This is a very late entry into this debate, and there’s a good reason why: I’ve been having a hard time articulating to myself just why I think the debate has been so… well.. wrong. I tried recording a podcast about it, but I was just a rambling mess (more so than usual) and so I felt like the best way to approach this was through writing.

To cover the backstory: Back on December 13th, a few high ranking members of the BA wrote an article in the St. Louis Dispatch titled Craft or crafty? Consumers deserve to know the truth in which the authors attempt to call attention to the problem of “faux craft” beer being made by the large international conglomerate breweries, namely Anheuser Busch-InBev (ABI) and MillerCoors, henceforth to be referred to this in this article as The Duopoly (because that’s what they are). It was timed to coincide with a press release by the Brewers Association titled The Beer Drinker’s Right to Know, which seemed to be a response to this insane interview on Forbes/CNN titled Big beer’s response to craft: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em which contains some crazypants quotes from the Executive Chairman of SABMiller like

“There’s a huge debate in the craft world about us, all big brewers, because we’re like the enemy. We’re the other guys. They think we’re stealing their authenticity. What we say is, “Let the consumer decide.” If we’re authentic enough for the consumer, that’s authentic enough for anyone.”

and

“I don’t think the craft movement in its current guise will continue to grow indefinitely. I don’t think it can. It’s not economic. Too many people won’t make any money. Too many of them will go out of business. And I think it will become less fashionable. These things are fashion to some extent.”

Though if I had to guess, what the BA was really responding to is this:

“We have our own craft brands. We also look selectively to acquire, or form partnerships with, or cozy up to people who have incubated good businesses. It’s difficult for big companies to incubate small brands. That, at its heart, is the dilemma. To start a small brand in a credible, consistent, sticking-to-it kind of way is hard for big companies. That’s what small entrepreneurs do best.”

because that is, in reality, the heart of the matter. By the by, that article was actually a followup article to one that came out back in November titled Big Beer dresses up in craft brewers’ clothing, which nobody seemed to take issue with.

Unfortunately, the BA press release and article was taken as an attack and was received with vitriol by some of the country’s smaller brewers that happened to land on this list of Domestic Non-Craft Brewers. They pissed some people off and, frankly, I don’t blame them for being pissed. At least one of those brewers – D.G. Yuengling & Sons – was welcomed warmly during the keynote address at the Craft Brewers Conference a couple of years ago in a we’ve-expanded-our-definition-so-you-can-be-craft-now moment. Throwing them under the bus on this chart is.. well.. kinda crazy. Until this chart, I didn’t realize that the BA didn’t consider them craft anymore.

I won’t summarize the response that the BA received from August Schell. I think it sums up the sentiment that was expressed out and around the internet quite well. You can read it here: August Schell’s response to Craft vs. Crafty on Facebook

Now, here’s my thought on the whole thing:

Faux-craft can be a threat, but not – I think – in the way that this concerted press release and chart make it out to be. It’s not because consumers might be confused into thinking that some shit Shocktop Wheat IPA is craft. It’s because consumers might not have the chance to have a choice in the matter.

One of the biggest warning shots that craft has had fired across its bow in the past 30 years was the AB-InBev purchase of Goose Island. There are a million and one reactions to that purchase and most of them are ridiculous because they’re either about whether or not the beer is going to suck now or whether or not it should still be counted as craft.

I’ll tell you: No, the beer will not suck. No, it is not craft. Done. Happy now?

The problem, I think, is a far more complicated one than it appears on the surface. Here’s why the Goose Island purchase is a threat:

Because Goose Island is good beer with a good reputation that people like and have heard of.

Why is that a problem? Because AB-InBev has a program that it runs with its distributors whereupon you can become an “aligned distributor”. That means that you purposefully exclude products not from the AB-InBev catalog from your sales. In return, you receive excellent lines of credit, better pricing on your products, and all kinds of interesting incentives that give you a competitive advantage in the market. Here’s a quote from the Wholesaler Family 2011 Consolidation Guide (lifted from The Washington Monthly: Last Call):

We ask all wholesalers to use the guide’s self assessment tool to objectively consider their capabilities and goals. Wholesalers who aspire to be an Anchor Wholesaler can identify any gaps they have in these qualities and build a plan to address them. Some wholesalers might remain committed to their current market, but realize further acquisitions are not right for their business. Others might decide now is the best time to consider whether a sale is in their best interest.

There are many aspects of an aligned wholesaler, and an explicit focus on our portfolio of brands is paramount. Those who are aligned with us only acquire brands that compete in segments underserved by our current portfolio and that bring incremental sales, not brands that have a negative impact on the A-B portfolio.

In a nutshell: our brands are your priority.

Okay, fine, you say. So craft doesn’t sign on with a Bud distributor. Big deal. Except that the country doesn’t have very many distributors with the same kind of reach and network that the two big houses do. To not sign on with those distributors – in most markets – is to put yourself at a significant competitive disadvantage. Unfortunately, to sign on with those distributors – in most markets – seems to now put yourself at a significant competitive disadvantage. Because now, when a bar says, “Hey – my customers keep asking me for a Pale Ale – can I get one of those?” The Bud guys can say, “Sure – Goose Island Honkers Pale Ale coming right up.”

Not that they wouldn’t say that anyway, but now they have incentive to push it harder. It doesn’t seem like much. Alone, it’s not.

Education is key

Part 2 of the problem is that there is awful – and by awful, I mean fucking TERRIBLE – education about beer in the bar and restaurant market. Here’s the thing I find the most embarrassing in restaurants: when they’ve put time into crafting the most beautiful wine list in the world, and the beer they offer is Heineken or Amstel Light or something because that’s imported fancy beer. There is a really large emphasis on wine education in culinary institutes, but unless a chef has a personal preference for beer it is basically ignored. This goes doubly when it comes to management and server training. So, unless you’ve gone out of your way to hire a huge beer geek at your restaurant to run your beer list, an IPA is an IPA and Honkers or Shocktop Wheat IPA or Leinenkugel Big Gig is just as good as Pliny the Younger. I mean.. hey – is it cheap? Then, cool, get it.

That’s why faux-craft is a threat: not because craft drinkers might be somehow duped into thinking that some other beer is a craft beer, but because new craft drinkers might never get the chance to have anything else. It’s not an awareness problem, it’s a market share problem. Nobody doing purchasing at Wal-Mart is going to be a big enough beer nerd to call out a distributor on pushing a faux craft instead of a craft, so nobody who shops at Wal-Mart gets to see anything else. Not a big deal, right? Except that that’s the single largest retail outlet in the country.

(Alternate argument says, “But those people are learning about craft and might eventually move onto other brands,” which is legitimate. My argument to that says, “People are lazy and if they can buy a six pack with the rest of their groceries, they will. It takes education and affluence to go to a beer-only store.)

The BA has posted articles about the need for more education in bars and restaurants before, but it didn’t receive the same kind of attention that last press release did. I guess it’s easy to write off Garret Oliver as an elitist jerk, which might be one of the single wrongest sentences I’ve ever written. He’s right.

The Definition of Craft is Misguided and Outdated

Part 3 of the problem is the definition of craft. The basis of the definition is written around tax guidelines – or worse, proposed tax guidelines written in legislation that hasn’t passed yet. If you’re anywhere near the craft industry at all, you’ve seen this definition before:

Small: Annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less. Beer production is attributed to a brewer according to the rules of alternating proprietorships. Flavored malt beverages are not considered beer for purposes of this definition.

Independent: Less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer.

Traditional: A brewer who has either an all malt flagship (the beer which represents the greatest volume among that brewers brands) or has at least 50% of its volume in either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor.

This summary might better explain what a craft brewer is: Not The Duopoly.

In the grand scheme of things, the definition here isn’t that bad. Small and Independent I can get behind (except for the definition of 6 million barrels as small – that is complete bullshit), what makes the definition wonky here is “Traditional”. Everything about this definition is about taxes and business size and that Traditional part of the definition means that you’re making a quality call in the middle of the definition.

I’ve thought about this a lot, and it goes against what I’ve said for years, but here’s what I think should be the definition of a craft brewer: A brewery that isn’t publicly traded on the stock market.

Because when you put quality into the definition of what a craft brewery is, you run into another problem.

Craft beer does not mean “good beer”

Part 4 of the problem is that people are confused about what is craft beer and what is good beer.

Craft beer does not mean good beer. There’s a lot of shitty craft beer out there. Sorry to say. Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you know what the hell you’re doing. It doesn’t mean you know how to build a recipe or package without an infection. It just means you’re small. If you want to say small breweries are craft breweries, then cool – that’s a craft brewery. But if you start making quality calls in the definition then there are a lot of breweries that are going to need to turn in their “craft” badge.

So what does that mean? It means that Utica Club and Yuengling and August Schell and Genessee and all that light beer with corn in it is probably craft. You might not like it, but you don’t stay open for 150 years because your beer is shitty, so deal with it. It also means that Sam Adams (SAM) isn’t, nor is the Craft Brew Alliance (BREW) or Mendocino (MENB), Sackets Harber Brewing Company (HBWO), Big Rock (BRBMF) or, of course The Duopoly (BUD, TAP) or any of the other international conglomerate breweries.

So, if I can sum all of this up: Craft vs. crafty. Is it an issue?

Yes, but not in the way it’s made out to be. Faux-craft is a problem because the big breweries control an unreasonable share of the market (80+%!) and, thus, have a stranglehold on the distribution system, meaning that they can control the flow of product in many markets. If they can give the mid-level suppliers – who are often poorly educated about the product they’re buying – an easy alternative to a higher priced product, regardless of how “cool” local is, they’ll control the market share and, thus, put small breweries out of business.

The BA’s position statement was, by all means, appropriate (somebody has to be a watchdog for the craft industry and call out the big guys, because craft brewers are so stupidly apologetic about The Duopoly). But, it is clouded by the fact that their own self-made definition of what craft is has a (recent!) history of changing to suit their priorities and contains a basically unenforceable criteria – quality – that they insist on enforcing based, it would appear to most outsiders, on beer color.

Drinkers are confused about what to do with this position statement because they’re being told that beer that they consider “good” (Goose Island, Ommegang, Magic Hat, Pyramid, Red Hook, Leinenkugel, etc.) is apparently “bad” because they falsely associate “craft” with “good”. In reality, those breweries are NOT craft, based on taxation definitions alone and it is not – and should not be – a measure of how good their beer is, merely whether or not they can join the Brewers Association.

Final word. Support your local brewery. If the big guys get their way, your local brewery will go away and the BA or anybody will be powerless to stop it because so many craft drinkers can’t be bothered to draw a line in the sand. The number of conversations that I have with craft beer drinkers that have an element of, “Yeah, but a Miller High Life on a hot day is awesome!” is astounding. No it’s not. It’s gross, just like it is on any other day. It’s not a good beer. (Oh, the apologetic craft brewer in me says, “But it’s a well made beer!” Sure. Your McDonalds hamburger is a well-made hamburger but it’s still a shitty goddamned hamburger.) You know what’s good on a hot day? A wit. A hefeweissen. A craft pilsner. A foreign extra stout. A really crisp IPA. I can keep going FOR HOURS about what beer is good on a hot day instead of a Miller High Life, and I will no longer compromise.

And you shouldn’t either. Here’s why you shouldn’t support faux-craft – and that includes everything from Blue Moon and Shock Top to (yes, I’m deeply sorry to say this) Goose Island and all the others: Because you’re feeding the machine that is working to remove choice from your life. The Duopoly is a consolidation machine that will, if given the chance, wipe out all competition possible.

Don’t let it.

Additional reading/listening just for fun:

The Street: 10 Craft Beers That Aren’t

Beer Advocate Thread: Craft vs. Crafty

Another definition of, well, not ‘craft’ beer

WUNC: The State of Things – Brewing Beer Battle

Last Call: Industry giants are threatening to swallow up America’s carefully regulated alcohol industry, and remake America in the image of booze-soaked Britain.

The Plot to Destroy America’s Beer

Random Thoughts from Littleton (about the Wholesaler Family 2011 Consolidation Guide)

Someone brought it up to me again the other day: You should get back to blogging more.

And, you know? I agree… for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s cathartic. It’s a nice release to be able to commit thoughts to words and publish them, even in a vanity forum like this blog, but also because there are a lot of topics that I’d like to see discussed in the world at large that I feel like I can at least introduce, and hopefully see out and about.

However, what with this whole “owning a brewery” thing, my time is often pretty limited and when I write it takes up a LOT of time – not only because, regardless of how fast a typer I am, it takes a long time to get things out, but because I’m just enough of a nerd to not want to write a blog post unless I have a complete thought. You should see how long it’s taken me to put this post together … or, maybe you can see it.

What’s more, often I only really think about writing when I’m upset about something and I don’t want to have the reputation (any more than I already do) for being the angry, ranty brewer guy. I am often not angry, and so I’d like that to actually come through on my blog. However, I REALLY like turning convention on its head and really looking at why it is we do what we do. Nobody ever made progress by doing the same old shit over and over again, and I really like applying creative problem solving to things that don’t necessarily appear to be broken. That often comes off as angry – or at least hyper-critical. But I don’t want to come off that way.

So, I’m going to try something new: Podcasting. There are a few reasons for this.

1) I can talk faster than I can type, and while part of me wants to make sure that there’s a complete written post around a podcast, that seems to me (for now) to be faster than setting down words to an entire post.

2) I can do it in a lot of different places. There’s no reason I can’t record a podcast while I’m working on something in the brewery, or in between tasks, whereas writing needs to take place in basically one or two environments where I have a computer and a long time to sit in one place.

3) It’s a lot easier to tell my tone when you hear my voice. If I don’t sound angry, I’m probably not angry. Not always the case, but normally true.

So, we’ll try this out. The podcast will serve two functions:

To educate. I’ve taught a Certified Cicerone Study course a couple of times over the past year and it’s very popular, and while I think people are generally interested in the Cicerone program, I think most people just want to learn more about beer – and so I’ll be doing little bits of education. Everything from how beer is made to how tap lines are cleaned to what the ingredients are and how they’re used. I’ll try to do this in a very non-technical way so that it’s easy for anybody to understand. With any luck there will be something for everybody to learn.

To inform. Since I’ve started Mystery, I’ve learned a LOT about the industry that I never would have thought about as a drinker and a fan of the industry, and I think it’s worth discussing some of those things… things like: Why the three-tier system is actually pretty great. Or that bars often don’t take care of their own draft systems. Or how AB-InBev is going to crush us all and how you’re going to help them.

And it will staaaaaart now.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:29 — 13.3MB)

Enjoy!

You know, I’m frequently pretty ranty on my blog as of late and a lot of that comes out of the fact that the blog is, in many ways, an outlet for me. But today I’m looking for an outlet for a whole different kind of piece. Today I want to talk about harmony.

So, for a long time, while I was starting up Mystery I was hounded by a certain someone in the local beer industry to continually define what made my beer different. The answer – at the time – was that my beer is, on average, balanced and a lot of beers really aren’t.

It was a bit of a stretch.. maybe.

“What the fuck does balanced mean?” he would counter, “When I put your beer in my mouth I taste hops and malt and all kinds of stuff. How do I know I’m tasting balance?”

At first, I kind of brushed this off thinking, “Ah, he’s just giving me a hard time. Who doesn’t know what ‘balanced’ means?” but the more I thought about it the more I ended up agreeing with him. What does balance taste like? How do you define balance to someone who doesn’t have it defined for themselves?

So, like most things do, this has been kind of percolating in my brain for months and this afternoon emerged as a fully formed moth, hell-bent on the destruction of all living matter. It’s not balance that I was trying to communicate, it was harmony.

I tend to think of beer in terms of art.

I’ve said before and I’ll say again – in order to be a good brewer you need to be a good scientist. In order to make great beer you also need to be a good artist. It’s a definite mix of the two. You can have very technically well-made, not-very-interesting beers and you can have very interesting beers that aren’t very well made. Both of those might be good, but a well-made, interesting beer is what transcends good beer into great beer.

A good artist, or a composer, for instance, knows how to use the elements of their medium in concert with one another to make them beautiful. Those things, however, might not be in balance. Harmony is a view of how all of the elements work together to make a larger, more perfect, whole. In certain types of art that might be achieved through cognitive or tonal dissonance, but the vast majority of harmony that we know and/or like works together, like the Greek root word “harmonia” which meant “joint, agreement, concord”.

This is it. This is what I want to achieve in beer – not balance, but artistic harmony. A beer that’s technically well-made and consistent and also beautiful and artfully crafted in the spirit of harmony: Those flavors that we’re putting in there? They’re all going to work together well. We want a beer in which the flavors harmoniously coexist. Our Foreign Extra Stout would not be as good as it is if the lemons and lemongrass didn’t stand out – they’re not in balance with the rest of the beer, but they are in harmony with the rest of the beer creating a larger more beautiful beer because of the way that the lemons and lemongrass work with the residual sugar in the beer and against the rich roastiness. It’s like drinking a minor third.

Am I saying that other beers aren’t harmonious? No. But I don’t think that many are made with harmony in mind. Everybody’s trying to make a good beer and one that sells well, but I don’t see many people attempting to create a work of art – and that, my friends, is my goal: a drinkable piece of art, one that your nose and tongue can appreciate best and one that’s still accessible to the average drinker.

It’s a challenge, but hell, I like challenges.

God I wish this was going to be a long post, but it’s not.

Tomorrow is IPA Day, and I can’t get behind it.

Nevermind the fact that IPA is the first jumping off point for every beginning craft beer enthusiast that is trying to get as far away from premium lager as possible. Nevermind that the vast majority of IPAs are over-hopped and over-wrought and are just one-note hop bombs with very little subtlety or nuance.

Look at your calendar and look at all of the SUCH-AND-SUCH Day holidays that are on there. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Secretary’s Administrative Assistant Professional’s Day. There’s a Grandparent’s Day, Boss’s Day (I assume this is about Bruce Springsteen), National Doughnut Day, National Catfish Day, and whatever the hell else you want. You know what they all have in common? They are held to bring specific attention to something that is generally under appreciated.

IPA? Really? The single best selling style in craft beer? Every goddamned day is IPA day. It doesn’t need a specific holiday. You want to know why there’s a Black History Month and not a White History Month? Because EVERY month is White History Month.

Why aren’t we celebrating a style that NEEDS a little bit of extra attention? Bitter! Bock! Pilsener! (speaking of an under appreciated style) Schwarzbier! Vienna Lager! Baltic Porter! ANYTHING but freakin’ IPA.

IPA is delicious, but it’s EVERYWHERE. It doesn’t need to be put on a pedestal, it needs to be joined on that pedestal by other delicious beers.

Join me by using #IPADay to celebrate a beer style that you feel needs more appreciation and attention, instead. Take it back and go somewhere new! I’ll be tweeting using: #TakeBack #IPADay

Let me show you a picture that was posted today on the Facebook page of one of our favorite local bottle shops, Sam’s Quick Shop, featuring beer that they’ve just had arrive.

I have one word for this: gross.

Amazingly, that doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the fact that I think that pumpkin beer is vaguely disgusting. I know a lot of people like it and they should be saying “gross” too. The date today, in case you don’t feel like looking at the byline, is July 13. We are now 21 days since the first day of summer. That’s not even a whole month. These beers are for autumn and, ostensibly, to fall in around those “pumpkin” holidays that you like to think of: Halloween, when people wear pumpkins, and Thanksgiving, the only time when people actually eat them. The nearest of those is 109 days away. The latter is 130 days away. Over 6 months.

Gross.

Now, I’m all for seasonal beers. After all, I started an all-seasonal brewery. We’ve got a pumpkin-like beer in the planning, and we’ll be releasing it the week of Halloween. You know, when it’s in season. Pumpkin beers present a unique challenge for brewers and I want to talk about it here to highlight the insanity of a pumpkin beer hitting stores in July and why it is so wrong and why you, the drinker, should boycott that utter bullshit.

According to the Farmer’s Almanac which is, in my New-England-grown-mind, the best possible place to find information on farming, pumpkins have a very long growing season. 75 – 100 days. In northern growing zones, they often require starting seeds 2 – 3 weeks before the last spring frost. In North Carolina, where I am now, the last frost of the year is generally around April 15th. We are the coldest of the 3 warmest growing zones in the U.S. (Zone 7). Zone 9 (the warmest that you can grow pumpkins in) sees its last frost around February 15th.

So, for the sake of arguing, let’s use Zone 9 as the source of all the pumpkins used for pumpkin beers in the U.S., ignoring completely that we are a niche of a niche market for pumpkin production. A 90-day growing season with a last frost on February 15th puts harvest time right around May 15th. That is the absolute earliest you could possibly have pumpkins available. Let’s also assume that the entire crop was harvested in a day and that those pumpkins were then picked, processed, washed, chopped, pureed, and then sent to every brewery within, oh, 12 hours of coming off of the field. Let’s assume that every brewery had overnight shipping of their pumpkins, and that they were waiting, with empty mash tun, for the pumpkins to arrive in their brewery on May 16th.

For beer to hit the shelves with fresh pumpkin in it on July 13th, you would have had to brew, ferment, condition, carbonate, package, ship, order, pick, and deliver all of that beer in 44 days. Sometime last year, I saw a study (and I’m sorry, I can’t find it now – I believe it was something by Sam Adams/Jim Koch at the Wholesaler’s Assoc. Conference last year), that showed that, on average, for a widely distributed (ie – not local) brand, there is a 5-week lag between when beer leaves a brewery and when it arrives on a retailer’s shelf. 5 weeks. That means for beer to arrive on July 13 on a shelf, it left the brewery June 1st, which gives the brewery a grand total of 2 weeks from the earliest possible arrival of pumpkins.

Here’s a most likely scenario: This beer was brewed back in March or April using canned, drummed, or imported pumpkin puree – assuming there is actually pumpkin in your pumpkin beer and not just pumpkin pie spices. Your seasonal beer is, by definition, not seasonal as it is almost definitely not using seasonal ingredients (ie – ingredients that are IN SEASON.)

I know that might sound insane, but I hear tell that Great Lakes Brewing Company is currently brewing their Christmas Ale. In July. Wrap your mind around that as we go through the rest of the article talking about pumpkin beers.

Note: Redacted! Brewed for Christmas in July to my delight! Hooray! Fresh!

Right on. Now let’s talk about the shelf life of beer and how MOST (but not all) bottle shops, bars, and restaurants keep their beer in storage.

Beer is a perishable product. Its shelf life is short. On average, when beer is kept at a cool temperature (50 degrees is great, colder is better), the shelf life of a beer is about 90 days. 3 months. When beer is kept warm, that shelf life drops significantly and can be as short as 30 days, but usually you’re talking 45 – 60 days on average for a craft beer that’s kept at room temperature. The hotter a beer is kept, the shorter its shelf life is.

To be clear, what we’re talking about here isn’t spoilage at 60 days, it isn’t when the beer will go sour or anything incredibly disgusting. Those are infection problems. The end of shelf life is the point at which off-flavors will show up, most often oxidation and staling flavors, most notably cardboard-y/wet newspaper-y flavors. By this point, most-to-all of the hop character has diminished from the beer, and the chances of carbohydrates and proteins precipitating out in the bottle in the form of chunks or flakes is much higher. Is the beer drinkable? Sure, and it might taste okay. But it is not and can not be as good as it was when it was a fresh beer. Fresh beer is good beer.

There are a few things that can increase the shelf life of a beer:

1) High alcohol. In general, the beer will still oxidize and stale, but in the case of higher alcohol beers the staling flavors will probably be more pleasant, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes old beers, even high alcohol ones, just taste old and nasty. Aging is a gamble.

2) Pasteurization. In this scenario, you flash heat the beer in the package to kill any spoilage organisms that are in the package. This also has the effect of slightly arresting the aging process and can significantly change the flavor profile of a beer. A pasteurized beer can be good on the shelf upwards of 6 months.

Most small breweries do not pasteurize their beer. I don’t have strict numbers on this, but if I had to guess the number of breweries pasteurizing their packages, I would say “less than 10% of breweries.” I could be wrong and if anybody knows, I’d welcome that information.

Kegs are not, and can not be, pasteurized. You just can’t heat the liquid fast enough. That’s one of the reasons that beer can taste different on tap than it does in bottles – I mean, aside from age and the fact that kegs are often kept cold.

Okay – lesson in shelf life over. Let’s talk about how beer is kept. Fortunately, distributors are getting pretty good at keeping beer. That might sound a little snarky, but for a long time distributors weren’t really equipped to deal with the fact that they’ve got 500 different brands of beer to move around. They were moving 6 – 10 brands. Not 60 – 100, or 600 – 750, so for a long time distributors didn’t have great warehouse space to keep beer cold. We’re past that now and most distributors are pretty good, notwithstanding the fact that they have to order things in, get them shipped, get them in inventory, and organize them before they can sell them, and then finally deliver them which adds weeks onto the distribution process and takes weeks off of the life of a beer.

Now, think about your favorite bottle shop. The one you always go to because they have the most diverse selection of beer available. Okay, good? Now, how much of that beer is cold? The 5 of you that thought, “all of it!” are really lucky. The rest of you are thinking about shelves and shelves and shelves of beer that are sitting there, warm. Warm beer has a significantly shorter shelf life. If the same beer has been on a warm shelf for over a month, it’s probably old and stale.

So, now, you’ve got pumpkin beer arriving at a store on July 13. It is already a few weeks old. It’s a hot summer and nobody’s shopping for pumpkin beers right now so it’s going to sit on the shelf for – what? A month, before somebody even considers buying it? Two?

Gross.

You’ve got seasonal beer arriving in the hottest part of the summer and sitting around until it’s stale before it’s ever being sold.

You know why? Because the sales figures show that pumpkin beers are popular, and so people make more and more pumpkin beers and, of course, instead of just making the best pumpkin beer they possibly can (challenge enough in itself), they strive to make the first.

And you know what’s most disgusting? People buy it.

So, to summarize my thesis: Seasonal creep – the fact that these seasonal beers keep coming out earlier and earlier – is training you to buy and enjoy old, stale beer.

Why do you stand for that? Do you go to the store and buy old vegetables? No! You would bring that shit back in a heartbeat and complain. You don’t buy old stale bread why do you buy old stale beer?

I think it’s time for people to take seasonality back: Stop buying seasonal beer out of season – and if something is old on the shelf, leave it there. Don’t fall for that marketing garbage. Instead, actually drink something that’s well-made, good, and fresh; don’t buy crap made with old ingredients that sits old on the shelf. You deserve something better for the price you’re going to pay for it.

There are so many great beers – and great TRULY SEASONAL beers – available fresh from your local brewery. Drink those instead.