MdV:
Merchant du Vin beer e-newsletter: Thursday, September
4, 2008: Small Breweries
MdV
& fine beer in the news
Merchant du Vin's benchmark imports continue to gain more attention in
the media:
-Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock and
Orval Trappist Ale were on NBC TV in Philadelphia on
August 19 - Philly beer writer Jack Curtin has a link to the video
right here.
-The Chicago
Sun-Times featured a photo of a happy beer drinker hoisting a glass of Ayinger Brau-Weisse on August 11
- check it out right here.
-Boston's Weekly Dig had a nice
review of Ayinger Oktober
Fest-Marzen in August, viewable right here.
-Samuel Smith's and
Pinkus were both in the Oklahoma City TV news on July
23; they're about 55 sec into this video clip.
-Rochefort 10 was photographed for Boston Uncommon on July
27, and was mentioned in the September '08 issue of music magazine Paste.
A full current news listing is always on our news page; you can also check local beer tastings, dinners
and festivals on our national events page and read previous html versions of
this newsletter at our e-news archive. If you are interested in beer
glassware, clothing and collectables we also have an online e-store.
A beer brand is a shortcut to flavor.
You see the label or the tap handle, and you can associate aroma, flavor, body;
then you can decide if that's what you feel like drinking right now.
Breweries: Small, Established, Family-Owned,
and from Classic Brewing Regions.
In the current beer world, brands are useful for that reason and also because
of the extra information that comes from a brand identity: who is the entity
that brewed it? How long have they been brewing beer? Where are
they located? How big are they? What other varieties do they
produce? Are they considered traditional by peer breweries, or are they
considered innovative? Did they buy another brewery, did they get bought
by another brewery; did they merge with another brewery? Do they market
their beer via flavor, or via lifestyle? Is the beer cheap or
expensive? Are they a privately operated entity, or are they part of a
corporation that operates a number of breweries?
So at second glance, a beer brand is a shortcut to flavor as well as a lot of other information about the beer
& brewery. Beer drinkers are interested in more than just the flavor
of the beer, so breweries put a lot of effort, sweat and money into brand
identity - that is, flavor plus associated info. In fact, one could even
assert that breweries feel they need to add a lot more to a beer brand
than the flavor alone.
And interestingly enough, breweries and beer marketers seem to think that there
are some brand details worth emphasizing and others
that should be hidden. Are they right?
Brewery history and location:
"old" and "established" clearly are a plus: if folks have
been drinking a beer for many years, maybe that proves
that somebody likes it. It's rare for a brewery to exaggerate age in a
downwards direction. Likewise, a location in a region famous for brewing
has long been one of a brewery's assets. Samuel Smith's Yorkshire
location (northern England) is famous for brown ales and pale ales; Lindemans
is located in the only place lambics can be
produced - Belgium's lambic region; Ayinger is located in the home of Bavarian specialties like
weisse beer and dunkel.
Brewery size: apparently, small is
desirable in a brewery. Many very large breweries and conglomerations of
breweries release beers that have no mention that they are produced by a larger
entity. Small breweries generally are proud to mention their size - some
certainly even fell that they can control their quality better at a relatively
small size. Many craft and regional brewers state that they do not want
to keep growing forever.
Innovation and Tradition:
Large brewing entities seem to focus innovation on packaging & marketing:
aluminum cans, scratch-off labels, wonderfully creative media ads, light-up tap
handles, nitrogen widgets, sponsorships, tricky promotional items, and the
biggest innovation in the beer business ever - light beer. But all
breweries - tiny to large - seem to agree that both innovation and tradition
are both plusses when it comes to beer flavor - that's what the cans, the
labels, the ads, the taps, and the promotional items usually talk
about. The biggest difference appears to be that the larger a brewery is,
the less their beer flavor is either innovative or traditional - their
innovation resides in their marketing. Small breweries have fewer
marketing and packaging tools, typically having only innovative beer flavors
and traditional beer styles. They get the message out by hand-selling and
by consumer word-of-mouth, and by letting the flavor
speak for itself. (Sometimes their importer sends out an e-news once
in a while, too.)
Brewery ownership: On paper, a large
corporation that owns a number of breweries can offer many advantages.
They can get economies of scale throughout the production and distribution
chain; they can spend more on advertising; they can offer specialization,
advancement and relocation to their employees; they can offer cooler incentives
to help sell beer; they have access to physically larger markets; they have a
better negotiating position with their suppliers and customers. And
at some point, a large corporation might have the option to become a public
company, maybe even making their owners and managers rich. Is there a
point where huge size actually impacts the flavor of beer? Well, not
necessarily . . .
Whew! Every one of the breweries represented by Merchant du Vin is
privately owned, by a family or by a Trappist abbey; every
one is located in a classic brewing nation that holds a deep &
rich beer heritage: England, Scotland, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and
Germany. We're proud that our portfolio covers just about all the
traditional, classic styles of beer known to the world. Our youngest
brewery, Green's - innovative gluten-free Belgian ales - was established in
2004, but our second-newest brewery is Ayinger, est.
1878. Size? The ten breweries we import
are growing in sales, but all together they are still a tiny
fraction of US beer volume.
But really, we're more interested in beer
flavor.
Coming Soon: Pinkus
Jubilate, Organic Dark Lager
Merchant
du Vin and Pinkus
Brewery are very pleased to announce that Pinkus
Jubilate is arriving at US beer spots soon - look for it before the end of
September. A tasty dark lager, and USDA Certified Organic, Jubilate is
the perfect way to celebrate September, which is Organic Harvest Month. A
detailed news release as a 442 KB .pdf can be
found right here.
Pinkus Brewery,
established in 1816, is located in the German city of Munster and is still
family owned. In 1980, Pinkus made a commitment
to full organic production - the first brewery of the modern era to do so.
Jubilate joins
three Pinkus beers already available in the US: Pinkus Munster Alt, Pinkus Ur-Pils, and Pinkus Hefe-Weizen.
Oktoberfest, Octoberfest, October Fest
Fall beer festivals across the US seem
to somehow have German roots - German food, clothes, music and beer are
found at just about every one. Why is
that? And if they are October Festivals, why do they sometimes start in
September?
Munich's Oktoberfest began in 1810 when
Princess Theresa married Prince Ludwig. The party lasted 16 days, and was such
a success that it has become an annual 16-day celebration in Munich as well as
in many other parts of the world. (To determine the start date of Oktoberfest,
count backward 16 days from the first Sunday in October. In 2008, it starts on
Saturday, September 20.)
If you are hosting an October
Fest here in the US, don't forget to include the pride of Bavaria, Ayinger Oktober Fest-Marzen, produced by the Ayinger Brewery,
founded in 1878 and just a half hour outside Munich. An Oktober Fest-Marzen press
release can be found as a 364 KB .pdf right here.
If you are reading this newsletter for
the first time, check our archive at:
http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/enews_archive.html/
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http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/1_about/guestbook.html
Merchant