musing

Mindless drinking: The label can fool you

Your beer choiceThe authors of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think also have a little bit to say about mindless drinking – in this case wine. And it seems like the results of one study could be relevant to beer.

The recent story:

Forty-one diners at the Spice Box restaurant in Urbana, Illinois were given a free glass of Cabernet Sauvignon to accompany a $24 prix-fixe French meal. Half the bottles claimed to be from Noah’s Winery in California. The labels on the other half claimed to be from Noah’s Winery in North Dakota. In both cases, the wine was an inexpensive Charles Shaw wine.

Those drinking what they thought was California wine, rated the wine and food as tasting better, and ate 11% more of their food. They were also more likely to make return reservations.

It comes down to expectations. If you think a wine will taste good, it will taste better than if you think it will taste bad. People didn’t believe North Dakota wine would taste good, so it had a double curse – it hurt both the wine and the entire meal. “Wine labels can throw both a halo or a shadow over the entire dining experience,” according to Cornell Professor Brian Wansink (Ph.D.)

Wansink is Director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, where they do all sorts of these fun studies, including one that shows which glass shapes make us drink too much.

Think this couldn’t happen with beer?

In 1968 J. Douglas McConnell had consumers evaluate the quality of three bottles of beer over two months. Each bottle contained the same brand but drinkers were told there were three different ones priced at 99 cents, $1.20 and $1.30 per six-pack (the good old days). After repeated taste tests, consumers evaluated the highest-price brand to be of highest quality by a wide margin.

In a similar study one brand of beer was falsely labeled as four different brands, but the researches found that “all the subjects believed that the brands were different and that they could tell the difference between them.” Additionally most of the 250 participants “felt that at least one of the four brands was not fit for human consumption.”

[Both studies are cited in The U.S. Brewing Industry: Data and Economic Analysis , which is about as light-hearted a read as the title would imply.]

That research is from the 1960s and ’70s reflect the beer monoculture that prevailed when you could pick up a case of Stroh returnables for $1.99. These days we’ve got a tad more choices, but I’d still suggest you give it a little thought before grabbing your next six-pack or 750ml bottle.

More on the power of the label.

Don’t drink the Mild Kool-Aid

Brace yourself now that Hobsons Mild, at 3.2% a session beer if there ever was one, has won Champion Beer of Britain.

We’ll be reading about how great Milds are. Same with session beers. And so on.

Take it all with a grain of salt. This is not a Turning Point. It will not change what we drink in America one bit.

The American beer revolution has been powered by what Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey Brewing fondly calls flavor-driven beers. They don’t have to be 12% abv, but generally they are stronger than 3.2%.

Consider these top sellers: Samuel Adams Boston Lager (4.9% abv), Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (5.6%), Blue Moon Belgian White (5.4%), and New Belgium Fat Tire (5.3%).

Not extreme, not low alcohol. Seems to be working pretty well.

Hard as it is, I’ll stop there.

Looking for the local beer

We’re on the road right now – ah, the lengths we’ll go to to find just the right fruit beer for The Session – but I took the time to read Lew Bryson’s monthly Buzz so you should be able to as well.

ESPN columnist Norm Chad is looking for a new regular beer, to replace Rolling Rock, and Lew has plenty of useful friendly advice. Nice and complete, so I don’t really want to add anything.

However, one point of clarification. Chad has an these ABC’s for choosing beer and the first is:

Availability. It can’t just be sold in some tri-county area of North Dakota. Couch Slouch has to travel a lot. And when I’m on the road, I don’t want to have to fall back on Michelob or Miller Lite.

Lews writes, “I want to be able to get my choice of beer anywhere, because I travel a lot too” and later “I’ve got a beer philosophy that’s never failed me in 26 years, and I’m going to lay it on you: there is more than one beer in the world.”

The way I connect the dots that means the best choice doesn’t have to mean exact same beer. What’s best in Amherst, Mass., may not be best in Durango, Colo. I pick those two towns because both have bars known for their beer selections. The Moan and Dove in Amherst and Lady Falconburgh’s in Durango.

I was shocked that the Moan and Dove doesn’t offer anything from nearby Berkshire Brewing – “Because we’re ‘the local beer,'” Berkshire co-founder Gary Bogoff explained, which sounded so counter-intuitive my brain briefly shut down. And that Lady Falconburgh’s recently had beer from only one regional brewer, Ska Brewing (good choice, though).

I’m happy to find Victory HopDevil on tap only a few hours from our house and the selection at Moan and Dove will make anybody who appreciates beer drool, but those are beers I can find elsewhere. So credit goes to those proprietors for making this happen, but when the local beers are really good – and in these cases I know they are – they are going to be my first choice.

I’ve likely wandered off topic, and there are tourist things to get to today, so to get back on track read Lew’s column.

Damn Pete Brown: The best beer trip ever

Pete BrownAuthor Pete Brown – who is having way too much fun in his role as “the second-best beer drinker in Britain!” – has talked Coors into letting him take a pin (small cask) of India Pale Ale from its White Shield brewery in Burton-on-Trent and transport it to India in much the same manner the highly hopped beer would have traveled in the 19th century.

Not everybody would consider this the best beer holiday ever, but if you care about IPA and its history this might be better than a visit to Belgium or one to Bavaria. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip. You can go to Bamberg next year.

The Morning Advertiser provides the details (they wrote “pint” but must mean “pin”):

He’ll follow the route round the Cape of Good Hope, taken throughout the first part of the 19th century before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 shortened the journey.

Working with Coors brewer Steve Wellington, Pete will take to Bombay a pint of IPA brewed by Steve in Burton-on-Trent, Staffs, exactly as it would have been in 1820.

He sets off from Burton by canal in mid-October, spends a month on a P&O cruise ship, jumps on a 19th-century three-masted tall ship for the passage round the Cape, then spends a month on a giant container ship before arriving in India in late December.

Martyn Cornell provides more perspective:

“I’ve been saying for several years that a British brewer really ought to take a cask of well-hopped IPA and ship it to India to see what happens to the flavour – the Norwegians still do a similar thing with Linie Akvavit, though that goes to Australia and back, rather than the sub-continent.”

Which brings us to . . . an article in the new All About Beer magazine (dated September and with Dave Alexander on the front) titled “IPA Master Class.” From Roger Protz. But only half the story.

The cover touts the “Search for Authentic IPAs.” That means, I guess, that Stone IPA, Victory HopDevil and Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale aren’t authentic.

Te article provides important historical perspective about both IPA history (credit London before Burton-on-Trent) and the impact IPAs had on pale lagers. You need to read more, right?

I just wish that Protz, or AABM with a companion story, had got to American IPAs. A heck of a lot more drinkers consume US-brewed IPAs these days than those brewed in the UK. And these are beers that showcase Northwest hops.

Protz lists his personal Top Ten IPAs, with five from America:

– BridgePort IPA
– Brooklyn East India Pale Ale
– Goose Island IPA
– Sierra Nevada IPA
– Pike IPA

Great beers every one, but are they the first ones you think of when you say I’ll have an IPA?

But back to the top, the Morning Advertiser reports that Brown intends to write a travel book, rather than a beer book, about his journey. I can’t wait.

The Miller Chill Challenge

Corona MicheladaOK, I have a plan.

I’ve written several times that I think I should try Miller Chill. I’ve been seeing advertisements for six months (New Mexico was a test market) and sales are rockin’. And today I received a press release from an agency that represents Corona with recipes for Michelada, Michelada Roja and Chelada. (Miller Chill is based on the “cheleda” – with lime and salt already included.)

So I see an organized blind tasting in the near future. Since we are headed East it might be a few weeks – or perhaps I’ll rope friends and relatives in Massachusetts into taking the test.

If you check out Rate Beer, Beer Advocate or founding brother Jason Alström’s rant this isn’t going to seem like such a good idea. Guess we’ll find out.

The press release is another sign that Mexican breweries are feeling the impact of Miller Chill.

The Michelada, and variations such as the Michelada Roja and the Chelada, are classic Mexican beer cocktails typically made with an authentic Mexican beer, such as Corona, Pacifico or Negra Modelo, and varying combinations of lime, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and salt, served over ice. The lime and spices complement each other and provide a spicy, flavorful kick to the traditional Mexican beer. Recipes vary throughout Mexico and the origins of the michelada are not widely known, although most agree the name came from “mi chela helada,” slang for “my cold beer.”

Corona recommends the following recipes:

Michelada
Recipe courtesy Adobo Grill in Chicago (and pictured above)
– Chile Piquin
– Salt
– Juice of ½ large fresh lime
– 1 oz. Sangrita**
– 12 oz. bottle Corona
– Garnish: fresh lime wedge

Salt the rim of a large, frosted glass with the coarse salt and chile piquin. Fill the glass halfway with ice and then add the lime juice. Add sangrita and top with beer. Garnish with a lime wedge.

** Sangrita is a tomato-based drink with hints of orange and lime juices, chiles and peppers. It can be purchased at Mexican specialty stores.

Michelada Roja
– Coarse salt
– Juice of 1 large fresh lime
– Dash to taste of Worcestershire, hot sauce, soy sauce
– 2 ounces tomato juice or Clamato juice
– 12 oz. bottle Corona or Pacifico
– Garnish: red and yellow cherry tomatoes on a pick

Salt the rim of a large tall glass with the coarse salt. Fill the glass with ice and then add lime juice and Worcestershire, hot sauce and soy as desired, and then add the tomato juice. Top with beer – serve any extra beer on the side. Garnish with tomatoes on a pick.

Chelada
– Coarse salt
– Juice of 1 large fresh lime
– 12 oz. bottle Negra Modelo or Corona
– Garnish: fresh lime wedge

Salt the rim of a large tall glass with the coarse salt. Fill the glass with ice and then add the lime juice. Top with beer – serve any extra beer on the side. Garnish with a lime wedge.

While you are waiting for the results you might want to check out some of the experiments Donavan Hall conducted earlier this year.