Sunday, June 29, 2008

WSOBP IV

The 4th World Series of Beer Pong tournament will be held at The Flamingo in Las Vegas, Nevada January 1-5, 2009 with a grand prize of $50,000 to the winning team. That gives anyone interested in competing in the tournament about 6 months to prepare so go to Happy Hour Watch (www.happyhourwatch.com) right now and look for the best and cheapest place to practice after a hard day at work or school. For more information on the tournament, go to http://www.bpong.com/wsobp/


Here are a couple youtube videos showing the Championship game from the WSOBP III Finals between Chauffeurring The Fat Kid and The Iron Wizard Coalition. These guys are so good. It's a pretty sweet ending since it goes to overtime. Enjoy!

part 1


part2

Friday, June 27, 2008

Friday, June 13, 2008

California Happy Hour: Patrick Molloys

Patrick Molloys
50A Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
(310) 798-9762


Monday: 3pm - Close 2 for 1 all Liquor, Wine & Beer
Tuesday - Friday: 3pm - 7pm 2 for 1 all Liquor, Wine & Beer

Events:
Monday
Margarita Monday $6.00 Margaritas from open to close Beer pong and flip cup tournaments 10:00-close Live DJ 10:00-close

Tuesday
Tight Wad Tuesdays 2 for 1 prices on all tequila from open to close* $2.00 for 2 tacos (chicken or carnitas) $2.00 Burgers $2.00 Coors Light Draft Broke-Ass Acoustics starts at 10 pm Live Music -

Wednesday
Big Wednesdays 2-for-1 Whiskey From Open To Close $3.00 Heineken and Heineken Light from 9:00 - close Live Music 10:00-close

Thursday
Thirsty Thursdays $3.00 domestic drafts, $4.00 well drinks, & $5.00 martinis 9:00-close Live DJ 10:00-close


Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Beer Trivia

Found at BeerHistory.com

#1. What is the oldest active brewery in America?


D.G. Yuengling & Son has been brewing beer at Pottsville, Pennsylvania since 1829, ranking it as America's oldest brewery. Founder David Yuengling carved aging cellars deep into the rocky hillside on which the brewery is perched. During prohibition, the company made near beer (de-alcoholized beer) and dairy products. Today, the brewery is still in the hands of the Yuengling family, and is experiencing its greatest success yet.



#2. What brewery was America's largest in 1895?

The Pabst Brewing Company of Milwaukee was the nation's largest brewery in 1895. (Anheuser-Busch was number 2, and Schlitz was number 3.) At the helm of the Pabst brewing empire was the colorful Captain Frederick Pabst, a former Lake Michigan steamship captain. His vision and relentless drive for expanding markets carried Pabst to the top. Near the end of the 19th century, the Pabst Brewery was turning out more than one million barrels of beer annually, and using some 300,000 yards of blue ribbon each year to tie around the bottle necks of its popular Pabst Blue Ribbon brand. Though Pabst no longer brews in Milwaukee, its flagship "PBR" remains an American favorite still today.



#3. What was the first American brewery to sell beer in cans?

In 1935, the G. Krueger Brewing Company of Newark, New Jersey became the first brewer to market beer in steel cans. In that year, only about 25 percent of beer was packaged in bottles and cans -- the rest was kegged. Today, however, about 90 percent of America's beer production is consumed from bottles and cans.




Interesting Facts

- Annual per capita beer consumption in the US: 23.95 gallons

- Annual per capita beer consumption in Germany: 38.67 gallons

- Rank of US among nations in per capita beer consumption: 11

- Rank of New Hampshire among states in per capita beer sales: 2

- Total annual US beer output: 195,000,000 barrels (approximately)

- Total annual Anheuser-Busch output: 100,000,000 barrels (approximately)

- Total 2004 output of Smuttynose Brewing Company: 10,200 barrels (.008% of Anheuser-Busch's)

- Number of pints served at the Portsmouth Brewery since 1991: over three million

Monday, June 9, 2008

Bold beer ads

By JIM SALTER, AP Business Writer Sun Jun 8, 2:48 PM ET

Article

ST. LOUIS - Anheuser-Busch is generating lots of buzz with an ad equal parts bawdy and hilarious, but you won't see it on television, and it barely mentions the beer it's advertising.

Dubbed "Swear Jar," the too-risque-for-TV ad debuted on the Internet in 2007. A minute long, it begins with an office worker asking about a jar at the reception desk. It's a "swear jar," he's told: Anyone who swears puts in a quarter. The expletives fly when workers learn the money will be used to buy a case of Bud Light (the roughly 17 bad words are bleeped out).

"Poop," a mousy woman says as she struggles with the copy machine. "Doesn't count," a co-worker tells her. "Shut the @#$% up!" she shoots back.

It's part of a fast-growing growing trend, now increasingly embraced by beer makers and other mainstream marketers. Known as viral ads, such Web-only spots have become YouTube staples and show up in social networking pages, get e-mailed between friends and co-workers, though whether they generate sales remains an open question.

Viral ads have the freedom to run as long or short as they want — no 30- or 60-second constraints. They can cross boundaries even cable TV respects, and they focus on entertainment as much selling the product. Some are shot — or made to look like they're shot — with hand-held cameras, just like the most of the rest of the videos in those Web venues.

Viral marketing has been around for more than a decade, but viral video ads have grown in popularity as it has become easier to watch and share video on the Web and video-sharing sites like YouTube have grown. Forrester Research estimates interactive advertising was worth $20 billion in the U.S. this year and projects that amount will triple by 2012.

"It's definitely a trend, definitely happening," said Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer's Insights. "But it's still, relatively speaking, a small part of total (advertising) spending. The big part is still (on) sports on TV. That's still where the action is for the young adult male target."

Saint Louis University marketing professor Jim Fisher said viral ads work in part because consumers share them, offer online comments and even do their own parodies and video responses.

"One of the most credible forms of information is that which comes from friends, colleagues, neighbors: the so-called word-of-mouth effect," Fisher said. "Ads like this create that buzz and excitement, the kind of things that traditional advertising is a little more hard-pressed to deliver."

Breweries' viral ads aim squarely at the young men central to their demographic.

"If you look at what has happened, their attention is getting fragmented," said Andy England, marketing chief for Golden, Colo.-based Coors Brewing Co. "Even if they're watching television, they've got a laptop on their lap, looking at YouTube or MySpace."

Coors this spring released two Web ads touting wide-mouth Coors Light cans, dubbed "Smooth Pour Crew." In one, a couple of young men crash a bar; in another, it's a backyard barbecue. One guy runs the video camera while the other annoys the beer drinkers, then amazes them with his ability to pour beer from the wide-mouth can into a glass from atop a picnic table, behind his back from a rooftop, from the rafters of the tavern.

The ads have had a combined half-million views, England said.

Marketers say it's vital to make the ads entertaining.

"And you have to be very gentle in your branding," England said. "Otherwise, that is something of a turnoff."

When DDB, the Chicago-based advertising agency, came up with "Swear Jar" for Anheuser-Busch Cos., officials at the nation's largest brewery quickly decided TV wasn't the right medium.

"It's very young, very fun, and it's a bit in the personality of Bud Light, what people will do for a Bud Light," said Keith Levy, Anheuser-Busch's vice president of brand management. "It just seemed like the perfect content for the Web."

DDB's Steve Jackson said "Swear Jar" has been viewed more than 12 million times on Web sites and via e-mail. Versions are available in Russian, Chinese and other languages.

Consumers today "like to know they've been the first one to find something funny," Jackson said. "There are guys today saying, 'Hey, have you seen this funny commercial?' And it's been out for months."

Jackson said DDB first introduced a Web-only ad to complement Anheuser-Busch's "Whassup!?" campaign, which began in late 1999.

"That's where we really started to see how powerful this could be," he said. "You give consumers something they can have fun with."

Today, Anheuser-Busch is using viral ads to expand on its TV "Dude" campaign. Other beer makers also use Web ads as part of broader marketing efforts. Miller High Life delivery man Windell pops in at stores in TV spots, either lauding merchants for their common sense or chastising those who lack it. He rants in a 2-minute-long Web-only spot about silly Super Bowl ads.

Despite the popularity of some spots, marketers remain selective about using viral ads as they continue to evaluate their effectiveness.

"How well does that sell beer? Still working on that one," said Coors Brewing's England.

Jackson, at DDB, said one important thing about viral ads is that people viewing them are doing so because they want to. They're not a captive audience.

"You can assume you have full attention, full engagement as they look at these," he said. "It's not a passive act."

Levy, with Anheuser-Busch, said companies need to be certain they put good work on the Web. After all, if a TV ad campaign turns flat, you can pull the spots. Not so with ads on the Web.

"Once it's out there, it's out there pretty much forever," Levy said.



Thursday, June 5, 2008

Pizza and beer all in one!

They've Got the Taste Down Cold

Wednesday, May 28, 2008; Page F02

Pizza. Beer. Pizza 'n' beer. Pizza beer!

It wasn't quite that simple, but home brewers Tom and Athena Seefurth of St. Charles, Ill., say their Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer is "the world's first culinary beer," designed for use in cooking and as a pairing with food.

The couple developed their first batch in 2006, using fresh tomatoes, garlic, oregano and basil in the mash and hops processes. Now about 800 cases a week are manufactured at the Sprecher Brewery in Glendale, Wis., a Milwaukee suburb.

Their beer "is not for putting in the cup holder of your tractor," says Tom Seefurth, nicknamed "Chef" by his vacation pals in Florida. Pry off the cap of a 16-ounce bottle (sold for $1.99 to $2.49) and the aroma of pizza topping, especially the herbs, comes through. The light-golden brew has a slightly herbal taste, too. Ninety percent of people who try it like it, he reports.

The Seefurths have recipes for Pizza Beer Bread and Pizza Beer Prawns on their Web site, http://www.pizzabeer.net. For the past few months, a local 70-seat pizzeria, Michel Angelo's, has been using two to three cases a week to make beer-crust pizza and even more to produce a line of frozen pies sold in Illinois stores. "It makes a light, fluffy crust," says the restaurant's chef, Frank McCarron. "We're blowing people away. This is no Pet Rock; it happens to be good!"

Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer is not available in Washington area stores, but the Seefurths would like to saturate all 50 states. In the meantime, it can be purchased through Sam's Wine and Spirits (800-777-9137, http://www.samswine.com; for District and Virginia sales, but not Maryland) and Top Shelf Wine and Spirits (847-213-8300, http://www.topshelfwineandspirits.com).

-- Bonnie S. Benwick

Washington Post

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Drink specials a bad deal? Could that be possible?

Drink specials bad deal for college students

Contributed by Robin Adams - Posted: June 1, 2008 7:08:30 PM
The Ledger

Money wise, they're a good thing. Health and safety wise, they're not.

University of Florida researchers demonstrated that by obtaining breath samples from college students as they exited bars. They used those samples to measure intoxication levels, rather than relying on the students' self reports.

Customers who took part in alcoholic drink specials, offered in promotions such as "happy hour," or "ladies night," or "all you can drink," were more than four times as likely to leave with a blood-alcohol level exceeding the legal limit for driving. That's four times as likely as customers who weren't taking part in a drink promotion, UF reports.

Narrowing down to students under 21, 68 percent who took advantage of a drink special had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit of .08. The percentage shrank to 32 percent of those aged 21 and older.

Those discounts were more important in the findings than the total number of drinks consumed in the day, the hours they spent drinking, the amount of money they spent or whether they were old enough to drink legally, says Dennis Thombs, a UF health education and behavior professor. Thombs led the research study, results of which are scheduled to appear this summer in the American Journal of Health Behavior.

The drinkers who gave their best breath to make these findings possible were 177 men and 114 women, 86 percent of them college students, at 15 bars in Gainesville during three nights in December 2006 and three nights in May 2007.

Virginia Dodd, another health education and behavior professor, recounts seeing students "who have blown a really high reading into the breath tester and said 'Wow! I got all that for $4."

Ladies Drink Free nights can cause widespread harm, she says, pointing out that young women who become highly intoxicated (drunk, smashed, hammered or tanked) are exposed to other risks. Such as leaving the bar with someone they don't know and having unprotected sex.

Other studies have found a direct relationship between alcohol promotions and the amount college students drink, Thombs says.

But they relied on students' self reports. Those memories may not be accurate and can't account for differences in body weight and alcohol metabolism, which can affect your level of intoxication, he says.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Beer Prices going up! Time to visit a Happy Hour!

Beer prices barrel higher



WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans hosting Fourth of July barbecues will pay more cold cash for the cold ones this year as beer joins the list of foods and beverages whose prices are jumping, in part because of the booming ethanol market.

Retail prices for beer at supermarkets and other stores were up 3% in May from a year earlier, the biggest increase in 2½ years, according to the latest data from the Labor Department. That's higher than the inflation rate for the overall economy, and a bigger gain than in prices of liquor and wine bought to be consumed at home.

Those going out will also pay more for beer. Prices for beer poured away from home were up 3.8% in May from a year earlier.

The gains are in part a result of rising costs for malting barley, one of the main ingredients in beer. But a variety of other costs are increasing for brewers, including for other grains, glass, cardboard, energy, transportation, insurance and labor.

"Across the board, we're facing significant price increases," says Martin Kelly, president and CEO of Magic Hat, a brewery in South Burlington, Vt., that produces beer sold in 17 states and Washington, D.C. Even the cost of the six-pack containers that hold the bottles have increased in price, he says.

Kelly says a major price increase has come from malt made from barley. Malt costs have risen 9% in the past year, he says.

Nationwide, average barley prices have risen 17% since the beginning of the year to the highest in 11 years. The increase is partly because farmers are devoting less acreage to the grain in favor of more lucrative crops, especially corn.

Prices for corn have jumped in response to strong demand for the grain to produce ethanol, a fuel alternative blended with gasoline.

For about 15 years, Louis Arnold, 71, planted 600 acres of barley on his farm in Esmond, N.D. But for the past two years, he has planted only 300 acres of the grain, devoting more land to corn and soybeans on his 3,500-acre farm. Not only are potential profits higher for corn and soybeans, but he has been plagued by a variety of barley diseases.

"Barley is fifth fiddle right now," says Arnold, who is chairman of the North Dakota Barley Council.

Farmers planted the third-smallest barley crop this year even though they increased acreage from 2006. Corn plantings, meanwhile, are up 19% this year to the highest since 1944, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday.

Grain prices rising

Barley has also become more expensive because now that more corn is being sold to make ethanol, there is less corn available to be fed to animals. That is leading to greater demand for other feed grains, including barley, for livestock.

Barley "prices are going up right along with corn and wheat," says Tom Jackson, agricultural economist at consulting firm Global Insight. Brewers use a variety of grains in beer production, including rice, wheat and corn. Prices for all those grains have risen.

Relief is unlikely to come soon as grain prices are anticipated to continue to rise in response to strong demand for corn to produce ethanol. "It's on an upward trend," Wells Fargo agricultural economist Michael Swanson says.

There also have been "dramatic increases in virtually every commodity and other (production costs) related to making beer in the past few years," Coors Brewing (TAP) spokeswoman Aimee Valdez says.

Coors contracts with farmers who grow a proprietary barley developed by the brewer, so it does not see as much swing in barley costs, Valdez says. But other costs, such as for aluminum, energy, paper, freight and labor, have all risen. Coors has raised prices less than 2% in 2006 and again in 2007.

Jean-François van Boxmeer, CEO of Amsterdam-based Heineken, told analysts in February that his company expects costs for inputs such as raw materials, energy, transportation and packaging to rise 7% to 8% in 2007.

The higher costs are coming as brewers are better able to raise prices to at least partially offset the increases. Heineken, for example, raised prices 2.5% on average in the USA in February after years "of a rather difficult pricing environment," van Boxmeer said.

Fierce competition worldwide

For companies, the greater pricing power is a welcome relief after beer prices declined in the 1990s, JPMorgan beverage analyst John Faucher notes. Since then, there has been an increase in the population of eligible drinkers, and consumers have shown a growing appetite for microbrews and imports.

"You have had a massive shift up in what consumers are willing to pay for beer," Faucher says.

But many companies, such as Coors, say higher prices aren't fully covering their increased costs. The competition is just too fierce to raise prices too much.

Magic Hat has raised prices on average less than 2% in the first five months of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006, helping to offset some of the higher costs. Higher sales have also helped to maintain profits — the brewer has seen sales rise 30% on average in the past three years, and sales are on track to see similar gains this year.

"For ourselves, and I would suspect for some of the other craft breweries, the biggest benefit we have is that sales are pretty good right now," Kelly says.

U.S. adults age 21 and older on average drank more than 30 gallons of beer in all of 2006, up slightly from 2005. Americans drink more beer on the Fourth of July than on any other day during the year, according to the Beer Institute.

American beer drinkers have plenty of company as beer prices are rising worldwide.

Organizers of Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, for example, warn that a liter, which is equivalent to nearly three 12-ounce cans of beer, will cost as much as $10.90 this year, up from $9.47 to $10.22.

"The whole industry has pressure," Heineken's van Boxmeer said.


Article

Monday, June 2, 2008