Look! Photos of the space!We'll be updating this page (or adding pages of photos) as we go so you may all share in the glory of construction and build-out.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Smell the dust... smell it!
Look! Photos of the space!We'll be updating this page (or adding pages of photos) as we go so you may all share in the glory of construction and build-out.
Monday, June 30, 2008
One less vacant spot in Chicago
If you were to judge by our blog alone, it would seem that we've been lounging around, popping bon bons over the past weeks.
Probably the biggest accomplishment has been to secure our brewery's location. We looked at a lot of places. I'm guessing around 20-25. All in the city, and all with some promise. This was the first time we'd researched commercial space, so we found ourselves once again ferociously schooled in the Ways of the World. Any kind of manufacturing has physical logistics. When it comes to a brewery, most of those logistics have to do with the need to use gratuitous amounts of water. In the brew vessels, around the brew vessels, under the brew vessels. This requirement definitely narrowed our choices conveniently.
Anyway, if you want to know more about what finding a space for a brewery is like, buy us a beer sometime and we'll regale you with stories. For now, let it be known that the new home of Metropolitan Brewing is: 5121 N Ravenswood, Chicago. Folks, this was exactly the location we wanted! We lived in the Ravenswood neighborhood for 4 years. Had we not been booted by the condoization of our apartment building, we'd still be there.
Of course, we love you all dearly but don't come to visit just yet. The space was an auto-body shop for the last 15 years and the phrase "we need to clean this place up" has taken on a whole new scope. Sandblasters have stripped the rafters down to the wood and the walls down to the brick. In dramatic and ironic contrast, the floor is covered with 6 inches of oily, paint-soaked sand. Next, we patch and customize the cement floor. See again, there's the whole water aspect coming into play. The brewhouse needs to sit on a floor that slopes and drains to a trench. Personally, I'm hoping to get a chance to try using a jackhammer.
Now that we have our location, the floodgates have been rent asunder. Now we start dealing with our licensing, the TTB, build-out, etc. Our equipment broker told me that he's never delivered a brewhouse to a complete space, just sitting there ready for the equipment to be screwed down. I told him that we would be the first. I went further to predict that we'd be reclined in lawn chairs in the dock doorway sipping coffee on the morning of our delivery. I can already smell that plate of crow he'll be fixing for me.
Probably the biggest accomplishment has been to secure our brewery's location. We looked at a lot of places. I'm guessing around 20-25. All in the city, and all with some promise. This was the first time we'd researched commercial space, so we found ourselves once again ferociously schooled in the Ways of the World. Any kind of manufacturing has physical logistics. When it comes to a brewery, most of those logistics have to do with the need to use gratuitous amounts of water. In the brew vessels, around the brew vessels, under the brew vessels. This requirement definitely narrowed our choices conveniently.
Anyway, if you want to know more about what finding a space for a brewery is like, buy us a beer sometime and we'll regale you with stories. For now, let it be known that the new home of Metropolitan Brewing is: 5121 N Ravenswood, Chicago. Folks, this was exactly the location we wanted! We lived in the Ravenswood neighborhood for 4 years. Had we not been booted by the condoization of our apartment building, we'd still be there.
Of course, we love you all dearly but don't come to visit just yet. The space was an auto-body shop for the last 15 years and the phrase "we need to clean this place up" has taken on a whole new scope. Sandblasters have stripped the rafters down to the wood and the walls down to the brick. In dramatic and ironic contrast, the floor is covered with 6 inches of oily, paint-soaked sand. Next, we patch and customize the cement floor. See again, there's the whole water aspect coming into play. The brewhouse needs to sit on a floor that slopes and drains to a trench. Personally, I'm hoping to get a chance to try using a jackhammer.
Now that we have our location, the floodgates have been rent asunder. Now we start dealing with our licensing, the TTB, build-out, etc. Our equipment broker told me that he's never delivered a brewhouse to a complete space, just sitting there ready for the equipment to be screwed down. I told him that we would be the first. I went further to predict that we'd be reclined in lawn chairs in the dock doorway sipping coffee on the morning of our delivery. I can already smell that plate of crow he'll be fixing for me.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Like having two grandpas over for dinner.
Top-notch friends and total beer geeks Russ and Leah presented us with a bottle of Schlitz at the Beerfly Alleyfight held on May 17th. Whoo! Apparently, the new-old Schlitz can be found at The House of Glunz Fine Wine & Spirits, 1206 N Wells in Chicago.During a recent double-brew day, we decided to not only crack into the new-old Schlitz, but to also do a little side-by-side research ala Schlitz' step-parent, Pabst.
First, we tried them both straight from the bottle. The Schlitz had a much smoother malt flavor. The hop flavor was dry and citrusy. The PBR had it's usual semi-sweet corn flavor and finished tangy compared to the Schlitz.
Second, we tried them both using a beer-tasting glass. The Schlitz head was darker, and had a slightly darker color overall. The Schlitz also had more head retention. Braving the PBR from an actual glass rendered a surprisingly pleasant mild noble hop aroma. Cool!
Overall, the Schlitz had more malt flavor and hop aroma. We agreed that the new-old Schlitz is decent beer. Sadly, it was better than my beloved PBR. I'll be okay, though. I've already been down this road with Leinenkugel's.
Remember when you started sneaking slugs from your dad's beer can when he left the porch to go out and deal with the grill? That's what the new-old Schlitz tastes like.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
What's old is new-old... again.
Pabst has decided to revive a more than 30-year old formula of Schlitz. The new-old product is packaged in bottles and promoted with a heavily nostalgic, "those were the good old days" message to Baby Boomers. (Yeah, we're going to be seeing a lot of this over the next 20 or so years, so get used to it.) Some of the adverts attempt to appeal to the Boomers at the expense of the Millennials, the electronic age, and contemporary urban life.
This is a little different then the revival of PBR. I'm not sure about the formula, but whatever version of Pabst is in those classic red/white/blue cans, tall boys, and bottles appeals nicely to the Millennials (chronologically we have: Baby Boomers, born approx 1946 to 1964 - Generation X, born approx 1964 to 1980 - Millennials, born approx 1980 to 2004). I freely admit that I drink PBR. I mean, not all the time, but I do like it when times are tight and the beer fund is running low.
Anyway, will this attempt at retro appeal work? I'm dubious of any marketing that is pointedly negative toward one demographic as a means of accessing a different one. The Millennials are the kids of the younger Boomers, after all. Scoffing at the fact that their kids instant message and know what "metrosexual" means may not motivate them to choose Schlitz. On the flip side, this could possibly be the reason PBR appeals to the 20-something set. It's the beer their mom and dad drank. Well, that and it's cheap.
We've been shopping for a 6er of the new-old Schlitz but have yet to come across any in Chicago. If and when we do, we'll do a taste test and report about it here.
Either way, Pabst should have gotten a Millennial to do the Schlitz website. The graphics don't work properly.
This is a little different then the revival of PBR. I'm not sure about the formula, but whatever version of Pabst is in those classic red/white/blue cans, tall boys, and bottles appeals nicely to the Millennials (chronologically we have: Baby Boomers, born approx 1946 to 1964 - Generation X, born approx 1964 to 1980 - Millennials, born approx 1980 to 2004). I freely admit that I drink PBR. I mean, not all the time, but I do like it when times are tight and the beer fund is running low.
Anyway, will this attempt at retro appeal work? I'm dubious of any marketing that is pointedly negative toward one demographic as a means of accessing a different one. The Millennials are the kids of the younger Boomers, after all. Scoffing at the fact that their kids instant message and know what "metrosexual" means may not motivate them to choose Schlitz. On the flip side, this could possibly be the reason PBR appeals to the 20-something set. It's the beer their mom and dad drank. Well, that and it's cheap.
We've been shopping for a 6er of the new-old Schlitz but have yet to come across any in Chicago. If and when we do, we'll do a taste test and report about it here.
Either way, Pabst should have gotten a Millennial to do the Schlitz website. The graphics don't work properly.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Hobo Dinner & Goose Island IPA
Fun with Photoshop filters! I liked this one because the food looks like those silly painted styrofoam chunks they used as "alien" food on Star Trek: TOS.Over the past few years, we've gone camping with our lovely friends, The Beaumonts, every Spring and Fall. This Spring, we are too busy opening a brewery to go camping. Bummer, but... yay! Brewery!
Anyway, in honor of the Great Camping Trip Loss of 2008, we decided to cook our favorite camping dinner at home tonight. We paired it with one of our favorite camping beers, natch.
Goose Island India Pale Ale
Chicago, IL
5.9% ABV, 58 IBUs
-- paired with --
Hobo Dinner @ Home
For reference, the way you make hobo dinners whilst camping:
lay flat a piece of foil, about 18"x18" and then layer...
little olive oil or a pat or 2 of butter
potatoes cut into 1" chunks
Morningstar Farms® Meal Starters™ Grillers® Recipe Crumbles™
chopped onions
chopped garlic
spices, pretty much whatever you want
chopped zucchini
chopped red and green bell peppers
any other chopped veggies, one of the many joys of camping is a comfortable lack of rules
shredded cheese of any kind
Then, fold the whole thing into a pocket and toss'er onto the grate over the campfire. The edge of the fire ring, inside the stones, is also a great place to slow-cook your hobo dinner. No offense to hobos, by the way.
Okay, so here's how we made hobo dinners at home. Preheat the oven to 350°. Spray olive oil to coat the bottom of a baking dish. Then, layer...
potatoes, chopped into 1" chunks
cold Morningstar Farms® Meal Starters™ Chik'n Strips (we had some left over, hanging out in the fridge)
4 strips of Morning Star Farms® Veggie Bacon Strips (we fondly refer to it as "facon")
Morningstar Farms® Meal Starters™ Grillers® Recipe Crumbles™ (spray just a little more olive oil onto the recipe crumbles)
chopped onions
diced roasted garlic (my clever scheme for roasting garlic is below)
shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
salt & pepper
cumin
ancho chili powder, or any other kind of chili powder
oregano
Tabasco Chipotle Pepper Sauce
chopped Portobello mushrooms
chopped zucchini
chopped red & green bell peppers
shredded Parmesan cheese
Cover the baking dish and bake for about 40 minutes.
To roast garlic: preheat a toaster oven to 400°. Slice the tops off of a complete head of garlic, but try not to pull the cloves apart. Spray the tops with a little olive oil. Wrap the head in foil, keeping in mind that you'll check its progress by peeking at the tops of the cloves. Bake them in the toaster oven for about 50 minutes. Once the tops of the cloves are browned, you're in business.
Onto the feasting and drinking.
Hop aroma abounds in the IPA. The head is just slightly off-white, thick, and tasty. You can tell right from the start that there is going to be lacing on the glass. Plenty of flowery hop flavor, of course. The mouthfeel is smooth and light. A malty sweetness greets you first, but then drops off. Randy Mosher wrote in his article "What's On Your Menu?: Dazzle Them with Beer & Food Pairings," (The New Brewer, Vol. 25 No. 1) that hop bitterness emphasizes spiciness. The Dugg's damn-near-professional spicing skills were requested for this particular dish. He fiendishly leaned over the baking dish for quite some time, shaking this jar, taking pinches from that jar, and blopping copious amounts of Tabasco sauce to and fro. Call it a premonition, but I think our palates are about to be spanked.
Indeed, the combination of the beer and food allows the spices to linger in the mouth for a long, long time. That's right, quench the spice heat with nice cold beer. Oh boy. Good thing we aren't going anywhere tonight.
The multitude of flavors in the dish are rinsed clear with the beer. Spices are tasted throughout the entire experience, but the veggie flavors are fresh and clean every time after sipping the beer.
Head-bobbing to a new-found band, Fu Manchu, we lapsed into a silence and enjoyed our dinner. The Dugg uttered the first word after many long minutes: "more."
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
“They sell Bud — we sell Weed.”
... an excellent point by brewer Vaune Dillmann of Mt. Shasta Brewing Company, home of Weed Ales and Lagers. Their slogan, "Try Legal Weed" is on the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau's no-fly list. Dillmann faces sanctions or fines for using it on his bottle caps. The bottle caps also sport the slogan "A friend in Weed is a friend indeed."
Weed, CA was founded by Abner Weed when he started a lumber mill there in 1897. They were probably having fun with the name from day one... "I trust that fellow, after all, he did introduce me to Weed." A traveler can stumble up to the city's signpost, pose for a snapshot while making the "I'm pinching a joint" symbol with their fingers, and then purchase a “High on Weed, CA” t-shirt at a nearby gas station. Mt. Shasta Brewing Company has a beer named "Shastafarian Porter."
No doubt, the pot jokes abound in a city named Weed. A Californian city named Weed.
Now, as people making nice with the local TTB, we wouldn't dare question their judgment. However, we do submit that the slogans are funny. And they're on products made exclusively for adults. We don't even need to think of the children, because you know, they aren't supposed to be drinking beer anyway.
Couldn't the TTB just aim high? Give us the benefit of the doubt; that we adult consumers know how to pass the doob jokes without coughing? We are stone serious, roll this one up and forget about it. Wait... what were we talking about?
Thanks to The Full Pint Dot Com for a repost of the article by Ryan Sabalow.
Weed, CA was founded by Abner Weed when he started a lumber mill there in 1897. They were probably having fun with the name from day one... "I trust that fellow, after all, he did introduce me to Weed." A traveler can stumble up to the city's signpost, pose for a snapshot while making the "I'm pinching a joint" symbol with their fingers, and then purchase a “High on Weed, CA” t-shirt at a nearby gas station. Mt. Shasta Brewing Company has a beer named "Shastafarian Porter."
No doubt, the pot jokes abound in a city named Weed. A Californian city named Weed.
Now, as people making nice with the local TTB, we wouldn't dare question their judgment. However, we do submit that the slogans are funny. And they're on products made exclusively for adults. We don't even need to think of the children, because you know, they aren't supposed to be drinking beer anyway.
Couldn't the TTB just aim high? Give us the benefit of the doubt; that we adult consumers know how to pass the doob jokes without coughing? We are stone serious, roll this one up and forget about it. Wait... what were we talking about?
Thanks to The Full Pint Dot Com for a repost of the article by Ryan Sabalow.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Honk if you're sad
Early warning rumblings gave way to the sad truth this week: Goose Island will be closing it's pub at North/Clybourn here in Chicago.
Click here to read the Chicago Trib article.
Now, I've always been bummed about the fact that the place closes down so early on Friday and Saturday nights. 11:oo pm hits and we always manage to find ourselves surrounded by chairs propped on top of the tables and mop-wielding staff who are clearly eager to split. But that isn't to say that GI-North/Clybourn isn't one of our favorite places to be.
The beer is excellent. Say whatever you want about the relationship with Widmer, the beer in the glass is what counts. We've been proud to hold countless business meetings at GI-North/Clybourn because the beer is so reliably tasty.
The Siebel Institute of Technology has called GI-North/Clybourn its classroom home since 2003. The Dugg earned his diploma in Brewing Technology at this pub. The Illinois Craft Brewers Guild has held meetings and festivals here. When I think about it, we've spent a lot of time at this place. No wonder I'm so thirsty right now.
Goose Island is one of the very few places in that shopping district that is truly Chicago. Depending on your direction, you walk past Best Buy; Bed, Bath & Beyond; Trader Joe's; Whole Foods; CVS; Crate & Barrel; The Gap; Circuit City; and Patagonia to get to the pub. If it weren't for Sam's Wines & Spirits, we would probably never step foot in that area again.
I will run in circles sobbing like a child if a Chili's moves in.
Click here to read the Chicago Trib article.
Now, I've always been bummed about the fact that the place closes down so early on Friday and Saturday nights. 11:oo pm hits and we always manage to find ourselves surrounded by chairs propped on top of the tables and mop-wielding staff who are clearly eager to split. But that isn't to say that GI-North/Clybourn isn't one of our favorite places to be.
The beer is excellent. Say whatever you want about the relationship with Widmer, the beer in the glass is what counts. We've been proud to hold countless business meetings at GI-North/Clybourn because the beer is so reliably tasty.
The Siebel Institute of Technology has called GI-North/Clybourn its classroom home since 2003. The Dugg earned his diploma in Brewing Technology at this pub. The Illinois Craft Brewers Guild has held meetings and festivals here. When I think about it, we've spent a lot of time at this place. No wonder I'm so thirsty right now.
Goose Island is one of the very few places in that shopping district that is truly Chicago. Depending on your direction, you walk past Best Buy; Bed, Bath & Beyond; Trader Joe's; Whole Foods; CVS; Crate & Barrel; The Gap; Circuit City; and Patagonia to get to the pub. If it weren't for Sam's Wines & Spirits, we would probably never step foot in that area again.
I will run in circles sobbing like a child if a Chili's moves in.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Hops are in da Haus!
Starting a brewery during a hops crisis requires us to keep our proverbial ears to the ground (eyes to the interwebs) and pounce on opportunities like a cat on nip. So, when we heard about some available hops, the very hops The Dugg desires, we made one of our very first Huge Purchases. People paying attention know that we're still searching for Metro's home, so we had the hops shipped to our apartment. All 300 lbs of them.We've never seen the UPS guy so pissed.
At our Top Secret Metro Hidden Headquarters, our bounty is safely stored. The protective measures taken are too numerous and Top Secret to list here.
Plenty of guile
Our friends at the Drinking and Writing Brewery took some time out to talk with us at this year's Rockfest, held at Rock Bottom - Chicago and hosted by head brewer Pete Crowley. Behold! Our very first official interview with the media. Well, very casual media. Guerrilla media. Media that drinks and swears.
Click here to hear the interview portion of the radio show. About 10 minutes long.
Click here to hear the entire radio show from April, 2008. Enjoy the frenetic, hilarious madness that Neofuturists channel with uncanny ease.
Click here to hear the interview portion of the radio show. About 10 minutes long.
Click here to hear the entire radio show from April, 2008. Enjoy the frenetic, hilarious madness that Neofuturists channel with uncanny ease.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Brewer's Etiquette
I read somewhere that "brewers should always be seen drinking a beer, but never be seen drunk."
Heh. Whoops.
Drinking from the Firehose
Our "pre-production" phase officially began April 1st. This refers to the 6-month period during which we are allowed to spend our time pulling together all of the various aspects of starting a brewery, but aren't expected to actually sell any beer. We both officially work full-time for Metro now. Of course, I've been doing so since October 1st and Doug since March 21st. The difference is that now, we get paid for it.
I've never needed a nap so badly in my life.
MetroLocation
Every day begins early. We typically schedule appointments beginning at 8 or 9am with one of our six Realtors to drive all over Chicagotarnation looking at possible spaces. I'm not going to say that we've seen it all, because that would be exaggerating. But we have seen a space that was too lovely, oh so perfect and out of our budget; a warehouse space with "place rodent trap here" drawn in marker on the wall; a barn-like space that would have worked nicely but for the sagging and chipping roof; and a space that might work once the dollar-store merchandise has been liquidated. How do you put stuff that costs $1 on sale?
MetroBigGear
Last week, we took a field trip up to The Great Dane at Hilldale in Madison, WI. The brewhouse (the tanks in which you brew beer) at this location is the prototype of the system we intend to buy. The brewer was incredibly hospitable, allowing us to brew a batch of his Oktoberfest with him from start to finish. The entire 15 bbl system made us feel like really little kids in a normal-sized toy store. The hoses were big...
The mash rake in the mash tun was big...
And the amount of spent grain needing to be raked out of the mash tun was big...
And apparently, we need to brush up on our Cantonese in order to use the equipment.
Metroducation
We've been asked to give a talk at the Siebel Institute of Technology (this is the school where The Dugg earned his diploma in Brewing Technology) here in Chicago next week during a 3-day seminar named "Start Your Own Brewery Course." I guess we've actually gone through many of the paces necessary to open a brewery, and I suppose we do have some wisdom to pass along. But we don't feel like experts and we desperately hope that no one sitting in the course holds us to such standards. However, we are looking forward to sharing some of our experiences and even took some time to pull together a snazzy PowerPoint presentation in order to look more official-like. Our mantra: learn from your mistakes. Hell, learn from others' mistakes too, if you can help it.
Metrofficials
The past few weeks have also involved numerous meetings with our accountants, lawyer, insurance agent, and banker. Oh my! Now, each person involved is lovely and has helped us tremendously, but like the back of a thong on a 20-something, our inexperience is showing to the embarrassment of everyone involved. We were soundly scolded for mixing up our personal and business financials. A situation that is now remedied... but we do often "buy gifts" for Metro with our own money. Sorry, we love our kid and can't help but spoil it.
And we're waiting with bated breath for the appointment wherein a nurse (PortaMedic... hee!) comes to our home to take urine and blood samples. These, along with an interview that grills us for our health information will finally be distilled into a number for each of us. This number will be stamped on the life insurance policy - and our checkbook annually - required by our bank in order to obtain our bank loan.
A high point of our meetings with professionals involve our graphic designer. He is probably one of the strongest members of our team. He's a genius of graphic design, brewing, and marketing and we're relieved he saw fit to help us along our way. This week, he showed us a nearly-final version of our first beer label. Behold...
We're happy to be nursing our newborn through the first few months of life. But they say new parents are often surprised by the amount of work and attention their larvae-like offspring requires. We're no different in this respect. Fortunately, if we screw up too badly, no one dies.
And to think... we haven't even begun to apply for our licenses yet...
I've never needed a nap so badly in my life.
MetroLocation
Every day begins early. We typically schedule appointments beginning at 8 or 9am with one of our six Realtors to drive all over Chicagotarnation looking at possible spaces. I'm not going to say that we've seen it all, because that would be exaggerating. But we have seen a space that was too lovely, oh so perfect and out of our budget; a warehouse space with "place rodent trap here" drawn in marker on the wall; a barn-like space that would have worked nicely but for the sagging and chipping roof; and a space that might work once the dollar-store merchandise has been liquidated. How do you put stuff that costs $1 on sale?
MetroBigGear
Last week, we took a field trip up to The Great Dane at Hilldale in Madison, WI. The brewhouse (the tanks in which you brew beer) at this location is the prototype of the system we intend to buy. The brewer was incredibly hospitable, allowing us to brew a batch of his Oktoberfest with him from start to finish. The entire 15 bbl system made us feel like really little kids in a normal-sized toy store. The hoses were big...
The mash rake in the mash tun was big...
And the amount of spent grain needing to be raked out of the mash tun was big...
And apparently, we need to brush up on our Cantonese in order to use the equipment.
Metroducation
We've been asked to give a talk at the Siebel Institute of Technology (this is the school where The Dugg earned his diploma in Brewing Technology) here in Chicago next week during a 3-day seminar named "Start Your Own Brewery Course." I guess we've actually gone through many of the paces necessary to open a brewery, and I suppose we do have some wisdom to pass along. But we don't feel like experts and we desperately hope that no one sitting in the course holds us to such standards. However, we are looking forward to sharing some of our experiences and even took some time to pull together a snazzy PowerPoint presentation in order to look more official-like. Our mantra: learn from your mistakes. Hell, learn from others' mistakes too, if you can help it.
Metrofficials
The past few weeks have also involved numerous meetings with our accountants, lawyer, insurance agent, and banker. Oh my! Now, each person involved is lovely and has helped us tremendously, but like the back of a thong on a 20-something, our inexperience is showing to the embarrassment of everyone involved. We were soundly scolded for mixing up our personal and business financials. A situation that is now remedied... but we do often "buy gifts" for Metro with our own money. Sorry, we love our kid and can't help but spoil it.
And we're waiting with bated breath for the appointment wherein a nurse (PortaMedic... hee!) comes to our home to take urine and blood samples. These, along with an interview that grills us for our health information will finally be distilled into a number for each of us. This number will be stamped on the life insurance policy - and our checkbook annually - required by our bank in order to obtain our bank loan.
A high point of our meetings with professionals involve our graphic designer. He is probably one of the strongest members of our team. He's a genius of graphic design, brewing, and marketing and we're relieved he saw fit to help us along our way. This week, he showed us a nearly-final version of our first beer label. Behold...
We're happy to be nursing our newborn through the first few months of life. But they say new parents are often surprised by the amount of work and attention their larvae-like offspring requires. We're no different in this respect. Fortunately, if we screw up too badly, no one dies.
And to think... we haven't even begun to apply for our licenses yet...
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
yeast's bitch
Humans did not discover yeast and harness it to do our bidding. It's the other way around.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Stick your e-bumper
For Facebook fun, I created some Metro jpg bumper stickers. Please feel free to copy and paste these on any website you like. Take! Take!
Testify!!
Passion. Opinions. Enthusiasm. The guts to get up and make a speech after having a couple of pints. These are just a few of the characteristics that make craft beer people so damn great. Behold, Rick Reed of the Cricket Hill Brewery in Fairfield, NJ.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Aren't we free to be you and me?
Anyone who's had more than small-talk conversation with me knows that I get touchy when women and men are herded into different camps. "The only difference between women and men is that one can gestate offspring inside the body and one can't," is my usual response. Drawing lines other that that worries me. Such delineations imply limitations that I find dangerous and sad.
As a business woman in the craft beer industry, I know that women are as active on a professional level as men. See Teri Fahrendorf, Julia Herz (Craft Beer Program Director for the Brewers Association) Deb Carey, and many others (scroll to the bottom for a list of female pro brewers). To say that only men are into craft beer is as ridiculous as saying that only men are into sushi.
But I can't argue with the data or my own experience. Festivals and events are largely populated by men. The headlining article of the January/February 2008 New Brewer magazine focuses on marketing brewpub craft beer to women. And while we're active in professional craft brewing, women don't tip the scales statistically in the industry. Baffled, Doug and I keep our eyes and ears open for clues as to reasons behind the gender divide in craft beer.
Recently, Doug pointed me to brewvana, an excellent beer blog written by a guy named J. Wilson. Wilson was also curious about the perceived difference between men and women where craft beer is concerned. Being a doer rather than a chin-scratcher, he gathered 6 women of varying ages for a beer tasting. He thoughtfully sampled 6 beers with different flavor profiles and got the participants talking about what they liked and disliked about each beer. You can read his M.O. and results here.
Right off the top, Wilson points out that industrial beers don't market themselves to women. To be sure. The idea that you'll win yourself a cheap trophy in the form of a cute girl with a bodacious figure by drinking swill cut with corn is beyond delusional. Let's just add that reason to the sky-high pile of reasons that industrial beer sales increase less than 3% each year. I would propose that this type of marketing doesn't even work with fellas anymore, if it ever really did.
We were recently advised by a potential investor to rustle us up some "Metro girls" to send out to the bars to market Metro beer. We explained to him that craft beer doesn't work that way. You occasionally find a craft beer ad that features a girlie with the titties burgeoning from a spaghetti-strap tank top, but this is rare. At the 2007 Great Taste of the Midwest, one brewery featured a burlesque dancer who stripped down to pasties and hot pants, but this was a temporary diversion in an otherwise focused day of learning about and drinking lots of craft beer.
Doug and I have been studying the craft beer industry for more than 30 years collectively. We can tell you without a shred of doubt that craft beer drinkers are intrigued by great tasting beer rather than the promise of any external, perceived pleasures that might appear as the result of drinking beer. Craft beer drinkers get riled up over a wide variety of choices, beers brewed with quality and purpose, and if you want to get into marketing, we like campaigns that are clever, intelligent, risky, and fun. More specifically, we like campaigns that spend a little time telling us about the beer.
Craft beer folks know a lot about beer. We know beer's ingredients, we know how to pair it with food, we know it's history. The best way to market to us is by educating us about how a beer is made. Informing us about the entire line of brews that are available is the way to hook us. As one participant in Wilson's tasting group said, "Point blank, breweries could do a better job explaining their different beers in their commercials." Melissa Cole, freelance food & drink writer and committee member of the British Guild of Beer Writers, states in her blog, "I've been thinking about how to further explain why it's pointless 'marketing' beer at women when education is the way forward." Is it really so radical to propose that craft beer is marketed as... beer that is hand-crafted? I'll bet we could dismiss any notion of inspiring women to drink craft beer and focus on getting just plain everyone to drink craft beer.
While it certainly doesn't help, I don't think stale-minded advertising is entirely the reason behind the weird gender thing with regard to craft beer. The way we communicate with each other, one on one, also matters. Doug and I drove up to a new brewpub in northern IL for a little research (we truly love our jobs). We ordered the first round, Doug ordered the Kölsch and I ordered the Czech Pils. The waitress exclaimed at my choice, "Oh, usually girls order the lighter beers and guys like the hoppier beers." Groan. I told you before, I get touchy at crap like this and I did tell her what I thought of her comment. Oh, and on the topic of waiting tables, don't comment on what people drink. It's rude, newb.
Melissa Cole writes in another blog entry about a beer that was designed by, and for, women: "I must point out that the beer will have "curvaceous" branded glasses – with a daisy on them. I’m sorry, but I’m not a buyer of this either because I can’t see a lot of blokes drinking from a pretty flowery glass and why should they be excluded?
Just as women shouldn’t be kept from enjoying beer by ridiculous social mores, why should men be told, albeit subliminally by the chintzy nature of the receptacle, they can’t drink this product either?"
I propose we dispense with all the sexist put-down - flowers and fruit for girls, footballs and dirt for boys - when it comes to marketing, brewing, discussing, advertising, and sharing craft beer. Perhaps if we tune out that noise, the tasty praises of craft beer will be heard more clearly by everyone.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Is that a pub in your pocket, or are you...?
If you've ever wished that you had your own pub - not to make oodles of money or because you're hospitable - simply because you just want your own darn pub. Airquee can feed your desire.Let us know if you buy one! We'll serve up a complimentary keg of Metro beer.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Where are you, anyway?
It's not about being in the right place at the right time. We've learned that it's best to be everywhere, all the time.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
on music
You know what I want to see? I want to see Jack Black and Jack White do a music project together.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Wing Sauce Burritos & Negra Modelo
Negra Modelo Dark Beer
Cerveceria Modelo, S.A. DE C.V., Mexico, D.F.
This beer has corn adjuncts as per the Dugg and a rater on Beeradvocate. I couldn't verify this because the actual page for Negra Modelo seems to be under construction. No worries though, we're pretty sure they put corn in the beer.
~~ paired with ~~
Inspired by a burrito I had at Handlebar, I hit on one of those meals. You know, like Indian food. The type of meal where you just don't stop eating to talk or even breathe if you can manage it. In my mind, anything with wing sauce applies. Anyway, gather the following ingredients in amounts that would serve 1-2 burritos to each person in attendance. I used brand names to be helpful, feel free to follow your own whims. For example, the burrito I had at Handlebar featured seitan instead of the Chik'n Strips.
flour tortillas
rice (we like Jasmine)
olive oil for sautéing, no more than a few Tbsps
Morningstar Farms® Meal Starters™ Chik'n Strips
- one package per person (you'll probably have some left over)
Frank's RedHot Buffalo Wing Sauce
- one 12oz bottle per 2 packages of Chik'n Strips
- if you can make your own, cool - the stuff in the bottle is like crack
halved and sliced sweet onion
shredded Jack cheese
shredded iceberg lettuce (I know, I know... just trust me on this one)
chopped or sliced tomatoes, whatever type looks best in the produce section
Annie's Naturals Cowgirl Ranch Dressing
Prepare the rice as per the package instructions. Sauté the Chik'n Strips (or whatever) and the onions in olive oil. I like my onions pretty crisp, so I add them to the pan after the Chik'n Strips have been sautéing for a few minutes. Drizzle the Buffalo Wing Sauce over the Chik'n Strips and onions fairly liberally; use about 3/4 of the bottle per 2 packages.
If you have a toaster oven, toasting the flour tortillas for a few seconds softens and warms them up. Yum. Lay down a bed of rice in the tortilla, top with the Chik'n Strips and onions. Dress with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and ranch dressing. Roll'er up.
Negra Modelo is a Vienna style lager. Metro's Dynamo Copper Lager is also a Vienna style lager, only we don't use corn and we do use hops. The NM is very, very dark brown with golden highlights. The nose is estery, chocolate/vanilla. There is no hop aroma. The use of corn reduces the amount of head-producing proteins. And, to increase shelf life, much of the protein occurring in the beer anyway is broken down during the mash. So what this means is there is virtually no retained head in the glass.
You're about to annihilate your palette with wing sauce, so spend a little time on the beer first. The flavor is mostly sweet, smooth dark malt. Again, virtually no hop flavor to be found. The finish is dry, but a second later you'll notice a lingering sweetness on the palette due to the corn adjunct.
The sweet flavors in this beer pair beautifully with the spicy wing sauce. This makes sense given that this beer is often served with spicy Mexican cuisine. After the heat of the spices, the beer is cooling and resets your palette for another bite of the burrito. See how dangerous this can be? Remember to breathe, but do it through your nose to free your mouth for chewing.
Our recommendation: if you do this right, your lips will be on fire.
Cerveceria Modelo, S.A. DE C.V., Mexico, D.F.
This beer has corn adjuncts as per the Dugg and a rater on Beeradvocate. I couldn't verify this because the actual page for Negra Modelo seems to be under construction. No worries though, we're pretty sure they put corn in the beer.
~~ paired with ~~
Inspired by a burrito I had at Handlebar, I hit on one of those meals. You know, like Indian food. The type of meal where you just don't stop eating to talk or even breathe if you can manage it. In my mind, anything with wing sauce applies. Anyway, gather the following ingredients in amounts that would serve 1-2 burritos to each person in attendance. I used brand names to be helpful, feel free to follow your own whims. For example, the burrito I had at Handlebar featured seitan instead of the Chik'n Strips.
flour tortillas
rice (we like Jasmine)
olive oil for sautéing, no more than a few Tbsps
Morningstar Farms® Meal Starters™ Chik'n Strips
- one package per person (you'll probably have some left over)
Frank's RedHot Buffalo Wing Sauce
- one 12oz bottle per 2 packages of Chik'n Strips
- if you can make your own, cool - the stuff in the bottle is like crack
halved and sliced sweet onion
shredded Jack cheese
shredded iceberg lettuce (I know, I know... just trust me on this one)
chopped or sliced tomatoes, whatever type looks best in the produce section
Annie's Naturals Cowgirl Ranch Dressing
Prepare the rice as per the package instructions. Sauté the Chik'n Strips (or whatever) and the onions in olive oil. I like my onions pretty crisp, so I add them to the pan after the Chik'n Strips have been sautéing for a few minutes. Drizzle the Buffalo Wing Sauce over the Chik'n Strips and onions fairly liberally; use about 3/4 of the bottle per 2 packages.
If you have a toaster oven, toasting the flour tortillas for a few seconds softens and warms them up. Yum. Lay down a bed of rice in the tortilla, top with the Chik'n Strips and onions. Dress with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and ranch dressing. Roll'er up.
Negra Modelo is a Vienna style lager. Metro's Dynamo Copper Lager is also a Vienna style lager, only we don't use corn and we do use hops. The NM is very, very dark brown with golden highlights. The nose is estery, chocolate/vanilla. There is no hop aroma. The use of corn reduces the amount of head-producing proteins. And, to increase shelf life, much of the protein occurring in the beer anyway is broken down during the mash. So what this means is there is virtually no retained head in the glass.
You're about to annihilate your palette with wing sauce, so spend a little time on the beer first. The flavor is mostly sweet, smooth dark malt. Again, virtually no hop flavor to be found. The finish is dry, but a second later you'll notice a lingering sweetness on the palette due to the corn adjunct.
The sweet flavors in this beer pair beautifully with the spicy wing sauce. This makes sense given that this beer is often served with spicy Mexican cuisine. After the heat of the spices, the beer is cooling and resets your palette for another bite of the burrito. See how dangerous this can be? Remember to breathe, but do it through your nose to free your mouth for chewing.
Our recommendation: if you do this right, your lips will be on fire.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Larry Bell, distribution, and the Chicagoland market
The Chicagoland craft beer community is buzzing... so to speak. We are once again able to purchase pints of Larry Bell's beer in several locations in the city and the 'burbs. To catch you up, Kalamazoo Brewing pulled out of our market due to a dispute with their IL distributor, National Wine and Spirits. Debate and rumors have been flying to and fro since.
Why do beer manufacturers need to use distributors?
This is due to the mandated three-tier system in IL. From Nicholas Day's article linked above, "The system, which stipulates that all alcohol has to pass through a middleman, was established to ensure that producers couldn’t run bars and limit consumer choice by exclusively serving their own drinks, a situation known as a “tied house.” Keep in mind that this is a good thing. This has kept us from being limited to haunting "Miller bars" and "Budweiser bars."
Why did Kalamazoo Brewing pull out of the IL market?
The problem Larry Bell ran into is described in Day's article: "... according to state law, NWS was entitled to sell Bell’s distribution rights to another wholesaler without his approval, and a few months ago it decided to do just that, in a deal with Chicago Beverage Systems— the Miller distributor in Chicago." It just so happens that CBS has been sited by folks in the local craft beer industry as a distributor that doesn't exactly have what it takes to sell craft beer. Larry Bell started his brewery with $200, boatloads of luck, and endless hours of hard work. For what? To be sold to a distributor without his input? What if he didn't want to work with CBS? Well, he had (as far as we know) 2 options: work with CBS or pull out of the market.
Okay, so screw CBS. Why didn't Larry Bell just make a deal with a different distributor?
Agreements between distributors and beer manufacturers are very difficult to terminate. This is due to franchise laws and the Beer Industry Fair Dealing Act, which was written to protect distributors from being financially ruined by large breweries. Say a distributor busts their hump to get beer out there and promote for a brewery; the brewery succeeds famously as a result; and then the brewery dumps the distributor for a different one. That type of protection seems logical enough, but the incident with Kalamazoo Brewing has highlighted a bias in the franchise laws: they apply to the relationships between small distributors and large breweries. Smaller craft breweries don't have the financial clout to bring down a distributor, but the laws apply to us anyway.
Distribution sucks... right?
No. Getting into the craft beer industry takes a lot of work and planning. Add to that the stresses of putting together and managing a fleet of trucks - tickets, towing, accidents, CDLs, maintenance, etc.?!? No thanks. We got into the industry to make beer. That's enough to think about. Even if we were in a state that didn't mandate the three-tier system (coughWisconsincough), we would still make deals with distributors based on our business model. That, or we'd get a friend to start a distribution company. Anyone interested?
Larry Bell was quoted in the articles above: "Normally when you go see a distributor, they say, ‘We’ve gone out and tried the beers and we’re very excited about selling Oberon.’ Unfortunately, I got into a relationship with a wholesaler that didn't have our best interest at heart." And that's the key, folks. Distribution agreements can be profitable for everyone involved, provided the deal you make is fair. The best bet is to get into agreements with distributors who know how to handle craft beer and who are willing to work collaboratively with manufacturers.
Okay, blah blah. Distribution agreements are complicated. The most important thing is that we can now enjoy Larry Bell's beer at some locations in Chicagoland again. How?
A new company exists: Bells Brewery Incorporated. This company is entering the market with a new brand called Kalamazoo. The first beer available from this company is Royal Amber Ale. We haven't tried it yet, but some well-beerducated folks we know went out this week to taste it. Apparently, they loved the beer so much that they had to skip their reasonable dinner plans for late-night burritos. This, as you know, is a very good sign.
We at Metro Brewing are thrilled to have Larry Bell back in our market. No, really. We mean this. The more craft beer available, the more people are going to drink it. Craft beer drinkers like choice and variety, so why not have lots of both available to us? Sure, we might have to fight for taps that Kalamazoo Royal Amber Ale now occupies, but you know, that fight would exist either way. And really, we love Larry Bell's beer. Having a few local taps will save us lots of gas money and time since we won't have to make as many border beer-runs. Now, if we could just get New Glarus down here again...
Why do beer manufacturers need to use distributors?
This is due to the mandated three-tier system in IL. From Nicholas Day's article linked above, "The system, which stipulates that all alcohol has to pass through a middleman, was established to ensure that producers couldn’t run bars and limit consumer choice by exclusively serving their own drinks, a situation known as a “tied house.” Keep in mind that this is a good thing. This has kept us from being limited to haunting "Miller bars" and "Budweiser bars."
Why did Kalamazoo Brewing pull out of the IL market?
The problem Larry Bell ran into is described in Day's article: "... according to state law, NWS was entitled to sell Bell’s distribution rights to another wholesaler without his approval, and a few months ago it decided to do just that, in a deal with Chicago Beverage Systems— the Miller distributor in Chicago." It just so happens that CBS has been sited by folks in the local craft beer industry as a distributor that doesn't exactly have what it takes to sell craft beer. Larry Bell started his brewery with $200, boatloads of luck, and endless hours of hard work. For what? To be sold to a distributor without his input? What if he didn't want to work with CBS? Well, he had (as far as we know) 2 options: work with CBS or pull out of the market.
Okay, so screw CBS. Why didn't Larry Bell just make a deal with a different distributor?
Agreements between distributors and beer manufacturers are very difficult to terminate. This is due to franchise laws and the Beer Industry Fair Dealing Act, which was written to protect distributors from being financially ruined by large breweries. Say a distributor busts their hump to get beer out there and promote for a brewery; the brewery succeeds famously as a result; and then the brewery dumps the distributor for a different one. That type of protection seems logical enough, but the incident with Kalamazoo Brewing has highlighted a bias in the franchise laws: they apply to the relationships between small distributors and large breweries. Smaller craft breweries don't have the financial clout to bring down a distributor, but the laws apply to us anyway.
Distribution sucks... right?
No. Getting into the craft beer industry takes a lot of work and planning. Add to that the stresses of putting together and managing a fleet of trucks - tickets, towing, accidents, CDLs, maintenance, etc.?!? No thanks. We got into the industry to make beer. That's enough to think about. Even if we were in a state that didn't mandate the three-tier system (coughWisconsincough), we would still make deals with distributors based on our business model. That, or we'd get a friend to start a distribution company. Anyone interested?
Larry Bell was quoted in the articles above: "Normally when you go see a distributor, they say, ‘We’ve gone out and tried the beers and we’re very excited about selling Oberon.’ Unfortunately, I got into a relationship with a wholesaler that didn't have our best interest at heart." And that's the key, folks. Distribution agreements can be profitable for everyone involved, provided the deal you make is fair. The best bet is to get into agreements with distributors who know how to handle craft beer and who are willing to work collaboratively with manufacturers.
Okay, blah blah. Distribution agreements are complicated. The most important thing is that we can now enjoy Larry Bell's beer at some locations in Chicagoland again. How?
A new company exists: Bells Brewery Incorporated. This company is entering the market with a new brand called Kalamazoo. The first beer available from this company is Royal Amber Ale. We haven't tried it yet, but some well-beerducated folks we know went out this week to taste it. Apparently, they loved the beer so much that they had to skip their reasonable dinner plans for late-night burritos. This, as you know, is a very good sign.
We at Metro Brewing are thrilled to have Larry Bell back in our market. No, really. We mean this. The more craft beer available, the more people are going to drink it. Craft beer drinkers like choice and variety, so why not have lots of both available to us? Sure, we might have to fight for taps that Kalamazoo Royal Amber Ale now occupies, but you know, that fight would exist either way. And really, we love Larry Bell's beer. Having a few local taps will save us lots of gas money and time since we won't have to make as many border beer-runs. Now, if we could just get New Glarus down here again...
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Garlic Soup & Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale
Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale
Rogue - Newport, OR
30 IBUs
~~ paired with ~~
Garlic Soup, recipe adapted from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons
olive oil
2 cups chopped onions
16-20 garlic cloves, minced
2 quarts veggie broth
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp fennel seeds
5-7 red potatoes, peeled and chopped
3-4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
sherry
salt
black pepper
wheat baguette
Parmesan cheese
In a soup or stockpot, heat about 1-1.5 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Sauté the onions for 10 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another 5 minutes.
Use a mortar and pestle to grind the herbs. Add the broth and herbs, let simmer for 15 minutes. Add the potatoes and carrots and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Add a few generous dashes of sherry, simmer for another 5 minutes. Take a swig of the sherry.
Season the soup with black pepper, salt, and a little more sherry. To serve, place slices of baguette on the bottom of a bowl. Ladle the soup over the top. Garnish with black pepper and Parmesan cheese.
Nothing is better than soup. Well, maybe beer. But other than that, nothing. This soup makes magic of the simplest veggies which are in ample supply in the winter.
And speaking of things that are comforting, Rogue in Newport, OR serves up 22oz bottles of their tasty specialty ales, one of which is Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale. The Rogue website informs us that this brew is part of their Signature Series with Chef Masaharu Morimoto.
Beautiful brown-red tones gleam from the glass. The nose is hoppy and spicy and blends well with the flowery herbal aromas of the soup. Roasted soba (buckwheat) adds a nutty flavor to the beer which is a little surprising, but pleasant. The huge amounts of garlic in the soup are also surprising, but pleasant. Coincidence? Maybe. Anyway, the nutty flavors blend perfectly with the garlic, inspiring me to begin imagining a sauce or something that combines garlic and nuts.
The hops reassert themselves in the flavor as well. The Dugg pointed out that every hop addition to this beer has been amped up; aroma, bitterness, and flavor.
The MBOSA finishes dry. Spicy dry. Bone dry. After a few mouthfuls of this beer, the sweet flavors of the carrots and potatoes in the soup taste new. As if you'd never tasted a carrot or potato before in your life. The beer reboots the palette.
Our recommendation: put on some pj's, ladle out a bowl of garlic soup, split (or not) a bottle of the Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale, and spin up a DVD of a TV series you've been meaning to catch up on. For us, it was Battlestar Galactica.
Rogue - Newport, OR
30 IBUs
~~ paired with ~~
Garlic Soup, recipe adapted from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons
olive oil
2 cups chopped onions
16-20 garlic cloves, minced
2 quarts veggie broth
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp fennel seeds
5-7 red potatoes, peeled and chopped
3-4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
sherry
salt
black pepper
wheat baguette
Parmesan cheese
In a soup or stockpot, heat about 1-1.5 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Sauté the onions for 10 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another 5 minutes.
Use a mortar and pestle to grind the herbs. Add the broth and herbs, let simmer for 15 minutes. Add the potatoes and carrots and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Add a few generous dashes of sherry, simmer for another 5 minutes. Take a swig of the sherry.
Season the soup with black pepper, salt, and a little more sherry. To serve, place slices of baguette on the bottom of a bowl. Ladle the soup over the top. Garnish with black pepper and Parmesan cheese.
Nothing is better than soup. Well, maybe beer. But other than that, nothing. This soup makes magic of the simplest veggies which are in ample supply in the winter.
And speaking of things that are comforting, Rogue in Newport, OR serves up 22oz bottles of their tasty specialty ales, one of which is Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale. The Rogue website informs us that this brew is part of their Signature Series with Chef Masaharu Morimoto.
Beautiful brown-red tones gleam from the glass. The nose is hoppy and spicy and blends well with the flowery herbal aromas of the soup. Roasted soba (buckwheat) adds a nutty flavor to the beer which is a little surprising, but pleasant. The huge amounts of garlic in the soup are also surprising, but pleasant. Coincidence? Maybe. Anyway, the nutty flavors blend perfectly with the garlic, inspiring me to begin imagining a sauce or something that combines garlic and nuts.
The hops reassert themselves in the flavor as well. The Dugg pointed out that every hop addition to this beer has been amped up; aroma, bitterness, and flavor.
The MBOSA finishes dry. Spicy dry. Bone dry. After a few mouthfuls of this beer, the sweet flavors of the carrots and potatoes in the soup taste new. As if you'd never tasted a carrot or potato before in your life. The beer reboots the palette.
Our recommendation: put on some pj's, ladle out a bowl of garlic soup, split (or not) a bottle of the Morimoto Black Obi Soba Ale, and spin up a DVD of a TV series you've been meaning to catch up on. For us, it was Battlestar Galactica.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Gonzo Imperial Porter
Flying Dog Brewery, LLC
9% or 9.5% ABV (different numbers on the website)
1.093 OG
80 IBUs
I'm a huge fan of Hunter S. Thompson. I dressed up as Raoul Duke for Halloween once; the Dugg served up a fine rendition of Dr. Gonzo, complete with the suitcase of drugs. I was hungover for 2 days afterward. Anyway, Flying Dog Brewery seems to base its marketing on all that is HST, right down to the packaging graphics by Ralph Steadman. So when I saw their Gonzo Imperial Porter on the liquor store shelf, I picked it up, natch.
Turns out this beer is not only an ode to HST, proceeds from the sales go toward erecting the Gonzo Memorial Fist. In true HST form, the PSA on the package reads, “Since they don’t serve our beer in prison, please drink responsibly.” More importantly, artwork on the packaging features a cartoon of HST declaring, “Ok! Let’s Party!” Indeed, let's.
I happen to be listening to Tom Waits, The Heart of Saturday Night while doing this review. I suppose it would be more appropriate to listen to Bob Dylan, but since I like Tom Waits better, I'm listening to Tom Waits.
The beer pours a beautiful dark, dark brown. I can smell the sweet, roasted malts as the beer fills the glass. At the end, I'm rewarded with a super smooth, milky brown head. Starting with my first sip, the bone-crushing amounts of malt in this beer slammed into the roof of my mouth and then evaporated right off my tongue. I was then left with enormous hop flavor in the aftertaste. Somehow, this beer is perfectly balanced for how much raw material went into it. Folks, this is a floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall masterpiece of brewing. Huge. This beer has grabbed me by the face, but even so, I detected absolutely no off flavors.
Halfway through the glass… oh, I'm a very, very happy woman. The head has almost, but not completely faded. With each sip, this quaff gets even better. The malt and hops continue to catch my attention, even though by this point, I’m clicking my way through an online game of Euchre.
Okay, nearing the end of the glass and definitely feeling the 9.whatever%. Still smooth. The malt flavors linger on my palette now. Still some hanger-on bubbles in the glass. I'm not going to suggest a food-pairing or any other extraneous nonsense with this beer. If you simply must have something else in your other hand, I suppose a Mint Julep would work. Or maybe a grapefruit.
My rating: don't be stupid. Buy this beer.
American Beer (2003)
Directed and produced by Paul Kermizian, Six Hundred Films
The cast: Paul Kermizian, Jon Miller (director of photography), Jeremy Goldberg, Rob Purvis (sound recordist), and Rick Sterling (production manager)
Five friends pack up a minivan (bungee-cording a large amount of gear to the top), say good-bye to Teddy, Paul’s dog (sad!) and head out to visit 38 breweries in 40 days. And so we have a bockumentary that intertwines footage of interviews with professional craft brewers, road-trip sequences, and hilarious scenes in which the camera should have been turned off, but we’re so glad it wasn’t. While the idea of this trip is pure genius, the strategy to tether their crap to the top of the van is not. Within the first hour of the trip, the rooftop gear flies off onto the freeway, spewing toothpaste all over Jon’s clothes. Hence, their first stop is to some big box retailer to pick up a “Turtle.”
One of the earliest scenes in the movie shows Rick naming off beers in the cooler and handing them out to everyone in the van except for the driver, of course. Apparently they drove to Pluto on this trip, which is the only place we can imagine where a passenger might be able to have an open container inside a vehicle. (We find out later that we’re wrong. Can you guess where a car passenger can enjoy the contents of an open container in the
Of course, the central topic of the movie is beer. Specifically, American craft beer. The production of craft beer requires the use of the following ingredients: malted barley, hops, yeast, and water. This brings to mind the German purity law, Reinheitsgebot. But American brewers have little use for silly old rules. We are happy and free to use ingredients such as candy sugar, squash, chicory root, coffee, liquorice and as Sam Calagione mentions in a sexy stoner drawl,
The brewers interviewed in this film are the professors of all that is beer. One of our personal favorites is David Hoffmann of Climax Brewing Company in
Another brewer we loved to meet was Ray McNeill of McNeill’s Brewery in
To our great excitement, our personal heroes were interviewed: Dan and Deb Carey of New Glarus Brewing Company. To be honest, I’m a little intimidated by Dan Carey, one of the few American brewers who can legitimately call himself a “Brewmaster,” having completed the 4-year program in
Dan and Deb Carey talk a bit about their cherry beer, Wisconsin Belgian Red. Ever wonder why this beautiful bottle with the long, drippy wax seal is so damned expensive? Deb points out that the “fruit bill” for this beer is $60,000. That’s what it costs them to cram 1.4 lbs of cherries into each bottle. Really, people, go to the store right now and buy this beer. It is some of the best, most unique beer to be found in a 750 ml bottle. Go ahead. We’ll wait.
During the interview, Deb waxes philosophical about a better culinary future. She asserts that people are buying better coffee, better food, better cheese, etc. Dan points out that people enjoy beer that is geographically local and has some personality. Damn. Right.
Another Midwestern brewer interviewed is Larry Bell, of
Other highlights from interviews include:
Fritz Maytag, of Anchor Brewing in
Ever wondered where Bernie Brewer, who used to reside in the outfield at
Mike Hale of Hale’s Ales in
Attention palate masochists: brewer John C. Maier of Rogue in
The cast wisely asked the brewers they visited about hangover remedies. One brewer answered, “moderation,” but we’ll just dismiss that suggestion as obvious and really, come on. When you’re in this business you learn out of necessity how to avoid hangovers, but the cold, hard fact is that hangovers happen. Anyway, other more useful answers included: drinking water; drinking all-malt beer; simply continue drinking; Frank’s kraut juice; Tylenol; greasy cheeseburgers; hair of the dog that bit ya; and as David Hoffmann gleefully offered, “drink more beer!” One brewer suggests smoking a joint as a hangover remedy. You can watch the movie yourself to find out who that is.
The cast shares with us some of the… funky side effects… of visiting 38 breweries and sampling so many of their offerings. Jeremy gains 10 pounds in the first 12 days of the trip. Later in the trip, and very late one night, he makes a phone call to a steak house in search of a 72 oz steak. Specifically, one that if you eat it all, you get it free. We never find out if they were able to enjoy that drunken meatfest. Speaking of things that are smelly, Paul reveals in impressive fashion what happens to the GI system after a night of beer-drinking. And we all know that drinking loosens lips… and tempers. One night, a shouting match erupts in the hotel room which continues until the sound guy loses his marbles and screams for everyone to shut up. After a short, tense silence, Rick quietly points out, “You’re freaking out Rob, man.”
By the end of the trip, everyone knew a whole lot more about beer. Jeremy went on to become the brewer at Cape Ann Brewing Co. in
If you like road-tripping, documentaries, craft beer, or any combination of the three, you will definitely enjoy American Beer. The editing of this film brilliantly offers a sense of travel and chronology while informing the viewer about craft brewing in sensible bites. Oh, and the music is fantastic! Bob Gilligan holds the music credit for the film; we salute him. Pedal-steel guitars are very, very cool.
Writing a Business Plan - Torture and Triumph
Business plan. It’s self-descriptive. If you want to open a business, drawing up a road-map to your pending success is a good idea.
Specifically, a business plan is a document explaining what you want to sell and how you’re going to sell it. The two most important sections every business plan has are a financial plan and a marketing plan. Initially, you use this document to round up funding from banks as well as individual investors. Anyone who invests money into your business wants to have some inkling that you know what you’re doing. Yeah, some folks invest simply because they like you, or because they like what you’re doing, but it helps to show even these generous souls that you have concrete plans as to what you’re going to do with their money and more importantly, how you intend to make them more money.
Now, various friends and family members have been in business for decades and I’d be willing to bet that most of them haven’t sweated over cash flow statements or marketing strategies. In fact, they’ve told me as much. And here’s where you might expect me to launch into how successful they’d be if only they’d written a business plan, but I won’t, because I can’t. Many of them have and still run profitable businesses.
But the fact is we can’t run Metropolitan Brewing without a business plan. The Chicago craft beer market is full of savvy, smart drinkers. These people want and deserve fresh, tasty beers (done), that are distributed to places they like to drink and shop (done; with the right distributors), and marketed and sold to them in an appealing manner (um... what?). Breweries on both coasts and everywhere in between long to sell their beers here in this huge, thirsty market and they do so with gusto. See: New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, CO. I’ve never, ever seen a shipping palette at the front entrance of my Jewel loaded with craft beer before. My jaw hit the tiled floor and for too short a moment, the muzak ala Phil Collins faded into the shock hissing through my brain. We knew needed to start strong, hit the ground running, and all those other clichés that illustrate the notion of doing business with purpose and precision.
And so, we set about learning how to write a business plan. At first, Doug did all the work. He researched and he read and he wrote. We bought books that he read. We passed links to each other with yet more information to read and assimilate. He read other business plans. Not wishing to hog all the fun to himself, Doug eventually recruited me to lend a hand. We met with experts who helped us for free, and some who helped us for payment. We even went to a workshop or two. And so, we learned lesson #1: while a business plan has some key features, no one agrees on exactly how it should look. It was at this point that we realized that nobody was going to hand us an outline and tell us to insert the word “beer” anywhere the product was mentioned.
With four diplomas between the two of us, we were quite comfortable in a classroom environment, being guided gently through the learning process. But learning how to write this business plan was an agonizing process of self-motivated reading, researching, sifting, guessing, doubting, crying (well, that was mainly me), arguing, and endless hours of typing. Each new section was loaded with new information to learn and new questions to ask. We learned. We asked. And, as each section was finished, we realized that we’d gained more confidence about our brewery and how we planned to run it. I’ll be damned if we weren’t actually gaining confidence in ourselves, too.
Confidence points to the real reason for writing a business plan. Even though this type of writing calls to mind nightmarish all-nighters pounding out term papers in college, it does serve a real-life function. You’re forced to test the viability of your idea. Analyzing each aspect of your particular widget from concept to production to sales shapes the entire process in your mind. Systematically testing each of your assumptions leads to the ability to defend the defensible and dump the bullshit. In the end, you have in your hands this document that is your playbook; your strategy to succeed as a business owner.
And, a final point about your business plan: it lives and breathes with you and your business. All that work you did to plan out the next 10 years of doing business? Well, the reality is that everything can and does change. Stick to your core ideas and philosophy, keep an eye on your accomplishments and projections, but remain flexible. In a free market, the market will let you know what it thinks of your product. It would be wise to keep a proverbial ear to the ground and listen for any movements. You’ll never completely trash your business plan, but you will definitely revise and update it. The upshot is that you can change it as you see fit; as you accomplish what we see as the real American dream: getting paid to do what you love.
Specifically, a business plan is a document explaining what you want to sell and how you’re going to sell it. The two most important sections every business plan has are a financial plan and a marketing plan. Initially, you use this document to round up funding from banks as well as individual investors. Anyone who invests money into your business wants to have some inkling that you know what you’re doing. Yeah, some folks invest simply because they like you, or because they like what you’re doing, but it helps to show even these generous souls that you have concrete plans as to what you’re going to do with their money and more importantly, how you intend to make them more money.
Now, various friends and family members have been in business for decades and I’d be willing to bet that most of them haven’t sweated over cash flow statements or marketing strategies. In fact, they’ve told me as much. And here’s where you might expect me to launch into how successful they’d be if only they’d written a business plan, but I won’t, because I can’t. Many of them have and still run profitable businesses.
But the fact is we can’t run Metropolitan Brewing without a business plan. The Chicago craft beer market is full of savvy, smart drinkers. These people want and deserve fresh, tasty beers (done), that are distributed to places they like to drink and shop (done; with the right distributors), and marketed and sold to them in an appealing manner (um... what?). Breweries on both coasts and everywhere in between long to sell their beers here in this huge, thirsty market and they do so with gusto. See: New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, CO. I’ve never, ever seen a shipping palette at the front entrance of my Jewel loaded with craft beer before. My jaw hit the tiled floor and for too short a moment, the muzak ala Phil Collins faded into the shock hissing through my brain. We knew needed to start strong, hit the ground running, and all those other clichés that illustrate the notion of doing business with purpose and precision.
And so, we set about learning how to write a business plan. At first, Doug did all the work. He researched and he read and he wrote. We bought books that he read. We passed links to each other with yet more information to read and assimilate. He read other business plans. Not wishing to hog all the fun to himself, Doug eventually recruited me to lend a hand. We met with experts who helped us for free, and some who helped us for payment. We even went to a workshop or two. And so, we learned lesson #1: while a business plan has some key features, no one agrees on exactly how it should look. It was at this point that we realized that nobody was going to hand us an outline and tell us to insert the word “beer” anywhere the product was mentioned.
With four diplomas between the two of us, we were quite comfortable in a classroom environment, being guided gently through the learning process. But learning how to write this business plan was an agonizing process of self-motivated reading, researching, sifting, guessing, doubting, crying (well, that was mainly me), arguing, and endless hours of typing. Each new section was loaded with new information to learn and new questions to ask. We learned. We asked. And, as each section was finished, we realized that we’d gained more confidence about our brewery and how we planned to run it. I’ll be damned if we weren’t actually gaining confidence in ourselves, too.
Confidence points to the real reason for writing a business plan. Even though this type of writing calls to mind nightmarish all-nighters pounding out term papers in college, it does serve a real-life function. You’re forced to test the viability of your idea. Analyzing each aspect of your particular widget from concept to production to sales shapes the entire process in your mind. Systematically testing each of your assumptions leads to the ability to defend the defensible and dump the bullshit. In the end, you have in your hands this document that is your playbook; your strategy to succeed as a business owner.
And, a final point about your business plan: it lives and breathes with you and your business. All that work you did to plan out the next 10 years of doing business? Well, the reality is that everything can and does change. Stick to your core ideas and philosophy, keep an eye on your accomplishments and projections, but remain flexible. In a free market, the market will let you know what it thinks of your product. It would be wise to keep a proverbial ear to the ground and listen for any movements. You’ll never completely trash your business plan, but you will definitely revise and update it. The upshot is that you can change it as you see fit; as you accomplish what we see as the real American dream: getting paid to do what you love.
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