Jester King moving towards green bottles for packaging

Whoa. Should be interesting to see how the beer world reacts.

 

Just to be clear, we don't have plans to stop using brown bottles, at least not at this point. But as the post states, we're excited about the experimentation we've been doing with packaging some beer in green bottles.

 

Can't wait for Batch 1 Das Uberheineken

 

and what the fuck does "goat sweat" taste like

 

This is going to be a challenge for me, as i am an enthusiast.

 

I want to do a blind tasting.

 

I'm sorry, but what a load of blustering pretense. If you like green bottles, go for them. But the explanation was grasping at straws.

"Pasteurized, shelf stable beer has dumbed down beer consumers into believing that something will still taste fresh after leaving it in the trunk of their car, or in the sun, etc."

Utter straw man. Honestly, what beer nerd (and isn't that really who Jester King's missive is directed to, since the NASCAR Circuit hasn't seemed to have caught on to their sort of beer yet?) thinks leaving any beer in any color bottle in the trunk of their car is a good thing? Poppycock.

"I feel that beer is losing individuality through structure, and the expectation to fulfill guidelines. I absolutely like skunky beer, oxidized beer, or “flawed” beer. We allow our beer to pick up “peripheral” character that deviates from guidelines, whether it’s a bit of oak, Brettanomyces, or lactic acidity. Horse barn, goat sweat, and brett character are embraced, yet skunkiness is considered a flaw."

A lot to pull apart here. First, the implication that brewing a beer to precise specifications is somehow an uncreative effort, or, worse, implies a sort of mindlessness, is so incredibly insulting to the centuries of brewers who have/had the skill to create consistently delicious beer. Is brewing a keenly dialed in pilsner, batch after batch, the antithesis of creative brewing? I sure as hell don't think so. Second, sure, sometimes flaws taste good. Cue the classic Mitch Steele anecdote about working at a brewery that was having trouble with some particular brewing flaw (diacetyl? Can't recall.), but that the customers otherwise loved. Now, there's probably an interesting philosophical discussion to be had here about whether "flaws" matter if people like the way a beer tastes (akin to the haze debate). Where the logic from JK got faulty for me was with the analogy between oak/Brett/horse barn/goat sweat/etc and light strike. My thought is that the former are brewer-intended, and, unless someone can provide quotes to suggest otherwise, I don't believe Dupont intends to add light struck notes. JK may enjoy those notes, but they're not what the brewer intended, and I'd even go so far as to suggest that there is a fundamental difference between intended oak effects, for example, acknowledging the art of creating such effects may be imprecise, versus the random variations and magnitudes of light struck Dupont bottles.

"I feel as though the status quo of brewing is to find a set of guidelines, create a product that fits within them, enter a competition, and receive an award. It reminds me of standardized testing from grade school."

I'm sorry JK has unresolved issues with their childhood education experience, but, again, the connection is spurious. There are far, far too many examples of excellent ales and lagers that have their own character and "spin" on their resepctive styles, and I'm not even sure what character I'd be looking for that would suggest a robotic adherence to guidelines. Think of your favorite IPA or pale ale. Think of your favorite pils or doppelbock. Is JK really suggesting they're all essentially brewed to taste like each other? And do you really believe that the style of IPAs, for example, brewed 10 and 15 years ago taste like the ones now? If so, I must have the worst palate in the world, because I taste a helluva lot of variation and evolution, neither of which tend to be hallmarks of thoughtless parroting of BJCP guidelines.

"I understand that green bottles and light struck character are going to be a challenge for most beer enthusiasts. I think we’re in a unique and important position to break down some of the indoctrination that is present and document something truly beautiful and unique."

I'll finish by summarizing my own thoughts, which are probably patently clear at this point: it's all well and good to enjoy the taste of light struck beer. It's all well and good to think your beers, for whatever your reasons, might be improved by light strike. But, for the love of Pete, why was it necessary to frame that decision as a response to "indoctrinated" and/or (by implication) "non-beautiful and non-unique" beer? It's like JK took a remedial course in marketing at Stone, and in this case it was especially unnecessary. (Side note: how unique is it, exactly, to don green bottles, when Dupont has been doing it for decades, if not centuries?) That's it -- unnecessary. The framing felt so, so unnecessary. But, whatever. I'm sure the nerds will drink it up.

 

Green bottles are the reason I tend to stay away from Mikkeller and To Øl. Never have been able to develop a taste for the skunks.

 

this is some slate dot com shit

 

Now I understand why Twitter limits tweets to 140 characters, jesus christ.

 

So you're saying you agree? Sorry, not clear... Hold on, did I exceed 140 characters yet? Oh, the humanity!

 

This is, probably, the best comment I've read on this website since I joined.

I second everything you've stated, right down to the stinger about remedial marketing courses at Stone.

When I first received Jester King's email, I couldn't help but wonder if their server had shit the bed and sent an April Fools email early. (It wouldn't be surprising for such a failure to happen given the dependability - or lack thereof - of Jester King's point-of-sale systems at the brewery.)

But what I'm really curious about is the prices of brown bottles versus green bottles. That went oddly unmentioned in Jester King's email. And if Jester King does choose to respond to this question, please use specific quantitative diction; saying something like "the difference in cost will be minimal" or "on a large scale, the change in price in insubstantial" is too vague to be relevant or useful.

Frankly, I'd be surprised if there weren't cost savings in play. I can't see Le Petit Prince (a beer I happen to adore) getting better on account of the usage of green bottles. But hey, at least they're not spinning this as pro-environment or some other such nonsense. That'd be a Stone move.

 

Green bottles are a global concern, aparently. This is so challenging.

 

keep the bottles out of the light and you will be fine.

where you store it matters more than the colored glass they put it in, no?

 

As my first post I'll just mention that my recycling center does not accept green bottles for some reason. Other than I'm okay with it.

 

I really don't care either way. I'm not a fan of light struck beer myself, so I'll drink them as fresh as I can. I do that anyways. If I plan on aging one, I doubt I'll be setting them out on the porch. I'll opt for my temperature regulated fridge, so I'm good.

 

The boldest portions could generally be said for everything JK does. It's reminiscent of the justification for Repose, that adding straw would infuse the character of a barn into the beer with no mention that the use of straw in farmhouse beers dates hundreds, if not thousands, of years into the past or why that is done. No, JK just strolls out some ridiculous explanation as though they concocted it themselves.

Here again is the same path. JK is not the first American saison brewery to assert the use of green bottles for saison. Bob Sylvester (St. Somewhere) and others have asserted the skunking is a necessary character of saison for some time. Not over the drivel posted above from JK but as a preference for the character it lends the beer. But then here comes JK with another ridiculous explanation like they were the first to think this up.

 

Time to start hoarding brown bottles.

 

I can control that once the bottles are in my possession, but there is plenty of time for light to do some damae while the bottles are in a store.