Back in June I posted, Flying Dog’s Raging Bitch and seeing a man about a hop! and As rare as Rocking Horse shit! , this after I had re-tweeted a couple of stories about Flying Dog Brewery.

The first – dated June 6th concerned Flying Dog Brewery CEO, Jim Caruso, announcing that the company was halting distribution in five states. Caruso in a letter to distributors wrote:

“As local demand for Flying Dog beers continue to soar, we are concentrating our distribution in our home markets and Flying Dog beers will not be available in your territory for some unknown period of time.

This is no doubt disappointing news, but it is a necessary decision and consistent with the new age of craft beer and the focus on local markets.”

Flying Dog wasn’t alone amongst American craft breweries having to re-evaluate its distribution network, as Dogfish Head, Great Divide and others had also reduced the number of states they supplied. And with distribution in 45 states and 20 countries prior to this contraction, the move by Flying Dog was perhaps inevitable. (more…)

Real ale’s image problem. From the inexplicable to the abhorrent, the world of real ale is beset by profoundly ill-advised branding.

The above was the headline of a recent article in The Guardian written by Jeff Pickthall of Pumpclip Parade http://pumpclipparade.blogspot.com

And it seems that beer’s image is on a few people’s mind at the moment as Mark Dredge, in his excellent blog also recently wrote about  Beer branding as has Sophie Atherton on her blog,  A FemAle View, in a couple of recent posts, including a post about sexist pump clips. The above got me thinking what ticks the boxes for me when I’m in the beer aisle at my local supermarket, the excellent Booth’s in Lytham, or when faced by a bank of hand pumps. Which bottles stand out the most, or which clips?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Photo courtesy of The Ormskirk Baron (more…)

The following is an extract from Hopsteiner’s  Crop & Market Update – June 2011, which popped up today in my Email Inbox. As much as I hate to say, it pretty much confirms what I said in my post last week “Flying Dog’s Raging Bitch and seeing a man about a hop!” about the availability of Amarillo, Citra and Simcoe hops. To that mix I think you can now also add Ahtanum.

(more…)

Last week I retweeted a couple of stories about Flying Dog Brewery.

The first – dated June 6^th concerned Flying Dog Brewery CEO, Jim Caruso, announcing that the company was halting distribution in five U.S.states. Caruso said they would re-consider these markets later in 2011 and in a letter to distributors wrote:

“As local demand for Flying Dog beers continues to soar, we are concentrating our distribution in our home markets and Flying Dog beers will not be available in your territory for some unknown period of time.

This is no doubt disappointing news, but it is a necessary decision and consistent with the new age of craft beer and the focus on local markets.” (more…)