Beverage Industry News

Certified ‘real’ beer

posted Aug 2nd, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

With pub sales in England declining and beer drinkers increasingly drinking at home, CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, has launched a new accreditation scheme for bottled beers urging retailers to create a new category called “real ale in a bottle.”

According to CAMRA, off-trade sales now represent more than a third of England’s beer market, but increasingly discerning beer drinkers do not find it easy to identify real ale in supermarkets and other retail outlets. Brewers signing up to the new accreditation scheme will include special easily identifiable logos on their bottle labels and CAMRA is calling for retailers to feature bottled real ales as a separate category from other premium bottled beers.

Georgie Howarth, CAMRA’s Marketing Officer and administrator of the scheme, said, “Consumers are confused. In a pub it’s easy to spot the real ales as they are served through hand pumps, but in off-licences bottled real ales share the same shelf space as other premium beers. They are not differentiated. We want to create a new category called Real Ale in a Bottle to make it easier for drinkers to pick out real ales in store.”

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AOB to Offer Siebel Sensory Analysis at GABF

posted Jul 30th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

The Association of Brewers will once again present professional-level brewing education from the Siebel Institute of Technology at the 2004 AOB Great American Beer Festival. The 4-hour Siebel Institute Sensory Analysis Seminar is designed to introduce brewers and beer lovers to the process of sensory evaluation of beer.

During the presentation, students will learn to employ techniques used in professional breweries worldwide to assess the quality of their ales and lagers. The seminar will follow the brewing process from brewhouse to packaged product focusing on positive and negative flavor compounds produced during the various stages of the brewing process. The origin and control of the various flavors will be discussed and students will
have the opportunity to taste beers that have been spiked with the different flavor compounds. The seminar will conclude with a “test” of unknown compounds to assess the students sensory skills.

The seminar will be held at the Embassy Suites Hotel Downtown Denver, 1881 Curtis St. Denver, CO at 1:00 pm on Friday October 1st in the Spruce Room . The $110 fee includes the 4-hour presentation, seminar notebook, and all tasting samples. To find out more about this presentation, or to register (space is limited), you can contact the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago by phone at 312-255-0705 or by e-mail at
info@siebelinstitute.com.

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Bioengineered Beer Faces Tough Acceptance Hurdles

posted Jul 28th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

Bioengineered foods have been spurned across Europe, much to the dismay of the companies that have expended time and energy in their development. Is genetically modified beer the hoped-for ice breaker? A Swedish brewer, with help from a consortium of the world’s largest biotech companies led by Monsanto Co., has developed a new light lager made with the usual hops and barley, and an unusual adjunct of genetically engineered corn. Brewmaster Kenth Persson’s biotech brew is already notorious, but Persson and biotech companies hope it can gently sway consumers as European regulators take their time in reopening the continent to genetically altered foods. The outlook is still cloudy at best. Europe has had more than its share of food scares lately- mad cow, poisoned poultry, and other incidents have made consumers wary about any kind of food tampering, and that includes genetically-modified (GM) foods. Europeans want any food with GM content to be clearly and unambiguously labeled. By contrast, American consumers don’t seem to raise nearly as much of a fuss, even though much of their processed food includes genetically engineered soy and corn and has no labeling that says so. The European Union’s 457 million residents are far fussier, insisting that modifications, especially the genetic kind, are not what they want in their food. So it’s not surprising that Kenth beer isn’t much of a hit in European bars. The brewer hasn’t discussed sales figures since the beer made its debut in Sweden and Denmark, but says 4,000 bottles are on their way to stores and pubs in Germany, and he’s in talks with stores in the United Kingdom. He’ll have an uphill battle, if other EU countries are any indication. Finnish consumers listed GM foods as their number one concern about manufactured food, with 60 percent of the population expressed “strong concern” according to a recent National Consumer Research Center survey in Finland. The EU lifted its six-year moratorium on new biotech food last April, and has also approved the sale of a modified strain of sweet corn, but any food containing the corn must feature a prominent label declaring that it is genetically modified. The corn is primarily grown by Americans, and U.S. farmers see the labeling requirement as a de facto ban. The Bush administration says it will continue pushing its biotech trade complaint at the World Trade Organization.

Monsanto sees Kenth beer as a way of broadening a biotech debate that has so far been the domain of scientists, politicians, and non-governmental organizations. The corn used in the beer was approved for use in 1998, and is also grown in Germany. It’s genetically modified to resist corn borers without the need for pesticides. Monsanto and consortium partners Bayer CropScience, DuPont, Plant Science Sweden, Svaloef Weibull, and Syngenta have contributed an unspecified amount to the project for making the Kenth beer, but have no equity interest, and don’t intend to share in the product’s revenues.

Record Number of Beers at 2004 GABF

posted Jul 26th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

The Association of Brewers is announcing details for its 2004 Great American Beer Festival, September 30 – October 2, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. The 2004 edition of the annual GABF will feature 1600 beers from 320 American breweries. It will be the largest array of beers ever at the GABF, and the biggest selection of beers ever gathered together on the globe. “No country has a greater variety of beer styles than the United States,” says Paul Gatza, director of the Association of Brewers. “The record-setting beer list at this year’s GABF makes it the ultimate event for the world’s beer lovers.”

The AOB is expecting 23,000 beer enthusiasts to attend this year’s GABF. The 2004 GABF will also feature the expanded, 144,000 square feet layout of last year’s event, which includes the 44,000 square foot Beer Garden and Food Marketplace. The food & beer pairing seminars introduced at last year’s GABF will return to the Beer Garden. An A-list of American brewers will join chefs from Johnson & Wales University’s Culinary School for nightly demonstrations on how to cook with beer, and pair different styles of beer with various dishes. “Throughout mankind’s history, beer has been the preferred beverage to accompany great food,” says Nancy Johnson, GABF director. “Yet millions of American diners haven’t been exposed to the practice. Our seminars enlighten people on the joys of combining artfully crafted beer with artfully crafted food.” In addition to the beer & food seminars, The Beer Garden and Food Marketplace will host live music. It will also host the Cellerman’s Booth, which educates attendees about “cask conditioned” beer.

‘The Beer Show’ takes Entries for Best Beer Name and Best Slogan

posted Jul 22nd, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

The Beer Show on 990 AM Main Street Radio, serving the Dallas/Ft. Worth area will feature the 10 best brewery slogans and the 10 most unusual beer names in one of its upcoming shows. Brewers can submit your entry to eric@eurosourceamerica.com or fax them to (214) 357-5280. Breweries making the list in either category will be mentioned on the air and informed by e-mail.

The Beer Show is broadcast every live every Saturday at 5:00 pm CST rebroadcast on Sunday at 2:00 pm CST. Not in the Dallas area? No worry; listen live at www.990mainstreet.com.

Off-Sales Approved for Hawaii Brewpubs

posted Jul 20th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

On July 10, 2004, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle signed into law Hawaii’s SB2606, a bill that allows brewpubs to sell sealed containers of beer manufactured on the premises to be consumed elsewhere. The bill specifically amends brewpub licensing law to authorize brewpubs to sell beer for consumption off-premises. Until SB2606 was signed into law, brewpubs in Hawaii had to go through a distributor to offer their beers for off-premises consumption, but with the low potential volume of off-sales, the law was seen as one that discouraged distributors from getting involved. Hawaii state senators passed the law, saying that letting brewpubs sell sealed containers of their beers would give smaller, locally owned brewpubs in the state a way to tap into a larger segment of the beer consuming market, which in Hawaii is dominated by large national breweries based on the mainland USA. In addition, allowing brewpubs to sell beer for off-premises consumption was seen as a way to provide increased jobs in Hawaii’s brewing industry and increase revenues for the state.

BAA Offers Third Web-inar

posted Jul 19th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

Representatives of over two-dozen small breweries, as well as industry association executives and allied industry members, recently participated in the latest Brewers’ Association of America Professional E-Conference Seminar
(PECS) on Tax and Trade Bureau tax audits. Victoria McDowell, TTB’s Assistant Administrator for Field Operations, led the presentation titled “TTB Tax Audits: What You Need To Know.”

With oversight responsibility for audit and investigation field offices and the National Revenue Center, McDowell took participants through a comprehensive tour of the entire audit process. From initial contact letter to the on-site audit and the closing conference and final report, participants gained information that can be used to prepare for real world audits.

“We want to do everything in our power to ensure that small brewers are well prepared to meet the demands of a tax audit,” said BAA President Daniel Bradford. “It’s difficult to prepare for the unknown. Knowing what to expect and what you’ll be asked to provide gets you ahead of the curve.” The BAA will be working with the TTB to provide a more detailed explanation of items small brewers need to have ready before the audit team arrives, as well as providing a mechanism to continue a question and answer dialogue. Both will be accessible through the BAA web site.

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German Specialty Brewer Fights Reinheitsgebot

posted Jul 16th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

There was a time in bygone centuries when German brewing offered a dizzying range of styles, many of them unique to their home regions. Then came unification in the latter part of the 19th century, and with it the nationwide adoption of a version of Bavaria’s centuries-old Reinheitsgebot, the beer purity law that limits ingredients used in beer to malt, hops, and water – and yeast, but the nature of yeast wasn’t understood in the old days, so it was added to the modern purity law. But many ingredients used elsewhere as brewing adjuncts remain forbidden to modern German brewers. From the end of World War II until the German Reunification, German brewing again went two separate ways for a while; the Communist government of the former German Democratic Republic allowed the use of some adjuncts in beer brewing. One such brewery that made use of these adjuncts was the small brewery in the town of Neuzelle, near the border with Poland. The brewery made a dark specialty beer with invert sugar syrup, an ingredient allowed by the former Communist regime, and permitted for a few years after Reunification. But eastern German brewers are now supposed to obey the country’s purity laws, and this has created friction between Helmut Fritsche and Germany’s regulatory authorities, making him something of a beer outlaw. Fritsche took over the Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle in 1993, buying it from the Treuhandanstalt, the agency set up to sell off former GDR state-run businesses. Now, German regulators are threatening Fritsche with a 20,000-euro fine. The charge is illegally labelling his brew, made with a mixture of black beer malts and sugar syrup, as “beer.” The addition of syrup to the brew makes it illegal to be labeled as beer under German law. Fritsche is not taking the matter lightly, declaring that the law is “infringing on the creativity of small brewers.”

Current German brewing law allows for exceptions to the Reinheitsgebot, calling such brews “special beers,” like the Gose beer style brewed in two Leipzig breweries. Fritsche applied to Brandenburg state authorities in the state of Brandenburg for permission to call his product “beer,” under the claim that he was continuing a regional brewing tradition in Neuzelle. The authorities repeatedly turned him down, causing him to take his claim to court, and the suit has made its way to Germany’s top administrative court. There’s no word on when a decision might come. Fritsche originally paid attention to the letter of the law, labeling his Schwarzer Abt (Black Abbot) brew carefully. The beer is technically a “black beer,” or Schwarzbier, but the original label skirted calling it “beer,” instead reading “A Specialty Made From Schwarzbier, With Invert Sugar Syrup Added Afterward.” In 2003, Fritsche shorted the label to simply read “Schwarzbier.” The local food-safety officials were not amused, slapping Fritsche with a cease-and-desist order to revert back to the previous lengthy labeling.

The German purity law doesn’t apply to beers brewed elsewhere in the EU, which may be sold in Germany regardless of content as long as they meet looser EU regulations. For Fritsche, this means that beers brewed just a few miles away, over the border in Poland, don’t have to meet the country’s stringent purity rules, but can still be sold in Germany as beer, while he’s not allowed to use the same word to describe an essentially similar product. The regulatory battle has had its upside, though; media coverage of the dispute has helped his small operation stand out among the country’s 1,200 breweries.

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Association of Brewers Awarded USDA Grant

posted Jul 13th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

The Association of Brewers announced last week it has been awarded $124,000 by the U.S. Dept of Agriculture to help promote American craft brewers and craft beer.

The Association of Brewers has been awarded these funds by USDA’s Market Access Program. This program is a federally funded program to help promote export activities of groups that use American agricultural products and aiding in the organization’s overall mission of helping their 700 brewery members sell more beer. The Association estimates a total of 434,000 gallons valued at $4.8 million of craft beer were exported in 2002.

Charlie Papazian, president of the AOB, was encouraged by the recognition given to the American craft beer brewers. “I am very pleased with the MAP award, particularly during a year in which there was less money available for this program than originally projected and more groups vying for funds,” says Papazian. Based on the success of their activities this first year and the industry’s commitment and support, Papazian thinks they can build upon this year’s award in the future.

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New beer filter

posted Jul 12th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

A defunct technology developed for magnetic tapes 10 years ago is being used to make a superfine filter that makes beer clearer and brighter.

According to New Scientist, the Digital Compact Cassette tape format was designed in the early 1990s by Philips of The Netherlands which used record/playback heads to write or read magnetic data through 70 micrometres wide holes. The company used a beam of hot fluorocarbon plasma to blast the holes in a metal film.

A Dutch, Fluxxion, has adopted the hole-blasting technology to make a new class of fluid filters. A 15-centimetre-wide silicon wafer disc is placed in a vacuum and a plasma beam blasts 3 billion 0.45-micrometre holes it. The wafer is then rinsed. The ultra-fine filter helps to remove cloudy yeast residues from beer unlike conventional filters.

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Strong Beer not Showing up in Georgia – Yet

posted Jul 9th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

July 1 marked the date that the new higher limits on beer-alcohol content took effect in the state of Georgia. The new law raises the allowed beer-alcohol limit from 6% to 14%, allowing all but a very small number of commercially produced beers to be sold in that state, but direct results of the change may not be seen until later in the month. Under the new law, distributors can now stock stronger drafts, but it may take some time for the beer to arrive at bars in the state. Georgia’s new law, which passed the state Senate in February, makes Georgia one of 39 states to permit the sale of high alcohol content beer. At the beginning of July, distributors in the state hadn’t announced new brands that they’d be stocking, leaving managers and bartenders to guess at what would eventually be available. Distributors cited the typical lead time involved in getting shipments into their warehouses, and each new beer brought into Georgia will require proper state regulatory approval before it can be stored and distributed.

Homebrewers Conference Breaks Attendance Records

posted Jul 8th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

A record number of more than 770 homebrewers, professional craft brewers and beer enthusiasts gathered in Las Vegas June 17 – 19, the second year in a row that attendance has surpassed previous records.

“The AHA National Homebrewers Conference has evolved into a monster of a great event. With 776 attendees sharing the revelry and education, this was the most fun I’ve had around beer all year,” stated American Homebrewers and Association of Brewers Director Paul Gatza.

With a surge of grassroots participation, the 26th annual AHA National Homebrewers Conference gave a glimpse into the future of the brewing industry. It expanded and sharpened palates with 400 kegs filled with many brews unique to themselves and about 60 brew styles, ranging from American Pale Ale and Barley wine to Coffee Mead.

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Cargill Opens New Seattle Warehouse

posted Jul 5th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

Cargill Malt/Specialty Products Group has opened a warehouse in central Seattle to better meet the pale- and specialty-malt needs of regional brewers, microbreweries, and brewpubs in the Pacific Northwest. “We have chosen a United Warehousing location for our site, given its superior facilities and extensive trucking fleet,” said Ron Ryan, account executive for Cargill Malt/Specialty Products Group. The Cargill Malt warehouse is adjacent to Safeco Field at 1750 Occidental Avenue South, providing easy freeway access to customers for all of their malt needs. The warehouse offers Cargill’s proprietary malts and also carries the full lines of Dingemans, Pauls, and Meussdoerffer malts, as well as a selection of Weyermann, Crisp, and Gambrinus malts, in 50- or 55-pound bags. In addition, regional customers now have direct access to a full line of flaked and torrified malt products. “This convenient location enables us to provide next-day delivery of our products to customers in the greater Seattle and Portland areas,” said Ryan. “Having a presence in this region also translates into significant savings for our Pacific Northwest customers through dramatic decreases in transportation costs.” Ryan said that the new Seattle warehouse is a key addition to Cargill Malt’s nationwide malt distribution network. That network also includes warehouses in northern California, Denver and Minnesota; bulk trans-load sites in Washington, northern and southern California and Vermont; and malt-houses in Wisconsin, North Dakota and Saskatchewan.

Old labels haunt brewery

posted Jul 2nd, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

A labeling dispute has effectively shut down Great Grains Brewing in Texas.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission halted shipments of Great Grains’ bottled beer until the labels say the beer is made in Fort Worth, said Alex Pastrana, 32, Great Grains vice president and brewer.

The brewery moved production from Dallas to Fort Worth in May, but continued to use labels saying the beer is made in San Antonio, Austin and Dallas. State law requires labels to identify where the beers are brewed, but Pastrana said a TABC official said that the old labels could be used until they ran out.

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Craft Brewer Opens the Doors to Homebrewers

posted Jun 30th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

Looking for a way to create good will among your local homebrewers and beer fanatics, perhaps your best most loyal customer base? Fantasy Brew Day. That’s what Dillon Dam Brewery calls this open house brewing event, where homebrewers, beer connoisseurs, or anyone else willing and able can fulfill their fantasy – brewing beer in a real brewery. “They’ll get a little dirty,” Brewmaster Matt Luhr said. “It’s going to be real hands on. They’ll do transfers, analysis, dilution – the whole process. Most home-brewers are in the 5-gallon range,” Luhr said. “Here they’ll be dealing with a 16-barrel system.”

Through Fantasy Brew Day, Luhr hopes not only to pique brewers’ interest in larger scale production, but also just to show them a good time. Participant Larry Gilliland, the county treasurer, hopes simply to be motivated to make his own beer. “I’ve got all the equipment, but I haven’t produced a drop of my own,” Gilliland said. Gilliland’s son, who works for New Belgium Brewing Co., set up all the equipment for him, but he hasn’t yet found the time to experiment.

In addition to brewing a batch of beer, the participants will get an overview on how beer recipes are developed and get hands-on experience with the other research involved in brewing, such as yeast and barley analysis. Additionally, the participants can bring in their own yeast to be analyzed under a microscope. Luhr explains that he became interested in home brewing in college when he developed a taste for the finer beers he couldn’t afford.

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A-B bid rejected

posted Jun 28th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

The European Union has rejected an attempt by Anheuser-Busch to register its Budweiser name as a single trademark in all 25 EU countries.

In rejecting the St. Louis-based company’s 1996 “community trademark” application, the E.U.’s Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market said the Budweiser name is identical to one already registered by Czech rival Budejovicky Budvar NP in France and Austria. Anheuser-Busch must instead rely on previously held national trademarks.

“Due to the high similarity of the signs and the identity of the goods, the office concludes that there is likelihood of confusion in France and Austria,” the trademark office said in its June 10 decision.

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Michigan Brewery Offers Unique Ownership Opportunity

posted Jun 23rd, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

Robert-Thomas Brewing Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan has a for sale sign on the front door – but this is not your typical sale. The owners, Robert Kowalewski, Thomas Prame, and Jim Roffey are looking for someone to take the business over and gain full ownership for “sweat equity and working capital,” said Prame. “We tried for six months to sell, but potential buyers just wanted the equipment. We just don’t want to shut the place down,” he said. “Before we sell it all off and leave the industry, we are willing to try to fulfill someone else’s dream of owning a brewery.”

The brewery, in business for seven years, sells bottles and draft in the Michigan market. Current sales are about 1,000 barrels per year, but the 20 barrel Century brewhouse has a capacity of roughly 3,500 barrels, giving the new owners plenty of room to grow sales.

Prame and Kowalewski have been running the business collectively on a part-time basis for the last four years, each having married and having children. “What we are looking to do is hold the financing for a year for someone that wants to come in and give it a go,” states the ad post in the ProBrewer.com Classified Ads. “We have nothing to lose and hope to find the right people who have the passion and work effort to make this work.”

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Unintended alcoholic punch

posted Jun 21st, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

Japanese officials have discovered that an occasional bottle of “non-alcoholic” Buckler beer may have contained more punch than advertised.

Heineken Japan and Kirin Brewery, who produce the beer that is supposed to have less than 0.5% alcohol by volume, have recalled more than 1 million bottles.

During the production process, insufficient heating reportedly led to beers fermenting in bottles, boosting the alcohol content. In Japan, drinks are taxable if they contain 1% or more of alcohol.

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S&N Plans Major Investment in Caledonian Brewery

posted Jun 16th, 2004 by Pat Hagerman

Number One British brewer Scottish & Newcastle will upgrade its Caledonian brewery, investing 2 million pounds. The upgrade will double the brewery’s capacity to brew flagship brand McEwan’s, which is currently produced at the Fountain Brewery. S&N has already announced the impending closure of the Fountain Brewery, and will move McEwan’s production to Caledonian. The Fountainhead closure is part of a 45 million-pound cost-cutting and consolidation effort; S&N will also close its Newcastle plan, shifting production of its Newcastle Brown Ale brand switch to the Federation Brewery at Gateshead.

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