Bigs Guys Boasting About Their Big Beers

Sounds like Jim
Koch knows what he’s talking about, doesn’t it? The
“lunatic fringe of brewing” indeed. Utopias sounds
like an insane concept: a unique gold-tone bottle
shaped like a brewing vessel, a beer that’s 5O
proof and practically flat, blended from several
batches of beers aged for different periods, up to
12 years for some. Oh, and it sells for $1OO to
$12O a bottle. The man would be crazy, making stuff
like that, but for one little thing: it sells.
Koch’s not crazy, but he is wrong. He calls Utopias
the ultimate extreme beer, but it is not a
quadruple-hopped super-smoked buzz-bomb hyped by
guys wearing full-body hopsuits, the kind of beer
that sells to reliable beer geeks and maybe a
couple of brave folks who’ll then never buy a beer
with the word “hop” on it again. No, Utopias and a
small, select group of other brands are luxury
beers, and if they’re sold right, folks will come
back to buy them again and again. What makes a beer
a luxury beer? Price is definitely a factor. There
are price levels that will scare away the everyday
purchaser, usually starting around $5 a 12oz.
bottle at retail, and these beers reach that and
fly right on by.

Don Feinberg has a
ready answer for anyone who asks why his beers cost
so much. “How much is a beer experience worth to
you?,” he asks right back. “Let me put it another
way. Do you think a Mercedes-Benz gets you to work
any faster than a Kia? No, of course not. You’re
paying for it because you appreciate it.” He’s got
some real luxury beers in the Vanberg & DeWulf
garage, too. “My luxury lineup – Oude Boon gueuze:
375ml bottles that cost $8 to $12 each off-premise.
Then we have Avec Les Bons Vouex de la Brasserie
Dupont. That’s between $1O and $12 for a 75Oml.
Then I have what people have told me is the most
expensive beer they’ve ever seen, and who do you
think you are charging that much – Scaldis
Prestige, in a 75O ml bottle for $4O. “Look,” he
protests, “the Oude Boon is absolutely worth every
penny. It’s made from beer that’s been fermenting
in-cask for at least two years. These beers are not
‘aged’ – they’re actually alive, they’re still
fermenting in the casks. A specific yeast strain
may not appear until month 24, month 36, month 42.
Being fermented in the wood, in a low-oxygen
environment, these different yeasts can compete.
It’s time. The price of any great aged fermented
product is based on risk and time.” Feinberg knows
that from both sides of the production equation, as
the former owner of Brewery Ommegang. “When we were
at Ommegang, we aged cases of Hennepin in Howe
Caverns, and we charged a lot more for it. And
people said, ‘But it’s the same beer! How can you
charge more?’ Well, what about trucking it, storing
it in the cave for 9 months, then trucking it back
– and then there are people like you who won’t buy
it! There are going to be those people every time
you make a special product, so: can you sell it?
That’s part of the cost, too.” Lanny Hoff of
Artisanal Imports talks about the brewers at
Bosteel, in Belgium, who also apparently like
giving their beer a ride. “DeuS varies in price; in
a liquor store from $24 to $28, in a bar it may go
from $3O to $45. It’s extremely expensive to
produce. The beer is brewed initially in Belgium
and undergoes primary fermentation there. Then they
tanker it to France where it undergoes methode
champenoise fermentation in the bottle, and it’s
another year before the beer’s ready. It’s made
like no other beer. The bottle’s very expensive.
That has to be passed along to the consumer.” Jim
Koch talks about costs for Utopias, and you almost
get the feeling that he’s talking about research
and development for an advanced electronic device.
“Utopias is part of a process we started with the
Triple Bock: finding out what we get when we push
fermentation to high levels. It takes time measured
in months and years, not days and weeks. It’s made
in small batches that are aged in a series of oak
casks from 2 years to 12 to 13 years, and then
blended. There are a ton of ingredients used to
make not much beer.

Another
characteristic that puts them in the category is
broader appeal than extreme beers; these are
generally not beers that will really slap you
silly, but beers that will wow you with depth and
complexity. If that sounds like beer that a
wine-drinker would like, go to the head of the
class. Jim Koch likes to take on that comparison
between Utopias and wine head to head. “You’re
dealing with a beverage that has all the complexity
of cognac or port. When we introduce it [for
the year] we do a blind tasting: our beer
against a 1994 Taylor Fladgate Port, arguably the
best port ever made. We had Paul Pacult [noted
distilled spirits expert] pick a great cognac.
We’ve never lost one of those blind tastings: the
tasters have always preferred the Utopias. That
gives me some confidence; if it can beat those at
$1OO a bottle, it’s a bargain. And you get a nickel
deposit back in Massachusetts!” Jeff Coleman
represents Fuller’s of London through his import
company, Distinguished Brands, and one of the
pleasures of that business is the annual release of
the distinctively-packaged Fuller’s Vintage Ale.
“They sold it for the first time in the US in
1997,” he recalls. “Reg Drury, the brewmaster at
the time, told me the shelf life should be about
three years. It’s turned out to be about seven
years. As it gets into the mature years, four to
six, it starts taking on flavors of a tawny port.
Then, in the twilight years, it gets sherry-like
flavors. People who don’t drink beer love it,
they’ll ask “That’s a beer?” Yes, it is. “One of
the most remarkable pairings I’ve ever had was a
dark chocolate truffle with DeuS,” says Hoff. “It
was out of sight, though you’d never think it would
work. The beer’s light, but it has a very forward
herbal character. Bosteels swears there are no
herbs in the beer. Garrett Oliver has done a number
of cheese tastings with it, and if he has a cheese
that doesn’t pair with anything else, DeuS comes to
his rescue. There’s so much going on in a sip, it
can contrast or complement almost any
flavor.”

Luxury beers are
luxury items because of their cost and intensity of
flavor, because their purchase and consumption is a
special occasion. That special occasion aura has a
‘halo effect’ that spreads widely. It’s worked for
Hoff with DeuS. “We’ve gotten more press on that
beer than on any other beer I’ve ever worked with.
We do make money on it; it’s very consistent, and
near the holidays it sells quite well. But the
prestige thing as a beer geek with an import
company, how could we take a pass on that! It’s a
whole lot of fun, and there’s nothing else like it
in the world. I could be selling paper clips, but
I’m not. This is the kind of thing, this is the
reason I get up in the morning.” Chad Morrison is
the store manager at Blanchards, in West Roxbury.
He sees that halo effect burnishing his store’s
reputation, and he works with it. “If I sell one of
them, I might make a higher mark-up,” he notes. “In
the long run, that doesn’t do much. But I want
people coming here to find the stuff they can’t
find elsewhere, or to see what I have that’s new. I
tell the wholesalers and the importers: if it comes
in, send it. I don’t care what it is: if it’s
strange, if it’s rare, I’ll take it.” Feinberg sees
his luxury beers as an up-sell from the rest of his
portfolio, a necessary final step. “I sell them
because people should experience them,” he says.
“If you don’t initially want to pay the money for
these products, but you’ll try their other
products, you’re buying that same tradition. You
see, strength isn’t for the purpose of splitting
your skull open – it’s for depth of flavor and
complexity. When you get it, when you taste that,
you’ll realize that they are very skilled brewers,
and you will then want to find more of it in the
luxury beers. That carryover is very important to
us.” “The Vintage Ale,” Coleman explains, “explains
just how special the Fuller’s ales are that you can
pick up every day. This is a special brewery. When
you try the Vintage, you want to try the others in
the range. The other purpose of the Vintage Ale is
as a treat to their loyal clientele. They only do
about 4OO hectoliters a year, just one run. They
always tell us the same thing: take care of the
people who take care of you, first. It’s on
allocation to our
distributors.”

Jackson Cannon recently oversaw an upgrade to his
beer menu, adding some breadth, some Belgian, some
luxury. Why? “I’m mostly a cocktail guy, and I have
a fantastic wine person. There was a chance beer
would be left behind, so I gave it a lot of
thought. The list reads Draft, Bottle, Belgian. It
seemed like the best, richest way to deepen our
program. Whatever the stigma is to the beer drinker
in the cocktail bar or fine restaurant has been
removed a bit. There are enough places where people
are exposed to better beers, that a consciousness
is dawning. It’s definitely at the point where if
you’re looking for good beer, you’re not looked
down upon by the sommelier.” Cannon is working some
luxurious food pairings, too. “We’ve explored a lot
of Belgian beers for their excellent qualities of
pairing with food. Our chef Jamie Bissonnette does
a lot with Alsatian charcuterie, so these lowland
beers make a lot of sense. They mix very well with
food, they’re very balanced. The Houblon Chouffe
Dobbelen IPA Tripel has the hops bitterness, the
Chouffe spiciness, and a sourmash maltiness at the
end. It’s great with blood sausage. And then you
can get them into the beers that are a bit more odd
on their own.” What are some more of the luxury
beers? “The Utopias is up there,” says Morrison.
“Dogfish Head World Wide Stout is $1O or $11 for a
12oz. bottle; you’ve got to be on allocation to get
that. Some of the fanciest beers from Allagash go
for quite a bit: Musette has a lot going on, it’s a
bourbon-aged beer that goes for about $15 for a
75Oml. It’s a hand-sell, we did a tasting and sold
about 8 bottles in an hour. It’s like wine, but
people really love it, so it’s not so hard.”
Sometimes it’s the size of the bottle that makes it
a luxury. “We get the Chimay jeroboam at 5 liters,”
Morrison says. “The glass is really thick, it’s
bottle-conditioned. Duvel magnums are only
available in the holiday season, it’s the champagne
of Belgian beers. I’ve got a 6 liter jerobaum of
Unibroue La Fin du Monde: it’s a showpiece, I’ll
buy it myself if we don’t sell it.” What’s the best
way to sell these beers? “Information,” says Hoff.
“Educate yourself on the product. Taste it. Follow
the directions, chill it, open it, taste it. It
astonishes me when people try to sell beverages
without tasting them. The most effective retailers
are the guys who take the time to taste everything.
The guys who taste and form their own opinions,
those are the guys you can trust.” Coleman just
laughs. “You have to explain why it’s a $7 to $1O
bottle, but I’ve never heard of anyone being
disappointed.” Feinberg plays directly to the
inferiority complex beer drinkers struggle with.
“These beers give the real beer lover the chance to
strut their stuff. You like great wines? Try this.
If they’re out with the wine guy, the Scotch guy,
it’s always ‘Let’s get a great bottle of Bordeaux,
no, I just got this bottle of Springbank.’ Well,
the beer guy can offer one of these up and really
stay in the game. You don’t even have to say “it’s
good for beer.” It’s just good. We don’t want to
make excuses.” No excuses. Just great, eye-opening
beer.