THIS JUST IN! Great beer more affordable than great wine
I don’t know who these alleged experts are, but I hope they are right.
Boutique beers are the new cocktail as more money-conscious Americans choose cheaper high quality draft beers made by small local breweries over wine and spirits amid the country’s recession, experts say.
Craft beer die-hards have been cashing in on the reasonably priced complexity found in even expensive craft beers for years. Now it appears that a stumbling economy has others jumping on board. Despite the penny-pinching, people still want to treat themselves. And they are turning to beer.
“You can buy an exceptional beer for half the price of a mediocre glass of wine,” said New York beer maker Kelly Taylor at a recent tasting event where he offered his Kelso beer alongside sage-flavored corn bread.
Of course, all is not roses and daisies. Let’s not forget, this is still a tough economy. Tom Long, president of MillerCoors, expects growth of craft beer to slow. Still, it should slow less rapidly than sales for wine and spirits. I suggest we discuss this news more in-depth over an $8 bottle of Samichlaus.
Image: scottamus
Less Monday in the short-term, more Monday in the long-term
Many of you have noticed that we have been canceling Monday Night more than usual lately. Little quips like this on Twitter have clued us in:
Fortunately we’re pretty terrible at reading sarcasm. Mark, I am going to come over to your house with a 6-pack of Bacardi Mojitos to make up for it. Two can play the sarcasm game.
I would like you to know that this sudden flurry of cancellations is not because we hate you. However, it will most likely continue in the immediate future. We are making more progress on the business front, and unfortunately it is taking up more of our time. Since we are all trying to start a brewery while keeping our day jobs (at least for now), we’ve had to make the best use of the limited time we have, and Mondays fill that void perfectly.
So what can you expect? We will be brewing approximately 2 times per month until we launch, hopefully early next year. The actual brewing dates haven’t been finalized yet, so check the website. We hope that this will allow us to place more emphasis on the behind-the-scenes aspects of starting this business, which will allow us to get out on shelves quicker, giving you access to Monday Night whenever you want. Questions? Comments? Concerns? We’d love to hear them (seriously, I’m not being sarcastic again).
Brewing is canceled tonight, but on the plus side…
The bad news? We’re going to have to cancel brewing tonight. Joel is currently in his second-favorite state, yada yada yada, it’s just not going to happen.
The good news? Jeff Heck is 29 years old as of yesterday. Happy birthday, CEO Guy. We love you even though you are incapable of starting a mash. I’ve got some bad news for you though… turning 29 doesn’t mean you will stop getting carded for looking like a little boy. May I suggest a horse hair beard? Or even a nice blazer?
Sorry guys, hopefully we’ll be back on track next week!
Blast from the past: one of the first MNB beer labels
I was digging through the archives last night and found one of the first beer labels we ever created. In fact, it’s so old that we didn’t even have a name for ourselves yet. The beer was called Farvonpüpen Pünken Brau. It was a pumpkin beer. We named it Farvonpüpen because we were immature and liked poop jokes. Actually, we still like poop jokes.
We obviously had to include the well-known Malayalam proverb:
You can’t reap a cucumber if you sow a pumpkin.
All in all, I think we’ve come a long way since October 23, 2006.
Labels as art in craft beer
There’s an interesting (and short) article in Metro about “The art of the six-pack.” And I quote:
?The craft beer industry is a very creative industry,? explains Matt Polacheck, Art Director at Brooklyn-based Shmaltz Brewing, whose Coney Island Craft Lagers line features colorful, sideshow poster-inspired labels. ?The artful labels tie in to the whole culture of craft beer ? it?s about creating new, interesting beers ? and so to go along with those beers, we?ve made the experience of the bottle as interesting as what?s inside.?
Craft beer labels do tend towards the artsy side of things. New Belgium has been using watercolors from the founders’ neighbor for its beers since the beginning. Flying Dog takes label art to a whole new level with their Ralph Steadman creations. One of my favorite recent examples of this is Deschutes The Dissident:
Now that is a good-looking label. Simple, retro, powerful. It reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Personally, I think the whole “label as art” phenomenon among craft breweries is a function of two things:
- Craft breweries are small and quirky. It’s the small, quirky companies that have the courage and opportunity to play around with things like labels. Budweiser is catering to too many people to get too creative, but Coney Island Craft Lagers has a very specific (and accepting) demographic. Plus, the people behind craft breweries, ourselves included, generally want to express themselves. We’re a bunch of white collar guys trying to enjoy life, so our labels reflect that.
- There are a ton of craft breweries and you have to stand out. Have you been to the package store lately? At last count there were over 1400 craft breweries in the U.S. Hop City carries over 1200 different beers. With so many choices, it makes sense to make your labels pop, and art is one of the best ways to do this.
Artsy labels are obviously no substitute for great beer, but the label may be the thing that sets a beer apart on the shelf and gets someone to try it. Once that someone has purchased a six-pack, it’s up to the beer to retain that consumer.
Image source: djeucalyptus
Monday Night recap: “Puppy fight” edition
Last night we shattered the record for the number of puppies attending Monday Night Brewing. Yes, that’s right. We had not one, but TWO puppies in attendance. After a brief sniffing and licking debacle (I’ll spare you the details), the puppies became BFF’s. There are even rumors that they Facebooked each other this morning. While this was arguably the biggest news of the evening, we also had some other stuff going on. We brewed another batch of our Belgian wit. Despite the absence of Brewmaster Jeff, Joel and I managed to hit an original gravity of 1.052 on our projected 1.053. As we all know, you are supposed to round up your gravity readings, so we actually hit our target on the nose. Plus, the fresh grated ginger threw us off by .001, as it will often do.
I made an important discovery last night. It is entirely too easy to sound like you know what you’re talking about with hops if you throw out words like “alpha acid,” “lupulin,” and “rhizome.” Seriously. It should be illegal for me to use those words without passing some sort of test.
Meanwhile, back at the bat cave, Joel kept on trucking with our chilling setup. We got the wort down from boiling to 78 degrees in around 13 minutes. In 90 degree weather. Lesser brewers take note, Joel is a master of ice and copper. That’s why we call him the Ice Queen. Thanks to everyone who came last night, and a special thanks to the puppy owners out there. Monday Night salutes you!
Brewing is on, with or without a car
Yesterday in rural Georgia, this happened to my car:
And not even Joel, who was riding with me, was able to MacGyver a new fanbelt, so we had to get ‘er towed. Fortunately it should be fixed today, so brewing is on like a pot of neckbones. Tonight we will be brewing up another batch of our Belgian Wit, a true summer favorite.
We should also have a couple beers available for a light tasting. Come by Jeff’s house around 8pm to partake ? we’ll be closing up shop as soon as brewing is over this week as I have to spend some quality time with my newly-fixed automobile later in the evening.
Wait, what?