Posts Tagged ‘Business’
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
I had to do something with my home insurance today and I went to my agent’s website. Right there, Whalen Insurance was proudly proclaiming their brewing insurance program. Whalen is located in Northampton, one town over from where I live. The company has had insurance for brewers since 1987 when the Northampton brewery opened the second brewpub in the Northeast.
Given that I wrote a book on beer, it struck me as funny that my insurance company has this program. I hadn’t ever thought about it but I guess many businesses need specialized insurance to provide coverage for their specific activities. The Institute of Brewing Studies/ Association of Brewers endorses the Whalen program.
The insurance is for breweries and brewpubs and covers property, general liability, workers’ compensation, liquor liability, equipment breakdown, and automobile. Liquor liability must have to do with serving alcohol and the risks involved. On the website, they provide information about brewery safety and OSHA regulations.
Looking at all the different aspects of insurance for a brewery, I realize how complicated an endeavor opening a brewpub or brewery would be. Despite the romanticizing of craft brewing, it really is a business.
Tags: Beer, brewing, Business, drinking
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Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
I just finished writing a review of Garrett Peck’s The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America from Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet. You will have to wait to read the review in its entirety until The Historian is published. The book is an interesting survey of the current liquor industry. One thing that stood out in the book was how much the liquor industry is using tourism as a way to promote itself.
Wine tourism, particularly in California, is very big business. One could make the case – Peck does not – that the best aspect about the liquor industry for the American economy is that they produce their products in America. They make something and offer traditional, well paying unionized jobs, particularly at the macro brewing level. If the industry shifts its’ focus toward tourism and away from production, these jobs will be replaced by lower paying service jobs, a familiar story for much of American industry.
Of course many places want to become tourist attractions. As part of the Little Berks, on Saturday I went on a walking tour of Florence, Massachusetts. Florence use to have some industry; Pro Brush was a big employer. It closed in 2007. The David Ruggles Center is trying to restore and promote the history of the village. Florence was involved in many of the reform movements of the nineteenth century including the water cure, abolitionism, and the underground railroad.
Sojourner Truth Statue Florence Massachusetts
Sojourner Truth lived in Florence for a while and there is now a beautiful statue of her there. The house she lived in still exists but looks completely different. Local historians would love to be able to restore the house. If they do, it will certainly be a tourist attraction. Many of the places we have gone this year while traveling also hope to have something that will produce a steady stream of visitors.
Tags: Book Reviews, Business, History, Politics, publishing, Sojourner Truth, Travel, Women, Writing
Posted in Book Reviews, Business, History, Liquor Industry, Women | No Comments »
Friday, April 16th, 2010
Alan McLeod has an interesting link in his A Good Beer Blog today. Apparently, 7-Eleven plans to sell premium private label beer at budget prices. The full story is here.
City Brewing Company will produce the beer for the convenience store chain. City is located in La Crosse, Wisconsin in the old Heileman brewery. In the past, they brewed beer for Boston Beer in the Rolling Rock, Latrobe, Pennsylvania brewery.
The key demographic group that 7-Eleven is trying to reach is young men, 21 to 27. The name of the beer is Game Day. I predict sports themed marketing.
Tags: Beer, Blogs, brewing, Business, History, liquor sales
Posted in Beer, Blogs, Business, Craft beer, History, Liquor Industry | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Today we finally got to a bar. It is in Hyde Park and had cheap but good burgers and a decent selection of beer. I had a Fat Tire, which I had never tried before. It was good. Besides going to the Woodlawn Tap tonight, we have bought two different six-packs while in Chicago. The first was Leninenkugel’s Classic Amber, which I liked a lot. They don’t sell it at home, so I was interested to try it even though I know Miller owns the company. The other six-pack we bought was Goose Island IPA. Goose Island is the biggest craft brewer in Chicago. I liked that as well.
Tags: Beer, Blogs, brewing, Business, drinking, Travel
Posted in Beer, Business, Craft beer | No Comments »
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
The 2010 Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) and BrewExpo America started Tuesday and runs until April 10. I didn’t know that it was in downtown Chicago until we got here. Rep. Pete DeFazio and Rep. Richie Neal (from Western Massachusetts) were the keynote speakers. They are both part of the Small Brewers Caucus which I discussed here.
The conference is primarily a trade meeting, but there are some events connected to it for the public. Tonight I could have gone and seen Fritz Maytag in another part of town but I didn’t. On Friday and Saturday Stone Brewing will be taking over eleven taps at a taqueria. I am going to try to go to that.
Tags: Beer, brewing, Business, drinking, Politics, Travel
Posted in Beer, Business, Craft beer, Politics | No Comments »
Monday, March 15th, 2010
Brookston Bulletin has a story about HR 4278 which is a bill in the House to reduce the small brewers excise tax differential as well as changing the definition and levels for small brewers. Jay’s information is essentially the same as what is on the Brewers Association web site. Both Jay and the Brewers Association provide information about how to appeal to Congressmen to support the bill. The Brewers Association represents 1,516 brewers which includes sixty-three brewing companies that produce anywhere from 15,000 to 6 million barrels of beer per year. In Bev-AB brews over 100 million barrels a year domestically.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Neal (MA). The co-sponsors include representatives from several strongholds of craft brewing including California, Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. The House also has a Small Brewers Caucus. This group has a varied membership including people in the news recently. Joe Sestak – running against Arlen Specter for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, Bart Stupak, Family member and potential health care reform destroyer and Joe Wilson of “you lie” fame.
There are several other bills before Congress that deal with excise taxes on beer. S.1058. Brewers Excise and Economic Relief Act of 2009, seeks to roll back the $18 per barrel excise tax to its 1991 rate of $9 and provide further tax rate reductions for small brewers.
Since 1991, the brewing industry, particularly large brewers, has tried to roll back the tax. The Brewers Association supports this, but HR 4278 appears to be an attempt to place small brewers front and center. Since the efforts of A-B in 1991 were the main reason the rate was not higher, it may be short sighted for small brewers to set out on their own.
The small brewers’ differential tax rate dates from 1976 when there were fifty-three brewers and thirty-nine brewed less than 2 million barrels. It was the culmination of many years of effort on the part of small and regional brewers and was the last time the whole brewing industry cooperated for many years.
The Brewers Association is arguing for tax reduction by focusing on job creation, but I still think that any effort to reduce excise taxes for beer is likely to fail. Although the government is seeking to create jobs, it is also facing huge deficits. Liquor and tobacco taxes have been a mainstay of the federal governments’ internal revenue for almost 150 years. It seems unlikely that they would not want to continues to rely on a proven source of revenue during troubled economic times.
Tags: Beer, brewing, Business, History, Politics
Posted in Beer, Business, Craft beer, History, Politics, Taxes | No Comments »
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
In the past week there have been some interesting items about beer in different places as well as some different beer customs.The New York Times had a very interesting story about beer in Vietnam. The local draft beer is bia hoi, “a crisp, cold beer with a clean taste suggesting rice and an almost subliminal whisper of something like hops.” I think most of the Americans who go to Vietnam are Vietnam War vets but I loved China and it would be very exciting to visit other parts of Asia.
The Alcohol and Drugs History Society website has a story today about Green Beer Day at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. David Fahey teaches there. It is apparently a pre- St. Patrick’s Day beer crawl. This year there were twenty arrests.
A Good Beer Blog writes about proposed beer regulation in Botswana. One of the local beers is chibuku is made from sorghum. They also have a higher alcohol content beer made from honey and sugar, khadi. The Chinese make Baiiju from sorghum. It is very strong and viscous. I didn’t really like the taste.
The final item comes from the Mount Hope Monitor, a Bronx newspaper. Apparently Burger Kings plans to sell domestic beers - Budweiser - in some New York locations. I do not know if that will make Burger King more or less appealing.
Tags: Beer, brewing, Business, drinking, New York
Posted in Beer, Business, Craft beer, Liquor Industry, New York | No Comments »
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Every day I get Google alerts about the brewing industry. Today I got one that linked to a Northern Michigan TV news story about a possible decrease in federal beer taxes. Apparently the proposed legislation would cut the small brewers tax in half and reduce what large brewers pay by one-ninth.
The video showed an earnest craft brewer, at his plant, indicating how he could use the extra money to grow his business. It also showed an appealing pint of beer.
Craft Brewer
I thought I should see if anyone else was talking about this so I typed into Google “federal beer tax decrease.” Google responded, “Did you mean to search for: federal beer tax increase.”
I think that tells the whole story. It is very unlikely, in this economic climate, that beer taxes will go down. It remains more likely that beer and other “sin” taxes would go up to help finance health care reform and other projects of the Obama administration.
Tags: Beer, Blogs, brewing, Business, liquor sales, Obama, Politics
Posted in Beer, Blogs, Craft beer, Politics, Taxes | 3 Comments »
Monday, November 16th, 2009
Here are some interesting links from around the web. They are mostly alcohol related but I couldn’t resist this story about giant jellyfish.
Giant Jellyfish Washed Ashore
My favorite part of the article is that the Japanese are trying to make consumable products out of these creatures, including ice cream.
This past weekend there was a brewers festival in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was the first year and it sounds like a lot of fun.
Carla Champion, The Beer Babe, talked at a seminar entitled, ” I Wished My Girlfriend Liked Beer.” The subject of women and beer seems to have become a required element of any beer festival. As someone who has been drinking beer since I was eleven, on some level I don’t get it. I think more women probably like beer than is commonly known. It is more an advertising and marketing issue.
Roger Protz, beer-pages.com, has an interesting post about the Scottish brewer, Brewdog. Apparently they are in an issue of a newspaper, appearing lewd and drunk. He thinks this is bad for the image of brewing.
The final item is also from Scotland. The Scottish drinks company, Whyte and Mackay is drilling in Antarctica to recover 100 year old Scotch. The liquor was left there by explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. It is not clear whether they plan to drink it or not, but they do plan to see if it would be viable to start distilling it again. Didn’t McKinlay and Co., the original distillers keep records?
Tags: Beer, Blogs, brewing, Business, drinking, History, liquor sales, Women
Posted in Beer, Blogs, Business, Craft beer, History, Liquor Industry, Women | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Thomson Reuters posted a story about Brooklyn Brew, the small start-up selling home brewing kits, that includes comments from myself, Sam Calagione, and Beth Goldstein.
Tags: Beer, Blogs, brewing, Business, Dames, drinking, homebrewing, New York, Women
Posted in Beer, Blogs, Business, Craft beer, History, New York, Women | No Comments »
