Washington State I-1100 and I-1105

Although this blog is probably the last place anyone should go for political news or opinions, I feel compelled to weigh in on the two state initiatives being considered on the ballot here in Washington that will affect the way distilled spirits will be sold.

Currently, the state controls all liquor sales through state-run stores. While our liquor tax is at a set rate, the state enjoys a 51.9% markup on the products sold at these stores, money that the state depends on in addition to the tax to provide funding for many services. Both I-1100 and I-1105 propose to wrest the sale of spirits from the Liquor Control Board and open it to private retailers currently licensed to sell beer and wine, albeit in slightly different ways.

I-1100 is being framed as both pro-business and pro-consumer by its advocates. Although the rate at which spirits are taxed by the state will not change, the markup will now go to individual businesses while opening the market up to “fair competition” will drive prices down for the consumer. Painting current liquor laws as a de facto monopoly held by the state, supporters hope that the allure of cheaper, more easily accessible liquor coupled with the general distrust of largesse in government fomenting at an all time high will entice people to vote yes.

Looking a little deeper, the initiative is being largely funded by Costco, whose senior vice-president, Joel Benoliel, is quoted as saying "part of what we are known for is being pro-consumer, and when we identify places where they are being gouged, we think it's incumbent on us to stand up for our consumers.” Costco is a corporation whose sole purpose is to make money for its shareholders. They may eventually drive prices down to a 25-30% markup, surely passing on what looks to be significant discounts to the consumer. But you would be woe to forget that all of that is income they do not have now and desperately want to get their hands on.

With the passage of I-1100, the Office of Financial Management estimates that over five fiscal years, total state revenues would decrease $76-85 million and revenues dispersed to local municipalities would decrease an estimated $180-192 million. As most of the revenue that comes from spirits is earmarked for educational services and infrastructure maintenance and expansion, it is not a large intuitive leap to think that the state will be hurting without these funds. I am not a fan of large government, but essential services require funding. Considering that the state recently introduced a tax on candy, soda pop and bottled water (although under reconsideration under a separate initiative), if we vote to take away the state’s ability to receive income from liquor sales, they will be asking to take it from us somewhere else in the near future.

Let us also consider the market being opened to “fair competition.” With the passage of I-1100, retailers will begin price wars that will drive down the cost to the consumer, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, they will achieve those relatively lower prices by buying in bulk, a measure strictly defined within the initiative. Translation; large box stores with massive buying power (looking at you Costco) will be able to receive bulk discounts and smaller stores will be priced out of the “fair market.” I appreciate my little bottle shops both here in Spokane and when I visit Seattle. Forcing them to compete with a behemoth like Costco hardly seems fair.

There is also the argument of access. Under our current system of state-run stores and well trained employees, it is nearly impossible for a minor to purchase distilled spirits in Washington State. The initiative, if passed, would allow over 3,300 more stores to sell spirits statewide, opening a veritable can of worms for enforcement. Reports from other states that have passed similar laws are a bit conflicted about the impact on sales to minors and overconsumption. I am by no stripes a Puritan and my major gripe is with the economic impact on the state, but it is a point that should be considered.

Finally, I think some thought should be paid to the work force. Although I-1100 does not require state-run liquor stores to close their doors (I-1105 does), by forcing the state to compete with large corporations that have advantages to their sales paradigm built into the new laws, it isn’t a stretch to imagine a number of state-run stores closing and hard working people losing their jobs. Sure, as the Liquor Control Board transitions to a body of enforcement there will be opportunity to transition along with them and there will be retail openings at all those other stores that would then be selling spirits. However, making a living wage and receiving benefits is a far cry from making minimum wage working a register.

Thirsty Zymurgist score: NO on I-1100

I-1105 has received less publicity, but will alter the sale of spirits in similarly drastic ways. Unlike its counterpart, I-1105 would completely shut all state-run liquor stores and distribution centers. There are measures within the initiative that would guarantee a percentage of revenue made by retailers be paid to the state, apparently reducing the fear that the state’s coffers would run dry. However, according to a study by the Office of Financial Management, total state revenues would decrease an estimated $486-520 million and total revenues going to local municipalities would decrease an estimated $205-210 million over five fiscal years if I-1105 passed. That is a large chunk of change that the state will sorely miss.

Most of the points I made for I-1100 apply to I-1105, so I will not belabor them here. Except to say that I-1105 is being largely funded by two private distributors who stand to make money that the state stands to lose. Clearly, I am not a fan of either initiative.

Thirsty Zymurgist score: NO on I-1105

Washington State does have some antiquated liquor laws and reconsidering them as our society changes shows wisdom and prudence. However, the current initiatives do not fully pay service to the major economic questions for the state that they themselves raise. Future initiatives should be considered more along sound economic lines to make sense for all parties (state, private business, consumers) involved.

In closing, I will state again that this is all my opinion based upon the fair amount of research I have done. Thanks for slogging through it and now go reward yourself with a nice craft beer!

A Visit to Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens

When I am forced to travel to Orange County for work, I try to make the best of it with trips to local beer destinations, a fact I have chronicled here in the past. With my flight not leaving until Sunday, my friend from the office, Robert, and I took the opportunity to extend our beer wanderings slightly and we met some colleagues who live in the San Diego area at the Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens in Escondido.

Picking a reasonable time to hit the road, I-5 was quite manageable and Robert and I arrived a tad early. The rock lined walkway dotted with lush green plants, accented by artful rebar and torches set in the rock had me impressed before I even reached the large wooden doors. Robert and I entered, confirmed our reservation and set about exploring the grounds. The main indoor dining area continued the tasteful industrial/rustic/artisan motif with rough hewn wood forming the bar and various levels for tables, more rebar, stones of various sizes and for various uses all of which looked through a gigantic glass wall into the brewery contained within. Glancing up at the high ceilings revealed a reserved section above that opened out onto a balcony above the back patio. Not members of the wedding party, we remained on the ground floor and exited to the patio through large rolling doors. A multi-layered koi pond topped with flame greeted us to the right and a large circular table surrounding a fire pit was found to the left in front of a second bar.

Robert and I decided to order pints, as Dave and Courtney were going to be a bit late. The tap list was extensive and it was hard to choose, but being a fan of their Cali-Belgique IPA and never having had a chance to try it on draught proved to make my decision. Robert read up about some of Stone’s beers online the night previous and was intrigued to try the 10.10.10 Vertical Epic because of its inclusion of varietals of wine grapes. We were both pleased with our choices.

We wandered into the garden, which had unfortunately been pummeled by rain over the last few days, leaving a couple of small puddles and the ground a bit soft. Undaunted, we admired the pond and the various areas for sitting and enjoying the space that were dotted in the nooks and crannies. My personal favorite was the table comprised of drift wood carved in such a way to appear completely natural in its state as a table.

Dave and Courtney arrived and we returned to the front desk to get our table on the patio. The skies were overcast but the rain thankfully stayed away as the afternoon progressed. Our groups selection of ales was quite varied with Courtney tending towards the darker, Robert towards hoppy beers and Dave and I jumping all around the beer map. The Oaked Arrogant Bastard was incredible on draught (although I was disappointed they had emptied the cask of it earlier) and I relished in the fresh hop flavors in the Ruination IPA.

The whole spectrum of food needs was also well addressed, ranging from Dave’s buffalo burger to my vegan tempeh shepherd’s pie. Conversation continued as we finished up our meals and ordered one last round for the non-drivers and retired back to the garden. Eventually we ended up at the drift wood table and except for a slight interruption from an adorable family wanting to use the space to take some pictures, it would not have taken much convincing us that we were nowhere near a crowded restaurant.

As we headed our separate ways, I contemplated how world class the entire experience was. Stone has definitely set the bar pretty high; although I admit I haven’t been to many of the other “destination” breweries in the world. I will have to control how much inspiration I “borrow” from my time there when building my own brewery in the future, lest I directly copy any part of the experience.

That is the benefit of traveling around and experiencing different breweries and restaurants. It affords me the opportunity to absorb what works and what doesn’t at each location, which will eventually coalesce with my own original ideas to become what will hopefully in turn be known as a “destination” brewery.

Rambling Man Mead

As we traversed South Dakota on our recent road trip, my girlfriend and I found ourselves inundated with honey. Janelle’s family stockpiles the stuff and they were looking to pass it off into any open hand. About the time six or eight pounds had accumulated, the epiphany to turn all of the golden nectar into mead began to surface. Partially born from necessity (“how are we going to eat all of this honey?!”) and definitely inspired by the copy of Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher I was toting around on the trip, mead provided a perfect solution to the conundrum.

Yet, another followed: although a relatively experienced home-brewer, I had yet to try my hands at making mead. While delving into research, the general consensus seemed to be that it was less technically demanding than brewing beer but required just as much care towards sanitation and a far sight more patience. Instead of having my ales kegged within two weeks of the brew day and drinkable shortly thereafter, the mead will have to rest in the secondary carboy for months before being transferred to bottles, where it can continue to age for years (if bottled with proper care).

I had to round up two more pounds of honey and I opted to spend a little extra on some from Spokane’s south hill. A trip to Jim’s Homebrew to procure yeast and brewing nutrients followed and then Carl and I were ready to brew.

After some thorough cleaning and sanitizing, we added the honey to one gallon of distilled water and a half gallon of tap water and then brought it slowly to a boil. Carl set about cleaning the primary carboy as I monitored the mead to keep it from boiling over. Once it reached a boiling point, I started to skim off the protein foam that coagulated on the surface. Continuing my skimming regimen, I also measured out the dimmonium phosphate and the biotin wine nutrients and added them at the correct time. I decided to throw in a little irish moss as well, knowing its ability to trap bits and pull them out of my ales.

When the boil had proceeded long enough that only a small amount of protein was appearing at the surface, we removed the mead from the heat and moved it inside to an ice bath we had prepared. While the mead must was cooling, I began to prepare a yeast slurry using a combination of methods recommended on the package and ones I had lifted from my research. Once the slurry was looking happy and the must had cooled to near pitching temperatures, I began to acclimate the yeast by adding a couple of tablespoons of the must to the slurry and then letting it sit for a few minutes. Repeating that process five times, the yeast was ready to be pitched.

We transferred the must to the carboy where one and a half gallons of water at the proper temperature were waiting. We vigorously stirred the mixture periodically as we poured to introduce as much oxygen as possible for the yeast to use. The complex sugars in honey are tough for yeast to digest, even strains that are specially cultivated to deal with that hostile environment. Adding nutrients and oxygenating well ensure the best possible set of conditions for the yeast to thrive and get fermentation started off well.

We finished with mixing and transferred the full carboy to its resting place. Clean up was a relative breeze, even with the inherently sticky nature of honey. About the time we would have been adding hops to an ale, we were cleaning up the last few utensils and enjoying a homebrew. Carl and I were happy to have completed a “brew” day in just under two hours and we are excited to taste how the mead matures over the next couple of years.

As we were working on bringing the mead to life, I began contemplating where I will be when this mead will actually be drinkable. With about a month to go until my move to Davis, Carl and I have to plan a bottling session when I travel back to Spokane to visit. After the mead has reached maturity in about a year’s time, I literally have no idea where I will be living or what brewery I will be working for. The mead now signifies to me my last weeks in Spokane and it will remind me of these times whenever I open a bottle with friends in the years to come. I will also be sending a couple bottles back to South Dakota as thanks for the honey that produced it.

It's Good to Be Back

After nearly a month on the road and far too long since smelling fresh hops and wort, I was finally home long enough to brew a batch of beer with my friend, Carl. We have amassed quite a stockpile of bottles and kegs of our creations with the intention to share them with our friends during a joint Oktoberfest and Halloween celebration, but we did not have an Oktoberfest style beer to contribute. Looking to rectify our mistake, I wrote a recipe and procured the ingredients from the guys at Jim’s Homebrew.

When I arrived, Carl had begun setting up for the brew day but was sidetracked by his hungry baby daughter, so I set to work. We had utensils and vessels cleaned in no time and we began heating up the water for our mini-mash. Once it was holding temperature, we added the specialty grains and with many pauses to stir, continued to clean brewing paraphernalia.

The mash complete, we sparged carefully and began the run up to boil. We became momentarily distracted as we were chatting and nearly had to deal with a boil over, but we were able to act in time to save ourselves from that sticky mess. Chiding ourselves for growing lax in our diligence with the time off we had taken, the incident provided us with focus moving forward. We added our extracts and returned to boil, which we held for ten minutes before beginning the hop additions.

The boil complete, we dunked the kettle into an ice bath and then transferred to the carboy and topped off with water. The final temperature was a little high for my taste, so we moved the carboy into Carl’s basement and within an hour we were able to pitch. Brewing, apparently, is not quite like riding a bike. One must continually practice to keep the mind sharp.

Racking a week later, the beer seemed to suffer no ill effects as it did not display any off flavors or aromas. Nearly completely fermented, the yeast having happily done its job was our reward for being patient before pitching.

We decided we wanted to add a little something special to this beer, as it was brewed specifically for a grand occasion. I purchased some whole hops and a hop sock at Jim’s and we added them to the keg with the beer the week following racking. I have to squeeze my tiny arms into the corny kegs to wash them as Carl fears his will get stuck. One of the few advantages to my smaller stature I have encountered while brewing. After cleaning the keg thoroughly, including using CO₂ to purge the serving lines, we were ready to transfer the beer. We then weighed out the hops and carefully added them to the sanitized hop sock and dropped it in. The large glass marble we had decided to use as a weight to keep the hops suspended in the beer proved to be adequate only to a point and the hops were left only mostly submerged. Undaunted and left with little options for other means to sink the hops, we sealed the keg and began carbonating. As I was leaving town for work once again, I left Carl to do the sensory analysis to determine when to pull the hops out.

Carl and I are looking forward to sharing this Oktoberfest with our friends in a couple weeks and rumor has it that it will be incorporated into a dish prepared by our chef friend Jesse to accompany the meal. As I will be moving to Davis shortly after the celebration, I am also looking to this as my going away party and it should be much fun.

37 Days Later…

To be gone from blogging for over a month is tantamount to a cardinal sin in the digital age. To launch into lengthy explanations as half-veiled excuses for said absence is not as egregious, but may come off as tedious.

And there is no place for these things on a blog that is supposed to be about beer. In lieu of them, I will only offer a humble apology for my prolonged absence from the digital world. Life, as it tends to do, had gotten so hectic I barely had time to stumble from one destination to the next, let alone reflect upon and write about it. When I did finally decide to rededicate some time to throwing my thoughts into the digital void, a three thousand word volume began to emerge. I fear that I am already too verbose and did not want to have the few readers I draw back vomit due to my self-indulgence.

The solution is thus: a bland introduction (see above) followed by a brief synopsis of my adventures and then reviews of the breweries and events I attended.

From the point of my last post, I had already been away from home for a week while working and visiting breweries in Orange County, California. I returned late one night, just to do some laundry, repack and then jump in the car the next morning to leave on an epic road trip from Washington to South Dakota and back. I returned from almost two weeks on the road, once again late at night, and then did more laundry and got on a plane the next morning to fly to Davis to check out the campus and to look for potential places to live. I then got four days at home before road tripping west to Seattle and Portland for some concerts. The next weekend was filled with the first annual Spokane Oktoberfest. When does it end? Not now, because I am currently preparing to fly to California for work once again today.

The South Dakota trip got transformed into a beercation thanks to some research and a little ninja persuasion technique employed on my girlfriend. That is an utter fabrication: Janelle loves beer. We set up a regimen of driving so that one could enjoy some ales with lunch, for the other would be driving afterward.

Wallace Brewing Co. – Needing an early pit stop, we drove into Wallace and found the brewery closed, but the bar next door (which features the brewery) was open and serving lunch. The tap list was not extensive or challenging and the same could be said for the beers. They were quite drinkable, just not outstanding in any way.

Montana Brewing Co. – Nestled in a huge historic building in Billings, the Montana Brewing Company makes a good name for itself with some solidly made beers. What else would you expect from a Siebel trained brewer? Their new India black ale was superb, tending towards hopped chocolate with very little roasted tones. Their Irish red was also fantastic. I did not get to try it, but I bought a t-shirt for the brilliantly named “Custer’s Last Stout.”

Sanford’s Grub, Pub and Brewery – While the front room definitely telegraphed that this was the first store of what became a chain, the 36 taps behind the wall proved that Sanford’s meant business. The only problem being that the taps were above the glass window into the keg room. The Oil Can Stout was delicious and most impressive once I saw that the brewery consisted of a three tiered home brewing rig.

Ben’s Brewing Co. – After setting up camp near Yankton, we drove into town to find this establishment only to find that Ben had stopped brewing. Luckily, the bartender was very friendly and wanted to share the local ales that were available on tap. Millstream Brewing’s Amber was a surprise favorite of mine, due to the fact that I normally do not care for the style.

Granite City Brewing Co. – Sioux Falls is the home of the original store in what has become a chain. The bar staff had very little knowledge of the beer they were serving, but the quality of the ale itself was top notch. Their IPA was the highlight for me, but the light lager and stout mixed (known to the locals as a Two-Pull) was actually quite tasty.

Dempsey’s Pub and Brewery – Just a short drive from Janelle’s hometown is the slightly larger city of Watertown, which I was surprised to learn had a brewpub. We met some of Janelle’s friends from high school there and, while the company was fantastic, the beer and food were dismal. The beers were flawed to the point that I was tempted to leave a comment card that read “lower your fermentation temperatures, please.”

Brau Brothers Brewing Co. – For the wedding that we attended, the bride and groom secured three kegs from a local brewery based in the small town of Lucan, Minnesota. Their IPA was in the west coast tradition and my lupulin cravings were satiated. Their cream stout was also quite tasty, but a little heavy for the warm weather and dancing. They had a light lager that was very full flavored, but I couldn’t keep away from the IPA.

Crow Peak Brewing Co. – Spearfish seemed to be a cool little town with an amazing little café that served vegan food and this gem of a brewery. The building it is housed in is gorgeous, right down to the growler shaped fireplace. The beer was solid, if not outstanding. We were lucky enough to visit twice, as I left my laptop sitting at our table and we had to drive back to get it. I would say I planned it that way, but pulling in to the hotel we reserved in Billings at 1 am was only barely worth it.

Neptune Brewing Co. – Livingston, Montana is hiding a gem. A large array of beer styles was on tap and all of them were spot on quality. We arrived as they were opening but were treated very well by the bar keep. She cooked us a meal and kept slinging tasters our way until we had to deny them on the grounds that we had to get on the road. I hope to pass through here again someday.

Sudwerk Privatbrauerei Hübsch – While getting a feel for Davis, we made a sojourn to Sudwerk for lunch. My step dad thought their stout was over-hopped, but we both found the seasonal Oktoberfest to be fantastic. I am looking forward to exploring the area more when I move, because we were unable to find a beer bar besides the brewery.

Spokane Oktoberfest – Great initial event and I was proud to be a part of it. The twenty breweries the Washington Beer Commission assembled from all over the state was quite impressive and they all seemed to have brought something special with them. Highlights for me were the Lucille IPA from Georgetown and the Hop von Boorian from Leht Neppur. I liked the soured EsteLager from Northport as well, but I barely got a taste from my glass before Janelle had drained it. This new found love for sours she has found might prove to be a problem.

In as few words as I could hold myself to, that is it. Over a month’s worth of craziness condensed into fewer than 1500 words. Moving forward, this blog will be updated more frequently and will become more interesting as I make the move to Davis and begin Master Brewer's school in just a few short months. Thanks to anyone who held out hope I would post again!