Ten Years Since the “Year of Beer” Project Began!

Can you believe the Year of Beer project happened 10 years ago? For newer readers, here’s a bit of a background. In 2014 I started releasing a new beer painting every day for 365 days, and writing a blog post about each one, and posting them on social media. That project solidified my career as an artist known for beer art. So, now that it’s 2024, I stopped to think about the beer industry now vs. ten years ago, and how the Year of Beer project would be different, if I were to do it now.

In 2014 there were 3,418 registered craft breweries in the United States. In 2024 we have 9,709 – nearly three times as many! In 2014 canning lines were for established breweries and the printed cans were expensive to order, requiring large runs for flagship beers that would meet expectations of sales. Along came the crowler in 2015, and then about eight years ago everyone started packaging beer in fancy pint four packs. The price of beer went up, but so did the quality and quantity. Glass growlers became less favorable; why fill a 64oz bottle when you could have four portable pints that don’t oxidize the way a growler does? Nobody enjoys cleaning growlers. Breweries still have flagship beers, but the options are so much more diverse with one-off hazy IPAs coming out every two weeks with new artistic labels.

The Year of Beer was so successful, because there were popular flagship beers and breweries with a big following. So when I released a painting of Pliny the Elder, Heady Topper, or Spotted Cow, fans of those beers were delighted! Side note, in 2022 Russian River Brewing asked me to stop selling art featuring its beer labels, despite having given me permission to paint live in the taproom in 2016. The project would be possible today, but I feel it would be a lot less successful, since there are simply too many choices available. Flagship beers don’t have such a strong following any more, since there are so many other excellent options that are easier to get. Beer is dramatically more expensive in 2024 than it was in 2014. I actually haven’t bought any beer yet this year, since I stocked up for New Years Eve. In 2014 the average price of a six-pack was around $8, now it’s about $12. And this is for regular shelf beer bought at a liquor retailer. Beer at specialty shops, or at breweries costs more. Patrons don’t blink an eye as they shell out $18 – $24 for a fancy four pack. Meanwhile, Gabe Fletcher of Anchorage Brewing Company finally hit $100 a bottle on Tavour for his world famous barleywine called A Deal with the Devil. In 2014 we used to buy it for 22 bucks for twice as many fluid oz! 

The world is changing, and beer has been elevated to a higher status. People respect the juice of the barley more than they ever did before. New flavorful hops have evolved and beer is an entirely different product than ever before. I feel that Hazy IPA had its heyday a few years ago, and although it will always be a popular brew, west coast IPAs are back in fashion along with the new rage, cold IPA. What threw me for a loop is the gluten fearful people who all feel they should be drinking seltzers. I would rather drink a Natural Ice around a campfire any time over a White Claw.

I will always remember 2014 fondly as one of the best years of my life. I started painting live at breweries that year, met so many wonderful beer lovers all over the world online, and in person. Some of them are still good friends to this day! I traveled to dozens of different breweries, and traded beer with many patrons of beer art. Some breweries even mailed me hoodies, hats, and other fun merch!

There are still a few originals available at my Etsy shop, and prints. Keep in mind that I love to make commissions of your favorite brew. Whether it be macro, micro, craft, home-brewed, or even a wine or a seltzer. Let’s keep enjoying and see where the industry goes! Cheers, and thank you for following my beer art career all these years, and for all your support!

Chiefs Kingdom

The Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LVII (for those of you who are not so good with roman numerals), that is Super Bowl 57 in 2023.  I am sad for all my friends who are Eagles supporters, but maybe they can win again at another time.  Instead, we celebrate the KC’s victory with a painting of the Kansas City Chiefs on their home turf, GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. 

Where were you when the Super Bowl was on television? I know that one of my friends was at the game. I bet a lot of you boycotted this pillar of American culture and went outside to do something interesting like skiing, skating, or fat-biking.  I used to do that: watch about 15 minutes of the game, catch the halftime show, eat a plate of nachos, some wings, chips, and whatever, then go outside and do something fun.  But now I like watching the game. In fact, I watched almost all the playoff games and a lot of the Monday, Thursday, and Sunday regular season games.  I don’t follow any specific team, but normally root for good football. I like to watch the athletes do amazing things, and I like the sound of the crowd getting all excited about the sport. I do enjoy the commercials during the Super Bowl and the halftime show. My favorite halftime show was Lady Gaga in 2017.  There have been so many good shows, it is hard to remember them all.  

This year I was on a roadtrip to visit my grandma and my uncle in eastern Washington. I spent Saturday in Walla Walla, Washington with my grandma, she is 90 years old! We then drove to Pullman, to visit my 96-year-old uncle.  My uncle was hosting a party for the Super Bowl and had invited over three other guests. The food was good and the excitement was there! I was most happy that the game was close and not boring. The Super Bowl menu at my uncle’s party included: ribs, potato salad, baked beans, potato chips, and a superb tray cake for desert.  We were all skiers, so the cake celebrated that sport. It was a pretty good spread. 

I had a lot of discussion about which beer to put in this painting. I thought maybe a Boulevard Brewing beer, but I saw that most people drank Goose Island IPA at GEHA Field.  So, I thought I should leave it up to imagination.  You have whatever beer you want, and I put it in a Kansas City Chiefs cup that you would get at the stadium. 

Both teams were very good this year and it was a great show. The Eagles played very hard, but Coach, Andy Reid, played it super cool running down the clock and putting it all on the line as Harrison Butker nailed the field goal with only 8 seconds left on the clock. Making it virtually impossible for the Eagles to comeback.  Raise your glass not only to the KC Chiefs, but to the great sport of American Football! Cheers!   

This original oil painting, and signed prints are available at my Etsy shop.

Chiefs Kingdom, 14″x11″, oil on panel

Termination Dust

Termination dust on the Chugach mountains

Happy Fall Equinox! During our five-mile run this morning we marveled at the gorgeous termination dust on the Chugach mountains that arrived overnight. For those of you who are not up on Alaskan lingo, “termination dust” refers to the first dusting of snow on mountain tops, signaling the termination of summer. This means something to the beer drinking crowd of Anchorage.  When we see that first snow, we know that Midnight Sun Brewing is about to release Termination Dust Belgian Style Barley Wine.  It is only released when Lee Ellis, President of the brewery, sees snow on Flattop mountain.  Well, I looked up at Flattop today, and the snow stopped right above Flattop mountain.  So, I assumed the brewery would hold out, but to my surprise, I saw on social media that the release is happening today!  I have a bottle of this beer in my beer fridge from two years ago, so maybe it is time to drink that one as well, since it is Equinox, and I feel celebration in the air.

When Alaskans see termination dust, some take a big sigh of relief, and others start feeling depressed, depending on how one feels about the impending winter. I personally like winter more than summer, so I get very excited about longer nights, cozy evenings around a fire, movie nights without FOMO, football season, fat-biking, and most importantly, alpine ski season.  I love skiing, and I especially love skiing at Arctic Valley Ski Area!  I am a lifetime member of the Anchorage Ski club. Maria and I already bought our season passes, so seeing termination dust on the front range on Equinox makes me feel hopeful for a great upcoming ski season! I am certainly glad to live in Alaska! Now, I’m off to Midnight Sun Brewing to sample this year’s Termination Dust. Cheers!

Prints of this beer portrait are available at my Etsy shop

I Paint What I See

My job as an artist is to document life and to make art that people like to look at.  I paint beers, because I am into beer.  I also paint trucks, planes, trees, mountains, and animals, because that is what I am surrounded by.  If you release a product out into the world, and I run into it, I might decide to put it into a painting.  

A pretty famous California brewery recently told me I am no longer allowed to sell paintings of their beer.  They told me they want to keep anything with an image of their product strictly under their control.  I understand this and respect their decision, even though it frustrates me that they decided to let me know after I have already made 6 different paintings (all original compositions) of their beers.  I even painted live at their brewery’s taproom with their permission.  Now that it has been revoked, I feel a little cheated.  It’s hard to describe, because I don’t really feel like I have done anything wrong, but I do feel like something negative has happened here.  I don’t intend to stop making paintings of beer, but I also don’t intend to drink any more of that brewery’s product, which is fine, because it is actually pretty hard to get, especially in Alaska. 

I will continue to make commissions of any beer you want (excluding the breweries that forbid it).  I like to tell a story when I make a painting, and a successful painting causes a response from the viewer.  I want to evoke positive responses.  Normally, beer paintings make a viewer thirsty for that beer, bring up a memory of a good time, or simply bring joy to the person who is looking at it.  That is all I really want to do.  I never want to offend.  

I hope there aren’t many more unpleasant messages that come my way, telling me to stop doing my work.  I will continue with the exercise of documenting life, and telling visual stories with my artwork.  The good news is that there are a lot of small breweries and 99.99% of them value my work.  So, I will work with the ones that like what I am doing.

So, a toast to positive future vibes, and I hope you all continue to view, purchase, gift, and enjoy my art, as I intend to continue making it.                

Yuengling Traditional Lager at Citizens Bank Park

When I was growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, my parents were saving every penny so they could help pay for all four of us to go to college.  We used to shop at thrift stores, and we played a lot of baseball.  My brother found this Phillies fan jacket and he instantly became a fan. I indirectly also became a fan, because he wore it all the time. 

During 2014, I worked my little tail off making a beer painting every day. This is when I went from being a beer fan to a straight-up beer nerd.  I had heard of Yuengling, the oldest brewery in America, but it doesn’t distribute to Alaska. I picked up a following in Pennsylvania during my Year of Beer project, and one of my followers mailed me a can.  I was impressed, since the beer was different than the regular pre-prohibition style lager I expected it to be.  During 2014 I made over 365 paintings, and some of them were more inspired than others.  I wish I had made this Yuengling painting at the Citizens Bank Park back then. 

In 2017, I took my second trip to Philly and I spent some time tasting beers there. My great friend Sam Magdowitz (a local Philadelphian) has season tickets to the Phillies, so I got to go to a game!  Thanks Sam!  He is a huge MLB fan, and has been to every ball park in the country! I was telling him about my history with the Phillies when we parked, and took the train on in.  This is Sam’s secret plan to avoid the traffic; park at a train station a ways out, and ride the train 10 minutes to the stadium.  Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing, way less time stuck in traffic. I had been beer tasting all day with Rich Morgan that day, another great beer drinking friend whom I met during my Year of Beer, and I am glad I wasn’t behind the wheel.  I did make it until the game went into extra innings and was on my second wind when Sam suggested leaving early since he had to work in the morning.  It was after 10pm, so I was on board.  I watched the Phillies win back in his kitchen while sharing a bottle of Denali Brewing’s Louisville Slugger sour ale with Sam’s wonderful better half, Tamar.  Sam crashed out for the night. Great experience, thanks Sam and Tamar! 

Brad Lewis is a local Anchorage Phillies fan, originally from Philadelphia.  He brought me this can of Yuengling with the Phillies logo on it!  I was stoked to finally get another taste of this iconic brew and finally capture my experience with Sam at the stadium!  Cheers to a little help from our friends! Without so many great people in my life I would not have been able to put this painting together! Go Phillies! Drink a Yuengling, if you are lucky enough to get one!

This original oil painting, and signed prints are available at my Etsy shop.

Yuengling Traditional Lager at Citizens Bank Park, by Scott Clendaniel. 14″ x 11″, oil on panel.

Rainier Bear 2.0

In 2016 I was inspired by a news story to paint one of my most popular beer paintings, called Rainier Bear. In addition to selling the original oil painting, I had also released 52 limited-edition prints of the image. I sold the original, and all 52 prints. This is only the second time I’ve sold out of a limited-edition run! Now that all 52 are sold, I won’t sell that image as a signed print again (stickers are available though). So, I decided to paint a new version of this bear, because I just really like him, and Rainier beer is so iconic to me, since I was born in Washington. So, here you have it, Rainier Bear 2.0!

Cheers to these cute trouble-makers!

This original oil painting, and signed fine-art prints are available at my Etsy shop RealArtIsBetter.

Rainier Bear 2.0, 14″x11″, oil on panel by Scott Clendaniel

“Oh Geez, Rick!” – Morty

“Oh Geez, Rick”,  is a painting I made because I am a home-brewer and a huge fan of the show Rick and Morty.  Every home-brewer loves to brew in the garage. Since I don’t have one, I decided to pretend to have the most amazing garage ever, Rick’s garage from the show.  Every time I make a batch of beer, I pitch the yeast into a big glass fermenter like the one pictured here in Rick’s garage laboratory.  I always think about the life that is being cultivated inside the glass universe in the carboy.  Sealed with an airlock to keep the culture clean, it reminds me of our planet.  We are like the yeast, and the wort (unfermented beer) is like our natural resources.  As the yeast bubbles, and ferments the wort into beer, it is like our planet living out its days.  Once in a while I will double down on a batch of beer and pour fresh wort into the leftover yeast slurry from a previous batch. When I do this, I think how awesome it would be if we were able to buy more time for humanity on planet Earth by just brewing up some more clean air, water, and sunlight.  

The lifespan of any life-form is limited by its resources.  So my question is: if the planet is like a beer fermenter and the garage is like space outside our universe, is there some giant being that wants to eat all our garbage and breath our CO2 to catch a relaxing buzz?  Rick would know, he probably was teasing it with his portal gun.  

Cheers to life! Although it may be fleeting, make sure it is a fun ride!

This original oil painting, and signed art prints are available at my Etsy shop. You can see this painting in person at my art show at Midnight Sun Brewing Co. June 4 – July 1, 2021. I will kick off the show this Friday at 5pm by tapping a pin (small keg) of a wit beer with key-lime, cask-conditioned on Madagascar and Tahitian vanilla beans and graham crackers!

“Oh geez, Rick!” 11″ x 14″, oil on panel

Pelican Brewing in Pacific City, Oregon

During my college days, studying art at Western Oregon University, located in Monmouth, Oregon, I spent a lot of time at the local bike shop.  The shop was really cool! Located in a former gas station, it barely had enough space inside to store all the bikes.  It was called Jon’s Bicycle Station. I met Jon the first day I arrived in Monmouth.  The town wasn’t really that big, and I was, and still am, bicycle crazy.  We became great friends!  The shop was so cool, because Jon made it that way.  Since he worked 6 days a week, and home-brewed every Sunday, we would ride every Tuesday at nighttime. We used powerful headlamps to go way up into the mountains, then turn them off and gaze at the stars. The rides were great, sometimes 23 miles long, and often just Jon and I.  We would always meet at the shop, do a quick tune to the bikes, then have espressos, and load the bikes into his old 1970’s Ford F-250, driving a few miles to the logging area on the east side of the coastal range. After the ride Jon pulled out homemade burritos from an insulated cooler where he kept them warm.  These were my favorite times in the Willamette Valley area.  

My grandmother is from Newberg, Oregon, just up Route 99W from Monmouth. When I was a child, the whole family would often fly down from Alaska to meet up with the rest of the clan at the Oregon coast for a family get-together. We would normally stay in a rental house at Rockaway Beach, so I was no stranger to the Oregon coast. I think it is a really beautiful place on this planet! When Jon invited me to go to Pacific City to ride bikes and celebrate New Years Eve in a big rental house, I jumped at the chance. He would always get these incredible houses and invite all his riding buddies. Since I was a broke college student he didn’t ask much from me. I just had to show up and go for long road rides on Highway 101. Afterwards we would go to the Pelican Brewing brewpub. One time for spring break, Jon got this amazing house directly on the beach in Pacific City. It had a hot tub and a sauna, and 17 beds! The bunk room was impressive, with two levels of stacked beds with room for everyone. My roommate at the time brought his girlfriend’s whole family! We filled that house! I remember running to the ocean from the hot tub — it was so awesome! The Pelican Brewing brewpub was only about 1/2 mile down the beach from that house. Back in the day, the brewery only bottled beers in bombers. I remember buying as many as I could afford and taking them back for a big beach fire party! I did a couple of paintings at that house. The place was called the Wind Jammer on the rental listings. I don’t know if you can still rent it, but I do recommend getting some Pelican beers and walking down the beach!

Nowadays, the Pelican has a production facility in Tillamook, and the beers come in huge cans, six-packs, and still a few 22oz bombers.  It’s not quite the same, but my love for Pacific City is still strong.  If you happen to be in the area, the Grateful Bread Bakery is a good breakfast place, just get there early, as the cinnamon buns are all gone if you sleep in!  Haystack Rock, and  Cape Kiwanda Dune are really cool local geological features making this place stand out!  I heard the surfing is as good as Oregon has to offer.

Cheers to Pacific City, The Pelican Brewpub, Jon’s Bicycle Station, and the Oregon Coast! You don’t have to go to Hawaii to have a great time on the beach!

This original oil painting, and signed prints are available at my Etsy shop.

Pelican Brewing IPA, 11″x14″, oil on panel

Giants Baseball Game at AT&T Stadium

Before the pandemic, going to a baseball game in a crowded stadium was possible. We used to also have weddings, and sometimes we even left our home state to go places.  I went to a wedding in California to see my cousin get hitched back in 2017. Then we went to an amazing baseball game at Oracle Park (a.k.a AT&T Stadium) in San Francisco. I bought myself a Giants ball cap from a street vendor and my uncle had procured tickets for the whole family.  My brother-in-law, and sister met us for pre-game beers at a local brewery called Cellarmaker.  I always wait until the 7th inning stretch to buy a beer at a ball park, because they are kind of expensive. I can milk the abnormally large beer for the rest of the game, even if it goes into extra innings. I think I paid about $20 for my 20 oz beer, so that’s $1 per oz.  This is not a particularly good price, but the selection was excellent. Lagunitas, Anchor, and 21st Amendment were available back when I was there. The Internet tells me that Local Brewing, and Russian River are on the menu now, or will be when we are all allowed back in the park.  We had a great time, and I was really impressed when foul balls went into the Bay, and when gulls were dive bombing for hotdogs.  The Giants didn’t win that game, but everyone wins with a 20oz brew and great live entertainment in the sun.  I hope you get to go to your favorite ball park soon! I have a good feeling the 2022 baseball season will be closer to normal.  In the meantime, buy the cardboard cutout for yourself, and make sure you have a beer in your hand to show how much fun you are having!

Cheers to getting back to normal, and in the meantime, live abnormally well, when you can!

This original oil painting, and signed prints are available at my Etsy shop.

Beer at a Giants Baseball Game at AT&T Stadium. 11″x14″, oil on panel, framed.

Maria and I stoked about seeing a Giants game!

Beer Pac-Man

Ready Player One!  Grab your beer and steal those laundry quarters from your roommate for a couple rounds of beer Pac-Man!  This classic yellow hungry fellow wants to go all in and have a few pints.  The Ghosts are stoked because they never have to hide from a drunken Pac-Man.  The corner dots don’t work in this video-game-inspired painting, instead they have become special power-up beers.  Pac-Man thinks he is suave and debonair once he swills a few of these down, but after a six-pack of the yellow fizzies, he is slow and unresponsive.  Not quite a “Game Over,” but definitely a “Bed Time” is happening soon.  Another factor is that after a few of these digital pints Pac-Man thinks Ms. Pac-Man is a perfect 10!

This original oil painting, and limited-edition prints are available at my Etsy shop.

Beer Pac Man, 8″ x 10″, oil on panel, by Scott Clendaniel