wild hop sneaks onto market

June 22, 2006

rebecca brought a 6 of this home from the brewery last nite

one of the brewmasters at the evil empire comes into her bar all the time and

brought her some

next up...organic coke?

Brewing behemoth sneaks into organic

Carol Ness, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Organic Budweiser. What's next, the hybrid Hummer?

That could be a Letterman riff but it's for real -- the beer anyway.

Anheuser-Busch, whose empire is built on Bud and Bud Light, is test-marketing

its first organic beer in the North Bay, Santa Barbara and six other smallish

cities around the country.

It's a lager that goes by Wild Hop, not organic Bud, and it's being cold-brewed

in at the St. Louis-based company's Fairfield plant. A second organic beer,

Stone Mill Pale Ale, is being brewed at Anheuser-Busch's Redhook brewery in

Portsmouth, N.H., and will be here shortly.

The two represent Big Beer's first foray into the organic market, which is still

the size of a speck of foam floating on a sea of fermented barley and hops. But

it's growing, like all things organic, and Anheuser-Busch is dipping a finger

into the waters of this potentially lucrative market.

Like Wal-Mart's recent decision to go big time into organic food,

Anheuser-Busch's move obliterates any doubt that organic is now mainstream --

and big business.

People who might buy Wild Hop and Stone Mill are " more affluent, highly

educated, more high-end shoppers " who buy organic, says Patrick McGauley, a vice

president for product development at the St. Louis headquarters.

" I'm not describing a Bud Light drinker, " he says. " I'm describing a new

customer. "

Like most microbrews, the organic beers are priced a couple dollars more per

six-pack than Bud Light: $7.99 for the Wild Hop and $8.49 for the Stone Mill.

The Bay Area was a natural as a test market, because " California fits the

demographics and the shopper psychographics, " McGauley adds.

Wild Hop started trickling into stores in Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties

about two weeks ago. A spot check turned up a few cases at Beverages & More

stores in San Rafael, Santa Rosa and Novato.

The packaging offers no clues that it's a Budweiser relative. Nowhere does it

say Anheuser-Busch -- instead it says Green Valley Brewing Co., a newly created

business name.

Stores like Whole Foods Markets are a likely target, says Charlie Head, managing

general partner of Eagle Distributing in Santa Rosa, Anheuser-Busch's North Bay

vendor. " We're not going for the Safeways of the world, " Head says.

The marketing strategy is deliberately low-key. There will be no Bud Light-style

barrage of TV commercials, according to McGauley. The company plans to depend on

in-store displays and word of mouth, plus a donation to the Organic Farming

Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, to drum up publicity.

If test-marketing is a success, Anheuser-Busch plans to take the beers national.

News that a beer giant had waded into the organic beer pool hit the organic beer

pioneers at the Eel River Brewing Co. in Fortuna, Humboldt County, like a small

but sharp earthquake.

" Those rat bastards, " co-founder Ted Vivatson first said, semi-seriously. " We

consider them the evil empire. "

Eel River is one of just a handful of American microbreweries who are bottling

organic beer for the retail market, including Butte Creek Brewing Co. in Chico,

Wolaver's in Vermont, and North Coast Brewing Co. in Fort Bragg. Popular organic

imports include Coopers from Australia and Samuel Smith from England.

At Whole Foods, only about 15 beers out of 400 are organic, according to a

recent count in the chain's store in San Francisco's South of Market

neighborhood.

Craft beer made up just 3.5 percent of the total market in 2004, and organic

beer is just a fraction of that, according to Ray Daniels, director of the

Brewers Association, a trade group.

At Eel River, Vivatson and his then-wife, now-business partner, Margaret

Vivatson, were among the first in the country to start brewing organic beer at

their 12-year-old brewpub. He's seen the market slowly grow from infinitesimal

to tiny -- only to see Budweiser come in as the market shows signs of heating

up.

" They're not doing this for the love of organics, " he says. " They're just doing

this for market share. "

Big Beer can spell trouble for small breweries like Eel River because it

dominates distribution networks. The microbreweries depend on the big guys'

distributors to get their beer to market, and if Bud distributors are busy

pushing Wild Hop, they might not be pushing Eel River, Vivatson says.

But he realizes that organic Bud doesn't have to be a threat -- and could even

be a boon.

His own customers, he says, tend to be anti-establishment types who are into

organic beer because of its populist, grassroots ethic -- and they're not likely

to jump to a corporate giant.

" If Budweiser comes out and does this, a whole lot more consumers are going to

say hey, maybe there's something to this organic beer thing,' " Vivatson says.

" And they'll buy more and that's good for me. "

Organic beer is made the same way any beer is. But at least 95 percent of the

ingredients have to be certified organic to earn U.S. Department of Agriculture

certification.

Organic barley, the main ingredient, costs a little more than conventional but

is in good supply. But organic hops, used to give beer its bitter edge, are

harder to find and most have to be imported, mainly from New Zealand and Europe.

Brewers' flavor palettes are limited because only a few hop varieties are grown

organically.

Wild Hop is 95 percent organic, and uses non-organic hops. Butte Creek uses some

non-organic hops to preserve its taste options. Eel River is 100 percent

organic.

The brewing process has to be certified as well, which mainly means strict

limits on what cleansers can be used to sanitize the vats and machinery,

Vivatson explains.

" We use a lot of steam because we can't use the chemicals. It's very

labor-intensive, " he says.

At Butte Creek, general manager Tom Atmore says he's already gotten feelers from

Coors/Miller distributors looking to pick up a competitor for Wild Hop.

" I think it's going to open up a lot of awareness, and a lot of distribution

channels for brewers like us, " he says.

Anheuser-Busch came calling at Atmore's Chico brewery about six months ago,

looking for advice on organic beer certification, he adds.

" I didn't send them out with much information, " he says. " But I did tell them I

thought they could afford it. "

E-mail Carol Ness at cness.

Defending this corruption on which you are sat

You tell me what to think, you tell me this and that

`Freedom is O.K. you scum` but make sure it`s never used

In your defence of liberty I always stand accused

June 23, 2006

Did you do something to upset her? why did she do that to you? The Valley Vegan..................fraggle <EBbrewpunx wrote: rebecca brought a 6 of this home from the brewery last niteone of the brewmasters at the evil empire comes into her bar all the time and brought her somenext up...organic coke?Brewing behemoth sneaks into organicCarol Ness, Chronicle Staff WriterThursday, March 30, 2006Organic Budweiser. What's next, the hybrid Hummer? That could be a Letterman riff but it's for real -- the beer anyway. Anheuser-Busch, whose empire is built on Bud and Bud Light, is test-marketing its first organic beer in the North Bay, Santa Barbara and six other smallish cities around the country. It's a lager that goes by

Wild Hop, not organic Bud, and it's being cold-brewed in at the St. Louis-based company's Fairfield plant. A second organic beer, Stone Mill Pale Ale, is being brewed at Anheuser-Busch's Redhook brewery in Portsmouth, N.H., and will be here shortly. The two represent Big Beer's first foray into the organic market, which is still the size of a speck of foam floating on a sea of fermented barley and hops. But it's growing, like all things organic, and Anheuser-Busch is dipping a finger into the waters of this potentially lucrative market. Like Wal-Mart's recent decision to go big time into organic food, Anheuser-Busch's move obliterates any doubt that organic is now mainstream -- and big business. People who might buy Wild Hop and Stone Mill are "more affluent, highly educated, more high-end shoppers" who buy organic, says Patrick McGauley, a vice president for product development at the St. Louis headquarters. "I'm not describing a Bud Light

drinker," he says. "I'm describing a new customer." Like most microbrews, the organic beers are priced a couple dollars more per six-pack than Bud Light: $7.99 for the Wild Hop and $8.49 for the Stone Mill. The Bay Area was a natural as a test market, because "California fits the demographics and the shopper psychographics," McGauley adds. Wild Hop started trickling into stores in Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties about two weeks ago. A spot check turned up a few cases at Beverages & More stores in San Rafael, Santa Rosa and Novato. The packaging offers no clues that it's a Budweiser relative. Nowhere does it say Anheuser-Busch -- instead it says Green Valley Brewing Co., a newly created business name. Stores like Whole Foods Markets are a likely target, says Charlie Head, managing general partner of Eagle Distributing in Santa Rosa, Anheuser-Busch's North Bay vendor. "We're not going for the Safeways of the world," Head says.

The marketing strategy is deliberately low-key. There will be no Bud Light-style barrage of TV commercials, according to McGauley. The company plans to depend on in-store displays and word of mouth, plus a donation to the Organic Farming Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, to drum up publicity. If test-marketing is a success, Anheuser-Busch plans to take the beers national. News that a beer giant had waded into the organic beer pool hit the organic beer pioneers at the Eel River Brewing Co. in Fortuna, Humboldt County, like a small but sharp earthquake. "Those rat bastards," co-founder Ted Vivatson first said, semi-seriously. "We consider them the evil empire." Eel River is one of just a handful of American microbreweries who are bottling organic beer for the retail market, including Butte Creek Brewing Co. in Chico, Wolaver's in Vermont, and North Coast Brewing Co. in Fort Bragg. Popular organic imports include Coopers from Australia

and Samuel Smith from England. At Whole Foods, only about 15 beers out of 400 are organic, according to a recent count in the chain's store in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. Craft beer made up just 3.5 percent of the total market in 2004, and organic beer is just a fraction of that, according to Ray Daniels, director of the Brewers Association, a trade group. At Eel River, Vivatson and his then-wife, now-business partner, Margaret Vivatson, were among the first in the country to start brewing organic beer at their 12-year-old brewpub. He's seen the market slowly grow from infinitesimal to tiny -- only to see Budweiser come in as the market shows signs of heating up. "They're not doing this for the love of organics," he says. "They're just doing this for market share." Big Beer can spell trouble for small breweries like Eel River because it dominates distribution networks. The microbreweries depend on the big guys'

distributors to get their beer to market, and if Bud distributors are busy pushing Wild Hop, they might not be pushing Eel River, Vivatson says. But he realizes that organic Bud doesn't have to be a threat -- and could even be a boon. His own customers, he says, tend to be anti-establishment types who are into organic beer because of its populist, grassroots ethic -- and they're not likely to jump to a corporate giant. "If Budweiser comes out and does this, a whole lot more consumers are going to say hey, maybe there's something to this organic beer thing,' " Vivatson says. "And they'll buy more and that's good for me." Organic beer is made the same way any beer is. But at least 95 percent of the ingredients have to be certified organic to earn U.S. Department of Agriculture certification. Organic barley, the main ingredient, costs a little more than conventional but is in good supply. But organic hops, used to give beer its bitter

edge, are harder to find and most have to be imported, mainly from New Zealand and Europe. Brewers' flavor palettes are limited because only a few hop varieties are grown organically. Wild Hop is 95 percent organic, and uses non-organic hops. Butte Creek uses some non-organic hops to preserve its taste options. Eel River is 100 percent organic. The brewing process has to be certified as well, which mainly means strict limits on what cleansers can be used to sanitize the vats and machinery, Vivatson explains. "We use a lot of steam because we can't use the chemicals. It's very labor-intensive," he says. At Butte Creek, general manager Tom Atmore says he's already gotten feelers from Coors/Miller distributors looking to pick up a competitor for Wild Hop. "I think it's going to open up a lot of awareness, and a lot of distribution channels for brewers like us," he says. Anheuser-Busch came calling at Atmore's Chico

brewery about six months ago, looking for advice on organic beer certification, he adds. "I didn't send them out with much information," he says. "But I did tell them I thought they could afford it." E-mail Carol Ness at cness. Defending this corruption on which you are satYou tell me what to think, you tell me this and that`Freedom is O.K. you scum` but make sure it`s never usedIn your defence of liberty I always stand accused

June 23, 2006

hopefully

nah..she just brought it home because it was given to her

still sitting on the kitchen counter

peter VV Jun 23, 2006 1:55 PM Re: wild hop sneaks onto market

Did you do something to upset her? why did she do that to you?

The Valley Vegan..................fraggle <EBbrewpunx wrote:

rebecca brought a 6 of this home from the brewery last niteone of the brewmasters at the evil empire comes into her bar all the time and brought her somenext up...organic coke?Brewing behemoth sneaks into organicCarol Ness, Chronicle Staff WriterThursday, March 30, 2006Organic Budweiser. What's next, the hybrid Hummer? That could be a Letterman riff but it's for real -- the beer anyway. Anheuser-Busch, whose empire is built on Bud and Bud Light, is test-marketing its first organic beer in the North Bay, Santa Barbara and six other smallish cities around the country. It's a lager that goes by Wild Hop, not organic Bud, and it's being cold-brewed in at the St. Louis-based company's Fairfield plant. A second organic beer, Stone Mill Pale Ale, is being brewed at Anheuser-Busch's Redhook brewery in Portsmouth, N.H., and will be here shortly. The two represent Big Beer's first foray into the organic market, which is still the size of a speck of foam floating on a sea of fermented barley and hops. But it's growing, like all things organic, and Anheuser-Busch is dipping a finger into the waters of this potentially lucrative market. Like Wal-Mart's recent decision to go big time into organic food, Anheuser-Busch's move obliterates any doubt that organic is now mainstream -- and big business. People who might buy Wild Hop and Stone Mill are "more affluent, highly educated, more high-end shoppers" who buy organic, says Patrick McGauley, a vice president for product development at the St. Louis headquarters. "I'm not describing a Bud Light drinker," he says. "I'm describing a new customer." Like most microbrews, the organic beers are priced a couple dollars more per six-pack than Bud Light: $7.99 for the Wild Hop and $8.49 for the Stone Mill. The Bay Area was a natural as a test market, because "California fits the demographics and the shopper psychographics," McGauley adds. Wild Hop started trickling into stores in Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties about two weeks ago. A spot check turned up a few cases at Beverages & More stores in San Rafael, Santa Rosa and Novato. The packaging offers no clues that it's a Budweiser relative. Nowhere does it say Anheuser-Busch -- instead it says Green Valley Brewing Co., a newly created business name. Stores like Whole Foods Markets are a likely target, says Charlie Head, managing general partner of Eagle Distributing in Santa Rosa, Anheuser-Busch's North Bay vendor. "We're not going for the Safeways of the world," Head says. The marketing strategy is deliberately low-key. There will be no Bud Light-style barrage of TV commercials, according to McGauley. The company plans to depend on in-store displays and word of mouth, plus a donation to the Organic Farming Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, to drum up publicity. If test-marketing is a success, Anheuser-Busch plans to take the beers national. News that a beer giant had waded into the organic beer pool hit the organic beer pioneers at the Eel River Brewing Co. in Fortuna, Humboldt County, like a small but sharp earthquake. "Those rat bastards," co-founder Ted Vivatson first said, semi-seriously. "We consider them the evil empire." Eel River is one of just a handful of American microbreweries who are bottling organic beer for the retail market, including Butte Creek Brewing Co. in Chico, Wolaver's in Vermont, and North Coast Brewing Co. in Fort Bragg. Popular organic imports include Coopers from Australia and Samuel Smith from England. At Whole Foods, only about 15 beers out of 400 are organic, according to a recent count in the chain's store in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. Craft beer made up just 3.5 percent of the total market in 2004, and organic beer is just a fraction of that, according to Ray Daniels, director of the Brewers Association, a trade group. At Eel River, Vivatson and his then-wife, now-business partner, Margaret Vivatson, were among the first in the country to start brewing organic beer at their 12-year-old brewpub. He's seen the market slowly grow from infinitesimal to tiny -- only to see Budweiser come in as the market shows signs of heating up. "They're not doing this for the love of organics," he says. "They're just doing this for market share." Big Beer can spell trouble for small breweries like Eel River because it dominates distribution networks. The microbreweries depend on the big guys' distributors to get their beer to market, and if Bud distributors are busy pushing Wild Hop, they might not be pushing Eel River, Vivatson says. But he realizes that organic Bud doesn't have to be a threat -- and could even be a boon. His own customers, he says, tend to be anti-establishment types who are into organic beer because of its populist, grassroots ethic -- and they're not likely to jump to a corporate giant. "If Budweiser comes out and does this, a whole lot more consumers are going to say hey, maybe there's something to this organic beer thing,' " Vivatson says. "And they'll buy more and that's good for me." Organic beer is made the same way any beer is. But at least 95 percent of the ingredients have to be certified organic to earn U.S. Department of Agriculture certification. Organic barley, the main ingredient, costs a little more than conventional but is in good supply. But organic hops, used to give beer its bitter edge, are harder to find and most have to be imported, mainly from New Zealand and Europe. Brewers' flavor palettes are limited because only a few hop varieties are grown organically. Wild Hop is 95 percent organic, and uses non-organic hops. Butte Creek uses some non-organic hops to preserve its taste options. Eel River is 100 percent organic. The brewing process has to be certified as well, which mainly means strict limits on what cleansers can be used to sanitize the vats and machinery, Vivatson explains. "We use a lot of steam because we can't use the chemicals. It's very labor-intensive," he says. At Butte Creek, general manager Tom Atmore says he's already gotten feelers from Coors/Miller distributors looking to pick up a competitor for Wild Hop. "I think it's going to open up a lot of awareness, and a lot of distribution channels for brewers like us," he says. Anheuser-Busch came calling at Atmore's Chico brewery about six months ago, looking for advice on organic beer certification, he adds. "I didn't send them out with much information," he says. "But I did tell them I thought they could afford it." E-mail Carol Ness at cness. Defending this corruption on which you are satYou tell me what to think, you tell me this and that`Freedom is O.K. you scum` but make sure it`s never usedIn your defence of liberty I always stand accused

June 23, 2006

Next time someone crashes one of your parties, give it to them? The Valley Vegan..............fraggle <EBbrewpunx wrote: hopefully nah..she just brought it home because it was given to her still sitting on the kitchen counter peter VV Jun 23, 2006 1:55 PM Re: wild hop sneaks onto market Did you do something to upset her? why did she do that to you? The Valley

Vegan..................fraggle <EBbrewpunx wrote: rebecca brought a 6 of this home from the brewery last niteone of the brewmasters at the evil empire comes into her bar all the time and brought her somenext up...organic coke?Brewing behemoth sneaks into organicCarol Ness, Chronicle Staff WriterThursday, March 30, 2006Organic Budweiser. What's next, the hybrid Hummer? That could be a Letterman riff but it's for real -- the beer anyway. Anheuser-Busch, whose empire is built on Bud and Bud Light, is test-marketing its first organic beer in the North Bay, Santa Barbara and six other smallish cities around the country. It's a lager that goes by Wild Hop, not organic Bud, and it's being cold-brewed in at the St. Louis-based company's Fairfield plant. A second organic

beer, Stone Mill Pale Ale, is being brewed at Anheuser-Busch's Redhook brewery in Portsmouth, N.H., and will be here shortly. The two represent Big Beer's first foray into the organic market, which is still the size of a speck of foam floating on a sea of fermented barley and hops. But it's growing, like all things organic, and Anheuser-Busch is dipping a finger into the waters of this potentially lucrative market. Like Wal-Mart's recent decision to go big time into organic food, Anheuser-Busch's move obliterates any doubt that organic is now mainstream -- and big business. People who might buy Wild Hop and Stone Mill are "more affluent, highly educated, more high-end shoppers" who buy organic, says Patrick McGauley, a vice president for product development at the St. Louis headquarters. "I'm not describing a Bud Light drinker," he says. "I'm describing a new customer." Like most microbrews, the organic beers are priced a couple

dollars more per six-pack than Bud Light: $7.99 for the Wild Hop and $8.49 for the Stone Mill. The Bay Area was a natural as a test market, because "California fits the demographics and the shopper psychographics," McGauley adds. Wild Hop started trickling into stores in Marin, Sonoma and Mendocino counties about two weeks ago. A spot check turned up a few cases at Beverages & More stores in San Rafael, Santa Rosa and Novato. The packaging offers no clues that it's a Budweiser relative. Nowhere does it say Anheuser-Busch -- instead it says Green Valley Brewing Co., a newly created business name. Stores like Whole Foods Markets are a likely target, says Charlie Head, managing general partner of Eagle Distributing in Santa Rosa, Anheuser-Busch's North Bay vendor. "We're not going for the Safeways of the world," Head says. The marketing strategy is deliberately low-key. There will be no Bud Light-style barrage of TV commercials,

according to McGauley. The company plans to depend on in-store displays and word of mouth, plus a donation to the Organic Farming Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, to drum up publicity. If test-marketing is a success, Anheuser-Busch plans to take the beers national. News that a beer giant had waded into the organic beer pool hit the organic beer pioneers at the Eel River Brewing Co. in Fortuna, Humboldt County, like a small but sharp earthquake. "Those rat bastards," co-founder Ted Vivatson first said, semi-seriously. "We consider them the evil empire." Eel River is one of just a handful of American microbreweries who are bottling organic beer for the retail market, including Butte Creek Brewing Co. in Chico, Wolaver's in Vermont, and North Coast Brewing Co. in Fort Bragg. Popular organic imports include Coopers from Australia and Samuel Smith from England. At Whole Foods, only about 15 beers out of 400 are organic, according to a

recent count in the chain's store in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. Craft beer made up just 3.5 percent of the total market in 2004, and organic beer is just a fraction of that, according to Ray Daniels, director of the Brewers Association, a trade group. At Eel River, Vivatson and his then-wife, now-business partner, Margaret Vivatson, were among the first in the country to start brewing organic beer at their 12-year-old brewpub. He's seen the market slowly grow from infinitesimal to tiny -- only to see Budweiser come in as the market shows signs of heating up. "They're not doing this for the love of organics," he says. "They're just doing this for market share." Big Beer can spell trouble for small breweries like Eel River because it dominates distribution networks. The microbreweries depend on the big guys' distributors to get their beer to market, and if Bud distributors are busy pushing Wild Hop, they might not be pushing

Eel River, Vivatson says. But he realizes that organic Bud doesn't have to be a threat -- and could even be a boon. His own customers, he says, tend to be anti-establishment types who are into organic beer because of its populist, grassroots ethic -- and they're not likely to jump to a corporate giant. "If Budweiser comes out and does this, a whole lot more consumers are going to say hey, maybe there's something to this organic beer thing,' " Vivatson says. "And they'll buy more and that's good for me." Organic beer is made the same way any beer is. But at least 95 percent of the ingredients have to be certified organic to earn U.S. Department of Agriculture certification. Organic barley, the main ingredient, costs a little more than conventional but is in good supply. But organic hops, used to give beer its bitter edge, are harder to find and most have to be imported, mainly from New Zealand and Europe. Brewers' flavor

palettes are limited because only a few hop varieties are grown organically. Wild Hop is 95 percent organic, and uses non-organic hops. Butte Creek uses some non-organic hops to preserve its taste options. Eel River is 100 percent organic. The brewing process has to be certified as well, which mainly means strict limits on what cleansers can be used to sanitize the vats and machinery, Vivatson explains. "We use a lot of steam because we can't use the chemicals. It's very labor-intensive," he says. At Butte Creek, general manager Tom Atmore says he's already gotten feelers from Coors/Miller distributors looking to pick up a competitor for Wild Hop. "I think it's going to open up a lot of awareness, and a lot of distribution channels for brewers like us," he says. Anheuser-Busch came calling at Atmore's Chico brewery about six months ago, looking for advice on organic beer certification, he adds. "I didn't send them out

with much information," he says. "But I did tell them I thought they could afford it." E-mail Carol Ness at cness. Defending this corruption on which you are satYou tell me what to think, you tell me this and that`Freedom is O.K. you scum` but make sure it`s never usedIn your defence of liberty I always stand accused