Open Letter to the Beer Activist

His blog is one of the links you see in "other blogs".

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Great blog, enjoy keeping up with it!

The "Activist" part of your blog name keeps attracting my attention. I have a little story to tell you, and you have to let me know if I am crazy.

I no longer drink very much of Old Dominion's products. I am not thrilled with the idea of the current owners, yet I was willing to stick with one of my favorite breweries anyway. But something happened that I can find absolutely no one talking about (could be I am just missing such talk of course).

An impressive percentage of my microbrew consumption outside of the home occurs at a couple of local "Hard Times" restaurants. And one of my pretty reliable choices was the "Hard Times Select", chosen by that restaurant chain to be their House Beer. It was acknowledged to be a product of Old Dominion's, and was pretty well known to just be the Old Dominion Lager relabeled. Well, indeed just after the change of ownership at Old Dominion I went into Hard Times, chose the Hard Times Select and (I want to assure you uninfluenced by any suspicions, it was the last thing on my mind) and I find myself tasting a beer that just screamed that it was exactly the kind of beer I don't like. I started complaining to the bartender that the brew had changed, that it was more like a "Bud Light" than anything. The barkeep seemed to know nothing about any change. I was furious with the restaurant, thinking they had chosen some light beer to replace the Dominion Lager, which at last check still claimed to be brewed the same way as always.

A few weeks after this, I brought some beer to a gathering, and some of it was Old Dominion Lager. To my surprise, one of the other guys started saying the beer wasn't worth drinking. He was familiar with it and thought I had picked up a bad batch. I tried one, and sure enough it was another batch seeming that it wanted to imitate Bud Light.

Of course now a light was coming on. It wasn't Hard Times that changed but the brewery, I was now thinking. I went to a beer store and picked up some more with the same result. And have tried since with the same result. The beer has changed! Unacknowledged by the brewery. This to me is outrageous!

I want to emphasize that my discovery was not being influenced by any suspicion, in fact I was unwilling to believe such a thing would be underfoot unless I would have heard about it. In the meantime I have held off writing to anyone about it, hoping to run into a friend who had saved some old bottles of the Old D. Lager so that the new and the old could be directly compared. No such luck.

This means, of course, that for me to assert this to someone relies on that person being able to remember what the old brew was like. I was really hoping to find some blogs talking about this surreptitious change. I can hardly be sure I haven't missed such, but did a Google blog search just now with no luck. Quite the opposite, for example:

http://beerlicious.net/2009/02/old-dominion-lager-chicken-fajitas/

And that search brought op a beer activist posting of yours, talking about the move to Dover. No mention of the dastardly recipe change for the Lager.

Well, you'll have to tell me if I am crazy. If this is the first you've heard of it, it probably means I am. Nonetheless, I couldn't live with myself if I didn't try to reach *somebody* I respect and demand to know "say it ain't so", say those brewers wouldn't do such a despicable thing. Old Dominion Lager, the fine and admirable Dortmunder style, changed into Bud Light and nobody notices!!

I am only recently up to date about the move to Dover. To me this only means I feel very little allegiance as far as "local brewery" goes, and if I am right about this let's CALL THEM OUT.

Thanks in advance for your consideration,
Carl Williams
Arlington, VA