This may come as a shock to my many fans and admirers, but I’m not the smartest bear in the beverage business. Or even the beer business, as long as we’re qualifying. Nor am I the best-looking, or the richest, or the tallest, or have the whitest teeth. But there’s one metric I suspect I can safely claim: I’ve been to more beverage industry corporate conferences than anybody else currently alive, and maybe more than anybody who has ever lived.
I know, it’s not exactly a monster claim. Put down the phone, Matilda, no need to ring up the Guinness World Records people. But it’s something, and I’ll take whatever glory I can get at this point in my career.
To those who have been gunning for this distinction, I regret to report that I’ve had several unfair advantages. My mother, father and grandparents on both sides were soda bottlers and beer distributors, so I started attending both soda bottler and beer distributor conventions while still wet behind the ears. Pepsi convention in Orlando, Schweppes in Vegas, 7-UP (owned by Philip Morris at the time) in Richmond, Lone Star in Houston, Cerveceria Cuauhtemoc in Grand Cayman, S&P (now called Pabst) in Los Angeles, California Cooler in Chicago, etc. etc. Yes, at a Pepsi meeting I met Joan Crawford, and though I was a child, for the record she didn’t beat me with a wire hanger. And yes, at a Lone Star meeting I met Willie Nelson. And got my picture taken with Sonny and Cher, curiously enough.
Upon graduation from college and being cast into the cold cruel world by my wretched parents, I went to work for a Miller beer distributor in Houston, which also sold a myriad of other beers, fizzy waters, teas and juices whose parent companies—all vying for the fleeting attention of their distributor—threw elaborate shows for us to attend. Again I was on the distributor convention road. Then I started Beer Business Daily, which eventually afforded me the invitations of most all brewers and importers to attend their national distributor meetings each year. Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors even took to having two meetings a year. Plus the National Beer Wholesalers Association’s two meetings a year, plus the Craft Brewers Conference, plus SAVOR, plus the GABF, plus the myriad state distributor meetings I attend each year. I wasn’t allowed at first to attend the annual Beer Institute meetings since August Busch III blackballed me. But the late Beer Institute president Jeff Becker would sneak me in. “Don’t worry, pal,” he said with a smile and a wink. “He doesn’t even know what you look like. Just don’t draw attention to yourself.” I sat in the back and never made eye contact with anybody.
Then I started a wine and spirits trade publication and started attending all of their conventions, seminars and confabs as well. Meetings meetings meetings. Sometimes I’d go to the restroom and accidentally board a plane heading to an industry conference. Sometimes I’d kiss my wife, Lulu, on the cheek good night, lay my head on my pillow—and wake up on stage at the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego.
Pretty soon I achieved Executive Platinum status on American Airlines, which allows me to board the plane before others and sit in the front where there are no chickens, pigs or, most importantly, human babies. And the beer is free. Being from San Antonio—not exactly a hub—I naturally have to fly to Dallas to fly anywhere else. I fly to Dallas so much that sometimes I forget myself and fly to Dallas just to pee and then fly back home. I’m not certain, but I may have a second family in Dallas. I think they live under the bar at the Terminal D Admirals Club, and they might be Vietnamese. If you see them, tell them I love them, and green cards and cash are forthcoming as promised.
The golden age of beer company distributor conferences, I fear, has come and gone. In the old days, the big brewers’ conventions held for their distributors were a spectacle to behold, although the degree of spectacle depended largely on market share. Anheuser-Busch, which had 50 percent of the market, threw the best parties. Lobsters piled up a mile high on ice, free Dove Bars (don’t go well with beer, though), those giant shrimp people call prawns, George Strait playing in one room and Elton John in another, August Busch III arriving dramatically on the putting green self-piloting his jet helicopter; his son August IV arriving much more modestly in a fleet of armored black Suburbans piloted by mercs in the employ of Blackwater, later to ferry him and his entourage late night to clubs. Those were the days.
