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So for us, having done this starting in 2009, we’ve only had a chance to do it once or twice. This year we’ll have much more, two or three different turnovers in the barrel, within these two or three generations of these barrels. Our turnover is around a year, and it’s kind of been built like that out of necessity for the fruit harvest. All of our barrels over time have started to become of age in the summer, just when the fruits are coming out as well.

More >> Embrace The Funk.

Today’s infographic is the James Squire Guide to Beer, created by the Malt Shovel Brewing Co. in Australia, though it appears to have “borrowed” rather liberally from the infographic created by Pete Slosberg for Pete’s Wicked Ales.

Click here to see this version full size, though it’s sideways.

Press Release:

(Chicago, IL) – Raise your glasses and celebrate American Craft Beer week with this beer insight from several of Mintel’s latest beer reports. Enjoy, and bottoms up!

Consumers who were of legal drinking age in 2012 are most likely to report increased consumption of beer (14%), which includes 7% of respondents who are drinking more craft beer in 2013 compared to 2012

Discovery of new beers is popular with 93% of imported beer drinkers, 88% of domestic fans, and 84% of craft beer consumers

Craft beers have found a way to appeal to 49% of Millennials and 40% of Gen Xers, but just 29% of Baby Boomers and 22% of Swing Generation/World War II

Hispanic consumers also turn to craft beer with 38% indicating that they consume craft beer at any time. But there’s room to grow since 58% of Hispanics aged 21+ report drinking domestic beer and 55% of Hispanics drink imported beer

Eighty-four percent of craft beer consumers like to choose their beer depending on the season.

Liquor or package stores are the preferred outlet for craft beer purchases

Seventy-three percent of craft beer drinkers say that they usually know what brand of beer they are going to buy before they go to the store

One-third of craft and imported beer consumers ask sales associates for advice and information when buying beer

Forty-five percent of craft beer drinkers indicate that they would try more craft beers if they knew more about them

Beer drinkers aged 36-47 are slightly less likely than consumers aged 21-35 to show a preference for the taste of craft beer. Members of Generation X are more likely than their younger counterparts to indicate that imported beer and craft beer are similar value

The young couple was running full speed toward the opening of what will be the city’s first nano-brewery when they were tripped up by a scam artist. The couple and Manassas Police say Jeff Robinson posed as a contractor and took them for $3,200 after saying he would order and install the BadWolf ventilation system.

More >> Manassas, VA Patch.

Cigarette smokers would pay an additional $1.60 a pack in state taxes under the DFL plan. That would boost the tax to $2.83 per pack and raise an estimated $430 million over the next two years. Taxes on cigars and chewing tobacco also would go up. But drinkers would escape a tax increase. The leaders agreed not to raise beer, wine and liquor taxes, as House DFLers had proposed.

via TwinCities.com.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past twenty-four hours, you’ve no doubt seen the provocative article on Slate, Against Hoppy Beer, The craft beer industry’s love affair with hops is alienating people who don’t like bitter brews, by Adrienne So. I’d been hoping to avoid taking the obvious bait, but I find myself thinking about the article itself, the way it’s gone viral and the two camps that have been set up online defending or decrying it.

From Slate’s point of view, it’s a massive success. As of this morning, almost 1500 people have left a comment, nearly 4,000 shared it on Facebook, and it’s currently one of the most read and shared articles on Slate. That’s eyeballs on the page; that’s money in the bank. But the article itself, though there are a few deep flaws, isn’t itself that inflammatory. It’s that headline, or as Stan points out: headlines. Because while the page itself displays Against Hoppy Beer, The craft beer industry’s love affair with hops is alienating people who don’t like bitter brews, e-mailing it changes the headline to Hops Enthusiasts Are Ruining Craft Beer for the Rest of Us and bookmarking it saves the headline Hoppy beer is awful — or at least, its bitterness is ruining craft beer’s reputation. If you look in your browser bar where the URL you’re at is displayed, you’ll see that’s what it’s titled online in the address. To me, that suggests that the last one was Slate’s original online title and the plan from the beginning was to pull people in with intentionally inflammatory, and somewhat misleading, headlines. It’s certainly not the first time, for them, or many other websites. I can’t speak for everyone, but it’s a rare article of mine that has the same title when I started as what ends up printed on the page or displayed online.

To me, that’s the ticking hop bomb, not necessarily the article itself, that discourse so often happens online in response to something incendiary rather than just as a desire to have a discussion or to address issues important to us a loosely defined group.

Because the issue of balance in beer is certainly a worthy one. Or as Stan Hieronymus muses.

It’s good to call for balance in beer, and too bitter is too bitter. Although perhaps there could have been a little more, well, balance. Maybe more about why there’s more to “hoppy” than bitterness.

But if the transition from bland, flavorless macro beer to a craft beer landscape should have taught us anything, it’s that there’s plenty of room for lots of kinds of beer: hoppy, malty, sour, dark, light, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. That hoppy beers have been in ascendency for a few years now is certainly true, but so what? All flavorful beer is selling more and more each day.

So admits that “[n]ot all craft beer is hoppy. There are many craft breweries that seek to create balanced, drinkable beers that aren’t very bitter at all.” How could she not? She blames Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for starting it all, perhaps forgetting Anchor Liberty Ale was the first beer to use Cascade hops and was considered very hoppy in its even earlier day. But as Jeff Alworth correctly points out, it wasn’t so much that those beers introduced imbalance, they re-introduced a new mix of flavors, ones which emphasized a bit more hop character than a majority of Americans were familiar with in the 1970s. I was alive, and drinking then, and can tell you there were not a lot of hoppy beers to compare these with. As Alworth puts it. “That was shocking because we’d slowly leached all hop character from hops and told customers that bitterness was the enemy. THIS was the bizarre position.”

Maybe it’s the bubble of Portland that has given So the impression that hoppy beers are the big sellers, but again, as Alworth points out. “When you look at the best-selling craft beers, they’re not hoppy: Fat Tire, SN Pale, Boston Lager, Blue Moon, Widmer Hef. Those five beers account for at least four million barrels—something like a fifth or a quarter of the market.” For several years, IPAs have been the fastest growing category in mainstream grocery stores, as reported by Nielsen and IRI, but you have to remember that’s from a very small base, and is not representative of the market as a whole. But even that aside, breweries are at heart, businesses. If their hoppy beers were not selling, they’d stop making them. Which begs the question. How can something that’s selling, and selling, be ruining a market that continues to keep growing? I’ve heard brewers tell me that they feel like they have to have at least one hoppy beer in their line-up, because customers expect it, and want it. Does that sound like a situation in which hoppy beers are alienating the customer? Or ruining the market?

Whenever I hear the canard that people don’t like bitter flavors, one word leaps to my mind: coffee. Please tell me again how people won’t drink something bitter? Go ahead, I’ll wait until after you’ve had your morning cup of joe, or even your Earl Grey tea. Even if you’re adding milk or sugar, it’s still a bitter concoction to some degree. Bitter is one of the basic tastes humans experience, and is present in virtually everything we eat and drink. Are there times when it’s too much? Of course, just as there are beers I find to be too sweet, or display too much oak character in a barrel-aged stout. Balance is the key, but sometimes even balance can be overrated, if done well. If every beer was balanced in the exact same way, they’d all taste the same again. And we all know what happened to American beer when that was the case. There’s room in the beer world for all manner of beers on the continuum of possible flavors, and if you want something that’s not overly hoppy, there are many, many choices available. So concludes by suggesting what she believes everyone who loves, or is obsessed, with hops should do now. “Give it a rest.” To which I can only reply, in the words of the great Marcel Marceau, who spoke the only word in Mel Brooks’ film Silent Movie. “No.”

What I’d really like to see given a rest is the attention-getting, inflammatory headline in which the article that follows can rarely back up its provocative premise. It’s the schoolyard equivalent of “look at me, look at me!” It’s like saying hoppy beers are ruining craft beer, or they’re just awful or that they’re alienating people. Those are just headline grabbing stunts to lure people in. And, sadly, it works. But it doesn’t seem to do anything to further what might otherwise be a valuable discussion about the changing nature of peoples’ tastes, preferences and the marketplace. And now I think it’s time to go to the refrigerator and grab a Pliny. After all this, I sure hope it still tastes good.

UPDATE: And while I was writing this, Jeff Alworth also posted his own response, Hops Are Not A Problem, which is worth taking a look at, too. As he nicely points out, bitterness is relative, hoppiness isn’t just bitterness and different regions have different styles.

#bbpBox_335447659240361984 a { text-decoration:none; color:#D0001E; }#bbpBox_335447659240361984 a:hover { text-decoration:underline; } @beerpulse BeerPulse Cigar City Cubano Style Espresso Brown Ale back in stock along w/ cans for online order at @LuekensLiquorshttp://t.co/Ae0pTMJ6WQ #sponsor May 17, 2013 1:32 pmReplyRetweetFavorite

Press Release:

New Belgium Brewing Launches Summer “Pairs Well With People” Campaign

Media mix includes digital, social, web and television

All four New Belgium television spots can be viewed here.

(Fort Collins, CO) – New Belgium Brewing launches their summer campaign, “Pairs Well With People,” this week with a focus on Fat Tire and the Millennial Drinker. A dynamic media mix including digital, social, web and television will shine a light on Fat Tire Amber Ale while introducing a whole new audience to New Belgium’s flagship beer. Skateboard legend-turned-documentary-film-director, Stacy Peralta (“Dogtown and Z Boys”, “Riding Giants”, “Bones Brigade”), directed a cast of New Belgium co-workers in the :30-second broadcast spots available for viewing here: http://www.youtube.com/user/NBBFILMS. Slated to run in 12 television markets, those spots will also run alongside a series of :15-second shorts in a 30-state digital overlay covering New Belgium’s area of distribution.

“We believe there is huge opportunity to introduce beer drinkers to the friendly shores of the craft brewing community and to New Belgium and Fat Tire as well,” said New Belgium Brewing Branding Director, Josh Holmstrom. “There is such a wide variety of new and interesting media to engage with them including social, mobile and Digital Video.”

The commercial spots were shot over three days in Fort Collins, CO this spring featuring brewery co-workers and a soundtrack by long-time New Belgium musical collaborators, March Fourth Marching Band. Cultivator Ads of Denver developed the creative with New Belgium, and Peralta assembled his crew through his commercial production company home, Nonfiction Unlimited.

“One of the most fun productions I’ve been on,” said Peralta. “The company is populated with a large number of wild personalities who work very hard and who take crafting beer very seriously, yet they are very accessible and open – we had access to every physical aspect of the brewery and we were free to set shots up in whatever fashion we chose.”

The campaign’s social elements will feature a Facebook app that allows users to insert a photo into a sharable New Belgium-themed frame, which enters them into weekly drawings to win a custom cruiser bike. There will be opportunities to win a bike on Twitter and Instagram as well. On premise promotions will include beer and food pairings, bike giveaways and postcoaster contests (details at www.newbelgium.com).

New Belgium’s “Pairs Well With People” campaign will run through Labor Day, 2013.

ABOUT NEW BELGIUM BREWING
New Belgium Brewing, makers of Fat Tire Amber Ale and a host of Belgian-inspired beers, is recognized as one of Outside Magazine’s Best Places to Work and one of the Wall Street Journal’s Best Small Businesses. The 100% employee owned brewery is a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Business as designated by the League of American Bicyclists, and one of World Blu’s most democratic U.S. businesses. In addition to Fat Tire, New Belgium brews eight year round beers; Ranger IPA, Shift Pale Lager, Rampant Imperial IPA, Sunshine Wheat, 1554 Black Ale, Blue Paddle Pilsener, Abbey Belgian Ale and Trippel. Learn more at www.newbelgium.com

ABOUT NONFICTION UNLIMITED
Nonfiction Unlimited is a bicoastal commercial production company working with award-winning documentary filmmakers on commercials, content and sponsored documentaries for screens large and small. www.nonfictionunlimited.com

All About Beer Magazine holds its fourth American Craft Beer Week Tasting with Boulevard Brewing. [No notes this time, didn't hear any news come out of this one.]

via YouTube | All About Beer.

In a lawsuit filed last week in Dallas County, he says the restaurant had used the lye-like cleaning agent to disinfect the Budweiser keg that morning but had failed to properly rinse the container before refilling it with the beer Grogg would later drink. So Grogg is suing both Ben E. Keith, the supplier that cleaned the kegs, and Red Lobster, which served him the corrosive beer.

More >> Dallas Observer.

#bbpBox_335430124755369985 a { text-decoration:none; color:#71A832; }#bbpBox_335430124755369985 a:hover { text-decoration:underline; } @sheltonbrothers Shelton Brothers Now in the US. Taking bets on which state will ban it first… @toolbeer http://t.co/9VayxmuwnY May 17, 2013 12:22 pmReplyRetweetFavorite

On the brewing front, we’ve ramped up our efforts to get Porch Rocker out the door and meet the demand we anticipate based on the enthusiastic response this beer received last year. We’ve also been brewing a variety of styles that could wind up in future variety packs and at festivals, but nothing that we’re ready to reveal…quite yet. [...] Get your hands on this year’s batch of Brewlywed Ale, a special wedding brew we first introduced last year. Brewlywed Ale will be available for purchase one day only at our Boston Brewery on June 26th.

via brewery email newsletter.

Press Release:

(Lincolnwood, IL) – A year after introducing American consumers to Stiegl Radler Grapefruit, Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. will now import the refreshing drink in cans. The family-owned and operated distributor saw huge success last year with the US launch of the Stiegl Radler Grapefruit. Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. is excited to help Stiegl Brewery, Austria’s leading privately owned brewery, reintroduce the new container for the juice-lager to select states across the US just in time for the summer.

“We’re thrilled to introduce Stiegl Radler Grapefruit in cans just in time for the warm weather,” says Jerry Glunz, general manager at Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. “A Radler is a refreshing summer drink, blending full-flavored lager and real fruit juice, similar to an English shandy. It’s refreshing, low in alcohol, and now in the perfect container for whatever the summer entails.”

Christopher Losmann, export director at Stiegl, says, “Up until now, we have only sold Stiegl Radler Grapefruit in bottles, but it has proven so popular that we have decided to provide a 17 oz. can for USA markets. We’re especially excited to introduce this new format with Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. after the incredible success of last year’s launch.”

The Stiegl Radler Grapefruit is made with 100% natural ingredients and real fruit juice. A mixture of grapefruit, orange, and lemon juice gives the beverage a unique and aromatic freshness, as well its cloudy complexion. Mixing Stiegl’s signature Goldbräu lager with real fruit juice produces a refined bitterness, with a soft and pleasing fruity flavor. With only 180 calories per can and 2.0% ABV, the Stiegl Radler Grapefruit is an ideal drink for those looking for a light malt beverage. In fact, the German translation of “Radler” is “cyclist,” and the beer is often referred to as a “bicycle beer” because bicyclists prefer this style of beer as they bike the Alps.

The canned version of the Stiegl Radler Grapefruit is now available in states across the US including Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin through Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. distributors. With even more states projected to carry the cans this summer, be sure to ask for Stiegl Radler Grapefruit at your local retailer. For more information, visit www.glunzbeers.com.

About Louis Glunz Beer, Inc.
Founded in 1888 by Louis Glunz I in Chicago, Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. is among the oldest beer distributors in the United States and the recipient of the 2012 Distributor of the Year award by Beverage World Magazine. The 125-year-old company is family-owned and operated by President Jack Glunz, the grandson of Louis Glunz I, with day-to-day operations led by five of his seven children as members of the fourth generation and with members of the fifth generation also on staff. Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. is an innovator in Chicagoland, proudly offering the most comprehensive selection of craft, specialty and import beers representing over 190 breweries around the globe. The company is dedicated to quality service and to educating its customers and the public about beer tastes and trends. For product descriptions, food pairings, and a list of local retailers through a “Find it near me” ZIP code search, visit www.glunzbeers.com.

About Stiegl Brewery
Privately owned and operated in Salzburg, Austria, Stiegl Brewery combines tradition and innovation, forming a concept for success that makes Stiegl the strongest beer brand in Austria. The secret of this success: highest quality raw ingredients and production facilities, Europe’s most modern brewing technology, innovation in product variety, highly motivated employees, commitment to tradition, economic sustainability, down-to-earth quality and the flexible decision-making structures of a family business. Stiegl has been brewing beer since 1492, using spring water from the local Untersberg mountain, as well as continuing the time-honored tradition of delivering the beers locally via horse-drawn carriage. Stiegl’s beers are imported to the United States by Glunz Imports, a division of Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. Visit www.stiegl.at/en.

Press Release:

(Newton, MA) – Restaurant Sciences LLC, an independent firm that closely tracks food and beverage product sales throughout the foodservice industry in North America , unveiled that the high-volume premium and sub-premium beers popular in America – names like Budweiser, Coors Light, Miller Lite, Pabst Blue Ribbon, etc. – have seen a 3.5% to 6.8% price jump in the nation’s eating and drinking establishments over the past seven months (October ’12 thru April ’13). The below chart shows the increases by price segment.

“While all the attention has been on Craft (Ultra-Premium) beers, the price of mainstay brands in the mid-price (Premium) tier have risen more dramatically. And traditionally lower-priced beers such as Pabst Blue Ribbon have seen sizeable double-digit price increases in both restaurants and bars & nightclubs. In fact, the only segment of the restaurant industry holding the price line on these beers is the value-conscious Family Dining segment, with average per-party checks under $40,” said Ellis.

“Across all restaurant and bar segments, and all beverage alcohol categories, the one constant is rapidly increasing prices in the fine-dining tier,” said Ellis. This segment had some of the hardest-hit establishments in the last recession, and average drink prices there are increasing with a vengeance.”

Press Release:

(Newton, MA) – “Legal claims by individuals in three states in late February that some AB-Inbev products did not live up to stated alcohol-by-volume levels have had no impact on sales of Anheuser-Busch beers in the nation’s restaurants, bars and nightclubs to date,” said Chuck Ellis, President of Restaurant Sciences LLC (Newton, MA), an independent firm that closely tracks food and beverage product sales throughout the foodservice industry in North America. “The chart below shows no effects of the public dispute.”

The first such claim was made in California on February 26th. Additional claims were made in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Restaurant Sciences tracked US sales of AB-Inbev brand beers versus all other beer brands sold in restaurants and bars from February 20th (the week prior), through March 5th (the week after). The data shows that AB-Inbev Specified Beers steadily hovered around 20 percent of the relative on-premise market share. The data carry a relative standard error of 2.3 percent.

“The legal process around these claims has just commenced, so it is still early to make any definitive statement about the on-premise effects for AB-Inbev and its competitors. We also do not yet know whether there has been any impact in the retail channels,” said Ellis. “But, we can say with high confidence that AB-Inbev has weathered the initial impact of the story quite well in its on-premise channels, where over 50 percent of consumer dollars are spent on beer each year in the United States.”

About Restaurant Sciences

Restaurant Sciences is the premier provider of syndicated data and insights on food and beverage consumption in restaurants, bars, nightclubs and other foodservice establishments. The company delivers market share, market basket, competitive analysis, pricing, promotional, trend, segmentation and custom analytics to food and beverage manufacturers and distributors, as well as the broader industry they serve. Restaurant Sciences transforms over $1 Billion per month in guest check-level sales information into detailed data and insights across all segments of the foodservice landscape in the United States and Canada. Insights are delivered online through their business intelligence tool or through custom analytics. Visit www.restaurantsciences.com.

Press Release:

(New York City, NY) – Original Sin Corp, founded in 1997, today announced the launching of Original Sin Elderberry Cider. Original Sin’s new cider combines the natural acid and sugar of apples with the tart flavors inherent in Elderberries. The cider will be available in 12oz bottles and kegs. The product will first be released in Ohio, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Indiana and the U.K. with further market distribution over the next two months.

Original Sin Elderberry Cider
Elderberry is a common fruit used in wine making. Its unique tart qualities make it an ideal fruit to use in the cider making process. Much of making a good cider is finding the perfect balance between acid, sugar and tannins. With Original Sin Elderberry, the Company believes it has achieved this balance. There is a long history of Elderberries being used in cider production. In fact, in the 1822 book ‘The American Orchardist’, it suggests adding Elderberries to give “cider a fine colour as well as flavor.”

About Original Sin Cider
Original Sin was established in 1997. Founder Gidon Coll began making small batches of hard cider in an upstate New York winery. Sourcing local ingredients, his objective was to create a dry traditional American cider. When it was time to launch the product, Gidon Coll borrowed a pickup truck from a friend and brought the first cases down to the East Village and Brooklyn in New York City. He then went bar to restaurant to gourmet market dropping off samples. In the early days, it was not uncommon to walk into a bar and have to explain what hard cider was or to convince a bar owner that there a market for hard cider.

The industry has come a long way since then. Today cider is the fastest growing category of the U.S. alcohol beverage market. Original Sin is proud to be an early member of this burgeoning industry. As a proudly independent U.S. cider company, Original Sin’s award winning ciders are distributed in over 30 states as well as the U.K. and Japan. The Company intends to launch in additional U.S. and overseas markets this year.

In 2012, Original Sin’s founder planted a test orchard on his family’s old dairy farm in Upstate New York. This spring, the orchard was doubled in size to include over 70 varieties of heirloom, cider and modern day apples. The orchard contains historical apples originating from New York side by side with apples from England, France, Kazakhstan, Canada, Holland, German, Russia and Turkey.

Anheuser-Busch InBev is acquiring C&G Distributing Co. Inc., a distributor in Lima, Ohio. The sale is expected to close withing the next 90 days, before a new state law goes into effect that bars brewers from owning distributors.

More >> St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Today would have been Bert Grant’s 85th birthday, and he is definitely missed. Bert opened the country’s first brewpub in 1982 in Yakima, Washington and was a fixture in the industry until his death in late July of 2001. Join me tonight in lifting a pint to Bert’s memory.

Bert Grant and me at OBF in the mid-1990s.

Thursday’s ad is for Ballantine, from 1950. It’s a funny little poem about Aladdin — though the illustration might be controversial today — where the bartender is the genie in the lamp.

Aladdin …
— was a lad in old Bagdad
He had a lot of luck
with a lamp he had

He rubbed that lamp—
a man came flyin’
and served him up some Ballantine.

You can steal Aladdin’s tricks
Lamp or no lamp this one clicks

Today’s infographic is another one showing hangover cures that are common in other cultures around the world, and also offering other factoids and tips for dealing with yours. Entitled Hangover Helper, it was created originally for confused.com.

Click here to see the poster full size.