musing

Monday Eric Sturniolo at Get Real Present laid out The Theory of Beervolution, explaining it through the lens of his experience. He begins with Becks, suffers through BMC, travels the path you’d expect and eventually “I reached the next, highest level of craft, the Westvleteren Apex.”

And “Everyone in the Apex is a beer snob.”

This left me thinking about two questions. Is there an apex and if so, what does that really mean? What is a beer snob, and am I one? I’m still thinking about them, but I’ve figured out this would be easier were I back at KC Bier Co. in Kansas City. We stopped in two Friday evenings ago after a quick drive across Missouri. Had things to do in Kansas City on Saturday.

The brewery opened only Feb. 11. Like Bier Station, a relatively new bar/bottle shop with a great selection, it is in the Waldo neighborhood. We don’t know Kansas City well enough to understand its neighborhoods, but however we got to KC Bier it was definitely through a neighborhood. It is easy to envision people getting up from a comfortable swing on the porch, if the weather ever warms, and walking a few blocks to grab a beer bier and yak with friends. It already feels local.

Funny thing, the beer bier is very German — this may or may not make sense top you, but the lineup is like Urban Chestnut Brewing without much on the “Revolution” side of the menu. All the malt comes from Germany, and all the hops, save for a bit of Centennial used in Hopfen Doof, a dry-hopped alt. Even the pretzels come from Germany.

All the Bavarian hops are from the Seitz family farm. KC Bier founder Steve Holle intends to keep buying hops from Florian Seitz, and that may provide a recognizable anchor for the beer bier (KC Bier advertises it puts the “i” back in bier). At least that’s the way I feel about place. (And, dang, I wouldn’t mind tasting Centennial grown on the Seitz homestead.)

And the beers biers are excellent. Remembering the Dunkel, which totally hits the “reminds me of breadcrust” button, in my mouth I got to thinking about this apex thing. I really like Westvleteren 12, no doubt, but if I lived in Waldo and could walk to KC Bier I wouldn’t go there to drink a beer that tasted just like Westvleteren 12. I’d go there to drink bier. (And because I live where I do, I can ride my bike through Forest Park to Urban Chestnut’s new digs and do the same.)

So which is the apex? How do you know you are at the top, that there isn’t another level? This isn’t like climbing a fourteener. It is better.

Doug Hoverson writes this:

A brewery in a small town has a distinctive place in the life of the locality and its citizens. The smokestack and other brewery structures tower over the neighbourhood. The brewery’s taproom is one of the centers of communal life. The beer itself, whether bearing on the label the name of the place or one of the leading families, maybe be one of the few ways that anyone outside of the area has ever heard of the town. On a more personal level, everyone either is employed by the brewery, or knows someone who is. Old-timers have stories about long hours and occasional accidents, and argue about whether the beer is really as good as it used to be. The brewery is a point of pride as well as an engine of the local economy. When a small town loses its brewery, it loses part of its life as well as a large portion of its livelihood.

And Susan Appel this:

Old breweries still stand, some renovated and adapted to new uses, but other abandoned and neglected, often for decades. The longer that continues, the more common it is that they fall apart or are demolished.

As a result, too few examples stand today as testament to the skills and extraordinary impact of dedicated pre-Prohibition American brewery architects. The rise of these specialists appears to have been a function of the intersection of American architecture and the American brewing industry when both were in significant periods of their histories.

Appel edited a special issue of Brewery History, the journal of the Brewery History Society in the UK, focusing on American brewery architecture. Her contribution, “Edmund Jungenfeld of St. Louis and His Impact on 19th-Century American Brewery Architecture” provides and anchor for the issue. In another chapter, Rich Wagner writes about another architect, Otto C. Wolf of Philadelphia, whose work was also prominent before Prohibition. Two others focus on caves and their connection with early American lager brewing. And at the end Hoverson examines the restoration of Potosi Brewing in Potosi, Wisconsin, back into an operating brewery as well as the National Brewery Museum.

For the May gathering of The Session, Reuben Gray will ask participants to write about “Local Brewery History.” I’ll be quoting from this issue then, both from what Appel writes about the National Historic Landmark — the landmarked area at Anheuser-Busch includes 189 structures on 142 acres — a 20-minute drive from my house and from Craig Williams’ article about the Lemp brewery cave, which is pretty much right across the highway from A-B.

And I’m pretty sure I will be revisiting Hoverson’s article often. It nicely summarizes why it matters to a town when a going business disappears. He writes, “The story of Potosi’s brewery from 1852-1972 is important not because it was unique, but rather because it was typical of the founding, growth and decline of so many American breweries.” The brewery outlasted most and was still making a profit when the Schumacher family closed the doors, the “next generation” no longer interest in keeping it going. Not only did 45 brewery workers lose their jobs, but there were the ripple effects. Railroad business at the depot declined, local businesses that supplied the brewery and its workers closed. And, one employee of a tavern said, “while we will still be able to get it (nearby Huber Brewing bought some of the brands) it just won’t be the same. It won’t be a local beer.”

*****

Should Hoverson’s name seem familiar, he is author of two books you should own: “Land of Amber Waters: The History of Brewing in Minnesota” and the upcoming history of breweries in Wisconsin (yes, I am that confident about how good it will be).

Copies of the Beer History American architecture issue may be ordered here.

MONDAY BEER LINKS, MUSING 03.08.14

Good morning. This week an international collection of links.

From the United States

The “big” story last week was the Brewers Association revising its definition of “craft brewer” (including that the association does not define “craft beer,” only “craft brewer”). I couldn’t pick just one post to link to, so three:

– A corny definition of craft beer. From Don Russell at Joe Sixpack.

– The Brewers Association Evolves. From Jeff Alworth at Beervana.

From Canada

– The Curious Case Of The Capitulation To Crafty. Same topic as above, adding Alan McLeod’s take on the news. I would not declare the “craft versus crafty” wars over, not as long as there is an app for that. (Not sure I should even include that link, because the idea strikes me as so stupid.) [via A Good Beer Blog]

From England

– What closes a brewery? It’s probably the quality of its beer. Excellent analysis from David Turner, who is careful about overstating the value of a limited number of results, and dang interesting. It is very cheering to think this might be true: “Those companies that fail to provide drinkers with quality products are seemingly doomed to fail, while others that excel, innovate and possibly take risks, are more likely to be successful.” [Via Turnip Ale]

From Germany

– Ratsherrn Taps The Keg on New Microbrewery. “You can do & brew whatever you want in here, but please don’t forget I still need to be able to sell it!” [Via Brew Berlin]