musing

If you thought Jeff Alworth was unimpressed with the Oxford Companion to Beer yesterday then read what Martyn Cornell has written today.

No summarizing from me. You must go read it. (Then go buy Amber, Gold & Black: The History of Britain’s Great Beers. Support proper research. Beer: The Story of the Pint also belongs in your library, but it’s out of print, so buy something he earns royalty for.)

But I do have to mention the sentence in his post where I stopped, shook my head, laughed, rolled back my chair and slapped my knee. Honest.

Even Wikipedia is getting that right now.

Words you don’t want on your tombstone.

Things I learned reading Advertising Age coverage of the National Beer Wholesalers Association meeting in Las Vegas:

* Beer Industry Looks to Rebuild ‘Brand Beer’

I would not apply for that job.

* The “Here’s to Beer” website still works, although the copyright is 2009 and the third of three Twitter posts is date 02.25.2009 (or 25.02.2009 if you wish).

I looked because National Beer Wholesalers Association president Craig Pursor says “there’s got to be some refocus and some collaboration.” Collaboration by exactly what brewing entities isn’t clear.

* “The brands that are growing are the brands the rich people drink,” said Harry Schuhmacher, editor of Beer Business Daily.

Thank goodness you don’t actually have to be rich to drink them.

I will leave it to you to consider the beer connections.

Last week, The NY Times’ outgoing restaurant critic, Sam Sifton, asked this Question for Curious Readers: What role, if any, does “authenticity” play in our understanding of good restaurants?

Interesting comments, one of which led to a post in David Byrne’s Journal (yes, that David Byrne) which poses many questions: “When does a little bit of illusion connote authenticity to us by enhancing our enjoyment and our experience (illusory as it might be)? When does it either not ring true at all or go so far and become so perfectly accurate, as to enter the creepiness of the uncanny valley?”

(Couldn’t resist injecting one comment. We’ve all been in that faux Irish pub, right?)

Today, Jonah Lehrer writes in The Frontal Cortex about the “drive for distinctiveness” that appears to be an essential component of Westerners. You know, standing in line with everybody else, so you can be the only one you know to have tasted [fill in the beer name]. He examines the findings of two social scientists presented in “Food, sex and the hunger for distinction,” a paper I’ll try to work into “For the Love of Hops” because, well, wouldn’t you buy a book with that in the bibiography?

Anyway, he concludes, “. . . this won’t be news to retailers. They’ve long catered to our desire for uniqueness, selling us mass-produced commodities that promise to express our real, authentic selves.”

Right or wrong, black or white
Cross the line you’re gonna pay
In the dawn before the light
Live and die by the shades of gray

– Robert Earl Keen

Do you care about beer writing ethics? Do think those the last three words even belong together in a sentence? Or do you figure we’re all here for the free beer and any free beer is a good beer?

Pete Brown writes today about “Blogging, ethics and payola – what is OK?”

A timely coincidence for some of us, because there is a move afoot to revive the North American Guild of Beer Writers. You can get a glimpse of this by following @nagbw on Twitter. And a glimpse is likely all you’d want. Lots of emails flying about, inside baseball beer communications¹ chatter, including about ethics.

For a taste, look at the longest lasting discussion to ever break out here. It started with a Kenneth Tynan quote — “A critic’s job, nine-tenths of it, is to make way for the good by demolishing the bad.” It turned into a conversation about much more, again including ethics. I found it interesting (and participated) and since I’m paying for the rent here I guess that justifies it.

For me it’s a matter of trust. Ethics matter for the same reason getting the facts right matters.

But do those who don’t write about beer in print or cyberspace care?

¹“Communications” because typing bloggers/writers or writers/bloggers and discussing where they overlap leads to whole ‘nother conversation.

The goal is to identify the outlier and explain why it doesn’t belong on the list. There may be more than one answer, although I happen to have a specific one in mind.

a) Mission Street Pale Ale
b) Perennial Artisan Ales Hommel
d) Revolution Ales Anti-Hero IPA
d) Three Floyds Alpha King
e) LaCumbre Brewing Elevated IPA

In case you’ve forgotten: Round one ~ Round two ~ Round three ~ Round four.