Woman Visits 323 Michigan Breweries in One Year A Michigan woman, Emily Bennett, 42, recently traveled the entire state to visit and sample every single craft beer brewery, according to the Michigan Brewer's Guild — and she's the only known person to have accomplished the feat inside a calendar year. "To my knowledge, no one has successfully completed such a task, and certainly not to her level," said Dianna Stampfler, publicist for the Michigan Brewer's Guild. When Bennett wasn't working (she's a full time nurse practitioner),she'd plan out her off days and used them to tour the state and visit as many breweries as she could."If you time it right, you can successfully go to a number of places in one day," added Bennett "A friend of mine figured out a way to go to 12 different locations in Grand Rapids with a $3 bus pass." Bennett says she made several spreadsheets of names and addresses of all the different locations."Over this amount of time, I can safely be expected to drive this distance and go to this many places in a day," Bennett explained, as she described her plan of attack. Bennett ended up purchasing a teardrop camper to haul around with her as she made her brewery trips. This way she could save money on hotel costs, which helped keep her expenses down overall."My trip was not sponsored and I don't work in the beer industry," said Bennett. "This entire endeavor was self-funded." Bennett called her year-long beer adventure, "Mitten Beer Quest 2017." She also came up with some guidelines to follow so if she were fortunate enough to make it to the end, she could declare success."Establishments needed to be open as of Jan. 1, 2017; Locations need to brew and serve their own beer; and for it to count, I must have at least a 4-5 ounce pour at the actual location," said Bennett. |
Feature News from beernexus.com |
BEERNEXUS the crossroads of the beer world |
Goodbye Anchor Distilling Last year, when Anchor Brewing announced its sale to Japanese beer giant Sapporo, the fate of Anchor Distilling — the company’s quieter side, known for spirits like Junipero gin and Old Potrero whiskey — went conspicuously unexplained.Anchor Distilling, both a producer and an importer of high-end spirits, was not acquired by Sapporo in the beer deal, but its building was. So, too, was its name: Sapporo got the Anchor trademark. Soon, Anchor Distilling learned, it would have to vacate the only building it has ever known, on Mariposa Street in Potrero Hill, and change its name. Now, five months after news of the sale, Anchor Distilling has announced its new moniker, rechristening itself as Hotaling & Co., a nod to a notorious 19th century whiskey warehouse in San Francisco. Mace Beer Dogfish Head’s newest beer is made with the ingredients in Mace pepper spray. “In Your Mace!” , the beer’s name, is a stout brewed with coffee, chicory, milk sugar, and the two active ingredients in Mace brand pepper spray. Brewers had to wear HazMat respirators when brewing the beer keep from inhaling the fumes. Not to worry drinkers won’t have to do the same. |
Bad Brewery Buys Constellation Brands has proven that craft-beer acquisitions are not always a good move. In 2015 it bought Ballast Point Brewing for $1 billion, and it used to extol how fast the acquisition was growing, though that seems to have been more about its being distributed to more markets than it was about actual organic growth. That realization hit hard last year, as sales suddenly slowed and forced Constellation to write down the carrying value of the brand by $86 million. That's a clear indication it overpaid for the brewery, but that didn't stop it from also buying Florida-based craft brewer Funky Buddha Brewing. While the purchase price was cheap compared with the Ballast Point acquisition -- Funky Buddha and limited-production fine-wine vintner Schrader Cellars together went for $130 million -- virtually all of the purchase price was assigned to goodwill, which means it basically paid for the names of the company and not any real sales. On the bright side, because of the strength of its Modelo portfolio, Constellation was the only beer company among the top five to post increases in both dollar sales and volume sales, rising 14.1% and 12.5%, respectively in 2017. |