First things first, if you're reading this and you haven't seen Craft Brewers Conference Comes to Boston Day 1 yet, check that out first so you know the background! Then feel free to read on and watch my video recap of Craft Brewers Conference 2009 Day 2:
The day is Wednesday, April 22 2009. Again I find myself waking up quite early with the intention of going to drink craft beer. Am I crazy? Maybe. Am I obsessed? Only slight obsessed... and it's so you don't have to be! Day two of the Craft Brewers Conference in Boston started with the Conference Welcome Address (where I happened to be seated right behind Sam Calagione, Founder of DogFish Head Brewing Company - He's in the blue and yellow hat)(below left). Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers Association, was up first and talked about the important happenings in the craft beer world for 2008.
1) Less import beers were shipped in 2008. These are normally thought to compete with Craft Beer, so this is good.
2) Large brewers (i.e. InBev & Budweiser) consolidated. This is bad, as their combined muscle is now focused on increasing market share.
3) Wholesalers consolidated. This can go either way as they have more resources to focus on Craft Beer, but with less competition they may focus less on Craft Beer to grow their business.
4) The hop shortage moderated in 2008. This is good, raw material costs are no longer going to continue to climb.
5) Malt and energy prices fluctuated. This is bad, as uncertainty means brewers will have to charge more to stay profitable and it will hobble innovation.
6) Craft brew sales were up 6%. This is only a little good. Craft brew sales were up much more in 2007. Is the market starting to stagnate?
7) And production of sour beer is up, this may be the new trend. This is great! Sour beer is delicious!
Following Paul Gatza, they announced the winners of the Brewers Association 2009 awards. The awards went to:
1) FX Matt Defense of the Industry Award - Eric Wallace, Founder of Left Hand Brewing Company in Longmont, CO.
2) Brewers Association Recognition Award - Ken Allen, Founder of Anderson Valley in Boonville, CA.
3) Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Craft Brewing - Steve Parkes, Owner & Lead Instructor at American Brewers Guild in Salisbury, VT.
Wrapping up the Conference Welcome Address was Greg Koch, CEO & Co-Founder of Stone Brewing Company in Escondido, CA. Introduced by Harpoon Brewing Company President & Founder Rich Doyle, his speech entitled "Be Remarkable" was preceeded by a video called "I Am A Craft Brewer." The video was a great little short and had craft brewers from around the country talking about their passion for and commitment to the industry. We're working on finding a link.
In quite a rousing (if not time-consuming, seeing as we went over time by half an hour) speech, Greg based his talk on four pillars:
1) Ethics
2) Camaraderie
3) Passion
4) Collaboration
To him this meant working honestly. Admittedly there a lot of semi-legal practices that go on in the beer industry, such as gift giving to retailers to get tap lines or a choice spot in the cooler at a beer store. It also meant supporting your fellow brewers. To illustrate he showed pictures of the early days of Stone Brewing Co. where local San Diego brewers all came by to wish them well and celebrate the opening. Passion means don't come into the industry looking to sell out. If this is your goal, you already have... here's the door. Making money is fine, but do it by making a remarkable product not by selling out at the first chance. Lastly, collaboration meant work together. In this spirit, the Keynote Address Welcome Toast featured beers brewed in collaboration by many breweries such as Isabella Proximus (Dogfish Head, Allagash, Russian River, Avery & Port Brewing/Lost Abbey), Collaboration Not Litigation (Avery & Russian River), and Hot Rocks Lager (Port Brewing/Lost Abbey & Bend Brewing).
After the toast, Greg gave his four pillars (he was big on the four pillars idea) for success in the Craft Beer industry:
1) Be passionate or stay home.
2) Your brand is you. Don't make something you don't think is remarkable.
3) Craft beer is a place for artisans.
4) Authentic is required
With that, he wrapped up his address using a well-known quote, with a twist. "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American Public... Those aren't our people, then!" The idea was that the Craft Beer industry doesn't cater to the lowest common taste denominator. As he put it, "Give people no other choice but remarkable! They'll come over." The people who come over, those are our people. In a spectacular finale Greg broke into song and Will Meyers (Brewmaster for Cambridge Brewing Company), the Alstrom Brothers (Founders of Beer Advocate) and others appeared from the crowd with microphones and joined Greg on stage in song. I'll try to get that video up ASAP.
After the Welcome and Keynote Addresses it was time for me to head off to the media briefing event. I won't bore you with the details, as it was mostly marketing stuff about segmenting and demographics... interesting stuff, but I definitely wished I had been able to sleep later that day. A couple cool tidbits, though, did come out:
- The Craft Brewing industry indirectly/directly employs 1.9 million Americans.
- It also generates $11 Billion in tax revenue for the federal and state governments.
- People are "trading down" from wine to craft beer.
This last point got me for a few reasons. First, I don't think it's trading down in any sense but the fact that Craft Beer is cheaper. Secondly, we're going to hook them now while they're trying to save money... Good luck getting those folks back Wine Industry! (Insert maniacal laughter here)
After hearing from the industry analyst panel, we got to the good stuff: the beer tasting panel. On hand we had four Craft Brewery representatives: Max Oswald (VP of Marketing for Otter Creek Brewing Co. & Wolaver's Organic Ales), Spencer Niebuhr (Brewer and Head of Sales for Southampton Public House), Doug Odell (Founder of Odell Brewing Co.) and Brian "Spike" Buckowski (Founder and Brewmaster for Terrapin Beer Co.). These guys had each brought a seasonal beer from their lineup as the event was being done in conjuction with SeasonalBeerAndFood.org, an website run by the Brewers Organization to promote Craft Breweryies' seasonal products. We had Wolaver's Ben Gleason's White Ale, Southampton Saison Deluxe, Odell Red Ale and Terrapin Side Project Monk's Revenge (left).
Wolaver's Ben Gleason's White Ale contains localraw organic wheat grown by, who else, Ben Gleason. It had a spicy wit yeast character with a mild sweetness towards the end. The raw wheat flavor asserted itself in the back. It was a nice, refreshing beer that would be great for summer.
Southampton Saison Deluxe was sweeter than expected. It poured a golden pale with a lot of carbonation but I couldn't get past the sweetness, which is not characteristic to this style. It smells... like a saison, though. There's just no other way to put it.
Odell Red Ale poured a clear brick red. At 45 IBUs it smelled really hoppy, with some malt in the back. It had a clean bitterness balanced by crystal and munich malts. The hops and malt were balanced without battling. A great style of a hoppy American Red Ale. I would drink it again.
We ended on Terrapin's Side Project Monk's Revenge. This is a Belgian Trippel hopped like an IPA, although you'd never think that from trying it. Maybe it was the hoppy Red Ale before it, but I didn't get much hops out of this one. It smelled sweet, with a Belgian Trippel yeast character typical of style. The honey colored beer may have had a little hop bitterness, but I couldn't tell if it was psychosomatic. It was sweet, and definitely tended towards the Trippel style rather than the IPA style.
With no seminars I wanted to attend for the rest of the day, it left me free to wander the trade show floor. If you think this is code for "drink the complimentary beer," you'd be right! I tried samples of way more than is worth going into detail, but it was a good time. I got to taste brews from Allagash, Odell, New Belgium and more than never make it to Massachusetts or were never made for commercial release. There was also an amazing selection of specially brewed Pilsners (and an IPA) by Victory (above right). I'll have to make sure to try those tomorrow! I also saw some crazy products from brewing industry vendors, like Hop Asparagus... better known as hop shoots, the young hop vines that are cut down and are edible (below right).
At 4pm it was time for the SAVOR pre-event in preparation for SAVOR, the Brewers Assocation's annual food and beer pairing event in Washington, D.C. The beer was great! I had a chance to try Coronado Thunder IPA, New Belgium Lips of Faith and more. I also ran into Luke Purcell from Great Lakes Brewing Company. Long time readers may remember him from Devon and Jeff Drink the Great Lakes: Great Lakes Brewing Company. It was a pleasure to see Luke again, he was such a great host when we were at his brewery! I was going to offer to buy him a beer... but then remembered that the beer was free. The only problem with this event was more funny than anything: Of the eight beers listed as pairings with the food provided, they were only pouring two at most. It was no big deal, though. The beer was great, and great beer goes with anything!
The night ended at the Samuel Adams brewery in Jamaica Plain. They opened their doors to the Craft Brewers Conference and they brought out the big guns! While in the company of some of the best brewers in the world, we got to sample the Samuel Adams Geueze, Belgian Red, Kriek, Pilsner, All Noble Hop Pilsner, 3 Weiss Men and much more! All the rarities from the barrels were out and people were loving it. I think this event really made every realize, again, that Jim Koch and Samuel Adams Brewing Co. really are craft brewers at heart.