Occasionally in the hallowed halls of the House blog, I like
to ponder the intersection of beer & art.
In the entry ‘Conceptual Beer’ from last…uh, summer, I think…I used East
End Brewing’s Stigmatized Wholly Indigenous Local Lager (S.W.I.L.L.), a
pre-Prohibition adjunct lager based on an old recipe, as an example. The point was that this was a craft brewer
creating a beer from a non-‘craft’ recipe, for the purpose of resurrecting an
extinct style, briefly. I noticed other
brewers taking cues from old school industrial lagers, like Avery Brewing’s
Joe’s Premium American Pilsner (in a can, naturally), part homage, part
tongue-in-cheek irony. Stillwater made
an old school lager that they funked up with
brett & again, in a smack of double-irony, gave the name ‘Premium’. The Bruery released Run B.M.C. (awesome
name), a “quadruple-hopped imperial pilsner” (get it, Miller Lite?) “meant for enjoyment on a hot day in your
back yard while surrounded by bikini clad women and professional football
players”. Dogfish Head’s Liquor de Malt,
Rogue’s Daddy’s Little Helper (in its original incarnation), & recently
Voodoo’s #22oz.tofreedom are all malt liquors, the most parodied & scoffed
at style of beer “elevated” by the fact that they are made by esteemed craft
brewers. I was fascinated by this
phenomenon; artisanal, quality brewers choosing to take a stab at styles of
beer that most beer geeks view as quaint at best & much worse at worst.
Within the past year, Stillwater released Classique, a
post-Prohibition ale with corn, rice, old school American hops, & put it in
a can. In a knowing move, they dubbed it
a “Postmodern Beer”. ‘Yes!’, I told
myself. ‘That’s exactly what this trend
has been all along, & Stillwater nailed it on the head!’ These brewers are taking the modernist
definition of “craft beer” & turning it inside out. The perfect malt? The perfect hops? Precise brewing techniques that all converge
into a Platonic ideal of beer, an archetype that says ‘This is the fruit of
progress? “Screw that!” these po-mo
brewers say. “Let’s go old school! Primitive!
Simple! DUMB!” Only dumb in the smartest way! Postmodernism says that there is no “truth”,
only “truths”. No one ideal, only individual
values & perspectives. Why have a
Westy 12 when you can have a Bud? Bud
makes a whole lot more people happy, after all.
Dada artist Marcel Duchamp is best known for his work
“Fountain”, a urinal he found & signed.
What makes it art? An artist signed
it & called it “art”. The Brewers’
Association’s definition of craft, what seems to me to be a modernist standard
for sealing the identity & “stamp” of beer, eats itself when Dogfish Head
makes a malt liquor with three different kinds of corn. It’s a malt liquor. What makes it a craft beer? A craft brewer made it! But it’s a malt liquor! Check the rulebook, you standard-setting
Phillistines. There’s a blurring of
“high” & “low” art in post-modernism that’s parallel in this trend. Take Andy Warhol, who took photos of
celebrities & methods of mass production, the antitheses of high art &
artisanship, & made mass-produced photos of celebrities in art. Avery looks back to simple, mass-produced
lager, & makes it their own.
Voila! If only they’d put it in a
soup can…
There’s a ton of critical ore to mine here, which is part of
what’s so captivating about the craft movement: while its roots are quality
& technique, it’s branches are symbolism & aesthetic. A big part of postmodernism is self-reference,
the knowing nod that each of these beers gives the consumer as it eyes them up
from its lofty position on the shelf.
Maybe there’s a longing for yesteryear at play in craft beer, a
remembrance of a simpler time un-fraught by a sea of choice, complexity, &
complication. Maybe deep-down we each
want to be spoon-fed. Eh, probably
not. But it’s fun to see beer take on
the role of gadfly & make us think about some of the ideals we take for
granted.
The above image is Jasper John's Painted Bronze (Ale Cans), 1960.
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