Last blog post saw me venting on how the “geek” part of
“beer geek” can get a little out of hand.
I want to clarify that, overall, I don’t think knowledge about beer is a
bad thing at all – the opposite. It
makes me happy to see that people are thinking about what’s in the bottle or
glass, able to appreciate some of the context that makes a beer whole. As good beer becomes more widely accepted,
the drinking populace is elevating its habits.
Okay, you’ve stopped drinking straight from the bottle & are
decanting. Good! How about kicking it up another notch &
buying yourself a few tulips? If you’re
on it enough, you might snag a complementary Duvel glass during one of our
giveaways.
Correlating with the rise in public interest in beer, there
are more sources of info than ever before.
I don’t know how many times we’re going to see the same articles spun
over & over: “Proper Glassware for Your Beer”, “Pairing Beer with Food”,
“Know Your Styles”, & on & on. I
don’t know what constitutes plagiarism in cases like these, but it seems that
everyone’s biting someone else, & I don’t see a lot of credit being given
for source material. Chances are, the
writer gleaned their knowledge from another writer, & it’s doubtful that
they accrued info about the grain bill, process, & color range of gueuze,
for instance, from years working at Brouwerij Boon or something. The beer education pot has many, many cooks
hovering around it. My hope is that,
over time, the knowledge base will become a little more refined (it’s
refreshing to see the “IPA legend” slowly being laid to bed), & folks will
do their research.
Not that I blame the writers or the repeaters for getting
things a little skewed. There are troves
upon troves of historical & quasi-scientific tidbits to be unearthed; it
can be overwhelming. In the post-modern
age of the internet, where anyone can pretty much find any opinion or “fact”
they can imagine with a quick search, one longs for some sort of monolithic authority. Michael Jackson is a god amongst beer
writers, but even he’s not immune to self-contradiction here & there (anecdotally,
the origin of the tripel in Great Beers
of Belgium left me a little confused).
The Christmas after it was published, I received The Oxford Companion to Beer, which carried the promise of being
just the authoritative last word so many sought. Even before it was released, however, a storm
of controversy brewed over disputed historical accounts, the charged led by
British beer historian & consummate blogger Martyn Cornell. Many others voiced disagreement with
contents, & the OCB wiki was born
for the sole purpose of revising errors.
Garrett Oliver, the OCB’s
editor, responded eloquently (but not without emotion) to the revisionists,
defending himself & the aim of the OCB
while giving the wiki his blessing & validation. But this was a tremendous effort collaborated
on by scores of experts, & it still met with rebuttal.
I’ve used the OCB
a ton over the few past years. I seldom
write this blog without it by my side.
There’s little doubt that I’ve cited some things incorrectly, or given
out faulty info from time to time throughout posts. Guilty.
Just one in the army of cooks throwing my pinch into the soup. Beer is pleasure, & if you’re going to
take it as seriously as I do, you have to be prepared to not take it so
seriously, if that makes sense. Know
your source, & take every morsel of beer geek minutia with a grain of salt.
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