Heineken has had to pull an ad many, including Chance the Rapper, have called racist. (It is.) How does an ad like this make it all the way to television screens? Maybe the global giant should have more rappers on its marketing team.
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The mysteries of hazy IPAs continue to confound. In yesterday's post, I argued that this style is particularly ill-suited for shelf stability, and two brewers immediately challenged my assumption. That, plus the history of hazies and their increasingly confusing parameters.
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Here’s the central conundrum of our time. Hazy IPAs are wildly popular but made in such a way that, like ice sculptures, they begin losing definition moments after their birth. The 90-day hazy IPA is therefore the unicorn breweries are trying hard to breed.
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There are over 6,300 breweries operating in the United States today. Just five years ago, that number was 2,475, and a chart of the growth looks like the dreaded hockey stick. Have we reached peak breweries?
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The optimism about craft beer's growth fueled aggressive brewery expansions--leading to what many think is an overcapacity right now. That is mirrored in a giant glut of hops now sitting in warehouses. For growers and hop merchants, the consequences could be dire.
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You feeling good today? Calm, happy, relaxed? Well, I've got a little stress test for your Thursday mood. Two pieces of news out this week may leave you unsettled: steel tariffs are already affecting the beer industry, and scientists have engineered a yeast that produces hop flavors.
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In case you missed it, glittery beer has arrived. You may have seen these strange, wondrous beers on social media and wondered how they're made and what they taste like. I spent a couple hours with two brewers who made recent examples and I have your full report on this truly beguiling new beer style.
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Something remarkable and largely unnoticed just went down in Liverpool. That was the site of the annual meeting of the trade group representing the UK's small brewers. At issue was whether to raise the barrel limit for member breweries and allow some very large players to join the club.
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In appearance and flavor, sake resembles wine--which is what it's frequently called. It's right there in the first sentence of the Wikipedia entry. "Sake, also referred to as a Japanese rice wine, is made by..." If you stick around for the full paragraph, though, you'll learn what it really is: beer.
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Today the Brewers Association put out its annual list of largest breweries, and as usual, there were interesting findings about breweries growing, shrinking, and changing form altogether. A brief review of the highlights.
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Pathways saison is the result of an accretion of knowledge Americans have gathered, collectively, over the decades. Upright made great beers from the start, but Pathways represents a level of mastery that only comes from time and practice.
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A month ago, MillerCoors launched Two Hats, less a beer than a gamble. The bet is that by making a cheap beer that tastes very little like beer, MillerCoors can get a piece of Gen Z before it's lost to craft, Cabernet, and cocktails forever.
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Yesterday, BrewDog launched a campaign to bring attention to the issue of women's equity in the workplace by introducing a pink-labeled version of their Punk IPA. This is an example of "cause marketing"--a long tradition that has produced mixed results.
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The Oregon Liquor Control Commission has totaled the sales figures by Oregon breweries, and the results reflect what we're seeing nationally: middle-sized breweries show the most strength while bigger breweries are struggling to maintain their positions. But there are surprises, too.
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In the final installment of this ongoing series, some forward-looking advice on what we can do to hasten the change toward more equal workplaces.
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