The Wall Street Journal had an interesting profile a couple of days ago about Beerlao, a beer made in Laos. (Thanks, Doug, for sending me the link.) Partially owned by Carlsberg (it’s three of their 255 brands), the Lao Brewery makes a lager, a low-calorie Light and a Dark lager.

According to the Wall Street Journal profile, the brewer is Sivilay Lasachack, a 49-year old Russian woman who prefers sweet tea to beer. But by marketing to backpacking tourists from around the world, Lasachack hopes to build Beerlao into a national brand recognized worldwide. The brewery itself was founded in 1971, mostly to provide beer to French colonists because the Laotians are not big beer drinkers. “Lao Brewery currently produces 200 million liters of beer a year, and it is the country’s biggest taxpayer.” That’s nearly 530 million gallons, making Lao Brewery slightly larger than New Belgium Brewing, but with a population of 6.5 million (which is about the same as Washington state). The beer is now imported to the U.S. (along with Great Britain, Australia and Japan) and is, according to the journal, gaining momentum in grocery stores and other places. It’s interesting to see a small country using beer to try and build their global image, especially one with no long brewing tradition. But check out their theme song on the website. It’s catchy even though I have no idea what they’re saying. You can even download a mp3 of it to put on your iPod.

My good friend Tom Peters, one of the owners of Monk’s Cafe and Belgian Beer Emporium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, turns 55 today. His enthusiasm for and promotion of Belgian beer has few equals. And he throws perhaps the best late night parties of anyone I’ve ever known. Join me in wishing him a very happy birthday.

Tom Peters with Dave Keene, owners of the best two Belgian beer bars on both coasts.

Shaun O’Sullivan from 21st Amendment, Fergie Carey, co-owner of Monk’s, Lucy Saunders, the beer cook, and Tom Peters.

Tom Peters, with Rob Tod from Allagash in Portland, Maine, at GABF.
 

The midyear numbers are out, and things couldn’t look better, which is especially wonderful under the circumstances. The Brewers Association released sales through the first half of 2008 and growth of craft beer by dollars is up a very healthy 11%.

According to their press release, “The Brewers Association attributes this growth to a grassroots movement toward fuller flavored, small batch beers made by independent craft brewers.” I’m all for that, but since it’s dollars one must at least speculate that higher prices for craft are driving that number, at least to a certain extent. Since others (admittedly with an agenda of showing craft in not the best light) have suggested that craft sales are slowing, it’s tempting to worry about the absence of where volume of sales is for the first half of the year. But as the Nielsen Company, points out, “beer sales are affected the least by the economic downturn, with wine sales showing the most impact. Additionally, craft beer is gaining customers from across all segments of beverage alcohol.” So perhaps I’ve no reason to worry after all.

More from the BA’s press release:

“Newer brands by the larger brewers, like Belgian style wheat beers, have huge distribution advantages over beers by independent craft brewers,” said Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers Association. “These brands can grow when the large brewers decide they want them to grow with the ability to impact what brands get shelf space and tap handles. At the same time, beer from craft brewers is being requested by the customer, which encourages distributors and retailers to make the beer available.” According to the Brewers Association, 1,420 of the 1,463 U.S. breweries are independent craft brewers.

The Brewers Association reports that in the first half of 2008 volume of beer sold by craft brewers grew by 6.5% totaling an estimated 4 million barrels of beer compared to 3.768 million barrels sold in the first half of 2007. Harry Schuhmacher of Beer Business Daily stated, “Crafts have really taken pricing this year given high input costs, and yet it is still driving volume gains faster than the beer category.”

But if the numbers all bear this out, then it’s very good news indeed. With rising prices across the board for all manner of food and beverages, there has been much speculation about whether consumers would continue to be willing to spend more for craft beer or would retreat back to the cheaper stuff from the big beer companies. The initial anecdotal evidence I’d been hearing suggested to me that sales by most breweries had not suffered significantly from higher prices at retail and at the tap. More than a few people I’ve talked to in the last several months have said demand is still rising unabated. The BA’s stats do appear to bear that out, so hopefully what initially seemed like a brick wall staring us down in the near future might in reality be another hurdle, but one which can be jumped over with a good business plan and, most importantly, a good-tasting, full-flavored beer.

The science news outlets on the web were all abuzz with an odd discovery yesterday involving the symbiotic relationship between the Pentail Tree Shrew and the Bertram Palm, whose flower acts essentially as a natural brewery, creating a 3.8% abv concoction that’s closest to beer in strength and is fermented using wild yeast. My friend and colleague Rick initially sent me the NPR version of the story (thanks Rick) but it seems every science website has a version of it.

The Pentail Tree Shrew

The Pentail Tree Shrew, a native of Malaysia, seems to be the major focus of the story. The shrew is a lightweight at about 4 inches long and weighing a scant few ounces soaking wet. According to biologists studying the newly found mammals, they look like a cross between a mouse and a squirrel, with a birdlike tail that resembles a feather at the tip. They have large eyes and developed fingers and toes. Biologists believe that they are evolutionary cousins to the primates. And like us, they spend their evenings drinking beer. In fact, they may be the only other animal to regularly drink alcohol. Scientists believe the shrew imbibes the equivalent of nine glasses of wine each night, yet would pass the average roadblock sobriety test. According to Bayreuth University biologist Frank Weins, “[t]here’s no sign of motor incoordination or other odd behaviors. They just move as efficiently as they would on any other tree.” Because being drunk would put the Pentail Tree Shrew at risk for being eaten by other jungle predators, they believe the shrew has a metabolism that very quickly detoxifies the alcohol. That would keep the concentration in the shrew’s brain low enough so that it could effectively avoid predators. And here’s the capper from Weins. “As a result, the tree shrew is able to detoxify alcohol more efficiently than its primate cousins: humans.”

The focus of almost every one of these stories is about the wonders of the shrew (because they’re the one being closely watched), but according to Scientific American, there are at least seven animals nourishing themselves from the beer made by the Bertram Palm. There’s also the Slow Loris, who also “quaff[s] alcohol nightly, sometimes going back for seconds and thirds in a single evening.” But frankly I’m more amazed by the flower that can naturally create a beer in the wild. To me, that is simply awe-inspiring. It’s the Bertram Palm, and it’s flowers have a very pungent and distinctive smell. As Weins puts it. “They smell like a brewery.” From the NPR story from All Things Considered: In fact, the flower buds function as brewing chambers — they have been invaded by previously unknown species of yeast, which ferment the nectar into frothy alcohol. “The maximum alcohol concentration that we recorded was 3.8 percent,” Weins says. “That’s in the range of a beer. Or explained another way, “sugars in the palm’s floral nectar ferment in the warm, moist environment, producing alcohol in concentrations up to a beer-like 3.8%.”

Nature’s Brewery: The Bertram Palm

There’s also a description in Germany’s idw:

‘This palm is brewing its own beer with the help of a team of yeast species, several of them new to science,’ explains Wiens. The highest alcohol percentage the scientists could measure in the nectar was an impressive 3.8 %. ‘It reaches among the highest alcohol contents ever reported in natural food.’ The palm tree keeps its nectar beer flowing from specialised smelly flower buds for a month and a half before the pollen is ripe, probably to keep a guaranteed clientele of potential pollinators visiting. In contrast to most plants the bertam palm flowers almost year-round.

And here’s yet another version of how the tree makes beer, from Science News:

Bertam palms (Eugeissona tristis) don’t observe a strict season, so at any given time plants will be flowering somewhere in the forest. The stemless palms send up a tall spike with more than 1,000 flowers, some with just male sexual organs and the others hermaphroditic. For weeks before a particular sexual phase, the flower buds dribble nectar. Yeasts inside the buds typically raise the nectar’s alcohol content mildly, to around 0.06 percent, but can punch it up to as high as 3.8 percent.

“This is an astonishing story,” says John Dransfield, a palm specialist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in Richmond, England. He says he doesn’t know of another palm offering such a beer bash, but perhaps the other species secreting abundant nectar just haven’t been studied yet.

Since the Pentail Tree Shrew has been drinking beer daily for millions of years, a German science website declared that “Boozing Is Older Than Mankind.” They continue.

A wild mammal closely resembling the earliest primates is drinking palm beer on a daily basis since maybe millions of years. Nevertheless, this Malaysian treeshrew is never drunk. This suggests a beneficial effect, and sheds a whole new light on the evolution of human alcoholism.

From the New Scientist account:

“It’s a beautiful example of the natural biology of alcohol consumption, which people have totally neglected in alcohol research,” says Robert Dudley of the University of California at Berkeley.

Dudley has previously suggested that our taste for alcohol may be an “evolutionary hangover” from our fruit-eating primate ancestors, who developed a taste for fermented fruit.

And idw also tackles this contradiction:

Alcohol use and abuse can no longer be blamed on the inventors of brewing of about 9,000 years ago. So far, the current theories on alcoholism have stated that mankind and its ancestors were either used to take no alcohol at all or maybe only low doses via fruits - before the onset of beer brewing. As brewing is such a recent event on the evolutionary time scale, we were not able to develop an adequate defence against the adverse effects of alcohol and the partly hereditary addiction. Mankind is suffering from an evolutionary hangover, as they say. Contrary to this belief, chronic high consumption of alcohol already occurred early on in primate evolution, [according to this new study].

The beery nectar on the Bertram Palm.

The stories themselves all stem from a new study published July 28, 2008 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States entitled Chronic intake of fermented floral nectar by wild treeshrews. From the Abstract: For humans alcohol consumption often has devastating consequences. Wild mammals may also be behaviorally and physiologically challenged by alcohol in their food. Here, we provide a detailed account of chronic alcohol intake by mammals as part of a coevolved relationship with a plant. We discovered that seven mammalian species in a West Malaysian rainforest consume alcoholic nectar daily from flower buds of the bertam palm (Eugeissona tristis), which they pollinate. The 3.8% maximum alcohol concentration (mean: 0.6%; median: 0.5%) that we recorded is among the highest ever reported in a natural food. Nectar high in alcohol is facilitated by specialized flower buds that harbor a fermenting yeast community, including several species new to science. Pentailed treeshrews (Ptilocercus lowii) frequently consume alcohol doses from the inflorescences that would intoxicate humans.

Yet, the flower-visiting mammals showed no signs of intoxication. Analysis of an alcohol metabolite (ethyl glucuronide) in their hair yielded concentrations higher than those in humans with similarly high alcohol intake. The pentailed treeshrew is considered a living model for extinct mammals representing the stock from which all extinct and living treeshrews and primates radiated. Therefore, we hypothesize that moderate to high alcohol intake was present early on in the evolution of these closely related lineages. It is yet unclear to what extent treeshrews benefit from ingested alcohol per se and how they mitigate the risk of continuous high blood alcohol concentrations.

Fascinating stuff, and yet more evidence that alcohol is far more natural than the neo-prohibitionists would like. It will be interesting to see what further study reveals.

Today is Garrett Oliver’s 46th birthday. Garrett is the head brewer at Brooklyn Brewery and has done more for the craft beer industry to promote pairing food and beer than any other person alive. If you haven’t picked up a copy of his book, The Brewmaster’s Table, you should do so as soon as possible. He’s also the best-dressed brewer in the world and a great person. Join me in wishing Garrett a very happy birthday.

Garrett and Bruce Joseph, from Anchor Brewery, at the Brewer’s Dinner before GABF a few years ago.

Tom Dalldorf, published of the Celebrator, Garrett and me share a beer at d.b.a.

Giving a cooking demonstration with beer chef Bruce Paton at GABF in 2005.

Dancing with Jessica, formerly of the Brewers Association, late one night after GABF in 2004 at Falling Rock.
 

Whoops, I forgot about Thursday evening and posted Friday first. After the parade and ceremony was over, the Oregon Brewers Festival officially began.

The Beer Tent North just after the festival started.
 

For more photos from Thursday during this year’s OBF, visit the photo gallery.
 

Whew, that was a great weekend in Portland for the Oregon Brewers Festival. Look for posts throughout the next week with photos from the weekend, starting with Friday. The last few years at OBF on Friday, there have been so many side events that it’s been hard to even make to the festival and this year was no exception.

I started the day at the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation Brew-Am Golf Tournament. The foundation honors the memory of brewer Glen Hay Falconer and the event raises money to send two brewers each year to the Siebel Institute. For the past three years I’ve sponsored a hole at the tourney and here’s the “foursome” I played with at my hole.

Later that afternoon, Hair of the Dog hosts an open house at the brewery. Alan Sprints, owner of the terrific Hair of the Dog Brewery, with Portland beer writer Fred Eckhardt at the Hair of the Dog event.
 

For more photos from Friday during this year’s OBF, visit the photo gallery.
 

Once the OBF parade reached the festival grounds at Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the “official” wooden festival keg was wheeled into place for the ceremonial tapping by the mayor of Portland, signifying the official opening of the 21st annual Oregon Brewers Festival.

Portland Mayor Tom Potter, on hand to open the festival.

For more photos from this year’s OBF keg tapping, including a short video, visit the photo gallery.
 

Today is also Paul Gatza’s 44th birthday. Paul is the Director of the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colorado. He’s held numerous executive positions with the BA and its previous incarnation, the Association of Brewers. An avid homebrewer, Paul is great face for the BA and a terrific person. Join me in wishing him a happy birthday.

Toasting in New Orleans for CBC.

Working the AHA booth at GABF.

Remarkably, today is Vinnie Cilurzo’s 38th birthday. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know Vinnie is one of the best brewers in America and is credited with having made the first Imperial IPA. His Russian River Brewery in Santa Rosa, California won unprecedented back-to-back best brewpub (and brewmaster) awards at the last two World Beer Cups. And Vinnie is one of the nicest people in the industry you’ll ever meet. Join me in wishing Vinnie a happy birthday.

Mine’s bigger. Vinne with Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf in Washington, D.C.

Vinnie and his wife Natalie from presented to Tom Dalldorf (middle), owner of the Celebrator, a Balthazar of their yummy Damnation Ale in honor of the magazine’s 17th anniversary. A Balthazar is 12 liters or contains about 16 normal bottles of beer.

Dave Keene, owner of the Toronado, Natalie Cilurzo, Dave’s girfriend Jennifer and Vinnie at CBC in Seattle.

Garrett Oliver, brewer at Brooklyn Brewing Co., and Vinnie at the Brewer’s Dinner the night before GABF begins.

Vinnie and Rich Norgrove from Bear Republic at the Summit Hop Festival two years ago at Drake’s.
 

The now annual Oregon Brewers Festival parade and brunch took place the morning the festival begins. This year it was held at PGE Park, the home of the Portland Beavers, a minor league baseball team. Widmer Brothers Brewing has a beer garden at the ballpark and they served a hearty breakfast washed down with Widmer beer. From there, the 300 paraded to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, where the festival was opened, with Tom Potter, Portland’s mayor leading the way.

The Oregon Brewers Festival parade.

For more photos from this year’s OBF Parade, visit the photo gallery.
 

Today is John Harris’ 45th birthday. John is the head brewer at Full Sail Brewing and is responsible for many of their excellent beers. He also plays washboard with the Rolling Boil Blues Band. Plus he’s a terrific person, so join me in wishing him a happy birthday.

By the Celebrator booth at OBF, from left, John (head brewer at Full Sail Brewing), Tom Dalldorf, and Fred Bowman, co-founder of Portland Brewing Co.

John speaking very passionately about something or other at Elysian Brewing in Seattle, as Shaun O’Sullivan from 21st Amendment is about to accost him.

John rocks out on washboard with the Rolling Boil Blues Band at CBC in Seattle, with Marty Jones (left) and Celebrator editor Tom Dalldorf (in the center)