musing

Dumber than dirt in Oregon

Enough has been written about the totally stupid decision by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission to ban minors from the 20th anniversary Oregon Brewers Festival. (Links at bottom.)

Instead, let Don Younger, whose Horse Brass Pub opened in 1976 and has been central in Portland’s transformation into “Beervana,” remind us of what it was like 30-plus years ago.

Back in the 1960s it was illegal for a Portland bar to have windows that were less than six feet above the ground. That way nobody could see what was going on inside, which was just as well.

“The taverns serviced about 10 percent of the people. The rest were terrified of (taverns), and with good reason,” Younger said. “There was no wine, no singing, no dancing. We had nothing else to do but get drunk and say [expletive deleted] a lot. It was crazy. I don’t know how we survived it.”

Yep, you really have a better society when you segregate those who drink and those who don’t.

More about this lunacy:

– Idiot Legislators Gone Wild – Stephen Beuamont
– The OLCC vs. Humanity – Jay Brooks
– Beer Advocate discussion

For the love of session beers

Lew Bryson, last mentioned here in the discussion of X beers (go directly to his comment, has joined the blogging ranks with a specific project in mind. He calls it The Session Beer Project.

I suggest that you go ahead and add Seen Through a Glass to your feed reader, bookmark it or do whatever you do with sites you want to keep track of.

He explains the project there and in The Buzz at his website, so read those instead of a lame recap from me.

The why behind why session beers get slighted by the media – and in this case I’m casting a big net, including everything online as well in print – probably interests those of us in the press more than it does you. For one reason, I field a lot of phone calls for print publications looking for a “story angle.”

They want to know about about stuff that grabs your attention right off – a little like the first whiff of an intense imperial stout – because of unusual ingredients, high levels of alcohol or ridiculous amounts of hops. Nobody ever wants to follow up on how Utah brewers make so many award-winning beers although they are limited to brewing those with 4% alcohol by volume.

And they want to write about the beer – not the people who make it or how they make it, not people who enjoy it or how and where they enjoy it, not the session. That’s a harder story and not as sexy a story.

In working on another project, I’ve been reviewing way too much 1980s literature about American beer. In one story a German brewer says he’d never export his beer to the United States because Americans can’t appreciate its flavors. He might still feel the same way, but the fact is ex****e beers helped change what was a pathetic image (both of brewers and consumers).

Does that mean Americans can’t brew session beers? Take a trip to Utah, drink a Firestone Walker beer, or just tune into Seen Through a Glass and see what Lew is drinking.

Does that mean Americans don’t appreciate them? Check out the growth of Boulevard Brewing, Blue Point Brewing or what the best selling beers are for many of the fastest growing breweries (you’ll see they are session beers).

Welcome Lew to the blogging world by joining his conversation about them.

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Tips for saving on beer

Nice work by Al at Hop Talk with tips for saving a bit when you buy beer. He starts from a post at the Personal Finance Advice which deals with beer the commodity, and turns it into a discussion about buying the beer we all drink.

Might as well start at the top:

1. If you have the choice, avoid purchasing your beer in bars and restaurants where they are typically much more expensive.
Well, duh! But what if that’s where your friends are? I’d rather have just a couple of good beers with good friends at the brewpub than to suck down a bunch a bottles at home alone.

Well said. (Read the rest.)

The bottom line is there is a difference between getting your money’s worth and getting the largest amount of beer for your buck.

How many beers before I die?

Jon Abernathy has completed his “50 beers to drink before you die” series at The Brew Site. Why would I mention this given that I’ve already declared the new Ten Best list from Playboy irrelevant to my beer drinking life?

I guess I’ve figured out that looking at one person’s opinion is more interesting than a list done by consensus. The Playboy list was a committee effort. Bill Brand has more insight on the selection process since he was a voter.

Abernathy took his inspiration from a BBC feature “50 things to eat before you die” – unaware that (the venerable) British beer writer Roger Protz wrote a book titled 300 Beers to Try Before You Die a couple years ago. At the time my thought was that tracking down the 300 beers might be a fun project, although once you got to 299 it would be best to stop.

(“Wait, Mr. Angel, I’ve still got a date with the Duvel.”)

Back to Abernathy’s list. What I like most is the spirit in which beers were chosen.

For No. 49 he picks homebrew, writing “Yep, just ‘homebrew.’ Any homebrew. I’m not going to quibble about style, or presentation, or region, or any of that. (Well, I hope it will at least be good.) But I don’t think anybody can call their beer drinking experience complete without drinking some homebrewed beer.” And No. 50 is “You local brewery’s beer.”

There are also “on the scene” picks – meaning go there (say Belgium) and drink beer unique to the region (say lambic).

What I like least – other than the presence of the godawful Cave Creek Chili Beer – is that there are only 50. I take one look at his American West Coast picks and think, no North Coast, no Lost Abbey, no Bear Republic, no Elysian … (stopping to wipe the tears) no Lost Abbey, no AleSmith, no Russian River (finally overcome and unable to go on).

What I thus decided is that my favorite list might be the one with the most beers. Thus this one is five times better than Playboy’s, but Protz has assembled a list that is 30 times superior.

Describe the flavor, please

Stephen Beaumont takes the Globe and Mail for its lack of, well, tasting notes in its “tasting notes.” He’s put off by the lack of meaningful descriptors.

That Beer Tastes Like What?, he asks at World of Beer. Cutting to the chase: “It would be helpful if on occasion the words printed had at least a little meaning.”

There are two parts to this. Back in May, a reader made an excellent comment about how developed (or underdeveloped) our beer vocabulary is. That’s true among those of us who are trying. Instead of simply noting a beer’s aroma is fruity it would be better if I said melon, strawberry or banana.

The second part, of course, is a matter of making the effort. Back to you, Mr. Beaumont:

Sadly, this kind of reporting is typical of when non-beverage writers decide to turn their hands to beer and demonstrative of the lack of respect the art of brewing tends to receive in the mainstream press. … By way of comparison, flip the page and in his “Wines and Spirits” column, Beppi Crosariol describes the Babich Black Label Sauvignon Blanc as “lighter in body but still powerful and exuberant — and containing big notes of gooseberry, tropical fruit and herbs — ending with crisp acidity on the long finish.”

One writer here is doing his job. And the other?