Tonight, I cracked a Budweiser. This may shock you. What can I tell you? I’m a complicated guy. An enigma.
I’d been tempted for a while, & tonight was the night. It had been a long time since I last had a
Bud. I can’t tell you when. I’d wager a bet that, in the past ten years,
I’ve had more Westy 12 than I’ve had Bud.
Not bragging, just saying it’s that infrequent.
But I’d had a craving for a while, a yearning to revisit
that most American lager-ish of American lagers. What brought this on? It seems that, amid the craft beer world of
extremitsm & experimentation, simple lager has a niche appreciation. A cult following, if you will. Among the fans? He-e-e-ell no – they still avoid it like the
plague they think it’s made from. It’s
the professional brewers that go for the stuff.
I’m not saying Budweiser, specifically, but the buzz is that many pro
brewers, when they’re drinking on the reg, go for lagers. Obviously, I can’t speak from experience (not
being a pro brewer & all), but it piqued my interest. It impressed me that, in a recent article in
BeerAdvocate, the founder & brewer of Boneyard Beer - one of Oregon’s
cultest upstarts & known for its killer RPM IPA – shared that he loves
lagers & drinks mostly Busch & Busch Light.
Whu--?!
Brewers all over (begrudgingly or not), give Anheuser-Busch props for
making an incredibly consistent, clean, simple product. In reading Tom Acitelli’s book, The Audacity of Hops, I was also
impressed by the fact that David Geary, founder of New England’s first craft
brewery, was booed – BOOED – at the 1996 Association of Brewers’ conference for
suggesting the same: “You would kill to have the consistent quality they have,”
he told the ass-hurt crowd, “You may not like the style, but it’s not bad
beer.” This at a time when small brewing
en masse was suffering from a significant quality control issue that was
hurting its reputation. There seems to exist
a nearly closeted appreciation for these basic, clean beers, & many brewers
will testify that a straight-forward lager is not easy to brew. The winning entry of this past year’s
National Homebrewers’ Conference, amid thousands of entries across every
acknowledged style, was an American light adjunct lager. This sense of underground, viral acknowledgment
had been gaining on me for a while.
So what the hell? It
appealed to me, & I decided to give it a try. It poured a very pale golden yellow, absolutely
transparent. The head built quickly
& dissipated to nothing. Smells of a
very light sweetness & straw-like grain profile emerged. The taste followed suit, with the addition of
a mineral quality & a subtle bitterness rounding it off. Very little to speak of, but completely
inoffensive & what was there was decent.
The only really negative aspect was a harsh carbonation, sharp like
seltzer, that made it a little difficult.
Other than that, definitely doable.
I can’t see going back any time soon, but it didn’t come close to
resembling any of the number of bodily fluids to which beer geeks frequently
compare it.
That word “adjunct” seems to have a tone to it. “Adjunct”.
I get the sense that people use it as a euphemism, a slightly more diplomatic
replacement for “mass-produced”, “industrial”, or just plain “shitty”. Adjunct refers to any source of fermentable
sugar in the brewing process other than malt, rice & corn being the two
most widely used &, not coincidentally, the most stigmatized. Used to be that a craft brewer worthy of the
name (according to the Brewers’ Association) could not brew a flagship using
any adjuncts, or if they did it had to be “to enhance rather than lighten the
flavor” to be considered “traditional” (the BA’s words). The common talking point among the anti-big
beer crowd has long been that brewers of adjunct lagers introduced corn &
rice as a way to cut corners & shore up the bottom line, to the detriment
of their own product. Historical
accounts, however, point to a motive less cynical (though profit is always a
consideration – it’s still business).*
The American palate in the 1800s shifted from the heavier old world
styles – Bavarian lager, English porter – to light, crisp, quaffable, &
aesthetically pleasing. This was exemplified
in the Bohemian pilsners, viewed as a beer fitting an emerging modern
lifestyle, a lifestyle born of industrialization. A modern beer for increasingly modern
times. American brewers wanted to
emulate this Czech marvel, but found that native six-row barley was too
protein-rich & left unsightly globs in the finished product.
They experimented with corn (which worked,
but often at the risk of imparting a rancid flavor) & - voila! – rice. This evolution was made to create a product
of higher quality & appeal, a concept that may startle today’s beer geek –
NOT to lighten or cheapen. To the
contrary, American adjunct lager was actually more expensive to brew than
all-malt, & the result of industrial era brewers’ creativity with
indigenous ingredients. Don’t get me
wrong: I’m happy that today’s craft beer paradigm is around all-malt beers
& much prefer them to adjunct lagers.
However, I think that those who view this traditional family of beers as
a bastardization suffer from a lack of historical & cultural perspective. The Brewers’ Association recently modified to
its definition of craft brewer to include this American tradition. Part of me wonders, though, how much the
change in the BA’s definition has to do with a broadening of ideology & how
much it might have to do with wanting some of the bigger players (uh…Yuengling)
under its umbrella. Personally, I have a
soft spot for Yuengling & Straub, two old school breweries that are still
family-owned & independent, & who were (previously) excluded from this
camp.
Speaking of historical perspective, of late I’ve also been
fascinated by the process by which American beer culture may have evolved to be
represented by one style. Centuries ago,
things were much more pluralistic, with thousands of breweries producing many
styles from different traditions. Over
time, the number of breweries decreased to hundreds, then scores; the number of
styles to, pretty much, one. Two, if you
count “light lager”. Prohibition had
something to do with it, but like I said before, industrialization &
modernity had a hand as well in shaping people’s tastes. The polyculture of American beer today is
apparent, but could there exist a time when trends could gradually ebb toward a
monoculture once again? And what would that
be? The IPA has risen to dominance as
THE iconic craft beer style. Craft beer
is on the rise, & big beer’s market share is slowly receding. We’ve also seen the backlash against high
ABVs & extreme beer in the push toward more sessionable beers &
moderation. Can you imagine a future
where session IPAs are the next American lager?
Two hundred years from now, where the adjective “beery” refers not to
the aroma of corn & musty basement, but to grapefruit & pine?
It’s a brave new world.
No answers here, folks, just thoughts.
See? This is what happens when I
drink Budweiser.
*Info on the origin of
adjunct lager comes from Maureen Ogle’s excellent history of American brewing, Ambitious
Brew. Read that first, then the Tom Acitelli book mentioned above, which
picks up where Ogle leaves off.
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