Welcome to Early Draught, a weekly newsletter by Kurt Reckziegel about enjoying, selling, and making good craft beer. If you haven’t subscribed, please do!
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🍺 Beer
Stout and Porter season may well be upon us. Ardbeg came out with The Shortie Smoky Porter. Yuengling’s Hershey’s Chocolate Porter is getting a wider release this year. Crane’s named the Omar Porter after their dearly departed cat. Perrin revived the Malted Milk Ball Imperial Porter. Mother Earth released the Imperial Salted Caramel Oatmeal Stout. Hardywood Park put out their Gingerbread Stout. Allagash’s North Sky already has a 3.9 on Untappd. And GBH is selling their Stout Sweatshirt for 45 bucks.
Dunkin’s cultural cache has been on the rise recently, especially with TikTok’s biggest star now having her own signature drink on the menu. So, Harpoon’s venture into a partnership provides them with some very valuable cultural clout. And of course, this partnership arrives just in time for Porter season.
Coffee + Beer = 😍… Need proof? Breckenridge’s new Nitro Pumpkin Spice Latte. La Colombe’s exclusive partnership with Molson Coors. PBR getting people buzzed and buzzing with their Hard Cold Brew. Even Hypebeast launching Hypebeans in Hong Kong. Need I go on? Also, anyone got the hookup for tickets to the next Uppers & Downers?
Beer, but make it health. Coors Organic is now available in Canada (home sweet home). After more than 350 prototypes, Kirin Ichiban launches their Zero Sugar beer.
🗣️ Marketing Beer
Stout/Porter season means it’s almost the winter holidays, which also means Advent Calendars. Beer52 has a cute one, but then again so does everyone else.
If you’ve had anything from New Belgium recently, you probably know their brand ambassador. You know, the guy with great bone structure (lol’ing at my own joke). They call him Voodoo Ranger. Well, they’re letting you vote on which Voodoo you like best for their next brew. So far they’ve hit me on YouTube, Instagram, and Untappd with this campaign. Who’s getting your vote?
BrewDog is doing the carbon negative thing, which is rad 👏👏. They’re doing the crowdfunded equity thing too, also dope (and so are Yerbaé Enhanced Sparkling Water and Kombucha Town).
One of Australia’s best-selling beers, Victoria Bitter, released its own scent. It’s called Thirst.
Moon Dog, also out of Australia, is selling you a Pub In A Box for $100 just to get you by for now.
🍻 Drinking Beer
Beer&Brewing.com has put together an interesting infographic looking at how the pandemic is affecting beer buying habits.
Cities are figuring out what to do about outdoor dining (or dining al fresco) now that things are getting a little chillier. In the UK, Westminster Council has declared businesses are allowed to continue to serve people eating and drinking outdoors until the end of October. In Japan, the government is allowing restaurants to make use of the pavement in front of their stores until the end of November. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that outdoor dining will become permanent and year-round and he has even hinted at the permanent closure of many streets in the city.
The BA’s data guy (Bart Watson) pulled together some data from the Google Maps API and the BA brewery database to look at brewery closing times.
Since the Alberta Beer Festival couldn’t get people to come to the beer, they’re bringing the beer to the people. They launched the Beerfest In A Box, and if you happen to be up north you can take a look here to see where to find it.
😝 Stuff almost beer-related (like if you squint a little)
Enviro-friendly packaging. Ok, three things to check out here: 1- great report from IWSR ($) on how beverage brands are making innovative use of paper, 2- the Cassandra Daily issue on Refillable Is The New Recyclable, 3- Zero Grocery, which has already raised $4.7M.
📸 Can of the Week
Alohaaa! from Chilton Mill Brewing in Long Valley, NJ