Friday, April 08, 2005

 

Confessions of a Beer Snob

I try my damndest, but I have to admit I'm a beer snob. I read once that beer is the most democratic of alcoholic beverages, until the last couple of hundred years brewed in homes as much in commercial breweries or ale houses. As breweries sprung up, they were regional. Beer, unlike wine or distilled spirits, has a relatively short shelf life. In the days before refridgeration, beer tended to brewed from local commodities and distributed in a very small region. Some regions undoubtedly brewed better beer than others (still do), but rivalries couldn't really exist outside of adjacent regions because of the difficulty in transporting the product.

Improved bottling techniques, refridgeration, and improved transportation changed brewing forever. Brewing was no longer done regionally, but nationally. A huge brewer could produce huge amounts of beer at less cost per unit volume and thus have a larger profit margin. To do this, they had to create brews that had huge market appeal. American brewers chose a style of beer that came from Bohemia and Bavaria, the Pilsner. A Pilsner is light, malty and not usually overly bitter. And as brewers tried to create a larger market share, they realized that a Pilsner would appeal more to women, a market sector that had been neglected by brewers.

Regional brewers still survived, though. A lot of people didn't like the beer the national brewers were making or wanted the choice to drink something other than a Pilsner. Regional breweries probably would have continued in the United States were it not for the totally backward thinking people who forced Prohibition on this country. Suddenly the smaller regional breweries couldn't make their product anymore. The large national breweries survived by contnuing to make malt for the food industry as well as getting into other things. Coors, for example created soft drinks and glassware. It wasn't so easy for the smaller breweries. Unable to adapt to a world without beer, most folded. A glorious age in our country ended with Prohibition, an age when any town of consequence had its own brewery, creating a product unique to the ingredients available and the tastes of its customers.

There's nothing wrong with a Pilsner, even the American bastardization of the style. Good americnan Pilsners exist today, Leinenkugle Lager would be a fine example. And if you don't like Leine's, that's fine, it was originally brewed from ingredients found near Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, for local residents, there are other Pilsners out there, brewed by small old breweries like Yngling in Pennsylvania.

I for one seek out those small breweries. I know there's been something of a revolution in brewing in this country in the last 20 years. Lots of small breweries have sprung up, microbreweries and brew-pubs. A chef and beer afficianado once told me that he believes more different styles of beer are brewed in America than in any other country on earth. He went so far as to say we're the best brewing country in the world. I wouldn't go that far, but the state of brewing in our nation is pretty good right now.

When I moved to California from Minnesota I was afraid my local beer choices would be limited. I shouldn't have been. Dozens of small breweries exist on the west coast, some of my favorite beers come from small California breweries. The best Oktoberfest I've ever had, other than an imported one from Bavaria, is Gordon Biersch Brewery's Marzen. When I moved back to South Dakota I feared the same thing. Never fear, small breweies have sprung up in Colorado and Montana. Good ales and lagers, Belgian styles from New Belgium Brewery in Ft. Collins, Colorado. The state of brewing in this country is strong.

But as a beer snob, I must admit that I enjoy the occasional mass produced Pilsner. Yes, I have the occasional Coors Light or gasp! even a Malt Liquor. Beer is democratic. Everyone has the right to make it, even in their own homes. I'm just happy that beer is no longer a two party system........



I probably won't do this too often, but This Week's Song to your immeiate left (well, somewhere on that bar) isn't a Slappy is Jebus song. This week I've linked to Starin' at My Ceiling by Brian Sharp. He's getting a hand on guitar from Joe Bukholz. Brian has sat in with SIJ a couple of times, and as the former bass player for P957, he's someone who's music I know pretty well. This is a songs that I aboslutely loved the first time I heard it. When Brian played it Dunn Bros. one Wednesday night, everyone who had ever heard it before started singing along. Give it a listen, you'll find yourself singing along too.

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