Okay, so it looks like I won't be using Google ads on the site. Apparently the content of this blog is too scandalous for the tender souls in Mountain View: We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below Drugs, drug paraphernalia, alcohol, beer or tobacco: Google believes strongly in the freedom of expression and offers bro ...
Read More »A Holiday-Buying Spree
Wow. The world's largest brewery has, in just five days, added three new breweries to its craft portfolio. Last Friday it was Arizona's Four Peaks. Yesterday we learned that AB InBev had snapped up London's Camden Town Brewery. Today it was Colorado's Breckenridge: Anheuser-Busch has made a play for a piece of Colorado's craft brew market ...
Read More »New for 2016: Ads!
On December 1, I turned in the manuscript for another book. It was an opportunity to think about the next book ... or not. In the near term, I'm going to look for other options, which means I need to earn pennies where I can. I have tinkered with ads once in the past, but abandoned them because we are talking pennies--and because they junk up a ...
Read More »Four Peaks Down
And so it goes. Anheuser-Busch InBev is buying Arizona's largest craft brewer and brewpub owner, Four Peaks Brewing Co. Founded in 1996, Four Peaks produced 70,000 barrels of beer this year. Financial terms of the sale set to close in the first quarter of 2016 were not disclosed. Four Peaks is the sixth brewer to join A-B's craft and imports ...
Read More »Reinheitsgebot RIP?
I am currently finishing up a print article for All About Beer on the subject of Reinheitsgebot--which as many of you know, turns 500 next year. By one of those strange coincidences of the universe, Stone brewing yesterday released its first Berlin-brewed beer. I don't want to step on the thesis of my article, but all this did get me thinking. ...
Read More »Two a Day
As I traipsed around the country on my book tour, I found myself regularly saying something like, "there are 3,500 breweries in the country"--usually by way of an excuse for why I hadn't tried a certain spectacular local beer. It turns out I was 644 breweries off. Today the Brewers Association pegged the figure at 4,144. If you're wondering why ...
Read More »When I Climbed the Mountain
The writing life is filled with peaks and valleys. I've been bumping along at high altitude lately, but no time was more exhilarating than the day I woke up in Tampa, Florida after a book event, got on a plane for Atlanta, was picked up at the airport and zipped downtown to CNN. I was there to do the spot you see below--two and a half minutes o ...
Read More »It’s Hard Out There For a Publisher
This is a slightly random aside, but I wanted to draw your attention to a great post about the state of the internet over at Talking Points Memo. For those of you who don't read political blogs for fun, TPM may have escaped your notice. It's a left-of-center site that grew out of a personal blog by Josh Marshall. (As an aside to the aside, the ...
Read More »Let’s Make a Deal
Many of the recent craft-brewery buyouts have been like shiny objects to attract our gaze, but lacking in any real value. One buyout is mostly like the next. When Constellation purchased Ballast Point on Monday for a billion dollars, though, it was more than just clickbait. It makes us consider what things are worth, and that made us consider s ...
Read More »The Point Made More Fully
Here. Many observers believe this is further evidence of a bubble in the “craft” segment—the outrageous prices paid for breweries remind them of mortgages in 2007. Of course, that’s always possible. If the market flatlines tomorrow, Constellation will lose big on the deal. But consider: since 1990 or so, the overall ...
Read More »
Beer Infinity Beer, Brewing & Beyond