Gilroy’s local brewery should be allowed in to sell beer at the
community’s signature event
The Gilroy Garlic Festival should allow Coast Range to sell beer at the festival.
My primary reason for this opinion is simple, if selfish. I like Coast Range beer. I do not like Bud.
Mind, I mean no disrespect to the Budweiser fans of the world. My own husband, a sensible man in most respects, will drink Bud. But I happen to be a dark beer snob. I am not proud of this fact, but there it is.
My primary reason for wanting Coast Range at the festival is, I admit, selfish. But I have other reasons: reasons based on aesthetics, economics and ethics.
First, aesthetics. The Garlic Festival is a food festival, arguably the most famous food festival in the world. Moreover, it is a gourmet food festival. We do not just serve up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We serve pepper steak sandwiches, pesto, calamari, and a constantly revolving smorgasbord of garlic-laced gastronomic delicacies.
Food this good demands a fine beverage to accompany it. For this reason, I would allow not only Coast Range, but El Toro Brewery as well, to hawk their wares.
Perhaps another non-profit could take on the local microbrew concession, modeling it on the Rotary Club’s wine tent. The wine tent is located on the ranch side of the Garlic Festival. Patrons buy tickets to sample the wares of local wineries such as Solis and Fortino.
Not every festival attendee, not even the casual volunteer, is aware of the wine tent, however, because there is no direction or signage in Gourmet Alley to inform them that a better accompaniment to their pesto or calamari is only a short stroll away. That needs to be remedied. Either notify people of all their beverage options with signs and direction, or move the wine tent and locate the proposed microbrewery tent on the food side of the festival grounds.
Which brings me to my third reason: economics.
The Garlic Festival is internationally famous. Wherever my husband travels on business – Italy, Israel, France, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan – when he says he is from Gilroy, the friendly native says, “Oh, garlic.” (Of late, a few have said, “Oh, the Outlets.” But I digress.)
Coast Range is not internationally famous, nor are the marvelous wineries of the Hecker Pass corridor. If the local wineries and breweries were marketed at the Garlic Festival on the same footing as Budweiser, 100,000 people from across America and around the globe would have a chance to sample our local brews and wines.
Coast Range, Rapazzini Solis, and Fortino would evoke fond memories when glimpsed on a wine list or on a grocery store shelf. Sales would increase. People would come to our area in months other than July to tour the wine country. Hotels and bed-and-breakfast establishments would benefit. And increased sales means increased tax revenue.
It is rather shortsighted of Gilroy’s Chamber of Commerce to forgo these possibilities in order to enrich Anheuser Busch.
My last argument is not based on my personal taste, aesthetics, or economics, but on simple justice. It is just not fair to exclude local breweries and limit local wineries in order to confer a monopoly on Budweiser.
Susan Valenta, chief executive of Gilroy’s Chamber of Commerce, comments that the last time the festival allowed local breweries to participate in the Garlic Festival, nearly 10 years ago, “there were some breweries taking advantage of the opportunity by plastering the place with marketing stuff.”
I have a hard time seeing that as a major sin. But if it was that bad, the problem can be avoided by specifying in advance exactly the size and quantity of signage, logos, tap handles, et cetera, to be allowed.
Ms. Valenta’s other argument, that it is so much easier to deal with one distributor, is undoubtedly true. But she errs when she continues, “At the end of the day, we are not in the business of beer, but in fund-raising.”
At the end of the day, the Chamber of Commerce is in the business of promoting Gilroy businesses. Promotion would be better served by allowing the breweries and wineries to promote themselves by selling their wares openly at the Garlic Festival.
Bust the trust. Open the gates. Let the good times roll.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every week.
