At the outset of this week’s Drink Beer, Think Beer podcast, guest Jenny Pfäfflin talks about drinkability and how that is one of the qualities that make Dovetail Brewery beers special.
She might not have used the words “drinkable” and “drinkability” a decade ago, because they belonged to the largest of breweries. Anheuser-Busch built a campaign for Bud Light around “drinkability” in the aughts.
The company reportedly spent $50 million on its “Drinkability is Difference” campaign.
The brewers who at the time presented themselves as Davids taking on Goliath weren’t about to go anywhere near the word “drinkability.” And quite honestly, in 2011 when Dr. Michael Lewis, founder of the professional brewing programs at UC-Davis, wrote “Drinkability: Countering a Dash to the Extreme” 1 in the MBAA Technical Quarterly many brewers I talked to were offended.
He offered his definition: “Drinkability is the brewer’s mantra and holy grail: a beer should not be satiating or filling, it should be more-ish, crisp not heavy, tasty but not fatiguing and should leave the consumer satisfied but willing and able to have another.”
On the other hand, craft brewers “may equate drinkability with preference or liking or distinction or even with inventiveness, rarity, and cutting edge uniqueness. There is therefore a trend within the domestic and craft segments to move to the extremes, one in the lighter direction and the other heavier. While heavier beers are fascinating avenues of brewing arts and science to explore, there is some danger of leaving the consumer far behind.”
Put another way, “As the success of light beers has caused the macro-domestic industry to make ever-lighter beers, so the success of many highly characteristic beers leads the craft industry to the opposite extreme and ultimately, to a different definition of drinkability that drives this trend.”
Remember, this was 2011; so long ago that IPAs were clear, and also bitter. He didn’t stroke many egos when he wrote, “if one looks rationally at the craft segment, what is surprising is not its success but rather the lack of it.” He was, and is, a proponent of craft brewers’ skill set, but not necessarily a fan of their choices.
It sure appears that his words have stood up well.
“American craft brewers have not merely imitated Old World ales but have reinvented them to create something that is uniquely American. I see no reason why the same talent and inventiveness should not do the same for lagers. The old idea of full flavor, flavor balance, distinction, character and deliciousness might provide a clue to the future. The craft industry has already made a start on this journey and there are a number of splendid lagers appearing in the market place and I don’t doubt more to come.”
And it’s OK to talk about their drinkability.
*****
1 Michael Lewis, “Drinkability: Countering a Dash to the Extreme,” Master Brewers Association of the Americas Technical Quarterly 48, no. 1 (2011), 25-26.
“Drinkability is the brewer’s mantra and holy grail: a beer should not be satiating or filling, it should be more-ish, crisp not heavy, tasty but not fatiguing and should leave the consumer satisfied but willing and able to have another.”
To me, this is the brewing equivalent of the NFL’s conventional wisdom about quarterbacks: they must be tall and rangy, should run only if chased or on fire, “stand tall in the pocket”, and make their claim to greatness by throwing for 5,000 yards and a 78% completion percentage. In short, conventional wisdom that relegates people like Fran Tarkenton, Michael Vick, Randal Cunningham, Russell Wilson, and those other “running quarterbacks” to also-ran status when it comes to deciding who’s the G.O.A.T. It’s absurd even now to dismiss scramblers as somehow lesser than those volume passers…but it happens every day.
Likewise, limiting what is necessary for a beer to be “drinkable”, saying it must be “more-ish, crisp not heavy, tasty but not fatiguing”, presumes that anything heavy MUST be “fatiguing”. I beg to differ. I find that comment eaten up with the parameters of sessioning. I and a LOT of beer fans do NOT regard “heavy” beers like Parabola and Dark Lord and The Abyss and Hunahpu’s as “fatiguing”. I don’t see a big Barleywine as some sort of endurance contest and I particularly dispute the idea that for something to be drinkable it must presumptively lead to another. That IS sessioning, a practice with which exists in a certain mindset of limiting likeable beers to the realm of lighter ales and lagers. I don’t doubt at all Dr. Lewis’ credentials as a beer educator and an expert on making them but when are we all going to get past this thing of willingly donning the strait-jackets of “expert opinions” as pertains to what is inarguably a subjective experience? I have to be in a certain rather extreme (for me) frame of mind to drink one of those old “test of manhood” hop bombs that top out at something over 115-ish IBUs, but that mood does come upon me, in rare instances and it has become a regular choice for a LOT of younger beer fans to prefer and habitually drink DIPAs and Triples and even Quads. I think those folks might find those beers “drinkable”, so obviously Dr. Lewis’ take on this is not universal.
Certain breweries – Deschutes comes to mind for most Northwesterners – have openly vowed that anything released under their name will be Drinkable as Job #1 and they have succeeded at that admirably for 30+ years. But to disqualify their iconic “The Abyss” and deem it undrinkable just because it’s heavy conveniently elides right on fact that fact that many beer lovers have learned to practice some sense of proportion and are quite satisfied NOT to have another and another and another. As one patron at a Seattle brewery taproom recently told me, “I’d rather take two of these (a Stout, 9.8%) home and drink them slowly, one today and one tomorrow, than down five or six of some beer I enjoy a LOT less, just to be drinking beer.”
OF COURSE drinkability matters. It always has. But drinkability is NOT automatically the same thing as enjoyment. Lots of our all-American, dishwater domestic lagers/pilsners are just as all-hell drinkable as tapwater but offer up very little in the way of any kind of satisfying flavors. They’re basically The Same Ol’ Shit, nothing at all surprising or uplifting, and mostly a way to pretend not to get hammered and as much a social lubricant as a beverage. Brewers who DO embrace the aesthetic of lager’s resurgence had better dammed well try to do SOMETHING different and innovative with them. This generation of 30/40-Something veterans of the later stages of the Craft Beer Boom have become accustomed to definite, emphatic flavors in their beers and simply crafting some limp version of a slightly punchy Coors will probably wear off those folks fairly fast.
Steve – I like the NFL analogy. I don’t want to put words in Dr. Lewis’ mouth, but my take was/is that he wasn’t suggesting brewers don’t brew the “big” beers they were and are making, but they expand their portfolio. The competitors at the left end of the dial shouldn’t be a limp version of anything.
I have to wonder where Dr. Lewis is drinking, these days. Offhand, I can’t name rven ONE Pacific Northwest brewery which is not making a rather widely expanded portfolio. In fact, I’d posit that the lighter ales and lagers are damned near dominating most markets. This current lager explosion had nowhere neat peaked out and it’s getting hard to find a taproom or beer shop that offers any more than one Imperial Stout or even the obligatory pastry Stout. I frequently drive 30 – 45 mikes to get to a Barleywine on tap and I live in a metro area that has at least 100 breweries within a hour’s drive. But I can walk to two that regularly offer two to four lagers, any day of the week.
If Dr. Lewis was not creating an undrinkability ghetto for big/dark beers, that’s a funny way of putting his definition. It’s kinda hard to squeeze a big Stout, Old ale, Belgian Quad, Wee Heavy, Barleywine, or even most Porters into that “crisp, not heavy” parameter.