Warsaw Beer Festival returns with originality and freshness

Warsaw Beer Festival returns with originality and freshness

Something special returns. Few beer festivals leave a more striking impression on visitors than the Warsaw Beer Festival. It excels with ease in every area. For seasoned beer travellers the unique experience is hard to beat — anywhere. Many other so-called ‘events’ pale in comparison. 

Jobs for the boys — a drinks industry anachronism

Jobs for the boys — a drinks industry anachronism

‘Jobs for the boys‘ seemingly remains a literal anachronism in industries where endemic favouritism is shown towards friends and supporters. In certain cliques, diversity has no place. Reminded by recent claims of sexism in the beer industry, I recall female colleagues – suitably skilled – 

Swinkels Circularity Index is determination to make a difference

Swinkels Circularity Index is determination to make a difference

There is a tendency to overlook what really matters in the food and drinks industry. Social media vilifies organisations for business manoeuvrings that leave consumers with a bad taste (no pun intended), and yet, peel away the layers and it is surprising which organisations are 

Jamie Oliver’s B Corp model for hospitality

Jamie Oliver’s B Corp model for hospitality

Businesses operating in the food, drink and hospitality industry often consider themselves excused from having corporate social responsibility, for whatever reason. Hence there is rarely an ethical values-based mission statement driving growth and progression. The commercial world is changing rapidly, and it is an oversight 

OneCircle responds to uncertainty with vision

OneCircle responds to uncertainty with vision

While robust organisations persevere through turbulent conditions, pioneers foresee coming storms and respond with innovative action to flourish and prosper. A far-sighted vision triumphs when facing actual or potential adversity. Today’s progressive drink producers are thus loyal to OneCircle, founder of the revolutionary KeyKeg and 

Economic hopes continue to follow coronavirus social guidance

Economic hopes continue to follow coronavirus social guidance

Broad government mandates focus on stimulating a wider economy, yet countless business models, including Hospitality, depend on balancing subtle nuances — economic, social, environmental and ethical, for instance. Given that science continues to expose new coronavirus (COVID-19) variables, national response is necessarily limited to a 

Struggling business and creative freelancers share success

Struggling business and creative freelancers share success

Countless entrepreneurs earn a living in the arts, yet businesses overlook creative professionals and choose cronyism if a hanger-on offers to work gratis. As post-COVID-19 bartering (to exchange goods or services for other goods or services instead of money) plays a greater 21st century economic 

Crises innovate a virtual beer industry

Crises innovate a virtual beer industry

A Virtual Brewgaloo supplementing a physical event later in the year is a wonderful idea. Everybody needs cultural focus and social togetherness at this critical time. It’s a great opportunity. Introducing North Carolina and NC Beer to a much wider audience, national and global: North 

2020 Vision: aesthetics, community and sociocultural value sell beer

2020 Vision: aesthetics, community and sociocultural value sell beer

Engaging packaging doesn’t imply flavoursome, superior beer.  A superb beer doesn’t need aesthetic appeal.  But misjudge design and beer sits on shelves longer than necessary.  Slapdash creativity confuses selecting-hands that avoid embellished chaos. Beer as a mere foodstuff or means to an (inebriated) end is 

Discovering a Craft Beer revolution in 34-minutes with Annie Gouk’s The North In Numbers

Discovering a Craft Beer revolution in 34-minutes with Annie Gouk’s The North In Numbers

Craft Beer narrators focusing on the hip, trendy and popular overlook business. The what, where and who ignoring the why and how statistics. So, Annie Gouk’s The North In Numbers Craft Beer Revolution Podcast is a refreshing listen. Taking northern England as an example she 

US West Coast drinkers speak Japan Craft Beer’s New Language

US West Coast drinkers speak Japan Craft Beer’s New Language

The Japanese government stimulates international demand and boosts the country’s exports. Its overseas promotions and branding platform is JETRO (external trade organization). And the Japan Food Product Overseas Promotion Center (JFOODO) handles its Craft Beer. JFOODO represents 17 Japanese craft brewers distributing across the US. 

Fragility loses the right to brew without obligation

Fragility loses the right to brew without obligation

Commerce, at its simplest, is the right to trade without obligation. Having obligation to trade without the right is less powerful, less lucrative. Two extreme opposites form a model that demonstrates antifragility. For example, breweries have the right to brew whatever they choose without obligation. 

Pathfinders and trailblazers reveal new route to taste

Pathfinders and trailblazers reveal new route to taste

Skill, talent and legwork seem less important than ever before. Do cronyism and social media’s universal popularity supersede expertise and flair? What are today’s desirable traits for a life in beer? And who are our innovative, ground-breaking peers refusing to travel a well-trodden path? Who 

Too many unrelated beer industry groups cannot oversee unified success

Too many unrelated beer industry groups cannot oversee unified success

Sustainable growth and longevity in oversaturated markets. Supporting industry rights and consumer protection that advocate responsible behaviour. And, most important: success challenging homogeny and unscrupulous monopolisation. Common concerns raised within the beer and cider industry. Heard loudest in markets lacking governance and independent self-regulation. Usually 

Industry on the edge: Hunting Craft Beer to extinction

Industry on the edge: Hunting Craft Beer to extinction

The craft beer industry’s fragile state is a hot topic. Beer Apps driving certain consumer demands are undermining industry confidence. From the supply chain to retailer, from brewers to wholesalers, it affects everybody. Drinkers’ continual search for ‘new’ beer has created a false market. This 

Airport beer monopolies leave travellers thirsty

Airport beer monopolies leave travellers thirsty

Do national airports act as a model for monopolisation? Does a lack of variety exemplify a beer landscape that will inevitably result from continued heavy-handed domination by big beer tyranny? Only a few years ago thirsty travellers searching for appealing beers were rewarded with choice. 

Beer Geeks brew social awareness at Jopen

Beer Geeks brew social awareness at Jopen

Beer’s image has undergone a dramatic revamp over recent decades.  The loutish, laddish perception is no longer applicable.  Beer has a social conscience.  The preferred beverage for modern, socially conscious consumers. Beer remains at the heart of much social interaction.  Its relationship with drinkers, however, 

Is Beer Festival saturation a reality?

Is Beer Festival saturation a reality?

Deciding which beer event to attend on any given weekend is becoming much more of a challenge nowadays.  Each week sees a large number of high-profile events, both nationally and internationally, competing for visitor numbers.  And it should never be a competition. It is seemingly 

The Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of beer packaging determines its environmental impact

The Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of beer packaging determines its environmental impact

A common remark we hear from a variety of beer professionals is that steel kegs are much better for the environment and are the epitome of a ‘circular economy’, purely because they can be cleaned and reused. Often the remark is made either by an 

Fine beer-drinking weather is a conflict of interest

Fine beer-drinking weather is a conflict of interest

Without the rain and the wet weather conditions we love to hate, we’d be living in a somewhat dryer world. A perpetual, ever-lengthening summer of sweltering days and warm, humid nights may be the ideal pattern of weather for the seemingly solar-powered sun-worshippers who are 

Beer-lovers and film-buffs, caught between the tigers

The carpet is red. Of course it is. Movie Premieres focus attention to the big screen, but the premier events are happening in the bars, cafés and restaurants of Rotterdam during the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). Movies and Craft Beer go hand in hand, 

Is Craft Beer becoming a spent force?

Is Craft Beer becoming a spent force?

Today’s hot-topic, albeit far from a new discussion, comes from The Burnt Out Beer Guy, in which he discusses the “consumer culture where beer doesn’t necessarily need to be great anymore. It just needs to be new.” It’s a topic for which Kaeru Beer has 

オランダのビール業界が大騒ぎします

オランダのビール業界が大騒ぎします! Oproer Brouwerij のバーレィワインとインペリアル・オートミールスタウトを頂きました。 このバーレィワインは凄くノミクチがよい! バーレィワインに多い独特のアルコール感が余り感じられず(だからスイスイイケます)、思わず本当にこれはバーレィワインか?と思ってしまうぐらいです。 先日彼らのビアカフェ兼レストランへお邪魔させて頂きましたが、全オーガニックのローカル食材を使ったヴィーガンフードを提供していて、とっても魅力的でクリエイティブな料理が味わえますよ!

Poland and Central Europe’s Craft Beer revolution

Visit any international beer festival across western Europe and there is likely to be a handful of breweries from Central Europe, the Baltic states and Russia.  Even just a couple of years ago, the likelihood of encountering a brewery from Poland, Hungary, Slovenia or beyond 

The Gentleman’s Journal names the 6 hottest craft breweries in Europe

Congratulations to our friends at Laugar Brewery, Galway Bay Brewery and CR/AK for being named among the “6 hottest craft breweries in Europe right now” in The Gentleman’s Journal (recommended by HonestBrew), alongside Poland’s Browar Stu Mostow and France’s Popihn and Azimut Brasserie. The Basque 

Craft and Real Ale, and never the twain shall meet

Is it purely coincidence that the London Craft Beer Festival is held a couple of days before the city hosts CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival?  Sceptics may see LCBF as a direct challenge to both CAMRA’s claim that their GBBF is the ‘Ultimate Beer Festival’ 

Rebalancing power in favour of independent business

The march of capitalism is incessant.  Many countries that tried to halt and reverse its progress were devastated by a crippled economy as the large-scale social-experimentations in achieving parity and fairness dramatically failed.  Throughout the socioeconomic growth and collapse in these lands, however, the top-level 

Tiny Rebel and CAMRA at impasse over KeyKeg

It is disappointing to read James Beeson’s article in The Morning Advertiser concerning how CAMRA has handled Tiny Rebel’s decision to use only KeyKeg on its brewery bar at this year’s Great British Beer Festival.  CAMRA’s questioning of KeyKeg’s reliability seems unfounded because we have 

Latest popular hotel amenity: a brewery

It seems the latest boom area for craft beer is luxury hotels attracting guests with in-house breweries on-site.  But it’s certainly nothing new.  Long before the jet-age or advent of the internal combustion engine—when the most luxurious form of travel was literally several horse-power with 

CO2 shortage’s impact on beer

Beer and cider drinkers who love something fizzy may soon find themselves without a beverage due to the reported shortage of CO2, a result of European ammonia factory closures and bio-ethanol factory maintenance activities.  The food industry is also affected because it has many applications 

Beavertown places its head in the tiger’s mouth

So Beavertown has sold a minority stake to Heineken — a £40m minority stake! “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth!”  Whether that is a genuine quote or movieland artistic licence, I cannot tell.  But by cosying up to 

Beer is knocked out of the World Cup earlier than expected

Is anybody surprised by the reports coming out of Russia that beer-supplies are running low?  Even without experience in capacity planning or event organisation and management, it is not difficult to foresee that a World Cup tournament will attract hundreds and thousands of beer-drinking football 

What future for young brewers facing a monopoly?

There is a common feeling shared by all young, independent brewers across the world operating in territories dominated by Big Beer industrialisation.  They feel stifled by monopolisation, and consider it the ruination of their industry. Whilst having a monopoly over a market is a highly-desirable 

AI accuses Kirin of fund misuse in Myanmar

Amnesty International reported yesterday that the USD$30,000 donated to Myanmar’s authorities by a subsidiary of Kirin Holdings Company may be used to support ethnic cleansing of the country’s Rohingya population.  Amnesty International has urged the Japanese authorities to launch an investigation. Kirin controls 80% of 

Convenient, strong beer meets healthy living in Japan

The legal age for drinking beer in Japan is 20, although the result of each successive generation being less populous than the previous one is that fewer people are reaching legal drinking age each year.  Paradoxically, Japan is one of the few developed nations that 

No Craft Beer fixture for the World Cup

Russia is a country that seemingly enjoys the mystery that surrounds it.  It enjoys the appearance of impenetrability.  World politics is a game in which participation is more important than a victory.  Stage-managed democracy is its public image. In less than 48-hours the eyes of 

The continual cycle of idiocy

One week it’s a brewery imprudently handing over responsibility for its words and marketing to a willing amateur in exchange for free beer, and then crazily back-peddling to apologise for the oversight when the far-from-professional output causes a global uproar that sends the brewery’s sales 

Tomorrow’s drinkers are the giant-killers

Most genuine beer- and cider-loving consumers will favour the small, local, independent, artisanal craft beer and cider over the homogeneous, industrial product, and despite the well-meaning attempts by many organisations to set parameters that define beer and cider as either artisanal or industrial, most consumers 

Where is the best place for a cheap pint of beer?

Each year Deutsche Bank releases its “Mapping the world’s prices” report, which details global prices.  One item used to indicate the cost of living in 50 major cities throughout the world is the cost of a pint of beer. The challenge is finding a beer 

Step inside, Walk this way, You and me babe, Hey hey! Pour some hops, malt, yeast and water on me!

Long-gone are the days when a rock band’s merchandise portfolio consisted of T-shirt, badges, patches, caps and, for the very affluent, a signature guitar, bass, drum kit as endorsed by our favourite musical heroes.  Signature wine, beer, whiskey and hard liquor are now the trappings 

Water as contraband at beer festivals

It is unethical for a beer festival to treat water as contraband.  It is a severe lack of social responsibility to prohibit potable (safe to drink) water.  It is reckless behaviour to encourage the consumption of alcohol whilst simultaneously being negligent about visitors’ health by 

American Craft Beer Week

American Craft Beer Week is once again upon us and in full swing till Sunday, 20th May.  This year is the 13th such event since the Brewers Association decided to shift the month-long American Beer Month into a compact, targeted week of events with a 

Are you interested in Alvinne’s limited edition beers?

  If you’re a fan of Brouwerij Alvinne’s innovative sour beers, as Kaeru Beer is, you may be interested in Alvinne’s Fellowship of Exceptional Ales, which is an idea to reward hardcore, loyal fans with some delicious limited beers — so limited, in fact, that 

An exception list of ciders and perries for Reading

It’s hard to deny.  The Real Cider and Real Perry list for this weekend’s cider and perry extravaganza in Reading is exceptional. Pop by to try some delicious beverages produced from the very best things nature has to offer. https://readingbeerfestival.org.uk/ PERRY Berkshire Tutts Clump Farmhouse 

CAMRA revitalisation: two steps forward, one step back

  Kaeru Beer have been members of the UK’s Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) for many, many years, and we recently voted in support of a series of measures designed to update CAMRA’s Articles of Association, a series of measures that will update the organisation 

A happy and hoppy NATIONAL BEER DAY…

  …if you’re in the USA, that is! April 7th, 1933.  Whilst not exactly celebrating the ratification of the 21st Amendment, and thus ending Prohibition — that was December 5th, 1933 — this day marked a final nail in the coffin for the ban on 

Disruptive Weather Plan Thwarted in Sin City

The weather’s plan to disrupt this weekend’s Great Vegas Festival of Beer is thwarted. The weather deities are unfavourably watching proceedings in Sin City and have decided to unleash gale-force winds in order to disrupt this weekend’s Great Vegas Festival of Beer.  However, the organisers 

The Ultimate Beer Festival?

  Throughout its 131 years, London’s Olympia exhibition centre has seen many sporting, music and corporate events, and many legends (and dogs) have entertained the masses beneath the massive roof of glass and steel. Olympia has hosted the majority of CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festivals 

Hola 99%

The ‘Hola 99%’ campaign’s presence at the recent Barcelona Beer Festival appears to have been a success, since the message was loud and clear, heard and understood by all attendees, whether they speak Catalan, Spanish or not. Kaeru Beer visited GECAN (Gremi D’Elaboradors De Cervesa 

Is the future marijuana, cannabis and hemp beer?

Marijuana, cannabis and hemp ‘beers’ are seemingly on the increase, but in many cases they’re not even beers.  Whilst they start life as traditional beers, the alcohol is replaced by an extract at the end of the brewing process.  The psychophysiological effects, however, are alleged 

How does Founders Brewing Co. find itself in Europe

  If you suspected Founders Brewing Co. appeared at European beer festivals simply because they enjoyed a jolly European jaunt, you’d only be partly correct. What you’re drinking is certainly from Grand Rapids, MI, but what’s happening behind the taps is a very Spanish affair.  

The Brewers Association brings its Export Development Program (EDP) to Europe

It was great to see the Brewers Association bringing its Export Development Program (EDP) to Europe again. Astute beer lovers in Europe appreciate the quality and diversity within the US craft beer industry, yet we still hear comments from so-called beer-lovers that US craft beer 

Marshmallow and edible-glitter beer?

  Mmm?!  Interesting!  A beer brewed with marshmallow and edible-glitter?  Pinch me, somebody, please — it’s not April Fools’ Day is it? Peeps is not something I am familiar with, but, apparently, it’s a US brand of cute animal-shaped marshmallow candy, which The Collective Brewing