File Under: Crazy
Remember back in December when a Vermont woman was charged with illegally selling five cases of Heady Topper, the highly touted Alchemist-brewed double IPA, on Craigslist, netting nearly $1,000? Remember?
Well, the Craigslist craft beer black market is again up and running, though this time a new seller is trying to peddle a single bottle of Russian River Brewing’s renowned Pliny the Elder. The asking price? $100. The kicker, of course, is that the seller is based out of Minneapolis, Minn., roughly 2,000 miles from where Russian River manufactures the famed brew.
The seller’s description of the product, as bottled on September 1:
* The value of the item is in the collectible containers, not their contents. * The containers have not been opened and any incidental contents are not intended for consumption. * These items are in limited production and limited distribution. The containers have a potential value that exceeds the current retail price of the contents in the containers. *
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Perrin Brewing Challenges Beer Peers
The craft vs. crafty debate has been had, at this point, in every conceivable manner in which the topic can be reasonably debated.
Perrin Brewing, out of Comstock, Mich., however, is hoping to spark further dialogue about the responsibilities craft brewers have to their own businesses, so-called “crafty” brands be damned. The brewery’s new “Killing Craft” series, as reported by MLive.com, isn’t so much focused on differentiating between craft and crafty as it is on challenging other small brewers to step up their games.
According to the article:
Each series label will have a statement about Perrin’s mission “to support and defend craft beer from all threats, foreign & domestic, macro and nano. We will strive to accomplish this by producing clean, consistent and imaginative products.”
“We’re trying to be very deliberate in terms of our message,” Perrin co-owner Jarred Sper told the website. “It’s not a pessimistic one. It’s optimistic once you understand the mission. We’re not trying to point fingers. What this will do is cause people to point fingers at us and hold us accountable. That’s what this is all about.”
Southern Star to Break Ground on $5 Million Brewery
Southern Star Brewing put shovel to dirt this week, breaking ground on a $5 million 20,000 sq. ft. brewery and tasting room in Conroe, Texas.
The facility, according to the Houston Chronicle, will host a 60-barrel brewhouse and a tasting room that is twice the size of its current space.
The property — which the company acquired in 2012 — came with a two-story house that “could eventually” be remodeled as a bed and breakfast, the article adds.
“I want people to come out here and have a good time,” founder Dave Fougeron told the Chronicle.
Another College to Offer Courses in Beer
More and more colleges are starting to take beer out of the dorm room parties and into the classroom. The latest: Paul Smith’s College in Upstate N.Y.
According to The Atlantic, the college has announced plans to offer a craft beer minor, which serves to teach prospective students the ins and outs of the business from the brewing process, to marketing and distributing.
Joe Conto, the school’s director of hospitality, resort, tourism, and management program, founded the new course. Conto told the website that during his food courses, craft beer was becoming a more prominent part of the curriculum, mirroring the national trend of growth.
“[T]hen I realized, holy cow, I could teach a course just on beer. And then I said, ‘Well, really, I could teach a whole major on beer.’ And then I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just settle for a minor,” he told the website.