As for MJ’s “flim-flam” comment about Labatt’s “Guinness”- I’d rather think of it as his classic way of trying to follow mother’s advice of “…if you can’t say anything nice…” while still somehow advising (warning?) readers. I still prefer that sort of subtly to the internet’s “Labatt’s Guinness SUX!”.

That Guinness Extra brewed in Ireland for the US market was still a different beer to the 1042 Extra Stout actually sold in Ireland, and which still is. Diageo continues to brew stuff here in Dublin that never sees the Irish market: Special Export, Guinness Red and the 250 Anniversary stuff spring immediately to mind.

That explanation from the company is just nonsense by the looks of it. And as for Mr Jackson’s “fidelity to the palate” He was just as good at meaningless flim-flam as the macrobrewers, it seems.

At the time of MJ’s first “Pocket Guide” (and up to around a decade ago, as I remember it) the version of Guinness Extra Stout sold in the US was brewed in Ireland. (Tho’ there had long been a Canadian “brewed under license” version from Labatt, in had always been marketed only domestically. MJ called that version as having “less success in terms of fidelity to the palate” than then-new Labatt Budweiser.)

At the very end, sometime in the early 1000′s, in the US the 24 ounce bottles were still coming from Ireland and 12 ounces bottles were Canadian (I remember, because I saved the last Irish GES for quite awhile and probably still have the empty kicking around in the cellar).

In that first edition of the Pocket Guide, US GES was reportedly 5.5% abv (remember, at the time, US labels couldn’t list ABV)- in later editions (4th, 6th) the “exported to the US” version was stated to be 6% abv. In between, he just avoided the issue by noting that “various American and Continental markets get their stouts at anything from 1048 to 1060+” (1986 edition).

Of course, if one goes even further back, post-Repeal- the US got the FES for many years – I have never quite figured out when it switched from FES to ES- late 1960′s-early 1970′s is my best guess. Interestingly, when Guinness briefly brewed ES in the US, they specifically noted that it for the purpose of letting US drinkers have the Guinness stout “drunk by Irishmen in their own country for almost 200 years” which was “milder and had less acid” than the “exported Guinness” the US had previously received. (As noted in the promotional material reprinted on my webpage noted above)

If the beer inside isn’t as good as it once was, if the brewery aren’t up front (or lie) about how it’s made and what from, and if there are better-tasting versions of the same thing, then I can’t see why the likes of Pilsner Urquell or any Guinness should count as classics. Romantic notions of them being old-fashioned beers are nothing more than marketing flim-flam by cynical multinational macrobrewers. It’s nothing to do with the beer in anyone’s glass.

By comparison, Dixie and Coors received ** in the 2000 edition, while Miller was mentioned but not rated.

I usually drink about one Bud a year, just to remind me how blessedly far brewing has come, and how far my own lifelong beer odyssey has roamed.

I write about golf a lot, and one of the classic tales is of Walter Hagan, who when asked his opinion of a course, said, “It’s the best golf course of its kind I’ve ever played.”

A similar oblique comment could be made about Bud. But when it comes to Jackson’s rating system, who among us would give it more than one or two stars?

I never even had to open their bottle at the table to night, however, or the Mikkeller or the THA for that matter. No one wanted the classics except the chefs at the back who went absolutely Valley Girl 1991 over Schlenkerla Märzen. They all got Westmalle dubbel but also got Maudit and Beau’s Lugtread, too.

I may not be a classicist but I know class when I see it.

[a quiet little rimshot, if you please.]

But whatever one thinks of the devolution of PU, it will long remain a world classic simply on historic grounds, which was clearly one plank in Jackson’s reasoning in calling a beer a world classic–the definitive example of a style. On any given day a half dozen pilsners may taste better than PU, but they don’t–yet, anyway–have as much history behind them.

Any time somebody writes about a beer it should be considered a snapshot in time. On Dec. 22, 2009 Sierra Nevada Celebration is/was a great beer. At this moment I have no problem calling it a classic.

Can we guarantee it will be a classic ten, or even two years, down the road? I guess not. But we can make a pretty good guess.

That might have been unfair, because the conversation started with Guinness a Pilsner Urquell, owned by multi-nationals.

So back to the idea of brand loyalty. I can’t be blanket opposed to the notion – look at Alan and Jolly Pumpkin (and I feel like I helped make the match) – as long as the brewery is transparent.