An interesting item over at Pete's this morning about his creating brewing adventure in which he raises a lot of questions:
There is a degree of cynicism about beers like this in some quarters, and doubtless there will be a few outraged trainspotters either denying that a Moroccan Saison could ever exist, or struggling to find the right place for it in beer's ever-expanding taxonomy. Sod them - it was a great beer to brew, a great beer to drink, and it makes people happy, so I'm happy too. Doubtless there is a little bit of Emperor's New Clothes around some experimental corners of beer production - as Tandleman recently averred. But I've recently been enjoying both experiments such as this, and the joys of the traditional session pint. There's so much binary, black-and-white thinking in the beer world (even the sub-editors of the above piece misrepresented it as an attack on experimental beer, when if you read what I wrote, it's patently not). We all love talking about how beer is such a wonderfully diverse drink. What on earth is the problem with diversity? And what's the problem with stretching that diversity further? If it's a bad beer, it's a bad beer. Maybe it'll be a good one next time. Thanks to Ilkley for allowing me to co-create a very nice one indeed - I hope they brew it again soon.
There are a few links in there so make sure you go to Pete's and click through. A few good questions, too. Do you agree that making up beers by daydreaming is a bad thing? Not me. I don't hunt out beers like these but pick up a few from time to time.
Those aren't the questions that immediately struck me, however. And just to be clear this isn't about Pete, consider some context. I get things. I get the right next week to go to a very fun event for free. I get access to brewers you don't get and - while I take the opportunity to ask questions about price, brand, value - the car can get laden with samples, too. Am I conflicted? Not really. I have been thinking about and am embarrassed to watch Craig run with the idea of Albany ale with, speaking for myself, the hope of making some of the forgotten unique beers that might fall under that title. And... making us a few bucks. See, the question that I asked myself when I saw Pete's post was "so what was the deal?"
I assume that if one lends one's name to the label of a beer that there ought to be some compensation for the seal of approval. And I assume that the compensation is taken into account in the retail price of the beer. As Jordan pointed out last week, brewers are business folk. They may be nice (and, secret secret... some are quite not so nice) but they are in business to be successful and profitable. So, what was the deal? What is the percentage of the cost that relates to Pete and how, for example, does the increased cost of Pete compare to the increased costs related to a drought's effect on malting barley. Every collaboration beer should raise this question in the mind of the purchaser as short run limited edition beers brewed by packs of roving brewers surely have to be more expensive to brew beyond just brewing those beers with, you know, that subtle hint of Uruguayan herbs and seeds melding with Antarctic ice water.
So, it is not about Pete. It can be extrapolated to the cost of me, too. How does that get expressed? And if there is no fee, no cost to the purchaser at the retail level... why not?
Comments
Bailey - April 10, 2012 12:11 PM
I'd happily try a beer brewed in collaboration with a beer writer if I saw one on sale at about the normal price for a pint.
Jordan St.John - April 10, 2012 1:13 PM
I've done some of this collaboration brewing, and I've come up with some really interesting things and some fairly standard things. We brewed an ancho chili infused breakfast stout that went over gangbusters. Also, we did a saison flavoured with staghorn sumac, which I think was the first beer ever to use that ingredient commercially (Jolly Pumpkin had the same idea at about the same time, so it's hard to judge).
I think that these collaborations are useful because beer writers have the ability to step back and look at what hasn't been done and wonder what could be. Brewers can do this too, but they've got to focus on how the beer in fermenter 7 is doing and whether the cask is settling out properly and cleaning the tun and all of that stuff. It's essentially just outsourcing innovation.
Alan - April 10, 2012 1:43 PM
You know, I don't think of what you do or what Pete did as "collaboration" brewing so much as, pardon the title, "celebrity" brewing in that it is primarily one person's ideas being facilitated by the other. Collaborations for me are more when Stone and Mikkeller and Jolly Pumpkin and Allagash all get together to make a muddle.
That all being said, I hope you took a fee as people paid for the stuff.
Bailey - April 10, 2012 2:50 PM
Couldn't the brewer equally expect payment from the writer? For all that raw material and time on an exercise which raises the writer's profile and increases their hands-on experience of brewing?
(No idea if money changes hands for these things. Have always assumed not.)
Alan - April 10, 2012 4:05 PM
Well, couldn't the brewer say the same to the maltster? The one with the retail point of contact ought to pay.
Bailey - April 10, 2012 4:14 PM
Pro beer writers are selling a product, too.
Alan - April 10, 2012 5:39 PM
So this is a loss leader like the cans at the end of the aisle?
Jordan St.John - April 10, 2012 10:26 PM
In my brews, money has never changed hands. I think it's a good mental exercise for me and a good deal for the brewer since promotion means it will sell out.
recently I bartered writing a standard operating procedure for a pilot system for the ability to brew on it. I thought that was fair. It makes me look credible and allowed me to compete in the Ontario IPA Challenge at Volo. No doubt someone is making a small amount of money off of it, but I'm using their equipment, so I don't begrudge a small profit for putting up with me.
Alan - April 10, 2012 11:24 PM
No wonder beer writers get nowhere. Thanks for blazing that trail, ye pioneers.
Bailey - April 11, 2012 4:36 AM
It seems like a fair swap to me. I'd always assumed beer writers did it because it was fun, as much as anything else.
If they're consulting, writing copy, designing market strategies, etc., then they probably ought to get paid for it.
Alan - April 11, 2012 8:17 AM
Make an ad for a fee but the subject matter of the ad for free? So are beer writers like interns?
Fun. There's a career path.
Bailey - April 11, 2012 8:52 AM
If they were doing all the boring bits and making the tea, and then got no credit for the finished product, they'd be like interns.
Fun *as much as anything*, i.e. publicity for both parties, industry connections, and insight into the brewing process which increases their cred as 'experts'.
Which aforementioned cred leads to paid consultation work, book deals, TV appearances... It's not that it doesn't pay, just perhaps not on the day. It's the long game.
Alan - April 11, 2012 10:27 AM
The day that as far as I can tell has lasted since Richard Boston in the Guardian in the early 70s.
Jordan St.John - April 11, 2012 6:53 PM
Bailey has the general idea. It's kind of a plimpton thing.
Alan - April 11, 2012 7:11 PM
Oh, I got the idea.