chalmers wrote:Does anyone know the limits on bringing beer into NS (looks like NB is ~6L)? I wonder if bringing beer from the US (or QC) to NS, through NB, you need to obey their importation limits, as the final destination isn't that province.
Not sure of the limits in NB or NS, but you are correct - you must obey the importation limits of the province in which you're entering, not your final destination. Same with customs fees, if you're bringing more than your duty-free allotment and are willing to pay the extra to bring back beer from the US to NS - if you're driving via NB then you have to pay the NB customs and duty fees not NS fees (note: NB has significantly higher duty on alcohol than NS does, but the Yarmouth ferry is more expensive than driving the long way around, so we're no further ahead).
I looked into the customs charges upon my last road trip to Maine, and it was disappointing:
Theoretical example, of bringing an extra 18 x 355mL bottles of 6% ABV beer into Canada, let's say you purchased it for $20 CDN:
* Returning via NB: $22.89 duty ($1.99 Federal Excises, $18.04 Provincial markup, $2.86 HST)
* Returning via NS: $7.88 duty ($1.99 Federal Excises duty, $2.25 Provincial markup, $3.64 HST)
mikeorr wrote:Not sure of the limits in NB or NS, but you are correct - you must obey the importation limits of the province in which you're entering, not your final destination.
…
I looked into the customs charges upon my last road trip to Maine, and it was disappointing:
Theoretical example, of bringing an extra 18 x 355mL bottles of 6% ABV beer into Canada, let's say you purchased it for $20 CDN:
* Returning via NB: $22.89 duty ($1.99 Federal Excises, $18.04 Provincial markup, $2.86 HST)
* Returning via NS: $7.88 duty ($1.99 Federal Excises duty, $2.25 Provincial markup, $3.64 HST)
Depressing
It is depressing, but my experience on declaring excess booze is that (a) if it's not a lot of excess, they don't want to do the paperwork, and wave you through; and (b) if it is worth the paperwork, they never actually ding me with the full amount they could.
So, I generally bring in about 50% more than my allowance and declare it - never paid on that.
But additionally, crossing provincial boundaries, now you're allowed a case of wine. You are not allowed to import beer. PERIOD. Never mind that you can bring any particular amount into the province from outside Canada, if the RCMP catch you bringing beer through NB to NS, they will in all likelihood dump it on the side of the road, no matter whether it's a case or 10. If it ever happens to me (and, no, I've NEVER made a beer & wine run to the LCBO ) I hope to be able to convince the wife to fight it in court, but I have no great hopes of success.
Currently on tap: Whiter Shade of Pale! In keg: . In Primary: Nothing
In an auditorium filled with thousands of brewers Wednesday, Paul Gatza told a story about visiting a beer festival this year.
He went out of his way to check out breweries he had never tried before, he said. Most had opened in the past two years.
Gatza, president of the Brewers Association, the Boulder-based trade association for small and independent American craft brewers, said seven or eight of the 10 breweries needed improvement. The brewers didn’t think so, he said. They thought their beers were awesome.
“The truth is, they’re not – and we need to improve it,” Gatza said. He then offered a blunt assessment of the importance of maintaining quality in an industry that is growing crazy fast: “Don’t f*** it up.”
I expect we've all seen that. Maybe not 7 out of 10 new breweries, but of all the micros in NS, I think we all have a story or two of bad beers produced by people who really don't understand the basics of good brewing: and, worse, insist that what they've produced IS good beer.
“If you are starting a brewery,” [Mitch Steele of Stone Brewing Co] said, “please, for God’s sake, hire someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Amen.
“If you are having problems with beer, ask others for help,” said [John] Harris, who brewed at Deschutes Brewing and Full Sail Brewing and last fall opened Ecliptic Brewing in Portland. “Don’t be too proud. We can help each other make our beer better.”
Ditto.
Currently on tap: Whiter Shade of Pale! In keg: . In Primary: Nothing
(G&M article, so open the link in private/igncognito for twitter comments and video)
Convenience stores will soon be selling alcohol to your kids.
Is that the inevitable consequence of allowing more retailers to sell beer in Ontario? Of course not. But it is the message of the latest ad from this province’s beer oligopoly.
On Tuesday, the Beer Store launched an alarmist ad showing teenage boys easily buying beer and liquor at a convenience store. The clerk does not ask for I.D., and encourages them to “have fun, boys.”
It’s part of the “beer facts” campaign by the Beer Store’s owners – Molson Coors Brewing Co., Anheuser-Busch InBev SA and Sleeman Breweries Ltd. (Sapporo Breweries Ltd.) – against selling beer in convenience stores (a move that many have pushed for, but which would break the Beer Store’s quasi-monopoly on sales in the province.)
In February, the Beer Store introduced a “beer facts” website, and has claimed as part of its campaign that selling beer in convenience stores would lead to minors having an easier time buying alcohol. The Ontario Convenience Store Association has rejected this argument.
Some viewers have, as well. The new ad attracted some mockery on social media.
Beer in Ontario can only be sold at the Beer Store, at LCBO stores, or on-site at breweries. The Beer Store is often mistaken for a government-owned retailer, but is controlled by three multinationals who are fighting against expanding this current retail system.
It’s a system that goes all the way back to Prohibition. After alcohol became legal in Ontario again in 1927, the provincial government set up a liquor control board to manage alcohol sales (others did the same.)
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario then handed over responsibility for beer to the beer industry, creating the Brewers Warehousing Co. Ltd. (which is now officially called Brewers Retail Inc., but operates under the Beer Store name.) It was originally owned by 35 regional brewers, but industry consolidation and other factors have brought that number down to three.
Those owners have argued that changing this system will make beer more expensive, lead to less variety on shelves, less tax going to government coffers and of course, looser standards on selling to minors. It’s a message the Beer Store has been aggressively pushing through this campaign.
Convenience store owners, for their part, have argued the opposite: more retailers allowed to sell beer would mean more revenue for the government and lower prices. And they point out that they are well acquainted with restricting sales to minors, when it comes to tobacco products.
There is no question the fight continues. But by conjuring an over-the-top, spooky future scenario, is the Beer Store’s latest ad going to help its case?
Let's step back for a second. If you add up every case of imported beer, craft beer, hard cider, and flavored malt beverages sold in 2013, you get 270,194,987. Bud Light sold 294,749,300 cases. That means that last year Bud Light outsold every imported beer, craft beer, hard cider, and flavored malt beverage combined.
No, I expect it will back fire on the Beer Store. What a stupid video. I already e-mailed them and told them what I thought about all the BS they are spewing with the web-site Ontario Beer Facts. Personally, I want Ontario Craft Brewers to lobby for their own Craft Beer Stores. They are pretty well silent on this issue. A bunch of wimps IMO.
The president of the group representing the Beer Store says he is not going to apologize for giving “people the facts” after an ad suggesting convenience stores would sell booze to minors left a sour aftertaste with small business owners.
“Our intent is… to continue to make sure that people get the facts,” Jeff Newton, president of Canada’s National Brewers, which represents mega-brewers Labatt, Molson and Sleeman, told the Post Wednesday. “There’s no need to apologize for people getting the facts. That’s what we intend to continue to do, continue to have that public debate, continue to have that discussion on the basis of fact.”
The Beer Store has been involved in a fierce war of words with the group that represents convenience store owners in Ontario.
The Ontario Convenience Stores Association wants the ability to sell booze at corner stores and gas stations. But the Beer Store’s campaign, called Ontario Beer Facts, has been met an online army of critics saying the foreign-owned Beer Store is just trying to protect its Ontario quasi-monopoly.
But the latest ad, which has been called “fear mongering” and “propaganda” by critics, unleashed a new level of mockery on social media against the Beer Store’s campaign.
Newton, however, referred to the backlash as “public dialogue.”
“The purpose of the ad was to engage in the public dialogue that’s going on around this issue,” he said. “You talk to Centre of Addiction and Mental Health, MADD…and they tend to agree that this type of change [selling alcohol in corner stores] would not be without consequence.
“We think it is important to get that information out there so that people when they have to make a decision, are making that decision on the basis of facts and good information.”
The controversial ad
The Ontario Convenience Stores Association called for an apology from Beer Store President Ted Moroz for “trying to belittle all small businesses in Ontario” after the controversial Beer Store ad was posted on YouTube.
“What a sad day for the Beer industry in Ontario, assuming Beer drinkers are stupid and attacking [convenience] stores to keep the monopoly is wrong!” the OCSA wrote on Twitter.
It shows a group of teenagers going into a convenience store and buying a variety of booze, including beer and a knock-off bottle of Jack Daniel’s. The clerk, a seedy middle-aged man who seems a little bit drunk himself, rings up all of their purchases but does not card them. Despite the fact that he does not check the group’s IDs, he continually refers to the group creepily as “boys,” implying he knows very well that they are under age.
“Have fun tonight, boys!” he says, completing the transaction.
“Alcohol in convenience stores?” the ad then asks in the same tone as the infamous “Soldiers with guns…in our cities” ad, complete with an Inception-inspired ominous score. “It’s just not right for our kids.”
A graphic later posted by the Beer Store campaign to Twitter compared the sale of cigarettes at convenience stores to alcohol sales at the Beer Store.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health study cited by the Beer Store says that 75% of Grade 12 students sampled alcohol in the previous year.
The Beer Store’s campaign to keep control over the sale of beer, Ontario Beer Facts, has been besieged with mockery and criticism since it picked up in February. The campaign has cited access of alcohol to minors, higher prices for consumers and reduced tax revenues as reasons to keep the sale of booze out of convenience stores and gas stations.
Newton says that all things being equal (tax rates, etc) Ontarians pay less for beer than in Alberta or Quebec, where the sale of beer is privatized.
The Beer Store is owned by Molson Coors (Canadian and American owned), Anheuser-Busch InBev (the world’s biggest brewer, headquartered in Belgium) and Sleeman Brewaries (owned by Japan’s Sapporo Breweries). Newton points out that all three brewers have long histories in Canada, still brew in Canada and provide numerous jobs across the country.
But these have been tough arguments to make with consumers.
“Where to sell beer in Ontario? How about where every single other civilized jurisdiction does?” former Ontario PC MPP Peter Shurman wrote on Twitter. “Beer Store people think it’s 1935.”
Anyone who believes the “apocalyptic” commercial is an “idiot,” the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Derek Fildebrandt said in a tweet.
“A word of advice from Alberta to Ontario: Not driving half an hour to buy a 12-pack from a corporatist-government monopoly is awesome,” he wrote on Twitter.
Several commenters claimed The Beer Store routinely sold them booze when they were underage, and some people pointed out that the ad itself seems like a self-parody.
Sun Media’s national beer columnist Jordan St. John likened the ad to a cheesy after school special.
“This is your plan? You wanna maybe put out an after school special or a very special episode of Blossom?” he wrote on Twitter.
Related
Toronto-based beer blogger Robin LeBlanc chided The Beer Store for playing on “people’s fear and stupidity.”
The chorus of proponents for opening up the Ontario market include Tim Hudak, the province’s Progressive Conservative Leader, who has said he would allow beer, wine and spirits to be sold at corner stores if he were elected premier.
At Alexander Keith's we follow the recipes first developed by the great brewmaster to the absolute letter.
Beer Store’s ad campaign shows fear of competition: Editorial The Beer Store’s alarmist ads portraying convenience store owners selling booze to minors are over the top.
It’s enough to give Don Draper a bad hangover. The Beer Store’s new advertising campaign — warning of a spike in underage drinking if Ontario convenience stores win the right to sell suds — is generating a public backlash of painful proportions.
From tweets to talk shows, Ontarians seem unimpressed with the ad, which could be mistaken for a Saturday Night Live parody of the modern temperance movement. Of course, this is no joke. Clearly, growing public demand for beer and wine sales in corner stores has The Beer Store running scared of losing its multi-billion-dollar grip on the province.
Hopefully Premier Kathleen Wynne, who needs all the public support she can get, will finally recognize that Ontarians want a choice in where they buy their beer. Her government should shake up the system and allow corner stores to sell beer and wine – under strict controls – despite the fierce opposition of the foreign-owned monopoly that owns The Beer Store.
The ad everyone is talking about shows a paunchy convenience-store worker or owner watching with approval as a trio of baby-faced teenage boys buy liquor and beer – without being asked for age identification. “Have fun tonight boys,” says the dishevelled representative of Ontario’s convenience store industry.
The ad’s kicker: “Alcohol in corner stores?” intones a motherly voice of disapproval. “It’s just not right for our kids.”
Thank goodness our teens can rely on the moral protection of Molson Coors Brewing Co., Anheuser-Busch InBev and Sleeman Breweries Ltd. (Sapporo Breweries Ltd.). It appears The Beer Store’s raison d’être — aside from piling up profits for its off-shore owners – is saving our children from the menace of corner stores.
Of course, that’s all posturing. In reality, Ontario convenience stores already face severe fines (or even closure) if they sell cigarettes or lottery tickets to minors. Owners have a powerful incentive to follow rules that demand ID for anyone who appears to be under 25.
And, a recent study cited by the convenience store association found that when tested on age rules with “mystery shoppers,” chain convenience stores had an 87.3 per cent pass rate, compared to The Beer Store with 80.7 per cent.
Of course, there’s a study for everything and The Beer Store’s new website, OntarioBeerFacts.ca, has plenty to say about the perils of loosening Ontario alcohol sales. At the same time, Tom Moher, vice-president of operations for Mac’s Convenience Stores, calls that ad campaign a “gross misrepresentation.”
Obviously, there’s a lot at stake for both sides. And The Beer Stores’ ad blitz, however outrageous, makes it clear that the game is on. But in the battle for beer-drinking Ontarians’ hearts and minds, it’s clear which side is winning. If only Premier Wynne would listen.
At Alexander Keith's we follow the recipes first developed by the great brewmaster to the absolute letter.
Halifax is home to another local brewing institution — although this one is a person, not a brewery: brewmaster Greg Nash. Known simply as “Nash” among locals, he’s a nomadic genius whose resumé includes stints at Pump House Brewery in Moncton, Garrison, Propeller and, most recently, the Hart and Thistle brewpub. A couple of years ago, Nash started brewing for the Rockbottom Brewpub, too. Folks at both brewpubs were glad to report he remains on their respective rosters.
Not unlike his resumé, Nash’s repertoire is varied and ever-changing. I had the Statutory IPA and Tubber Roe Robust Porter during my visit to the Hart and Thistle — both outstanding, but both also long gone (for now, at least). If you’re planning a visit, you can check Nash’s blog to see what he’s brewing.
-Mark
2nd place, Canadian Brewer of the Year, 2015
101 awards won for beers designed and brewed.
Cicerone Program - Certified Beer Server
"Starbucks continues to test alcohol sales in selected stores, and appears to be on the verge of rolling out beer and wine to more of its coffee shops. Their Starbucks Evenings concept adds selected adult beverages to an expanded food menu.
The benefits to Starbucks are clear: if they can make this work, they will increase sales during times when coffee sales are slower and, almost certainly, raise their average sale at the same time.
While there are a variety of logistical and practical concerns, including licensing requirements that vary by state, new staff training requirements, and possible customer resistance to a less family-friendly product lineup, there’s another potential issue: product contagion.
The Wrong Kind of Catchy
One of the stranger findings in consumer behavior studies is that juxtaposed products can actually transfer their characteristics to each other. In Product Contagion, I describe the weird ability of “disgusting” products like lard and feminine hygiene items to transfer their unappealing characteristics to adjacent food products. Researchers at Duke and Arizona state found that subjects were less likely to sample cookies that had been in a shopping cart next to feminine napkins, even after the products had been separated and an hour had passed!
Of course, problematic contagion depends on the viewer. A consumer who enjoys both coffee and wine would likely see no problem with offering both beverages. On the other hand, consumers who are highly health-oriented might find an organic juice drink leaning against a bottle of beer in a self-serve cooler to be less appealing. A customer who objects to alcohol for religious reasons might also experience subconscious tainting of non-alcoholic products.
Most of the research on product contagion suggests that touch and visibility are important. The same study found that food in opaque packaging was less likely to be “contaminated” by touching objectionable products than the same item in clear packaging.
A new study used auction prices for celebrity items to show that the degree of physical contact governed the appeal of items used by popular celebrities. Similarly, prices of items owned by disliked celebrities decreased with higher levels of physical contact.
Avoiding Contagion
Based on the evidence showing that contagion is contact-driven, one simple strategy Starbucks can employ is keeping alcohol products physically and visually separated from other products. This shouldn’t cause them to be any less appealing to beer and wine-lovers, but will help prevent any negative characteristics from transferring to unrelated food or beverage items.
Sensory Pitfalls
Starbucks has long relied on sensory marketing – walk into just about any Starbucks store, and you’ll experience a great coffee aroma. Compare that to the typical experience at most alcohol-oriented establishments – it’s unlikely you have ever walked into a bar and said, “Mmmm… smells great in here!”
Starbucks managed to hurt its appealing aroma once before when they introduced breakfast products that released an egg smell into the store environment. (See Starbucks Admits Sensory Mistake.) They recognized the problem and corrected it, and I wouldn’t expect their stores to be smelling like spilled beer anytime soon.
Do Beer and Coffee Mix?
A coffee shop serving wine and beer might seem a bit incongruous to long-time Starbucks customers, but the chain must have seen enough positive results in its tests to expand the program. And the concept itself is far from revolutionary. Houston Press writer Kaitlin Steinberg lists a flock of alcohol-fueled coffee shops in that city alone. (See Starbucks Won’t Be Bringing Booze to Houston, But Who Cares?) With names ranging from the sedate Southside Espresso to the more suggestive Double Trouble Caffeine & Cocktails, these establishments show coffee and alcohol can be compatible partners.
What do you think? Is Starbucks on the right track, or will adding alcohol hurt their core coffee business? Share your thoughts in a comment! (And, if you happen to have visited a Starbucks with an alcohol menu, tell us about the experience.)"
Frozen beer: Toronto’s next summer bar trend? Five Toronto izakayas now serve up ‘polar pints’ of Sapporo. Originally from Japan, frozen beer features a dense, frosty foam that insulates the pint.
Frozen beer, a Japanese trend, has hit taps in five izakayas across Toronto. Currently limited to pints of Sapporo, the beers are topped with a frosty swirl of sub-zero beer foam that acts as an insulator, trapping in the cold.
“We didn’t expect it to be that popular because you’re essentially paying for foam, but it’s outselling our regular pints,” said Rachel Schweitzer, a waitress at Don Don Izakaya, a Japanese hotspot at Dundas St., west of Bay St. And that foam comes at a premium: $7.95 for a pint, compared to $6.50 for the standard cold Sapporo.
“I can imagine in the summer it’ll outsell everything.”
The concept of frozen beer — sometimes sold as “polar pints” — was born from a Japanese beer war, of sorts.
Japanese brewer Asahi was first to concoct the idea of frozen foam in 2010, hoping the novelty would attract young drinkers. The company invented a technology similar to a frozen yogurt machine that spins chilled beer into a boozy whip. That dense foam, similar in consistency to soft-serve ice cream, was then dolloped over a regular 16 oz. pint of keg-pulled Asahi.
In essence, they kept the beer’s body and replaced the head.
The machines were brought to the swanky Ginza district of Tokyo, where frozen pints quickly became a hit.
Kirin, another Japanese beer-maker, caught wind of the trend and quickly created dark and light versions of its own frozen foam. There are now more than 7,500 restaurants in Japan with the technology, and chilled foam from both brewers have topped pints in Seoul, Paris and Los Angeles.
Frozen beer’s move to Canada is thanks to DK Squared, a Toronto-based product distributor that sells the Italian-made foam machines. About two months ago the company reached out to Toronto izakayas with the idea. Five accepted, becoming the first in Canada with the technology.
“We’ve approached mainstream restaurants . . . but that’s a longer process because they would have to move their whole bar configuration,” said David Kim, founder of DK Squared. “The footprint of the machine is not that large, about one-foot wide and two high, but bar space is really valuable in any restaurant.”
The difference with izakayas is that many had heard of Japanese frozen beer and were already interested in getting their hands on the product.
“We have a few asking about this technology,” Kim said. “It’s a pretty big thing.”
Kim has experimented with the foam machine and found that clear draughts with lower alcohol content have the thickest, creamiest foam. Sake, the Japanese rice wine, works too. Darker and hoppier beers are OK, Kim said, but may not have much appeal for beer purists.
“To be honest I don’t think this product will appeal to the IPA and stout drinker,” Kim said. “Stouts are usually served a little warm, and these beers are really cold.”
Kim recently visited a Toronto izakaya where polar pints were on the menu. He was surprised to see a table of young women with their iPhones out taking Instagram pictures of their frozen beers.
“It’s appealing to women and people who don’t drink beer. It takes the edge off and keeps it cold and refreshing to the end,” said Kim, who will travel to Vancouver later this week with the goal of spreading the trend before summer hits.
All five Toronto izakayas exclusively serve frozen Sapporo, which has the perfect combination of alcohol content, light colour and Japanese origin.
“Every izakaya wants to push a Japanese brand,” said Kim, explaining that there are only three to choose from: Sapporo, Kirin and Asahi. “It’s mostly a matter of metrics; Sapporo is the cheapest.”
In Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium sells Kirin frozen beers for about $11 a pop. Kim admitted that he “missed the boat” on getting frozen beers to the Toronto Blue Jays this season, but has his eyes set on 2015.
“I’m anticipating being at the Rogers Centre next year,” he said.
Where to get frozen beer around Toronto:
Don Don Izakaya (130 Dundas St. W., west of Bay St.)
Nome Izakaya (4848 Yonge St., north of Sheppard Ave.)
Kintaro Izakaya (459 Church St., south of Wellesley St. E.)
Tsuki Izakaya (5182 Yonge St., north of Empress Ave.)
Tsuki Izakaya (135 York Blvd., Highway 7 and East Beaver Creek Rd., Markham)
At Alexander Keith's we follow the recipes first developed by the great brewmaster to the absolute letter.
“Without the Internet, I couldn’t remember anything,” says Gene Bonventre, reaching for his iPad. We are in the living room of his Shaw rowhouse and about to share a five-year-old bottle of Dolii Raptor, a wine-barrel-aged ale brewed by Italy’s Birrificio Montegioco. Bonventre, 53, logs into his account on RateBeer, a crowd-sourced beer review site, and searches his long list of conquests. “Yes, I had it in May 2010,” he says. “I liked it.” He smiles and takes a sip.
With the handle “Travlr,” Bonventre joined RateBeer in November 2008 shortly after his retirement from the U.S. Air Force. Soon he had written brief descriptions of several hundred beers, scoring each on a five-point scale. He drew the notice of D.C. attorney Aaron Goldschmidt, at the time the most active American RateBeer reviewer, who invited Bonventre to a tasting with other local RateBeer enthusiasts. The newcomer’s response: “What’s a tasting?”
Nearly 51 / 2 years and hundreds of group tasting sessions later, Bonventre soon will rate his 10,000th beer, a feat only 30 people in the world, six of them Americans, have accomplished. He is not the site’s top user — a Danish man has more than 33,000 ratings — but Bonventre is among the elite.
“I’d call him a 1-percenter of RateBeerians,” says Goldschmidt, who joined the site in 2002, just two years after it was founded. “He rates like a madman, at a faster pace than I ever have, and travels for beer more than any other American rater.” In fact, Bonventre’s current rank among the site’s 333,000 members puts him in the top one-hundredth of 1 percent.
Bonventre became interested in beer in 1993 while stationed in England. The variety of colors and flavors of the stouts, India pale ales and cask bitters in British pubs showed him there was more to beer than Bud Light and other American pale lagers. Soon he was incorporating beer into occasional weekend trips throughout Europe, which naturally led him to Belgium.
Bonventre estimates he’s been there more than 30 times, often enough to befriend brewers such as De Struise’s Urbain Cotteau and to develop a love for gueuze, the dry, vinous Belgian style whose intense sourness challenges most palates. “It’s more interesting to drink beer on its home territory,” he explains. “Particularly the lambics and gueuze from the Senne River valley.”
Luckily for me, that didn’t stop him from popping the cork on a nine-year-old bottle of 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze, which he drew from a converted wine refrigerator packed with a hundred other dusty bottles. He uses a special oversize suitcase with an embedded GPS tracker chip for these souvenirs from trips overseas.
Since joining RateBeer, which the analytics firm Similar Web ranks as one of the top beverage sites on the Internet, Bonventre has logged beers from six continents and 145 countries. “I didn’t start living until I retired from the military,” he says. During his time in the Air Force, Bonventre spent 15 years working 100-hour weeks as a flight surgeon and then another five years traveling in Europe and Africa, doing humanitarian work. “There was no free time but a lot of alcohol,” he chuckles.
Kidding aside, Bonventre is skilled at using beer as a social lubricant, a tactic he saw deployed with great success with delegations at international conferences while in the military. It remains useful in his current position as a senior conflict adviser in USAID’s Bureau for Africa, where beer helps him break the ice when working on projects with members of disparate organizations. “People will talk to one another about beer all day,” he says. “Even if they come in with preconceived notions of the other agency, after a while they realize, ‘Hey, that other guy actually is human just like me, and we could work together.’”
Drinking on the job helps, of course, but Bonventre has rated most of his 10,000 beers during his off-hours, at a rate of 150 to 200 per month. Most of those he sampled on weekends, at tastings or on organized trips with his local RateBeer group. A typical tasting is a marathon affair, with each member drinking a few ounces of up to 30 beers over as many as 12 hours. At RateBeer’s Winter Gathering in February in Asheville, N.C., Bonventre visited 12 breweries in three days and attended two “bottle share” events, during which hundreds of RateBeer users from around the world offered each other samples from their personal collections.
Bonventre also travels on his own for beer, often to festivals, where he might taste 100 beers in a single weekend. Consider last year’s month-long vacation to New Zealand, where he sampled 200 brews, many at Wellington’s Beervana festival, which featured 70 breweries. Bonventre’s flexible work schedule allows for long-weekend trips to beer destinations as distant as Amsterdam or Brussels. About a dozen times since retirement, he has flown overnight on Friday, hit a beer festival on Saturday, explored beer spots in the city on Sunday and flown back on Monday. “You’re not there long enough to adjust to the local time,” he says. “Three-day weekend in Europe? Why not?”
To be sure, Bonventre is more than a casual drinker, but he insists that the quest for a new beer never feels like a chore. It could be one if he aspired to break into RateBeer’s top 10, dominated by Scandinavians averaging around 25,000 ratings each. “I hope I never get to 25,000,” he says wryly. “That would be spending too much time on this hobby.”
Nevertheless, he has other beer-related goals, many of them driven by Ratebeer’s statistical features. He is the site’s leading “place” reviewer, with more than 1,300 bars, stores and breweries logged. His next objective, to help fill in the blank spots on a world map showing where beers he has rated are produced, is to review a beer and place in every European country.
But Bonventre’s primary interest in RateBeer — and in beer in general — is social. He could skip the plane tickets and trade beers by mail, as many RateBeer users do, but he’d prefer to meet people other than the post office clerk. When traveling, he always posts a message to the local RateBeer forum. Without fail, he says, someone enthusiastically responds. Consider the man in Moldova who picked him up from the airport and took him on a tour of Chisinau bars and breweries. “We drove to a castle in Transnistria and had to bribe the Russian army to re-enter Moldova safely,” he remembers. “They would only take cold, hard cash — not beer.”
As someone who also logs beers (the old-fashioned way, in notebooks), I wondered how Bonventre balances documenting his discoveries with his desire to engage with others. “The social aspect always wins,” he answers, “even if I miss recording some rare beer I’ll likely never see again.”
His approach is not necessarily the norm. “A person who is new to RateBeer might be going for the most beers, or looking for the strongest or rarest beer they can find,” he says, “but at some point hopefully it dawns on them that it’s the search for those things that is the interesting part, and that people are more important than numbers.”
It should come as no surprise, then, how Bonventre plans to celebrate reaching his milestone. Technically, he tasted his 10,000th beer in January, but he’s keeping a backlog of ratings until three other RateBeer users — in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark — who are poised to reach the 10,000 mark this spring can catch up. Each rater is working with a hometown brewery on a commemorative beer to be tapped simultaneously at a trans-Atlantic party sometime in late June.
Bonventre’s local celebration will be a public event at Bluejacket, where his beer, tentatively dubbed “Gene Turns 10K,” was brewed in early February. He invited Terry Hawbaker, head brewer of Pizza Boy Brewing in Enola, Pa. — whose beers impressed him when Hawbaker worked at the now-defunct Farmers’ Cabinet in Alexandria — to brew with Bluejacket’s Bobby Bump, Josh Chapman and Greg Engert. “Gene’s a fantastic example of what real craft beer connoisseurship and enjoyment is all about,” says Engert, adding that he hopes to set up a video link to the parties in Europe and procure the other raters’ brews for the event.
The beer they created reflects Bonventre’s appreciation for low-alcohol, farmhouse-style saisons and sour ales. Just 4.9 percent alcohol by volume, it was brewed with two souring agents: lactobacillus bacteria and brettanomyces yeast. Flaked oats and rye were added to a base of Pilsener and pale malts to provide body and complexity to an otherwise simple beer. Three types of hops — French Aramis, Chinook and Citra — impart fruit, earth and spice characters. The resulting dry, acidic beer should be the perfect summer thirst-quencher.
Some is now in wine barrels that once held chardonnay from Grgich Hills Estate and cabernet franc from Larkin Wines. Both of those barrel-aged versions, and the original beer, will continue to condition for two more months.
Now Bonventre’s only challenge is choosing which of the three to drink for his official 10,000th rating. But the other two will be in good company. Within a few days of that event, when he catches up on the backlog of his tastings since January, he’ll already have passed another milestone: 11,000.
At Alexander Keith's we follow the recipes first developed by the great brewmaster to the absolute letter.
The rise of the craft beer shop Such is Britain's growing thirst for craft beer, that a once endangered species – the specialist off-licence – is enjoying something of a revival. But where should you buy your beer?
Love it or hate it, craft beer has re-energised the British beer scene, and given a serious boost to that once seemingly doomed entity, the specialist off-licence. If you prefer to swerve the supermarkets and buy more interesting and original beers from fellow hop-heads, then there has never been a better time to be alive.
Today, what Brewdog are promising will be the ultimate offy, Bottledog, will open in London, at the King's Cross end of Gray's Inn Road. The first of a planned national chain, it will sell not just UK and international beers, including draught refills for your growler (no, that isn't a euphemism), but also homebrew equipment, glassware, books and more. Like Manchester's Beermoth, whose basement space hosts meetings of local homebrewing enthusiasts, tasting sessions and meet-the-brewer events, Bottledog will be both a shop and, in order to lock-in its hardcore regulars, a community hub for likeminded craft beer geeks.
If such diversification and engagement (mimicking what indie record shops such as Rough Trade East have done) is the headline news here, more modest craft beer outlets are opening on an almost weekly basis. Many of these are opening in less fashionable, suburban locations too, emphasising that if there is one thing that people will travel for, it is good beer.
Near me, in Manchester, Horwich's Blackedge Brewery has just opened its Tottering Temple, and the Liquor Shop is now bringing much bottled goodness to Prestwich. These join, to name but a few: Altrincham's Bier Cell; the locally-focused Great Ale Year Round on Bolton Market; Micro Bar's small shop in the Arndale; and Stockport's Beer Shop and cask ale bar. You will have your own local favourites, but from Edinburgh's unassuming Cornelius, with its lovingly compiled stock (which goes deep on Scottish/ Scandinavian breweries: Fyne, Tempest, Luckie Ales, Mikkeller, Nøgne Ø), to York's almost overwhelming House of Trembling Madness, you are never far these days from a glittering ale emporium. Even the much-shrunken Oddbins is on the case. It stocks over 200 beers across its shops and has recently launched its own craft beer.
Indeed, such is the penetration of craft beer that, increasingly – and, you might argue, these are the real finds – you stumble across refreshing ranges of beer in the least likely of places. Also on Tib Street in Manchester, Loco, a basement mini-mart, pre-dates its near neighbour Beermoth, and itself stocks an impressive stash of beers from near (Salford's First Shop; try its exceptional brew, TEA) and far (Iceland's Einstöck). The family-run Londis convenience store, on Penny Lane in Liverpool, is a reputed Ale-laddin's cave, and if you are ever on the outskirts of Rochdale, keep your eyes peeled for Littleborough's Cocktails. It looks like and in many ways is an ordinary 'corner shop', but this one-time cocktail equipment and specialist drinks store still carries a blinding range of beers from, among others, Flying Dog, Italians Brewfist and Bristol's Wild Beer. Now, you may have you problems with Western capitalism (don't we all), but when you see a proprietor's passion spilling over like that, into living beer evangelism, it makes your heart sing, surely?
The naysayers will complain about the price of all this. True, you will pay top dollar for the obscure, imported bottles. But the vast majority of these outlets also sell many local ales which compare favourably on price with the supermarkets. As for the argument that a rise in specialist bottle shops will only draw even more people away from pubs, I don't buy that. It doesn't chime with my own drinking habits, or those of my beer-hunting mates. Great pubs and beer shops are, surely, complementary, expanding, deepening and reinforcing our collective love of fine beer?
So, with that in mind, where do you buy your favourite beers? And what tips can you share for those hidden, unlikely places which are making the case for good beer?
At Alexander Keith's we follow the recipes first developed by the great brewmaster to the absolute letter.
Each week, we seek expert advice to help a small or medium-sized business overcome a key issue.
Geoff Tait admits that when he started his own brewing company, he knew little about making beer – except how to enjoy the final product.
It’s one thing to have a refreshing beer but quite another to compete in a niche market. Mr. Tait, 35, launched Triple Bogey Brewing & Golf Co. in July of 2013. His single product? A golf-themed blonde lager.
THE CHALLENGE
Response to his beer, called Triple Bogey and brewed on contract by Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Toronto, has been “unbelievable,” he says. “I’ve gotten so many requests it’s almost overwhelming.”
Seventy-five golf courses in Ontario are ready to either pour Triple Bogey at their bars or sell cans to patrons. Mr. Tait aims to sign at least 25 more before golf season begins. In addition, two Toronto restaurants, including the trendy Rock Lobster just off Queen Street West, are offering it, with eight more in the queue.
This isn’t Mr. Tait’s first round in the world of entrepreneurship. His first big venture was Quagmire Golf, a clothing company launched in 2005. Quagmire’s focus on fun and unique apparel shook up the industry and landed Mr. Tait and his business partner a deal with Arnold Palmer to rebrand the legend’s clothing lineup in 2011.
Due to a fallout with his partner and other circumstances, Mr. Tait lost the license with Mr. Palmer, and Quagmire dissolved last year. Mr. Tait applied for a few jobs after that but admits working for someone else just wasn’t for him. “It was time to follow my passion for beer and combine it with my passion for golf,” he says.
The launch of Triple Bogey has not been without challenges, however, as golf season is closing in fast and Mr. Tait is ramping up his business so he can capitalize on the peak beer-drinking season.
“In the clothing world, we would take orders in the fall and ship in the spring for the season. In the beer business, it’s a whole new ballgame when it comes to logistics, production and planning,” he says.
Mr. Tait has purchased a delivery truck and was planning to do all the distribution himself. But he quickly realized he didn’t have the capacity to do everything. He says he will do it for the first month, and then look at hiring one or two people.
Meanwhile, orders are coming in from across Canada including British Columbia and Alberta, and he has received queries from Florida as well. Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina has expressed interest in having some on tap before it plays host to the U.S. Open tournaments, both men’s and women’s, this summer.
“I’ve never had this much demand for a product before,” he says. “I need to figure out how to handle it, and how to get going fast before someone else does it.”
The Challenge: How can Mr. Tait ramp up his business, distribute his beer and promote it properly all in time for the peak summer season?
THE EXPERTS WEIGH IN
Matt Hassell, chief creative officer for advertising agency kbs+, Toronto
Your seasonality can be your strength. Maybe your beer should be a “limited time offer.”
Being seasonal and maximizing that time means you need to be top-of-mind to consumers. There are simple things you can do. You could reach out to golf and/or beer influencers and send them a case and ask them via social media channels – Facebook, Twitter or even Instagram – what they thought. A stranger’s recommendation is usually even more valuable than a brand’s, and more trusted.
Richard Yip-Chuck, professor of business, Humber College, Toronto
There’s tons of competition, and he’s got to stand out somehow. Whatever his marketing budget is, he’s got to use it fully. Get banners up in taverns, have taverns run promos. I’m always surprised at how little bar staff knows about the products they carry, so get them educated.
An entrepreneur can’t do it all. I would suggest he hire an advertising agency right away to help him. Hiring an employee may be cheaper but also very risky. An agency would allow him to work with the advertising and marketing experts, but free him up to make sure the supply side is ready for sales. He’s dead in the water if he takes a ton of sales but doesn’t deliver.
Brent Mallard, senior manager of marketing and product for golf equipment manufacturer Callaway Golf Canada Ltd., Toronto
Triple Bogey is getting demand in a big way, quickly. It’ll be important to provide a good purchasing experience, from the golf courses to the beer drinkers themselves – otherwise he’ll lose people fast. The key is to generate as much awareness and consumer demand as possible leading into golf season. He can then follow up with events or promotions at bars or golf courses when the season starts. That will keep the momentum going.
Coming up with a long-term strategy for distribution without undersupplying is also important. Limiting the amount of volume in certain marketplaces as more of a seasonal play could be really beneficial.
THREE THINGS THE COMPANY COULD DO NOW
Use seasonality
Establishing your product as a “limited time offer” drives interest.
Don’t spread yourself thin
An entrepreneur can’t do it all. Invest in good people and make sure the supply side is running properly.
Promote, promote, promote
Top-of-mind equals tip-of-the-tongue. Make sure prospective consumers know about you.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.
At Alexander Keith's we follow the recipes first developed by the great brewmaster to the absolute letter.
Lets make a great beer, and give away all the money! Sounds like a solid business plan for sure.
Hopefully I can get some in the city for you guys to participate with.
Today the Portman Group has officially banned BrewDog's Dead Pony Club 3.8% ale. See http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Drin ... tman-Group" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
On behalf of BrewDog PLC and its 14,691 individual shareholders, I would like to issue a formal apology to the Portman Group for not giving a shit about today’s ruling. Indeed, we are sorry for never giving a shit about anything the Portman Group has to say, and treating all of its statements with callous indifference and nonchalance.
Unfortunately, the Portman Group is a gloomy gaggle of killjoy jobsworths, funded by navel-gazing international drinks giants. Their raison d’être is to provide a diversion for the true evils of this industry, perpetrated by the gigantic faceless brands that pay their wages. Blinkered by this soulless mission, they treat beer drinkers like brain dead zombies and vilify creativity and competition. Therefore, we have never given a second thought to any of the grubby newspeak they disseminate periodically.
While the Portman Group lives out its days deliberating whether a joke on a bottle of beer is responsible or irresponsible use of humour, at BrewDog we will just get on with brewing awesome beer and treating our customers like adults. I’m sure that makes Henry Ashworth cry a salty tear into his shatterproof tankard of Directors as he tries to enforce his futile and toothless little marketing code, but we couldn’t give a shit about that, either.
The Portman Group took objection to the phrase "rip it up down empty streets"? Mr Portman, you seem to like taking things literally. Can you please explain how something can be ‘anti-social’ if the streets are empty? Anti-social is defined as ‘contrary to the laws and customs of society, in a way that causes annoyance and disapproval in others.’ If the streets are empty, there are no ‘others’ to annoy.
As for not agreeing with "we believe faster is better", well I think the archaic existence of the Portman Group proves just how bad "slow" can really be. Maybe they should try and catch up with the rest of the world instead of insulting the intelligence of consumers with such a thin veneer of impartiality. It is an embarrassing condemnation of the mega brewers who provide their funding, the same mega brewers whose pricing reaps havoc on society.
Mr Portman, we'd be appreciative if you could now kindly save some trees and stop sending us meaningless letters.
We sincerely hope that the sarcasm of this message fits the Portman Group criteria of responsible use of humour.
Canadian runner James Nielsen may have complicated things for Nick Symmonds’ Beer Mile World Record attempt. On Sunday, the California Runners founder and former UC San Diego runner ran the world’s first sub-five minute beer mile for a new World Record. The previous record was 5:09.0 by Jim Finlayson, according to Beermile.com.
The beer mile requires a runner to drink a can of beer for every lap on a 400-meter track for a mile. The beer must be 5.0 or higher in alcohol concentration and drank from a 12 ounce can that has not been altered. Four beers consumed for four laps. No vomiting permitted.
Neilson unofficially split 63 seconds for his first and second laps. His slowest lap was his second as he ran 68 seconds, but recovered with a 67 in his third lap. It did not take Nielsen longer than 12 seconds to drink any of his beers. His fastest chug was seven seconds for his first beer. He split 8, 12 and 9 seconds for the rest of the drinks in the race against the clock.
Our own Ryan Sterner clocked the actual mile in approximately 4:21. Symmonds holds a personal best of 4:00.21 from last year's Kansas Relays.
"Incredible beer splits!" Symmonds told Flotrack. "Huge congrats to him. I guess I better start training."
) I hope to be able to convince the wife to fight it in court, but I have no great hopes of success.
