Displaying The Movement posts.

Exciting times abound here at CBW.

Beer! Science! How can you not think this is awesome?

Are you going to Beerology this Saturday? We hope to see you there. I’m actually going to be part of the homebrewing area with the Niagara Association of Homebrewers, because of course I think that making beer is awesome and everyone should do it. It’s sold out (we tried to warn you), but for those of you with tickets CBW would love it if you’d pop over and say hi.

Also don’t forget our shindig at the Blue Monk on the 18th. It approaches quickly! The fine folks at Buffalo Rising have even written up a piece about it! In it, Ethan reveals our new slogan. Motto. War chant.

Embeer Buffalo!

I actually learned, while reading their article, that Ethan’s son was responsible for the phrase. I realized I hadn’t asked too many questions: someone had said ‘embeer Buffalo’ and I replied ‘hell yeah embeer Buffalo!’ And then Chris rolled his eyes at us, because it’s a bit silly. We get it.

However, it also perfectly encapsulates what CBW is, in my opinion. We’re trying to bring beer — great beer — to Buffalo, to help make it a place people name when they think of great beer cities, and we’re not going to take ourselves too seriously while we do it. We’re dedicated, passionate and not afraid to reference the Principia Discordia on our About page.

Ewige bierkraft!

All this rallying of troops comes at an opportune time, as well: today is the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Prohibition was a Big Deal for the American beer culture, and for Buffalo in particular. Before the Noble Experiment, there were 25 breweries in the city (down from a high of 38 in 1875). After Prohibition, there were five. This increased to 10 in 1940 before dwindling down again, finally resting at 0 in 1972 (these numbers are from Rushing the Growler, which is out of print but available at your local library).

There are currently two breweries in the city of Buffalo: Pearl St and Flying Bison. This increases to three if you count the Buffalo Brewpub, which is technically outside the city limits. These are not our competitors. These are our allies. If we want to increase Buffalo’s bierkultur — and we do — then it’s a marathon, and a three (or more) legged one at that, because we all have to do it together.

That includes you. See you all at Beerology.

The title of this post comes from a tweet by @NormskiBrewer, who was celebrating Misquote Ben Franklin Day. You see, dear readers, Ben Franklin was a cool guy. He did a lot politically, scientifically and socially. My dad told me he used to sunbathe nude. One thing he did not do, however, is ever say ‘Beer is proof god loves us and wants us to be happy.’ Here’s the actual quote, from a letter to Abbe Morellet:

Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.

So it was declared that every March 30th would be Misquote Ben Franklin Day. I do apologize for not joining in on the festivities, or even posting this yesterday so you could join in as well. Next year?

Now with more beechwood! /easyjoke

On to more srs bsns. The big hullabaloo this week was the news that Anheuser-Busch InBev was buying Goose Island. According to the press release, the two Goose Island brewpubs are not part of the deal, ‘but will continue in operation, offering consumers an opportunity to sample Goose Island’s award-winning specialty beers and food selections.’ I’m not entirely sure what that means.

I’m going to attempt to not travel too far down the rabbit hole. If people would like a more in depth post on the intricacies of brewery ownerships and mergers, please comment on this post and say so. Fair warning: you might get one eventually.

This is disappointing news to us because it’s yet another in a series of smaller breweries being bought by larger ones. The core of our mission and philosophy is that small, local breweries are a great thing, and so being completely bought out by the largest brewing company in the United States, which had merged with the second largest brewing company in the world, which itself had come from a merger between large brewing companies in Belgium and Brazil (the merger with AB making it the largest in the world in the process), well, that’s not small or local by quite a long shot.

Another way of looking at it is that as long as the beer remains good, well, who cares? That’s a valid point. Whether or not a beer’s provenance matters is a gray area begging to be discussed, and it has been in various places on the internet already. Again: if you’d like to here, let us know, and also again: we claim that it does. Goose Island is not going to become some zombie Locutus, or at least we doubt it is, but when you buy Matilda your money is now going to an international behemoth instead of a Chicago business, and that’s unfortunate.

Well, sort of: you see, 42% Goose Island was already owned by the Craft Brewers Alliance, a conglomeration also consisting of Redhook, Kona Brewing Co and Widmer Brothers, which was also partially owned by AB already. (A similar conglomerate is North American Breweries, which consists of neighboring breweries Genesee and Dundee as well as Pyramid, Magic Hat and MacTarnahan’s. Thus ends our journey down the rabbit hole)

Flying towards our party

Andy Crouch, presents the acquisition as a good thing: essentially, it shows that AB InBev is serious about craft beer and is eschewing their halfassed faux craft past in favor of a legitimate, quality product. It doubtlessly shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that the craft movement has made waves: the industry is making good money, and they want some.

Erik Lars Myers, who’s currently in the process of starting Mystery Brewing but writing on his personal blog Top Fermented, meanwhile, has a sobering thesis: that craft brewers aren’t competing against the big boys, they’re competing against each other. That Community Beer Works has more to fear from Sierra Nevada and even Southern Tier than Labatt’s.

In most bars – and I’m not talking about the swanky beer bars that know their shit inside and out, but just your average bar – if there’s a craft tap, 9 times out of 10 it’s going to be by one of those super-regional breweries. And those super-regionals? They make good beer. Some of them make great, wonderful, outstanding, amazing beer. What’s more? It’s well-known, sought-after beer that consumers aren’t just buying because it’s there. They’re looking for it. They want it and ask for it.

Now, I reject this, at least partially, because our goal is not to muscle in on Flying Bison’s market, or Southern Tier’s, or anyone else’s: our goal is to take the person drinking Labatt’s and show them that hey, yeah, it might cost a bit more, but you’re paying for quality, craftsmanship and local jobs. That’s not to say we’re going to be catering to the lowest common denominator or releasing a light American pilsner (April Fool’s Day isn’t until tomorrow). Our thesis is that people who drink macro lager exclusively also love locally produced craft beer: they just might not know it yet.

One final quote, from Half Acre, another Chicago brewery:

From where I sit, this industry is pretty great. Compared to all the truly horrible crap that happens in business — the really terrible, sweat shop, working children to the bone, chemical rampant, human atrocity kind of crap — this is pretty good.

I didn’t say I was done link dumping you to oblivion yet, though: one last juicy rumor from Anthony ‘So do you guys in Buffalo have pig roasts all the time‘ Bourdain*, who tweeted that the reason that Dogfish Head’s Discovery channel reality show Brewmasters was canceled because ‘big beer threatened to pull ads.’

Rousing rabbles

This, predictably, caused a bit of a stir.

beernews.org has an extensive list of updates as people comment (or don’t), and a screenshot of the original tweets. It seemed legit, as No Reservations uses the same production team as the ill fated DFH show. The brewery’s comments amount to ‘no comment,’ with what I’m interpreting as a wink and a nod: essentially, ‘we can’t tell you yes but we’re sure as hell not denying it.’ Discovery blames the cancellation on poor audience reception, which seems like a fairly predictable response.

Next week: less drama, hopefully more CBW excitement.

* I know I sure as hell don’t. I don’t know what those crazy South Buffalo people do with their weekends.

Earlier this week I got into some nice discussions with people on Twitter. I know that many people don’t like the 140 character service and I get that, but I like it quite a lot for reasons beyond the scope of this blog. The topic in question was Sam Adams’ announcement of a ‘champagne-like’ beer.

I thought there already WAS a champagne of beers!

There are a few quotes in there that resonate with me:

“Beer has all the same dignity and nobility that wine has, it just hasn’t been accorded the same level of respect — frankly because brewers haven’t treated it respectfully,” [Sam Adams founder Jim Koch] said in an interview. “Beer has been marketed with a lot of sophomoric humor and scantily clad women.”

Also:

“I’m basically just approaching this assuming that men and women both like things that taste good,” he said.

Amen to both of those. Though, good ol’ Jim and I disagree on a few points:

Firstly, I think that $20 for a 750mL is too much. Others disagree, including CBW’s own brewer Rudy. That’s fine; I understand that prices have on the whole been rising, and also that there are a number of high quality beers for a similar price that you can buy. I don’t have the ‘Sam Adams is big and sucks because of it’ bias that some do, but I would also prefer to buy a beer from The Bruery over Sam Adam’s any day. So maybe I am prejudice, a bit. Keep in mind that these are just the opinions of one man and not CBW as a whole.

As for changing or improving the image of beer, especially when compared to wine: on that I wholeheartedly agree. I’ve had a stick up my butt for some time now about the generally accepted notions that wine is high class and beer is blue collar. There’s nothing wrong with the working class, of course, but I would posit that there’s nothing wine can do that beer can’t. A specific example of this was when a good friend of mine told me that she thought that beer was for summer, wine for winter.

Porters? Stouts? Winter warmers? (Alternately, pinot grigio, chardonnay, soave)

Okay, I'm coming around to his position

I think the central issue here is that the wine movement has been going for some time more than the beer movement has, and so the ‘wine is a complex beverage to be enjoyed’ message has sunk into our collective consciousness already. Beer has only joined the fray relatively recently and so its time will come. And besides, there are some, like Dumbarton’s Beer, that don’t see a problem at all: ‘Beer doesn’t need to be like wine, champagne, or anything else.’ Right! Beer is not beer, or gin, or milk: it’s beer.

What gets me riled up, though, is the inevitable user comment on a post on a general interest site about beer: ‘beer is cheap stuff to get drunk on.’ It can be, sure. But — and I know I’m preaching to the choir here so I’ll try to be brief — it can also be so different from that as to be nearly a different entity altogether. It’s why I didn’t understand the outrage over Brewdog’s 18.2% Tokyo*: if you’re truly drinking to get hammered, are you going to spend £10 on a bottle of beer, or are you going to take a few shots of vodka? (or are you going to buy a can or two of goddamned Four Loko?)

Right, then. Our last stop on this odd exercise in stream of consciousness — or is it a series of commentaries on related topics? Choose depending on how full of crap you think I am — is the beer industry’s portrayal of women. This was brought about by a post at Zythophile about the UK chief executive of Molson Coors saying the industry needs to attract more women, and then also another post at Kegworks in response to their planned ‘beer for women’ campaign.

This has brought us around full circle, because the quotes from Jim Koch at the start of the post sum things up nicely: maybe, if you want more women to buy your product, you shouldn’t have your marketing be comprised mainly of that demographic in very little clothing? Bah. And yes, at the end of the day, I think that all things will be solved by two steps:

1. Offer a quality product
2. Keep doing #1, and eventually people will come around

Stan Hieronymus, who you really should be reading, wonders what a nanobrewery really means: Portland is hosting a nanobrewery festival, and some of the participants have 7-10 barrel systems.

The craziest stuff comes up on Google Image Search. This was for 'nanobrewery' (also, anybody want a peanut?)

‘Nanobrewery’ can be seen as somewhat trendy and gimmicky (especially when you do the math vs the max amount of a microbrewery). Despite that, we at CBW do consider ourselves nano, in that we’re much, much smaller than your average brewery. Our system is going to be one barrel. One. That’s only about six times as much as I make per batch on the homebrew scale. (some people wonder how you make a living off of that small a production, and the answer is that we won’t; no one is quitting their day job until there’s been some expansion) I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to group us in with Stone, Dogfish Head, et al as just ‘craft’ beer. But hey, we’re interested in your opinions.

Then of course when it rains it pours, as the brothers Woodcock have announced plans to build a $1.3 million brewery in Wilson. That’s about all there is to know now, but we look forward to more news as it develops.

Anything we missed? Drinking anything exciting this weekend? I’ve been enjoying the saison I recently kegged, being on a serious Belgian kick (and carefully watching The Blue Monk’s Facebook page…)

I Poop On Bass Pro: Look At Meeeeeee!

This blazing, humid, and generally oppressive week,  we’ve attended our first couple of neighborhood organization or block club meetings, partly in pursuit of a variance to use the location in which we’d very much like to establish ourselves.  I qualify with “partly” only because to be certain, even if we could use this space free-and-clear, we’d still want to get to know our neighbors and seek their blessing if not their, em, permission.  In any case, both meetings were very interesting and positive affairs.

"Next on the agenda: Beer. All in favor say 'Aye'"

In some respects it was pretty familiar to me, in that I have been marginally involved in the neighborhood group my family’s own house is in, just as my mom was in that house and organization before me.  So for that, I was acquainted with the types of people and personalities that tend to get involved in these great  organizations; the kinds of issues that are typically on the agenda (crime and abandoned houses, anyone?); the presence of a real(!) councilman  (viz. Mr. David Rivera, with whom we’ve previously met); the meeting location in a local community center and/or church… I was perfectly comfortable in the culture of the proceedings.

And yet, it was a bit odd to be not only not at my own neighborhood group, but also in the position of being an agenda item and wondering how people would take the concept.  I felt a bit–just a bit, mind you–like Daniel Plainview, talking to the landholders in Little Boston.  Were we not basically walking in saying: “Hey! We wanna open a small brewery around the corner from you, you know, make some beer and all… oh, and yeah, we’re also going to help make the place a little better, too, so, em… what do you think of that?”

"There Will Be Beer"

The reply we heard the most?  ”Did you bring samples?”*  I’d go with ‘that’s not bad’ on that one, right?  Well, other than having to affirm the negative on it, yeah.  I think, especially not having gallons of homebrew to (legally: homebrew!!!) share, it was helpful that we were otherwise very prepared.  We did a lot of preliminary research, devoured other’s blogs and experiences.  We’ve talked extensively with the city Zoning Board of Appeals, with the councilman’s office,  with others in City Hall and beyond.

Closer to the ground, we’ve  made outreach to grassroots organizations in the area with more to come, and we have ‘approaching area businesses‘ next on our to-do list.  We have a petition that’s been seen to by, you know, one of those fancy lawyer types! We’ve reached out to immediate neighbors already as well, and anticipated stakeholder’s concerns with respect to smell, waste, vermin, traffic, security, and the unsurprising “it’s not a bar, it’s a brewery” question, of course, the trickiest one.  I mean yeah: on-site growler sales, tasting room?  check… Events?  um, check… but no: music and drunken revelry at 3:00 am?  Not at all, ma’am.  And maybe we can help you next year to get volunteers for your block party… and that vacant lot?  You mean our future brewer’s garden and gathering space?  And would you like some spent grain for your garden mulch pile or urban-chicken feed?  In these and other ways, we will be part of your-our-community.  I think our sincerity and capability in this endeavor were well-estimated.

A steaming pile of future mulch or chicken feed!

All of this in pursuit of a mission, to open a brewery like Buffalo has not seen since–no: well before–prohibition, when it comes to volume and to process;  from the time of the first wave of breweries in the 1860s and 1870′s, at the cusp of massive  industrialization.  A brewery that is small, a process that is human-labor intensive and in touch with the myst’ree of brewing.  But the modern twist is the idea–still somewhat atavistic–of being this hyperlocal business committed to, rooted in, the people it serves.  A business that is truly a part of the fabric of its community.  Attending the block club meetings has only been a first step, and it has been inspiring.  It’s great fun to contemplate all the ways in which we are eager to be a constructive, beer-making force in our city generally and our neighborhood specifically.

And then, perhaps, neighborhoods?  Could we extend the model to other benighted areas?  Beer as social activism?  Perhaps; we’ll see.

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* Also: “How many jobs will you be making?”  Is that not a sign of the times?