From Cindy at the BA:

Discuss, post, tweet, and comment about craft brewing all in one place: BrewersAssociation.org.

The new website will bring you:
• Private discussion board for professional brewers like you
• Follow the latest industry tweets and post your own
• Share comments on stories, videos, events, & government
affairs

Stay tuned at BrewersAssociation.org.

Alabama troopers, police from 8 departments help quell Marion feud.

Officers from eight police departments and Alabama state troopers set up a perimeter around the Marion City Hall around 11 a.m. today after a feud between two families spilled into a riot this morning

Reported riot in Marion, Ala., brought under control; 5 arrested

State Trooper John Reese said children of the 2 feuding families began arguing at the high school this morning and shotguns were found in their cars. The students were brought to City Hall and then their families showed up and the disturbance began. “There were over 100 people and bystanders when the rest of the students’ families started another fight outside City Hall, and it ended up inside City hall,” Reese said. “The families got into it at the police station and took it from there,” Turner said.

Full Scale Riot

Marion Mayor Tony Long said shortly before noon that calm had returned to his Perry County town after the “full-scale riot” that broke out earlier in the morning, and that outside law enforcement agencies would stay around to help maintain order for “as long as we got to keep ‘em.”
Long said up to 300 people, mostly members of two feuding families, were involved in the disturbance at Marion’s municipal complex, just off the county courthouse square. “It was a full scale riot is what it was,” Long said. “I got here about 10 minutes after 8 and it was 20 after 8 when everything broke loose. I don’t know exactly what it was stemming from. Everybody’s trying to point the finger at everybody. I’ve heard a lot of people blaming me for it. It’s just a matter that got out of control and it’s got to be handled, you know.” “I don’t know how long it’s going to stay calm,” Long said. Carlton Hogue, a sergeant with the Perry County Sheriff’s Department, said the Moore and Sawyer families have been feuding for two or three years.

January 5, 2009
Alabamians spending less, except for alcohol

State tax collections for the first three months of the fiscal year show Alabamians are spending less, except when it comes to alcohol.

A state financial report covering October, November and December shows the state’s sales tax collections dropped nearly 10 percent from the same period a year earlier.

But beer tax collections were up 4 percent and income from state liquor stores, including taxes and profits, increased 10 percent.

“People don’t like to give up their alcohol,” said Robert Pandina, director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University.

Pandina said Monday it’s customary for alcohol sales to go up in difficult economic times, and several other states that keep close track of alcohol taxes have experienced the same trend as Alabama.

Alabama’s beer tax is a good indication because it is based on volume rather than price. That means the increase in beer tax collections reflects greater sales, rather than higher prices.

“Growing out of homebrewers’ efforts to emulate British and German beers, craft beers started showing up about 30 years ago, and bigger varieties bubbled up in the mid-1990s on both coasts as brewmasters chased their fantasies to the outer limits.”

And the craft beer movement is still growing out of homebrewers’ efforts.

Beers with more alcohol gain market share

Sun., July. 27, 2008

BEND, Ore. – Tucked in a corner at the Deschutes Brewery, barrels that once aged fine wines and whiskeys are nurturing beverages that are challenging drinkers to think of beer more like wine.

High-alcohol brews like Black Butte XX and The Abyss, known in the trade as big or extreme beers, are among many craft beers that are grabbing a growing market share in the United States from their mass-produced and heavily advertised counterparts. Even at prices ranging from $4 to more than $100 for a single bottle.

“We are looking for what we like to term that ‘Wow Factor,’ ” said Deschutes CEO Gary Fish. “We want somebody to take a drink, stop, look at the glass and say, ‘What was that?’ ”

Sales of premium beers, which include the household names of Budweiser, Coors Light and Miller High Life, have been nearly flat — up just 1.9 percent last year according to Information Resources Inc., a retail research firm.

As consumer tastes change and rising costs for ingredients pinch their profits, the nation’s biggest brewers are looking for relief in consolidation. No. 1 Anheuser-Busch is being taken over by Belgian beverage giant InBev SA. No. 2 Miller Brewing Co. and No. 3 Molson Coors Brewing Co. are combining U.S. operations.

Meanwhile, craft brewers are grabbing more of the market as they reshape the image of beer. They posted 17.1 percent growth last year over 2006 and accounted for 6.5 percent of the $9 billion in supermarket sales of beer in the U.S., up from 4.5 percent in 2003. Many in the craft beer industry expect their products to continue tugging at “premium” beers’ share of a market valued at $95 billion, including sales in bars and restaurants.

“It is not a fad,” said Julia Herz, director of craft beer marketing for the Brewers Association, a Denver-based trade group that represents more than 1,000 of the 1,400 craft breweries in the nation. “It’s a solid direction the market is going.”

It is uncertain how fast craft beers will continue to grow, but Herz said the indicators are good. After a shakeout in the mid 1990s, the nation’s remaining 1,400 craft brewers have a stronger hold on shelf space and restaurant menus. Anheuser-Busch and Coors are making their own line of full-flavored beers. And the Brewers Association’s book “Start Your Own Brewery” has sold more than 1,000 copies.

“A brewery in every town is not so crazy to think about in the future,” she said. “It all goes back to the movement of consuming products that are locally produced.

“Who would have ever thought that Denver, Colo., would become the Napa Valley of beer?” she said. More than 60 breweries lie within in a 100-mile radius of Denver.

Their small size gives craft brewers the freedom to explore the outer limits of beer, and they are being rewarded by consumers who value good flavor, said Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Del.

“This hasn’t happened because of some half-billion dollar advertising campaign on behalf of the big brewers,” he said. “It’s truly the consumer becoming self-educated.

“It’s a kind of a blue-collar connoisseurship. Anybody can afford to buy the world’s best beers. But if you wanted to buy a bottle of the world’s best wine, you’d have to spend thousands of dollars.”

Growing out of homebrewers’ efforts to emulate British and German beers, craft beers started showing up about 30 years ago, and bigger varieties bubbled up in the mid-1990s on both coasts as brewmasters chased their fantasies to the outer limits.

That’s when Vinnie Cilurzo, a former wine maker, made his first double India pale ale at the bygone Blind Pig Brewery in California. It’s when Rogue Ales in Oregon packed extra hops into its Imperial Stout, Calagione opened Dogfish Head and Boston Brewing Co. founder Jim Koch started brewing Samuel Adams Triple Bock, which evolved into Utopias. The market’s strongest beer at 27 percent alcohol, Utopias is also its most expensive at $140 for a 24-ounce bottle.

“They are not lawnmower beers,” cautioned Don Younger, owner of the Horse Brass Pub in Portland, who has been a close observer of the craft beer scene from its beginnings. “Your average run-of-the-mill lager will in most states come in around 3.8 or 4 percent alcohol. These have got something like 10 or 11 percent, so you are getting two and a half times the alcohol delivery with them.

“You’ve got to be careful with them. But they are self-limiting. They are very rich. It would be like trying to drink a quart of whipping cream. Your body will reject it because they are so rich.”

The wine-level prices may limit their mass appeal, but plenty of people are still interested, brewers say.

“I sell beer for 15 dollars a bottle and I can’t make enough of it,” said Natalie Cilurzo, who co-owns Russian River Brewing Co. in Santa Rosa, Calif., with her husband, Vinnie.

Unlike wine, which is just grapes, beer is generally made from three or four ingredients. Malted barley delivers the body, yeast ferments with the sugar in the barley to make the alcohol, and hops deliver the bitterness. Some are flavored with offbeat ingredients, such as coffee, chocolate, spices and fruit. Wooden barrels that formerly held wine or whisky can add nuance and structure.

“It’s just become like an arms race,” said Younger, the Portland bar owner. “One brewer did it. Another said, `I can kick it up a notch.’ ”

At Elegance, a wine and antiques shop in Grants Pass, owner Carl Raskin recently bowed to entreaties from local beer distributors to add high-end beers. He found them a refreshing change from wine, which besides being pricier seems more serious.

At one of his monthly tastings, he served beer floats in champagne flutes. The drinks consisted of apple-flavored Belgian-style ale with dollops of caramel-vanilla ice cream. Another tasting ran through a range of IPAs and finished with a Belgian-style ale in bottles sealed with a cork.

“To me, beer is just fun,” he said. “Drink it. Enjoy it.”

Lynn and Rich Hughes, a local retired couple still primarily interested in wine, have been showing up at the tastings to explore beers, which they became interested in after their daughter worked at a brew pub.

“It is amazing how many varieties you have, tastewise,” said Rich Hughes. “You can find whatever you want, that’s for sure.”

At Russian River, whose brands include Temptation, Damnation and Redemption among others, Natalie Cilurzo said beer drinkers are working through the easier-to-drink brews to the more demanding ones, the same way people did with wine.

“I would liken it to the wine industry, where people started out liking white zinfandels,” she said. “Then they were ready to move on to things with more flavor, like sauvignon blanc. Then pinot noirs, cabernets and other interesting wines.”

Greg Koch, CEO of Stone Brewing Co. in San Diego, holds dinners that pit beers against wines with fine food. At the last one, beer won by a nose.

“I willfully admit I’ve got a little bit of an agenda,” he said. “We are saddled with the same four-letter word to describe what we do as what the big brewers do, which is B-E-E-R, yet it fails to even come close.”

Deschutes advises people to drink the Black Butte XX with flank steak and chimichurri sauce, creme brulee, cherries jubilee and strong blue cheese. Rogue Ales, which makes Brutal Bitter, Dead Guy Ale and Dad’s Little Helper among many brands, suggests drinking its XS Imperial Stout close to room temperature with a bowl of cherry-vanilla ice cream.

Jason Alstrom of the BeerAdvocate.com Web site in Boston is not happy about the direction.

“What we don’t want to see is this go down the same road as wine,” he said in an e-mail. “Beer is beer no matter how expensive the bottle is or what kind of vessel it is served in.

“In the end it is still beer, it’s just not the beer from 20-30 years ago.”

Brewers have yet to map craft beers’ precise limits, however.

Calagione has pushed his IPAs from 6 percent alcohol to 20 percent.

Boston Brewing’s Koch said his company made 10,000 bottles of pricey Utopias last year and sold every one within months.

“People bought them and began scalping them on eBay,” he said.

Fish said he is asked all the time where the saturation point comes.

“My response is, `I don’t know: How many wineries can we handle?’” said Fish. “There are 80 breweries in Oregon and 350 wineries.”

DEALING IN FUTURES BEGUN.; OPTIONS ON HOPS QUOTED ON THE HOP DEALERS’ EXCHANGE.

January 12, 1892, Wednesday, Page 9

Dealings in futures were begun yesterday at the Hop Dealers’ Exchange, when options were quoted on New-York State, Washington, Oregon, and California hops for February, March, April, May, June, and July delivery. Brokers seemed shy of each other, and at the first call differences between prices bid and asked ranged from 3/4 to 3 3/4 cents per pound.

I’d settle for the $9 lb hops used to cost when I first started brewing. Cascades at Northern Brewer are currently $52 per lb.

Read the full articles below. They’re interesting.

January 12, 1892 NYT article about hops

June 17, 1885 NYT article about hops

Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine), April 6, 2008 Sunday, Pg. B5

Give that man a beer
Joe Gray, Chicago Tribune

Rodney Kibzey of Lombard, Ill., got hooked on making beer during a brewery tour in Milwaukee a few years back.

“The aroma hit me,” said Kibzey. For six years he has been home brewing in his garage and entering contests. Last year his efforts paid off in liquid gold.

Kibzey won the Samuel Adams American Homebrew Contest with his weizenbock, a dark, German wheat beer. The beer was recently released as part of Samuel Adams LongShot six-pack, which includes three bottles of Kibzey’s beer, emblazoned with a stylized image of him, and three bottles of a grape pale ale created by Lili Hess, a Sam Adams employee.

The victory has brought Kibzey praise from friends (co-workers keep asking him to bring the beer to work) and family, but perhaps most gratifying has been the reaction from beer lovers, such as in comments on Web sites like BeerAdvocate.com.

“I’m very happy with the beer Sam Adams made,” using his recipe, Kibzey said. “It makes me feel even better when I see the reviews for my beer. Wow, I made something in my garage and everybody likes it.”

More than 2,000 entries in four regions were judged for the contest. Kibzey put eight beers up for judging in the Midwest region. An unprecedented five of them made best of show in the region, and he took first, second, third and fifth place. He submitted a six-pack of his top beer for tasting in Boston by Sam Adams founder Jim Koch and other judges. Then Sam Adams flew the four finalists to Denver for the announcement of the winner at the Great American Beer Festival. Kibzey took home $5,000 in prize money.

His weizenbock has no special ingredients, he said, deriving its flavors and aromas from the yeast he used. The aroma has notes of cloves, banana, dark fruit, such as plums or raisin, which come through in the flavor too. It has an alcohol level of 7.2 percent and a medium to full body.

For Kibzey, whose day job is in information technology, brewing is a hobby, and he doesn’t see it extending beyond that.

“But if Sam Adams wants to make me an offer I cannot refuse,” he said, “then maybe I’ll change my mind.”

Posted: 1/19/2008
While many Northern Nevadans argued for their candidate of choice or filled out an official ballot, others cracked a cold one and participated in another type of preference polling: beer caucusing.
At Great Basin Brewery Brewing Co. in Sparks, the rules for caucusing were pretty simple: One ballot for each beer you ordered. In all, about 1,800 voters cast ballots in the Great Nevada Beer Caucus.
And after a week of voting, the Democratic winner was U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Congressman Ron Paul.
“I think this shows the independence and individuality of those who imbibe in fine American beer,” said Bonda Young, co-owner and Nevada Beer Caucus chairwoman.
Both winners were ahead all week, said spokesman Don Vetter. He said that while caucuses generally attract political groupies, this caucus probably better represented the average, non-political person’s vote.
Great Basin plans to hold another beer vote this fall for the general election, Vetter said.

Can you pick out your brew?
By BILL VIRGIN, P-I COLUMNIST

Put samples of half a dozen or so mass-market American beers before a panel of drinkers in a blind taste test, and even the most confirmed quaffers would be lucky to match two to the right brand.

But put half a dozen or so mass-market American beer advertising slogans or jingles before a panel of testers, and even teetotalers with some exposure to media would come close to a perfect score. Try it yourself: …

It’s the water

From the land of sky-blue waters

The beer that made Milwaukee famous

The one beer to have when you’re having more than one

The king of beers

The champagne of beers

That even non-imbibers would score well on such a quiz (some of you are not just humming the melody of the jingle but finishing out the verse) is testimony not only to the pervasive nature of mass-market advertising channels when combined with a memorable message. It’s also evidence of the power of advertising to create brand identity — and customer loyalty — out of what is basically a commodity product, in which one brand is largely indistinguishable from another.

Oh, sure, beer drinkers will swear they can taste the difference between the brand they’re loyal to and Bud and Miller and Coors and Michelob and Pabst and Rainier and a dozen more beer brands. They can’t — which accounts for the success of the craft brews and microbrews, as well as the imports.

What those drinkers are really loyal to is the image created by the various advertising campaigns.

In a sense it’s not much different from the customer loyalty created for brands of gasoline. Although loyalists may claim there’s a noticeable difference in brands, there really isn’t — or better not be, if the gasoline is going to work at all with a variety of makes and ages of engines.

What gasoline buyers are really loyal to are location, credit-card programs and price. And while gasoline brands have over the years had some memorable campaigns and slogans, they’ve been nowhere close to the power of beer campaigns in grabbing a share of the customers’ minds and stomachs.

Further evidence of that is provided in two books with almost identical titles published in recent years on the subject: “Great American Beers: Twelve Brands That Became Icons” by Bill Yenne, and the more recent “Great American Beer” by Christopher O’Hara, which, in a bit of one-upsmanship, has as its subtitle, “50 Brands That Shaped the 20th Century.”

So what was the secret behind the ability of beer marketers to create both identity and loyalty?

O’Hara credits nostalgia. “Whether it is a memory of your father sipping beer in his armchair, a television beer commercial, or a fondness for a local sports team’s brew of choice, there is something about these classic American beers that resonates within us,” he says in the introduction.

Both O’Hara and Yenne also credit regionalism, reflecting a time when each region of the country had its own dominant brands (such as the Northwest’s Rainier and Olympia, neither of which are brewed in the state today).

“Today’s craft beers and microbrews have rich and delicious flavors, as well as exquisite variety,” Yenne writes. “Today’s mass-marketed megabrews have enormous advertising budgets, ubiquitous market penetration, and a flavor-neutral taste. The great regional brands discussed in this volume had soul. … The beers themselves identified with their region, and in turn, the people identified with their regional brews.”

Some of those regional names have been continued or revived, although under the umbrella of large brewing conglomerates, most notably Pabst. So potent is the combination of nostalgia, regionalism and advertising that people still remember “their” brand, even if they couldn’t pick that beer out of a tasting lineup.

By the way, the answers to the quiz above are, in order: Olympia, Hamm’s, Schlitz, Schaefer, Budweiser and Miller. If you scored poorly, your beer-drinking and pop-culture credentials will be placed under review. If you scored well, we’ll pour you a celebratory mug of your favorite brew. Really, it’s your brand, we swear. We know we can’t fool you.