The State of the Beer

Crooked Letter Brewing Co. in Ocean Springs, Miss., recently struck an exclusivity deal with the local casino-resort. The craft brew revolution has relied, to some extent, on the brewpub for sustainability. This makes sense, beer and food go together naturally. When done correctly, well, and efficiently, the profit margins are significant, but never sufficient unto themselves. Brewing often is a grow or die business, and to stay afloat, breweries have to secure tap handles at other facilities as well. Since tastes can be fickle--distributors can change their emphasis, a new bartender might push one beer over another-- selling beer to other restaurateurs almost is a full time job in itself. Breweries have "tap takeovers" where they get to showcase their beer (often in exchange for profits in the form of discounts).

Brew Cutlery, a Kickstarter with the goal of producing flatware with bottle openers built in, markets its products as "bridging the gap between craft beer and cutlery." Those you you who keep an eye on the craft beer industry might not remember thinking there was a gap between craft beer and cutlery, but probably because you're grownups. Also, it is not clear whether these will work on bottles that don't contain craft beer, but I guess the assumption is those kinds of beers usually are twist-offs. To be fair to Brew Cutlery, no one ever went broke selling Americans tacky stuff they don't need. In fact, as of this writing, the Brew Cutlery entrepreneurs have collected nearly half of the $10,000 they need to go into production from 82 people (they're asking about $25 per set).