The latest from Artisanal Imports, courtesy of Monday’s email blast…

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Last year we picked up the excellent Aspall Ciders from Suffolk, England and it was a real eye-opener. Quality cider, made with care and the best apples-not concentrate! not sugar!-is a revelation compared to the industrial ciders that dominate the market.

Our relationship with Aspall led to some wonderful conversations at last years Cider Conference. We talked with Stephen Wood of Farnum Hill and Kevin Zielinski of EZ Orchards. They are passionate, thoughtful and proud cider makers who happen to be making the best East Coast and West Coast American ciders available today.

We’ll be highlighting each cider over the next few issues of our newsletter, but we wanted you to know that we are now in partnership with these terrific cider makers, we can help you get some and we will probably talk your ear off about how wonderful they are if you give us a chance.

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For a limited time we are offering a mixed case of Meantime Limited Editions. That’s 2 750ml bottles each of Barley Wine, Weizen Double Bock and Imperial Pilsner.

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More Beer! More Support! The thirst for TROOPER is not even close to being sated, America!

We have a pile of beer on the way, more than we’ve sold to date and enough to, hopefully, start figuring out how big this thing will get.

We also have a very exciting glass in the works. We’ll show you when we can, but it’s pretty nice. Coming to a bar near you . . .

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These words get bandied about a lot in our line of work. Growth is a word often hear in association with US craft brewers. Development is everywhere. Again, domestic craft brewers are at the forefront. New breweries are popping up all over the place and it’s hard to pay any attention at all to the beer industry without noticing that there is a lot of action, movement, growth and development.

It’s happening in Europe, too. St. Feuillien just completed their first new brew house in more than 100 years. Bosteels has grown by more than 60% in the last 6 years with only two beers in full-time production. Meantime Brewing of London is growing explosively, thanks to their Brewery Fresh program and incredibly drinkable beers.

All of this is happening while global beer volumes are dropping. Clearly people are making a choice to drink differently. Maybe less but certainly better.

It’s a challenging time for import specialty beers. Domestic craft has the public’s attention and it’s hard to get any traction with a classic Belgian ale right now.

It will not ever be thus! At the same time that US beer drinkers are driving strong growth for craft beer, they are cultivating and developing their palates. Sooner or later they will discover or rediscover the treasures from abroad. We’ll be waiting.

So if you are a fan of great imported specialty beers like ours, don’t despair! All of the growth for domestic craft beer is, eventually, going to help us, too. It’s a great development.