Beer News from North America

The Boston Beer Company, makers of the Samuel Adams and Oregon Originals lines of brews, as well as Hardcore Ciders, have come up with yet another unusual promotion to draw their customers in closer to the company. In a news release dated December 8, 1997, Boston Beer announced a contest in which beer lovers were invited to submit original artwork for possible inclusion in the company's 1997 annual report.

The artwork has to meet two qualifications: it must feature Samuel Adams beer and it must not be larger than 20" by 30" in size. Other than that, the release says that it can be in any two dimensional medium, from paint to print, photography to woodcuts. The entries will be judged by the Boston-based graphic designer, Nan Porter, who is designing the Annual Report, and prizes of US$250 to US$1000 will be awarded.

There is still time to get your entry in before February 15. Send original artwork to: Samuel Adams Thirsty Artists, The Boston Beer Company, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116.

Don Russell, who informs and entertains Philadelphia beer drinkers as Joe Sixpack in the Philadelphia Daily News, had a few interesting points to make in his "Looking back on beer in '97" column. Among the highlights:

-- Slamming the doom-and-gloom experts who profess that 1997 was the beginning of the end for craft brewing in North America, Don notes that most of these so-called "experts" drink not beer, but martinis. In other words, says Don, "there's plenty of good beer left for the rest of us."

-- In the "who'd a-thunk it" department, Don reports that the prosecutors who successfully jailed convicted killer/rich guy John E. du Pont toasted their victory with a saison from -- where else? -- Belgium's Brasserie Dupont!

-- Quoting Anheuser-Busch brewmaster Gary Eckman, Don reveals that the A-B research team's stated goal in producing Pacific Ridge Pale was to "create a beer that we would enjoy drinking ourselves." Wonder why it took them so long to get around to that idea?

-- And finally, Don's trio of Beers of the Year was Dogfish Head Immort Ale, Samuel Adams Brewhouse Tart Ale and Fuller's 1845 Bottle-Conditioned Ale.

(Check out Don's sage beer advice on the Daily News web page, located at http://www.phillynews.com.)

Subscribers to the World of Beer Update heard in January of a proposed take-over of the Upper Canada Brewing Company by the Sleeman Brewing and Malting Company, both of Ontario. If completed, it will be the single most important event ever to take place in the young history of craft brewing in Canada.

Described as a CN$27 million deal, Sleeman is offering CN$2.75 plus 0.433 of a Sleeman share for every Upper Canada share. The larger, Guelph-based brewer has said that the Upper Canada brewery in Toronto will be closed down and production moved to Guelph should the deal be consummated.

Along with Waterloo's Brick Brewing and Guelph's Wellington County Brewing, Upper Canada Brewing was one of the first three craft brewers to start in Ontario and is currently a significant player in the Ontario market, especially in and around Toronto. However, Upper Canada has floundered somewhat since the brewery went public two years ago and has been the subject of take-over rumours for some time.

Already the largest craft brewer in Canada with a reported 2.15% share of the Ontario beer market, Sleeman would become a potent force on the national beer scene and a 3% stake-holder in the Ontario market should its acquisition of Upper Canada be completed. And as things presently stand, there is no reason to believe that it will not.

The upshot of the deal is that Ontario will be one brewing company and several brands poorer, as Sleeman will undoubtedly pick and choose which beers to continue in production from the broad Upper Canada portfolio, and numerous Upper Canada employees will lose their jobs. Exactly what will happen to the brands that Sleeman does choose to hold onto is, of course, for the future to decide, but I personally do not expect the Upper Canada beers to decline at all. In fact, the Sleeman brewery may be able to better the beers by affording them greater consistency.

As for the soon-to-be-former Upper Canada brewery on Atlantic Avenue, I expect that it will be broken down and sold piecemeal on the used brewing equipment market, although no announcement of Sleeman's intent has been made. As an outside chance, however, watch for the possibility of a brewer from another province picking up the entire brewery en masse.

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The end of January saw the official birth of a new brewery in Ontario, Cameron's Brewing Company of Toronto. Of course, breweries are opening all across North America at a regular rate, so the emergence of a small Toronto operation might not seem at first to be of any great importance to readers outside of southern Ontario. But one look at the packaging for Cameron's Cream Ale reveals a more interesting side to this event.

The new operation, located on Westside Drive in the Etobicoke region of the city, has broken new ground by electing to market their brew in a unique nine-pack box. Known as "Cameron's Cubes," the attractively designed cases are easy to carry and provide the brewery with an eye-catching point of differentiation from other beers, which will be especially helpful when they hit the province's LCBO shelves later this month.

The beer itself is a clean-tasting cream ale with a mild to moderate hop character and faintly fruity backbone. I suspect, though, that the flavour will have less to do with the brew's long-term success than will the public's acceptance, or rejection, of "Cameron's Cubes." Other breweries will no doubt be watching closely.

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