The Session #67: How many breweries in 2017?

My buddy Derrick Peterman over at Ramblings of a Beer Runner hosts this month's The Session. Man it's been awhile since I've joined the fray. Derek opens:

There's been much cheering and fanfare reverberating throughout the brewing community about the latest brewery numbers recently released from the Brewer's Association, who counted exactly 2,126 breweries in the United States.

The theme he suggests us beer bloggers blog about is:

Where is it all going? The growth shows no sign of stopping and the biggest problem most breweries have is that they can't brew beer fast enough. But can the market really absorb all these new breweries?...Tell us how many breweries the Brewer's Association will count five years from now in 2017, and why you think it will be that number.

Answer: 5,001.

Oh, I should extrapolate? Well, it's like this. Yes, there are well over 2,000 breweries already. The Brewers Association further purports that there are over 1,600 BIP (breweries in planning)! True, not all of them will brew in the light of day (and to be sure we will see a huge bump in the number of failed/shuttered brewing concerns, but it will long be outpaced by new and succeeding ones). But blink and the number of brewery-opening hopefuls has already risen, so let's just say that by early 2014 when all their i's are dotted and they've navigated the alphabet soup of ABCs and TTBs, etc, there will be nearly 4,000.

"Impossible!" you say? Why? A recent Gallup poll concluded that Americans prefer beer to wine 39% to 35%. So it stands that there should be 4% more breweries than wineries, right?! (Hey, I'm a wordsmith, not a mathematician.) OK, but really, my point is that it'd be logical that since more Americans prefer beer to wine, there should be more breweries. Or at least the same amount. Fine, how about at least HALF as many!? But no, as it stands today, there are 7,626 bonded wineries in the USA. That's fewer than 28% as many licensed breweries as bonded wineries.

So where are the remaining 2,875 breweries going to come from that I'm predicting will open by 2017?

Tiny, nano, pico, "boutique," retirement-plan, post-law-career, I've-always-loved-homebrewing-and-all-my-friends-said-I-should-go-pro breweries. One of the biggest arguments against the success of more packaging breweries is that shelf space remains finite. So clearly we cannot have nearly 3,000 new "regional" breweries concocting over 15,000 barrels apiece. But people love supporting local and that's just not a fad or trend that will dissipate. Once people get a taste for serious, flavorful, characterful beer, they do not revert back to the industrial, commoditized swill. And if my hometown of Portland can support 50 breweries--yes, 50 breweries in a city with just over 1/2 a million folks--then so can other progressive towns. And if littler hamlets such as Asheville, Bend, and Grand Rapids can support over a dozen breweries, then who's to say many more with less than a 1/4 million residents can't do the same?

Craft beer consumers are savvier than they've ever been. The mid-90s bust needed to happen; too many bogus breweries needed to have bullshit called upon them. But now, there's a more knowledgable and talented pool of prospective brewers/brewmasters. The AHA estimates that there are a million homebrewers in this country. I'm one of them and I have zero aspirations of going pro. But if only 0.002875% of them do seriously plan on making an avocation their vocation, then welcome to a world with over 5,000 breweries.

3rd Annual SF Beer Week "Beer Run" photo redux

The 3rd Annual Beer Run was a whopping success. I even ran 99% of the 5-mile course despite figuring I'd take the point-A-to-point-B-back-to-point-A 5k course. Yep, I earned that post run beer. "Only one post run beer?" you ask. Well that speaks to what a rousing success it was, if I may put a li'l spin on it. The organizers, Ramblings of a Beer Runner's Derrick Peterman and The Brew Lounge's Bryan Kolesar, and myself, exceeded our expectations by drawing roughly 125 fellow beer runners. Despite its growing attraction, we hope to keep it casual (permit-free and not a logistical nightmare). Gotta love SFPD for having a cop on the force who, upon seeing the throng bolting down 9th Avenue and toward Golden Gate Park--some of whom donned costumes this year!!!--shouted, "Hey, where's the keg?!"

I'd planned on stopping at the "midway point," Magnolia Brewpub, for a light Kolsch this year, but even I didn't have the patience to wait in the line some 50-deep that our clique had created! I recall effortlessly ordering one of their Strong Beer Month offerings last year as one of maybe 8 people who'd stopped for a beer. This time, we caught Magnolia so off guard, they corralled the runners in an impromptu beergarden and have pledged to come up with a solution for the 4th Annual.

Sure hope Social Brewery steps up, too. Despite ample forewarning from Derrick to brewmaster Rich Higgins, management did not suitably provide sufficient staff (read: the same lone bartender as last year, who earned much respect for his hard work). This is probably the #1 reason Higgins has resigned his post. Still, the large crowd was perfectly friendly, fun, festive, and fermented by early afternoon. Thanks to the gregarious beer runners--many of whom aren't actual beer geeks and made this their only SF Beer Week event, we were told--as well as many generous sponsors who donated beer and running prizes for a new element added to the Beer Run, a fundraising raffle that raised hundreds of dollars for Autism Speaks and the Contra Costa Food Bank (the late Bill Brand's preferred local nonprofit).

Following this list of companies that donated prizes, check out some of the great photos from the event.

Widmer Bros (PDX)

Laurelwood (PDX)

Migration (PDX)

BridgePort (PDX)

Harpoon (Boston)

Ommegang/Duvel (NY/Belgium)

Philadelphia Brewing (Philly)

Dock Street (Philly)

Sly Fox (Philly area)

Troegs (PA)

Iron Hill (Del., PA, NJ)

Victory (Philly area)

Nike

Adventure Sports Journal

On the Run Shoes (SF, next to Social)

and of course Social Brewery & Kitchen

3rd Annual SF Beer Run, Feb 12

Another year, another SF Beer Week, another chance to "earn your beer." For the third time in four SFBWs, Derrick Peterman (Ramblings of a Beer Runner), Bryan Kolesar (The Brew Lounge), and I host the SF Beer Run!

The timing couldn't be better for me. A) I miss San Francisco. B) Putting on all that "sympathy weight" during Half Pint's pregnancy (It's a boy! More on the birth of Izzy Parker Yaeger, or I.P.Yae for short, soon) has rekindled my need to run more.

It's seriously a fun event. Meet at a brewery (Social Kitchen & Brewery). Run en masse through the east end of Golden Gate Park and the panhandle. Enjoy an optional beer at Magnolia (it's Strong Beer Month!). Run past the Flower Conservatory, some people throwing a Frisbee, and the swans at Stowe Lake in the park. Then dash back to Social for a beer. Bam, you just ran up to 5 miles. You've earned it.

I'd say don't take my word for it, but really, you should. If you don't, take Draft Magazine's Beer Runner's word for it (even if that's from last year's). Or, as I started, take my word for it:

That video was from the 1st annual, where we attracted some 9 beer runners. Last year we amassed well over 50. This year? We expect/would love to see a full hundy! To sweeten the pot, there's a fundraising raffle this year with tons of running gear and beer schwag to give away. Derrick laid out the details better:

When? Feb. 12th, 2012 at 11:00 am

Where? Run starts and ends at Social Kitchen and Brewery, 1326 9th Ave., SF.

How far? Approx. 5 miles. View the official course map. (Sorry, the course won't be marked.) If you get lost or 5 miles is a little beyond your ability, feel free to head back anyway you want to Social for the post run festivities.)

What are the post run festivites? Each finisher 21+ will get $1 off their post-run beer(s) at Social. But wait, there's also the post run raffle with lots of great prizes. The grand prize is a $50 gift certificate to Social Kitchen and Brewery. We'll be awarding other great prizes like "Earn Your Beer" T-shirts from Adventure Sports Journal, an East Coast Beer Basket from Bryan Kolesar, a PDX Beer Basket from Brian Yaeger, and more.

Money raised in the post run raffle will be denoted in memory of beer writer Bill Brand to the Contra Costa Food Bank and also to Autism Speaks.

Freelance update summer 2011

I think I meant to do these freelance updates more frequently. Oh well. But happily there's a lot of my stories out there.

Technophobe though I am, let's start with the online stuff. I always know it's my birthday when people start talking about it being the longest day of the year (OK, I was born 25 hours after summer solstice). That also marks the opening of Summer Beer Fest Season. Craftbeer.com now has my tips for a successful season. I hope you'll LIKE that.

Far from being a Beer Soup Nazi, I'd like to think of myself as a Beer Soup Fuzzy Squirrel, offering adorable little nuts and nuggets of my quantum thoughts about anything beery that get posted on All About Beer's Beer Soup. I'm pretty good about sharing these on the ol' Facebook and Twitter. It started in early May with my pitch for brewpubs building brand disloyalty, and thrice weekly there has been, and will be, something new. Some of the more fun (dare I say popular) ones have been on pairing beer with exes, whether or not consistency matters, beers with fruit, veggies, and carrot cake, and my current kick: bringing back 7 oz. nip bottles (pt 1 & 2 with 3 on Fri.)

All About Beer the magazine primarily has me on Beer Travelers duty with the most recent column inspired by Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. Covering beer roads less traveled, it's a guide to beer tripping through California's Lost Coast and North Carolina's Outer Banks (OBX). Being the over-writer than I am, there wasn't room to publish a third section on Michigan's Upper Peninsula (U.P.), so look for me to sneak that into a future column. They also let me do other fun stuff, most recently entailing a look at how breweries give birth to new beers.Beer West also has me on a beer travel kick penning tips for a beercation through NorCal, L.A., and San Diego (who'd rather be called TJ North than LA South, so I gathered at the recent Nat'l Homebrewers Conference down there last week).

Drink Me's story on the Oregon Ale Trail may sound travel-related, but it's really more of a fun, albeit truncated, spin through Oregon's contribution to the history of the brewing industry. Yes, of course I worked in a shout to the Oregon Trail brewery in Corvalis that I just happened to have popped into.

Draft has a feature called Beer Me on the last page wherein someone in the beer biz waxes and mashes poetic about what the industry offers them (or vice versa). Sometimes these are written by third parties. Like me. Following up a rather incendiary one about Yuri Green's new Cherry Voodoo in the San Francisco Bay Area, fans of "wild" beers should be keen to try Chad Yakobson's Crooked Stave in the Denver/Boulder area. Also in the new issue, drinking craft beer in Death Valley. Even crazier, when I stayed at Panamint Springs Resort (they use the word resort loosely), I visited the Indian Wells brewery just outside the park in the Mojave Desert. Here's a picture facing toward the brewery......and standing in the same spot looking in the other direction.

Ten-day SF Beer "Week" is too long

I love love love that I live in the best beer drinking region and that we have our own San Francisco Beer Week to put on a fancy show for the locals and diehard beer lovers who make the pilgrimage. But c'mon, ten days of balls-out beer bashes is a bit overboard.

At least I seem to recall it was.

Within a couple days, I was having a hard time remembering what I'd done and what beers I tasted a couple days earlier. I know I kicked things off with the opening gala which was a hoot. I remember Speakeasy Brewing bowled me over as the showstealer of the night with both their Zin-aged Payback Porter and bourbon-aged Scarface Stout.

I actually remember the Bistro's Double IPA Fest (only because I actually ran a half marathon early the next morning!) As a result of the run, Half Pint & I felt more than entitled to splurge at the Anchor beer lunch at Hopmonk Tavern. As always, a great meal and, as always, a treat to hear the godfather of craft brewing, Fritz Maytag, pontificate on craft beer and Anchor's role in establishing the rules of the game. Sitting in the warm beer garden alongside Joe Tucker and Mario Rubio from Ratebeer.com (and its blog the Hop Press), hearing Fritz spin his yarns while drinking Liberty Ale or Anchor Porter, well, it just made the Super Bowl viewing party that followed that much sweeter, as did the Saints' triumph. Geaux Saints.

I seem to recall moderating the first ever SFBW panel, which was on a favorite subject of mine, barrel-aged beers, but beyond that I can't recall much. Oh sure, I could post one of the dozen short videos that Half Pint shot using our new Flip videocam, but that would require me learning how to post a video and I'm too much a technophobe to do that. Besides, you should've bought a ticket and attended. In other words, attendance was light but that just meant more beer (and St. George Whiskey) for all of us. But yes, it was highly educational and the following nights' panels on technical brewing and pioneering/trailblazing brewers moderated by the Brewing Network's Justin Crossley are reported to have been equally exhilarating.

Speaking of barrel-aging, I seem to recall hitting Barrel Night--my favorite event from the inaugural SFBW--at Triple Rock.

Seriously, that was only Tuesday night. The whole "week" is a blur. And the Homebrew Chef Sean Paxton's 8-course (really 9-course) beer dinner didn't lighten the load any. It was a staggering accomplishment. It was tasty as all get-out. It was... a lot.

Good thing I went on another run that week. A beer run. Make that a Beer Run. Inspired by Bryan Kolesar from the Brew Lounge (who, alas, was snowed in in Philly and couldn't make it) and with help from Derrick Peterman, the Bay Area Beer Runner, we actually pulled it off, and all before the Toronado's Barleywine fest!

Watch this video.

All I know is, when it was over, I vowed to take a week off of beer. But who am I kidding. I haven't been able to take a single day off from having at least a single beer. Regardless, thank God it's not for another 51 weeks, and I'll be counting them down.