Reed's Hibiscus, Ginger, Grapefruit Kombucha at Natural Products Expo East 2013

So outside the entrance of the Baltimore Convention Center, Reed's set up a tent to give away as much Kombucha as the crowds were willing to carry.   Which is nice, but to some extent, free bee stunts always make me retract a little, like, "what's the catch?"  

So I waited until after the event to give it a fair chance to knock my socks off, which it did. 

Turns out, this Reeds will be bringing one of the best tasting, well balanced, flavorful, "long aged" Kombuchas that I've ever tasted to the market.  I'm thinking the "long aging" may even matter here, mellowing out the harsh tones one comes to expect from other popular commercial brands.  

I know when I make it, I find ways to round off those vinegar notes with some of the same flavors they've added (Ginger and Grapefruit).  So I'm delighted to see one of my favorites put in a bottle and made available for teh mass consumption. 

Moreover, I'm also delighted to see Reed's stock symbol on the label, which is something you don't see often.  And a quick march over to the sites that offer information on public companies may tell you more than you care to know, but it's nice to see that level of transparency.  

For example, if you look up the stock symbol, REED, you'll find what Reed's has to say for itself to the investing public:

 
We develop, manufacture, market and sell natural non-alcoholic carbonated soft drinks, kombucha, candies and ice creams. We currently manufacture, market and sell seven unique product lines: · Reed’s Ginger Brews, · Virgil’s Root Beer, Cream Sodas, Dr. Better and Real Cola, including ZERO diet sodas, · Culture Club Kombucha · China Colas, · Reed’s Ginger Chews, · Reed’s Ginger Ice Creams, · Sonoma Sparkler Sparkling Juices, In addition, we have a growing private label business. We sell most of our products in specialty gourmet and natural food stores (estimated at approximately 4,000 smaller or specialty stores and approximately 3,000 supermarket format stores), supermarket chains (estimated at approximately 7,000 stores), retail stores and restaurants in the United States and, to a lesser degree, in Canada

Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/reed#ixzz2gF895COn

In their competitive analysis, you'll also find a nice array of additional information about the market Reed's is attempting to capture, or "the functional beverage segment", which includes Kombuchas, Coconut waters and Keifers. For example, Reed's states: "Among this broader category, the refrigerated juices and functional beverages segment grew by approximately $200 million in 2012 to an estimated market of approximately $600 million (50% growth), according to SPINS data. Kombucha comprises the overwhelming majority share of this explosive growth and comprises most of the segment. It is generally believed that the segment will continue to expand at a strong rate over the next few years. Other functional drinks in this category are also expanding sales at healthy rates, primarily coconut water and fresh pressed juices. Consumer awareness and demand for functional drinks is increasing and we feel that kombucha and other cultured drinks will be in the forefront of this expanding market category."

REED has a $69 million dollar market capitalization, making it a "micro cap" stock, and trades for around $5.50 per share, with an average share volume of just 42,000, and just 28,000 going into the expo, which is thin and could mean dramatic volatility in price movement. It's ranged from the $3's to the 8's over the last year, so it's about in the middle its trading range.  

A recent press release indicates that you can pick up Reed's at Kroger, and while that could mean a nice bump up or increase in revenues, it's almost certainly reflected in it stock price after calculations by analyst's and trader's, in their discounted future earnings equations. 
 

Bev Business talk aside, I found out that Reed's knocked it out of the park with this (just across from Baltimore's Baseball stadium, from its perfect level of carbonation on opening the bottle to the pleasant color, aroma, balanced taste and merely tart finish.  I'd give it high marks on the ever more popular "amazing and delisheoeoeoeus" scale. 

Check it out fo yo shelf:  http://reedsinc.com/product/reeds-culture-club-kombucha-goji-ginger/

Sweet Baby Jesus at Natural Products Expo East

So picture a guy walking with a chocolate bar, and a woman holding a jar of peanut butter, and they crash into each other, just like those old Reese's commercials from the Mid-70's, but before they start arguing, picture beer angels flying over, and crop dusting them with pungent hops, not the noble variety, but a bitter, early boil addition of, say Citra, and Wilamette, now what?

"Sweet Baby Jesus!"  

Exactly.   It's like the dozens, it's not for everyone, or maybe like a lot of the Pumpkin beers that turn up around October of the year-- good for one or 2, but a third is one too many.  

It had full body, nice head, and aroma consistent with its name, and I appreciated the label mentioning that it's made with artificial flavorings.  But I think the Reese's thing would have been much better with a less dramatic hop flavor, maybe something you'd add to a Wit, to accent banana clove taste and smell.

Granted, I sampled Du Claw Brewing's chocolate, peanut butter monster on a fairly empty stomach, which accounts for the outlandish streaming video I squeezed out and posted.   It's worth a try, just to say it out loud with good cause. 

The beer soaked masses at Beeradvocate.com rates it a 86, or "Very Good", which is fair with the warning, it's very different, and could wear down your buds (the tasting kind) very quickly.  

• http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1924/88269

I think it would be cool to mix with other varieties, like a Wiess or Wit with a serious banana trail.

Erdinter Non-Alcoholic Weissbrau at World of Beer in MKE

As non alcoholic beer goes, this Erdinger rates high.  The malt flavor, is well balanced with the hopes, froth, aroma and head.

Like most non alcoholic beer, it's not very full bodied, but a think textured mouth feels.

Sprecher "Lo-Cal" Root Beer at MKE Public Market

Sprecher, perhaps the first name in Wisconsin soda (and an awesome line of beers) brings you a "Lo-cal" root beer made "in a gas fired kettle" and using Wisconsin honey and local botanicals with just 5 grams of teh carbs, vs. the full brunt of your typical soda. So I'm bringing it with a quick review from the balconies of MKE's Pubic Market. 

This Root Beer is outstanding by every measure, especially since they are using saccharin they way it should be used-- SO YOU CAN NOT TELL IT'S SACCHARIN BY THE OFF FLAVORS artificial sweeteners artlessly impart at even VERY LOW LEVELS!  CAN YOU HEAR ME BIG COMMERCIAL SODA MAKERS?  

Who am I kidding, of course they can't hear anything over the sound of 20,000 fork lifts loading and unloading their diet sodas. 

At any rate, this Sprecher product, like most Sprecher products is awesome for we adults, who can not bear the sugar buzz ordinary soda's bring on.  It's got the root beer bite to stand up to a widely spicy Chicago style hot dog, or a NY Pizza with enough garlic to make your gums hurt (just they way I like it).

Did I mention that I'm highly impressed by the use of sweetener combined with that dab of Wisconsin honey the label celebrates.  However they do it, it completely masks those 70;s diet flavors we've come to expect... does anyone want another Fresca?  

All joking aside, I'll have you know that President Lyndon Johnson had a fountain installed in the White House that used Fresca. Ummmmm. What can you say to that?  Yeah, I know-- and you though fiction was more strange than the truth.

Grapefruit Soda... think of all the potential in those two words.  What adult doesn't love the thought of grapefruit, or its juice?   I know I love it, and use it regularly in juice combos. 

And yet, what we've been trained to drink in the commercial soda environment is Fresca.  F-ing Fresca?  Fresca it is, unless you've been and spent some time in Jamaican restaurants in the US, or have gone to Jamaica to find Ting, which just makes Fresca taste like sweetened toilet water. I can't really sugar coat it, or sweeten it as one would sweeten toilet water with the latest artificial sweetener from the nation's beverage labs. 

And what conversation about artificial sweeteners should miss the history of Nutrisweet, during the Reagan years.  From the magic google machine, one can easily find the following historical review of Nutrisweet's perverse past:

"In 1985 Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet. Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame's clouded past, including a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it "might induce brain tumors."

 

The FDA had actually banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld (who went on to become the Secretary of Defense during the oil wars) vow to "call in his markers," to get it approved."   You'll find the rest of Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr. story, who was appointed head of the Reagan FDA, appointed an extra scientist which made the vote against possible brain tumors deadlocked, and personally broke a deadlocked vote himself in favor of Nutrisweet, before resigning in the wake of the controversy to head up New York Medical College.  And h has never spoken about Nutrisweet since.  

 

You'll find more detail here:

http://rense.com/general33/legal.htm

 

G.D. Searle has an interesting pedigree for anyone interested in pedigree.  It's founder, William Searle was a Harvard graduate and military guy, who served in the officer in the Army Chemical Corps in the early 1950s, when the same division tested LSD on groups of human subjects in concert with the CIA. 

 

Nevertheless, for every foul thing I can think to say about Coca Cola's Fresca product, which was the subject of health risks well before Rumsfeld and Arthur Hayes Hull's put up job for G.D. Searle- Montsanto, can be easily redeemed by Pepsi's naturally sweet soda, Ting, which offers hope for Grapefruit fans everywhere. Unfortunately for some reason, it may be easier to buy Jamaican pot in Amsterdam than it is to get Jamaican Ting in the USA. 

But why would anyone complain about soda flavors when there are so many opportunities to make your own soda out there?   Exactly.  

Here are a few good places to get supplies to make your own soda with the flavors you like most:

• http://www.bev-art.com/about
• http://www.midwestsupplies.com/searchspring/result/?cat=&q=soda
• http://home-brewing.northernbrewer.com/search?asug=&view=grid&w=soda
• http://www.partycreations.net/catalog.html

Nevertheless, back to the point of these pointless adventures in beverage arts, here's the bare boned Sprecher website, which is kind of an understatement given the quality of their products, but hey, we're in Wisconsin here, not the hype and psychological operations of an East coast beverage company, blowing it's own horn via 10,000 media outlets, with phoney taste tests, and the power of "ZERO" calorie and "Sugar FREE" marketing gimmicks:
 
http://www.sprecherbrewery.com/


Next up in these less sweetened Root Beer wars, Steven's Point's "The Point" Diet Root Beer:




 

Flying Dogs and Dogfish Heads at D'Agostino's Pizza in Glennview

Enter Flying Dog's Doggie Style Pale Ale, a wonderfully aromatic, hoppy creation, 35 IBU, with all the right colors, head and lacing, however watery.  Yes, I said watery because I just finished one of Sam's cheesy hop monsters, Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, which you'll see below. 

Let's be real-- Flying Dog's Doggie Style Pale Ale is not a beer I would pour out of bed instead of say, quenching my thirst and cleaning my pallet after some "amazing and delishious", pairing*, however torrid.  No, certainly not.  Moreover, at 5.50% ABV, you may need the hair of this dog that bit you, if your beer goggles were as foggy as they can get sometimes for you young guns.

Make no mistake, Flying Dog makes a yeoman's Pale Ale here (well, in Maryland), a descriptor that maybe has the marketing department there spitting at their screens right now (sorry dudes).  This is a beer company that uses a quote from Hunter S. Thomson to market it's grain juices, so for that alone, there are some who'd overlook any thin, watery aspect that just works like hell to hold up the massive hopped qualities. Northern Brewer, Cascade, Simcoe and Citra certainly carry the day here, however thin the application of 120 Crystal maltz, yo. 

The unwashed hoards at Beer advocate rate this beer an 82, which is perhaps understating the case by several basis points, where as I'd side with the Bros who are closer to the mark at a "Very Good" 85 if not just shy of Outstanding:

 http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/68/1213

You'll find the website here:
http://flyingdogales.com/beers/doggie-style-classic-pale-ale/

These things also depend on viable, easy to access alternatives in the cooler, on the tap or in the bottle fridge at the pub that make one beer easy to replace at the same or lower cost, or what economists call... I forgot.  Well, not the pedantic economists who teach economics, anyway.


Now coming off a Dogfish Head 60 Min !PA, just as the thin crusted pizza arrived at D'Agostino's, well, I felt more like I needed two Doggie Styles to meet the task, where one more 60 Min IPA would have rebooted the entire half pie I scarfed down like a human dumpster, which by the way, is a great product in a town like Chicago, where everyone feels their post WW2, Apple Cobbler style pizza is the only way to make apizza, a notion that goes over about as well as rooting for the Bears when the Pats, Giants or Green Machine are playing in places on the East Coast, like Providence, New Haven, New York or Philly (I'm officially leaving Boston out, because it's typically Greekish pastry crust, which I suffered for near a decade, makes Beantown maybe the biggest pizza letdown city in the nation. However "creative" that pizza just awful... even in the storied, quant North End... most of Florida's pizza is better at this point).

If you really enjoy the mad flavaz of hops, Dogfish 60 Min IPA is creative too, in the Joan Miro or Charles Mingus way, not the refried, double dipped, rancid peanut coated Hostess Brand Twinkie way.  Dogfishhead offers this information-- 60 Northwestern hop additions over 60 minutes, so it's a need to NO! basis there.  And at 6% ABV at par, this beer it's just the hair of the dog they sometimes bites, but a genuine glass of "this way out" if your Bros are all rocking like it's Milla time, circa the "less filling" years (1970 to 1982).

Nevertheless, I'm not spilling secrets here.  If you go to Beeradvocate, where they "respect beer," you'll find Dogfishhead 60 Min rates a 92, which is squarely in the fan boy zone, which is right on the monzey.  I'd give it an Avogadro's Number and leave it there, without trying to split this or that errant hair, while going on and on and on about the relative merits of 60 Min's lacing verses Doggies Style.  Here:

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/64/6108

More, less revealing data from Dogfish Head's site for 60 Min:
 http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/year-round-brews/60-minute-ipa.htm

And finally, let's take a minute or less to go on and on and on and talk about the magical and mystical, protein rich maltz in a clean glass trick topic of endless fascination and fabrication, also known as "lacing" among the self styled geeks who feel they need to say something more when they wet their beaks in order to "respect beer".  

But why talk when you can see an empty glass of Dogfish 60 Min on a bar like aunt Becky's Irish linen, right?

No offense to the aunt Becky or the Irish on that last bit, you know it's all fa da lulz.

Clearly, Milwaukee Abides Lebowski Fest, 2013, Night One at Cathedral Park

Along with the Mayor and all his friends, a lot of folks showed up in downtown MKE for the screening of The Big Lebowski, with many in costumes.  White Russians were served, along the big grain sodas, and  Lagunitas and MKE Ale House's Louie's Demise on Tap from Craft world.

Again, well done Dudes, Walters, and more than a few Maudes, Jesuses, Valkyries, and even several Jackie Treehorns walking around the Cathedral park before dust, when the movie started. Sadly, we spied no Donnies, perhaps because he'd be out of his element. Still, we missed him.  And yes, there was a guy dressed as Dude's landlord, wrapped in vines, while doing the scenes in his arty dance show (!)

It was hilarious to see people dressed in tribute, even before the big contest on the following night at the AMF lanes in MKE.

#MilwaukeeAbides Lebowskifest Begins

Lebowskifest-- Milewaukee begins today with "a liquid lunch" of White Russians at the Pabst Theater downtown, which will be followed by a free showing of The Big Lebowski in Cathedral Square, and music by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down tonight, as well as a Lebowski-Oke Karaoke party at the Newsroom Pub (across from Pabst Theater).

The fans showed up dressed like characters from the movie, which was funny. and fun to see folks very much into the spirit of the thing. And there was a little live music, which was done by the time I got there at 1:30pm.
The White Russian at Pabst Theater was very nice, smooth, creamy and well balanced with both the Mexican and the Russian part.  It was outstanding, really.

The photo here shows the remaining festivities, including Bowling night on Saturday at AMF Lanes on 7505 Oklahoma Avenue, in MKE.  That'll last until 2am, and will be followed by a "Hangover brunch" at some very nice places, run by the Lowlander restaurant Group places, including Benlux in the Third Ward.

For ongoing detail, I'll be looking to #MilwaukeeAbides on teh twitter...