Alcopop Taste Test

Humorous rundown of a few hideous alcopop brands from Zug.com

My favorite quote: "It smells like Sesame Street the morning after the cast discover binge drinking and projectile vomit."

Also this great image:

Union Strike Hits InBev in Belgium

The strike that has been in progress for over a week now is rapidly depleting supplies of Leffe, Hoegarden and Stella Artois in Belgium.

At the heart is AB-InBev's plan to lay off hundreds of workers, about 10% of their Belgian workforce, despite posting global profits of $1.5 billion in the last quarter. It's a conflict of a small group of workers representing some very iconic Belgian beers, who are nonetheless part of a global conglomerate now representing over 200 brands. What may be good for the parent corporation and the stockholders may not be good for the little guys.

Meanwhile the global consolidation of breweries continues.

History of Bellingham Brewing

Fun article in the Bellingham Business Journal concerning the history of brewing in the city. Like many frontier cities Bellingham historically had several breweries, all of which were killed off by Prohibition. Now it has two: Boundary Bay and Chuckanut. But what two to have! Boundary Bay has won a slew of awards and makes a great IPA. It is also quite large and is a venue for local music.

Chuckanut is only a bit over two years old but took two golds and two silvers at the GABF last year, making it Small Brewpub of the Year. No surprise here, the brewmaster is Will Kemper, erstwhile of Thomas Kemper Brewing and Sodas (bought by Pyramid Brewing in 90's, sold in 2007 to Adventure Funds in Portland) as well as a dozen more breweries that he helped get up and running.

Global Consolidation of Breweries Continues

Heineken is buying Mexico's Femsa for $5.5 billion in stock. I believe Femsa is the second largest brewing conglomerate in Mexico, after Groupo Modelo. This means that Heineken now also controls Dos Equis, Sol and Tecate in the U.S. as well as Xingu in the U.S. and Brazil. This comes on the heels of Heineken's purchase of Newcastle last year, and is further representative of continued consolidation and struggle between the three largest conglomerates, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, Heineken and SAB-Miller for market share in the developing markets of Central and South America.

"In the context of the reconfiguration of the global brewing landscape, scale and geographic diversification are more important than ever," said Femsa CEO Jose Antonio Fernandez Carbajal.

Widmer loses 62,000 pints of beer

Ouch. Due to a power outage in Portland, OR, yesterday, Widmer Brothers lost an entire batch of their new, most expensive, and as yet unreleased Deadlift Imperial IPA. That's 7,750 gallons or around 62,000 pints down the drain.

Fortunately it will be donated to local farmers who will use it as animal feed and fertilizer. The article doesn't mention exactly why the beer couldn't be saved. My guess, since it is going out to animals, is that it was somewhere in the mash or sparge process when the power went out. While it would be hilarious to see a farm full of pigs hopped up on a 9.5% ABV double IPA, I'm guessing they're sending out the unfermented wort and/or mashed grain. Had it been in the fermenting tanks, that volume of beer, in a Portland winter, probably would have held temperature more or less had the glycol chillers cut out, and the beer would be just fine.

I'm sure the batch was probably insured as well.

Happy Repeal Day!

Happy Repeal Day!

Prohibition ended seventy-six years ago today with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. Well, national prohibition anyway. It merely returned control to the states and of course local prohibition remains in places even today.

It's not officially a holiday, but it should be. I, for one, will be celebrating by raising a pint of something dark and oakey at Brouwer's Big Wood festival tonight.

Snow White and the Seven Angry Lawyers

Now for an IP case that does have merit. Posted on Slashfood, here's an article about a promotional campaign for an Australian brewer that was... poorly thought out.

Jamieson's Brewery is launching a new raspberry ale under the slogan "Anything but sweet", aimed at convincing Aussie beer drinkers that fruit beers don't all taste like candy. Unfortunately they used a depiction of a certain "Ho White" and the seven renamed dwarves ("Smarmy", "Randy", etc.).

The Mouse was not amused.

And rightly so. This is clearly a derivative work, damaging to the wholesome reputation of the original movie. And since Disney will push to extend copyright terms any time any of its characters nears the public domain (Mickey first appeared in 1928!), it will also defend those copyrights. And here they'd be justified. Since it's an advertisement selling beer, any Fair Use parody defense will almost certainly fail.

Of course the use of a 'Snow White' character isn't itself a copyright violation. The stories have long been in the public domain, most notably the Brothers Grimm version. Using the basic storyline (Beautiful girl has problems with stepmother, flee to woods to live with creepy short guys, oops poison apple, Prince Charming saves day) wouldn't be a violation at all. But the picture is obviously derived from the Disney characters and this is just what copyright is designed for.

Even though this ad is a lot closer to the original story than Disney's movie ever was.