Month: June 2016

Who brews the ‘Walmart beer’?

This was a silly headline: “Is Walmart Looking to Dethrone Budweiser as King of Beers?” The story itself does not suggest Walmart will be getting into the brewing business. Instead it is about still another foray the retailer is making into selling beer.

You’ll recall that about three years ago there was chatter about Walmart’s plan to become America’s biggest beer retailer. This included selling brands such as Budweiser and Coors at low, low prices and broadening their overall selection. At the time I visited Walmart to compare both prices and selection. I’m not going to run another price check, but last time I looked (granted, several months ago) the overall selection had shrunk since September of 2013.

But now there are these beers from Trouble Brewing, which is not exactly a brewery (but more on that in a moment). Details are in the “Dethrone the King” story.

We want to bring craft beer to the masses,” said Walmart senior vice president of adult beverages Al Dominguez. He spoke at an event at the company’s culinary innovation center in its home state of Arkansas. Dominguez was quick to point out that due to alcohol laws, it’s not calling the beer “private label” but rather “distinctive label” beer.

But what is this Trouble Brewing in Rochester, New York, they speak of? It must be pretty good size to produce beer for 2,200 of Walmart’s 4,600 stores. It doesn’t take much detective work to figure out it must be Genessee Brewing.

Why don’t they just put that on the label?

More Citra, more Mosaic, more Comet – wait, more Comet?

The United States Department of Agriculture reports farmers in the Northwest have strung a record number of acres for hop production in 2016 — 17 percent more than in 2015. Much can happen between now and harvest beginning in late August, but a record crop seems likely.

The varieties that British hop breeder Peter Darby describes as “impact hops” — boldly American, often with fruity aromas and flavors — continue to drive growth. Farmers planted 51 percent more Mosaic (increasing acreas from 1,800 to 2,717) and 48 percent more Citra (from 2,993 to 4,430). For sake of comparison, farmers in the Northwest strung 7,371 acres of Cascade this year.

The Hop Breeding Company released Citra in 2008, Mosaic in 2012, and Equinox in 2014. Equinox acreage was not reported in 2015, but grew to 996 in 2016.

Equally impressive, if on a smaller scale, acreage for Comet more than doubled from 108 to 231, and Azacca nearly tripled, from 175 to 501. Azacca is a relatively new hop from the American Dwarf Hop Association, but Comet came out of the USDA public breeding program in Corvallis, Oregon. It was released to farmers in the mid-1970s as a high alpha (for the time) hop, intended for efficient bittering. Acreage peaked at 635 in 1980 and declined as higher alpha hops became available. It was barely kept alive, perhaps on only one farm (Brulotte Farms in Toppenship), until a couple of years ago. Now several farmers in the Northwest are growing it because brewers like it for its aroma — you guessed it, boldly American and citrus — and some German farmers have planted it as well.

The USDA reported estimates only for the Northwest, where until very recently farmers grew almost all the commercially harvested hops in the United States. Best estimate is that farmers beyond the Northwest harvested 1,250 acres of hops in 2015. That number will likely grow faster than in the Northwest, but yields are much lower and comparisons are difficult.

Overall acreage in the Northwest is up to 51,115. Acres in Oregon increased to 7,669, the most since 1997.

Monday beer links: Who should be mayor of Homebrew Con 2017?

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 06.13.16

U.S. craft beer pioneer New Belgium has some lessons for old Belgium.
I’m am going to cheat and flip right to the end: “The consumer really has started to be the person asking for new beer. I always used to say: ‘We’ll make it, they’ll drink it anyway.’ It was brewer-led brewing. Now it’s more consumer-led.” [Via MarketWatch]

14 Breweries Split from Colorado Brewers Guild.
Some numbers might add context. This group includes Colorado’s five largest small brewers (small being every brewery other than the massive MillerCoors plant in Golden and the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Fort Collins). Those five (New Belgium, Oskar Blues, Left Hand, Odell, and Great Divide) produced about 70 percent of the 1,775,831 barrels of beer Colorado’s craft breweries made in 2015. Avery (52,805 barrels) and Ska (32,187 barrels) are the largest breweries that did not join the group of 14. [Via Porch Drinking]

Postcard from Forchheim, Upper Franconia.
“Sadly, younger Germans are less interested in traditions like Stammtisch and Frühschoppen, or less able to keep them. I worry that in 20, 40, 60 years these things become mere anecdotes: My opa used to drink there every Sunday morning.” [Via DRAFT]

A craft beer revolution brews in Paris.
Yes, your first thought might be, Not another craft beer in Paris story. But I find it interesting to consider what it can mean to be local in the twenty-first century, no matter the location. [Via SFGATE]

Craft Beer Drinkers are Interested in Healthy Habits and Alcohol Abstinence, Nielsen Survey Finds.
Introducing The Weekend Warrior Craft Drinker. [Via Brewbound]

WINE, AND MAYBE A BIT OF NAVEL GAZING

Wine Critics – Everything Old Is New Again.
Beer drinkers who know of Pliny the Elder the Person mostly do so because of Pline the Elder the Beer. But his influence on wine is somewhat larger. And not only because he wrote things like this: “The wine produced (nascitur) at Signia—useful as an astringent because it is just too harsh—counts as a medicine.” [Via Huffington Post]

Into the tall weeds of the critic: Kramer and being “captious.”
“I guess I’m thinking politically — critics are rather like politicians running for office. You have to talk, talk, talk to convince people to listen to you and believe in your views.” [Via Steve Heimoff]

FROM TWITTER

I pass this along because Minneapolis-St. Paul is hosting Homebrew Con in 2017. The first time I saw Steve Fletty in Baltimore this past weekend I told him I think he should be declared the official mayor of Homebrew Con next year. A grassroots movement seems in order.

Session #113 announced: Pub observations

The SessionBoak & Bailey are asking bloggers to “take a notebook to a pub or bar — any one you fancy — and write a note of what you observe” for the 113th gathering of The Session (July 1).

Their inspiration is The Pub and The People, published in 1943.

What should you be looking for?

  • How many people are drinking?
  • Which beers are on tap, and which are people actually drinking?
  • What are they eating?
  • How are they passing the time?
  • What are the topics of conversation?
  • How is the pub decorated?
  • How many TVs are there and what are they showing?
  • Are there pot plants, parrots, spittoons?
  • How many smokers are there? And vapers?
  • Is there a dartboard, pool table or quiz machine, and are they in use?

And the point? “As a chaser, after your observations, write whatever you like spurred by the idea of ‘The Pub and The People’. Really, whatever you like, as vaguely related to theme as it might be. Or instead of making any observations, even.”

The beer stories you might have missed last week

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 06.06.16

Inside the Underhanded Effort to Unseat Craft Beer in Seattle.
A serious bit of reporting. “No one familiar with Seattle’s beer industry thinks that AB is alone in the kinds of practices uncovered by LCB investigation. With more violations expected to be announced later this year, it’s possible that craft brands could be implicated in similar schemes. But the details revealed by the state, paired with AB’s growing influence over the distribution networks smaller breweries rely on to reach customers, do provide a clear picture of the kind of cutthroat deals that go into delivering a pint to your hands, often at the expense of small, independent producers.” [Via Seattle Weekly]

On Disclosure and Early Reflections of Being a Freelance Beer Writer.
I find this statement deeply troubling: “The notion of integrity in journalism is flawed.” It opens the penultimate paragraph, which includes more disturbing suggestions. I don’t want to get into a pissing match, so I will simply point to the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics. It makes it pretty clear why integrity still matters. [Via Total Ales]

Why Is the Smithsonian Collecting 50 Years’ Worth of Beer Artifacts?
American History Museum Smithsonian food exhibitAs the photo I took Saturday at Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History illustrates wine has a head start. But this Q&A with Susan Evans McClure, the Smithsonian’s Director of Food History Programs, indicates how wide sweeping its collaboration with the Brewers Association will be . “So, we’ll be looking at advertising, agriculture, industry, business history, community and all of these strands that people might not even think are related to brewing. I’m particularly interested in the agriculture stories of brewing. How does the farmer who feeds spent grains to his cows relate to the fact that Americans are drinking more craft beer? That, to me, is a much more complex story of American history.” [Via Punch]

The Great American Beer Brawl 2016.
Serious Eats invites “beer experts and aficionados from around the country to state the case for their favorite beer towns.” The seven featured are New York, San Diego, Denver, Asheville, Portland, Tampa, and Burlington. There’s also a poll in which readers can vote for their favorite. When I last looked “other” was winning. Fun to compare to a list from 2000, when in an interview in Westword magazine the late Michael Jackson listed seven cities. They were (west to east) Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Denver, Austin, Philadelphia, and Boston. [Via Serious Eats]

Frothy Minnesota market might not bear much more craft beer.
On any given Monday I could link to multiple “craft beer bubble” stories. I promise not to, but this is well reported and on a local (well, state) level. “It’s not my fault that there are 100 breweries in Minnesota. But brewers get angry when I tell them their beer is not as good as the ones already on our list.” [Via StarTribune]

Selling Millennials Through Myths & Lies (Part 2 of 3).
Since I linked to millennials and beer last week, might as well make it wine this week. [Via SBV Wine]

FROM TWITTER

Oh, what the heck, most bubble talk. Click on the time/slash date to read the conversation.