Commentary: No, Heineken is NOT Anheuser-Busch

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Frankly, I had hoped to be well past the point of talking about acquisitions and buyouts and the like by this point in time. But the beer world had other ideas, as hot on the heels of Wednesday’s Wicked Weed news and fallout came word Thursday that Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Heineken B.V. purchased the remaining portion of California’s Lagunitas Brewing Company. Heineken now completely owns the brewery after purchasing a 50% stake in 2015. (Report courtesy Brewbound.) Of course, this immediately spurred reaction comparing this transaction with the Wicked Weed/A-B InBev acquisition news that had taken the beer world by storm the previous day. There is some fair sentiment about buying American-owned beers, if that’s what is important to a person. But it would be a blazing overreaction AND oversimplification to equally react to these two transactions.

It is important to keep in mind that Lagunitas is no novice of the craft beer world. They have spent nearly a quarter-century in the game, and are the 9th-largest brewery in the United States, according to The Brewers Association. While ABI has a couple of craft beer long-timers in their High End group, most notably original High Ender Goose Island, many of their acquisitions have been around for roughly a decade or less. Wicked Weed pushes this issue, having only been in business for about five years. In my view, the group at Lagunitas has put extreme levels of blood, sweat, and tears into their brewery, and it shows in the nationwide success of their brand. They obviously see major backing as a necessary next step for their goals, such as opening a European brewery, as mentioned in Lagunitas founder Tony Magee’s letter on the matter. After 24 years, I believe Lagunitas has earned the right to see where this next step takes them. Wicked Weed can make no such claim, having only been in the craft beer industry for a handful of years.

Additionally, unlike the Wicked Weed news, this is not an out-of-left-field partnership. As mentioned earlier, Heineken acquired the first half of Lagunitas in 2015, and instead of feared homogenization, Lagunitas has continued in their eccentric ways, releasing beers like Aunt Sally and The Waldo’s that ARE out of left field. The leaders of Lagunitas already know what to expect from their new bosses at Heineken, and vice versa, because the breweries have already been working together for nearly two years! Had there been any consternation about this partnership, it likely would have shown itself by now, and the next step of this purchase would not have happened.

Finally, quite simply, Heineken IS NOT ABI! When I look at Budweiser, I don’t really see Elysian, Goose Island, or now Wicked Weed all that much. I see the pale lager-led bullies that use their immense financial resources to turn state laws in their favor and bribe their way into more and more shelf space at your local supermarket. While I may not be a big fan of Heineken beer, it IS a major global brand, having their claws in major world entities like Formula 1 racing and UEFA Champions League football (soccer), as well as partnering with major media opportunities. But their non-Lagunitas beer portfolio consists of all international brands (Amstel, Tecate, and more) that, while adequately-represented in the United States, have not assimilated the beer industry like ABI has. That makes the Lagunitas news much easier for me to swallow.

Read the full press release on the news here.

Video Review: It DOESN'T Taste Like a Potato!

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So, it's started. The dark times. The dry period. Whatever you want to call it. I call it "Booze-Free February".

But when you have responsibilities like a beer blog, the show must go on. As I mentioned in a few videos, I have created a back catalog of reviews to get through the month of February. In addition, you will see more news round-ups and commentaries, including one coming tomorrow (Sunday, 2/5/17).

But for today, I bring the first of this month's TWICE-weekly (instead of THRICE-weekly) video reviews, this one coming from Lagunitas Brewing Company. Enjoy, and I'll see you tomorrow!

Beers in Review: They can't all be winners

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This BiR brings a wide range of emotions to this blog. Beers will be liked. Beers will be disliked. Let's find out which is which together.

The folks at Craft and Draft had a fun little tasting last week, pairing assorted beers from River Rat Brewery with specific types of candy. I tried River Rat's Broad River Red with a Kit Kat, and this initially generated a bit of a mental "taste" already, as the aromas of the beer matched the sweet cocoa and wheaty, biscuity notes from the Kit Kat. At least, they did in my head. Overall, the Kit Kat matched well with the Red ale and it's solid malt backbone with some spicy sweetness, and perhaps a dark cocoa hint...or was that the candy doing its job. Regardless, the Red is one of my favorites from River Rat.

Next up is Fandom Ale from Lagunitas Brewing Company. Fandom is a hoppy ale being brewed for the Buffalo Wild Wings sports bar chain. Now, perhaps that fact should have been the first red flag when it came to this beer. Pouring a straight-up yellow, I got tons of piney and vegetal aromatics before even taking a sip. These notes carried through to the taste. Flavor notes included assorted grains, vegetal notes, and hoppy pine. There was a mild hop bitterness that tended to carry through a dry finish into the aftertaste. These flavors, though were shoved in your face quite harshly during the drinking experience, and I found the flavor combination to be not very appealing. This was a serious miss by Lagunitas. Or a major cleaning problem on the part of my local BWW.

On a much more positive note, we move to a brewery that has rarely, if ever, disappointed, Bell's Brewery. Roundhouse is an India Red Ale brewed with honey, and is a fall seasonal with availability in September and October ONLY, per their website. It pours a reddish color, and is quite bold in both hop and especially malt flavors. Sweet honey blends well with a sweet maltiness along with mild crackery notes. This is balanced by a mild hop bite, with just a hint of pine present. I found this beer to be a quick drinker--highly drinkable and highly enjoyable.

Beers in Review: Another post where I have to spell "hazelnut"

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More from the weekend, plus a minor programming note at the end. Let's check out some beers.

The first two beers are some of the less-available beers from Lagunitas Brewing Company. First is their CitruSinensis, a Pale Ale brewed with blood oranges. The ale poured a gold color, had a light to medium body, and I found this beer to be really juicy in terms of a mouthfeel, almost as if biting into a perfectly ripe orange or other fruit, where the juices run down the corners of your mouth. There was a little bit of grape or white wine flavor initially, but this quickly gave way to plenty of citrus, most notably the blood orange, of course. Citrusy hops tended to make their presence felt as the ale warmed. This was a tasty beer with a unique mouthfeel.

Next from Lagunitas was their brand-new Aunt Sally, a hoppy sour ale. It pours a pale golden color, and this particular glass had lots of carbonation, almost making it look like champagne in the glass. The flavors in this beer are straight forward: citrusy hop notes combined with plenty of lemon and other sour flavors. The citrusy hops generate a bit of hop bitterness, especially towards the end of the sip.

To kind of stay on-style after the Aunt Sally, I had Kirsch Gose by Victory Brewing Company. A cherry gose, it represents those cherries visually by pouring a pretty rose color. Sour cherries with mild sweetness made up with flavor profile, and the gose had a crisp, dry mouthfeel and finish. A really tasty gose.

Finally, Hazelnut Brown Nectar from Rogue Ales. It pours a medium shade of brown, is a bit hazy, and has a medium body. Tasty and straight forward in flavor, one of the most notable things that came to my mind when I pursued flavors was "chocolate cake". It is nutty and chocolaty and sweet (but not too sweet) with tons of flavor. An enjoyable drinking experience.

As a programming note, I will be spending the weekend in Asheville, North Carolina, one of the major craft beer cities in the US. I will be tweeting throughout the trip on the blog Twitter account. Also expect multiple articles and maybe even a video on the breweries of Asheville next week!

Beers in Review: Best Beer Week Ever!

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Today I have three beers that are all over the place, style-wise, and are some of the most dynamic beers I've ever tried. This will include one of a few upcoming beers from Lagunitas, thanks to the magic of a local tap takeover.

But before we get into that, let's start with Fuego del Otono by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. It pours a deep, dark golden color, and while listed as a saison or beire de garde, at its soul this is a funky sour ale. Lemon notes are present, as is a hint of grapefruit. The root of this beer is a mighty Belgian funkiness that persists throughout the entire sip and even strengthens as it warms. I also got an aftertaste of lemon rind. I enjoyed this beer, but after about 3/4ths of a glass the warming funkiness combined with the sour notes overwhelmed me a bit.

Next up is Sumatra Mountain Brown from Founders Brewing Company. "Sumatra" is referring to the Indonesian island that provides a considerable amount of the coffee we drink today. Pouring a very dark brown with a light tan head, I drew a roasted coffee aroma (the descriptors that came to my mind were "mighty" or "hefty", reflecting how powerful that aroma was). This beer has plenty of roasty and earthy flavors along with straight up coffee, especially in the aftertaste and when breathing out after drinking. I also detected a mild amount of chocolate and some moderate coffee bitterness. A tremendous beer.

Finally, The Waldos' Special Ale by Lagunitas Brewing Company. This is a TRIPLE IPA that pours a deep gold leaning towards copper color and has a good amount of body. Lagunitas describes it as the "dankest and hoppiest beer" they brew, and it delivers. Powerful aromas of dank grapefruit and grapefruit rind. Flavors are similar, but also include a little bit of dark fruit, and a little bit of hop bite as well as a citrus hop aftertaste. Considering the ABV (11.5%), the booziness stays in the background fairly well, only pushing forward a little bit as it warms up.

It's a fairly rare occurrence to have such a trio of high quality and highly regarded beers in the span of a week. This may have been my best beer week ever.

Beers in Review: Pale Ales

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For this week's written blog entries, I have a quartet of pale ales to write about. We'll cover the first two right now.

After checking my notes, I realized I reviewed this beer in December. It's quite a bit sooner than I would want to repeat a beer, but as a year-round release, I'm fairly confident it's from a different production batch, so let's do it. Lagunitas Brewing Company's Daytime Fractional IPA is a high quality sessionable IPA. It pours a pretty clear gold color and has a pretty low body. Big, bold citrus flavors are very strong on the palate, along with some dank and piney hop flavors. Overall, it is very well-balanced, bright, crisp, and easily drinkable.

I also had Founders Brewing Company's seasonal fruity IPA, Azacca. Having medium body and pouring a red-gold, similar to a dark ruby red grapefruit, this pretty color sets the tone for the flavor of the beer. It is quite crisp and features flavors of fruits and tropical fruits, including passion fruit and papaya. I feel like there was also some mango and maybe peach there, as well, but there was less of the two latter than the two former. The tropical fruits are well-balanced against a mild amount of hoppy bitterness. This is a really neat beer with a really neat flavor profile--it's not a profile you see often in a lot of readily available IPAs. The last one with such a strong tropical profile was the Sierra Nevada Tropical IPA.

Later this week, more pales from a couple of lesser-known breweries. Also, expect the first of the week's two video reviews tomorrow!

Beers in Review: A local beer, and a very not-local beer

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Let's start with the local: Holy City Brewing's Chucktown Follicle Brown. This was a commemorative beer brewed for the Holy City (Charleston) Beard and Moustache Society, and it shows on the can:

Yeah.

Moving on to the beer, it has a medium body and is quite delicious. Nice chocolate notes, combined with a faint burnt flavor and considerable maltiness, all rolled together into a chocolate cake kind of thing for me. There was a mild hop bitterness in the middle of back of the sip, but the prevalent flavors for me were the chocolate and malts. Really delicious.

The second beer today is California-based (but likely Chicago-brewed) Lagunitas Daytime Ale. Referred to as a "Fractional IPA", the theme to me overall was "light". The beer poured to a very light straw color, and was see-through. Flavor-wise, they were there, but not dominant: some mild piney hops combined with, to me, a bit of a straw or grainy flavor. There's nothing bad about this beer. Combined with its ABV (4.65%), it executes the "session IPA" concept very well.

Beer in Review LIVE: Lagunitas Sucks (the beer, not the sentiment)

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Lagunitas Sucks is known as the substitute for their Brown Shugga winter seasonal. It's a double IPA, but seems to trend on the lighter side of the DIPA spectrum. The beer pours an orange-ish color, and just explodes with sweet aromas as it is poured. Per their website (which features a whole lot of really cool tunes, by the way), Sucks utilizes a "cereal medley" of barley, rye, wheat, and oats. The result does have a hint of bready/crackery/wheaty characteristics, but there is a slight hop bite followed by fruit (such as apricot) qualities in the front, then some maltiness and a slight bit of alcohol in the back of the sip. Really, a very solid, very delicious beer.

The Lagunitas-Heineken pairing...

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Last fall, I got to spend close to a month in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on a work trip. I had only a few days off during the trip, but I made the most of them, playing tourist and enjoying the sights and sounds of Amsterdam. Even more important, of course, was the food and drink of Amsterdam. Frankly, this aspect of the trip was somewhat disappointing, as most restaurants in Amsterdam are fairly American-ized. I had a few of the local delicacies, such as bitterballen, which is an oddly-textured beef croquette. The food scene probably would have gone better if I had had more time to explore the guts of the city. I expect, given such an opportunity, the beer scene would NOT go much better.

With the exception of The Beer Temple, an honest-to-goodness American craft beer bar, the Amsterdam beer scene was similarly disappointing--an endless collection of pale lagers and weak dunkel-style dark beers. The beer scene is led, of course, by a titan of Dutch industry: Heineken.

As you are probably aware, Amsterdam has been home to Heineken for well over a century. While I would never cop to being a big Heineken fan, there certainly was the Guinness-in-Ireland sort of effect--whether a result of freshness, a question of who is producing it in the U.S., a mere illusion, or some other reason--the Heineken IN Amsterdam DOES taste better--a slight hint of sweetness early on that I never recalled tasting here in the States.

Regardless, based on my time in Amsterdam, and my general experience with the Heineken brand, I never expected to see "Heineken" and "American craft beer" cross paths.

Until now.

Earlier today, Heineken announced a 50% ownership stake in California's Lagunitas Brewing Company. This seems to be a bit of surprising announcement in the craft beer world, especially from a brewery that seemed to have a fairly singular presence in the pale/light lager category of beer. But according to today's announcement, Heineken is, indeed, seeking to change their reputation, claiming "Lagunitas provides HEINEKEN with the opportunity to build a strong foothold in the dynamic Craft Brewing category on a global scale, with the category growing in popularity almost everywhere now." The agreement utilizes Heineken's distribution and production resources (some 180 breweries) to expand Lagunitas' on a global scale, a reach that will only be furthered by the 2017 opening of their 3rd brewery in Azura, California (joining existing facilities in Petaluma, CA and Chicago, IL).

In a quote to the Santa Rosa/Sonoma County, CA Press Democrat, Lagunitas owner Tony Magee says the new union "would not change the soul of the...company or diminish the quality of its beers." History seems to support that statement. While some craft beer consumers continue to bemoan macrobreweries' continued acquisitions of microbreweries--such as AB InBev's purchase of Goose Island in Chicago, among others--there is no evidence that such acquisitions result in declines in craft beer quality. In fact, the AB Inbevs of the world acquire breweries because they want to ACQUIRE THAT CRAFT BEER QUALITY! A declining product would only be a waste of their investments. Now, part of continuing that quality is making sure you retain the people, and Magee and the Lagunitas work force are apparently going to remain. Thus, while keeping an eye on things, I see little reason to expect a loss of quality from Lagunitas' impressive beer line-up.

Though, it would be nice if Heineken made sure they didn't make ads bemoaning craft beers, like our friends at Bud Light did.