111. Deck the Halls with Lil Beer Conversation Starters

Cider brand goes toxic beer, an exciting drop from a grant recipient, and real talk on NA beer; plus Tarot for new, big ideas.

A good ol’ fashioned bits-and-bobs newsletter this week!

Citizen Cider’s Commitment to the Beer-Is-Toxic Bit

This story flew under my radar for weeks, so I’m bringing it up here in case anyone else missed it. What’s going on at Citizen Cider in Burlington, Vermont? Citizen was founded in 2010, built on this ethos of, “We make cider for everyone.” From a time that that predates the more recent craft cider boom, they at least outwardly seemed to embody what Beth Demmon and I spoke about when discussing her fantastic “The Beer Lover’s Guide to Cider” book, which is that it’s a newer industry that can shape itself from the ground up with DEI principles and values woven in. It doesn’t have to course-correct the way craft beer does—and is failing to do. Craft cider can form in the now, and organically grow as a diverse, inclusive, equitable industry. Now, I haven’t heard of any revolutionary measures in this regard from Citizen, but I also don’t follow cider as closely as beer. My impression of them until last week or so was that as an older and larger member of the craft cider industry, Citizen has the power of influence and has wielded that benevolently enough.

And then they went and made a beer. Now, first of all, I’m unclear on why they made a beer. I’m not saying craft beer is doing poorly enough now that no one should even try to enter the industry, as long as they’ve got realistic expectations and a plan that makes true sense for their location, but it is doing poorly enough that you wonder why a supposedly well-performing cider brand would bother wading into beer territory. If anything, why not try the popular RTD route?

Interestingly, the way Citizen got into beer is another route proving itself popular, but mostly among other pre-existing craft breweries, which is rolling out an almost completely standalone brand of light lager. I wrote about this for Inside Hook back in June; since then, key players like Industrial Arts have entered the fold. Largely, I can see the logic in this move for craft breweries. Yes, craft beer was founded precisely as a reactionary response to the watery sameness of macro light lager. But these days, good craft breweries have figured out how to make the style well, still differentiating themselves as craft, quality purveyors but also still getting to offer this crowd-pleasing style more sought-after now as people look for lighter, lower-ABV options. And while craft prices for these light lagers mean it’s unlikely breweries will convert many regular macro drinkers, these craft light-lager brands are still more affordable than breweries’, say, IPA options, so there’s middle ground to be gained for sure.

It seems to be a good step up for some craft breweries looking for novel ways to reach new consumers with a slightly more affordable option. But it doesn’t feel like a sure enough guarantee of enough profit to warrant a steady cider operation to throw its hat into the ring. And not only did Citizen decide to do that, but it also feels like the founders read up on how toxic and discriminatory and misogynistic and homophobic craft beer can be and said…”Okay, got it. This is how you do beer!”

Writing for Vermont publication Seven Days, Carolyn Shapiro comprehensively unpacks the entire, multilayered clusterfuck that is the roll-out of Citizen’s Hey Bub “Light Beer”. (Interestingly, I am just realizing as I write this that going through the standalone website for Hey Bub—again, not offering any signal it’s even affiliated with Citizen there—I don’t see the word “lager” anywhere. It’s called a “Light Beer” on the can and referred to as such; there is no information on the site about the beer of any sort, really. There is an inane, pandering ‘Merica video that simply harps on about how Hey Bub is for “working men and women”—all white, btw!—and seems absolutely smitten with with how clever its own name is.) Definitely go and read that, but here’s a quick list of offenses:

• The video, which you should watch for context, but I refuse to link to the site, soz, is a great encapsulation of the narrow-minded and intentionally exclusionary marketing of Hey Bub. And Citizen’s employees seem to confirm this: Hey Bub is meant for straight, white folks, mostly men. I am resisting the temptation to read further into what I feel are the clear politics behind how this demo is being spoken about and to, because that would be my own conjecture and the definites here are bad enough on their own.

• If there were any doubts about this, Citizen taproom employees’ joyful, rainbow-colored chalkboard advertising Pride-themed specials alongside a Hey Bub shout-out was erased twice, and leadership told staff Hey Bub promotion needed to be “neutral”—shudder. A Citizen director was overheard saying, “We can’t have that shit,” referring to the association of the Pride-centric chalkboard and Hey Bub.

• Then, in July, when Citizen really unveiled Hey Bub on a grand scale with “Bub Fest,” the marketing got downright sexist, discriminatory, predatory, and misogynistic. T-shirts had been printed for both staff to wear and for patrons to buy, with stupid af and offensive af sexual innuendos on the back. Hey Bub, the light beer for a bunch of sexist frat boy dickheads. Writes Shapiro:

  Many of the Citizen staff, particularly young female servers, told their manager that they were uncomfortable wearing the shirts. Two young servers told Seven Days that they regularly deal with male customers who call them “sweetie” or touch them without permission.
  
  “They come in and get drunk,” one of the servers said. “And then you have these girls wearing these shirts — it creates just this really toxic environment.”

• A few days after the event, a staff member was fired for her “bad attitude” during the fest.

Several other employees have since left—you can hear from some on this Reddit thread. Shapiro hones in on an interesting and important part of this conversation, which is that, as is voiced by Citizen staff, some of inclusivity talk at companies like Citizen is about “inclusivity in cider,” and not “inclusivity in the workplace.” Both are necessary, as you need the values for the industry but you also need those values expressed and practiced tangibly in the workplace every day, for both customers and staff. Without that concrete walking the walk, the waxing poetic about values is just pretty, performative words. And what I keep coming back to is how this cider brand just fully unraveled into harmful toxicity when it decided to launch a beer.

The Inaugural Beer Kulture x Women of the Bevolution Creator Launchpad Grant Recipient’s Collaboration Has Dropped

Let’s enjoy a vibe shift, shall we? Here is another beer + cider news item that is actually a Very Good Thing!

To catch you up or remind you, the Creator Launchpad Grant from Beer Kulture, Brave Noise, and Women of the Bevolution “is for women and non-binary entrepreneurs, brewers, home-brewers or digital creators who Identify as Black, African American, Hispanic, Native North American, Asian American, Pacific Islander, or other Person of Color, who dream of launching a commercial product in-market but need the necessary funding and guidance to make it a reality.” The grant is also, well, amazing—it is deeply impactful, the example-setting opposite of ticking off a box. This kind of grant truly sets the recipient up for success and, one creator at a time, stands to truly disrupt and improve the industry. Recipients get $15,000 and their craft beverage produced and released at Pilot Project Brewing in Chicago, plus financial consulting, and marketing and PR consulting (from Women of the Bevolution founder Ash Eliot).

The inaugural recipient is Monique Gray, LA-based founder of Momentum Ciders. And Monique’s collaboration beer has just launched at Pilot Project. It’s called Cran I Kick It? and it beautifully weaves in that cider background: It’s a pale pink, tart cranberry Berline Weisse.

“’Cran I Kick It?’ has a light, yet sweet body with a bright acidity that actually reminds you of drinking cider and should pair beautifully with all of the opulent food served around the holiday time,” says Monique in the launch’s press release. If you can get your hands on Cran I Kick It?, well, I’m jealous—and either way, I’m sure we can expect big things from Monique as well as from this grant going forward.

Okay, But Seriously…Does Really Good Non-Alcoholic Beer Exist?

More than enough ink has been spilled over the boom of craft non-alcoholic beer—I myself have contributed to that spill. It is both necessary and wonderful that the options for people to enjoy beer without booze have exploded. As we all well know, the reasons for not wanting to actually imbibe in order to experience flavorful beer are myriad, and can even change from moment to moment. The fact that it took us so long to start investing real time, money, and resources into developing an actual NA beer market in the world of craft is maybe a little embarrassing, and the fact that this market is now rich and expanding is a vital step forward in inclusivity. This market is clearly succeeding—while its growth in terms of its share of the US beer market hasn’t been as stratospheric or clear-cut as some predicted earlier on, it’s a segment that was worth $278.8 million in 2022 according to IRI data (per Beverage Industry).

But…is most non-alcoholic beer…actually any good? Have some breweries put the cart before the horse, eager to join this market before they’ve actually honed in on their processes and perfected their product? There are plenty of challenges involved with making non-alcoholic beer, not least of which is keeping it bacteria-free without booze involved. Another, I think, might be how proprietary most breweries keep their methods—there’s not the lively, active, collaborative conversation happening across the industry that helped foster evolution and improvement in traditional beer-brewing.

For whatever reason, I have found myself in a whole bunch of different conversations over the past couple of months with other beer geeks in various corners of the industry about the actual quality and appeal of non-alcoholic beer. (By the way, there’s a whole other aspect of growth that’s needed in the NA beer segment, which is culturally, and Mark LaFaro covers this beautifully in Issue 01 of the Final Gravity beer zine.) Who is indeed making good non-alcoholic beer? (I expect to hear votes for Industrial Arts’s Safety Glasses, which would probably be my vote, too.) And, when you want some of the flavor experience of beer but don’t want to drink, are you actually reaching for a NA beer, or does sparkling hop water better scratch the itch?

Full disclosure, I’m actually working on a story about this. But, truly, I’m genuinely curious about what the wider beer community thinks here. So, I thought it would be interesting to kick off some research / discussion here with a poll. Are you more Team Hop Water, or Team Non-Alcoholic Beer? And, in the comments—or in an email, if you fancy—let me know if you do have a go-to NA beer you love!

Beer Tarot!

This week, I pulled the Page of Swords.

TRVE Brewing tarot cards, by Max Sherman

Swords is the suit of intellect and decisions, and the Page of Swords speaks to curiosity and new ideas. This one’s got big “eager to learn” energy. You are fired about something in the vein of knowledge, inspiration, and information. You are basically a cartoon character walking around with a radiant lightbulb over their head, flashing with new, big ideas—or you want to be. You’ve either recently had a big successful brainstorm session or epiphany that led to you knowing how you want to handle a situation you’d long struggled with, or to diving enthusiastically into a new project, or to feeling fired up about a new endeavor, OR you want to start these ideas firing around your brain and have recently felt compelled to enroll in classes or go back to school.

No matter which side of the equation you’re on—having the ideas already or embarking on a learning quest—it’s all generating tons of positive, meaningful energy for you that is driving you forward. The trick now is to maintain that energy, and that will require some intention on your end. Don’t let nagging doubts or unsupportive people slow you down. Channel your energy into communication—whether the actual project you’re excited about starting is something media-related, and so will literally communicate ideas to an audience, or if you’re on a different path but will still of course benefit from delegating, asking for help, and spreading the word about your end goal. This is an exciting time—it’s basically the opposite of writer’s block, but for whatever career you’re in or adventure you’re taking on, and that is something to celebrate and feel motivated by.

Every brewery worth its salt should be feeling Page of Swords on the regular, whether the energizing charge of knowledge and ideas guides it toward a purist, traditional roster or one that’s wilder and more experimental. It’s energy that’s necessary for anyone in the business of creating. Moksa captures that with its West Coast IPA, perfectly named Small Breweries, Big Ideas.

This Week’s Boozy Media Rec

So, yeah, the state of the craft beer industry now is, like, not amazing. You know this—in fact, if you follow craft beer even a little, I’d argue it can even be frustratingly difficult to escape for a moment the relentless hand-wringing and doom-promising. Many of the journalists who for years had been foaming at the mouth trying to call the burst of the IPA’s bubble now feel like they’ve hit the jackpot: They can call the burst of the entire craft beer at large bubble. Of course, spend even one more second digesting the situation and understanding how new industries stabilize and mature, and you know that’s not the case. The “End of Days” thing has been clickbait since long before the human tendency to panic and obsess even required a click. The truth is almost always more nuanced, and, while it absolutely holds some bad news, it also simultaneously has space for silver-lining takeaways. Little has made better sense to me, and has been as both engaging and easy to digest on this matter, than Doug Veliky’s recent Beer Crunchers newsletter issue, “Recognizing Hype Cycles.” This is a fantastic way to understand the overall hype cycle of craft beer and some of the sub-hype cycles within, where we are now on that course, how this relates to all industry, and what it can tell us about the present and future.

ExBEERience of the Week

This past Sunday, Endless Life Brewing had a “Santa Paws” event with Santa pet photos, and this is the kind of event that makes my heart explode. Getting the best-quality pet Santa photos I’ve ever seen and drinking delicious beer (like the Harvest Ale saison with zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, and carrots!) with other dog-obsessed folks? I’d do it every Sunday.

Until next time, here’s one of those Darby-and-Santa photos, shot by Sean Abrams!