Bottoms Up

Oddbits…Want to scope out the craft beer sales situation? The place to be a fly on the wall is at the Toronado, 547 Haight St. tonight beginning at 6 p.m. The Toronado hosts the National Beer  Wholesalers Association, which is meeting in San Francisco this week.

There’s been a lot of gloom and doom at the convention so far. “It’s a mess out there,” says Jack Joyce, founder of Rogue, the pioneering Newport, OR. craft brewer. “The Anheuser-Busch, Coors/Miller alliances? Let’s just say this has been a well-attended session.” (Photo: Sam Calagione at the Great American Beer Festival last year. Photo by Gregory Daurer/Denver

Wholesalers, (AKA beer distributors) are worried about rising costs and the weak economy affecting “high end” beer sales. But craft brewers don’t necessarily agree.  Best quote so far comes from reporting by  Harry Schuhmacher in the Beer Business Daily,  (link requires a paid subscription to read the story) as reported by Jack Curtin in Liquid Diet, The Blog: Schuhmacher’s quoting Dogfish Head co-founder Sam Calagione:

“We’re not big believers in big ad spending…we let the beer sell itself. That’s why we have 28 styles of beer….. It’s just me and five sales people….For 20 bucks you can walk into any liquor store and buy one or maybe two six packs of the best beer….. High end beer is a more affordable connoisseurship than wine.”

I’ll drink to that Sam.

Mr. Schuhmacher also quotes Crown Imports’ Bill Hackett, who  pointed out that “retailers are focused on more than volume…..why on earth would you put 30 packs in position A. I realize there’s a place for 30-packs in the market, but put it out back behind the dumpster where it’s hard to find….make the consumer work for it.

What he meant, I guess, is push the good (and somewhat expensive beer) and put those stacks of crappy beer in back. Bargain hunters will always find them.

Stumbling ahead...I wasn’t even close when I said yesterday that Evan Rail, author of the Good Beer Guide to Prague, Czech  Republic was from the UK.  Good gawd, he’s one of us “left  coasters:”

Hey William, Many thanks for posting the note about GBGPrague now being available in the States (on Amazon.com). I appreciate the mention.

But I should correct my bio: I’m not a Brit by any means — I’m a Californian, originally from Fresno, and I even used to live in SF. (Which is why the mention in your column means so much.) Though I’ve been in Europe for 9 years now, it was the beer culture in California that really set me out on this path: I cut my teeth on Anchor’s Liberty Ale and the annual Christmas Ales, and first learned about quality lagers at the Sudwerk brewpub in Davis.

New beers…Sam Adams is doing its Imperial Pilsner again. This is a big lager, 8 percent plus, stuffed with Hallertau hops…Loved the first one. Last year’s was just OK. Hoping for dynamite this year.

More events….The Toronado’s also hosting Eylysian Brewing tomorrow night, Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 6 p.m.  The Seattle breery’s excellent beers are headed to the Bay
Area next month; this is an advance tasting. See you there and read about them here….