I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
There is constant debate in the beer brewing, beer drinking community about what is and what is not beer. Honestly, I really have not idea. Maybe it is like jazz – if you have to ask, you are never going to understand. Maybe that is just a cop-out. I wouldn’t trust myself, or anyone else for that matter, to come up with anything approaching a definition of beer that is anything more than the vaguest of descriptions. Wiktionary provides something close with “An alcoholic drink fermented from starch material, commonly barley malt, often with hops or some other substance to impart a bitter flavor.”
Hugely vague. No strength. No process. No strict list of ingredients.
So what do I think about beer? I am one of those horrid centrists; a sort of middle-of-the-road kind of guy. I know what I like and what I don’t once I’ve tasted it.
I am honestly not a fan of extreme beers. I find myself shying away from monstrously hopped out, big ABV concoctions – though I do appreciate them from time to time. I’ve had some great big barley wines, and some killer bourbon barrel aged such and such. Some of it just leaves me scratching my head.
Similarly, I find myself reluctant to jump in bed with the CAMRA or Reinheitsgebot crowds, or nostlgiacly cling to some golden age of beer when gods brewed beer unsullied by the corrupt hands of mere mortals. Plus anything German that translates out as “purity order” makes me squeamish. But I do enjoy a good cask ale now and again, German beers are fantastic, and it is great that we have a system for categorizing beer.
I tend to like my beers at “session strength,” whatever that moving target of a definition is now. I like them this way because I tend to have a few at a time. But I also enjoy a nice, strong beer when the occasion calls for it.
I don’t believe that any one group can lay claim to what beer is, or what craft beer is, or what craft brewing is, etc. Drinking beer is, or should be, at its very best, a social experience. We all come to the table with our subjectivity on taste, our own opinions, and our own differences. But it nice to be able to put these things aside for a while, and just enjoy a pint, even if the guy across the bar has something different in his glass. Civility is important for the success of any community, and drinkers have long been accused of lacking in it.
Then again, conflict breeds creativity. Let the extremists keep pushing away from one another – it just keeps making the middle wider.
Well really just re-introduced potentially new legislation – but noteworthy nonetheless.