Local goes Global

According to the Chicago Sun-Times President Obama paid off a soccer bet with British Prime Minister Cameron with 312 Wheat from Chicago's Goose Island.

While I applaud the President for choosing a smaller craft brewery for his payment of choice, I think his choice of beer could have been better. Goose Island makes some good beers, but 312 is not one of them. Perhaps Matilda next time?

Beer: Beverage, Culture, Mediator

The nation (or the media at least) has recently had their eyes fixed on Cambridge, Massachusetts, where an unlikely dust-up between a famous Harvard professor and a level-headed Cambridge police officer again brought up the issue of race in America.

President Obama, being the last major catalyst of this ongoing debate, felt the need to weigh in on the matter, and did so in a way that some found inappropriate.

In an attempt to smooth over his remarks and to generally mend fences in the matter, Obama decided to invite both Professor Gates and Officer Crowley to the White House...for a beer.

To the average American, this made a lot of sense. Conflicts, deals, partnerships, and more are often hashed out over a pint. What better way to make friends or make peace with your neighbor but to invite him over for a brew?

The offering of a beer is a peace-offering, a trust-maker, a crutch. It puts us at ease, and allows us to communicate with some of our barriers aside, even after only 1 sip. It puts us in that comfortable place where we speak our mind, but in a reasonable way.

Politics aside, us beer drinkers have our own questions regarding the suds summit; namely, what beers will they be drinking?

According to ABC, the President will have a Bud Light, the Professor a Red Stripe, and the Officer a Blue Moon.

What do these beer selections say about these personalities? An article in the New York Times noted that Bud is foreign owned, Red Stripe imported, and Blue Moon is served with fruit.

Personally I think that were I to serve beer at the White House, I would serve the finest the Country had to offer. There is, however, something to be said about giving each man his preferred brand. After all, the President is not trying to impress a German diplomat, he is trying to put the parties at ease.

With that said, I think if one is going to hold a beer summit, the choice of the beer to be served is obvious.

Micro Brew Tax Credit

This article from the New York Times on microbrewing in Ireland references a program by the Irish government to give tax credits to small brewers.

It's something that I have been saying the city of Milwaukee should do for years. So I today I emailed Milwaukee's mayor:

In this age of globalization, Milwaukee is no longer just competing against Chicago, Minneapolis, and Madison, but also Guadalajara, Kuala Lampur, and Tianjin. In such a light, it should be obvious that this "great place on a great lake," needs to sort out any competitive advantage it can get. In order to sustain the image and quality of life in Milwaukee, the city must continue to attract capital from outside its borders. For this reason, I propose the Brew City Tax Credit.

Few cities outside of Munich have the brewing legacy that Milwaukee does; indeed, the city is known the country over as "Brew City." Though perhaps cities such as Portland and Seattle in fact have more breweries in them today, still they do not command the name, nor will they ever command the history. It is a title that many ad agencies would toss out in an effort to attract tourism and market a city, but alas, Milwaukee already has it.

But what is Milwaukee doing with it? Pabst, Schlitz, and Blatz still cling to their Milwaukee heritage, but their presence in the city is long gone. Despite being the namesake of the Milwaukee Brewers' stadium, Miller has long been owned from outside of Milwaukee, and its new merger with Coors could further distance it from the city. Aside from Lakefront Brewing and the Milwaukee Ale House, there are few brewing operations left in "Brew City."

To attract both tourism and jobs, Milwaukee should actively encourage the development of small scale brewing within the city. The tourism ads would write themselves; a simple "visit Brew City" would obviously reference Milwaukee, no need to try to brand the city as such. Brew city buses could take people around the city to various brewing sites. The Summerfest grounds or Veteran's Park could host a Brew City Beer Tasting.

As far as the logistics of the plan, I leave that to you, the politicians. Whether it be free media for the brewers, property tax relief for spaces running such operations (a piece I consider essential), assistance with condemnation of suitable properties, or all of the above, I am no position to make those decisions. I am in a position to say that capitalizing on Milwaukee's history and heritage in a way to attract jobs and tourist dollars is a "no-brainer."

Beer Tax

A California assemblyman is proposing an amendment to the state constitution to raise the beer tax 30 cents per can or bottle ($1.80 per sixer or $7.20 per case if you scholars did the math).

I guess I don't have a problem with taxing beer in order to help pay for some of the enforcement and health issues that beer brings, but the "per can" tax is a bit excessive, especially since it taxes beer and not wine or liquor. Let me propose an alternative method of taxation to suit Assemblyman Jim Beall's needs.

For argument's sake, let's assume that all beer is 5% alcohol, and all wine is 11% alcohol in order to hit the mean of both beverages.

Since Mr. Beall wants to get 30 cents per 12 oz can, what he really wants is 30 cents per 0.6oz of alcohol, which is the real cause of the aforementioned problems. Since a bottle of wine is usually 750ml or 25.37oz, and has an assumed alcohol content of 11%, that would mean that at Mr. Beall's level of taxation, every bottle of wine in the state of California would carry an additional $1.40 in taxes or $16.80 per 9-liter case.

According to the Wine Institute, in 2007 California sold 192.1 million 9-liter cases in the US alone. Being that California is about 12% of the US population I am allocating 23,052,000 of those cases to California, not taking into account that Californians probably drink more wine per capita than Texans.

That would mean that California wine's share of the tax would be $387,273,600, which does not include French, Italian, Chilean, Australian, or Argentinian wines.

So there you have it Mr. Beall: in order to make this tax more equitable, go ahead and propose a $387 million tax on a highly visible, wealthy, and beloved California industry.

Unless that is, are you beholden to this industry? I mean, I'm sure that some of your wealthy San Jose supporters own vineyards, or stakes in vineyards. I'm sure that you wouldn't want to piss them off! Also, I'm willing to bet that a large portion of your donors enjoy drinking wine, being that people with higher degrees and salaries seem to gravitate towards wine. You probably don't want to piss them off either!

Advocating for this bill could easily be seen by your competitors as a cheap shot to raise state capital by targeting the poorer "Joe Average" beer drinking population while letting the industry and your donors, who are much more able to pay mind you, off easy. You wouldn't want to do that.

My suggestion is this: stick to your Democratic guns and advocate the much more progressive $387 million tax on Napa Valley.

See how that works out for you.

Happy New Beer, etc.

On Monday, brewers around the country got together to commemorate the ending of Prohibition by drinking some beer. The event is no doubt historic, and deserves a celebration, but there was something in the CNN article covering the event that stuck in my proverbial craw.

The article featured the "anti" side of the celebration, a spokesman from the alcohol industry watchdog group, the Marin Institute, who stated, "[Beer] is the product of choice for underage drinking."

Beer is not the "product of choice" for underage drinking. Wine is not the "product of choice" for underage drinking. As a matter of fact, nothing is the product of choice for underage drinkers because they don't have choice.

Choice is the thing that we deny underage drinkers. The cannot walk into a liquor store, peruse the aisles and decide on beer versus whisky; they take what they can get.

To demonize beer in this context is to remove responsibility from parents, teachers, mentors, and law enforcement and lay it at the feet of a beverage and its makers who are in the business of selling it and are legally authorized to do so.

To demonize beer in this context is to remove responsibility from groups such as Marin Institute, certain religious groups, and politicians looking to score easy points for the social and cultural climate they create around alcohol and beer.

We could be creating media literate youth; we are not. We could make alcohol part of the greater fabric of our culture, and leave it to our social groups to regulate and educate; we are not.

Alcohol is a luxury product, that is, it's something that we don't necessarily need. It is not housing, infrastructure, fuel, water, or electricity. As such, we should be giving consumers more credit in policing themselves. If we want people to use alcohol responsibly, then we should be be given the responsibility of showing our youth that in context.

Can Beer Predict the Election?

In the ridiculous realms of the "blogosphere" and the "punditocracy" you'll often hear about the infamous "who would you rather have a beer with" test for presidential hopefuls. Does such a question actually hold sway? Can it accurately predict the outcome of an election?

Prior to the 2004 election, The Economist released a survey showing that Americans would rather have a beer (or coffee for you puritans and mormons) with George Bush than John Kerry by a margain of 56% to 44%.

Another poll, the Zogby/Williams Identity Poll, showed that 57% percent would prefer to quaff a beer with Bush, who ironically is a former alcoholic.

For this election, the National Beer Wholesalers Association is putting that very question to the masses on the internet, and last I checked, Barack Obama had a commanding lead over all other contenders with 43% of the vote. John McCain comes in a distant second, drawing only 20% of the beer drinking electorate.

At a recent campaign stop in Wisconsin, Mrs. Clinton stated that the country doesn't "need to have a beer with the next president. We had that president." But in a savvy move in the beer loving Badger State added "But you know I'd be happy to have a beer too. We can talk about how to solve our problems. (here)"

But if any state could be gauged by the beer poll, it's Wisconsin, a state where beer drinking is as interwoven into the state's identity as cheese and Green Bay Packers football. Wisconsin held its primary last night, drawing out over 1 million Wisconsinites in below zero temperatures, who in fact confirmed the results of the beer poll, with 58% of the Democratic vote going to Obama, 622,303 votes overall, nearly triple the votes for Republican front runner John McCain.

If the beer question remains as accurate as it was in 2004, and as accurate as it reflected the Wisconsin primary, then the American populace will soon be toasting to the first black President in the history of the United States.

Cheers to Obama for handily winning the beer-loving Badger State last night.

Beer, Barley, and Biofuels

Could the lucrative lure of ethanol turn barley farmers into corn farmers? Could ethanol be made from barley as well as sugar cane and corn? And most importantly, will this make my 6-pack cost more!?!?!?

An interesting read from Green Living: here.

Brewpub Expansion in WI

It indeed appears that the ceiling on brewpubs will be somewhat lifted to allow for 6 locations and 10,000 barrels produced annually.

More here.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article here.

Expansion for WI Brewpubs Legalized

Wisconsin’s legislature has finally agreed on a budget in what was an embarrassing and arduous session of negotiations. Wisconsin’s budget agreement is nearly four months past the deadline and the bickering in Madison has been rancorous and tiresome.

But enough politics, what does this have to do with beer? Well as part of the budget wrangling, rules on breweries were changed. Wisconsin had a law on the books dating back to the end of Prohibition that stated that any brewery making more than 4,000 barrels of beer per year cannot sell their own beer at more than two retail locations that they operate. For example the Great Dane Brewpub of Madison recently opened a third location on the city’s west side. Since it was the Dane’s third establishment that they owned, and they produce more then 4,000 barrels annually, they were prohibited from selling their own beer at the new location.

The law was intended to separate the channels of delivery to prevent a beer production/distribution/retail monopoly, but it unintentionally hindered small chains of brewpubs like the Great Dane and the Milwaukee Ale House.

Although the official details are not out yet, it’s being reported that the rules have changed to allow for the expansion of brewpubs like the Great Dane. No word yet on what the change is specifically, although it could be the “10,000 barrel, 6 location” compromise that was considered by the Senate Committee on Transportation, Tourism, and Insurance, which also apparently handles beer.

We’ll keep you in the loop as this story continues to brew.

Links of Interest:
AP Story
Great Dane
Milwaukee Ale House
http://www.gklaw.com/docs/in_the_news/117.pdf