New York Magazine - high profile in a high impact market - has a story about beer. Before you begin celebrating with hopes another mainstream publication gets it read what Stephen Beaumont has to say at World of Beer. (The magazine piece is online, but you should read his commentary, then use the link he […]

This story was first written as a sidebar for the one archived in The Library about why paying more for beer may benefit us all.
Sidebars don’t work all that well in this format, so I’m turning it into a basic post (with a note it was written in the summer of 2005). The idea is […]

A post at Beerdata.org conjectures about why craft beer sales are up 11% so far this year.
Brendan Picha gives a lot of credit to imported beers, starting the with UK icon Samuel Smith. Yes it’s true that dam was opened in this order:
- Michael Jackson wrote the World Guide to Beer.
- Charles Finkel read the […]

Two news stories from yesterday:
- The Wall Street Journal reported reported (fee required) that the trend toward “trading up” is slowing for many consumer products.
- The Brewers Association reported craft beer sales roared ahead at an 11% clip in the first half of 2006.

If the former trend continues through the coming months how long […]

Geez, take a few days to go drink beer with homebrewers (the National Homebrew Conference) and all kinds of interesting discussions break out related to our access to better beer.
First there was this: The long tail of the alcohol distribution curve in a business innovation blog.
That lead to this interesting post: Did the Long Tail […]

Good Grape - you guessed it, a blog aimed a wine drinkers - credits Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewery with creating the economic theory of “Beneficial Inefficiency.”
The author is moved to ask this question:
Isn’t a really relevant question here, maybe the wineries have it all wrong? Maybe they don’t need to […]

A story by Paul de Grauwe in the Financial Times last week included this interesting study on the effects of pricing:
A few weeks ago an interesting experiment was undertaken at the Brussels food fair, a yearly affair where food lovers wander around among the many stalls stuffed with all imaginable delicacies. A stall was put […]

The mainstream press loves stories about expensive beers - maybe so they can write headlines like the one above.
The Sunday Times in Britain examined beer menus in upscale restaurants yesterday, noting early on:

Rupert Ponsonby, a spokesman for the Beer Naturally campaign, set up by brewers to encourage restaurants to widen their beer selection, said: “Drinks […]

When should you pay $3.99 for a 22-ounce bottle of beer you’ve never seen before instead of $2.99 (or $4.99) for one you know well?
- Taste blind. Is it the label or what’s inside the bottle? Tasting blind removes a key bias.
- Taste across styles. Tast a variety of styles to find out what […]