beers of conviction

World class, old & new classics, fini

Sometimes it’s not always that easy to walk back into a conversation 10 days later, so let’s clean up a few loose ends from the posts about “world class” and “world classics” and move on to whatever this blog is supposed to be about.

  • The term “world class” is useful mostly to marketers. There is no standard. And even if you and I were to agree that Ayinger, for example, makes world class beer that doesn’t matter if you prefer to drink only top-fermented beers with a good dose of hops.
  • Michael Jackson carefully defined what he meant by “world classic” in his 1982 Pocket Guide to Beer and over six more editions and 18 years that list evolved in a, well, classic manner. He set the bar high, allowing but 32 beers classic status in 2000.
  • Jackson last put numbers on beers for his 2000 Pocket Guide, but in the spring of 2007 wrote in general about “tomorrow’s classics” for the introduction to Beer (Eyewitness Companions). He died between the time he wrote that and the book was published, so there was no opportunity for him to elaborate or provide specific examples.

    • While it is fun, even valid, to guess what beers Jackson might have anointed given time (and we’ll get to that in a moment) I think the seven lists available will remain worth consulting for quite a while.

    Consider the case of Augustiner Hell. He did not write about the beer in the 1982 guide, but in 1986 assigned it 4 stars (the top rating, marking it as a classic) and continued to do so until 2000. Then he wrote it “seems to have become markedly thinner in recent years, but still has a soft, sweet, clean maltiness” and he gave it 2 to 3 stars. Gulp.

    With that in mind, consider Jeff Alworth’s discourse about the importance time plays in earning “classic” status. He asks a fair question.

    Yet I wonder, is it possible for the gears of history to turn enough–however slowly–so that an immigrant brewery, the descendant of a venerable classic, may one day supplant the old country’s hold on the style? Is it possible for a New Jersey pilsner to take the mantle from Pilsner Urquell? (We know how that old-world standard has declined.) This is not a question for judges, of course. These designations are much more anthropological. We commend classic status by slow cultural agreement.

    A New Jersey pilsner? How about for a Czech pilsner other than PU? Those who drink the beers regularly will argue that Kout na Šumave 12 has surpassed Pilsner Urquell. Although I particularly enjoyed the ulfiltered version of PU served at the brewery museum in Pilsen, Kout na Šumave 12 was better in Prague and better still in the Czech countryside. Likewise, when we were in Germany a year ago I drank both Jever (Jackson’s 4-star German pilsner) and Schonrämer Pils on enough separate occasions to be certain I prefer the latter.

    That was true even before Schonrämer Pils won gold in the European Beer Star Awards. In fact, you know what? I don’t give a diddly about that award. Drinking Kout na Šumave and Schonrämer Pils I wasn’t thinking “How does this compare to ****?” or “Is this the best whatever in the world?” I was thinking, “This is a friggin’ great beer.”

    So I see the sense in Ron Pattinson’s post that how you characterize a brewery isn’t nearly as important as the beer in your glass. But there’s also value in establishing a standard and holding the standard bearer accountable. “Four stars? Sorry, two-and-a-half stars in this guide.” That’s why we end up with a discussion about whether Pilsner Urquell is the same beer today as it was when it was lagered for three months in open, wooden fermenters. Per Ron’s comment (below) that should have read fermented in open wooden vats, then lagered for three months in closed wooden barrels.

    Now to the matter of which of today’s beers that might be tomorrow’s classics. Feel free to talk among yourselves. I can offer a few hints because I contributed to Beer (Eyewitness Companions). As “editor in chief” Michael did not micro-manage the content. He provided me with pretty simple marching orders for the U.S. section: write about the “revolution” (his word) and mention both new beers such as Goose Island’s Matilda, Lost Abbey Cuvee de Tomme and Russian River Pliny the Elder as well pioneering beers like Anchor Liberty Ale and Sierra Nevada Bigfoot.

    He already rated the last two as classics.

    Draw your own conclusions.

     

    The Session #35: A favorite moment

    The SessionThis is my contribution to The Session, hosted this month by the Beer Chicks. They gave us many options, since “New Beer’s Resolutions” includes an invitation to “share with us your greats and mistakes of 2009.” I’m keeping my mistakes to myself. I fear enough will be apparent when Brewing with Wheat hits store shelves in February.

    Every year my favorite moments — beer and otherwise — revolve around sharing. Jon Abernathy hauling out a bottle of the first vintage of The Abyss. Knocking back ounces of Southampton Cuvee Des Fleurs with Sean Paxton at the Great American Beer Festival. Maureen Arthur weaving a tale of courtship, New Glarus Belgian Red in hand . . .

    And then there are similar experiences in breweries. I wouldn’t be able to write books such as Brew Like a Monk or Brewing with Wheat were it not for the generosity of brewers. And because they share information with each other the overall quality of what’s in your glass continues to improve.

    So here’s a moment from March 31, as recounted in Brewing with Wheat:

    “Steven Pauwels grabbed the computer mouse and, click, opened a folder showing the recipes for Boulevard Brewing. He clicked again and the spreadsheet on the large computer screen in front of us revealed the recipe for Unfiltered Wheat Beer in detail, as well as the process. Click again, and the screen displayed a brew house schematic for a batch of Single Wide IPA in progress. Next, he opened a spreadsheet with a recipe for ZÔN, Boulevard’s seasonal wit. ‘Copy whatever you want,’ he said.

    “The conversation turned to mashing schedules and a presentation Hans-Peter Drexler had made at the 2008 Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego, revealing ‘the secrets’ about how Private Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn makes its iconic Schneider Weisse Original. ‘Hans-Peter is so open, he could be American,’ Pauwels said.

    “Here was a Belgian who moved to Kansas City in 1999, talking about a German and himself and sharing every detail of how Boulevard brews its beers. Pardon me for smiling.”

     

    Tomorrow’s classic beers

    In the course of six revisions after his first Pocket Guide to Beer Michael Jackson elevated (and sometimes later demoted) only 20 beers to “world classic” status. He didn’t use the term casually.

    As Alan fairly points out this was the opinion of but one man. One more qualified to comment than any, but just a important one who gave us an “exploration to follow.”

    That’s why I keep pointing to what he wrote in the introduction to Beer (Eyewitness Companions). (He wrote the introduction a few months before he died in 2007; the book came out a few months after his death.)

    First:

    “Today, neither European brewers nor most drinkers on either side of the Atlantic have yet grasped that tomorrow’s most exciting styles of beers will be American in conception.”

    Then:

    “The nation that makes the world’s lightest-tasting beers also produces the most assertive beers. Tomorrow’s classics will evolve from a new breed of American brewers that are categorized by their admirers as ‘Extreme Beers.’ These are the most intense-tasting beers every produced anywhere in the world. They include classic European-style stouts that are richer, toastier, and roastier than anything yet produced in Ireland; ales massively more bitterly appetizing than any in Britain; ‘wild’ beers more sharply, quenchingly sour than their Belgian counterparts; wheat beers so spicily phenolic as to make a Bavarian choke on his mid-morning weisswurst; and pilsners so aromatic as to tempt the Good Soldier Schweik — the eponymous hero of Jaroslave Hasek’s comic novel.

    “Sometimes the new US beers combine elements from more than one style, but with a view to achieving greater distinctiveness rather than to merge into blandness. The best example I ever experienced was the Smoked Porter of the Alaskan Brewing Company.”

    Quite obviously he was not done exploring beer or celebrating the new. He didn’t find appreciating both “extreme” and “traditional” beers a contradiction.

    You know, I think I’ll leave it at that rather than starting a conversation about what individual beers he would have given four stars.

     

    A short history of Jackson’s ‘world classics’

    Before we discuss Michael Jackson’s predictions about American beers and “tomorrow’s classics” how about a recap of how he rated “world classics” for 18 years? Andy’s pondering sent me flipping through seven editions of Jackson’s Pocket Guide to Beer.

    After considering the concept of “classics” maybe we need to return to the topic of “world class” and if the phrase is anything more than a marketing term. And maybe that discussion will have already gone where it’s going to go.

    In Jackson’s first pocket guide (1982) he awarded 42 beers 5 stars, writing “. . . no one can deny that a Premier Cru Bourdeaux is likely to have more complexity and distinction than a jug wine (Or, in the British phrase, “plonk”). A beer rated ***** is a world classic either because it has outstanding complexity and distinction or because it is the definitve example of the style, and no matter whether everyone is capable of appreciating it; some people probably don’t like first-growth Bordeaux, either.”

    In fact, he also gave 5 stars to all the beers from 12 traditional Lambic brewers in the Senne Valley because they were so unique. For purposes of this “study” I added a 43rd top-rated beer to that first list, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus — because it was the lone lambic to receive the highest rating in the second edition of the guide.

    He changed the rating system in 1986 for that second edition, assigning 4 stars at the most, still labeling such a beer “world classic.” In 1982 he awarded half stars — for instance, Worthington White Shield received ****½ — while in following years a beer might have been rated ***»****.

    You with me? From this point on we’ll refer to 4-star beers (giving 1982’s 5-star beers **** and everything else less). Although Jackson assigned six additional beers 4 stars in 1986 the list shrank to 32. In 1991 it included 33 beers, in 1994 35 beers, in 1996 35 beers, in 1997 35 beers and in 2000 only 32 beers.

    The guide wasn’t “all new” with each edition; Jackson’s goal was to change it about 25 percent each time, but even when what he wrote about a beer remained much the same the rating might change. The content also tended to reflect his travels, so that in 2000 he added considerably to the section on China and made many revisions within the pages about Germany.

    At the top end, he lowered the ratings for seven 4-star beers in 2000, meanwhile promoting Cantillon’s Bruocsella Grand Cru, Boon Mariage Parfait, Köstritzer Schwarzbier and Greene King Strong Suffolk.

    In the course of seven guides, 19 beers earned a top rating every time:

    Pilsner Urquell
    Jever Pilsner
    Zum Uerige Altbier
    Paulaner Salvator
    Schlenkerla Märzen
    Duvel
    Rodenbach Grand Cru
    Westmalle Tripel
    Chimay Blue
    Orval
    Brakspear Bitter
    Courage Imperial Russian Stout
    Fuller’s ESB
    Marston’s Pedigree
    Thomas Hardy’s Ale
    Traquair House
    Guinness Extra Stout
    Anchor Steam
    Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus

    The 2000 list included six American beers: Anchor Steam, Anchor Liberty Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, Alaskan Smoked Porter and Celis White (on its last legs in Texas).

    As you can see Jackson reserved the term “world classic” for a few special beers, and ones that proved themselves over time. This was a much narrower list than in the The Great Beer Guide, published in 2000 and listing “500 Classic Brews.”

    A bit of semantics? Certainly. But worth remembering when, next, you consider the bold prediction he made in Beer: Eyewitness Companions, published after he died in 2007 and written not long before.

     

    What makes a brewery world class?

    This email arrived about the time the European Beer Star award winners were announced and various discussions about innovation broke out.

    At what point does a brewery become World Class? If you win a gold medal at the GABF does that make you a World Class Brewery? World Class Brewer (the dude or dudette)? Or brewer of “a” World Class Beer?

    My response was, well, flip.

    Can a brewpub be world class? Can beer brewed in Eden, NC, be world class? Is Orval (with just one beer) world class? Can you be world class if you brew for the working class? Is it like Michelen stars – lose a star and fall out of world class? Are there a set number of world class breweries? So if Caldera (note: Caldera had just cleaned up in the Beer Star awards) gets promoted somebody else gets demoted?

    Andy’s comment about Michael Jackson’s 1982 list of 5-star beers — “Given the evolution in beer and beer styles, as well as the explosion in American Craft Brewing creativity, I wonder how his list would be different if he were around to do it again.” — got me thinking about it again.

    So far I’ve managed to think of even more questions, but not to many answers.

    I welcome your suggestions.