Month: May 2007

Red Stripe and the next generation

Young BeertenderAs I’ve written before, one of the categories here is Beer and Wine, not Beer versus Wine. When we have people over for dinner there will be men drinking wine and women drinking beer (and vice versa), and there might be a little conversation about one or the other but not why one is better than another.

On our house, beer and wine are not opponents. White bread and processed cheese are the enemy. That’s why Natalie MacLean’s screed seems so silly.

On the other hand . . . If we were in the business of selling beer then I’d be at McLean’s door, pouring her samples of beer with “aromas that range from wet violets to toasty oak,” pairing them with various dishes and showing her clips of articles from people in the wine industry who are wringing their hands about what consumers in their 20s plan (variously known as Millennials or Geny Y) to drink this year and the next decade. It might be craft beer.

Consider this:

The wine industry could lose a generation of customers if it doesn’t get better at capturing the attention of younger drinkers, according to a survey commissioned by Vinexpo.

In a study of 100 occasional wine drinkers aged 20-25 (20 each in London, Paris, Brussels, New York and Tokyo), focus group participants said “they are curious about wine, but deterred by too many choices and styles, complex labeling and wine’s stuffy image.”

On the other hand, during the Craft Brewers Conference last month, Mike Kallenberger of Miller Brewing said, “The overall values and personality of the craft beer category will resonate even more strongly with adult Millennials than with Gen Xers and Boomers.”

Not that marketers don’t have 1,000 theories on Millennials. Outlaw Consulting recently released research that found Generation Y trendsetters are more drawn to brands that speak to them in a “straightforward and stripped-down way, use plain packaging, and avoid excess.”

The Most Trusted 15 brands named in the survey were:

1. Apple
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Jet Blue
4. In-N-Out Burger
5. Ben & Jerry’s
6. Whole Foods
7. Adidas
8. American Apparel
9. Target
10. H & M clothing stores
11. Levi’s
12. Volkswagen
13. Converse
14. Vitamin Water
15. Red Stripe Jamaican beer

I’m not sure that Samuel Adams is big enough to get wide enough attention to crack that list, and surely no other craft brewers are. But if you read the details you’ll be thinking, “That sounds like Uinta” or “That reminds me of Jolly Pumpkin.”

Does it seem like I’ve wandered off point? Here it is: We’re making a mistake any time we are less than inclusive. I’m rooting for Millennials to make good educated decisions when it comes to beer and wine because they’ll be a giant factor in which choices I have.

I’m not sure how many from Gen Y read McLean – or how many frequent this circle of blogs we hang out in – but I do know that her rant was the antithesis of inclusive. We should remember that when we discuss beer.

And here’s a wine example of the way to do it: Where the Homework Is a Pleasure.

Brewpubs and ‘beer cred’

First, at Hop Talk, Al suggests what he think are 5 essentials for a good brewpub, starting with “An old building, especially with a lot of exposed brick.”

Then at Beervana, Jeff Alworth discusses Beer Cred in Portland, Oregon.

Beer is a working-class beverage. Drinking beer is a working-class activity. Oregon brewers, who until ’99 had Henry’s as an example, got that. In the 80s, as brewpubs started opening up, they had a gritty look. Breweries were located in Portland’s industrial Northwest (part of which has been overtaken by the Pearl). Tap handles for good beer appeared in working-class bars. It is my suspicion that one of the reasons Oregonians took to microbrewed beer was because it retained it’s blue collar ethos.

And he compares that to “boutique breweries” in other parts of the country.

You simply cannot argue with the success of craft beer in Oregon (11% of volume vs. 4% in the rest of the country). In fact, you’ve got to wonder if the rest of us will ever catch up.

My point? I’m not sure I figured one out. I found these two interesting to read in the matter of only a couple of hours. In his, Alworth concludes, “Yes, that was a random posting.”

This must be as well.

You know you’re a beer savant when . . .

These two words either mean something to you or they don’t.

Cask Fred.

Are you smiling or are you looking a little perplexed?

Hair of the Dog will be pouring cask-conditioned Fred on Saturday for FredFest, a Portland, Oregon, mini-festival of sorts that marks the 81st birthday of groundbreaking beer writer Fred Eckhardt.

Hair of the Dog is the host. The entire lineup looks great, but you really only need to known one thing.

Cask Fred.

The Session #4: Local Brews

The SessionSnekse, of the Gastronomic Fight Club, has chosen the theme for Session #4 and it’s not a style. He wants us all to taste local beers.

His guidelines:

  • You can pick anything commercially made within 150 miles of your house, but try to pick the brewery or brewpub closest to your house.
  • You can select any beer or even a sampler if you want.
  • If you select a single beer, let us know why you choose this beer (e.g. favorite,seasonal,limited edition, best seller).
  • Preferably you’ll shy away from beers with wide distribution outside your immediate area.

    • I like this idea quite a bit, although I have 13 breweries within 150 miles of my house – and this is New Mexico. The Brewers Association last year figured out that the average American lives within 10 miles of a brewery, and next week is promoting the Great American Beer Tour as part of American Craft Beer Week.

    There’s every chance I’ll be walking to Session #4 and drinking a beer available only on draft.

    The Session #3: A Mild by any other name

    The Session(This is my contribution to our monthly Session. Jay Brooks is recapping this month.)

    Britain’s Campaign for Real Ale has designated May as Mild Month – and tomorrow as National Mild Day.

    What does this mean? From the CAMRA web site: “We ask licensees to come on board by stocking this style of beer, encouraging pub-goers to try a few Milds throughout the month and hope that all of our members participate in Mild events up and down the country.”

    Suppose, instead, it were Mild Month in the United States – that the Brewers Association promoted it like American Craft Beer Week. It wouldn’t be enough to suggest pub-goers drop by their local and try the regular Mild, because there’s something of a shortage. (If you look at comments from participants you’ll see finding Milds has been a challenge.)

    It would mean brewing something new, and presenting it as special, which would draw attention to the style. Maybe brewers in a region would get together for mini-festivals. Since Mild truly shines when (properly) served on cask it would be another chance to break out the firkins.

    We’d certainly expect American brewers to explore historical versions of this style. And that would be an opportunity for all sorts of fun.

    In “Brew Your Own British Real Ale,” Graham Wheeler and Roger Protz write, “In the modern sense it means ‘mildly hopped,’ although in the old sense it meant not sour!” They explain:

    The origins of the term Mild ale stem from the early days of commercial brewing. In those days many people did not feel that a beer had matured properly until it was beginning to turn sour, i.e. until an acetic acid taste was beginning to develop. However, the degree of acidity was a matter of individual taste and differences in personal preference were overcome by publicans supplying two grades of beer: Mild beer, which was a fresh immature ber; and Stale beer, which was the same stuff only it had been kept for up to a year and was beginning to turn sour. The customer mixed these in his tankard in appropriate quantities to give him the desired tang. Some moneyed people made a trade of buying mild and keeping it until it was sour and selling it to the publicans at a profit. Stale was therefore more expensive than Mild so many people drank mild on its own and this eventually came to dominate public taste.

    They state that the Milds of 300 years ago were simply immature versions of the standard brown beers of the day. In 1805 a Mild would have had a gravity of 1.085, in 1871 it would have been 1.070 and in 1913 1.050. While we praise Mild as a lower alcohol session beer, they contend that Mild dropped to a gravity of 1.034 for a different reason: “Twentieth century greed.”

    Think what American brewers might do with this information. Some would accept the challenge and stick to beers of 3.2% to 3.6% alcohol brimming with flavor. Others would create something more radical – and clearly not what CAMRA has in mind.

    Guess you should be careful what you wish for.

    Stray thoughts

    – The solution to “saving” Mild probably doesn’t include giving it a new name, but it might help. As Tomme Arthur of Port/Lost Abbey points out in writing about his Dawn Patrol Dark Mild sounds so, well, mild.

    – Last January a New York Times tasting panel picked Ellie’s Brown Ale from Avery Brewing in Colorado as their favorite when they evaluated brown ales. Avery is better known for its range of high alcohol and highly hopped beers, and those are still the ones selling the best despite the NYT publicity.

    “One of our brewers suggested maybe we should change the name (from Ellie’s) to Extreme Mild,” brewery founder Adam Avery said.

    A tasting note

    So the point of The Session is we all taste around a central theme and write about what we taste, so I better give you a tasting note.

    SpicesLike many I can’t stop by the corner store and pick up a proper Mild. So first I thought I’d go with Deschutes Buzzsaw Brown, because at 4.8% it is mild by American standards and because I like it. Then reading Wheeler and Protz convinced me to do something I think I promised not to when we started the Session – write about a homebrewed beer.

    Garden Variety Gruit is brewed in the manor of a gruit ale from the Middle Ages, when the church controlled the ingredients and brewers didn’t use hops. The recipe takes inspiration from Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing, although true to the author’s wishes I didn’t follow his recipe by rote.

    I used a little more lightly smoked malt than he suggested – and, by golly, Wheeler and Protz talk about smoked malt in early Milds – and the mix of spices was different since I walked around my yard and collected stuff I knew wouldn’t kill you. Even though I cut back on the cardamom it still dominates right now, and might forever. It adds an unfortunate astringent note, not totally unlike a badly hopped beer.

    I figure if I keep bottles stored long enough that might fade. Probably about the time the beer (remember, hops are a preservative) starts to turn sour. Then I’ll have a Stale. Is that on The Session calendar?