HOT TRUB
February 7, 2001
Edited by: Peter LaFrance (peter.lafrence@beerbasics.com)
Presented by: American Brewer
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Vol. 2 No. 6
This news letter will post items of special interest to brewers, members of the
brewing and distilling community, and members of the media that cover the
beverage alcohol business.
Should you wish to contribute in any way to this venture please contact Peter
LaFrance at peter.lafrance@beerbasics.com
If you wish to be dropped from this list please respond to this posting to peter.lafrance@beerbasics.com
and include the word remove in the Subject: line.
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Today, Reuters reports that with the Winter Olympics a year away, industry observers wonder whether the traditional Mormon attitudes toward beverage alcohol will be strictly enforced at the games. The Church of Later Day Saints religious, and in Utah, civil laws ban smoking in public buildings and strict laws on the sale of alcohol.
Locals point out that visitors should not find it hard to get a drink. They will just have to know what hoops to jump through. One of those hoops is obtaining “temporary membership”, for which most private clubs charge $5 for two weeks. This will be a real Ol’ West bonanza for club owners. They will make a small fortune selling “temporary” memberships.
Along with the membership requirements for private clubs, patrons cannot have more than one drink at a time. Clubs have to stop serving at one a.m. and no one can be drinking after two a.m.
Your editor wonders just how dry the
Olympic Village will be.
Interbrew, now the world's number two brewer, hopes an impending court action will give it more time to argue its case for holding on to Bass Brewer's Scottish Tennent's and Northern Irish Caffrey's businesses, and just put up for sale the Bass businesses in England and Wales.
Yesterday, Reuters reported that Interbrew wants to keep control of the Tennent’s and Caffrey’s brands of beer, both assets of Bass Brewers, despite the UK authorities blocking its acquisition of the entire Bass organization. It was reported by Reuters that, according to their industry sources, “Interbrew is seeking to break up Bass Brewers to avoid having to put the whole business up for sale to a very limited field of purchasers. The sources say there is only one real buyer for the whole business.”
A High Court judge will decide on the acceptability of the case in the next two weeks. If accepted, the full case should last two to three months. At best, there should be a ruling by the end of April.
Interbrew, which also bought Whitbread's last May for just over $585 million, sees the Scottish and Irish businesses bolstering its nationwide position.
First they take England and then the
World?
The following item came over the Reuters wire yesterday from their reporter in Strasbourg, France.
It seems that the region of Strasbourg has emerged as a hotbed of new microbreweries. Playing on the Alsace region's long love affair with beer, there is a movement among the locals to return to traditional foods, cooking and beer. Many see this as a yearning for a return to tradition in a country that fears globalization is sweeping aside its prized gastronomic heritage.
Interviewed at the Uberach microbrewery, founder Eric Trossat, 34, described a golden age when Strasbourg was awash with beer from dozens of local breweries. "Since the 1950s all the cottage breweries have been bought out, now all you can find is Kronenbourg and Heineken," he said.
As the Reuters reporter so poetically writes - “Nursing a glass of his aromatic beer, Bernard Dal conjures a heady tale of quixotic quests as he shares his dream of a revival of the glory days of French brewing. Between sips of his own malty brew, Dal said his bar was only the latest addition to a thriving new industry of "microbreweries" -- bars and restaurants that have sprung up across a country discovering a thirst for local flavors. "It's almost as if we are defending a mistreated child," said 48-year-old Dal, raising a dramatic toast in the sleek interior of his "La Scala" microbrewery in Strasbourg. "Beer has lost its image and we want to give it back its nobility… Nettles, cardamom, hibiscus and a fistful of exotic spices have begun finding their way into fermentation tanks as micro-brewers compete to tantalize the taste buds of a nation traditionally obsessed with fine wine.”
More than 100 microbreweries have sprung up in France since the mid-1990s and Reuters reports the total could easily reach around 300 in the next few years. “Producing only an estimated 0.1 percent of beer drunk in France, the micros have plenty of room to expand.”
Editors note: Personal research
needs to be done as a follow-up to this piece.
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