One of the highest rated beers in the world: Westvleteren XII is finding it’s way into distribution around the world this year. The monastery in Belgium needs thousands of dollars in repairs and distributing the beers will help rebuild Continue Reading →
Head over to Square Pub today at 5 pm for a cask of Terrapin’s special release: Tree Hugger.
Terrapin’s Tree Hugger is an altbier using organic ingredients and is a fantastic version of the traditional style. Terrapin has been a supporter of Continue Reading →
Stone Brewing Co is adding Crime to the Quingenti Millitre lineup. Crime is a mix various hoppy Stone brews, mixed with chilies, and aged in whiskey. There is a counterpart (Punishment) that goes along with it’s partner in Crime. Continue Reading →
On Monday, BSJ mentioned how fast 3 Floyds Dark Lord hit eBay and how inflated the cost of the regular and barrel aged editions are selling for. (in some cases, 1000%) Today, the brewery made a statement on the sales Continue Reading →
The demand for Bud Light Platinum is quite high. The sales of the blue bottle beer have outpaced the brewery’s expectations. The brewery is expanding production of the new brand to three breweries. That’s St. Louis, Columbus Continue Reading →
Shelton Brothers has been embroiled in recent controversy in regards to a recent Supreme Court ruling in the State Of New York. Shelton has been ripped a new one by brewers and bloggers alike, which they address below. Continue Reading →
The brewmaster of Brouwerij de Musketiers will be in town from Belgium for a meet & greet. He will be at The Fred Bar start at 5 pm to chat and drink with his American beer fans. The new Continue Reading →
One of the highest rated beers in the world: Westvleteren XII is finding it’s way into distribution around the world this year. The monastery in Belgium needs thousands of dollars in repairs and distributing the beers will help rebuild it. When you have a beer as rare and so highly touted as Westie XII, it causes a stir.
70,000 boxes of what has been ranked the #1 beer on planet earth will hit U.S. soil as early as June. If you consider the number of individuals want this beer in 50 states, you aren’t left with many to share. Shelton Brothers is one of the importers donating time (and shipping) to bring Westvleteren stateside. After speaking with Shelton, BSJ has all but confirmed a sad bit of information. Georgia will not receive XII. Preliminary numbers put just 15 (assuming box sets) in the state. That’s barely any product. Savannah Distributing will apparently pass on bringing Westvleteren into the state. (With pretty good reason if this is indeed true, you’ll never make anyone happy with such little product.)
Can’t wait to see the markups and eBay sales on this one. Still waiting on Savannah to confirm this information.
Head over to Square Pub today at 5 pm for a cask of Terrapin’s special release: Tree Hugger.
Terrapin’s Tree Hugger is an altbier using organic ingredients and is a fantastic version of the traditional style. Terrapin has been a supporter of the Dogwood Alliance’s Green Fest for 7 Years, and this year we are excited to contribute a unique beer to event!
Stone Brewing Co is adding Crime to the Quingenti Millitre lineup. Crime is a mix various hoppy Stone brews, mixed with chilies, and aged in whiskey. There is a counterpart (Punishment) that goes along with it’s partner in Crime. (See what I’m doing there?) Greg Koch tells the story on the label…
Greg here with a short word. Question actually. Maybe even a riddle.
As in, Q: “What do you call it when Greg takes his harvest bounty of chili pepper varieties from his own personal garden and/or Stone Farms, and adds them to… and thus ruins… and otherwise beautiful barrel aged blend of Arrogant Bastard Ale, OAKED Arrogant Bastard Ale, and Double Bastard Ale (AKA Lucky Basartd Ale)?
A: “A Crime!”
Q: ” What do you call it when you take a sip of Barrel Aged Double Bastard Ale that’s had an equal share of the bounty of chili peppers unceremoniously added in, resulting in a punishingly intense level of hot pepper heat to an already overly intense beer?”
A: “Punishment.”
And there you ahve it. As with many riddles boys and girls, this one carries a cautionary tale. Yes, I could have written it out Brothers Grimm style, but we don’t have time fo fairy tales. You got two riddles and a warning, and that’s all. Unless you’ve actually managed to procure one of these ultra rarities in which case you’ll get Crime and Punishment. Not to mention regret. Hmmm… I like it. “Regret.” No THERE’S a great name for a beer.
Note: This beer is fro fans of capsicum heat only. If you don’t qualify, then stay far afar away (or as some prefer, whimper and whine through tear stained eyes). You should realize in advance that no one cares to hear said whimpering and whining about your foolish decision. It’s better to remain silent and be thought a whimp, than to whine and complain and remove all doubt.
Style:American Strong Ale (Barrel Aged, w/ Peppers) Availability: 500 ml bottles. Limited Release Arrival: TBA
Three Floyds Issues Statement Condemning Black Market Sales
On Monday, BSJ mentioned how fast 3 Floyds Dark Lord hit eBay and how inflated the cost of the regular and barrel aged editions are selling for. (in some cases, 1000%) Today, the brewery made a statement on the sales on their website:
Dark Lord Day has become the success that it is due to the support from the craft beer community. Each year we’ve worked hard for months to improve the experience of the attendees.
Dark Lord Day is the only day that Dark Lord is sold. Part of only selling beer at the brewery guarantees that it goes to the consumer at a reasonable cost and that everyone has an equal opportunity to purchase Dark Lord.
We do not condone black market sales of Dark Lord, DLD tickets or any other beer that is purchased at our facility. The best way to ensure that black market sales do not happen is for consumers to not patronize the illegal sellers, (this also goes for retailers who engage in price gouging.) There unfortunately is not a practical, legal or cost effective way for us to police after market sales of our limited products or tickets.
We have reviewed many options but have found that all of them would affect our mission of making the best beer we possibly can at a reasonable price to the consumer. If you find Dark Lord for sale on a day other than Dark Lord Day and other than at the brewery please understand that without exception, the sale is not legitimate. It is on all of us as a community to try to prevent black market sales.
Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to planning an awesome Dark Lord Day 2013.
The demand for Bud Light Platinum is quite high. The sales of the blue bottle beer have outpaced the brewery’s expectations. The brewery is expanding production of the new brand to three breweries. That’s St. Louis, Columbus (OH), and Fort Collins, Colorado starting in June.
“We’re optimistic we have a winner on our hands with Bud Light Platinum,” said Luiz Edmond, zone president, North America, Anheuser-Busch. “Trial and repeat purchases have been tremendous since the first ads aired during the Super Bowl, and while supplies were tight in the first few months, having to double the number breweries producing Bud Light Platinum is a great problem to have.”
The first Platinum bottle rolled out of Cartersville, Georgia and Los Angeles, California in January. The Bud Light Platinum launch has been one of the strongest launches in the alcohol industry since 2005. [PressRelease]
Shelton Brothers Issues Statement On New York Ruling
Shelton Brothers has been embroiled in recent controversy in regards to a recent Supreme Court ruling in the State Of New York. Shelton has been ripped a new one by brewers and bloggers alike, which they address below. If you’re into beer law/fees and more in the beer business, read on.
From Shelton Brothers:
We’ve heard that there’s been a bit of banter about the recent New York Supreme Court ruling, mostly by ill-informed and emotionally fraught bloggers. (Keep those death threats coming, folks!) The facts here are really quite simple, though the legal and financial issues are apparently a bit difficult to comprehend. Anyway, here’s what is really going on.
New York brewers weren’t being required to pay label registration fees and taxes that out-of-staters, including ridiculously small guys like us, had to pay. We tried to level the playing field by knocking out these costs, for everybody, but in the end the State of New York decided to level it by making New Yorkers pay, the same way we’ve been paying for years. It’s not what we were hoping for — we would have loved it had these fees been eliminated for us, as well, since we pay way more of them than any New York brewer ever will — but, in the end, the decision is at least fair. As people from outside the State, we can do no more to change the law; New York brewers have to get their own legislature to do that. Now that they are seeing what we’ve had to put up with for years, they’re unhappy, and they’re going to be getting these laws changed. That will benefit us too. It’s just too damn bad that instead of lobbying to change the state law they’re wasting time being furious at us when all we did was point out that we were getting screwed.
I don’t believe that anyone who thought about it would argue that little breweries from out of state should pay more in registration fees and taxes than in-state brewers pay. Small in-state brewers paid no registration fees, and all New York brewers except the largest two paid nothing at all in taxes, while every out-of-state brewer or importer had to pay New York’s registration fees (the highest in the country) and New York’s beer taxes on every drop of beer they sold in the state. This is obviously wrong, and both the New York Attorney General and the State Court agreed that it was wrong, as well as unconstitutional. Because there was no doubt on this point, the case was settled, and it was left to the State — not us — to decide how this discrimination against out-of-state breweries would be remedied.
It’s easier to understand how things work when you take the two issues, brand registration fees and taxes, separately.
Brand Registration Fees
From the beginning, we have paid way more registration fees than anyone in New York — about $20,000 just last year. That amounts to 2.5% of the total paid by all brewers and importers, even though our share of the New York market is statistically insignificant — effectively 0%. That’s why we pushed to have the brand registration system, with its onerous fees, eliminated outright. To start with, it serves no useful public purpose. (If it really mattered, the State wouldn’t have let small in-state breweries ignore it completely.) And it’s just a money-making scheme that is really unfair because it hits the little guys who have a lot of little brands much harder than it hits the huge guys with a few huge brands. Basically, it’s a hideously regressive tax.
The State chose instead to eliminate the discrimination issue by simply making every brewery subject to label registration. That’s because New York is nearly broke, like all states, and wants the cash. We are terribly disappointed that the State went the way it did, but we figure that killing the in-state exemption is the first big step toward wiping out brand registration, and those nasty fees, entirely. We are pretty sure that once New York brewers get a taste of what we’ve been forced to swallow for years, they’ll get fired up and get the law changed.
Beer Taxes
We never had any discussions with the State about how to address the problem that only out-of- state brewers have been made to pay the New York beer taxes. This tax discrimination — though it is so plainly wrong — wasn’t the focus of our case. Actually, we didn’t even know that the State had opted to make New Yorkers pay the tax until we received hate mail from the head brewer at Brooklyn Brewery, who gently informed us that we were the new “Antichrist” because Brooklyn would “lose” half a million dollars as a result of the State’s deconstruction of New York’s discriminatory tax scheme, with the consequence that he and other New York brewers would not be getting bonuses this year —and it was all our fault. He added that New York brewers would shortly be going up to Albany, the seat of New York government, tossing all of our cute little foreign brewers into a burlap sack along with a bunch of heavy rocks, and throwing them in the lake. (Is there a lake in Albany? Maybe he meant the Hudson River.)
We have certainly seen evidence of follow-through on that last threat. Credulous bloggers in New York, slavishly taking everything their local brewers tell them as truth, have called for a boycott on the terrific beers our little foreign breweries make. This misplaced angry energy will dissipate eventually, and when it does, maybe the New York brewers will start to address the real issues here. It really isn’t for us and other out-of-state brewers and importers to say whether New York should keep its beer taxes or do away with them, as long as we outlanders are not the only ones paying the taxes while New York brewers go tax-free.
If it really is a matter of whether Brooklyn’s head brewer gets a bonus or not, New York has to decide whether it wants to give him and his colleagues that money, or use it for other essential services, like education, fire and police protection, etc., etc. I know how I’d vote on that. Unfortunately I don’t live in New York. But New Yorkers should be asking why tax breaks intended to reduce the cost of New York-brewed beers are being pocketed by some brewery big- wigs. And people are mad at us?
The truth is that the brewers themselves can avoid this dilemma very simply. They just have to factor this new cost into their pricing — as the rest of us have had to do all along. In the last week, brewers, and their blogger thralls, have been churning shamelessly simplistic claims that New York brewers will collectively “lose” $3 million. In reality, the state tax will add less than two cents to the cost of a pint of beer (the NYC tax that only applies to sales in that municipality is even less), and those costs will be passed along with scarcely any notice by the consumer. Keep in mind that New York consumers are already paying that pittance for beer from out-of-state, and — boycotts aside — they’re still drinking it. Clearly, the New York brewers’ world is not going to fall apart if they are made to pay taxes like the rest of us. Consumers will see an insignificant rise, or no rise at all, in the price they pay for New York beer. The head brewer will get his bonus. And the market is made fair. And certainly no one is going to go out of business, as has been suggested in some of the less thoughtful blogs.
If any New York brewers tell you now that they can’t raise their prices, even so slightly, because that will make their beer more expensive than beer from their small out-of-state competitors, that is nothing but an unwitting admission that up until now they’ve just been pocketing the savings they enjoy from that unfair tax exemption, rather than passing it along to consumers in the form of lower prices.
So all of this howling and fulminating about the persecution of New York’s small brewers is a complete crock of spent grains. I can half understand that it’s a new and unsettling experience for some people suddenly to be on a level playing field, but that doesn’t excuse the carping and the vitriol. It’s a wee bit galling, in view of the fact that the same people had no concern at all about the burden that their out-state brethren had to bear, as long as they themselves didn’t have to pay any tax.
The bottom line is that New York, in a supposed effort to give a leg up to its “small” brewers over really large ones, ended up throwing all out-of-state brewers and importers — the really tiny ones, like us, along with the rather large and the really huge ones — into the coarse burlap bag mentioned by the brewer at Brooklyn. There are plenty of ways to help in-state small brewers that don’t involve totally screwing out-of-state small brewers. Presumably, even while a few more emotional types are hysterically trying to vilify us, cooler heads at the New York State Brewers Association are already getting legislators to look at sensible non-discriminatory measures to help small brewers in New York. Even though they haven’t been all that endearing lately, we’ll support them 100% when they do.
Meet The Brewer: Brouwerij de Musketiers @ The Fred Bar
The brewmaster of Brouwerij de Musketiers will be in town from Belgium for a meet & greet. He will be at The Fred Bar start at 5 pm to chat and drink with his American beer fans. The new Troubadour Imperial Stout will be on tap, along with Troubadour Obscura, Blonde, and Magma bottles.
A rare chance to chat with the man behind the beer kicks off at 5 pm.
One of the highest rated beers in the world: Westvleteren XII is finding it’s way into distribution around the world this year. The monastery in Belgium needs thousands of dollars in repairs and distributing the beers will help rebuild it. When you have a beer as rare and so highly touted as Westie XII, it causes a stir.
