Who brews it anyway?

So do they brew mostly at their own brewery now? They worded it weirdly, making it sound like they brew their limited release beers in Memphis.

 

F.X. Matt in Utica (Saranac) makes Sam Adams, Smuttynose and a couple others that escape me off the top of my head.

 

Yup, Shock Top is AB.. love the look on people's faces when I tell them that - plus nowadays everyone fact-checks on cell phones, so the gratification is instant.

 

Their brewery in Brooklyn is pretty small with no canning line and Sixpoint's barrelage for 2013 was in the 50-60k bbl. range IIRC - I think "limited, regional distribution" means the distribution region in the US is limited, not the beers. I'd imagine that the majority of the production is coming out of City-Memphis (which was once a 5-6 million barrel capacity brewery when built by Schlitz).

 

Matt hasn't contract-brewed for Boston Beer Co. since the 1990s-early 2000s IIRC. They have not been mentioned in BBC annual reports for the last few years and, as noted above, just about all of BBC's production now come out of their own breweries in OH and PA.

I think I remember Matt and BBC having some business "difficulties" (not unusual for BBC - they sued Miller at one point, and also had conflicts with Genesee after NAB took them over).

 

Brooklyn Lager and Summer Ale and they can Harpoon's IPA and Summer Beer which are brewed in Vermont.

 

The still-extant blatant example of this is the big-name Japanese macro brewers:

• Asahi is brewed at MillerCoors' plant in Irwindale, CA.
• Kirin is brewed at ABiB's facility in Van Nuys, CA.
• Sapporo's beer is still imported - from Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

 

So many great beers brewed here in Ft. Worth!!!!! lol

Not to derail this thread but the MillerCoors plant is the largest customer of the Ft. Worth Water District. Interesting read here about water usage here in parched Texas.

 

Funny that we are "beer advocates" and we should know better about this stuff and then you read some very bad information in this thread.

How do we expect the average consumer to keep up with all of this when a bunch of purported experts can't?

 

Just so you know, Matt's brewed supplemental beer for us in 2010 and 2011. They were a great resource, helping us get through several periods of severe capacity constraints. Once we squeezed more tanks into our original plant while we planned and built a our new facility in Hampton, we no longer required their services. But I am glad they were there for us when we needed them!

Peter Egelston
Smuttynose Brewing Company

 

Nope, I questioned why it was there and the bartender filled me in.....to be clear SA pays AB to brew for them on the west coast....at least that's what the bartender told me.....

 

Well, I think the most likely explanation is ----> the bartender didn't know what he was talking about.

If AB was a contract-brewer for Boston Beer Co., it would be well-known via TTB COLAs and other industry sources. And it would be quite a shock, too, given the long history of animosity and regulatory complaints, etc., between BBC and AB.

BBC's west coast brewery contractors were Blitz-Weinhard (owned by Heileman and then Stroh) in Portland OR in the 1990s, and then moved to Miller after they took over the Pabst-owned Olympia brewery in 1999 when Stroh closed B-W. Miller closed the Tumwater, WA brewery in 2003, and moved their brewing of SA beers to Eden, NC, ending all west coast brewing of BBC's brands.

Today, according to BBC's own Annual Report 2013:

LaCrosse and Latrobe, of course, are City Brewing Co. facilities, Clifton Park is Shmaltz Brewing Company (brewing BBC-owned Alchemist & Science's Coney Island brand) and Pleasant Valley Wine Company is in Hammondsport, New York. No Anheuser Busch breweries listed.

 

From the Glass Lined Tanks Of Old Latro..... oh wait St. Louis

 

Isn't there a Guiness Brewery located in Jamacia?

 

Every time I hear about the Dry and Ice beer fad of the early 90s, all I can think about is Michael Ironside proclaiming from valhala

"History teaches us that strong survive by the strong becoming stronger!!"



Pulitizer material folks...

 

Well, I meant the rest that we get in the states, but you're right it is brewed in Jamaica. I'm not sure if it's done under license or not, though.

I pretty sure it's better than the one we get here, too- a touch less roasty, with more dark fruits from the yeast and malt. Goes awesome with jerk chicken!

 

Does it really matter?

If it's the same exact recipe (and I don't know if it is) but brewed somewhere else...does it really matter?

Seems like everyone thinks everybody is lying to them? It's called marketing, intelligent, self informed people know better or don't care...if someone likes RS because they think it is "brewed" in Jamaica who really cares, who is it bothering, hurting?

Some of this chatter is just to much IMHO...it's beer, you either like it or not...you either think it taste good or it doesn't. Unless someone is physically making you buy any given beer...it's a non-issue. It's 2014 and information on any desired subject is easily ripe for the picking...live, learn, evolve...everyone else can go the way of the dinosaur...

 

We're aren't trying to cure cancer here. So, in the big picture it isn't a big deal, but sometimes you just want to know who makes what you're buying. (even if it's just for curiosity's sake)

 

How about Whitbread and Mackeson?

 

I agree and for the most part all of us BA do. That really is my point...there is an assumption that others are getting screwed and would be blown away if they found out their beloved RS wasn't brewed in Jamaica...yes as a group we are very passionate but few others really care.

In the end it's nothing more than a handful of people complaining about things they already know to be true and have decided they are offensive...unfortunately most people could care less.