The PLCB Should Still Be Abolished

After over a month, my other blog has lurched back into relevancy: there's a new Reason Why the PLCB Should Be Abolished. This time it's about how the PLCB and The Almighty Liquor Code don't really care about you; they just want your money. You're shocked, I'm sure. Read, enjoy, get pissed off.

Fall is here, and lots of events

It's officially fall beer season, now that Fall's officially begun and the Munich Oktoberfest is under way. So here's some of the stuff going on around the greater Philadelphia area.

This weekend, as I mentioned here, is the Philly Oktoberfest. I also have two book signings with Mark Haynie for New Jersey Breweries: the first, the fun, the big one at the Flying Fish Brewery in Cherry Hill, Friday night 5-7. Talked to Casey Hughes last night, and he's talking about breaking out some Puckerfish and maybe some other fun stuff. The other signing is at the Borders in Marlton, NJ, Saturday afternoon, 1-3. Can't promise you beer, but we'll tell you all kinds of stories about what we went through to get the book done. And as Uncle Jack mentions, this weekend is also the Victory Fallfest on Saturday and the venerable Sippin' By The River on Sunday (a worthy benefit for IBD and Crohn's Disease research).

Now, the following weekend is a big one. The Lion hosts their 4th annual Oktoberfest, and the event and the beer just keep getting better (Friday and Saturday, Oct 3-4). The 4th is the justly famed Kennett Square Brewfest, and if I weren't speaking at the World Beer Festival in Durham, I guarantee you I'd be in Kennett. And the Grey Lodge has 10-4 Good Buddy, a celebration of small plates and small beers, which should be fun too.

The next weekend, well, there's some stuff going on, but I'll be in San Francisco for WhiskyFest, and most of the brewers will be in Denver for GABF, so you're on your own. You might want to check out the River Horse Oktoberfest in Lambertville -- they've been doing some excellent beers lately; Double White, anyone? -- which is no admission, pay as you go, with live music, both days 12-5.

But the following weekend is big. There's the Stoudt's Micro Fest on Saturday (two sessions), the Newtown Brewfest on Saturday (long sold out; I couldn't even get a ticket), World Cafe Live will have another one of their neat little indoor beerfests with thirty German brewers (including folks like Weltenburger, Schneider, Flensburger, and and Weihenstephaner, along with the usual suspects), and a little farther off, the 5th Annual Chesapeake Bay Real Ale Festival in Baltimore, at the Wharf Rat (27 firkins!). Then Sunday, October 19, join me at the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild Oktoberfest in Newark! From 1-5, you can get all the best from NJ's award-winning brewers and get your copy of New Jersey Breweries signed; what more could you ask?

Well, maybe one more thing. I got a nice little e-mail from Chick's Cafe, where, yes, Katie Loeb is still PhillyMag's most innovative cocktail creator of the year. They have received their license for sidewalk drinking, so enjoy the mellow evenings of autumn. Might have to do a little of that myself.

Exciting Beer News!

At last, the beer -- I think -- we've all been waiting for.

Drinks Americas Holdings, Ltd (OTCBB: DKAM), a leading owner, developer and marketer of premium beverages (like the amazing Trump Vodka and resurrected, er, revivified, er...whatever Rheingold Beer), today announced that the Company has signed an agreement with American icon and rock and roll musician Kid Rock to develop and market a premium domestic beer.

Drinks and Kid Rock will work together to develop and bring to market a product targeted to beer drinkers who appreciate value with an easy to drink (and we do mean really easy to drink), traditional, good tasting American manufactured beer (that comes with a scruffy knit cap on each can).

J. Patrick Kenny CEO Drinks Americas stated, "Kid Rock is a reflection of great American rock and roll music and the American spirit (I thought that was bourbon), and we think we can create a beer in that same image. Having Kid Rock as a Drinks Americas partner is an exciting and big addition to our portfolio of icon brands (which include The Donald, Dr. Dre, and, surprisingly, Paul Newman). There is no question in our mind that people will try a beer that Kid Rock will stand by (like he offered to stand by Pabst for money...only they turned him down) and when they like it (not 'if', dammit, 'when'!), a great and incredibly valuable trademark will be created with his support."

Kenny said, "Drinks will come to market rapidly with Kid Rock's beer. We are in the process of interviewing breweries now (So, Mister...Brewery, where do you see yourself with Kid Rock's Beer in five years?) and working with Kid Rock to make sure that every aspect of the beer and the marketing support is as exciting as everything else Kid Rock does (Everything? Got any video of him sorting his socks?). We think that by very early spring we will have a compelling product and that consumers will love the look, taste, and branding that Kid Rock creates (wait, he's creating the taste, too? How is it with grits sandwiches?). This is a tremendous asset and a valuable addition to Drinks Icon portfolio. The continued expansion of our portfolio is great news for our shareholders (and no one else)."

More details regarding the brand will be released in the coming weeks (if you can hold your water that long).

What, Ludacris and his chicken weren't available?

I've seen this too many times. Why do people keep putting money into schemes like this? If Hard Rock Cafe, which owns a world-wide chain of bars, can't make it work (they launched Hard Rock "Light" and "Heavy" back in the 1990s, and they fell with a barely audible thud), do these folks really think Kid Rock can do it? Whoa, that is so Pamela Anderson.

Paul Newman? Sure, he is an icon, and people know it's largely going to charity. Trump? People know him across a wide range of demographics, and it's a vodka: promotion costs aren't that high. But selling a mass-market style beer? Does anyone involved in this project have a clue about the amount of promotion money needed to do that? Ask InBev how expensive jump-starting Stella in the U.S. has been -- and continues to be. Do they really think having Kid Rock tub-thumping for his own beer is going to be able to bypass that? Oh, yeah, like Billy Beer. Sure...Barnum was right, there is one born every minute.

An Unlikely Folk Hero

I have a stats tracking package running on the blog -- no details, but that's how I finally found my Little Miss Cyberstalker -- and something odd has come up in the past month or so. One of the things it tracks is the terms people put in various search engines that bring up my blog. As you might expect, the most common search term is "Lew Bryson," followed closely by "Seen Through A Glass;" people who've heard of me or the blog and are looking for it.

What's odd is that the next most common search term is some variation on "It drink pretty good, don't it?" Those words, of course, were immortalized in the halls of beer dopiness by Alabama Representative Alvin Holmes of Montgomery, in his speech on the "Free the Hops" bill in the Alabama legislature, an attempt to do away with the state's bizarre 6% ABV cap on beer. I posted on it, and I am amazed by the number of people who come to my site looking for it.

Here it is again, cuz I just can't believe it: "Yeah, what's wrong wit de beer we got? I mean, the beer we got drink pretty good, don't it? Now, I ain't never heard nobody complain about the beer we have. It drink pretty good. Budweiser... What's the name of some of them other beers? Budweiser and what else? Miller? Coors, huh? It drink pretty good, don't it?"

So, who the hell is spreading the word on this guy? It's not me, they're coming here. Is it possible that Holmes has become a new icon of stupididity? (I know, I spelled it wrong on purpose because it sounds dumber that way.) Weird that this is such a topic of curiosity...

Duvel Green: Draft

Philadelphia exerted itself -- that's America's Best Beer-Drinking City -- and, ahead of Manhattan, ahead of Boston, ahead of everyone else, tonight hosted the debut of Duvel Green Draft, the new -- truly new -- beer from Moortgat, at -- where else? -- Monk's Cafe. Everyone took pains to point out that this is not just Duvel on draft. Duvel Green is single-fermented and filtered, where Duvel is fermented twice (second time in the bottle, both using the same yeast, we were told), and it comes in at a reduced 6.8% ABV. It is, however, brewed with that same yeast, same Styrian Golding and Saaz hops, and the same pilsner malt as the original. It is a completely new beer, not the "Duvel Gefilterd Green," not Duvel without the second fermentation. (Update: Michael Moortgat, quoted on BeerAdvocate today, directly contradicts this: "Duvel Green is certainly not a new beer," he said. Looking forward to getting this straightened out...)

Tom Peters and Fergus Carey went to Belgium, put the pressure on -- what, you're going to debut Duvel Green Draft in Manhattan? In Boston? You're not going to debut it in the biggest market for Belgian beer in North America? -- and Duvel Moortgat thought twice. There was some quid pro quo, of course. The beer's not officially in Pennsylvania: Duvel gave the beer to Monk's, and Monk's gave it away at a private, invitation-only event. Manhattan will get the beer officially: "20 accounts, so we know if it's going to be a success, and then Philly gets it next" said Duvel rep Megan McGuire. (I think that's how she spells it; if not, my apologies, and I'll fix it ASAP.) And if anyone gets really official about it, it never happened. But lookie here, Manhattan, sniff this, Boston: Philly got it phirst. Damned right we did; Ommegang's Larry Bennett told me the kegs had just been filled in Belgium on Friday. Anyone else get any yet? No, didn't think so.

How was it? Scary drinkable for 6.8%, as you might expect. Light-bodied, with a spicy nose (Duvel is a bit heavier and has a more complex nose; more carbonation, too), very refreshing. One other thing, which was the serendipitous result of Monk's foods put out for the tasting (diver scallops in a Duvel beurre blanc, fine sausage with coarse mustard, and a salmon poached in Duvel and Hallertauer hops): I may have finally found a beer that truly goes well with fish, something I've hunted for without much personal satisfaction. The salmon and Duvel Green really complemented each other: the fish was clean and toothsome, the beer had a slight hollow in the middle filled in by the fish. It was great. (That's Tom Peters handing a glass to Moortgat/Ommegang's Bill Wetmore.)

As for the whole Manhattan-first thing, let me say right up front that I think it's a mistake. Here's why. Foreign brewers always want to be in the New York market first; why? Because they think it's the most important city in the richest beer market in the world (sorry, China, but that's true, too: there's more beer sold in China, but there's more profit made on beer sales in the U.S.). Sure, that's true, but success in the Manhattan beer market comes only with application of much money in promotion, advertising, and buying leather jackets for bartenders. And when you stop spending money, well, guess what? It's "What have you done for me lately?"

New York is a market that lives on the Flavor of The Month, and when your month is over, you're done. As we said to Megan, you know what you need to succeed in the Philly market? Good beer. And as Flying Fish brewer Casey Hughes correctly pointed out, if you try that promotion/advertising/leather jacket stuff in Philly, it's likely to backfire on you anyway.

We'll be happy with having beat the world once again. I only feel sorry that more people couldn't share in our victory. Blame the marketers. Blame them for "Duvel Green," too, by the way: we were told that "Green" was chosen because the beer is younger than Duvel. Green. As in 'not ripe?' I have to believe that no one at Moortgat speaks colloquial English, and they have a tendency to not listen to their American employees who do. Green? Why not just say, "Because it's not Duvel Red. It's different." Hearing this explanation made me uncomfortable.

By the way, that Heavenhill Anniversary Bourbon, the sample I told you to ask me for when you saw me? Well...I took it along, and some people made pigs out of themselves. All that's left is about 2 oz., just enough for me to make my notes. Sorry. I will say this: it is a lot better with a splash of water. Downright wonderful, in fact.

While I have a moment...

My connecting flight to Chicago from Louisville got cancelled, and the Ryder Cup had all the other outbound flights jammed. Damn all golf, anyway. Everyone in front of me was screaming, and I just asked, "Is there any way to get to Philly today, or should I just rent a car?" And the woman asked me how flexible I was, and I said, try me.

She put me in a cab to Cincinnati, with a flight from there to O'Hare, and then to Philly. Had a real nice ride up with a talkative and fun cabbie, who told me he once took a V8 engine to Phoenix for the airlines, a $2700 fare. And I got in, and got checked in, and here I am with a tall, fresh glass of Sam Adams Oktoberfest. The day's getting better.

Hats off to American Airlines: not only did I catch my 35-minute connection at O'Hare, so did my luggage, and we landed 20 minutes early in Philly...with all the bourbon in my suitcase intact. Thanks, American!

While We're Talking Whiskey...

John Hansell has a good post going over at his blog What Does John Know? about where the good values are in whisk/ey these days. It's engendered a lot of discussion. Answers so far: cask strength and 'mid-range' Scotch whiskies, and bottled-in-bond bourbons (although there's general agreement that bourbon is a deal, compared to Scotch whisky). Drop on over and have a look, contribute.

Kind of neat sidebar: the one guy who made a comment, Ethan Prater? He came up and introduced himself at the Gala tonight. I suppose I could be creeped out by such an intersection of Net and flesh worlds, but he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy, so, well, I'm not. Good to meet you, Ethan.

Damn. I gotta get to bed.

Kentucky Bourbon Festival: MADD postscript

As I was waiting for the shuttle, being responsible and all, I heard an airplane flying overhead. I looked up and saw it was towing a banner:

DESIGNATE A SOBER DRIVER - MADD.ORG

Well, that was a good thing. That's actually a great thing, and I wish MADD would stick to that kind of non-insane program. Way too much of what MADD does now is, well, suspect. They plug away at getting ignition interlocks put in DUI arrestee's cars...and accept large donations from the company that makes them. They are actually pushing for every car to have alcohol sensors; won't that be a bonanza for their sponsor! Do I really think MADD's that mercenary? Not really; I think they honestly believe this is a good idea, and the company is donating to them because they're fellow travelers. But that's exactly the kind of accusatory crap they throw at the booze industry all the time. The 21 LDA: what the hell is MADD doing with that? You want to cut back on kids driving drunk? Raise the ridiculously low driving age! Lowering the legal BAC: how about pushing for real punishment for higher BACs, the people who are shown time after time to be the truly dangerous drunk drivers? How about some programs to prevent licensees overserving patrons? How about some rewards for compliance and proactive actions instead of always being focused on punishment for non-compliance?

The thing is...as other folks commented here, all this stuff makes perfect sense if you posit that MADD is not an anti-drunk driving organization, but an anti-drinking organization.

Kentucky Bourbon Festival: This is The End...

Not much more to be said. I got my tuxedo on (no, sorry, no pictures, and actually, there's no pictures from the whole night -- I left the memory card in the damned laptop!), basted myself in the air conditioner, and went outside to catch the shuttle -- no way I'm driving to the Gala. It was a gorgeous night, warm but not hot, some huge soaring cumulus clouds piling up in the east, catching the sun, Maxfield Parrish-style. The line, as always, was incredibly long, but moved well, and soon I was strolling the floor of the tasting "tent."

The first person I ran into that I knew was Heaven Hill president Max Shapira, who grabbed my arm and said, grinning, "Let me buy you a drink!" He did get me lined up right quick with a Henry McKenna BiB on the rocks (always grab that when I can), and we chatted a bit, just stuff, and then he passed me on to his marketing maven, Larry Kass. We got caught up, I thanked him for the great lead-in he gave me on my latest Mass Bev Biz story*, and he told me about the effect the Ryder Cup had on KBF this year: events sold out, but at a much slower rate. Why didn't they change the date? Hard to say.

On I wandered, shaking hands with friends in production -- Dave Scheurich at Woodford, Truman Cox at Buffalo Trace -- and press relations -- Susan Wahl at Heaven Hill, Angela Traver at Buffalo Trace -- and yes, a nice glass of Four Roses Single Barrel, damned nice whiskey. It was not long after that when I ran into Whisky Magazine's Gordon Dundas and my evening went down the tubes.

Well, kind of, and it certainly wasn't Gordon's fault. Gordon actually was good enough to let me know that our respective magazines, which were supposed to have been unboxed and displayed at the bag-check tables** on the way into the dinner tent by this time, were still sitting on a pallet in the back corner of the tasting 'tent.' Well, holy crap. He'd talked to Festival people about it, and they said once people had cleared out of the 'tent' into the tent (no, really; just think of them as two large spaces connected by a hall with restrooms), they would get the mags onto the tables. Well, okay, it would be impossible to do it while they were in the 'tent,' and people always take the mags on the way out anyway. We'll take a look mid-meal, Gordon proposed, and see how they've done on that. It sounded good, and we celebrated our collaboration with a Russell's Rye.

Then it was dinner time. The beef was quite good, the beans good, the rest of it...okay. Oh, the cake was quite good. After a bit, I went looking for Gordon, and couldn't find him. Hmmm...I gotta take action. I went out, and no mags were out. I went next door, and there was the co-chair of the gala, looking just wiped out, and I dumped my magazine problem in her lap. Oh, they'd completely forgotten, and they were sorry, and they'd get them out there. Can I help? Sure! So I started lugging boxes of magazines out the bag-check tables, as did the co-chair, the security guard, and a couple other folks. Gordon showed up shortly -- he'd been in line forever for dinner ("The Bourbon Festival seems to be all about queues," he said, with some asperity) -- and pitched in. We both wound up handling each other's mags, very co-operative. We had a lot of mags out in fairly short order, sweat like pigs, and decided it was time for more whiskey.

I hung out some more with the Buffalo Trace folks and some of the press guys I'd met at Beam yesterday, talked to Freddie Noe and Parker Beam a little, set up an interview appointment with Barton's Greg Davis (jeez, he whipped out his iPhone and starts saying, "Well, when's good, Lew?" Hell, I didn't have my damned calendar with me; guess if I'm gonna ask people for interviews, I should carry it!), and then decided I'd had enough. The free shuttle took me back here -- great idea, not sure who sponsored that -- and...that was it. I'm going to finish this, pack, and that'll be it for another year.


*Ask if it was a good year for straight whiskeys, and all you’ll hear about is the small batch bourbons, ultra-aged ryes, single barrel Tennessee whiskeys, and special Canadian bottlings, and that’s where the romance is, and that’s where the growth is, and that’s what’s driving the market! You don’t hear about the cases of flagship brands that continue to move things along every day.

Reality check, in the form of Heaven Hill’s marketing guy, the grinning, gravel-voiced Larry Kass. “Numbers can’t lie,” Kass said, dropping the facts on the table (he was checking the 2OO8 Adams Liquor Handbook). “The market is not driven by the super-premium whiskeys. It can’t be driven by super-premiums. They’re what, 75O,OOO cases out of 14 million? If you want to be generous? If you take just the top five brands [in the category], you’re talking about 72% of sales. There’s not a super-premium to be found among them, and there isn’t until you get down to Gentleman Jack, which is 12th, at 178,OOO cases.

“Look, there’s no doubt about it: the top-end brands are continuing to perform very well,” he said. “The supers continue to get a lot of the attention and that’s great, they have great stories to tell, they’re banner products. But the cases are in the meat and potatoes brands: Evan [Williams], Jack [Daniel’s], and Jim [Beam]. Those brands are continuing to grow very nicely. The distinguishing characteristic of the straight whiskey category is that the mid-tier brands are doing well, and that’s a feather in our caps.”

Pure Larry Kass: he has high-end whiskey, and he loves to talk it, but Evan Williams pays his mortgage. Well, actually, Burnett's Gin and Christian Brothers brandy pays his mortgage, but Evan Williams pays a good chunk too!

**When you get to the Gala, which you've paid $140 for the privilege of attending, you get a black cloth bag. Each distillery pours samples in their own glass, some of which are quite nice. And people (okay, women) collect them and put them in the cloth bags (sacks, they call them), 8 or a dozen. All too often, they'll just dump the whiskey out. And when they go into the dinner tent, they check them. They had to start offering this service because so many people were taking a dozen glasses into the dinner tent...and breaking them. Me, I put two glasses in the bag and handed it to the first determined woman I saw. Everyone's happy.

Kentucky Bourbon Festival: The Bourbonians

I left you in the last post at about 4:00. Nothing much happened in the next three hours: picked up a few souvenirs, got some cold drinks, and then I sequestered myself in my room and wrote the sidebar I'd done that interview for earlier in the afternoon. By the time I was done with that, it was about time to head to the Bourbonian Taster of the Year event.

This is an outgrowth of the StraightBourbon.com forums. The folks there are dead-serious about their bourbon...but they don't let that get in the way of having a good time. The BTOTY event (I was told) grew out of some folks talking too big for their britches about how they could pick out different bourbons blind. Bettye Jo Boone, a very enthusiastic SB'er who works at Heaven Hill and is a Beam, connected to that whole family (and a sweet person to boot; I'd been hearing about her for years and it was a pleasure to finally meet her) called them out. Not only could they not pick out different bourbons blind, she challenged them that they could not pick out their favorite bourbons blind (and she was, of course, pretty much right; I love blind tasting). Thus was born the BTOTY.

This was the fourth annual competition. The first three had been held at Bettye Jo's house, but it was finally outgrowing that. The SB's have taken over the General Nelson Best Western here in Bardstown during Bourbon Fest for a few years now, and the management's apparently been pretty good about it, allowing them the use of the gazebo out back for tasting meets Friday and Saturday nights, when you might find anything in the way of American whiskey on the table: pre-Pro, 1950s bottlings, microdistilled stuff, even non-whiskey spirits (and always a few beers). They asked, and the General Nelson graciously allowed them to use their banquet room for the BTOTY challenge.

About two weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Gary Gillman, a Torontonian I met in Philly at Book and The Cook a few years ago, and then again at Bourbon Fest two years ago. Gary wanted to know if I'd be interested in attending or competing in the BTOTY. I quickly accepted an invite to watch -- maybe next year on the competing! -- and we were set. I showed, everyone was real nice to me (even though I'm not as dedicated to bourbon as they are, drinking so much beer as I do...), and I settled in to watch.

Here's the set-up. Prospective competitors get a list of twelve bourbons: "the pool." From that pool of twelve, six would be selected in secret, decanted into identical, unlabeled bottles (looked like Evan Williams bottles, probably courtesy of Bettye Jo), and then poured for each of the contestants. They would then rely on their memories, their knowledge, and their palates to identify the six whiskeys. If they thought they knew the whiskey, they could just put down the name for a full ten points if correct; if they were unsure, they could guess the distillery (which was tough on some!), the age, and/or the proof, and if they were right (age and proof had a narrow range of "right" and didn't have to be precisely correct), they got partial points.

There were a passle of door prizes while the contestants sniffed and tasted. Hats, t-shirts, um...more hats and t-shirts, while there was also a "Kentucky draw" for a ton of Kentucky stuff: home-made jam, Gethsemane cheeses and fruitcake, UK gear, a whole country ham: tickets were $5. The spectators paid $6, contestants paid more, all to support the event.

When the twenty minutes was up, everyone handed in their forms, and the scores were tallied. The bourbons were revealed: out of the pool, the judges had selected Old Grand-Dad 114, Old Charter, Very Old Barton Bottled in Bond, Ten High, Elijah Craig 18, and Weller Special Reserve. I believe almost everyone got Ten High right; hell, I guessed it from where I was sitting just looking at the color. When everything was said and done, Randy Blank had pegged four out of the six (and caught the proof on one of the others, I believe) for a total of 42 points, the highest score in all four years. (That's Randy holding the Kentucky-shaped plaque, with second place winner Doug Philips and third place Randy Goode.) Chuck Cowdery, who'd won the first two years, came in fifth, I think. Quite gracious in defeat, too; phlegmatic, even. (And thanks to Chuck for sending the names of the winners!)

We all toasted the winners with sips of that William Heavenhill whiskey: Heaven Hill quite generously donated a bottle to the event. It was clearly an older bourbon, with evident wood to it (it's 18 years and 9 months, as I said earlier), and honestly, oddly, I preferred the much older Parker's Heritage that just came out. I'm looking forward to trying it again at home with a smidge of water.

After it all was over, Chuck and I went and grabbed dinner at a Mexican place on 3rd St., then hit Toddy's for cheap bourbon bargains. I got a Heaven Hill 6 YO BiB, a VOB BiB, and a J.T.S. Brown BiB, which were each under $15; "That's the best bottle of bourbon you'll get for $12," Chuck said about the Brown. Saving them for a piece I've got coming up, so no reports (I picked up another Heaven Hill today, another BiB with no age statement; ditto). Then we went back to the gazebo, where things were in full swing. A great crowd, good people, and very dedicated to bourbon whiskey. Bourbonians, all of them.

Nothing much happened today, I had to write, I napped, I went over to Heaven Hill and picked up some bourbon orange marmalade for my mom, and then walked around Bardstown a little. And now, I gotta get ready for the Gala. Talk to you later.