No. 1
Jeff Alworth (at Beervana) asks readers to comment on this hypothesis: “Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a foundational beer in American brewing and was instrumental in setting the course for craft brewing.”
No. 2
George de Piro, brewmaster at C.H. Evans Brewing Co. in New York and parttime blogger, asks this question: “What beer did you once love but now no longer (or seldom) drink?
He even volunteers to go first, naming Catamount Stout, Spaten Franziskaner, and (drumroll, please) Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
He writes: ” I haven’t really divorced this beer (SNPA), but I haven’t had a steady relationship with it in many years. It’s a great style made to very high standards, but I am so familiar with it that I usually go for something different when I’m out for a beer.”
No. 3
In the Washington Post Greg Kitsock suggested “plain old pale ale has become almost the Wonder bread of craft beer: a ubiquitous product often dismissed as a ‘gateway’ beer for neophytes.” He doesn’t dismiss them, examining how many breweries “are taking a new look at an old style.” Just to be clear, that style is (American) pale ale.
I suspect the comments you find following Alworth’s and de Piro’s posts are not much different than the conversations that would result were these questions raised (and they probably have been several times) at Rate Beer and Beer Advocate.
From a broad, historic (and business) viewpoint there can be little debate that SNPA is a foundation beer. But if there had never been Sierra Nevada Pale Ale would Pierre Celis not have been inspired to start the Celis Brewery in Austin, Texas, and would Rob Tod not been have further inspired to brew Allagash White. No way to know. It’s complicated. Particularly when you consider writing or talking about the diversity of beer really means writing/talking about the diversity of people who drink beer.*
Or as Cajun music legend D.L. Menard puts it, “No matter where you at, there you are.”
* I could have typed “craft beer” rather than ‘beer” twice in that sentence but I think it works fine with two fewer words.
Great post. I was trying to think of a post in response to Jeff’s comment myself; yours is better. For what it’s worth, I spent a lot of last year purposely drinking SN Pale and all their other beers as my part in the anniversary celebration and disagree with Greg. A good Pale Ale is a fundamental beer in any beer drinker’s consumption.
Also, great * comment. The sooner we get to talking just “beer,” the better the conversation will become.
Jack, I’m not sure what your comment “A good Pale Ale is a fundamental beer in any beer drinker’s consumption” means. I consider myself a pretty good beer drinker (I’ve had several decades of practice) and I don’t particularly care for pale ale, especially the American version. In my consumption, pale ale doesn’t play a role.
Does this mean I am somehow defective as a beer drinker?
“Does this mean I am somehow defective as a beer drinker?”
Truth hurts, eh Mike? Just kidding, as I don’t consume all that much Pale Ale anymore myself. I think it’s due to those decades of beer drinking and that Pale Ale was so, very much so, a market glut back in the mid 90s.
I once belonged to a “beer of the month” club that I had to quit after receiving my 10th shipment of 2 different Pale Ales. Everyone wanted to be Sierra Nevada (and few could compare).
That said, if I get a hankerin’ for a good American Pale Ale, SN is nearly always the choice.
Steve, this kind of over-generalisation really drives me nuts.
I would be really surprised if all those 1600 breweries were banking on making pale ale. I suspect it was more the Sierra Nevada part they were intere$ted in.
One of the reasons I find beer drinking so much more enjoyable in Europe is that once you’ve travelled a few kilometers away from one town or city, the beer can change dramatically. So, far example, if you’re in Brussels, expect a lot of lambics. But, go to Mechelen (about 10 minutes away by train) and you’re in Het Anker country.
It seems that of the 1600 breweries, 1580 are making an IPA and 1597 are making an Imperial Russian Stout.
I guess, whatever floats your boat, eh?
It seems that of the 1600 breweries, 1580 are making an IPA and 1597 are making an Imperial Russian Stout.
That would some to be over-generalis(z)ation from afar.
Brewers are making IPAs because customers want them. But within 15 minutes of my house I can find several well-made (locally) pale lagers, beers made with wheat, beers served on cask, a lot of variety.
Stan, of course it was over-stated, but to make a point.
I can’t speak to what is within 15 minutes of your house, but if you look at the beer fan sites (you know whom I mean) you’ll see from where I got my point. For example, of Ratebeer’s top 100 for 2011, how many are stouts? I’d guess, give or take, over 50 percent. An American IPA sits at number 3, just under Westvleteren 12 and another from the same brewery is number 8, which is several positions higher than another Westvleteren beer. (Here’s the page for those who want to play along: http://www.ratebeer.com/RateBeerBest/bestbeers_012011.asp)
I’m not so sure that it is quite so simple that “brewers make them because customers want them.” I have the impression there is a sort of brewers support network. The fan sites are the main players, but there are also bloggers, the various beer “fanzines” and the occasional inspirational film. I don’t mean to say that the brewers have put this network together – I think it’s spontaneous.
This sort of scenario is played out in other industries as well. I read electronic gadget blogs and much the same sort of things happen there also.
In all these cases, customers are clearly influenced by the support network.
“But within 15 minutes of my house…”
The old house or new house Stan?
After having just discovered Metropolitan Brewing in Chicago, I’m longing for more micro-brewed lagers nearby — freshness is definitely the key!
It’s always interesting to me when people describe what they love about other beer-brewing countries and then slag the US for doing exactly the same thing.. With one big caveat*, the fact that people are drinking so many IPAs is exactly what you’d expect in a healthy beer-drinking country: the development of local preference. True, you can’t always find a great bock in Portland, Oregon. But can you find a great IPA in Cologne? Brussels? Can you find an oud bruin in London? As countries begin to develop home-grown beer culture, they develop home-grown tastes. Which means, axiomatically, that they narrow their preferences. It may be frustrating for the Portland bock fan, but isn’t this what Americans have always wanted?
In the comments to my post, someone wrote that when you take a beer like Ninkasi Total Domination IPA (a very popular brand here), you can trace its lineage directly back to Sierra Nevada Pale. I think he is exactly right.
___________
*The caveat, of course, is that beer geeks and craft beer drinkers are not identical. IPAs are finally starting to penetrate the larger craft market–as Stan has documented–but they are only just becoming a trend in the broader segment. Beers like DIPAs and imperial stouts, beloved by geeks, are brewed and sold in tiny amounts. I would bet the volume of Sierra Nevada Pale is at least five times as great as all the imperial stouts in the US combined.
Steve, have you ever visited Bavaria/Franconia? If you like lagers, you won’t find better.
Mike — Indeed I have my friend, and I agree with you. But I have to say that the new brewery I mention above is rivaling some of the best beer I had in S. Germany — they have the passion and skill for the styles.
Steve, while I’d be quite interested in trying that beer, that’s one brewery, where Franconia has, IIRC, over 500. That’s a lot of beer to sample! I’m going there in a few weeks for the fourth time in three years and I still haven’t really scratched the surface. And the food there isn’t too bad either.
Jeff, it seems that there’ll always be an ocean between us – both physically and philosophically.
I’m not quite sure what your point here is: “It’s always interesting to me when people describe what they love about other beer-brewing countries and then slag the US for doing exactly the same thing.. ” The same thing? What same thing?
The beer-brewing countries in Europe have been at it for roughly 1,000 years, the US has been at it for 30? 40? years? Over those 1,000 years, most countries have developed cultures that take a long time to develope. The US can’t and hasn’t done that over night.
You see a difference between beer geeks and small-brewery beer drinker. I understand your point, but I would say that beer geeks are a sub-set of the small-brewery drinkers because both the geeks and non-geeks drink the same beers (more or less), though the geeks, I suspect, stick to a more limited choice.
The geeks are, in a sense, the Tea Party of small-brewery drinkers. They are extremists and make a lot of noise, yet contribute virtually nothing to their cause.
The US I don’t believe will ever have a beer culture similar to Europe’s for the simple reason that you can’t and shouldn’t try to recreate 1,000 years of history.
None of this is to say that the US has never or will never make good beer. But, it seems to me, the US brewers need to jump off a couple of bandwagons if they want to get serious about good beer: stop copying other countries’ beers and stop trying to make only special beers. Barrel-aged, sour, DIPA, – gimmicks all. Enough already, just make good simple beer.
“…where Franconia has, IIRC, over 500. That’s a lot of beer to sample!”
Understood Mike, but I have to deal with the cards I’m dealt — I can drive a block to find this beer, the flight to Munich is a little longer and a little more expensive. After I win that lottery, the beers and Bamberg Onion are on me at Schlenkerla! 😉
Mike, I’m not sure what our disagreement is. In the modern, globalized world, no country is ever going to return to the days of drinking exclusively a few local styles, and the US won’t get there, either. (Over 50% of the beer consumed in Belgium and Britain is light lager, too.) But among those who do drink good beer, there are distinctions among countries. I guess my argument is that you can see the emergence of those preferences here in the US–which I argue (lightly) that you can trace back to SN Pale.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if in a few decades the proportion of light lager consumed in the US looks the same as in other beer countries; we will have achieved some parity that way. No going back, but I don’t see any reason you can’t build beer culture in less than a thousand years.
Mike – Few breweries are specializing in only “special” beers. Granted, just one example, but Sierra Nevada Big Foot (their barleywine) accounts for about 1 percent of sales. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the biggest selling barleywine in the country. Pale Ale accounts for more than 75 percent.
Yes, this supports your statement about the “noise” a relatively few make, but it’s also an indication brewers are making “regular beers” that people drink regularly.
Jeff – Do you trace Total Domination back to SNPA or to Celebration? Or to Bert Grant, for that matter?
Well, I’ll admit that the frame is a little artificial. But yeah, I think SN Pale’s significance is huge. For one thing, it appeared as a fully-realized beer at inception. Second, in a time when micros were often funky or outright gross, it was made with a kind of professionalism it took a lot of other breweries years or decades to match. In Indian art theory, there’s a concept called “rasa” which effectively means “mood” or “emotion.” The rasa of SN Pale was what lit a fire under American craft brewing–bright, zingy, American–and it’s still burning.
Alan, however, dissents.
Mike,
You have some odd misconceptions about the brewing and beer-drinking community in the US. You credit the brewing regions of Europe with 1,000 years of tradition, but a closer look reveals more similarities with the US than you concede. What is the dominant beer style in every European country? Pale adjunct lager, or the closest that the Germans can get to it and still be legal dominates the market everywhere in the world. The average beer drinker in both Europe and the US is clueless about most things beer-related. We are much more similar than we are different. The US is simply a continuation of the brewing traditions of the immigrants that made the country what it is. We can’t change where we came from.
As far as us not copying the styles of other countries. Seriously? The European brewers do this almost as much as we do. Everyone brews pilsner, the Poles brew porters, as do the Scandinavians. I’ve seen American IPAs from Czech brewers. The brewing industry is more globalized than ever, and the future is more cross-pollination. How about those tasty American-hopped golden ales that British brewers are making these days?
It’s foolish to look at the beer-geek rating sites and try to extrapolate real industry-wide production data. Regular-strength, everyday beers are the overwhelming majority of what all brewers produce. Pale ale is the number one style from small brewers, according to Brewers Association sales statistics. The specialty beers get more hype, but that is the nature of the enthusiast culture.
Old Belgian signs promote products called not only Pils but also Dortmunder, Scotch, Porter, Stout, Ale, and even “Munich.” In fact, in the early twentieth century Munich brewers sought legal remedy for this.
And (with the exception of Munich) you can still find beers produced under every one of these names in Belgium today.
Some of them are delicious, regardless of the brewers’ motives or how folks in different countries care to interpret them.
Jeff, first of all, my apologies for this late reply. I went to a small beer festival over the weekend.
OK. You write: “In the modern, globalized world, no country is ever going to return to the days of drinking exclusively a few local styles, and the US won’t get there, either.” Well, I’m sorry to say that you’re wrong. Bavaria, for example, never left. It is almost impossible in the beer-intensive region called Franconia, to find a single pub selling a modern industrial beer. (I say this from extensive experience in the area.) All you will find there are the local beers.
In your first message, you wrote: “It’s always interesting to me when people describe what they love about other beer-brewing countries and then slag the US for doing exactly the same thing.. ” I asked in my response what you meant by “the same thing” and, I’m afraid I don’t see your reply.
But then, you put your finger precisely on the problem: “Beers like DIPAs and imperial stouts, beloved by geeks, are brewed and sold in tiny amounts. I would bet the volume of Sierra Nevada Pale is at least five times as great as all the imperial stouts in the US combined.”
Let’s assume for the sake of this discussion that we’d both like to see a vast growth in small-brewed beer and a vast decline in industrial beer. If US breweries continue with these gimmick beers for the geeks, how can this goal be achieved? Certainly, no Bud Lite drinker will be swayed by a beer, for example, with a name like “Bin Ich Schwartz genug für Dich?” Or a beer overloaded with Cascade hops.
So, where is this growth going to come from? I do agree with you that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is beer that could help the small brewers grow. But, if you look at the beer fan sites and some of the beer bloggers, its the gimmick beers that get the press – which is, after all, the whole point of making gimmicky beers.
According to the Brewers Association the market share of small brewers has remained fairly steady for quite a few years with the only big increase after they modified their definition of a “craft” brewery to keep Samuel Adams in the fold.
I’m not saying that all small breweries should make cheap lager, but, certainly there is a rather large middle ground between cheap lager and the gimmick-driven products turned out by many, if not most, small US brewers. It’s that middle ground that seems rather barren from where I sit.
Sam — Pale Adjunct Lager?
Seems to me Pale Lager is correct, but there are few (Switzerland is one place I can think of) adjunct lagers.
Is Stella more than Barley? Heineken isn’t.
S.
Stan, I don’t recall writing about breweries specialising in gimmick beers. I’m sure there are some doing it more than others, but, if you use silly names for beers as a mark of “gimmick”, I’d guess the vast majority of small US brewers, including Sierra Nevada, do that.
As for gimmicky beers, just trolling through Ratebeer, there seem to be an awful lot of them!
“From a broad, historic (and business) viewpoint there can be little debate that SNPA is a foundation beer.”
Thinking about this over the weekend and wondering where Anchor’s Liberty Ale falls in the family tree.
Seems that I once heard the Liberty actually pre-dates SN’s PA, but I can’t be sure — web site says it was introduced in 1975. Maybe SN was inspired by Anchor, and the foundation built from there on?
Mike, I still mostly have no idea what you’re talking about, but I can clarify my own meaning on this: “In the modern, globalized world, no country is ever going to return to the days of drinking exclusively a few local styles, and the US won’t get there, either.” I haven’t studied the stats on Bavarian consumption patterns, but for almost every square mile of the world, the predominant beer styles are large national or multinational lagers. Even 100 years ago, they would have been far more regional. Because the world is globalized–because goods can move cheaply and efficiently and because trends move with millions of travelers–we’ll never go back to a time when styles were dictated solely by the availability of local ingredients and the tastes of local drinkers. I can’t imagine this is a controversial point.
Jeff, it’s possible that my English has somewhat declined since I don’t speak it so much anymore. Nevertheless, while there may be a lot of truth in what you wrote, it is by no means universal. The medieval model of beer brewing and consumption is alive and well in certain areas of Europe and if you choose not to believe that, then that is your problem, as I have been to several of these areas and I have seen it with my own eyes. As far as the universal availability of industrial lagers, again, there are areas where they are just not available. Sorry if that spoils your theory.
I still wonder why, after two requests, you still refuse to explain this statement: “It’s always interesting to me when people describe what they love about other beer-brewing countries and then slag the US for doing exactly the same thing.. ”?
“It’s always interesting to me when people describe what they love about other beer-brewing countries and then slag the US for doing exactly the same thing.”
Americans love that Europeans have distinctive beers unique to their regions, but when Americans begin developing preferences–in the case of my area, hoppy beers–they criticize that, too.
Paul a bartender at the Schlafly Taproom asked me “what was your epiphany beer?” Paul knew that I drank every import available in St. Louis in the late ’70s and early ’80s. I drank them because they were different. Many were not styles I liked, and very few were fresh. I answered SNPA. It didn’t hurt that the first one I had was on a beautiful day, in the Sierra Nevadas. It is still a beer that is in my rather large rotation.
Jeff, have you ever heard the phrase: a well-balanced beer? I have and I value such beers highly. Are beers from your area balanced? The few hoppy American beers I’ve tasted, I found awful. Likewise, I bought a bottle of Southampton Abbot 12 with high expectations. I also found it awful, but in the other direction: a sweet bomb.
These are my tastes based primarily on the beers in my area and what I normally drink. The well-balanced beer phrase has been around for a long time and may even be older than you or I. Why, I wonder, did Americans discard it?
“Why, I wonder, did Americans discard it?”
My opinion on this is that, prior to the micro boom, “balanced” beer in the US was pretty much synonymous with “flavorless,” even “bad tasting.” The balanced beers from Europe had flavor to them, something different and appetizing that Bud or Miller didn’t have.
When the micros started brewing (and home-brewers before that) they wanted something more flavorful than the watery, sort of harsh grainy beverage they’d been drinking — so they “amped up” because they felt it was the only way to get more flavor.
Being easier and quicker to brew, top-fermented beer became more popular and the variations on those styles became the foundation to the US beer resurgence. Hoppy ales, okay — how about REAL hoppy ales.
To the original subject, when SNPA was first introduced I can remember all of my home-brew friends and myself thinking it was about the biggest hop-bomb available — funny thing is, it’s actually pretty balanced. But more and more new beer drinkers couldn’t get enough of a good thing, so the IBUs and ABV steadily climbed.
Unfortunately, “amping up” doesn’t always equate to good flavor, but can if the brewmaster is skilled.
JMO
Mike, it sounds like your personal tastes don’t line up with the few American beers that you have had recently. I’m sorry to hear that, but please don’t take your experience for anything more than what it is.
The issue of balance is a tough subject because it is completely subjective. The beers that you have normally consumed (I’d actually be curious as to the specifics here) have conditioned you to consider a beer with a high hopping rate to be out of balance. Many beer drinkers on the West Coast drink normally hoppy beers and consider a hoppier profile to be balanced. Tastes easily condition to what is normally consumed.
I drank a fair amount of Bavarian/Franconian beers when I was in the area for brewing school last fall. There were ups and downs, but despite finding some beers that I really liked, there was nothing to satisfy my love of hops. Most beers seemed to be out of balance toward the malt side. But that’s just because my palate is a product of what I normally drink.
Sam – I’m curious if you had the Mahr’s Pilsner (Bamberg) or the Herren Pils from Riegele in Augsburg (farther to the south). I find the Riegele more distinctive, but figure chances you had Mahr’s greater. Both wonderful hop presence and bitterness, but the character is altogether different when you don’t have Northwest hops. I wonder if it was the Northwest hops you were missing?
And, Mike, obviously there is nothing wrong with disliking Cascade hops, but the taste sure suits a lot of people.
Steve, my theory is not too far from yours. I call it the Starbucks Syndrome. After the war, beer was not, by a long shot, the only consumer product that was industrialised. I think, perhaps starting in the 1970s, people and companies started reacting.
But, I think the current state of American brewing owes a lot to home-brewers, many of whom, very likely, have little business experience. I suspect many of them look to the beer fan sites for guidance. But, from what I understand (I am not a home-brewer), top-fermenting beers are a lot easier to brew than bottom-fermenting. That, I think, also explains a lot.
Whatever the reasons, American beers are the most extreme I have ever tasted as far as bitterness or sweetness.
Sam, I disagree with a number of your points. First of all, I am far from one of the few who doesn’t like the extreme tastes of American beers. The proof of that is that US small-brewers, after decades of trying, were only able to achieve a 5 percent market share after the Brewers Association changed its rules. To put that another way, 95 percent of US beer consumers don’t care for it either.
Secondly, balance is not subjective – taste is. If you like a hoppy beer, that does not necessarily mean that you think it is balanced, it means that the beer is to your taste.
I live in the Netherlands and drink beers from here, Germany and Belgium. My daily beer is Duvel, which I consider very well balanced. I find it sad that you visited Bavaria and were unable to enjoy the local beers because your palette has been skewed toward American hoppy, unbalanced beers.
Mike, your understanding of the industry here seems very uninformed to me. I would suggest checking out the movie Beer Wars (it’s on Hulu now) for some insight. I could go on about the situation, including legislative issues, but it’s not worth it at this point. I will just say that just because 95% of the beer sold is not from small brewers, doesn’t mean that 95% of people don’t care for more flavorful beers. I hope you can see why that it.
I guess we will have to disagree about our understandings of balance. Do you haver a chemical formula that you can give me to prove its objectivity?
Also, I never said that I didn’t enjoy the local beers in Bavaria. I almost universally enjoyed them. Not sure where you got that. My comment was that the Bavarians don’t brew many beers with hop-intensity matching many American beers. I didn find a good fix for that in Augustiner’s Pils though. One of my favorite beers ever was Schlenkerla from the barrel at their pub.
Stan, I had one beer from Mahrs, which was there weisse bock if I remember correctly. We had it during a sensory training session at Doemens. I was never able to find anything else from them, sadly.
“I suspect many of them look to the beer fan sites for guidance.”
Maybe the third or fourth generation home-brewers (and probably the fifth or sixth, thinking on the history a little), but the first and second generation (those that prompted the original micro boom) only had bookstores, libraries, and experience to rely on.
But those home-brewers also hadn’t started making that evolution to the extreme side yet, they just wanted better beer.
I still have a small, soft-bound copy of A Treatise on Lager Beers by Fred Eckhardt — copyright in the early 80s, IIRC.
Hey Stan, did you anticipate this conversation starting when you posted this piece?
Mike, I think we’re at the point of having an aesthetic disagreement (ie, a terminal point), but your point here is misinformed, so I’ll comment on it:
The proof of that is that US small-brewers, after decades of trying, were only able to achieve a 5 percent market share after the Brewers Association changed its rules. To put that another way, 95 percent of US beer consumers don’t care for it either.
American craft brewing is growing at a pretty rapid clip, even through the ravages of a terrible economy. It started out at zero, was still more or less zero until twenty years ago, and is now probably around 10%. National brands are seeing sales plateau or decline. You actually have the Brewer’s Association stats interpreted backwards: they are pretty restrictive and have booted companies that produce craft beer. When you add in imports of foreign-brewed craft beer and so-called “faux craft” like Blue Moon, the number is quite a bit higher.
The US will see breweries increase by more than a third in the next year or two (it takes a while for planned breweries to come online, but the current number is in the 500-600 range). A lot of these will be in places where there isn’t a strong craft presence. There are pockets of the country like Oregon where craft beer is has 10-15% share. (In Portland, it’s about 40%.)
Even more interestingly, the market research group Mintel did a survey last year that found that half of US beer drinkers like to drink craft brews on occasion. I think this is a missed piece–craft beer may only have a 5% share of the market, but that doesn’t mean that only 5% of the beer drinkers drink it.
Okay, back to work for me–
I’m sorry to say that I find (not only here) Americans have become very chauvinistic. When others criticise (again not only here) something, they are told they are wrong or don’t understand.
If you want to think that balance is relative and that the US beer scene is great, go right ahead – it certainly doesn’t bother me. But, my view of the US beer scene is that it is currently a niche market and as long as the small brewers carry on with the gimmick beers beers it will remain a niche market.
I don’t doubt there are some very good American beers now, but, for me at least, the scene is too overcrowded with the gimmick crowd to bother separating the two. European beer is great (not universally, of course), balance is still very popular here and the beers are brewed not for the lunatic fringe but the average drinker.
Like me.
Jeff – No, and I blame Jack Curtin (more in a second). Yesterday Steve commented on the Liberty Ale-SNPA connection, and before I could give it some thought and add that I think you have to consider the birth of Cascade hops (released in 1972) in the equation it had jetted off in another direction.
In comment #1, Jack wrote, “A good Pale Ale is a fundamental beer in any beer drinker’s consumption.”
And Mike replied, in part: “Does this mean I am somehow defective as a beer drinker?”
Geez, Louise.
Mike, respectfully, I think there is a rather obvious difference between blind, chauvinistic nationalism and pride in local products. I don’t see the Americans here bashing continental beers or continental beer culture.
Additionally, just as Americans should “get out more” and experience other beer cultures before commenting on the beer rating sites you aren’t going to understand what is occurring in Portland and Austin and St. Louis without visiting those places.
I feel so ashamed.
Mike — while Stan responded more eloquently (as he always does) you’ll be happy to know I’m quick to defend German beers and point out the misunderstandings of the styles to the “lunatic fringe” in internet discussion.
But I have to say that as much as I enjoy a fresh, balanced, precision Lager, there are times I really crave a good, hoppy Pale Ale and am glad I can run to the local and easily find one.
What you’re seeing as gimmicky (and there definitely is some of that) most of us see as variety.
Stan, I don’t quite understand your “Geez, Louise” comment. As I have written here already, (quoting myself) “this kind of over-generalisation really drives me nuts.” How so over-generalised? “…ANY beer drinker.” Is it clear now?
Secondly, chauvinism: believe me, I have seen far worse than what I see here. I have read several times, for example, that European brewers are now studying American breweries to re-learn how to make European beers. I think that goes far beyond “pride in local products.”
Thirdly, there is a HUGE difference between the way Americans and Europeans see many things, including beer. Here’s a non-beer example: I read a travel forum which is primarily American, but includes several American ex-pats in other countries, quite a few Brits and a handful of local people who write good English. When Americans post about coming to Europe for holidays, the discussion is usually about driving. Sure, Europeans drive too, but mostly travel by train. I went to Paris yesterday and there was hardly a spare seat in the train.
In most beer-drinking countries in Europe, beer is seen (by the vast majority of people) as a beverage. In the US, my impression is that beer is seen similarly to the way stamp collectors see stamps.
Here’s a brief account by an American who imports beers from Europe and probably spends a fair amount of time here and repeats some of the points I’ve made here: http://is.gd/8pnmhH
To quote just one line from that article: “…unlike ‘extreme’ beers, which often short-circuit the palate with alcohol and sweetness.” Isn’t that almost exactly what I wrote about Sam Tierney and his inability to enjoy German beer?
To Jeff: why you cannot understand my points is completely beyond me. You seem to be the only one. And some advice for you: if you’d like to learn more about European beers and consumption, learn to speak the language of those countries because national sources are almost always more reliable than foreign sources.
And finally, to Steve: I really think you should give beer and discussion lessons to some of the others here because you know more, understand better and behave in a much more reasonable manner than most here. If you ever find yourself in Amsterdam, I’d be quite pleased to buy you a beer (Stan has my email address and I’m quite serious).
As Stan and others have written: it’s only beer. Lighten up.
“…because you know more, understand better and behave in a much more reasonable manner than most here.”
Oh, I think there are others who might vehemently disagree with that! 😉
If they disagree, then they have proven what I wrote about you!
Mike, I have no idea where you got the impression that high-alcohol, sweet beers have given me an inability to enjoy German beers. I typically prefer dry, modest alcohol beers. The only taste parameter that I mentioned was hops.
I loved my recent time in Germany (almost 5 weeks last fall) and have nothing but respect for German brewers. I’m just highlighting regional differences in our brewing practices. One beer that sticks out in my mind as far more bitter than many normal American beers was Uerige’s Altbier. Love the brewery, and love the beer as well.
Again, the majority of beer brewed by smaller brewers here is normal stuff that would not seem very out of place in Europe. Many American pale ales wouldn’t be a shock in a pub in England (well, one with a good beer selection) and mild wheat beers and blond ales and lagers are some of the other prominent styles.
My brewery’s flagship beer is a 5% pale ale that is brewed loosely in the English style. We use Maris Otter pale ale malt and caramel malts from Crisp in England, East Kent Goldings hops and our house yeast is originally from England. These kinds of beers (modest, balanced) are still the most common. We outsell ABInbev and MillerCoors on draft in our county so more that 5% of the people here must think it’s OK. We are on track to grow over 40% this year. I think American beer is far from a gimmick.
And back to the original point, we also brew an American-style pale ale that uses cascade hops among others, so Sierra Nevada has been big Influence.
Steve, I think the Anchor influence is often overlooked. Liberty Ale is all cascade hops and pale malt. Pretty much SNPA minus the c-60 malt and obviously their differing yeast strains. I also think they dry hop it, which Sierra doesn’t do. Liberty ale was commercially released in 1975 (so 5 yeast before SNPA?) but I’ve heard that Ken Grossman was brewing his pale ale at home by that point. So two guys making use of a new hop variety to brew a new take on the English ales that they loved but couldn’t get at home? Sounds good to me, whatever the actual details are. American beer was immensely changed in any respect.
Sam, I only know what you have written. Wasn’t this written by you?: “I drank a fair amount of Bavarian/Franconian beers when I was in the area for brewing school last fall. There were ups and downs, but despite finding some beers that I really liked, there was nothing to satisfy my love of hops. Most beers seemed to be out of balance toward the malt side. But that’s just because my palate is a product of what I normally drink.”
While I’ve tasted several American beers (such as the Southampton I’ve already mentioned) that are sweetened to high holy hell, I would submit that the palate skewing is also hop related, and, in your case, by your own admission, that is the case.
Like many people who burrow deeply into a subject, it seems to me you can’t see the forest for the trees. Such as your belief that balance is subjective. Or that there is nothing wrong with extremely unbalanced beers.
That I don’t know American beers as well as you or Stan or any of the other posters here is, OTOH, a given, but, OTOH, it’s not as if I’ve never tried American beers or that I know nothing about American beer or culture.
But, by the same token, too many American beer bloggers, brewers, etc. think they know European beer because they’ve read the BJCP style guide or one of the novels published by the Brewers Association (Horst Dornbusch, take a bow) or some other English (preferably, American) source.
That Southampton beer I mentioned is described by the brewer or the PR guy as a reproduction of a Belgian beer that exists only in his imagination (I have a set of books that I consider the definitive history of Belgian beer – but it’s not available in English). Want to read a good history of German beer? Try this: http://www.kruenitz1.uni-trier.de/
And without being able to read Dutch or German, how many articles about beers from those countries are written for on-line magazines or in blogs or in publicity material for breweries? Quite a lot from what I have seen.
Well, I’m off to Bavaria in a couple of weeks and, thankfully, my palate can still taste the full range. I’m looking forward to it and know I’ll be tasting some amazing beers.
Mike – First, I might have missed it but which specific Southampton beer are you referring to?
I’d like things to be civil here, so I apologize if this doesn’t seem civil but I think your response to Sam was rude. Read what he wrote. He’d love to go drinking beer with you in Bavaria, although it probably would be better if you didn’t discuss Cascades. Why isn’t OK for him to appreciate the quality of German beers and still like American hops as well?
I love the beers of Franconia, but it it worth remembering that Oettinger and Krombacher are the leading selling beers in Germany. And the brewers at Spaten don’t hide the fact that they’ve lowered the IBUs in their helles by 20% because “People come to Munich expecting a smoother beer.” (Straight from the brewer’s mouth.)
Stan, that post is further up. This is what I wrote: “Likewise, I bought a bottle of Southampton Abbot 12 with high expectations. I also found it awful, but in the other direction: a sweet bomb.”
Puzzled that you find my remarks rude, I fail to see how.
What Sam wrote, specifically is: “There were ups and downs, but despite finding some beers that I really liked, there was nothing to satisfy my love of hops.”
So, on the positive side: “really liked” (not exactly high praise, is it?). And negative: “nothing to satisfy” (pretty final).
Considering that statement, I am at a loss why you think “he’d love …drinking beer.. in Bavaria”. Your statement “I love the beers of Franconia…”, OTOH, would seem to support that thought.
Perhaps an analogy would help: consider film. Hollywood, within the last 30-40 years, has been taken over by multi-national corporations. Originally, of course, the film industry was run by “craft” producers, now it is run on an industrial scale. (I’m not drawing an analogy between industrial film production and industrial beer production.)
Obviously influenced by MTV, Hollywood films now generally move at a very brisk pace. Perhaps that’s more obvious in action films, but comedies and other dramas don’t dawdle.
When independently American produced or non-American produced films come to the US cinemas, many of them unfold at a much slower pace. In fact, I’ve seen some comments on the film equivalent of Ratebeer where people say that a film is too slow or boring.
What we have in both beer and film is a sort of division between producers. Likewise, people (consumers) select a producer (or a sort of product) they enjoy or their friends tell them they should enjoy (social networking at work).
Once a consumer has selected the sort of product they want, they grow more comfortable with it (an acquired taste, I believe it’s called). The product they have rejected, however, becomes less familiar and less comfortable, especially if it is radically different from the product they have chosen.
Here is a fairly typical film example of this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0962774/board/nest/175708201
In beer, if you acquire a taste for extremely unbalanced beers, it is hardly surprising that you then find balanced beers to be lacking something. Obviously, as Steve and Stan have written, it is possible to enjoy both. However, by the same token, what Sam has written shows that he is not one of those people who can do that.
How many Sams are there? I would guess quite a few.
“Spaten don’t hide the fact that they’ve lowered the IBUs in their helles by 20% “
Ugh. And here, I thought the whole label was starting to get thinner. I can still taste the hops, but I don’t really expect a ton of them in the Helles. OTOH, I’m becoming more and more disappointed at the overall blandness of the beers from the bigger Munich brewers; Paulaner Helles tastes like it’s using hop extract, Hacker Pschorr “Gold” was lackluster all around, HB is good when fresh — guess I ought to pop for the (outrageous) price of an Augustiner 6 pack to try it again, but I’d sooner pay the same price for a Metropolitan Bright Lager.
To the point of discussion on “extremes,” I’m not looking for a big slam of malt in a good Helles, just something to taste! And yes, Mike, I’m sure the Munich beers suffer from exportation (pasteurization, overall freshness), but until I get back to Southern Germany, I’ll not be terribly happy with the Munich beers.
Steve – You only need to get as far south as St. Louis. Try Zwickel from Urban Chestnut. It’s unfiltered, hopped at the current rates (19 IBU vs. 25). The balance is toward malt flavors, but the hops are really nice.
“Try Zwickel from Urban Chestnut.”
We may have to instigate a trade Stan. The Metropolitan beers from the new Chicago brewery are nothing short of terrific. They’ve proven to me that freshness is the key.
As to Zwickel, a couple years back I stopped in at the HB sanctioned pub in Wrigleyville, Uberstein, and they had their Helles on special as an unfiltered offering — man, oh man — so good. I’m not sure how the sanctioned pubs work, but after tasting their beers (all vom Faß) I can’t imagine they’re not getting them shipped direct from Bavaria.
The only trouble is I live too far from Wrigleyville.
I guess I will clarify one more time because I feel what I have written simply did not come off as I intended (though I consider “really liked” to be a positive qualification”).
From a brewer’s standpoint, the quality of the beer in Bavaria is very high. The braumeister system or whatever it is specifically called almost guarantees this. I enjoyed many an Augustiner weisse, diunkel and helles while in Munich. I can’t say I hold the other big brewers there in quite as high of regard, but they still make quality beer. I did have a few bottled Farnconian landbiers that were a little funky (sometimes infected, sometimes just odd flavors) but that was the minority by a long shot. Overall, I would be very happy to go gack and spend more time drinking beers from the smaller brewers in their home towns. Bamberg especially.
Balance is a complex and I maintain subjective quality in beer. Everyone has a different palate. Some people can smell things that other’s can’t. We can agree on what we think balance IS, which I think is a harmonious composition of flavors and aromas, but the specifics are never going to be identical for each individual. To use an example from the wine world, Robert Parker has been criticized for failing to recognize many American wines as sweet because his palate naturally finds them dryer than most Europeans. Mike, I think this is what you are talking about in some respect.
I find Paulaner Helles to be a bland beer that is lacking hop balance. I find Augustiner Helles to have the perfect hop balance. But then again, Augustiner helles is more of a highly-fermented pils with milder hops than a more traditional, maltier helles. I’m sure some might find Augustiner a little too hoppy and out out of balance for a helles. That’s perfectly fine and what I am trying to get at here. I’m not saying that Southampton Abbot 12 is balanced. I find many American high-alcohol and “Belgian-style” beers to be over-sweet and out of balance. I think Stan knows a thing or two about that subject.
Duvel is also one of my favorite beers. I have a feeling that Mike and I would have a great time drinking and discussing beer at De Wildeman or Arendsnest. I had a great time drinking beer during my last visit to Amsterdam and would love to return some day.