Stan Hieronymus

So much for my plan to get through the week without writing about The Oxford Companion to Beer so that I, you know, have time to read more of it for pleasure.

Clay Risen, who blogs at The Atlantic online and presumably immediately reaches a larger audience than all us beer-specific online trolls put together, has written in defense of the book. And he hauled out the big paint brush, the one you use for broad strokes.

• He writes: “Nevertheless, online critics have made an intramural sport of identifying the book’s omissions.” And: “It’s a shame that would-be critics have spent their entire time fact-checking the precise rules of the Royal Court’s brewing guidelines under Henry VIII (subject of one catch), because they’ve overlooked the achievement of the book as a whole — though, given their vehemence, it’s a good bet they weren’t going to give it a chance in any case.”

Because Martyn Cornell and Ron Pattinson both contributed to the book, it hardly seems they weren’t inclined to give it a chance. Both have written in comments several places that they’d rather not be in the position to make corrections.

• He writes: “But what I find striking is how relatively few errors have been identified in the weeks since the book has been out. The Wiki has only about 40 entries, and most of them deal with matters of interpretation. In a book that may have upwards of 100,000 factual statements in it, the presence of a few dozen errors, while regrettable, is pretty impressive.”

Not sure where that 100,000 number comes from, but if 40 errors have been spotted in 1,100 entries that already amounts to something amiss (admittedly sometimes very small) in more than 1% of the articles. More important, the measured (and very long, so set aside some time) review at I might have a glass of beer makes it clear why every single mistake makes a difference: “One can only guess how reliable the rest of the information is.” You would think, as a journalist, that Risen would appreciate this.

• He writes: “As a dedicated drinker all but ignorant of the chemistry behind brewing, I feel I’ve already learned a lot — and I’ve only read through the five entries that start with ‘acid-.'”

Hold it. He’s only on the a’s?

Back when you could crack wise when discussing The Oxford Companion to Beer I casually mentioned that it would be nice to find the tasting notes written more than 400 years ago by Heinrich Knaust.

His book — Fünff Bucher, von der Göttlichen und Edleen Gabe, der Philosphischen, hochtewren and wunderbaren Kunt Bier zu brawen, first published in 1573 — brought together much of what was understood about brewing at the time. According to Richard Unger in Beer in the Middle Ages he described about 150 beers from Germany in detail. I’ve only seen this one:

“The noble Hamburg beer is the queen of all other wheat, or white, beers, just as the Dantzic beer has the precedence and is queen of all the other barley, or red beers.”

I continue to hope that his work will show up in Google books, so occasionally do a new search. Which is why today I found this in Language and its Functions by Pieter Adrianus Verbung:

“He studied at Wittenbergunder Melanchton and Luther; at an early age he become headmaster of the Gymnasium of Cöllin (Berlin), turned later to jurisprudence, was the author of many words on theology, more philosophy and law, all of them with a polarizing tendency. he wrote lyric and dramatic poetry, inter alid so called ‘school drams,’ often with biblical content, in German and Latin. It was fatal for his reputation as a humanist that the only work of his to achieve fame was his so called beer book.” (Italics added for emphasis.)

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be beer writers.

Amazon tells me I should be reading You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself, a title so long you can’t tweet it. It’s not published yet, but I put my request in at our local library and I’m already fifth in line.

I’m interested in the Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and it might even turn out to be related to beer.

As long as I’ve veered off topic, a few links:

* Tim Tebow, Converter of the Passes, at GRANTLAND.

This fine paragraph comes with an equally fine footnote (that’s second):

“In doing so, he has managed to take on outsize significance in the league despite largely failing to excel on the field and despite the fact that the NFL already reads culturally like the result of a right-wing blogger shotgunning a wine cooler and deciding to ‘make things fabulous.'”

The F-15 flyovers, the martial fanfares, the crisp green lawns, the body armor, the commercials in which giant whooshing branding irons burn the low APR of a Chevy Silverado directly onto the screen, etc. It’s as if the guy who invented Branson, Mo., looked at his work and said, “Screw this, I can do better.”

* Robert Parker Predicts the Future (of Wine), in Food & Wine. I like the last one: “Diversity will be the word.” OK, now I’m thinking about beer. I’m in favor of a beer world where the local choices include Strawberry Rhubarb Tart (related to a witbier and including the flavors in the name) and Zwickel (an unfiltered, traditional lager in the spirit of a helles). It is possible to appreciate the new without discarding the old.

* My favorite not snarky and not beer tweet of the day: “Beware: Journalists mixing with numbers! Know the differences between a margin and a ratio http://bit.ly/ua6W55.”

* Bonus beer link: Beers Made By Walking Hike #7 at North Cheyenne Canyon. This is such a great idea.

* My favorite snarky and beer tweet (I hope I don’t regret adding this – so please remember New Beer Rule #5) of the day, from @robsterowski: “@D_I_N_G At this stage it wouldn’t surprise me if the entry on Brooklyn Brewery had mistakes in it.”