What takes more skill?

Saying what you just said....I find really refreshing for its telling like it is. I suspect we don't see a lot of American brewers taking on lower abv brews like Milds and Bitters for that exact reason. Me likes this post.

 

i reiterate that innovation is happening everywhere, but the difference is just that america has seen a rise of small scale, jack of all trades types, yielding a market that desires that.

contrast this with the established market that marquis mentioned. the people buying that beer don't want to go into their local pub and find a 30% ABV iced RIS on tap. this doesn't mean that homebrewers, brewpubs, or even breweries closeby aren't experimenting and multi-style brewing (experimental or otherwise) just as much as in america. it's just that america is where the market for it is, which feeds the expansion of breweries of that type.

edit: @industrialswill's comment that most successful homebrews are bold flavored beers that hide the flaws, this is definitely true. maybe not for the seasoned veterans, but for most of us, our outstanding brews are the easier ones to not screw up (would you expect otherwise?).

 

Swill can be quite controversial with some of his posts. Honesty is his forte, however. For this, I treasure him as a true BA.

 

American craft beer doesn't have the history that European breweries have. However, what we lack in history is really a strength. We aren't tied to tradition and often times the idea is to totally avoid tradition. I feel most American craft breweries take pride in the fact that they are not like their BMC predecessors or their European counterparts that focus on only one or two styles of beer. Like most things, America's strength comes from our lack of a coherent and homogeneous culture. It allows us to be far more creative than places that take pride and base most if not all of their actions on preserving their culture and maintaining a status quo. IMO, it takes far more skill to brew the variety of awesome beers like SN, Deschutes, Odell, Stone, New Belgium, etc. produce than it would for a brewery to focus on only a certain select style of beers.

Specialization is great but once you have the recipe down there is not much skill involved with scaling up to meet demand. The breweries from Europe that have brewed only a handful of styles and have never branched out require no skill. There is nothing new they are trying. Doing the same thing over and over isn't skill it is just memory. Producing something great over and over while also producing something new is a skill. For example, Deschutes's flagship beer is Black Butte. Now, if they were a European brewery that might be the only beer they ever brew. However, they are an American brewery so they have Red Chair, Hop Henge, Abyss, Dissident, Mirror Pond, Inversion IPA, Obsidian Stout, Hop Trip fresh hop ale, Chainbreaker, Conflux 2, etc. etc. and a whole bunch of one off stuff at their Bend Pub. All of those beers are extremely high quality. To say to brew that many beers at what translates to about 7.50 a six pack takes less skill than a brewery that maybe only has 2-4 types of beer that they brew is absurd to me.


Or to put it another way. Take the brewer from some European brewery that is 400+ years old and put them up against the head brewer from Sierra Nevada. Odds are the head brewer from SN has brewed more different styles of beer with recipes that he has created than the brewer from the European brewery. The brewers at the Eurpean breweries that have been around forever are just using someone else's recipe. IMO, that = no skill at all. The brewers from American breweries are making their own stuff all the time to create that next great beer. There is a huge difference in skill level that takes to create a brand new beer recipee that tastes great than the skill level required to follow the recipe that is 400+ years old.

 

I would say brew multiple styles as it will help you learn what different ingredients/techniques add to your finished product. Just a word of advice though temp control is a huge factor in brewing.

 

I like a lot of what you had to say in your post. But the "skill" involved in brewing the same 400+ year old style is in having the wisdom to recognize that all of the elements -- from the local water to the barley from the farm down the way to the hops grown in your region -- have come together to form something that is greater than the sum of its parts and should not be changed.

As I said earlier, having the ambition to attempt many styles is a good thing; but having the wisdom to recognize when you've gone too far is often better.

 

Um, if you are a brewer for a brewery that is centuries old you have no say in what happens. There is no skill or wisdom. You are hired to follow the recipe. You are not being hired to create a new beer. Contrast that with a brewer at SN or Deschutes or Odell. Not only do that have to make the flagship beers for those breweries perfectly but they are also expected to create a new beer for a potential seasonal release or a one off a the pub or perhaps something goes into full production.

The brewers at SN or Deschutes have the same "wisdom" when it comes to recognizing a good thing and keeping it the same. For example, SN and Deschutes long ago stopped experimenting with the SNPA recipe or the Black Butte recipe. However, they have not stopped experimenting when it comes to other beers and styles. That is the difference I am trying to point out. Deschutes has already introduced a new beer this year, Chainbreaker, and their experimental IIPA, Hop Henge, has a different recipe each year it is released. SN released Ruthless this year.

I'm sorry but when it comes to making both 1) an awesomely consistent beer and 2) new beers that require a new recipe and trial and error and expirimentation the breweries like SN and Deschutes are leading the way for basically the entire brewing world except for maybe BBC, DFH, New Belgium, and other American breweries.

Maybe it is my distribution area but I am unaware of any older European breweries that are releasing brand new beers each year on a wide spread scale like American breweries in addition to their normal line up.

 

I haven't lived in the Franconia region of Germany for more than 10 years; but I recently went back and discovered literally hundreds of new beers being brewed by these centuries-old brewers. What's more, they nearly all built on the strengths (or wisdom) developed as a result of brewing their "traditional" beers -- without going to extremes in ABV, grain bills, or hop additions.

 

while brewing is definitely an art, you are wayyyyyy over-romanticizing things here. brewing is a skill. if a bunch of guys get together and brew me a perfect batch of aecht schlenkerla eiche, that's proof of skill. the wisdom part you guys can debate, but beer doesn't make itself.

"following a recipe" is something a hopeless romantic holds up against "following creativity" or "following your heart" or something. brewers churning out perfect batch after perfect batch of great beer are doing something that requires a lot of skill. notably, they're doing things in the objective, material world; they're not hoping or feeling the beer into existence, or manifesting their divine love, or anything like that.

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for every beer, there's a requisite amount of skills to make it properly and consistently. this is a hard fact that underlies the preference stuff on top (the stuff about 1 style vs many styles, use of ingredients beyond malt/water/yeast/hops, etc etc).

 

I think the question is a bit flawed in taking the Old World approach to necessary equate to a "very narrow range of beers." It's tempting to think those countries' beer scene to be monolithic, especially compared to ours, but there's a tremendous range of styles for a Belgian brewer operating within the traditional style guidelines of his country (consider the difference between a table pale to a quad to a lambic), as there is for German brewer (Kolsch to Rauchbier to Eisbock) or English (mild ales to cask porters to old ale).

If you were talking about, say, the Czech Republic, it would be a more striking difference in the diversity and experimentation of American brewing vs the persistent devotion to crafting a perfect Pilsener. And to be sure, older European breweries are less likely to be releasing a newly created beer than we are here. But still, I wouldn't characterize the traditional Euro breweries as working within an especially narrow range of styles.

 

Brewing is a skill. Creating a new beer out of your own recipe is a skill above and beyond brewing someone else's recipe. Are you saying that SN or Deschutes do not churn out batch after batch of quality beer? I can't ever remember picking up a soured SNPA or Black Butte Porter just like I can't recall picking up a soured or ruined traditional beer. So, from my point of view, consistency isn't really an issue when comparing SN or Deschutes to an old school German or English brewery. In my experience I see more variety and experimentation coming from American breweries. If old school breweries from Germany are experimenting with beers then great for them. I'm just saying that if you have:

Brewer A = never created his own beer recipe but can brew someone else's recipe without flaws

and

Brewer B = creates his own unique beer recipes and also consistently brews someone else's recipe without flaws

it is illogical and absurd to say Brewer A is better than Brewer B regardless of where they are from or what brewery they work for. Brewer B is not only consistent but also is creative which requires more skill than simply being consistent. Comprehend me bro?

 

i comprehend you, but writing recipes is easy. i don't think what you're trying to get across is remotely accurate relative to actual brewing practice.

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edit: to clarify, writing recipes is easy when you know as little about brewing as i do. it's REALLY easy when you know as much about brewing as someone who can perfectly brew batch after batch of "old world" beer. again, the reason for this is that brewing beer is what requires skill (and knowledge).

 

Can someone name the breweries and styles that have been made for 400+ years? I would like to know.

 

i'm guessing the main source of such info would be ad copy.

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to elaborate on "skill and creativity" just a bit more, this is similar to people who think that a guitar virtuoso has "less skill" than someone who can barely play but who has a great sensibility for putting chords together and writing songs. while this line of thinking seems tenable at first, it's really not how the world works. professional musicians that don't increase their musical vocabulary through getting more skilled at their instruments fizzle out. craft is bound by physical reality.

it's possibly that you could be knowledgeable and skilled enough to brew-to-recipe perfectly, but somehow lack any creativity for recipe creation. however, your creativity will always be bound by your skill and knowledge level (i can't add a chord to my next song if i don't know how to play it, have never heard it, etc).

and, finally (sorry i keep posting in this thread), the creativity does happen everywhere brewing happens. it's just that you're not going to be able to get some 100 bottle belgian / british / german / scandinavian / etc pilot batch at your local grocery store in the american midwest. plus, the american market favors diversity, due to its history and the whole model of "small brewery/brewpub that grows," (they start out with room for creativity--low risk, low freshness/transit issue--and then grow, doing what they do as the growth occurs).

 

Indeed. These traditional "styles" have been changed continuously over the course of their existence. Perhaps not so much in the last 10-15 years of the U.S. craft brewing revolution...which sometimes is all that seems to matter here on BA

 

Big, bold beers hide tiny imperfections with booze, hops, etc. Light, subtle beers highlight those off-flavors. Following a centuries-old recipe doesn't just mean following a centuries-old recipe. It takes a great deal of skill to execute perfection in the delicate styles. I am absolutely partial to American craft beers, but the Europeans know what the hell they're doing, even if the end result is deceptively simple.

 

Bullshit. Find me a record of a "Double IPA", or similar beer, from more than 15 years ago. Or a beer that was barrel aged for the flavor effects, not just a beer stored in a barrel.

And by your logic, fine. There's no innovation in craft brewing, and no possibility for doing so. Nor does there even exist the possibility for innovation, as, by your "info", everything has been done.

Close minded, parochial, arrogant, not to mention ignorant view of the craft industry.

 

ISO: Dead Dog Ale

 

---Long time lurker. This topic which shows up on here frequently has forced me to post.

Skill and creativity are two very different things. Comparing them makes little or no sense. Both should be respected equally as I show tonight in drinking a Vitus to start my night and a Rye on Rye to end. I don't think one has to win out over the other.

But then again, I look at a brewery like Russian River who is consistent in both and I am blown away.

Art for Art's sake. Beer for Beer's sake.

 

definitely respect breweries for trying. But the difference is that I will "try" their experimental beer, as opposed to drink a solid "go to" beer. When my long search for the bests in my favorite styles as well as my curiosity to try new things is near its end, my range of different beers i will be drinking will be relatively limited to a handful of breweries. master crafts are master crafts, so why drink a lesser beer... (once youve had them all of course)?