ABSTRACT
You may declare that a beer sucks because it is genuinely flawed. For instance, you spot the tail of a mouse in the bottle. You might say it sucks because you’ve had the beer before and it was much better then. That’s probably not the word I’d use, but I understand. You might yell that it sucks because it isn’t too your taste. Say it’s a cucumber beer (I’ve picked on pumpkin beers enough). Now we’re talking like people who’ve maybe had a few beers.
THE BACKGROUND
Today Max takes us nicely from Point A to Point B to Point C. Before quibbling with his conclusion and providing a longer answer than fits in a comment at A Good Beer Blog, the suggested reading:
Mark Dredge is promoting a larger discussion about if using the term “craft beer” in the UK is in order. Good comments there, and further chatter in various UK blogs. But I particularly like Barm’s response at I Might Have a Glass of Beer. Beyond the fact it is simply good reading he makes it clear this is not a discussion for Americans to join in. It is about a different beer culture.
To move the conversation along, a takeaway from Dredge:
It (“craft beer”) is a suggestion that what you are getting has more investment than a hefty marketing budget; it has a heart and soul, it’s made for people who prefer taste to TV commercials.
And from Barm:
Everyone knows the beer range of the third-rate microbrewery. There’s the 5.0% boring golden ale; the 4.2% brown bitter that tastes mostly of toffee; the 3.7% session ale, suspected to be the 5.0% ale with more water in it; and the seasonal beers which are the 4.2% bitter rebadged with a lewd cartoon on the pumpclip. I don’t see any reason to dignify this stuff by labelling it “craft”; nor do I understand how, if we are to refuse it the label “craft”, we can objectively distinguish — other than by taste — between it and beers that we like better. In which case, the definition has become “beer that I like”.
Now, on to Max:
Passion could serve well as an emotional reserve when things aren’t going too well, but real success depends on other factors: proficiency, professionalism, seriousness, business talent, knowledge of the market, determination to do things well and respect for the consumer, specially for small brewers.
My quibble would be that it is passion, or conviction, that sometimes takes a beer from “better than good enough” to great. Because the brewer invests in better ingredients and better equipment.
CONCLUSION
The road to excellent beer is paved with good intentions. They are not enough.
Which takes us full circle to the question Alan asked: “Is It Fair To Say A Brewery Sucks… Or Even A Beer?” My comment: To the questions in the headline: Yes, and yes. As long as you are prepared to say why, and why you are qualified to make the judgment.
It was late, so I was thinking quite literally rather than in any philosophical sense (remember that Alan was a contributor to “Beer and Philosophy” and you never know when he’s going to go all Socrates on you). I arose this morning to this fair question: “Who is qualified? What is sucking?”
The comments that followed answer this pretty well. Most beers fall between “awesome” and “this sucks,” although we tend to overuse both of those words. And beer appreciation is subjective.
But there are objective measures, which I was referring to in my literal comment. Quality control is quality control. Were somebody to finance us we could start pulling bottles off the shelf and putting them through their paces. Any wild yeast? Buttery diacetyl (don’t shoot – not always bad)? How’s the dissolved oxygen? There are other measures, but you get the point. Not only could we say, “This beer sucks” but we’d be able to say “This one will soon.” And at some point we might decide, “This brewery sucks.”
(OK, a brewery can’t account for a consumer who buys a six-pack of beer and leaves it sitting on the sunny-side of the car on a hot day for two hours. That beer is screwed.)
It takes just as much conviction for a brewer to focus on process as stuffing “wow” in the bottle. Those are the brewers who invest in laboratory equipment, and people who understand how to use the equipment. That’s easier when a brewery is growing — or “achieving scale” — even if it makes it look a little less “crafty.”
Just to be clear, I still want the “wow” factor (well, sometimes). I’m not abandoning New Beer Rule #4. It takes something special for a brewery to make great beer decade after decade. Certainly passion on the part of somebody. But passion goes beyond brewing great beer. It includes delivering great beer.
Once I trained myself to make the mental substitution of “Commenter x doesn’t like Beer y” when Commenter x writes “Beer y sucks,” I became much happier and calmer when reading said comments on the forums.
I will say that passion is better when folks direct it in useful ways. Writing “Beer y sucks” isn’t really useful and certainly, were I brewer of Beer y, I would be less inclined to listen to who said it. If folks want people to respond to their opinions, they need to show respect. I’m continually learning that rude comment-writers are often thoughtful, kind human beings in other aspects of their existence when i meet them, but it is tough for me to remember that when my knowledge of them to that point is through a negative online persona. I can’t imagine being the person who brewed the beer having to meet these folks. Stan’s point of it being ok to say “Beer Y sucks because of A, B, and C; I say this because of 1, 2, and 3” is a good step… but a better step would be rephrasing the “Beer Y sucks” part.
Good point, Stan, very good point.
I believe that someone who does something (whatever that might be) with passion is more likely to do it well than someone who does it because they have to or because they only see profit in it. But I also believe that someone who has set up a brewery only because they saw it as a good business can make great beer, too, if they are smart enough. In fact, they don’t even need to know how to make beer to begin with!
A brewer who invests on better equipment and ingredients can also be someone who wants to make better beer simply because they believe doing so will be good for their business.
I am good at my job, pretty good, actually. And I like doing it. I got into it because it just came my way and I didn’t quite like it until I saw that I was good, but as much as I like it now, as much as I strive to at least keep the quality, I don’t do it with passion, I do it for the money and because it’s got its perks as well.
The aspect of a beer sucking (or not) being overlooked here is the time and place where you try it. I dont like to be too quick to declare x sucks as your mood has so much influence over it.
I also think sometimes percieved flaws in a beer (deliberate or not – lacto, brett, DMS etc.) can all be hooks on a beer that can make it stick in your mind as being awesome. That little bit of light struck character that comes from drinking beer in the sun after a long cold winter is something I like, for the rest of the year I really cant stand skunky beer.
Finally Stan I’ll be having a cucumber beer this afternoon at the Local Taphouse in StKilda. Will let you know how it goes.
Darren – I thought cucumber beers were out of season ;>)
My buddy is a professional brewer and he snuck me into a semi-exclusive pre-grand opening party for a new brewery. We were sitting around and sampling something. I didn’t really like it. He didn’t really like it. I started to say “this sucks” and he corrected me.
He wanted me to say, “this beer isn’t for me,” or, as Stan said above, identify what I didn’t like. Overhopped, or tannins, or just lack of flavor. We were surrounded by other brewers and the head brewer of this new place was just one picnic table away from us. Brewers know that people don’t like their beers, hell some of them really hate some of their own. But they don’t say that to other brewers. They leave half a pint. They don’t go out of their way to compliment the brewer.
But saying a beer sucks really isn’t fair* to the brewer or to yourself.
*If it has lacto or acetobacter on accident and they didn’t catch it before it got out, then yes, they do suck.
Stan I am in the Southern Hemisphere so if ever it is cucumber season its now
Not all craft beer is good beer. (#11?)
@swordboarder
Absolutely correct.
This is very important to remember, and is becoming clearer with each passing year that adds to the glut of new “craft” product. I thank the gods for beer/package stores that feature single bottle sales or “make your own” sixpacks..it lessens the disappointment one often experiences buying a sixpack of a previously untried brew. These days, I find that tasting new craft brews is pretty much a 50/50 proposition.
On the original topic though….I do, however, very rarely use the term ‘suck in my evaluations, even regarding the lesser “craft” efforts I’ve tried, since in the end it does, after all, pretty much boil down to personal taste.
“One man’s poison is another’s elixer”.
(I was going to try to mutate the old “eye of the beholder” saying to the beer/taste/suck factor but it kept coming out sounding a bit obscene. LOL.)
The interesting post is how all of this can get away from the original conversation that inspired the chain…here is the start that inspired the post that A Good Beer Blog replied to, a great read.
http://www.fullsteam.ag/blog/2011/02/that-brewery-sucks/
Er first ‘post’ should have been “thing”, long day at the brew shop, not blaming the beer afterwards. 😉
Stan had the cucumber beer, the Mountain Goat “Cucumber Sandwich”. it was ok, definitley not the worst beer of the day, anyway I wouldnt be aloud to say it sucked right?
Darren – I judged a cucumber beer in the national homebrew finals a few years back. Not a beer I’d order, but it was in balanced and tasted like cucumber. It was easy to appreciate the skill involved in brewing it.
I’ve been following this discussion, or trying to follow it, and I don’t, er, follow it. If you catch my drift.
Anyone can say a beer ‘sucks’ or is ‘awesome.’ But I’d really recommend a wider vocabulary. Outside of those moments when you are drinking with a good friend who knows your past and your failed relationships and your stupid ideas and your odd preferences and your dislike for diacetyl in even the tracest amounts, and you look him in the eye and say, “This sucks,” and he knows exactly what the fuck you mean.
Otherwise… A little self-knowledge about why your preferences are the way they are is a handy tool for any hedonist.
Stan, I am going to quibble with your quibble (“My quibble would be that passion, or conviction, sometimes takes a beer from “better than good enough” to great. Because the brewer invests in better ingredients and better equipment.”)
I think there are simply too many assumptions in that statement to be correct. Making beer requires skill. If a brewer has a lot of passion, but lacks skill, why will the beer be great? Secondly, because a brewer has passion does not mean he also has money. So, a poor but passionate brewer cannot afford the better ingredients or equipment.
I don’t think a lot of brewers have the necessary skill to produce great beers. I’ve tasted a lot of infected beers, very unbalanced beers, beers with bizarre flavours (cucumbers not yet), etc. However, there certainly are some very good brewers making very good, sometimes even great, beers.
“Craft beer” is a decision or evaluation properly left to the drinker. As a blanket description of an entire industry, it is clearly invalid.
Hey Mike, I guess I should have been clearer.
a) Although I alluded to the discussion about using the term “craft beer” in the UK My interest was, and is, in talking about “just” beer. “Craft” is an ill-defined subset.
b) If you prefer, the sentence can read “make the investments necessary to deliver great beer.” But rather than focusing on that one sentence please consider it within the context of the last two paragraphs.