Professor Good Ales

NEW YORK — To see how a small business can transform a neighborhood, just follow the barrels.

About 30 years ago, beer lovers wanting to create their own drinks started taking over abandoned old buildings in rundown city districts, refitted them with tanks, kettles and casks, and started churning out beer. The byproduct was a boom in craft beer drinkers: Barrels shipped have more than doubled in the past decade, according to trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insights. Craft beer now makes up nearly 7 percent of the slow-growing U.S. beer market.

But beer drinkers weren’t the only beneficiaries. The arrival of a craft brewery was also often one of the first signs that a neighborhood was changing. From New England to the West Coast, new businesses bubbled up around breweries, drawing young people and creating a vibrant community where families could plant roots and small businesses could thrive.

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There’s some folks good beer lovers, or pot lovers for that matter, would NEVER want to be associated with: PGA

This is not an only in New York story.

This is an only in Times Square story, in a place where the Beer Man and the Weed Man in a Box can star as the principals; a different Weed Man can serve as the falsely accused; and Alien and the Predator can stand in as the witnesses to a low-rent attack in a high-rent district.

More than six months ago, the Weed Man in a Box, or Weed Head to some, began wandering around the pedestrian plaza at 46th Street and Seventh Avenue, a cardboard box on his head and a sign over his chest, cajoling cash from tourists with a simple pitch: “I am the weed man. I’m too sexy for you to see me.”

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A new beer from UK called #MashTag is the first alcoholic beverage inspired and created by users of social media.

British beer company Brew Dog has launched a drink that came out of fan votes to determine everything from its name and style to alcohol count. #MashTag is a 7.5% American Brown Ale, made with New Zealand hops and aged on hazelnuts and oak chips.

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(Milton, DE) – Breaking news from Dogfish Head. Founder, Sam Calagione, just sent out this note via email.

Hello there. As you might remember, in 2011, we made the difficult decision to scale back Dogfish Head’s distribution. With a heavy heart, we stopped sending beer to Tennessee, Indiana, Wisconsin and Rhode Island.

It wasn’t our goal to upset Dogfish Head fans and distributors, but with demand so far in front of supply, we just couldn’t brew enough beer. We were left with a choice: leave shelves empty and frustrate beer enthusiasts everywhere, or stay true to our off-centered roots, pull back, and focus on strong, smart growth.

We chose the latter, and although it caused some short-term disappointment, we’re glad we did. Dogfish Head is still family owned, we still brew 100 percent of our off-centered ales ourselves here in coastal Delaware, and we’re continuing to change the way people think about beer.

We have maintained double-digit growth in the past few years while investing in our brewery to increase capacity beyond the 200,000-bbl pace we are now at. This expansion will be completed in a few months, and we’ll finally have the capacity to reopen the markets we had to pull out of.

We’re happy to announce that we’ll be hunting for distribution partners and regional sales managers in those four states and plan to be on shelves and taps there before the end of the year. Continue reading “Dogfish Head plans to return to Tennessee, Indiana, Wisconsin and Rhode Island in 2013 (Dogfish press release)”