This is inevitable and will be the best solution in current market place — to achieve growth
https://www.brewbound.com/news/2019/may-ma-small-craft-breweries-across-us-consolidate-as-competition-stiffens?utm_source=Brewbound&utm_campaign=e326bef9dc-mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6026cb3473-e326bef9dc-168836353
well worth keeping a copy near by
https://www.craftbrewingbusiness.com/featured/2019-craft-beer-branding-trends-part-two-of-two/?utm_source=Craft+Brewing+Business+Newsletter&utm_campaign=158f4cc010-CBBNews_20190522&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1e143189ee-158f4cc010-94557413
This a well written article well worth having a read
https://www.craftbrewingbusiness.com/business-marketing/2019-craft-beer-branding-trends-part-one-of-two/
Happy New Years to All,
As 2018 comes to an end I'm really looking forward to what the new year brings. I had such a blast this past year being part of some new productions, all of these innovations were first ever creations and a true delight.
They were:
1. A fabulous Czech style lager in UK
2. A TantalisIng Munich style lager and session ale in Dublin - all ready to be on sale in the new year
3. A blonde ale in the USA - just being brewed today ( excited as we have a few special ingredients in this one )
4. A red session ale already on sale in Dublin with brew 2 delivered and ready to go on tap — feedback has been fabulous on taste and profile
5. Also, I have two product development trials on the go — looking at a few wild ideas — all to be released early spring
So 5 brews in production in three countries, just keeping my hand in the game and looking forward to expanding who I can innovate within the coming year.
Cheers!
-Fergal
In the coming weeks I'm so excited to get my feet wet and travel a bit. I have been asked to attend the upcoming and very successful Brewers of Europe Forum at the SQUARE, which is situated in Mont-des-Arts in the heart of Brussels, an area that packs in a fine combination of culture, energy, business and leisure.
The main theme will be - ‘Beer and Beyond’ and will combine strategic and practical content.
From cultivating your own yeast to the science of food pairing, from targeting millennials to reducing your environmental footprint, the forum will offer inspiration for all industry participants as they come together to prepare a bright future for beer.
Some of the top speakers I'm excited to see are:
For more details on the event: http://brewersforum.eu/
Hope to see you all there in the coming weeks!!!!
FM
I've been having some amazing time working on some brews with Jack Smyth. See some exclusive, behind the scenes images from my time with the brewers. I can't wait to taste the final product. I'll be sure to let you all know when it's available.I've been having some amazing time working on some brews with Jack Smyth. See some exclusive, behind the scenes images from my time with the brewers. I can't wait to taste the final product. I'll be sure to let you all know when it's available.
Interested in finding where to taste Jack's? Click here
This past week I'm thankful to be at an amazing event in Brazil. Below are just some quick recaps.
On route to Brazil from Dublin:
3 flights
16 hrs in air
Arrive in Brazil
Barrels aging beer
Brew house
The panel of judges: 30 taste judges ready to go!!!
Now live after 70 plus samples.
Some unique creations.
Some great beers.
Blending in with the local judges and enjoying the experience of craft brewers showing their passion and sharing their wealth of knowledge.
Sample 1: Day 2
India Pale Ale: really nice and well balanced. A can smell a nice fruity/piney hop aroma.
My Chilean judge Richard joined me today. Fantastic guy!
This one is really innovative, it's a mix of coffee and cocoa in a beer!
For more info: https://www.facebook.com/MatineCervejeira/
As a beer advocate and brewmaster, I find that many articles I consume weekly don’t really get my attention, but these few really took me by storm. As I read them I couldn’t stop thinking of how important their point of views were and that they were something that should be shared. Be on the lookout for some internal insight into the world of what gets a brewmaster like me to turn their head and listen up. Hopefully, you too will become an inner brewmaster as well.
Join me next month in evaluating a new group of articles in the industry, for now, I hope you enjoy these amazing reads.
A good pour, a craft revolution, stats to really sink your teeth into are just a few main points of this week’s blog. As a beer advocate and brewmaster, I find that many articles I consume weekly don’t really get my attention, but these few really took me by storm. As I read them I couldn’t stop thinking of how important their POV’s were and that they were something that should be shared. Which is why I will bring to you my trending articles in the brewing, distilling industry each month. Be on the lookout for some internal insight into the world of what gets a brewmaster/ distiller like me to turn their head and listen up.
Hopefully, you too will become an inner brewmaster/distiller as well. Please feel free to comment and let me know how you feel about the article sI have chosen!
Well worth a read of this article as the Brewers still debate the meaning of craft — this discussion is ongoing and seems to have no end in sight as the beer world still transitions. The real big aspect which I would like to reiterate is the Beer world is enjoying a major growth in brands great beers and most importantly gaining new and educated consumers, these drinkers and becoming really clued into the quality and the great experiences they can have with fantastic beer. Beer is sending out great positive vibes and we should not let this hinder how we currently feel.
What a great study! This should be extended and more information should be gathered on this subject matter. I hope some agencies grab hold of this knowledge and create some great content and information for consumers to enjoy beer even more. These word descriptors are very vibrant and deliver a new vocabulary that will help brewers innovate and create even more delicious beers.
Trends need great new insights as to why to extend the brand lifecycle — beer, in general, has been flying in this new world. I feel this post was a great read to identify the reason as to why.
One of the whiskey gurus - sharing some amazing knowledge — ENJOY.
Awesome news for Edinburgh - this will be a wonderful destination spot for an experience. I highly recommend getting to know why a little more.
Wow, these 12 disciples have so much knowledge, keep this list in your file - definitely an elite group to keep an eye on.
Stay tuned for the next edition of brewmaster/distiller approved articles. Once again, please be sure to add in your comments as well as I open this up as an active discussion I feel we can all benefit from.
A good pour, a craft revolution, stats to really sink your teeth into are just a few main points of this week’s blog. As a beer advocate and brewmaster, I find that many articles I consume weekly don’t really get my attention, but these few really took me by storm. As I read them I couldn’t stop thinking of how important their POV’s were and that they were something that should be shared. Which is why I will bring to you my trending articles in the brewing, distilling industry each month. Be on the lookout for some internal insight into the world of what gets a brewmaster like me to turn their head and listen up.
Hopefully, you too will become an inner brewmaster as well.
Key Thoughts:
1. The revolution has been awakening and has created a different landscape in the beer world - the beer drinker has benefited enormously and fantastic beers and brewing innovations have shown the beer world is very much about enormous diversity and wonderful experiences.
2. One of the significant issues all over the globe - is the retail margin - wow the bars are screaming it …. and well this has created an issue.
3. The ability to sell these beers at these margins (on trade especially) has allowed distributors to control the commercial terms — hence the big brewers have targeted the situation that they know will give them share.
Interested in reading more: http://bit.ly/2oyZwoj
Key Thoughts: This is a great read — would love to see in this analysis the volumes of beer sold per brewery as in their tap room and what they externally sell.
Interested in reading more: http://bit.ly/2oXU1AM
Key Thoughts:
Great to read this very interesting article. Being fooled by Scotch Whisky is a big concern I feel needs to have attention drawn to. The customer is getting very confused as to what to pay more or less for.
Well worth this debate being further developed as new distilleries start producing — what is their journey going to be like — where and what will they produce to get a brand recognized.
Interested in learning more: http://bit.ly/2ooSocg
Key Thoughts: Since I have a little background into pouring a perfect Guinness I found this article to be very entertaining. It had some great points and really streamlined the details of the process.
Interested in reading more: http://bit.ly/2p67lma
Stay tuned for the next edition of brewmaster approved articles. If you would like to read other blogs I've created please click here.
By Bill Yenne
Preface by: Fergal Murray - Master Brewer, Guinness, Dublin
I have worked in the world of beer for nearly 30 years. I was taught by the masters of their craft in a brewery where knowledge and skill were handed down through more than two centuries, but more than anything, I gained from them a sense of passion for what it takes to be a brewer.
During my career, I have brewed beer on two continents, and I have traveled to over 50 different nations on every continent. I would guess that I have had at least one beer in each of these countries. I suppose I’ve probably been in more bars across more nations than most of my fellow beer lovers. I’ve been in brewhouses and bottling halls all over the world and I’ve witnessed a lot of passion and dedication to the brewing of great beer.
For all brewers, the four basic ingredients—water, malt, hops, and yeast—are fundamentally the only way to make great beer. As I have learned, and as I advise everyone who brews, a good brewer starts with a clear and precise process, practices a recipe, and continues to practice the same recipe to be consistent and to maintain and improve the quality. As I often say, watch your hygiene, mind your yeast, and cherish the goodness that comes from the malt base. As an old brewer once told me, “get it right in the brew house, and with good yeast, everything else is just time.”
However, for a brewer to become a master brewer is to exude a passion for our craft, and to put heart and soul into our beer.
I’ve have had some extraordinary beer experiences, made remarkable by great locations, great breweries, and unique events and situations to celebrate. I’ve savored my beer in exclusive high-end bars, in street corner pubs, in beach taverns, and in jungle shacks.
I fondly remember one atrociously hot sweltering night in Lagos many years ago, just after another military coup. We got into one of those traffic jams you can only get into in Africa, where cars, buses, trucks, cows, goats, sheep, people, and all of God’s creations merge, and chaos prevails. (When this happens, you do not try to think how to solve the problem—it can’t be done.) This night, two colleagues and I, with our drivers, had gotten out the brewery gate and had entered the fray. I remember that when we realized we had not moved, and the air conditioning in the cars was beginning to falter, we got out of our cars to survey the scene. My colleagues and I, seasoned in Africa, realized that our situation was hopeless.
At that moment, we saw a table beneath a canvas-roofed establishment marked with a poster of a bottle of beer. Most important, we saw that they had stock in a cold bucket. We entered to the surprise of the young woman, who up until then had probably never experienced three expats attempting to sit on her makeshift bench beside the street, and asking for a beer. From that moment on, one of the great beer experiences of my life unfolded. We were an attraction. Soon the corner bar was overwhelmed with onlookers. It turned into one of those occasions when the one common desire for cold beer transcended all thoughts and concerns. The stories, the fun, the camaraderie were all amazing. Eventually the traffic subsided, and everyone went on his way, but after that, on our way home, we regularly went back to that same table and that cold bucket of beer.
Did you know that next to water and tea, beer is the beverage most consumed by human beings across the globe? More that 200 billion liters are consumed each year.
Never has beer, and the enjoyment of beer, been more diverse, more active than it is today. Even as traditional beer markets are declining, new, emerging markets are growing, along with innovative brands and fabulous craft brewers developing everywhere.
I read a document recently from one of the brewers’ associations, which classified over 140 different styles of beer. I know this is growing, and with so much diversity, and so many amazing fantastic tastes, the world of beer has never been more exciting.
As an adorer of great beers, I have found that experiencing great beers is more than just the beer itself. We must have a great bar, a place where it just feels right. Whether it may be a street bar, a high-end, five-star, state-of-art bar, or an iconic, history-laden pub, it just has to have something magic about it. Then we need a great bartender, a bartender who knows how to craft and serve a beer so that looks absolutely gorgeous in every way—because it is with our eyes that first savor our beer.
Only then do we take pleasure in our reward, when all the wonderful flavors and textures awaken our senses and bring to life the beer, a refreshing experience that enhances life’s journey.
Guest Blog written by: Jeff Alworth at All About Beer Magazine
Three years ago, almost to the day, I had one of the oddest interviews of my life. I was in the midst of research for my book The Beer Bible, and had already completed one swing through Europe touring breweries and interviewing brewers. It was only by coincidence that the man on the other end of the phone was Fergal Murray, the master brewer at Guinness, and that St. Patrick’s Day had just passed. Coincidence or no, as the shamrocks start festooning walls each year, I’ll remember it as the time Murray spent 20 minutes dodging questions and keeping Guinness’ secrets safe.
It was a miracle we were even speaking at all. I had been trying for months to get through Diageo’s corporate wall (that’s the giant drinks company that owns Guinness) to find someone who could even put me in touch with Murray. Totally by chance, Guinness’ U.S. publicity team sent an email about a Guinness promotion in advance of St. Patrick’s Day and offered an interview with the master brewer. What luck!
By this point, I’d learned that visiting the brewery was out of the question. Guinness is the only company that flatly refused to let me see its facility. If you do much research, you discover that this has been true for a while—no one has seemed to so much as glimpsed a mash tun for years. I knew that I’d only have 15 or 20 minutes with Murray, and I wanted to learn a bit about what was behind the tall walls at St. James Gate. I’d also been fascinated by that strange, tangy note in Guinness’ Extra Stout, and hoped to learn its secret. I figured if I got any info on those two things, I’d be ahead of the game.
Fergal Murray
I started trying to understand something about this brewery I wasn’t allowed to see. The only information you can find is fragmentary information like this, on the Guinness website: “The grist is mixed with hot water—known as ‘liquor’—and then passes through a ‘Steel’s Masher’” This seemed at least somewhat suggestive—Steel’s Mashers are old Victorian devices. Could Guinness’ apparently state-of-the-art facility retain Victorian touches, as the website suggested?
Murray was instantly uncomfortable. “Ummm, yeah. Um, yeah,” he began, clearly at a loss about what to say. “[I] wouldn’t start with the description you have about traditional or anything like that. … It’s totally new and modern in every sense of the word. So traditional terms like mashers and stuff like that—I don’t think we’ve had a Steel’s Masher as such in quite a while.”
At the time, this seemed evasive, but when I pulled up the audio and listened to it again, it struck me that Murray was just trying to figure out what to do with this blatantly misleading text from the website. It sort of set the tone for the entire interview, where I asked a question and Murray spent several minutes, punctuated by murmurs, groans, and sighs, trying not to answer it.
I tried to shift gears after the Steel’s Masher debacle and tried a more neutral question: How big is the brewery? “That’s again not an easy answer.” As he continued, it seemed like he was himself trying to recall how to put it in more technical terms. “We have a consumer story that’s sort of different. We can do up to 4 million pints a day on average. But that isn’t the same as you’re asking. I’m not trying to put you off. It’s four brewing streams in the brewhouse, so it’s hard to answer it the way you’re asking it. There’s mills, and then there’s a number of mash vessels and a number of lauter tuns and they all sort of interact together from a process point of view.”
He did get around to providing some fascinating information—really the only non-talking points of the interview. “It’s a high-gravity brewing process. Starts as high gravity and then prepared for different packaging formats for around the world. … You’re talking about 22,000 kg of grain being converted and an original gravity in the region of 1.080. It’s a 6.5 million hectoliter brewery [5.4 million barrels] that with tweaks can go up and down.”
From there I shifted to the beer. I made the big mistake, in asking my tangy Extra Stout question, in identifying it as “lactic” tanginess. I didn’t then and don’t now know what causes it, and I regret suggesting lactic acid. Because, of course, that’s the word that caught his attention. “Lactic tanginess—do you think so? We wouldn’t describe it as a sour note. The roasted barley probably impacts on that. The pH of the beer is probably lower than—as a stout there’s a lower pH. There’s no acidification process.” As when he discussed the way they described production volumes, he lapsed into a sort of meta-analysis. “Anybody describing it as lactic-y or sour-y tends to be picked up by customers these days as a negative. And I wouldn’t be going that route.”
He continued, more vaguely, back in the consumer mode. “We do have a legendary process and there is element of mystery behind it—and you’re not going to get that out of me. The mix of it is personified in the brewing process. It’s not lactate. We don’t use any lactic acid addition to do that. If it’s a sour flavor you’re picking up, that’s what we would describe it as.”
Now, I should say that in the dozens of interviews I’d done with brewers before then (and the dozens of interviews since), I’d never had anyone dodge a question or redirect me. I have had brewers lie, but only quite rarely. You might touch on a subject not open for journalists, but it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to answer any of the questions I was interested in. Since he’d broached high-gravity brewing, I asked if Foreign Extra Stout was high-gravity brewed. He gave an odd murmur and then said, “It wouldn’t be significantly higher.” I was going to ask what that meant, and then he offered this non-clarifier: “The whole idea is to get the best efficiency of the optimization of grain that you purchase out of your brew house. … If we have to increase the grist size to generate a maximum efficiency at a particular time of the year, we will do. The number of streams at the brew house would be minimized due to the optimization.” Even though he had raised the topic of high-gravity brewing, he didn’t want to get into the details.
Murray had another phone call to go to, and I gave him the chance to exit the conversation, but he wanted to engage me a bit more. Re-listening to the interview, it sounds like he thought it was going as weirdly as I did. For the first time, he inquired about the project and asked what it was I needed to know for the book. He followed up with an answer that, given a different context and a few more beers, might have led to some very interesting discussion.
“The uniqueness of the St. James Gate Brewery has always been—it’s always been different from everything else. We have to make beer different from everyone else. It’s an exotic place to work, the roast house is an extraordinary element that we have that nobody else has; the yeast management is totally different from everywhere else.” He continued pointing out differences in general terms. “An amazing journey in the last 10 years of doing things differently compared to what it would have been done for the first 240 years.” He was finally animated in the way brewers get when talking about their facilities, and I would have loved to ask all the obvious follow-ups: In what way do you do things differently? Tell me about that roast house. Can you tell me a little bit about the yeast—where did it come from? How old is it? What’s your management process? What was the brewer like 10 years ago and what did Guinness do to change it?
But there was not time. He added a sort of summary of the info he hoped I would take from the Guinness story as parting advice. “If you’re writing a story on stout, you talk about roasted barley, you talk about Guinness in its unique mystery, you talk about stout yeast, and [you] talk about hop flavor and the impact of what nitrogen will have done to the world of beer.”
I thanked him and added, “Well, one day I’d love to get to see that brewery.” He answered, a bit ruefully, “It’s a tough brewery to get to see these days for a number of reasons.” I have a strong suspicion that the interview didn’t improve the odds I’d be seeing it any time soon.
Guest blog by Patti Woods of GoTravel.com
To a lot of people, Fergal Murray has the best job in the world. And he would agree. As the brew master for Guinness, Ireland’s legendary stout, Murray is responsible for quite possibly the most famous beer in the world.“Each pint is like a child,” he explained. “You have to mind it through the entire process.” And what a process it is.
From its very first moments as raw ingredients — barley, water, hops and yeast — all the way through to the final bottling stage, Murray is responsible for every ounce of stout that leaves the brewery. “I have [Arthur] Guinness’ honor to keep up,” he said.
It was in 1759 that Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease (at a fixed rate of ₤ 45 or US$ 85 per year) for the then-small brewery at St. James Gate, a section of Dublin. Today, the brewery is like a town unto itself, located in the heart of the city. The factory buildings loom inside the property, surrounded by a high cement wall, not unlike the setting of the 1971 classic children’s movie, “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” starring Gene Wilder. Visitors definitely get a sense that something important is happening inside, and Murray is the leader behind it all.
As he sits in a pub enjoying a pint — something he likes doing even after a long day’s work that is all about beer — you’d never guess that he is the head brewer for Guinness. At only 42 years old, with curly brown hair and mischievous Irish eyes, Murray looks like any other Dubliner hanging out with friends after work. But what most people don’t know is that he took the fast track to achieving his esteemed position.
He attended Trinity College in Dublin in the 1980s, majoring in applied sciences, and then received his MBA from Open University in Ireland. From there, he secured a job as a research chemist at Guinness but found that he wanted to be more involved in the whole process. So he enrolled at the Institute of Brewing in London and began a grueling course of study, which led to his Master Brewer degree.
Behind the scenes during the workday, Murray stays focused on producing the world-class black stout. While tourists buzz around The Storehouse, the museum dedicated to everything Guinness, Murray is hard at work in the adjacent factory, which is closed to the public. Occasionally journalists are allowed to enter the facility where the grains are fermented and the beer is brewed. Murray speaks about the beer-making process with a reverent intensity.
It’s clear that he has a passion for Guinness that goes beyond description. “The nectar caught me,” he said, referring to the beer. When describing the brewing process, he refers to the “essence,” an indefinable, yet critical, component of Guinness. “When I’m overseas, I love to see people drinking my beer,” he said. “That extra pride comes out.” Guinness is brewed in 51 countries, and sold in 150. But for the true Guinness experience, there’s nothing like a visit to Dublin.
“I associate Guinness with the feeling of Ireland,” Murray said. “It’s a combination of tradition and heritage and the occasions you drink it,” he said.
That’s why so many people go to the brewery every year. While visitors can’t actually tour the factory, they can spend the day at the Guinness Storehouse, a seven-level building with various exhibits, restaurants and, at the very top, Gravity, a bar that’s the highest point in the city, offering a breathtaking 360-degree view. After spending an afternoon learning about the brewing process and viewing all the colorful Guinness advertising through the years, it’s definitely time to sample the goods.
“This is where you’ll get the freshest beer in the world,” says Murray. And, the most perfectly poured. The barkeeps are trained by Murray to pour the perfect pint in six steps. First, start with a clean, dry glass. Then, hold it at a 45-degree angle, and let the tap do its job. (Never let the tap touch the glass.) Let the Guinness settle, then top it off with the creamy dome. And the last step? Present it. The pint should look like a work of art, with delicate lacing showering down inside the glass and a rounded dome. (And take note at Gravity: the domes are decorated with a foamy shamrock.)
For Murray, the role of the Guinness brew master is a point of pride. He loves his job and he loves his Guinness. So much so, that after work, he’ll visit with friends at a local pub.
“I love the atmosphere of pubs,” said Murray. “Whether they’re loud and electric or nice and quiet, with the wind and rain and the log fire going.”
Read original copy at: http://bit.ly/1RUTUbw
