Blog Entries by Jeff Cioletti

The Gloves Are Off

Category: General Blogs  |  Tags: soft drink, soda

A couple of months ago in my “Toasts and Spills” edition I gave a Spill to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his efforts to ban beverage packages larger than 16 ounces. The topic has significant enough ramifications for the entire U.S. beverage market that we’ve decided to dedicate our cover report to the industry’s efforts to fight back against such regulatory maneuvers. Managing editor Andrew Kaplan does a fantastic job capturing the complexities of this initiative and others like it, beginning on page 40 of this issue. 

Now indulge me as I again add my two cents. As I mentioned in my July PourWord, the matter is really one of education. I don’t want to get caught up in the rhetoric of the debate. The term “nanny state” has been thrown around quite a bit. Indeed, there have been extreme phrases used on both sides of the issue and sometimes the cogent components of the argument get lost in such incendiary terminology. 

The bottom line is, measures such as these, whether they’re proposed taxes to reduce consumption or outright bans on certain package sizes or even entire products, fail in their mission as public services. They ultimately have the opposite effect and do a disservice to the public by removing the educational aspects of public discourse. They have the effect of labeling something as “bad” and taking it away for the public’s “own good.” Of course, anyone who’s ever been a teenager—or human, for that matter—knows that when you take something away it only makes the person you’re taking it away from want it more.

Obesity is too complex an issue to be resolved by bans and scapegoating. I know I sound like a broken record, but I really need to drive this point home: it’s only going to be combatted through education and choice. Consumers need to be educated about leading healthy lifestyles and pursuing nutritional balance. And once they have a firm grasp of what those entail, they should be able to make their own informed choices about how much or how little of a sweet indulgence they want to incorporate into their healthy, nutritionally sound lifestyle. 

Bloomberg took a lot of heat several years back when his administration started requiring local eateries to post calorie information. It didn’t ban certain food items, it just let people know how many calories they were potentially ingesting and let them make the decision themselves. At least that was about informed choice, even if the “informed” part of it was compulsory. It would have been preferable if restaurants had taken the lead and were proactive about posting such information. There’s another industry whose example they could’ve followed, one that’s known for partnering with schools on healthy lifestyle issues, putting calorie information in a prominent spot on its packages and generally self-regulating to be part of the solution. Since you’re reading this magazine, you don’t need me to tell you to which industry I’m referring. 

But how does that industry get rewarded for its proactivity? Why don’t you ask Michael Bloomberg.  

The Liquid Election

Category: General Blogs  |  Tags: beverage, election

I have to admit, I’m a bit of a political junkie, exponentially more so in a presidential election year. I tend to surf non-partisan blogs, primarily because the reader is spared the vitriolic, substance-free posturing that online blowhards on either end of the ideological spectrum are known for, in favor of something that resembles analysis. Granted, that analysis isn’t always related to the weightiest of topics; sometimes it’s just an engaging diversion. Especially when it’s about beverages.

In a recent blog post titled “Beer and the Presidency,” Electoral-Vote.com, “The Votemaster” referenced a recent news story about what type of beer President Obama had at a campaign stop in that Swing State of Swing States, Ohio. Obama’s choice of a Miller Lite followed by a Bud Light apparently spoke to the President’s desire to connect with white, working-class voters. The blogger asked, “Aren’t there more important things to discuss? For example, the fact that Bud Light is made by a Belgian company…and that Miller Lite is half Canadian?”

Well, if we’re going to follow that line of logic, that pretty much means drinking a Corona in an effort to connect with Mexican-American voters is pretty much an exercise in futility now that the aforementioned Belgian company is buying Modelo—of which it already owned a sizeable stake. (By the way, the blogger notes that Romney is spared such beer-centric scrutiny, as his religious convictions prevent him from consuming alcohol. However the piece does note that when offered a beer, the former Massachusetts governor “can politely decline and ask for orange juice instead,” which, of course plays well in that other critical Swing State, Florida).

I think the much larger point that’s being missed in both the conventional media and the blogosphere is that what happens in the U.S. has become increasingly more dependent on what’s going on abroad. And the beverage market is like one colossal case study of the interconnected worldwide economy in action.

That Bud Light got in POTUS’s hand through a complex chain of custody that started with boardroom decisions in Europe, Brazil and the U.S. (as AB InBev now has a U.S. base of ops in New York City), continued with the efforts of a distributor in Ohio and culminated with the sale by a local retailer to which every unpaid campaign intern was tasked with procuring beer.

A candidate could even play the hyper-local card and drink a regional craft beer. But even then, the package or serving vessel it’s in could be from a European bottle or glassware maker. It could be hopped with varietals native to the U.K., Germany or the Czech Republic.

And why has the U.S. stock market been a bit of a roller coaster ride for much of the summer? Investors have been closely watching and reacting to every economic nugget coming out of the E.U. The term “global economy” has become something of a cliché, it’s been referenced so much. But that global-ness is likely to have a greater impact on the upcoming election than whatever Obama or Mitt Romney may or may not be drinking on any given day.

BevStar Awards 2012: We Finally Have Our Winners!

Category: General Blogs  |  Tags: beer, brewing, craft beer, beverage, alcohol, brew, awards, soft drink, dr pepper ten, dr pepper, soda, tea, wine, spirits, liquor, functional, sports drink, water, bottled water, enhanced water, marketing, coffee

After a lengthy judging process involving a record number of entries this year and a self-imposed media blackout until the official winners' issue started arriving this week, we are very pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 Beverage World BevStar Awards. For those just joining us, the BevStars recognize new product innovation across all of the major beverage categories.

We received a particularly robust shower of entries in the Energy & Functional category—so many that we decided to split it into two separate categories this year. It really reflects the level of innovation in those segments. If you recall from our 2012 State of the Industry report, energy drink volume returned to double-digit growth last year, with an increase of more than 17 percent in 2011, according to Beverage Marketing Corporation.

Without further ado, here's the list of this year's winners. For details on all of these brands, read the July 2012 issue of Beverage World. Congratulations to all!

BEST IN SHOW
Ruthless Rye IPA, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

BEER
Gold: Ruthless Rye IPA, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.
Silver: Deviant Dale's IPA, Oskar Blues Brewing Co.
Bronze: Bronx Pale Ale, The Bronx Brewery

BOTTLED WATER
Gold: MyCause Water, Panacea Beverage Co.
Silver: Elevate Enhanced Fiber Water, 912 Corp.
Bronze: Karma Wellness Water, Karma Kulture LLC

CARBONATED SOFT DRINKS
Gold: Spindrift, Spindrift Soda co.
Silver: Dr Pepper Ten, Dr Pepper Snapple Group
Bronze: HotLips Cranberry Soda, HotLips Soda Co.

ENERGY
Gold: Monster Rehab, Monster Beverage Co.
Silver: Slap Frozen Energy, Brain-Twist
Bronze: Berry Rain, RevHoney

FUNCTIONAL
Gold: Neuro Sun, Neuro Beverage
Silver: Ralph & Charlie's Aloe, Ralph & Charlie's Beverage Co.
Bronze: Modjo Hydrate Elite, Cellutions

READY-TO-DRINK TEA & COFFEE
Gold: Honest (Not Too) Sweet Tea, Honest Tea
Silver: RealBeanz, RealBeanz LLC
Bronze: Tao of Tea, The Tao of Tea

SPIRITS
Gold: Purgatory Vodka, Alaska Distillery
Silver: Apple Pie Moonshine, Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery
Bronze: BuzzBallz, BuzzBallz LLC

WINE
Gold: FlasqWines, JT Wines
Silver: Blanc de Bleu, Premium Vintage Cellars
Bronze: Xavier Flouret La Pilar Malbec, Cognac One LLC

For those brands that entered but didn't take a gold, silver or bronze in any of the categories, don't fret. Competition was particularly stiff this year and the decisions were all very difficult for all of us on the judging panel. And there's always next year. We'll be announcing a call for entries some time in December.
 

Toasts & Spills: NYC Edition

Category: General Blogs  |  Tags: beer, craft beer, beverage, soft drink

A few years back, I started a semi-regular feature in this space called Toasts & Spills, kind of a thumbs-up, thumbs-down on certain events, people, innovations, etc. around the beverage world. A couple of New York City-related occurrences over the past several weeks have made me realize it’s high time I wrote another one. 

Since I like to end things on a positive note, we’ll work backwards and start with a Spill.

Just by my mentioning New York, you’ve probably already figured out what the Spill is, unless you’ve been having your mail forwarded to Under a Rock, USA. New York Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed ban on soft drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces is yet another attempt to oversimplify the nation’s very complex obesity issue by vilifying one particular product rather than promoting a healthy lifestyle through a balanced, educational approach. Polls have shown that consumers—from New York and far beyond—overwhelmingly oppose such a ban, but that doesn’t mean it still shouldn’t be cause for alarm. Bloomie tends to get what he wants. And now, the local government in Cambridge, Mass., has announced a similar proposal. The bad idea has gone viral. 

But, to be fair, there are some good ideas coming out of New York. Case in point, this month’s Toast: The Good Beer Seal, which recognizes the city’s independently owned and operated bars with a commitment to craft beer. I had the good fortune to attend the induction ceremony for the most recent class of Good Beer Seal bars, held last month at popular beer bar and founding Good Beer Seal member Jimmy’s No. 43, in the city’s East Village. What makes the designation so sought after among local watering holes is not only must craft and specialty imports account for 80 percent of their offerings, but they also must provide education to staff and clientele on the beers they serve and be active in the community through responsible stewardship and charitable actions. 

A Good Beer Seal is a sort of spiritual cousin to the U.K.’s Cask Marque, which appears on the doors of pubs that serve quality cask ale. The eight inductees last month were Idle Hands, Dive Bar and Earl’s Beer & Cheese, all in Manhattan; Sycamore, 61 Local and Pine Box Rock Shop, all of Brooklyn and Adobe Blues and Killmeyer’s Old Bavaria Inn, on Staten Island. That brings the total number of Good Beer Seal bars to 40, in all five boroughs of New York. 

The ceremony began the official countdown to the city’s Good Beer Month—this month, actually—spotlighting Good Beer Seal bars and local brewers through special promotions, bar crawls and charitable benefits. 

And here comes the cognitive dissonance part of the column: Jimmy Carbone, Jimmy’s No. 43 owner and host of Beer Sessions Radio on the Heritage Radio Network, read a special proclamation from none other than Mayor Bloomberg in honor of Good Beer Month. 

At least one segment of the beverage market is safe. Just no one tell the mayor that an imperial pint is a 20-ounce pour.  

Strength in Numbers?

Category: General Blogs  |  Tags: beer, brewing, craft beer

“If you are a startup here and quality is not on the top of your list, get out.”

Of all of what was said in private conversations and in public forums, both on- and off-the-record at last month’s Craft Brewers Conference (CBC) in San Diego, it was that one 18-word, Twitter-friendly sentence that seemed to resonate the most. The statement came from Brewers Association (BA) director Paul Gatza during his general session address and struck such a chord that it took several minutes to tweet it because whatever mobile signals existed were eaten up by hundreds of other smartphone-wielding attendees trying to post it simultaneously.

It was particularly pertinent at a time when there is something close to 1,000 breweries in planning, by the BA’s reckoning. And, as I write this, BA just announced that the number of operating craft breweries in the United States has hit the magic 2,000 mark. The number hasn’t been that high since the turn of the 20th century and this time we don’t appear to have an imminent Prohibition looming.

So it was safe to assume there were quite a few startups in the audience of a few thousand (a record-shattering 4,000-plus attended the four-day event).

It seems like a no-brainer that quality should be on the top of everyone’s list. But when so many new players are getting into a red-hot segment, the question in the back of my mind is, how committed are all of those newcomers and soon-to-be-newcomers? Are they serious about handing their lives over to what’s essentially a 24/7 job or do they just like beer and think it might be cool to run a brewery?

I would like to think that most fully understand what they’re getting themselves into and are going to be religiously devoted to ensuring the best product quality. And the mere bandwagoners who aren’t, well, Darwinian dynamics hopefully will play out.

It’s such an exciting time with so many breweries on the scene and so many in the pipeline. Are all going to produce top-quality products? The laws of probability say no. Will every one of them succeed? Again, no. Is there a correlation between quality and success? Of course there is. That’s not to say it’s a foregone conclusion that all quality producers will succeed, but it’s a heck of a good first step. There are plenty of educational tools out there that new brewers should be taking advantage of to keep them on the right side of quality, be they from the Siebel Institute, the Cicerone certification program, the curricula at UC Davis or the Brewers Association itself, just to name a few.    

Sitting in that CBC general session audience could have been the proprietors of the next Sierra Nevada or New Belgium. And those, among the other startups in the audience, are the ones who know that all begins and ends with the quality of what’s in the bottle, keg or can. No one wants another mid-’90s-style shakeout.

And by the way, the answer is no. No one got up and left.

It’s a start.