musing

Ray Daniels predicts that his Cicerone program will 10,000th certification in a matter of weeks. And it seems like only yesterday, as opposed to 79 AD in Pompeii (which is where this photo was taken; in 2008 rather than before Mount Vesuvius erupted). Here are the basics from a little press release:

It may seem like just yesterday that you first heard of the Cicerone Certification Program–the sommelier-like sequence for beer that tests and certifies knowledge among those who sell and serve suds for a living. But the program is now more than four years old and the number of certifications issued at the first level has skyrocketed in the past two years.

We’re writing to tell you that we’ll soon award our 10,000th certification at that first level. That’s a big event for us and for everyone involved with the program. So to celebrate, we’ll offer a unique opportunity for people to sign-up for the program at a great price — but only for a single day.

The best way to track updates is to follow Ray Daniels on Twitter.

* But perhaps we can all agree we like cicerones better than laywers. And, yes, I know passing the first level test doesn’t make a person a “cicerone.” There are Certified Beer Servers, Certified Cicerones and Master Cicerones, but don’t begrudge me Tom Paxton reference.

If you read blogs and don’t write a blog then your answer to the question Alan McLeod asks, “What If I Posted A Series Of Posts For A Fee?” will likely be read with great interest by Alan and others who write blogs.

Go. Comment.

Otherwise, a few links I’ve collected in recent weeks and haven’t managed to passing along.

* Alaskan Brewing has finalized its biofuels project. Soon it will be three years since I wrote about Alaskan getting its mash filter press online. There’s a bottom line here beyond the financial bottom line. This is good for the Alaskan environment.

* Best of the rest, I guess. The explanation Livability came up with for how it picked its “Top 10 Beer Cities” could be more illuminating. “Most beer lovers already know about the big beer cities. The keg has been tapped on places like Portland, Asheville, Fort Collins, NYC, and Chicago. What we’ve been brewing is a list of places beer nuts might miss. These are cities where great beer is being made and more importantly it’s being enjoyed, even celebrated.” No. 1 on this list of Albuquerque. For the record, I’d rather be drinking beer right now in Albuquerque than Asheville, but that’s my personal bias. However, Asheville has a population of 83,393 and Albquerque’s is 448,607, so I am struggling with the concept of “big.”

* Tableside whole-hop infusions. “Here’s how it works: Order any Bull & Bush (a Denver brewpub) beer on tap and then pick one of five hops varietals grown by Jack Rabbit Hill Hops in the Western Slope town of Hotchkiss. The beer will be served in a French press with the crumbled hops cones added. The customer can then choose how long to wait before pouring the beer and tasting the effect.”

This is going to result in a lot of crappy beer experiences. But I predict the idea has legs.

It was nearly one hundred years between the time philosopher Henry Finck proposed humans literally have a “second way of smelling” and University of Pennsylvania psychologist Paul Rozin established the role of retronasal smell in perception of flavor.

In 1886, Finck suggested that smell was responsible for at least two-thirds of gastronomic enjoyment. In an essay titled “The Gastronomic Value of Odours” he began: “Amusing experiments may be made showing that without this sense (smell) it is commonly quite impossible to distinguish between different articles of food and drink. Blindfold a person and make him clasp his nose tightly, then put into his mouth successively small pieces of beef, mutton, veal, and pork, and it is safe to predict that he will not be able to tell one morsel from another. The same results will be obtained with chicken, turkey, and duck; with pieces of almond, walnut, hazelnut . . .”

This parlor trick may also be attempted with beer. Much of what we call the flavor of beer — particularly hop flavor — seems to be happening in the mouth, but really our olfactory system is responsible.

Further in his essay Finck turns to the topic of beer. Perhaps it will help you in studying for the Cicerone exam.

Tea and coffee might be called feminine beverages, inasmuch as the fair sex seem on the whole to be more addicted to their use than men. But for the drink next on our list the female population of most countries does not show such a decided appreciation. The reason commonly given by ladies why they do not like beer is that it is “so bitter;” but the real reason is that women are rarely enabled to drink beer under favourable circumstance. The essense of beer lies in its aromatic gas. If that is allowed to escape the beer tastes stale, flat, and bitter, and gives rise to headaches and indigestion; whereas, with the gas, it is palatable, wholesome, and an aid to digestion. To get it in this state it must be taken from a keg freshly tapped and runk on the spot without much delay; and since women of the higher classes in this country (the United States) do not frequent localities where beer is kept on tap, they never have an opportunity to find out how good beer really “tastes,” for bottled beer consumed at home is always vastly inferior to keg beer. In Munich, however, which is the paradise of beer-drinkers, women are fond of beer as the men, because it is considered perfectly proper for the best families to visit the festively illuminated beer-gardens in the evening.

In Munich, too, every mug and glass has a lid to prevent the gas from escaping too rapidly. This gas must not be confounded with the artificial foam which dishonest bar tenders produce in a glass by holding it far below the faucet, a practice which not only compels the gues to pay for half a glass of empty foam, but which allows the real gas to escape prematurely. Every beer glass in Munich has a mark up to which the liquid must reach by a legal enactment, consequently little or no foam is dished up with beer, and the brewers admit that the best beer has no foam on top. Waiters, in pour out bottled beer invariably make the mistake of holding up the bottle as high as possible so as to get a foam.

From wine and most other drinks beer differs in this, that it must be swallowed in large doses to be full appreciated. The most confirmed beer-drinker is overcome with nausea if he attempts to empty a glass with a spoon; and under no circumstances should a glass serve more than three or four swallows. The greatest amount of bliss is apparently vouchsafed to those who can gulp down a whole pint at ounce. Such magicians are as common as blackberries in Germany; and they often give vent to their satisfaction by a sort of gastronomic grunt — a prolonged ääh! A Munich Fliegende Blätter once had a picture of an artist sitting in front of a country tavern drinking beer. The host watches him with a look of dissatisfaction, and finally asks: “Don’t you like my beer” “Certainly, replied the arits; “it is very good.” “Why then,” retorted the host, “don you say ääh! when you finish a glass.”

Drink up.

Maps, tents, mountains, beer. Taking a piss by the side of the road. Set to music. I’m a sucker for these sorts of things. Don’t know how I missed this video — about a) Deschutes beer, b) central Oregon, c) young people with tattoos, d) freedom, e) fill in the blank — for more than a year. I suggest watching it full screen, and that you won’t be back. That’s OK. It stands on it’s own.

I found “Landmarks” because about a week ago Deschutes Brewery began selling beer in St. Louis amidst considerable excitement, and a local story included a link. It’s a commercial, yes, that speaks to a specific audience. Enjoy it and move on, or if you plan to spend part Monday thinking about the FUTURE OF BEER (please read that with your James Earl Jones voice) then understand this is part of it.

At the risk of repeating myself . . .

A) If you want to start a heated online conversation then making beer rating the theme seems to be the way to go. Witness the dust up at Beer Advocate that was followed by commentary in 718 722 beer blogs. Or the 57 comments (so far) following Stephen Beaumont’s Sh*t Online Beer Raters Do (But Shouldn’t) post.

Several of the comments in the second focus on serving size. Well, I checked and it turns out NEW BEER RULE #3: You must drink at least two servings of a beer before you pass judgment on it is almost four years old.

B) Yesterday Alan McLeod wrote about the arc and width of beer. His essay drew upon several blog posts and a multi-contributor Twitter conversation. Give it a read to to make complete sense or settle for the conclusion.

When industrial brewers – or, for that matter, any brewers who believes that beer should only taste as they conceive – demand our obedience we are being asked to believe. To believe there was a mythical big bang of flavour when it was truer and more perfect is to believe that you are not a participant in the process.

The latest from wine columnist Matt Kramer seems relevant here.

Today, if you want to experience a wine that is at all different from anything that might be understood as “mainstream,” you have to drink “small.” Put simply, big wineries are all about predictability.

I’ve written about this phenomenon before, suggesting that today’s wine landscape is divided between what I call “wines of fear” and “wines of conviction.” True, small wineries can be fearful and make their wines accordingly. But mostly they don’t, while big wineries almost invariably do.

And, by golly NEW BEER RULE #4: The god of beer is not consistency seems to apply. (And I will be sure to file this in the Beers of conviction category.)

It makes me think I should be writing about something new. Except for many people only recently more interested in beer these topics are new. And there are new revelations within the conversations for and from those who’ve been chatting away a while — witness the Twitter exchanges Alan refers to.

Certainly, there are new areas to explore. In fact, as soon as I hit publish here I must return to examining why two people can smell the same dry hopped beer and one will describe exotic tropical aromas and the other cat pee.