Stan Hieronymus

Beneficial inefficiency

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 grow bigger, maybe they won’t be able to sustain a market of new customers buying direct in the Midwest, maybe what they should do is create less product and market it better.

Now substitute the word “breweries” for “wineries” and read it again.

I’m not supporting the concept of aritificial shortages, but perhaps it is better for all of us if breweries have the option of producing less and still making money – because that allows them to focus on quality.

All about the toads

What’s even better than a story about how Australians can trade toads for beer?

One that contains this quote: “It’s all about the toads, not about the beer.”

Isn’t it always all about the toads?

Beer as green as they come

Today is the day everybody – thank goodness, not everybody, but a lot of body – drinks or at least talks about green beer.

Kudos to Wired magazine for writing about the environmentally friendly, if not truly green, beers of Brooklyn Brewery and New Belgium Brewing.

Brooklyn recently followed the lead of New Belgium in committing to wind power to provide 100% of the brewery’s energy needs. “It’s the right thing to do, and not too many years down the road it will be a common choice,” said Brooklyn co-founder Steve Hindy.

New Belgium gets 70 percent of its power from wind-powered turbines, producing the rest with an innovative in-house system.

New Belgium puts its waste water inside closed pools filled with anaerobic bacteria. The microbes feed on the water, rich in nutrients from the brewing process, and produce methane gas, which is then pumped back to the factory where it becomes electrical and thermal energy.

CEO Kim Jordan indicates that New Belgium doesn’t plan to stop at 30%, although the system cost $5 million.

“It’s a gratifying way to use money, to try and push the envelope and the practice of alternative energy,” she said. “It’s our goal to completely close that loop, so all our energy use comes from our own waste stream.”

Beer investment funds? Hope not

Let’s hope that this doesn’t happen with beer.

Bloomberg.com reports that a boom in fine-wine demand means business is booming for wine fund managers. One example of a new fund that is seeking to attract larger institutional investors into the wine industry is the Dumbarton Group’s European Wine Investment Fund.

The New York-based fund is looking to raise $400 million to invest in vineyards in Bordeaux and Tuscany. Managing Partner Brooks Miller told the Wine Invest 2006 conference in London last month that the fund has $50 million committed so far and plans to raise another $150 million to $200 million this year.

An interesting look at a strange world. One man quoted is chairman of the wine committee at Mansfield College, Oxford. He is in charge of a 4,000-bottle cellar.

Beer, bourbon and barrels

The Lexington Herald-Leader profiles the efforts of Tom Griffin to convince microbrewers that they can make great beer with used bourbon barrels from Kentucky.

“We’re selling bourbon country,” he said.

The entire story is worth your time, but make sure to take time to think about Griffin’s idea presented in the last paragraph:

“This is getting to be another indigenous flavor,” he said. “Here we have something from America, developed in America, done nowhere else in the world and it gets its start in old Kentucky.”

It may get its finish in California or Michigan, perhaps a cult beer like Cuvee de Tomme from Port Brewing or as a different beer that’s still the kernel of an idea in a craft brewer’s brain.

Fun to think about.