The Goose Island Challenge

One of the most interesting recent developments in beer was AB InBev's 2011 acquisition of Goose Island.  Until then, multinational beer companies had been trying to penetrate the craft segment with stealth labels like Shock Top and Blue Moon.  These beers were mainstreamed to appeal to the fat center of the American palate, and have long been drummed out of the "craft beer" fraternity for their middlebrow flavors and disreputable, hidden parentage.  For any number of reasons--the beer itself, the subterfuge, the stain of ownership--these beers could be distinguished from "real" craft beer.  (Full disclosure: I think Blue Moon is a respectable witbier and while it is certainly doesn't have the most character, I've had many worse examples by "craft breweries.")

When Bud bought Goose, though, it turned the arguments sideways.  Not only was Goose Island one of the more respected Midwestern craft breweries, but AB InBev invested heavily to allow the brewery to, for example, build the largest barrel-aging program in the US.  It appeared that, contra expectations, Goose Island was not going to build its reputation on a national campaign for 312 Wheat, but by competing head-to-head with the most lauded of the beer geek breweries.  The Shock Top arguments wouldn't work against Goose Island, so the only thing left was wondering whether St. Louis would be exerting subtle efforts to dumb down the beers (a charge I have heard many times since 2011).

A couple months ago, Goose Island sent me four of their barrel-aged beers (Halia, Juliet, Gillian, and Lolita), and it was with this critique in mind that I sipped them.  They run a similar continuum, all brett-aged in wine barrels with fruit additions, brewed in a range from 7.5% to 9.5%.  The brewery packages them in heavy, capped champagne bottles.  It's an extension of the Belgian line that began with Sofie and now runs to ten beers.  Most of them are barrel aged with wild yeast.  So: 1) are they good, and 2) are they dumbed-down?

Let's take the second question first.  It's not inconceivable that a large brewery would try to tempt the beer geek with a boozy specialty beer--Blue Moon has already done it.  They have a Vintage Ale Collection that is a pretty close analogue to the Goose Island range--Belgiany, strong, aimed at the upscale market.  The beer geeks give it a "meh," and not because it's Blue Moon.  These are beers aimed squarely at the Blue Moon drinker--not the Consecration market.  Beers like Proximity are gentle, made with nothing wild, and light-bodied--easy-drinking big beers. 

Goose Island's beers are nothing of the sort.  They are big and aggressive.  Of the four, three had enough brettanomyces to wake the dead.  The fourth, Lolita, was plenty tart, but had quite a bit of bright raspberry flavor and residual sweetness.  They are perfectly typical of what I don't like about American wild ales (except Lolita, which I enjoyed).  Wild ales have followed hoppy ales into the realm of punishing.  Rather than use wild yeasts to accentuate fruity flavors and add a bit of tartness, breweries like to amp up the acid and dryness to lacerating levels.  Part of this is the way wild yeasts behave in oxygen-porous wine barrels, but part of it is the American preference for volumes that go to eleven.  In a fist fight, Juliet could beat the hell out of most challengers.  The beer geeks agree, awarding these high scores on BeerAdvocate: Halia, Lolita, and Gillian 92/100 and Juliet 94.

The first question is a lot harder.  There was a moment when I was sitting in Drie Fonteinen in 2011 sipping an Oude Geuze (the one at right, in fact) when I had an epiphany.  I had been in Brussels for 24 hours and I'd sampled gueuzes (objectively the finest style on earth) from four breweries.  It wasn't that they were new to me, but the force of having them all in such a such a short period: I realized that while they had very strong flavors--each different--they were harmonious.  There was nothing searing about them.  The brett in these beers was balanced by the complex esters and acids developed over years of barrel aging.  Harmony and balance, far more than intensity, is what I value.

But that's not what the American beer geek values.  Intensity is a marker of authenticity in the US.  Intensity is a sensory marker for the ("off-center") irreverence only small, independent breweries can muster.  What fascinates and delights me is that Goose Island has decided to take this marker as a north star.  An arm of Anheuser-Busch Inbev is seeking to out-irreverent the little guys, at least in the glass.  In business, and especially in the self-congratulatory Silicon Valley, "disruptive technologies" are those which are designed to topple the market dominance of an established, outdated tech.  One story some craft brewers tell is that they are insouciantly  "disrupting" the old norms of the beer world.  Their maverick ways--you know, like selling hoppy IPAs--will radically change the beer world forever. 

But the truth is that the most disruptive brewery in America right now is Goose Island. 

Note: post edited lightly for clarity.  I don't know why I don't do that before I hit "post."

The Future is Now

I have been thinking a lot about cider lately.  When you approach one fermented beverage with the mental framework from another, you can be in for a surprise.  For example, in Britain, to be called "cider" a product must contain 35% apple juice.  Thirty-five percent!  Large brewing conglomerates like AB InBev have been excoriated as the worst kind of corporate criminals by "craft beer" fans, but they don't peddle a product that is only 35% beer.  Beer is beer.

Nevertheless, they do excoriate.  The Brewers Association has done a great job of promoting the notion of "crafty," the imposter beer made by breweries owned by the wrong entity.  Or even beer made by breweries only subtly tainted by a connection to the wrong company (see Brothers, Widmer).  It has been pretty easy to hold this line because most of the breweries in America are still owned by people south of 70 years old.  But soon, very soon, that will change.  And those elderly gents or their families will sell their breweries.  Behold the latest example:

As European interest in American craft beers begins to mirror the mania for them stateside, the Duvel Moortgat Brewery of Belgium on Thursday announced a deal to buy the Boulevard Brewing Company, a craft brewery in Kansas City, Mo.

Because this deal involves a small brewing conglomerate that makes a mere 700,000 barrels a year (less than Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, and Boston Beer) and involves small, groovy Belgian breweries like La Chouffe and Liefmans (as well as Ommegang), it's BA-kosher.

As defined by the Brewers Association, a craft brewer must produce no more than six million barrels a year (a lower limit was dropped when the Boston Beer Company, maker of Samuel Adams, exceeded it). Any ownership stake by a non-craft alcoholic beverage company must be less than 25 percent. Otherwise, a brewery cannot be a voting member of the association.

Whew, no InBev taint. 

Kosher.

But the writing should be on the wall.  In recent years we have seen Anchor and then Goose Island and now Boulevard transfer from family hands to those of others.  Each one is instructive of the challenges these 2500 American family breweries will face in the coming decades.  The Hall family decided to sell Goose Island to AB InBev--the kind of sale that has been popular in brewing for centuries.  Fritz Maytag sold Anchor to investors who have taken it forward as a private concern--unconnected to other brewing enterprises.  And now John McDonald has sold to a consortium of small Belgian breweries.  In each case you can see how the wishes of the founder may be more or less honored in the decades to come.

But the notion that these are anything other than breweries going through an inevitable and ancient churn--that Goose Island, because it is now owned by InBev, became "crafty" while Moortgat-owned Boulevard is straight "craft"--should be easy enough to spot as the fraud it is.  Or put it another way.  When you find someone calling something "beer" that only has 35% beer in it, let me know.  I'll help assemble the tar and feathers.  Otherwise, carry on.

Craft Versus Crafty: The Brewers Association Misstep

 Note: Post has updates (and more updates, and more...)

Can you tell if this is a craft brewery?

Yesterday the Brewers Association sent out a press release that rehashed a point they've made many times in the past: big brewers are peddling faux craft and this just isn't fair.  I have no idea what provoked the latest sortie, but this time the complaint has a really tone-deaf quality.  Craft beer already inspires cultish tendencies, and BA plays on that in spades here--right down to some creepy doublespeak.  You can follow the first link to read the whole thing, but I want to cherry pick a few sentences: 

• "An American craft brewer is defined as small and independent."
• "Witnessing both the tremendous success and growth of craft brewers and the fact that many beer lovers are turning away from mass-produced light lagers, the large brewers have been seeking entry into the craft beer marketplace."
• "[I]t’s important to remember that if a large brewer has a controlling share of a smaller producing brewery, the brewer is, by definition, not craft."
• The large, multinational brewers appear to be deliberately attempting to blur the lines between their crafty, craft-like beers and true craft beers from today’s small and independent brewers.

The Brewers Association has for decades been attempting to create the mental category of "craft beer."  They branded themselves that way and have been aggressive in promoting their definition.  But now here they use the passive construction to assert a bland truth about how a craft brewer "is defined," as if this comes a priori from the universe.  You invented "craft brewer," BA, so please own it.

Next they invent another new fiction, the "craft beer marketplace."  There is no such thing.  Large breweries do not have to "seek entry" into this fictive universe.  They sell beer, right there at the tap handle next to the imported Corona and the local micros.  They do not have to trawl the finer precincts where pubs bar the door to their kegs.  Finally, BA makes the unironic assertion that the big breweries are blurring lines.  Really?  Because it looks to me like these lines are pure inventions of the Brewers Association.

The response to this dictat was, even among the hardcore geek community, mixed.  There were articles, sharp blog posts, and lots of social media debate. Perhaps you even participated in it.

Here's what disturbs me.  The two parties involved in this debate are trying to sell me beer.   The BA has crafted a very strong, emotional brand and has attempted to hijack language ("craft brewery") as a way of enforcing it. As I think anyone who reads this blog knows, I am a huge fan of small brewers and a big critic of many of the practices of multinational beer companies.  But I reserve the right to make decisions about how I think about beer.  I get to call Goose Island and Widmer craft brewers if I wish. I decide whether a company makes good beer, and I get to ignore who the owner is. The Brewers Association may attempt to define categories of beer to benefit its members, but we don't have to accept it as fact.

Should consumers be aware that macros are setting up side brands to sell beer to a different target audience than their regular customers?  Yes.  Should the Brewers Association get to set the rules about what good beer is, who gets to make it, and what we should think about it?  That kind of answers itself, doesn't it?  All beer geeks want variety in the marketplace, competitiveness, and exceptional beer.  The Brewers Association is a powerful player in making sure that happens.  But we, as consumers, not the BA, have the final say over what good beer is, what craft beer is, and which breweries get to be called "craft."

___________________

Update: More commentary from around the beerosphere: brilliant post from across the pond; another skeptic; a faux craft brewer responds, appears real enough; and yet another skeptic.

Update 2: The plot thickens, as August Schell gets in on the action.  This is a must-read, and echoes a point I made three years ago.  Eric Steen posts some good thoughts, too.

Update 3:  And the debate continues.  Chris Staten at Draft Magazine, gets nuancey.  Sanjay takes the Brewers Association to task, but Ashley mounts a spirited defense.  Brian Leppla considers the "craft" question, and Stan, who says he has nothing new to add, decides to add something anyway.  The Motley Fool thinks about it in terms beer geeks don't.

To wrap things up, I'll point you to a very nice piece by Eric Gorski in the Denver Post that, more than anything I've read, lays out all the points in the debate.  Several days after the fact, I think it's pretty obvious that as a matter of messaging, last week's press release was a misfire by the Brewers Association.  It was designed to persuade, and it backfired even among many of its most ardent supporters.  I don't think anyone is averse to promoting (or even requiring) clear labeling information about where beer was brewed and by whom.  The mistake was way the message was delivered--surely a misdemeanor, not a felony--and something I hope they address in future communication.

Henry Weinhard Rebranding?

John Foyston has posted a press release from Henry Weinhard's announcing a new release: India Pale Ale.

Henry Weinhard's IPA is a blend of Challenger, Simcoe, Chinook and Summit hops. It contains 6.0 percent alcohol by volume. The new brew will be available in Idaho, Oregon and Washington where Henry Weinhard's products are sold for a limited time only! Suggested retail price is $5.99 for a six-pack.

"Pacific Northwesterners are notorious lovers of IPAs and we're delighted to offer them a beer we know they'll appreciate," said Jennifer Gerrie, brand manager for Henry Weinhard's. "This IPA is a premium craft beer we feel the biggest of hop heads will enjoy."

Never mind that in some places on their website the beer is referred to as Indian Pale Ale--this is rather extraordinary. When they released the Organic Amber last year, I was impressed by the serious attempt they made at producing a craft-level beer. It was an attempt to mine the micro market's most lucrative vein--blander, less aggressive beers dominated by Widmer and Fat Tire. But releasing an IPA raises the ante, doesn't it? It's a small IPA, at 6% and 45 IBUs, yet that's light years more agressive than anything I've seen coming from the corporate halls of MillerCoors.

And how about the language at the top of the press release, wherein the marketing department describes the company:

Henry Weinhard's, the pioneering producer of small-batch handcrafted beer in the Pacific Northwest, is adding a new summer seasonal to its lineup of craft beers this month.

The phrase may be 150 years out of date, but I guess you could say it's true. Of course, it says more about the company's plan for the future than its past--they hope to replace the memory of tin-canned Blitz with an impression of a member in good standing of Beervana's small, indie breweries.At this point, it's difficult to argue that Henry's is anything but a faux craft--one label among many a beer conglomerate hopes to position in the market. Fair enough. But you have to admire Miller's moxie--it is an appealing approach.