It’s been a busy week in the world of Massachusetts beer. In case you’ve been living in a cave (or were just out of town like myself), the controversy started with the Idle Hands Craft Ales company announcing that the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC) had denied its application for a so-called farmer-brewery license. Beyond impacting this single nano-in-development, the ABCC’s decision included a section purporting to be an advisory opinion, which held that in order to qualify for a Farmer-Brewery license, a farmer-brewer must “grow at least 50-percent, in the aggregate, of the quantity of cereal grains and hops needed to produce the anticipated volume of malt beverages.” The ABCC explicitly stated in its decision that “the industry is put on notice that the Commission will be applying this ruling prospectively and, specifically, during the next annual renewal cycle to ensure that every applicant for a farmer-brewer license meets the state law definition of farmer-brewer by growing at least 50 percent…”
This statement no doubt scared the hell out of dozens of brewers around the state that continue to operate under such a license, even if their renewal period was still a few months away. Read as an advisory opinion, the agency’s decision sought to redefine a long-standing license that a large number of production breweries in the state use for their operations.
The response to the ABCC’s decision and advisory opinion was fast, furious, and devastating. Everyone from newbie nanos to United States Senator Scott Brown piled on the vitriol against the ABCC, calling the decision everything from a “job killer” to a “devastating financial opinion.” Speaking at a well-timed annual meeting of the Beer Institute in Boston, Senator Brown lit into the decision. From the start it appeared clear that it was only a matter of time before either the legislature or other state politicians acted to quell concerns. On the state level, Senator Robert Hedlund filed legislation to allow for a new manufacturer’s permit for craft brewers. On the federal level, Senator Brown announced his support for the long-pending bill to roll back the taxes brewers pay to pre-1991 levels, which would cut the per barrel tax to $9 under legislation. Under the bill, the taxes paid by small breweries on their first 60,000 barrels produced would also be cut from $7 to $3.50. A few days later, State Treasurer Steve Grossman, who oversees the ABCC, announced that the agency’s decision would be rescinded and that public hearings on the rule would be held.
The funny thing about all of the controversy, however, is just how uncontroversial the ABCC’s decision should have been. Little is generally known by the public of the farmer-brewer designation and craft brewers themselves seem to also lack knowledge about its history. This fundamental lack of understanding, combined with the ABCC’s admittedly clumsy handling of the situation, has allowed what is otherwise a seemingly proper decision to go up in flames, squelching a broader and necessary discussion.
Long before the Harpoon Brewery sought the state’s first brewing permit in 1986, the Massachusetts alcohol licensing law contained but a single type of permit allowing for the manufacture of malt beverages in the state. In 1982, at a time when no breweries existed in the state, the state legislature tried to encourage brewing by adding a “farmer-brewer” or “farmer-brewery” license. Little changed since its passage, the farmer-brewer law was intended to encourage “the development of domestic farms.” Under the license, individuals and corporations can brew and sell their own beer on the site of the brewery. The measure passed with little fanfare and went unused until small, upstart craft breweries saw the benefits of its less restrictive terms and much less expensive licensing fees.
But from the beginning, applying the farmer-brewer designation to small brewers was complicated and fraught with problems. In the beginning, the ABCC enforced the spirit of the regulation and required brewers to cultivate at least one ingredient used in the brewing process, be it hops or barley. This, of course, caused problems for local brewers. As the Boston Business Journal put it more than twenty years ago, “[s]ince the climate here is not appropriate for growing barley adequate for brewing beer, to get the license [brewery] owners must lease farmland to grow a crop they will never use.”
“I don’t know of any other business that is required to farm in the state in order to do business,” Jonathan Tremblay, the then manager of the Cambridge Brewing Company, told the Journal. To qualify for the farmer brewer license, the brewpub grew 10 acres of useless barley that it leased from a farmer. At the same time in Northampton, one of the state’s only other brewpub proprietors, Janet Egelston, wanted to open new locations of the popular Northampton Brewery in Worcester and Salem but the state’s laws caused them to open in Portsmouth, New Hampshire instead. The nature of the farmer brewer license also caused her to postpone for five years her marriage to a business partner, until a state senator filed special legislation exempting from the state law prohibiting joint ownership of both brewery and restaurant.
In response, the ABCC filed legislation in 1990 attempting to scrap the farmer brewery license and replace it with a new brewpub license. After long being stuck in a legislative committee, and while no other brewpub licenses were granted, the legislature finally passed the law in 1998, adding licenses for pub brewers and pub brewers. While the new license allowed pub brewers to operate without the farming requirements, the legislature did not remove the language for non-pub based farmer brewers.
The ABCC itself acknowledged the farcical nature of the license. “The farmer brewery license is not working out well at all. It is making hypocrites and dishonest people out of legitimate business people by claiming they are growing the commodities that go into the product when in fact they are not,” George McCarthy, former ABCC chairman, told the Boston Business Journal in 1990. Somewhere thereafter, the ABCC changed its application of the ingredient growing requirement, allowing new craft brewers to enjoy the benefits of a license never intended to govern their operations. Craft breweries favored the farmer brewer license and continued to open and operate under its designation.
Fast forward to today and craft breweries are suddenly up in arms over something that should have been addressed by their lobbyists and the legislature decades ago. Until recently, Massachusetts brewers have been a largely disorganized bunch, preferring to go it alone in their operations and eschewing a larger, statewide group effort. The resurrection of a statewide brewers guild has helped this situation but the group has not taken steps to alter the state of the farmer brewery designation before the legislature.
The ABCC decision certainly frightened business owners who have worked hard to develop their operations or spent time in the planning stages. The Idle Hands press release on the denial of its license best captures this feeling.
Though this decision helps clarify a license that has been on the book for years, it sets a precedent that creates far-reaching effects on breweries, bars, restaurants, retailers and ultimately consumers. There are cost implications and more important issues relate to economic growth, industry innovation, and consumer access to a greater variety of local beers. These effects are further amplified as the brewing industry is one of a few growing industries in an otherwise struggling economy. Existing breweries of all sizes will have to adapt to the 50 percent requirements or apply for alternate licensing, and local entrepreneurs will have to determine whether they can invest in an industry that no longer supports growth and innovation.
While the ABCC’s unexpected change in course sent craft brewers scurrying in response, and with good reason, the agency’s decision was neither unforeseeable nor out of line. State law allows the ABCC to make rules governing brewing licenses, with comment periods usually given to the public and those affected. The ABCC even has the power to issue emergency regulations, as it did earlier this year when it prohibited the sale of caffeinated alcoholic beverages in the Commonwealth.
The odd thing, however, is that craft brewers are either ignoring the spirit and language of the farmer-brewer law or want to continue to operate in ignorance of it. For its part, Idle Hands conceded that it was not going to produce any significant portion of its own ingredients in line with the farmer brewer’s licensing guidelines and most craft brewers grow very little or none of their brewing ingredients.
While the ABCC’s abrupt announcement in the Idle Hands decision and its later advisory opinion was far from the best way to handle the shift of how it will apply state law, craft breweries operating in Massachusetts have to take some responsibility for their failure to address a glaring and long-standing problem. State Senator John Olver, the one who assisted Egelston in navigating the brewpub law in 1990, telegraphed the situation to the Journal in 1990. “The farmers brewery license was set up for another time and was never successful.”
It’s time for the Commonwealth (and its brewers and legislators) to address these long-standing issues in a responsible and public manner.
It’s David versus Goliath, only in liquid form. Often framed as extreme versus session beer, two sides of the coin, mortal enemies fighting a cage match for consumer attention, the debate over beer alcohol levels is playing out in barrooms and liquor stores from San Diego to Boston. The narrative often involves a clash of drinking cultures, with brash upstarts promoting hop bombs and barrel aged beer mammoths while a few quiet warriors work to promote a new world order of beer, filled with three and four percent alcohol ales and lagers.
On its face, the comparison of big and small beers offers an attractive dichotomy, a true exercise in contrasts. And after pumping the extreme beer balloon to its swollen limit, the mainstream media now stands ready to burst the engorged alcohol behemoth in favor of the next big (or little) thing. With articles promoting the trend-worthiness of lower alcohol beers splashing across Advertising Age and the New York Times, it’s easy to get swept up in the rah-rah spirit behind the session beer movement. Experience, however, suggests that it’s going to be a while before Americans toss aside their regular IPA’s and stouts and openly embrace the idea of lower alcohol beer.
In choosing the ‘session’ banner, American promoters have knowingly wedded themselves to a beer culture that is entirely foreign to this country. The British concept of session drinking involves the consumption of many rounds of lower alcohol beer over an extended period, say five or six beers after work. In adopting the session moniker as opposed to simply calling their efforts a campaign for lower-alcohol beers, these brewers face target consumers who are not given to long stints in the pub or hours of uninterrupted drinking. Our drinking culture is goal oriented: have a beer to accompany a meal or fill a short window of time after work and before a commute. Most drinkers don’t sit around and have a half-dozen beers before heading home and with craft beer prices in many markets approaching $7, 8 or even $10 a pour, regular ‘sessions’ would be bankrupting.
Beyond incompatible consumption levels, transferring the concept of session beer to the United States has hit other hurdles. Born in the pubs of England, even hard core sessionistas have a difficult time actually defining what they mean by session drinking. Is 4.5 ABV session worthy or must it be 3.5 or lower? Often obsessed with the numbers, the side of session beer that promotes balance and flavor harmony is lost in the process. Belaboring such beer minutiae escapes or disinterests most drinkers. With a history punctuated with terms of government enforced moderation and prohibition, Americans have a difficult time relating to such beer confines. Most American drinkers don’t have experience in purposely selecting lower alcohol products in order to sustain a lengthier drinking session and have simply viewed alcohol as a means to a socially lubricating end.
The state of our beer culture is influenced by our purveyors and producers. Local drinking establishments don’t put a premium on courting the session drinker. Whether based in concerns related to promoting over-consumption or sheer laziness, most bars don’t list the alcohol levels in the beers they serve unless mandated by law. The consumer looking to undertake a true session is left asking the busy bartender about lower alcohol options or doing their own advanced legwork. For their part, American brewers have also not focused much attention on producing low enough alcohol beers to provide a sufficiently sizable point of differentiation from other brands.
Despite recent headlines, American beer culture has a long way to go before lower alcohol drinking gains a true foothold. We have adopted a totally different world view from that of the British session beer experience, which simply isn’t transferable to or in tune with our local beer and drinking culture. To be sure, promoting lower alcohol yet flavorful beer options is a worthy mission. But calling it session beer in the United States is a little like calling three tables in a restaurant back alley a German beer garden.
-Article appeared in Issue 53 of BeerAdvocate Magazine.
So a couple of times a month, I receive requests from media around the country to offer some thoughts on craft beer or to suggest some good places to go. After traveling around the American beer scene for more than a decade, I’m more than happy to assist. Some times the media are calling from a little newspaper in Oklahoma and some times it’s USA Today. I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by USA Today for my book, Great American Craft Beer, when it was released and the paper recently called again for help with an article titled, 10 Great Places to Get A Craft Beer.
The criteria for the latest article were as follows: a geographically diverse selection of American brewpubs in medium to large urban settings. This doesn’t mean breweries or tap rooms or your favorite local small town brewpub. Despite this, I’m still catching some blow-back from beer geeks with hurt feelings over my having not selected their favorite pub or brewery (remember the criteria now…) or having skipped their state.
The list was capped at 10, not 100. If you want more detail on your local brewery or beer, try reading Great American Craft Beer and let me know how I did.
A new era of craft beer is dawning before our very eyes. While craft brewers celebrated continuing good fortune at their annual conference in San Francisco, brewery owners, executives, and accountants in St. Louis, Chicago, and Belgium were putting the finishing touches on a deal that would send shock waves through the beer industry. Whether you think the headline should be “The Killing of the Golden Goose” or “A-B InBev Signal Defeat,” we can all be sure that things won’t ever be the same again for craft beer.
Passionate enthusiasts often have a difficult time accepting that, at its core, craft beer is a business. While the community aspect of craft beer is a wonderfully inviting quality, brewers ultimately run their operations, not as non-profit beer funhouses, but as companies with bills to be paid. Brewing remains an incredibly capital intensive business and one grows more expensive as the industry’s production numbers continue to explode.
Two years ago, I warned in these pages that the expanding reach of small craft brewers into far-flung regions of the United States was not sustainable. While beer lovers from Indiana to Rhode Island were understandably elated at the chance to sample beers from Dogfish Head, Great Divide, and the Shelton Brothers’ international portfolio, few appreciated what such an incredible selection actually signified for the industry.
Sending a few pallets of beer far from home to little known distributors in distant states was easy money. As local demand continued to soar and popular beers ran short in key markets, many craft brewers were left with the disheartening but necessary prospect of pissing off a lot of newfound fans in these remote states. And while Three Floyds and Dogfish Head may be the biggest names in the market withdrawal game, it’s time to brace yourself for the inevitability that many of your favorite brands will eventually have to pack up and move back home, leaving you with nothing but distant memories of hops and malt and a taste for the past.
I know it’s not a popular view, but the Great Beer Retreat is actually going to be good for the industry. We are entering a new era of craft beer, one in which selection around the country may shrink but where local beer will grow increasingly strong and entrenched roots. And that is exactly what craft brewers need to compete in the cutthroat world of beer.
This kind of strategic retreat is a sign of strength and not weakness for craft beer. Look no further than New Glarus Brewing of Wisconsin for reassurance of this point. Founded in 1993, the brewery grew steadily, expanded into neighboring Illinois and even sent some of its specialty releases to a few other states, including Massachusetts. By 2002, the brewery decided to exclusively focus on its home market. Nearly a decade later, New Glarus still only distributes beer in one state and it’s grown to become one of the nation’s biggest craft brewers.
While we’ve been blessed, perhaps even spoiled, with unbelievable selection, consumers should actually appreciate losing a few brands. Dedication to local markets will define the next generation of craft beer, which will result in lower shipping costs, fresher beer, more direct attention from the brewery and its staff, and deeper and stronger distributor relationships. So while disappointment is understandable, craft beer will be better for it.
One brewer recently told me that these are the good old days. And indeed that’s true. Unless you live in major cities on the Eastern Seaboard, change is coming for you. Craft beer will never be the same again so enjoy this golden era. Even with the inevitable advance of major change, one thing remains clear: great, local craft beer isn’t going anywhere.
-Article appeared in Issue 51 of BeerAdvocate Magazine.
With slowly creeping hop levels and increasingly complex degrees of barrel aging, the very definition of beer has evolved if not mutated into some improbable beast of flavor and fancy in recent years. But this era of spiraling expressionism has led to the rather unfortunate development of a new, particularly pernicious kind of beer snobbery.
The archetypal articulation of this newfound contempt rests in the wholesale dismissal of classic and traditional styles of beer. From all corners of the beer world, a mantra grows more familiar by the day: out with the old, in with the new. Recently, one well-regarded American brewer advised his comrades and aspiring brewers that “[t]he world doesn’t need another world-class Kölsch or a world-class pale ale. The world needs more innovative beer.”
In my opinion, I believe such views couldn’t be more off-base. I believe that better Kölsch beers, pale ales, pilseners, and other classic styles are exactly what the craft beer industry desperately needs. For a long time I thought of craft beer as representing a 10-80-10 ratio: 10-percent of the available beers were world-class, 10-percent were terrible, and the overwhelming bulk represented varying quality degrees. After more reflection and perhaps a maturing of both palate and mind, I think I overestimated the number of truly world-class beers. In the course of a year, I have to admit that perhaps only a dozen beers really capture my attention. These beers don’t usually dazzle me with the now ubiquitous shock and awe campaign of power and strength. On the contrary, the beers that impress me tend to involve mind-blowing simplicity and subtle but characterful flavors.
In contrast to the prevailing view, I think we need less focus on innovation and more concentration on brewing less boring beers. In many breweries and brewpubs around the country, a malaise of beer tedium has settled over the taps. Caught in a paradigm straight out of the early 1990s, where even the blandest craft beer offering stood as a shining ray of hope compared to the monotonous macro beers, these brewers never bothered to update their beers to capture more expressive qualities. Countless prosaic brown ales, ambers, hefeweizens and other styles share entirely similar, artless, and sometimes clumsy recipes. As a result, many local brewery and brewpub experiences yield a wide assortment of drinkable if uninspired and soulless beers.
As consumer tastes continue to develop, India pale ales made entirely with Cascade hops are the liquid equivalent of basic cable. Sure it’s a step up from three network stations broadcast over the air, but we now live in a radically different age. It’s time for craft beer to move past the cassette tape era. It’s time for brewers to consider new hop and malt varieties and source better ingredients. It’s time for the training wheels to come off our everyday, regular, and traditional beers. This evolution need not result in the banishment of all amber and brown ales as relics of the past. Quite to the contrary, brewers need to take a hard look at their respective portfolios and look for ways to improve their beers, whether that be adding a light smoke element to a porter or actually doing something about that shitty, knock-off Kölsch you’ve been unceremoniously brewing for years.
Just because the American craft beer industry produces a lot of beers in traditional styles doesn’t mean they’re anything near world-class in quality. While often treated as a throwaway offering here, Kölsch is an elegant and charming style whose subtle beauty is rarely if ever captured in America. Our brewers have certainly proven themselves adept at innovation and novelty. It’s time to look inward and prove a talent for the fundamentals of brewing. For existing brewers and those who follow them, know that the only shame in brewing traditional beers is doing them poorly or without care or thought.
-Article appeared in Issue 49 of BeerAdvocate Magazine.
Give and Take…