Economics – Page 13 – A Good Beer Blog

Has An Unacceptable Level Of Drinking Been Described?

Pete Brown has run a series of posts this week and last that delve into stats being issued by various government agencies and health lobby groups in the UK. It is important work that Pete is doing as there is no stat worse than the unexamined stat. Today’s post was called “More Hilarity with Statistics” which examined claims about the level of drinking in Scotland. I made a comment over there but did some more rooting around to make sure I agreed with what I was seeing and, to avoid looking like a totally rude idiot being all finger pointy in the comments, thought I would set it out here instead. I also got thinking because even if a stat can be discredited it does not mean that the underlying facts necessarily do not exists, only that they are not well described. But, as I said in the comments, I am really bad at math so I am happy to be corrected.

The BBC story Pete began with was titled “Scots ‘Drink 46 Bottles of Vodka‘” by which they mean per person per year on average. Pete suggested that this was not particularly well researched as tourism trade taking the booze away was not figured in – but then when I ran the numbers I saw this pattern:

Scotland has about 8% of the UK population
total UK booze sales in 2007 were worth over 41 billion pounds
and therefore, Scotland’s booze sales can be approximated at around 4 billion pounds.

I took the numbers from this soul suckingly slow .pdf source. I read them to meaning that if every penny of the 25 million pounds spent at distillery shops was non-Scots resident alcohol sales, removing it entirely from Scottish consumption, it only represents well under 1% of total Scottish sales? If that is the case, the variation is under a bottle of vodka a year. I said that even if I was off by a whole decimal point and the distillery sales represent 10% of sales isn’t it still a little bit alarming that every Scots adult averages 41 or 42 bottles of vodka a year? By which I mean I had a gut feeling it was in fact pretty high. But is it?

A little more looking around further, found information stating that 30% of Scots adults say they do not drink – which means the drinking Scot averages 58 or so bottle a year working off the conservative 41 bottles a week stat. It is more like 65 a year if you go by the BBC’s number of 46. I got the “did not drink” percentage from this pdf. So you have 30% of Scots not drinking, 35% drinking up to the average and 35% drinking over the average.

What does that mean? 58 bottles a year on average means 1.12 x 700 ml bottles a week at 40% that means 313 ml of pure alcohol a week. By comparison, a standard Canadian 12 oz 5% beer has 341 ml. Which means that average Scots drinker’s booze consumption is the equivalent of 19 standard 5% Canadian beers a week. Sounds like a bit more than you might think is a good idea, week after week day after day. But not fatal. It’s maybe what we expect the average healthy working Joe would drink in a week. Similarly, a US 22 oz bomber has 650 ml. At 8% that is 65 ml of pure alcohol. Which means that the Scot’s drinker’s booze consumption is the equivalent of 4.8 bombers of 8% US craft beer a week. Is that going to scare off a craft beer fan? Hardly.

But it is an average and that is what I think is the real concern. It means 35% of Scots drinkers adults drink more… because 65% drinkers there drink less including the 30% who abstain. I think those numbers are troubling. They may well be wrong so please do your own a arithmetic. But if they are not wrong – is there not a valid public health concern where 35% of your population is doing that level of drinking. I don’t really care if you think there is no such thing as a public health concern from a libertarian point of view as that is not the point here. Nor does someone called “Alan Campbell McLeod” care if you think this is only a Scottish problem. I think we can all agree that there is a point beyond which alcohol is unhealthy. Is that point been identified by the BBC report?

Warning: Your Freebie Beer Blogging Ways Are Over!

A few weeks ago, a wiggling waggy hand rose above the crowd pointing out that there was uncertainty as to who was dabbling in beer blogging in relation to matters in which the blogger had a financial interest. Melissa Cole admitted that there were doubts even about her own writing and that it was all not quite on. It has all devolved into a well deserved bout of slappy heed [Ed.: in the comments] over calling out but not calling out yet the point is still a reasonable one… as is Jeff’s counterpoint… but not Pete’s… Pete’s contribution is not helping things at all.

Well, as the New York Times tells us things are now more serious than whether one or another or all of us are cool with… or is it cool towards… such practices. Bigger than even Pete Brown (as sophomorically illustrated¹) himself, the UK’s – if not the language’s – real top beer writer. See, the law is now involved as the United States Federal Trade Commission has issued a revision to its “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” (warning: big honking burly .pdf) which states in a number of ways that blogging has now gone big time and we know so because the line between comment and endorsement, opinion and advertising has gotten blurred. For instance, the FTC states at page 14 and 15:

The Commission recognizes that because the advertiser does not disseminate the endorsements made using these new consumer-generated media, it does not have complete control over the contents of those statements. Nonetheless, if the advertiser initiated the process that led to these endorsements being made – e.g., by providing products to well-known bloggers or to endorsers enrolled in word of mouth marketing programs – it potentially is liable for misleading statements made by those consumers.

… and further at 47 to 48:

The Commission acknowledges that bloggers may be subject to different disclosure requirements than reviewers in traditional media. In general, under usual circumstances, the Commission does not consider reviews published in traditional media (i.e., where a newspaper, magazine, or television or radio station with independent editorial responsibility assigns an employee to review various products or services as part of his or her official duties, and then publishes those reviews) to be sponsored advertising messages. Accordingly, such reviews are not “endorsements” within the meaning of the Guides. Under these circumstances, the Commission believes, knowing whether the media entity that published the review paid for the item in question would not affect the weight consumers give to the reviewer’s statements. Of course, this view could be different if the reviewer were receiving a benefit directly from the manufacturer (or its agent). In contrast, if a blogger’s statement on his personal blog or elsewhere (e.g., the site of an online retailer of electronic products) qualifies as an “endorsement” – i.e., as a sponsored
message – due to the blogger’s relationship with the advertiser or the value of the merchandise he has received and has been asked to review by that advertiser, knowing these facts might affect the weight consumers give to his review.

So, while the FTC indicates that it will not go after the bloggers directly, it will go after the advertisers who use new media to get their message out. What will this mean? It may put a chill on ads, samples and…frankly… the goodies. And what the hell point is there blogging if one never gets the goodies??? Well, for those quasi-bloggers who are really professional writers (you know, the book writers) slumming with the cool kids, it will mean absolutely nothing because their revenue is through indirect advertising not the entirely more wholesome and less problematic direct moo-lah stream. Me, I actually get very few samples through the maple wall that is the US-Canadian border and the cash ads mostly come (however oddly) from other nations. But for the poor US based semi-pro beer blogger just looking for a little reason to go on, well, this may be the kick in the pants they don’t really need. So share a silent moment, if you would, for the blogger looking for that one little break, that something in return. It may just have become that bit less likely to arrive in the mail.

One last thing. I do think it’s great that the law is actually addressing new media (even if blogging was cool seven years ago and starting going lame about three years ago) but is this at all a likely outcome in an advertising model where a scurrying pack of small operators get paid peanuts to send out a viral message?

In order to limit its potential liability, the advertiser should ensure that the advertising service provides guidance and training to its bloggers concerning the need to ensure that statements they make are truthful and substantiated. The advertiser should also monitor bloggers who are being paid to promote its products and take steps necessary to halt the continued publication of deceptive representations when they are discovered.

No, me neither. Ain’t going to happen.

¹[Ed.: lesson – don’t blog with an eleven year old goading you on to make the cartoon look sillier. Sorry Pete. Really. Sorry. Just think how boring this post would be without your input… err… participation… umm… objectification.]

But Isn’t Taxing Beer The Third Oldest Profession?

It is interesting to follow beer fans in different jurisdictions in the US and the UK react to various plans to use beer as one way to cope with the global economic crisis. The British Beer and Pub Association backed by CAMRA and many brewers is running the Axe the Beer Tax campaign. States like Illinois are thinking about making changes while others like Wisconsin may leave them where they have been for forty years. Jay points out that the US Federal tax might be tripled from 18 to 45 bucks a barrel but is that really stupid or just reality in an economic collapse? Just as it makes no sense when a certain sort of politician advocates for lower tax on business income to get small businesses started – no sense because they have no profits to call income at that stage – similarly, in a downturn, you can’t raise taxes on the limp sectors of the economy economic activity. So, if there are going to be taxes – and, yes, there are going to be taxes – why should beer be exempt?

Amy Mittleman in Brewing Battles points out that modern taxation policy was largely created in the mid-1860s to react to the nation’s financial need to pay for the Civil War. Beer and brewing was the chosen conduit for the taxation as was follow existing European models with the aim of creating the greatest level of consumption and therefore the greatest revenue stream. She also points out that the Federal beer excise tax on beer was set at 9 dollars a barrel almost six decades ago under the Truman administration. The tax level now in after inflation dollars has simply not kept up given $100 in 1952 is now worth $798.87. Fully adjusted taxes would make for about $72 per barrel of Federal excise today at Truman’s rates. Obama’s Senate pals are considering $45. Jay quotes Jeff Becker of the Beer Institute as part of his argument:

In 2008, members of the beer industry paid more than $41 billion in taxes at all levels of government and provided jobs to 1.9 million Americans. Any proposed tax increase would severely offset this important economic contribution.’”

Really? Any tax will threaten it? Will “wipe out an industry”? Seems like the socialists do pretty well on the beer consumption scale. Look at it this way. In these tough economic times there are two western economies which are sort of standing out. Norway is booming and the Obama administration is looking to dull old Canada for banking regulatory lessons. Despite cursing it as we do, both Norway and Canada beer fans live in cultures with a pay-as-you-go mentality with high beer taxation. When I was a kid in Nova Scotia the beer cases even had “includes health tax” written on them right next to “union made” right on top. We paid the tax and were quite happy when the ER visit didn’t turn into a question about could we afford it. We also had no choice. Unlike today in the UK, there was no cheap booze alternative undermining the marketplace in the Maritimes. Well, except in PEI… but that is another matter.

Look, I am not going to say “oh, goodie goodie goodie, a new tax” but at the end of the day isn’t there an effort going on to somehow roll back the clock to about 1857 when shock and dismay is expressed over taxes on beer even in a time of economic recession?

New York: Latvians Are Coming! Latvians Are Coming!

Sorry, not Latvians. Not at all. The story was co-authored by a Mr. Lattman. Misread that entirely. My fault. I blame the head cold. Nevertheless, this is an interesting tidbit in the Wall Street Journal today:

Private-equity firm KPS Capital Partners LP is angling to become a player in the U.S. beer industry. The company is in the final stages of closing a deal to acquire High Falls Brewing Co., the closely held maker of the Genesee and Dundee beer brands, according to people familiar with the matter. It also is among the final bidders for Labatt USA, an arm of the world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev. KPS hopes to combine High Falls and Labatt USA, both based in upstate New York, and explore other transactions in the industry, which is undergoing rapid consolidation.

A player! Does that come with a smoking jacket and a gold cigarette case? It pretty much comes with all corner store and gas station sales from Syracuse to Buffalo and half of the rest of upstate NY. Interesting that the Labatt wing of the deal would make sense as part of the badly named Anheuser-Busch InBev efforts to pay down debt. Reuters reports that Labatt USA should gain ABIB (which I pronounce “ah-BEEEEEEEEEB” in a high piercing voice) about a tidy $100 million. Sadly, the same report indicates that the Rochester-based High Falls Brewery is only worth the assumption of its debt. But it is interesting that these tough times appear to be apt for a merger and consolidation focused on continued expanding brewing in what is otherwise a region which has known tougher times for a while now.

Apparently Beer Is, In Fact, The Affordable Luxury

Last December, I suggested that we may see a bump of sorts in beer sales in response to the recession in the US. In another in a series of events that prove that, yes, if enough monkeys used typewriters one could write sonnets, it appears I may well have been right as The Washington Post notes, via a twittery h/t to Cizauskas:

…this time around is different. Smoking has fallen into such ill repute that many municipalities ban it. Fuel costs have made driving or flying to a casino a pricey proposition, and gambling has become almost an afterthought at many of the lavish new ones. Now it seems the only acceptable — and affordable — sin left is alcohol, namely beer. “It’s really considered a consumer staple kind of industry,” said Dan Ahrens, author of the book “Investing in Vice.” He put it on par with toothpaste, or, say, soap. “People gotta drink no matter what’s going on with the economy.” More than 16 million barrels of domestic beer were sold in the United States in July, and annual sales through that month are up 1.4 percent, the largest increase since 1990, when the economy was headed toward a recession…

So not only is beer affordable but, in this time of downturn or at least stagnation, there are fewer and fewer acceptable sins available to the average American, who on average, has a bit less to spend. I still think this means craft brewers need to focus on the low-price end of the their brands.

The high end of beer pricing is moving in the wrong direction, however. When I was beer shopping down south this year, I saw beer in the $20 and even over $30 range for the first time. I declined even though I have some advertising support for my sin spending. I did buy a $20 De Ranke Kriek but that was only because I am obsessed. But I was not snookered at all by those offerings as a quick review of my sales slip shows a great number of great beers for a great price – Harviestoun Ola Dubh 12 for $8, a small bottle from Meantime for $3.50, large Bernardus 12 for $10 plus a large number of great new New England craft beers for even less than half of those prices.

My point? Beer is the affordable sin not just as a budget recourse to easy mindless comfort but because it still can provides great value for extraordinary products in tight times.

More Vital Information On Third-Category Beer

I suppose that if I ever tried it or if it had a name that did not sound like something out of Blade Runner I would have less of a fascination with that fluid in Japan that is called “third category beer.” This article in the The The Daily Yomiuri, however, is full of tidbits that make me wonder what this stuff is really like:

“Faced with gasoline and food price hikes, consumers are looking for better deals on some products. Third-category beer, which is often made from soybeans, corn and peas, is priced cheaper than regular beer and happoshu low-malt beer. Beverage makers are fiercely competing to keep prices low, while trying to produce tastes close to that of regular beer. The key to third-category beer’s success is the low price, and shipments surpassed those of happoshu beer in May. A 350-milliliter can of third-category beer sells for about 140 yen at convenience stores, about 20 yen less than happoshu and 75 yen less than regular beer.”

How excellent: “…close to that of regular beer.” Yum. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had similar clarity in our macro-brewing? How many beers would have to call themselves happoshu that now hold themselves out to be beer from barley?

Nothing Says “Yum!” Like Third-Category Beer

While little translates as badly as regulatory text in another language from another country, there is a special place in my heart for Japan and its “third-category” beer which are described as nonmalt beerlike alcoholic beverages. Not third-rate. Third-category. Mmmmm. But apparently the average Joe in the land of the rising sun is switching to the stuff with a new-found zest:

The recent rise in prices of food products and services is hitting consumers, who are in turn cutting unnecessary spending from their family budgets. One example of the cutbacks can be seen in April beer shipment numbers released last week by the five major breweries. The numbers show sales of popular low-priced “third-category” beer, or nonmalt beerlike alcoholic beverages, rapidly growing, while sales of regular beer plunged significantly.

In the case of beer drinkers shifting to third-category beer, a decisive factor seems to be the price of the product. A 350-milliliter can of third-category beer costs about 140 yen, approximately 75 yen less than a can of regular beer. The April shipment of third-category beer increased by 9.3 percent, while shipments of regular beer dropped by 11.3 percent in the same month.

You can consider one yen a cent. We are, then, talking the difference between $2.15 and $1.40 a can so we are not likely talking about the craft beer fan…except that this could cause a domino effect across the board leaving out the top end of the market or those planning to supply it. And this seems to mirror what Stan noted might be happening in the USA. Beer in Japan has some odd aspects but we’ve been watching this third-category stuff for some time now and have found the description a “beer-tasting alcoholic beverage” the most informative so far though “a product two steps removed from actual beer” is up there. For the unknowing, this is a brief glimpse into the steps that are those two steps away:

A vital technological issue in producing a “third beer” product is achieving the right taste and color. Kirin’s solution, for which patents are pending, is browning, a process in which sugar is added to the fermented soy protein and then the mixture is heated, caramelizing the sugar and giving the beverage the color as well as the taste of beer.

One wonders whether the same machinery and ingredients might also make beer broth or automotive lubricants. Could it be that the there is nothing to gain from comparing craft brew to this sort of product and the budgetary issues which give rise to its production? Or are we all destined one day to be hoping for a bit of the old category three when we leave our underground factory jobs at the end of another thirty day cycle, marching merrily home in unison under the glow of another blazing green sunset? Is it the future?

Wired’s Good Summary Of Price Inputs Got Me Thinking

It’s just a short article in Wired but it provides a good summary of where we are with the hop and barley price jumps and gets me thinking about that other elephant in the room – value:

“My jaw hit the floor when I saw the price,” Ansari says. And next year, he’ll have to reformulate his brown ale Bender beer, a blend he described as a “flagship” flavor requiring the “Willamette” hop from the Pacific Northwest. “We were informed by our supplier that next year we can’t get that hop. It’s just gone,” Ansari said. “We’re going to have to make changes. Everybody,” he says, “is crossing their fingers there is going to be good hop crop.”

I haven’t got my copy of the May Beer Advocate magazine yet but I understand this issue has an article on prices (as Andy discussed in March) that takes some bars to task for the degree of price increase they are asking customers to bear. The Alstrom lads have been addressing the question of price and value fairly consistency with their recent articles on the monks of Westvleteren wanting the inflated reselling of their beers to stop as well as their raising of the issue of paying for beer fest beers.

As you know, I’ve been thinking about it, too, but even more so this weekend as I realize how much of the bitterness in those low-priced, thirst-quenching Sam Adams Summer Ales over the BBQ is from those wee grains of paradise – and how I don’t mind at all. The Wired article mentions how 21st Amendment brews a Watermelon Wheat with virtually no hops. It will be interesting to watch how this crisis becomes for some a reason to unreasonably soak and how for others it will be an opportunity to innovate. Do you plan to reward the innovators with your support?

Wired’s Good Summary Of Price Inputs Got Me Thinking

It’s just a short article in Wired but it provides a good summary of where we are with the hop and barley price jumps and gets me thinking about that other elephant in the room – value:

Beer And Philosophy: The Book Is Out!

It is either out or I have just received my copy but either way it is all quite exciting to have a book in my hand with a chapter written by me. So, of course, I read my chapter first and found myself thinking that I could have written most sentences better and that I hoped I didn’t lose all the legal footnotes…though I suspect the sensible editing was afoot on that one. Then it strikes me – I don’t know – can I do a proper book review when I wrote about one-fifteenth of the thing? I don’t have any percentages deals or anything. But I can be pure of heart with the best of them can’t I? So let’s see.

Price? Reasonable. This is a trade paperback meaning it’s going to cost you a decidedly reasonable $13.57 on an Amazon pre-order. The book covers a lot of ground, partitioned as it is into segments entitled “The Art of Beer”, “The Ethics of Beer”, “The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Beer” and “Beer in the History of Philosophy”. Fascinating stuff. And with chapters by Garrett Oliver and Sam Calagione (not to mention me) as well as a forward by the late Michael Jackson (no mention of me) there is plenty of familiar names for the average beer geek.

But it is when the book goes beyond the expected that it gets really interesting. Except for the crew named above, the rest is written by Phds (pronounced “fudds“, professors and a dean. Egads! I See Eggheads! Yet, they bring the egg down off the head and…and…OK, I can’t finish that analogy but rest assured this is interesting stuff. An example: in the chapter by Rex Welshon, Chair of a Philosophy Department in Colorado, explores Nietzsche’s relationship with the drink opening with the philosopher’s observation that a “single glass of…beer in one day is quite sufficient to turn my life into a vale of misery.” I recall my philosophy professor recounting his wife’s observation that she was not so much disappointed that Nietzsche thought all those things so much as that he wrote them down. Perhaps the same might be said about him having that beer. Another example? Neil Manson, a professor from Mississippi has his bio right next to mine (which falsely claims he can drink more than me and you. Lie – I simply choose not to), has provided a dialogue of the Socratic sort (I think) on “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Beer” which seems to talk about God a lot as three characters drink. Neato. It’s like what you think your dinner parties were like the foggy-headed next morning. And there are about ten more of these sorts of chapters.

So…bottom line…get this book. I earn nothing more from saying so yet you will gain incalculably from the procurement.