Every time we sit down to record, I hope that we hit the stop button in under 45 minutes. It seems that these keep getting longer and longer. The next one will be shorter. I promise!
This episode was recorded prior to the Superbowl, and thus prior to the Budweiser ad that got most craft beer nerds’ panties in a bunch (I thought the commercial was funny). We discuss the differences between what the Brewer’s Association defines as a craft brewer and a “crafty” brewer. We drink some “craft” beers and some “crafty” beers. I wish I didn’t need to put those words in quotes and just call them beer.
This is a topic with very little right answer. As you will hear, if you make it all the way through, many craft brewers employ business tactics similar to Anheuser Busch, and many crafty beers taste better than most craft beers. It’s easy to defend craft beer, until you are trying to explain yourself being in a line to Goose Island Bourbon County Stout.
Please send any and all feedback to us @hookedonhops on twitter, on Facebook.com/hookedonhops, or feel free to email me or Armando at luis@hookedonhops.com or armando@hookedonhops.com. We’d love to continue recording these and if we can make it more enjoyable or interesting, then we’d love to know how.
The goal is for Armando and I to start recording these a bit more often, and a bit shorter, and eventually make this consistent enough that we move to a different platform other than soundcloud. Without any feedback as to if you enjoy these, we may continue to take our time with that…
If you haven’t heard, Aces & Ales will be opening a second location on the west side of town. One thing that they are considering, to make it stand out from the original location, and most bars in Las Vegas, is to not serve any macro beers. They wouldn’t be the first bar to do this, Tenaya Creek comes to mind as bar that only serves craft beer, but I doubt there’s any others, outside of local breweries.
Looking through comments online, some people feel that this is outright beer snobbery at its finest, or that this is a poor business decision. Some things that I think about with this: (more…)
Lagunitas’ CEO and founder Tony Magee took to Twitter late Thursday night with some interesting data about craft beer’s percentage of the beer market, and what that looks like for future growth, both with existing breweries, and with new breweries. It’s an interesting bit perspective from the 6th largest craft brewery in America, and I’ve always enjoyed Magee’s perspective on his business. I edited his statement slightly, only to fix all the “Twitter grammar,” to make it easier to read:
Was looking at IRA data. I added ALL the craft-type sales, meaning the narrow Brewers Association definition of craft beer, as well as Shock Top, Blue Moon, Craft Brewer’s Alliance brands, Guinness, Newcastle, etc… It turns out that the things y’all drink when y’all want flavor represent a freakin’ 12% market share, not the 6% share that is reported.
Could say that the extra 6% share represents the ACTUAL shortage of capacity within authentic craft beer. Makes building another brewery seem like a stoopid safe bet. I see Blue Moon & Shock Top, and the other faux beers as mere spackling in the cracks. A sort of beer-bondo that we can easily chip back out when we’re ready to use that market crevice ourselves. Maybe that sounds pompous, and maybe it is. And when I write ‘we’ I’m referring to all of us new brewers. Bottoms up!
In a recent newspaper thing I said that I thought Lagunitas could be as big as Anheuser Busch or MillerCoors. WTF does ‘big’ mean? Big is the result of something else. No one ‘owns’ big. It’s an artifact of your decision making. Could Lagunitas be that big? Sure. But in the end it’ll be up to you. We’ll just try. But like every mountain climber knows first hand, there’s nothing up there on the top. The trip is the thing, & we’re sure trippin’ lately.
