beers of conviction

Prepare your knee.

Pabst Brewing announces that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Southampton Bottling to market and distribute its award-winning line of craft-brewed ales and lagers.

Jerk.

Oh my God, what are they doing? Selling out.

Those last words are from Southampton brewmaster Phil Markowski, saying out loud what he knows many in the beer loving community are thinking.

Let’s cut to the chase. Markowski is one of the most respected brewers in the country and many of the beers he’s brewed at Southampton Publick House in Long Island developed a cult following. They are beers of conviction (my words, not his).

Whether you figure Pabst abandoned conviction in the 1870s by joining the rush to adjunct brewing, in 2001 when it closed its last brewery and became a marketing firm, or sometime between I’m comfortable saying that Pabst currently doesn’t sell many, perhaps any, beers of conviction. That changes when this deal closes during the first quarter of 2008.

To be clear, I’m not calling the myriad of brands (remember we’re talking about Pabst, Schlitz, Lone Star and a host of others) Pabst markets bad beers. They are well executed, which is why Pabst was honored as Large Brewing Company of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival in 2006 and 2007. Remember that what they choose to do they do well.

So what’s going to happen with the Southampton beers? Markowski discussed the future Friday while his car was on a ferry, taking him to his Connecticut home after he’d finished a day of brewing at the Publick House in Southampton. He lives pretty much equidistant, meaning 2½ hours, from the three breweries where he makes Southampton beers.

At Olde Saratoga Brewing in Saratoga Spring, N.Y., he supervises production of three year-round brands sold in six packs, as well as seasonal beers sold in 22-ounce bottles. At Sly Fox Brewing in Royersford, Pa., he brews beers packaged in 750ml corked bottles. And in Southampton he brews beer for the pub, with a part of a few batches sometimes ending up in bottles.

What changes? He won’t brew at Olde Saratoga anymore, because the brewery doesn’t have enough excess capacity. He’ll likely make Secret Ale, Double White Ale and perhaps IPA at the Lion Brewery in Pennsylvania, which is in the process of being sold. (Lew Bryson is the go-to guy for those updates). Nothing changes at the pub or with the 750s.

“I intend to be on site for every brew indefinitely,” Markowski said.

“I have the intention of being totally hands on,” he said a little later. “There is no thought of changing the product or the integrity of the product.”

Those are words of conviction. He speaks just as assertively when it comes to contract brewing and batch size.

Arguments about contract brewing have been going on for more than 20 years. “I understand the roots of that (“contract isn’t the same as craft”) thinking, but I think that is changing,” Markowski said. “As the industry is growing up some of subjectivity is coming out of it. … It’s more, ‘How does it taste?'”

Remember the off-the-wall commercials that Miller ran 10 years ago featuring a fellow called Dick? One for Miller Genuine Draft told us, “It’s time to drink beer from vats the size of Rhode Island.” That pretty well epitomized a notion of micro versus macro that continues today.

“It’s less romantic, but the perception that you can’t make good beer on a large scale is wrong,” Markowski said. Then why aren’t the larger breweries winning medals in the GABF categories micros enter?

“They often become timid with a beer flavor profile,” Markowski said.

So here we are back discussing conviction. When the this deal was announced last week, Long Island wine blogger Lenn Thompson wrote:

… how many times have we seen terrific craft brews gobbled up by big brewers only to see the distinctive flavors disappear, resulting in watered down beers that are mere shadows of their former selves? I’m worried, but I guess we’ll see how this plays out.

Other than the Celis Brewery, which Miller literally ran into the ground, can you think of another small American brewery ruined when it was gobbled up? (And, to be clear, Southampton is not being gobbled.)

I may have forgotten one, but I can guarantee the list of smaller breweries that ran aground by underestimating beer drinkers’ interest in distinctive flavors is far longer.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of conviction.

Exhibit A: At the recent Great American Beer Festival, Pabst Brewing Co. won four medals and Large Brewing Company of the Year. Southampton Publick House on Long Island won a silver medal for its Double White Ale and a bronze for its Saison.

Which do we think it cooler?

Exhibit B: Wednesday Pabst Brewing announced (you may have to give them your age, then click on “News” to read the press release) that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Southampton Bottling to market and distribute its award-winning line of craft-brewed ales and lagers.

Remember Exhibit A.

I’m sorry, but beyond that I’m not prepared to connect the dots. I do know that this does not mean that Pabst will be brewing a saison. Anywhere. Anytime. Pabst doesn’t own a brewery. It has Pabst, Lone Star, Pearl, Ranier, Blatz, Schlitz and a raft of others brewed under contract.

So a little more from the press release:

– The agreement is expected to take effect by year’s end with shipments to commence in the second quarter of 2008.

– “Success in the craft industry today requires three key components: High quality beers, a strong distribution network, and excellent marketing capabilities. This alliance combines all of these necessary elements. We are excited and energized by the prospect of working with a partner whose standards for quality and excellence are consistently recognized as world-class,” said Kevin Kotecki, CEO of Pabst Brewing Company.

– “The opportunity to distribute Southampton products to a wider base of consumers is something we have been interested in for quite some time,” Southampton President Don Sullivan noted. “Pabst Brewing’s extensive sales and distribution network and its ability to provide superior marketing support ensures that our brands will have the ingredients for continued success.”

– As part of the agreement, Southampton brewmaster Phil Markowski will continue to oversee production of their beers. He will work closely with Pabst Brewing’s Robert Newman. Markowski is author of Farmhouse Ales (pictured above), and one of the country’s most respected brewers.

Anyway, this it is doubly intriguing to pair this news with the rumor I heard at the Great American Beer Festival that Pabst plans to re-launch Schlitz using a throwback recipe.

The Chicago Tribune just ran a story on what the author calls blending beers, but might more accurately be described as mixing beer cocktails.

In my mind brewers blend before beer is bottled. That’s a subject I wrote about for the current (November-December) Imbibe magazine. Customers also blend, but I prefer using the word mix in order to differentiate the two.

And, per usual, I might not know I am talking about. Discussions about favorite blends have broken out on several e-mail lists since the Tribune story appeared, with the favored word being “blends.” Jacob Leinekugel Brewing is promoting the idea, though bless their hearts without calling it blending, with a new “What’s your mix?” campaign. The brewery invites drinkers to come up with their own mixes, and its website features videos of the brothers Leinenkugel and their favorites.

I considered including beer cocktails in my story for Imbibe, but I used up my quota of words before getting to that. Since I discussed the idea with several brewers you get a few outtakes that didn’t make it into print.

“They are unintentional blends,” Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey said without being literal. “We work on the components individually and think about how they might come together.”

A drinker in a bar — and working on a mix where you can ask a bartender for 90% of this and 10% of that leaves a lot less extra beer sitting around than when you start with bottles &#151 begins with what is available.

“They are trying to create something different, something new,” said Firestone Walker Fine Ales brewmaster Matt Brynildson. “We have an opportunity to dial it in, but the concept is the same.”

Firestone blends most of its beers, even Humboldt Nectar IPA. My story focuses on Firestone 10, the anniversary beer released a year ago. That beer tasted somewhat different sitting in pitchers during a large group session that helped set the final blend than after it went into bottles. “Most of it was integration,” Brynildson said.

Firestone 10 is long gone, now fetching silly prices on eBay and at a few liquor stores in the Paso Robles area. Firestone 11 is in the works, an entirely new blend. Details soon (I hope).

How do you decide when tweaking a recipe what makes a beer, a bowl of soup or a pot of mash potatoes better? Or, put another way, how many brewers is too many in a brewery?

This seemed like a good question to ask the crew at Flying Dog Ales upon the release of Wild Dog Collaborator Doppelbock, a result of the brewery’s The Open Source Beer Project.

In case you missed it, here was the premise:

“Open source” is a term most commonly used in the software industry and refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. In this case, Flying Dog’s Open Source Beer Project will allow beer drinkers and homebrewers to create and recommend changes and modifications to the recipe.

The Open Source Beer Project will start as a Dopplebock but the style may evolve as participants offer ideas and tweak the recipe. “We are encouraging input on every part of the recipe, down to how what variety of hops we should use, how much we should use and when we should add them,” said Flying Dog Head Brewer, Matt Brophy.

“Many of our recipes are already collaborations from our brewers in house,” Brophy said while we sampled the beer. This beer turned into something more along those lines than what results with open source software. For one thing, there won’t be another version before next year. In contrast, WordPress makes this blog go, currently Version 2.2.1, and has been since Version 1.5.

So what if another brewer — figure it would be an amateur, also known as a homebrewer — grabbed the recipe posted by Flying Dog, made revisions and brought samples to the brewery? Might the changes end up in another version of the beer? (There won’t be another until next year, at the earliest.)

“If it is better, that’s what we’re all about,” Brophy said.

Were this a cartoon, you would have seen a light bulb go on above the head of Josh Mishell, creative manager. “People should send us that beer,” he said.

“We send beer to people,” said Neal Stewart, director of marketing. “Why can’t people send beer to us?”

Now that would be a gimmick.

So, to one of the questions in the headline, was this a gimmick?

Stewart explained that his goal is to make sure each Wild Dog release has a hook. “This series is designed to build some credibility with the beer community and the high-end liquor stores,” he said. “And we truly did want to engage homebrewers.”

It seems curious to listen to Stewart talk about striving for credibility. After all, president/”lead dog” Eric Warner is Weihenstephan-trained and has written books about brewing.

“We have this stigma of being gimmicky,” Stewart, pointing to the Ralph Steadman labels on Flying Dog beers and the brewery’s association with the late Hunter Thompson. “Some consumers think we had to do this to hide bad beer.”

It would be hard to be more transparent than Flying Dog has been with Collaborator Doppelbock. “We didn’t hold anything back,” Brophy said.

So to another question at the top. Is the beer better?

We don’t really have Version 0.9 or v1.1 to taste it against. Some will like the fact that it is spiced with American hops, one of the tweaks that came from website suggestions. Some won’t.

Maybe you can’t taste the intangibles, but Brophy knows they are there. “It was fun, a fun project,” he said. “It created excitement. Not just externally but internally.”

Oh, yeah, the third question: Is it free?

The recipe is. The beer isn’t. But then you knew that.

Commenting in another thread, Stonch asked: I’d be interested to know what the top ten selling American craft beers are? Does anyone have that info?

The lists I put together got too long to put in a comment. They are not perfect. They are based on data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI), which uses scanner data to track sales of consumer package goods in a variety of channels, but not every drop of beer sold. Their strength is in supermarkets, drug stores and convenience stores, which is where most people in the United States buy beer.

They don’t count everything sold in specialty retail stores (though some) or on draft (and certainly not in brewpubs, which account for about 10% of craft sales). They are not the only source out there — you will often seen Nielsen quoted — but supply data that corresponds quite well with the yearly figures the Brewers Association supplies. So I think they can be trusted.

BEST SELLING CRAFT BEERS
1 Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
2 Samuel Adams Boston Lager
3 Blue Moon White
4 Samuel Adams Seasonal
5 New Belgium Fat Tire
6 Samuel Adams Light
7 Shiner Bock
8 Widmer Hefeweizen
9 Samuel Adams Brewmasters Collection
10 Redhook ESB
11 Pyramid Hefeweizen
12 Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale
13 Redhook IPA
14 Alaskan Amber
15 Deschutes Black Butte Porter

For perspective, seven imports outsell SNPA (Corona Extra, Heineken, Corona Light, Tecate, Heineken Light, Guinness and Modelo) and Newcastle Brown is nipping at the heals of Boston Lager. Also, Rolling Rock and Killian’s Red would rank fourth and fifth on the list above.

Pretty much an aside: The top two selling beers in the “super premium” category (high priced beer but seldom costing as much as craft beer) are Michelob Ultra Light and Michelob Light. The original Michelob ranks seventh on this list (behind Michelob Amber Bock), selling basically the same amount of beer in these channels — and I suspect not quite as much overall — at Fat Tire.

Think about it. The flagship from small brewery founded in the basement of a Fort Collins, Colo., house in 1991 now outsells what was once the super premium beer in America. Hold that smile — even after you read the final list. [End of aside.]

The best selling styles, recognizing that few beers even broadly described as “extreme” reach these channels (I can buy Stone Ruination, the Jolly Pumpkin beers, Avery and others at Whole Foods but not Albertson’s):

1 Pale Ale
2 Seasonals
3 Amber
4 Amber Lager
5 Wheat
6 IPA

Finally, a bit more perspective . . .

BEST SELLING BEERS OVERALL
1 Bud Light
2 Miller Lite
3 Budweiser
4 Coors Light
5 Corona Extra
6 Heineken
7 Natural Light
8 Michelob Ultra Light
9 Busch Light
10 Miller High Life

Miller High Life sold three times more beer in the first half of 2007 as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.