From Thinking & Drinking

Budweiser Is Not ‘Beer’

Okay, by the dictionary definition it is …

Beer: (noun \ˈbir\) an alcoholic beverage usually made from malted cereal grain (as barley), flavored with hops, and brewed by slow fermentation

Budweiser’s new marketing campaign lays claim to beer. Not just to their product line of Budweiser, Bud Light, Bud Ice, Budweiser Select, Bud Light Lime, Bud Light Lime Ritas … no, to the actual noun beer.

In my younger years I drank Budweiser. I’ve had Miller Lite. I’ve had Coors. I’ve had Rolling Rock, Michelob, Busch and even Natty Light … though those four are all Bud brands so that doesn’t diversify my list.

It’s okay to admit that I’ve had all those, right?

Sure it is … because they’re all beer.

I look at my past beer choices the way I look at my past music choices. All of it is part of a journey. It was part of the discovery that has helped shape my tastes and given me an appreciation of what I like, or don’t like.

And like with any journey, there are some places I don’t want to return to. I’m not judging Toby Keith and his army of 26+ million YouTube viewers who have chorused their way through the video for “Red Solo Cup.”

I’m just here for the beer.

In the Brewers Association promos for American Craft Beer Week (May 11–17 so mark your calendar), Tim Myers of Strange Craft Beer Co. in Denver says that “America’s craft brewers are artisans that rather than working in paint, photography or some of those muse, they’re working in beer.”

Craft beer is exactly that, a craft.

Part science, part artistry — craft beer is an artisanal creation conceived to deliver a unique experience. Craft brewers are artists, scientists, entrepreneurs and community-focused activists.

All of this collectively fuels my affinity for craft beer.

It’s why I don’t look at #DrinkLocal as a social media tag. #DrinkLocal is a call to support the breweries that embody all of craft brewing’s qualities.

#DrinkLocal isn’t just about the brewery that is local to you right now, it’s all local breweries, brewers and beers. #DrinkLocal isn’t about geography. It’s about supporting the local brewing community.

Anheuser-Busch InBev has launched a new digital marketing campaign “Let’s Grab a Beer”.

What’s noticeably missing from the campaign is any mention of AB or Budweiser or their growing portfolio of craft beer acquisitions. (The lead image on this page is from the campaign’s website — www.letsgraba.beer)

AdAge quotes AB’s Vice President for Beer Category + Community Julia Mize saying the new campaign and site are non-branded “so that we make sure we are connecting with the consumers and it’s not forced.”

“It’s not marketing,” Mize told AdAge. “Our intention here is to just have a resource that is relevant and fun and celebrates beer.”

The site includes sections like The Long Pour, which is billed as “Deep reads about the past, present and future of beer” and includes tips on “Chilling Hot Beer in Minutes” and “Opening a Beer With Almost Anything.”

In case you need to know, here’s how to open a beer with almost anything:

You finally get your hands on a cold one, but there’s no bottle opener in sight. Classic. Luckily, you can open a beer bottle with a spoon, keys or pretty much anything else that can act as a lever in your grip. See below for how it’s done.

The site’s new so maybe it’ll build into a more thoughtful and thorough “resource” in the near future.

Budweiser is struggling to find an identity in a growing craft beer market that demands substance and authenticity — not to mention taste.

Creating a site of curated content built to look like Pinterest isn’t how you connect with beer drinkers. Beer is more than a collection of gifs and Someecards covertly branded to promote Bud’s brand on a site disguised as a “resource” that’s “not marketing.”

This is why Budweiser is not beer.

To the 3,400+ craft brewers in the U.S., beer means something more.

On The Stone Blog, the official blog of Stone Brewing Co., Greg Koch, co-founder of Stone Brewing, said “the world can largely be divided into two segments: the commodity side and the artisanal side. And you won’t see the commodity side collaborating the way we do.”

For some brewers, “they just used their craft beer as a cause for other causes,” Julia Herz, Brewers Association’s craft beer program director told Bloomberg News in March, when explaining the value of local breweries in America.

Earlier this month New Belgium Brewing gave $1 million to Colorado State University to upgrade the school’s Fermentation Science and Technology program.

And earlier this year, more than 20 brewers participated in the Brewery Climate Declaration which Mother Jones described as a “declaration pledges that each company will take its own action to reduce emissions from its business, and will also support political action at the national level.”

And just this week, Dick Cantwell, co-founder of Elysian Brewing Company — which was purchased by Bud’s parent AB earlier this year — has decided he can no longer work with either AB or Elysian. Cantwell announced his resignation via email stating:

“The tenor of the deal, mainly from the point of view of my former partners and me, was such that I can’t possibly work with them into a future of any duration. My concerns were never even considered as a factor of whether we should or shouldn’t. From the start it was me against everyone else, with no regrets expressed. Enough about that.

The Washington Beer Blog broke the news of Cantwell’s departure and quotes his email:

“In the past few months AB has treated me with consideration and seriousness, and they’ve presented me some pretty exciting future possibilities, should I be able to see my way clear to working for them. But I can’t. I am a craft brewer, past, present and future, no matter what I end up doing. Naturally I’m not one to whine about the Definition, about being on the wrong side of it, etc. I helped craft the thing while I was on the BA Board, and while I have my own personal reservations about some aspects, I think it’s important to recognize some differences in realms of the market.”

This week beer more than 10,000 people are descending upon Portland, Oregon for the 2015 Craft Beer Conference. Brewers from across the country will show the real definition of beer.

They will show that:

Beer is nuanced.

Beer is culture.

Beer is conversation.

Beer is community.

#DrinkLocal

Empire Strikes Back vs. Empire Strikes Bock: LucasFilms and Syracuse, NY-Based Empire Brewing At Odds Over Trademark Filing

Toppling Goliath has Light Speed.

New England Brewing has Imperial Stout Trooper.

Empire Brewing has Empire Strikes Bock.

LucasFilm has a problem when it comes to most Star Wars beers.

Iowa’s Toppling Goliath’s Light Speed — an American Pale Ale (5.8% ABV) — was originally labeled Millennium Falcon. As the brewery describes it now, “this seasonal pale ale was crafted with a perfect mixture of Millennium hops and Falconer’s Flight blend. Inviting orange aroma and hints of lemon flavor in this medium-bodied beauty will make you want to drink yours at light speed!”

Connecticut’s New England Brewing’s Imperial Stout Trooper — a Russian Imperial Stout (8.5% ABV) — is one of NEB’s most popular beers. “Brewed in a brewery not too far away and not too long ago,” NEB notes on their website, “Imperial Stout Trooper is “a full bodied stout with a majestic blend of seven different malts and Northern Brewer hops.”

Imperial Stout Trooper, which launched in 2006, made it three years before Lucasfilm’s legal team reached out, said NEB’s owner and head brewer Rob Leonard. “They were very nice and pointed out that they too have a similar image that is protected and we should probably change ours,” Leonard said. NEB did change the bottle label and continues to brew Imperial Stout Trooper.

Empire Brewing, located in Syracuse, N.Y., has Strikes Bock (6.5% ABV) which is a traditional German style Mai-Bock. “This is a true lager, made with German lager yeast and fermented for six weeks. The flavors are malt forward with a medium body, finishing with a dry peppery flavor that is derived from the hops,” according to Empire Brewing.

LucasFilm — which was acquired by Disney — has a series of hugely successful movies — which were just released on digital HD this weekend. As LucasFilm’s lawyers describe Star Wars:

“In 1977, Lucasfilm released the first in a series of enormously successful films within its STAR WARS film franchise entitled “STAR WARS.” The STAR WARS film series was created by George Lucas, and featured the actors Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Carrie Fischer as Princess Leia, and Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, among others. The first film in the series introduces a space galaxy in civil war where Luke Skywalker joins forces with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Han Solo, a “Wookiee” named Chewbacca, and two Droids, R2D2 and C3PO, to save the universe from the Galactic Empire’s battle-station Death Star, and to rescue Princess Leia from the evil character Darth Vader. The STAR WARS film earned hundreds of millions of dollars in domestic box office revenues, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The original STAR WARS film was followed by two sequels, and a trilogy of prequels, which have been enormously successful and popular among consumers. Further, Lucasfilm has announced plans to release several new films as part of the STAR WARS film franchise (collectively, the “STAR WARS Film Franchise”).”

That description of Star Wars comes from a Notice of Opposition filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office because Empire Brewing wants to trademark Strikes Bock because they want to package it for sale when they open their Farmstead Brewery on 22 acres in Cazenovia, N.Y. later this year.

Lucasfilms cites “priority” and “likelihood of confusion” as the reasons for the objection to Strikes Bock being trademarked. (You can read the entire filing and the additional motions here.)

Lucasfilms contends that Empire Brewing’s Strikes Bock trademark is “virtually identical in sound, appearance, and connotation,” and that “Lucasfilm has a long history of using such marks for food and beverages, including wine. The fact that consumers have been exposed to and accustomed to seeing Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS Film Franchise marks in connection with food and beverages, including wine, increases the already existing likelihood of confusion.” (The wine the lawyers reference is George Lucas’ Skywalker Vineyards.)

Lawyers representing Lucasfilms didn’t respond to requests for comment. And Empire Brewing owner David Katleski said he was withholding comment during the legal process.

When the story originally broke everyone from Syracuse.com to Eater to Gothamist to The Guardian wrote about it. Katleski and Empire’s head brewer Tim Butler even made a video to illustrate their stance that Strikes Bock is a parody. Empire has brewed Strikes Bock for years, since June 2004 according to their trademark application.

According to legal filings, Empire Brewing’s request to have Lucasfilm’s opposition to the trademark was denied on March 27 so trial schedule proceedings are resuming.

Empire Brewing has until April 16 — the first day of Star Wars Celebration, a Star Wars convention in Anaheim, California — to file an amended notice with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

@empirebrew | #starwars

“The cool thing about beer is that it creates conversation across
geographic boundaries and we can enhance that experience.”
— Greg Avola, co-founder of Untappd

How 2 Guys Built
Craft Beer’s Leading Social Media Platform
In Their Spare Time

Tim Mather & Greg Avola Have Grown Untappd From ‘Foursquare For Beer’
Into The Beer Industry’s Social Standard

When Untappd hit the market in 2010 its founders were okay with being tagged Foursquare for beer drinkers, as everyone from Mashable to Inquisitr labeled it. That’s because back then, Untappd was basically that, a check-in service.

“Now, we see our app as a beer discovery app, rather than just a check-in service,” says Greg Avola, Untappd’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “We’re focused on real-time and we focus more on the recommendation side. We want to help users plan their evening, to discover what beers to try.”

Untappd has grown its offerings since its launch five years ago. The recommendation features has helped build a fiercely loyal user base of craft beer enthusiasts that topped 1.6 million by the end of 2014.

Avola is the East Coast half of Untappd and is based in New York. Untappd co-founder Tim Mather — the company’s CEO and lead designer — is in California. Though, it isn’t the fact that Avola and Mather have built a platform that is now home to 2+ million users and has catalogued more than 500,000 beers (commercial and homebrewed from across the globe) while being geographically separated — and without any advertising or venture capital dollars — that’s impressive. Avola and Mather have built Untappd into craft beer’s social media platform of choice in their spare time.

Mather is a senior UX designer at Disney Interactive and he spends his days handing UX, UI and prototyping support for a variety of Disney’s online destinations. Avola is a senior software engineer for ABC News and is responsible for building and supporting various parts of ABCNews’ digital properties.

And after hours the pair manages a cross-country workflow that has allowed them to create the digital platform of choice in what is, according to the Brewers Association, a $19.6 billion craft beer industry.

“I think the key to being able to manage this is to manage your time efficiently and take breaks. Otherwise, you’ll be so wrapped into your full-time job and this and that, it becomes hard to see the line between them,” says Avola, who notes that he and Mather spend about 20–24 hours a week on Untappd.

Avola notes that the lack of outside funding does slow down the design and development process, he notes that he and Mather do have the freedom to “have total control over the end result.”

ORGANIZATION: Avola and Mather rely heavily on Slack, Basecamp and “a healthy amount of iMessage” as their key communication and project management tools. “When a new task gets identified and scoped out, we add them to our lists, manage and report on our progress in those task lists. It’s been extremely helpful and easy to manage,” says Avola.

DISCIPLINE & FOCUS: With limited resources and time, Avola and Mather spend time before their full-time gigs catching up on anything urgent from the overnight. “Because we are remote and in different time zones, most of the work that Tim does is when I’m asleep, so it’s incredibly important to keep detailed status log so we can hand off work correctly,” says Avola. “We try to do as much siloed work as we can for task because we don’t have the luxury of working together on a task.”

FOCUS ON THE USER & COMMUNITY: “We didn’t expect that we would be dealing over 2 million users on the app when we first started,” says Avola. “It’s a humbling experience to have that many people using our service, and we use that as motivation to keep going.” Untappd has a group of about 50 super users who help beta test new features and moderate content on the app. “Getting feedback is what we have been about since day one … Making all your users happy is impossible, but by listening, we can try to focus in on trends which help determine future enhancements,” Avola says.

COMMUNICATION: Even with Untappd being a two-man team, communication is key. “When you are in an office with people you’ll see them every day and talk with them face to face with issues,” says Avola. “With Untappd we don’t have that luxury. We need to focus on being concise with our emails and messages, to make sure everyone is on the same page, so nothing gets missed.”

THE NIKE PRINCIPLE: “We built a prototype within 24 hours of having the idea back in the summer of 2010. I think that a lot of startups feel they need to search for funding for an idea, but at the same time, you can build an MVP and go from there to see if it sticks,” he says. Avola says the key to Untappd’s growth was simply “just doing it.”

While Untappd is a beer-focused platform, the key is the community beer and brewing creates.

“We’re the ones that can help foster the experience at the bar, connecting the brewery with the customer and the customer with the beer. And all of that benefits the venue,” Avola says. “The cool thing about beer is that it creates conversation across geographic boundaries and we can enhance that experience.”

Take A Look At:

Empire Strikes Back vs. Empire Strikes Bock: LucasFilms and Syracuse, NY-Based Empire Brewing At Odds Over Trademark Filing

When Budweiser launched its Super Bowl sized marketing assault on craft beer, craft breweries and craft beer fans it was just one volley in a much larger battle for control of America’s beer market.

Bud’s minute-long assault on craft breweries included mockery of craft beer flavor combinations; craft beer enthusiasts — showing them sniffing and dissecting beers; and brew pubs — including a fictional menu board in one scene offering fried Brussels sprouts and chicken liver mousse.

But Brian Perkins, VP of marketing for the self-proclaimed King of Beers, told Ad Age:

“This is not an attack on craft beer this is not an attack on competition. The only other beer that we reference in the spot is a fabricated, ludicrous flavor combination of pumpkin peach ale.”

The spot cannot be an attack on craft beer because that would be an attack on Bud itself. Days before the Super Bowl — when football fans were focused on DeflateGate — Anheuser-Busch InBev, the parent of Budweiser, was adding to its craft beer roster with another acquisition.

Bud’s purchase of Elysian — which does make a pumpkin ale brewed with “seven and a half pounds of pumpkin per barrel and spiced in conditioning with ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice” — adds one of the Pacific Northwest’s leading brewers to a list that already includes Chicago’s Goose Island, Blue Point Brewing of Patchogue, N.Y., and 10 Barrel of Bend, Ore.

As The Wall Street Journal’s Tripp Mickle writes:

AB InBev has made a concerted push over the last four years to catch up with American consumers, who increasingly are trading mild-flavored lagers like Bud Light and Budweiser for the more flavorful India Pale Ales and porters made by craft breweries. The company’s beers still account for nearly half of the 200 million barrels of beer consumed annually in the U.S., but volumes have fallen nearly 9% over the past decade. At the same time, craft brewers’ market share has surged to more than 10%.

According to the Brewers Association — the Boulder, Colo.-based trade group for craft brewers — overall beer sales in 2013 fell 1.9% while craft beers made up 17.2% of total beer sales in America.

FROM THE SUPER BOWL TO THE NATION’S CAPITAL

Now the battlefield has moved from football-related marketing to the halls of the U.S. Capitol where breweries and their trade groups are pushing for legislation that pits large against small with the Fair BEER Act and the Small BREW Act.

Under existing federal law, breweries which produce less than 2 million barrels of beer annually pay a tax of $7 per barrel for the first 60,000 barrels of beer produced or imported. After that the rate is $18 per barrel. Breweries that produce more than 2 million barrels pay $18 per barrel on every barrel.

The Small BREW Act, dubbed the Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce Act, was introduced on Feb. 4 by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.) and would cut the taxes for the first 60,000 barrels to $3.50 per barrel and then move to $16 per barrel from 60,001 to 2 million barrels. If passed, the law would leave the tax rate the same for breweries producing more than 2 million barrels.

Bob Pease, CEO of the Brewers Association, said in a statement that the legislation would allow smaller brewers “to remain competitive against large multinational breweries, invest further in their breweries and create new employment opportunities in their communities.”

The Fair BEER Act, tagged the Fair Brewers Excise and Economic Relief Act of 2015, was introduced a day later by U.S. Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) and U.S. Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and creates a “graduated federal excise tax structure while maintaining a level playing field,” according to the Beer Institute, the trade group whose roster includes Anheuser-Busch, MillerCoors, Heineken USA, and Crown Holdings Inc. — the Philadelphia-based multi-billion dollar consumer packaging company that has defined the beer packaging industry since 1892.

Under the Fair BEER Act there would be no tax for the first 7,143 barrels any brewery produces. From there breweries would pay a tax of $3.50 for barrels 7,144–60,000 and then $16 for 60,001 to 2 million. Every barrel produced above 2 million would be taxed at $18 per barrel.

“This bill is important for reforming a hidden tax that most beer drinkers don’t even know they pay, and because it removes barriers to industry growth … it reaches that reform without completely changing the industry structure,” said Jim McGreevey, president and CEO of the Beer Institute in a press release.

THE BEER LOBBY

While The Center For Responsive Politics notes that both bills are “pretty similar,” Clark Mindock dug into campaign contributions for both bills’ key sponsors.

Mindock writes on OpenSecrets.org that “the beer, wine, and liquor industry was among the top 20 industry donors to the campaign committees and leadership PACs of both Womack and Kind in 2014.”

Womack received $16,506 from beer, wine and liquor interests during the last reporting cycle — his 18th largest industry-focused donor group. Kind received $47,741 from the industry — the 14th largest industry-focused donor group. The National Beer Wholesalers Association Political Action Committee — the largest beer-focused PAC in D.C. — dolled out $3.14 million to candidates during last election cycle. Womack and Kind received $10,000 and $15,000 respectively.

According to The Center For Responsive Politics data, the beer, wine and liquor industry did not crack the top 20 donor list for either Cardin or Collins.

The Beer Institute spent more than $2.1 million on lobbying in 2014 and slightly more in 2013. During that same time, the Brewers Association spent $259,000 in 2014 and $341,969 in 2013. Both groups focused most of their lobbying efforts on beer taxes for brewers.

And while the Beer Institute pours millions into lobbying efforts — $14.6 million since 1998 — and the proudly “macro” brewery Budweiser spends millions of dollars for 210 seconds of commercials during the Super Bowl, both appear to be making the latest beer tax battle a class war.

Chris Thorne, the chief lobbyist and spokesman for the Beer Institute, spoke with The Daily Beast’s Matt Laslo regarding the battling beer bills and Thorne said:

“You’re really talking about people who pave roads, lay dry wall, wire houses, deliver washing machines, do landscaping; they’re the ones paying for the light beer and the Mexican imports and they’re the ones paying the top of the dollar … And some chucklehead who’s making $150,000 a year could put down $50 or $45 bucks for a case of beer he’s a paying a much smaller tax.”

So apparently Budweiser’s VP of Marketing Brian Perkins was right, it’s not an attack on competition. Instead, Bud and the Beer Institute are attacking beer drinkers.

It was back in 1998 when investigative journalist Eric Schlosser’s first part of “Fast Food Nation” appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone.

Nearly 17 years ago — beneath a cover featuring Shania Twain (that should give you some context of how long ago we’re talking) — the subhead of Schlosser’s story read:

After four decades, our obsession with fast, cheap food has transformed our towns and farms and flooded the labor market with low-paying, dead-end jobs. Is this a healthy menu?

Schlosser’s vivid narrative tells the story not just of how McDonald’s transformed America’s diet but also how the fast food chain transformed the American culture, noting that “almost every facet of American life has now been franchised.”

Throughout his reporting Schlosser highlights not only the dietary impact of McDonald’s and the fast food industry as a whole but he also focuses on the agriculture impact, the economic impact, the advertising impact, the environmental impact and more. (His article later became a best-selling book and also a Richard Linklater movie starring Greg Kinnear.)

The new McDonald’s TV spots — “Archenemies” and “Signs” — have been all the buzz the past few days.

Signs — which launched during The Golden Globes-features a chorus of children signing a cover of Fun’s “Carry On” against visuals of Golden Arches signs showing messages relating to the Boston Marathon bombing to anniversary wishes to plea to “Keep Jobs In Toledo.” The campaign even includes a Tumblr account documenting each sign’s story.

Archenemies creates a sense of nostalgia by co-opting everything from King Kong and The Wizard of Oz to Super Mario Bros. and Rockem Sockem Robots. Understanding the outlook Ray Kroc — the chain’s founder — had on marketing and advertising, it’s no wonder McDonald’s decided to borrow from our collective childhood.

“A child who loves our TV commercials and brings her grandparents to a McDonald’s gives us to more customers,” Kroc is quoted in Schlosser’s article.

Schlosser’s reporting goes on to highlight internal McDonald’s documents that state:

An emotional connection to McDonald’s that customers had formed “as toddlers” was now eroding. The new advertising had to make people feel that McDonald’s still cared about them. “The challenge of the campaign,” wrote a company vice president, “is to make customers believe that McDonald’s is their ‘Trusted Friend.’”

And in case you were falling out of love with your trusted friend, here are a few more highlights from the press kit that accompanied the launch of Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal in 2001:

(Note: You can read the entire press package here)

• Roughly 12 percent of all American workers have worked at McDonald’s.

• The golden arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross.

• Children often recognize the McDonald’s logo before they recognize their own name.

• American children now get about one quarter of their total vegetable servings in the form of potato chips and french fries.

• The typical teenage boy in the United States now gets about 10 percent of his daily calories from soda.

• McDonald’s is now the nation’s largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes. It is the second largest purchaser of chicken in the United States.

• Hundreds of local slaughterhouses used to supply the United States with beef; today thirteen large slaughterhouses supply most of the nation’s beef.

• A typical fast food hamburger contains meat from dozens or even hundreds of cattle.

• Because fast food is so highly processed, much of its flavor is destroyed, so the tastes of most fast food are manufactured at a series of special chemical plants in New Jersey.

• Chicken McNuggets contain beef additives, while McDonald’s french fries derive some of their flavor from “animal products.”