Bum raps aren’t always fair.
One way or the other, certain aspects of the beer world are given
negative connotations they don’t really deserve. I’ve long been an apologist for the shaker
pint, that sturdy, versatile work horse so maligned by the snobs. I don’t think the three tier system’s such a
bad thing, either, as it helps to level the playing field and give more opportunity
to the little guys. I understand people’s
criticism of these entities, but can also see the good they offer.
Some bum raps come from misunderstanding or guilt by
association. What does the word ‘adjunct’
conjure for you? Not long ago, the word
became affixed to a style of beer that only recently had to be distinguished
& renamed, squeezed between “American” & “Lager”. American Adjunct Lager is, I believe, meant
to be a value-neutral descriptor, indicating the kind of traditional corn- or
rice- infused beer your grandfather (& most of America) drinks. But let’s face it - it’s pretty much a
bowdlerism for “shitty industrial beer”.
The word “adjunct” became taboo not because adjuncts are
inherently bad, but because craft fans saw them being abused & came to
assume that the sole purpose of using adjuncts was to thin the flavor &
cheapen the beer. The Brewers’
Association, up until last year, excluded from the definition of “craft brewery”
any brewer whose flagship contained adjuncts.
The tent has since been expanded – “traditional” now denotes A brewer
that has a majority of its total beverage alcohol volume in beers whose flavor
derives from traditional or innovative brewing ingredients and their fermentation. Traditional or innovative? Huh? Anyway, craft brewing now includes those “adjunct
brewers” that were theretofore verboten, which essentially means that any
domestically-owned brewery making under 6,000,000 barrels a years is a craft
brewery.
But despite being tied to a stigmatized indigenous beer
style, adjuncts are not the enemy of good beer.
They don’t exist solely for the purpose of cheapening beer (though have
been misused to this effect). The
definition of an “adjunct” in brewing is any source of fermentable sugar other
than malt. This includes corn and rice,
yes, but also unmalted oats, rye, wheat, barley, syrups, honey, etc. Oatmeal stouts are “adjunct beers”, yet you
don’t see them scorned as “English adjunct stouts”. Lambics contain unmalted wheat, yet you don’t
see “Belgian adjunct sour ale” being thrown around. Many, many beloved Belgian ales use candi
sugar, yet you’d never see someone disparage Westy 12 as a “Trappist adjunct
ale”. Many, many great beers rely on
adjuncts to enhance their character, not detract from it, yet we still have
this Reinheitsgebot-fueled puritanism that disregards the full breadth of brewing
ingredients.
To be clear, not every ingredient added to a beer outside of
water, yeast, malt, & hops is an adjunct – they have to have some level of
fermentable carbs. Coffee, spices,
orange peel, even lactose, for instance, are not fermentable & thus aren’t
considered adjuncts. There’s some gray
area with fruit, chocolate, and other additives with sugar, depending on how
much they actually contribute to the fermentables in the beer. So adjuncts are neither just corn and rice, nor are they
everything-but-the-kitchen-sink.
That said, even the classic “adjunct lagers” were not
intended to be cheap, thin, and watery – adjuncts were actually employed to improve the beer, as domestic 6-row malt
didn’t have what it took on its own to make a decent pilsner. Rice was actually more expensive than barley
in the day, and was what it took in the 19th century to emulate Czech
pilsners with ingredients in the states.
What’s transpired since with these progenitors is a different story, but
it’s not the adjunct’s fault. Maybe the
verbiage will change, but I think it’s wise to think twice before throwing a
cornerstone of brewing technique & history under the bus.
Thanks to The Oxford Companion to Beer, John Palmer's How to Brew, & Maureen Ogle's Brewing Ambition for some helpful info.
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