| A Pleasant Surprise By Glenn DeLuca For BeerNexus.com The CBA or Craft Brewers Association is in a real quandary. One of their missions is to have the craft brewers’ percentage of beer by volume increase. And with the explosion of breweries and quality beers it has to >11%. But as the macro brewers buy up craft brewers they are no longer considered craft brewers, so their volume no longer counts…hum, so being successful can also has a negative aspect. Back in 2010 they raised the production limit for small brewers from 2 to 6 million, allowing Boston Beer to remain the #1 craft brewer. In early 2015 they tweaked their rules again, deciding to soften their stance against using rice and corn as adjuncts, watering down the traditional pillar of their craft beer definition. That welcomed some of the country’s oldest breweries into the fold; D.G. Yuengling & Son of Pottsville PA (1829), Straub Brewing of St. Marys PA (1872), August Schell Brewing of New Ulm MN (1860) and Minhas Craft Brewery of Monroe WI (1845 as Blumer Brewing). That change brings two new breweries into their top ten list with Yuengling the new #1; that’s one way to increase your percentage… I don’t remember when I had my first Yuengling, probably in the 80’s. Before being much more readily available I was lucky to have it once in awhile when visiting family in PA. Yuengling, America’s Oldest Brewery, has been through and weathered many different storms; made near beer and ice cream to survive Prohibition, grain rationing during WWII (which helped to shape the lighter style lager we still have today from the macros), the rise and domination of the macro breweries and now the rise of the craft breweries. Basically it was an eastern PA family brewer that struggled through the 60’s and 70’s and the family was concerned about its survival. Richard “Dick” Yuengling Jr. had other ideas so he bought it from his father, Richard Yuengling Sr. in 1985 to become the fifth generation owner. At that point they were only producing 137,000 bbl of beer, but Dick went to work; strengthening the distribution network, modernizing the brewing and bottling equipment and digging out an old recipe for Yuengling Traditional Amber Lager to take advantage of a spike in heavier style beers. And it worked! By 1990 they had outgrown their .5M bbl brewery capacity and decided to build a new one in Pottsville. Interestingly enough at the same time the originally Schlitz now Stroh 1.6M bbl brewery in Tampa was for sale, so they decided to buy it! Dick said their goal was to be better able to serve their current customers as opposed to expansion, which makes sense when you decide to build a new one next to your current one. After their new one opened, the FL brewery allowed them to expand along the East Coast where they’re now in 17 states and DC. My friend and I did tour the Tampa brewery a few years ago and enjoyed it. Dick Yuengling has been at it for many years now, but loves what he does and his typical day is 10-12 hours. I don’t think he’s unlike many of today’s young brewers who love their craft. Listening to some of his quotes give you an idea of where he’s coming from; “beer is beer, its corn and barley and water and yeast and hops- lots of hops”, “we’re kind of a nuts and bolts company”, “we make kind of standard American beers, but we just happen to make them with a little more taste and character than other people.” And on current trends; “I think people are drinking less but they are drinking better” and “we’ve made ale and porter here, which are craft brews, since the inception of the brewery, it was just that people never discovered them.” Although they’ve added to their lineup of beers recently (Bock in 2009, Octoberfest in 2011 and Summer Wheat in 2014) they’ve stuck to their standards as opposed to some craft brewers who want/need to be experimenting/coming up with the latest funky beer. And he’s very similar to Jim Koch, in the sense he’s not big on hops. Their Lord Chesterfield Ale is their hoppiest beer. And if you remember Sam Adams wasn’t big on IPAs/ hoppy beers for quite a while until Jim Koch realized he needed to be in that portion of the market and now does a great job with them (witness the IPA Hopology 12 pack I just picked up). Yuengling is doing well today. Running their breweries at near capacity and keeping their geographic footprint close to production, along with a reasonably priced consistent product are working well in tandem. In the range of 4M bbl, Yuengling is the #4 American brewer behind A-B, MillerCoors and Pabst and just ahead of Boston Beer. Dick Yuengling is getting on in age but not ready to call it quits. He has four daughters who are all now involved in the business and certainly appear to want to keep it a family business. We’ll have to see if the tradition of the succeeding generation buying it from their father at full market price continues. I saw a video clip of a meeting the five were having. Seems like it’s the typical conflict of ideas; he seems to be more focused on staying the course (which he’s done a hell of a job with) while his daughters are pushing to change some things up. They understand who runs the company so they only push so far. History does repeat itself and Dick himself must realize it as he was in conflict with his father, so much so he left the company to run his own distributing business before returning to buy it. But I’m wondering if the daughters may be having a little influence; especially when I heard about the new Yuengling IPL, their first entry in the IP category, supposed to be seasonal. To digress momentarily; I meet the guys for Friday Happy Hour. We used to always go to our local NJ brewery, but they decided to raise prices, so we thought we might work in a little variety, checked out some other places and found a few that had both reasonable selection and prices. A couple of them have since closed but as it turns out the best place turned out to be Hooters in Wayne (NJ). I know what you’re thinking, why would we go to Hooters to drink beer. Well first they have 24 taps, so after you exclude the standard choices of Coors Light, Angry Orchard, Heineken, Stella, Yuengling, Blue Moon, etc. you’re got about a dozen good taps with the likes of Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, Great Lakes, Coronado, Speakeasy, Coney Island, Shiner, etc. They rotate the seasonals more quickly than some of the others but the selection is always good. Happy hour used to be half price on all, but they changed that slightly for craft beers, not the standards, but they do take off a $1 for the NJCB card. So selection, price, tables and chairs, TV’s, AC in summer, heat in the winter, need I say more…best not. Well awhile back I walked in to find my comrades with pints of Yuengling IPL! One of them had checked out beermenus.com and saw it was there. He then looked further only to find it was one of two places in the state where it was available on tap…yup, that would be Hooters. Hard to believe but they consistently carry Yuengling and Yuengling Light on tap so probably got an opportunity many other bars wouldn’t get. I must say I enjoyed it thoroughly, a nice hoppy lager, which I was able to enjoy for a few weeks until it ran out. Unfortunately that’s what seasonal is all about. It’s good to see (and taste) the next seasonal from Yuengling. I can’t help but have the feeling it could be the daughters’ influence as they begin to get more involved, but no matter I’m looking forward to whatever they come up with next and of course the 2016 version of IPL. Some might not view Yuengling as a craft brewer so not paying much if any attention to what they offer. But they must be doing something right as their business has increased even w/o joining the IPA trend. They make a quality lager, which is definitely one I have no hesitation asking for, more so in the summer when I’m looking for a lighter style. So I for one am glad to welcome Yuengling as an “officially” recognized craft brewer. I encourage their forays into the hoppier world of brewing and look forward to supporting them more than I have in the past. Glenn DeLuca writes about beer and culture of drinking. He may be reached by writing thebigG@beernexus.com. *** *** *** |
Glenn DeLuca
Outtakes from a life of beer.
beernexus.com presents
| Big G's Beer Beat by Glenn DeLuca |
| BeerNexus is proud to welcome beer writer Glenn "Big G" DeLuca as a contributor to the site. A widely traveled beer hunter, Glenn is a leading advocate for the growth of craft beer. |
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