The State of the Beer

In the late 90s my uncle and I started having beer tastings. Craft beer was just catching hold in Jersey and he had some access to some really esoteric beers. To be honest, though, it mostly was about the drinking. We (for example) included Zima once because we felt as if it were important to know what it tasted like. Two beers stuck out from that period. Dead Guy Ale, by Rogue was one and the other was a Lambic, maybe raspberry. I was pretty sure both of them had gone bad. I kept the bottle because it was cool (cool labels are a relatively new thing, I think) but resolved never to try the beer again. It took only about a decade for me to revisit Dead Guy Ale. It's probably and even likely that the beer changed over the course of a decade, but it is more likely my taste buds improved. Our beer tastings didn't often include beers that were too out there. If Pete's Wicked or Samuel Adams had something "kooky" out, we'd get it. But a lot of the smaller brews w...

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).

There are few, if any, industries outside of brewing where a large company will protect a potential competitor's trademark, return it to them for free and encourage them to take advantage of the resurgent market and get back to work. That's what happened with Samuel Adams and New Albion Brewery a few years ago (New Albion is back in production after being closed 30 years). Founded as a craft brewery in 1976, New Albion helped kick-start the craft brew revolution, but couldn't grow and closed just five years later. Sam Adams' owner, Jim Koch, dug the beer so much he bought the brand and the recipe and did his own spinoff with former New Albion owner Jack McAuliffe. When the beer was a success at the 2012 American Beer Festival, Koch did what any business person would do, he returned the brand to the founder and said, "Get back in the game." Seriously. If a movie ended like that it would be trite. If you're not familiar with the New Albion Ale story, thi...

I do a weekly podcast about homebrewing. It's my hobby. I'm not on anyone's payroll, but, because people are looking for gifts this season, we did a show about getting people started in homebrewing that I thought was worth promoting. So I apologize in advance if I sound a little pitchy. I blog a bit about the brewing industry, but think about the brewing culture way more often. Brewing is one of those endeavors where, once you get hooked, you just wanna brew beer and help people who aren't brewing cultivate the interest. I love talking to homebrewers about what they do and (believe me) they love talking about it. This week's guest didn't show, so instead, Doug at Xtreme Brewing  and I talked about what it took to get someone into beer. Sometimes, taking a class helps. Doug gives free brewing classes occasionally and lots of people go to a couple before making the plunge. But, more often than not, a person will come in, pick up a starter kit, and get to brewin...

For those of us who run in craft beer circles,  it's easy to forget that, proportionately, almost no one drinks craft beer. As with any culture, immersion can give you a false sense of superiority in numbers as well as in beliefs. But of course, the former isn't true. The good news is, a staggering number of people, because of all the craft beer noise, are about to start drinking craft beer more regularly. According to  this story  from the San Diego Union-Tribune, craft beer sales may double next year.  On the Delmarva Peninsula, home to  +Dogfish Head Craft Brewery , we have added six or so breweries in the last five years. While we may add more, as a regular patron of many of the local breweries, the trend seems to be plateauing. The novelty has begun to wear off and, in some instances, novelty was all there was to begin with. It is this notion about novelty that made a quote by Dogfish Head Founder Sam Calagione in the linked story stand out.  To su...

Jimmy Sharp measures his grain into the mill one recent Saturday at Xtreme Brewing The first time I went to Xtreme Brewing, in Millsboro, Del., I was hooked on the homebrew culture. I am not a homebrewer, but, rather, have always described my self as a hobby collector. I love to learn about other people's hobbies, what drew them to their passion and why they pursue it so ardently (or, when they don't, why they no longer do). The culture surrounding a hobby is often more fascinating than the hobby itself. The subculture of inclusivity intrigued me more than any other part of the hobby, except for the beer of course. Hobbies can encourage factionalism by encouraging esoteric cliques defined in opposition to one another. Tribalism often is what makes hobbies sustainable and, for me, worth watching. What is hobby-ier than talking to passionate people who are willing to go to war over details an outsider barely can distinguish. For the homebrewer, however, the distinction is o...