musing

25 beers you wouldn’t kick out of the fridge

Another list. This one from Men’s Journal.

It’s received plenty of attention on beer discussion boards – see Rate Beer discussion; Beer Advocate – because notice in such a high profile publication always seems like validation.

It helps that it is a list of very good beers:

1 Firestone Walker Pale Ale
2 Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
3 Stoudt’s Pils
4 Russian River Temptation
5 Avery Mephistopheles
6 Anderson Valley Boont Amber
7 Great Lakes Holy Moses White Ale
8 Full Sail Session Lager
9 Rogue Brutal Bitter
10 Bell’s Expedition Stout
11 Southampton Double White
12 Smuttynose Big A IPA
13 Penn Weizen
14 Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale
15 Ommegang Hennepin
16 Samuel Adams Black Lager
17 Sprecher Hefe-Weiss
18 Alaskan Amber
19 Deschutes Broken Top Bock
20 Lost Abbey Avant Garde
21 Jolly Pumpkin Bam Bier
22 Victory St. Victorious Doppelbock
23 Allagash Interlude
24 Alesmith Speedway Stout
25 New Glarus Yokel

I like that it gives extra credit for striking a balance between innovation and tradition.

I like that they made Firestone Walker Pale Ale their No. 1, even if I might prefer the Double Barrel Ale, because the brewery wins medals right and left in blind tastings but can’t seem to get any love from online beer activists.

I like that it is cutting edge – with the funky little (4.6% abv) Bam Biere from the funky little Jolly Pumpkin brewery sneaking in at No. 21. And you can’t be much more up-to-date than Lost Abbey Avant Garde from Port Brewing (a beer that deserves a post of its own – in the next few days).

What I don’t like is the promo on the cover – “25 Greatest American Beers” – or the headline on the story – “25 Best Beers in America.”

What a silly notion. You need only compare the list Men’s Journal published in 2004 to the 2006 list (in 2005 the magazine picked the “Best 50” beers in the world, equally silly).

Only one beer – Alaskan Amber – made the 2004 and 2006 lists. Did everybody else forget how to brew?

No, 12 of the 23 breweries that were on the 2004 list (two breweries had two beers) also made the 2006 list. But instead of calling Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale No. 1, as in 2004, the authors listed Deschutes Broken Top Bock at No. 19.

Instead of honoring Victory Brewing’s Prima Pils – No. 2 in the U.S. in 2004, No. 1 pilsner in the world in 2006 – they singled out Victory St. Victorious Doppelbock (No. 22).

You can’t sell magazines publishing the same list every year. Of course, that’s not altogether bad for the breweries on the list, because it gives them more accolades to promote (one more thing I like about the list).

Still … 25 Greatest?

No. What they really published is a list of “24 really good beers we didn’t write about two years ago and Alaskan Amber.” A job well done, but a lousy headline.

A beer menu that gets it

Anything less than a Singha now would be making Martha Graham do the Hokey Pokey. – From the beer menu at Baan Sawan Thai Bistro in Columbia, S.C.

The State in South Carolina found this beer menu quirky enough to write a story about, and discovered an interesting 27-year-old behind it.

When Sam Suaudom Jr. wrote descriptions the first time around he stuck to more technical descriptions and efforts to describe flavor in conventional ways. Version 5.0 is quite different. Suaudom told State:

“It just seemed like they were asking specifically what was written in there. Well, I should just write what I want.”

So Suaudom, who graduated from the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, went off the deep end with descriptors, employing a pattern of florid, first-person accounts of romantic settings punctuated by a witty twist.

Granted, some of the descriptions have nothing to do with flavor, but Suaudom said beer and wine sales increased from 12 percent to 25 percent of Baan Sawanâ’s total sales since he began making the special menus.

A couple of examples:

Budweiser and Bud Light
Mr. Randall Oxley popped open his Bud and waxed rhapsodic on his current romantic imbroglio. His descriptions were urbane yet ribald and as his companion chortled good naturedly he opened his own beverage. The sound of his Bud Light answered that of the Bud. ‘What should I do?’ Oxley asked. ‘Oh, my good man,’ responded Lord Ottombottom, ‘What shouldn’t you do?’

Baltika #6 Porter
Her eyes cut into me as she poured her #6. It was as dark as her hair and her heart and she eased a finger up the side of the glass to catch an errant drip of froth that had spilled over. I looked away as she licked her finger clean. I drank my own #6 and tried to lose myself in its coffee and chocolate bitterness but my own bitterness was distracting. I hate her so much. But don’t tell her I said that.

Suaudom said a man told him he blushed when reading the description of Baltika. Suaudom didn’t say if he ordered the beer.

10 Reasons Craft Beers Sales Are Hot

A post at Beerdata.org conjectures about why craft beer sales are up 11% so far this year.

Brendan Picha gives a lot of credit to imported beers, starting the with UK icon Samuel Smith. Yes it’s true that dam was opened in this order:

– Michael Jackson wrote the World Guide to Beer.

– Charles Finkel read the World Guide and called Jackson in London to praise the book. They quickly became friends, and soon Finkel’s company – Merchant du Vin – was importing beers Finkel had read about in the World Guide, including Samuel Smith. Imports were an inspiration for American brewers and an introduction to classic flavors for American drinkers.

Anyway, Picha then outlines what he summarizes this way: “This is a short snowball effect theory that I think may be responsible for craft’s current marketplace presence and demand.” Give it a read.

That got me thinking. The result is “10 Reasons Craft Beers Sales Are Hot.” (Disclaimer: This is a list is not the top 10 – and order is random after the first two).

1. These beers have more flavor.

2. Michael Jackson. The reasons listed above are just a start. The next list should be 10 Ways Michael Jackson Saved The World From Bad Beer. He’s shown here with Jeff Bagby and Tomme Arthur of Port Brewing/Lost Abbey.

Michael Jackson

3. Hops. OK, zealously defending hops has been known to get me in trouble. It’s just that innovative use of hops helped set American craft brewers apart from the start. (Before you send that e-mail, innovative use of hops does not mean using enough to take the chrome off the back of your pick-up truck. Firestone Walker innovative will do.)

4. Brewpubs. When craft sales were up 9% in 2005, brewpub sales grew less than 3%. That’s not the point – they put the roots in grassroots, because they are still the place many people are introduced to flavorful beer. Some of the most innovative (there’s that word again) beers, which literally inspired new styles, were and are first made in brewpubs.

5. Cult producers. When you look at the numbers, “accessible” beers that lots of people drink are driving growth. But extreme beers generate excitement.

6. The Internet. News travels quickly these days and the online communities are huge.

7. Importers. The sale of imports also remained strong in the first half of 2006, but IRI mostly measures beers sold in grocery stores – such at Heineken and Corona. I’m talking about the smaller importers, the ones who continue to find new and exciting beers (see Nos. 5 and 6).

8. What goes around comes around. A few months ago in England I had a wonderful 4% abv cask-conditioned bitter spiced with American Amarillo hops. Innovation is a two-way street. Some American brewer is going to taste a beer like that and say: “Hey, we can do that at home.”

9. Great retailers. Meaning bars/taverns/pubs as well as stores (both independents and the likes of Whole Foods – just think about when Costco starts to offer beer that rivals its range of wines).

10. Niches are good. In the mid-90s megabrewers invested in smaller breweries and experimented with specialty styles. Interest that waned then seems to be returning, but no matter how good of beer they decide to make there are some things they will never choose to do. That leaves an opportunity for those willing to do a little bit more.

Consider what Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing has to say about his beers that may spend a year aging in wood before they are ready to sell: “These beers reflect a slower pace of life. Americans are so into ‘I want it all and I want it now.’ That’s why I don’t think many brewers will get into aging. They aren’t going to commit the time or the space.”

Is craft beer bucking a trend?

Two news stories from yesterday:

– The Wall Street Journal reported reported that the trend toward “trading up” is slowing for many consumer products.

– The Brewers Association reported craft beer sales roared ahead at an 11% clip in the first half of 2006.

Craft beer

If the former trend continues through the coming months how long can the latter trend go on?

Any answer is a guess. For instance, Information Resources Inc. (IRI), which takes most of its data from grocery stores and supercenters, reported craft sales grew 12-13% in the first half of the year and dollar sales were up 15-16%. Those numbers don’t include beers from many smaller brewers, and certainly not from brewpubs, but they indicate the inroads craft breweries have made.

Also, the WSJ story notes that because they are less likely to “trade up” that “middle-income families visiting more mass merchants and grocery stores than specialty outlets.” Since they are more likely to find great beer in those stores than before they may consider that beer more necessity than “affordable luxury.”

Plenty of reasons remain to be cautious. The Journal reports that Starbucks, Whole Foods and specialty-sandwich chain Panera Bread Co. all recently reported disappointing sales and pointed to higher gas price. Restaurants catering to middle-income consumers are seeing a sales slump too.

WSJ concludes by consulting Michael Silverstein, who co-authored the book Trading Up. He said middle-income shoppers are still trading up for high-end items, but are “‘making much more deliberate choices and being much more tough-minded about what they want. . . . The investment thesis has to be: Are you generating heat? The companies that aren’t are in trouble.”

For now at least, craft brewers have plenty of heat.

Man Laws vs. Here’s To Beer

It’s fair to say that Anheuser-Busch’s “Here’s To Beer” campaign has not exactly been embraced by the craft beer community, and certainly not blogs (like this one) that have commented on it.

But compare it to Miller’s “Man Laws” commercials and website. Which is about beer?

First, in defense of both “Man Laws” and the “Here’s To Beer” spots like the one with Mike Imperioli and Bogey, these commercials remind us that when you drink a beer it’s not always just about the beer. For instance, I have an uncle who considers Beck’s Dark about as good as it gets – and by golly it happens to taste pretty good to me when I have a beer with him. My father, rest his soul, didn’t ask me to drink Miller Lite with him. That might have been the real test.

But when I watched the “Man Laws” commercials or visited the website (with the most obnoxious age verification ever seen) I see no mention of flavor [although it appears that Miller with be attacking A-B on that front using another set of commercials.]

At least the “Here’s To Beer” site is about beer. On the last visit – speaking of age verification, how come the site can’t rememeber me and I have to log in every time? – I saw a suggestion to serve an imperial stout with a chocolate stout. Last time I looked A-B didn’t brew an imperial stout, to they weren’t just pimping their own beer.

Now here’s why I’m writing about this. The Milwaukee Journal Sentintel (yes, Miller’s hometown newspaper) had a story about the success of “Man Laws” that’s appeared in several newspapers.

It reports that since being activated in May, www.manlaws.com has recorded nearly 14 million visits, including more than 542,000 unique visits.

Meanwhile, a press release from A-B in late July stated that since February www.herestobeer.com received “more than 300,000 hits.”

Looks line “Man Laws” is a pretty clear winner. Can’t see why I would think that is good.