Author: Professor Good Ales

(Tasty news for many faithful Professor Good Ales readers!- Prof. GA)

Written by Eric Felten for online,wsj.com

Light beer is in a slump. Advertising Age reported this week that U.S. sales of the biggest brands are in an alarming slide, with Bud Light down 5.3% this year and Miller Lite off 7.5%. Is this but a recessionary blip or are we finally witnessing a great consumer revolt against shamefully bad beer, shamelessly promoted?

There are many possible explanations for the decline in light-beer sales. Advertising Age speculates that the dawdling of the economy has left 21-to-35-year-old men with pockets too empty to afford “premium” (which is to say, heavily advertised) beers. Old Milwaukee Light, here we come.

Or could it be the fault of the insultingly stupid ads themselves (campaigns on which the industry spends hundreds of millions). Miller Lite has been relying on skits yukking it up about how guys can’t commit to relationships with women, but sure do love their beer. Bud Light has used the genius tag-line “drinkablility.” No doubt high praise for a beverage.

The marketers don’t really know what the problem is. Maybe it’s just that the marginal caloric savings promised by these diet beers no longer seems worth putting up with lousy beer. After all, the elastic-undergarment maker Spanx is doing brisk business selling “compression undershirts” for men. Why should guys worry about calories and carbs when they can just wear girdles?

Continue reading “No Bottoms Up: Light Beer Sales Are Sagging”

* FIFA starts legal proceedings against beer company
* British TV pundit sacked for part in ambush stunt

Written by Mike Collett for Yahoo Sports

JOHANNESBURG, June 16 (Reuters) – Two Dutch women have been arrested and are due to appear in court in Johannesburg later on Wednesday, facing possible charges linked to a suspected ambush market campaign by brewer Bavaria at a World Cup tie.
Continue reading “Women Arrested in Brewer Advertising Scandal”

We welcome our newest writer here at Professor Good Ales…

Written by Mike Brunsfeld, THE Beer Guy

I have come to conclusion that Jim Koch SUCKS.

OK, hops are to beer like wine is to grapes? Uh, no and HELL NO. I was willing to forgive that one stupid slogan that ignores the loooooooooooooong history of brewing, like amongst the Scots, the English and the Welsh, without hops but now he claims…

“Some people think head on a beer is a ‘bad’ thing.”

Continue reading “One Bitchin Beer Blog”

If you dare to wear, can be bought at drunkandwasted.com

(The name of the site alone…)

“Words do not adequately describe how much I hate this company.”

– Matt Welch (quote listed on picture from original post)

Written by Matt Welch for reason.com

When the domestic beer industry consolidated into a duopoly of Anheuser-Busch InBev vs. MillerCoors in 2008, I was happy. Not because I like duopolies (or their mono cousins), but because I don’t. As a general rule, the faster that industries try to consolidate away the competition, the faster they become uncompetitive, and leak away market share. Companies with a captive consumer base tend to treat them like, well, captives. As the Wall Street Journal’s William L. Bulkeley put it in a smart 2006 piece about the suddenly troubled photo-processing duopoly of Eastman Kodak and Fuji Photo Film,

Photography and publishing companies shouldn’t be surprised when digital technology upends their industries. After all, their business success relied on forcing customers to buy things they didn’t want.

Lo and behold, American customers are busy this year not wanting all those Coors Lights and Bud Longnecks:

The $100 billion U.S. brewing industry is staggering into its crucial selling season from its weakest position in years. Sales for 11 of the biggest brands fell in the four weeks ended May 16, according to SymphonyIRI, and only four of the top 30 — Keystone Light, Modelo Especial, Yuengling and Pabst Blue Ribbon — posted gains. Meanwhile, despite massive measured-media support, category titans Bud Light, Coors Light and Miller Lite all declined. Continue reading “When You Say Bud, You Have Not Said it All, Thank You Very Much”

“That black in the second picture AIN’T Guinness.”

Written by John Byrns for rawstory.com

Iowa’s senior senator has a suggestion for President Barack Obama: Time for a beer summit. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told a conference call of Iowa reporters Wednesday that h Continue reading “Senator Suggests Using Beer Ingredients to Clean Up Spill”

Written by RGW of the Indie Hopsters for inhoppursuit.blogspot.com

Hood River, Or. Oregon State’s Hop Docs wanted feedback from Pacific Northwest brewers on building a new aroma hop and it sounds like they got an earful.

The consensus? Dial down the alpha, jack up the oils, and add something “tropical” to our flavor arsenal beyond the all-pervasive citrus bomb.
Continue reading “Flower to the People: OSU Empowers Hop Sensory Panel”

Jim and Ruth Beaton collect beer memorabilia, or “breweriana,” which they display in three rooms on the lower level of their home in Bloomington.

Written by Kim Palmer for startribune.com

When collectors from around the country converge in the Twin Cities next week, a group of them will visit a museum together. Not the Weisman or the Walker, but a basement in Bloomington.

All the artifacts share one theme: beer. The “curators,” Jim and Ruth Beaton, have been collecting for almost four decades and are members of four national beer-collectible organizations, including the American Breweriana Association (ABA), which is holding its annual meeting June 8-12 in Bloomington.

“When the big shows are in town, we invite them over for an open house,” said Jim.

Visiting the Beatons’ basement really is like visiting a museum, said Otto Tiegs, the ABA’s immediate past president. “It’s big, but what makes theirs really nice is the historical value, and the way they’ve saved the beer memories and mystique.” The Beatons have items representing the big local brewers, such as Hamm’s and Grain Belt, but they also have many artifacts from obscure breweries, such as Kiewel’s of Little Falls, Minn.
Continue reading “Beer here! Collection is a toast to bygone brews and breweries”

One of the many winners and honorable mentions. This one by homebrewer Brandon Jones

There are lots of ways to show the world the greatness of your homebrews, but a well-made label is king. Whether it is a simple, hand-drawn design or a computer-generated logo, A beer label is your homebrew’s first impression on potential drinkers. This year, as in years past, we received many, many original, thoughtful and funny homemade designs for our annual Label contest. In fact, if we didn’t know better we could have sworn some of this year’s labels were fresh off of a commercial bottling line, thus proving that homebrewers are not only an industrious bunch, they are also endlessly creative.

For winning entries, please click

HERE