Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Your Beer Isn't As Innovative As You Think It Is

I was informed last week that, apparently, some beer styles are dated. These styles being, Porter, Oatmeal Stout, Red Ale, Brown Ale, etc... Now, I’m assuming they're dated in regards to more currently popular trends such as triple IPAs and sours, and innovative techniques like barrel aging.

Hmm.

I think we need to define our parameters a bit. According to Merriam Webster, to trend is an intransitive verb meaning to “extend in a general direction or to follow a general course”; and innovative is an adjective meaning “introducing or using new ideas, devices or methods.” I think beer folk have a tendency to to think the those two terms are part in parcel concordant to one another. They are not, and trends are not necessarily a result of innovation.

Yes, beer trends, its always has. Beer evolves over time. Beer changes because the public’s taste changes. Styles wane and return. Its strength rises and falls and its ingredients change. But Porter is no more dated than say Gose. Sure, Gose is currently popular now, but trends ebb and flow, and the popularity of a style at any one particular time doesn’t accurately reflect that style’s arc. In fact the arc of Porter brewing in the United States far exceeds that of the arc of Gose brewing at this point, so implying that Gose—or any number of other styles which have recently begun to appear on the American scene—is some how superior to Porter because of its current popularity is a bit like saying Meghan Trainor is better than Led Zeppelin because “All About That Bass” was the breakout hit of 2014 and Zeppelin hasn’t released an album since 1982’s Coda. One beer stye is not better or more important or more relevant than another. It's the long game that matters.

Now then, onto innovation. As far as I can tell the most innovative things to happen to beer in recent history fall in this order (and I’m sure I’ll miss a few, but you’ll get my point): The invention of the modern mercury thermometer and the Fahrenheit scale (1724) and saccharometer (1770); Watt’s steam engine (1781), the advent of microbiology and pasteurization (1875); commercial refrigeration (1876), the perfection of bottling technology (1897); wide spread electricity and the assembly line (1914), and the perfection of canning (1934); and the development of the programmable logic controller (1968). Those are beery innovations. Those events “introduced and used new ideas, devices or methods”. 

This might be a good time to debunk a few "innovative" misconceptions. 

Double, Triple or Imperial: Strong, bitter beers are not innovative. Strong, bitter beer has been around for centuries. During the 19th century British brewers put as much as 10 pounds of hops into each (36 imperial gallon) barrel of their strong stock ale. Imperial as a term to denote “the strongest” has been around for almost 200 years, and not just in reference to stout. 

Sour beer: Sour beer is not innovative. Cantillon has been brewing intentionally sour beer since 1900, and 3 Fonteinen has been blending Gueze for 128ish years. I dig Jolly Pumpkin as much as the next guy, but again innovative isn’t the right word to describe them. "A great brewery" works just fine.

Barrel-aging: Barrel aging is not innovative. For as long as wood staves have been held together by metal loops, beer has been placed in that wood to age. What about barrel aging in a spirits barrel? Okay, that was a bit innovative for Goose Island’s Greg Hall to fill six Jim Beam casks with Stout at the Great American Beer Fest—back in 1992. Twenty-three years ago.

Yeah, that’s right the hottest trend in brewing today—spirit barrel aging of beer—has been happening for nearly a quarter century.

Low ABV beer: Low ABV beer (just like high ABV beers) are not innovative. Low ABV beers did not come about because of the drinking “session”. Aside from small and table beers—brewed most often for children and invalids—most low ABV beer was produced as a nutritional supplement for laborers working extended hours in fields or in factories. The modern “session” beer is not the result of innovation either. It’s a result of British beer gravities dropping after both WWI and WWII, in which beer making ingredients either ended up on the bottom of the Atlantic, or were rationed for the war effort. These low ABV, often cask beers caught on, and eventually became to be seen as "traditional".  By the 1970s and 80s, they were being championed by CAMRA and the term “session” was born in the late 1980s and 1990s, says Martyn. By the way, “session" strength IPA isn’t innovative either. According to Ron, Barclay Perkins IPAs of the 1940s hovered at about 3.5% ABV. 

Ingredients: Ingredients do not make for innovation. Non-traditional brewing ingredients like herbs, spices, spruce, honey, old beer, capsicum, and licorice root have been used in brewing for eons. Vanilla, coffee, and fruit are just continuations of a previous practice. Also, new hop varieties—like Nelson Savin—are not innovative. That would be like saying a Labradoodle is more innovative than a Rottweiler. 

Newness. A new beer is not automatically innovative. A new to you beer is not innovative. A beer or brewer that you are being told is innovative most likely is not innovative.

So, to review. The jet-engine was an innovation. The Beatles were innovative. Barrel-aged sour beers are just trendy beer.

3 comments:

  1. Not sure if my comment just got lost, but to your list of innovations I'd add the development of the Cascade hop variety by agronomists/geneticists in Oregon in the 1960s/70s, upon which the entire American microbrew industry was built, and modern analytical techniques (chromatography, UV/Vis spectrometry) that allows for consistency of batches (and detection of off-flavors) used in large-scale production brew houses. Even breweries too small to have their own analytical equipment rely on their suppliers having access to such equipment in determination of alpha and beta acids in hops (to use only one example) and the brewing industry as a whole depends on brewing chemists developing these methods as fully as possible.

    Either way, "throw some extra grain in to give it a higher alcohol percentage" isn't exactly innovation.

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