PLACING YOUR BEER IN THE RIGHT SPOT

So you start your company on a shoe string budget and you make your first and second batches of beer.  You go out and talk to a ton of stores, bars and restaurants and they agree to bring the product in based on how good your beer is.  They throw it on tap or on the shelves and your beer is proudly displayed for all to see.  But... how to get the consumer to say, “WOW! a new craft ale to try! I should grab one and see how it is.” and then to have them come back again to buy that same beer over and over.

There are beer enthusiasts and connoisseurs out there that seek out the special craft ale made by local breweries.  But then there are those that want only what they have always had and wont change.  That’s fine, this is not for them.  For you see that those who become comfortable with a particular product will always go for that product for fear of not liking the new guy on the block and therefore feel like they wasted their money.

I for one am one of those people only with food, not beer.  With food, I will go to a Chinese restaurant and always buy the same chicken fried rice as I always have or fettuccine alfredo from an Italian joint.  I know what I like to eat and when I go to a particular restaurant I already know what I want.  Easier to order that way too.  However I find these days that with such a great selection of craft beers on the menu I am often sitting there for 15 minutes trying to decide what to drink.  My food has already been served and I am still debating over 10 crafts that will go nicely with my meal.  But that’s just me.

Others that are the opposite of me and know the beer they will drink can walk into a store, go to the coolers, open the door and zero in on the brand they drink regularly.  Case in point, I was looking at the placement of the craft bombers in a store the other day and witnessed two guys walk in and open the door and went right for their beer of choice located on the bottom where I didn’t even see any beer, probably because I was fixated on the good beer in front of me.  They knew what they wanted before even entering the store. You could have put those beers in the back, under a tarp and they would have searched it out.

With the growing craft beer industry in Los Angeles I feel that store owners should take a look at this and consider that all craft beers need to be placed at eye level in front of the consumer to show them what is available to them.  Why would you hide something that you wish to sell?  Of course people will continue buying the major brands but that’s because you don’t offer them anything else.  If you came in and your choice of food was snails, frog legs or haggis would you just succumb to it and order one of those?  Or would you seek out something better to eat?  Would you look down below in the dark part of the cooler and find that cheeseburger?  What if that cheeseburger was poised next to the snails? Would you stop for a moment and say, “I’ve always eaten the snails because that’s all I was offered but today I want to try the cheeseburger”?

The thing of it is that if you want product to sell that doesn’t yet have the same name recognition that others may have, you have to put it where people can see it.  After all the investment made by the store should never be a loss but rather an opportunity to introduce something new and great to the public.  Even if all of us craft beer breweries are lumped together on one or more shelves at least the consumer has a chance to see what is available and not to just go for their “tried and true” selection.  Think of the cooler as a menu of sorts.  I may not always need a menu at my Chinese restaurant that I frequent but at times I will look and say, “wow that peking duck sound great!” but without the menu I would never have known it was there.

Support your local brewery, especially here in LA where we need to educate and propagate the culture here.  Sure if you are mowing the lawn and need something that isn’t going to taste great but still get your head spinning then go for the 40 oz yellow beer but take a look at the coolers next time you are near one and study the craft sections.  We are brewing for you, making beer we know you’ll like.  We don’t use massive computers to brew the beer with the touch of one button.  We add the grain by hand, stir with a long paddle, sample the wort, shovel the spent grain and we love and nurture our beer all the way through fermentation.  We love what we do!  It’s not just a business, it’s our life!  Demand more from your storekeepers and insist on better beer.  Why dumb yourself down to having only what they think you want, what “sells”.  Show them you deserve better, because you do!

Cheers!

Are Brewers The New Rockstars?

Recently I went to a conference on craft beer in San Francisco in which all of the top craft brewers were there. Sam Calgione of Dogfish Head Brewery, Greg Koch of Stone Brewing and many more were in attendance. The swarms of new and old craft brewers gathered around them to hear their stories and to ask them questions just like sitting around an elder at a campfire to hear their tales of old. I for one was one of them wishing to gain some insight on the do's and don'ts on starting and maintaining your new craft brewery.

I was very starstruck when I first saw them and was admitably shy in approaching them because to me I had held these guys in the same class as Steven Tyler or Bono. I had read articles and seen them in movies and tv. To me these were the guys that started the craft brewery revolution that I am now a part of. Walking up to them was like walking up to Tom Hanks for an autograph, thinking that they are way to important to even say hello to me.

Dressed in slightly torn jeans, t-shirt with some funny slogan and either a casual sport coat for the dress up look or a long sleeve flannel their voices became audible amungst the cacophony of voices in the hotel lobby. They were laughing and joking with the others that stood around them answering questions and sometimes signing autographs. They gave out advise to those that wanted it and told stories about their beginnings and some funny antidotes about the first time they delivered their product to the consumers.

I noticed that we were the same. They have obviously been in business for quite a bit longer but nonetheless we were on the same playing field. It was a good feeling to think that we could one day be equals in this business of brewing.

So I began to think, with my initial thoughts about these guys I believed them to hold the same status as my favorite rockstars. I looked at the fact that they have been plastered all over the media and sought after by talk show hosts and cable networks to come talk or share their experiences.

I started to think about the tasting events that I have been attending lately. Even with our little brewery that's just getting started the people at the events have been looking up to me as an expert in the field, treating me as if I were one of the greats. With the craft beer revolution in full swing people are looking up to the brewers as if they were gods. These brewers are making a product that brings joy to the masses. Creating new flavors that no one has ever had before stimulating the senses of everyone who tries them.

The articles and media that I've been seeing has elevated the brewer to new heights so much so that they are cheered for and followed on social networks as much as anybody famous.

So I ask the question, "Are Craft Brewers The New Rockstars?"

Distribution

I felt like I should talk about distribution for a minute. When we got started contract brewing I spoke at great lengths with our brewer about getting our product out there and what the options were. His initial advice was to go it alone. Get a type 17 license from the ABC and be your own distributor. He said this because in his experience he had had too many outside distributors damage his reputation as a good brewer and that is obviously not what we need as we are getting started.

Some of his stories included the fact that most distributors don't take your product as seriously as you do. They will leave it on the loading dock in the hot summer sun, they may miss deliveries and they may even tell the retail account that they are either out of stock, when they are not, or they may blame their carelessness of handling your product straight back on you and tell the retailer that you had a bad batch and that's why the keg is ultra foamy.

These horrors settled in with me and I moved forward with obtaining the appropriate type 17 license from the ABC until the Sacramento office said that you have to store your product in an approved warehouse. Well, being that we are on a tight budget and could not afford a $5000/month rent right now I settled and obtained the type 10 license which is for importers and thus needed to have a distributor on my team.

I did quite a lot of searching, talking to many distributors only to find that being a new product on the scene they did not want to store the product unless it was set to move quickly in and then out of their warehouse. I finally settled on one that placed many rules and stipulations on me but I was in a panic and needed a distributor yesterday.

At first I felt that it was going well. I made a few sales right off the bat and they delivered. I made a few more sales and they delivered. But then I started getting angry phone calls from my retail accounts that had so graciously given us the opportunity to get on tap at their bar/restaurant. Not even 3 months in and I found myself doing serious damage control just to stay on tap. The main comment I got was, "The beer is great! Everyone loved it and it went very fast. We need more but find that we have no support from your distributor.", "We ordered product but it has not come in two weeks.", "We were told you are out of stock.", "Where is the tap handle?" These were all starting to sound like the horror stories my brewer talked to me about. The one about us being out of stock was shocking because we still have kegs waiting to go out. Why would someone tell our retail accounts these lies?

Why? well, first off, this is not their product, it is mine. They don't care about it as much as I do. I am not one of the huge breweries that has 1000's of accounts, yet! We are small and have a good handful of great retail accounts and the best way to service them is to do it yourself. This is the conclusion that I finally landed on. The old adage, If you want something done right then do it yourself. So we have now finally obtained our own type 17 distributors license and we are moving forward with our own distribution.

There is something there about doing it yourself, at least when getting started. When I walk into an account and see the owner or the bartenders they know me, they are happy to see me, they know that I'll take care of their needs and that I'll make sure the lines are clean and that my beer tastes perfect when poured. They also see how devoted you are to making this happen.

So my advice is to listen to your brewer when he says, get the type 17 and distribute for yourself! Oh and by the way, seriously question the rules of the ABC because each time you may speak to them you may get a different response. For now, we don't need that $5000/month warehouse and we are moving forward with leaps and bounds!

Bagpipe 2011

I decided to brew on Sunday. I had no idea that in the middle of January it was going to be 90 degrees! I went ahead with the brew anyway since over the summer it was about 110 every day and if you wanted to brew well then that's just what you had to deal with.

OK so January, snow in the mountains just a few minutes up the road and I'm prepping to brew my award winning Bagpipe Ale.

I rolled out the equipment at about 9 in the morning and already was breaking a sweat. Went through all the normal setup procedures like cleaning and sanitizing, laying out the hoses, hooking up the gas. By 10am the filter was connected and the water was flowing.

Since brewing in a commercial facility it's strange to brew in the test kitchen because it's for most an outdoor activity. I don't have a well ventilated room with gas hook ups and drains here. I remember that first day that I began homebrewing when I thought that sanitization was SO key in everything. If one little spec of dirt was on something then I needed to wash with soap and hot water and then dunk in the idophor. Then I went and hung out with brewers from a homebrew club to watch them sit the mash paddle on the city trash container which was visibly filthy. Don't worry, I never did that because even with being a bit more lax in cleaning I still notice when there is a cleanliness issue! So I still get everything ready and wash it down and soak it in sanitizer before starting.

The mash begins. Water is at temp, 155 for a 147 mash in. I dump the grain into the mash tun and the temp plummets! I ended up at 108! I've never seen the temp drop so much. The grain was at about 75 degrees and that usually drops the overall temp only 10 degrees. Thank go for the new system we have here and the awesome heat exchanger. It took a little bit but I slowly rose the temp back up to 147 and continued to mash for 60 min.

The aroma was incredible. I wish I could sample it and offer it as a download here but that feature is yet to come on our fancy iphone/ipad gizmos. By now it was 90 degrees and in the sun I bet it was over 100.

The mash finished and I began the boil testing out the efficiency of the system by filling the mash back up instead of sparging. While the 9 gallons of wort was coming to a boil I tested the gravity over and over to see what I could still get from the final runnings. After about 10 minutes I hit 1.060. Now I know this is pretty huge for second runnings but in commercial brewing the water goes in and is continuously stirred so why not do this in the test kitchen.

A 90 minute boil and a very quick cool down and I went to grab the yeast. I had secured it in a cool dark cupboard where evidentally it overflowed. Yes, there was bread flowing out of the beaker and all over everything inside the cupboard. I've never made a starter that has taking off so well in under 24 hours. A brief cleanup and off I was to pitch the yeast.

When all was said and done I an OG of 1.089! This has always been a big beer but with all the changes to the recipe I had made the initial calculations did not think that I would get an OG that high. New techniques used and a bit of the scientific know how can bring you great results!

Once this big boy finishes fermentation and aging I'll let you all know what the turn out is. Stay tuned!

Winter Warmers

So I thought we could share in thoughts of the perfect winter warmer for the upcoming holiday season. As the sun begins to fall south of the equator our little part of this planet starts to cool off, finally! After a summer of scorching heats and no rain in the LA area it sure is a nice relief when out of the blue it rains. Yes, it rained here today. I don't think the weather people even saw it coming as the accuweather app on my phone shows it being sunny.

So cool temps and rainy days signify a change of seasons for us here in southern California. It wont get cold enough to snow and freeze but cold enough to make us throw on a jacket. However, I still feel that this is a good topic.

Winter warmers! I have come up with my list of beers that make me feel a bit warmer. On the cold rainy nights or even when I cruise up into our local mountains for a ski day. I like to drink these fine beers a sip at a time. No need to pound a light refreshing brew, no, this is a time to sip and enjoy.

COSMIC ALES TOP 5 WINTER WARMERS
1. SULTRY - RUSSIAN IMPERIAL STOUT
2. BAGPIPE - SCOTTISH WEE HEAVY
3. GRIZZLY - BARLEYWINE
4. 1776 - ROBUST AMERICAN PORTER
5. WINTER MORNING - SPICED WINTER ALE

I'd love to know your lists. Send them to us at: QNA@COSMICALES.COM

Merchandise

We know that t-shirts, hats, glassware and more is a big part of having a brewery. Making the first run of t-shirts was an exciting thing. I went back and forth on what style of shirt and what type of look to create and with the help of Angela and the great folks at Westcoast Artwear we came up with our signature series t-shirt. We decided that it should be a one of a kind shirt. We wont make this one again. We wanted it to be special for those who buy it.

Being create marketing types we’ve been thinking of all the funny slogans you can put onto shirts. Going through the thought process is difficult because you have to always remember what your company is about. You don’t want to be too racy or over the top and you don’t want to offend, much. The point is to make a shirt that’ll convey something a wearer may want to display.

State & Federal Agencies

I have been told many nightmares about dealing with both the state and federal agencies that oversee craft beer production and sales however my story is a bit different. Let’s just say I did my homework! When I first began researching this great endeavor the first item I tackled was the federal agency the ATF, or Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms division of the government. In the production of beer we deal with a section of the ATF called the TTB, the Tax and Trade Bureau. Now for someone who is building a brewing manufacturing facility this is a bit more involved then what I ended up doing. I applied for a simple Basic Permit to sell beer. This is just a way for the feds to see that we exist. So not such a difficult thing to do. The people I dealt with there were very nice and very helpful. Not something you find in a government office these days but there they were. They got the permit taken care of in less then a month.

OK

On to the ABC. Now this was a bit more tricky. The ABC, or Alcohol Beverage Control, is the state based agency that oversees all alcohol production and sales in each state. There are many regional offices throughout the state and their headquarters are in Sacramento. I have to say that I probably put in about 2-3 full weeks of talk time with the many different offices in California before settling in and getting my paperwork going. This is no joke. Seriously, 2-3 weeks of pure talking. Some of the people I spoke to were kind but some were quite the opposite. I’m sure with the boom of craft breweries in the area all starting at once they became quite busy. The problem was that Los Angeles was not a location for so many craft breweries. The regional offices are primarily for retailers and events and not for production.

So another snag. When I started this venture I lived in one county and currently I live in another. I was asking so many questions in one county only to switch to the next and have to start all over again. Well this change was definitely for the best because I met one gentleman that truly knows his stuff. I had spoken with Sacramento and then confirmed this with my new local office and they were spot on.

Let me just say, the different licenses that you must get to produce, distribute, sell or serve can become quite confusing. One says you can make the beer but can’t sell it, the other says you can sell the beer but not to these folks on the left but then there is another license to sell to those on the right but then there is one to sell to everyone else except those on the right or the left and then a license to basically just drink the beer yourself. But don’t forget to tax yourself on the beer you drank!!!

Part 2 Coming Soon!