I am a Craft Brewer

Many of you may have seen this already, but it's both cheesy and inspiring :) It does make us feel we are part of a movement..



From the youtube site:

"I Am A Craft Brewer" is a collaborative video representing the camaraderie, character and integrity of the American Craft Brewing movement. Created by Greg Koch, CEO of the Stone Brewing Co. and Chris & Jared of Redtail Media...and more than 35 amazing craft brewers from all over the country. The video was shown to a packed audience of 1700 craft brewers and industry members at the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference as an introduction to Greg's Keynote Speech entitled "Be Remarkable: Collaboration Ethics Camaraderie Passion." As is tradition for the CBC Keynote, a toast to the audience was offered. This time, the beers offered for the toast were all collaboratively brewed craft beers including Isabella Proximus, Collaboration Not Litigation, AleSmith/Mikkeller/Stone Belgian Style Triple, Jolly Pumpkin/Nøgne-Ø/Stone Special Holiday Ale, and 2009 Symposium Ale "Audacity of Hops."

Van Houten Brewing Equipment Update

It took us about a week to get in touch with the guys at More Beer - what with the wine crush and all, they are drowning in home winemakers. But - we got news that our conical fermenter is ready for pickup and the beer sculpture will be available in early October.
Johnny is chomping at the bit for his new equipment!

Beer Wars

"Beer is the equivalent of the adult teddy bear..." - Beer Wars

I watched Beer Wars, an enjoyable ride through beer history. Director Anat Baron chronicles the development of brewing in the US, culminating with the domination of the beer market but the "big three" beer brands, Anheuser Busch, Miller, and Coors - who are essentially all brewing the same light pale lagers, which even their most loyal drinkers could not differentiate in a blind taste test. The big brewers have become marketing machines rather than breweries. And of course now it's pretty much all InBev.

It also made me want to go to the Great American Beer Festival!

Here is the Beer Wars Trailer

Fun movie factoids from Beer Wars

• 85 % beer made in the US is light German lager
• 1948 - down to 45 breweries in the US. According to the Brewers Association, 1,595 breweries operated for some or all of 2009, the highest total since before Prohibition.
• The big three breweries spent 1.5 billion dollars on marketing in 2009
  
• independent brewers make 5% of the beer sold in America
  

With the continued growth of craft brewing, finally, American beer drinkers are getting access to good beer from what we can actually call craft breweries. It's probably all cyclical, but we are honored to be participating in what we see as a very important beer movement.