Value – Page 6 – A Good Beer Blog

Maine: Interlude 2007, Allagash, Portland

Twenty-four bucks? What was I doing last decade? I have only a few of these aged big bottles left. I gave up a long time ago on trying to keep the cellar up. One of the few beers left from the days of glory, the era of beer blog ad revenue. I was throwing around the cash like a madman. Pretending that I mattered like some current era communicator. Stan actually mocked me about this beer in particular. But that was back in the day when folk weren’t questioning the fleece. Or at least when 2000 brewers weren’t making something good and sour for half the price. You know, the 75 comments under that post from some pretty interesting names are all… pretty interesting – but it’s as if they thought we would all be drinking $60 beers by now. Really? How did that turn out? Market forces thought otherwise. Bulk fine craft FTW!

It’s 40º C out there. Seven week drought might end tomorrow. Worst summer for rain since 1888. Nutty. I just need a reasonably interesting beer. I just need it not to suck. I pulled it out of the cellar, stuck it in the fridge by the orange juice and the milk bags. [Canada. Go figure.] Hey… it doesn’t. It’s good. Still and a bit thick but in no sense off. Fresh with a lighter lingering finish than expected. The colour of aged varnished pine. An orange hue at the edge. On the nose, warm whisky sweet with autumn fruit, brown sugar and grain as well as a fresh Worchestershired yogurty hum. Pear and fig. The baked fruit crisp you dream of. The second half pint pour generates a lovely subdued tang when rinsed about the gums. Like 90% barley wine with maybe 10% old gueuze. Or less. Just a hint. And all those whispers of rich deep malty grain huskiness still there. Lovely.

Am I glad I spent $24 for this nine years ago? I’m sure I don’t care. Do you know how much I have spent on diapers and winter tires since then? It makes me want. And I just want a thick bacon sandwich. I have asked a child younger than this beer to bring me a chunk of the slab of Vermont cheddar we are working on. Fabulous. Rewarding. The espresso of a grain field. Big BAer love and deservedly so.

“The Art Of Beer Alchemy” By Chas Chumley

Just in case there is anyone out there named Chas Chumley, I should explain. A couple of decades ago, The Kids in the Hall had a very brief skit of a man walking down the street in a leisure suit. He had a spring in his step and was winking, nodding and pointing at the people with a certain zest. He was, the skit went, zim-zam-zoodlin’. He was, in fact, a zim-zam-zoodlin’ sorta guy. For some reason I can’t recall, that sort of guy got dubbed Chas Chumley. Pretty sure the name was not in a skit but in our house Chas stuck.

Chas is a man with certain capabilities. He reminds me of the confidence that you can draw from Everyday Drinking – The Distilled Kingsley Amis which came out four years ago. In that anthology of earlier essays, Amis gave household hints on how to save money when entertaining guest by controlling what was in the liquor cabinet and the punch bowl. Given the news in The New York Times about how certain brewers are working to increase the price of your good beer, I wondered what would happen if the combined the confidence of Chas, the wizardy of Amis and applied it to the cause of good beer at an affordable reasonable price. Here is what I came up with for starters:

⇒ Start with a quality base beer. Last night, I opened an imperial stout that cost $4.95 for 500 ml. It was excellent and part of its excellent was the lack of those added flavours inserted into the swankier imperial stouts the cool kids buy. You may find one to your liking for an even more modest price.

⇒ Learn how to cork a champagne style 750 ml bottle. Get a home corker like this. Go in on it with friends and the costs per bottle plummet.

⇒ Think of the added flavours found in large format beers pushing the $30 range as notes that can be added in the form of home brewed teas or syrups. Need an earthy note? Add a quarter teaspoon of water that has had your best compost soaking in it. Need a rustic dark chocolate thing in there? Buy 50 cents of chocolate malt, soak in some of the base beer for a day in the fridge and draw off a touch as needed.

⇒ Control the alcohol content. Depending on the strength of your base beer, a eyedropper or turkey baster worth of neutral alcohol carefully measured and added with care will help you reach your target. But get creative. Need that popular bourbon note, too? Add a drop of Maker’s Mark. Need a sour twang? Add a sixteenth of a bottle of Orval for mere pennies. Remember: a little goes a long way and saves you money.

⇒ Finally, rely on the power of aging. Blending your own deluxe imperial stouts at home may leave them with rough edges that time can heal. Burying the bottles in a back corner of the basement or even the garden will add that mellowness that is a mark of a fine bottle with a double digit price.

This should work. Years ago, Joe the Thirsty Pilgrim and I discussed the possibility of home lambic and gueze blending given the phenomenal news that one can actually buy bulk Girardin lambic by the ten litre jug for peanuts. The same principle applies to, say, those double imperial stouts with added cheddar, the new Cheerio infused DIPAs or any of the other fancy and expensive strong beers with flavours added showing up on your beer store shelf. Who knows? Maybe in your jurisdiction, this sort of blending could be legal for your favorite bar, too. House blend swank deluxe. Consider the possibilities. Share your household hints for better entertaining in the new style. Chas is listening. Chas cares.

To Be “Shelted” Is Not To Pay A Premium Price

With respect, Lew in this case is wrong:

“Shelted” is a word Canadian blogger Alan “A Good Beer Blog” McLeod made up three years ago, and from the context, I’m guessing it means “being asked to pay a premium price for a beer imported by Shelton Brothers.” (Alan’s a bit obsessive on price/value in beer, and the Shelton line is not noted for being underpriced.) Or maybe something similar, but vaguely more crude; you can do the interpretation.

Sharing: I used “shelted” long before three years ago if only in my heart of hearts and, in particular, long before I knew that the particular bunch in question were so oddly comfortable in being abusive like any one of that certain sort of moron who have built a successful niche in a small market. That is not what drove the creation of the verb. It was created because when I started buying imported good beers in the States I saw that the prices did not always make sense. Here in Canada you can get Orval for under four bucks while it is pushing or over six south of the nearby border. See, I can buy that beer in at least three jurisdictions and be back for lunch. I enjoy a competitive marketplace of sorts. Lew calls that obsessive. Go figure. But it’s neither here nor there. To be shelted is far from what Lew supposes. It means to be stuck paying too much because someone has exclusive control of the importing or other aspects of supply. It is to recognize the monopolist, the tyrant of the marketplace. See, perhaps unlike that lawyer Shelton, I am actually a practicing lawyer who buys a lot of things – from buildings to pencils. I don’t consider lawyers arseholes unless they came to law school as arseholes. But I do understand how prices, markets, law and taxation interact. So I naturally hate the monopolist, even the tiny ones… and especially the ones who are arseholes, too.

Which get us to the context of the need to consider “shelt”-ing this week. From my point of view, if you want to disagree with someone or something, you create a body of knowledge that contradicts the assumptions you are taking on. You build respect by learning how to respect the work and opinions of others. By way of comparison, when you refer to “ill-informed and emotionally fraught bloggers” or otherwise take a position of complaining tantrum-esque weakness you don’t do anything but point out your own failings. And entitlement. I love to see bad lawyers like that across the table. Their arguments are your playground. See, in yesterday’s statement, Shelton Brothers is very careful to play the victim card. They are “ridiculously small guys” and “the little guys” who represent “cute little foreign brewers” when in fact they are market corner-ers who have exclusivity over a large number of brands who the needy beer nerds are trained to covet. Some of the brewers they represent are truly wonderful and worth every penny. Some are not. Yet all seem to demand premium price in the US which I just don’t see being asked of us in Canada – though admittedly the selection is not as rich up here. We don’t have three-tier. And we also seem not to have those exclusive importer deals as Shelton Brothers might enjoy – along with many others – which see unnaturally inflated prices on the shelves. We have less of that “I just got took” feeling after opening another overpriced beer though, more than admittedly, we have it from time to time.

Which gets to the last point. Lew is also quite right. The new New York tax interpretation will lead to paying only a few pennies more per glass. And as New York state is in need of revenue that is a good thing. Time to pay the piper. Being shelted, however, has nothing to do with that. Being shelted is being asked to take your hard earned money and give it to support an importer who thinks you the beer buyer and this the beer buying discourse are unworthy… a crock… a dupe… or whatever an arsehole would call it. So, I have no issue with the call for a boycott for those that feel that way but just don’t do it over this tax ruling, over just Shelton Brothers and don’t go overboard. Get smart and do whenever you feel you have been shelted – whether by this importer or anyone else. And don’t worry if someone might call it obsessive especially when only you care about your own wallet. It’ doesn’t take much. Sure, find the lambics they don’t represent and enjoy that often they are a buck less and as good or better. But also notice how that self proclaimed craft beer guru in your own neighbourhood inflates their price through a swing top bottle with specially embossed glass or through jacking prices two bucks for the joy of having three cents worth of a rare ingredient added. Find the alternatives to the loud proclaimers, the self-defined, the brand conscious. Make a habit of not being shelted. But not because of any tax ruling or because Shelton Brothers have justly protected their interests. You should do it to protect those interests of your own against anyone.

California: Union Jack IPA, Firestone Walker Brewing

A short flip across the border nabbed me a six of this new New York offered Firestone Walker. There were three others, their DIPA, porter and 15 were there, too at $8.99, $6.99 and a whopping $21.99 respectively. The last one was in a cardboard box. I had no idea a cardboard box added so much cost. I grabbed a couple of the Double Jack DIPAs leaving the stuck up sibling and the under appreciated plain Jane behind.

This six cost me $13.99 which is at or a notch above the cost of a middling Ontario craft beer at the LCBO so this was not a money saver like the excellent Sixpoints but still more than worth a try. Even with the buck a bottle customs duty I got hit with today, it beats the hell out of lining up and forking out to access FW beers otherwise under our system. On the sniff, it is toffee, marmalade and bitter greens. It pours aged, oranged pine with a lace leaving egg white head that’s sustained by a pretty active level of carbonation. Not a heavy beer on a sip and swish but one that goes neatly through a number of phases. Orange rind and pine at the outset standing on the backs of rich toffee malt. Then there is a pause with a moment’s reflection on the watery goodness. This gives way to a bit of an arugula booze burn at the end. I like a beer with a beginning, middle and end. I like.

Even with the new incomprehensible number system, I can tell the BAer have the love in a big way.

An Interesting Story About Those Importing Dorks

It’s funny when arseholes tell you that you are only treated as a fool because you don’t understand things as profoundly as they do. In web design the arsehole’s joke went like this: “Funny? If you understood that joke on as many levels as I do, you’d really know what funny meant.” This article on the Shelton Brothers empire-ette has that particular funk:

“I hate beer writers,” he said. “You can ask them; they hate me, too. They call me arrogant and opinionated. They think I’m a real asshole. But, hey, what can you expect? I was trained as a lawyer.” By doing little more than parroting the marketing-speak of advertising companies, Dan believes American beer writers are largely to blame for an industry and drinking public that’s more taken with gimmickry than artistry. “The attitude seems to be, ‘It’s all good.’ No one’s willing to criticize a beer they don’t like, and when I do, I’m told I’m just trying to sell the beers I import. I’ve had fights with beer reviewers who want to believe that you can’t be objective about beer. It’s all subjective, they say. You like what you like.”

Oh dear. As a lawyer, I can see it. Can you? Anyone who actually says “I was trained as a lawyer” has moved well into the arsehole-esque zone. Reminds me of another joke: “What do you call a doctor who got “D” in anatomy? Doctor.” You get why the verb “to shelt” was invented, right? Don’t get me wrong. I have liked many of the High and Mighty beers of Will Shelton discussed in the article and also plenty of the beers that the brotherhood has imported. I have liked some a lot. But not all of them. Their business may be successful and have taken a lot of hard work but one can still ask valid questions about value and selection. In that they are like most other brewers and importers. Actually, in every way they are like that. Because that is what they are.

It’s an interesting counterpoint, when you think of it, to the emotional tug of that really swell guy who is the face of the new and time shifting TV show Brew Masters. Read the tweets. Giggly people want to know Sam. He’s so great. Who wouldn’t want a fawning relationship? Sheltons? Arseholes – but they’re so deep. Those in the know want an abusive dependent relationship. Why does anyone care? We shouldn’t. If you care about the personality of those who who make and provide your beer, well, you should ask if you have the same concern for those who make your cheese, your car’s tires or your socks. You don’t, do you. Make the beer prove itself each time.

Craft Or Kraphtt: Porter, Michelob Brewing, St Louis, Mo.

I was going to write “wow” or something but that wouldn’t quite capture my surprise at how good this beer is. Poured at a chilly cellar temperature, there is an immediate mass of dry cocoa that sits in such balance with that bit of hop, a little java and that little nod to dark plum that immediately lets you know this is no ordinary budget beer. Chalky soft water makes it particularly moreish. In fact, if I had not bought this as part of a $10.99 12 pack at the A-Bay Mart the other day I could have been quite happy to pay $4.99 or more for a 22 oz bomber of this stuff.

Definitely craft. Nothing near kraphtt. Perhaps the most surprising value in beer that I have come across so far. BAers rate widely.

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.

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:

Single Cask Brews: Manufacturing Scarcity Or Pure Genius?

I just about flipped out when I saw this post over at 2 Beer Guys (from the April 16, 2008 issue of The Coloradoan) about the Odell Brewing Co. (with whom I am not familiar but which I am sure is nice and run by fine folk, and all) doing a limited run of a series of single cask beers – each brew never to be repeated and the cask retired:

…Each batch of the ale, which will have more vanilla and caramel tones, will make enough for only roughly 120 cases before the recipe is retired, creating an exclusivity factor not usually associated with beer. Each 750 mL bottle – hand-corked, hand-signed and numbered – will sell for $24.99. “It’s a one-time kind of thing,” John Bryant, Odell chief operating officer, said of the process they hope will put them at the forefront of the market.

Excellent. Because we all need another mechanism to raise prices through exclusivity. But am I being fair? Am I being a rogue consumer who is too tight with the wallet. I would encourage, first, that you consider two posts by Stan from last January in which he makes a number of points relating to overly limited runs of barrel-aged beer and the effect on price and popularity. And isn’t that very last point, popularity counter-intuitive? Makes me wonder whether some of these high rated beers are a lot like the 60’s – that many who claim to have experienced them were never really there.

But my point is more, I hope, to the point. What is the basis of a $24.99 price tag on these bottles of beer? Is anything else at that price point? I trust that each of you will consider your responsibilities as an active player in the market and avoid artificial inflationary events. And, sure, it will be a price that is paid but so is “jerk tax”, that premium you pay whenever a vendor can get you for one reason or another. Why not $18.99 or $35.99? Using the math from the story, scrapping the barrel after only one use adds 450/1440 or 32 cents to each bottle or about a tenth that the corked bottle does (if what a US brewer told me last month is true.) Are you so out of control that you don’t care? Are you the sort that will run to this, that will try to profiteer even? Or will you just say no? What do you fall back on to make this decision?