Free Advice for New Brewers...

News comes this past week or so that we have some new brewers in town. A couple of gentlemen are the latest owners of The Lion Brewery and plan to continue it success, which is a terrific idea. I have some advice. It's free, there is no obligation, and no telemarketer will call.

I like beer and all that goes with it; the camaraderie, the tradition, the history, all appeal to me. Me and beer go back a ways. The back story, if you will...

The Standard Brewery sat on Penn Avenue in Scranton, the 1200 block. When I was a kid, we had a pile of those chalkboards, like the one you see at the left, all over our house. I'll go for the short version about Standard Tru-Age Beer and the Sweeneys.

I grew up in the house once owned by Standard Brewing's brewmaster. His name was, fittingly enough, very German; Otto Houseman. I have only the fuzziest recollection of Mr. Houseman, sad to say. His name, though, lived on in our house a long time, for several reasons.

One of which was that Otto had given my Dad his brewers "tools" when the Sweeneys bought the Housemans' house. There were various hygrometers, thermometers, and other glass vessels with which to judge a beer's specific gravity, which indicates just where the brew is at in terms of being ready to rack or bottle.

Another reminder of Otto Houseman's presence and occupation was a very healthy and robust row of hops we had growing in our backyard. One can only guess that Otto had planted seeds from Standard Brewing hops along the fence line at the back of the yard at some point, and they just kept coming back year after year. If you grabbed a cluster of these lush green little cone shaped flowers, and rubbed them between your hands, you smelled beer. Hops give beer its bitterness and much of its aroma. The damnedest thing is that brewing beer is the only use hops seem to have. There on the left, you see me, my sister Maureen, and that line of hops in the left rear of this photograph, and another batch of them over to the right.

What the by then out-of-business Standard Brewery did best back in those days, mid to late '50s, was burn; it caught fire with regularity. More accurately, it would smolder. Also more accurately, someone started the smoldering. Oddly, there was never some spectacular blaze that leveled the place. All the smoke and resultant dispatched fire fighting apparatus came after its closing, which I recall my Dad placing in 1954. I can still remember Assistant Fire Chief John Connolly waving to me from the roof of The Standard Brewery as his crews poured water on the building. Chief Connolly was a neighbor, his sons went to school with me. The building was vacant, but much of the operation was still intact, or it was until neighborhood vandals destroyed whatever the owners had left behind.

Prior to the vandalizing, and immediately following its closing, piles and piles of Standard Tru-Age Beer promotional items went to auction. My Dad bought a small pile himself, paying as he would say, "...pennies on the dollar." Back then, that's about what it was worth, pennies. Today, it makes sick to think of all the Standard Tru-Age memorabilia that got thrown away at the Sweeney house. And you really should know that The Standard Brewery still stands, or at least a fair chunk of it. I think it's an auto parts operation now.

The point here is that my cognizance of beer and a fascination with its history and making goes back to about my kindergarten days at Longfellow #28 School, or thereabouts.

My first taste of beer came at roughly ten or so as I glugged a substantial mouthful from Dad's quart bottle of Stegmaier which was sitting in the fridge. It was curiosity-driven, just me wanting to know what it tasted like, why the fascination? It was indeed Cold and Gold from The Poconos; I liked it immediately. It would be years before actually drinking an entire bottle of beer.

Beer is ancient. All known civilizations brewed something akin to beer down through the centuries. Ben Franklin is often quoted as saying, "Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." Did Franklin ever say that? It's a nice thought, why explode it?

That we still have an brewery here in NE PA should be a source of pride. And, please, this not an encouragement to imbibe.

Without stats or reams of research, I have zero idea how many metropolitan areas still have a "major" brewery, but my guess is that it's not many, especially among those in our size range. Not included in my assumption are the many micros across the land, two of which were once brewing here and now gone. That this area can't support a micro-brewery mystifies me every bit as much as why an amusement park can't fly here, which I did mention in the previous post.

The Lion Brewery's history, while not paralleling the history of brewing beer in NE PA, is important because The Lion survived; it's still here, and by most accounts, it's still prosperous.

It could be better. It could be more. Personally, I think it should be a rock-solid piece of NE PA culture, one that we show off and brag about at every opportunity.

Right about here I was going to say that I'm not a marketing expert. Then upon taking a second think, it might be that I am. Over 30 years experience in the broadcasting business left me with more than scars and a few funny stories, it left me with a pretty good nose and head for what works and what doesn't work when it comes to "selling" a product to the public.

And so it is that here comes some free advice to the newest owners of The Lion Brewery. Yes, it's free, and it's probably worth it.

1) Develop a signature beer. Whatever it is, make it good, with body, flavor, and character. It need not be overwhelming, just good honest beer. Oh, see to it that it has a sturdy head, rich, thick, and lasting with decent "legs." Maybe all you need do is take plain every day Stegmaier Gold Medal Beer and tinker with the recipe just enough that it becomes a beer that anyone would be glad to drink, even a beer connoisseur with sharp discerning taste.

Gibbons might not be a bad idea either, since Gibbons was The Lion's signature beer for decades, replaced only by Stegmaier after their brewery folded. You still brew and bottle Gibbons, my suggestion is that you stop hiding it. What about the original Steg recipe? The Gibbons recipe? I'd pay important money to know what Steg tasted like when it won those gold medals.

2) Brand it, brand it, brand it. Television, radio, print, billboards...literally keep whatever that signature beer is in front of every face 24/7. Think slogans, jingles; "Ring-A-Ding-Ding" worked wonderfully for a long time. "Gimme, gimme, gimme Gibbons." likewise worked for a long time.

You might want to re-invent and resurrect one or both of those campaigns. You might want to freshen them, update them, but don't immediately ignore them. They worked once and well, and they could work again. If you take nothing else away from these unsolicited comments of mine, please consider this; both Steg and Gibbons have a long, long history here, don't treat them like they didn't exist prior to your arrival. BTW, welcome to NE PA, welcome to Wilkes-Barre and The Wyoming Valley!

3) Build a presence where it matters most; places where people drink beer. You can start right next door at Dukey's and keep on moving out in concentric circles. No matter what it takes, see to it that your signature beer in on tap at every bar from Hazleton to Forest City, from Stroudsburg to Williamsport. Cut deals, make promises you can keep, negotiate prices, but get your product out there front and center.

Design and have manufactured a really distinctive tap handle, have a marketing firm make you mock-ups until you know it's the one that no one will miss when they sidle up to the bar. Buy them by the hundreds, making sure wherever your signature beer is, there'll be that unmistakable handle.

4) Take your name and face to the commuity region-wide. It's been more than 20 years since I sat in a kitchen drinking beer with a dear friend while discussing The Lion, its products...and it's seeming lack of foresight. This was somewhere near the mid '80s. We both could feel the rebirth of this area, we both saw the early signs that the really bad days were ending, that new and better things were on the way. What occurred to both of us (among myriad other brilliant beer-fueled ideas including a clam chowder recipe that is a story unto itself) was that The Lion was in a unique spot to get on board fast, hard, and early, to position itself for taking that journey into a more promising future.

We envisioned a team of horses, a well-built beer wagon full of wooden barrels, men at the reigns in handsome uniforms. Sounds like a stolen idea, which it sure was. Stolen or not, it would be a huge marketing gimmick, one which would pull crowds wherever it went. And the point would be, it should go EVERYWHERE. Expensive? I suppose, but surely there could be deals made with local/regional horse owners, especially those with draught horses, such as Percherons and Clydesdales. Even if it was one horse, a smaller wagon, and one guy in a uniform, it would still work, it would still turn heads that aren't now turning.

5) Really push brewery tours. Your website claims you offer one tour per day on select Saturdays...and by reservation only. Don't steal a recipe from Dick Yuengling, but go ahead and steal a page from his play book; invite customers in, don't shut them out.

Just my nickel's worth, fellas, but you're telling those interested in your brewery that they really aren't all that welcome to pay a visit. You're saying, "OK, if you insist, I suppose we can squeeze you in somewhere." That ain't exactly extending a warm welcome to become a loyal Lion customer.

I want The Lion to succeed beyond anyone's wildest dreams, because it would be good for NE PA and a damned shame if we ever lost this treasure.