I believe in drinking locally. For the most part, that means locally-produced beers.
So, here I am, in front of a shelf at a local “bottle shop.” I’m admiring a nice, if relatively small, selection of Goose Island beers. Beers I love to drink when I’m drinking locally.
Priced in Euros - More than I pay back home
But I wont be getting any of them. I believe in drinking locally.
I’m in Dublin right now.
So, I’ll be drinking brands like O’Hara’s, Trouble, and Eight Degree. And even Porterhouse (the largest Irish-owned brewery).
Guinness? Yeah, it’s brewed here, but, like Smithwick’s and Harp, it’s owned by London-based Diageo. Nevertheless, I’ll be drinking a bit of those, too.
So drinking Goose while I’m here wouldn’t exactly be drinking locally. Just as drinking Guinness in Chicago isn’t drinking locally. Or even Porterhouse (which is distributed in the Chicago region by Glunz) still isn’t drinking locally, even if you do hale from the ol’ sod. (FYI, the Glunz selection and distribution of Porterhouse beers is extremely limited – maybe someone will pressure them to carry the Oyster Stout.)
But Goose and other American beers are having their own impact. “American beers have a great reputation here; they sell well” said Mr. Butler, manager of the Drink Store, in the Stoneybatter neighborhood of Dublin. “We’re probably about where you Americans were ten years ago with craft beers.”
The Drink Store
We commented that many of the local beers were very malty. “Yes, we’re learning from you Americans, to not be so afraid of the hops.
As evidence of that, Smithwick’s just introduced its own Pale Ale, using, surprisingly, Amarillo hops – a typically American variety.
But am I contributing to my carbon footprint by traveling over here to Dublin to try the local Irish beers? Yes, of course I am – I took a big ol’ honkin’ jetliner to get here. (It’s very tough to walk, or canoe, even, from Chicago to Dublin, to minimize the carbon footprint. Rowboats don’t work particularly well, either.)
So what’s the drinking-locally lesson? Perhaps Irish brewers will realize the American, no-holds-barred, phooey-with-tradition, try-anything approach will click with craft beer drinkers, and bring more Irish drinkers into the craft beer pantheon.
And then Goose and the other American craft brewers can retreat to serving their local-region craft beer drinkers, and let the Irish brewers serve their own with locally-Irish-produced, quality stuff.
We taught ‘em, they got it, our job is done here.
It’s doubtful that’s their strategy, but we can always hope.
Hey, you. Yeah, it’s me again. I told you about a little visit me and my boys made to FEW spirits a little while ago.
We went back.
Paul Hletko was dere, wit his fancy schmancy “Distiller” shirt on. The big door, where dey used to roll in the cars to chop ‘em up, was open. Paul had his back turned. Made it easy to walk out wit a little sumpin’.
See, da place is full of oak barrels. Dey uses dese barrels to age some of dere whiskeys. Da big guys, dey use da big barrels – maybe 30 gallons or so. But dis guy Paul, he’s new; he wants to get his stuff to market sooner. He uses smaller barrels to get more of the wood stuff into his booze sooner. And it works.
So, dere was an empty barrel there. Already used for his Rye Whiskey. Spoken for by some guy named A five gallon barrel. Poifect for some of the stuff our family’s been producing since the 1920’s. (See, in the 1920’s, if you wanted suds, you had to make the beer yourself. You could get cans of malt extract with instructions that said “Don’t do this, or you’ll be making alcoholic beer.” Not many guys dat we know didn’t do that.)
Dere’s a famous Three Stooges short (it’s wrong, but dey didn’t ask me for any advice … their mistake) with exploding bottles. Their excuse? “We all added the yeast.”
Hletko didn’t need the damn barrel anyways. He can only use dose barrels once, for his whiskeys. But it’ll be good for beers. Maybe a rye stout.
Y’know all those videos that Ken Burns made millions off of, of guys trashing barrels for his Prohibition show? Well, dis is one Ken Burns won’t be filming. We’ve stashed away the barrel where even Ken Burns can’t get to it.
But don’t tell anyone that we let dis Hletko guy swipe our credit card before we ran out wit the barrel. We guys have a reputation to uphold.
Not really an investment portfolio
My recent story on “Local Beers as an Illiquid Investment” got a bit of reaction. That story commented on the practice of reselling rare beers. The intent of the story may have been misunderstood. Forgive the length of this treatise, but it’s a complicated issue.
First, the comments:
From Yep, on 2012/03/26 at 3:27pm
Tom, you are the scum of the industry. It’s the lowlife idiots like you who make rare beers the hyped frenzy-producing entities that they currently are.
You’re a dumbass to write an article about this practice, as it is universally shunned by the legitimate beer community. Not only do people like you drive up craft beer prices, they also reduce purchasing options for the consumer since breweries have stopped bottling and allowing growler fills of “rare” beers, to prevent the secondary market.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
From Jimmy on 2012/03/26 at 1:40pm
This is the most despicable piece of advice on investing I have ever heard. You are recommending that people invest in beer that they then need to send and ship ILLEGALLY. Also, your small animal big machine isn’t selling because you could have also bought it directly from De Struise. In order to prevent scumbags from reselling their beer on EBAY they have started their own webshop so I guess you might actually have to drink those beers you douche.
From Eric on 2012/03/26 at 1:32pm
Wow, please do not listen to this person. If you are purchasing rare / hard-to-find beers, solely for the purpose of re-selling?
1. You’re going against the wishes of the brewers who work hard for you to buy and enjoy this beer.
2. You will become reviled in the craft beer community, ensuring that if you’re seen at a beer release… well lets just say you won’t be very welcome.
I feel like I shouldn’t even have to explain this, but come on people. Don’t be a douche.
————–
Obviously (or maybe it was not so obvious to some) the article was written, as many of my others are, with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. I have never re-sold a beer or a ticket to a beer event on eBay, or any other venue, and I have no intention of doing so. (In fact, the Dark Lord bottle on the right was shared with friends last Saturday.)
That said, if I have to get serious for a while, there are several points that warrant discussion.
1) eBay’s loophole regarding selling alcoholic beverages based on the value of the package, and not the contents, is clearly a ruse — it’s an excuse to allow eBay sellers to sell alcohol directly, circumventing licensing regulations for retail sales of alcohol. But, to my knowledge, no regulators or states’ attorneys general have chosen to pursue the issue of rare beer sales on eBay. The cost of pursuing it, for the tiny handful of bottles that go into any given jurisdiction, may not be worth their time and effort. They probably have more important issues to pursue.
2) The brewing community has mixed feelings about the practice. Some, like Natalie Cilurzo of California’s Russian River Brewing, disliked having an eBay listing of their well-regarded Pliny the Younger Imperial IPA, contacted eBay, and had the listing removed. Others, like David Walker, Co-Owner of Firestone Walker Brewing, compared the practice to reselling fine wines, saying “Who’d have thought a bottle of beer would be valued at $100 plus. It is an affirmation that there is real passion for beer out there.” Most brewery owners whose products have appeared in the secondary market haven’t commented publicly, but also haven’t taken the steps Cilurzo did to get the listings removed — which might be considered tacit approval of the practice.
3) Breweries have the right to set a price point for their products wherever they desire. Three Floyds (to use them as an example) could probably sell out Dark Lord at, say, $40 a bottle (although there would undoubtedly be some grumbling), instead of its current price of $15. That would reduce the incentive to resell the beer on eBay, because, based on online sales, its true market value is somewhere in the $50 to $100 range. If the true market value is, say $60, and if the original price per bottle was $40, that’s a much smaller profit potential than it is at the current sales price of $15. So why does Three Floyds choose to sell Dark Lord at less than its market value? I’m guessing it may involve a couple of reasons: a) Three Floyds feels they can make an adequate profit selling Dark Lord at $15; and b) the lower price helps keep customers happy — it’s a “thank you” for their loyalty. If someone buys a bottle of Dark Lord, it becomes that person’s property, and Three Floyds doesn’t suffer financially if that beer is subsequently sold at a higher price.
4) Three Floyds (and others) could make Dark Lord, and the others could make their rare beers, year-round. By making them available only briefly (and in the case of Dark Lord, only through a relatively onerous ticketing system) they control the scarcity of their beers, adding to their cachet, and upping demand (i.e. frenzy-producing). It’s different than the case of rare wines. Wines can be relatively variable based on the growing conditions of the grapes, which can be different every year, affecting the resulting product. Hops and barley aren’t subject to the same variables in terms of the quality of product they can produce; the scarcity of these rare beers is largely based only on the breweries’ marketing decisions.
5) Relatedly, many rare beers are distributed only in certain geographic areas. If you want a bottle of Bell’s Hopslam, but you live in Boston or San Francisco, and you don’t want to buy a plane ticket, acquiring it from someone online may be your only option.
6) eBay is not the only option for acquiring rare beers online. Ratebeer.com and Beeradvocate.com both have forums dedicated to trading rare beers with other craft beer aficionados. Most trade proposals involve individuals from disparate areas of the country trading for beers they can’t get locally, but in a few cases traders have admitted they purchased certain beers for the sole purpose of trading them for beers they really sought. There’s a fine line between paying for someone else’s beers with another beer that person never intended to consume, and paying with cash.
7) The breweries actually benefit in some ways by having their beers resold on eBay and other venues. It may not have been designed that way, but it’s turned out to be a brilliant marketing move. The word of mouth created by someone opening a Dark Lord for friends, and being able to tell them “this stuff sells for $100 bucks on eBay,” makes it seem even more special. It also creates a halo effect for Three Floyds’ other beers — it creates a buzz around everything Three Floyds does. That may be one reason why most breweries don’t contact eBay and ask them to take down the listings. In fact, there are unconfirmed rumors of breweries releasing limited edition beers, but holding back a few bottles to list on eBay. Are they just trying to create more buzz, or are they simply using eBay as a tool to determine the true market value of their beers, for the purpose of establishing pricing levels for future limited releases?
I had a brief conversation with Pete Crowley about some of these issues yesterday afternoon. He’s the owner/brewmaster at the highly acclaimed Haymarket Brewpub in Chicago’s West Loop, and President of the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild. He compared reselling rare beers to scalping tickets for concerts and sporting events. Scalpers make it tougher for true fans to get opening day tickets at Wrigley Field, just as scalpers were a factor in the rapid sellout of Dark Lord Day tickets. “Craft beer is all about sharing, and celebrating the craft beer culture. If someone’s able to share by going online, that’s great [referring to trades on Ratebeer and Beeradvocate]. I just don’t like it when someone buys a craft beer for the wrong reason … solely to turn a profit.” But what about the guy who couldn’t get through to purchase Dark Lord Day tickets, but really wanted to go? Crowley doesn’t appreciate the sellers who purchase tickets only with the intent of reselling them at a profit, but for the guy who wants to get tickets, even at an inflated price, “Well, a guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do.”
So, it’s a complex issue. People who purchase rare craft beers for the sole purpose of reselling them at a profit are generally, but not universally, reviled. But these people wouldn’t exist if breweries didn’t sell their rare beers at less than their true market value — which is, in part, impacted by their own limited-release policies. In general, there’s a more understanding view toward buyers — they’re just trying to get their hands on something they think has value to them at or above a stated price. Hardcore critics, though, condemn buyers for supporting the sellers.
And that’s a very long, laborious exposition of what was intended to be a light-hearted look at the practice of re-selling craft beers, in the previous article.
There’s a very interesting academic study of beer re-sales here: http://ratebeerians.hoppress.com/2011/04/18/market-behavior-for-rare-beer-ebay-auction-prices-in-review/
Finally, I’ve never been called the “scum of the industry” before. It’s an honor to know I touched a nerve.
I’m potentially set for life. Well, maybe not for life, but at least for a couple of days.
I’ve invested in local beers.
Part of my investment portfolio
With friends, we had several computers going at the witching hour of noon on St. Patrick’s Day, for a chance at two of the available 6,000 tickets required to get you on the property; tickets that give you the right to purchase several bottles of the 2012 edition of Three Floyd’s legendary Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout. Tickets sold out within three minutes, but within an hour the $15 tickets alone — which only let you in, you still have to purchase the beer — were being auctioned on eBay for $495 a pair. Bids for the tickets were running over $800 per pair at last check. That’s a potential 2,666.7% return in one day. Even Bernie Madoff couldn’t pull off that kind of return.
But I’m not selling the tix. I want the beer.
Last year, after being lucky enough to acquire a couple of tickets, I spent several hours in line in Three Floyds’nondescript industrial park in Munster, Indiana. It was a fun time — some described it as a mini-Woodstock.
I left with four bottles of the precious Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout. $15 each. Similar bottles are listed on eBay now for between $50 and $100 per bottle. At the low end, that’s a 333% return. I consider myself very lucky if any of my accounts at Fidelity Investments do even one-fifth as well.
EBay’s policy on these sales is that the value of the item is in the collectible container and not its contents, the container has never been opened and any incidental contents are not intended for consumption, the item is not available at any retail outlet, and the container has a value that substantially exceeds the current retail price of the alcohol in the container.
In the words of Monty Python, “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.”
But it’s not limited to Three Floyds. My Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Stout (paid $42 for the bottle) is now listed for $78, an 85% return. A bottle of Bell’s Hopslam, for which I paid $18 for a six-pack two months ago, is now going for $34, an 89% return (or 1,133% on an annualized basis). And the Bell’s Batch 10,000, which was also $18 a six-pack, is now listed for $15 a bottle, a 500% return.
We’re fortunate in our region to have Ratebeer’s three best breweries in the world: Three Floyds, Founder’s and Bell’s. Because if you’re going to invest in beers, you need to get less-common releases from well-known breweries.
Which brings me to the basic principles of beer investing:
1) Buy beers from breweries that have good cachet. In addition to the three above, New Glarus and Goose Island (especially Bourbon County Stout releases) frequently get premiums for their limited releases.
2) Invest in only big, high-alcohol, age-worthy beers. No one wants a 1997 bottle of Old Style.
3) Buy limited releases. The harder they are to get, the better. Anyone who can get through during the three minute window to get Dark Lord Day tickets, and then wait in line for a couple of hours to buy the beer, deserves a significant return for the time and effort.
Other breweries have caught on to the Dark Lord Day model; it’ll be interesting to see if they can get as much traction out of the one-day-only style of selling their beers.
It doesn’t always work, though. I still have a couple of bottles of Small Animal Big Machine, a collaboration from Half Acre, Pipeworks, and DeStruisse. It’s a great beer — I had to wait in line to get it — but there’s no online market for it. I’m guessing that Half Acre, Pipeworks, and DeStruisse don’t have the name recognition of Three Floyds et al among beer collectors. I might actually have to drink it.
Hey, I might even give you a bottle or two … in return for a generous annuity.
It was a dark and stormy night, despite the bright mid-afternoon sun.
I wuz wit my dame, see, and we’d heard about this little place making some really cool hootch. That was hot.
She pointed me to this little alley off of Chicago Avenue, in Evanston. Hip little neighborhood. Half block north of Main Street. Nice. But not where you’d expect to find a joint making fresh booze.
I said naw, dammit, there couldn’t be anything down there, except maybe a car chop shop … or maybe a blackjack upside the head.
She was insistent. Wit a strong-willed dame like that, you don’t argue much, at least if you know what’s good for you.
There was a sign. It said: “FEW Spirits.”
We found a door. It creaked open. (Nah, it really didn’t creak; they must have gotten some WD-40 from somewhere. I didn’t ask where. In these situations, you don’t ask much.)
Inside wuz a guy wit a big smile on his face. I been around long enough to be suspicious of any guy with a big smile on his face. But maybe he’d just been sampling his hooch.
Dis guy, Paul, had “Master Distiller” on his shirt. I’d heard from some guy in the joint he wuz a lawyer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate lawyers. Some of ‘em got me out of some, shall we say, incidents. But most of the lawyers I’ve known have only kept a flask or two in their desk. Dis has gotta be the only lawyer wit a high-falutin’ distillation still behind his desk.
But he used to work wit the Illinois Liquor Control Commission, so he knows his booze.
He got dis fancy schmancy still from the guys down at Koval Distillery, in Ravenswood, Chicago; they seems to know guys in Germany who make special stills. None of those Appalachian homemade still things going on here. Dis guy runs a quality operation. But he makes you pay for it. Even a coupla Jacksons won’t get you a bottle. At least, not legit.
I got a White Whiskey from the guy. Paid big. It’s smooth. He makes a gin, too, on the other side of the still. He claims it’s a genever-style gin, but since when does a gin include hops from Paul’s backyard? Dis guy’s over the top. We might need to deal with him. Especially when he puts out a brown whiskey (Evanston’s 400 miles from Bourbon County, KY, so it ain’t really bourbon) and maybe a “single malt” (it’s not Scotch, since even the Hebrides is almost 3,700 miles over dere).
He’s also put out a barrel-aged gin. Who ever heard of a brown gin? Yeah, we might need to give this guy a little visit, and “explain” what’s right.
Dere’s only a couple other guys making hootch legally in the state. One is those guys at Koval (dey include the guy named Lion — he helps distill, but dammit, I don’t think this guy is old enough to drink it yet. Maybe they put a bit of their stuff on his gums if he cries.) The other’s in Lake Bluff, North Shore.
Dis guy’s got a sense of humor, though. You think FEW stands for the FEW guys distilling in Illinois? Or the FEW guys who can afford his stuff? Take a hint from me, my friend. It’s a wink to Frances Elizabeth Willard, who ran the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1879 from her joint right up the street in Evanston. She hated booze. She and her girlfriends are prolly turning over in their graves. Hah!
Me and my boys still might pay a little visit to 918 Chicago Avenue in Evanston one of these Saturdays, maybe around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. We might need to get a little taste of what this guy Paul Hletko is doing, if you know what I mean.
This is what Nick sees every morning when he goes to work in an undistinguished industrial park in Munster Indiana
An open letter to Nick Floyd:
C’mon, man. Share the stage a bit.
I know that Three Floyds’ recent ranking on Ratebeer as the number one best brewery in the world isn’t your fault — blame the average scores of the 3.5 million beer reviews by true beer aficionados on that site. But, world’s best for the fourth year in a row? And five out of the last six years? Give it a rest. Maybe you could turn out at least one crappy beer to drive your scores down just one notch.
How about a Miller Lite clone?
Certainly, there are other brewers in the region you could share that crown with. Hell, just one state north, in Michigan, Founders (Grand Rapids) and Bell’s (Kalamazoo) came in as the second and third best breweries in the world. Maybe you could give one of those guys a shot at #1.
Sure, your Dark Lord came in as the 13th best beer in the world. But you’ve gotta respect your fellow local brewers, like the guys at Goose Island. Yeah, they’re owned by Anheuser-Busch now, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that their Rare Bourbon County Stout came in 10 slots above your Dark Lord, as the third best beer in the world. (The best was from someplace named Westvleteren Abdij St. Sixtus … it barely counts, because the brewery name is too hard to spell.)
I do have bottles of Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Stout and the 2011 version of Dark Lord in my beer cellar. In a year or so, I might let you know how the two compare head to head.
And, Founders’ Kentucky Breakfast Stout (fourth best beer in the world), and Bell’s Hopslam (sixth best) also beat out your Dark Lord. Last spring, I had to jump on your website within the four minute window for the right to get tickets to purchase your Dark Lord, then wait in line a couple of hours at the brewery to get a measly four bottles. (It was a helluva party, though.) For the Hopslam, all I had to do was carefully time my appearance at the local liquor store and fork over $18 for a sixer.
Maybe you could let Pete Crowley have a shot at the limelight. His Haymarket Pub & Brewery (West Loop, Chicago) was rated #3 in the world among the 1,473 new breweries that opened in 2011. As far as brewpubs go, yours was beaten out by Pete’s Haymarket, and also by Revolution, in Chicago’s Logan Square. (Love the Scotch eggs at your place in Munster, though.) Look out, though, Villa Park’s Lunar Brewing is right on your heels.
Pete Crowley has fun with sanitation
So, please, give it a rest. I’ll make it worth your while. If you come in #2 next year, c’mon up here to Evanston and I’ll buy you a beer. Do you like PBR?
Here we go again.
There will be another batch of Local Beet beer coming out (it was Editor-at-Large Rob’s idea – blame him, not me).
We’re trying to figure out a way that you, dear reader, can sample some, perhaps in conjunction with The Local Beet’s upcoming anniversary.
It was late summer, 2009, that I made the first batch of Local Beet beer. I bored you by writing about that journey here, and here, and here, and here, and even here.
Fresh, in 2009, the color was pretty good.
I’ve kept a few bottles around. When it was fresh, the color was beet red (obviously). It’s now more amber, suggesting that the betalain pigments that give beets their deep red color degrade over time in an acidic environment like beer. Except for a slight beetiness in the flavor, you might think you were drinking a Scottish Ale – say, a 70 shilling heavy.
A few lessons I’ve learned. For one, there’s no need to mash the beets – mashing is used to convert malt and other grains’ starches to sugar for the yeast to nibble on; the sugars are already present in the beets. So I’ll just add beet juice to the secondary fermentation for the flavor and color.
For another, I learned that the true flavor of beets is based on a balance of earthiness and sweetness. Once you ferment something with beet juice, the yeast converts the sweet beet sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The remaining pure earthy flavor isn’t especially appetizing. So the sweetness has to be added back. Adding sugar would just further feed the yeast; it would up the alcohol content, but wouldn’t add sweetness to the end product. In the 2009 version, I used aspartame (I’ve had a long professional relationship with aspartame). It’s not fermentable, but some people aren’t comfortable with that combination of naturally-occurring aspartic acid and phenylalanine. It did add the needed sweetness, though.
For this batch, I’ll be adding lactose. It’s a milk sugar; it will add sweetness, but beer yeasts will ignore it.
So, the 2009 version wasn’t good for people with phenylketonuria.
The 2012 version won’t be good for people with lactose intolerance.
And, by the way, both contain gluten from the barley used in the mash, so they’re not good for anyone with Celiac disease.
Hell, it’ll probably be too dangerous for anyone to drink. I just might keep it all for myself.
Beers really should be seasonal treats. There’s a reason most of the mainstream BudMilCoors products are called “lawnmower beers.” They’re light, rather flavorless drinks, but can be marginally refreshing on a hot afternoon, if water isn’t readily available. But they rarely have any flavors (despite football ads to the contrary) that you’d like to sip and contemplate.
Lately, though, we’ve turned to the season where all the landscaping firms are attaching snow plows to the front of their pickup trucks, and families are starting to think about how nice it would be to burn a few logs in the fireplace (high-rise denizens … sorry about the lack of real fireplaces).
It’s a time to sip, and a time to contemplate everything the season represents. So, by definition then, it’s a time for winter beers.
What is a winter beer? One easy definition is that it’s anything that has “Winter” or “Christmas” on the label. But typically, they’re darker beers, usually with a higher alcohol content than lawnmower beers – say, 6.0% ABV or higher. (The alcohol content is part of the reason these beers are often called “Winter Warmers.”) And if “Christmas” is in the name, or hinted on the label, the beer may be flavored with some of the same herbs and spices that might also be used for a mulled wine.
Is it just a gimmick to sell some different beers during the cooler months? Maybe, but it does have a historical precedent.
“In New York, and also in some other of the middle colonies, it was customary before the revolution, to have brewed a sufficient time before the holyday season to give it due age and strength, a large quantity of what they called “right strong Christmas beer,” so says The United States Democratic Review, Volume 3 , Making of America Project 1854.
And perhaps the tradition is even older. The holiday tune “Here We Come A-Wassailing” refers to hard cider with spices and herbs. But possibly even prior to that, ”Good King Wenceslas” in the 13th century restricted hops sales outside Bohemia, so brewers found all sorts of other herbs and spices to flavor their beers. (And, of course, beer was a drink of choice then, since, being boiled, it didn’t have the bacterial load that “fresh” water had in those days.) It’s unclear, but Wassail may have referred to beers then, too. (Thanks, beerhistory.com.)
Whatever the history, it’s a trend the craft brew industry has fervently embraced. So, strictly as a public service to you, dear readers, I forced myself to sample a random number of local or regional winter or Christmas beers. A few notes:
L to r Summit Winter Ale, Goose Island 2011 Christmas Ale, Three Floyds Alpha Klaus, Bell's Winter Ale, Leinenkugel Fireside Nut Brown,Goose Island 2009 Christmas Ale, Sand Creek's (Beaver Falls, Wisconsin) Lilja Sasquatch Stout
Chicago’s Goose Island’s 2011 Christmas Ale – a brown ale – doesn’t seem to be spiced much, but has a tan, short-lived head, and rich caramel flavors with a big mouth feel. It comes in at 6.2% ABV. According to the bottle, it’s ageable up to five years (which Goose typically puts on its better beers, but many may benefit from even further aging, as I noted here). In the eloquent evaluation of a friend, “Hey, this stuff is pretty good.”
Goose Island 2009 Christmas Ale – “dreams of Christmas past” – is still available at selected stores. It definitely demonstrates the value of cellaring a beer for a couple of years, with its rounded, rich, roasty flavors and light tan, long-lasting head. Goose tweaks its Christmas ale recipe every year, so anyone with four or consecutive five years of Goose Island Christmas Ales should contact tkeith@thelocalbeet.com immediately.
As good as those are, possibly the best of the area’s winter beers is – not surprisingly – from Munster Indiana’s Three Floyds. Alpha Klaus, described as a seasonal relative of its signature Alpha King, is an Imperial Porter, redolent with American hops, a light brown, long-lasting fine-beaded head, and a roasty finish that might last all night long, or at least until a Mr. Claus falls down the chimney. As a big, dark beer, at 7.5% ABV, it’s no wonder that Ratebeer gives it the rare rating of 100 out of 100 points.
On the other end of the scale, Kalamazoo, Michigan-area’s Bell’s Winter White Ale is a winter ale in a Belgian witbier style. That is, it’s a bit hazy, full of citrus and banana aromas, and relatively light and refreshing at 5% ABV. Worth checking out.
But not all winter beers as impressive as these. For instance, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin’s Leinenkugel’s Fireside Nut Brown (“Beer with natural flavor”), now from MillerCoors’ Tenth and Blake subsidiary, has, to its credit, a dark, prune-y flavor, roast burnt aroma, but at 4.9% ABV it’s not enough to support the additional thin, flat, hazelnut character. They’re playing it safe.
Also, as they say, “beyond the Cheddar curtain,” Hinterland Winterland is a porter brewed with a subtle touch of juniper berries. A nice, dark beer without too much spicing (after all, it’s beer, not gin). It’s brewed right across the street from Lambeau Field, so this could well be the beer for fair weather fans who want to jump on the bandwagon of a football team that’s having a particularly good year. (As a life-long Cubs fan, I’m used to struggling through difficult times. I’ll struggle though this year’s Bears season, too.)
A few others … Local Beet fave Metropolitan had a holiday-spiced version of its Dynamo Copper Lager at Michael Diversey’s (670 W. Diversey, Chicago); there might be a bit of it left there, or possibly at other premium beer bars around town.
And, December 16 will see the release of Chicago’s Half Acre’s Big Hugs Imperial Stout. If you can wait in line at their Lincoln Avenue store (4257 North Lincoln Avenue Chicago), do it, otherwise visit the Blind Robin (853 N. Western Ave., Chicago, for its initial pouring on draft.
Let me know how many local seasonal beers I’ve missed.
UPDATE: Big Hugs Imperial Stout has been a big hit. In three days, over 75 ratings have come into Ratebeer, and raters are using language like “Tasted like crazy layers of citrus and spice, dates, fruits, chocolate of course, coffee, roasted perfectly,” “Deep roasty aroma with hints of coffee/espresso bean, silky chocolate malt, molasses, caramel, toffee and hazelnut. I’m also picking up some slight lactic cream, burnt toast and subtle hops, “ and “Overall, this is an intense coffee experience that only becomes thicker and more coffee-like as it warms. An amazing beer, I’m starting to become a big fan of Half Acre…” It’s received a rare rating of 98 out of 100.
I’m also increasingly impressed with what Half Acre is turning out.
Bah. Humbug. (Oh, wait, that’s for Christmas. I’m getting ahead of myself. Local Beet editor Rob asked me to write something about beers for Thanksgiving. Oh, well.)
I’m not doing much of a Thanksgiving this year. I’ll probably just go out to a restaurant (Lovell’s of Lake Forest) and drink wine, like everyone else.
But in an ideal world, I wouldn’t be like everyone else. I’d drink beer for Thanksgiving. (Well, I might have some food along with the beer, too).
And, in an ideal world, I’d have lots of friends and family over for Thanksgiving. Of course, I’d have a turkey, probably a heritage breed, like a Bourbon Red from Caveny Farm in Monticello, IL
And I’d probably get some cranberries from a grower near our summer place in Northern Wisconsin. (Did you know that Wisconsin is the world’s leading producer of cranberries?)
I’d skip the overcooked green beans with canned fried onions, and instead, maybe, serve some braised tat tsoi from Henry’s Farm in Congerville, IL (available Saturday morning 11/19 at the last-gasp of the Evanston Farmers’ Market at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 616 Sherman in Evanston). I’d make it with onion and Nueske’s Bacon.
So, I’m imagining an ideal world. Obviously, there would be beer.
Lots of beer. Many varieties of beer. Especially local beers.
Turkey can be somewhat on the bland side, but the Caveny birds have much more depth of flavor than your typical supermarket bird. A Great American Beer Festival Gold Medal winning 5 Lizard, from 5 Rabbit Cerveceria (currently brewed on the South Side of Chicago at Argus Brewery, at least until they build their own brewery) would provide the complexity of a Latin twist on a Belgian witbier, to go along with the complexity of the heritage bird.
Cranberries aren’t innately sweet, but their preparations usually involve enough sugar to keep many dentists happily employed, and to finance the yachts that they’ve recently had to put in storage for the season. There are two ways to go with this. You could contrast the sweetness with something truly bitter and hoppy, like Lincoln Avenue’s Half Acre Daisy Cutter or Munster, Indiana’s Three Floyd’s flagship, Alpha King. Or maybe you’d want to complement the sweetness with a Mild Winter From Goose Island. It has rich caramel malt and spicy rye flavors. Tasty.
The tat tsoi, without other additions, would have a subtle, slightly cabbage-y flavor. I’d match that subtlety with a köslch, like Krankshaft, from Metropolitan Brewing. But amped up with onion and bacon, you’d need something a bit more assertive and roasty, like Flossmoor Station’s Pullman Brown Ale.
For dessert? The obvious choice would be a fruit lambic, from Lindeman’s – cherry, raspberry, or peach. But a more local choice might be New Glarus’ Belgian Red or Raspberry Tart beers. (New Glarus beers aren’t officially distributed in Chicagoland – you’ll have to cross the cheesehead border to get them. Woodman’s in Kenosha [I-94, exit 344, east] is a good source.)
Or, now for something completely different (apologies to Monty Python), you might try a mead (honey wine) from Chicago’s South Side Wild Blossom Meadery.
It’s amazing how we can easily get so many beer styles brewed locally, and brewed well, in the Midwest.
Maybe it is an ideal world, after all.
The world is changing.
It used to be, you could create a craft brewery, and as long as what came out under your label was even slightly better than anything from BudMilCoors, you could be successful (assuming you could navigate the murky waters of distribution and retail or on-premise sales). Other than offering good beer, you didn’t need to differentiate yourself from anyone else out there.
In Chicagoland, we’re lucky now to have a surfeit of breweries. Some of the older guys, like Goose Island and Two Brothers, are still working off the old model – “We’re guys who are gonna make a bunch of different, interesting beers …. whatever we feel like.” And they do make outstanding beers. But do they stand for anything beyond than good beers?
I asked the brewmaster of another well-respected area brewery what his joint stood for. “That’s a good question … I don’t know.” You could see the puzzlement in his face. “Um, maybe classic beer styles well made?” He was asking me, not telling me. He didn’t know what made the brewery (again, a well-regarded one) special.
The new model, which I’m hoping will be more successful, is a brewery that stands for something identifiable. A brewery with a distinct personality. A niche. A brewery that, when someone asks about it, you can confidently say “Oh, yeah, they make great [easy descriptor here] beers.”
In the Chicagoland area, Three Floyds might have been the first brewery to assert a true personality. The slogan “It’s not normal” aptly describes Three Floyds’ generally over-the-top beers.
Since then, on the opposite end of the flavor spectrum, we’ve had Metropolitan introduce us to locally-made lagers — crisp, clean, and if anything, subtle in their complexity. Pipeworks is coming soon, to answer the burning question “how Belgian can Chicago brewers possibly get?
And that’s why it’s so great to see the emergence of 5 Rabbit Cerveceria. It’s all about a Latino approach to beer … and I’m not talking about that forever skunky Corona in the clear bottles.
Founders Isaac Showaki and Andrés Araya had no real background in actual brewing, although as management consultants based in Mexico City, they worked with a number of big breweries in Central and South America. And they’re smart management consultants. They recognized that craft beer is a fast-growing category. They wanted to be part of it. And they approached it in a very analytical manner — typical for guys with a background in management consulting.
The first question was where to set up shop. “In our countries, there are monopolies or oligopolies that control the distribution channels,” explained Isaac. “Small craft breweries can have a tough time. So we said, okay, let’s try to do it in the US.”
They set up criteria for the location of their cerveceria. “We had to find a city with a decent Latin population. We looked at Los Angeles, Austin TX, Chicago, Miami and New York.” They chose Chicago for its large Hispanic population, with a significant Latino middle class. “Chicago has a big craft beer scene, but it’s not as saturated as some of the cities on the West Coast. It’s also a city with a lot of beer knowledge,” said Isaac, citing Chicago’s internationally respected Siebel Institute of Technology, possibly the world’s leading institution for teaching the art and craft of brewing. “And Chicago has a great culinary scene.”
But there was still that sticking point – they really didn’t have much actual brewing experience. A serendipitous chance encounter changed things.
“We were at the Map Room (corner of Hoyne and Armitage in Chicago), researching Chicago, talking to people,” recalled Isaac, “and the wife of one of our partners started talking to [friend of The Local Beet] Randy Mosher.” Apparently, it was a revelatory discussion. “We had lunch the next day, and right away started on beer designs.”
Randy has long been known for his creativity in beer design, perhaps best embodied in his book Radical Brewing, in which he discusses obscure, orphaned beer styles, as well as beers made with unusual ingredients, like jaggery, quassia, bog myrtle, and sorghum, among many others. (I’m making a “Kentucky Common” beer now, based on his description in the book.)
It was Randy’s idea to make a Latin version of a Belgian witbier, using a bit of passionfruit instead of the common sour orange in the cerveceria’s 5 Lizard beer. And that idea, plus some other recipe tweaking, won a gold medal for 5 Rabbit at the Great American Beer Festival — an almost-unheard-of accomplishment for a brewery that had barely been open for six months. It’s one of the most fascinating beers I’ve had in a long time.
5 Rabbit production is still rather limited — currently, it’s made under contract at Argus Brewery, on the South Side of Chicago. But Isaac and Andrés have plans to build their own brewery within the next year or two. It’s distributed by Glunz, which is known for its impressive collection of specialty beer. So if your local store doesn’t carry any 5 Rabbit products, tell them to have a little, serious talk with their Glunz reps. You’ll be glad you did. And you don’t even need a Hispanic heritage to appreciate their 5 Rabbit, 5 Lizard and 5 Vulture beers. (More special edition beers are coming.)
If you’ve been able to try any of the 5 Rabbit beers, leave a comment and let us know what you thought.
October 6, 2011 – The Great American Beer Festival concluded last weekend. Results were another excuse for me to be a happy drinker in Chicago (or at least the Upper Midwest).
Six craft breweries in the region won the prestigious gold medal, signifying “A world-class beer that accurately exemplifies the specified style, displaying the proper balance of taste, aroma and appearance,” according to festival organizers.
Perhaps the most surprising, yet deserved, recognition went to 5 Rabbit, one of Chicago’s newest breweries (or, as it’s self-described, cerveceria). It won a gold for its “5 Lizard” beer in the Fruit Wheat beer category. 5 Lizard, designed by Friend-of-Local-Beet Randy Mosher, is a Latin spin on a Belgian witbier, using subtle levels of passionfruit instead of the more common sour orange. 5 Rabbit beers are still in limited distribution in the Chicago area, but they’re worth seeking out. (Check this link for stores and bars that carry them.) More on 5 Rabbit coming in this space soon.
Another gold for another newcomer went to “Angry Birds,” in the American Belgo-style Ale category. It’s produced by Pete Crowley at Haymarket Pub & Brewery. Like the Angry Birds game, Haymarket is a great way to waste a lot of time.
Other regional golds included the amazingly complex, slightly sour (in a good way) “Raspberry Tart” from New Glarus, (Wisconsin) in the Fruit Beer Category. New Glarus also won a gold in the American-style Black IPA category, with its “Blacktop IPA.” More gold went to Bell’s (Michigan) “Expedition Stout,” in the Aged Beer category, and “Autumnal Fire” from Wisconsin’s Capital Brewery as a German-style Dopplebock. Capital also won a bronze in the same category for its “Eisphyre,” an Eisbock.
As they say in late-night infomercials, “But wait, there’s more!” Like the silver medals won by Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery’s “New Grist” in the Gluten-free beer category, Emmett’s (West Dundee) “Where the Helles Gunner” Munich-style Helles, New Holland (Michigan)’s “Blue Sunday” Belgian-style Lambic/Sour beer, “Intercontinental Pale Ale,” in the category of the same name, from Flossmoor Station and “Munster Fest” German-style Märzen from Three Floyds. Frankly, I expected Three Floyds to do better.
Bronzes went to Two Brothers “Dog Days Lager” as a Dortmunder/Oktoberfest beer, “Dark ‘N Curvy” German-style Wheat Ale from Piece Brewery in Wicker Park, and two for Goose Island — “Harvest Ale” in the Extra Special Bitter category, and “Sofie” as a French or Belgian-style Saison. Frankly, I also expected Goose to do better.
In an ironic twist, GABF named Pabst, in suburban Woodridge, the Large Brewing Company of the Year. New owners are planning to move headquarters to Los Angeles and completely revamp the company’s beers and marketing strategies. The low-key, so un-cool that it’s cool, hipster strategy, which brought the Pabst brand back from the brink of oblivion, will likely be replaced by a “Babes in Bikinis” strategy. Draw your own conclusions. I doubt Pabst will be next year’s Large Brewing Company of the Year.
Overall, 3,930 beers from 526 breweries were entered into 83 categories. So, for expense or other reasons, some breweries chose to skip it, and other breweries may not have entered all their beers. Just another reason to keep seeking out the best on your own.
One of the hottest trends in beer these days is collaborations between brewers, and sometimes between brewers and chefs. We’ve already told you about an especially successful collaboration here.
Perhaps the best-known brewer-chef-collaborators is Jared Rouben, a former chef himself, at Per Se, one of the nation’s best restaurants, located in New York City. He’s now the head brewmaster at Goose Island Clybourn
But this article has nothing to do with Jared.
It’s all about Cleetus Friedman, the guy behind City Provisions (named Local Beet’s Restaurant of the Year). He loves his locally-produced beers. And most recently, he’s collaborated with Nick Barron, brewmaster at the award-winning Flossmoor Station, to produce a one-time-only beer, called Kirsch Von Blücher, a cherry-based dunkel weiss. “Cleetus named it,” said Nick. It’s a tribute to the 100 lbs. of cherries that were included in the 15 bbl mash. It’s also a tribute to Frau Blücher (if you’ve ever seen Mel Brooks’ film Young Frankenstein, you’ll get it). You’ll need to get to City Provisions (1820 W. Wilson, Chicago) or Flossmoor Station (1035 Sterling Avenue, Flossmoor, IL) soon, to try a sip. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
So, what actually happens in a collaboration?
“We kicked around some ideas. We were thinking about doing a dunkel weiss [a dark wheat beer], and Cleetus suggested something with fruit in it,” said Nick.
“I was originally thinking about something with fennel and orange — a witbier,” relaterd Cleetus. “Or maybe something with a seasonal fruit. But I wanted it to be a beer with just a few notes of fruit to it.” So he didn’t want a candy-fruit flavored beer. And he got what he wanted.
He picked up 100 lbs of cherries from Seedlings, in South Haven, Michigan, and delivered them to the train station in Flossmoor. There, Nick and his partner-in-crime, Mark Weinert, added them to the dunkel weiss mash, and let them ferment out.
It’s an interesting beer, well worth trying. The beer isn’t particularly sweet (a good thing), but the cherry flavor evokes images of sweetness. The toasty, caramel notes, which you’d expect from a dunkel weiss, make it a fairly complex, very worthwhile beer
This is just the start of collaborations for Cleetus. He’s planning a series of monthly beer collaborations with other brewers; he wants to focus on limited releases, available primarily only at his joint.
And, he’s featuring hard-to-find products on sale at his place from other locals. For example, I noticed a couple of bottles of Evanston-based FEW distillery products (more on that coming soon to The Local Beet).
Go there. Eat, drink. It’s all good.
The Bastards are coming to Oak Park.
Check out http://www.sevengenerationsahead.org/index.php/events/oak_park_micro_brew_review/
Well over 30 breweries will be strutting their stuff at the 4th Annual Oak Park Micro Brew Review. They’re mostly locals, but Seven Generations Ahead and the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild — co-producers of the event — have invited a few interlopers, including a couple I sampled last week in Southern California.
For example, the 700-pound gorilla of Southern California craft breweries will be there in Oak Park. That’s Stone Brewing, which has a huge, corporate, resort-like facility in Escondido, just north of San Diego. Stone is probably best known for its many variants of Arrogant Bastard, an excellent American Strong Ale (7.2% ABV for the original version). To quote the brewery, “This is an aggressive beer. You probably won’t like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth.” That’s arrogant,
Speaking from personal experience, it is tasty, with rich caramel notes and citrusy hoppiness. Although, my significant other insists the beer was named after me (it wasn’t).
But that won’t be the only bastard in Oak Park. Founders Brewing, from Grand Rapids. Michigan, will likely be pouring its Dirty Bastard, a complex, not-too-hoppy Scotch Ale, and variants. It’s at 8.5% ABV, and its cousins, Sappy Slappy Bastard and Backwoods Bastard are even boozier, at 9.5% and 10.2% ABV, respectively. (Average lawnmower beers are usually in the 4.5% – 5% ABV range.)
This is definitely an event that calls for pacing, and downing plenty of water between beer samples.
Revolution, the Milwaukee Avenue brewpub, which will soon begin production brewing, will be in Oak Park, too. Sadly, their bastardized version of an IPA, El Bastardo, won’t be in attendance.
Possibly the most interesting part of the event will be Replicale — each brewery is asked to brew its version of a classic style — for this year, it’s an American-Belgian Pale Ale. At Stone, I sampled the Stone Cali-Belgique IPA, one of the rare Stone brews that doesn’t use the house yeast. (Yeasts can have a significant effect on flavors; Stone couldn’t achieve the same Belgian flavor using their house yeast.) It was fascinating, with estery, fruity flavors over the maltiness; hops are only in the background.
Every brewer who participates will make something in that style that comes out a bit different. It’s always fascinating to contrast and compare.
I won’t go through the entire list of participating breweries … that’s why I gave you the link in the second paragraph. But anyone who’s followed Hoppin’ Around (that would be only my Mom and one of my sisters) can get perspectives on some of the other participants.
Even in this down economy, nationally, craft beer sales are up 15% for the first six months of this year, versus the same period last year, on a dollar basis. So it’s a great time to be a beer drinker. Especially with all the great brews here in the great Midwest that will be on tap August 20 in Oak Park. It’s easy to reach, near the Harlem/Lake stop on the CTA’s Green Line, or the Metra Oak Park stop.
P.S. One of the producing organizations, Seven Generations Ahead, has a mission is to promote ecologically sustainable and healthy communities. SGA advocates for pro-active community solutions to global environmental issues, and works with municipal, business, and community decision-makers to promote green community development, clean, renewable energy, eco-effective products, zero waste strategies, green building design, and fresh, local, and sustainable food raised using healthy practices.
They’re good guys.
The bad news … I’m not yet a Cicerone. The good news … I’m one step away … I’m a Certified Beer Server.
What is a Cicerone, you ask?
Cic•e•ro•ne [sis-uh-roh-nee] (n.) 1. One who shows strangers the curiosities of a place or thing; a guide 2. A person with demonstrated expertise in beer that can guide consumers to enjoyable and high-quality experiences with great beers.
Clearly, the second definition is merely a subset of the first. And thanks to Ray Daniels, the second definition is the one becoming more common these days.
Ray Daniels is a Harvard Business School grad. He’s an expert brewer. He’s a senior faculty member at Chicago’s Siebel Institute of Technology (probably the world’s leading school for learning how to brew beer professionally). Among other books, he‘s authored the highly authoritative tome Designing Great Beers: the Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles. He’s President of the Craft Brew Institute.
And in 2008, he started the Chicago-based Cicerone Certification Program – the first worldwide program specifically designed to qualify beer experts in explaining, serving, and understanding all aspects of all things beer. Roughly speaking, what a sommelier is to wine, a cicerone is to beer. It took a guy with Ray’s beer industry credibility to pull it off.
The Cicerone Certification Program has three levels of certification – Certified Beer Server, Certified Cicerone™, and Master Cicerone™. According to program administrator Sarah Huska, there are only about 400 Certified Ciceronenes currently, and only three Master Cicerones in the world. (Compare that to approximately 176 Master Sommeliers worldwide – a program that’s been in existence for well over thirty years.)
“In some ways, it’s a quality control program,” Dave Kahle told us. Dave is one of those three Master Cicerones, receiving his certification last October. “It recognizes people who can ensure the customer will receive the experience of each beer as the brewer intended.” With a very few exceptions, beer goes through a three-tier system – brewers sell their beers to wholesalers, who sell to restaurants, bars, or retailers, who then sell to the ultimate consumers. “Any one person in that chain can affect the customers’ experience in a negative way,” notes Kahle.
Kahle learned much of his beer knowledge when he owned a bar in Wicker Park, which had a strong beer program. But he discovered he had a talent for beer appreciation even in his early days. “As a kid, I remember my Dad offering me a sip of his beer. It was in a can out of the beer fridge in the garage. I remember thinking ‘Boy, that stuff in a can tastes metallic.’ ” His tastes have become increasingly refined ever since.
The process of becoming a Master Cicerone, like Kahle, is not an easy one. Even the basic online test for the first level (at Cicerone.org) – Certified Beer Server – asks highly technical questions. Some include the proper way to deal with fittings that attach a keg to a draft system, the correct way to pour beer and, after the glass is emptied, rinse it professionally, and appropriate hopping levels and/or malts for specific beer styles.
I should know about this stuff. As of last week, I’m the 5,988th Certified Beer Server in the world. Out of nearly 7 billion people in the world, that ain’t bad.
You could hang one of these on your wall ... if you know enough about beer.
(If you want to see if you could become a Certified Beer Server, Cicerone, or more, register with cicerone.org, and take a free sample exam.)
What is it about beer that makes otherwise relatively sane people want to wait in long lines?
I spent almost two hours in line to purchase four bottles of Dark Lord from Three Floyds (Munster, IN) about six weeks ago. Today wasn’t as bad – it was only about an hour in the line before I was able to purchase four bottles of Small Animal Big Machine – the new collaboration between Chicago’s Half Acre and Pipeworks, and Belgium’s De Struise breweries.
Long lines for Small Animal Big Machine beer
(The guys from De Struise have been making the rounds with their collaborations lately, including Shark Pants, with Three Floyds, and, with New Albanian, [across the river from Louisville in New Albany, IN], Naughty Girl, described as a “willfully disobedient India Blonde Ale.”)
Based on the small samples Half Acre was handing out to those who had been in line 45 minutes or more (including yours truly), Small Animal Big Machine is a very fine fruit beer, with red currant flavor up front, and a slight sourness contrasting with the inherent sweetness of the fruit and malts. I’ll pop open a bottle this weekend with friends, but the remaining three bottles (from my four bottle limit) are already down in the basement, next to my bottles of Dark Lord. Both should age well, and I’m confident both will become much more complex in the next year or two.
I have some of this. You probably don't. Now do you want to be my friend?
But what is it that makes people want to wait in long lines for a new beer release?
“Well, it’s a limited bottling, and you won’t be able to ever get it again,” said a new best friend who was two people behind me in line. I’m sure that’s part of it … but only a part. “Beer guys like to stand in lines … they enjoy the instant camaraderie” said another. I’m sure that’s part of the reason, too. But it doesn’t completely explain the phenomenon.
Certainly, people line up for the latest version of the iPhone and iPad, and people line up to be the first to see Hollywood’s latest drek, but those are all about being first. It gives you the right to tell friends “I’m really cool – I saw this (or I got this thing) before you did.” Those examples don’t have the added factor of the scarcity of the products that cause folks to wait in long lines. A month later you can still buy the same iPhone that people waited in line for.
Only about 1,200 22 oz. bottles of Small Animal Big Machine were made. It sold out by early evening, Friday. Almost certainly, everyone who bought a bottle spent at least an hour or so in line.
I should check with our Local Beet wine correspondent, Wendy, on whether or not new local wine releases generate lines around the block. I don’t think they do.
So, what is it about craft beers that generates such passion? Maybe some of our dear readers of the Local Beet can clue me in.
In the meantime, I’m opening a bottle of Small Animal Big Machine for myself Saturday night. I might let a friend or two have a sip. Or maybe not. None of them waited in line for it.
