More Housekeeping...Captcha probably returning

I gave it a shot, folks, but I'm getting comment spam on an hourly basis. I suppose I could just dump it all once a day, but it's clogging up my inbox. I'm probably going to put the Captcha back on, and complain to Google. This will result in my being ignored, and it will piss you off. Perhaps YOU could complain to Google about their Captcha?

A Seasonally Adjusted Response

I was just talking to Dan Weirback about the $1.1 million expansion that starts today at Weyerbacher Brewing...more on that very shortly...and after he hung up, he called me back about three minutes later: his brewer, Chris Wilson, had seen the seasonals post below, and wanted Dan to make a response. Not a problem, I'm all for it.

Here's what Dan had to say, roughly (because I couldn't keep up -- he was a little excited -- but this is not a quote, it's a paraphrase, and if it's not right, I hope Dan will give me another call!).

It's a matter of demand and capacity. Weyerbacher's Imperial Pumpkin Ale, for example: to meet wholesaler pre-orders, they have to start brewing it in May and continue through to September to have enough for it to be available through the whole season. They don't have room to store it until September, so they start shipping it out in late June...and well, the wholesalers don't have unlimited room either [and I assume no one really wants to have fresh beer just sitting around; I don't] so they start releasing it. 

The same thing happens with Autumnfest. Most wholesalers in far off states only want to deal with one shipment of a seasonal. So they can ship it in late July, or they can ship it in mid-September. But the wholesalers tell them: if they get Autumnfest in mid-September, the shelves are already full of other Oktoberfest beers, and theirs won't sell.

"It’s not necessarily the way we want to do it, but if people want these seasonal beers, that’s how we have to do it." [and that is a quote.] 

I remember this is why Harpoon used to do contract brewing of their seasonals at Matt's in Utica; it was a huge bulge in their brewing schedule, and that let them get through that. Popular seasonals can be a real production issue. 

So that leaves the brewer with some unappealing choices. They can make less of a beer that their fans really want -- and lose those sales, and really piss off the people who don't get as much as they want -- or they can make the beers as best they can, and put up with the minor embarrassment of selling pumpkin beers in July (and moderately pissing off beer traditionalists). 

Responses? One that comes to mind is that beers like Hopslam and Nugget Nectar seem to do okay on limited releases (and large prices). Another is that maybe bitching about seasonals being two months early is kind of like being terribly upset about the kind of glass you drink out of...

But another one comes from thinking about what I said about Harpoon, and something else Dan said in our first conversation. He said, "I think we'll see at least two more years of this kind of growth [in the craft beer category]. But brewers can’t do much more with what they have now [in terms of brewing capacity]. They’ll have to expand, and that takes time, and money." And Harpoon? Well, they don't have to get their seasonals done at Matt's anymore. They're big enough that they take those seasonal bulges in stride now. With size comes smoothing. Weyerbacher's headed that way, but they've got a bit to go...

Meanwhile, they could do what Victory does. At Victory, seasonals come when the brewing schedule allows them. They let the yeast and the drinkers tell them what's coming out when. Of course, it helps that they do Festbier year-round...and they don't do a pumpkin beer -- I strongly doubt that they ever will.

I hear the bell for round two...

Anyone checked a calendar lately?

Tip of the hat to Uncle Jack for this, but mostly to my friend Chris Lohring (the man behind The Notch line of all session beers that's doing so well in Massachusetts), who wrote this sad story of how he's decided -- against his will, and his heart -- to pull Notch BSA from his seasonal line-up (Jack wrote a good post on it that brought it to my attention, and for that, I thank him; you should too).

Briefly, Notch BSA was a harvest beer, a literal harvest beer. Here's how Chris explained it:

I released my BSA Harvest in late September [of 2011]. You know, that time of September when Fall actually begins? Something about an equinox, I think. The BSA Harvest is a result of a program where Notch prepays a Western Massachusetts farmer for that year’s barley crop as in incentive, which in turn encourages local agriculture [hence the name: Brewer Supported Agriculture]. The barley is harvested in August, malted a few weeks later [at Valley Malt in Hadley, Mass., which I mention in the Element Brewing post below], brewed in the beginning of September, and hits retail fresh on September 21st. A real harvest beer in the season we should drinking it.

Except, as Chris relates, his retailers couldn't do it. See, Fall beers come out in August, or even July. Bring a Fall harvest beer out in late September -- when you would think harvest actually comes -- and you won't find a place on the shelf -- because of the winter beers coming in shortly -- and people have already fallen into their buying pattern for the season. At least, that's the conventional wisdom among wholesalers and retailers, Chris tells us:

They claim a September release is too late for a Fall beer, as they are making room for the Winter beers that will be in any day. This is the hand retail has been dealt, and it is certainly not their fault. So, a real Fall beer, the BSA Harvest, born of the change of the seasons that yields a barley harvest, is deemed too damn late. So unfortunately, BSA Harvest will be absent later this year, as it was killed off by the rush to shift units...

Is Chris just crying? Wouldn't you think that in the pervading atmosphere where the favorite flavor of craft beer is NEW, a new beer on the shelf in September that promised real Harvest character/story would work? Wouldn't you think actually releasing an Oktoberfest in mid-September would work? After all, I keep hearing from brewers that their seasonals run out before the season's over! And here comes 'Tardy Brewing Company's True Oktoberfest' in September, with its label proclaiming "Never Released Till We Hear The Oompah!" and you'd think that would kill, right?

Probably not. What's driving the craft market today is, increasingly, what's always driven the beer market: volume. Blue Moon is over 3 million barrels (and apparently accelerating), and whether we (or the Brewers Association) call Blue Moon a craft beer or not is pretty much immaterial: that's how the people who are selling it and drinking it think of it, and that's how the people who sell it...sell it. Likewise, when Samuel Adams seasonals come out, and when the major regional brewers' seasonals come out, that's the bulge that moves the snake.

And...wholesalers, after a short flirtation hustling smaller crafts and working hard at building brands, see that they can make volume and better margins selling the big craft brands, and it's less work. So if Samuel Adams Summer seasonals come out in April, that's what's shaping wholesalers' views of how the market is supposed to work, which in turn shapes the retailers' reactions...once the brewers have been encouraged to get their seasonals out earlier. Because then the wholesalers don't have to worry about getting the Oktoberfest all sold before November 1st.

I may be overreacting here, but there's a possibility that this is another early sign of things going back to the way they were: less choice instead of more in the beer market. ("Another" sign, you ask? The consolidation of craft brewers is one: the Magic Hat/Pyramid/North American Breweries roll-up, Goose Island, Old Dominion, Widmer/Redhook/Kona.) If wholesalers start to focus on the big craft brands, that's how things are going to go.

What to do? It's up to us, and Chris sums it up nicely:

What to do as a consumer? It is really quite simple. Stop buying beer out of season, and stop encouraging the trend. You may start to see more beers that make sense in the season. Or during today’s snow storm, sit back and enjoy that Summer Beer that was released just last week.

Is that realistic? Is it likely? No, not at all. Just remember: none of this was realistic or likely 20 years ago. Sam Adams was all contract-brewed. Over half the American breweries now in business didn't exist. You could stand on the stairs and see Harpoon's entire operation. Ten taps of microbrews at a bar was amazing news (because we didn't even call it 'craft beer' yet). There were no mass beer-rating websites. Yuengling had not done any expansion and was just barely known outside of eastern Pennsylvania. Most people had no idea what a seasonal beer was!

But the people who love beer made it happen and I'm assuming we still want it done right. If we have to shame craft brewers into this, if we have to make fun of them, if we have to appeal to their sense of tradition and call them out when they ignore it -- that's how this is supposed to work! The brewers, the passionate ones, are supposed to be running this, not the marketers and sellers of the stuff, and it's supposed to be run for us, the people who love the beer, the people who know when the hell summer and fall begin. 

Jack had a pretty pithy statement as well (He did warn us he was going to get more curmudgeonly this year):

For those of you who just want the next over-hopped, high alcohol, unbalanced mutation of a real IPA, none of this matters, of course. You gave up on beer a long time ago.

Are you one of those people who think Oktoberfest in August is ridiculous (especially when they all run out by October 1st)? Do summer beers in the snow piss you off? If you think that pumpkin beers should wait till September, if you think Maibock is for May, if you think winter beers shouldn't come out before mid-November at the earliest...say something. Tell your brewers, tell your stores. And tell your friends.

Hey, JOURNALISTS!

And bar-owners, too...could we get something straight? A "BREWPUB" is not a bar that sells beer, even interesting "micro-brewed" beer. A "BREWPUB" is a "pub" where they "brew" the beer they sell. It is a brewery. Don't brew beer at a place? Not a brewpub.

While I have your attention...If you have a bar, don't name it "The [somethingsomething] Brewery" or "The [somethingsomething] Distillery". Again, these are real types of places, more importantly, they are real types of places that your bar is not one of!*

Can we get this settled, please? Because you're screwing up my Google Alert, not to mention all the people who are walking into your place expecting fresh-made beer. Thanks.



(Tip of the hat to beer writer Don Tse for bringing that one up.)

Cell Phone Deals are pissing me off...am I stupid, or are they?

Okay...help me out here. All these wonderful "deals" on new cell/mobile/smartphones: they're all dependent on you signing up for two years of service, right? So all these deals are doing for me, who signed up to his "new deal" in April, is pissing me off. Will Verizon pay off my indentured servitude to AT&T? Will T-Mobile? Sprint? Of course not. Take your damned advertisements away, all they're doing is making me feel bad. I don't want the new phone badly enough to pay iPod prices for it. I'd be happy if this damned iPhone would just do what they said it would do.

It's an annoying day in Mobile-land.

A bad hair day, and a good whiskey day

I'm in Manhattan for WhiskyFest New York (it's tonight, and it's sold out!). But things could be better. For one thing, I got a haircut this morning, and I'm seriously unhappy about it, especially the way-too-tight beard trim. I feel nekked. Second, about six hours after I took this death-mask shot, I broke the templepiece on my glasses, so I'm in NY, working WhiskyFest in my old glasses, which really sucks, for reasons I explained here.

Whiny bitch. I'm still in Manhattan for WhiskyFest, after all. And I think I may go out for a pint after lunch. The options are staggering...but I only have 90 minutes. Decisions!

Got a package...

InBud sent me two packages recently. I got the same one Uncle Jack did (and I ask the same question), and I also got some bottles of the new Bud Light Golden Wheat. I shall approach it with an open mind, as I always try to do. But as I tore my way through armor-plate level bubblewrap and tape, cursing and yanking, I couldn't help thinking...guys, come on. It's Bud Light. If it breaks, you'll just make more, right? When I get a sample of really great whiskey (and I've got a 25 year old Rittenhouse Rye I'm getting to real soon here), okay, seal it in steel lined with gel-packs. There is no more of it. But this is overkill.

God, I'm bitchy today. I need a Guinness.

Let the Second-Guessing Begin: FooBooz lists Philly's 50 Best Bars

Fearless FooBooz has posted a list of Philly's Top 50 Bars. Whining and moaning has commenced already in the comments. Full disclosure: I was a contributor, sent in my top ten list.

Bars that I'm surprised are missing: Eulogy, Triumph, Bridgewaters, Cuba Libre, Belgian Cafe, and Earth, Bread + Brewery. No Irish places, not even The Bards? Where's the love for 150-year-old-but-damned-lively McGillin's? Brauhaus Schmitz, Swift Half: just too new. I will also admit to being pleasantly surprised to see Chick's Cafe and Atlantis on the list; cheers to that. And I can't help thinking that if Teresa's weren't out in those nasty, nasty suburbs, it would have been much higher on the list (a case could be made that it doesn't belong on a list of Philly's top bars at all, of course, but come on).

But really...Eulogy? And yes, I'm fully aware of the irony of me saying that, but it's true. Interesting dynamics here.

Good list, though, and a great map to go with it. Let the games begin; comments are open.

Hey, Mister Kiely: which of your kids do you like best? Huh? Which one?

Interesting piece in Crain's Chicago Business this week on the struggle MillerCoors boss Leo Kiely is facing. There are a number of components, but the key factor, the big Wahooni, is this: how do you grow both Miller Lite and Coors Light, two beers that are obviously in direct competition with each other...and with the best-selling beer in America, Bud Light. How do you put together a business plan that keeps Coors Light chugging along (the brand grew 6% in the last 12 months, very impressive indeed) and also lights a fire of focus under the flailing Miller Lite (down 4% over the same period)?

This is exactly what I was talking about almost two years ago when I called an impending MillerCoors merger a shotgun wedding. This was a merger that simply had to take place; when you're at this level in a highly consolidated business -- as mainstream brewing certainly is -- the only way to survive is to be the biggest sumbitch in the jungle. SABMiller and Molson Coors weren't big enough alone -- amazing, but true -- to take on A-B, let alone the ABIB juggernaut that was starting to look ever more real at that point. They had to merge to have a hope of winning.

And that's the sad thing about what this business has become. It's not enough to do well any more. It's about the guys at the top winning. It's about the shareholders getting a big pay-out (and taking the money and buying more stocks in hope of hitting the jackpot again when some company gets gutted). The best thing I see about the current deep recession is that these damnable masters of the universe are no longer celebrities. I hope it lasts, and we make much of people who create something other than marketing campaigns and buy-out deals.

Things That Suck II

Things suck again.

I won't be going to the Iron Hill Media fest this weekend; too much crap to do.

Somebody -- won't say who -- sucked down way too much of a really nice bottle of whisky -- won't say which -- without even noticing how nice it was. Cretin.

Miller Chill.

Maud's away overnight, getting 'the dog operation' at the vet.

There are still no bars within walking distance of my house.

It's raining. Again.

There is no brewpub in Newtown. But there is an Applebee's. Jesus wept.

Pennsylvania is finally non-smoking in bars, but there are way too many loopholes.

The PLCB still runs all booze in Pennsylvania, despite my best efforts.

Pollen hates me and wants to make me sick.

My computer's back, but I'm going to spend all day re-loading shite on it (You were right, Amy, damn you!), a process that's taking so long I'm here pissing and moaning.

I need a new phone, and no phone on the market has everything I want...and I don't really want that much.

I fell off Weight Watchers, and can't summon the will to go back. My problem, I know.

One good thing: Maud comes home in half an hour. Which will probably make the other things recede a bit. I miss my little dog.

Wawa responding?

Could we have had an effect on Coffeetopia?

Just got an e-mail from a reader (and friend) that his local super Wawa was now dispensing coffee from thermal pump carafes, or as they're known in the trade, airpots. That would be effin' GREAT!

If you happen to stop in a Wawa this week, check the coffee pots. Are they still making tar, or have they decided for well-kept java? Take a picture, send it to me.

Bravo, Wawa!

Starbucks is out of coffee

Look, you know I'm not liking Wawa Coffee, right? Okay, so Wednesday I'm picking up Nora after school, and it's kinda windy and cloudy and raining, and I'm zoning a bit after a rough night of insomnia. So I look for a Dunkin to get a shot of caffeine; none around. Okay, I'm going to settle for Starbucks -- not a huge Starbucks fan, I'm one of those who think they over-roast, but I need the buzz.

So I fight the traffic and make a left turn into the not-too-conveniently placed Starbucks, park, and wait...and wait, while the two baaarrrriiissstttaaassss stumble through making iced tea and wrapping scones. But I'm thinking, I just want a large coffee, can't be too hard.

"Could I get the Ethiopian, please, large?"

"Oh, no, we're out of that. I should have erased it."

"Okay, just a large Pike Place."

And she goes to pour it and...Starbucks is out of coffee. No one in the place, and she only comes up with half a large. Starbucks is out of coffee. And then she offers to "make it an Americano for you?" You mean, top up a half cup of coffee with hot water, and then charge me more for it? She gets the stare. She tries again.

"I could make a fresh pot, just a few minutes. Four minutes."

Screw it. I went to Wawa...but I looked at the ranks of half-empty, reeking pots...and I got a Diet Pepsi.

What the hell does it take to get a cup of coffee that doesn't taste like tar, or stale grain, or brown water in the damned 'burbs? Is anyone listening?

Wawa: Coffeetopia? Not Bloody Likely

I like Wawa stores, for convenience stores. They make their hoagies fresh if you want them (or you can grab a pre-made and go), they have my bank as their ATM provider (so no $2 service fees), they have a wide selection of stuff.

But as my man David Lo Pan sez, "Now, this really pisses me off to no end!" Wawa is running a promotion on their coffee right now (they promote their coffee a lot), calling themselves Coffeetopia (you can see it in the picture if you click on it to blow it up). And I'd like to know just how a freakin' place can call themselves Coffee-effin-topia when they're busily burning the shit out of their coffee, 24/7!

Coffee abuse pisses me off (to no end, as I mentioned). And this, well, I've seen Wawa employees combining pots of steaming black tar, making sure not a drop of nasty, black-burnt, acidic gleet gets wasted. The smell is an irritant, the taste is hideous. Though, of course, in this light-beer-drinking nation, we continue to buy it, because it does get you buzzed. Yeesh.

So my challenge to Wawa: would it kill you to dump the Bunn warmers and get some thermal carafes? For shit's sake, Sunoco gas stations have thermal carafes, and you're so much better than that. I've had an occasional fresh pot, right off the maker, at Wawa, and the coffee's fine, but once it's had The Treatment, I wouldn't kill slugs with it (because it would be cruel to the slugs, not because it wouldn't do an excellent job).

I know what you're thinking. Wawa probably sells a ton of coffee, and to tell the truth, it's because they get almost everything else right: size of cup, price, ease of self-service and plenty of real dairy options for white stuff, even more than one kind of coffee on at a time (though you can't really tell because it's burnt to hell). It's not La Colombe, but hell, Memphis Taproom ain't La Bec Fin either, and it's still damned good, it's perfect for what it is. So you're thinking, why on earth should we fix something that sure-hell don't seem to be broke?

Well, buhbie, it's because you tagged it as Coffeetopia, and you should have the decency to make it so. Thermal carafes are the way to go, and your sales will reflect it. Find a carafe that dispenses coffee fast (because that's the one thing the Bunn system has going for it; fast pours), buy a bunch of them, and put them in one store to see how it goes (I would humbly submit the 2250 Lincoln Highway location in Trevose...). Bet you get better sales, and a lot of compliments. Because that, Wawa-volk, would be Coffeetopia.

Oh, yeah. One more thing. Would it be too much to ask you to start selling diesel?

The Session #16 -- Beer Festivals

It's The Session, beer blogging on a common topic, and this month it's "beer festivals." See all the links soon here.

I just told someone last week that beer festivals are pretty much work for me anymore. I was at the Mondial in Montreal, and while it was enjoyable, and the weather was great, and there were plenty of good beers -- new beers! -- and brewers -- new brewers, to me, anyway -- and pretty girls and grilled and smoked meat and all dat... I left before the session was over, and I only went back for an hour or so the next day. I would never have done that in the past. What happened? What stole my fun?

I used to enjoy beer festivals, and I'd stay till the last minute. I'd taste everything new that I could safely hold (I used dump buckets, I drank water, I'd eat, anything to try more beers), I'd talk beer, I had a great time. I met John Hansell at a beer festival, which led indirectly to my current position as managing editor for his magazine, Malt Advocate (which in those days was a beer 'magazine,' about 8 pages stapled in the corner). I met any number of brewers, including David Geary, who recently showed me the "business card" I gave him at a Stoudt's festival back in...1994? "I figured you'd be back," he said, "and you were."

It wasn't the working that was the buzzkill, though. I worked fests and still enjoyed them; hell, I even worked taps for brewers on some and had a fun time. I think what killed it for me was the Falling Rock Syndrome. People who go to GABF often enough, serious types (serious about beer, anyway), quickly learn that the Friday and Saturday night sessions are crazy, often given over to drunks. They head out to other, smaller venues, like Denver's beer bar supreme, Falling Rock, or a brewpub, or someone's hotel room.

That's what festivals have become for me: the meeting-up place for the after-party, and it seems like the "after" part gets earlier and earlier. I LIKE going to the after-parties, they're a lot of fun, they're usually people I know or people who know people I know, and it's all very convivial.

And they're not wall-to-wall people, packed in so tight they can't move. Some of the problem is like Yogi Berra said: "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded." Blame the festival promoters: stop selling so many tickets. I'd happily pay $10 more if I could move. Turn down the band's amps; I can't tell you how many times I've yelled to someone at a festival "If I'd wanted to hear blues, I'd go to a blues festival: I'm here to talk to brewers and I can't even hear myself think!" Better programs would be great: give me the brewery names, their websites, their addresses, what beers they have, and a little room for notes. Give me food options, give me some education options, give me no smoking and good ventilation, give me a beer garden to sit for a bit. Give me shuttle-to-lodgings/transit options.

I think beer festivals need to be re-worked. For our benefit, the fest-goers, and for the benefit of the brewers. Some of them are better, but craft beer -- and let's be honest, that's really the only kind that generates festival-going interest -- is hot, and people are interested. Give them a good experience. Maybe I'm just a crotchety old bastard. But if I don't think it's that fun anymore, maybe I'm not the only one.