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.

    How to pick the best 25 beers in the world

    In the midst of the discussion about the Wine Enthusiast list of top 25 beers, Jeff Alworth posed a question:

    Stan, just to throw a hot potato back at you: if, under penalty of death, you were compelled to come up with a list of the world’s 25 best, what would it be? Actually, I don’t care what the list is as much as I wonder what criteria you would apply to come up with it.

    I’d probably rather Jeff provide the criteria and I do the list, but that’s not the real question is it? So, understanding I’m bound to overthink this, here you go.

  • Diversity. When Michael Jackson came up with the list of 42 5-star beers I often refer to he picked only one beer within a “style.” I wouldn’t be that pedantic, so just because I’d make Saison Dupont one of my very first picks doesn’t mean I wouldn’t end up with a second saison. Though probably not a third. (And the point isn’t that it’s a particular style; see the next criterion.)

    Am I changing the rules? If you look at the annual (or semi-annual) lists from Rate Beer and Beer Advocate they damn the torpedoes and if three imperial stouts, two doppelbocks and four strong dark ales fermented with yeast from Belgium end up in the top 10 that’s fine. I’d rather read a list that includes 25 beers that represent the best in and the breadth of the world. A cheat? Sorry, I want a helles to have a chance to make the list.

    Whose palates will be served? Only those who love big hefty, maybe hoppy, beers? Only those who appreciate pale, delicate beers? Why not everybody.

  • Style is a diversion. Do you decide how much you enjoy a beer based on how good it tastes to you or how well it matches some description of what’s “classic?”
  • Price. Not part of the discussion.
  • Longevity. Many brewers have won gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival with an initial batch of beer. How many great batches must you brew over how many years to prove it’s not a fluke? Any answer is arbitrary. As the great publican Mark Dorber once said, “Consistency is not the god of beer.” I don’t insist that a beer always be the same; only that is always be great. Once is not always. Three times is not always.
  • Availability. It’s no longer OK to call Courage Imperial Stout the best of the world, even if you can locate bottles of the last batch brewed in 1993. The “best 25 beers in the world that hardly anybody really drinks” is a different list. Once-a-year limited edition beers are eligible, but only after multiple releases.
  • Judging credentials. I know I’m not qualified. I’m not quite sure who is. You’ve got to drink all the world, including a boatload of American beers. You can’t claim that a traditional hefeweiss or pilsner or brown ale is better than some new wave beer brewed with chestnuts and a lock of John Wilkes Booth’s hair under a full moon unless you’ve tried them all. Nor can you vote for innovation over tradition unless you’ve tasted plenty of tradition.

    • It’s not a matter of starting with some list, say 10, of the best pilsners from the Czech Republic and hauling them fresh to a judging arena. You must go there and taste them where they are brewed. Same with wheat beers in Bavaria (though not all 1,000 or so available). Timothy Taylor Landlord is not going to be the same on cask in Chicago (site of the next World Beer Cup) as it is anywhere in the U.K. Drink multiple pints or half liters or chalices. If it’s one of the best 25 beers in the world you should rip the arms off of somebody who tries to keep you from finishing your glass.

    Did I answer your question? This is another fool’s errand, so feel free to add what I left out in comments.

    Curiously, the exercise has helped me focus on why I find trying to identify the very best in the world pointless. If you love beer, on any given Sunday the 343rd best in the world may be better than the 14th.