Small Plates to Kick Off the Week
Sometimes interesting news breaks that isn’t meaty enough to warrant a full post. But when several of these tasty bites come in short order, perhaps we can make a meal of them. The biggie, which does actually contain a full meal, but requires some reporting first, is the news that Costco and Deschutes are breaking up. This is a principally a loss for Costco’s customers, because being able to buy an award-winning helles for barely more than a buck a can was easily the best deal in beer. And honestly, for that reason you knew it couldn’t last.
Shortly after the collab dropped, I grabbed some to see if it was some faded, supermarket version or Deschutes’ original beer. I could instantly identify the Weyermann pilsner malt on the nose, and sure enough, it was an exceptional beer of a kind I’m used to paying more than twice the price to enjoy. (I assumed Weyermann was only part of the grist, but nope, I later learned it constituted almost all the malt bill.) They were really selling an amazing beer at mass market lager pricing—or lower.
I don’t know why Costco decided to discontinue the beer, and that part of the story will certainly remain a mystery. But the experiment itself is incredibly fascinating, and I hope to have a richer story in the coming weeks. In the meantime, stock up, because it won’t be on shelves much longer.
Item 2: Beer is American. The Beer Institute commissioned Morning Consult, a well-regarded independent polling firm, to evaluate Americans’ attitudes about beer before the 4th of July. This finding, which is deeply silly, is also important:
“Nearly two-thirds (64%) of adults age 21 and older consider beer part of American tradition, while 63% say beer is as American as apple pie… More than half of adults (55%) selected beer as the drink that feels most American, surpassing soda (47%), iced tea (43%), lemonade (33%), liquor (17%) and wine (14%).”
Beer is not American. People have only been making it in this patch of North America a few hundred years; a blip in beer’s 10,000-year run. But culture is funny that way. Brits think tea and curry are quintessentially British, too. It’s an important finding because it suggests there’s still a huge amount of goodwill the industry can tap into if Americans think beer is quintessentially American.
Item 3: CO2 recapture on the cheap. This is a British thing, but I would love to see it hop the pond. It’s an amazing idea, and it will both lower costs and reduce the beer industry’s carbon footprint:
“A zero-upfront-cost subscription model designed to stop independent drinks producers from wasting their own fermentation gas, creating a brand-new local recycling network that cuts bills from day one, has been launched.” (Brewers Journal)
The company, Kent-based Cork and Capture, installs the equipment and charges a fee to the brewery for the CO2. The company claims it will deliver onsite gas to breweries at a cheaper price than they’re paying now—without, of course, the interruptions and periodic price shocks that have lately been a problem in the CO2 supply chain. As the kids say, huge if true.