Copyright “Two Ounce Culture,” trademark it, maybe even “Two Ounce Beer Culture” as well, before I pretend I thought of this simply brilliant phrase to characterize the taste, rate, move on mentality.
Rob Fullmer, aka olllllo, posted this yesterday, linking to and quoting from a New Yorker article that is worth the, well, time — which is part of what it’s about. Here’s what he put in bold type:
As soon as we start to think of art simply as something to be consumed, discarded, and replaced, we rob it of one of its greatest powers: its capacity to free us from the grip of easier but shallower pleasures.
I am not suggesting revisiting the chase our tail debate about beer and brewing as art. For me, it works just to replace the word art with the word beer and read the sentence again.
The brilliance of beer is that any particular beer can do this, but without itself becoming the center of conversation.
Saint Arnold Brewing founder Brock Wagner made that point maybe 10 years ago: “We want you to think about what you are drinking. I’ll think about the beer when I first taste it. After that I’m sitting there with my wife and with friends shooting the breeze and it becomes background. But periodically I will think about the beer again.”
Little of that in the “Two Ounce Culture.”
*****
Rob begins his post with a challenge: “I often ask my beer friends and those that claim an allegiance to a beer culture they seem to think exists only in sampling form, ‘What was the last beer that you remember having three in a row of.’ I can tell you my last four of three. It was New Belgium La Folie, Four Peaks KiltLifter, Four Peaks Eight Street and Coors Banquet.”
I thought about this and realized I would flunk. I can’t remember the last time I had drank the same beer again, and then again. Two in a row, that’s easy. That would be Schlafly TIPA. Before that (512) Pecan Porter, and before that Urban Chestnut Zwickel.
The problem is I can think of many other things that can be exchanged for “art” in the sentence as well. But they do so equally so it is not to say this point isn’t made.
‘What was the last beer that you remember having three in a row of.’
St. Bernardus Abt, this afternoon. Yesterday, too.
And the day before that.
If there’s the odd whisky in between, does that still count?
Lagunitas Daytime. 3 with lunch. 3 with dinner.
Bravo, Olllllo & Stan. Friday I enjoyed 4 Deschutes Jubelales. Delicious!
Even in Springfield, MO, I suffer from an embarrassment of riches with beer selection. I buy a 6-pack once in a while, but mostly I’m buying bombers/750s or those mix-and-match 6-packs. The way I purchase beer, it’s nearly impossible for me to drink three of the same in a row.
Also, I guess I’m getting old or something, but I have a hard time drinking 3+ beers in a sitting. Two is my comfortable limit.
Some people like to stick with beer when they’ve found a good one, others continue to push on to find better beers. Either method is valid.
Don’t think I’ve ever had three of the same in a row, I’ll move on if there’s nothing I want to try. The only possible exception is if I’m at a gig so perhaps I once had three pints of butcombe bitter in a row, but that was about ten years ago…
Does a mini keg of Two Hearted count as one beer or 10? If the former, then Three Floyds Zombie Dust.
I think there is something to be said for consistency. There are many things I like (foods, restaurants, films, music and, yes, beers) and that does not exclude new things, but having access to the things I like is more important to me than searching for new things.
OTOH, experiences (the combination of place, atmosphere, offerings, mood, etc.) seem to always be best the first time, although the best ones can be repeated, though perhaps lacking the thrill of discovery of the first time.
I had 4 De Dolle Stille Nachts last night. They are from 4 different years but technically the same beer.
I think that when you make beer, drinking 3 in a row becomes much more commonplace. So the last for me would probably be Pale 31, Pivo Pils, and Oaktoberfest. I’ll more often than that drink three of a beer in a night with maybe something else in there to break it up. But still, I’m most often only drinking one of anything in a night. Shit, even in Munich I would drink one of each beer offered in our sessions. Except Augustiner Helles. I could always go for 3 of those.