musing

Mike Kallenberger’s made this really smart comment following the most recent post here. Didn’t want you to miss it:

“A culture isn’t a simple aggregation of values and opinions, it’s a set of collective, commonly-understood values and meanings — as some theorist once said, it’s not only more than the sum of its parts, it’s different than the sum of its parts. So neither group defines beer culture — it’s defined by the interactions among everyone. But craft beer is dominating the conversation in the U.S., and so I’d say craft drinkers have been the dominant force in the culture. One example: having sat through hundreds of focus groups, I’ve heard many people who love mainstream beer literally refer to their favorite brand as ‘cheap beer.’ (‘I only drink cheap beer. I drink Bud Light.’) Craft beer has reframed how even dedicated mainstream drinkers think about their beer.”

Just so you know, Kallenberger spent three decades in Marketing Insights at Miller Brewing and then MillerCoors, retiring last year. These days he operates Torque Brand Consulting.

He knows beer, brands and consumers. He might be on to something.

This must-watch video started with Rick Sellers and bounced along to a few other blogs. The headline “You do realise that passion is not an ingredient?” at I might have a glass of beer got my attention.

It’s a line from video, used to make the absolutely correct point that a flaw is a flaw no matter how much passion a brewer includes in the recipe. Typing “includes in the recipe” makes the sentence look a little stupid, doesn’t it? But if you consider time an important ingredient in some beers or a brewer’s skill vital in just about any beer then passion is also an important addition.

Even in beers brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot.

Elsewhere:

A little aged passion. A little fresh passion.

The Big Four of Big Beer worldwide — Anheuser-Busch InBev, SABMiller, Carlsberg and Heineken — sell 50 percent of the beer. As recently as the 1990s they had only a 20 share.

But here’s the really interesting number, which Benj Steinman of Craft Beers News/BMI provided during the craft brewery conference: They earn 77 percent of the profit.

He pointed out that the United States “profit pool” is the largest in the world and still expanding, expected to grow $3 billion in the next three years, mostly because of cost savings at A-B InBev and MillerCoors. In contrast, he said that because of the intense fixed costs involved in expansion that “craft breweries” probably earn just 3 percent of the profit pool despite selling 5 percent of the beer.

Some links to take your mind off that curious business reality:

Michael Jackson would have been 69 years old Sunday.

A good day to pull one of his books — I always recommend Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion — off the shelf. Read aloud if you like.

Also, there are new publications on both sides of the Atlantic that pay tribute to his legacy. In England, the Brewery History Society dedicated the current issue to “the most significant writer on beer there has been.”

In the United States, Jay Brooks wrote about Jackson’s influence in the latest Beer Connoisseur magazine. I haven’t actually seen this issue and can’t guarantee how easy it will be to find, but look for Jackson on the cover.

The Beer Society tribute gets an official launch at 6 p.m. Sunday at The Rake in London. Pete Brown, who wrote the introduction, contributor Mark Dredge, the editor and others will be on hand. And the magazine will be for sale. Brown’s introduction in online. Here’s the rest of the table of contents:

The World Guide to Beer – Jeff Evans
Michael Jackson and beer styles – Martyn Cornell
Michael Jackson and world beers – Tim Webb
The taste of beer – Zak Avery
Michael Jackson and beer writing – Roger Protz
Michael Jackson: Father of the craft brewing renaissance in America – Carolyn Smagalski
On the road with the Beer Hunter – J.R. Richards
Michael Jackson: the personal view of a brewer – John Keeling
Beer writing and new media – Mark Dredge

And a quick heads up. Richards is the filmmaker who trailed Jackson through much of Europe and the United States during the last years before Jackson died in 2007. He is working to complete his documentary — “Beer Hunter: The Movie” — and seeking donations. Here are the basics:

Your donation will also help establish the “Pints for Parkinson’s Foundation,” aimed at preserving Michael’s legacy while raising money and awareness for the Parkinson’s Foundation. As a sponsor, your name will appear on the credits of the Beer Hunter movie and you’ll receive a free download of the film after its release.

A suggested donation would be $10.

Surely you are familiar with Beer Madness at the The Washington Post. If not, read this.

Basically, beer fans get to vote between two beers — for instance, right now you can pick Breckenridge Vanilla Porter or Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout — a panel of eleven has tasted blind. Then the paper reveals the results and another round commences based on the beers the panelists favor.

Had I not been traveling Oregon’s sometimes snow-covered roads* in order to learn the mysteries of hop genetics, quality pelletizing and other information that belongs in a book about hops I would have liked to have handicapped the tournament.

* The road got more exciting after I took the picture at the top. Eventually I came to flashing lights that demanded vehicles have chains or traction tires. My travel tip to you is: visit hop country when hops are growing.

Well, maybe not the whole thing. But I’d just read one of way too many analyses about how to win your office March Madness pool; this one based on find value. The example was Texas, which was undervalued (correctly, it seems) since a respected numbers guy gave Texas something like a 5 percent chance to win the tournament and at that moment more like 3 percent of people entering some online mega-pool picked Texas.

You’ll have to trust me on this, but I was going to suggest that Great Divide Claymore Scotch Ale offered similar value. At the time, Founders Dirty Bastard was already burying Claymore, which is such a beautifully balanced beer I feel compelled to comment on how that balance and finesse is what seems to set Great Divide’s beer apart every time I drink one. In fact, Dirty Bastard won the popularity contest, 1,017-351. The panelists preferred Claymore.

I’m not really that brilliant, but you knew that. Because I had a 50 percent chance to be right. This contest is a random walk through better beer land. That’s not a bad thing. I love Edmund Fitzgerald Porter &#151 one of these days the T-shirt I bought in 1993 is simply going to fall apart — but it received more than 70 percent of votes from fans. The panelists preferred it over Hoppin’ Frog Silk Porter by a 6-5 vote, which probably better represents the difference between two.

Personal preference is good, and the contest is fun. But I’m not sure it is different than flipping a coin. In the first round, the panelists and crowd agreed sixteen times. They disagreed fifteen times (Anchor Old Foghorn and Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot tied at 512 — or 32 pints apiece — in the popularity contest. It doesn’t get more random that that.

My value bet for this round? How about Smuttynose Finest Kind Finestkind IPA? A 1,228-357 underdog to Bell’s Two-Hearted it captured eight of the eleven panelists’ palates. Now it is running way behind Lagunitas Maximus.

(And speaking of fans, check out how many votes have been lodged in the showdown between Evolution Rise Up Stout and Port City Porter.)