To Hell with Part-Time Beer Writers and Contract Brewers!

Provocative title, yes? Good, because that’s what it is meant to be, but imagine for a second if I really meant it.

Imagine if I wrote a column about how important it is that every person writing about beer should be doing it as their sole source of income, with no “day job” or sidelines to keep the rent/mortgage paid and the lights on. Now imagine further that I implied through said column that those who do not write full-time are somehow less worthy than are those few of us who do, and that the fruits of their labours, ie: the articles and reviews they pen, are therefore by definition second class.

You’d probably think at best that I was rather full of myself, and most likely also that I’m an ass. And so you should.

Now change the above scenario to brewing rather than writing, and brewers in brick-and-mortar breweries and contract or so-called “gypsy” brewers rather than full- and part-time writers. Only this time you needn’t imagine it because it’s happening now. Again.

I’ve been writing about beer for 23 years, so I’ve lived through all this a few times now, and I’m here to tell you that it’s an utterly undignified debate. It smacks in turn of protectionism and claims of superiority, or at least greater legitimacy, and it is utterly meaningless to the vast, overwhelming majority of those who drink craft beer.

Why? Because like me, most of them don’t care whether the beer was born in a wholly-owned or sometimes borrowed brewery. They care whether or not it is good. Period.

Is there reason for the craft brewing industry to be debating owned breweries versus contractors – what Tim Webb and I have dubbed ‘beer commissioners’ – and “gypsies”? Yes, there may be, but internally. It’s a brewer-to-brewer and owner-to-commissioner debate, folks, and something that only looks petty and mud-slinging to outside entities. And what’s more, it will have no positive effect on the audience for your beer, so there is zero benefit to making it public.

(To those that say this is a fight for legitimacy and that the public will turn against beer commissioners if they know the true nature of what they do, I have three words for you: Boston Beer Company.)

When the craft beer biz gets together, as it did last week in Washington for the 6,400 person strong Craft Beer Conference, there is a tendency to forget that much of the beer drinking world is still blissfully unaware that alternatives to Bud and Coors Light even exist But it remains the reality that only the very fringe of the beer cognoscenti, itself a tiny, tiny minority of beer drinkers, is interested in this sort of internal debate. For the rest of the world, all that matters is what is in the glass.

Or, to return to my imaginary example, what’s on the page. And so far as I’m concerned, that’s the way it should be.

Sapporo May Shutter Nova Scotia Brewery

The drinks trade website just-drinks.com is reporting today that Sapporo, the Japanese brewing company that owns Sleeman Breweries in Canada, is planning to close down their Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, brewery if a buyer is not found before July of this year.

According to the story, the former Maritime Beer Company, born in 1998 and acquired by Sleeman in 2000, employs 32 people and produces a modest 27,000 hectolitres per year, a mere 2% of Sleeman’s total output. Sleeman Breweries’ president & CEO, Shige Yokoi, is quoted in the story as saying that the move is “difficult” but necessary in order for the company to achieve the efficiencies necessary to remain competitive.

Sapporo says that talks are ongoing with potential buyers, but that no deal has as yet been achieved.

Shorts in Knots Over Glassware

If you’re read my previous post, the one about not stealing beer glasses, then likely you’ll also know that Sam Calagione and Ken Grossman and a few others have come up with a new glass designed, they say, for the drinking of IPA. And certain people, including my good friend Mr. Lew Bryson, have reacted rather badly to it.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Lew railed on his Facebook page, “More prescriptive bullshit about how we’re supposed to drink our beer.” That little post garnered, at last count, 76 “likes” and 83 comments in two days, the majority of which were in agreement. One commenter even went so far as to maintain that “(s)tuff like this is ruining the experience of enjoying the beer itself, I believe.”

Me, I’m of two minds. As anyone who regularly or even occasionally reads these missives will know, I’m a great proponent of glassware, but more on the side of aesthetics than function. I hate the “shaker” pint glass because I think it’s ugly and presents the beer poorly – any beer, from IPA to Trappist ale to mass-produced lager. I like the glasses I keep sequestered in a dedicated cabinet because they look good and thus enhance my beer-drinking – or cocktail sipping or wine supping or spirits enjoying – experience. In my occasional role as hospitality industry consultant, I advise against the shaker because I feel its use is a false economy and ultimately detrimental to beer sales.

Whether the shaker makes the beer inside taste inferior to, say, a chalice or a nonic pint or Lew’s favourite Willi Becher, I do not know. I should probably do some research into it, but how does one objectively analyze flavour out of glassware without at least laying one’s hand upon the glass and so influencing one’s perception in some small fashion?

(For the record, while I have not yet held the glass in question in my hand, my initial impression from the photos I have seen – like this one – is that it does not rate terribly high on the aesthetic scale. Better than the Boston Beer glass, for sure, but way below many other glasses, including pretty much every one currently residing in my cabinet.

However, the point is that its existence is harmless. No one is forcing anyone to drink out of it, and I seriously doubt that either Sam or Ken would refuse you a 60 Minute or Torpedo should you not have one handy. They are part of a trend I’ve been noting for some time, namely the fetishizing of beer drinking, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Does anyone need a fancy, flip-knife-style bottle opener when an ordinary church key or, in a pinch, a lighter or rolled up magazine will do the job? No. Do I need a cabinet filled with glassware, roughly two-thirds of which is devoted to beer? Definitely not. Should you feel bad because you want to serve IPA but only own pilsner and weissbier glasses? In heaven’s name, no!

Wine has been fetishized for years now – hands up everyone who owns a rabbit or rabbit-style corkscrew! – and the cocktail geeks are doing their best with that segment of drinks. And if you’re a whisky drinker, someone is trying to sell you rocks to put in your drink, for crying out loud!

Beer is no different, so enjoy it or not, as you wish. Buy the new IPA glass or ignore it, but don’t get bent so out of shape about it. It’s just a glass, not a massive conspiracy to take the joy out of beer drinking.

2013: The Year of Beer!

Yesterday I tweeted (from @BeaumontDrinks) that 2013 is going to be a year of beer, and I wasn’t just talking about my personal drinking patterns. As much as the past couple of years have astounded many people with the growth shown by craft brewing world-wide, I believe the coming year will be even more extraordinary. Here’s why:

-          In case you missed the deal, in 2012 the mega-resto company Darden (Red Lobster and Olive Garden, among others) bought out the expanding beer bar chain, Yard House. This is a growing group of bar-restaurants that feature upwards of one hundred taps per location! That’s a pretty massive commitment to beer by a very mainstream restaurant company.

-          The U.K. has topped 1,000 breweries, according to CAMRA, and they’re selling more than just cask-conditioned ale. After years (and years and years) of British Isles brew being polarized between cask and lager, new options like quality keg and interesting bottles are coming to the fore, and the public is reacting with great interest.

-          Excitement over craft beer is growing exponentially in Italy, conveniently coinciding with one of the greatest and fastest increases in quality I’ve witnessed anywhere. I expect to hear a lot more from Italian craft breweries in the coming year. (Note to North Americans: Some of the best Italian craft breweries are ones you’ve not even heard about yet!)

-          Also flattening out the learning curve are many breweries in Brazil, the numbers and quality of which are growing quite steadily. They’ve still a ways to go and a number of barriers to overcome, but Brazilian craft beer is definitely on the rise.

-          Poland and northern France. Pay attention; things are happening fast.

-          From one sole region of significant craft beer interest – first B.C., then Québec – Canada now boasts craft brewing excitement coast to coast. The Prairies are still somewhat lacking, with a handful of exceptions, and Newfoundland has a ways to go, but the brewing scene in general is heating up from Vancouver Island to PEI.

-          Traditional brewing powers Belgium and the Czech Republic, having sat on their laurels for perhaps a little too long, are both definitely back in the game with new breweries, new beers from older breweries and plenty of enthusiasm for new ideas. Plus, you know, those grand old mainstays that we sometimes take too much for granted.

-          New Zealand and its hops, plus Australia and its general disinclination to be bested at anything by New Zealand, should assure that Australasia continues to heat up in the foreseeable future.

-          China: A massive nation just dipping its little toe into the craft beer swimming pool.

Even if only half of the above starts to realize its potential in 2013, or three-quarters comes to only lukewarm fruition, it will be enough to ensure that craft beer is one of the most talked-about and happily consumed factors on the global food and drink scene in the coming year. Enjoy!

Note: Beginning tomorrow, I will start posting my annual “Best of” list for 2012, beginning with a tie for my pick of the best beer place of the year.  

Interesting Numbers from the World of Beer

Item 1: People keep asking me why I see a bright future for craft beer in Brazil despite all the significant obstacles – lack of distribution infrastructure, high prices, no “cold chain” of delivery in which the beer is kept cold from brewery to consumer – and sometimes I wonder about it myself.

Then I come across an article like this one in The Globe and Mail newspaper and it all comes together. In case you don’t want to read the whole story, or the link breaks because the Globe puts the story behind their pay wall, here’s the gist: With 50 million Brazilians joining the middle class in the last decade, that segment of the population is now about equal to the percentage that is poor, about 30% each.

This new middle class is aspirational, and they want to spend their money on items to which they previously had not enjoyed access – the story highlights perfume and cell phones – like craft beer. I’ve seen the gestation of this at bars like Melograno and FrangÓ in São Paulo and I expect to see a lot more of it on my next visit, whenever that might be.

Item 2: I continue to hear American brewers fret about the number of breweries popping up in their country, worried about the so-called “bust” that they think must surely follow the boom. Too many breweries, too many SKUs (brands listed with distributors) and too confusing for beer drinkers are a few of the concerns I regularly hear voiced.

Umm, folks, ever heard of the United Kingdom? It’s a land of about 62 million people, where the total number of breweries just surpassed 1,000! And while they have their own issues to deal with over there, I’ve not yet heard much in the way of griping about the number of breweries and possible saturation of the market.

To put that in perspective, to achieve the same ratio of breweries per capita, the United States would have to add about 2,900 breweries to their existing total, more than doubling the number in place today.

Item 3: This is not so much a numbers thing as it is a bit of a rant. Although it does relate to Item 2 above.

Yesterday’s Shanken News Daily carried a story headlined “Craft Controversy: Rotating Drafts Spark Concern Among Brewers,” in which it was suggested that “some craft brewers are beginning to show concern that the very diversity that they have long promoted…may actually be damaging to their companies and the craft beer category.”

The piece goes on to quote Bob Sullivan, vice president of sales and marketing at Kansas city’s Boulevard Brewing – a craft brewery I know and quite like and the tenth largest craft producer by volume in the U.S. – as saying that bars which rotate their draft taps rather than sticking with a specific line-up of brands are hurting the industry by not giving breweries an opportunity to build their brands.

More egregiously, the story quotes Jim Gray, national draft director at the beer importer Crown Imports, purveyors of Corona and Tsingtao, among other brands, as complaining that “retailers who are focused on rotating draft handles aren’t focused on building brands” and that these beer sellers are only interested in “the shiny new toy that is offered to them each month.”

Here’s a piece of advice for you, Jim and Bob and any other salesperson out there trying to flog draft beer: The job of the licensee is to keep their customers happy, not to build brands. (Ahem, that’s YOUR job.) And if customers want variety in their beer selection, as a vastly growing contingent of beers drinkers do, well, that’s just the new playing field. Get used to it!

Good News/Bad News for Craft Beer in Brazil

If you’ve had a chance yet to look at the Emerging Markets chapter of the new World Atlas of Beer, you’ll know that my co-author and I are quite bullish on the future of craft beer in Brazil. With a fast-growing middle class, rapidly improving craft breweries and both the summer Olympics and football’s World Cup around the corner, we can’t help but think that things look bright for the country’s ever-expanding premium beer segment.

Since I’m writing about Brazil, I figure I might as well add a gratuitous cover shot from the Brazilian edition of The World Atlas of Beer.

And apparently we’re not the only ones.

The global research firm, Mintel, has just come out with a report that suggests “strong and premium beer” are the big growth segments in Brazil, with data showing sales had improved 18% year-on-year to 2011.  In the report, Sebastian Concha, research director, Latin America at Mintel, is quoted as saying:

“The fact that premium beers are gaining more market share from the standard beer sector highlights the changing consumer mindset in Brazil and how beverage habits relate to this. Huge opportunities lie with Brazil’s hosting of key live sports events in the coming years. With a strong sporting prowess in Brazil and a product closely linked with sporting culture, beer manufacturers who can capitalize on local enthusiasm and blend this to ensure a premium product positioning stand to benefit.”

Now, admittedly, by “premium” Mintel means primarily imports and niche domestic brands like the Kirin-owned Devassa and Heineken-owned Kaiser Bock, but it doesn’t take much imagination to figure that the crafts should be able to capitalize on this movement, as well. After all, what was then just InBev unwittingly helped along the rise of craft beer in North America by promoting the hell out of its imported brands.

Which, unfortunately, is also where the bad news comes in. Moments after I received the Mintel report, I also found in my inbox a news item about the intent of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Brazilian division, AmBev, to open a chain of bars called Nosso Bar across the country. Organized via a semi-franchise arrangement, the bars will reportedly present a clean and gender-neutral image and be designed, of course, to fiercely promote AmBev brands such as Brahma and Sköl.

To be clear, I don’t believe that the latter news in any way outweighs the former — I remain convinced that the future is bright for Brazilian craft beer, despite the barriers the breweries still must overcome — but with AmBev and the other large breweries seeing great revenue potential in South America, the road ahead will likely be anything but smooth.

Global Craft Beer Future – India

During the beery explorations that resulted in The World Atlas of Beer, Tim Webb and I hit upon the two markets we consider most important to the future of brewing world-wide. Not craft brewing, mind, but brewing in general. They are China and India.

Neither has high per capita consumption levels – China drinks about 34 litres per person per year, while India languishes around one, yes, one litre per head annually – but both are growing markets and one, China, already produces more than twice as much beer as the second largest brewing nation in the world. India’s production sits at a very modest 26^th place globally.

But beer consumption is growing, slowly, in both markets, partly because increased affluence allows for greater purchasing power among the middle class.

India, however, is primarily a spirits market, as evidenced by the fact that United Spirits, the country’s top distiller, is also the number two spirits company in the world when measured by volume of product sold. And now Diageo is poised to take control of it.

With an offer of $1.8 billion on the table, Diageo is expected to assume majority control of United Spirits and thus gain ownership of a vast portfolio of brands and, perhaps more importantly, access to an expansive distribution network for its own global brands. This will place the world’s largest drinks company in a steel cage match for market presence with its chief rival, Pernod Ricard.

It will also likely put on hold for possibly several years any significant growth in the Indian beer market. Why? Because with two spirits behemoths going head-to-head in what is primarily a spirits marketplace, there is likely to be little room left over for beer growth, especially when the inevitable marketing and price wars heat up.

The good news in all this is that I’m told reliably that a small but enthusiastic craft beer market is just beginning to develop in India, the existence of which will probably not even be noticed by the two Goliaths hammering each other for market share. Bad news for A-B InBev, SABMiller, Heineken and the rest, but good news for the small minority of Indians thirsting for good beer.

How Old Do YOU Think American Craft Brewing Is?

Whatever it is, unless you’re a rabid American beer historian or a Facebook friend of Anchor Brewing, you’re probably wrong.

Believe it or not — and subject to different appraisals of what craft beer might be – it began 47 years ago today. Because, as I learned from Anchor today, it was on this exact date in 1965 that Fritz Maytag acquired 51% of the ownership of the Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco.

Fritz went on, of course, to buy the remaining 49% of the brewery in 1969, and proceeded from there to establish Anchor as one of the iconic brands of American beer. (That he had the audacity to launch Old Foghorn and what went on to become Liberty Ale in 1975 still amazes me.) So if you find yourself near an Anchor Steam Beer today, raise your glass to Fritz Maytag, a man of vision and the father of the modern American craft beer.

Dogfish Head vs. A-B InBev in the Percentages Game

Thanks to Shanken News Daily for this bit of contextualized good news:

On the one hand…Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) said selling-day-adjusted sales to retailers in the U.S. inched up 0.2% in the first half of 2012, giving cause for optimism to a mainstream U.S. beer market that’s been in low-single-digit decline for months.

While on the other…Dogfish Head Brewing tells Shanken News Daily that shipments rose 33% over the first six months of the year, and that the company is slightly ahead of its goal to ship 171,000 barrels during calendar 2012. The Delaware brewer’s 90 Minute and 60 Minute IPA labels led growth over the first half, up 28% and 24% respectively, and its Burton Baton brew—which recently joined the year-round core portfolio—is up 70% from a small base. Dogfish Head’s 750-ml. segment, which features its more exotic offerings and now accounts for 7% of the business, rose 80% over the first half, depleting 38,276 12-bottle cases.

Yes, I know that Dogfish sells but a minute fraction of what ABI flogs, and that it must always be remembered that percentages are relative. But Dogfish is both far from being the kind of youthful start-up that easily posts huge percentage growth and hardly the kind of brewery that boasts broad mass market appeal. And it is experiencing explosive growth, alongside any number of other well-established craft breweries across the United States and, indeed, increasingly around the world.

Seems there might be some staying power to this craft beer thing after all.

Beer in Canada

I’ve been a bit busy running around, flying about and writing for money of late, so I’ve missed out on posting about some upcoming events and news items pertaining to beer in Canada. Here, then, is a quick round-up of interest to Canucks and those planning to visit my home and native land in the near future:

1) The big news of the summer is that Westvleteren is coming to town! Now, Westvleteren 12 might be the most over-hyped beer in history, but the monastery brewery is nonetheless exceptional at what they do, so this opportunity is nothing to sneeze at. Alberta-based Horizon Beers is the agency bringing it in, in the form of 6 bottle, 2 glass six-packs. The last I heard, allocations are going to Ontario and points west – sorry Maritimes & Quebec – and it should be arriving sometime in the very near future. Keep your eyes peeled!

2) For Torontonians, on the eve of Toronto’s Festival of Beer, comes word (via Canadian Beer News) that a new beer festival is headed your way. The Roundhouse Craft Beer Festival will take place August 11 and 12 in the area fronting Steam Whistle Brewing. Check here for details.

3) I won’t be around for the Roundhouse fest because I’ll be busy at the Halifax Seaport Beer Festival that weekend, hosting a beer dinner at Brussels Restaurant on Thursday and hanging at the fest Friday and Saturday. If you’re in or nearby to Nova Scotia, come on over and say hi!

4) The weekend following the Seaport fest, I’ll be in Ottawa for the National Capital Craft Beer Festival, speaking both Friday and Saturday. My buddy Jordan St. John will be there, too, so get yourself down to Marion Dewar Plaza on August 17 and 18 and harass him, will ya?

5) Finally, I’ve been sampling a bunch of Canadian beers of late, both established brands and new arrivals. Here are some thoughts in brief –

• Waterloo Authentic Amber, from Brick Brewing, sold singly or as part of their sampler pack, shows caramelly malt and some vanilla notes from the oak chips used in its lagering. Not bad, but a bit too sweet and cloying for my tastes.
• Brasseurs Sans Gluten’s Blonde Ale is a gluten-free winner, spicy and citrusy with a bone dry finish. A triumph for Celiac and gluten-sensitive beer drinkers.
• Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company’s latest collaboration, Venskab, made with Anders Kissmeyer, is a fascinating creature, with bog myrtle, yuzu fruit and ice wine-soaked wood chips all figuring in its recipe. The result is a sweet-ish and somewhat winey tripel, reminiscent of a citrusy dry vermouth, with bitterness creeping around on the outskirts. We’ll be serving this at my beer dinner in Halifax.
• Lastly, Moosehead sent me over some of their Cracked Canoe, a 3.5% alcohol light lager with a thin sweetness, not quite grainy, but far from caramel or toffee maltiness. All in all, a very light tasting lager with a sweetish edge to it.