Don Barkley Returns to His "Roots"

The last two chapters of my beer book cover the "microbrewing revolution" (or "real beer movement" or whatever tern you prefer). I interviewed a number of people involved in changing the American beer scene. One of my most important sources of information was Don Barkley.

In the 1970s, he was an avid homebrewer who enrolled in the UC-Davis brewing program with the goal of going professional. More important, he was one of two "employees" at New Albion, the nation's first microbrewery (he got paid in beer; I guess that made him an employee....). His recollections of what happened there proved to be an unexpected and priceless treasure for me.

I met Don in person at the 2006 GABF, and then got to drink some beer and enjoy serious talk time with him and his wife in San Francisco in October 2006.

Anyway -- I just learned, thanks to Stan, that Don has retired from Mendocino (where he went after New Albion closed) and joined a new small-scale craft-brewing venture called Napa Smith Brewing Co.

I'm delighted to hear this. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Don is the longest serving brewmaster now working in the United States. And he's young (53). He's got a lot of great beer left in him.

And I know this much about being in my fifties: new challenges are crucial to keeping the mind and spirit young.

So this is exciting news about a guy that I ilke and admire. You can read about the venture here and at Bill Brand's blog.

Don, here's to you!

And a BIG tip 'o the mug to Stan for alerting me to this news.

Beer Haiku

Okay, more cool stuff. Check out beerhaikudaily.com,which is precisely what the name implies. Thanks and a tip 'o the mug to the folks at Imbibe magazine.

Jim Koch -- Good Guy of the Day, Week, Month

As every beerdrinker knows, beer prices are rising to infinity and beyond. There are many reasons, but one of them is that there's a serious shortage of hops in the United States. Serious enough that some brewers have not been able to buy what they need.

Jim Koch to the rescue. Jim is the brains behind the Boston Beer Company, which makes the Sam Adams line of beers. He's also a good guy (I interviewed him for the book) whose head is screwed on straight.

A fact he demonstrated this week when he announced that he would sell his extra hops to any brewer that needed them. You can read the announcement at Stan's blog.

Beer and Women

Catching up with Stan's blog: a few days ago, he commented on a recent wave of writing-about-women-and-beer (that's my abbreviated version of his content). Worth visiting to see his comments and links to others'.

I'll just add: ain't nuthin' new under the sun. Since beer came back 74.5 years ago (the 75th anniversary is coming up in April), brewers have wrestled with the women-and-beer problem: Market to women-as-the-household's-main-shopper? Market to women-as-women? Market beer-with-food and thus to the people who do most of the household cooking? Sell the beer in seven-ounce-cans? (Idea being that women have smaller stomachs...) Sell the stuff in pink cartons? (One brewer tried that in the 1950s; the carton was shaped and designed like a small gift, complete with printed ribbons. So cute....)

Many brewers in the 1930s hosted cooking demonstrations and luncheons in department stores, hoping to persuade women that beer was dignified, wholesome, and fashionable. Others touted beer's virtues as a hair conditioner, hoping that women would buy one six-pack for the bathroom and one for the frig.

And of course the whole "low calorie" thing began life in the 1930s as a way to persuade women that beer was not fattening.

So the brewers really have been there, done that. But mostly what they've done is market beer to (very) young men, and do so using tits and tanktops. And the reason they've done so is because Americans infantalize drinking. And as long as that remains true, well, I doubt marketing -- for or to women or anyone else -- will change much. But we can hope.

New Beer Book, Part Two

Several months ago, I noted that another beer book was due out soon. It has now been published and the final version has a different sub-title than was advertised pre-publication: It's BREWING BATTLES: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN BEER, by Amy Mittelman. As near as I can tell, it's a POD book and apparently only available from the publisher or from Amazon. But hey, Amazon is one of the greatest creations of the past century, sooooooooo............

Anyway, the book is out, and the first eight or nine pages cover colonial brewing, something that will make many people happy.

Hmmmm.... That Budweiser Commercial Sounds Familiar....

I don't watch much football (as far as I'm concerned, the game is a cure for insomnia). But my husband watches playoff games, and yesterday he watched the game in Green Bay. (Packers versus some other team. The other team won.) I was in the room, but I was reading the Sunday newspapers and not paying much attention to the game. Until an Anheuser-Busch commercial came on.

"Hey," he said. "You need to watch this!"

I watched the commercial in question. And then I put down the newspaper and watched the rest of the game, waiting for more of the A-B ads to air. I don't know the final score of the game, but I can tell you ALL about those Anheuser-Busch commercials.

The theme of this particular campaign (which A-B rolled out just a few weeks ago) is "The Great American Lager." It's a bit of a departure from the usual A-B ads in that it features a guy in a suit who does nothing but talk. No farting Clydesdales. No cute dogs or animated frogs. No babes in bathing suits. Just a guy talking about the company's oldest brand, Budweiser. You can read some press coverage of this new ad campaign here and here. (And probably plenty of other places as well; just google.)

So what was the guy saying? If you've read my book Ambitious Brew, his words sounded, um, familiar. The company pioneered the use of refrigerator cars. Check. Lager's translucence leaves no room for error. Check. Bud is a superb example of a national classic, the American-style lager. Check. And so on. Large chunks of the script sounded like they'd been lifted straight out of the book.

Sure, a few words had been changed here and there so that the text sounded more conversational -- but the gist of it is all there in chapter two. In that chapter, which is based on substantive and original research, I argued that a handful of nineteenth-century brewers, most notably A-B and Pabst, developed a unique American style of lager. That Anheuser-Busch (and Pabst) was a prime mover in the shift away from Bavarian lagers and to American-style beers. I also argue that Budweiser was, and is, a pioneering masterpiece of this particular style of beer. Even people who hate Bud (and A-B) have to admit that it's not easy to achieve the kind of consistency that A-B achieves with every batch of Bud.

I hasten to add that I'm NOT accusing A-B of stealing my work. It's not like the people there didn't know all of this already.

But it's almost as if the book, written by an outsider with no connection to the company, served as a kind of affirmation that freed them to promote Bud in this specific way, with this specific, coherent narrative that, well, comes right outta chapter two. Or maybe my narrative worked as a kind of light bulb: "Oh! We've now got this other story we can tell about Budweiser." (And yes, for those of you who are wondering, many A-B executives have read the book. Carefully and thoroughly.)

Soooo.........for the first time in my life, I'm planning to watch the Super Bowl. I have no idea who's playing, but I can't wait to see the commercials.