"Macro brewer putting beer snobs to shame"

I think he makes some very good points.

 

Well thought out. Throughout this site there's a constant flow of posts from people confusing personal taste with quality.I wouldn't personally use macro lager to put out a house fire but there are countless people for whom it's their beer of choice.And most of them wouldn't enjoy what I drink.BMC beers are technically of very high quality; the fact that they don't taste of much is deliberate because that's what people want.
I remember reading an old article saying that Fords were better than Rolls Royce.The argument was that a part for a Ford could be taken off a shelf and it would fit whereas a Rolls Royce part would have to be fitted by a specialist who would have to do work on it first.A matter of what's meant by "better"

 

That's to say he now works for a brewery which produces more than 150,000 barrels a year. And you call that craft brewery? Seriously? Come on! Some good breweries have such a production, but what does he have in common with someone producing 1000hl a year?

That's stupid, people drink shit beer because it's cheap, not because it's good. The less barley you use, the cheaper the beer, the less hop you use, the cheaper the beer... I've never had trouble convincing people who use to drink lots of macrobrews that they'd rather drink good beer instead (except for prices). And the bigger the brewery become, the more advertisement they make, and the more they sell, that's very simple.

That's the worse part of the argumentation. That's a big lie. First, how can research on low fermentation yeasts be useful for microbreweries which mainly produce ales? How can research on pasteurizing be useful for breweries using wild yeasts? What have macrobreweries to teach about barrel ageing? I can continue this list for long.
Beer has been produced for more than 5000 years now, did it really need to wait for macrobrewers to get better? Has this guy ever heard about the Trappist monks know-how? Macrobrewers almost kill every breweries in Europe, look at the beer scene is Belgium, this is catastrophee! Everybody drinks Jupiler there, whereas they had so many good breweries! How many lambics brewers shut their doors because of macrobreweries? Was that a lesson for them? No thanks!

I'm not a brewer, and I fully agree with that, I have lots of respect for the incredible work craft brewers do. But the guy's not a brewer too, just a shitty macrobrewer...

 

That's a ludicrous statement. Some of the best brewers ouit there started at large industruial breweries. And he's right, there are a lot of brewers at small breweries who don't really know what they're doing.

 

I dont disagree that many of the people who work for large breweries have a passion for beer.
There are is also the corporate aspect where the "businessmen" do whatever it takes to shut the little guy down.

This is what keeps me away from the macro breweries.
They should spend a billion a year making the best beer in the world instead of a billion a year trying to get Sam Caligione's tv show cancelled or Dogfish off the shelves.

F-em

 

You have opened my eyes. I will now drink light adjunct lagers because you told me that's what Americans want and they are brewed by scientists...

Oh wait, I don't give a darn.

 

That may be true in America, but it’s certainly not true in the UK where most people drink what you call “macro” beer despite the fact that it is significantly more expensive than cask ale from small breweries. And in Germany some people will pay a premium to drink Corona instead of locally made beer.

 

This summer, I personally interviewed a number of well-respected (yes, even here on BA) German "craft" brewers who produce exotic (dark!) styles, and they said a lot of the same things....

Oh wait, you don't give a darn about them either.

 

His late bit about the brewmaster is kind of silly to me. Most of the scenarios he listed seemed to be problem brought on by others not doing their jobs right, and if you can't depend on someone working for you, get rid of them.

I'd like to see what brewers, not homebrewers, say about this.

 

It's obvious that the author knows an incredible amount about commercial brewing. However, I disagree with a few points.

The author claims that the success of the large macro breweries was due to quality. I disagree. I think the two largest reasons companies like AB were successful are:
(1) They were the first ones to figure out how to bottle their beer. This allowed them to rapidly expand to new markets because their product, unlike that of their competitors, could be transported.
(2) Advertising. It was during the advertising wars of the 70's that a lot of the smaller brewers were crushed.

The author also claims that the large brewers are responsible for what is known about the science behind yeast cultures. What about the great Belgian brewing scientist Jean De Clerck? Just after World War II, he did important work with the head brewer at Chimay, Father Theodore, to isolate their now famous strain of yeast.

 

I'm not trying to start an argument but could you clarify the first sentence. Are AAL style beers dominating the UK market? Is your definition of macro AAL style beers or just large brewers? Are the offerings from the "macros" traditions UK style beers (no adjuncts)?

 

He didn’t by any chance use the techniques developed by Emil Hansen at Carlsberg to do that, did he?

 

Good point! Hansen did that in, when, late 1800's?

 

Not quite as characterless as AAL, but lager brands like Fosters, Stella Artois, Peroni. They make up 65%–70% of the total beer market. There are a few big ale brands (John Smith’s, Greene King, London Pride) but "international" lager brands dominate.

 

Not to take away from the work of De Clerk, but he came after Hansen who worked at Carlsberg and did the original work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Christian_Hansen

Spoilage of beer due to Brett infections was done by N. Hjelte Claussen at Carlsberg in the early 20th century, before De Clerk. Brett C is named for him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brettanomyces

Just a couple of examples of discoveries made by scientists working at a large macro brewery.

 

I think a lot of the reticence to believe that BMC beers are popular due to people actually enjoying their taste is due to 2 common, and ridiculous, prejudices of fine beer lovers.

1. Everyone would love the sorts of beer we love if not brain washed by the advertising they receive.
2. People who drink macro AAL's aren't smart enough to know what tastes good to them.

We really need to examine ourselves and see if we have these crazy, stupid, and provably false predjudices at the base of our opinions about BMC in general.

 

UK beers for a long time used sugar (before 1880 it was the only substance other than malt, hops, water and yeast permitted) and even today many of the older established breweries still use some.Adjuncts are fine if used for some purposes-wheat for head retention for example-but not if used simply to cut costs.Many great beers have sugar as an intrinsic part-Duvel and Westvleteren to name but a couple.

 

Large brewer, yes. But not just a brewer of ``light beers''. Vienna lagers, Munich-style lagers, porters, stouts. All were, at one time or another, brewed by Carlsberg. If we want to include brewers like Carlsberg under the ``large brewer of light beers'' title, then absolutely they are responsible for what we know about yeast, etc. To me, a ``large brewer of light beers'' means an AB or Miller who ONLY produces that kind of beer.

I felt the author of that post was trying to defend the brewers of ``light beers'' in North America and was chastising beer advocates like us for avoiding their products. I find that offensive. He says ``If you don't respect light beer, then just give up on beer altogether.'' Fuck him! I don't respect light beer and I don't think Americans drank the hell out of it for so long because they preferred it. I think they drank the hell out of it because THAT'S ALL THERE WAS! Now we have choices and he is criticizing us because we like beer we can actually taste and we try to encourage others to do the same?

 

The entire idea that the macro AMERICAN breweries did all this is incredibly silly. So Europe did not realize that fermenting at different temps with different yeast get different results? What a joke to read...