Questions to consider on a Monday morning: Is there life after beer blogging? What trend did Rock Art Brewery set?
The Session #35: A favorite moment
This is my contribution to The Session, hosted this month by the Beer Chicks. They gave us many options, since “New Beer’s Resolutions” includes an invitation to “share with us your greats and mistakes of 2009.” I’m keeping my mistakes to myself. I fear enough will be apparent when Brewing with Wheat hits store shelves in February.
Every year my favorite moments — beer and otherwise — revolve around sharing. Jon Abernathy hauling out a bottle of the first vintage of The Abyss. Knocking back ounces of Southampton Cuvee Des Fleurs with Sean Paxton at the Great American Beer Festival. Maureen Arthur weaving a tale of courtship, New Glarus Belgian Red in hand . . .
And then there are similar experiences in breweries. I wouldn’t be able to write books such as Brew Like a Monk or Brewing with Wheat were it not for the generosity of brewers. And because they share information with each other the overall quality of what’s in your glass continues to improve.
So here’s a moment from March 31, as recounted in Brewing with Wheat:
“Steven Pauwels grabbed the computer mouse and, click, opened a folder showing the recipes for Boulevard Brewing. He clicked again and the spreadsheet on the large computer screen in front of us revealed the recipe for Unfiltered Wheat Beer in detail, as well as the process. Click again, and the screen displayed a brew house schematic for a batch of Single Wide IPA in progress. Next, he opened a spreadsheet with a recipe for ZÔN, Boulevard’s seasonal wit. ‘Copy whatever you want,’ he said.
“The conversation turned to mashing schedules and a presentation Hans-Peter Drexler had made at the 2008 Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego, revealing ‘the secrets’ about how Private Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn makes its iconic Schneider Weisse Original. ‘Hans-Peter is so open, he could be American,’ Pauwels said.
“Here was a Belgian who moved to Kansas City in 1999, talking about a German and himself and sharing every detail of how Boulevard brews its beers. Pardon me for smiling.”
Say so long to 2009 with a few beery links
See you in 2010, but since you stopped by I’ll leave you with a few beery links.
I had planned to riff a bit on “world classic” and “world class” beers, but that’s going to have to wait until a few days into the New Year. I decided to give my brain an early Christmas present: no thinking today (don’t say it, Alan). Then we’re traveling for a bit after Christmas. While I’ll give it a shot to have a post Jan. 1 as part of The Session regular blogging won’t resume until at least Jan. 4.
Happy holidays, don’t drink too much too often, and stay safe.
The links:
The reaction in the U.K.? Pete Brown loves the idea, but Woolpack Dave would rather support BrewDog (a partner with Stone in brewing collaborations). Check out the whole conversation.
Tomorrow’s classic beers
In the course of six revisions after his first Pocket Guide to Beer Michael Jackson elevated (and sometimes later demoted) only 20 beers to “world classic” status. He didn’t use the term casually.
As Alan fairly points out this was the opinion of but one man. One more qualified to comment than any, but just a important one who gave us an “exploration to follow.”
That’s why I keep pointing to what he wrote in the introduction to Beer (Eyewitness Companions)
First:
“Today, neither European brewers nor most drinkers on either side of the Atlantic have yet grasped that tomorrow’s most exciting styles of beers will be American in conception.”
Then:
“The nation that makes the world’s lightest-tasting beers also produces the most assertive beers. Tomorrow’s classics will evolve from a new breed of American brewers that are categorized by their admirers as ‘Extreme Beers.’ These are the most intense-tasting beers every produced anywhere in the world. They include classic European-style stouts that are richer, toastier, and roastier than anything yet produced in Ireland; ales massively more bitterly appetizing than any in Britain; ‘wild’ beers more sharply, quenchingly sour than their Belgian counterparts; wheat beers so spicily phenolic as to make a Bavarian choke on his mid-morning weisswurst; and pilsners so aromatic as to tempt the Good Soldier Schweik — the eponymous hero of Jaroslave Hasek’s comic novel.
“Sometimes the new US beers combine elements from more than one style, but with a view to achieving greater distinctiveness rather than to merge into blandness. The best example I ever experienced was the Smoked Porter of the Alaskan Brewing Company.”
Quite obviously he was not done exploring beer or celebrating the new. He didn’t find appreciating both “extreme” and “traditional” beers a contradiction.
You know, I think I’ll leave it at that rather than starting a conversation about what individual beers he would have given four stars.
A short history of Jackson’s ‘world classics’
Before we discuss Michael Jackson’s predictions about American beers and “tomorrow’s classics” how about a recap of how he rated “world classics” for 18 years? Andy’s pondering sent me flipping through seven editions of Jackson’s Pocket Guide to Beer.
After considering the concept of “classics” maybe we need to return to the topic of “world class” and if the phrase is anything more than a marketing term. And maybe that discussion will have already gone where it’s going to go.
In Jackson’s first pocket guide (1982) he awarded 42 beers 5 stars, writing “. . . no one can deny that a Premier Cru Bourdeaux is likely to have more complexity and distinction than a jug wine (Or, in the British phrase, “plonk”). A beer rated ***** is a world classic either because it has outstanding complexity and distinction or because it is the definitve example of the style, and no matter whether everyone is capable of appreciating it; some people probably don’t like first-growth Bordeaux, either.”
In fact, he also gave 5 stars to all the beers from 12 traditional Lambic brewers in the Senne Valley because they were so unique. For purposes of this “study” I added a 43rd top-rated beer to that first list, Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus — because it was the lone lambic to receive the highest rating in the second edition of the guide.
He changed the rating system in 1986 for that second edition, assigning 4 stars at the most, still labeling such a beer “world classic.” In 1982 he awarded half stars — for instance, Worthington White Shield received ****½ — while in following years a beer might have been rated ***»****.
You with me? From this point on we’ll refer to 4-star beers (giving 1982’s 5-star beers **** and everything else less). Although Jackson assigned six additional beers 4 stars in 1986 the list shrank to 32. In 1991 it included 33 beers, in 1994 35 beers, in 1996 35 beers, in 1997 35 beers and in 2000 only 32 beers.
The guide wasn’t “all new” with each edition; Jackson’s goal was to change it about 25 percent each time, but even when what he wrote about a beer remained much the same the rating might change. The content also tended to reflect his travels, so that in 2000 he added considerably to the section on China and made many revisions within the pages about Germany.
At the top end, he lowered the ratings for seven 4-star beers in 2000, meanwhile promoting Cantillon’s Bruocsella Grand Cru, Boon Mariage Parfait, Köstritzer Schwarzbier and Greene King Strong Suffolk.
In the course of seven guides, 19 beers earned a top rating every time:
Pilsner Urquell
Jever Pilsner
Zum Uerige Altbier
Paulaner Salvator
Schlenkerla Märzen
Duvel
Rodenbach Grand Cru
Westmalle Tripel
Chimay Blue
Orval
Brakspear Bitter
Courage Imperial Russian Stout
Fuller’s ESB
Marston’s Pedigree
Thomas Hardy’s Ale
Traquair House
Guinness Extra Stout
Anchor Steam
Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus
The 2000 list included six American beers: Anchor Steam, Anchor Liberty Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, Alaskan Smoked Porter and Celis White (on its last legs in Texas).
As you can see Jackson reserved the term “world classic” for a few special beers, and ones that proved themselves over time. This was a much narrower list than in the The Great Beer Guide, published in 2000 and listing “500 Classic Brews.”
A bit of semantics? Certainly. But worth remembering when, next, you consider the bold prediction he made in Beer: Eyewitness Companions, published after he died in 2007 and written not long before.