BEER BIZ
Seems everyone's diversifying these days. According to a May 23rd Wall Street Urinal article by Yumiko Ono contributed by Betsy Perse of First State, liquor producers are following Jack Daniel's lead and entering the beer biz. Seagram's is testing two beers, Coyote and Devil Mountain, and Bacardi is reviving a recipe for a pre-Castro Cuban beer called Hatuey. All are contract brewed. Jim Dorsch in the August 14th Wash Post Food Section reported some micros are getting into the root and birch beer and even cream soda biz, including locals Old Dominion and Frederick (root beers) and Alexandria brewpub Virginia Beverage (sodas). It takes far less time and isn't subject to federal excise taxes.
Mike Farmer of GABS forwarded a couple of items placed on the Web by a Douglas McCaw: that the Lone Star brewery is being closed by owner Stroh's after 62 years of operation, with production moving to a larger facility in Longview, and that Hong Kong's South China Brewery, makers of Leeson Lager (named after the jailed rogue stock trader) is thinking about offering stock on NASDAQ to raise funds for expansion into Singapore, Shanghai, and Thailand.
DUMB STUFF
The August 1st Montgomery Express "Stranger Than Fiction" column reports that the LEP Collider, a 17-mile ring where subatomic particles are smashed together in physics experiments, was brought to a halt because two empty beer bottles were left in a chamber.
Also, a San Antonian named Felix Rivera, upon finding his neighborhood's Pik Nik convenience store closed when he wanted a beer, greased his body with used cooking oil he found behind the store and then tried to slide in through a roof vent. Despite the grease, he got stuck, in so doing setting off a burglar alarm. It took eight firefighters an hour to free him.
PRAISE THE LORD
The August 24th Wash Post printed a piece from the Religion News Service about a Rev. Godfrey Broster who, in order to raise money for three churches he serves as rector in Sussez, England, has started a small brewery. It produces Rector's Pleasure, described as "a sharp-tasting beer," Rector's Revenge, a strong ale, and Parson's Porter. Broster worked in a brewery before he was ordained.
ANCIENT HISTORY LESSON
An article by Alan Cutler in the August 14th Wash Post's Learning Section entitles "How Beer is Brewed" reports that "in Sumer 5,000 years ago, the world's first urban civilization devoted as much as 40 percent of its grain harvest to beer production" and that "tavern operators who overcharged for it were executed by drowning"; also that ancient Egyptian beer varieties were given names such as "The Joy Bringer," "Heavenly," and "The Beautiful."
NOT AS ANCIENT HISTORY LESSON
Betsy Perse of First State contributed a May 17th Wall Street Urinal piece on how Guinness has been advertising Bass Ale. An award winning campaign touting Bass as "the thinking man's beer" featured posters of Virginia Woolf and Albert Camus next to glasses of Bass. Unfortunately, a more recent ad described Admiral Horatio Nelson as defeating the Spanish Armada when in fact it was Sir Francis Drake that performed that feat. Bass's advertising agency is reported to be correcting the mistake.As always, I am looking for items.
