1.3 billion Chinese don’t care about American beer

No matter how long I think about a story or how many times I might rewrite sections I know when I look at it in print that I’ll realize I could have or should have written some part more clearly.

Case in point, an article in the current issue of All About Beer magazine headlined “Ameri-Brew.” AABM paid me for my words, so it’s fair enough that I not post all of them here. Very briefly, the “nut graph”:

  • In one of the last essays he wrote in 2007, the introduction to Beer: Eyewitness Companions, the late Michael Jackson argued that “tomorrow’s classics will evolve from a new breed of American brews that are categorized by their admirers as ‘Extreme Beers.’ These are the most intense-tasting beers ever produced anywhere in the world.”

    • The story deals with the implications of that argument. What I should have written better:

  • Call it the Americanization of world beer or simply globalization, but the international beer landscape is changing. Not everybody agrees if that’s good, but few dispute America is at the center.

    • A better choice of words would have been “America is at the center of this change” or “America is the lightning rod.”

    To be clear, America is not the center of the beer world. You can say there is no center of the beer world or you can say the spot you are drinking in right now is the center of the beer world. Same meaning.

    I don’t care if Budweiser does sell for about eight times more than local beers in China. Discerning drinkers around the world are not going to look to Americans to supply all their beer needs, or even to beers that imitate those Americans brew.

    Want an idea of what change looks like in a traditional brewing nation? Read Evan Rail’s recent article from the New York Times.

    What my story in All About Beer didn’t get to is what specific beers Jackson might have been talking about when he wrote “tomorrow’s classics.” Or put another way, consider this comment regarding Jackson’s 1982 list of 5-star beers: “Given the evolution in beer and beer styles, as well as the explosion in American Craft Brewing creativity, I wonder how his list would be different if he were around to do it again.”

    I’m not going to suggest I have an answer, but after a little more research I intend to post a few dots you can connect yourself.

     

    Monday beer reading: ale vs. beer

    Nothing like a few words about beer to jump start your brain on a Monday morning, right?

  • Short read, because this news is so 2005. CNN Money/Fortune just discovered Pabst is a hipster beer. If you do want to spend more time with “retro beer” I’d suggest the article Don Russell wrote last year.
  • Longer read, for which Martyn Cornell provides a “Beer geekery warning: if teasing apart the knotted and tangled threads of brewing history is your bag, stick with me for the next 2,500 words as we range over five centuries of malted liquors and watch meanings mutate.”

    • How long did ale and beer remain as separate brews? Most drinkers, I think, know that “ale” was originally the English name for an unhopped fermented malt drink, and beer was the name of the fermented malt drink flavoured with hops, a taste for which was brought to this country from the continental mainland about 1400.

    I’m not sure that most American drinkers do. Feel free to educate yourself.

     

    Session #35 announced: New Beer’s Resolutions

    The SessionNaked Pint authors Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune will host The Session #35: New Beer’s Resolutions (sorry, Mr. B) on New Year’s Day.

    So we want to know what was your best and worst of beer for 2009? What beer mistakes did you make? What beer resolutions do you have for 2010? What are your beer regrets and embarrassing moments? What are you hoping to change about your beer experience in 2010?

    They add, “Don’t be afraid to be revealing . . .”

    Yes, those are the rules in a Facebook world but sometimes being embarrassed the first time is enough and it does not require reliving. We’ll see what I’m up for Jan. 1.

    If you’d like to participate send a link to your post to both christina@thebeerchicks.com and hallie@thebeerchicks.com.

     

    Anybody know the hoppy answer?

    This is a Drewrys beer coaster from the 1950s. Does anybody know what happened if you said “Fuggle hop” to the bartender? Maybe I should turn this into a caption competition à la BrewDog.

    Ten really good books for a beer library

    It started with this email from a friend: “What is the best book on the market that touches on beer, history, styles, glassware, etc.?”

    This was an easy one to answer: Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion, even though it was published going on 20 years ago and requires tracking down a used copy.

    So easy I thought I might as well extend it to nine more recommendations. Presented in random order (really, I used an online randomizer).

    Before we get to that, the context. There’s a good chance if you aren’t Ron Pattinson or Martyn Cornell (or Jay Brooks) that my beer library has more books than yours, but this is all just one man’s opinion and tomorrow I’d probably come up with a different list.

    I also made a few rules going in. Only one book per author, because otherwise when do you quit listing Michael Jackson books? Books written in English (or American) because that’s the language I read. No books focusing on the brewing process, because that’s too specialized and besides I write them and I have further relationships with Brewers Publications. No cookbooks. No guidebooks, although some include quite clever writing. No books dominated by photos, such as Beer naturally.

  • The Beer Companion, by the late Michael Jackson. This is a book that surely would have won a James Beard award had the publisher bothered to nominate it. Yes, a lot happened — much to his delight — since Jackson last updated the book in 1993, but a little bit of good beer was brewed before then as well.
  • Three Sheets to the Wind, by Pete Brown. Isn’t that the guy who wrote Hops & Glory (reviewed here) and isn’t that supposed to be a better book? Indeed he is and probably, but this book is such a fun romp. Nobody romps like the Brits.
  • Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer, by Maureen Ogle. The other day I wrote, “Context and authority determine the value of a list.” Pardon me for quoting myself, but the same is true of history. America was not a beer drinking nation until the German immigrants arrived, which is when this book begins. Here’s a review.
  • Beer: The Story of the Pint, by Martyn Cornell. As above, authority matters. I have this image of somebody sitting on a barstool anywhere in the world and casually mentioning something like “Burton was home of the first pale beers brewed anywhere in the world” and Martyn Cornell appearing to say all of this. Avoid the embarrassment, read this book. Read “the short and entirely wrong history of beer” at least twice.
  • Travels with Barley: A Journey Through the Beer Culture in America, by Ken Wells. Clydesdales horses and yeast rustlers in the same book. Note to self: read this one for the third time.
  • Tasting Beer: An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink, by Randy Mosher. As it suggests on the cover, “Discover your inner taster.” The book that every other book about tasting beer should want to be.
  • Origin and History of Beer and Brewing, by John. P. Arnold. That’s history before 1911, when the book was written. See Ambitious Brew and Beer: The Story of the Pint for what goes into a good history. Chapter 1: Man, Religion and Intoxicants. Are you with me?
  • The Book of Beer Knowledge, by Jeff Evans. The perfect stocking stuffer, including the size. A CAMRA book, so intended first for the U.K. audience but a delightful read. I could also have suggested Don Russell’s Christmas Beer (reviewed here) for the stocking, but then this wouldn’t be a list of ten.
  • The Bedside Book of Beer, an anthology compiled by Barrie Pepper. Another book from the U.K. (from 1990). Charles Dickens, Dylan Thomas, George Orwell and Michael Jackson among the contributors. Wouldn’t you like to hang out with them at Happy Hour?
  • Faces Along the Bar: Lore and Order in the Workingman’s Saloon, 1870-1920, by Madelon Powers. The final sentence should make you cry: “But the saloon was the creature of its time, and its time was past.” Lest we forget.

    • I haven’t included links to buy any of these books, but I recommend shopping at BeerBooks.com, kind of your small, locally owned, friendly bookstore, except online.