The Problem with Batch 19

Forget the beer. I'm sorry to hear about your father.

 

Yeah there's a lot of acronyms thrown around here that even people who know beer might not know. This particular one is Bourbon County Brand Stout, brewed by Goose Island.

 

Oh ok. Well no I don't because even though goose is owned by anheiser it was originally a very small craft brewery that I believe just sold a majority of its shares...it has integrity for me because of what it did for increasing its availability on a national scale. And that beer is ridiculously good so they also produce an indisputably high standard produt.

 

I declare shenanigans. You'll tell your customers not to buy a coors product but you'll defend an inbev brewery. You're the one saying it doesn't matter what. Batch 19 tastes like, and then say bcbs is a superior tasting product. Really? Just admit it, it's all about the hype for you. If it was all about principals like you claimed earlier in this thread you'd do the same thing with your customers and goose island. This is the whole reason why I don't have a lot of faith in the beer community and why I don't trust servers to give me the straight dope, just dopes giving it to me straight...

 

Goose Island wasn't publicly-traded and had no shareholders - its owners, John Hall and the Craft Brews Alliance (which owned 40% of GI), simply sold the production brewery and its brands to Anheuser-Busch (Hall continues to own the brewpubs).

GI's "national availability" likewise was a result of Goose Island, even prior to the buyout, having been distributed via AB's wholesale network. AB has a distribution deal with the CBA breweries (now - Kona, Widmer, Redhook), which it also partially owns (a minority share of around 1/3). They only went national (or, near national?) after AB started brewing some of the GI brands in their breweries (CO and NY), thus also freeing up space in Chicago for other beers. Previously, some GI beers had been brewed at other CBA breweries on a smaller scale.

 

But not much different than Brooklyn Lager being labeled "The Pre-Prohibition Lager" (as if there could be such a thing in the first place), even though it uses two hop varieties that didn't exist at the time - Vanguard and Cascade - and is obviously brewed using currently available strains of barley, malted in modern facilities - the same sorts of things MillerCoors is doing with Batch 19 and which it is claimed as "inauthentic".


Me - I just find it amusing to name the beer "19" after the year before National Prohibition, even though the recipe had to predate that year, since Colorado enacted state-wide Prohibition in 1916. Any beer coming out of Coors' Golden, CO. brewery in 1919 would have been an under 0.5% cereal beverage, or illegal.

 

I was thinking that it might be based off of a recipe for a beer being brewed before it was dealcoholized (down to 0.5%). We've gone through the historical inaccuracies or questionmarks in other threads, but they might at least have had a recipe in their hands before deciding to change it up into its finished form. The original beer might never have left the premises of the brewery in its undilluted form.

 

Two discussion topics:

MillerCoors/Keith Villa marketing BS

I had links to two videos where Keith Villa had interviews on morning news shows in Milwaukee and Chicago (two of the 5 cities that Batch 19 was test marketed). Unfortunately those videos are no longer active on YouTube. Keith came to those shows with the old Coors logbook in hand. He would quickly point to a page in the book which had the recipe which allegedly was the basis for the brewing of Batch 19. I am confident that the recipe that he alluded to was prior to 1919 but that is a moot point since the Batch 19 recipe has little in common with the recipe in the book (I discussed this in a previous thread). So, the whole 19 thing is marketing BS on many levels.

Below is a print story about the old logbook:

“Back in 2004 there was a small flood in our archives in the basement of the Coors Brewery in Golden,” explains Keith Villa, master brewer at MillerCoors. “As I was moving boxes of records to a safer location I ran across the logbook the brewers used to use at the turn of the century. It was just an amazing find because it literally had all the recipes, the quantities of materials they used, and everything they did on a daily basis, written in exquisite handwriting.”

Villa, who earned his Ph.D. in brewing and fermentation biochemistry from the University of Brussels in Belgium, recreated the beer that was outlined in the dusty black logbook and deemed it Batch 19, named for the last year, 1919, before Prohibition made the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol illegal.”

You just gotta like that verbiage: “deemed it”!?!

Brooklyn Lager

Kudos to jesskidden for the observations of "The Pre-Prohibition Lager" and that this beer is brewed with non-historical hops (which is similar to Batch 19). I am personally not aware of how Brooklyn Brewery marketed this beer (I am very familiar with the MillerCoors/Keith Villa marketing BS). Other than the label did Brooklyn actively market Brooklyn Lager as being a historical beer?

On the Brooklyn website it states:

“In the late 1800’s Brooklyn was one of the largest brewing centers in the country, home to more than 45 breweries. Lager beer in the “Vienna” style was one of the local favorites. Brooklyn Lager is amber-gold in color and displays a firm malt center supported by a refreshing bitterness and floral hop aroma. Caramel malts show in the finish. The aromatic qualities of the beer are enhanced by “dry-hopping”, the centuries-old practice of steeping the beer with fresh hops as it undergoes a long, cold maturation. The result is a wonderfully flavorful beer, smooth, refreshing and very versatile with food. Dry-hopping is largely a British technique, which we’ve used in a Viennese-style beer to create an American original.”

The above description does not ‘read’ like a Pre-Prohibition Lager/Classic American Pilsner to me. It ‘reads’ like a Vienna Lager with a twist of dry hopping to create a ‘new’ beer (I assume “an American original” = ‘new’ beer).

I am not attempting to let Brooklyn ‘off the hook’ with their labeling on the bottle but I would like to know more about how Brooklyn Brewery really markets this beer (in print ads, radio ads, etc.).

Cheers!

 

No, nothing quite so involved - the recipe was from 1914 (the date can even be clearly seen in the second video from a local TV station webpage). It's just that " Batch 14" didn't have enough marketing power, I suppose.

 

Nowhere does Brooklyn suggest their flagship lager is a CAP - that's why calling in "THE Pre-Prohibition Lager" is just so much marketing. There was not one single recipe lager beer in the Pre-Pro era - be it an adjunct or all malt pilsner, Vienna lager, etc.

Brooklyn's original recipe for Brooklyn Lager ( IIRC, it has since been tweaked by Garrett Oliver - who wasn't around in the beginning) was "based on" recipes of ex-Ortlieb, ex-Schmidt brewmaster Bill Moeller's grandfather, who was a turn of the century Brooklyn area brewer. Dry-hopping lager beers in the US was not unheard of, but I don't know if that aspect was taken from the Moeller recipe collection or added by Moeller or the Brooklyn founders during their period of test brewing.

Many US lager brewers, both before Prohibition and after Repeal brewed Vienna lagers as one of a number of German and other central European beer styles they offered. (In the pre-Pro era, US brewers typically called them "Wiener Beer").

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Even Coors (despite the mythology that Coors Banquet is the "original" Coors Beer) brewed a Vienna as one of their flagship beers in the 1930's.

 

My read of the description of dry hopping had nothing to do with American history since Brooklyn stated: “Dry-hopping is largely a British technique.”

So, my read is that Brooklyn Lager is just a ‘unique’ beer that Brooklyn decided to brew: a Vienna Lager with a British ‘twist’.

I really don’t understand their explicit motivation for putting on the label “THE Pre-Prohibition Lager” on this beer. If I owned Brooklyn Brewing I would try to think of a succinct ‘label’ of a Vienna Lager with a British twist or something like that.

Cheers!

 

Have you had Anchor California Lager? Probably the most widely available pre-prohibition-style lager out there these days. All cluster hops and California-grown barley, which is what west coast brewers would have been using back then.

 

You always harp on people who might actually like something from BMC, yet you seem to have orgasims over Sam Adams. It's just beer; drink what you like, whether it's something craft (my choice) or BMC (several friends' choice).

 

Oh, you didn't "pick up any adjuncts". Wow, now I've heard everything. You kids really got the skills man! Are you maybe just so full of shit that you didn't detect those adjuncts.

 

I haven't tried Batch 19 yet, so I won't say 'oh it's Coors, it sucks' (though, if I had to guess, this will likely be my reaction when/if I try it), but I gotta say, I woulda taken the GI IPA in a heartbeat, not a bad little beer at all.

 

The short answer to your question is: no.

The medium answer is that California Lager is only being distributed in California (at the moment). I do not live in California. I live on the East Coast (Pennsylvania).

The longest answer is that I was unaware that that historically: “All cluster hops and California-grown barley, which is what west coast brewers would have been using back then.” What I have read about pre-prohibition lagers (what I refer to as Classic American Pilsners) is that they were brewed with a combination of American 6 row barley and an adjunct (e.g., corn, rice). Do you have documentation that CAP beers in Californian were all malt vs. a combination of 6 row and adjunct? Were there no non-adjunct pilsners brewed in California prior to Prohibition? I would very much like to read that documentation. Is the 6 row and adjunct a non-California thing?

Thank you in advance for your help in this matter.

Cheers!

 

Anchor's California Lager is an attempt at a recreation of Boca Brewing Lager during the 1870's. From Anchor's website "Made in San Francisco with two-row California barley, Cluster hops (the premier hop in 19th-century California), and our own lager yeast, this all-malt brew is kräusened and lagered in our cellars."
At the time Boca was know for it's ice harvesting allowing for lager to be brewed at the nearby Boca Brewing Co.From Truckeehistory.org "Boca, being one of the coldest places in the country in winter, had five cold springs and unlimited ice that could be harvested and stored for use for over a year, ideal for a brewery site. Boca Beer was sold worldwide and gained fame due to brewing with natural spring water and ice. It became a popular drink at the 1883 World’s Fair in Paris, France. On a cold January evening in 1893, the Boca Brewery burned to the ground marking the end of one of the country’s most popular beers."

The beer is meant to recreation, but isn't following a specific recipe. What it looks like is they are just using what would be available to them at the time. They are using California 2-row barely instead of 6 row. As for the adjunct I do not have an answer. Considering it was supposed to be a very popular beer I should be able to get more info with some more digging.

 

Maybe she just knows her customers really well? She was reluctant to put the Batch 19 keg on in the first place, knowing her customers wouldn't want a Coors product and sure enough, upon finding out it was a Coors beer, they "send it back or ask for a substitute". Doesn't really matter what she thinks about the beer as the manager if her customers don't want it, right? Now, think about the number of threads or posts you've seen where BA's say they'll make an exception for BCBS or Goose Island beers in general, even though it's owned by InBev. Can you really blame the bar manager for being willing to sell BCBS and not Batch 19 when the customers (and beer geek community as a whole) have clearly shown that they'll make the exception and buy the former but not the latter?

And as a side note, I'm willing to say her defense of BCBS and Goose Island was weak. Who cares if it was originally a small craft brewery, it's still an InBev product now. But it's nice a beer to have when you want to appeal to the ever-hypocritical beer geek community.

 

Firstly, thanks for your response!

“Considering it was supposed to be a very popular beer I should be able to get more info with some more digging.” I would appreciate any information you are able to obtain.

Cheers!

 

The (main) problem is the price.