Lagunitas Buys Dr. Bronner's Soap Company

The last few years have seen explosive growth for beloved California brewer Lagunitas.  This Beerpulse article says production increased by 50% from 2011 to 2012, after a 56% jump in sales the previous year; Lagunitas owner Tony Magee noted on Twitter that January's sales were up 72% from the previous year.  All that growth is before the company's new production facility in Chicago has even been finished.

Now the eccentric beer company is branching out in a completely unexpected direction by acquiring Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, the iconoclastic family-run company that produces the Dr. Bronner's line of soaps that have long been a favorite of campers and hippies everywhere.  As a kind of intramural collaboration/consummation, Lagunitas is paying homage to Dr. Bronner's famous peppermint liquid soap by brewing a special amber ale called 18-in-1 Hemp Peppermint Pure-Castile Ale -- yes, dry-hopped with fresh peppermint.  That's the same name as the soap, except for "ale" of course, and the label lovingly imitates Dr. Bronner's jumbled spiritual exhortations -- which are not all that different from some of the rambling musings on Lagunitas bottles and six-pack holders, come to think of it.  Click on the image to enlarge it and see if you can find the beer-specific verses that have been added to the ale label.

Apart from similar styles of prose, products known as "suds", nonconformist founders, and a shared interest in hemp products, what could possibly have brought these two companies together?  Apparently some of the current generation of Bronner soapmakers wanted to add a hop-infused soap to their product line, and being fans of Lagunitas beers, reached out to the brewers in Petaluma for advice on hop-oil extraction and handling.  A kind of mutual admiration developed, and since absolute cleanliness is 99% of brewing success, Lagunitas popped the question of corporate matrimony.  Dr. Bronner's will keep its name as a wholly-owned subsidiary, and the current management of the soap company will stay on board.  The deep pockets of Lagunitas will help the soapmakers enter into new markets and finance new product development, such as the hop soap mentioned above.

Given the rapid growth of Lagunitas, you could also imagine that Dr. Bronner's location in Southern California was attractive to the brewer.  Once they wrap up the Midwest with their new Chicago brewery, perhaps they'll use their soap factory as a stepping stone towards building a San Diego brewing facility.

I haven't particularly cared for the few mint beers I've tried to date, though I do have a soft spot for peppermint.  As a longtime fan of both Dr. Bronner's and Lagunitas, I am really looking forward to trying the 18-in-1.  Let me know if you try it, and don't forget -- in the immortal words of Dr. Bronner -- KEEP OUT OF EYE!  OK!

(Thanks to @MoralABC for the image.)

Beer Licensing Agreements

In college we used to say, "You don't buy beer, you rent it".  That statement may become more true than ever if a trend that started with some well-known California brewers catches on.  To fight against the black market in rare beers, Stone Brewing Co. has announced it will stop selling its limited release beers, and start licensing them instead, in the same way that computer software is licensed and not sold.  [Editor's note: At Stone's request, I would like to point out that this post is an April Fool's gag.  The folks at Stone enjoyed it on April 1, but the joke wore thin as they continued to get complaints about the new policy from readers who thought it was true.  For maximum effect, be sure to click on the "Stone's BEULA" link below.]

It sounds very peculiar at first, but it is a logical extension of brewers' efforts to prevent unscrupulous scalpers from making obscene profits re-selling highly prized beers.  Several prominent brewers have been vocal about their opposition to beer auctions on Ebay for quite some time.  Lost Abbey's Tomme Arthur penned an article called *&^% Ebay about four years ago, and last year an article in the Washington Post interviewed several brewers about the problem.  Stone's founder Greg Koch was quoted in that article as saying "We have involuntarily been a part of the eBay aftermarket for many years".  Since then, Stone and Lost Abbey have hit on a clever solution to the problem.  Henceforth, their rare beers will be subject to End User License Agreements, similar to those you might be familiar with if you use computer software from companies like Microsoft or Apple.

The first beer of Stone's to be sold under a "Beer End User License Agreement" -- BEULA for short -- is a rich and flavorful triple IPA along the lines of Russian River's vaunted Pliny the Younger, aptly named "Not For Sale Ale".  Whereas the back of a typical Stone bomber is adorned with several paragraphs of whimsically rambling boasts, NFSA's bottle (click on the picture for a closer look) is embossed with a dense legal contract that stipulates -- among other things -- that purchasers "may not lend, sell, auction, redistribute or sublicense" the beer, and that the beer may not be used in "the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons".  Click here for the full text of Stone's BEULA.

As a fan of good beer, I have inveighed against Ebay beer scalpers for quite awhile -- I even auctioned an empty Abyss bottle once to demonstrate what a joke it is for beer auctioneers to skirt Ebay's rules by claiming that the bottle itself is what's valuable, not the beer inside.  Even so, I confess that I'm a little uncomfortable with treating beer as intellectual property in this way.  Aside from the essentially coercive nature of EULAs and BEULAs, the legalese in the contract goes against the convivial spirit of the beer world.  There is also the practical question of how to enforce a BEULA, though I suspect that having the prohibition printed right on the bottle might finally convince Ebay to be more proactive about shutting down beer auctions.

Several more California brewers are rumored to be working with lawyers to prepare BEULAs for future releases, starting with the next offering for Lost Abbey's Saints and Sinners club.  The Bruery and Russian River are likely to be the next breweries to follow suit -- the Bruery's license allegedly goes so far as to prohibit the use of its beers in so-called beer cocktails.  Russian River seems to be taking it a little more slowly -- supposedly they will try out their new BEULA on this year's bottling of Objectification, a lighter beer unlikely to attract much collector interest anyway.

What's your opinion?  Are beer license agreements a legitimate and reasonable way to combat beer profiteering?  Or are they an unwarranted intrusion into our enjoyment of quality fermented beverages?

Russian River Objectification

Last month there was a fair amount of chatter on Beervana, the New School, and even here about Ezra's racy label for Upright's cherry-infused Four Play.  A good number of people saw the label as objectifying women, which seemed to them to be a bad thing, and best left to macro brewers.  A quality small-batch brewer like Upright should stick to more elevating imagery.

In California -- where sexual mores have always been rather more expansive than elsewhere in the country -- I doubt the Four Play labels would have caused much of a stir, despite the sizable feminist population of that state.  As if to illustrate that point, the vaunted Russian River Brewing Co. has decided to make fun of macro lager advertising by giving the name "Objectification" to a new wood-aged session beer they will release this month.  The branding for RR's "-tion" beers doesn't allow the label art to go with the photographic realism of the Upright labels, but it does playfully highlight some parts of a woman's physique which male lager drinkers tend to value more highly than her elbows, her face, or intangibles like her personality or intelligence.

Here's the commercial description of the beer:

Objectification: Aged for 15 days on beechwood chips from the beech forests of Chico, California, this light, approachable beer brewed with rice adjuncts goes down like a power window on a hot day.  Whether you're mowing the lawn, fishing, water skiing -- or just sitting on the couch watching sports -- this is the Russian River lager that you've been waiting for.  Pairs well with hot dogs, potato chips, or hamburgers.
3.75%ABV / 1.001 O.G / 3 IBUs / 36-24-36

Before hitting upon Objectification, Vinnie and crew rejected some other possible "-tion" names for this beer:  Titillation, Fornication, Salivation, and a few others I won't mention.  Keep your eyes open, some of those names might come up on future releases.

Blast from the Past

When I was 7 years old, the big excitement was to bike over to the Quik Trip or the Git-N-Go to buy a pack of Topps Wacky Packages -- stickers that lampooned various national brands of consumer products. The baseball-card company sold these hilarious stickers with pink rectangles of their brittle, tasteless chewing gum. The bad attitude was right on the money for television-addled kids our age.

A couple months ago I found a picture book at Counter Media showing all seven series of Wacky Packages stickers published in 1973 and 1974. Turns out that the instigator of the Wacky Package project at Topps was Art Spiegelman, who went on to more intellectual glory as the author of the graphic novel Maus. In the preface to the Wacky Packages book, Spiegelman reveals that he recruited other comics authors to make up gags for the stickers, including Bill Griffith, the author of Zippy the Pinhead.

The only beer Wacky Package that came out in the 70s was the Blast Blew Ribbon sticker pictured here. Today it would be surprising if collectors cards for kids had even one joke about alcohol, but the reason I'm surprised there is only one is that there were no fewer than nineteen stickers mocking brands of cigarettes or cigars -- not to mention a breakfast cereal called Super Cigar Crisp, with a cartoon bear puffing away on the box. It looks like Topps has been selling Wacky Packages again the last few years, but I'll bet the alcohol and tobacco references are now taboo. The book does come with a Schmutz Beer sticker from back in the day that was never released, as well as a variant of the Blast Blew Ribbon one shown here.

It's one of the ironies of Portland that Pabst is so popular here. Do you suppose the sticker is correct, that the original flavor used to taste different?