Beer Photo of the Day

Some effective advertising in today's beer photo:

As Matt at My Beer Pix says, " …yes, I bought a bag of chips, wouldn’t you?"

Economist on British Pub Culture

The Economist has a write-up on British pub culture, which laments its decline over a three day pub crawl:

A common fantasy of oppressed British office workers is to give it all up and run a pub somewhere, but a few minutes chatting to a landlord will discourage all but the most incorrigible optimists. They paint a gloomy picture of their industry.

Trade has fallen since the ban, they say, which is just another in a long line of iniquitous changes that are slowly driving pubs to the wall. Statistics back them up. The British Beer and Pub Association reckons 27 close every week, a figure that has risen sharply over the past few years.

The picture is of The Sherlock Holmes, a pub in London that I have walked past, but looked sufficiently cheesy that I shunned it.

Beerlao Plans "Spontaneous" Marketing

Howard sends in a story from The Wall Street Journal on a "Soviet-trained female brewmaster... trying to turn an obscure Laotian lager into the world's next great cult beer." True to a product of a system of socialist planning, the brewery is planning a strategy to engineer "spontaneous" marketing:

Beerlao's marketing manager, 47-year-old Bounkanh Kounlabouth, fears that promoting Beerlao too aggressively will scare off its grass-roots following. Instead, he would rather follow Corona's example of becoming an "accidental" brand. "We don't want to undermine Beerlao's word-of-mouth appeal, so for us it is better to let it grow naturally."

Mr. Bounkanh spends much of his time trying to engineer such an "accident." Because he is relying on foreign tourists to spread the word about Beerlao, he is promoting the brand heavily in Laos. "We won't let the competition get a foothold," Mr. Bounkanh says.

Good luck with that, Mr Bounkanh. More worrying is Ms Sivilay's evident refusal to drink her own beer:

Ms. Sivilay says these days she rarely needs to taste a beer to see if it is any good. "I smell it and see how the head settles in the glass to judge whether it's a good beer," she says. "The tourists seem to like it though."

Of course aroma and appearance are important, but I don't think you'd ever hear Jim Koch or Sam Calagione saying they don't need to bother tasting their beers...

UPDATE: I see Maureen Ogle has commented on the story as well.

Beer Photo of the Day

Today's beer photo, featuring The Sunspot in Knoxvile, comes from Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit:

The taking of the photo was "followed by a discussion of beer and the Commerce Clause." As everyone knows, all the world's most complex issues can be sorted out over a sufficient quantity of beer.

Review: Ushers Founders English Ale

Ushers Founders English Ale from Thomas Hardy Burtonwood Limited
Rating: B

Appearance: Pours a red/ruddy color, clear, with a nice tan head. Little retention, but nice lacing.

Smell: Rich and malty, with roasty and sweet caramel notes. Herbal and spicy hops beneath.

Taste: Toasty and roasty malts, with some caramel sweetness on the middle, on a backbone of earthy English hops. Not bad. Balanced, but tilted toward malt. Slightly nutty as it warms.

Mouthfeel: Light-medium body, good carbonation. Clean finish, unobjectionable aftertaste.

Drinkability: A nice malt-focused English beer, sessionable at 4.7% abv, but could be quite filling.

Beer Photo of the Day

Today's beer photo, from Stonch's beer photo contest. Taken in "La Mort Subite" a bar in Brussels, by Paul Marks.

British Beer Sales Down

According to the British Beer and Pub Association's quarterly beer barometer, "sales are down 4.5 per cent compared with the same quarter last year, while the fall in pubs is a massive 10.6 per cent."

The BBPA said the figures added weight to concerns over pub closures, rising prices and shrinking consumer confidence...

However sales in supermarkets and shops had continued to rise, with a 3.8 per cent increase.

The BBPA shows its political savvy in the release, emphasizing over and over the hit to the government's coffers:

"This is hitting Britain's brewers and pubs hard. It's also creating a large hole in the Chancellor's pocket with the Treasury's tax take also down. This must call into question the Government's planned beer tax escalator. Where's the logic in taxing more when you're taking less?..."

It estimated the fall in sales had led to Chancellor Alistair Darling collecting £88 million less in beer duty and VAT than in the same period in 2007...

"Falling tax revenues show it's time for a rethink."

Given Darling's recent increases of the duty on beer, it looks like cross-price elasticity of demand at work: consumers are substituting home drinking for pub drinking, to avoid mark-ups.

Beer Photo of the Day

A friendly Whole Foods beer expert in today's beer photo from My Beer Pix:

The Whole Foods in my home town of Coral Springs is still the best place to get beer in town, and the service has always been helpful!

Review: Little Creatures Pale Ale

Little Creatures Pale Ale from Little Creatures Brewing Company
Rating: A-

Presentation: Cute logo of a cherub holding a foamy mug on label and the cap, comes in a 12 oz bottle.

Appearance: Poured into a Leffe glass, appears a hazy amber color, with a one finger off-white head. Lively carbonation, but mediocre head retention and little lacing.

Smell: Aroma is reminiscent of a proper American Pale Ale, something I haven't tasted in too long, living on the other side of the Atlantic. Resiny, juicy hops on top of ale fruitiness. Citrus and pine both come to mind, though the former is more dominant. A bit of candy/sweet malt underneath.

Taste: Sweeter and maltier than I was expecting, based on the aroma, but balanced with a solid bitterness at the back of your tongue. Very well balanced. On the palate, hops are more earthy than citrusy. Faint biscuit notes emerge as it warms. Juicy hops at the middle, before a clean finish.

Mouthfeel: Lively carbonation. Medium body, but not syrupy. Velvety texture. Very long finish, but clean and refreshing.

Drinkability: This is a highly drinkable beer, the best Australian beer I have had to date and a breath of fresh air for me, personally. Very refreshing, sessionable.

Beer Still Beverage of Choice

According to a recently released Gallup poll, beer has regained a double digit lead over wine as Americans' beverage of choice for the first time since 2002:


According to the poll results, "the shift back to beer from wine in recent years has occurred mostly among Americans between the ages of 30 and 49," but as Maureen Ogle has pointed out, brewers still have major work to do in the youngest demographic, where beer continues to decline: