Märican Biere Bought and Drunk...

It really hit home with me when I was in Charleston at a brewery called Holy City (who just won GABF Bronze for their South German-style Hefeweizen...which is classified on here as an American Pale Wheat Ale). I tried it, a Dunkel, and their Pils. Didn't particularly like any of them (although I used to really like their pils...just gotten Americanized of late), but didn't feel particularly disappointed. Why? Because they had 17 other beers on tap that day. There's always the option in such places -- and many U.S. "craft" brewers seem to follow this model -- to try something else...and typically find one or two options you do like. Now, I, personally, don't equate such a thing with either quality beer or a quality beer-drinking experience, but I recognize that many of my fellow Americans do. And the flipside also applies: a brewery can brew just 1 or 2 truly beers, both of which are truly excellent, but the typical "craft" consumer will likely still be thinking in such cases "what else ya got."

 

Likewise here many new breweries here follow a similar model. They make 12 or 15 different beers at random times of the year, keeping any four or five of them available at one time. In many cases none of them are very good or well executed, but the fact that the options change every month or two aids the customer in forgetting about the mediocre drinking during their last visit.
At it's core the customer's mentality is certainly different here than in the US, as a typical Italian's willingness to accept mediocrity is based primarily on a lack of experience and exposure to great beer(along with an astounding unawareness of what great beer should cost) than anything else, but the end result is the same: more and more increasingly mediocre styles.
The best Italian breweries, like most of the best American breweries, don't have this approach but at least here it seems that the majority of them just pump out as many styles as possible.

 

Wait, what? Did it taste like a Hefeweizen, or a 312?

 

I simply ask myself, why write an article about US beer in California if I'm not open to experimentation? Like writing about Japanese cuisine and asking "where's the ketchup?" or "the sushi didn't even come with fries". Her pre-conceived notion that German beer in inherently better kept her from having an open mind and trying something she might even like. I picture my two kids at the dinner table, Child #1 tries peas for the first time while holding his nose and making a skewed grimace while the younger watches in horror. Think Child #2 will try the peas now?? Pffft. Maybe I should send this woman a few cans of the Dinkel Acker CD pils I had recently and see how much she enjoys that.

Let's just add to the discussion that at least the American has a choice with our beer selection, which is hardly the case in Der Vaterland.

 

Why write critical posts about lack of variety in Germany if you're not open to the fact that Germans prize the tried-and-trusted over experimentation?

 

I guess it's the way the piece was written that gets me the most (as the Germans say "Der Ton macht die Musik"). Everyone is welcome to their opinion, and I understand that craft beer or experimental beers are not for everyone. I believe this is also partially due to the publicans in the "cool beer joints" with well-grown beards who only want to put "wow" or off-the-wall beers on tap. A decent and quite fresh German lager is readily available, so it's not a supply problem.

But I digress. In general I find it to be quite arrogant and downward looking on the beer industry in general. She claims to have ordered a lager and a steam beer - I am assuming Anchor Steam. These did not please her either - they tasted like the waiter poured together 10 other flat beers and served it to her (I can't count how many flat German pilsners have I had due to the stupid 7-minute myth). US hops smell "fake", US beer gives you a larger hangover, we drink beer out of glasses usually reserved for Caipirinhas (I can agree on lack of glassware culture in the US), etc.

Believe me, I love a good Bayerisches Bier - I am expecting a keg of Andechs helles hefeweizen for my kegerator tomorrow - but the bashing because she doesn't understand it is simply ignorant, especially for a journalist writing about international food & beverage.

 

Matt, how do 5+ month old Dunkels that are brewed in Germany taste?

Cheers!

 

But couldn't the same be said of the U.S. "craft" message to German brewing: "experiment (the way we do) or die"? If that's not arrogant and condescending to a tradition that has survived the 30 Years War, two World Wars, and 40 years of national division -- among many, many other things -- then I don't know what is.

 

My wife was back in out hometown of ABQ, NM visiting family & brought these rare bottles (and cans) of Albuquerque goodness back with her. Can't wait to enjoy em all!

La Cumbre Hefeweizen
La Cumbre Project Dank IPA - info on this version of Project Dank: http://blog.lacumbrebrewing.com
La Cumbre Imperial Pilsner
La Cumbre Belgian Style Sasion

http://lacumbrebrewing.com/ourbrews.html

 

Matt,

Thank you for making that effort.

I think you know why I asked the question: The Devil’s Backbone Dunkel is pretty old at 5+ months of bottle age.

Victory has a state of the art bottling line which performs a double evacuation of the bottles with CO2 prior to filling and resulting in very low total package oxygen (TPO) in their bottles. They utilize a best by timeframe of 5 months for many of their beer brands (e.g., Victory Lager, Prima Pils, Hop Devil, Festbier, Headwater, etc.). I have had a number of these Victory beers as they approached the 5 month mark and they have noticeably fallen off.

I would suggest that your 5+ month old Devil’s Backbone Dunkel beers are less than optimum now for evaluation.

Cheers!

Jack

 

I don't think that the Americans are telling the Germans anything at all. They see what is "working" here against the conglomerates and they are following suit, just like the Italians, Danes, Swedes, Japanese, etc.

 

Right, but what is working here won't -- and shouldn't -- necessarily work in Germany, where they have very viable remnants of an intact culture that has survived far worse than the recent downturn in beer consumption and can serve as a better model (with U.S.-style "craft" playing a secondary role in any revival). As the Bier des Tages blogger said, "nicht immer kann Craftbier die Rettung in Sachen Geschmack sein."

 

I agree with your assessment to a certain point. The Germans are dreadfully complacent with these things, change is not usually welcome. As I have stated before, the status quo in the German brewing world is TERRIBLE for many reasons I have gone into before. It would be great if it resembled your Bamberg Shangri-La, but it doesn't. Actually when I think about it, Bamberg actually is a GERMAN CRAFT BEER model. Even they are getting creative, something that you seemed to really enjoy reading about and discussing, which is what it should be all about. I have also stated before, I don't think that making IPAs or stouts is necessarily the way out, but at least people are talking about beer other than (the price of) soapy pilsners again.

 

Agree with you. Funny about the "Shangri-La" references: the local Franconian dialect adds the suffix "la" to everything to indicate the diminutive. Maybe Bamberg officially could adopt the slogan: Das Bier Shangri-la. Of course the one true beer Shagri-La is Schlenker-La...but there's room for one more, I suppose.

 

I often ask, "what else ya got" from a brewery, but not in the context you mean in your post. A brewery that is heavy in IPAs and imperial stouts...etc. does not impress me. I want to see "what else they got" in terms of simpler beers. I'm not asking them to brew all pilsners and Helles, but I'd like to see them branch out of their comfort zone for a beer or two, and try something that I consider to be a greater degree of difficulty.

Take Troegs for example. Do I care they brew Nugget Nectar, or that they came out with Perpetual IPA? Nope, because they have Sunshine Pils, and not many breweries can brew a beer like that. But with a brewery such as Founders, which leans heavily on darker beers, and whose only lower abv option is a session IPA, I ask them, "what else ya got"?

 

It seems to me add lots of hops in an IPA can cover up a lack of brewing technical skill - maybe this is why the IPA has been so popular with US breweries in recent years?