Canned drink, won't drink?

James over at the Summer Wine Brewery was on Twitter on Sunday pointing out a list of canned craft beers that are available in the US. He was suggesting that this is something that will be picked up by the UK 'esoteric' beer scene (I'm only quoting that because I like the word and it hopefully sidesteps more 'definition of craft' debate.)

£25 wine under screw-cap.
Tetra next?

I think that it is pretty much inevitable that more and more breweries in the UK will start to use cans for quality beer, but equally as inevitably there will be a discussion about whether or not cans are a suitable container. I won't go into the prospective benefits of cans, I think that's pretty well documented, but it does strike me that this discussion will run along similar lines to the screw-cap versus cork argument that has been running for years in the wine industry. As with screw-caps, one of the biggest barriers to convincing consumers to buy expensive beer in cans will be preconceptions, some of which will be based on the image that cans have rather than genuine suitability. Compare some domestic wine industries where there is something of a movement in favour of tetra-packed wine, but in the UK consumer research has suggested they're simply not something people would buy, and it's not because consumers have checked the science behind it.

What I think it boils down to in the wine industry (putting aside questions of suitability for long-term ageing) is that if the screw-cap is good enough, it is a far more effective closure than even the best quality cork, but by the same token a bad screw-cap is simply a bad closure. Hence the parallel with beer. Just as putting your beer in a clear bottle suggests you don't really care about what state the beer is in by the time it gets to your customers; using an old-fashioned, non-coated can suggests the use of cans is probably just a way of getting things done on the cheap. As ever, the proof of the beer is in the tasting.


Still, I wonder if the toucan can make a comeback? (Pun intended)

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Well far be it from me to say that Shakepeare, through Juliet in this case, was wrong, but it wouldn't 'smell as sweet' because apparently you can't smell sweetness. It would, of course, still smell like a rose, so as an analogy it's perfectly correct, and I'm definitely not about to advocate the re-writing of Romeo and Juliet for the purposes of a bit of discussion on taste.

When I was sitting the tutored tastings for the wine diploma there was some discussion about the notion of whether or not you can smell 'sweet'. This had nothing to do with the shower facilities at the local hotels, as it turns out it's about associations. When we think something smells sweet, it's because we're associating that particular smell with something that tastes sweet. In wine tasting metaphors are of vital importance, and to a slightly lesser extent the same applies in beer tasting - and that only slightly lessened because of what you can add to beer. Thus, a Sangiovese can smell like cherries, as a beer that has never been anywhere near a grapefruit can taste like grapefruit.

Some good, some bad? Or just... different?

With a nod to Boak & Bailey and their referencing longer articles for further reading here's one on the confusion of taste and smell. It talks about how the palate can be distracted by the nose, and vice-versa, even if in the experiments they talk about rating how sweet things smell, which further confused me since as I understand it the first real detection of sweetness occurs on the tongue - we're back to the metaphorical again I think.


All of which leads me on on to this video. I don't think it's particularly revelatory to say It's the most interesting video on the subject of spaghetti sauce I've ever watched, and if you can spare quarter of an hour or so to watch it it might well influence you next time you get into a discussion about whether or not a beer is 'good.' If it's not enough to realise that our bodies are far from perfect at tasting things, then is it further damning to think that maybe we don't even know what we like? I'm off for a coffee; dark and rich, naturally.



Video stumbled across because of a re-tweet by Juel Mahoney.

The World Atlas of Beer

I saw recently that there is a World Atlas of Beer coming out in the autumn, and I'm fascinated as to what it's going to contain.

Image from Amazon UK

The reasoning behind the The World Atlas of Wine, an indispensable book for anyone working in wine (so much so that I've ended up with three copies) is more simple; it's about terroir. At its most simplified terroir can be defined as how geographical differences result in variations from one area to the next. The World Atlas of Wine's maps focus on the overground; climate and topography, but equally important are geological differences covered by books such as James E. Wilson's Terroir: Role of Geology, Climate and Culture in the Making of French Wines.

The World Atlas of Whisky is different because, in the same way as almost all beer, whisky's vast array of flavours are not a product of terroir, although there are regional characteristics. As Dave Broom wrote:

It would be wrong to assume that whisky demonstrates the effect of terroir in the same way as Cognac or Armagnac... the reasons whisky can have a shared character come from other factors: cultural, historical and commercial, as well as geographical.¹

These other factors are, of course, equally valid subjects for an atlas, be it about beer or whisky. The whisky industry does, however, move at a far slower pace than brewing. By definition a distillery has to have been there for over three years (in Scotland at least) before it can even make whisky, so new whisky distilleries don't so much pop up as rise serenely over time. This means the book isn't going to date particularly quickly. There are also far fewer whisky distilleries in the entire world than breweries in some individual countries, and so the background and history of them can be detailed, which I'm not sure is possible with breweries. This is especially true if Amazon's report of the World Atlas of Beer being 256 pages long is correct, which seems a bit lightweight to me (the current, 6th edition, of the World Atlas of Wine runs to 400 pages).

In terms of beer academia I'm interested in seeing what the World Atlas of Beer covers that isn't covered by the The Oxford Companion to Beer (and if the Oxford Companion didn't cover it, why not?) With regard to the maps it will be intriguing to find out what information (other than simple location) is seen as important - will there be maps of hop-growing areas? I'm glad that beer is approaching being given an equal footing in the realm of serious drinks publications and I'm looking forward to finding out what's in the atlas and why. If, like me, you're excited but a little sceptical then your speculation is welcome!

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^{1. Broom, D, 2006. Distilling Knowledge, Wine and Spirit Education Trust. ↩}

'I don't like beer'

Sorry, that's kind of a tabloid attention grabbing headline, but I was commenting on Boak & Bailey's excellent post about bad beer not saving beer and an analogy occurred to me.

When I run introductory wine tasting courses, I start by asking people about what wines they like. I appreciate that this can be a pretty difficult situation. You're in a room full of people you've never met before, on a course you've signed up to on the basis that you want to learn about something - rather than knowing something - and you're asked to pass comment at the outset. At this point, someone usually says 'Red. I don't like white wine.' (or, of course, vice versa). I love this sort of comment, because it means that there's someone who is ready to be enthused.

Beer's problem? It all tastes the same...

I alternate weeks. Red wine one week, white wine the next, and I have never known anyone flat out refuse to drink one or the other. I've also never have anyone end the course without becoming more aware of the incredible variety of flavours that wine of whatever colour can offer. Notice the beer comparison yet?.

There's no doubting there are people out there who think that food is at its best from McDonald's, Nescafé is good coffee, Blossom Hill is a sophisticated natural product full of Californian sunshine, and all a beer needs to be is 'refreshing.' This is fine, as is the fact that most of these people aren't interested in being disavowed of these preconceptions. However, 'moving people onto beer,' from wine, spirits, WKD, (insert your own pet hate as a beer fan), isn't inherently a good thing. If they move from tasteless wine to tasteless beer that's not gaining some sort of loyalty to a sector, that's just fashion. I'm always referring to the range of flavours in beer and spirits when I'm in wine classes and tastings - once their taste buds are woken up people don't look back, and with a bit of luck they're lost to the marketing people forever.

Don't like beer? Game on, I love a challenge.

Edit: Check out this 'Case for Beer' Infographic.

Session Beer

A rather amusing (to me at least, even if not deliberately so) rant about what defines a session beer on Ding's Beer Blog got me thinking about drinking habits.

For me the point about session beer is that it is pretty vague, it suggests a certain approach to a day enjoying the pleasure of beer rather than your day job which might well be worrying about fractions of percentages. I'll concede you might be a bit cross if you ask for a session beer in a pub and they want a tenner off you on producing a pint of some sort of triple imperial rocket fuel. In the end though it's a legal requirement to show the alcohol content of drinks served - and it's that you should be relying on rather than a bit of ethereal nomenclature - assuming you believe the label of course. If you can't work out that a 7% beer is going to get you more drunk if you throw multiple pints of it down your neck in a short space of time than a 3.7% beer would, you probably shouldn't be drinking at all. Similarly if a pub put up a list of 'session beers' on a chalk board that weighed in at six or seven percent they'd not exactly do their credibility much good but, rather like asking for a session beer without clarifying the abv first, I think that's pretty unlikely.

Beer. Friends. Session.

I'd suggest a session beer isn't simply defined by abv - some fruit beers in particular come in at a low strength, and are perfectly enjoyable, but I'd suggest even the more ardent fan wouldn't want to be drinking pint after pint of them.* By the same token, a drinking 'session' could consist of a bottle of Chimay while reading the Sunday papers or people watching from your seat outside a café  - the beer taking the place of a glass or two of vino da tavola in another universe, presumably that European one that 24 hour licensing was supposed to transport us all to.

And now? The sun is trying to shine, and I think a beer and a session of quiet contemplation and conversation beckons. With the right approach any beer can be a session beer (to misquote Aleheads), if beer's just a route to getting hammered, none of them are.

* Yes, it's a generalisation and I'm sure there are exceptions!

What makes local beer better?

This is my contribution to The Session #61, as hosted by Hoosier Beer Geek in Indianapolis.

In the interests of doing something different (and since I've got a spirits exam coming up and so it's what I'm reading about at the moment) I though I'd take a bit of a diversion and think about the alternative to having local styles of anything.

I'd like to think that anyone who is serious about getting into beer flavours is broad minded enough to think about flavours other than beer. The exploration's the thing, and without people being resourceful enough to use what they have around them, and having the pride to say 'this is good, this is worth keeping' the world would be a very dull, homogenised place. Think about Jarzebiak Rowan berry vodka, Krupnik - flavoured with wild honey and spices, Wisniowka - flavoured with wild cherries. Whether you, personally, like them or not you have to appreciate that they are part of Polish history and culture, rooted in the Tatras where the raw materials come from.

Similarly without local variation we'd have no intense, aromatic rums from Jamaica sitting on the shelves alongside light Cuban rum. Without geographical origin being important how could you differentiate between row upon row of Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blends.

So what makes local beer better? Well, the fact that it is local, and without local beer styles having been (however historically) important we might all have no choices to make as consumers. The fact is, an alternative to local beer being important is just far too boring to contemplate.