Artist or technician?

A great artist usually knows the "rules" before they break them. Discounting lambic blenders (who still actually follow pretty strict rules but are on a different field), the most respected "artists" in the brewing world tend to be at their core, very experienced technicians. Just look at how Shaun Hill micromanages his brewing process. Brewing is mostly science with a few artistic inputs thrown in.

Once you have mastered the process, you are truly free to become the experimental artist, and most of the process is the mundane, scientific detail that a lot of brewers want to overlook.

 

Of course, you can make great beer with a much more rustic approach, reacting to results in a broader sense instead of trying to control al the points along the way. But this is still the work of a technician, just on a less scientific level. Being consistent and taking good notes is key.

 

Student.

 

I use my left brain to produce what my right brain wants to drink.

 

I am far from a Style **** myself, but it seems like beer nerds still have to have a common language when it comes to beer. My stouts can just as easily have chiles/coffee/vanilla or a ton of hops...but they MUST have a substantial roast component to be called Stouts, IMHO.

 

Technician

 

'Artisianal' is all well and good for faith-based brewing and / or you don't care all that much if a batch or three ends up down the drain which is why I voted 'techincal.'

 

I love it when a thread becomes a Marquis vs whomever style battle. Sigh.

I voted for technician, because I do my best to hit OG FG & mash temps, but I am flexible... I don't brew to BJCP style guidelines, I brew to enjoy a beer so I design my recipes along those lines. I have entered beers before and they have done well (gold in wood aged - Thanks @Homebrew42 for your RIS) and not so well (25 for a malty saison - told to use a real liquid yeast next time, but used 3711 at ~68F ) Do I care? No. I loved them both.

 

I would also have to choose "both." The "art" comes into play during recipe formulation, which I have been known to spend days on. Rarely do I find a good recipe and just brew it without tweaks. Unless it is one of my house beers that I brew regularly, in which case consistency is key. That's where the "technical" comes into play. You can't guide your brew day effectively without taking a technical approach to it.

And, to be honest, most of my beers do not fit within a style guideline. Though if I am brewing a beer that I intend to enter into competition, I do try to meet those style guidelines. My "competition" kolsch is slightly different than my "house" kolsch, for instance.

 

Probably leaning toward Tech. Though have artist in me. Never brewed the same brew after > 30 brews. Don't worry about what style I am making until sometimes try to figure out style after it's made. I document all my brews, calculate the results. Also do not shoot for #'s yet, but measure and record ~all the #'s. If you wanted to know my 23rd brew I would have to dig a bit in my notebook or online files, so have it.

So funny, not trying to shoot for say 1.058 IG, but measure what I get. To date using mainly kits, however I am always changing up the kits. Just brewed a barley wine, originally only used 12# of the kit's 15# of base malt (all the 15# grain was used). Did a parti-gyle and pitched on two different yeasts (not recommended by the kit). One of the yeasts came from a Sierra Nevada pale ale bottle. Was told close to 1056 Wyeast. Put my lower IG wort on it, scottish on the high IG.

 

I went with artist. When I develop a recipe I usually splice 3 or 4 recipes together, look it over and try to tweak it to my liking/use what I have in the grainhouse.

 

Interesting discussion. FWIW, I am mostly a technician. I don't feel like expressing myself when I make beer. I'm engaging in a series of processes, each of which has a specific result in mind. There's a certain amount of creativity, sure, but I feel like a successful outcome is much more dependent on, say, properly managing the fermentation than it is about me having a great idea for a recipe.

It's interesting to me, as someone who's also a musician, to realize that this artist vs. technician thing exists in brewing just as much as in music. (And probably in lots of other areas, too.) In music, you meet people all the time who are finicky technicians, who obsess over very aspect of gear and who will practices scales for hours until they can play perfectly even 16ths in any key at any tempo. And you will meet lots of people who could care less about any of that, and who feel like it's all about self expression so they don't even want to know anything about theory or notation or whatever. The people who are at the extremes in either direction are seldom very good, IMO. Most people seem to understand that you have to have a certain level of knowledge and technique before you can manage to express anything, and that technique in itself isn't much fun to listen to unless there's some passion behind it. Now that I think about it, I see brewing in much the same way. The more knowledge you have, the more control you achieve over the process, the more the final product is going to be an expression of your vision. If you're sloppy about those things, it's sheer luck if the beer comes out the way you intended.

 

Both, but I voted technician.

 

I strive to be technician but end up being artist when things do go as planned...

 

I would tilt myself to technician because I am always struggling to improve my skills in regards to do my best process.I don´t mind BCJP when designing a recipe, I try to combine ingredients using my knowledge about what is not good but I am not sure what would be the impact on a beer flavor when I decide on many variables, so even though I have nearly 200 batches under my belt I don´t think I have any skill to appoint me as an ´artist´.

 

All artist all day. I get the tech side, and follow the rules for the most part, but I know where I can fudge the numbers and push the boundaries and I know where I need to bee geeky about the science. I'm not mashing in @ 165, and I'm not sparging with ice water, but if I don't hit my exact gravity I really don't care. I have an idea of where I want my beer to go, not a strict guideline.

 

I choose both. More artistic than technical, but I go back and forth depending on the beer I am brewing, why I am brewing it and who I am brewing it for.

I freestyled it for a long time in the beginning of my brewing journey, made some of my best beers ever doing this.

I would fly by the seat of my pants and make adjustments or back-blend beers with other beers to reach a desired end (I've never thrown a single beer down the drain, only a single wine that was god awful and nothing could save that bitch).

I'm glad I took notes, notes, notes and more notes so I could figure out what I did right and repeat it and what I did wrong so I wouldn't do it again.

When I really started hitting on all cylinders with my brewing was when I got addicted to reading and researching the science behind the brewing; my brewing took off and I really took it to the next level.

Anyone can toss some paint on a canvass and claim to be an artist the audience might even like what is "produced", but when you truly master the science behind the scenes and understand each component of brewing and how to manipulate each process, ingredient, etc- to reach a desired result/finished product; you're truly an artist and a technician.

Artist and technician are not always mutually exclusive. The best brewers tend to have a balance between the two, knowing when to push the boundaries and when to color inside the lines for the best finished product.

Brewing is not one dimensional, nor should it be. I don't brew every beer the same. I brew beers for personal consumption much differently than for competitions, and beers for partys or special occassions & Holidays a different way as well.

It all comes down to the observer, the audience...The drinker.

If I'm going to a party with a bunch of people who are not beer enthusiasts who may drink fat tire and bud light 99% of the time, I would brew a beer that hit the style guidline exactly,was fairly tame in alcohol and flavor content/profile and was considerably more "boring" than most of my brews, but not so much if I am going to a party with lots of homebrewers or beer enthusiasts.

Style guidlines are great for so many reasons, but don't ever get caught in a "Style" trap. You can color outside the lines and good times will be had by all.


Slainte.

 

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