Poll: Ale or Lager?

perhaps not a scientific sample? I would think that if you polled most of the people that voted, they had 10x+ the amount of ales as lagers.

Perhaps if we had more breadth and variety of lager beer, the results would be more evenly matched...

 

I've really enjoyed your posts in this thread. Unfortunately, I would assume that many people here might take posts from people like yourself for granted... thoughtful posts from users in England, Germany, Belgium, etc.

Regarding your point that: beer geeks come along and say, "This Hefeweizen and this Kölsch, because of being top fermented, are ales," I think it's important to note that beer geeks are just a piece of the puzzle and are in most cases just echoing what they've been taught by "authorities." Michael Jackson, the great beer ambassador, has called Kölsch an ale. If you take a look at this picture:

you'll see that Victory calls their beer a "Kölsch-style bier" (that's about as reverential a label as one would hope to find in the US), and Sierra Nevada (perhaps the most respected US brewery here) calls their beer a German-style ale. (It's relevant to note that the Sierra Nevada beer is from a variety pack that also includes a 5.2% ABV pilsner with a label that alludes to it being a "session beer.") I'm not bringing these things up to suggest that a Kölsch is an ale, but rather to provide a framework that widens your claim about the role of beer geeks.

 

While there is something terrific about a location with a specific beer culture wholly embedded in its DNA, perhaps you are judging one thing against the criteria of something else. Why impose another culture's standards elsewhere? Are there strengths to be embraced when a culture does not have deep-rooted tradition?

Having said/asked that, I saw an Anthony Bourdain video not long ago that had him on the streets of San Fran, and it was great to see Anchor Steam tap handles everywhere they went and it was no big deal (he kept ordering Coronas or something regardless).

 

And quality!

 

I see you are posting from the UK. Just pop into your nearest pub and look at the signs. There will be some brewery signs saying "Ale and porter brewers" or "Ales and Stouts"..........at one time brewers either brewed ales (pale) or porter/stouts (dark) , when porter declined their brewers began brewing ales as well , hence the signs.The two strands of British brewing were entirely separate before then (Guinness was a failed ale brewer and wanted to brew porter so had to bring in porter brewers to do it) Lumping together all top fermented beers as ales is not only historical nonsense, it doesn't even dovetail in with existing practice.

MJ did afterwards say he was giving a talk in the US at the time and was using the word "ale" loosely because of the audience.What matters re Kolsch is what the burghers of Koln call it , after all it can't be brewed anywhere else anyway.

 

Great post.

I think you must realize though that this country was founded to rebel against the lineage of European tradition that led to so many of the things our original colonists couldn't stand about Europe. Simply put, we see European culture as problematic. In many ways we keep that rebellion and distrust, and if one looks one can spot it in many areas of our culture.

And we are a young country, but our beer culture has come along enough so that we realize those things we like to drink. Put whatever clothes you want on the discussion here at the root of it is what do we like to drink and what do we call things that are American ways of calling things, not European, not anything else. If we call something American Kolsch, or anything else, and you don't like it, frankly we simply don't care, because that is OUR culture, and always has been. Maybe you are correct to be upset with us for it, but I think you would do well to realize the following: We have more people, more variety of people, and a much huger country than any of the European nations and trying to advocate for a European type of tradition is ridiculous for us. How many German born blacks are in that bar in Cologne drinking Kolsch? How many German born folks of Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Pacific Island, Iranian, Jordanian, Indian, Pakistani descent in that bar? Any? I drink with Americans from all of these descents.

Just because we don't have the same length of history, same sorts of tradition, and feel distrust and apathy for European traditions as a whole, doesn't mean we have no tradition, and no culture. This isn't something you need to take offense at, just something you ought give the same understanding you ask us to give you. Cheers!

 

Or has different and/or changing traditions.

Much as you suggest, the work of Anthropologists, who take their goal in part to be capturing/creating a description of a culture, tells us that to impose one set of cultural values on a second culture is to ensure the second will appear inferior in some ways and will lead one to miss critical values and features of the second. Each culture, to be fully understood, must be experienced on its own terms.

 

I read this bit about Kolsch (often) and I keep wondering why such a law, put in place long before many in the U.S. may have brewed a beer and thought it was a Kolsch style, was necessary at all. Did Brewers in Koln need to be legally required to honor their own beer? Was a law necessary because other Germans not respect Kolsch and the wishes of the burghers of Koln? Did the law get incorporated into the EU so other Europeans could be required/forced to honor and respect Kolsch? Generally folk don't pass laws laws unless there is a need for them.

 

Great points. Like the other "purity" laws I suspect there are some whose profits were being protected by it at some point. Now it is just blind obeisance that is the root of German tradition, from my point of view. Americans distrust blind obeisance with a passion.

 

Well, to that I guess I'd say it's not an imposition. Matter of fact, there is a ubiquitous beer style and beer culture in the U.S. -- one that is as homogeneous, if not more so, than Germany, the UK, Belgium, and the Czech Republic: AALs.

 

Yea...no "blind obeisance" with respect to the type of beer 90% of Americans prefer and that can be found on every street corner...

 

Actually it now occurs to me that this Bourdain incident you describe may be an excellent example of the "cultural blindness" which the Anthropologists freely admit can be a problem and go to extreme steps sometimes to avoid (e.g., walking in to make first contact with the peoples in a new culture with nothing except some "clothes on their back," having stashed all their gear elsewhere in hopes of later use). Bourdain, as a trained chef, will have learned his trade in the era when dining (as opposed to eating dinner :-)) included wine, so there is a good chance his appreciation for the place of a local beer is in some ways a "cultural blind spot."

 

Since last evening your description has triggered memories, and I am remembering incidents in my own life very much like this. Just take away the Zoigl and substitute a different beer (not brewed on premises but "locally" brewed and fresh nonetheless), move the location to a location in the US, change the language to English, etc. Indeed with some time and homework on my part I'm pretty sure I could find and recommend to you a few locations in the US where you could today find reasonably similar experiences. (Although in a few places the beverage of choice might actually be local moonshine rather than beer. )

 

Did you purposely misunderstand my comment, or do you find that there is a similarity between Americans drinking whatever beer they like whenever they like it to the folks in Cologne traditionally favoring Kolsch, pretty much to the exclusion of other beers, and wanting to protect its name even though there is no economic benefit to them in doing so?

 

Ale but I do love a good marzen in the fall

 

Or it can be construed as respect. It's a trade mark in effect , registered with a view to prevent imitations and worse still modifications. Not to stop all modification , people are free to brew as they like as long as it isn't called Kolsch.

 

Perhaps less a similarity than an irony. Sure, Americans have much more of a choice to drink "whatever beer they like whenever they like it," and yet 90% traditionally show reverence, and defer in their choice, to AALs from places like AB-InBev (that are not even American-owned...speaking of economic-benefit).

 

No irony here. No reverence either.

If there is irony it is using the word reverence not to refer to Germans but to Americans. German tradition and their love of it, and their exclusivity based upon it, is the actual definition of reverence.

America was and always will be the land founded upon thumbing our noses at that sort of reverence. Beer is no different, something that seems to bother Europeans endlessly.

 

I would argue that this is a distinction without difference, but the point of America being a country that cares little for European convention is one I am willing to stipulate.

 

Ales, ales the magical fruit
The more you drink,the more you get drunk.