Jeff Alworth: Seriously Impressive Guy

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Seriously. He's impressive. He's living proof of the way change happens. Yes, okay, the bill may die before it lands on the desk of the Oregon governor, but holy shit, he and the bill are impressive. I'm big on hope. And Jeff's desire for an honest pint is an example of hope in action. Plus, he's a good writer. Damn, what's NOT to like about this guy?

Read more here and here and here.

Filmmaking, Writing, Beer, Insularity, History, and Other Topics More-Or-Less Related to “Beer Wars,” Part 13

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Part 1 --- Part 2 --- Part 3 --- Part 4 --- Part 5 --- Part 6 --- Part 7 Part 8 --- Part 9 --- Part 10 --- Part 11 --- Part 12 --- Part 13

NOTE: When I moved to a new site, this "Beer Wars" series was mangled/destroyed during the move. I've reconstructed it by copying/pasting another copy of the original posts. I also lost the comments in their original form. I've copied/pasted the comments, but had to do so under my own name. So although it looks as though I'm the only commenter, I'm not. In each case, I've identified the original commenter.

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Gloomy story, eh? Not entirely. American winemakers have shown that it’s possible to convey a different message.

Prior to the 1960s, the American wine industry was almost non-existent. Sure, a few families in California made a handful of wines, which was consumed by a tiny consumer audience. But the operative words are “few,” “handful,” and “tiny.” During the 1960s, however, a handful of wine enthusiasts began building an American wine industry. (*1) They built an audience for their product by promoting it specifically as a beverage for everyday use in the most common of all events: eating.

Unlike brewers, who marketed beer as the handmaiden of professional sports and young men, and unlike distillers, who didn’t do much marketing at all (in part for legal reasons that made it very difficult to advertise any kind of spirits), winemakers touted wine as a beverage to enjoy every day, especially with food.

The wine industry also lobbied for laws that legalized on-premise sales at their wineries, which enabled vineyards to become “tourist” destinations, and maintained a coherent message about wine’s role in daily life: It tastes good with food. Drink it with your meal instead of coffee, tea, or milk. (*2)

Put another way, they un-demonized wine. The winemakers also worked together as an industry to craft a single, coherent message. As a result, wine has become a staple ingredient in the American home. When I was growing up, I don’t remember anyone having wine in the house. By the time I was in my 20s (in the 1970s), wine had become common even in “low end” restaurants.” By the 1980s, wine had become a staple in grocery stores and in the American home.

But again, wine is the exception to the rule. And of the three categories of alcohol — wine, beer, and spirits — brewers have the longest road to travel to change beer’s image from drink-of-frat-boys to sophisticated beverage best enjoyed with food.

Yes, I know that craft brewers are working hard to create a new image. Craft brewers avoid advertisements designed around babes in bare skin, and promote beer/food pairings. But they’ve got a long way to go.

In my opinion, and as I’ve said here before, their best bet is to appeal to consumers’ ecological concerns.

A compelling discussion about how to do that is in Daniel Goleman’s new book Ecological Intelligence. For example, consumers will respond to a “drink local” message, but they need to see/hear that message at the point-of-sale rather than in nebulous advertisements that appeal to concerns about image or status.

In the meantime, brewers will, I hope, begin thinking about the 3-tier system less as some insitutional evil than as a symptom of a deeper problem.

And with that, dear (and patient!) readers, I bring this rambling discourse to an end.

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*1: A truly good cultural history of the American wine industry is waiting to be written, but one place to start is Paul Lukacs, American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine.

*2: Winemakers lobbied for those laws in California in partnership with the half dozen or so craft beer makers, who wanted to sell beer at their “brewpubs.”

Filmmaking, Writing, Beer, Insularity, History, and Other Topics More-Or-Less Related to “Beer Wars,” Part 12

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Part 1 --- Part 2 --- Part 3 --- Part 4 --- Part 5 --- Part 6 --- Part 7 Part 8 --- Part 9 --- Part 10 --- Part 11 --- Part 12 --- Part 13

NOTE: When I moved to a new site, this "Beer Wars" series was mangled/destroyed during the move. I've reconstructed it by copying/pasting another copy of the original posts. I also lost the comments in their original form. I've copied/pasted the comments, but had to do so under my own name. So although it looks as though I'm the only commenter, I'm not. In each case, I've identified the original commenter.

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Oh, hooray! I’m finally to the point that I wanted to make during the panel discussion after “Beer Wars.” Finally! How long has it taken me? (*1)

Thanks to post-Prohibition laws, alcohol manufacturers could no longer sell their products directly to retailers or consumers. Brewers, for example, had to sell their beer to a middleman, who then re-sold it to a retailer (like a grocery store or tavern). Thus the 3-tiers:

  • the brewer.
  • the wholesaler (also called the distributor).
  • the retailer (eg, a tavern, grocery, or convenience store where people buy alcohol).

Over time the wholesalers have become powerful because they control access to store shelves and tavern taps. This makes it difficult for small beermakers like Sam and Rhonda to get their beer into consumers’ hands.

Sam, for example, has to persuade a wholesaler to handle his beer and place it on store shelves. If he can’t make a deal, he can’t sell much beer. (Obviously he’s made a lot of deals with distributors. But not all beermakers can say the same.)

The beer people on the panel argued that this means that wholesalers can and do prevent Americans from enjoying “real” beer. That Big Brewers and their evil sidekicks, the wholesalers, have duped Americans into drinking “bad” beer, and thereby prevent the  good guys —  the Real Brewers — from selling real beer.

I don’t deny that the wholesalers have power. I discussed this in my book. But I disagree about the problem that craft brewers face, and I think critics of the 3-tier system are confusing the messenger with the message, or the symptom with the disease.

In this case, the 3-tier system is a symptom of a deep-rooted disease: A national mindset that demonizes alcohol and infantalizes drinking. The three-tier system is the messenger conveying a single, powerful message: Booze is bad. People can’t be trusted to make decisions on their own. The 3-tier system reinforces that message, as do Sunday drinking laws, state-owned liquor stores, and all the other lunacy that prevents Americans from thinking of alcohol consumption as a normal accompaniment to daily life.

In my opinion, the 3-tier system and the Big Brewers don’t explain why Americans drink bad beer. We drink bad beer because  we don’t respect alcohol, and as a rule, human beings dismiss and denigrate things they don’t respect. We don’t drink bad beer because of corporate advertising that focuses on large-breasted women and farting Clydesdales. We buy into that advertising because it reinforces our mindset: Booze is bad, it’s not to be taken seriously. Drinking is shameful, juvenile behavior.

I know that many people, especially in the craft brewing industry, think ending the 3-tier system will solve all their problems. It won’t. Take away the distributors — and we’ll still be saddled with a national drinking culture that infantalizes drinking and demonizes alcohol.

Put another way: craft brewers don’t have trouble getting their message, and their beer, across to Americans because of evil corporate giants and distributors. They have trouble getting their message across because that message — beer is a sophisticated. complex beverage that should be treated with respect — flies in the face of prevailing wisdom.

Next: Yes, there is hope!

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*1: Yes, I know: Too long. But this is a prime example of why the “sound bite” era is bad for critical thinking: it’s difficult to tackle complex issues in two-minute sound bites or half hour panels. Believe me, every person on the “Beer Wars” panel wanted to discuss and explain in greater detail and complexity.

Filmmaking, Writing, Beer, Insularity, History, and Other Topics More-Or-Less Related to “Beer Wars,” Part 11

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Part 1 --- Part 2 --- Part 3 --- Part 4 --- Part 5 --- Part 6 --- Part 7 Part 8 --- Part 9 --- Part 10 --- Part 11 --- Part 12 --- Part 13

NOTE: When I moved to a new site, this "Beer Wars" series was mangled/destroyed during the move. I've reconstructed it by copying/pasting another copy of the original posts. I also lost the comments in their original form. I've copied/pasted the comments, but had to do so under my own name. So although it looks as though I'm the only commenter, I'm not. In each case, I've identified the original commenter.

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Finally, there’s the three-tier system.

The film portrayed the system as a weapon wielded by evil corporate giants who use it to hold down little guys like Sam and Greg, and to prevent Americans from gaining access to “real” beer.

I disagree.(*1) It’s not that simple, and to understand why, we need to know something about the history of the three-tier system. I know what you’re saying:

“Yeah, yeah. The 3-tier system was created after Prohibition. So what? The past is irrelevant. All that matters now is that the 3-tier system allows wholesalers to exercise too much power over beer distribution.”

Again, I disagree. The original reason for the 3-tier system is as relevant today as it was in 1933, and is connected to why craft brewers have a hard time getting their message across to consumers.

So. Short history lesson. Before Prohibition, breweries could own saloons and use them as retail outlets for their beer. Nearly every brewer owned one, and big brewers owned many of them. The prohibitionists believed that if they could outlaw the saloons, the brewers would have no place to sell beer and they would go out of business. (It’s not a coincidence that the group that spearheaded the drive to ban alcohol was named the Anti-Saloon League.) So they launched a (successful) campaign against the saloon, painting them as a threat to decency, law, order, and the family; as dens of iniquity that harbored criminal activity, such as gambling and prostitution.

The Prohibitionists made their point, and an entire generation of Americans grew up fearing the power of the saloon. So when Prohibition ended, Americans wanted to avoid the return of this alleged evil.To that end, lawmakers at the federal and state level passed hundreds of laws aimed at constructing barriers between Americans and alcohol: Sunday closing laws, the state-control of the sale of alcohol, liquor-by-the-drink laws, the power for localities to remain “dry” and so forth.

I wrote about this in a longish op-ed piece for U.S. News a few months ago, so I won’t repeat myself. You can read that piece here.

Next: The 3-tier system as vehicle for demonization.

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*1: That doesn’t mean that I think the film was bad. As I noted earlier in this absurdly long discourse, I thought Anat’s film was first-rate. I disagree, however, with part of her “message.” It’s possible to praise the messenger and the medium and still disagree with the message.

Update on Jeff Alworth's "Honest Pint Project"

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I don't think I'm EVER going to get caught up on reading/thinking/writing, thanks to my trip to LA and the "Beer Wars" event. But I'm trying.

And one thing I missed/neglected/overlooked (until now) was the great news about Jeff Alworth's Honest Pint Project. Here's one update (with comical commentary from Jeff.) The Oregon House votes on the bill today. You go, Jeff!