musing

Beer geeks and bookworms

So how come we don’t call beer geeks beerworms? Maybe because it sounds gross, but then why doesn’t bookworm?

Blame Stone Brewing in California – those otherwise sometime arrogant folks – for this question. Stone next month (June 4) initiates a Book & A Beer Club On the Grass at its modestly named World Bistro and Garden.

From the press release:

If this seems suspiciously similar to the type of activity enjoyed by little old ladies at the neighborhood Rec. Center, guess again. Instead of tea and biscuits—32 taps of beer and Arrogant Bastard Onion Rings! Imagine the possibilities…

CS Forester and BallantineI’m a sucker for the beer and book connection. It’s so civilized. After all, Brother Joris – the monk in charge of brewing the coveted Westvleteren beers – is also the librarian at the abbey Saint Sixtus where the beers are produced.

Back in the early 1950s, Ballantine Ale sought endorsements from many famous artists, including Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. This one is from C.S. Forrester, with his answer to the question “How do you put a glass of Ballantine Ale into words?”

“There’s always a first time for everything. And I still remember my first Ballantine Ale.

“I had ordered my first helles in Munich, my first bock in Paris. As a rather bewildered young man in New York, I did a two-hour sight-seeing tour before being shipped to Hollywood, and in the half-hour before my train was to go, I had my first Ballantine Ale.

“So my first recollection of Ballantine is linked with the Port of New York, the Empire State Building, and Grand Central Station. All of them were different from anything that had ever come into my experience – and all of them great.

“Even then, I realized that the flavor of Ballantine Ale was unique. I thought it better than any brew I had met in Europe’s most famous beer gardens. I still do.”

Back to June 4 at Stone.

The first book up is The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the best book I read last year. Michael Pollan’s examination of industrial corn (the first section) seems to become more important daily (jeez, even affecting beer prices), but the second section (pastoral grass) is my favorite part of the book.

If you live close enough to Escondido to consider dropping by they’d appreciate an RSVP.

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Red Stripe and the next generation

Young BeertenderAs I’ve written before, one of the categories here is Beer and Wine, not Beer versus Wine. When we have people over for dinner there will be men drinking wine and women drinking beer (and vice versa), and there might be a little conversation about one or the other but not why one is better than another.

On our house, beer and wine are not opponents. White bread and processed cheese are the enemy. That’s why Natalie MacLean’s screed seems so silly.

On the other hand . . . If we were in the business of selling beer then I’d be at McLean’s door, pouring her samples of beer with “aromas that range from wet violets to toasty oak,” pairing them with various dishes and showing her clips of articles from people in the wine industry who are wringing their hands about what consumers in their 20s plan (variously known as Millennials or Geny Y) to drink this year and the next decade. It might be craft beer.

Consider this:

The wine industry could lose a generation of customers if it doesn’t get better at capturing the attention of younger drinkers, according to a survey commissioned by Vinexpo.

In a study of 100 occasional wine drinkers aged 20-25 (20 each in London, Paris, Brussels, New York and Tokyo), focus group participants said “they are curious about wine, but deterred by too many choices and styles, complex labeling and wine’s stuffy image.”

On the other hand, during the Craft Brewers Conference last month, Mike Kallenberger of Miller Brewing said, “The overall values and personality of the craft beer category will resonate even more strongly with adult Millennials than with Gen Xers and Boomers.”

Not that marketers don’t have 1,000 theories on Millennials. Outlaw Consulting recently released research that found Generation Y trendsetters are more drawn to brands that speak to them in a “straightforward and stripped-down way, use plain packaging, and avoid excess.”

The Most Trusted 15 brands named in the survey were:

1. Apple
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Jet Blue
4. In-N-Out Burger
5. Ben & Jerry’s
6. Whole Foods
7. Adidas
8. American Apparel
9. Target
10. H & M clothing stores
11. Levi’s
12. Volkswagen
13. Converse
14. Vitamin Water
15. Red Stripe Jamaican beer

I’m not sure that Samuel Adams is big enough to get wide enough attention to crack that list, and surely no other craft brewers are. But if you read the details you’ll be thinking, “That sounds like Uinta” or “That reminds me of Jolly Pumpkin.”

Does it seem like I’ve wandered off point? Here it is: We’re making a mistake any time we are less than inclusive. I’m rooting for Millennials to make good educated decisions when it comes to beer and wine because they’ll be a giant factor in which choices I have.

I’m not sure how many from Gen Y read McLean – or how many frequent this circle of blogs we hang out in – but I do know that her rant was the antithesis of inclusive. We should remember that when we discuss beer.

And here’s a wine example of the way to do it: Where the Homework Is a Pleasure.

Brewpubs and ‘beer cred’

First, at Hop Talk, Al suggests what he think are 5 essentials for a good brewpub, starting with “An old building, especially with a lot of exposed brick.”

Then at Beervana, Jeff Alworth discusses Beer Cred in Portland, Oregon.

Beer is a working-class beverage. Drinking beer is a working-class activity. Oregon brewers, who until ’99 had Henry’s as an example, got that. In the 80s, as brewpubs started opening up, they had a gritty look. Breweries were located in Portland’s industrial Northwest (part of which has been overtaken by the Pearl). Tap handles for good beer appeared in working-class bars. It is my suspicion that one of the reasons Oregonians took to microbrewed beer was because it retained it’s blue collar ethos.

And he compares that to “boutique breweries” in other parts of the country.

You simply cannot argue with the success of craft beer in Oregon (11% of volume vs. 4% in the rest of the country). In fact, you’ve got to wonder if the rest of us will ever catch up.

My point? I’m not sure I figured one out. I found these two interesting to read in the matter of only a couple of hours. In his, Alworth concludes, “Yes, that was a random posting.”

This must be as well.

You know you’re a beer savant when . . .

These two words either mean something to you or they don’t.

Cask Fred.

Are you smiling or are you looking a little perplexed?

Hair of the Dog will be pouring cask-conditioned Fred on Saturday for FredFest, a Portland, Oregon, mini-festival of sorts that marks the 81st birthday of groundbreaking beer writer Fred Eckhardt.

Hair of the Dog is the host. The entire lineup looks great, but you really only need to known one thing.

Cask Fred.

Is your brewer an artist?

It starts with a quote from Louis Nizer, the famous trial lawyer and author. He said:

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”

Don Russell paraphrased Nizer to begin a column about making a case for extreme beer. Along the way he wrote:

Beerwise, the most inspired brewers are not just craftsmen, they are artists.

If there is an avant-garde movement among these brewers, then it is extreme beer.

And later, “Session beers, I’m afraid, are Norman Rockwells.” This led to a flurry of discussion at Seen Through a Glass about *xtr*m* beers and session beers, but only a little about brewers as artists.

Brewer at workSo what about that? And who to ask? How about brewers? I printed out part of Russell’s column and took it to the recent Craft Brewers Conference in Austin. I showed it to a dozen brewers along with another old saying that farmers make wine and engineers make beer.

I asked them to choose one of four words to describe themselves: artist, artisan, engineer or farmer.

Eight chose artisan, four chose artist. Most also said it depends on how you read the definitions.

“Since artisan essentially takes in artist, then artisan is appropriate,” said Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery.

Matt Van Wyk of Flossmoor Station Brewing, a school teacher before he was a brewery, suggested a fifth choice. “Some brewers are just producing a product for profit,” he said. “I lean toward artisan.”

Steve Parkes, the brewer for Otter Creek and Wolaver’s Organic Ales, picked artist, “By this definition.” Parkes is also the owner and lead instructor of the American Brewers Guild. Does that mean he’s in the business of training artists?

“No, artisans. The artistic component needs to come from them,” he said. “I can’t train that. I can give them the tools, but I can’t teach inspiration.”

Tony Simmons (call him an artisan) of Pagosa Springs Brewing told an interesting story. He was in a class at Siebel Institute with a woman who worked at Miller Brewing. Out of curiosity, not intent, he asked her what it would take for him to get a job brewing at Miller.

“You couldn’t,” she told him. “We hire engineers and train them to brew our way.”

John Graham of Church Key Brewing was part of the conversation. “On tours I tell people it is half heart, half science. You have to follow the rules,” he said. “I’m definitely not an engineer.”

We decided we might have to track down a German brewer to find an engineer. But that’s wouldn’t be Eric Toft, a native of Wyoming who now brews at Private Landbrauerei Schönram in Bavaria.

“I got into this because I thought it was artisinal and connected to agriculture,” he said. “You still need to be an engineer to run a brewery.”

Matt Brynildson of Firestone-Walker Brewing made it clear he envies Toft. “I would call myself an artisan, but I totally wish it could be more farmer,” he said nodding toward Toft. “Or to be as connected as he is.”

Toft regularly visits farms where his hops are grown and others that produce barley for his malt. All are less than 200 kilometers from the brewery. He uses a single barley variety – Barke – without regard to yield or how easy it is to grow (always a consideration for malt companies), paying farmers more if necessary to get what he wants (flavor).

Toft was in Austin helping the Association of German Hop-Growers and the Halltertau Hop-Growers Association. They advertise hops as the “spirit of beer,” but I’ve also seen hops referred to as the heart of beer or the soul of beer. Others call malt the soul of beer.

Does your beer even have a soul? Do you care? The answers could be no, and no. That’s fine. But I suspect if you said yes the fact it is brewed by artists or artisans might be as important as the ingredients used.