Happy Halloween!

Why can’t witches have babies?                                                              

Their husbands have crystal balls and Hollow-weenies!  

ALL THINGS HALLOWEEN HERE!!  

EVERYTHING HALLOWEEN HERE!!

 

Try the salmon and don’t forget to tip your waiter!!

                                                                                                                           

What Is Anheuser-Busch Smoking?

A-B has Ira Glass hawking Budweiser American Ale. IRA GLASS.

A-B thinks that this NPR snob represents the typical Bud American Ale drinker?

A few years ago, A-B was trying to figure out who the market was for Bud Select, a low-calorie/low-carb beer that A-B went out of its way not to promote these attributes. The hired some “rap artist” for a $2 mil contract, dressed up like a blinged-up pimp while exciting some pimped-out car that was worth more money than every house on my block. 2 million freaking dollars. Now if someone can find me 2 black beer drinkers who drink (1) A Bud product and (2) A low calorie/carb A-B beer, you’ll be looking for the rest of your life.

Here it is, a few year laters. Right now, they’re still trying to figure out the beer’s market. The last commercial I saw was a bunch of WASP with their sweaters tied around their necks, and I think they were playing golf. This time we were told that the beer had a rich, bold taste. That commercial too was buried about a month later. I imagine the next attempt at this beer being promoted again before they simply dump the rest of it in their buffalo wing sauce, will be a group of starving North Koreans huddling by the only working light bulb in their village. Perhaps they’ll sing songs about the “Great Leader” while commenting on the rich, bold tatste of such a low-calorie/carb beer.

Please A-B, call me. I’ll do a focus group for you for thousands less and I’ll tell you this: Black and overpaid hip-hop artist exiting a million dollar car and dressed up like a walking South African diamond mine will not make this middle-aged white guy go out and buy a beer that is so poorly positioned.

If you want to sell Bud American Ale, send me a case and $10,000 and I’ll sell more beer in a week than Ira Glass will sell during the High Holy Days. Ira Glass? This guy suckles from the PBS teats of the American taxpayer but he represents the demographic that A-B wants to drink Budweiser American Ale? Ira Glass? Oh wait…Wally Cox is dead.

Fire these PR people. They’re laughable. Or simply spray some cold water on the blouses of non-bra wearing and well-endowed blondes while swigging down Select. I could save A-B millions and ready some dry towels for the girls…or maybe not.

NEVER FORGET

A Terrible Day. Never Forget...

Who Cut The Cheese?

When I wrote Beer & Food: An American History, it was scribed with a bit of nationalistic pride behind it. I,

Who Cut The Cheese?

for one, am tired of reading about sour Belgian beers brewed in “quaint” farm barns, the brewers careful not to disturb the cob webs that hang from the barn’s rafters. I like American beers and think that our brewers can duplicate and even supercede the stuff coming over from overseas.

Me? I’m a guy who wants a little assurance in my food and drink, hopefully that a beer—and maybe a nice cheese to pair with it—won’t have me spending the next day on the shitter or in a hospital being pumped full of antibiotics and saline solution. While I’ll admit that we here in the U.S. have problems with e coli recalls on beef and various other problems of food contamination, I’ll bet the bureaucratic FDA up against any foreign entity that’s supposed to do the same thing.

Remember back in 1985 when wine distributors in Austria were  adulterating their wines with diethylene glycol? Earlier this year, the Italian weekly L’Espresso said that Italy produced and sold at least 70 million litres of cheap wine containing acid, manure and fertiliser, largely blaming organised crime in the south.

It said bottles sold at less than two euros (around three dollars) a litre contained very little wine, and a potentially deadly concoction of water and chemical substances, including hydrochloric acid.

Reports have emerged over the last seven days alleging that a number of arrests have been made in the country related to the production and sale of cheeses that had been mixed with out of date or even rotten products. And while this scandal has been known since July, “…an immediate request was made in July for information to be referred to the food safety and nutrition authorities to withdraw any potentially harmful products from circulation as soon as possible,…the information was still unavailable a month later.”

To make matters worse, Italy has also decided to ignore an EU ban on the country’s exportation of mozzarella cheese. Dairy Reporter notes that “Italian authorities have moved to play down the danger, which has been linked by the Commission to waste disposal problems in the Campania region believed responsible for the contamination of milk used in the cheese.

However, the country’s authorities were given until yesterday evening by the Commission to provide further information on the extent of the outbreak, including information on tainted shipments and any destroyed cheese samples, or face a potential ban on the product.”

So let me extend this theme of enjoying U.S. made beers and enjoying them with U.S. made cheeses.

Learn about American cheeses…

Better yet, stop by Leeners, owned by Jim Leverentz, a real nice guy who I met at the Ohio Beer Fest a few months ago—and a fellow beer enthusiast—and pick up one of his cheese kits. The next time someone asks, “Who cut the cheese?” you can proudly say, “I did!”

Chicago-World’s Greatest Beer Town

I received an e-mail from Kevin Brown, a writer with the Ale Street News. I met Kevin a few months ago in St. Louis when we were enjoying the hospitality of St. Louis brewers at a beer dinner, the prelude to a long weekend of beer tastings and tours.

His latest article will be about great beer towns and Chicago, of course, has to be included…but why?

My response;

For a historian like myself, Chicago is still rich with beer and brewing history although old local brewing sites still fall to the wrecking ball on a regular basis. Chicago’s fading beer past, however, sets the greater Chicagoland area up for today’s diversified selection of beers from the U.S. and around the world.

 

I’ve often heard the criticism that Chicago still lags behind other big cities when it comes to local breweries. Chicago, however, is more than the city itself, and if you add the greater Chicagoland area to the mix, you can enjoy craft beers from dozens of brewpubs, three breweries (with one more coming soon online) and the biggest selections of U.S. and worldwide beers in our area liquor stores and retail outlets.

 

And you have to talk about the macros; A little more than a year ago, Pabst moved their headquarters to Woodridge, IL a Chicago suburb; Just a few weeks ago, MillerCoors announced that their new venture would be headquartered in Chicago.

 

Topping all of this off are old and well-established beer distributors such as Schamberger Bros., Inc, established in Chicago during the early days of Repeal, and Louis Glunz Beer Inc., a distributorship that first supplied Schlitz beer for the 1893 World’s Columbian Expo in Chicago. Along with niche distributors such as Stawski Distributing, which imports beers from Central Europe for our area’s Russian, Polish, Lithuanian and Slovakian population, plus the occasional beer or two from India and even Thailand, Chicago’s centralized location makes it a hot market for brewers and distributors.

 

The West Coast and the Northwest can maybe claim the greatest concentration of U.S. craft breweries, but when it comes to accessability to the greatest selection of craft, imported and macro beers, I can’t see how any other location can make the claim of being the greatest “Beer Town” in the world. That’s Chicago.

Want To Be In My Next Book?

How Many Calories?

I’m putting the finishing touches on;

Healthy Drinking:
Nutritional Info for Wine, Beer & Booze

 

What the Drink Industry, the U.S Government and Special Interest

Groups Won’t Tell You

 

and I need your help. I’m making a last ditch rewrite and want to add as many nutritional values of beers, wines, liquors and liqueurs as possible before the book goes to print. I currently have info for about 1,200 beers, 300 wines, and scores of boozes. I’d love to double this.

 

If you’re a brewer, from a bottling operation or a brewpub, send me the OG and FG plus the abv of your beers and I’ll work up the numbers to include your products into the book. If you’re from the drink trade, vintner, distiller, importer, and have solid documentation of nutritional values for your products, please send the info and I’ll plug it into the book.

 

Years ago, when I wrote The Drink Beer, Get Thin Diet and The Low-Carb Bartender, I was villified by some members of the drink trade, especially from some big and small breweries, for what I was doing. “We brew our beer for its taste, not nutritional values,” they’d tell me and then would also tell me to do physical and sexual things with myself that I’m unable to do. Hey; I’ve tried.

 

One craft brewery that was extremely nice to me and provided me with a ton of info and even threw a bunch of labels into an envelope for me was New Belgium Brewing. Because they understand their market, it should be no surprise that they have also developed Skinny Dip, a lower-calorie/carb beer. It’s also one of the few craft breweries I have ever seen who advertise in non-beer publications. I find this amazing since placing beers ads in beer publications seem to be preaching to the choir. New Belgium, an employee-owned brewery, runs their operation like a business.

 

Anheuser-Busch was also receptive to what I was doing. I spent a day in St. Louis discussing the fallacy of the early version of The South Beach Diet that stated that the simple sugar maltose in beer made all beer unacceptable in the still-popular diet. The Drink Beer, Get Thin Diet pointed out that maltose was one of the first sugars to be consumed by yeast and its presence in finished beer was negligible. After A-B ran full-page newspaper ads in papers throughout the U.S., the author changed his tune on beer.

 

As anybody close to the industry knows, the Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is putting the final touches on guidelines that will one day become law. Once the kinks are worked out, the drink industry will be given 3 years for implementation.

 

It’s gonna happen, and while the industry will bitch and moan about it, their customers can’t understand why they can read a box of Count Chocula and know the nutritional values of what they’re feeding their kids, but not have the same kind of information for the glass of beer, wine or booze in their hands. That’s going to change.

 

But beside keeping their customers informed about the nutritional value of adult beverages, there’s more behind this than the eye can see. One big reason this will come to fruition is…globalism. As the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States notes in their most recent comment in TTB Notice No. 74, “…this proposed rule change would bring TTB requirements into conformity with the provisions of the World Wine Trade Group (WWTG) Agreement on Wine Labelling (sic). As stated by TTB, ‘[these negotiations proceeded from the view that common labeling requirements would provide industry members with the opportunity to use the same label when shipping’ product to each of the WWTG member countries. With a global economy and with free travel among consumers, we support TTB’s effort to harmonize its labeling regulations with international requirements. TTB’s proposal would have the beneficial effect of serving the interests of consumers, as well as eliminating a potential barrier to trade between countries.”

 

Change is coming and it has the tailwinds of consumer support and NAFTA-like conformity to a standardized world market behind it. Without acceptance, it’s conceivable that the important import/export markets of beers, wines and spirits would come to a halt.

 

So better or for worse, the global economy is probably more the driving force behind the eventuality of nutritional labeling than any concerns about the wants of the consumer.

 

Whatever the reason, please contact me and send me whatever info you can and I’ll get your products into the book.

 

What good will this do you? Who will read the book? Between The Drink Beer, Get Thin Diet: A Low-Carbohydrate Approach and The Low-Carb Bartender, I did appearances on ABC’s “The View,” ESPN2’s “Cold Pizza,” and multiple appearances on the Fox News Channel. I probably did over 100 radio interviews throughout the U.S., Canada and even Europe.

 

This book will be bigger, with lots of publicity, and rest assured, readers will see your product information. Take advantage of this opportunity for some FREE publicity for your products. I go to press in August.

 

 bob@beerinfood.com

 

 In the meantime, you can check out this option for the nutritional values of around 1,000 or more.

http://beerinfood.com/Beer-Nutrition.html

 

First Guns, Now Beer; Neo-Prohibitionism From The Dying Chicago Tribune

First the Chicago Tribune wanted to repeal the 2nd Amendement; now they’re working hard to repeal the 21st.  Sort of a slap in the face for the old drunken legends of Chicago’s newspaper industry.

Typical in these kinds of moralistic rants, it’s always about beer. Kids of this era apparently don’t drink half-a-dogs of booze or the Tribune staff doesn’t want to shut down their Christmas presents of bottles of Scotch.

Does It Pay To Write Beer Books?

I sent this missive off to the Association of Brewers in Colorado in reference to their Michael Jackson Beer Journalism Award program. For reasons I can’t comprehend, book authors aren’t eligible for this contest. I’ve sent e-mails around to a few people, including the folks at the Association of Brewers, and I’ve received positive feedback from a number of folks about the inclusion of book authors in the award program. So far, however, nothing from the AB people.

The e-mail follows, but I’m also trying to find a brewery or breweries, brewpub, trade organization or whatever, and see if we can jointly resurrect the old Beer Writers Guild program, in this case, specifically for beer book authors, and give these people the credit they deserve. I have nothing against the writer who pens an interesting 1,000 word article about some facet of beer, I’ve done it myself, but c’mon…putting a book together is a lengthy process, and quality and time-consuming works should be recognized.

If I can’t find sponsors to help me put a program in place, I might simply do this on my own. My first book won the Golden Quill Award for “Best Beer Book of the Year” back in 2000(?) from the now defunct Beer Writers Guild…and I never forgot the feeling and encouragment that a simple plastic award gave to me. I’d like to return the favor, give a fellow book author that proverbial shot in the arm that I received with my trophy, and maybe sweeten the pot with a further incentive to boot.

I know that a lot of people read these postings from around the country and I’m hoping that someone out there will step forward and help me to put together an author award program that will encourage and reward other writers to put pen to paper about a subject we all love—beer, its history, its use in food, etc.

I’ll gladly do the grunt work, set-up a web page, handle the correspondence, define the categories and qualifications and hope that someone out there will help make the particulars fall into place. The e-mail that got me thinking about this follows;
************************

Looking at the the Michael Jackson Beer Journalism Awards handed out in the last few years by the Brewers Association, [I see that] there really is no category for books and I find this an odd oversight.   It takes much more time and research to bring a book to print, and when articles seem to be the only thing that falls under “BA’s Consumer Print Media” category, something seems out of balance. Even the application makes no allowance for books, something I found out after my book submissions were misplaced last year. After belated correspondence was exchanged with **** *******, I realized that the 3 copies of my latest book submitted for award consideration amounted to a futile exercise, even with a well thought out book theme and front matter endorsement by Jim Koch of The Boston Beer Company.

Koch recognized the book as a strong message in bringing beer and food together, the history of how this marriage came about in American kitchens from Colonial Times through the bumpy time of Repeal and the tenative efforts of a wounded industry to find a common message in presenting beer as a drink of moderation.   This colorful history has led to today’s blossoming Renaissance of beer paired with food and beer-related food recipes.

 

But for us book authors, where’s the outlet for peer recognition for our contributions to good beer and food?

“Consumer Print Media: For work appearing in general circulation consumer print publications such as daily newspapers, as well as consumer-oriented news, food, and lifestyle magazines.” But no books? 

 

 I remember the old Beer Writers Guild writing awards, of which I won a Golden Quill for my Chicago brewing industry history book back in 2001. This definitive book on one of the country’s most influential brewing centers wouldn’t even qualify for consideration in this newer program with its current guidelines.Why are books, works of considerable research and effort, ignored over 1,000-word articles? There were a good handful of informative and worthwhile beer-themed books written last beer by well-qualified experts who should have been given the opportunity to receive equal recognition for their efforts. Lucy Saunders, Sam Calagione and Marni Old, Charlie Bamforth, Maureen Ogle’s turn around with an additional paperback printing, or Dr. Amy Mittleman all penned books that will stand the test of time…but never were considered for the Michael Jackson Beer Journalism Award. 

 

Michael Jackson’s writings were considerable, but it’s his books with distribution in bookstores and online that will be remembered for years to come and still turned to for information, education and sheer enjoyment, long after his passing. Books are the type of dedicated efforts that are handed out as holiday and birthday presents to a widespread audience of readers who might not be beer geeks but would nonetheless still welcome an informative publication that could serve as a gateway in sparking their interest in good beer, not an article published in a niche magazine “…in trade and specialized beer and brewing media” that for more often than not…preach to the choir.

  

Somehow, I think Jackson would even question this program in its current form; “The Michael Jackson Beer Journalism awards is the only program of its kind. The contest allows the craft beer community to acknowledge, reward and thank journalists who feature craft beer.” Except for book authors.   

Bob Skilnik
www.beerinfood.wordpress.com    

 

 

 

 

 

Nutritional Info for Spirited Beverages: What the Drink Industry, the U.S. Federal Government, and Special Interest Groups Won’t Tell You

COMING SPRING, 2009!!

 

Humor me for a moment. Take a walk over to your household pantry and grab a few packaged food items. I’ve randomly pulled out of my clutter of vittles a bottle of imported olive oil, a container of powdered premium baking cocoa from a well-known West Coast chocolate manufacturer, a small jug of natural peanut butter (“super-duper CHUNKY” boast the label), a packet of hot salsa seasoning mix, and a box of bite-sized shredded wheat cereal. Line up whatever you’ve gathered and place them on your kitchen table, with the backside of the containers facing you.

 
Now step over to where you store your household booze and bring out a bottle or two of distilled spirits. You can usually find vodka or gin in my mini-bar, but whatever you have handy will work just fine. If you have a wine rack, pull down a bottle. Finally, dig around the fridge and grab a bottle of regular-brewed beer. If you have a “light” beer or a Miller Lite (by the way, the ONLY beer brand that can legally use the word “Lite”), leave them in the fridge. “Light” beers and Miller Lite are exceptions to the arcane labeling requirements of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (commonly referred to as the TTB), a division of the United States Department of the Treasury.

By now, I’m sure you understand where I’m going with this little exercise. Not only can I find the calories, fat content, cholesterol, sodium, potassium, protein, vitamins and minerals and even the ingredients of every packaged good I grabbed from my pantry, but my box of breakfast cereal even throws in the dietary carbohydrate exchange of a serving size, currently based on the Exchange Lists for Meal Planning, ©2003 by The American Diabetes Association, Inc., and The American Dietetic Association.

 
What about my bottles of vodka and gin, wine and beer? Aside from the commonality of this foreboding admonishment on the labels or containers themselves, GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) ACCORDING TO THE SURGEON GENERAL, WOMEN SHOULD NOT DRINK ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES DURING PREGNANCY BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF BIRTH DEFECTS. (2) CONSUMPTION OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES IMPAIRS YOUR ABILITY TO DRIVE A CAR OR OPERATE MACHINERY, AND MAY CAUSE HEALTH PROBLEMS, the majority of you have no idea what’s in any of these products, nor can you find any indication of even the most meager nutritional information on their labels, packing or advertising material…and you’re not alone. Millions of imbibers who might appreciate knowing, at a minimum, the amount of calories, carbohydrates and alcohol content in the favorite drinks are left in the dark every time they reach for a little gusto. Between the glacier-like movement of the TTB to make a final decision on labeling requirements for adult beverages, the resistance of elements of the drink industry to go through the anticipated expense of testing their products for nutritional values and the redesign of their container labels to reflect this info, plus the uncompromising demands of special interest groups for even more (in some case, less) information to be required, the entire decision-making process by the feds has been bogged down to the mess it’s in today.

 
The move towards the full disclosure of nutritional values of alcohol-based beverages on labels and advertising materials is currently being discussed at the federal level of government and in the alcoholic drink industry. As noted above, labeling regulations for spirited drinks falls under the auspices of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. The TTB, however, does not require brewers, vintners or distillers to list any nutritional values on their products, unless the drink maker makes a nutritional claim about their product. This exception helps to explain why you can find nutritional info on the labels of low-calorie/carbohydrate light beers but not on regular-brewed beers. The very fact that a light beer claims to be lower in calories and carbohydrates than its big brother (Bud Light vs. Budweiser, for instance), makes the nutritional labeling of these products mandatory.

 
This very odd situation, knowing what’s in your kid’s sugar-frosted cereal or that bar of gooey chocolate nuggets in your pocket, and not what’s in the majority of your favorite adult beverage has an interesting history that goes back to the early days of Repeal in the mid-1930s. For close to eighty years, consumers and consumer groups have requested, and received, more nutritional and ingredient information to be listed on the containers of the foods they eat, relying on the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to enforce food labeling regulations. But take a look at those bottles you placed on your kitchen table and you see that, even though alcohol consumption is a way of life for a majority of Americans, they’re not offered the same sort of nutritional info that can be found on food containers.

  
Nonetheless, some spirit makers have tried taking matters into their own hands, responding to a growing movement by their customers to satisfy their request for nutritional information on their products. The United Kingdom-based Diageo, PLC, one of the world’s leading premium drink companies, commissioned Ipsos Public Affairs in 2003 to survey low-carbohydrate dieters and test their perceptions of the carbohydrate counts of “popular alcohol options” when the low-carbohydrate movement was at its peak. The survey, which simply measured the public’s knowledge about the carbohydrate counts of popular beverage alcohol options, found that 63% of people surveyed incorrectly believe that wine and beer are lower in carbohydrates than spirits like vodka, tequila, gin and scotch whiskey. Of course, this was during the low-carb craze, but the survey implied that consumers needed more information about the alcoholic products they consume.

 
Unfortunately, Diageo’s bold move to voluntarily provide nutritional information of their products for an eager audience has been thwarted by indecision on the part of the TTB, which is still wrestling with the requests of a myriad of consumer groups for not only nutritional information on alcoholic beverage labels but also product ingredients, and possible allergens. Opposing any labeling changes is a significant group of mostly smaller-sized vintners and brewers, and wine, beer and spirit importers, many who claim that the laboratory testing of their products, along with a scrapping and design revamping of their product labels would be cost prohibitive.

Until there can be a consensus between the manufacturers of alcoholic beverages, government regulators and consumer groups to agree on a standardization of the nutritional information labeling of beers, wines and spirits, a pipe dream of a time frame that industry analysts estimate may be at least five years, Nutritional Info for Spirited Beverages: What the Drink Industry, the U.S. Federal Government, and Special Interest Groups Won’t Tell You, will fill this informational void. With a drink industry that momentarily enjoys the regulatory trappings of the status quo after suffering through well over a century of government taxation, overt regulation and interference—including downright prohibition, they’re now preparing to fend off the demands and splintered interests of consumer groups which want labels with more information on them than the surface area of even a gallon bottle could offer. Momentarily separated by a federal governmental agency (the TTB) that came into being as part of The Homeland Security Act…the idea that we’ll be able to pick up a bottle of imported single malt Scotch within the estimated five years, look at the container’s label and know the calories, carbohydrates, alcohol by volume or proof, fat and sodium content, cholesterol and possible allergens and proper serving size of that poor Scotch will never happen; it can’t happen, not when there’s no “spirit” of compromise in the equation.

 
As we investigate typical components of today’s distilled products, for instance, you’ll see that most of the elements listed above will never be found in distilled products in the first place. In Nutritional Values for Spirited Beverages: What the Drink Industry, the U.S. Federal Government, and Special Interest Groups Won’t Tell You, you’ll be able to separate the meaningful from the meaningless. If you’re old enough to remember the manufacturers of clear-colored 7-Up with its mix of sweetening agent, carbonated water and a refreshing hint of citrus, making the claim that it contained no fat, “Never had it. Never will,” you see that some of the demands by consumer interest groups for full disclosure of what’s in you favorite beer, wine or spirited drink can be just as silly. The TTB knows this and is probably trying to come to terms with the fact that no matter what, you can’t please all of the people, all of the time. It’s this process, of trying to keep everyone happy, but also preparing for the inevitable, that’s bogging down the movement of giving the consumer a better sense of what’s really in their favorite adult beverages.  
 

So where does that leave the consumer? Using the information in Nutritional Info for Spirited Beverages: What the Drink Industry, the U.S. Federal Government, and Special Interest Groups Won’t Tell You, dieters or imbibers who simply wants to know the calorie, carbohydrate and alcohol by volume (abv) counts of over 1,200 beers, 400 wines and more than 100 distilled products, can use this book as a valuable guide. For the more adventurous, readers will also be able to use this information for the making of a plethora of mixed drinks, knowing the nutritional value of what they are consuming, along with modified recipes that can lower their caloric, carbohydrate or alcohol intake while imbibing, if so desired. A representative array totaling well over two hundred lower-calorie/carbohydrate/fat drink recipes is included in this book, following the listings of the nutritional values for the respective categories of beer, wine, liqueurs and liquors. These drink recipes will demonstrate how simple it can be to tweak traditional drink recipes into lower-calorie/ carbohydrate/fat alternatives, leaving open the additional option of simply having a reference for the standard values of today’s most popular mixed drinks. Think of the traditional drink option as being offered to you as a “straight up” version while thinking of the slimmed down variations as drinks “with a twist.” Either side of the drink card will prove delicious! Just because the drink manufacturers, federal regulators and consumer groups can’t arrive at a solution that will benefit the millions of imbibers in the U.S., doesn’t mean that we can’t make an end run around this quagmire.

 
Nutritional Info for Spirited Beverages: What the Drink Industry, the U.S. Government and Special Interest Groups Won’t Tell You will also address the latest information on the possible health benefits of the moderate consumption of adult beverages, the growing movement of organic alcoholic beverages, especially in the beer and wine sectors, and the success of experimentation by brewers in developing satisfying alcoholic products for sufferers of celiac disease. 

A huge stumbling block to the health benefit labeling of beer, wine and spirits has been the notion of connecting alcoholic beverages with health. It’s taboo, and has been since the 1930s. You can pick up a bottle today and read all about their pejorative elements of alcoholic products, courtesy of the mandated government warning on all booze containers, but the drink industry has steadfastly avoided making any sort of claim on the possible health benefits of moderate drinking. Sure, you’ll read about studies that indicate a possible benefit of alcohol consumption, but you should also note that there’s never the name of a drink manufacturer or trade association openly connected with these positive studies.

 
It’s also important to note the importance of diabetics knowing the carbohydrate value of alcoholic beverages. While diabetics should consult with their physicians about the moderate consumption of any alcoholic products, knowledge of the carbohydrate count of wine and its enjoyment has been promoted by visionaries such as Rabbi Hirsch Meisels, organizer of Friends With Diabetes International, (www.FriendsWithDiabetes.org, http://www.KosherLowCarb.org ). Not knowing the carbohydrate content of what they eat or drink can have diabetics fumbling to adjust their insulin dosages to compensate for blood sugar levels that are too high or low because they didn’t know the carbohydrate level of what they were consuming.

 
Keep this in mind—this is not a diet book per se. Nutritional Info for Spirited Beverages: What the Drink Industry Won’t Tell You is a reference book that anyone can use as a source of nutritional information while sitting back with a favorite beer, wine or mixed drink. The inclusion of mixed-drink recipes that have been tweaked for lower calorie/carbohydrate/fat alternatives will ensure a larger readership, but the reader could just as well enjoy a traditionally-made drink, content with the knowledge of simply knowing its nutritional value. The key to the book—the hook—is the disclosure of the nutritional values of more than 1,200 worldwide beers, 400 wines, and 100 liqueurs and liquors. While there are scores of nutritional references books on the market today that run the course from the calories and carbohydrates of fast foods such as The NutriBase Guide to Fast-Food Nutrition by NutiBase to Fast-Food Nutrition through the more traditional approach of The Complete Book of Food Counts by Corinne T. Netzer, there is no publication on bookshelves today that adequately addresses the nutritional values of alcoholic beverages. This book does.

 

COMING SPRING, 2009!

Whether you’re following Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, a low-fat or calorie regime or your own interpretation of a glycemic diet, or simply trying to follow a dietary lifestyle that gives you accurate information on what you eat and drink, there’s something in Nutritional Info for Spirited Beverages: What the Drink Industry, the U.S. Government and Special Interest Groups Won’t Tell You for anyone who enjoys kicking off their shoes, having a satisfying drink and having the nutritional information that fits their lifestyle.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!!
COMING IN SPRING, 2009:

Does My Butt Look Big In This Beer?
Nutritional Values For 2,000 Worldwide Beers
Now Includes Weight Watchers Points Too!!

MORE BEER NUTRITIONAL INFO HERE 

Attn: Brewpubs or Breweries–Chicago Contractor Looking For You!

About once a year, I get an e-mail or telephone call from someone who wants to open up a brewpub or brewery in Chicago. They tell me they have all their ducks in a row…and a year or two later, nothing has happened. Some readers might recall the high hopes of a brewpub being built in the Beverly section of Chicago…and then nothing.

I’m now talking to a contractor who supposedly has ownership of a building on the Chicago register of historic buildings and additional empty land across the street. It’s on the South Side of Chicago, in Bridgeport. If you haven’t been to Bridgeport lately, the transformation has been amazing. Condos, a new business center, multi-million dollar houses…and Daley’s left, to boot. But it needs something to forever remove the stigma of being a a knuckle-dragging neighborhood of White Sox fans who hide in wait of unsuspecting Cubs fans during the annual CrossTown Classics, or whatever the hell they call the on-field clashing of the Sox vs. Cubs teams…and the subsequent stories of Cub fans being handed their heads for the trip back over Roosevelt Road.

Where was I? This guy owns a plumbing business, tells me he has the go-ahead of the local alderman, and is looking for a brewpub or brewery to work with to begin the anchoring of new businesses in the area. Like GI’s old situation, this building is located in a TIF area, so there’s a City of Chicago tax stimulus package involved. He’d rebuild the building interior to specifications if he had someone moving in and wants to build other retail shops across the street.

The old business district on 35th and Halsted has been rebuilt, there is new construction everywhere in the area, and as I remember Goose Island when it first opened, this area is much less life-threatening than GI’s neighborhood used to be. Compared to what the Halls built their business on, this area’s a paradise, a stone’s throw away from U.S. Cellular Field, I-55 and the Dan Ryan…15 minutes to The Loop.

Anyway, he’s talking about a multi-million project. He has continued to call me every 6 months or so and keeps me up-to-date on his progress. Just talked to him last Friday. Since the news came out on Monday about The Goose, and I spoke to him last Friday, it’s almost like fate has entered the arena.

Aside from the combined 26,000 sq ft on two levels, he figures the basement would add another 13,000. He’s pricing this at around $40 per sq ft or so and would adjust this for a long-term lease. What makes this nice is the fact that the the lessee could add input for whatever was needed before construction begins and not have to retro-fit around something. That and plenty of parking, a rare North Side thing. The alderman’s supposed to be a big supporter of the development. Construction begins in June.

You want a Chicago venue for Real Ale…with fracking parking to boot? Here it is, but first it needs a brewpub.

And I haven’t even talked about the development of the property across the street…

Voices: A brief history of beer

my view by metro

On Monday, breweries throughout the U.S. celebrated the 75th anniversary of the end of National Prohibition. The thing is, according to the Constitution, National Prohibition ended Dec. 5, 1933.

The “Noble Experiment” was caused by a confluence of events that eventually pitted prohibitionists against the “cabal” of German-American-owned saloons and breweries. Congress gradually fell under the relentless lobbying efforts of the well-financed Anti-Saloon League, showing a willingness to end the manufacture and sale of alcohol with the 1913 ratification of the 16th Amendment that brought us the income tax (on a side note, April 15 is just around the corner!). In 1920, Congress reveled in a whopping $5.4 billion in income taxes. The often-taxed-and-licensed drink trade was forgotten, the feds no longer needing the tax funds they produced.

MORE HERE

April 7th is Not the 75th Anniversary of the End of National Prohibition–News Release

“What was was once a trite beer history canard has become an outright lie,” says beer historian Bob Skilnik. “I can only hope that the apparent rewriting of U.S. brewing history is either an innocent result of poor research and not a shameful display of industry greed, just for the sake of a bump in beer sales.”

(PRWEB) April 3, 2008 — Bob Skilnik, author of “Beer & Food: An American History” (ISBN 0977808610, Jefferson Press, Hardcover, $24.95), argues that industry embellishments and poor research have distorted the true date of Repeal on December 5, 1933, which signified the revocation of the 18th Amendment and the enactment of the 21st Amendment and brought back the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic beverages.

“Congressional events leading up to April 7, 1933 allowed only the resumption of sales for legal beer with an alcoholic strength of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight (abw), weak by today’s standards. Congress had earlier passed the so-called Cullen-Harrison Bill which redefined what constituted a legally ‘intoxicating’ beverage. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the bill on March 23, 1933. The bill’s passage took the teeth out of the bite of the Volstead Act of 1919 and raised the Prohibition-era legal limit of alcoholic drinks from .05% abw to 3.2% abw.”

MORE HERE

Coming Soon!

For the last 12 months or so, I’ve been begging site visitors to submit videoed contributions of them preparing food using beer as an ingredient. So far, not a single response…until today. Not quite what I was looking for, but hey, these clips below are beer-oriented, and that’s what we’re all about here!

I’ve placed 2 of these submissions on the VodPod vertical on the right of the blog and here are the direct links to all 4 clips on youtube. The contributor’s name is Thomas de Napoli, and if you go to his site at www.enterthefancy.com , I suggest you take a look at “Lost,” under the Shorts category. You’ll get a kick out of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCm84xDkdzk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs10LHozV2k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78bc_iczOhM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Q6J7f_m8A

In the meantime, I’m working on a media-rich website/blog of videos of food recipes using beer, wine, liquor and liqueurs. I’m also building a library of podcasts with interviews from authors and business folks who want to plug a book, project or business in general, but whatever it is, it has to be beer/wine/booze and food oriented. The site will be THE place to go for a media-rich collection of spirited food and drink recipes. Once I have enough clips and interviews ready, I’ll be doing a soft opening in a month or so, start a news release campaign and some other publicity efforts in order to build traffic.

While I’m happy to use submissions from anybody who wants to be a “star” on the site, I’m especially looking for submissions that I can also build interviews around and give the submitter a chance to infomercial their projects for FREE, whatever they might be, once again, built around booze and food.

So here I am, begging again. Why don’t you do a short (under 10 minutes) recipe clip, and if you’re pushing a book, a drink product, a business…we could do an interview around it and talk about your project for an accompanied podcast while also setting up a link back to your site? It doesn’t have to be serious effort; light-hearted or just plain silly will work, as long as there’s a real ber/wine/booze food recipe involved that site visitors can benefit from.

There will be more about this project and website/blog location while I attempt to build a small library of stuff before we go online with this project.

Lifting Beer Kegs-Dangers Cited By OSHA (Bureaucratic Tips From D.C. Desk Jockeys)

I’m always amazed when I run across a government-funded study that cites the obvious (Eating Pistacchio Nuts Causes Red Fingers, Touching Frigid Flagpoles With Wet Penis Can Cause Sterility, etc.).  Where can I apply for a $150,000 grant to state the obvious?

With this in mind, I’m intrigued with a detailed ergonomic report from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety & Health Administration on the proper handling of beer kegs (“Kids, don’t try this at home!”) That’s right, the feds have devoted an entire section of the OSHA website on lifting beer kegs, including additional tabs that will connect you to “Additional References” (Once again, how does a writer jump on a government gravy train like this?)

And more links to “Credits,” a “Disclaimer” that probably took a group of government lawyers a month to compose, and finally,  “Viewing/Printing Instructions,” tab, just in case you’re confronted with a beer keg out in a dorm hallway one day and you don’t know how to approach it (“Thank God that Beer (& More) In Food included a print link, just in case an errant beer keg ever crossed my path!”)

Did you know that a full keg of beer weighs approximately 162 pounds? Drop that little tidbit of info at your next college kegger and    watch as your fellow male beer drinkers defer to your superior intellect and women (especially the ones who are on their 10th plastic cup of beer) drop at your feet. If that line doesn’t work, try this one; “Generally the torso should not be bent forward more than 6 to 10 degrees from vertical and reaches should not exceed 16 to 17 inches [when lifting a keg].”

If you don’t get any action after imparting this important bit of keg calculus, ask your potential bedmate if she’d be interested in a demonstration back in your room of the “…basics of body biomechanics and the importance of performing lifting, pushing and pulling tasks at approximately mid chest level or lower,” another tip from those party animals at OSHA.    
 

If I Said “FREE,” Would You Listen? Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV Is Coming!!

I’m slowly but surely working on a media-rich website/blog that will be a one-stop and entertaining site of video food recipes using beer, wine and spirits. It will be short on my opinions and beer industry news (like http://www.beerinfood.wordpress.com/) and long on taped recipes of me trying my hand at whipping up “spirited” foods. More importantly, I’m hoping to find brewers, pub owners, distillers, vintners, importers, distributors, blog owners and book authors who are willing to contribute short recipe videos using their products. There’s no fee, no sales pitch…nothing required except the submission of a filmed recipe contribution along with the recipe itself that I can post to my soon-to-be-unveiled site.

In other words, Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV will be a very interactive and media-rich way of entertaining and informing anybody at home who wants to cook along and add some “zip” to any food recipe. I’ll also be working on audio podcasts of interviews with business types as listed above.

With some well-placed news releases and as much promotion as people are willing bear, the site can be a growing and FREE avenue for the promotion of a restaurant or pub, a beer, wine or distilled product, a book…you get the idea. I want the site to be THE place to go if you want to follow along while making a beer bread, a wine glaze, or a rum cake or simply hear what an author has to say about their newest cookbook.

At the same time, I’d like business folks to know that this will be THE site where you can promote your product and know that people will actually be learning about your product in an entertaining manner.

I’ll be throwing time and money at this project; all you need for you to do is send me your promos, POP materials, raw (or completely edited and ready-to-roll) videos and a heaping spoonful of cooperation.

I’m willing to do some out-of-state traveling, when possible, to personally video events, but I’m also asking for folks like yourselves (the person at home who just likes to cook) to please, please consider send me a video (raw and unedited is fine since I’ll be tightening all the videos into 10-minute or less productions using Final Cut Studio 2)-or at least get the word out to your beer, booze wine acquaintances that I’m offering a FREE means of publicity in return for a raw video of a beer, wine, or booze event with a focus on food.

I want this project to be a place where anyone can promote a place or project while keeping it informative and entertaining. I’ll take the roughest video and try my best to edit in a way that everyone will look like a Spielberg and set up links if viewers want further info. I’m looking at this as a clearinghouse of information, even if it takes a bit of product self-promotion to make it happen.

I’ll also be doing phone interviews for audio podcast, once again, giving authors, bloggers, brewers, vintners, distillers, etc, the opportunity to talk about their products in a manner that’s more than a glorified infomercial. The key here is to make the site rich with informative and entertaining media.

I have TIVO, and while I usually fast-forward the commercials from the programs I record, I also welcome the opportunity that TIVO offers to let me actually go to their special channels and view commercials I actually want to see, and then press a button if I want the advertiser to send me even more info. This won’t be TIVO but it could be a nice avenue for viewers who want to know more about books, products, places and such, all wrapped around the enjoyment of food and drink.

I’ve dabbled with this approach on http://www.beerinfood.wordpress.com/ using a PC and some clunky video editing software and a way-too-slow processor, but I’m kicking it up a notch with a new MacPro and the best video editing software available. The result, I hope, will be a professional appearing website that will put everybody and everything, including products, establishments, or businesses, in the best possible light.

Expect me to be pestering others in the next few weeks, so please, think about what I’m offering. Let others know what I’m doing too and that I’m looking for contributions that will benefit everyone while being an informative and entertaining website/blog.

Thanks for your time,

Bob Skilnik
bob@beerinfood.com

Get Me A Beer—QUICK! Mississippi Bill Would Make It ILLEGAL To Serve The Obese

When I came across this article, I was sure it was going to be out of California or some other Left Coast Nanny State. But Mississippi? What makes this lunacy even more ridiculous is that the move crosses the political aisle, 2 moron Republican representatives and 1 wing-nut Democrat, in a show of non-partisan unity, demonstrate that political idiocy is a sgared disease.

Mississippi legislators this week introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons.

I had to start a new category, “WFT?” to handle this entry.

Read More Here  including a copy of Mississippi Bill No. 282, An Act To Prohibit Certain Food Establishments From Serving Any Food To Any Person Who Is Obese….

Help Gambrinus Media Get Off The Ground

I’ve been writing and watching my books get published with varying degrees of success since 1999. Between ’99 and the present, I’ve been on ABC’s “The View,” ESPN2, the Fox News Channel,” local Chicago TV and have done more radio programs than I can remember. I’ve also done about one-hundred paid lectures and presentations about beer, beer and brewery histories, and the occasional consultation on how to get published.

My bio states that my latest book, Beer & Food: An American History is my seventh book, but that’s a little white lie. I actually put together a 100-pager a few years ago that was done as a work-for-hire job, a move that can pay well up front but you lose any and all rights to the  publication after it goes to press. Basically, you whore yourself out for the almighty dollar, but if you have the time and can crank out a small book at double-time, it can be worth a fiscal shot in the arm. For about forty-hours worth of work over one month, I picked up a couple of grand plus change.

Eight books, five with traditional publishers, two through vanity presses (some people call this approach Print-On-Demand…POD, incorrect since printing is a process, not a publication approach) and one work-for-hire option. That leaves one avenue that I haven’t dealt with (at least not yet!)…self-publishing. I don’t mean going with 1st Books, iUniverse or any vanity presses that newbies think are independent self-publishers. I mean actually starting up my own publishing house, Gambrinus Media. My next book will be published through Gambrinus Media, and after I digest the whole process, I’ll begin to solict manuscripts from budding authors-to-be that deal with all aspects of beer, wine and spirits; that means cooking with, enjoying, history of, etc.

I do this because I’ve seen it all, especially this year. Barricade Books, publisher of Beer: A History of Brewing in Chicago, declared Chapter 11 protection in October, i.e., bankruptcy. Jefferson Press, publisher of Beer & Food: An American History, promised me the world in terms of marketing and support for the book. Having been doing this for awhile, I knew that publisher talk is cheap; unless it’s in the contract, it ain’t gonna happen. My agent had faith. I didn’t. I was right.

During the week before Christmas, you couldn’t buy this book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble because none were available. The biggest book-buying season and Beer & Food: An American History was not available on the biggest online book stores. It might have been the fault of the distributor. It might have been the fault of Jefferson Press. Owning your own publishing house means the only one you can blame is yourself. I think I’ll take my chances with myself.

But in order to do this properly, I need seed money. Since most of the liquour store owners around my house know me, knocking over one of their stores is out of the question. If you’ve got a book in you and need some advice, I do consult and my hourly fee is extremely reasonable. Drop me a line at bob@beerinfood.com  and I’ll give you almost ten years worth of advice on publishing approaches, including how to get published…and once your are published, how to sell your book. HINT: Getting published is a hell of a lot easier than getting people to buy your book.
*********
Phase II of this overal plan is a website devoted entirely to videos of food recipes prepared with beer, wine, sakis, liquor and liqueurs as ingredients. In addition, I will be doing audiocast interviews of the mover and shakers in the drink trade, including brewers, vintners, distillers, distributors and importers. This new Web 2.0 site will open around the end of July. At the moment, the links are working, but it’s really a soft opening. There’ll be much more to come.

So far, I’ve tried to get the cooperation of home cooks to send videos we could use for Beer (& More) In Food and the response has been a dismal failure. While I agree that posting videos to sites like youtube.com is great, there are too many categories or channels, diluting the impact of your video of making a vodka red sauce, for instance, or something like a nice tiramisu using a milk stout. These kinds of videos get lost on the shuffle. But if let us know you’ve posted a nice beer/wine/booze food recipe to youtube, or Yahoo or Google, let us know so that we can also download your video to our upcoming site. If people want to show their cooking skills to a receptive audience, this new site will be the place to come to.

You won’t get lost in the shuffle.

If you’re a brewer, vintner, distiller, cook or chef, or an importer, distributor or ad agency looking to reach a dedicated and growing audience of food and drink enthusiasts looking for “how-to” advice, whether making a great recipe or drink, then you’ll be coming to the right place!

Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV is looking to foster relationships with people and businesses in the food and drink trades. With your help, we’ll be extending our reach and activity into the huge community of equally fervent food and drink enthusiasts, people at home who want to try new dishes, taste new wines, beers, and liquors and liqueurs, whether in their home kitchens, their home bars or at your establishments.

Sponsorship opportunities exist in a number of places — but we want to add options beyond traditional “radio ad spots” or “banner ads,” although these tried-and-true and affordable approaches will work as well for our current format.

Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV wants to make sponsors an active part of our Web 2.0 community as well. We’re not looking for just ads, but short videos that offer genuine advice—how-to videos as information and entertainment vehicles to demonstrate your expertise and the key selling points of your business or product. Some might call these efforts “infomercials,” and that’s fine with us, as long as the “sell” is soft and the informational and educational aspects of your video presentations firm.

Sponsorship at Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV is more than advertising; it’s about opening up lines of communication with the Web 2.0 community, and finding out what they really want. And we’re flexible in terms of how this sponsorship will work; it may include doing guest video segments on our shows, podcast interviews promoting your business or product, links back to to your website, or product and information downloads from Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV with targeted advertising…and more. Let’s talk!

We want to work with sponsors that we ourselves believe in; so we can truthfully and honestly promote your products and services. That means sending us samples of your products that we can also use in our video and audio productions, adding additional  Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV support to your efforts.

Our advertising rates are reasonable and we have a number of low-cost ideas that will get your products noticed by site visitors. If you’re interested in more information, please contact author, guest speaker, and TV and radio personality, Bob Skilnik at bob@beerinfood.com

I’m now in the process of interviewing a couple of respected brewers, chefs and book authors for upcoming podcasts about food and drink, and soon beginning video productions in our Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV kitchen of exciting new food and drink recipes. As I continue to build site content, it will be the place that food and drink enthusiasts will constanly be coming back to. Why search the web looking for this kind of content when Drinkz-N-Eatz-TV will be the One-Stop, the only stop, that you’ll need for this kind of info?

End of July and I’ll be ready to unveil the new site. Stay tuned.

National Prohibition; Its REAL Anniversary

 

Unloading beer behind the Hilton, April 7, 1933

December 5, 1933 notes a “first” in constitutional history. It was on this day, 75 years ago, that American voters, through state referendums, added the 21st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It was the first time in our history that a constitutional amendment was passed, not simply by the will of legislators, but instead through popular mandate, i.e., the power of the U.S. citizenry. For some of us, December 5, 1933 will always be remembered as the end of National Prohibition. Unfortunately, there are too many writers and trade organizations who should know this, but have chosen, instead, to revise U.S. history for their own purposes, and if I might, usually for self-promoting ones.

You might recall my rants back in April when organizations like the Brewers Association, the A & E network and Anheuser-Busch, with its pimping of “The American Brew” an hour-long movie commissioned by the St. Louis brewery, and beer geek sites like Beeradvocate proclaimed April 7 as the day that Prohibition was “repealed today in 1933.” The Jacksonville Business Journal went so far as to proclaim that “The 21st amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect April 7, 1933…” , an amazing feat since the states hadn’t even gotten around to setting up constitutional referendums and state conventions to vote for delegates who would set the constitutional change into effect. They weren’t alone in repeating this historical inaccuracy, but the list of offenders would probably be longer than this entire blog entry.

So once again, let me beat this dead horse one more time. The passages below are from my book, Beer: A History of Brewing in Chicago, (I have NEW copies, signed, available at Amazon under the NEW/USED link) and gives the story of events leading up to December 5, 1933 from a Windy City perspective. But throughout the story, the thread leading up to the end of Prohibition can be found.

On another note, keep in mind that April 7, 1933 brought back beer, and only beer with an alcoholic strength of 3.2 % alcohol by weight. Although somewhat an arbitrary alcohol level, it was the result of a modification of the Volstead Act that was passed by Congress on October 27, 1919 in order to put an end to the brewing industry’s question, as it pertained to the 18th Amendment, of what constituted an “intoxicating beverage.” Typical of laws that Congress passes—even today—it usually falls into the robed lap of courts to sort out a vague bill or amendment that is the result of compromise or simply a rush to get something passed. In the case of the 18th, the brewers claimed that the mandated cessation of the manufacturing of “intoxicating beverages,” as proclaimed in the amendment was too vague, and until a legal definition of what constituted an “intoxicating beverage” could be determined, the 18th Amendment would be open to challenge. Before this predicament dropped into the lap of courts, Congress went back and defined the alcoholic strength of any beverage with a content of 1/2 of 1% of alcohol to be considered “intoxicating.” This was done through the passage of the Volstead Act in the fall of 1919.

What brought 3.2% beer back on April 7 was merely a rewriting of the Volstead Act. There was no consitutional amendment, no nullification of the 18th nor passage of the the yet-to-be-voted-on 21st Amendment. A month earlier, on March 13, President Roosevelt used the bully pulpit of his office to formally recommend to Congress a looser interpretation of the Volstead Act, which limited alcohol in beer to one-half of one percent. “I recommend to the Congress the passage of legislation for the immediate modification of the Volstead Act, in order to legalize the manufacture and sale of beer…”

On March 21, 1933, the United States House of Representatives completed action on the Cullen-Harrison bill, permitting the resumption of the manufacture and sale of 3.2% beer and light wines in those states that were now legally considered wet. The next morning, President Roosevelt was scheduled to sign the bill, but a bureaucratic mix-up postponed his signing until March 23. If the bill had been signed by FDR on March 21, as originally scheduled, 3.2% beer would have actually returned on April 5, since the bill stipulated a 15-waiting period before it could go into effect. 

With 3.2% beer’s return on April 7, 1933, that still left wine, liqueurs or liquor to deal with. It actually meant that stonger beers would also have to wait for their return. Nobody was toasting April 7 with a barleywine in hand. There’s also an interesting sidenote here, suggested by the dates of the Cullen-Harrison bill and FDR’s delay in signing the bill until March 23.

At this time in U.S. beer history, the brewing industry was still under the influence of German and German-American brewers. Lager was the most popular beer, not a surprise with wide-girthed Braumeisters still turning out the golden brew. One demonstrated point of their pride of product during the pre-Prohibition era was the brewers’ insistence of a lagering period of at least one month. Now with events as chaotic as they were prior to April 7, and with FDR’s delayed signing of the C-H bill on March 23, they would have had to be clairvoyant to have good-quality and properly aged beer conveniently ready for April 7.

So how did they do it? They used weaker, and I would go as far as to claim, inferior beer. In Chicago alone, there were 5 legally-licensed breweries that were pumping out real beer and then extracting the alcohol from the beer and selling it as “cereal beverage,” in other words, near beer. I made an earlier reference back in April that the beer was “weak-assed” and some beer blogger made the remark with some disdain that there was nothing wrong with weak beer, or as geeks like to put it “session beer.” I agree; there is nothing wrong with lighter-alcohol session beers. If your group is babbling at the bar after something like 3 barleywines or Imperial Stouts, it might be an early end to your little bier klatsch…and that’s no fun. But think about what you would do if you were a brewer back then. How would you handle the grain and hops bill if you knew that in the final process, you would be required to boil the hell out of the beer and collect the vapors of alcohol for shipment to a government-bonded warehouse where alcohol was stored? Would you start with a nice heaving load of fine Moravian malts, maybe throw some crystal malt in for color and a little more body, and then dip into your supply of “noble” hops for character; maybe some for bittering and then topping off the batch with a touch for some added nose?

Of course not! You’d probably use some indifferent malt—and certainly not a lot—and most likely the minimum amount of hops (and who knows how old those hops were?) Why strive for a quality brew when you knew that the beers would be stripped of alcohol and then, either at the local speakeasy or on the delivery truck, the beer would be injected with alcohol through the bung-hole of the wooden barrel, giving rise to the Roaring Twenties speakeasy standby, “needle beer?”

To give you another example of the quality of the beer that was consumed on April 7 and somewhat beyond, city and federal agents were hitting the streets and testing beers in Chicago on April 7, 1933 to make sure the brewers were conforming to the 3.2% alcohol by weight limit, about 4% alcohol by volume (abv). Not one beer sample was in violation. On the contrary, the agents remarked that the beers were well below the legal limit. Why? Because the beer that rolled into the streets of the U.S.A. on April 7 was the indifferent beer that had been brewed for alcohol extraction, brewed to be near beer. It was brewed with the least amount of grains and hops and probably hard to argue that it had been aged for at least a month. What would be the purpose?

After the euphoria and initial beer supplies ran out throughout U.S. breweries, the suds factories started turning out “green” beer, beers that demonstrated little lagering, if any at all. It became so bad that Blatz (and others) began running full-page newspaper ads, thanking FDR for bringing “Democratic” beer back to the masses while pledging to the President and all beer drinkers in the country that they would release no beer, despite the demand, until it had gone through a proper period of maturation. That wasn’t “session beer,” my blogging critic, that was shit beer that they were drinking in the aftermath of April 7, 1933.

But boy, did I digress. Ah yes, December 5, 1933…

As required by Congress, Illinois was busying itself in late April of 1933 in preparation for a state election and convention to act on the 21st Amendment, hopefully to repeal the disastrous 18th Amendment. After Congress had refused the state’s request for a special cash grant to fund state elections for Repeal, Illinois decided to incorporate a June judicial election with the Repeal election, combining the expenses of two separate elections. Downstate democrats, however, worried that incorporating the judicial election and the vote for Repeal might bring about a backlash from local dry advocates and hurt the chances of some of their Democratic judges running for reelection. As a result of this political concern, the Illinois State Senate, led by these wary Democratic forces, unbelievably voted to postpone the election for Repeal until April of 1934. 

Republicans had a field day with the Senate vote, expressing disbelief that the same party that had been swept into the Oval Office on a platform of repeal, the party of “democratic beer,” was now voting to delay the state ratification of Repeal. “Evidently,” sneered State Senator Martin R. Carlson of Moline, “you Democrats don’t care to repeal the 18th Amendment.”

Colonel Ira L. Reeves of Chicago, Commander of the anti-Prohibition organization called the Crusaders, and a pro-Repeal lobbyist, thought he saw a darker explanation for the actions of the Democrats. “Naturally they (the brewers) want to prolong their present monopoly as long as possible, and apparently they are lining up the downstate dry legislators to accomplish that purpose.” Reeves went on to suggest that brewers had made a pact with Prohibitionists. Reeves singled out the boisterous State Senator Frank McDermott with his brewery in Bridgeport, owned by McDermott since 1923. How could McDermott go back to his Stockyards constituency and tell them he voted to defer Repeal until next year, Reeves wanted to know?

The logic of Reeve’s argument seemed solid. Other Repeal advocates affirmed his contention. Since years before Prohibition, brewers and distillers had maintained an adversarial relationship. Their divisiveness was one blatant reason that later prohibitionist efforts had so been so successful. Commenting on the charge that brewers wanted to continue a monopoly on the drink trade, Captain W. W. Bayley, Chicago Chief of the Association Against the 18th Amendment said, “…it would not be surprising to have proof show up that such is the situation now.”

It was too much for editors of the trade magazine, The Brewer And Malster And Beverageur, who demanded an apology from Reeves. “It is unthinkable that they (the brewers) would ally themselves with the bootleggers and gangsters and the fanatics of the Anti-Saloon League.”

Days later, with pressure from all sides and a chance to rethink their positions, the Democrats capitulated. The Illinois Senate voted to restore June 5, 1933, as the day for the election of delegates to the State Repeal Convention. Additional pressures from Governor Henry Horner and various lobbyists groups, including the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform, had persuaded the Senate to wisely reverse their ill-advised prior decision. Without protest, the Illinois House of Representatives concurred with the Senate’s actions.

On the morning of June 5, expectations were high for the repeal of the 18th Amendment. With chances for thunderstorms forecast throughout Monday, a voter turnout for a Chicago judicial election would normally have been predicted to be low. Historically, this pattern of a small voter turnout was in Chicago, and still is, typical for such an election. But, this was no simple judicial election. With reports coming in from ward headquarters throughout the city, the Cook County Democratic Organization was predicting an unprecedented turnout of 710,000 votes. Nonetheless, ward heelers continued to heavily canvass the city during the day. As a further enticement to get constituents out to vote, local Democratic leaders pragmatically stressed the household economics of Repeal. As part of their door-to-door strategy, it was pointed out by Democratic party officials and ward heelers alike that unless the 18th Amendment was repealed, $6 to $10 out of every $100 earned in a weekly paycheck would revert back to the Federal Government in new taxes. Repeal meant beer, booze, and no new taxes—one hell of a “read my lips” argument that any tax-paying voter could understand.

Democratic Party leader Patrick A. Nash wasted no words in his final communiqué to Chicago voters before the polls opened. “Support President Roosevelt. Repeal the 18th Amendment. Elect judicial leaders. Vote the Repeal ticket straight. Vote the Democratic judicial ticket straight.”

Republican County Chairman William H. Weber was not quite as direct or forceful in his party’s approval of Repeal. “Vote the Republican judicial ticket straight and destroy the receivership ring,” taking a final shot at the Democrats. Although the parties shared an equal amount of delegates for the Repeal of the 18th Amendment, Weber’s statement conservatively avoided the paramount issue of Repeal. The national Republican’s Party endorsement and enforcement of Prohibition and the local organization’s lukewarm embrace of Repeal were noted by beer-drinking Chicagoans. From post-Prohibition on, the Democratic Party, the party of democratic beer and Repeal, has held sway in Chicago.

Illinois’ Repeal Election
On April 28, 1933, at 1:43 A.M., Governor Horner signed the House bill ordering the Illinois Prohibition Repeal Convention to assemble on July 10. With the required nominating petitions finally signed, Chicago precinct workers started to flood their wards with sample ballots. Mayor Kelly asked the people of Chicago to support the vote for Repeal. “I urge that all citizens of our great city support the President and his administration in his efforts to bring back prosperity and eliminate the evils which Prohibition has cast into our midst. This can best be done by voting for the Repeal candidates.” Perhaps as a further inducement to the electorate to get out and vote, Kelly overruled an earlier opinion by Leon Hornstein, first assistant to Chicago Corporation Counsel William H. Sexton, that the sale of beer on election day would be illegal. Hornstein claimed that the state legislature had forgotten to repeal the pre-Prohibition election law requiring saloons to be closed during elections. Kelly disagreed, Sexton demurred and the saloons of Chicago were allowed to stay open on Election Day.

The tally of votes was no surprise. Not only was the vote for Repeal in Chicago overwhelming, it was a vote of approximately 11 to 1 in favor of it. In Committeeman Moe Rosenberg’s 24th Ward on the West Side of the city, reports showed that Repealists had voted yes at an astounding ratio of 76 to 1. Not surprisingly, a Republican precinct captain complained that in one precinct of Rosenberg’s ward, 200 votes had been stuffed into a ballot box when that many voters had not even registered in the precinct. Rosenberg, recently indicted by a federal grand jury for income tax invasion, scoffed at the report. In Bridgeport, voters followed the dictates of native son County Treasurer Joe McDonough and voted 40 to 1 for Repeal.

The next day, the editorial page of the Chicago Tribune declared National Prohibition officially dead in Illinois and expressed hope that the remaining dry states would soon follow Illinois’ lead. “A law which made the drinking of a glass of beer a crime was unenforceable..,” said the paper. As evidence of the state citizenry’s overwhelming rebuff of Prohibition, a total of 883,000 voters turned out to for approval of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, more than 560,000 votes for Repeal coming from Chicago. All that was left was the state convention.

The Repeal Convention
On July 10, Governor Horner opened the convention and officially signaled the beginning of the end of National Prohibition in Illinois. “The eighteenth amendment is doomed. Let us pray that with it will go the political cowardice that made it possible.” At noon, Democratic state leader Patrick A. Nash presented the resolution to ratify Repeal of the 18th Amendment at the state repeal convention. In just fifty-four minutes, the fifty bipartisan delegates went through the necessary procedural motions and unanimously voted to ratify the 21st Amendment, nullifying the 18th.

The Prairie Schooner, Illinois, now became the tenth state to moor at the wet dock of Repeal.

At 4:31 P.M., December 5, 1933, Repeal took effect in Chicago with the ratification by Utah of the Twenty-First Amendment. The “Noble Experiment” had lasted 13 years, 10 months, 19 days, 17 hours, and 32 1/2 minutes. President Roosevelt officially proclaimed an end to National Prohibition and urged all Americans to confine their purchases of alcoholic beverages to licensed dealers. The President also issued a special plea to state officials not to allow the return of the saloon. A check of the City Collector’s Office, however, indicated that close to 7,000 liquor dealers were now ready to serve the 3,500,000 residents of Chicago, averaging one saloon for every 500 Chicagoans. It was about the same number of saloons that had operated in Chicago before the onset of National Prohibition.
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So as you can see, even using the Illinois/Chicago above as a historical example of a national event, please, please, please, quit bending the truth when it comes to U.S. history, even if beer is involved.

Read more about Chicago’s fascinating beer and brewing history.

Miller and San Fran Queer Community Have A History

 

In a 1988 Wall Street Journal article, a Miller spokeman begged off on the idea that the brewery’s marketing efforts were concentrating heavily on the gay market. It’s obvious that that is no longer the case. Miller has become notorious in its open marketing to gays. In a sense, the old Frederick Miller brewery has come out of the closet, but in a number of past instances, the brewery has repeatedly tripped over its threshold.

Back in 1999, the brewery ran into problems with its more liberated approach in courting the gay community. There was little question what group of San Francisco beer drinkers Miller was targeting with a TV ad featuring a shirtless muscle man. The spot was supposed to air on a cable program in San Francisco and feature a “Barechest Men” calendar for sale, the proceeds going to a local AIDS-funding group.

The combination of Miller sponsoring a photo calendar of beefy hunks and indirectly raising funds for AIDS victims was too much for some straights in the San Francisco community. After loads of protests by conservative groups, the thirty-second ad was pulled. A Miller spokesman tried to lay the idea for the commercial at the feet of a local advertising agency and not at the door of the brewery’s Milwaukee headquarters. (It’s interesting to note that this is the same excuse they’re now using; this Folsum fiasco was the doing of the local distributor, not the suits in Milwaukee. Sure.)  The idea of courting gays while possibly disenfranchising the much larger market of straight beer drinkers just 8 short years ago made Miller back off from this openly advertising gay-themed commercial and squealched overtly gay-themed ads for the next few years, except in gay publications.

However, maybe in a reflection of political correctness (and an almost stagnant growth in beer sales), a Miller television commercial from 2001 had two women sitting at a bar, obviously on the prowl for some man-meat. In the TV spot, one girl has the bartender send a beer over to a man sitting alone. As he starts to acknowledge the drink, the women spot a better looking man behind him and have the female bartender go back and grab the beer from the poor slob who was about to sip on the bottle. “Sorry chief!” she says as she pulls the bottle from his hand and passes it over to the girls’ newest interest. Seconds later, another hunk joins the single man who is enjoying his free beer. “Jackpot!” one of the girls says, but she almost falls off her stool when the two men hold hands. “Well,” one girl declares, “at least he’s not married.”

Miller Brewing Continues Sponsorship of San Fran Street Fair That Portrays Christ and Disciples as Half-Naked Homosexual Sadomasochists

Organizers of San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair — sponsored by Miller Brewing Co. — have portrayed Christ and his disciples as half-naked homosexual sadomasochists in the event’s promotional advertisement, and the conservative group Concerned Women for America is complaining about the hypocrisy of it.

“The bread and wine representing Christ’s broken body and lifegiving blood are replaced with sadomasochistic sex toys in this twisted version of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper,” CWA said on its Web site.

“‘Gay’ activists disingenuously call Christians ‘haters’ and ‘homophobes’ for honoring the Bible, but then lash out in this hateful manner toward the very people they accuse,” said said Matt Barber, CWA’s policy director for cultural issues.

“In their version of The Last Supper, Christ, Who gave His life for our sins, is despicably replaced by sin itself as the object of worship.”

CWA is calling on California politicians — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sens. Feinstein and Boxer among them — to “publicly condemn this unprovoked attack against Christ and His followers.

“We further challenge the media to cover this affront to Christianity with the same vigor as recent stories about cartoon depictions of Mohammed and other items offensive to the Muslim community,” CWA said.

The Folsom Street Fair describes itself as “the world’s largest leather event.”

“We hope to see the fairgrounds filled with people in their most outrageous leather/rubber/fetish attire enjoying the worlds largest and best loved Leather fair,” the Web site says.

Concerned Women for America called it “shocking and offensive” that California taxpayers are forced to foot part of the bill for the Folsom Street Fair. The City of San Francisco sanctions the event by shutting down several city blocks and providing police for security.

The Folsom Street Fair Web site says young people are welcome: “While we don’t have any age restrictions at the gates we do inform attendees of the adult oriented nature of our events.” The fair organizers say beer and liquor age restrictions are strictly enforced.

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After someone from Miller pulled their head out of the ass, Miller has asked to have its log removed from the advertising poster for the “event.” So far, however, Miller has NOT pulled its sponsorship of this freak show. 

While Miller’s full-page ad in the program has supposedly been pulled, Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the conservative Family Research Council (FRC) stated he was startled at “the mainstream sponsorship this event has. It wouldn’t surprise me for the Folsom Street Fair to do something like this, but for it to be sponsored by people like Miller Beer is really shocking.”

Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a news release that his organization had contacted Miller Brewing, and “we expect that they will cooperate and do what is ethically right” by withdrawing its sponsorship of the event.

“The ad, like the event, is morally depraved,” he stated. “Indeed, it is the kind of ad that only the enemies of Christians would entertain.”

CONTACT MILLER BREWING COMPANY HERE

Corporate telephone number (414) 931-2000.

The operator will switch you to another line where you can tell them what to do with their products.

From The Miller Site: “Statement Regarding Folsom Street Fair

While Miller has supported the Folsom Street Fair for several years, we take exception to the poster the organizing committee developed this year. We understand some individuals may find the imagery offensive and we have asked the organizers to remove our logo from the poster effective immediately. ”

They continue, however, to sponsor this event.
***********

“I like my beer cold… my TV loud… and my homosexuals flaming.”   Homer Simpson.         

                          

Michael Jackson Dead

From Julie Bradford at All About Beer:

We learned this morning that Michael Jackson died last night at his home in London. We’re feeling stunned, and know his many friends will, too.  We are both devestated and saddened since he was a friend, a mentor and one of our favorite writers.  We talked with his staff and his death appears to have been peaceful.  You may also know of the extent of his illness which he had begun discussing publicly in the past several months.  Ironically, we were just editing his most recent column for All About Beer, which, poignantly, concerned his having “cheated Mort Subite” this year.

     We are preparing a memorial for Michael on our website, to be echoed in the pages of the magazine that is in production.  In a few hours we will publish his final column, along with his first column from 1984, on our website and open a memorial page where his friends can share their thoughts and stories.  We will capture some some of these memories in print.

     We’re sure we speak for all of you when we say our community has lost a good friend and champion.  He gave beer a language and taught so many of us to speak it.

*****************

And this via a whisk(e)y list:

This morning the sad news came across from the U.K. that the whisky world has
lost a man of unqualified greatness; the wonderful Michael Jackson.

So many people have followed their own whisky trails with the guidance of
Michael’s amazing Single Malt Guides over the years. His numerous articles in
Whisky Magazine and other publications have been everything from amusing to
educational and have given so many of us the true insider’s view we so
appreciate.

Michael was one of the gentlest and most generous souls imaginable and anyone
who has met him was touched by his kindness and patience. It is hard to imagine
how many times in his life he had to answer the same questions over and over
when approached by awed ‘fans’. Yet he always did so without missing a beat or
showing anything but the utmost interest in both his questioner and the topics
raised.

Please take a moment today and raise a glass to Michael. I thank him deeply for
all that he has given to so many. His knowledge and skill was unmatched and he
will be missed and loved for a very long time. This tireless man now rests and
we all benefit from his labours of love over the years.
*****************
I think a very, very well written tribute to Jackson comes from the pen of Lew Bryson…

I Was A Beer Snob – Are You?

My parents once told me that I enjoyed my first beer when I was about three or four years old. I would help myself (so the story goes) to my Dad’s fish-bowl-sized schooner, filled with beer from one of the local breweries that still operated in Chicago during the 1950s. I don’t remember any of this, unfortunately, but the tale’s become a family standard.

I do remember my second taste of beer, this one from the “Land of Sky Blue Water.” I was a mere lad of thirteen. This beer drinker’s rite of passage took place at the grammar school graduation party of a friend of mine, a hot day in June as I recall. All the parents were upstairs in the kitchen enjoying the cooling effects of a window-unit air conditioner and iced beer. Downstairs in the basement, a reserve cooler of beer was calling to my friend and me. I don’t remember if it was the cartoon enticements of the Hamm’s bear or untapped teenage curiosity but we went down to the basement where the cooler sat and each grabbed a blue, flat-topped steel can and opened them with a “church key.” I got past my second chug of cold beer but stopped when I thought I was going to puke. My buddy’s reaction wasn’t much different, turning green after having knocked off the entire can.

I was seventeen when the beer bug bit me again. This time I balanced the bitterness of a sixteen-ounce can of Bud with occasional nips from a half-pint of Cutty Sark and big gulps from a clear-glassed bottle of Richard’s Wild Irish Rose. I was on my way to becoming a beer drinker.

For the next five years or so, I developed a taste for Schlitz products, including seven-ounce “little Joe’s,” their sixteen-ounce “tall boy” cans and the much smaller-sized Schlitz malt liquor in cans. Of course, if you had put a cold (fill in the blank) in front of me, I probably would’ve chugged it down, too.

When I was twenty-three, I began a four-year stint in West Germany as a translator, courtesy of Uncle Sam. For a confirmed beer drinker, my European experience was like dying and going to heaven. I was stationed in Franconia, located in the upper portion of Bavaria. Franconia is more well-known for its production of white wines, bottled in the uniquely-shaped Bocksbeutel, but beer was everywhere. Bavarian Pilsner (“Ein Pils, bitte!”) soon became my beer. With a malty roundness, just a slight touch of sweetness, little hop bite or bouquet but a clean aroma of fresh yeast, this style of beer had a thickness you could almost chew on. Of course, I also went through my fair share of Rauchbier, Kölsch, Fest, Bock, the occasional Pilsener Urquell from neighboring Czechoslovakia and even the German-equivalent of low-carbohydrate beer, Diät-Pils.

On a layover on my way back to the U.S. for a vacation, I stopped at a small U-shaped bar in the duty-free section of the airport in Shannon, Ireland and made sure I had my first taste of Guinness draft on the old sod of Erin. Couldn’t help it. It must have been my mother’s McCarthy blood in me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was on my way to becoming a beer snob.

When I got back to the States in 1978, I was in a quandary. I had gotten used to the thicker and/or richer qualities of European beers and found that I had become more selective in my choice of available beers. Most of the German imports I tried were old, oxidized or skunky. My old American-brewed favorite, Schlitz, now tasted terrible. It was years before I discovered that my taste for Schlitz hadn’t changed, the formula for their beer had. Old Style was making a huge impact in the Chicagoland area, especially after some deep discounts were offered by the La Crosse, Wisconsin brewery. I jumped on the Old Style bandwagon throughout the early eighties…hell, I sometimes drove it. If you lived in Chicago at the time, so did you. Going out for dinner or when I felt like treating myself or was just big-balling, I sometimes ordered Michelob on tap or the occasional Heineken or Beck’s…and then came my homebrew phase, mixed with the beginnings of the microbrew movement. Soon after this, I don’t recall exactly when, I became a 101% beer snob.

By the time I enrolled in the brewers “long course” at the Siebel Institute of Technology in 1991, I was a practicing beer snob. I remember sitting in the school’s Bierstube between classes and telling a microbiologist from Coors that I thought that a glass of Lake Michigan drinking water had more hop bittering units than a can of Coors Original. She smiled and graciously walked away from me. I soon found alliances at Siebel with a small group of brewers from U.S. microbreweries and brewpubs, but we radicals were in the minority. It didn’t matter to us that most of the students from the national breweries were microbiologists, engineers, research personnel or seasoned brewers for the last twenty years…we knew better.

My elitist beer attitude followed me wherever I went. I even looked down at friends and relatives who drank big-name American beers. At family gatherings, I’d drink water or soda pop rather than the can of “slop” my relatives offered me or brought my own beer and spent the whole night telling them about why my beer was so good and theirs so bad. Acting as a missionary for the new “beer revolution,” I won the souls of scores of converts but now look back at my fanaticism and wonder why a Miller Lite beer drinker didn’t take me out in the back of a South Side Chicago tavern one night and just shoot me? I was an obnoxious beer snob.

Do you see yourself in any of my past experiences? Then you’re probably a beer snob, too!

A year or so ago, I had a beer epiphany. I was trying to lose a little weight and bought a six-pack of Amstel Light to ease the rigors of my weight reduction regime. With its light body, the Dutch-brewed beer was an equitable match with many of the lower carbohydrate meals I was enjoying. This marriage of light food and drink got me to reflect on my past eating and drinking habits. A diet of pizza all the time or steak or spicy foods gets a little old after a while; on the other hand, so does a constant diet of tofu and bean sprouts.

What about beer, I reflected? Is it always necessary to order an IPA that’s heavily hopped, a Scotch Ale that’s thick and sweet, a rich pilsner with a head that won’t quit, a head-storming barleywine or a chocolate and coffee-flavored stout?

Our choice in foods is based on the concept of variety, sometimes heavy or light, sometimes rich or bland, sometimes sweet, sour or bitter. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life. Why not look at beer in the same way? Because of this revelation, I’ve recently been tasting a number of beers from the big-named American breweries, something I haven’t done for the last fifteen years or so. I find that I’m enjoying several of them again. Is it my maturing taste in beer, or, more importantly, is it my changing attitude towards these beers?

I’m sure my taste is changing…everybody’s does. Things that I wouldn’t eat years ago, I find I now enjoy. The same thing is happening with my taste in beer. But more importantly, my attitude towards these beers has changed. I’d like to believe it’s a sign of maturity but I also recognize this evolution of what I now drink as a sign of rebellion.

Rebellion against what? Beer snobbery, that’s what. I’ve become tired of the worn out, holier-than-thou arguments by a small, vocal minority of beer drinkers who insist that drinking from the Holy Grail of “craft-brewed” beer is the only choice in beer enjoyment. In the last fifteen years, I’ve heard all the beer snob arguments. Hell, I used to use them myself. Here are a few classic beer snob arguments that I once believed and practiced.

• I blindly used to follow the beer snob’s credo of not drinking imported beer, only craft-brewed beer. Imported beer was supposedly stored in crates for the long travel across the Atlantic, subjected to all kinds of temperature changes and bottled in those dreaded green bottles. Delivery to the shelves of local stores was slow and tedious. As a result, the beer was “off” in flavor. True, I will agree, ten or fifteen years ago. Well, fellow beer drinkers, I’ve got news for you. The import market is now the fastest growing market in the American beer trade. Pick up a copy of the trade magazine Modern Brewery Age and count the new beers from all around the world that are currently being offered to the beer drinkers of America. These beers arrive on our shores in the most efficient manner and are distributed and maintained by people who understand the beer market. A distributor, like the respected firm of Merchant du Vin, got to where it is today by providing good quality imported beer at reasonable prices, not old and skunky beers. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for some of the craft-brewed beers I’ve purchased in the last few years. I’ve been burned so often by foul-tasting or spoiled small-batched beers that are going for $7.99 and up, that I now limit myself to just a handful of local brews. I purchased these small-batched beers on the recommendations of fellow beer snobs. No more. Brewers, big or small, have no business selling beers from California in Chicago, for example, if they can’t maintain them on retail shelves or work with a local distributor to do so.
• Remember a few years back when we beer snobs weren’t supposed to like Jim Koch and his Boston Beer Company? The most vocal beer snobs pointed out that his beers were contract-brewed. So what? His beers are some of the freshest, best tasting and affordable beers on the market today. Although still a beer snob at the time when this argument was a snob credo, I never felt comfortable expounding on this theme. To make matters worse, went this argument one bizarre step further, Koch was actually dating his beer! One brewer from a small concern once told me that this dating of beer placed an undue burden on his operation because he couldn’t assure that his distributor was properly maintaining his undated beer on retail shelves. Apparently it was easier for him to sleep calmly at night and keep on taking my money for his old spoiled beer rather than to try to find another more pro-active distributor.
• One of the things that adversely affected the old Post-Prohibition brewing industry in Chicago was a lack of brand loyalty. It’s still a problem, even for today’s more respected small brewers. As a beer snob, I was always moving on to the next “hot” beer on the market. Right now, Belgian beers are in. “Extreme” beers are running a close second. I asked myself sometime ago, “What am I really looking for in a beer?” I mean, after quaffing 200 different brands of pale ale, what was I looking for in a pale ale? The brewer can tinker with the grain bill, maybe adjust the hopping rate, but what I, as the consumer, wind up with is, well…a pale ale! John Hall, owner of Goose Island Beer Company in Chicago, points out that the very successful Goose Island introduces different seasonal brews periodically in order to offer variety to their customers, otherwise there’s a fear that they might move on to a different brewery’s products. Hall’s right to think this way. Beer snobs have no brand loyalty. Beer snobbery can be exhibited in a number of subversive ways. A sales representative for another Chicagoland brewery once lamented to me the fickleness of his always tentative customer base. Going through the pages of a local beer club web site, he found a lengthy review of a highly-hopped pale ale in his brewery’s product line, labeling it an “…inaccurate representation of a true IPA.” “You know,” he observed, “we cater to these guys…help sponsor some of their events and stuff, and then one of their ‘beer experts’ (read snob) posts a totally wrong review of our product. It’s not an IPA and we’ve never said it is. It’s a pale ale. The problem now is, somebody will probably believe this guy.” Beer snobs are always “experts.”  
• One of my favorite beer snob arguments is the “Anheuser-Busch is the Devil” theory, although any big-named American brewer probably fits this setting. According to this scenario, every craft-beer drinker is supposed to avoid A-B products because of their alleged predatory business practices, especially as they relate to small brewers trying to establish a niche in the retail market place. The beer industry is probably the most highly-regulated industry in the United States. If these charges are ever proven true, I’m sure the Justice Department will take the appropriate measures. Beer snobs, however, don’t like to mention the generosity of A-B with its scholarship programs, emphasis on minority hiring or their moderate drinking programs.
• High prices mean high quality. What hooey! Now I understand that a price of $7.99 and up per six-pack adds wanted valuation to a product and that deep discounts affect the perception by the public of the quality of the product. I recognize the concept, but let me ask you this. Would you rather purchase a six-pack of beer brewed by an established, centuries-old English or German brewery, for example, for $5.99 or more, a brewery that has the wisdom and experience of highly-trained brew masters, support staff and a proud history, or would you rather plop down your hard-earned money on the latest beer to hit the market, this one from a brewery located 1500 miles away? To make matters worse, the “brewery” consist of $35,000 worth of used dairy equipment and is maintained by a “brewmaster” whose only brewing experience is that he’s won three national home brew medals (“All gold!”) and spent a week at a beer school?
• Expanding on this argument a bit further…wouldn’t you like to be able to spend a mere $4.99 or maybe $5.99 on a six-pack of good quality, clean-tasting and attractively packaged beer? It doesn’t have to make your toes curl…just satisfy.

Then why not consider a beer from an American, big-named brewer. I have.

Now, please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not shilling for the big boys of the beer industry. They don’t need my help. I still prefer cleanly-made, all-malt beer products. On occasion, however, depending on what I’m eating, or simply because the mood strikes me, I now sometimes purchase an A-B, Miller or Coors product. (Remember the “lawn-mower beer” theory?) This past summer, I could sometimes be seen with a cold bottle of Michelob, Coors Original or Miller Lite beer. I even enjoyed the occasional light-bodied Corona, forcing a wedge of lime into each of the clear bottles. Stupid, I know, but part of the experience. Just as often, however, you might have found me sitting on my patio with a richer and heavier beer from Three Floyds, Goose Island or the Boston Beer Company in my hand.

By the way, for those drinkers of Coors Light, MGD or even Busch, if you see me at a party, don’t avoid me anymore. Please come on over and talk to me. I’m not going to bore you any longer with stories about why the beer I’m drinking is better than yours.

I’ve changed. I’m no longer a beer snob. How about you?

Wisconsin Heresy? Propose Beer Tax Hike

Last week, I was bitching about Democratic legislators in Oregon who wanted to raise the state’s beer tax.

Guess what? This time it’s Wisconsin, and true to form, once again its Democratic politicians who are leading the charge. Democratic Rep. Terese Berceau of Madison (figures)  says that the proposed increase would raise the tax on a six-pack from 3.6-cents to 18-cents. Overall, it would cost beer drinkers between $40 million and $48 million more a year, she said.
 

Liberals In Oregon Eat Their Young And Wash Them Down With Higher-Taxed Beer

Business Week is reporting that “lawmakers from both parties are casting about for money to dedicate to Oregon’s depleted state highway patrol, and see the beer tax as a possible solution.”

However, when names are bantered about of moronic Oregon legislators who are behind the push to raise state beer taxes by “10 cents a drink,” the article just can’t seem to find a Republican for attribution. A staff member for state Sen. Bill Morrisette, D-Eugene, said raising the alcohol tax by 10 cents a drink would bring in $121.6 million — enough to set aside $24 million to hire 139 new state troopers, reinstituting 24/7 coverage of the state’s highways, and leaving nearly $100 million for addiction prevention and treatment programs. Notice please, there’s a “D” after Morrisette’s name, not an “R.” You might also note how the argument uses the benign “10 cents a drink” approach. In reality, translating the tax into its true impact gives you this;  the proposed tax increase would raise Oregon’s total beer tax to just more than $1.11 per gallon – replacing Alaska, at $1.07 per gallon, as the country’s highest. The median rate for all 50 states and the District of Columbia is just less than 19 cents per gallon.

Let’s take this a few steps further and demonstrate the reward a brewer could expect for pushing to the 200,000 barrel trigger point for the additional tax; 31 gallons in a barrel X $1.11 = $34.41 a barrel. If you hit a brew length of 200,000 barrels per year, your reward as a succesful brewer for your increased productivity would be an additional $6,882,000 in state taxes. Of course, the brewery owner isn’t going to dig into his pockets to cover the phantasies of liberal politicians — beer drinkers will. Just another socialistic example of redistribution of wealth.

Lies, damn lies, and Oregonian legislative bullshit. 

The beer tax is picking up some high-profile allies, including Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who sent a note of support to members of the House Revenue Committee after Wednesday’s hearing. H-m-m, this time it’s spelled out, D-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-i-c. The Governor, as do liberals who like to spend other people’s money, even has the chutzpah to add “As you consider increasing Oregon’s malt beverage surcharge, the opportunity before you is a ‘win-win’ that promises to improve the public’s health and safety by investing in addiction prevention and treatment on the front end — before law enforcement gets involved — and by ensuring adequate and stable funding for our Oregon State Police patrol efforts.”

Win-win? Says Gary Fish, president of the Deshutes Brewery, “…it would have a devastating impact on our company.”              

What about the children? Well, as you can guess, that Simpson-ish line is dragged out somewhat later in the article to justify the tax increase, wrapped around the gauzy story of a woman whose oldest son was killed by a drunk driver. Interestingly, there’s no mention of the drunk having consumed beer, just that he was “a drunken driver.” What if he was drinking wine? Oregon has a nice little wine industry too. How about the hard stuff? I think there’s a few boutique distilleries in Oregon taking advantage of juniper berries growing in the region.

As any liberal will tell you, if you throw someone else’s money at a problem, every social ill in the world will be stilled. “More education programs about the dangers of driving while impaired would prevent future mothers from re-enacting that scene,” said Vickie Kibler, the Lake Oswego mother whose son was killed in 2004. Not possibly prevent, not slow down, no…a beer tax “would prevent future mothers from re-enacting that scene.”

Why raise Oregon beer taxes now? The answer is in this article from the Register-Guard. “The 2007 Oregon Legislature will be under Democratic control for the first time in 18 years, potentially opening the door for a state beer tax increase that has been locked out for 20 years by Republican leaders,” the article points out.

And here’s Senator Morrisette (D) flapping his lips again. “With a Democratic House, Senate and governor, I think we can pass the bill.”

In reality, the proposed tax increase would exempt breweries that produce less than 200,000 barrels per year. Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland, is above the exemption limit and Deschutes Brewery in Bend is close approaching the cutoff number, causing Gary Fish to bemoan “I don’t know why that is – why it’s a Democratic or a Republican issue – but apparently it is.”

I’m putting Gary in for this month’s “Captain Obvious” award.

BTW, the Oregon Senate just passed another fine piece of legislation. By a vote of 20-9 on Thursday, April 26, 2007, the Oregon Senate has endorsed a bill that would make it a Class A misdemeanor to confine a pregnant pig, thanks to sponsor Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland.

Gee, maybe the next time Oregon brewers might try voting for a party that represents small business interests and not pregnant pigs.

Will Craft Brewers Finally Lighten Up?

A few years ago, I wrote a book titled The Drink Beer, Get Thin Diet: A Low-Carbohydrate Approach. The premise was a simple one; design a low-carb diet around the moderate consumption of beer…even high carb brews. By knowing the carbohydrate content of your favorite brew, you (as the dieter) could determine how many carbs you took in daily.

The problem was getting brewers to cooperate in this little literary endeavor by giving me information that I could use to calculate carbohydrate counts for their beers. In the case of the bigger breweries, that wasn’t a problem. They had already done a nutritional analysis on their products and willingly gave out the information to inquiring minds.

In the case of craft brewers, however, it became a daliy battle. Some breweries, such as New Belgium or Bricktown Brewery (a brewpub) were extremely cooperative, others were downright combative. One brewer demonstrated that he understood the emerging market. “Health is about information, choices and moderation.”

Others, however, told me to do sexually impossible tasks, adding that “We don’t brew our beer for nutrition, we brew it for taste,” while their websites were filled with references to the vitamins in yeast and grain. When I would bring up the argument that what the customer wanted was probably more important than the opinions of the brewer (and maybe better for sales), well, let’s just say that it wasn’t pretty.

Slowly but surely, since 2003 or so, I’m finding more and more brewpubs experimenting with their own interpretations of “light” beer. Things are also changing with bottling craft breweries as Brew Blog has pointed out. Why the change in attitude? As BB notes “In short, they’re going after light for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: Because that’s where the money is.”

But there’ still a long battle to wage before every craft brewery has at least one “light” beer in its portfolio, and the nutritional analysis info to back it up.  West Coast beer writer and reviewer William Brand has a different opinion about craft-brewed light beer…”My opinion of light beer: Argggggg.  Personally, I’m going to crack open a bottle of Double IPA tonight.” And Bill’s not alone with this kind of opinion.

But when 50% of beer sales come from the light sector, what’s a brewer to do?