Month: January 2007

Now it’s Playboy’s turn

Playboy magazine has assembled a list of the top 10 American “microbrews.” I don’t have more to say on the subject of such lists than I wrote in September when Men’s Journal published its “25 Best” list.

Although I will note I like the MJ list better simply because it had 25 beers, allowing the authors to pick a wider a range.

Jack Curtin has a nice summary at The Beeryard (where I learned about this), including who was on the panel that picked the beers and the methodology behind the choices. Or you can read “Brew Romance” at Playboy Online – if you’re not in a public library or someplace else that will surely have the website blocked.

The idea of naming a Best 10 or Best 25 is just as silly now as it was in September, but the trend here – mainstream publications with “desirable” demographics paying attention to the beer we drink – is almost exhilarating.

I feel positively cutting edge.

Beer myth: Tongue taste map

Had I made a list of significant beer events in 2006 I surely would have mentioned the arrival of three new glossy magazines, two of them – Draft and Beer Advocate – dedicated to beer and a third – Imbibe – about beer and other drinks.

Just a year ago you could find just one, All About Beer, at the newsstand. (That’s not to overlook two magazines devoted to homebrewing or all the regional brewspapers.)

We should be happy about the change. That typed, I’ve got to shake my head at the “Test your tongue” feature in DRAFT.

In this two-page spread you have photos of three people opening their mouths widely and sticking out their tongues. We get the details on three beers (in other words, one per mouth). There are words about how each tastes on the sides of the tongue, how each tastes on the tip (always emphasizing sweetness), and how each tastes on the back (discussing bitterness), with lines pointing to the various places on the tongue.

Hope that all makes sense to you – you might might find it easier to understand if you just pick up a copy (at many Borders and Barnes & Noble stores).

I’ve got three problems with this feature:

– It’s unsightly.
– It’s based on a factually incorrect tongue taste map. We basically taste everything everywhere we have taste buds, not in particular areas. The map arose early in the 20th century as a result of a misinterpretation of research reported in the late 1800s. If you Google the subject you’ll find the map is still being presented as fact. But here’s the real truth.
– There’s little discussion of flavor beyond sweetness, sourness and bitterness. And there’s nothing about aroma.

Aroma is worth a four-part series, but to make the point I ask you only that you take a good-size sip of your favorite beer. Now hold your nose and do it again.

Class over. Enjoy the rest of the beer.

The art of the saloon

McSorley's Saloon

Speaking of magazines (I’m posting this before the post about DRAFT but since most people read blogs from top to bottom you’ll likely see this second) … the new All About Beer (March 2007) has a feature about the art of beer.

The introduction concludes “the real journey in seeking art can’t be hired out. You have to get involved. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.”

In that spirit I offer you the picture above, one of many paintings and etchings of McSorley’s Saloon that artist John Sloan did between 1912 and 1930.

The interaction between art and beer (in this case beer place) created a virtuous circle. Whenever there was a public exhibition of Sloan’s paintings, business boomed in the bar – and more artists came to make more paintings. Joseph Mitchell immortalized the bar in The New Yorker, and his essays were later compiled in the book McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon.

McSorley’s was tagged as America’s most famous bar in the 1940s when Life magazine ran a picture story about a day in the life of the alehouse. It’s never really given up the title.

Brown is beautiful

A New York Times Dining section tasting panel evaluates brown ales today (registration required). To reference the ongoing discussion we’re not having, they are not ex****e beers.

Eric Asimov writes:

As with great character actors who are so easy to take for granted, you have to pay close attention to brown ales to appreciate their virtue. They have roles to play “quenching thirst, facilitating conversation, sharpening the appetite” and they do it well. If by chance you notice the fine, almost sweet maltiness of the aroma, and the brisk, dry, mineral quality of the flavors, even better. More likely, it’s the absence of these qualities in a poor example that stands out, conveying the sense of something missing.

EllieTheir favorite beer was Ellie’s Brown Ale from Avery Brewing. The described it as, “Brisk, with rich malt aromas. Fruit, mineral and bitter hop flavors.”

Not a surprise to us in New Mexico, because we were drinking Ellie’s Brown and 14’er ESB before back in the mid-90s before Avery became better known for its stronger, hoppier beers. Brewery sales declined between 1998 and 2000, the year The Reverend (10% abv, dark and Belgian-inspired) came out.

The Rev and ex****e beers that followed fueled six years of onging growth and expansion. We like those beers. They weren’t the result of a less-than-fundamentally-sound brewer throwing in more malt and hops – and maybe a funky yeast – to get attention, but the product of a brewer using already well-honed skills.

And even if we didn’t drink The Reverend, Hog Heaven, Salvation and the rest we’d be happy people chasing the X beers are buying them somewhere. Othwerwise when visitors asked me about my favorite brown ale I might sadly answer, “It used to be Ellie’s Brown.”

Instead I can reach into the garage fridge and say, “Try this.”

The higher meaning of cheap beer

In this corner we have Stephen Beaumont, pointing out to us the affordable pleasures of beer. (Noted earlier in the day.)

brewhouseIn this corner we have Mike Seate of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review telling us that Beer snobs forget the true meaning of beer. He writes about how expensive beer he finds beer in some Pittsburgh bars and about how pretentious he views the drinkers who pay that price.

I was writing about Stephen’s post when Loren’s note about Seate’s column arrived. A few hours later when I returned to write about that topic it I saw that everybody has something to say.

– The comments at Beer Advocate had more than doubled.

– Jay Brooks weighed in, admitting “I should be ignoring what he’s saying but I can’t. The bait is there and I took it.”

– Alan McLeod focused on another different bit of the colmun, writing:

So, given the concerns, is there something to the column Mike Seate wrote? Is it perhaps the case that we do not like as beer nerds to look at ourselves as beer nerds but some sort of evangelists surrounded by fools or at least the unheeding doomed? If so, what does that mean for our understanding of the meaning of what we beer nerds are doing?

Whew! Alan, that’s a bit of self analysis I need an expensive beer or to in my belly to undertake.

So with all these conversations going on I’m picking just one to comment on – or not.

Back to the headline: “Beer snobs forget the true meaning of beer.” Then Mr. Seate’s conclusion that “beer is supposed to be a workingman’s drink” and that he’ll be drinking on the cheap.

So the true meaning of beer is that it is something “working class people” drink and thus it must be cheap?

That’s too silly to comment on.

Quick additions on 1/19: Quite well said by Stephen Beaumont, and a solid discussion at the Burgundian Babble Belt.