Why I Love Dogfish Head

I & most people I know have a love/hate relationship with listicles.  Most of the time it’s lazy writing &, in a way, insults the reader’s intelligence.  Many of the lists are redundant (how many times do we need a “Top [x] Beers to [fill in the blank]”) or arbitrary (what makes these the “Top [x] Beers to [fill in the blank]”?).  They usually incite disagreement & reaction, part of what makes them such good clickbait.  They exploit our natural attraction to organization & hierarchy, & are easily digestible - just fun head-candy.  I’ve certainly been guilty of putting out listicle-type posts before, so who am I to point fingers?  I’ve been addicted to lists & rankings since long before I got into beer, & years ago would eagerly pore over lists from Pitchfork, VH1, & Rolling Stone.

So it often occurs to me list whom I consider to be the most important or influential brewers in the roughly 50 years of craft brewing in the U.S.  A few no-brainers would be the pioneers - Anchor, the original alternative; Sierra Nevada, whose pale ale ignited a palate & paradigm shift; Boston, whose marketing & business sense arguably paved the way for craft to become mainstream; & New Albion, who was kind of the Velvet Underground of craft (Brian Eno said that not everyone bought VU’s first album, but everyone who did started a band).  These are just a few off the top of my head.

These are all first- or second-wavers.  Among the wave that emerged in the 90’s, three immediately come to mind: New Belgium, who ventured out with an all-Belgian-style portfolio as early as 1991; Russian River, who popularized the double IPA & American-made sour beer; & Dogfish Head.  

Dogfish Head turns 20 this year.  While I think there are more-than-personal reasons for Dogfish Head’s significance, of course I’m going to start with a personal anecdote.  Dogfish Head was probably the first craft beer I’d heard of.  I was in the apartment of an older friend (this was before my drinking days), who was telling another buddy about this beer he’d found while on vacation in Delaware.  The name was cool, & the idea of a smaller brewer was completely new to me.  The name & idea stuck with me, until several years later when I was able to order my own beer & met with a deluge of names & options.  Dogfish Head was familiar, & I liked their beer.

I think Dogfish Head has represented a threshold for a lot of people just getting into a craft, while still maintaining their appeal beyond “just” a “crossover” brewery.  They spearheaded the “extreme beer” movement with 120 Minute IPA, Fort, & World Wide Stout, tipping the scales in high double-digit ABVs.  If you were to list all the ingredients that have ever been employed in their brewery, it would likely be the longest of any American brewery, & would include among many others wasabi, rose water, scrapple, & human saliva.  They’ve collaborated with dozens of partners - not just brewers, but also musicians (including a favorite, indie gods Guided by Voices).  They’ve plumbed the depths of brewing history, creating beers based on recipes & anthropological findings millennia-old.  They broke ground on beer-wine hybrids way before the trend a few years.  And they still do very accessible stuff - amidst all the crazy stuff going on, I often forget that their flagship is an IPA.

They’re sometimes dismissed among the jaded geeks for being “gimmicky”.  I can see how their processes & recipes might be construed as marketing stunts (it’s cool to think of a beer made with ingredients from all seven continents, but is that conveyed in the taste?).  To me, though, Dogfish Head is the most effective embodiment of the freedom possible in brewing - the value of freedom depreciates if it’s not used, & they continue to execute whatever they feel like.  Sure, I don’t love everything they make, but that’s part of experimentation.  Even owner/founder Sam Calagione has admitted that they’ve released more than one faux pas over the years.  That’s part of the draw, at least for me - I saw in Dogfish Head all the crazy outsider stuff that could be attempted & accomplished in brewing, & it was like a world of possibilities was opened.

Speaking of Sam, he seems to be a polarizing figure.  His persona is large, broad.  He had a TV show, & is one of the most high profile characters in the biz.  He may come across as showy to the relatively critical, conservative crowd that comprises the beer-geekery.  He’s definitely got a kind of Joey Tribbiani vibe, goofy & endearing.  That surfer-with-the-rugged-good-looks thing is balanced by what appears to be a sharp business & creative mind.  The interests conveyed in Dogfish Head’s marketing dovetail with a lot of other niche popular culture - I mentioned GbV before, but he’s been spotted wearing Basquiat shirts, making Leonard Cohen references.  A scan of the brewpub’s in-house-only beers includes a crazy imperial stout/saison blend with Bordeaux grapes, aged in Buffalo Trace barrels, called “The Owls Are Not What They Seem” (look that one up).  Though the jaded may brush him off, dude’s literary.  

I also can’t think of a better spokesperson for craft beer.  With the TV show, his role in the movie Beer Wars, & other media appearances, he’s been a public face & frequently delivers a very positive message about the business.  Dogfish Head seems to have a record of playing well with their peers, & making craft beer a better place.  And Sam’s rebutted interest from the big guys, just this summer rejecting an offer from A-BInBev to sit down & talk turkey.

Though I’m writing all this fanboy stuff honestly, it’s not for nothing - I’ve long held these kinds of opinions & just needed a good reason to sit down & articulate them all.  And that reason [trumpets] is that The House is doing a small part in helping this groundbreaker celebrate their 20th with a slew of events - last night was the first of two sold out pairing dinners with Dogfish Head & our Chef Brian.  We’ll also hold a tap takeover of Dogfish Head’s brews this Friday, followed by a cupcake & beer brunch featuring further wizardry from Brian & Dogfish Head.  So yeah - we’re taking part, but my applause is still from the heart.  Happy 20th to one of the greats.

Is Craft Beer Punk? Part 2

A warning about this part of the post: If idealism & naivette make you roll your eyes, you might want to check out now.  I’m going to touch on some basic, sincere concepts in a way that’s not cool to do in our age of irony & post-everything, & I might get a little naked here.  I might also be more black-&-white than usual, but here goes...

The answer to the question about why people are upset by the blurring of craft beer’s boundaries is obvious to anyone who’s been a teenager, or who’s ever believed in something.  People believe in craft beer.  I’m going to speak for myself here, but I truly feel that a lot of people hold the same fundamental values about the beer & the community that they love.  As much as I’ve held the Brewers’ Association’s criteria under scrutiny elsewhere in my opinions, the core facets - small, independent, traditional - mean something to me, & are important.  The BA’s had the unenviable job of trying to operationalize those concepts, which is how we end up with with something like “small<6,000,000 bbls”, but those vague adjectives are there for a reason.  They represent an idealistic schema of how things should work, & protect those who aim to operate under that perfect world premise.  There are thousands of small companies, making a great product by their own standards, who are limited only by their imaginations & physical possibilities, & who are, to quote Comrade Calagione, “99.9% asshole-free”.  

If I’m coming across as a pollyanna here, it’s because that’s the way that the craft community has presented itself for decades.  We live in a compromised world - those chastising the anti-big-biz mentality of the hippie-punks like me who balk at corporate mergers are quick to point out how many times our lives intersect with big biz on a daily basis (I’m typing this into Google Docs, for instance).  But that’s the thing about the breweries we love - they seem to aspire to more ethical, beneficent, & just plain bullshit-free standard of operation than most of us are accustomed to.  To me, they show that it can be done the way it should be done, the way that I feel is the right way to run a business & be an entrepreneur.  This says to me that it’s possible to be successful & to grow without compromising, without selling out.  Or to NOT grow, & still be successful, if that’s how you want to do things - some of the most successful breweries are incredibly small, intimate operations who want to stay that way.  There’s a purity in the craft, in the product, that I feel is a big part of its draw.  It’s not just the beer, but who made it, how it was made, where it came from, what it means.  Deep down, that’s important & special to me, & many of us seem to be of the same sentiment.  

Put into the context of beer in the US, historically, craft emerged in no small part as an anti-establishment movement.  The pioneers of craft beer in the US took the steps they did because they wanted something better; reflexively, you can surmise that they saw big beer as the enemy.  It may have become passe now to dis BMC, & again, I’ve made some judicious concessions toward acknowledging the strengths they have in past writing.  But let’s not forget the strong “us vs. them” current flowing through all of craft’s past - the appeal has always been the flavor & quality foremost, but there’s also the satisfaction of knowing that you’re supporting the little guy & telling the big guy where to stick it.  “No crap on tap” was a call to arms for many good bars, priding themselves on keeping the bad guys out.  

Yep, I’ve gone there - “good guys & bad guys”.  A naive, youthful, rebellious part of me still feels that way.  The part of me that cares enough to take a stand, at least until the pragmatic part of me convinces it to peacefully sit back down.  The big corporations gave American beer a bad name, & part of me still pains to see them shaking hands with any of the players who’ve done their part to reverse that reputation.  That’s some of what gets me a little twisted, & you know what?  Craft breweries have capitalized on that perception.  Craft breweries have grown successful in some part because, not in spite, of their anti-establishment, us-vs-them, stick-it-to-the-man mentality.  And it’s hard to ignore the inherent contradiction in that transformation.

I realize that a lot of this might be my own baggage, but I maintain that a lot of others feel the same way.  Maybe becoming a parent has made me get in touch with some of my youthful values, & long for a scene that’s pure & free from the taint of corporate greed.  Maybe I want something like that to exist for my own son - not that I plan on handing him a pristine craft beer any time soon, but to know that it’s possible to do things “The Right Way” & be successful, sustainable.  Maybe I’m also an old fart who likes things better the old way, before there were these kinds of conundrums.  I came of drinking age after the 90’s bubble popped, after that decade’s wave of IPOs & corporate grabs came & went, but still came into good beer seeing an unspoilt landscape of possibilities.  

To that point, I can’t help but notice a little generation gap in how people perceive this kind of sea change.  In debating folks on-line, it felt like I came to personify the idealistic old hippie pining for the days when people cared & got angry, vs. the younger whip or two I butted heads with, who seemed unfazed.  Perhaps the millenials, who’ve barely grown up in a world without a multinationally-owned Goose Island, see it all as a level playing field.  “If the beer’s good, who cares who produces it?” is a common refrain, & one that I’ve rattled off from time to time.  But yeah, a part of me cares.  This point also brings to mind an episode of Craft Beer Radio, in which the hosts were joined by hosts of several other beer podcasts to discuss that infamous Budweiser Super Bowl ad.  The majority seemed to find it amusing & well-executed in a detached, critical kind of way, or maybe only slightly offensive but ultimately giving credit where it was due for an effective ad.  The only one to really raise some indignation was James Spencer of Basic Brewing Radio, the senior of this little roundtable.  His reaction was, to paraphrase, that he’s met too many small brewers who’ve given their lives, poured their hearts & souls, into their endeavors to have it belittled by a snarky ad.  

A light went off for me in hearing James’ response.  Of course it’s shitty for Bud to takes jabs at craft brewers - they’re real people who’ve sacrificed & busted their asses for something they believe in.  That emotion, that connection, is part of what has made craft beer as successful as it’s become, & I think what will continue to carry it forward.  People use the word “passion” in conjunction with craft beer all the time: “I’m passionate about craft beer.  Craft beer is a passion of mine.”.  On some level, talking about passion, community, & other emotionally-charged concepts can become marketing, but on some level it’s real.  I want to see people reconnect with that passion, that emotion, & to stop being so cynical & detached about something that they admit to loving.  That’s real, it’s deep, & it’s worth fighting for.  I hope we can get in touch with that deep-down-ness, look at it honestly, & take a little part of it with us every time we think about that next beer.  That, to me, is the spirit of this thing that we all love so much.  

Thanks to all who’ve stuck this post out & bore me getting a tad preachy.  I encourage all of us to think about our passion & what it means, where it comes from on a gut level.  And bottom line - do what feels good & what feels right.  That’s really what it’s all about.

Note: The above image is full of all kinds of semiotic significance - Elysian is a former craft brewery that was bought by ABInBev. Prior to that acquisition, they brewed 'Loser' in collaboration with SubPop Records, a formerly indie record label that formed a commercial partnership with Warner Bros. - the same band that signed Hüsker Dü back in the 80's.  So yeah, layers of stuff there.  

Is Craft Beer Punk? Part 1

I love preparing for a blog post by reading about punk rock.  The hardcore scene in the early 80’s was miles away from the grips of the mainstream music industry.  A few indie record labels flew the flag, showing that artistic satisfaction was possible through a DIY aesthetic & ethos (& working very, very hard).  This underground formed, in large part, as a reaction to the establishment that it saw as creatively desolate, valuing style over substance & hits over humanity.   Bands like Black Flag, the Minutemen, & Minor Threat built a scene with their bare bands, & those drawn to it were fiercely protective of the community that was theirs.  Commercial success in the conventional sense was a foregone preclusion – even if it wasn’t actively resisted, it just seemed inconceivable.

In 1986, a band by the name of Hüsker Dü crossed the gap, leaving stalwart SST Records & signing to Warner Brothers.  WB had courted the band for its “hip” status & grass roots fanbase, & part of the deal was that  Hüsker Dü would keep complete creative control – a promise on which, by all accounts, the company made good.  There was backlash from the fanbase, cries of “sellout” from those who saw bedding down with a corporation as anathema.  The band never quite achieved the creative heights they had at SST, though it’s debatable whether that had anything to do with their new home.  But the landscape had changed, & other bands followed suit.  Hardcore was built on the tenet of not selling out, & was now facing an identity crisis.

Anyone who’s followed this blog knows that the identity of craft beer comes up as a frequent topic.  They would also know that I’m a big fan of Lagunitas, who’s thrown their “craft brewer” identity into question by selling half of their company to Heineken.  Mergers & acquisitions in the beer world are nothing new – craftbrewingbusiness.com documents various forms of “selling out” at the rate of more than one per month lately, though some are more benign than others.  They still seem to cause a stir.  In my adult life, Goose Island’s sale to the Evil Empire of the beer industry was a huge upset; the Hüsker Dü analogy seemed obvious then.  And again, other breweries have followed suit, & the landscape has changed to one where the interests of “big” & “small” businesses become ever more mingled.

The craft beer community at large, on both the supply & demand sides, did not receive the news of Goose Island’s new ownership favorably.  I can think of more than one hardcore craft supporter who vowed that no Bourbon County would cross their lips again; I haven’t observed them longitudinally, but I’m going to give those individuals the benefit of the doubt & presume they’ve stuck to their guns.  Others were cautiously, um, non-pessimistic.  “Wait & see”, they said.  “Maybe it’ll be okay,” they said.  And for the most part, they were right.  The beer didn’t really take a hit, & now more people could get their hands on something they’d only heard of before.  I’ve defended post-sale Goose Island here, & folks seem to have come to accept that a big corporate brewery can avoid completely corrupting a brand.

So by now we’ve grown accustomed to brewers of all sizes getting more financially enmeshed with one another.  And the public’s reaction?  It’s mixed.  There are those who defend the moves, who cite that they mean more opportunity & resources for brewers.  There’s the argument that selling may be the only way to keep the brand viable long-term, & what owner nearing retirement age wouldn’t want to cash in on a company they’ve busted their ass to grow into something strong?  There’s the utilitarian angle that selling will deliver good beer to more people, maybe people in other parts of the world.  And just like the Hüskers, guys like Tony Magee promise to retain creative control, so nobody has to worry about their beloved beer taking a quality nosedive.

But even if fans manage to rationalize their way into accepting & even supporting acquisition, is anyone really happy about it?  Accepting at best, maybe apathetic, but happy?  I have a hard time believing that, given their druthers, fans of Lagunitas (of which there are many) want to see half the company sold off to the likes of Heineken.  And the non-apologists are either fed up or pissed off.  I have to admit that this one hit me a little harder than the previous sales, as Lagunitas has become one of my personal favorites.  Their split has given me some pause to reflect on my own values regarding art & business (which is always good fodder for blogging).

So, predictably, there are plenty who are unhappy about this trend - but why?  I think it’s a given that some people are going to react negatively to change, but it’s become ridicule-worthy for people to express indignation over what’s become a reality.  Outrage is now automatically met with a reflexive dismissal.   I’ve discussed objections over the Lagunitas move with the usual parties, in the usual venues, & have been called naïve.  I’m willing to bear that label, but I want to explain my position.  True, there’s probably little effect that said outrage will actually have, but that’s not to say that people can’t own their opinions, & that the reaction has some validity.  I think we need to listen to why we’re bent out of shape, & maybe learn something from it.

Once again, I find myself biting off a little more than I can chew.  I think I’m gonna grab a beer & continue this line of thought later.

*The graphic above is from Baltimore-based homebrew organization Brew Not Bombs, who definitely take the DIY approach to beer seriously.

Get Yer Head Outta Yer Glass!

Western PA can boast some pretty cool places to drink beer straight from the source.  Any time an out-of-towner wants suggestions for a good beer-centric spots to check out, I have a list ready in my mind.  There’s Church Brew Works, a truly one-of-a-kind place & the only brewpub, to my knowledge, located in a church.  There’s Penn Brewery, with its historic locale & old world vibe.  Hofbräuhaus is plain kitschy fun, an Epcot Center of hoi polloi brew entertainment.  And those coming in from the north are advised to stop at North Country & see the awesome woodwork woven throughout the place.  Granted, there are plenty more places to imbibe in some great beer, & I’ll typically also recommend some other local breweries & bars, depending on where they’re going to be (of course, The House is a must-see, but that goes without saying…).  The places I mentioned also happen to have good food & are generally family-friendly, two other big plusses in my book.

Thing is, though, these places are not “hot items” right now among the geekery.  Ask a beer nerd what they think of them & you might get a dismissive “meh” or even outright derision, & that sucks.  And why?  Always the beer.  It’s not to say that these breweries don’t make good beer – they do.  But you don’t see a lot of envelope-pushing or trendy styles hitting their chalkboards, & while they might rack up medals, they don’t tend to rack up high scores on the rating sites.  So the hardcore crowd eschews some real gems of places in favor of the ones currently on the cutting edge. 

I’m glad that this area has so much to offer that we can be choosy.  I’m glad that we can taste some really innovative stuff from Brew Gentlemen, Draai Laag, & Roundabout one day, then partake in some unique atmosphere the next.  Please don’t infer that I’m trying to dissuade anyone from checking out anything that our area has to offer - just saying that there are multiple facets to the experience that we ought to take into account.  Each opportunity should be weighed per its strengths & weaknesses, & failing to recognize strengths where they exist is short-sighted – maybe other strengths even supercede the beer.  I try not to have blinders on when it comes to drinking & venues, & never discount a place wholesale just because they’re not knocking every batch out of the park.  Making good beer is a priority, but it’s not the only consideration. 

And each visitor has their own priorities.  Some might be flying solo or with company who are all about the beer; some might be on vacation or visiting relatives, & looking for something fun & memorable; some might need a place that’s accommodating to all ages & tastes; some might want to take in a chunk of history or personal sentiment.  If I were coming in from out of town, drinking in a church would probably occupy a bigger place in my memory than downing a killer IPA, & who’s to say I can’t do both anyway?  Hell, even though their beer’s not near topping any lists, I’d love to hit Straub sometime just to tour an old school regional brewery & scope out that “Eternal Tap”.  It’s about perspective & taking the total context in, beyond “just” what’s in the glass.  Being a beer fan should be about more than just the ratings, & even about more than just the beer.

Lupulin Spoken Here

A few years ago I was facing a minor dilemma.  Most of the domestically-brewed dubbels I tried were just not cutting it.  As a fledgling beer drinker, my introduction to Belgian beer was through Bornem Dubbel.  I love Chimay Premiere, Maredsous 8, & other Belgian-born examples, but with the exception of Ommegang’s Abbey Ale, the American-brewed dubbels were consistently swinging & missing.  Too husky, too boozy, too dry, too this or that – I was getting pessimistic.  As any pedantic beer drinker is wont to do, I shared my struggle in an on-line forum.  I got a few recommendations, most of which I tried, with similar letdown.  But there were a lot of folks feeling my pain, who felt the same way about domestic tripels, quads, & other efforts at Belgian styles.  Sure, there were some outliers, but they were more like the exceptions that prove the rule – the refrain became that if you want a good Belgian beer, get one from a Belgian brewery.  I can’t tell you why this is – native water? native yeast? good old-fashioned know-how? – but it seems to be true more often than not.

This came as a shocker for me at the time – you mean the American craft beer massive, the great DIY melting pot of beer history & technique, has a blind spot?  You mean US craft brewing is not all things to all people?  It dawned on me that, in our post-modern have-it-all beer utopia, there is still such a thing as regional specialty, & some styles are just better from their indigenous homeland. 

Another revelation came a few years before that while reading The Brewmaster’s Table.  Garrett Oliver catalogs styles across the western world, & pretty much every mention of an “Americanized” style boils down to higher hopping & bitterness.  American pale ale, American stout, American barleywine, American brown, etc. etc. equate to “like the old world example, but hoppier”.  Putting two & two together, I came to realize that this is America’s contribution to the international stage – hoppy –ass beer is American craft brew’s native tongue! 

Sure, there are other indigenous American styles – steam beer, swanky, Pennsylvania porter, Kentucky common.  None of those have taken hold & distinguished themselves the way American IPA (& at its roots, American pale ale) has, as the coat of arms for stateside craft brewing.  American adjunct lager was created to emulate the old world, not necessarily to innovate.  English craft beer is dominated by bitter, mild, porter, because that’s what they do best.  German beer is all about lagers and wheats for the same reason.  Belgian beer is all over the map, but it’s all distinctly Belgian in character.  The old world is taking cues from the new now, which is cool, & I think American beer finding its identity is a good thing.  As much as people bemoan the dominance of IPA on the scene, it’s popular & omnipresent for a reason – craft brewers are doing great things with hops, & more & more drinkers are being turned on to that.

IPA has shifted & grown over the years, as has the collective palate.  What used to be synonymous with bitter pine & citrus pith has branched out into so many niches & flavors.  Perusing my own tasting notes yields a plethora of descriptors: raw pine, peach, passion fruit, hard cheese rind, lemon cookie, grapefruit, orange peel, candied orange, lemon tea, floral, blue cheese, pineapple, mango, pitch, lemongrass, dill, fresh cut grass, cucumber, honeydew, fatty, ammonia, mint.  A few weeks ago I tried some of Roundabout’s IPAs & was amazed to find hints of coconut nestled in there.  Brewers are using IPAs as a canvas for all that hops can express.  And it’s not all about bitterness like it was five to ten years ago – the IBU race is a thing of the past, & drinking hoppy beers doesn’t have to feel like sucking on a pine cone any more.  I’m thrilled that I can split a bottle of IPA with my wife without hearing that it tastes like shampoo & earwax.

This is American craft brewing’s language, like the breadth of peppers in Mexican cooking or spices in Indian cuisine (I wonder how many Indians complain about overuse of turmeric).  As futile as it may be, I’ve voiced my dissatisfaction with the use of “IPA” to describe this family of beers – it’s transcended its historical origins & become what it is through modern domestic utilization.  American ale would be a more fitting name, if you ask me, but that ship has sailed. 

So once again, in observation of IPA Day (a moment of silence, please), I spill my head open about the reigning craft beer style.  I recommend combing through the archives & checking out the other eight-ish posts on the topic.  I guess, as much attention as it’s been given, I still find it fertile ground.  It appears that, for now, craft brewers are not done mining this territory either.  I’ll toast to that.

Noob Envy

I’m a big fan of knowledge & experience.  A little background story, a little awareness of the style, a little informational context, can help with one’s appreciation of a beer.  Those things aren’t necessary to enjoy a beer – all that’s required there are a working nose & tongue – but to get what a brewer’s going for, knowing the parameters & intention can be helpful & give you a slightly deeper connection to what’s in the glass.

 

Okay, I’ll just clear the air – I might come across as a little bit superior or condescending in this post.  But at least I’m owning it.  I drink a good bit of beer.  I also sell it, make it, listen, read, & write about it.  A lot.  A good chunk of my mental, if not physical, energy & space is devoted to beer.  So I’m taking the tone of the “seasoned vet” here, as arrogant as it may sound.  But please read on.

That arrogant tone is in service of a point, which is that knowledge & experience can sometimes be a blinder.  It creates expectation, & expectation is a double-edged sword.  Drinking thousands of beers is a reliable way to hone your tastes – you definitely figure out what you like& dislike, what belongs & what should’ve been worked out first.  But establishing expectation means that you have a pre-conception about what you’re going to taste, which can lead to disappointment.  I believe that experience is best balanced by humility & an open mind.  It’s so frustrating seeing a beer unfairly bashed by someone who’s seen it all & drank it all.  It’s hard to find a beer without some sort of strengths, & if a drinker’s “experienced” palate is callous to those strengths, no matter how subtle, often the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater.  They’re missing out on the small beauty of that beer, while at the same time blaming, ironically. 

I’m not saying to set your expectations low, but to approach each drink with new & opened eyes.  Wouldn’t we all like to go back to those formative years of discovering good beer, everything it has to offer, & tasting it for the first time?  The “Wow”s were way more frequent then, weren’t they?  It would be like falling in love all over again, with all the sensations that accompany that honeymoon spark.  That’s not to say that the “Wow”s don’t still come, but they’re fewer & further between the deeper into your journey you go.  Sometimes those breakthrough moments are quantitative, & you’re getting more of a good thing than you’ve ever had; sometimes they’re qualitative, yielding a smell, flavor, or feel that you’d just never gotten before.  But often our relationship with beer evolves into a satisfying stability, one that hopefully continues to be solid & pleasurable even if there aren’t fireworks with every other sip.

That expectation can also limit your perception.  I love IPAs, but when a new one is set in front of me, I pretty much expect to get some combination of citrus, pine, floral – the usual descriptors.  Because I’ve come to expect those notes, it sometimes feels like my brain is hard-wired to only find those & maybe ignore other aspects.  What am I missing because I’m so used to finding these “typical” flavors & aromas?  A lot of the other beer geeks I end up drinking with kind of have the same problem – knowing how it’s “supposed” to taste means they evaluate it on that scale, & may be desensitized to finding something new.  One thing I like about drinking beer with greener, less jaded folks is what they can pick out of a beer.  A new hire & I had a Bell’s Two Hearted, a beer of which I’ve had dozens, after one shift, & immediately he picked out strawberry.  I loved that, because then I got it too & was able to taste the beer in a new light.  In what’s become sort of a running joke, a guest at a tasting (Hi Matt!)  picked out the smell of dill in a beer.  I never would’ve noticed it without his suggestion, but he was right & after that I couldn’t unsmell it – it was fascinating!  This happens a lot, which is the beauty of tasting with a “younger” drinker – you never know what kind of cool facet they’re sensitive to that a worn palate & a set of preconceived notions will obscure. 

I’ll confess that my palate is not that sensitive or attuned, but through repetition I’ve gotten to know different styles & tastes.  My hope is that there’s plenty out there to be discovered for me & for everyone – no-one wants to get to the end when the middle is so wonderful.  So as condescending as it might sound, I envy the more novice beer fans out there, whose journeys are just beginning.  

Ad-junk?

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 19^th 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.