HAIL TO ALES!

BY LEW BRYSON

Many years ago, things in America's bars and taverns were different. It was an earlier time, primeval days when today's bright golden beers were not the dominant predators on the market. It was the Era of Top Fermentation, the Age of Ale.

Okay, that's over-dramatizing it somewhat; chalk it up to seeing The Return of the King too many times. But most of you ­ and your customers ­ would probably be surprised to learn that ales were once a huge part of the American beer market. I remember the long-time brewmaster at Yuengling, Ray Norbert, telling me that his predecessor had left the company in 1961 because he wanted to work for a company that was going places: Ballantine.

Things change. Ales are still a small slice of the market, but they are a growing one. Imports, like Labatt, Guiness Stout, Bass and Newcastle, are still the biggest sellers, but home-grown ales like Sierra Nevada Pale and New Belgium Fat Tire are rising fast. And Diageo is busy planning the introduction of Smithwick's Irish Ale to the US.

What happened? Why did the ale market turn around? Bill Wetmore, the marketing director for Scottish & Newcastle Importers (the Newcastle Brown people), saw it as a question of quality and patience. "Quality. Consistency," he said. "The ales who made it through the tougher times never over-extended themselves. They never put the quality of the beer in jeopardy. The consumer's expectations are consistently met ­ and they find that comforting."

The key might be in splitting your view of ale's fortunes. "One of the things you have to realize," said Steve Ward, Labatt USA's director of European brands, "is that the domestic and import ale markets are different. The older domestic brands, like Ballantine's, are what most people talk about as 'the ale market.' Bass, as an import, is different. I would contend that ales in the import category are doing rather well."

SPECIALTY ALES

Ward's right. "Ale" doesn't mean mass-market anymore, as it did in the old days; ale means competing for taste in the upper reaches of the market. It means good margins and possibly a reputation for beer selection that will draw customers from a larger area. If you can figure out which ones to sell, and how to sell them, ales can become a solid section of your monthly receipts. Interested?

First thing to do is learn how to think about ales in your line-up. Steve Ward has an idea. "You have to think of it like you look at coffee," he said. "A lot of people just want a good strong cup of joe to get ready to go to work. But some people are concerned about the beans, the French press, and so on.

"It's the same with beer," he explained. "You can approach it at a number of levels, and we're going at all those consumers, the people who are concerned with the hops and the barley and the yeast, and the people who just want a good-tasting beer."

That wide range is your cue to work your customer. Once you've got one who's interested in the beans, as it were, lay out the choices and see what they'd like.

Jeff Klobucar, bartender at Brit's Pub in Minneapolis, has a pretty broad palate to work with. "We only have one domestic lager," he said, "Bud Light. So people who aren't looking for the standard flavor of a lager can get all kinds of flavors. We have bitters, pale ales, ESB, stout, the whole range. If I recommend one, I have to find out their flavor palate; what are they into? Maybe the nutty-flavored stuff, or maybe a lighter-bodied beer; they might want dark, heavy, whatever. I have to ask to know which way to steer them."

KNOW YOUR TERMS

Don't necessarily expect customers to know what words to use. People have been taught better how to order wine, but we've let them down on beer terminology. Wayne Speamak, who works behind the stick at the Beer Bar at Café Centro, NYC, tries to work with the customer.

"Usually people have this idea that something light-colored is light, and dark-colored is heavy, and that's about it," he said. "You have to figure out their vocabulary, then you can figure out what they want. Then you can lead them on to something. I had one guy, drank Guinness sometimes, but mostly wine. I tried him on a doublebock, and he loved it. Some people like the bitter, that Italian note. You can figure that if someone's eating the arugula salad, they'll go for the bitter beer."

You might not even want to ask them if they'd like an ale. Most times the customer doesn't really know what you're talking about. "They probably don't, by the strictest definition," said Chris Parsons, director of Guinness for Diageo North America, "although there are some who are passionate about them. Ales are more complex and perhaps less well understood." That's where staff training comes in. "In the on-premise, bartender knowledge can help drive any brand," Parsons concludes.

Tom Peters has made a huge market for ales at his nationally known Monk's Café in Philadelphia, and a lot of it is built off staff training. "That's really important," he said. "Every Tuesday I like to have a beer class for the staff. And they all show up! One week we might taste the wheat beers, Aventinus against Weihenstephan against Paulaner. So when a customer asks, 'what's the difference between this wheat beer and that one,' they know. The waiters and waitresses have their favorite beers of the moment, and we'll sell a lot more of that."

When asked if most customers knew what ales were, Westmore responded, "Certainly not as many as one would like. But it's light-years from five, ten, and fifteen years ago. For Newcastle Brown Ale, despite remarkable and sustained growth for the past 15 years, a chief challenge remains education at retail and awareness at consumer level. Our challenge is quite clear ­ raise awareness, stimulate trial, and introduce more and more consumers to the brand because they become extremely loyal." Teach your service people about the beer, and they'll lead the customers to it.

And you do need to teach your people, and teach them well. The last thing you want is servers telling your customers things that just aren't so. They need to know what ales are, what they taste like, so they can sell them and make intelligent and proper suggestions.

HELP AT HAND

You might want to look into some training help from Labatt USA. "We pay a lot of attention to beer dispense, how it's served," said Steve Ward. "We have two beer academies in the U.S. with fully kitted-out bars and cellars, to teach people about the importance of gas, and cleaning. We've doubled our draft specialists to explain the beer and the draft idea to retailers. We train them here and in Europe.

"It's about consumer choice," said Steve Ward. "From our perspective, 11% of beer in the U.S. is imported, and it's all high-margin beer. It's about choice: if you want to run a good pub or bar, you need to offer a choice, and ale fits into that need."

"The average bar probably sells six or seven lagers on draft," said Bill Wetmore. "Why only one or two ales, or only one stout? For taste and style, there is so much more variety among a handful of ales than a handful of lagers. A lot of bar owners are taking a much more sophisticated approach to draft beer, using it as their showcase while maybe offering a single domestic light. They are responding to the interests of the 21-34 year-old consumers, and recognizing the opportunity that provides to the till."

Choice is good. So's flavor, and ales have it. Leverage that. Some of your customers are drinking less: caution about DUI enforcement, watching their weight, whatever, it's a fact. Lagers just aren't designed for having one or two. "Lagers, as they're made for the American palate," said Speamak, "are for drinking 10 or 12 an hour. They don't have the depth of flavor that the ales do. The ales are more complex, just like red wine compared to white wine." That's the kind of difference you can work into a "Drink less, drink better" message that will increase your margins across sales of beer, spirits, and wine.

More choice, better margins, and a chance to develop a reputation for having the beers no one else does; ales can be a great way to build business. Start with the trinity of Bass, Newcastle, and Guinness Stout. Add some domestic ales, like Sierra Nevada or New Belgium, or your local brewer's ales. If you stick with it, you'll notice a new interest in your beer list, and some new people reading it.

Heck, you might even want to stock some cans of Ballantine.

WHAT'S ALE?

Ales are one of the two main types of beer, the other being lager. The major difference between the two is fermentation temperature. You'll hear people talk about ales being "top-fermented;" that's just where the yeast tends to clump (in lagers, the yeast sinks to the bottom). The important difference is the temperature.

The warmer operating temperature of ale yeast encourages a faster, more vigorous fermentation that creates aromatic compounds known as phenols and esters. These can give ale-fermented beers aromas such as melon, banana, raisin, clove, and vanilla. The cooler lager fermentation produces a very clean aroma and flavor palette. Lagers generally have purer malt and hop characteristics.

It helps to think of the two yeasts in terms of jungles and pine forests. Warm ale fermentations are like lush jungles ­ exotic arrays of flavors, splendid in their diversity. By comparison, cold lager fermentations are more like northern pine forests ­ intense, focused, and pure. Lagers are going to be hoppy, malty, sweet, or dry, and that's about it, allowing for some games you can play roasting or smoking the malt. Ales can give you all that, plus fruity or nutty notes, a wide range of body and 'mouthfeel,' and a wide range of unique yeast effects: cloves, vanilla, smoke, butterscotch, and so on.

That's the big selling point on ales: difference and choice. Without ales, you're looking at a tap selection of This, This Light, That, That Lite, and The Other Light. These are all fine beers, but they're very similar. Add an ale, and you've got something completely different.

--LB

LORD OF THE RINGS

These days, Ballantine Ale is considered a quaint novelty, something the dad on "Frasier" drinks to let you know he's old-fashioned. But back in the day, everyone knew the Ballantine jingle: "Take a ring, and then another ring, and another ring, and you've got three rings: Ballantine."

Ballantine was a real player, so much so that it had possibilities of national dominance. "The big question," said John Brzezinski, the former Quality Control chief at Ballantine, "was who was going to be the winner, Peter Ballantine or Anheuser-Busch?" That's some question. Brzezinski says that even the Ballantine Lager sold in New England "was actually Ballantine Ale. At its peak, [Ballantine] produced 4.5 million bbls. a year, and 80-85% of that was Ballantine Ale. They were THE ale market, Ballantine had 80% of the ale market."

By 1990, ale represented a tiny fraction of the American market. The biggest sellers in that tiny fraction were not even American ales, but imports like Guinness, Bass, Labatt 50, and Newcastle. Microbrewed ales like Sierra Nevada and Redhook were novelties, rarely found more than 100 miles from the brewery. Ales were languishing. Lagers, largely domestic lagers, ruled the market in America, and around the world. Lagers had a lock on things that didn't really even change when the rise of imports like Corona and Heineken became significant. And Ballantine?

In 1950, Ballantine ranked number 3 in sales in the US; by 1971, the company was in retreat and was sold to Falstaff, and then Pabst. During its heyday, Ballantine produced a lager, Ballantine XXX, Ballantine IPA and Ballantine Brewer's Gold.

The remaining ale, Ballantine XXX is available in a few markets in the northeast, midwest and west coast markets.