A tale of two brew concepts: big RAM International and little d.b.a. both won cheers awards last year for their beer programs—here's why

Cheers, Oct, 2003 by Lew Bryson

It's hard to imagine two companies more in tune with the idea of a great beer program which differ so much on how to implement them than the two winners of the 2003 Cheers Beer Awards. RAM International is a Tacoma-based chain of 28 restaurants, bars, and brewpubs that stretches from the piney Pacific Northwest to the cattlelands of Texas and the lakeside hustle of Chicago. The other winner, d.b.a., is a New York-based operation stretching to the Gulf of Mexico ... and it's a thin stretch, with the main bar in Manhattan and a relatively new one in New Orleans.

The awards presentation said it all. RAM vp of beverages Kirk Aardahl accepted their award with a multimedia presentation on the beer program, an excellent overview of their various concepts. Ray Deter of d.b.a., in his own words, "showed up with a folded-up piece of paper in his hand." But both presentations were wellreceived, and both programs are indeed top-shelf.

RAMMING IT HOME

RAM International can be a surprise. You don't often run into a big chain that's able to maintain real greatness in their beer program, any more than one bar can be significant enough to warrant notice. But that's the situation here. At first glance, RAM International looks like another regional chain, selling good food with a great entertainment value and mixing drinks into the flow. Look closer, and you'll see that RAM is doing a beautiful job at this while adding a brewing company on the side and floating a brand of brewpubs with their Big Horn Brewing beers.

RAM honchos Jeff Chandler and his co-managing partner, Jeff Iverson, have taken over a business that was focused on beer when their fathers started it in 1971. "Jeff's dad (Jeff Iverson Sr.) was in real estate development," said Chandler, "and my father, Cal, was in banking. They'd been friends for years. My dad was making loans to guys opening high-end taverns and after a while he realized he was sitting on the wrong side of the table. He approached Jeff and they opened the Ram Pub. It wasn't a corner tavern, it wasn't a high-end restaurant, it was something in-between. It was about food from the first day. But beer's been a key, core component, from a profitability standpoint."

How key a component? You've probably got evidence in your own bar of just how important beer was at the Ram Pub: the standard "pint" beer glass, once known only as a 14 oz. shaker glass, now a standard serving size in beer-oriented restaurants and bars. "They were serving beer at the pub in the mixer glasses back then," said Chandler. "So we were buying a ton of these glasses from our supply company, Bargreen-Ellingson. The company making them, Libby, I think, came to Paul Ellingson and said, 'You're selling a lot of these.' Yes, he said, The Ram's using them as beer glasses. That was the start of it, Libby actually credits us with that." That's big, when a glass company notices what you're ordering.

DOING BUSINESS AS ...

Ray Deter, managing partner at d.b.a., comes to beer from a much more personal and passionate angle. "I married this English woman, from Yorkshire," he said. "For our honeymoon we spent three months in England. We were taking a bicycle ride along a canal, and we built up a serious thirst. We found this picturesque little pub right on the canal, and I'm thinking, Oh, no. Here's that warm, dark English beer that I've been hearing so much about. I mean, a cold fizzy Budweiser would have been fine.

"I drank the beer," Deter continued, "and it was the most refreshing beer I ever had in my entire life. Cellar temperature, which was a fine temperature. The carbonation was great, just a great softness to it. It was the most refreshing beverage I could have had, the right beer for that moment in time, and everything changed that day." Deter was inspired, and hung his life (and Catherine's) out on the line to open d.b.a, with his partner, Dennis Zentek.

"It's a personal obsession, between me and Dennis," he said. "When we first opened up, we decided to take no prisoners with the beer thing, drink good stuff, go crazy with it, and we've never seen a reason to stop. Even when a lot of the little micros were over-extending themselves, and the quality went down, people like d.b.a., the Ginger Man, Falling Rock in Denver, places like that, we stuck to the program and did well. We had no one brand, we just carried the best. When a beer got bad, we stopped canting it. Sticking to good beer, to good things, has worked."

RAM kind of did the same thing, only they started making their own good beer. Big Horn beers have won a number of awards from several well-respected bodies including nine from the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). The entire chain of brewpubs and brewmaster Jarrod Totman won a very prestigious award from the GABF in 2001 is the Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewmaster of the Year.

Managing partner Jeff Chandler points to those awards as proof that RAM is serious about brewing beer. "We're committed to it," he said, "we have been since the day we jumped in. It's nice to get national accolades, but even if we didn't, we'd be committed. We've had nothing but positive results in all the stores. Our beer is high-quality and the guests love it, it's a high percentage of our beer sales."