How Pabst Became Cool and Why GABF Isn't Anymore

[00:00:05] Speaker A: How Miller Kors made PBR a hipster paradise. [00:00:08] Speaker B: The Russians are coming for your beer. Assuming your beer is Carlsburg Imports has. [00:00:12] Speaker A: Taken over American mash tub. [00:00:14] Speaker B: This is it's. [00:00:15] Speaker A: All beer. [00:00:21] Speaker B: Welcome to It's All Beer, where we put the fun in mature industry coming to grips with the waiting interest and oversaturation the fundamental problems planning businesses around unsustainable growth. I'm Jeremy Jones. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Best one yet. [00:00:36] Speaker B: Really? That was the best one? I've done that one. I feel like I even phoned in. [00:00:44] Speaker A: No, it was great. Because it's quirky, cynical, and harshly truthful. [00:00:52] Speaker B: That's where we're at tonight. We're putting up with some hard truths while both not in the bag. But I think neither of us are. I think what you said it best the spark plugs aren't firing on all cylinders, which is exactly how an engine works. Ask anybody. [00:01:13] Speaker A: Tyler Howard, can you find a spark plug on your car? [00:01:17] Speaker B: I cannot. Is it near the windshield wipers? [00:01:26] Speaker A: Like the actual windshield wipers? Kind of, but not really. It's inside the engine. [00:01:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Then absolutely no idea. Tyler, what are you drinking? [00:01:44] Speaker A: Well, because I bought a beer, and then I realized I forgot it in the work fridge today, so I had to go scrounge through the fridge, and luckily, I found the lone remaining beer that is in my kitchen fridge, which is a little cutie Tangerine IPA from Sockeye. [00:02:08] Speaker B: Is it another version of the little wet Little drippy? [00:02:13] Speaker A: No, not yet. One day. One day. [00:02:22] Speaker B: You should just chug the rest of that. The Hard Mountain Dew from last week. You still had quite a lot of that left over. [00:02:35] Speaker A: I was talking to someone this week while at work, and they're like, oh, Tyler, you have a beer podcast, right? And I was like, yeah, what's it called? I was like, oh, it's all beer. And then we're talking. And I was like, yeah, last week on it, I drank some hard Mountain Dew. And he's like, how was that? And I proceeded to describe in grave detail how terrible it was and that it tasted like fermented smarties. That went bad. And he's like, Honestly, that's kind of how I expected it to taste. So glad you did the research for me. And I was like, that's what we do here on this podcast. We do the hard hitting research and torture of our body so you don't have to. [00:03:22] Speaker B: I'm shocked that when you said it tasted like fermented rotten smarties, that he was like, okay, yeah, that tracks. Because the description was vivid. I can picture it. But at the same time, I thought it was going to be awful. But that is a unique kind of awful. The kind of awful that you almost wonder if they went out of their way to accomplish. Like they said, I want to meet. [00:03:51] Speaker A: The brewer who brewed that and went, this is my coup de gras, and I want to throat punch him and then kick him so hard or her in the genitals that they can never curse the world with another little shit like them. I have a feeling that it's a hymn because I feel a woman would have tasted that and been like, no, I can't do that to humanity. [00:04:24] Speaker B: On a sort of unrelated note, kind of, but not really. So we took Declan out trick or treating for the first time this year, and I have got to say. [00:04:39] Speaker A: No one passed out fucking edibles. Yeah, I was disappointed, too. [00:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah, well, besides that, also, the quality of candy across the board is noticeably better. If for no other reason, there was nari a smarty to be had, could you go trick or treating and not end up with, like, ten things of smarties? That's the only time they ever came out and they were fucking awful. [00:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm looking back, I think I need to go dig through Parker's little trick or treat basket. And that little shit got like three or four full size candy bars. I don't think Parker did either. I don't think she got any shitty candy. She actually got some full size candy bars, like three or four of those. Fuckers. [00:05:29] Speaker B: I was digging through Declan's candy and had kind of the same realization. I'm like, again, like three or four full bars, which I'm like, he's three. A full candy bar is like the. [00:05:42] Speaker A: Equivalent of, like, Tony Montana fucking cocaine. [00:05:49] Speaker B: He's going to be on top of a pile of candy in his room stroking a gun, saying, say hello to my little friend. Yeah. [00:05:58] Speaker A: After bed, you have to walk up behind him with a fucking pillow and just pummel him. [00:06:06] Speaker B: No candy bars. Even, like, the small candies, they were like, it's all good shit. It's Reese's and Lifesaver gummies. The shittiest it got were like these kind of like flavored Tootsie Rolls. And even those are good. [00:06:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I think the worst candy Parker probably got was whoppers. And I love Whoppers. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Well, you're the only one. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Milk bowl. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Those are shit candies. [00:06:42] Speaker A: I mean, they're not my favorite. I'm not going to order a whole bag, but a little three whopper. Fucking quick hit. I'll take. [00:06:50] Speaker B: You look like a man who enjoys his whoppers. [00:06:53] Speaker A: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. [00:06:56] Speaker B: I don't know why that was an insult, but I'm glad you took it. [00:06:58] Speaker A: As one because I knew you meant it as one. Jeremy, what are you drinking? Since we've got completely off in the. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Am because I care about this podcast, I went out of my way to. [00:07:14] Speaker A: Seek out I put it in a fridge at work. [00:07:22] Speaker B: I went out of my way to go seek out a new beer in town that we got at the shop. And by out of my way, I mean I said, oh, before I leave, I should buy that beer uprise brewing out of Spokane, Washington. We just started getting their stuff into town. This is their nectar wave. Hazy IPA. And the first thing I don't know can you see it there? It's probably hard to see, but the first thing I notice is, good God, is that pale? That's like brute. [00:07:55] Speaker A: That looks like you peed it out. [00:07:57] Speaker B: No, mine definitely has more color than that because I am severely dehydrated because of the amount of beer I drink. The flavor is rather nice. You got that tropical fruit, papaya mango with a kind of a sharpness that's almost like red wine or white wine esque. [00:08:21] Speaker A: That's like red wine and that pale. [00:08:23] Speaker B: Color, white wine esque. A little bit of bitterness. I disagree with its pillowy finish. I don't know what a pillowy finish is. I think we're back to Tony Montana again. [00:08:39] Speaker A: No. [00:08:43] Speaker B: In the. [00:08:49] Speaker A: I mean, it doesn't have that real full soft mouth feel. [00:08:55] Speaker B: No, it doesn't have a lot of body at all. I mean, in not a bad way. It's not thin, but it doesn't have that pillowy pillow. Well, first of all, I sort of disagree in most instances with the descriptions in hazy IPAs like pillowy, cloudy, fluffy mouthfeel, little wet, little drippy. Little wet, little drippy. Yeah. All those things I sort of disagree with. Occasionally they apply, but most of the time I think they are extraneous. [00:09:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, craft beer is kind of built on being full of shit. Yeah. And a little over the top. [00:09:42] Speaker B: That's fair. And speaking of full of shit and a little over the motherfuck, it's going to be a good episode. Everybody strap in. Tyler, do you want to kick us off today? [00:09:54] Speaker A: We've talked about GABF on this podcast before I even did a slight live stream, before the drunken haze took over a couple years ago when I was at it. But I saw an article today from the Wine Enthusiast of all fucking publications to come out and write an article about GABF this year. I was like, I'm morbidly curious, and now have to click on this. And basically they started talking about the Dwindling attendance at the Great American Beer Festival, their assumptions of why attendance is dying off and kind of what that means for the rest of the industry. Smaller beer festivals that aren't as well known or as big of a deal as American Beer Fest. And not in Denver, a destination for a lot of craft beer drinkers. So to kind of hop in, they relive their glory days of going to GABF. Talk about it if you're unfamiliar. It is a three day beer festival in Denver, usually in October or the last weekend of September. It is competition where breweries from around the country submit beers to. There's also a beer festival portion of it. There are four different sessions where people can be in and drinking and you walk around it's all. You can drink at the beer festival, but it's all 1oz pores, and it is a fuckload of people. [00:11:46] Speaker B: I've not been, but I've seen pictures and it looks like a convention center full of beer geeks. [00:11:56] Speaker A: Oh, it is a massive convention center in downtown Denver. And it used to be as soon as tickets would go on sale, it would sell out within hours or within the day of being available. All the sessions were sold out. It's no longer getting to be that point. There's tickets available now when the gates open for the session. The Brewers Association predicted about 40,000 attendees over the four sessions in the three days attended this year, down from the peak of 65,000 in 2019. [00:12:39] Speaker B: So they had a lot of tickets left over. Do they have just fewer tickets all around? [00:12:45] Speaker A: I think they have fewer tickets, but they still had some leftover. I mean, at the end of the day, if you could fit it's not like it's changed venues. So if you can fit 65,000 people in there, you're going to keep selling tickets until you hit that number. But also the amount of breweries participating dropped as well. They only had about 500 breweries this year pouring compared to a high of 800 back in 2018. Some of their guesses why it changed is lingering effects of COVID and people trying to avoid big crowds, younger generations not drinking as much or drinking less beer. So why are they going to go to a more beer focused event? And the fact that breweries are really flourishing, making solid offerings and there's so many out and about. I mean, we're at about 10,000 breweries operating in the United States with the different beer subscription services or Tavore. You can get all these world class beers sent right to your house and not have to go stand in line and fight the crowds, fight the lines to get a 1oz pour at a time at a festival that you and your 39,000 closest friends are at. Another thing they brought up that actually made a lot of sense to me was at the festival. Yeah, there's sometimes brewers at the booth, but it is all manned by volunteers, typically. Yeah, brewers are hanging out at the booth, but they're wandering to and fro. Or even if there is a brewer there at the booth pouring you your sample, there's usually a couple of people deep waiting to try these beers. So you don't really have a bunch of time to sit there and have an in depth conversation with the brewers, where if you were in a tap room, you might have that opportunity to sit there and chat. If it's a little bit slower, really pick their brain on this beer. So all those are kind of dwindling down the perks of being at the Great American Beer Festival. [00:15:32] Speaker B: I'm surprised, given how every other travel opportunity is exploding. I'm sort of skeptical about the idea of the COVID pandemic still affecting it in a negative way since about every other event in this country or in the world is now packed with a bunch of people who are in a term that I kind of love for its stupidity. Revenge traveling. [00:16:04] Speaker A: Oh my God. Yeah, when I saw that, I was like, okay, that seems a little bit of a stretch. Like it feels you're saying craft beer people are the only ones still cautious over COVID. I think at the end of the day, that's not going to be the make or break whether you go to GABF. [00:16:33] Speaker B: I think the idea that younger generations, younger people are not getting into craft beer nearly as much is valid. The industry is aging and its wild youth is sort of kind of behind it, as I sort of stated in the intro to this. And the interest is sort of dropping off. And yeah, you can see that affecting attendance, but I think the perceived value. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Is just not what it used to be. Because honestly, now having been to GABF, I would go back to town to Denver for GABF weekend. I don't know if I would be like, yeah, let's go back to the festival. I'd be like, okay, I'm going to go hit all these super cool bars in Denver because they have killer lineups for GABF week and just go fart around all these bars and just avoid the festival. [00:17:38] Speaker B: That's an interesting so I still have not yet gone in something that's to my eternal discredit, is it worth going at this point in time if I've never gone? [00:17:51] Speaker A: If you have never gone, it is worth going because it is worth just seeing the mass of people. It is a craft beer samplers fucking paradise. I mean, you can go try because it is 1oz samples. I mean, there's no lack of catching a quick buzz because you're walking up, you're like, oh yeah, this double IPA. I want to try this. Oh, this bourbon barrel aged out. I want to try this, this lager. And it's a smorgasbord of excellent beers that you're trying. [00:18:28] Speaker B: Give me a 1oz pores of like 10% will still start to get you fuckered up after a while. [00:18:36] Speaker A: Oh, 100%. [00:18:42] Speaker B: Especially. They're pretty efficient at handing those out is my understanding. [00:18:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I was going to say I never waited in a line super long. The only one that was super bad when I was there is right before they tapped the Utopia Keg from Sam Adams. It was basically impossible to get through that section. It was that many people crowded in trying to get that. [00:19:14] Speaker B: I've only tried Utopias once. I had maybe a half an ounce in a hotel paper cup, which is the correct way to fully appreciate the nuances of that particular beer. [00:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I tried probably about a half ounce too, and I was like, okay, yeah, cool. But if you haven't been, I would recommend going. It is a fun time. But having been there once, if I had friends, be like, hey, let's go to GABF. I'd be like, actually, let's just go to Denver that week. And every bar is doing different GABF themed events. So there's some bars doing west coast versus east coast IPAs. And so they've got the best IPAs made on the west coast, the best IPAs from the east coast, all on tap. And you can do a flight of each or just get pints of each. But I think this is going to spell a lot of trouble for smaller fest, especially the ones that aren't all you can drink and are ticketed. Because I think especially with purse strings getting a little tighter, people are starting to be like, okay, this is a six ounce cup. It cost me $4 for a token that gets me one fill of this. And I could go to this bar, have this beer for six $7 and have a full pint. [00:20:53] Speaker B: I have to wonder if beer festivals won't start evolving the way the general industry has, which is to say it was very centralized to start a brewery circa 2010 or something, you had to. [00:21:15] Speaker A: Be at beer fest or no one knew you well. [00:21:18] Speaker B: And besides that, your general location was different. You were getting into that new hip like renovated industrial section or downtown. You wanted to be there and all the breweries sort of clustered together. Now there's more value in having just being your neighborhood watering hole. And so in the same vein, I can't help but wonder if a national festival is going to be less attractive than just smaller, more regional or local festivals. [00:21:55] Speaker A: I was going to say, honestly, I'm thinking the opposite. I think, yeah, those couple big national festivals, that's what people want. So they can go, say they went, try a ton of beers that they possibly can't get or have to order online, pay a bunch in shipping and waiting might not be the best conditions it's shipped to them at and they may not enjoy that beer. So it's that risk involved with that. But going making a weekend with friends, making a trip out of it and saying, yeah, I went to this huge beer fest that's awesome, instead of just going down to the local one that has all the same beers you can find in the grocery store, fair enough. Because all these beer fests are like, you need to donate beers. And so they're like, well, why don't you donate something cool? And I'm like, because we have to make money. And so I'm going to donate you something we have a lot of, not something that's one off and we're only doing six pegs of like, fuck you. [00:23:15] Speaker B: I like how hypothetically, of course this feels like it was just completely hypothetically and not anyway based on personal experience. [00:23:29] Speaker A: But it was kind of interesting to see. In this article, they talked about less brewers participating. And I mean, it's an expensive thing to participate in GABF and there's not. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Really any return I say tangible return. It's not like you go there. It's not like you spend $500 to get there and you return with $1,500. [00:23:57] Speaker A: Unless you distribute out in that area or get a temporary distribution license for that area. And you can sell some kegs, do a couple of events that helps mitigate that cost. But if you're just a small brewery who wants to go over, pour that beer, you're doing it. So you can say you poured beer at GABF and that's it, you're not making any money on it. [00:24:23] Speaker B: And as times get harder for breweries across the board, there's less perceived value there. I mean, if you're still trying to make a name for yourself as a powerhouse of hazy's or barrel age stuff, maybe it's required, but that's a hard. [00:24:40] Speaker A: But the thing is, you can still enter the competition without pouring at the festival. [00:24:47] Speaker B: Well, entering the competition, I should think there'd be some value to actually getting it into people's hands versus just winning the beer. Competition is good, too. Ideally, you're doing both, but. [00:25:07] Speaker A: If it comes down, you're going to submit beers and not go over. If it comes down, you have to pick. You're going to submit beers and not go over. [00:25:19] Speaker B: Fair. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Just skipping it altogether. [00:25:27] Speaker B: As I understand, even entering beers is not cheap. [00:25:30] Speaker A: No. And you're maxed out at five beers. [00:25:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:36] Speaker A: Where other beer festivals, like Naba, you can enter as many as you. So, Jeremy, what do we got next? [00:25:48] Speaker B: Putin is trying to steal beer. News. Now, a lot of times when you've got a project that's going terribly, you find yourself very quickly realigning your goals. Back when I was building my own computers, and I remember distinctly trying to install upgrades at least once and it going very poorly, I found myself basically saying, putting old components back in, saying, if I can just get the bastard to boot up again, I'll be happy. And that's basically where Vladimir Putin finds himself at this point in time, but with whole nation states, not just a shittily built computer. [00:26:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say for him, he's like, Fuck, I might come home and find my suicide note. You're like, Fuck, I might actually have to go buy an actual computer. Now. [00:26:40] Speaker B: I did actually end up buying that, and that's where I find myself today. This is from Reuters, dated November 1 by Jacob Gronhold. So rather than seizing Ukraine, vladimir Putin, or the funky Vladiput, as they used to call him in the KGB, tried to content himself with seizing a brewery. Carlsberg, the formerly self proclaimed best beer ever until April of 2019. We actually covered this story way back in episode three when they finally admitted to themselves and the rest of us that their swill was a bit shit. Do you remember that? [00:27:21] Speaker A: Yep. Maybe not the best beer in the world. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Well, like a lot of businesses in Europe prior to the Ukraine, kerfuffle, they did business in Russia, and in fact, Karlsberg owned the top Russian brand Baltica. Since Pooty Fluff fluff went and got naughty on us, they've been trying to sell their stake in the company. And bloody good luck there. If you think that trying to sell a brewery in America is a bit of a challenge, try one nestled deep in Satan's frigid butthole in the middle of a war. The Russian government did make them an offer for Baltica, but Carlsburg declined. [00:28:10] Speaker A: Because you can't really take that money. [00:28:12] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, on account of the Russian government. [00:28:16] Speaker A: Like when your wife goes when you're like, hey, I want to go do this, and she's like, that's fine. Do what you want. I repeat, don't do what you want. [00:28:27] Speaker B: Danger, will Robinson. Danger. Do not. [00:28:33] Speaker A: At least Carlsburg had enough wherewithal to be like, yeah, we can't take that money. [00:28:43] Speaker B: Despite all of it, they did find a buyer in June, so Vlad did what any other reasonable person would do. He ordered his government to seize Carlsburg's stake in Russian breweries. Jacob Arup Anderson, the new CEO of Carlsburg, told Reuters, quote, there is no way around the fact they have just stolen our business in Russia, and we're not going to help them make that look legitimate. Carlsburg has eight breweries in Russia, about 8000 employees, and it does mean they're kind of stuck because they refuse to enter in any agreement in kind of the same spirit of not negotiating with terrorists. But it also means they really can't do anything with their assets. So last month, Carlsburg delivered, I think, the ultimate spanking that they could give to any nation. Are you ready for this? They came together and with a stern but firm hand, decided to end its licensing agreements for its brand in Russia. Yes. Previously, Baltica breweries were able to brew and sell Carlsburg, but no more. They've effectively removed a beer that last I had. Tastes a bit like rotting engine coolant. [00:30:08] Speaker A: They should have doubled production. [00:30:12] Speaker B: I think I mentioned this back in episode three. It's one of the few beers where I've ordered at a tap room and sent back I ordered it I think it was at like it was like the yard house because they have it on draft there because they don't know any better. [00:30:31] Speaker A: Hold on. That just reminded me of something I witnessed today. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Oh, that? [00:30:35] Speaker A: I'm sitting at a bar during my workday, talking to the bartender, and the server comes up and goes, hey, those ladies over there said this Bud Light pictures too potent and wanted to send it back because, and I quote, she's a diehard Bud Light drinker, and that just tastes way too potent. So can she switch to coors light? [00:31:04] Speaker B: Okay. Did they accidentally pour her a Budweiser? [00:31:11] Speaker A: No budweiser on tap. Just only Bud Light. So he's like, what the fuck? He pours a little splash out of the pitcher, takes a sip, pours a little splash off the tap, takes a sip, goes, tastes like Bud Light. Just get her a picture of Coors Light. Here you go. [00:31:39] Speaker B: Bit like watery shame. There you go. [00:31:42] Speaker A: Well, he's, like, too potent. What the fuck do you want me to like? I was like, you could take the little soda gun and just hit soda water and top up that picture, and it'll still be carbonated and just as watery. [00:31:59] Speaker B: I mean, Cores Light is famously even has less flavor than even Bud Light. We use it for off flavors. Off flavors. Well, that because Budweiser has an off flavor. I can drink a Bud Light. I can choke one of those down. Carlsburg, I had that. I'm like, this is wrong. And I went ahead and just flagged him along, like, I'm sorry, I'll pay for it, but can you get me something else? This is legitimately awful. And my friend tried it, too. He was like, oh, my God, that's bad. And I think we've just kind of assumed it was something wrong with the lines. Until my friend I think he sent me a text. He saw it at a grocery store, so he picked one up and opened it at home, and he said, no, just as bad as can. Just as fucking bad. It wasn't their fault. This is how the beer tastes. My point is that terrible beer is now unavailable in Russia. That'll show them. I think you guys have it all wrong. I don't know what Russian beer is like. I've never had a Baltica. I don't imagine it's great, but given how much Russians drink in general, it's probably fine boozy. And, yeah, not as bad as Carlsburg. So obviously what we need to do is make Carlsburg the only beer available in Russia. Fuck that. No, the only booze available in Russia. If you could cut these motherfuckers off from their vodka and make the only thing there is to drink Carlsburg beer, that population would be running into a major problem. They have their national would be found. [00:33:51] Speaker A: Hanging from a doorway. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Their national urge to get positively shithoused would run headlong into the human urge to not drink something that tastes like well, the can that it came in makes the can seem more appetizing by comparison. You're right. Putin would lose control in, like, a month. [00:34:11] Speaker A: And would it ain't making it a month. It'd be like a week and a half. [00:34:17] Speaker B: He's not making it out of the palace, actually. The Russian population sober. That's how revolutions start. [00:34:27] Speaker A: Be like the Irish man. [00:34:30] Speaker B: Seriously, that would be the end of. [00:34:36] Speaker A: Would. [00:34:36] Speaker B: I think we could end so many conflicts with that. [00:34:40] Speaker A: Carlsburg gets a fucking Nobel Peace Prize. [00:34:44] Speaker B: Probably not the best beer, but one that inspires world peace through its awfulness. Unless Russian beer is worse than I think, I honestly don't know. But I do know that Carlsburg is pretty awful. So do your patriotic duty, Carlsburg. Flood the market. [00:35:05] Speaker A: We can't even give it away. [00:35:08] Speaker B: Listen, I know it seems bad making money off this, but in this instance, I'd go ahead and just, say, flood the market. Or maybe that's or is that considered a war crime? Is that considering punishing the civilian population? Maybe I have this all wrong. Maybe there's something in the population is. [00:35:32] Speaker A: Like, you should have just carpet bombed us. [00:35:34] Speaker B: Maybe I got this wrong. This might violate the Geneva Convention or something. I'll look it up. Tyler, what do you have next? [00:35:44] Speaker A: Well, we're going to talk about how Miller Coors accidentally made PBR, the beer of hipsters everywhere. [00:35:53] Speaker B: I always wondered how that happened, because for me, it was shortly after college and I had hipster friends. I'm not proud of it. They were just there and they were all drinking Papst, and I couldn't figure it out, what was happening. [00:36:15] Speaker A: So we got to go back to before the early Aughts when PBR was a struggling company. So before PBR started to make its comeback in the early 2000s, it was basically circle in the drain. At its peak in 1978, paps was cranking out roughly 23 million barrels of beer a year. By 2001, sales had bottomed out at 872,000 barrels of beer a year. Still a massive number, but nowhere near that's. [00:37:00] Speaker B: Much less. [00:37:02] Speaker A: Yes, about a decade prior, the owner, Paul Lamanovitz, had passed away and left the keys and ownership of the brewery, too. Jeremy, would you like to. [00:37:22] Speaker B: Is? Since you're asking me to guess, I should probably know who it is, but I have no fucking idea. [00:37:28] Speaker A: His pets. [00:37:31] Speaker B: Okay. I wasn't expecting that. His pets? A dog owned Papst for a minute. [00:37:38] Speaker A: I don't know if it was dogs or cats. The article didn't specify. It just said pets. [00:37:45] Speaker B: Could a lizard have own a partial steak in Papst? [00:37:51] Speaker A: Yep. So technically, the company then fell into a charitable trust that was legally obligated to try to sell the brewery every five years. But because PBR was struggling so much, no one wanted to buy it. [00:38:10] Speaker B: Not only does your dog own a brewery, he owns a shitty, shitty brewery. [00:38:17] Speaker A: That no one wants to pay money for. All these major brands just missed out on buying this. So in about 2000, Miller started to take on the contract of brewing for Paps. But Paps didn't have enough money to pay Miller Coors. So to sweeten the deal, paps gave Miller a handful of brands, including Mickey's Malt Liquor and Blitz Beer. [00:38:56] Speaker B: That sweetens the deal. [00:39:00] Speaker A: So once they got their hands on the Blitz portfolio, it killed the Blitzbeer brand. [00:39:11] Speaker B: I don't remember. Blitz beer. What is blitzbeer? Is that relevant? [00:39:17] Speaker A: It is. It'll be a little more relevant. Blitz Beer's sister Beer is Henry Weinhardt's Private Reserve, which Hot Valley, owned by Molson Cores, still brews to this. [00:39:32] Speaker B: Not, I think, still brews to this day is a bit of a misnomer. They are now brewing it because it was no. Longer available for. [00:39:39] Speaker A: Started brewing it again a couple of years ago. [00:39:42] Speaker B: Right. I've never heard of Blitz Beer though. [00:39:46] Speaker A: I had neither. [00:39:49] Speaker B: Good. The encyclopedia. Shitty beer. Didn't hear about it either. So it's not just me. [00:39:53] Speaker A: Yeah, but shortly after this all went down, PBR started to notice their numbers were still declining in every part of the country except Portland, of course. [00:40:08] Speaker B: Fucking Portland. [00:40:10] Speaker A: So HAPS got curious and took their Portland. [00:40:19] Speaker B: You are the worst, best city ever. [00:40:22] Speaker A: Their former marketer, Neil Stewart, put him on a plane and kicked him off to Portland that said to go figure what the fuck's going on. So he landed Portland, reaches out to. [00:40:36] Speaker B: A picture of his feet on the tarmac, as they were want to do back in those days. [00:40:42] Speaker A: And the local distributors were like, oh, you need to go to Lutz Tavern. You'll figure everything out. It's a dive bar in Southeast Portland's Woodstock neighborhood, which opened in 1947, and it's a stone throw away from Reed College, which was apparently in the early two thousand s, the crown jewel of granola liberal arts schools. [00:41:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds about right, given its. [00:41:14] Speaker A: Near proximity to a college campus and their clients not having a lot of money. Its top seller for years was dollar cans of Blitz Beer. So when Miller Cores discontinued Blitz, the bar managers went to the distributors and said, hey, we need a light shitty beer that we can get in the can and sell it for a dollar. Like, what's around this same price? Well, the beer that the distributors brought up was Paps Blue Ribbon, and they said there were absolute scorching deals on cases of PBR and kegs, said Lane Martin, a former manager in 2015. In an interview with the Willamete Week, he said, we were one of the few outlets in Portland that sold kegs to Go, so we could sell them at a really good deal. We started the PBR dollar can special. We are going through hundreds of cases and dozens of kegs a week of PBR was it long before other places nearby started to notice. And the Delta Cafe down the street started doing similar PBR specials, sending PBR cans into the hands of people, buying American Spirit cigarettes, growing their handlebar mustache. And it just started that slow trend taking off in the Pacific Northwest, eventually nationwide, that PBR is a hipster beer. [00:42:58] Speaker B: It had reached Eugene by the time I was in college. I couldn't figure out why you talk about this story. I'm now flashing back because I'm like all the little dive bars near campus all had dollar or $2 specials on PBR and just PBR. And I never really thought about it until just this moment. To be fair, the reason I ever drank it in college and the reason I have sort of an affinity for it now. Although, as we did the blind taste test, maybe it's because I drank so much of it in college that I just prefer. But we both picked Paps is what our number? That was our number one, wasn't it? [00:43:44] Speaker A: I can't remember. [00:43:46] Speaker B: I think Paps was our number one because I was proud of that. I'm like, okay, Paps, I'm okay with that. Our number two is what made me ashamed of ourselves. [00:43:54] Speaker A: Natty ice, baby. [00:43:55] Speaker B: That was natty ice. I'm still not okay. [00:43:58] Speaker A: And number three was so let's Tavern has its claim to fame of being known as the bar that got a generation hooked on PBR. They said Blitz never really took hold with the young kids quite like PBR did, and they partially attribute that to apparently, PAP's Portland rep overspent his sales budget nearly five times over by giving Paps neon signs to every single bar that stocked the beer. It's old school Americana packaging, but it was basically the perfect storm to save a failing company and make handlebar, mustache wearing, hipsters everywhere delight. [00:44:54] Speaker B: That was part of the draw, you got to remember, is the fact that it was dad beer at the time, probably much like Blitz, because the Hipsters, they never did anything authentically. Everything they did was ironic. They wore T shirts, flannels and T shirts with logos of things that they would never use. And they drank beer that their dads would have drank, because it's ironic in Alanis Morissette sense of the word, in which case no one really knows what that word means. But that's what they said. [00:45:33] Speaker A: But I had always wondered how PBR became the fucking Hipster beer, and now I know. It's because fucking Portland Miller Cores butt fumbled it in Portland. [00:45:51] Speaker B: Fucking Portland. [00:45:53] Speaker A: All they had to do was buy Paps Brewing from a dog, and they could have had it all. [00:46:00] Speaker B: To we, they're just an amalgamation of pets. There's probably some dogs, some cats. How do you think they made out in the deal? Is there a millionaire dog now? [00:46:15] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:46:16] Speaker B: Probably they're all dead. This has been assuming by now, but they die rich. I don't know. [00:46:27] Speaker A: I'm I'm looking up to see if I can find who anything on what pets. [00:46:39] Speaker B: What you're while you're looking that up, I guess I shall sing a song about the dog that owned Papst. There was a dog. He owned papst. [00:46:53] Speaker A: How about you tell us about the next article, and if I find anything. [00:47:02] Speaker B: I like how you went ahead, like, no, I'm not letting you improvise. How about I do, like, a freestyle rap about it? Would that be better? I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to embarrass myself or offend anybody on that level. Imports aren't imported news. Now, we talked last week about some of the struggles that American importers have abroad, particularly in Europe, and we will cycle back to that a little bit. But the landscape is changing for those importing to the US. As well. As you can probably guess, if you pay any attention to the beer news. And if you don't, well, welcome to your first episode of It's All Beer, where we talk about beer news. Or maybe you're a longtime listener, you just use our voices as white noise at bedtime. Although I fear the person that finds Tyler's loud, angry rants about slushy beers soothing. [00:47:55] Speaker A: Yeah, right. You got some motherfucking problems. [00:47:59] Speaker B: If that's what pushes listen, do what you got to do, but if that's what puts you to sleep, seek therapy. Anywho, this comes from a vine pair article by Joshua Bernstein. Last year. We covered this. Seppordo bought Stone Brewing, and this was after they purchased Anchor, which is not known for their production of lagers. We did a whole episode on that, but bottom line, Sephora wanted a brewery that could make lagers. They got one. And this summer, along with the usual lineup of IPAs and delicious IPA, and the not So Delicious IPA, and the Tangerine Express and all the other things that you come to know at Stone Brewing, there was a, quote, experimental pale lager. Oh, what? Oh, what could that be? He wondered quietly to himself. It's going to be a bit of a twist. It turns out that the lager was sapporo. And in another twist, and one that's actually slightly unbelievable, people were really drinking it down. It was successful enough and people were coming in for that beer enough that the brewery dropped all pretense and put it right on the board. Yes, that is supporto lager brewed right here at Stone Brewing. And according to reports, it's off and on been their best top three selling beers in the brewery. [00:49:27] Speaker A: What the fuck? [00:49:29] Speaker B: Now, the article points out this is part of a larger migration. It almost is in a contrast what we talked about last week, and it reflects kind of different starting points with a different dynamic between American beer culture and the one abroad. Not so long ago, before craft beer upended the entire landscape, import beer represented the premium experience and its origins matter. The article points to a 1977 lawsuit between Anheuser Bush and Miller because apparently they were tussling over advertising for nearly half a decade. I did not know this fuck. [00:50:14] Speaker A: We could have been doing this podcast so long ago. [00:50:18] Speaker B: They were at each other's throats in the 70s over this shit. At the time, Miller owned Lombra and it was brewing in the United States, while implying that was coming from Germany. And Anheuser Bush, I nearly said ABNBEV, but no, it's Anheuser Bush called them on it. Guinness, you might remember, faced a similar lawsuit a few years back wherein they had to pay $5 to everyone involved in that lawsuit. [00:50:47] Speaker A: Enough to almost kona had that happen too. [00:50:51] Speaker B: Similar, but not the same. I mean, they weren't claiming it was brewed in another country, but same idea. [00:50:57] Speaker A: Claimed it was brewed in Hawaii when it wasn't. [00:51:04] Speaker B: At the time, Guinness was brewed in Canada, although, ironically, by the time the lawsuit ended, Guinness was being brewed back in Ireland. So times has changed and distance has become a bit of a liability for a couple of reasons. First is the obvious one. We talked about it yesterday. Shipping beer is fucking expensive. And while there was a time when consumers could justify the higher price point with higher quality, that's no longer the case. Craft beer came along and did their thing. And so now there's no shortage of quality beers that don't have to sit on a boat for a month. And then there's one other thing. American tastes have grown more sophisticated in the interim and now they can recognize the detriment to a beer sitting around for too long. And a long boat ride doesn't do that any favors. [00:52:02] Speaker A: No. [00:52:03] Speaker B: So by setting up shop and brewing beer in this country, they can not only make a fresher, higher quality product, but they can make quick pivots for local tastes, in a sense offering a similar craft experience with the backing of. [00:52:20] Speaker A: A larger also, wouldn't they be avoiding some tariffs? [00:52:27] Speaker B: Yes, that as well. Although that's an interesting point. It didn't actually mention the cost savings as far as tariffs. But yeah, I should think they would be avoiding some of them as well, although I'm not sure if it's produced in this country. Yes, I should think that that's not being not being imported technically, indeed. But where this is happening, which is interesting, is kind of at the craft level. The article points to a company called Beer to national, which helps arrange contract brewing deals between small American craft brewers and small brewers elsewhere in the world they hooked up. For example, hoppa's serves to Great South Bay Brewing in Bayshore, New Jersey. Hapas is out of Brazil and they talk about how they were able to quickly pivot at the local level. Hoppas has a wasabi infused pale ale, which all right to me. I've had a couple of jalapeno beers, pepper beers. Those are good for about one. But first of all, I don't think I've actually had actual wasabi. I've only had horseradish, but I can't eat it because that's all I taste. [00:54:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm curious. I would probably order one, but I don't know if I'd ever order another again. I'm like, I want to try this, but I don't think it's going to be good. [00:54:20] Speaker B: Their thing is to mix Brazilian and Japanese tradition and taste together in beer form. But the thing was that beer, apparently being one of their flagships in Brazil, in this country, just was not selling worth a damn. They worked with the brewery in the States, quickly changed what they were, quickly changed things, and started releasing an orange ginger whit beer that did a lot better. And they pointed out that if you're thinking about the supply chain for an import, you import a beer, it doesn't do well. It's really not possible to just suddenly go, okay, well, we're going to offer another beer for any number of reasons, not the least of which is okay. But your distributor in the United States is still stuck with cases and cases of a beer that nobody wants, that they already paid for, and are not likely to take a chance on another one. So the fact that they could just go, okay, that's not selling. Okay, well, how about we try brewing this beer? Tummer, an Austrian brewery that's been running it for over 400 years, recently opened a tap room in Berkeley, California. They were basically making and selling one beer, the Tremor Lager, which is an interesting choice to have a tap room with just one beer. Really? That's how they made it sound. I'm not sure what that tap room is like. [00:56:04] Speaker A: I'll take a beer. [00:56:05] Speaker B: Yes, you kind of go there. How would you like to be the fucking beer tender in that joint? The hipsters in Berkeley coming up. You got any IPAs? [00:56:19] Speaker A: You got any? Great one. Got a great one. Here you go. [00:56:25] Speaker B: No, we don't have any. [00:56:28] Speaker A: Who ordered a lager? Yeah, I know. That'll be 650, please. [00:56:34] Speaker B: Where's the menu? There is no menu. There's only one beer. Is it a hazy no, that's not a hazy. Please leave and take your beard with you. [00:56:44] Speaker A: You know what? Fuck it. Let's do it. [00:56:48] Speaker B: Although Montucky's made it. I don't know. Does Montucky have a tap room? [00:56:52] Speaker A: I don't think so. They're contract brewed. I don't think they have a tasting room in Montana. [00:56:57] Speaker B: That makes sense. [00:56:59] Speaker A: And I feel they're, like, dying off kind of hard. [00:57:03] Speaker B: Is that you're? I haven't seen them around as much. I hadn't thought too much about them. [00:57:11] Speaker A: And I was talking to someone when I was up in Montana last, and they're like, yeah, it's kind of dying out up here, too. [00:57:19] Speaker B: That sort of makes sense. It was kind of like, oh, yeah, we make a really good lager. Well, you make an acceptable lager. We forgot to include it in our shitty beer tour. But I think when we tested it later, like, OOH, this would have been like, middle or back. [00:57:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:35] Speaker B: Anywho, we're getting off into Louise again. They pivoted and they got themselves a little pilot system, started making a wide range of more traditional offerings. Schwartz beers, Keller beers, other traditional lagers. No fucking hazy's. All right. The Lars Larson, the Viking celebrity. And turns out the brewer at this particular brewery mentioned that they stick very close to their traditional roots, and that means no fucking Hazy or double IPAs or anything like that. So the Hayes Bros. Are out of luck at this one, but nice traditional mix of old and new. The article did mention this, and I didn't know this. Back in 2018, Guinness opened their Baltimore brewery, but it actually closed this year. Yeah, I must have missed that. [00:58:35] Speaker A: I think we hit that real quick one day before we went on summer break. [00:58:41] Speaker B: That actually might be something I did listen. I don't listen when I talk and I don't think you do either and that's probably for the best. I'll have to go back and listen to our own podcast. I can't remember why that was, but I'm guessing it was a lot of money and a lot of money going out and not a lot of money coming back. [00:59:03] Speaker A: Or we talked about doing it, but there wasn't enough meat on it at the time and so we just skipped it. [00:59:11] Speaker B: Little peek behind the curtain, what goes on here, especially when we're tired at quarter after ten and trying to record it. Does mention that as well that a host of American breweries have been using the same tactics that break into the European market. Outer Range, for example, opened a tap room in Salanches, France. I'm going to go ahead and say, I'm going to guess that's how you pronounce that town. And if it's not correct, fuck you, you're in France. You can send an email to it's all beer, French frog, it's [email protected] with a pronunciation guide. And you know what? Now it's slenches. All right. We of course, talked about the barriers of getting of an American breweries getting over into the European market last week and actually going there to open a brewery is a kind of a way around that, but it's definitely not an easy solution. Outer Range talked of the problems they had. A plumber that just up and disappeared, a coffee roaster that caught on fire. Their co founder Emily Cleghorn was quoted the article saying, quote, like any small mountain town, it's hard to find contractors who can meet your to and trying to coordinate that from another country. Presumably. [01:00:45] Speaker A: If you're going to try to open another brewery in another country, at least have the goddamn common courtesy to go over there for a couple of months while shit's getting done. [01:00:55] Speaker B: She might have, I'm not really sure. But either way also, I think trying to get the French people to do anything constructive is a challenge impossible. And I know a couple of French people who actually live here. I think they would back me up on that. I think they have enough self realization about their national culture to be like, yeah, they're not going to do shit. [01:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:23] Speaker B: Of course the big question that was posed in the article that came up that is that, well, if an import is being made right here, is it really an import anymore? Kind of going back to the lombra kerfuffle, as it were, is it really imported if it's being made in the United States? And for me, I'm just going to leave that up for the philosophers to decide. [01:01:51] Speaker A: Fuck it, it's all beer. [01:01:53] Speaker B: Listen, it's an import brand that's brewed in America. Make peace with this. And they're usually pretty good. I think they're kind of like the American imports in Europe. They are a purchase for a special occasion or a special experience, but almost in reverse. I think down here there will always be a place for the hard to find European brews just because a lot of them are kind of a revisit to the original inspiration for what made all of this wonder and glory that you see among us possible now. People running down to their local bottle shops grabbing get the mouth for fucking. [01:02:44] Speaker A: Beer that's going to explode on their way home because we're fucking bunch of dumb fucking hype happy, stupid motherfuckers. [01:02:56] Speaker B: If you can fall asleep to that, please let us know because that's actually kind of impressive. And also, thank you for sneaking in one rant about slushy sours into this. [01:03:09] Speaker A: You're welcome. [01:03:11] Speaker B: Tyler, do you have anything else for us today? That is it for one. I have one really quick thing I wanted to hit. I found this article in Quench magazine. I don't want to go into it except for the fact that the whole article was about what we've talked about before, like the great learning curve of the beer geek. Like, you start off there's a whole article that kind of backs all this up, where you kind of get your entry into like, oh, you got like someone says, well, try this Amber Ale or try this Porter or try this IPA. Like, oh, these are pretty good. And you get deeper and deeper and some wag hands you a barrel aged beer. Like, oh my God, I want nothing else now. And you spend all your money on tavor and drinking only things that are like 15% that had to be shipped from at least 500 miles. Maxing out. [01:04:17] Speaker A: I'll suck your dick for a divorce shipment. [01:04:21] Speaker B: Maxing out. When you finally get like when you realize you've spent $100 on fucking blessed and then you stagger into your nearest tap room, look, bleary eyes lit. Go, fuck got like a logger. Yeah. [01:04:43] Speaker A: Lightest thing you got. [01:04:46] Speaker B: I guess what I'm saying is again, I guess I'm saying is there is validity to our bullshit, or at least other people see it too. And this has been it's all beer. If you are from France or actually do find Tyler's weird rants comforting, you can let us know. You can find us on Facebook or on Instagram, where I post occasional. You can go there and see. [01:05:22] Speaker A: The. [01:05:22] Speaker B: Photo essay that I posted there of Tyler's experience drinking the Hard Mountain Dew. [01:05:29] Speaker A: It was not fun, which you can. [01:05:34] Speaker B: I think that photo essay kind of covers the whole thing. It really was. Yeah, it hit the this my favorite part was the two frames of you taking a drink. And then there was the third one of this kind of realization, like, oh my God, that's in my mouth. And then just like masks of horror afterwards so you can go my body. [01:06:02] Speaker A: Was like, do we abort mission? Like, what do we do? [01:06:07] Speaker B: Reverse gears? What's happening? Now. You can go see that on our Instagram or Facebook page. You can send us an email, it's allbirretgmail.com. If you want to, I don't know, send us some caffeine, because I'm feeling this was kind of a maybe it's just me. I'm kind of like, I can't wait for this to be over. And hey, it is. So let's just end this motherfucker. I'm Jeremy Jones. [01:06:39] Speaker A: I'm Kylie Merman. [01:06:40] Speaker B: I'm going to have a beer. [01:06:42] Speaker A: Have fun. [01:06:43] Speaker B: I'm not going to have a beer. I'm going to sleep.