting and informed discussion that followed in the comments]

While it focuses mostly on the eBay marketplace for beer (which is both prohibited by eBay and, if sold across state lines, most likely the law), I want to focus on the bigger picture: the secondary beer market itself.

The fact that these market have arisen suggests that there was a missing market problem: buyers and sellers who would like to transact but for whom there is no forum for such transactions. The most common reason for such transactions is some sort of regulatory constraint. Black markets in command and control economies like the former Soviet Union are a perfect example: shoes are on sale in Moscow, but there is little demand, so buyers buy them and sell them illegally in Siberia and so forth.

In this case I suspect the main culprit is interstate restrictions on the sale of alcohol and the fact that a lot of the special beer can only be obtained close to the brewery. So this secondary market is really about circumventing the law - making money by breaking it. But it is also about beer lovers who are willing to pay a lot to get some special beers that they crave and I agree entirely with Jeff, I fail to see how the resale market in any way exploits brewers. The very existence of such markets means that additional value from the production and consumption of the beer is being created. Which is good.

For the sake of argument let's forget about the regulatory constraint and suppose I decide to sell the bottle of Roots Epic that I have in my basement to a local buyer. I am pretty sure I could get more for it now than when I bought it. I have a willingness-to-sell price above which the cash is worth more to me than the beer. I suspect there is someone out there with a willingness-to-pay price above my sell price and below which the beer is worth more than the cash. If we can agree on a price somewhere in between my price and his/her price we are BOTH better off going through with the transaction. This is precisely the entire point of markets: they create value by facilitating mutually beneficial exchanges. Why this should be frowned upon is completely beyond me.

Here is a snippet from the article:

“In another life, I would be a consumer advocate,” Stone’s Koch says, adding that high prices also are problematic because they often accompany second-tier products. Some beers, such as hoppy India pale ales, quickly lose their vibrancy or go rancid when exposed to light and heat. “Frankly, somebody’s naive if they pay big dollars for this stuff on eBay,” Koch says. “They think they get a rare, special beer, but the reality is that they get a rare beer but it’s no longer special.”

Ultimately, though, what seems to upset brewers most is their sense that they are being exploited. “You want to hear about the framboise story?” said Russian River’s Cilurzo. “I am furious about this.”

Last September, Russian River released Framboise for a Cure, a raspberry-flavored beer that it sold for $12 per bottle to raise money for a local breast cancer treatment center. The beer sold out in a day, and soon somebody sold a bottle on eBay for $400. Then someone else put one up for sale. “We contacted that person,” Cilurzo says, “and we said, ‘This is absolutely ridiculous, because we donated 100 percent of this for charity.’”

But this is ridiculous, there is nothing pro-consumer about special releases and events that restrict the beer to a lucky/well-connected/eager set of consumers. What this secondary market is telling you is that you are excluding lots of your consumers and doing so in an inefficient way. And if Russian River wanted to raise money for the Cure, they should have raised the price of the beer, because they probably could have sold it for more. But they got the $12 they wanted for charity, I fail to see how the resale of the bottle has anything to do w.th it, it is not going to affect the amount raised.

Furthermore, the implication that buyers of high priced Vertical Epic bottles are getting a degraded product is totally beside the point. Any buyer paying that much surely knows enough about beer to know the risk he/she is taking. And who are we to judge their preferences. I would not spend the money, but that is me, everyone else can follow their bliss.

So in the end, I do not think secondary markets are evil, just the opposite. In general I love to find little instances where markets arise spontaneously due to some missing market problem and this is but another case.

Fresh Hop Fest in My Backyard

2011-09-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report a bumper crop of Cascade hops in my backyard. Now it is time to harvest and brew. This will be my first ever attempt at a fresh hop beer. I am of the opinion that fresh hop beers are best when dry hops are used as the bittering hops and the fresh hops are saved for the aroma. I do not think this in any way creates somehow an ersatz fresh hop beer. I am, in general, a big giant fan of fresh hop beers and appreciate them even with their green and grassy warts. Beer's connection to the earth is never more apparent, and the beer itself never more fresh tasting, than with fresh hop beer.

All that said, it seems to be a real challenge to brew good ones. Most fresh hop beer fests contain a few great ones, many so-so beers, and quite a few total failures. I don't expect much from my first try.

Any and all advice is appreciated.

Timbers Pints are Honest

2011-08-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

Thank god, Timbers pints are honest pints.

These are the pints season ticket holders were given as a thank you and, of course, I had to check.

New Beer in the Old Country: US Craft Beer Catching on in the UK

2011-08-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

News from across the pond, via the Guardian, is that US Craft Beer is taking off in the UK:

American "craft" brews are revealed as the UK's fastest growing beer trend. Data from Information Resources Inc, a research company, shows that sales of premium lagers imported from the US have increased by 150% over the past year as they are rolled out in the UK's pubs and clubs.

Tesco is launching four of the most popular – Blue Moon, Goose Island, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Brooklyn – at 750 stores across the UK. "American craft beers have become the UK's fastest growing beer trend and are now starting to muscle in on territory dominated by Belgian and German specialist brews," said Tesco's buyer, Chiara Nesbitt. "UK tastes have been changing for a while now, and more and more drinkers are moving towards flavoursome brews."

Now, we might lament the fact that Blue Moon is a SABMillerCoors product and that Goose Island is now part of the Bud empire, but Brooklyn and Sierra Nevada are legit. In fact there is a good argument to be made that it was Sierra Nevada that was THE pivotal beer that really kick-started the craft beer revolution in the US (Jim Koch disagrees, of course. And my theory of endogenous demand suggests that these early pioneers might just open up all kinds of room for other US craft beers and other UK brewers, like Thornbridge, that brew more American-style craft beer.

Here is another snippet:

"The popularity of American craft lagers is very much down to how they offer similar traits associated with the British brewing scene of older years," said Ian Lowe, of the real ale campaigner Camra. "They are more heavily hopped and are higher alcohol content brews."

The new lagers usually cost anything between 20p and 30p more than their established rivals. Lowe said he believed their increasing popularity indicated a shift in drinking patterns.

"While the American craft lagers are definitely pricier than the lagers and bitters that dominate the UK, even by London standards, I think the public feel that they would rather drink less but drink better," Lowe said. "They are moving away from the tasteless pint that the smooth-flows and lagers from bigger traditional brands offer. They are tired of old offerings of the standard of Carling and Carlsberg."

Still the culture of session drinking in the UK and the high-alcohol content of US craft beer might be a volatile mix...

Beer in Cans: Fort George

2011-08-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I went up on Mount Hood to go camping and at the last minute decided to bring a little tipple along. Looking for something tasty and appreciating the compact and collapsible nature of the can, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to finally try craft beer from the can. Craft beer in cans is not something I have been a big fan of, noting the BPA liners and the general low-brow nature of the can and so I have, until now, resisted.

When I saw Fort George's Vortex IPA, however, it was a easy decision to make. Vortex is one of my favorite beers and one that I have only ever been able to enjoy at the brewpub in Astoria. And I will say this for the can, it did preserve the beer perfectly: the aroma and flavor were excellent, and even drinking straight from the can did not diminish the enjoyment.

I do have one regret, however: Vortex is a massive beer, something I had forgotten. At 7.4% ABV it is a meal into itself. Perfect for Astoria's cooler and wetter climate, but less good for a wonderfully warm and sunny weekend on the mountain. I had a choice between Vortex and Fort George's 1811 lager and I didn't give it a second thought. I should have, 1811 is a wonderfully over-hopped (for style) lager that is a hop-heads delight and a perfect summer beer. I should have put off the Vortex 'till later and gone with the 1811.

The other regret is the $12.99 I parted with to buy a four pack of 16 ounce cans. Were it not for the rush to get off to the mountain and the excitement of the chance to become reacquainted with Vortex, I would have pondered this a bit longer. This is just too damn expensive. [Ditto the $5.99 the same Safeway was charging for a 22 ounce Ninkasi Maiden the Shade] And in this I think I see the rough waters ahead for the craft beer industry: with so much great beer, the companies that can provide it for less are going to be hard to compete with. When I can get a six pack of Total Domination for $7.99, it is hard to justify the Vortex purchase.

But I digress, the point of this post was both to rejoice at the fact I can now enjoy Vortex at home and to admit to warming to the whole can deal. Cans, in this instance, were as advertized: handy, easy to deal with and great a preserving the contents. And big or not, the Vortex was fantastic.

Update: I had to stop in for some supplies and I grabbed a four pack of 1811, which I failed to notice before retails at $7.99 in my local grocery. Interesting the disparity in prices. Surely the Vortex costs more to produce, but not 70% more. So why the price discrimination? The Vortex must be a hot item while the 1811 less so.

From Whence Lager Came: Patagonia?!?

2011-08-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

CREDIT: by Barry Carlsen/University of Wisconsin-Madison

This is a fascinating article about a real-life yeastie detective story. Apparently lager yeast is a hybrid - part ale yeast and part something else. But what something? No one knew - the genetic makeup was not native to Bavaria where lagers originated.

But now a University of Wisconsin researcher has found the missing link and not at all where you would expect it: Patagonia. From the LiveScience article:

A fruit fly's journey from Patagonia to Bavaria could be the reason we enjoy nice, cold-brewed lager beers today. The missing parent of the hybrid yeast used for brewing lagers has just been discovered in Patagonia.

Until now, scientists had known lager beers were made from a hybrid yeast, with half of its genes coming from a common ale yeast and the other half coming from an unknown species.

"Nothing they could find in the wild or in the freezer collections could match the missing component of the lager yeast," study researcher Chris Todd Hittinger at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told LiveScience.

***

They found the missing yeast growing on southern beech trees in Patagonia. They sequenced the genes and found that this species of yeast was very likely to be a parent of the lager yeast hybrid.

"It’s a 99.5 percent match to the missing half of the lager genome. It's clear that it is this species," Hittinger said.

Each lager-yeast parent contributed one copy of its genome to the special yeast through sexual reproduction. The resulting yeast hybrids are sterile, meaning they can't reproduce sexually, but they can make direct copies of themselves and expand their genetically identical population.

In nature, this wouldn't be a smart evolutionary tactic, because it doesn't allow the yeast to adapt to changing conditions, the researchers said; but in the beer-brewing facilities, where temperatures are constant and food is freely available, the yeast can thrive.

A Visit to Flat Tail Brewing in Corvallis

2011-08-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

Flat Tail - the phone cam does not deal with the contrast well, but in front there is lots of outdoor seating.

When I lived in Corvallis, I lamented the dearth of local craft brewpub options. At that time there were two, neither really meeting the definition of a true brewpub: Oregon Trail Brewing at the Old World Deli and the, then new, McMenamins on Monroe. In the last few years however two exceptional brewpubs have opened: Block 15 (on which I waxed rhapsodic previously) and now Flat Tail Brewing.

I finally got a chance to check out Flat Tail yesterday when I was in town for some meetings and I came away very impressed.

Full on sportsbar style with lots of Beaver memorabillia

Flat Tail is in what used to be the Fox and Firkin, which after the creation of the waterfront park is now in a lovely spot on First and Madison with ample outside seating. The location and the outdoor seating give it an advantage over Block 15, at least in these lovely summer months. But whereas Black 15 is squarely in the 'NW Brewpub style' meaning lots of wood and exposed beams and a wee bit of down home funk (thank the McMenamins for creating the blueprint - and I do mean thank, the bright airy style of the NW brewpub was a distinct break from the dark tavern style), Flat Tail is full on collegetown sportsbar style. It has gray walls, black furniture, a touch of gloss, and lots of flat screen TVs. It also is a Beaver heaven with memorabilia covering all the walls. Go Beavs. In the 'do TVs belong in pubs?' debate I fall squarely in the yes camp as I am a hopeless sports fan. I love to have a place to socialize and watch the game while at the same time enjoying excellent house made beer. Though I am not terribly fond of the decor - I prefer the woody NW brewpub style - I am a fan of variety and find Flat Tail a nice break from that tradition.

iPhone cam not really up to the task, but here is the brewery

I don't know if the attached brewery was a part of the Fox and Firkin's space, I suspect not, but it is a wonderfully large space in which a reasonably large brewhouse has been placed. I didn't think to ask, but I suspect it is in the 10 barrel range. You can see the brewery from as couple of windows as you walk in and, in a nice touch, a whiteboard informs you of what is being currently brewed.

Flight of tasters - yum.

But what matters most is the quality of the beer. I am happy to say the beer is generally excellent. Their flight of tasters includes 8 and the very knowledgeable and friendly barkeep threw in a few more he was excited to share with me. The range of styles was impressive - quite a few sours as well as hoppy NW standards and some very interesting experimental beers. I must say I preferred the sours, with the 3% ABV "KSA" a real standout. Here is how they describe it:

The second batch fermented 100% on oak with our Corvaller Weisse sour yeast blend. Brewed with oats, rye, wheat, and malted barley, then fermented with Gotu Kola nut, raw cacao nibs, and cherry juice. KSA has an incredibly complex nose of cherry, cocao, and spicy woodiness. This enamel strippingly sour ale retains its sessionable nature with a thirst quenching 3%ABV.

It was fantastic. Not the least bit lacking in flavor or body, a true session beer and great summer thirst quencher. I found the standard lineup (Amber, Pale and IPA) quite good but nothing really stood out. I noticed a house hop quality in the more hop-centric beers like the IPA to be a bit of harsh bitterness and less aroma than in my favorites, but all three were exceptionally well-crafted beers. I really enjoyed their version of an English extra special bitter (the EST), the malt body was perfect, but I was not overwhelmed by the use of Perle hops in lieu of EKG or Fuggles. I love Perle in, for example, Double Mountain's Kolsch, but didn't think they matched well with the malt. The stout was great as well, wonderfully roasty but not too dense.

Speaking of Kolsch, theirs is exceptional and I was told it will be their first bottled beer (and will be available in the Market of Choice chain statewide). This is a great call, nice counter-programming from all the IPAs out there. Their Kolsch is less spicy than DMs, but clean, refreshing and nicely balanced. It is also crystal clear making me wonder if it was filtered. The barkeep was not sure.

Two other beers are worth mentioning. The have a very nice apricot wheat, which is a nice dry American wheat beer with just a hint of apricot which is a study in restraint and very satisfying. And then there is the El Guapo:

This unique summer ale is brewed with over 35 pounds of fresh, whole cucumbers, habaneros, and limes fermented directly in our open tank. Rahr 2-row, Weyermann Pilsner, and modest hopping rates allow this flavor combination to shine through.

No doubt this is a very divisive beer, but I loved it (though 3oz were plenty). The cucumber hits the tongue immediately - light and refreshing while the habanero spice comes through in the finish. I am not generally a fan of pepper spiced beers and I wouldn't really want a whole pint of this, but it is a successful experiment and worth a taste at least.

Finally a word about the food. The menu is brewpub/sportsbar: burgers, fries, sandwiches, etc. I had the Old South pulled pork sandwich which was very good and upgraded to onion rings which were excellent. From this small sample I expect the rest of the food to be done well with good attention to detail.

So, all in all, Flat Tail is a fantastic addition to the NW brewpub scene and a wonderful place to hang out on a sunny Oregon summer day or on gray winter days to watch a game and hang with friends. My one disappointment was the lack of any cask offerings - a shameful oversight if you ask me. Hopefully they will get on the cask bandwagon soon.

On Bubbles and Beer

2011-08-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

Jeff at Beervana has a post on new numbers from the Brewer's Alliance and wonders whether we need to start seriously worrying about a bubble in craft beer. As evidence, he notes this graph.

He also mentions anecdotal evidence that at Jeld-Wen during Timbers games Widmer far out-sells Bud.

Why do I mention the two together? It is because, as readers familiar with the blog will know well, my theory of the craft beer industry is that demand is endogenous. In other words, the more craft beer the more people try it and like it, the more it appears in stores, etc. I think Portland, Oregon has the largest demand for craft beer in the country not because there is something different about the people or culture, rather because of the length of the history of craft brewing in the state as well and the breadth (see post below about quality beer taps in random pizza joints). When you get to the point where craft beer far outsells macro lager in sports stadiums, you know the world has changed.

Most cities and states are far behind Oregon and I see no reason why the same kind of demand cannot be developed in other parts of the US. Therefore I am not ready to call a bubble based on the graph above (and in general as an economist I never think I can call a bubble because by definition if it is obvious it is not a bubble). I do, however, worry about the ever present economies of scale aspect of brewing which - especially among packaging brewers - will probably lead to winners and losers. This is not a bubble however, simply that market sorting out the good from the not so good.

But no matter what, the unequivocal good news is in the short run at least, there will be a ton of new beer to try.

Only in Portland

2011-08-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after picking my kids up from their soccer camp, we stopped in at Pizza Roma in Woodstock for a slice. For non-Portlanders it is a good pizza place, typical and has a nice little tap list despite not being known as a beer bar. It was lunch and so I didn't partake but among the great beers on offer were Double Mountain IRA, Terminal Gravity IPA, Fort George Vortex IPA and Ninkasi Total Domination. All four would proabably make my list of top ten favorite beers. Nice.

Only in Portland do you wander into a random neighborhood slice shop and have such a stellar tap list.

Beervana indeed.

Visiting Summit

2011-08-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

Sam in front of Summit's bar

The last in a series of Summit related posts, I promise. But as brother Sam gave me a tour of the now 25 year old brewery, it is worth talking about.

Fermenting/conditioning tanks

Summit now resides in a purpose built building that is located close to the Mississippi river in St. Paul. Apparently they bought, for $1, the land for the building on a brownfield site that the city was interested in redeveloping. What they built is an enormous brewery using the guts of the old ---- brewery in Germany including a lovely copper lauter tun and boil kettle:

The scale of the place is impressive: their brewhouse is 150 barrels and it runs about 20 hours a day. They also bought Sierra Nevada's old bottling line which bottles at the rate of ten twelve ounce bottles a second (and yes, that tells you how big Sierra Nevada has become). It is an impressive place, the scale of which is rarely seen in the craft beer world.

Summit's bottling line

It also gave me the chance to finally try Summit beer. I had just about the full gamut at their in-house bar, and thus everything was a bit too fast to give a real review but here are some impressions. The beer I expected to like least, the Red Ale, I liked best: it was nicely hoppy (with Cascades prominently featured) and balanced, it was not malty like I associate with the non-style that is the American red. I also liked the ridiculously hoppy (and out of balance) silver anniversary ale - I am a hop head after all and a full on blast of hops is always welcome as long as it is not simply bitter and harsh. , The IPA is a wonderful British IPA - Northwesterners would not embrace it, but old-worlders would find it right in the wheelhouse, full of Norther Brewer and East Kent Goldings it has a lovely soft hop profile. It is not as transcendent as the Old/New-world masterpiece that is Bridgeport's IPA but very, very nice. The best selling Extra Pale Ale was not for me, but seems a perfect gateway into the world of craft brew for the macro set. The porter and the stout were both nice with the stout on nitro and very much the Guinness clone in the sense of being a lower alcohol beer that is dark in color but light on the tongue.

Cold room

The thing that was most remarkable to this Beeronomist was the fact that 300 barrels of the the one-off Honeymoon Saison were made. This suggests that the Unchained series has an identity of its own and they are confident it will sell no matter what the style. And with the PR folks doing a good job selling the human interest side of Sam and Cambers wedding beer story, it will probably not last long on shelves.

Sam and his beer

Plus, it is a damn good beer.

Sam's Summit Honeymoon Saison

2011-07-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: Elizabeth Flores/ Star-Tribune

I arrived in Minnesota to find a big Minneapolis Star-Tribune article on my brother Sam and his beer. Fortunately it was written by a real beer writer and the result is a very good article on the beer from conception to completion. Nowhere is it mentioned, but Sam used the same yeast as Upright and, not surprisingly, the end result is an exceptionally dry beer. I think it is fantastic. The honey is very faint, but I detect it a little on the nose and in the finish. The honey I am sure added nothing to the color but Sam's grain bill produced a lovely honey colored beer. It is a nice Minnesota Saison.

The article is well worth a read.

Beery Notes for Locals

2011-07-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

For those in Portland there are some great, great beers to be had these days. The lion's share are at Belmont Station where the Puckerfest is ongoing. Calling it a fest might be slightly misleading as there is no tent, crowds, whoops, etc. It is just a special set of beers on tap in the bar with meet-the-brewer events each night. I went Wednesday and tasted the four Upright beers as well as the Flat Tail Corvaller Wisse (pictured above in a photo by Jeff Alworth).

The Uprights were, what else, great - with a few warts: one was too ginny for my taste. But the Blend Love is a real crowd pleaser and I was ... pleased. For me the real find was the Corvaller Wisse which was phenomenal. At 3.6% is is a real summer session beer and the lacto sourness is not as astringent as brett can be. Citrus esters are present and after a long bike ride to make it from Sellwood to Belmont Station, it was a wonderfully refreshing beer. I hope this becomes a summer standard at the brewpub.

The star for me was the Double Mountain Devil's Kriek. This is no surprise, it is one of my all time favorites. Beautiful cherry notes wrapped up in a sumptuous bronze malt base - just sour enough but not too sour. Rhapsody. Check out the nice video at Jeff's Beervana site about making kriek at DM.

White IPA. Another Jeff Alworth Photo, but that's my hand dunking the fish and chips - which have improved at Deschutes, BTW.

After that it was off to Deschutes to grab some dinner prior to the Timbers game. There they had the Armory XPA on cask. I don't think I have had a beer that is so different on cask as on tap - in fact I asked for a taster of the tap version to confirm. There are all kinds of fruity esters present in the cask version, hints of cherry and apple that are covered up by the CO2. It was great. After that, I tried the Chainbreaker White IPA thinking it was the collaboration beer with Boulevard. Apparently not. This is an all-Deschutes version and it rocks. To me it is a hoppy saison, with the characteristically Dechutes pitch perfect use of hops. It is the perfect beer for a hop head who appreciates Belgian-style beers but who loves his hops.

Finally the Black Butte XXIII is rapturous. I had left my bike parked in front of Deschutes (conveniently) so I ducked in for a snifter of the elixir before heading home. It was the perfect nightcap. What I like most about it is the very, very subtle blend of 1/4 bourbon barrel aged beer with regular stuff giving it just the hint of bourbon not the overwhelming bourbon all too common in such beers.

NB: Deschutes' menu has changed (shrunk mostly) since I last visited, most notably absent now are the pizzas. But the beer pretzel remains.

Nice weekend to get out and experience some great rare beers.

Coopetition: When Competition is Good for All

2011-07-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

This is something I have discussed before in these (what, pages? files? screens?), er in this blog, but is illustrated nicely in this interview Andy Crouch, the Beer Scribe conducted with Alan Pugsley of Shipyard brewing company in Portland, Maine.

AC How has [the craft beer market] changed to now?

AP It's completely changed. The bigger market for craft beer exists now, obviously. The craft beer market since those days has grown every single year.The craft brewing segment of the market is not going away. Back when Geary's started, Sam Adams was just starting. Even though it really wasn't a microbrewery as such, it was a contract brewing operation where all the money raised went into marketing. Jim Koch is a very good marketer. He did a great job in getting it out there and turned it into a multi-million dollar brewery. So that brand in itself helped pull others with it. All of his marketing money was not only making people aware of the Sam Adams brand, it was making them aware there was something outside of Budweiser. And that's really what he did. Even though we're competitors, at the end of the day, you say 'well done' and if you're honest, you say 'thank you for doing it that way'. It certainly did help.

AC After outgrowing the Federal Jack's location, you opened a package operation called Shipyard Brewing Company in Portland, Maine, in 1994. What was the result of this move?

AP The odd thing is that as opposed to taking away from Geary's sales, it actually increased them. The reason being there was one little face of Maine-made beer on the shelf which was easy to miss. When you put Export Ale here and Geary's Pale Ale here, all of sudden you've got a billboard. If you look in the supermarkets today, you've got Shipyard with three or four shelves and Geary's with three or four shelves and that's how you sell beer. Ironically, our growth and establishment helped Geary's. Plus, I think it gave them a little bit of a kick in the pants and realized they had some competition. They realized they needed to do something else and that's when they came out with Hampshire Special Ale. [emphasis mine]

Normally when we talk about competition we are talking about the number of firms that serve a given market that has a fixed (static) demand curve. In most standard models of imperfect competition, increases in competition are good for consumers (more get to purchase at a lower price) and bad for firms (they have to accept lower prices). But things change when demand it itself a function of the number of firms. In this case more competition does two things, it has the traditional role of adding to the competition for existing customers, but it also increases the number of customers as well. How this tension is resolved determines how an establish firm should feel about a newcomer.

Relations between craft brewers, in my experience, is exceptional - it is a very chummy industry. This, to me, suggests that the tension right now is being resolved in favor of new firms. Anecdotally, this seems largely true: new craft beer companies are finding new markets and virgin territory, pushing their way into venues that have heretofore been strictly macro-brew, creating even more shelf space in supermarkets as the number of craft beer drinkers continues to increase.

I think Portland, Oregon is an interesting laboratory for this: it is hard to imagine being a beer drinker that moves to Portland and isn't moved by the omni-present craft beer scene to give craft beer a fair hearing. Many will decide they not only like craft beer, but that craft beer transforms their beer drinking experience into a adventurous experience that provokes thought, discussion and passion.

There will come a time (and we may be quickly reaching it in Oregon) when the growth of breweries outpaces the growth of craft beer demand and competition becomes more serious among craft brewers, but for the time being, I think the attitude that all breweries are rowing the same boat in the same direction is accurate.

No Government, No Beer!

2011-07-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

Uh oh, SABMillerCoors forgot to renew its license to sell beer in Minnesota before the government shutdown and now they have been ordered to remove their products from store shelves.

From The Atlantic:

Minnesota's government shutdown--the longest in history--has some unexpected victims. Sure, people living on feeding tubes in taxpayer-funded facilities are being taken care of. Janitors are still cleaning the prisons. Police are still protecting the public. But in all this budget-cutting madness, everyone forgot to ask: What about the bros? And now that negligence has taken its toll: Because MillerCoors didn't reapply for its $30-per-brand license to sell beer, bro classics Miller Lite and Coors Lite, among others, must be pulled from the shelves.

KSTP reports that Minnesota "officials have told the company, it must come up with a plan to remove it's 39 brands of beer from shelves and in bars in a matter of days. The company failed to renew it's brand license with the state before the shutdown. ...Without the license, Miller-Coors cannot sell in the state." The company tells the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Don Walker that it's "working with the state to clear this up."

Yikes! I hope Summit is all up to date on its brand license...

Summit Honeymoon Saison Released

2011-07-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

My brother Sam's beer is out in Minnesota - the great unveiling was yesterday. I have to wait for the wedding to try it - but fortunately that is but a couple of weeks away. In the meantime here is Sam and his betrothed, Camber, on Minneapolis TV. And for those who wonder about the answers to all the mysteries: Sam is the product of my mother's second marriage and he and his twin sister were born just before my 16th birthday. Camber is Minnesota through and through (as is evident in the TV clip), which explains why Sam now brews in the Twin Cities, but it is a homecoming of sorts: he was born in Wisconsin while I was still in high school at Madison West. I can only hope that he stays true to his roots: you are a Badger by birth, Sammy boy, don't you forget it there in Gopher territory.

Happy Birthday Ninkasi

2011-07-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

Ninkasi turns 5 years old today. Happy birthday to one of my very favorite breweries - a hop-head's delight. Also today marks the release of the superb Maiden the Shade. Rejoice!

Honey Saison

2011-06-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

UPADATE: Sam e-mails to correct a misconception of mine. He was never thinking of harvesting the yeast - he just wanted to get a sense of it from Upright's Five - though they did harvest a little to study in the lab. My mistake.

Additionally, Sam writes:

As far as the beer goes, the first tank is done actively fermenting (finished at 1.4 degrees Plato (1.0056)) and we're going to lager it at 34 F for two weeks before we partially filter it and package it. We partially filter it so we can get target a yeast cell count in the bottle and that way get the exact amount of haze we want. Haze is good, chunks are bad! We brewed the last two brews yesterday and they are looking good so far.

I can't wait to try it!

My brother Sam is a brewer for Minnesota's Summit Brewing Company and as such, he gets to make is own beer that will be bottled and sold as a part of their Unchained Series.

He is also getting married this summer (far off in the Minnesota north woods - thanks for that Sam). So for his own personal brew he decided to brew a Saison. His recipe calls for honey so he decided to name it 'Honeymoon Saison.' Here is a Summit video which shows Sam adding the honey to the kettle.

His inspiration, in part, came from Portland's own Upright. He asked me to send him two bottles of the Five, which I did (at great expense), one of which apparently created a stir when he brought it to work to share. Sam was thinking of harvesting the yeast until Jeff told him the identity of the yeast which is far from a secret. I hope he is ready to deal with it.

What is particularly wonderful is that the character of this beer will continue to evolve and so if you grab a bottle and store it for a little while the little indefatigable yeasties will keep eating away and the beer will get dryer and dryer.

Anyway, for those in the Summit distribution region, look for it in July and for my buddies, I'll be bringing some back from the wedding.

Misadventures in Brewing: Brewing with Salt Redux

2011-06-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

Oops.

Some time back, while I was on an all-things-English-beer kick, I decided to try and brew a totally traditional English bitter, even down to an attempt to recreate the hard ground water prevalent in English beer. So I added a dose of 'Burton Salts,' a mixture of calcium sulfate (gypsum), potassium chloride, magnesium sulfate (epsom salts), to the water. I tried to be conservative, taking Portland's beautifully neutral water only about half way to Burton-upon-Trent.

I wanted to recreate that lovely and distinctive minerally quality of British beer in an authentic English Best Bitter. Should have left well enough alone. The beer, now known (not so affectionately as) 'Old Salty' is exactly that: just plain salty. It does not have that nice mineral quality, but it does have saltiness in spades. Oy.

Rather than dial back the salts even further I think I will just brew with the wonderful Porltand water unadulterated.

Chalk this up to the sometimes difficult learning process (pun intended). I mention this as a caveat emptor to those of you thinking of amending Portland's lovely water. I figure I offended mother nature and she punished me.

The 'Old Salty' does do a bang up job of cooking brats...

Beer Business News

2011-06-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

A few news items to note:

The Toronto Sun is reporting that the barley crop in Western Canada is poor again this year. As the quality of the barley determines whether it becomes malting barley or feed barley, it is still unclear how much will end up in malters. Thus, once again, there are supply conditions that might make the cost of producing beer increase.

The Guardian newspaper in England is reporting that Budweiser is set to become the new sponsor of the FA Cup, further evidence that InBev is trying hard to make it a true global brand.

Reuters is reporting that Carlsberg expects strong growth in beer sales in Russia as the economy there rebounds and as government efforts to reduce alcohol consumption push more drinkers away from vodka and toward beer.

And finally the BBC has a nice report on the vitality of Welsh brewing:

James 'Arfur' Daley, of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), believes that Welsh brewing hasn't been in such a healthy state for 85 years.

The new frontline in the fightback are small brewers and micro breweries dotted around Wales, from Snowdonia to the south Wales valleys.

The doors of the Motorpoint arena in Cardiff open on Thursday, with organisers hoping many of the 45 Welsh breweries will have their beers featured among the 150 cask ales on offer over the next three days.

In 2008, Mr Daley feared that the smoking ban, combined with the economic downturn - which saw seven pubs a week closing at its height - would soon spell the end for real ale and pubs in Wales.

"At least one pub a day was going bust in Wales, people were losing their jobs left right and centre, supermarkets were selling beer cheaper than brewers could brew it, and the smoking ban was keeping away at least a third of what custom did remain," he said.

"Don't get me wrong, pubs and brewers are still facing a battle for survival, but since that lowest point, many have found a way to survive in a way which is actually benefiting real and cask ales."

"There's not really one reason; though ironically chains closing pubs has provided a bit of growing space for independent traders."

***

Justin "Buster" Grant, is chair of the Association of Welsh Independent Brewers, which was founded in 2007.

He said: "In Wales in the last 10 years the figure has gone up from 12 to 45 and in the last 12 months, three or four new micro brewers have opened.

"The small brewers have broken into the market and it is growing."

Have a good weekend.

Welcome to the Neighborhood: PUB, PDX Bottle Shop and Sellwood Cycle Repair

2011-06-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

All things beery just got a whole lot better down here in the little old Sellwood/Westmoreland neighborhood. Until just recently the only real craft brew presence was Lompoc's Oaks Bottom Pub, which is a very fine establishment that serves fine Lompoc beers as well as guest taps. They also have, as long time readers are well aware, in my opinion the finest pub fish and chips around.

But most craft beer adventures take me far afield (well, okay, not that far), particularly two pursuits: home brewing and sampling rare and imported beers. The first always leads me to Steinbart's and the second to Belmont Station. Both generally require me to hop in my car, something (given my long commute) I loathe to do.

Now, happily I shall have a local alternative for both.

The Portland U-Brew and Pub (PUB) on SE Milwaukee (across from DQ) in Westmoreland is a home brew supply shop, a brewpub and a brew-for-yourself-on-our-equipment place. They have been working to completely renovate the space for months and months and are now finally open! I hope to check in on them this week, but I am immensely grateful to have a place nearby to dash off to when things go arse up in my homebrewing (which they do far more often than I like to admit). I also look forward to their careful selection of taps.

The Portland Bottle Shop on SE 13th just across and up the bock form Grand Central sent me a card to say that their grand opening will be on Saturday (June 18) from 1 to 8pm. They promise both beer and wine (unfortunate, in my opinion, I prefer that they focus solely on beer but given the demise of our local wine shop, I understand) a selection of beers on tap to enjoy there or to take away in a growler. They are still hiding behind papered up windows, but I have high hopes.

And since I am in a welcoming mood, it is also worth mentioning the new store just across from the Portland Bottle Shop, the amazing Sellwood Cycle Repair. These guys are the best and are longtime neighbors who have relocated to a space that is ten times bigger than their old shop on SE Milwaukie. The new shop is gorgeous and they are now open - just in time to give my bike the old once over as I prepare to ride around to the new beer haunts. And don't let the name fool you - this is now a full service retail store, chock-a-block full of bikes and equipment.

I have full reports on all three places (well, mainly the two beer places) soon.

My Kind of Beer Festival: Single-Hop Fest

2011-06-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

On (a gloriously sunny and warm) Saturday, Amnesia Brewing hosted the Single Hop Festival. The festival itself was great: interesting beers that allowed drinkers to get to know the characteristics of the hops used in brewing. And there were some standouts, my little cabal agreed that Amnesia's Cream of the Crop, Uprights Pils and Double Mountain's Cluster F#%k were real winners. Many of the beers, interestingly enough, were very small - which turned out to be a good choice given the sunny day in the 80s. Smaller beers kept the malt at bay so the hops could chine through. But Double Mountain brought the hop bomb and was both my favorite and a revelation.

Their beer was hopped entirely using cluster hops, which my learned and pedantic friend explained was the genetic forbearer of Willamette and Cascade hops and was, at one time used as the main bittering hops for US macro lagers. Thus I expected very little in terms of flavor characteristics - a mild, neutral hop. But no! The beer had the most amazing aroma and flavor of passion fruit. If I had not known otherwise I would have sworn passion fruit was used in the brew. It was a lovely beer and I ended up having a second. Who knew that cluster hops were so delightful and distinctive?

And this is really the point of this post: festivals with a strong theme (a raison d'etre if you will) such as this one are really the way to go. I learned interesting things about beer and brewing. If I just wanted to drink good beer, I can stop in any one of about 100 places in Portland for a tap list that insanely great. A festival should be enlightening and novel. A theme also gets local brewers to brew special beers with a purpose and the drinker can see the brewer's personality in their take on whatever theme is highlighted.

I also prefer small laid back affairs like this one. The boisterous OBF has its place, but we really need only one of those. I enjoy a relaxed, quiet affairs conducive to good talk and appreciation of the beer. More such themed events are coming - the next one that my learned friend assures me is going to be great is the Fruit Beer fest. Let's hope this is a trend that will continue.

Beware Stampeding Scotsmen

2011-06-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

What does it take to move a herd of Scots to stampede? Ridiculously low beer prices, apparently.

From the BBC:

An error which slashed the price of beer and cider led to a stampede of customers at a number of Tesco supermarkets in Scotland.

A deal offering three boxes of various alcoholic drinks for £20 was going through the tills at three for £11.

Police were called to Tesco in Greenock after heavy congestion was reported in the car park as customers rushed to get the deal.

A spokesman for Tesco said the pricing error was quickly spotted.

He said till operators changed the prices manually until the system was corrected.

It is understood the offer was supposed to be "buy three boxes of beer and save £11".

Oops.

Beer Quiz

2011-06-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

From Mark Nowlin of The Seattle Times comes a beer quiz. Click here to see the answers at The Bellingham Herald.

Q: What country is the world's No. 1 beer producer?

Q: What country was the first to first brew beer?

Q: When was beer first brewed by Europeans in the New World?

Q: Where is most of the United States' hop crop grown?

Q: The most popular beverage in the world?

Zoo Brew this Friday

2011-06-01T10:58:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of cool beer festivals in Oregon, but this has to be among the coolest: Zoo Brew! It is this Friday from 5 to 10pm at the Oregon Zoo and has a stellar line up of breweries including faves like Cascade, Hopworks, Laurelwood, Ninkasi and many, many others. For $30 you get a glass, 10 tokens and zoo admission. Unfortunately it is not clear the weather is going to cooperate, but what are you going to do, sit inside and mope about our second straight Juneuary in a row?

This is yet another beautiful John Foyston photo that I ripped off. I hope he is not litigious...

British Pubs Push Food to Survive

2011-05-23T08:12:00.001-07:00

On the Rising Price of Beer

2011-05-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Loren Berlin in the Daily Finance writes about the economic forces that determine beer prices. It starts with the usual suspects: the inputs. But first, are beer prices rising? Yes, says she:

...the average prices for a case are $20.34 at the supermarket and $19.92 at a convenience store, up 3% and 2.3% respectively from a year ago.

***

...I began to wonder why my brew was getting more expensive. Turns out, a lot goes into the answer.

Three years ago, Bavaria, the largest state in Germany, suffered a bad hops harvest. These green, pine cone-shaped flowers are the essential ingredient in brewing beer, and because Germany alone provides roughly 35% of the world's supply of hops, the crop shortage created an immediate and significant problem for beermakers who found themselves suddenly scrabbling to locate this key ingredient. And as we all know, when supply decreases and demand doesn't, prices rise. To cover those new higher costs, brewing companies added a few cents to the price of our beer.

Of course it was not just the hops crop in Bavaria, but a fire in Yakima and bad weather in other hops producing regions down under.

the other key commodity that goes into our beer are grains -- most often malted barley, but sometimes wheat or even rice.

...a heat wave in the Ukraine can directly add to the cost of beer -- and is doing so right now. Global grain production is down, thanks in large part to unusually brutal heat in the former Soviet Union and droughts in China. See the previous discussion of supply and demand, but in this case, the effects are wider, because unlike hops, which is mostly used in beer, we've got a few other uses for grains.

Next she pinpoints other cost factors like the price of oil:

Then there's transportation. All those raw materials have to be shipped to the brewers, and the finished products shipped to the retailers who sell it to us, all of which requires fuel. Fuel, that, until very recently, had been getting steadily more expensive this year. Yet another addition to the price we pay for our beer.

Of course brewing beer uses lots of energy as well...

But here is the really interesting stuff:

Beyond simple responses to these market forces, price increases may also be a conscious move on the part of the large beer manufacturers. According to Benj Steinman at Beer Marketers Insights, Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), for example, made a "strategic shift," to shrink the price gap between the company's more and less expensive brands to avoid "trade down," a term used to describe the consumer's tendency to purchase the less expensive of two beers manufactured by the same company. Given that Anheuser-Busch InBev controlled 48.3% of the U.S. beer market in 2010, any strategy they follow is sure to have wide effects. It's likely other manufacturers will follow suit, further raising the cost of our beer.

This is fascinating and can be applied to a familiar 'spatial' model of product variety. It says that firms provide consumers with lots of variety because consumers are quite different in their tastes and if you give them something in their sweet-spot, you can charge them a premium for it. Of course consumers are value conscious as well, so if the thing that doesn't match their preferences perfectly is much less, they may just switch - which defeats the purpose of providing the variety in the first place.

Craft Brewing has Never Been Bigger, Right?

2011-05-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

US breweries in operation. Source: Beer Institute Brewers Almanac

Given the proliferation of new craft breweries and brewpubs - new ones seem to be opening up every other week - it is tempting to think of this time as the very pinnacle of craft brewing in the US in the last 100 years. Not so fast, it turns out that the reality is a little more nuanced. In fact you can see from the graph above that the expansion in breweries was going gangbusters until they peaked in 1998 and then the bottom fell out. Since then it has been a decidedly rockier road.

While the number of breweries has finally eclipsed the 1998 number the number of brewpubs has not: in 2000 there were 1066 brewpubs in the United States while in 2010 there were only 1033.

In fact, in terms of craft beer volume, the boom in the 1990s was also followed by a very difficult period from about 1998 to 2003. For example in 1997 the volume of craft beer as a percentage of total volume rose 0.12% from 2.50% 5o 2.62%. But in the entire 5 year period from 1998 to 2003 it grew only 0.08% from 2.62% to 2.70%. Then in 2004 it grew again at a rate of 0.16%, from 2.7% to 2.86%. And in 2005 it grew 0.25% to 3.11%!

Here are some other Oregon centric factoids:

Only two brewing companies currently in operation in Oregon started in the period between 1999 ans 2003 - Laurelwood and Klamath Basin.

The number of Oregon microbreweries peaked in 1998 and it was not until 2008 that they reached the 1998 number.

Thus there are boom and bust cycles in craft brewing and one should not take this current boom as a signal that the only way is up.

Economists call the entry and exit of firms the process of 'creative destruction' which has to do with the fact that innovation continues and new more creative firms may start up and old, less creative ones shut down. So I wonder whether y'all think that it was the better breweries that survived or just the better businesses?

The take-away from all this is, I suppose, be very thankful you live in a time of craft beer ascendancy, but don't take it for granted. Support you local brewer!

Another Step in the Craft Brew Revolution: In-House Malting

2011-05-10T09:49:00.000-07:00


"Engineering grad student Joe Hortnagl led the malter design/build team. He's explaing how the rotaing augur keeps the barley seed bed from turning into one giant mat.." Photo and Text Credit: John Foyston

I can see the future: craft breweries touting their small-batch house-malt beers. It may soon be possible thanks to some industrious Beaver of Oregon State University.

John Foyston, writing for the Oregonian has the story of the OSU malter:

A group of Oregon State University engineering students didn't wait to graduate before endowing their alma mater: For their senior project, they designed and built an innovative barley malter that allows OSU to now teach every step of brewing, from barley field and hop yard to bottling line.

"It's the bread machine of barley malters," said professor Pat Hayes of OSU's Crop and Soil Science department. The malter, which looks a bit like a half-ton stainless steel rocket motor, automates and consolidates the task of steeping, germinating and kilning barley to make barley malt.

Graduate student and team leader Joe Hortnagl and mechanical engineering seniors Aaron Mason, Tyler Froemming, Eric Sunderland and Curtis Barnard designed and built a machine into which you can pour raw barley, set the computer and come back in about a week to shovel out as much as 300 pounds of fragrant, toasty, Grape-Nuts-tasting barley malt.

In reality, it's a bit more fussy than that, but the students' flexible and affordable rig has piqued the interest of commercial maltsters and food companies that use sprouted grain.

If they can perfect the technology and make it reasonably idiot proof, malting in-house on a small scale might become the newest-latest trend in craft brewing and in brewpubs.

In fact the lovely aroma of malting barley might be a nice little addition to the local brewpub.

Making Cask Conditioned Ale at Summit in Minnesota

2011-05-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

My brother, a brewer for Summit in Minneapolis, sent along this video as he knows I am obsessive about cask ale. Note the process at a big production brewery like Summit: prime the cask and then add beer from the conditioning tanks. It is in this step that the run afoul of the CAMRA types as far as I understand - true cask beer is not primed but finishes out in the firkin.

Nevertheless, to me the main distinction is the lack of injected CO2 that changes the flavor profile dramatically.

Brewing TV - Episode 36: Gone Firkin from Brewing TV on Vimeo.

Alcohol Spending Up but Beer Down?

2011-05-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

A 'business advisory firm' (which seems to be another way of saying 'consultancy') has done a study and found that though spending on alcoholic beverages is predicted to rise spending on beer may actually decline:

U.S. consumers are expected to spend more on beverages over the next year, though beer and non-alcoholic sports drinks may lag, according to a new study by global business advisory firm AlixPartners LLP.

***

The results showed that 87 percent of U.S. consumers plan to spend the same amount or more on alcoholic beverages in the next 12 months, compared with just 70 percent in last year's study.

***

Spending on alcoholic beverages is projected to rise at bars and restaurants in the next year, with 37 percent of consumers saying they would buy these items in a restaurant. Last year, the figure was 20 percent. Similarly, 37 percent of consumers said they'd make these purchases at bars, up from 21 percent in 2010. Despite these increases, the study did not bode well for beer sales.

"Our analysis found that one in three consumers would look to reduce their spending on beer by lowering consumption, looking for sales and promotions or trying less-expensive brands," said Darren Morrison, vice president in AlixPartners' consumer products practice.

But all is not bad news for beer, craft beer sales, once again, are predicted to rise:

The firm said craft brews could be the lone bright spot in a declining beer market.

Beer is Good for You

2011-05-04T21:17:00.000-07:00

...according to Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD. Here are her reasons for saying so:

It slashes heart disease risk
All alcoholic beverages, including beer, have been shown to boost HDL, the "good" cholesterol, lower LDL the "bad" cholesterol and thin the blood, to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. Moderate alcohol consumption, which is one 12 oz beer a day for women and two for men, has also been linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and improved brain function in older adults.

Beer offers unique benefits compared to wine and spirits
In the Nurses Health study, over 70,000 women ages 25 to 42 were tracked for the link between alcohol and high blood pressure. The study found that those who drank moderate amounts of beer had lower blood pressures than nurses who drank either wine or spirits.

It may help reduce kidney stones and boost bone density
In published research men who chose beer had a lower risk of kidney stones compared to other alcoholic beverages, possibly due to the diuretic effect combined with beer's high water content. Other studies show that compounds in hops may also slow the release of calcium from bone, preventing it from forming a stone. Likely for the same reason, moderate beer drinking has been linked to higher bone densities among women.

Beer contains vitamins, minerals and surprise: fiber!
A standard 12-ounce lager contains just under 1 gram of fiber and a dark beer just over a gram. And in general regular beers contain several B vitamins. A 12-ounce brew also packs more calcium, magnesium, and selenium (a key antioxidant) than a serving of wine.

But Guiness is especially good for you, according to Lisa Bramen on the Smithsonian.com blog:

[The claim that Guinness is good for you] was eventually bolstered by the fact that Guinness contains iron. Pregnant women were even advised to have an occasional pint. Of course, it would take something like a dozen pints a day for a woman to get her recommended daily allowance of iron, in which case the alcohol and calories would cause more harm than good.

But another health benefit was discovered in 2003: stout beer like Guinness (as opposed to lager and other light beer) is high in the antioxidant compounds called flavonoids—similar to those found in red wine, tea and chocolate—that can reduce the risk of heart attack from blood clotting. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin carried out laboratory tests on dogs (Irish setters, I wonder?) with clogged arteries, comparing the effects of Guinness and Heineken. Only those dogs fed Guinness had reduced clotting.

So start drinking stouts and get healthy! I wonder if this includes all beer made with dark malts? If so your hop heads can quench your thirst and heal you body with the now numerous Cascadian Dark Ales.

British Beer Bummer

2011-04-27T17:03:00.001-07:00

From Bloomberg:

U.K. drinkers bought 60.2 million fewer pints of beer in the first three months of 2011 as they cut back spending in shops and supermarkets, according to an industry group.

Beer purchases fell 3.8 percent to 5.32 million barrels from 5.52 million a year earlier, the British Beer and Pub Association said in an e-mailed statement. A barrel holds 164 liters of beer, or 288 pints, according to the London-based BBPA.

Sales in the “on-trade,” or in pubs and bars, slid 3.8 percent, the same rate of decline as at supermarkets and shops, or the “off-trade,” the BBPA said. On-trade sales declined at a slower pace than last year’s 8.8 percent decline, whereas shop sales fell from a 0.9 percent increase last year.

Beer sales “are still fragile,” Brigid Simmonds, the BBPA’s chief executive officer, said in the statement. Second- quarter sales may be helped by public holidays, including for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and sunny weather, the BBPA said, even as beer prices rise due to a tax increase levied in this year’s U.K. budget.

Beer Consumption and Economic Growth - or - Why I am Opening My Brewery in China

2011-04-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

From Felix Salmon I learn of a paper by Liesbeth Colen and Johan Swinnen which looks at the correlation between income and beer consumption. Interestingly the authors find that the relationship is non-linear and in fact has an inverted U-shape suggesting that beer consumption rises with wealth, but then declines as richer consumers switch to things like wine and spirits.

The good news for brewers is this:

Beer consumption has been increasing steadily while the consumption of wine and spirits has been flat. This, they argue is largely due to emerging economies like China increasing their consumption dramatically:

The USA 'aint doing badly either, by the way. This is, of course good news for those that are in the business of making and selling beer (especially those in China) but it also suggests that the other shoe might fall as the emerging economies become high-income economies and switch their drinking habits to wine and spirits.

By the way, as a counterpoint to the volume graph above, note the value of alcohol consumption:

So while the volume of beer has gone up, the prices of wine have increased while volumes have remained flat and this is even more true of other alcoholic beverages.

NB: Inverted U's are a favorite of development economists - the Kuznets inverted U is a posited relationship between wealth and inequality and the environmental Kuznets inverted U is a posited relationship between wealth and environmental degradation.

Unsuitable

2011-04-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

No Big Willy style after all. According to the Mirror in London:

Prince William and Kate Middleton have banned guests from drinking beer at their wedding reception.

In a move that is sure to disappoint party-loving Best Man Prince Harry, ale will not be served at Buckingham Palace after they tie the knot next Friday.

The prospect of guests downing pints has been deemed unsuitable for such a prestigious occasion.

Instead, the couple will treat their 650 guests to flutes of champagne and wine to accompany their canapés as they mingle in the palace’s 19 state rooms.

A source confirmed yesterday: “There won’t be any beer.

“Let’s face it, it isn’t really an appropriate drink to be serving in the Queen’s presence at such an occasion.

“And while the younger royals enjoy a pint from time to time, neither Kate nor William is a big beer drinker so they decided to leave it off the menu.

Proud of British Beer indeed...

At least Prince Harry knows where it's at:

Well, perhaps not. He is drinking a John Smith's 'Extra Smooth.' Interesting historical footnote: John was brother to William who founded a new brewery next door in Tadcaster. The 'Old Brewery' built by John was subsequently passed down to his nephew, Samuel. Too bad Harry didn't go for the Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Pale Ale which is wonderful and still brewed in the old Yorkshire Squares.

At least John Smith's has a sense of humor:

Proud of British Beer

2011-04-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

Apropos of my recent kick regarding all things British Beer I bring you (via Stan Hieronymus and Pete Brown) this nice video which has been made in reaction to the UK government's recent and planned increases in beer taxes in Britain.

Proud of British Beer from Society of Independent Brewers on Vimeo.

Widmer's Rotator IPA Series: X-114 in a Bottle!

2011-04-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

Widmer is kicking off a new series of rotating IPAs and as I understand it, the idea is to do about four a year. I encountered the first of the series, the X-114, at my local store last night (and on sale no less). I had sampled the X-114 a long time ago at the Gasthaus and loved it. It is brewed with generous amounts of Citra hops and the result is quite probably my all time favorite of Widmer beers.

My first thought when I had it at the Gasthaus was 'why in the hell don't they bottle this?' Happily they are and the product from the bottle last night was as exceptional as I remember - a stellar, balanced, northwest IPA that holds its own against the best around (Ninkasi, Bridgeport, Bear Republic, Fort George, etc.). Not overly bitter but wonderfully aromatic and beautifully balanced with a nice even malt character.

Sadly it will give over to another IPA in a few months, but the rotator idea is great if they can keep up the quality. IPA is the signature style of NW breweries and it'll be fun to see variants on the theme from Widmers master brewers.

But for now, go and get you some, you will not be disappointed.

[As a side note both this and Ninkasi sixers were on sale at Safeway for $7.99 and both were in short supply. In fact I grabbed the very last Ninkasi - an anecdote, yes, but I suspect the new Ninkasi sixers are selling like hotcakes]

Beer and Viagra

2011-04-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

Leave it to Scotland's Brew Dog to introduce "Royal Virility Performance" IPA to commemorate the royal nuptials between William and Kate. This beer contains Viagra so you get the joke. They call it "Big Willy Style."

Arise Prince Willy indeed.

Firkin Fest Recap

2011-04-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

Brewtopia photo, not mine, not the fest

The 2011 edition of the Firkin Fest was, I'll have to admit, a bit of a disappointment. Let me be clear, it is still one of my favorite beer events, but this year instead of the great leap forward I expected, I think it went a step in the wrong direction. I think it is now established enough that we can start to nit pick a little in the hopes that it will improve in the future.

Firstly, the beer lineup was a disappointment and of the 21 beers listed about five were Rogue and its many affiliates (Eugene City, Issaquah, Green Dragon) and one (Bridgeport) didn't even show up.

Second, the paltry food options are a real problem, especially for an event that includes food in the purchase price. Vegetarian friends went off to the Lucky Lab for food and came back afterwards as there was no veggie option save for a small plate of cheese without bread or crackers.

Third, the beers that were there were again, for the most part, not brewed with cask ale in mind. It is time to get brewers to step up and brew some special beers for the event. At the very least they should share some basic info about the beer they are offering up - some neglected to mention the ABV or IBUs let along other brewing/tasting notes.

That said there were some real stand outs in this year's line up:

The Brewer's Union's Mild, Au Naturel, was fantastic. Amazingly flavorful for a mild and a little extra hopped, I had two.

Just like last year Deschutes had a regular beer that was transformed in the cask. Last year it was Twilight, this year it was Red Chair. Red Chair had notes of lemon that I had not tasted before and was, in my mind, the best of the lot.

Block 15s Ridgeback Red with dry hops in the firkin was wonderful. I am not a big fan of the red style - it is generally a little too sweet for my taste- but the hops provided the perfect balance.

Double Mountain's Little G ESB was just want you want: a special beer, done well, that is perfect for cask.

Hopworks also nailed it this year with their Bonfire, a perfect cask beer, subtle and quaffable and they avoided the isinglass fiasco of last year - no fish!

Track Town's Brown was a big hit as well with my crowd.

Unfortunately, there were also some disasters:

Rogues Farmstead pilot brewery sent some unfinished ESB that was all wort.

Fire Mountain's Oregon Pale Ale was infected and was inexcusably served anyway. I dumped it.

Migration sent a clean and pretty nice beer but apparently either decided not to or forgot to prime the firkin. It was completely flat.

I can't imagine why either of the first two beers were served, better no beer at all than bad beer.

Still it was a great time and I love the low-key, relaxed atmosphere. There was one other gripe from my crowd that I did not share. The idea that you had to buy 8 beer tickets and 2 meal tickets. Complaints about wee lassies drinking too much and large laddies not drinking enough were spoken, my I, the ever helpful economist, congratulated them on discovering a missing market and encouraged them to seize the opportunity by buying surplus tickets and selling them to thirsty linebackers. No one thought this was a good idea or that my contribution was in any way helpful. Save for Jeff, who after a tick, exclaimed 'arbitrage!' and was quite pleased that he nailed the lingo.

Burton Salts

2011-04-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

After my beer tour through Britain it was time to bring it all home by trying to replicate a traditional English best bitter in my own wee brewery. I have brewed a best bitter before but with a NW twist - NW hops and a bit hoppy for style - I called it a NW Best Bitter.

Jeff adds the salts

This best bitter is intended to be a truly authentic English best bitter, ringing in at 4.3% ABV. So off I went with the Beerax to Steinbarts and loaded up on Maris Otter malt, East Kent Goldings hops and Wyeast's Thames Valley II yeast. All fine as it goes, but this time I really wanted to try and replicate that wonderful minerally quality of British bitters and so we came home with some Burton salts.The salts are supposed to both accentuate the sweetness the malt and make the hop bitterness more crisp. We will see.

Ready to vorlauf

We were ready to buy all the salts - calcium chloride, calcium sulfate, etc - but BeerCraft has a nice mixed salts which is perfect if you are starting from totally neutral water. Luckily Portland has beautifully clean water - there is absolutely nothing in it. So for the first time ever I amended the wonderful water of Portland with Burton salts. We were conservative, only getting about half way to Burton-on-Trent.

The scene on the only sunny day we saw in March in Portland.

The final results will not be known for a few weeks, but I am very optimistic and I look forward to tasting it along side the beer from my new favorite brewery: St. Peter's. It is a 100% East Kent Golding bitter and I am excited to taste the EKG in a single hop beer (something I relish in general - single hop beers are a great way to really get to know a hop).

Jeff and I thought that we should honor the debut of the the MLS Timbers in naming the beer. Stay tuned...

Ninkasi Makes the Top 50

2011-04-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

The Brewers Association has released their list of the top 50 craft breweries (which ridiculously does not include Widmer and the other CBA breweries) and a number of other Oregon breweries are on the list. But creeping in at #50 is Ninkasi, so now we can watch as they make a steady climb up the list (as I have no doubt they will do).

Deschutes, Full Sail, Rogue and Bridgeport (being a Gambrinus brewery is okay in the BA world) are the others on the list.

Worship the Goddess indeed.

Growing Your Own: Rogue Style

2011-04-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Rogue's Floor Malting House

I have been trying to grow hops for over a year now, and fortunately, after last years failed rhizome and then disappointing vine, it appears to be coming back with a vengeance. Already there is a robust beginning. Hopefully, I'll be able to brew a beer this year with my very own hops.

But if you want to find the commercial leader in the 'grow your own' movement look no farther than Rogue. And it makes sense, right? Rogue, marches to the beat of a different drummer and is fiercely proud of it. They have been involved in a wholehearted effort to produce their own ingredients and now have a hops farm and a barley farm from which they are now producing their own beers under the "Chatoe Rogue" label.

But once you have grown your own barley you need to turn it into malted barley and this is no easy feat. The delicate process of converting the starches into sugars requires a delicate touch. The traditional way of doing it is through a floor malting process by which you create a hot floor and rake the germinated barley until it is sufficiently dry. At least I think so - my knowledge of the process is sketchy at best. What I do know is that floor-malting is the old school way of malting - a lot of hand raking and thus labor intensive - and is rarely seen in the modern industrial beer world.

Which brings us back to Rogue which has just completed the construction of their very own floor malting facility on their barley farm in Oregon's Tygh Valley.

From and earlier press release on the facility:

The Malt Floor will be a Heritage-malting operation in which Rogue Farm barley will be soaked, floor-germinated, hand-raked on the malt floor, roasted in a brick hearth, and bagged in small batches. Rogue Brewmaster John Maier plans on developing 4-6 varieties of floor malt that will be used in the brewing and distilling of Rogue Ales, Porters, Stouts, Lagers, and Whiskies.

Floor malting began in the 19th century but was gradually replaced by automated equipment that helped reduce labor costs. With the establishment of the malt floor, Rogue joins a select handful of floor maltsters in Germany, England, and the Czech Republic that continue to carry on the heritage malting method.

And speaking of the beer, I have blogged in the past about how much I liked their single malt ale for the beer itself not just because they used their own home-grown ingredients. I liked the clean simplicity of the beer: one malt and one hop variety. I look forward to the wonderful things John and his crew at Rogue will do with the new fully home produced malts and kudos to Rogue for investing so heavily in their own hops and barley operations.
There are a lot of ways in which Rogue is just that - the could have easily become a Deschutes/Full Sail clone, settling on a standard line up of beer and selling far and wide. That would have been just fine and I am grateful to have Deschutes and Full Sail, but Rogue has always had a different path, one that is not just about growing revenues as quickly as possible. To my mind they should be celebrated for all of their fun and commendable efforts to create a truly home-grown Oregon beer.

Widmer Does Lompoc One Better

2011-04-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Pays to be a paid sponsor:

But Drifter?!? It is a fine beer, but not particularly evocative. What the Timbers beer should be is a big giant IPA, hopped-up and ready to go. I think the Widmers should make their X114 IPA, which is sensational, the official Timbers beer.

Here Come the Firkins!

2011-04-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

Easily my favorite event of the year, the Green Dragon Firkin Fest, is approaching quickly - Saturday, April 16. [Sorry for the small image, I could not find a bigger one] Why is it my favorite? Three reasons. First, it is all about cask beer, my special interest. Second, it is a small laid back affair. And third, it is at the Greet Dragon, which is a pretty cool place.

This year, I am hoping for more milds, bitters and other traditional English ales that are native to cask. But sometimes the hop bombs are a revelation on cask as well. Last year, Double Mountain's IRA was phenomenal. Ted Sobel from Brewer's Union will be there and I have it on good authority that he is bringing a mild, as he did last year. Other breweries are still trying to figure out the cask thing, but they seem to get better each year (let's hope for no fishy smelling Hopworks!).

Last year the weather was outstanding, warm and sunny, and the patio was the place to be. This year, who knows with this ridiculous weather, but the inside is inviting as well.

It costs $30, but for that you get 8 6oz tasters and two food vouchers which last year could be redeemed for sausage, chocolate or cheese. I did two sausages and loaded them up with kraut and voila: lunch.

Speaking of the Timbers

2011-04-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

Lompoc has a new beer out in bottles:

NICE.

Oh No!

2011-04-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

The new beer sign at the Portland Timbers Jeld-Wen Field. C'mon, in Beervana? Really?

The Widmers will have a beer garden so perhaps this is the AB - Craft Brewers Alliance deal showing itself in the stadium. This sign is in a key location in that that will appear on lots of national TV, so it doesn't necessarily make sense for a local brand. And, even in Beevana, I suspect that 75% of beer sales in the stadium will still be Bud Light.

More on Goose Island

2011-04-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend there was an Op-Ed in the Chicago Tribune by John Hall, the CEO of Goose Island explaining the sale.

Apropos of what I said on Friday, here is Hall explaining AB's rationale:

But Anheuser-Busch didn't buy us to change us. It bought us because we can do things its people can't. They're megabig, so it's harder to get people who sell huge brands to really push new products. As in a lot of industries, it's the small guys who are really creative, because they have to be creative. That's what's made us what we are.

***

My executive team, including Greg, who's my son and our brewmaster, all agreed that Anheuser-Busch would be far and away the best alternative for us if it would agree to certain conditions. We didn't work 23 years to build what we have just to throw it away.

Goose Island had to remain an independent company, with me in charge, with brewing centered here in Chicago and with sales and marketing reporting up through me. And I would report to just one person in St. Louis.

In other words, we wanted to continue to do what we've done. And they agreed to that right away.

Also in the Trib is an article on the many other craft beer options local to Chicago reinforcing the notion that craft beer is not in peril. The article focuses on Two Brothers and Three Floyds, too bad they chose to ignore the Four Horsemen...

Budweiser buys Goose Island

2011-04-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

A few folks have e-mailed me wondering why I haven't posted some comment on the AB-InBev purchase of craft brewery Goose Island. There are a few answers. The most important is that this blog is an offshoot of my main blog, the Oregon Economics Blog, but even that blog is an offshoot of my real job which is as a full-time economics professor at Oregon State University. OSU is on trimesters and my schedule is particularly heavy in the winter and spring quarters, meaning January through June. So it is hard to find time to sit down and write for both blogs as well as keep up with all my other responsibilities. Which is all a mea culpa for posting so infrequently these days. Sorry.

The second is that what interests me is economics not business, so pure business rationale is not necessarily something I am motivated to post on, what I like as an economist is to think about why certain business decisions make sense - what are the economic forces at work behind the scenes as it were.

The third is that, given my interest in the economics, I am still trying to think through all of the angles of this. As a academic I am trained not to shoot from the hip and so my bloggy persona and my professional persona are often in conflict.

So with that needlessly long-winded intro, here are some thoughts on the deal:

My first thought was something that Rogue owner Jack Joyce said to me and a group of students a few years ago. He was saying that the big brewers could easily best the craft brewers but that the corporate structure lacked patience. Once you are corporate and divisionalized, the marketers want to know how to sell the beer, the bean counters want to know that there will be big sales at the outset to justify the marketing budget and the corporation is worried about the bottom line so why should they go for lower profit-margin beer? Since, getting the public to accept and adapt to a good craft beer takes a lot of patience - you have to be willing to grow a craft beer line slowly and wait for the delayed rewards - this is something the modern brewing behemoths are not used to doing.
Part of craft brewing's ethos is the idea that it is an artisanal product and the brewers themselves are part of the 'personality' of the beer. It is hard for a generation of craft beer drinkers that have been brought up on this to accept a big brewers brewing quality craft beer. Converting mainstream drinkers to things like Bud's American Ale has not been very successful. So either you create a faux craft brewery ala Blue Moon and grow it slowly (see point #1) or you look to acquire an established brand.
Economies of scale are the name of the game in brewing, but in craft brewing I think the demand is such that a brewery should accept the economies of scale hit you take from sticking to a smaller brewery, and instead leverage the economies of scale you have in distribution and ingredients. This is not too distant from the Craft Brewer's Alliance deal with AB.
This is a typical big corp. play in a world of innovative entrepreneurs - think of Microsoft and Google gobbling up the Hotmails and YouTubes. I think it demonstrates three things. One, that the craft beer market is only going to get bigger and bigger. Two, that there is a lot of great new breweries and brewers out there. Three, that the big timers are getting in the market for real this time and they are not going away.
I don't think this is anything to fear, I think it means that craft brewing is going to grow that much faster. Either AB-InBev leaves Goose Island alone in terms of creative license or it will fail. In this modern era of new and innovative beers, no one company will every be able to create meaningful market power.

So in the end I think this is good for craft brewing and I don't see any reason to stop supporting Goose Island and their beer. In the future it'll either be good or it won't. If it is good, buy it.

An e-mailer asked me about this comment:

It is the lack of AB’s actions to do anything serious in this sector that speaks the greatest volumes. AB has more of everything that anyone has ever needed to move into the craft beer market. They have had the capital, the physical plant, the brewing expertise and the distribution chain to do this on their own for their entire existence, IF they truly wanted a card of genuinely high-quality beer in their product line. There is no company in the world with more opportunity to deliver on whatever intention they have to make great beer. There are but two things that have stopped them: bean counters and shareholders. They demand growth and increased profits. Growth they will get by buying decent breweries. Profit they will get by cheapening their product. That has been the A-B modus operandi for 50 years. The burden of proof to show that they are changing is on you, and not on the justifiably skeptical beer geeks.

To which I would respond with a reference to Jack Joyce's comment from a few years ago. Big corporate brewing doesn't understand how to market and grow a quality craft beer, but they do know how to buy a successful company. It remains to be seen if they will keep hands off, and in that will lie the true judgement. But the market is sophisticated now and I think it'll punish quickly any attempt to use the Goose Island brand to sell American Ale. Hopefully Bud will see this and understand. I don't think it is a forgone conclusion that they will dilute the Goose Island brand.

A Tale of Four Businesses. Part 4: Brewer's Union Local 180

2011-03-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

Finally, finally, finally I finish my series on the four southern and mid Willamette Valley brewing businesses I visited with Jeff Alworth in, uh, November. So today we venture back to Oakridge to visit Brewer's Union Local 180 and Ted Sobel, the publican and visionary behind what is, to my mind, the most unique brewpub in Oregon and one of the few that are a pure Oregon treasure.

When I first heard of Ted Sobel my impression was a crazy man in the woods with a thing about real ale. Which is basically right - you would have to be crazy to pick out Oakridge, Oregon to launch your business and he does have a thing about cask-conditioned real ale. But he is not crazy in the sense of CAMRA purists and his passion for real ale, I soon discovered, is not out of Nazi purism but of a complete vision of what a rural, local brewing pub is and what such a place means to a community. A vision he developed in time spent at local brewing pubs in Britain and has perfected in Oakridge.

Given my own passion for cask ale, English ales and smaller beers, I eagerly sought out Ted and his beer after hearing about him, finally getting the chance to meet him and his beer last year at the Green Dragon Firkin fest (which, incidentally, is coming up again soon on April 16 and Ted will be there again I understand and of course this make the timing of this post impeccable! - there is reason to my madness after all). At the time my impression was that cask ale was his passion and his hook. But it wasn't until I visited the pub in Oakridge that I understood the beer is only part of a more complete vision of a rural, local pub that is a part and even a centerpiece of a community.

Pocket billiards

What Ted has created in Oakridge is a warm, inviting place with many nooks and crannies in which to sit, relax and chat with friends and neighbors. His brewing operation is more like a scaled up homebrewer than a fancy brewpub, but his beer is subtle and tasty and always served fresh on cask. He has a number of guest taps and even convinces locals to send him a firkin now and again - Nick Arzner of Block 15 in Corvallis had sent a firkin of Ridgeback Red that was hooked up to one of the beer engines when we were there.

Ted finally answered a lingering question for me, which was why most beer served on cask in local bars and pubs is considered not quite legit according to the CAMRA-types. The answer is, apparently, that most breweries will take beer from a conditioning tank, put it in a firkin and then add priming sugar, much like the traditional homebrewer does, to re-activate the yeast and produce the desired carbonation. However, traditional cask ale is created by taking beer from the fermentor before it has entirely finished out, condition it, and then warm it back up to reactivate the yeast and create carbonation from the remaining sugars already present. It is an incredibly subtle distinction, but Ted's beer is done the latter - correct - way. Despite being a purist himself, Ted is not critical of those that do it the other way - cognizant, I suppose of the realities of a brewery trying to do everything. His fully realized vision allows him to do it the way he prefers, and that, I believe, is the point.

Note the floor made of the old MacArthur Court. Yes, the very one played on by the National Campion Tall Firs. Go and take Darshan.

Ted's business suffers in the lean winter months, but then picks up when the hikers and mountain bikers return to the mountains in the spring and summer months. I was there in the cold and wet fall, and the pub was a cozy and inviting place to settle in for an evening and Ted's beer which is mostly quite small, is very sessionable - so you can settle in for and evening without feeling it the next day. It was quiet but a number of locals wandered in and out. The pub has no TVs so, gasp, there is naught all to do but chat. Of course there are other diversions, stocked bookshelves, a pool table and free WiFi if you prefer the solitary amusements.

As an aficionado of fish and chips it behooves me to mention that Ted's are very, very good: moist and flaky fish in a light and well cooked batter on top of a pile of crisp chips. Excellent. I did not try the other food from the kitchen but it features very traditional British pub food such as bangers and mash as well as more American standards like burgers and reuben sandwiches.

The point that I am trying to make in this whole write-up is that most reviews of brewpubs focus on the beer and then incidentally the food, ambiance and so on. But Brewer's Union is the realization of a complete vision and all aspects - the beer, the space, the food and so on - are critical complements of each other. Jeff and I understood the completeness of the vision when upon checking in to the Oakridge Motel and informing owner Vivian of our plan to spend the evening at Brewer's Union, she said to give her regards to everyone there. This, I think is the point of Ted's vision - a pub that is interwoven in the social fabric of a small town.

And so even the crazy decision to open in Oakridge made sense to me in the end. And as we left Oakridge on a typical November Oregon day - misty, wet and gray - I gazed lazily at the tops of the surrounding Cascade foothills that had gotten a dusting of snow the night before and decided the whole experience, the setting, the town and the pub, was enchanting.

As an aside, Ted and I both have a connection to Ithaca, New York (me school, he hometown, I think). He has a nice bog post about a return home and a trip to Ithaca Beer Company (whose owners are friends of mine and whose birth I witnessed first-hand) and an old haunt: The Chapter House.

Context and Relativity in Beer Prices

2011-03-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

In economics, it turns out, relative measures matter a lot. For example, peoples' satisfaction with their own income depends a lot on the incomes of their neighbors and friends. People place value on things like cars and barbecues that depends not only on their own intrinsic value but on how much better they are from the next best thing. This fact does not easily fit into a lot of economic theory that deals only in individual decision making. You have do get into game theory to start to describe these types of values that depend on others actions - and that gets hard quickly.

Anyway I thought of all this when I finally encountered a Ninkasi six-pack in my local grocery store and was taken aback by the price: $10.99. Holy s#%t, I thought, that is expensive. It is substantially more than say a Bridgeport, Deschutes or Full Sail sixer.

Except that it isn't of course, in fact it represents a substantial discount per ounce then the standard 22oz. Ninkasi bomber bottle that generally retails at $3.99. Bill Night has been pointing this out for a long time, of course, but it is one thing to talk about rationally and quite another to experience it emotionally. Using Bill's Six Pack Equivalent (SPE) calculator it is easy to see that a 22oz bomber at $3.99 translates to a six pack price of $13.06.

So the Ninkasi sixer actually represents a much better deal than the previous 22oz bottle which makes little rational sense as the packaging per dollar has gone up. But of course when you buy a six pack you are buying 72oz total and thus the better price is a volume discount. See previous posts on non-linear pricing to understand why companies can do better but following a non-linear pricing strategy.

But what really matters, at least to the front of my mind where the first emotional responses form is that Ninkasi 22s were generally among the cheapest ones on the shelf and now the Ninkasi sixers are the most expensive. And where I was very happy to fork over $4 for a 22, I am now reluctant to spend $11 on a sixer even though I am the only beer drinker in my household and a 12oz bottle of a big Ninkasi beer is generally all I need. Its all in the framing - the relative comparisons. Before I would look at a bomber of Deschutes Red Chair, say, for $5.49 and quickly choose Ninkasi. But now I look at a sixer of Red Chair for $6.99 and a sixer of Ninkasi for $10.99 and I am not likely to buy the Ninkasi. Except that I will probably buy a bomber - despite my knowledge of Bill's SPE calcs.

I always thought of Ninkasi as very savvy for coming in at an aggressive price point for their bombers and it'll be interesting to see what happens now given that their sixers are going to be relatively expensive.

Because it is all relative.

A Green and Pleasant Land

2011-03-10T11:43:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love most about craft beer (and one of the most wonderful aspects of the wildfire-like spread of craft beer in the US) is how, through local beer, you can get a sense of the location itself.

And so I titled my post as I did because in my beer tour of Britain I am reminded of the green and pleasant land from whence the beer came: It is subtle and mild, but rich with history and character. The Brits have been at this for centuries and have a wonderfully soft touch - teasing out delicate flavor and nuanced character. Centuries of iterations have led to a equilibrium style that is quaffable - good for long hours in pubs - and tastes of the land, touched my mizzel rain and cool air.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, at the far end of the new world - the windward edge abutting the vast expanse of the Pacific - we take our beers bold and strong, bitter and hoppy. Our young new-world brewers just discovering the myriad of flavors and experiences craft beer can provide, surrounded by bold and exotic spices with which to flavor their beer.

It is thus a joyful enterprise to collect a variety of British beers, as I did, and enjoy a range of ales from the old country. The Northwesterner in me led me to a disproportionate number of IPAs, but these are British IPAs, bearing little resemblance to their NW cousins.

They are all of a type however, characterized by a more malty and soft mouthfeel and by the restrained use of more traditional English hops (East Kent Goldings, Fuggles, etc.) that provide a delicate spice. They were also characterized by the minerally water note that is most commonly associated with the water of Burton-on-Trent. But I noticed the same even in Scottish beer causing me to wonder if gypsum is a common characteristic of groundwater island-wide or if British brewers add gypsum to mimic the Burton-on-Trent character.

I enjoyed all of the beers, but some definitely more than others. Here is a breakdown of the great, good and forgettable. Oh and a note about the wonders of modern trade - one can amble down to the local bottle shop and trip through Britain, Belgium, Germany, wherever without leaving the house. What a wonderful age in which we live.

The Great

St. Peter's IPA. To me this was the quintessential English IPA, malty and minerally but with a gorgeous hop bouquet that was subtle yet perfect. This would be a stand-by in my fridge were I in England and I look forward to trying more of their beer.

Belhaven Scottish Ale. I wrote about this before, but I am generally not a fan of the style as practiced here in the States. American brewers (or at least Pac NW brewers) have a knack for hop bombs but struggle with malt-forward beers in my opinion. The Belhaven Scottish Ale is perfect - malty but in a restrained way. Not sweet, thick and sticky but light and balanced by a touch of hops. A real Winner.

Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA. Another winner from Belhaven. Their twisted thistle is a wee more hop forward than the St. Peters and less English as is appropriate - for Scotland is a more wild and windy place. I believe they use a little Cascade hops as well which gives it a slightly more floral aroma that we are so used to here in the NW. It is worth mentioning that the Highland Stillhouse in Oregon City features Belhaven beers on tap including Twisted Thistle - it is especially good there).

Thornbridge Jaipur IPA. This, to me, is an English take on a Pacific NW IPA. So it is halfway between a restrained English IPA and a NW hop bomb. It works spectacularly well. But it is very expensive, so caveat emptor.

Fullers ESB. Emphasis on the 'extra' - extra big, malty and spicy. Not a session beer by any stretch of the imagination, but very good.

The Good

Wells Bombardier. This takes the prize for the best bottle of all: christened 'Drink of England,' and adorned with the St. George's cross it is all English pride. Unfortunately my bottle was not in the best condition. I think this beer is best appreciated on cask, but in the bottle (which is a higher alcohol version) it looses some subtlety. Perhaps a fresh bottle would make a better impression but I woudl love to try the cask version. Still, I plan to try again with a new bottle - how can one resist the 'drink of England'?

Greene King IPA. I had high hopes, but was disappointed. Could very well be the bottle I had as it lacked a bit of flavor and character. Felt a bit bland and the aroma was a bit lost. Not bad, mind, a quite enjoyable quaff, but not among the best.

Moreland Old Speckled Hen. Moreland is now owned by Greene King and I found it a very enjoyable beer but missing that particular something that makes it particularly wonderful. I suspect, once again, that freshness is an issue.

The Forgettable

Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted. This is 'twisted' with Sorachi Ace hops which to some evokes lemon. To me they evoke unpleasant dill notes. Some love them, I dislike them. If you like Sorachi Ace then you should give this a try, I suspect you'll find it very enjoyable. I did not.

Williams Brothers Scottish Joker IPA. Again, remember that these are bottles that have traveled far and long, but even given that, I found this beer to be entirely without character. My 5 year old did like the bottle however...

One of the things I love about British beer is their mild subtlety and this is the very thing that makes trying bottles shipped all the way to Oregon a bit of a risk. There are some beers that I sense would be superb on cask in England (Bombardier, Old Speckled Hen) that just lose that special character by the time they make it to my glass. Still BOTH the great and the good beers here are well worth a try and are beers I would buy again without hesitation. I especially recommend St. Peter's in the bottle and Twisted Thistle on tap.

But perhaps next time I can have them at the source.

And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land

A Beer Tour of Britain

2011-03-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

I am on a bit of a British kick these days in response to officially becoming a British citizen. And in celebration of my new, and more useful, passport I waddled on down to Belmont Station and bought up a bunch of British ales. Interestingly, there were almost as many Scottish beers as English. I wonder why such a high proportion of Scottish beers make it to Belmont station?

I actually was not in the hunt for many, I just wanted to pick up some Belhaven (speaking of Scottish beer) but I was intoxicated by the amazing array of British beer. I have also been on a bit of a crusade for smaller, more mild ales as too much attention in the NW is on big hop bombs (which I adore, but am not always in the mood). In addition, there was a bottle of Thornbrige Jaipur highlighted in the great Beertickers film (though at a walloping $8+, I did have a moments pause).

I will try and give some specific tasting notes, but as many of the beers are quite similar, I worry about having enough to say and not ending up sounding like Bill's beer review generator.

It'll take me a while to make it through all the beer, but it has already been a week and I have had a chance to sample a few so here are a few initial impressions.

First, what is up with clear bottles? Bad enough for the domestic market, but for beer that has to cross the pond and the North American continent (in my case), clear glass is a poor way to make sure your beer arrives at my lips un-struck. It is certainly true that many of the beers look beautiful in the clear glass bottles, but the risk to the contents is quite high. Perhaps there is enough awareness in Britain about proper handling of beer that they don't have problems (one expects this must be true or else brewers would not find it worth it). Perhaps we'll get to a day in the US where we too can admire our beer before even opening the bottle.

Fortunately, so far they have all been in good nick, which is point number two: they are remarkably fresh tasting - perhaps not as bright and vibrant as they might be having not had to make the sea voyage - but very good nonetheless. Here's to modern container shipping, I suppose.

Third, I associate the mineral quality of the Burton-on-Trent with English ales (e.g. Marston's) but I find a hint of it throughout the beers I bought, including Scotland. So is this gypsum infused water common there too or do Scottish brewers try and mimic the mineral quality of English ales by adding gypsum, or I am I just imagining it. I, of course, find it delightful.

Some reactions so far. For an absolutely delightful and perfectly balanced English IPA, you simply cannot do better than the St. Peter's IPA. The Beerax was with me during my shopping episode and told me to buy it, he was not wrong, it is superb. For an more English-crossed-with-Northwest IPA the Thornbridge Jaipur was also fantastic but, as mentioned, quite spendy. It is well worth a try, however, especially if you like the bigger NW style IPAs. Another surprisingly big and bold beer is the classic Fullers ESB. This is a beer that takes the Extra Special seriously and is a malty, hoppy mouthful, it is very good but not a session beer.

The big disappointment so far came from Scotland, the Williams Brothers Scottish Joker IPA. I found it a dull, muddled mush of a beer - thin in body and weak in hops. My five year old liked it the best for the joker on the label so there you go...

A Tale of Four Businesses. Part 3: Block 15

2011-03-02T09:19:00.000-08:00

Note: Here is the third installment of my four part series on four very different brewing businesses in the Willamette Valley. It is long delayed due to illness and work, my apologies.

It amazed me, when I first arrived in Corvallis in 2006, that there were no brewpubs. There was a downtown McMenamins, but I am not sure they even brewed there and if they did I never noticed. Oregon Trail is, as far as I can tell, mostly just a hobby and the Old World Deli leaves a lot to be desired - a pub it is not. Thus Corvallis seemed a city not only ripe for a nice brewpub but with OSU in residence, a university very much intimately involved in the beer industry - hops especially - it seemed a natural fit. It was only in 2008, as I was preparing to move to Portland that Block 15 opened and finally Corvallis had its real brewpub. And, predictably, it has been an immense hit. So much so, in fact, that it has spawned another brewpub just a few blocks away: Flat Tail Brewing in the old Fox and Firkin location which will be a marvelous place to sit outdoors in the summer.

That Block 15 is a huge success is no accident, Nick Arzner, the owner had vast experience in the restaurant business and knew what it takes to make a successful restaurant. He also was wise enough to know that his limited experience as a homebrewer was not going to cut it and so he found a veteran brewertop become the brewmaster and make sure his brewery was run right. This also freed Nick to become the mad scientist of beer - creating a cave of barrels in which wild yeasts run free and Nick climbs about creating what just may be Oregon's finest specialty beer. I do not say this lightly, perhaps because of his willingness to experiment, or perhaps because he just has that sense about what will make a great barrel-aged beer, Nick's concoctions are masterpieces.

So this is a tale of a business that looks standard from the face of it - a fairly standard Oregon brewpub with good solid IPAs, Pales and Porters - but the brewpub-restaurant is actually the stable economic engine that allows founder Nick Arzner to pursue his true passion: barrel-aged and sour beers. It is, quite frankly, an inspriation.

Nick and his barrels

Of course for the model to work the rest of the business has to run smoothly and Nick's extensive restaurant background shows - the food and service are excellent. The brewery itself runs smoothly thanks to brewer Steve Van Rossum who has extensive brewing experience at West Brothers in Eugene and at the McMenamins High Street. Their regular beers are every bit as good as the specialty stuff and Steve is largely to thank for that. From the start Block 15 ran smoothly and has been a roaring success since - Nick confirms that they have surpassed all business plan benchmarks comfortably.
Which, of course, frees him both physically and mentally to follow his bliss in his now quite extensive cave of barrels. His restaurant and brew house takes up roughly one fourth of the city block but the basement now runs under an entirely other building or two and seems to go on and on and on...

One of the coolest additions to the basement is his new, custom-fabricated koelschip. This is a open tub to expose wort to wild yeasts. When asked about the type of yeasts and the presence of other bacteria, Nick was unfazed. For him it is all a part of the great experiment in beer that is his basement.

koelschip

This is also true of his barrel aging process, where brettanomyces, lactobacillus and other wild yeasts and bacteria all comingle. Some brewers are paranoid about these things to the point of not even wanting brett at all (ala Cascade), but Nick is sanguine. If he gets cross infection, all the better and more interesting to blend in the end. This is a man not troubled by needing his barrel experiments to add to the bottom line of the business.

But they will, I had three of the very best beers ever in his basement: Ferme de La Ville Provision, Wonka’s Wit, and La Ferme de Demons. Plus the Figgy Pudding which I was supposed to cellar, but couldn't keep my hands off around the holidays.

The ability to create a successful business and also a barrel aging program is a masterstroke. It liberates he the barrel aging and blending master to follow his bliss and we, the punters, to benefit. By being able to fearlessly pursue his passion (and by being pretty darn exceptional at it to boot) Block 15 has become the brewery to watch in Oregon.

Scotland Forever: Brew Dog Hits a Homerun

2011-03-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

Brew Dog, the boundary pushing Scottish brewery most ~~famous~~ notorious perhaps for the beer sold in a stuffed stoat, has done a brilliant masterstroke: four single hopped IPAs sold together in a four-pack. Called the IPA is Dead, these beers are hopped with some more exotic hopps: Bramling Cross, Citra, Nelson Sauvin and Sorachi Ace.

I think it is an absolutely brilliant idea. What a great way to really get familiar with hops and the character they add to beer. They use the same yeast and malt bill in each one, so they are all the same ABV, and they hop to the same IBU level.

From Brew Dog:

99% of beers on the market are made with a blend of hops, we want people to get to know the characteristics, flavours and nuances of some the most interesting hops on the planet. The only way to do this was to showcase them in single hop beers. Oh and to use mountains of hops to make sure the resultant beers were positively exploding with their respective hop flavours!

They go on to provide tasting notes:

Citra

The Pacific North West of America is home to the Citra hop. America is not just about cheer leaders, a silly version of football, elastic top jeans and cheeseburgers. They grow remarkable hops and Citra is a killer example of this, embodying all that is good about American hops and then some. A relatively new hop on the block, it may even seduce you into thinking the American Dream is not just a catch phrase to sell movies and elect Presidents. Fearfully hard to resist, this beer is loaded with brash citrus, grapefruit orange, hints of resinous pine and touches of black currant. Devilishly moreish. I am a little bit too obsessed with this beer for my own good.

Bramling Cross

Good old Bramling Cross is elegant, refined, assured, (boring) and understated. Understated that is unless you hop the living daylights out of a beer with it. This is Bramling Cross re-invented and re-imagined and shows just what can be done with English hops if you use enough of them. Poor Bramling Cross normally gets lost in a woeful stream of conformist brown ales made by sleepy cask ale brewers. But not anymore. This beer shows that British hops do have some soul, and is a fruity riot of blackberries, pears, and plums. Reminds me of the bramble, apple and ginger jam my grandmother used to make.

Sorachi Ace

A hop that tastes of bubble gum? Seriously? No, we did not believe it either. But it does! This is one unique, son of a bitch of a hop. Lemony, deep, musty with a smoothness which belies its power. This hop is lemony like a lemon who was angry earlier but is now tired because of all the rage. This hop of Japanese origin is best enjoyed trying to make sushi from your gold fish, or trying to persuade your girlfriend (or boyfriend maybe) to dress up as a Geisha for Valentine’s Day.

Nelson Sauvin

Nelson is a love it or hate it kinda hop. We are cool with that, if we wanted to keep everyone happy we would be brewing Fosters anyway. Sharp as a razor, this New Zealand hop slices its way through your taste buds and is brutally resinous, almost scraping the intense flavours of passion fruit along your poor tongue. There is a huge depth of tropical fruit flavour with astringent gooseberry balanced against the robust malt base. Throw another shrimp on the Barbie mate and you are all set. New Zealand is near Austria, right?

I think Full Sail should get on this, pronto. Why Full Sail? Well John Harris already does this kind of thing - for example at free hop time, he usually comes out with two or three versions using different hops. Plus they have the resources to pull it off commercially.

Next should be a mild with four different strains of yeast.

Are You a Beer Expert?

2011-02-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

Over at Dropping Timber there is a scan of the NASL Kick magazine from May 1, 1976 when the Portland Timbers played the St. Louis Stars. In it is this little gem:

"A smooth beer is the brewers supreme goal" are you listening oh Craft Brewers of Oregon?

Lest we forget what is a premium beer - I bring you this picture from Jeff Alworth:

Cargill corn syrup tanker outside the old Weinhard's brewery in the pearl.

Ummm...nothing says 'premium' like corn syrup! Smooth...

In Which I Find the Answer

2011-02-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Wisconsin, one is always faced with one, seemingly unanswerable, question:what is the point of Iowa?

Fortunately, last night, I think I finally found the answer. After a long day I arrived home to an almost empty beer fridge, but lo and behold, in the back, a forgotten wonderbeer just waiting for me:

Oh man, did it make my day.

So thanks Matt (the Iowan) for a great beer.

Winning the Future

2011-02-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

When Barack Obama talks about the US 'winning the future' though leading the world in innovation and development, I am confident he is talking about this:

Josh Springer may have solved the sports fan’s dilemma: Should I get a beer or go to the bathroom if I want to be back in my seat before the action resumes?
His invention, the Bottoms Up Draft Beer Dispensing System, makes it easier to do both by drastically cutting the time it takes to pour and pay for a brew. After a YouTube video that’s been viewed more than 4 million times and an NFL debut that helped the Jacksonville Jaguars set beer-sales records in a year of poor attendance, Springer’s company has signed an exclusive advertising deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev and is preparing to grow exponentially in 2011.

“We get calls from all over the world daily,” the 28-year-old inventor said by telephone from his home base near Olympia, Wash. “Apparently, you have to wait for a beer all over the world.”

Bottoms Up will make its Houston debut at Discovery Green the first weekend in April, during festivities related to the NCAA Final Four.

Alison Birdwell, general manager for Aramark at Reliant Park, said one or two of the dispensers will be operating at Texans games next fall.

She said the concessionaire also plans to install one or two at Minute Maid Park, although not in time for the Astros’ opening day.

Inspiration struck three years ago at a birthday dinner for his dad, Springer said, when he quieted the table and announced to a skeptical family that he thought he could fill a beer glass from the bottom. Four days later, he’d developed a prototype of a machine that would pump beer through a metal-ringed hole in the bottom of a plastic cup. A magnet covering the hole would then snap back into place. He estimates the process is nine times as fast as a traditional draft system.

It also eliminates excessive foaming.

“It’s gentler on the beer,” he said.

Here is one of the YouTube videos mentioned in the Houston Chronicle article excerpted above, and I gotta say, it works pretty well, though I am not sure how much the cups cost or how recyclable they are. Maybe if you poke around their site you can find out.