Casey's Beer

So intrigued was I by the prohibited symbol on the bottle of Silly Saison that I bought another bottle this afternoon. I thrown out the other bottle out before finding a magnifying glass.  Contrary to all my excitements, it turns out that the graphic is that of a pregnant woman. I don’t know what to make of a symbol warning against drinking while pregnant that requires a magnifying glass to work it out. It probably says more about my eyesight.

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Don’t worry it’s for Technorati

Travelling around Indonesia in 1983 I met a Danish bloke staying in the same cheap hotel in Surabaya. We went and had a few drinks in a couple of the local dives.

He told me that the Carlsberg Brewery had recently hired a new marketing and advertising manager. One campaign she started was for people to toot their horn as they drove past the brewery in Copenhagen. This was quickly discontinued as it was just too popular.

She also commissioned a series of TV ads. One featured a small Danish pub early on a Saturday evening. The barman is alone quietly polishing the beer glasses when six or so young Swedes burst into the bar shouting out for Carlsberg.

The barman says to the Swedes that before he can serve them they have to tell him what the rules are. So in unison the Swedes recite the rules:
They will pay for their drinks.
They won’t vomit in the bar.
They won’t piss in the street.
They won’t sleep in the park.
And they will take the ferry home in the morning.

After which the barmen serves them all a glass of Carlsberg. Apparently this ad was hugely popular in Denmark. A friend, Kristin, from Lund in the south of Sweeden use to reminisce fondly about her wild younger days catching the ferry to Denamrk with friends on a Friday night to spend the weekend boozing in Denamrk.

I wonder how an ad featuring English back-packers would go?

Maybe not a beer of the first rank, but the Silly Saison was very enjoyable nonetheless. Described as on Old Brown it was quite sweet, medium body, some fermentation aroma but no sourness as I would have expected from a beer described as an Old Brown.

On the label was a very small “prohibited” symbol, you know the circle with a slash through it. I couldn’t quite make out what was inside the circle, a human form of some sort. The label was a bit scuffed. I hate dark shiny labels with small light coloured printing – they are nigh impossible to read.

Anyway I wasn’t sure whether it was a picture of a fat slob necking the beer from the bottle, or whether it might have been Manneken-Pis, the statue of the urinating boy in Brussels. A Wikipedia check on Manneken-Pis showed that it was not so. So Homer it would seem you have to drink this one from the glass.

Nonetheless, the idea of using Manneken-Pis in a prohibited symbol as a way of urging people not to piss in the street is appealing. For more about that see the next post. The beer after all is called Silly . . .

I’ve just paid a few invoices for the shop and what a nice surprise there was in the bank account.

My wife is in Japan at the moment, so I won’t be opening the 750 ml bottle of Chimay Blue tonight (a birthday present from the very nice David Gumm), it will have to be the Silly Saison – small bottle and sensible alcohol content.

The loan was settled today. The money should be available towards the end of the week. So now we can get down to buying the brewing plant. Andrew Larsen has been in Munich the last week for Drinktec, a beverage equipment and ingredient trade fair. He has been able to line up one or two more sets of possible equipment.

Once the equipment is organised, and I have the specifications and dimensions then I can look for premises in earnest. And then it will be time to draw up the development application. I will need council approval to operate the brewery, for the liquor licences, and to carry out the necessary work to install the equipment. Will also need to get Sydney Water and the Council talking to each other.

Part of the preparatory work for the premises will be to put in a sloping floor and slit drain. It doesn’t matter what size equipment you use it is critical that the equipment connects well, and that it can be easily cleaned. Apart from that so long as you can brew consistently on the equipment then you will be able to brew good beer.

Congratulations to Dr Brendan Nelson on the new job, ambassador to the European Union, NATO, Belgium and Luxembourg. It will mean living in Brussels of course. The question is does Dr Nelson like beer? I’ve emailed him to find out.

I hope I am not going to bore you to bloody death about excise, but it is a really important issue for the alcohol industries. For example, it’s easy to laugh at Fosters for reducing the alcohol content of Victoria Bitter (VB) by 0.02% to avoid a price increase that would have come with a Consumer Price Index increase to excise. The saving is 74 cents per carton of 9 litres. Given the very tight margins for brewers and retailers in the mass beer market, and the price sensitivity of the mass market this is a considerable amount of money.

Taxes on beer have sometimes had very large impacts on beer styles. Before alcohol content could be accurately assessed it was common for malt to be taxed. And in some circumstances both malt and alcohol have been taxed. Taxes on malt were responsible for the world’s most famous beer, Guinness. It uses a good proportion of unmalted barley.

In Belgium brewers traditionally paid the tax on their beer before it was brewed. The tax officer would come round assess their ingredients, calculate and collect the tax before that beer was brewed. Consequently Belgian brewers were, supposedly, loathe to throw any beer away despite how poorly it might have turned out.

In Japan there is a tax on malt, partly a hangover from nineteenth century British influences and partly to appease the sake industry. The standard of brewing in Japan is high – remember sake is actually a rice beer. One of the best stouts in the world is Asahi Stout – a rich and complex all malt 8.5% beer which is also fermented with brettanomyces. They also brew pseudo beers with very little malt to get around the tax on malt.

Over the last while there has been the big fuss over excise on the so-called alcopops and the parliamentary machinations to change it. When spirit based alcopops first came on the market they were subject to excise at the spirit rate. The manufacturers successfully lobbied to have the lesser beer rate of excise applied because they were a similar alcohol content of about 5% rather than the 40% typical of spirits. The concessional beer rate is now being dropped and alcopops will again be taxed at the spirit rate.

The microbrewers’ association has petitioned the government in pursuit of an excise concession scheme similar to what the small winemakers enjoy. And to top it all of there is the Henry tax review. Ken Henry the Treasury secretary is conducting a very large review of the tax system. Just about everything is open to review except the GST. But more of these matters later.

One old cliche states patience is a virtue. Indeed it is. I warned you that there would be little excitement in these early days. The first round of finance is all approved, the paperwork has been submitted. Now it is just a matter of waiting patiently for the money to come, which should be in the next week.

In the meantime I have had some cosy chats with government bodies. A brewery start-up demands dealing with all three tiers of government: local, state and federal.

Initial discussions with Penrith Council have been very encouraging – they want to help, which is not the usual reputation that local government typically revels in. Without council approval nothing happens.

The excise people have also been helpful. The Australian Tax Office want to make it as easy as possible for us to give them money. They’re also fairly good at handing out tax refunds.

I knew it was coming, but it still doesn’t make it anymore palatable. Took the EFTPOS machine from Faulconbridge back to the bank Friday before last. Today they debited the $110 cancellation fee from the account. All the banks do it. Do you know any other types of business where they charge you to stop being a customer? It’s almost as good as communications and utilities companies charging a fee to accept your payment. I suppose I should be thankful the bank didn’t charge me for debiting the $110 from my account. We’re all in the wrong business.