Month: October 2014

Does Q trump L? And other C beer questions

Local beer drinkers

In alphabetical order.

The C word would be craft.

The L word would be local.

The Q word would be quality.

Can the three co-exist? Certainly. Must they? This is the part where my head starts to hurt.

Exhibit A: “Will a bunch of terrible craft beer ruin the booming craft beer industry?” It would have been a little easier to follow if the writer had made a clearer distinction between quality and quality control, but hang in there.

Exhibit B: “The future of the craft beer industry and its ability to provide quality and variety could hinge on this.” In which guest columnist Greg Engert writes, “New influences are afoot, and perhaps none is more pervasive or more limiting than the drink-local movement.” (My emphasis.)

Engert adds this:

Now, the desire to drink local brews has reached a fever pitch, often blinding publicans and craft beer drinkers alike from what should ultimately guide our choices: Is the beer of the highest quality? Is it bereft of off-flavors? Is it delicious? In short, is it superlative and memorable?

Wait, so now quality isn’t enough? It must be of the highest quality? And aren’t there times when a beer that does not demand to be memorable, and duly entered in Untappd, better aids and abets memorable conversations or experiences?

I appreciate the importance of quality (and quality control). In the All About Beer’s “People Issue” on newsstands right now my contributions are profiles of Gary Spedding (Brewing and Distilling Analytic Services) and Alastair Pringle (who consults with food companies and breweries on all things quality). Conversations with those guys are a reminder you need to know what you are doing, but Q and QC are perfectly doable.

Which brings me to the part I really care about. Local beer makes life better. It made our 14-month road trip in 2008 and 2009 better, when it was local and we weren’t. Roger Baylor argues the matter more eloquently than I do, so I suggest reading, “The PC: Anti-local craft beer unconsciousness, revisited.” He makes it clear “buying local is important both in non-beer terms, and in the specific way it impacts the craft beer ethos.”

I was going to quote him further … but you really need to read the whole thing. (I’d call it a “must read” but I don’t want any more shit from @thebeernut.)

Can you explain multivariete beer to me?

Because I was immersed in the insular world that surrounds the Great American Beer Festival I did not participate in The Session #92: “I Made This.” But I thought about the topic several times, like when Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — addressing brewers before awards were handed out Saturday — said that he had begun homebrewing in 1971. The GABF has become crazy big. It will be even bigger next year, as in 90,000 square feet bigger (how many more breweries might be pouring beer hasn’t been determined). It’s easy to get lost in the forest of beers, but in the midst of this madding crowd there were still plenty of people who spoke with pride about what they’d made. That’s why I keep going back. Anyway, if you are looking for beery links, start at Pintwell.

Young Drinkers Have Abandoned Big Beer – Can It Be Saved? A report from the National Beer Wholesalers Association annual convention in New Orleans, which plenty of brewery representatives at the GABF attended just before heading to Denver. I’m skeptical about this “product life cycle theory” (or maybe it is an example of what happens when a brewery starts making products instead of beers). And isn’t it time to quit saying “not your father’s beer”? Mothers drink too.
[Via Advertising Age]

Multivariate Beer. Using beer to understand data. It’s a little complicated, but in the resulting recipes “More hop aroma represents higher employment.”
[Via FlowingData]

German Pilsner. Ron Pattinson digs into the history books to examine how/when “pilsner” came to describe something other than a Bohemian-Austrian beer.
[Via Shut Up About Barclay Perkins]

Beer and environmental policy entwined. A report from a second-year student of the Bard Center for Environmental Policy interning with Sun King Brewing in Indianapolis.
[Via Poughkeepsie Journal]

Want to Find Out Where Your Fruit Was Grown? Good Luck. It isn’t news that “Big Ag” considers the path from field to supermarket a trade secret. You better believe that the largest breweries in the world know all the origins of their raw ingredients. That’s been less true of smaller breweries. But little things can be important – like how many times and with what insecticides a particular hop field was sprayed.
[Via Mother Jones]

North American Guild of Beer Writers online magazine winners.

The NAGBW writing contest winners were announced at a small gathering Friday in Denver. A complete list should be posted soon at the guild website. Meanwhile, here are links to the online magazine winning stories because — I guess this should be obvious — they are online.

1. The Death of Hunahpu’s Day, by Gerard Walen (All About Beer Magazine)
2. Headbangers Brew: A History of Heavy Metal and Craft Beer Collaborations, by Austin L. Ray (First We Feast)
3. A Brief History of Sour Beer, by Christian DeBenedetti (New Yorker)