Author: Professor Good Ales

The Professor posts this because everything but the last paragraph indicate how clueless big beer execs, and especially the writer, seem to be. They should have led with that last paragraph and done more analysis. Anyone dare to think they’re simply not quenching more educated palates these days?- The Professor

Distributors Seek Solutions in Vegas Amid Slumping Sales Trends, Aggressive Competition From Spirits

Stuck in a multi-year slump that shows no sign of lifting, beer industry leaders have blamed everything from the economy and weather to anti-smoking laws in bars. But one top executive is bluntly suggesting that industry itself is the problem for failing to out-market the spirits category.

“The days of beer guys knocking each other around and not worrying too much about spirits and wine is over, and it’s frankly been over for a long time,” MillerCoors CEO Tom Long said in a forceful speech to hundreds of beer distributors gathered this week in Las Vegas for a meeting of the National Beer Wholesalers Association. “And if we’re going to thrive long term, then we’re going to have to look at those competitors and as an industry take on the challenge of brand beer. Make no mistake: our success over the next five years depends on that.”

The last three years have been brutal. In the 52 weeks ending in late August, the number of beer cases sold in stores was down 1.5% from the year earlier, according to Nielsen, while spirit volume sales were up 3.2% in the year ending in mid-September. By year’s end, experts are forecasting beer volume to be down some 2%. That would mark the third year in a row of a decline, which hasn’t happened in 50 years, Beer Marketers Insights President Benj Steinman noted in a presentation to distributors, who met at Caesars Palace for their annual convention and trade show. “If we have yet another year of 2% decline, it will be a lost decade,” he said. “We’ll be back to where we were 10 years ago.”
Continue reading “Beer Industry Looks to Rebuild ‘Brand Beer’”

Written by Christina Murphy, Amy Garner, Zach Yanowitz, Nicole Nolan, Sophie Unterman, Stephanie Chen, Sam Abramowitz and Jamie Norwood for thehullabaloo.com

New Orleans’ relationship with beer

For a city so stereotypically associated with alcohol, New Orleans isn’t particularly known for its beer culture. In the 19th century, however, that was not the case. New Orleans was the beer capital of the South with more than 30 breweries. But during the last 200 years, New Orleans beer culture has dwindled. Dixie was the last remaining large-volume brewery within city limits, before it stopped production in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In a 2008 Brewers Association census, Louisiana was ranked 50 out of 51 U.S. states and territories in breweries per capita – a statistic that Jeremy Labadie, beer aficionado and author of the Beer Buddha blog, calls “staggering.”

Prohibition and the rise of huge national brands took a toll on New Orleans breweries. Only in recent history has craft beer resurrected the city’s beer heritage. Abita launched in 1986 and has dominated the Louisiana beer scene ever since. During the last few years, however, more and more craft beers have shown up on local taps. A married couple developed Lazy Magnolia beer in their Kiln, Miss. home in the early 2000s, and their Southern Pecan brew evolved into the unofficial craft beer of Mississippi. New Orleans Lagers and Ales, or NOLA Brewing Co., became the only brewery in New Orleans when the company was established in 2008, releasing its first beers in March 2009. Covington’s Heiner Brau microbrewery opened in 2005, and with NOLA Brewery’s founding, a trend began. In 2009, the Louisiana craft beer movement reached Cajun country with the creation of Parish Brewing in Lafayette and Bayou Teche in Arnaudville, La.

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Credited to “PW staff.” From philadelphiaweekly.com

The newly christened Underground Arts space in the Wolf Building on Callowhill is hardly a new idea. Philly is blessed with countless alternative, even illegal, venues that cater to the up-and-coming, the avant-garde and the experimental in art, but, combine that with multiple craft beer taps and you’ve got a full-on Philadelphia boner. The 12,000-square-foot space contains a theater with stadium seating, an open stage area for the intimate, beatnik fare and a giant bar with room for hundreds to dance—and it’s not even finished being built yet! The mission statement of the place—“To provide an outlet for … struggling artists to have their voices heard … and be able to make their livings from their art”—makes us want to throw our arms around the whole place and squeeze. In the future, they plan on hosting exhibitions by sculptors, installation artists, videographers and the like in a full-on gallery space. As long as they keep pouring the frosty cold stuff, we’ll show up.

Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St. undergroundarts.org

To claim that this article is a little out of date is obvious. And the Professor had to provide a picture of a different type of growler; for they come in many different styles. The article seems to focus on one type, and not even one of the better Grolsch-style of growlers that can be opened, closed, over and over again. But the article does provide an interesting perspective on growlers from a state that just legalized it a couple of years ago- PGA

From AP and Washington Post. No author credited

PORTLAND, Maine — Ed McAleer likes to drink his brown ale and IPA straight from a beer tap. But he doesn’t need to be in a pub to do so.

When he has a hankering for a draft beer at home, McAleer pours himself a cold one from a growler, a refillable 64-ounce glass jug that he buys from Federal Jack’s, a brewpub and restaurant in his hometown of Kennebunkport. If he’s having friends over, he’ll sometimes pick up two or three growlers filled with different types of beer so his guests can sample a variety.

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Written by Justin Lloyd for blog.beeriety.com

Despite everything I’ve been learning at the brewery I constantly want to know more. Fortunately, the brewery I work in consists of three people: the head brewer, an assistant brewer and myself. This small crew provides me with many opportunities to not only flood my mind with beer knowledge, but also get my hands into many of the daily brewing operations.

I currently work six days a week. Although I spend three great days in the brewery, the other three days are spent waiting tables. In all honesty, being a waiter is the pits. However, it pays the bills.
Continue reading “Brew School: Learning by Doing”

Written by Bennett Gordon for utne.com

In 1979 there were 44 beer breweries operating inside the United States, and the American palate was dominated by Budweiser, Pabst, and other colored water masquerading as beer. Today there are more than 1,400 breweries pumping out new chocolate stouts, double bocks, and other craft brews. Greg Beato writes for Reason that this renaissance in beer makingwas made possible by the repeal of some prohibition-era laws that regulated home brewing.
Continue reading “Homebrew History: The American Beer Renaissance”